Wilderness Double Edition 19, page 14
Nate could go around as he originally intended. But that might anger Bittner and his companion, and there was no telling what they might do to Evelyn and Melissa. Acting in the belief the kidnappers wouldn’t kill him before they got their hands on the gold, he took a calculated risk.
Placing the Hawken across his legs, Nate nudged the bay into a walk through a mix of peachleaf willows and oaks. The woods were as still as a graveyard; no birds chirped, no squirrels chattered, even the usually noisy chipmunks were in hiding. It was as if all the animals were holding their collective breath waiting for the next step in the eternal tableau of fang and claw to unfold.
A clearing appeared, and for a moment Nate couldn’t credit his eyes. Standing alone in the center was Evelyn. In his joy at finding her and his eagerness to take her into his arms he went to spur the bay, and just as quickly relaxed his legs. Whangs torn from a buckskin shirt had been tied around her ankles, and her cheeks glistened with tears. Her mouth was moving, but no sounds were coming out. He watched her lips and saw that she was mouthing the words “Go back, Pa! Go back!” over and over.
Nate kneed the bay on, and Evelyn stiffened. Evidently she’d assumed he didn’t realize he was riding into a trap, and from her lungs exploded a cry of anguish.
“Get out of here, Pa! Run! They’re waiting for you!”
At that, a rough-hewn giant bounded from the undergrowth and pointed a rifle at her head. “One wrong move, mister, and your girl is wolf bait!”
Nate reined up.
“I’m not bluffing!” the man shouted. It had to be Bittner. His bulbous nose and unkempt beard fit the description. “The ’breed has his rifle fixed on your precious brat too! Even if you shoot me, he’ll shoot her!”
Nate had figured as much. It was the only reason he hadn’t dropped Bittner in his tracks the second the giant showed himself. “Don’t harm her!” he called out. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’m a reasonable man.” He wanted to give the impression that he was cowed with fear for his daughter’s welfare, that he would lick Bittner’s boots if he had to.
Bittner laughed. “Hell, I’m a reasonable man myself.” He beckoned. “Come and join us, why don’t you? Hold that long gun out to one side and don’t touch your pistols, not if you want the fruit of your loins to go on breathing.”
His eyes on Evelyn, Nate did as he was commanded. He looked at her with all the love and devotion brimming in his heart every father felt for every daughter, and he was rewarded with a tiny smile. Despite her despair, she returned his gaze with the trusting stare of one who had unbounded faith in his judgment and his ability. He would not disappoint her.
Bittner moved to the left, grinning wolfishly, immensely pleased with himself. “This was a lot easier than I reckoned it would be. The mighty Nate King. The great Grizzly Killer, as the redskins call you. Hell, your reputation is all hot air if you ask me.”
From the vegetation across the clearing stepped Haro. He had Melissa by the shoulder and pushed her toward the center. His rifle rose to cover Nate, his flat, cold eyes those of someone who could kill without a qualm. Men, women, children—it made no difference to him. He was the deadlier of the pair by far.
Nate smiled, and Haro blinked in surprise.
“Drop the Hawken,” Bittner directed, and when the rifle thudded to the grass, he warily sidestepped the bay and picked it up. Laughing anew, he nodded at Nate’s waist. “Now the belly armory. One at a time. Use two fingers.” Once again Nate meekly followed the gruff instructions to the letter. His knife was next. “Can I climb down now?” he asked politely.
Bittner had kicked the pistols well out of reach, and he did likewise with the Bowie. “Sure. Feel free.” He couldn’t seem to stop laughing. “A family reunion is in order.”
Holding his hands out from his sides, Nate swung his left leg clear of its stirrup, swiveled in the saddle, and slid off. Haro was glued to him like a hawk to prey, the muzzle of the ’breed’s rifle moving as he moved. He walked to Evelyn, hunkered, and tugged at the whangs binding her ankles. She stood stock-still until he was done, then threw her arms around him and buried her wet face in the hollow of his neck.
“Oh, pa,” Evelyn breathed. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”
Nate had to cough to lessen a constriction in his throat before he could respond. “Sorry about what?”
“They’d never have caught you if they didn’t have me. It’s my fault.” Evelyn sobbed softly.
Hugging her close, Nate stroked her head. “That’s like a beaver blaming the castoreum for luring it into the jaws of a trap when we both know the trapper is to blame.” He pecked her hair. “No, little one. The only ones at fault here are the men who stole you. And they will pay for what they have done.”
“How touching.” Bittner reeked of sarcasm. “But what kind of father are you? You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Nate saw Melissa staring forlornly at him, saw the tears in her eyes, and gestured. Haro released her, and she ran to him and threw her tiny arms around his neck and commenced crying.
Bittner sidled toward the warrior, his teeth showing through his beard, and poked Haro with an elbow. “Look at him! And you were worried he’d put up a fight. Hell, my granny is tougher than this so-called Grizzly Killer.”
“We should kill him,” Haro said. “We should kill all of them.”
Nate wrapped his right arm around both the girls and placed his right hand close to the hem of his buckskin shirt.
“God, you’re a bloodthirsty devil,” Bittner criticized the ’breed. “But you’re not too bright. If we kill him, we’ll never get the gold. It’s best we take him to Killibrew and let Shorty decide what to do.”
“It is a mistake not to kill him,” Haro said somberly. “This one has the eyes of a cornered wolf. Look at him. See for yourself.”
Bittner glanced at Nate and chuckled. “All I see is a man scared to death we’ll harm the girls if he breathes wrong. We have him over a barrel. He’s helpless.” Bittner paused. “But if it will make you feel more at ease, tie his wrists.”
Haro did just that. He had Nate stand and hold both arms straight out, then used the whangs that had bound Evelyn’s ankles to bind Nate’s wrists. He tied the buckskin strips tightly, knotting them several times.
Evelyn and Melissa clung to Nate’s legs. Evelyn stopped weeping, but Melissa was a fountain of misery.
While Haro covered them, Bittner gathered up Nate’s weapons, wrapped them in Nate’s own bedroll, and retied the bedroll behind Nate’s saddle. He hiked a foot to mount, then lowered it again. “No. We’ll make better time if the brats ride. Their small legs slow us down too much.” He pried Melissa off and hoisted her up.
Evelyn was next. As the giant swung her up in front of the younger girl, Evelyn never took her eyes off Nate.
“Remember, girl,” Bittner said. “Try to light a shuck and we’ll blow a hole in your pa you can put your fist through.”
Offended, Evelyn snapped, “What do you take me for? I would never run out on my own father.”
Bittner looked at Nate. “That’s some kid you’ve got there, King. Damned near gave us the slip, and Haro can track with the best of ’em.”
Nate patted Evelyn’s knee. “She’s some girl, all right,” he said, and she gave his hand a tender squeeze.
“Walk on ahead,” Bittner directed, grasping the bay’s reins. “Head northeast until you cut Buzzard Creek and follow it east. Killibrew should be camped next to it, waiting for us.”
Haro hadn’t lowered his rifle once. Instead of following, he angled to the right and hiked abreast of Nate, as alert as a cougar stalking a buck. He was taking no chances.
Nate hooked his thumbs in his leather belt. In another half an hour it would be dark. That was when he would make his move. Or shortly after. He intentionally ignored Haro to try and lull the ’breed off guard.
Bittner whistled happily for a while, then cleared his throat. “One thing puzzles me, mister. You say you love your girl. Yet you saw that effigy. Didn’t you give a damn we might kill her?”
“I was counting on your greed to keep her alive,” Nate said. To elaborate would be pointless. A rogue like Bittner could never comprehend the abiding affection of a parent for a child. Only another parent could.
“Gambling with your brat’s life sounds like mighty high stakes to me,” Bittner said. “I guess it shows how much Killibrew knows. He swore to me you’d be clay in our hands.”
“There’s no predicting what people will do sometimes,” Nate remarked.
“Ain’t that the truth. I remember this dove down to New Orleans. I bought her a new dress, bought her some flowers from a street vendor, took her out to dinner at the best tavern I could afford, and what did she do? She wouldn’t come up to my room later. Claimed she had a headache.” Bittner swore. “I wasted enough drinking money on her to keep me in booze for a month.”
Nate glimpsed a flash of blue off among the trees. Buzzard Creek, unless he was mistaken. So named from the time a couple of trappers found nine dead vultures in a pool low down in the foothills. All nine had been charred to a crisp, feathers and all, and some looked as if they had been blown apart from the inside out. No one at rendezvous knew what to make of it until someone suggested the vultures had sought shelter from a thunderstorm in a high tree and been struck by lightning. Ever after, the creek was known as Buzzard Creek.
Bittner was in a talkative mood. “Tell me something, King. How is it the Indians hereabouts are so friendly to you they showed you where to find all those nuggets? What makes you so special?”
“I don’t hate them for the color of their skin.”
“There has to be more to it than that. And it can’t just be because you took a Shoshone squaw, neither. The Crows and Utes aren’t on friendly terms with the Shoshones, but they think as highly of you as her own people. What’s your secret?”
“All I do is I treat them the same as I would anyone else. That includes half-breeds.” Nate glanced at Haro.
Bittner still wasn’t convinced. “There has to be more, I tell you. I’ve known coons who were as peaceable as the year is long and wouldn’t harm a hair on a Blackfoot’s head, yet most Indians wouldn’t give them the time of day.”
“Treat a person with respect and nine times out of ten they’ll return the favor,” Nate said. That, and a lot of luck, accounted for his wide acceptance. Shortly after his arrival in the mountains he had stumbled on an old Crow in need of help, and the Crows had never forgotten. The Utes had tried to wipe his family out until he arranged a truce with another tribe on their behalf. The Cheyennes left him alone because of his friendship with one of their leaders. And so it went.
“You’re a strange one, mister,” Bittner commented. “Most whites think the only good Indian is a dead one. The more of us push west, the more the savages will resent it. Eventually we’ll do to them as we did to those back east.” Nate hated to admit it, but the cutthroat might be right. Each year more and more whites moved west. Most were bound for California or Oregon, but it wouldn’t be long—in his lifetime perhaps—before towns and cities sprouted on the plains and in the mountains. The incursion was bound to upset many of the tribes, and who could blame them? They had dwelled there since time immemorial. The result would be bloodshed on a wide scale, exactly as occurred in the original thirteen colonies when the tribes there were displaced. And later, when the whites spread between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River.
Nate’s mentor and best friend, Shakespeare McNair, was of the opinion that one day the wilderness would run scarlet with blood, that the past warfare east of the Mississippi would pale in comparison to the slaughter west of it. Nate prayed to God his friend was wrong, but Shakespeare rarely was.
Should that long-dreaded day take place, Nate would have a fateful choice to make: Should he side with his own kind or his adopted people? It would be the hardest decision of his life. He could only hope the Shoshones continued in their peaceful ways and didn’t take up arms against the invaders.
The babble of rapidly flowing water over jagged rocks reached Nate’s ears. He threaded through a final uneven row of cottonwoods and stood on the bank of Buzzard Creek. Several small fish darted from shore, and on the other side a rabbit bounded into the brush. He stepped to the bay and reached for Evelyn.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” This from Bittner, who leveled his rifle.
“It’s been a hot day. The girls could use a drink.”
Bittner gestured for him to move back. “I decide when we’ll stop. They’ll drink when I say so and not before. Keep moving.”
Nate gave his daughter a look that said “I’m sorry,” and headed east. Haro was still off to his right but had fallen a few steps behind. He could slip his hand up under his shirt whenever the time was right.
Out of the blue Bittner asked, “What if we made a deal with you, King? What if we agreed to let the brats go in exchange for your word that you’d guide us to the stream where you found the gold?”
“I’m supposed to trust you?” Nate would sooner trust a Comanche not to slit his throat or a hungry silvertip not to eat him.
“We’ll let you watch them ride off,” Bittner proposed. “The four of us won’t leave your side, and once they’re gone you can honor your end of the bargain. How much fairer can we be?”
“Would Killibrew agree to the idea?”
“I’m positive I can persuade him to go along. The girls were a means to an end, nothing more. All we’ve ever really wanted is the gold.”
“I’ll think it over,” Nate stalled. He had his own plan for resolving the situation.
To the west, the golden orb of the sun perched on far purple peaks. The shadows lengthened and a brisk breeze rustled the leaves, a harbinger of oncoming twilight. As casually as he could, Nate slid his right hand across his belt to his right hip and reassured himself the telltale bulge was still there.
Haro and Bittner were in for an unwelcome surprise. Unbeknownst to them, on Nate’s last trip to Bent’s Fort he had made a frivolous purchase. Frivolous in that he’d bought something he didn’t need and might never have a use for, but something that might come in handy in a fix.
The dull clomp of the bay’s hoofs beat in steady cadence. A third of the sun was devoured by the mountains, and the temperature fell a few degrees. Nate glanced over a shoulder every now and then, ostensibly at the girls but actually to mark its descent. He had to be utmostly careful, what with Haro studying his every movement, his every expression.
Nate wasn’t the only one with finely honed instincts. The ’breed suspected he would try something but had no inkling what or when. That gave him a slight edge.
In contrast, Bittner’s gold fever had rendered him as dull as a blunt blade. “Try to put yourself in our boots, King. The most money I ever had at any one time was thirty-five dollars and sixty-four cents. I recollect it so well because I thought I could live high on the hog for months, but it only lasted two weeks.” He swore, and muttered, “Who’d have thought that other fella had a full house?”
Nate smiled at Evelyn and Melissa. The sun was half gone.
“Just once I’d like to get ahead,” Bittner rambled on. “Just once I’d like to sleep in silk sheets and have servants wait on me hand and foot. Just once I’d like to feel as if I was somebody important.”
“You can’t measure a man’s worth by how much money he has,” Nate mentioned, and was laughed to scorn.
“What rock have you been living under? Money is power. Money is respect. Money is everything. Those who have it are a whole hell of a lot better off than those who don’t.”
“The Good Book says money is the root of all evil.”
“So you’re a Bible-thumper? Who’d have thought it. I’ve got nothing against it personally, but if I was to live by the Golden Rule, as my ma always wanted us to do, I’d have been planted six feet under ages ago.” Bittner paused. “Turning the other cheek is a surefire invite to an early grave.”
“Maybe one day it won’t be,” Nate said, looking back. Two-thirds of the sun had been swallowed. It wouldn’t be long.
Haro unexpectedly halted. “We kill Grizzly Killer,” he announced. “We kill him now.” Just like that, he sighted down his rifle, his forefinger curling around the trigger.
“Hold on there, damn it!” Bittner dropped the reins and darted between them. “What the hell has gotten into you? How many times must I tell you we need him alive to find the damn gold?”
“I do not care about the yellow metal anymore,” Haro said. “I care about my life.”
“He’s unarmed, for God’s sake,” Bittner said irritably. “What’s he going to do? Bite you to death? With you holding a gun on him?” He shook a brawny fist. “Get ahold of yourself or there will be hell to pay.”
Haro slowly lowered the rifle. “He plans to kill us. I can feel it.”
“Of course he does,” Bittner said. “He doesn’t want us to hurt the brats. But if we can talk him into agreeing to my little arrangement, no one has to kill anybody.”
An orange crescent crowned the western peaks. It would be another few minutes yet until the sun sank entirely, but Nate couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Bittner’s back was to him and Haro was looking at Bittner. Standing sideways so they couldn’t see his right hand, Nate worked it underneath his shirt, up under his belt.
The brainchild of a man named Henry Derringer, derringers were all the rage. Gamblers used them as hideouts for when their integrity was challenged. Travelers carried them in their jacket pockets for protection. Women carried them in their handbags. Frontiersmen relied on them as reserve weapons when their rifles and pistols were spent.
Fitted with the latest percussion system, and sold with a tin of percussion caps, derringers had the distinction of rarely misfiring. Their one drawback was their limited range. Large derringers were effective up to ten paces at most. For a small derringer like Nate’s, the range was cut in half. His was the smallest made, a single-shot .41-caliber model. As was typical, a flowery design was etched on the silver lock plate, the lower portion of the hammer, and the silver trigger guard, adding a touch of artistic elegance to the lethal little man-stopper.
