Zach reversed direction, and Lou fell into step beside him. His father always kept a spare rifle handy. He’d use that until he could buy or trade for a new one of his own. Coming to the ledge, he glanced over a shoulder to see how the NunumBi were faring.

  Not well. More than half had met the same fate as their companion, their mined bodies reduced to gory smears. Yet the remainder fought on, berserk bloodlust driving them to a frenzy.

  Zach saw the giant clearly for a second and refused to believe his own eyes. He decided that he couldn’t have seen what he thought he did. The NunumBi alone were enough to stretch a person’s sanity to breaking point. The apparition towering above them was madness run rampant.

  Rounding the first bend, Zach had to slow down. They had no torch, no means to light their way, and inky blackness enveloped them like a shroud. Lou’s fingers dug into his palm, and she glued herself to him. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it,” he said, facing the wall and groping upward.

  Lou wanted to hug him, to smother him with kisses. “You came for me,” she marveled. “You really came for me.”

  “Why are you so surprised?” Zach said. “Did you think I wouldn’t?” Females could be so silly. “I love you, don’t I?”

  Lou’s mother used to say that love was like a well in that the truer it was, the deeper it ran. She had proof of that now, and her heart filled with happiness that eclipsed any she had ever felt. Her whole body grew warm, her urge to kiss him nigh overwhelming. “I am yours forever,” she declared.

  “That’s nice,” Zach absently replied. Women picked the darnedest times to be romantic. He concentrated on their ascent, moving each foot with care so they didn’t pitch into the abyss. By his reckoning they should almost be to the next bend.

  “Listen!” Lou exclaimed.

  The clamor of combat had ceased. In the dreadful stillness new sounds could be heard: the ponderous thump of huge feet drawing steadily closer.

  Twelve

  Louisa May Clark thought she knew what fear was. She thought her ordeal with the NunumBi had taught her what it was like to be so overcome by fright, she couldn’t think straight. But she had been wrong. It was possible to be even more scared, to be so frightened that every breath caught in her throat and her heart hammered against her chest as if trying to burst out.

  Being deprived of the sense of sight was bad enough. Not being able to see, having to inch upward with a yawning chasm at her back, aware that a single misstep would plummet her to a gruesome end, was scary enough. But to have a monster at her back, a living, wheezing abomination that craved to crush her as it had the dwarfs, compounded her fear a hundredfold. She clung to Zach with one hand while clinging to the wall with the other, gradually working higher. “We’ll never make it.” The darkness forced them to move too slowly. Eventually the ogre was bound to catch up.

  “Don’t give up,” Zach said. It was one of the most important lessons his parents taught him, a virtue impressed on him again and again. Never, ever, give up hope. Hardships were challenges to be met and bested. In the wilderness, the true measure of a person was not in how strong they were, or how quick, or even how smart, but in their single-minded will to survive.

  To their rear the tread of giant feet was replaced by a scuffling noise. It was no coincidence that the ledge had narrowed. Their gargantuan pursuer was now doing the same as they were, shuffling upward one stride at a time so as not to lose its balance.

  “That thing is moving slower,” Lou whispered.

  So were they. Zach had to reach forward, grip the wall, then slide his legs up the incline while keeping his other hand wrapped around her wrist. Then she would do the same. When their shoulders touched, he would reach forward again.

  How long they climbed, Zach couldn’t say. By degrees the scuffling grew louder, ever louder, and at length Zach could hear raspy breathing that sounded more like a blacksmith’s bellows than the lungs of a living being.

  Lou looked back frequently. Several times she saw movement in the murk, or imagined she did. She also thought she saw the abomination’s pale skin. “If we don’t get out of this alive—” she began to say.

  “We will,” Zach cut her off.

  “Maybe. But if we don’t, I want to say how much your love has meant to me. If I must die, I can’t think of a better way than at your side.”

  Zach didn’t like to talk about dying. The idea of losing her was unbearable. So he changed the subject. “After we go around the next bend, I want you to slide past me. Take the lead.”

  “Why? Your eyesight is better than mine,” Lou observed. He could pick out objects at a great distance, like an eagle, and always spotted elk, deer, and whatnot long before she did. Ideally, he should be in front.

  “I still have one pistol left,” Zach noted. “If need be, I can hold that thing back, delay it long enough for you to get away.”

  “A cannon couldn’t stop it,” Lou declared. “No, we should keep going just as we are. I’d be too afraid of slipping and causing us both to fall.”

  Zach had to come up with another reason. In truth, he didn’t want her behind him because the monstrosity would grab her first. Extending his left arm, he felt empty space. By bending his elbow he established that another bend had to be negotiated. “Careful,” he said. “Another turn.”

  The ledge was no wider than his foot. Zach pressed his moccasins flush with the wall and inched ahead. As his stomach scraped the edge, he happened to gaze into the gloom past his betrothed and spied a hulking shape climbing toward them. The giant had to be clinging to the ledge by its toes, yet it was moving at twice their speed. They’d never reach the surface unless he could slow the thing down.

  Zach moved another yard, giving Lou room to maneuver around the bend. Once she did, he hugged the wall and said urgently, “It’s now or never. Slide on past me. Hurry.”

  “You’re doing it for my sake,” Lou answered. “And I refuse to be coddled. I’m not your little sister.”

  In all the months they’d been together, Zach had never done what he did now. Squeezing her wrist, he said sternly, “Listen to me, damn it! Do as I say!”

  To Lou, it was the same as if he’d slapped her. He’d never used that tone before, never been so outright bossy. She had the right to do as she pleased, and she wouldn’t allow anyone, not even the one she loved, to order her to do otherwise. “No.” If one of them must sacrifice their life to buy the other some time for the other to get away, she was perfectly willing to make the sacrifice herself.

  Zach faced a dilemma. His father had brought him up to believe that no man worthy of the name ran roughshod over a woman. He knew of some husbands, Shoshones and whites alike, who treated their wives worse than they did their horses, who were always telling their womenfolk to do this or do that. A few men regularly beat their women, slapping them around if their wives didn’t do exactly as they wanted when they wanted. Long ago Zach had made up his mind that he would never be like those men. He would be like his pa.

  But now, with the giant narrowing the gap and their lives in the balance, Zach was put to the test. He could let Lou have her way, in which case she would be the first one the ogre slew. Or he could try to save her in spite of herself. Which to do?

  “I’m sorry,” Zach said. His left hand had found a knobby stone he could hold on to, and grasping it securely, he suddenly pulled Louisa toward him, looped his other arm around her waist, and partly pushed, partly swung her behind him so she’d have no choice but to go on past.

  Lou nearly screamed. For harrowing heartbeats she hung half over the edge, held in place only by Zach’s arm and the balls of her feet. She clutched at him, then realized she might tear him from their roost. Her only other recourse was to throw herself to the left, beyond him, and lever against the wall to keep from keeling backward. Panting from the exertion as much as her panic, she exclaimed, “You almost killed us!”

  Louder breathing than hers motivated Zach to give her a light push. “Keep going! Don’t look back!”

  “What—?” Lou was mad now — mad he had made her do as he wanted against her will, mad at his lack of respect for her wishes.

  “Go!” Zach shouted, but it was too late, for at the bend materialized a huge, pale bulk, looming above them like a sequoia. A gigantic hand reached for him, fingers as thick as his wrist seeking to enclose him in their steely fold. Forgetting himself, he jerked away, lost his grip, and started to fall.

  Now Lou did scream. Lunging, she snagged his arm and pulled him back. Breath unspeakably foul assailed them, almost making her gag. She looked up, up, up, into a ghastly visage, into an eye as wide around as an apple, at a hooked nose and a slavering mouth the size of a pie plate. The great eye blinked as the giant regarded them with interest.

  Zach didn’t bother looking up. His only thought was that Lou was about to be slain. Twisting so he could unlimber his pistol, he pointed it at the creature’s chest, at where he hoped the heart would be, and fired.

  An unearthly howl resounded in the chasm, a cry as horrid as its maker, a piercing, blood-chilling mix of pain and rage. The giant grabbed at its chest, teetered, and slid into the void.

  Zach hadn’t expected it to be so easy. Momentarily blinded by the muzzle flash, he blinked to clear his vision and listened for the crash of the huge body far, far below. Instead he heard more heavy wheezing. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he made out the giant’s pale figure, hanging by both massive hands from the ledge. While Zach looked on, the monster started to hike itself back onto the ledge.

  “Move!” Zach urged, propelling Lou upward.

  She didn’t argue. The ogre would be after them in earnest. It was a race to the surface, and the giant had the advantage because this was its domain. It could see well despite the lack of light. It was accustomed to traveling subterranean byways. Then Lou had a thought. They need not climb all the way. Higher up, the cleft narrowed, and the monster would be unable to follow. She mentioned as much.

  Zach peered upward, seeking some hint of stars and sky, but there was none. They hurried, moving as fast as was humanly possible, much faster than it was safe to do, but it was either push recklessly on or be reduced to a bloody smear, as the NunumBi had been.

  No sound of pursuit arose, which puzzled Zach. He hoped against hope the giant had slipped and fallen, but the more likely explanation was that the thing was badly wounded and couldn’t move as swiftly.

  Long, anxious minutes dragged by, weighted by millstones. Lou began to flag. Her legs were aching, her calf and thigh muscles terribly sore. Yet another bend brought them to a straight section that angled more steeply than any. Weary, she tilted her head back to relieve a cramp in her neck, and halted.

  “Look!”

  A patch of stars sparkled, beckoning like a lighthouse in a fog, promising safety if they could only reach the top. Zach leaned against the wall, his ears primed for the slightest noise. He couldn’t hear anything over Lou’s gasps. “We’ll rest a little bit,” he said.

  Lou noted that the opposite wall was ten to twelve feet distant, more than enough room for the ogre. “Maybe it’s not coming. Maybe you killed it.”

  “Maybe,” Zach said. She was grasping at a straw, and they both knew it.

  They fell quiet, but the eerie silence of the netherworld made Lou nervous, so she brought up the first notion that entered her head: “What will the Shoshones do when they learn about the NunumBi? Wage war on them like their ancestors did?”

  Zach would like that. The glory of counting coup on the fierce dwarfs would exceed any other courageous feat a warrior could perform. A NunumBi scalp would earn its owner prestige and fame beyond his wildest dreams.

  “What about your family? How can you go on living in the valley, never knowing what might crawl out of this hole next?”

  “We’ll never give up our home,” Zach said. “Never.”

  Lou’s fingers were entwined with his, and she gently rubbed a fingertip across his palm. “Will it be our home, too, once we’re married? Or will we go find a nice valley of our own? Maybe that grassy one north of here, with the stream and the meadow where the elk always are? It would be a perfect spot to raise kids.”

  The workings of the female mind never failed to astound Zach. Here they were, being hunted by a creature from the dawn of time, balanced on a small ledge above a yawning chasm, and she was rambling about where they would build their cabin and the children they would have? His uncle Shakespeare once said that women were proof the Almighty had a sense of humor, and Zach now believed he understood what Shakespeare meant.

  “I wish we were already man and wife,” Lou remarked. For what he had done, for braving the dangers of the depths to save her, he deserved to be rewarded as only a woman could reward a man. Lou blushed, glad he couldn’t see. She was behaving like a wanton, yet she couldn’t deny her feelings. She wanted him, wanted him so very much.

  “Maybe it will be sooner than you think,” Zach said. His whole outlook had changed. He was no longer content to wait, not when he could lose her at any time. If not to the NunumBi, then to roving Blackfeet or a grizzly or a hundred and one other dangers. He would discuss it with his pa—if they lived that long.

  “Did you just hear something?” Lou asked.

  Zach bent an ear lower. No, he hadn’t heard a thing. But then the faint scrape of a foot or an arm alerted him to a moving mass below. It was the giant. The monster wasn’t using the ledge anymore, as they were. It was climbing straight up the wall, straight up the side of the cleft, a great, pale spider, exhibiting an agility belied by its bulk.

  Lou tugged on his arm. “Oh, Lord!”

  “Go!” Zach said. “Go! Go! Go!”

  They continued their ascent. And if they had been reckless before, they were doubly so now. Yet the monster rapidly gained. Zach stopped looking back and goaded Lou to go even faster. Ahead was one more turn. If Zach’s memory served, once they were past it the cleft narrowed to less than three feet. The giant would be stymied and couldn’t climb any higher.

  Lou was only a few feet from the bend when a loud grunt drew her gaze under them. The ogre was almost within reach. It had caught them unawares and was elevating a huge hand. “Zach! Below you!”

  The warning came a split second too late. Blunt fingers wrapped around Zach’s left shin and he was brought up short. The giant pulled, nearly dislodging him. He had little to hold on to other than a crack at shoulder height, so kicking with his other foot was out of the question. But he still had his pistol, and, shifting, he hurled it at the leering face. More by accident than design, he struck it in the eye.

  Howling in torment, the creature let go.

  Zach and Lou scurried around the turn and on up the ledge. Fresh air blew on their sweaty skin. The tops of trees waved above the opening. They were close to the opening, so tantalizingly close.

  Lou stumbled, but Zach held on to her and helped her stand. “Just a little further,” he coaxed.

  Suddenly the entire cleft shook to an immense impact. Drooling spittle and roaring, the giant had flung itself into the cramped space like a living battering ram. The walls held, preventing him from climbing any higher, but they didn’t deter him. Lashed by rampant fury, it attacked the two walls, pounding off large chunks with powerful blows and digging deep furrows with iron nails.

  “Nothing will stop it!” Lou exclaimed.

  Zach had witnessed beasts and men in the grip of bloodlust, but never a rage to rival this. The creature would not be denied. Slowly but inevitably it was forcing itself upward. His arm over Lou’s shoulder, he guided her toward the highest point they could reach, which was still three feet under the rim.

  The giant tried a new tactic. Rocks and globs of dirt pelted the wall around them, most barely missing.

  A stone stung Zach’s shoulder, and he winced. Another gashed his thigh. Their nemesis was trying to knock them off the ledge, to make them fall into its waiting arms. But they were almost there! Another six or seven steps and they would reach the end.

  As if it divined their intent, the ogre started heaving heavy rocks above them, at the ledge itself. Large pieces were broken off and rained down on them, forcing them to cover their heads with their arms for protection. When the giant stopped, Zach glanced up and discovered much of the ledge was gone. They could go another yard or so, but that was all. And they wouldn’t be high enough to reach the rim. Their escape had been cut off.

  The creature resumed its onslaught on the walls, widening the cleft so it could get at them. Its huge hands were like twin shovels. At the rate it was digging, in several minutes they would be at its mercy.

  “What do we do?” Louisa asked. She couldn’t think of a thing.

  “Try climbing.” Zach stretched and sought handholds, but the few he could reach wouldn’t bear his weight. He braced a hand and a foot against the other wall and tried to pump upward, but now the walls were so close together he couldn’t make full use of his upper arms and kept slipping.

  Lou was terrified he would fall. “Don’t try that!” she said, ready to grab hold if he should lose his grip.

  A lancing pang in his lower leg gave Zach another reason to stop. The creature had thrown a rock at him. It was determined to keep them right where they were. Zach dropped back onto the ledge.

  “I’m sorry,” Lou said, embracing him. She blamed herself for the fix they were in. Had she been more vigilant back at the cabin, the NunumBi might not have abducted her and Zach wouldn’t be about to lose his life. “It’s going to get us.”

  Not if Zach could help it. There was one ploy left to them, one he would rather not resort to, but which he would unhesitatingly do if there were no other means of saving Louisa. As strong as the monster was, he doubted it could retain its grip were he to jump from the ledge on top of it. He’d crash onto its head and shoulders, tear it from its precarious perch, and send them both hurtling into the bowels of the earth. His life would be forfeit, but Lou would be spared, and to Zach that was all that counted.

  Lou pressed her warm lips to his. “I love you, Stalking Coyote.”

 

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