Wilderness Double Edition 19, page 22
Rosemary stayed rooted in place until the last of the retreating figures was lost to view. Then she let out a breath and said softly, “They’re gone! We’re safe at last!”
Bert lowered his rifle. “Are we?” he said skeptically. “I wouldn’t take anything for granted, not unless we want to wind up like them.” He nodded toward the remains of their unfortunate former traveling companions.
Sam dashed to a nearby tree, leaned his rifle against it, and leaped straight up. Catching hold of a low limb, he climbed with the agility of a squirrel and was soon thirty feet up, shielding his eyes from the sun.
“What are you doing?” Rosemary inquired, concerned that the Sioux might spot him.
“Making darned sure those redskins are leaving.” Sam watched awhile, then descended to report, “They’re out of sight, and I didn’t see any others anywhere.”
“The Lord preserved us,” Rosemary said, and was annoyed when Bert frowned. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed his lack of faith before. Was it because it had never been put to the test? “Who would like some water?” she asked. Her throat was parched, her mouth so dry it hurt to swallow.
It turned out they all would. They took turns, treating themselves to a full dipper from the water keg on the other side of the Conestoga.
Eddy was uncharacteristically subdued. When they moved into the shade and sat, he put an arm around her and leaned his head on her shoulder. “What those Indians did was awful, Ma. Just plain awful.”
“Try not to dwell on it,” Rosemary said, which was easier suggested than done. She wouldn’t be surprised if they all suffered nightmares for years to come. She knew she would, as surely as she was sitting there.
For once Bert didn’t produce his pipe. “I won’t try to deceive you,” he began. “We’re in a tight fix. We’re stranded in Sioux country, and there’s no telling how long we’ll be here. We can’t fire our guns, we can’t build a fire.”
“Not even to cook with?” Rosemary said.
“And have the Sioux see the smoke?” Bert rejoined. “Maybe in four or five days, once we’re absolutely certain they’re long gone. But it will have to be a small fire, and we’ll keep a bucket of water handy to douse it fast if we have to.”
“I can go for help, Pa,” Sam volunteered. “I’m right handy at living off the land. I’ll head east until I meet up with the next train, and I’ll ask some of them to hurry on ahead and stay with us until the train gets here.”
“A noble notion,” Bert said, “but it’s best if we stick together. You and I must take turns standing guard at night. And if we’re attacked, well...” He dabbed at his slick face with a sleeve.
Rosemary shifted. “What about poor Mrs. Kastner and the rest?”
“What about them?”
“Shouldn’t we do the decent thing and bury them?”
“There are too many. It would take forever. And we’d be out in the open, where the hostiles are more apt to catch sight of us.” Bert shook his head. “No, we have to leave the bodies where they are.”
“That’s not very Christian,” Rosemary criticized. She was beginning to think she had never truly known him.
“But it’s for the best,” Bert stressed, “unless you want to end up just like them.”
“Of course not.” But Rosemary didn’t like it, she didn’t like it one bit. Women and children being left to rot in the sun, or to be devoured by scavengers. Some of those children were under five years old, sweet innocents too soon deprived of life and promise. She couldn’t see the harm in burying them, at the very least.
Bert had more to say. “We’ll cut more branches to better conceal the wagon. Then we’ll picket the oxen. Twice a day we’ll cut grass and feed them, but we can’t risk taking them out onto the plain to graze. We couldn’t get them back in time if the Sioux happen by.”
“I hate the Sioux,” Eddy said softly. “Hate them, hate them, hate them.”
Bert tried to bolster their spirits. “It could be worse. We have plenty of water, plenty of supplies. We can hold out here a good long while.”
“Unless the Indians get us,” Eddy said.
“They won’t.” Rosemary gave him a heartfelt hug. “I won’t let them harm a hair on your head.”
Eddy grinned, but fear lurked deep in his youthful eyes, and when he gazed out across the prairie, he shivered ever so slightly.
A busy hour ensued. Bert unhitched the oxen and picketed them on the far side of a thicket within short walking distance of the river. Sam chopped enough leafy branches to conceal their vehicle from bottom to top. It wouldn’t withstand a close scrutiny but should suffice against a casual glance.
By late afternoon twenty vultures were feasting royally on the remains of their friends. Every few minutes more winged in from all points of the compass. How the buzzards knew where to come, Rosemary had no idea. Instinct, maybe.
Rosemary refrained from looking. She couldn’t stand the sight. Toward sunset, canine yowls pealed across the prairie, and by twilight coyotes were gathering. With throaty snarls and snaps of their bared teeth, they drove off the buzzards. No sooner had the harbingers of death risen flapping into the sky than their four-legged scavenging brethren tore into the corpses, ripping and rending and gulping in an orgy of feral excess.
Seated on the opposite side of the Conestoga so as not to have the abominable images seared into her memory, Rosemary heard the crunch of iron teeth on bone. Not loud, not at that distance, but loud enough to roil her stomach and induce a queasy feeling. Yesterday she had shared pleasantries with many of those people; now she was sitting there like a bump on a log while they were being eaten.
Enough was enough. Rising, Rosemary took her rifle and crept toward the site of the massacre. Bert was off cutting grass. Sam was filling the water keg. The stress had been too much for Eddy, and he was napping in the Conestoga. So no one would try to stop her.
The smell of blood and overripe bodies made Rosemary gag. Ten coyotes were eating, and none were disposed to relinquish their meal. Overhead the buzzards circled, although not for long. Once night fell, they would fly off to roost, then return at first light to gorge on whatever the coyotes left.
The wagons were smoldering ruins. Only one still blazed, what little was left of it. From it Rosemary selected a burning brand. The coyotes eyed her warily, their normally timid dispositions eclipsed by their hunger. She moved toward the nearest, and they growled menacingly. Swinging the brand from side to side, she continued to advance.
The coyotes retreated, but they did not go far. Ears pricked, tongues lolling, they stood and stared, implicitly challenging her to drive them off.
Rosemary regarded them coolly. Her brand would not burn forever. She must act quickly and decisively. On an impulse she charged the largest coyote. It skipped backward, wary of the flame, but it wasn’t quite fast enough, and with a bound Rosemary plunged the brand into its face. Uttering a shrill cry, the large coyote wheeled and fled, and with him went the rest.
Rosemary turned. There wasn’t much time. The sun had set, and soon it would be too dark to dig. She stepped toward a frail form lying near its mother and leaned down to grasp a tiny hand. Her muscles locked, and she couldn’t bring herself to move. The face below hers wasn’t that of the small girl she remembered. The eyes were gone, popped from their sockets by a buzzard’s expert beak, and the girl’s lips and other soft parts had been chewed by a coyote. The child’s neck was a stringy cavity, the flesh lacerated into thin strips.
Sudden dizziness caused Rosemary to shuffle sideways and sink to her knees. She felt sick, terribly sick, and she closed her eyes and groaned in an agony of despair. Little Cecilia! So lively! So full of glee! Now a ravaged bundle of soon-to-be-rotting flesh.
Rosemary’s faith wavered. Why had God permitted the atrocity? What had those people done to justify their ugly ends? Her parson would say all men and women were born in sin and deserved whatever evil befell them. Yet even so, were the sins of the emigrants so vile they merited a harvest of sheer savagery? What had little Cecilia ever done that her life should be so callously extinguished?
Choking down bitter bile, Rosemary leaned on her rifle and gathered her thoughts. She couldn’t bring herself to touch the girl, let alone bury her. It had been wrong to sneak off. She must return to the Conestoga before her loved ones discovered she was missing.
The thud of hooves fell on Rosemary’s ears. But were they really hooves? She strained to hear them again and was about convinced her rattled nerves were to blame when she heard a couple more. A horse, or two, was moving at a slow walk and stopping every few yards, somewhere to the west. More Sioux! Rosemary deduced, and flew across the slaughter ground to the edge of the timber. Barreling into the undergrowth, breathless with apprehension, she crouched low.
Night had fallen with alarming rapidity, the shadows spreading and blending into a veil of darkness so complete that Rosemary couldn’t see the end of her rifle when she wedged it to her shoulder. She glanced toward the Conestoga, invisible amid the trees. Only seventy yards away, yet it might as well be on the moon. She would make too much noise trying to reach it, so for the time being she was content to sit tight and wait for the Sioux to give their presence away.
Crickets began chirping. Along the river frogs started croaking. An owl hooted several times and was answered by another.
But were they owls? Rosemary remembered being told Indians were adept at imitating animal sounds, especially birds, to communicate back and forth. With her thumb on her rifle’s hammer, she eased up high enough to sweep her vicinity for telltale motion. She no longer heard the dull hoof beats. It could be the warriors had dismounted. It could be they knew right where she was, and they were closing in at that very moment.
An impulse to bolt to the Conestoga seized her, but Rosemary ignored it. She would end up leading the savages right to her family.
A whisper of sound caught Rosemary’s breath in her throat. Was it the wind, or someone moving? She couldn’t see anyone, but she had the impression that unseen eyes were upon her. Desperate for a target, she swung her rifle from right to left, praying one of the warriors would be careless. She should have known better. They were Sioux. They could move like ghosts. She strained until her eyes hurt, but the darkness mocked her.
The suspense began to tell. Rosemary wanted out of there, wanted with all her heart and soul to whirl and run, but her love for her family smothered her fear. Not completely. She was quaking inside, but her arms were steady and her finger was curled flat around the trigger. Where are you? she mentally screamed. If only they would show themselves!
The owl hooted again, a lot closer than before, so close Rosemary jumped and pivoted. An inky tangle hid the source. Bird or man? That was the question. Her life hinged on the answer.
Then it happened.
Behind her a twig crunched. Rosemary spun and saw a vague shape detach itself from a cluster of cottonwoods and glide soundlessly toward her. How the warrior had gotten behind her was a mystery, but he had, and odds were that other Sioux were converging and would overwhelm her at any moment.
She would go down fighting, Rosemary resolved. She had never thought of herself as particularly brave, but she refused to go meekly into eternity. She refused to turn the other cheek, not after what the Sioux had done.
Rosemary sighted down the rifle, but the bead was indistinguishable from the darkness. The best she could do was point the muzzle at the center of the advancing figure and hope she scored. Ever so slowly, she thumbed back the hammer. Another ten feet and she would fire. The Sioux would be so close, she couldn’t miss.
Without warning, arms encircled Rosemary from the rear and held her tightly. Steely muscles lifted her bodily into the air and she was swung partway around. Warm breath fanned her left ear. “Don’t shoot. It’s your son.”
Hearing English shocked her. Rosemary felt the scrape of a beard on her neck. “Nate, is that you?”
“None other,” the mountain man said, his arms loosening.
The vague figure had resolved itself into a silhouette of Sam. “Ma?” he whispered urgently. “Is that you?”
Nate King answered in her stead. “If it wasn’t her, boy, you’d be dead. You’re old enough to know not to pull such a boneheaded stunt.”
Sam hurried up. “Mr. King? Where did you come from? And Ma, what the dickens are you doing out here by your lonesome? Pa’s fit to be tied. He’s off searching for you too.”
“Is that your wagon yonder, I take it?” In the dark the mountain man loomed larger than ever. “You and your mother go on back.”
“You can see it in this pitch?” Rosemary marveled. She knew exactly where the Conestoga was, yet she couldn’t tell it was there.
“I’ll fetch my horse and be with you shortly.” King’s huge form moved off. “Keep your eyes skinned. There’s a griz in the area. The smell of blood brought him in, and he’ll be edgy.”
A grizzly? Rosemary’s heart leaped to her throat. Of all the beasts inhabiting the wilds, none were more formidable. They were monsters, enormous slabs of muscle and bone impossibly hard to kill. Four-legged eating machines, with teeth and claws as long as her fingers and strength enough to crush a person’s skull with a single swipe of a gigantic paw. “How close is it?” she whispered, but Nate King was out of earshot.
Sam touched her arm. “Come on, Ma.” His tone betrayed his nervousness. “Stick close and try not to make much noise.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they carefully picked their way through the vegetation. Rosemary tried to move as quietly as her son, but her dress kept snagging on brush and twice she stepped on dry twigs that cracked underfoot.
“Pa thought maybe the Sioux had taken you,” Sam whispered. “I never saw him so upset in all my born days.”
“Did your brother go with him?”
“No, Ed’s still asleep in the wagon. We didn’t want to leave him alone, but we didn’t want to wake him, either.”
Rosemary rarely swore, but she did so now—inwardly, at herself, for being such a jackass. She should never have gone off alone. Her carelessness had put her family in greater peril than ever.
Suddenly a scream rent the night, a high-pitched wail of mortal terror.
“Eddy!” Sam cried, and bolted for the Conestoga.
Rosemary tried to keep up, but he was twice as fast and had a knack for avoiding obstacles. When she got there he was at the rear of the Conestoga, and Eddy was clinging to him and crying. “What is it? What’s the matter?” she demanded as her youngest flung himself at her.
“He woke up and no one was here. It scared him,” Sam said.
A constriction in her throat, Rosemary hugged Eddy close. “It’s all right, son. You’re safe now.”
Between sobs the boy choked out, “It was you I was worried about! Don’t ever leave me alone again.” His thin arms wrapped tighter and he sobbed uncontrollably.
Tears moistened Rosemary’s eyes. His fear, his anguish, were her fault. She could feel his heart hammering wildly, and she wanted to kick herself. “We’re here now, and we won’t leave you. I promise.”
“Something’s coming, Ma.”
Rosemary looked up. Sam was pointing to the east. Something big was out there, and for a moment she thought it must be Nate King on horseback. Then she remembered that the mountain man had gone off to the west, not the east. She realized what the thing must be an instant before a rumbling growl proved her right. Her own heart hammering wildly, she backed against the Conestoga.
“The grizzly!” Sam blurted, his rifle leaping to his shoulder.
“No!” Rosemary cried. In the dark he might miss or merely wound it, and wounded bears were twice as dangerous. “Don’t do anything! Maybe it will leave us be!”
Sam retreated next to her. “What if it doesn’t?”
Lord, but the beast was enormous! Rosemary clutched Eddy to her as the grizzly lumbered near enough for them to distinguish its massive head and the huge hump between its mountainous shoulders. Its eyes glittered demonically in the starlight, and when its mouth yawned wide to emit another growl, so did its long teeth.
“I should shoot, Ma! I should shoot!” Panic tinged Sam’s voice.
“You’ll do no such thing!” Rosemary directed. The grizzly wasn’t more than twenty feet away, and it would be on them before they could flee. She swore she felt its hot, fetid breath on her face, and could smell its rank odor.
Eddy had stopped crying and was shaking instead, shaking so violently Rosemary was afraid it would trigger an attack. “Be still,” she whispered. “We’ll be fine so long as we don’t make any sudden moves.” But would they? The grizzly stood there staring and rasping like a bellows.
Then the undergrowth north of them crackled, and out of the night hurtled Bert. He saw them, saw the bear, and sidled forward, putting himself between them and the meat-eater. “If it charges, run. I’ll try to stop it,” he whispered.
The grizzly growled and took a short step. Nostrils flaring, it sniffed loudly more than half a dozen times.
Rosemary braced for a rush. She was certain the bear had caught the scent of their provisions in the wagon. But the grizzly wheeled and departed the way it had come, melting into the darkness like a shadow into shade. How an animal so immense could move so silently was beyond her.
Bert turned, the silvertip already forgotten. “Where the blazes did you get to, Rose?” he demanded. “I was worried half to death. You could have gotten some of us killed, traipsing off like that.”
Warm words of greeting died on Rosemary’s tongue. His anger was justified, but it made her mad he was criticizing her instead of taking her into his arms. “I went to bury the dead children.”
“After I’d advised against it?” Bert was incredulous.
“Would you feel the same if they were our boys?” Rosemary asked. “I only did what I’d want others to do for us.”
Their argument was cut short by an almost human squeal of torment from near the Platte River. It was followed by a thunderous roar and a terrible thrashing that ended with the sickeningly loud crunch of bone.
