Wilderness Double Edition 21, page 25
“What are you sayin’?” Caleb asked.
“ ‘You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things.’ ” Shakespeare raised his voice. “‘ Be content with what you have.’ ”
“Ziphion?” Caleb said.
The older brothers had chosen their course. Side by side, they spun. Side by side, they brought up their rifles. And side by side they were shot squarely through their chests. Onan buckled at the knees, his inner ghost fled before he struck the ground. Ziphion gawked at the hole in his sternum, then at the smoking flintlocks in Shakespeare’s hands. He wound up side-by-side with Onan.
“No!” Caleb cried, and clawed at one of his own pistols.
Blue Water Woman was faster. Snatching it from under his belt, she clubbed him over the head and he sagged like an empty sack of flour.
“Getting soft in your old age?” Shakespeare bantered.
“I could not shoot him. He is so young.” Blue Water Woman opened the bottle. “Help me, and we can be on our way.”
Shakespeare faced east. “I just hope we get there in time.”
Fourteen
Nate King dreamed he was in a cave. He could feel the cold, clammy walls with his outstretched hands but he couldn’t see anything. It was black as pitch. He felt he had to get out of there and sensed a great danger lurking in the dark. Something unseen, awaiting its moment to pounce. Growing frantic, he stumbled blindly along. Again and again he bumped a shin or a knee against rock outcroppings and was lanced by pain.
Then Nate heard a voice, so faint at first, he thought his ears were deceiving him. By gradual degrees it grew louder and soon he realized someone was calling a name over and over. His name, he discovered, and he moved faster, spurred by the thought that if he didn’t find the source of that voice, and soon, he would never see the light of day again.
Nate ran, or tried to. Stumbling and careening off the cave walls, he rounded turn after turn. The voice grew clearer. It was a woman, and she was saying his name so tenderly, so lovingly, that his heart ached to be with her. He heard himself saying, “Winona? Winona?” And then his eyes blinked open and he squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun and beheld his wife’s lovely face floating above him.
“I am here, husband.” Winona kissed him on the lips and ran a hand through his hair. “You gave us quite a scare.”
“You sure did,” Evelyn’s face appeared beside her mother’s, both of them smiling yet apprehensive.
“Where—” Nate raised his head and saw the broken bluff and the mud slide a goodly distance away. He lay in a clearing near the river, naked except for a blanket over him. “My clothes?”
“Are hanging on a branch to dry.” Winona pointed at a tree. “They were caked with mud. We had to wash them.”
“The bear?” Nate said, as it all came back to him in a harrowing rush of fangs and claws.
“Touch The Clouds is skinning it as we speak. He did not want the hide to go to waste.” Winona placed a hand on his forehead. “You have a slight fever from your wounds.”
Nate lifted the blanket. A different one had been cut into strips and his shoulder, upper chest and lower ribs bandaged. “How bad am I?”
“No bones were broken, as near as I can tell. The worst is your back. The bear’s claws opened you up from your shoulder blades to your hip.”
Now that she mentioned it, Nate felt something wadded underneath him.
“It nearly severed your spine.” Winona clasped his hand to her bosom. “A bit deeper and you would never move your legs again.”
“But I still can?” Nate said, and confirmed it by moving both his feet a few inches. “As soon as my clothes are dry, we’re lighting a shuck for Fort Leavenworth.”
“No, husband, we are not.”
“Zach needs us. He goes on trial soon. I can’t let something like this slow us down.”
“I am sorry. I love Stalking Coyote as much as you and I dearly want to be with him, but you cannot ride for a few days, if then, or you risk infection setting in.”
Nate seldom argued with her. They almost always saw eye-to-eye. But now he declared, “I’ll be damned if I’ll leave our son in the lurch when he needs us most.”
“The wounds on your back are too severe for you to go anywhere.” Winona squeezed his good shoulder. “Trust me. Have I ever lied to you?”
“I’m going, and that’s final.” Nate lay his head down. He wanted to roar like the black bear had, he was so mad. Not at her. At Fate. At the cruel injustice of it all. They needed to be there for Zach’s trial so they could speak in his defense. It was up to them to explain to the jury how things were and why their son had done what he did.
“There is more,” Winona said. “We have not found your horse yet. We are hoping it will return on its own. If not, Touch The Clouds has offered to go after it.”
“If it doesn’t come back, I’ll ride double with one of you,” Nate proposed.
“I keep forgetting how stubborn you can be.”
Nate grinned to try and lighten her mood. “I hear tell most men are the same. Not that you women are ever hardheaded.” He chuckled, and was suddenly racked by excruciating agony, agony so potent, he groaned and nearly doubled over.
“Now will you believe me when I say you are in a bad way?” Winona asked. “If you try to ride before your back has sufficiently healed, you might die.”
Evelyn had been content to listen but now she said, “Do as she says, Pa. Please. We can see your insides through the cuts in your back.”
“They’re that deep?” The gravity of his wounds sank in, and Nate grit his teeth to keep from using language he never used in front of his wife and daughter.
“We have a fire going,” Winona mentioned, “and soon I will have a poultice to apply.” She rose and moved off.
The sky had largely cleared but from the east came the boom of thunder. Nate twisted his head and saw the eastern horizon blotted out by the trailing edge of the storm front.
“I’m sorry you were hurt,” Evelyn said, resting her cheek on his arm. “But you’ll mend, given time.”
“Time is the one thing we don’t have to spare,” Nate responded. “Not if we’re to save your brother.”
“Ma says the trial will take a good long while, so there’s no rush.”
Nate hadn’t thought of that. Odds were, Winona was right. A trial of this order would take weeks, maybe even months. Maybe a few days’s delay wasn’t the calamity he thought it was, he mused.
“Why has all this happened?” Evelyn asked forlornly. “We didn’t do anything to deserve it.”
“No one hardly ever does,” Nate said. “It’s just how life is.”
Evelyn peered skyward. “It’s not right. Zach only did what he had to. Why did they have to go and drag him off like they did?”
“He broke the law. He killed white men.”
“But you’ve killed white men. More than I can count. And the army never sent soldiers after you.”
“I’ve only killed in self-defense or to protect those I care for,” Nate justified his actions. “And the ones I killed were cutthroats and murderers.”
“So were the men at the trading post. Vermin, you called them, who would have brought no end of trouble to the Shoshones.”
“But the army doesn’t know they were vermin. It’s up to us to tell them,” Nate said. But here he lay, mauled and helpless. His frustration was boundless.
“It’s things like this that make me want to leave the mountains when I’m older,” Evelyn mentioned. “I want to live in a city somewhere. A place where there aren’t any vermin. Where I don’t have to worry about a griz attacking me or hostiles wanting to take me captive every time I step outside.”
“City life isn’t the paradise you seem to think,” Nate said, recalling his own early years in New York City. “It can be as dangerous as the wilderness.”
“You’re just saying that because Ma and you don’t want me to go. But I’m tired of seeing blood spilled. I’m tired of only ever feeling safe when we’re in our cabin with the door barred.”
“City dwellers have to bar and lock their doors, too.”
“But they don’t need to be walking armories when they’re outdoors,” Evelyn countered. “Admit it. City life is a lot safer than life in the wilds.”
“Not a lot,” Nate said.
Evelyn pecked his chin. “Maybe so, but my mind is made up. But it’s not as if you’ll never see me again. I won’t move that far away. St. Louis maybe, or New Orleans.”
To Nate, either might as well be Jupiter. It was a given that, just like hatchlings, kids one day grew up and flew the nest, as his son already had. But Zach’s cabin was only a few valleys to the north of his own. Evelyn was moving many hundreds of miles. To visit her would take weeks of travel. He would hardly ever get to see her again, and that saddened him immensely.
“I should think you would be happy for me.”
“You do, huh?”
“Sure. Ma and you won’t have to fret over me nearly as much. There aren’t any mountain lions or rattlesnakes where I’m going.”
“Some sidewinders wear pants.” Nate set her straight and tenderly placed a hand on her head. “But you do what you want. Your mother and I won’t stand in your way. There comes a time when everyone has to stand on their own two feet and make their own decisions.”
Evelyn hugged him. “I knew I could count on you. Ma and you are the best parents anyone could have.”
“If you say so.” In Nate’s view he had fallen a few notches short of the mark. When they were little, he had been away from home too often, either off trapping or exploring. Then there were all the times his family had been in peril. If he were truly the good father Evelyn thought, he’d have dragged them back to the States long ago.
Winona returned carrying one of their pots, from which steam was rising, and a clean cloth. She set them down, and knelt. “We must roll you over, husband. And I warn you, it will hurt.”
“I can take it,” Nate said, but he almost couldn’t. The pain was far worse than he anticipated, pain so severe he bit his lower lip, and quaked. It subsided when he was flat on his stomach but it didn’t fade entirely. He felt his wife remove the bandage and her fingers probe his back. Sharp, stabbing agony suddenly pierced him, and he thought he would pass out.
“I am sorry,” Winona said. “I needed to see how deep one of the cuts went.”
“How deep?” Nate asked.
“You do not want to know.”
Winona was as gentle as she could be but he still came within a thread’s-width of screaming a few times. First she washed the wounds, then she spread the poultice, then she reapplied the bandage, tying it tight so it wouldn’t slip. “There. All done,” she informed him, sitting back.
Nate was slick with sweat but his body felt like ice. Never a good sign. “I want to be on my side.”
“It is best if you do not move for a while.”
Fatigue crept over him. Nate tried to stay awake but his eyes kept shutting. Five or six times he opened them again, his head bent so he could see Winona and Evelyn. But then came a time when they closed and he lost all sensation. He was out for hours. Stars sparkled in the firmament when he became conscious of the murmur of conversation, and of the ground under his cheek. Out of habit he started to rise and was spiked by more extreme torment.
In the blink of an eye Winona was at his side, her arm across his shoulders. “Do not try to get up. I will bring you something to eat and drink if you want.”
Nate refused to eat lying down, refused to be spoon-fed like an invalid. “Sit me up.”
“I would rather not.”
“Bring a saddle, and have Touch The Clouds lift me,” Nate insisted. When she hesitated, he placed his hands flat and started to push himself up. It shocked him how weak he was. All he could do was rise a few inches, then he had to lie back down.
“Please do not try that again,” Winona pleaded. “My medicine can only do so much.” She hastened to her saddle and brought it over.
“Touch The Clouds?” Nate said in the Shoshone tongue, twisting his head. The giant warrior appeared at his elbow, and Nate explained, finishing with, “Do it quick. But give me a stick first.”
Winona and Evelyn hovered anxiously. Nate smiled to reassure them, then clamped his teeth on the stick. Touch The Clouds’s fingers curled around his upper arms, and Touch The Clouds smiled.
“Are you ready, Grizzly Killer?”
Nate nodded. And just like that, it was done. Near-overwhelming pain speared through him and the world spun like a wagon wheel. Spitting out the stick, he sucked in breath and tried not to let on how much he was hurting. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“You are a terrible liar,” Winona told him. Kneeling, she checked his forehead, then the bandages. “As I feared. You are bleeding again but I will wait a while before I apply new bandages.” She nodded at the fire. “Would you like soup?”
The thought of food made Nate queasy but he wanted to give her the impression he was better off than she thought so he smiled and replied, “Soup and coffee, both.” A gust of wind caused Nate to shiver. He was about to ask for another blanket to cover himself but his daughter beat him to it and covered him on her own. He thanked her, then watched his wife ladle soup from the cook pot. “There’s something I’d like you to do for me.”
“Anything, husband.”
“I want the three of you to go on without me.” Winona did not even look at him. “You ask the silliest things. That is out of the question.”
“You just said you would do anything,” Nate noted. “Anything sensible, yes. Anything reasonable. But it is ridiculous to ask us to desert you when you are incapable of fending for yourself.”
“I can manage.”
“This from a man who cannot sit up on his own. You would not last three days. Forgive me for being selfish, but I have not devoted myself to you for so long only to lose you now.”
“It’s not about me, it’s about our son. Head out at the crack of dawn and you should reach the fort in plenty of time.”
“I am sorry. No.”
“Damn it, Winona. Our boy’s life comes before mine.”
“That is not your decision to make.”
“Like hell it isn’t.”
“I am your wife and his mother and I have a say in what we do. But this is not about choice. This is about doing what must be done.” Winona brought his soup over, and Nate saw that her eyes were glistening with tears. “I will not abandon you. When you are fit enough to ride we will go on together, and not before.”
In all the years of their marriage, Nate had never been so mad at her. “Then our son is as good as hung.”
Fifteen
Zach King pressed the derringer to the back of Sergeant Rotowski’s head and stood so the soldiers outside couldn’t see him. “Remember, one wrong word and I splatter your brains all over creation.” He almost wished Rotowski would give him an excuse to do it, after all the man had done.
“Don’t worry, breed, I’ll do what you want.” Rotowski grinned. “Only because it won’t do you any good. There’s no way in hell you’re getting off this post.” He opened the door part way and gruffly barked, “Peterson, Isaacs, I need you in here.”
The moment the pair filed inside, Lou closed the door and pressed her dagger to the neck of the last private to enter. The other trooper started to unsling his rifle but turned to stone when he saw Zach’s derringer pressed against Rotowski’s head.
“What’s going on, Sarge?”
Rotowski was not one to suffer stupid questions. “You have eyes, you idiot. Use them. The bitch and the breed think they can escape.”
Zach came close to squeezing the trigger. He couldn’t abide insults to his wife, not under any circumstances. Commanding the sergeant to sit, he pointed the derringer at the first private and relieved him of his rifle. Then, stepping well back, he leveled the rifle and cocked it.
Lou had the other private’s rifle. Neither private had pistols but they did have ammo pouches and bayonets, which she relieved them of.
All the while, the lawyer hadn’t said a word. Now he took a step toward Zach, saying, “I must stress yet again that you are making a grave mistake.”
“Don’t come any closer,” Zach warned. “Sit at the desk and behave yourself.” To Lou he said, “Watch them.” He used the trooper’s belts and strips he cut from their shirts with a bayonet to bind and gag them, then dragged them to a corner and sat them facing the wall.
“Call in the other two,” Zach said, jamming the rifle’s muzzle against Rotowski’s midsection. “Same as before.” Privates were so accustomed to obeying their superiors without question that the second pair were as easy to take by surprise as the first. Zach made them strip off their uniforms, then bound them and hauled them to the corner. “Your turn,” he told Rotowski.
Angrily extending his wrists, the sergeant muttered, “I can’t wait for them to stretch your stinkin’ neck. I’ll be in the front row cheerin’ them on.”
“Good. You’ll be the one I spit on as the noose tightens,” Zach said, and slammed the rifle against Rotowski’s ear. It burst like rotten flesh and Rotowski oozed to the floor. In a burst of excess hatred, Zach smashed the stock against him again and would have done it more times if not for Stanley P. Dagget.
“Stop! If you’re not careful, you’ll kill him.”
Zach had had enough out of Dagget. He tied the lawyer to the chair, commenting, right before he stuffed a gag into his mouth, “No hard feelings? I’m only doing what I have to.”
“Don’t we all?” Dagget responded. “But don’t worry. I’ll still represent you if you don’t get away.”
“Damned decent of you,” Zach said as he tied the gag in place. He then bound and gagged Rotowski, and tossed one of the uniforms to Lou. “Put this on. The hat too, so it’s not as obvious you’re a woman.”
“Why, I never thought you noticed,” Lou said, and snickered.
