Golden Hawk 3, page 5
When Hawk first started to slog through the waist-deep snow toward Wootton, his horse floundering after him, the sky overhead was a bright blue. But by the time he reached Wootton, the black wing of a storm cloud had closed over them, the wind had risen to a shrill, demented scream, and snow was falling. More accurately, it was sweeping horizontally over the landscape, stinging Hawk’s eyes, burning his face. Wootton did not try to shout to him above the roar of the wind. Instead, he pointed to a large, concave rock formation on the slope above him that offered some protection from the rising wind, and he started for it.
It was dark before all the horses had been accounted for and were huddling safely in a spot among rocks that offered protection from the storm. The two men built a fire then, constructed a makeshift tent from their tarps, and slowly thawed themselves out. A long, howling night followed.
The only thing they could hear above the wind was the thin, almost plaintive wail of the wolves prowling about in the storm.
Almost as quickly as it had fallen upon them, the storm abated, and by the morning of the next day they moved out. At noon the next day they were close enough to be sighted by Jim Clyman, who had posted himself at the entrance to the pass. With a shout powerful enough to send echoes ricocheting around all the snow-covered flanks of the mountains surrounding them, Clyman called out to them. The shout startled Hawk and Wootton, since Clyman was not in sight and all either of them could see in front of them were limitless, sun-drenched fields of snow.
They pulled up, peered into the distance, and saw Clyman at last, waving to them from the crest of a drift piled near the entrance to the pass. They waved back, their lungs sucking painfully on the thin air, and a moment later they saw Clyman leading a contingent of settlers out of the pass to greet them.
When they got close enough, Hawk noted at once that those with Jim were mostly women and children—and a more pitifully gaunt collection of pilgrims Hawk hoped never to see again. Nevertheless, as they neared Hawk and Wootton and saw the long train of pack horses loaded down with goods, they shouted themselves hoarse and rushed past Hawk and Wootton to the long line of pack horses strung out for a quarter-mile behind them.
A disturbingly thin Jim Clyman shook Hawk’s hand, then Wootton’s.
“I knew you’d make it, Hawk,” Jim said. Then to Wootton he said, “And thanks, Dick, for comin’ along.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it.”
“How bad has it been?” Hawk asked.
“Bad enough. I told you it would be close. Right this minute I figure we got enough food for another day maybe, but we’ve been on short rations for the past week and we’re all pretty weak. We sure cut it close, I can tell you.”
There was nothing more to say as Hawk, Wootton, and Jim Clyman continued on to the pass, the women and children following eagerly with the pack horses.
The settlers’ wagons had been stopped cold in the middle of the pass, with only their snow-covered canvas tops still visible above the deep drifts packed about them. In between and around the wagons, burrowed deep into the snowdrifts were the rounded, tunneled-out shelters of the settlers.
“Well, now,” Hawk said to Clyman, “these here snow houses look snug enough.”
As he and Wootton passed by one, Hawk glanced in and saw where pieces of furniture had been set up inside them; a small fire was going, the smoke from it passing out through a small hole in the top of the domed shelter.
“Mebbe so, Hawk. But it’s damned hard to keep warm inside them. It’s like livin’ inside a block of ice. It was twenty below last night and every one of us felt it. We’ve stripped what firewood we could from the mountain flanks around us, but there just ain’t enough left.”
“You mean there are not enough able-bodied men willing to go get it,” Hawk said.
Clyman nodded in sullen agreement. “That’s about the size of it, Hawk. How’d you figure that?”
“I got eyes,” he said, glancing around him.
While most of the women were busy unloading the horses and carting away the provisions, he
could see others busy laying out laundry on the bright, sun-kissed snowfields around the wagons, their faces raw from the constant wind and terrible cold. Other women and children could be seen lugging buckets of snow over to fires to melt for water. On all sides Hawk saw women and young children laboring at various tasks while the cruel wind tugged at them.
Yet not a single man had stepped out of the shelters to lend a hand. They were keeping inside, well out of the reach of the harsh winds, perfectly content to allow their women and children to unload the horses and store the goods—in short, to take care of everything for them. The men of this wagon train were, as usual, a crop of useless, ne’er-do-well failures from the East. What amazed Hawk was the willingness of their women to go along with their men on these fool journeys into the wilderness.
Hawk looked at Jim Clyman. “It’s time to get the men off their asses. I say we bring them out to help the women unload the pack horses.”
“Just what I been thinking,” seconded Wootton. “Who’s their leader?” Hawk asked.
“Reverend Amos Twitchell. But I warn you, Hawk, he don’t take advice easy.”
“I don’t give a pinch of coon shit how he takes advice.”
“You want me to go get him, then?”
Hawk nodded decisively. “And if he gives you any shit, don’t be easy on him.”
A broad smile on his face, Clyman ducked quickly into one of the largest of the snow shelters. A second later came the sound of angry voices. Then Clyman appeared, dragging the reverend out of his shelter by the nape of his neck. As the man twisted angrily in Clyman’s grasp, Jim nudged him roughly over to Hawk. Meanwhile, all work in the camp ceased as the women and children held up eagerly to watch. Behind Twitchell the wagon train’s male complement appeared in front of their shelters, heavy blankets wrapped around them as they looked on.
“Be you the Reverend Twitchell?” Hawk asked him.
“Yes,” the man said, pulling himself up to his full height as he tried to get his outraged thoughts in order. “And just who might you be?”
“Someone who’s come a long ways to beat your ass to a pulp, that’s who.”
At Hawk’s words, many of the women shrank back in shock. But a surprisingly large contingent elbowed one another eagerly and grinned happily at their parson’s comedown. The children were wide-eyed with wonder at the sight of their preacher being handled in such a fashion.
“Sir! How dare you,” cried the reverend.
“How dare you lead women and children into these mountains at this time of the year? Reverend, you must be mad to do such a thing! If a single one of them dies, it’ll be on your soul!”
Twitchell paled and shrank back. Dressed only in thin black cotton trousers and a shirt, he was an incredibly lank, bony fellow with a long blade of a nose and close-set, watery blue eyes. His cheeks were sunken, hollow, his chin bony and receding. His scrawny neck was punctuated by an enormous Adam’s apple that bobbed now in apprehension and outrage.
“Who gives you the right to speak to me in this fashion? And by what right do you come here and threaten a man of God and his flock!”
“Hell, Parson,” Jim Clyman said angrily, “Hawk here’s the one who just saved your bacon. He’s the one brought your people provisions. He’s the one saved them. Him and Dick Wootton. Not you and not God. If you live through this, you’ll have them two to thank for it.”
“Get some warm clothes on, Reverend,” advised Hawk, a mean smile cracking his grim face, “you and the rest of your male flock.”
The preacher frowned warily. “Why, sir, what do you intend?”
“I intend for you to start chopping up these here wagons for firewood.”
“You must be mad! They’ll be needed when spring comes. They will afford us transportation to Oregon.”
“Sorry, Reverend, but you won’t be seeing Oregon this spring.”
“That’s absurd!”
“Stay here in this pass and you won’t see spring anywhere. Now start chopping up the wagons for firewood. Right now your people need warmth and a chance to regain their strength if they’re going to make it back safely to Fort Hall.”
“Fort Hall?”
“You heard me, Reverend.”
The reverend was aghast at this change in his plans. “Why ... I tell you, I won’t have it! Who put you in charge of this wagon train?”
Hawk looked at Jim Clyman. “Was it you, Jim?”
Jim laughed. “Guess mebbe it was at that, Hawk.”
“I think you and Mr. Clyman are mad,” the reverend said, incensed. “We will treat your interference with the contempt it deserves. The Lord Himself will see us all safely to Oregon—with or without your interference! We will chop up no wagons and make no plans whatsoever for retreating to Fort Hall.”
Hawk stepped forward, took the reverend by his shirt collar, spun him about, then lifted him above his head. The fellow seemed no more substantial than a bundle of kindling as he screamed and began to kick wildly. With an easy heave, Hawk flung him into a snowbank. The reverend hit head and shoulders first, and broke through the snow. Only his backside and legs were visible as he struggled to extricate himself. Flopping about wildly, his mouth clogged with snow, he got to his feet and turned on Hawk, his face livid, his entire body quivering with rage and indignation.
Dick Wootton took a step toward Twitchell. “No more delay, Reverend,” he warned, “or we’ll have you chopping up those wagons with your pants off.”
The reverend stared at Wootton in dismay. “Why ... why, I do believe you mean that!”
“You bet your frozen ass I do.”
Twitchell looked helplessly about him. The women had been delighted a second before to see him pitched headlong into the snowbank. Now they were watching him coldly, offering him no encouragement in his attempt to defy Jim—and the men crouching outside their shelters seemed even less willing to go to the reverend’s aid.
One of them cleared his throat nervously. “Looks like we ain’t got no choice, Reverend.” That did it. The reverend saw the handwriting on the wall.
He turned and ducked back into his shelter, the rest of his male congregation disappearing just as hastily into their own shelters to get properly dressed for what lay ahead.
Seeing this and knowing they would soon be leaving this frigid pass, the women and children began talking excitedly among themselves. Not a single one of them seemed in the least unhappy at this change in their plans. Indeed, more than a few of the women gazed fondly at the three men, assuming they were responsible. One woman in particular—a tall, rawboned, auburn-haired beauty—seemed to have singled Hawk out from the other two men, and the instant her hazel eyes met Hawk’s, she smiled at him with a warmth so tangible that Hawk felt strangely moved.
Still talking together excitedly about this abrupt change in their plans, the women and children hurried off.
Jim Clyman turned and grinned widely at Hawk. “Damned if this ain’t the happiest day of my life!”
Hawk shrugged. “Chopping up these wagons for firewood is only half of it. Getting these pilgrims the hell out of here and back to Fort Hall is the other half. And that won’t be so easy.”
Wootton spoke up then. “It’ll be tough, sure enough. But we’ve brought them the provisions to make it. Besides, what choice do they have? There’s no way they can last through the winter up here. There’s the rest of January and all of February to go yet. This pass won’t be clear until May or June.”
Jim Clyman spoke up wearily. “That’s what I been tellin’ that crazy bible-thumper.”
“So we move out as soon as we can,” Hawk told him.
“Done.”
A sudden peal of thunder cracked over their heads. Hawk glanced up and saw a thunderbolt rip down from a swift-moving black cloud and bury itself in a huge drift high above the camp. A great spray of snow was flung up. Another lightning bolt followed the first, and then came a tremendous, continuous roll of thunder, like an infinite number of war drums pounding in unison.
Snow, sudden and stinging, swept down from the black cloud that now completely shut out the blue sky of a few moments before. A sharp, knifelike blast of cold air struck Hawk, and as the lightning and thunder continued to play about them, Hawk followed Jim Clyman and Dick Wootton into a shelter that had been shoveled out behind one of the wagons.
Hawk cursed. It was not going to be as easy as he had thought to get these pilgrims back down out of Grizzly Pass.
Chapter Four
THREE DAYS LATER the snow was still falling, a steady, blinding snowfall, whipped by fierce winds. With astonishing speed the snow built up, soon covering the wagons completely. The men had had no chance to chop them up as Hawk had ordered, and the wagons were rediscovered by the settlers, who found shelter in them once more, the snow drifting over their canvas-covered frames offering excellent protection against the wind.
On the fourth night it was still snowing, and that was when the wolves arrived.
Four-year-old Amy Smythe dropped down from her wagon, bundled so snugly she looked like a fur muff fitted with tiny arms and legs. The sound of a dog close by had caused her to leave her small cot. It was almost daylight. The snow had let up some and she could see the dog just ahead of her now on the well-packed snow trail, the same one who had only a moment before poked his muzzle through the canvas opening and then peered down at her, his sharp ears alert.
In Illinois she had had a big furry dog for a companion. It had yellow fur and used to follow her around, protecting her. Sometimes Amy would curl up against its side and fall asleep. Its name was Boy, and her mother and father had decided not to take it with them on the trip west. Too much trouble, her father had told her when she asked him.
Amy could see the dog waiting for her. She ran toward him.
“Here, Boy,” she piped eagerly.
The pack leader froze, its hackles lifted. The man smell was on this one and every instinct told him to flee. But another instinct, more basic—the same one that had brought him down into this curious settlement and caused him to peer in at the sleeping forms in the wagon—now caused the big male wolf to lower its head and peel its lips back off its fangs, uttering a deep, low, terrible growl.
Amy Smythe had never been growled at like this before. Boy never growled at her—only at those who came too close or seemed threatening. She pulled to a halt, less than a foot from the wolf, and cautiously extended her hand to pet him. She remembered how eagerly Boy would thrust his head closer and lift it under her hand so that she could pet it, his tail wagging happily all the while.
But this dog did not wag his tail and made no effort to place his head under her extended palm. Instead, it crouched lower, the growl deep in his throat becoming more frightening. A sharp note of alarm sounded deep within Amy and she pulled her hand back quickly, fear suddenly constricting her throat.
She would have turned and run if the wolf, unable to control his ravenous hunger any longer, had not sprung. His powerful jaws snapped down on Amy’s neck, crunching through the spine. Amy felt nothing. She was dead instantly. The huge gray wolf, holding the bloody bundle easily between his teeth, leapt up onto the snow embankment lining the passageway between the wagons, then dug up the steep slope toward a small patch of scrub pine still showing above the drifts.
Before he reached the pine, the rest of his pack bounded out of it to join him. Tongues lolling, they danced around the big wolf as he dropped his prey to the snow between his front paws and began to snap and gnaw at the tiny arms and legs. One small gray male wolf, barely three years old, ventured close, but a warning bark from the big wolf was enough to send the foolish youngster back on his heels. There was no doubt who would feast on this prize.
And there was no doubt, either, where other morsels such as this one could be found. In the gray light of morning, the snow still casting a dim pall over the pass, the rest of the wolf pack left its leader and swept down the slopes toward the cluster of snow-covered wagons below.
Not much later, fierce and brazen in their hunger, the wolves were discovered prowling among the wagons. An outcry was raised at once. Hawk, his rifle in hand, saw one of them leaping over a wagon. He took after him at once, his boots a little unsteady on the ice-encrusted paths that ran between the wagons. Wootton and Clyman were right on his heels.
Then Hawk saw another at the far end of the wagons, leaping after his companion. And then another. They were on the run now that the alarm had been sounded. These were huge gray fellows, the same wolves, Hawk surmised, that he and Wootton had heard prowling about on their way to Grizzly Pass. The wolves had sounded hungry then; they must be famished now. Nothing less than starvation could bring them this far into human habitation.
A scream—a woman’s high, terrified scream—cut through the interminable keening of the wind. Hawk stopped and spun in its direction.
“Now, what?” Wootton muttered. He was eager to get after the two wolves he had just seen.
“Trouble, sure enough,” said Jim Clyman.
Then came an angry, agonizing shout from one of the men. “Reverend,” he cried. “Reverend! My little girl! She’s gone!”
Cursing, Hawk clambered out of the narrow pathway up onto the snow banks and cut across the snow toward the sound of the woman’s screams. More than once his feet broke through the new snow and he was forced to fight his way on through the drifts. When at last he reached the wailing, grief-stricken woman, she was surrounded by most of the camp’s settlers. Beside her, down on one knee, was her husband, a pale, narrow-featured fellow, his eyes closed now in supplication as he clasped his hands and prayed to heaven that what appeared to have happened had not happened.
Hawk alighted beside the mother. The women pulled back to give him room. Gently, Hawk shook the woman until she stopped screaming and focused her eyes on him.
“When’s the last time you saw your girl?” Hawk asked.
“She was asleep beside me. But when I woke she was gone.”
