Wilderness Giant Edition 6

by David Robbins

  Evelyn was hunkered by the creek, playfully poking a stick in the sand. Rising, she stepped between her parents, neither of whom saw her, and clasped her father’s callused hand.

  Nate looked down, annoyed by the interruption. “What is it, little one?”

  “I’m not that little any more, Pa,” Evelyn said. “I can make up my own mind about things. And it’s best if we all stick together.”

  “Let your ma and me work this out,” Nate said, patting her on the head.

  But Evelyn had more to say. “We’re a family, aren’t we? And don’t you always say that nothing is more important than family?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “We should always pull together, you tell us. We should always be there for each other. Like the time that evil lady and her wicked brother from the big city tried to murder us. And when the Bloods tried to rub us out.” Evelyn squeezed her father’s fingers. “So long as we stand by one another, we’ll be all right. Isn’t that what you’ve told us over and over?”

  Nate’s words were coming back to haunt him. How could he make her see it his way without upsetting her? “There are times, Blue Flower, when we have to do things we don’t like, things we would never do normally. This is one of those times. If Varga agrees, I want you to take your ma and brother back to the cabin. I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

  Evelyn moved to her mother’s side. “No.”

  “See what you’ve done?” Nate said to Winona, and walked to a log. Slumping onto it, he morosely chewed his pemmican. They would never leave, not of their own free will. And since he was not one of those men who beat their wives or took a switch to their children when they bucked, he could not force them. It had always been his belief that differences could be talked out. When he put his foot down, he did so without being brutal.

  Winona motioned for the children to stay put. Her husband did not sense her until her hand fell on his shoulder. “Do not tear yourself apart over this,” she said softly.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Nate said.

  “Perhaps. I have made them before. I will make them again.” Winona sat. “But how can I do otherwise, when I know in my heart what is right?”

  “And what of the kids? How right will it feel if you have to bury one or both of them? What will your heart be telling you when you’re standing over their freshly dug graves?”

  Winona did not answer immediately. The issue was too important to be treated lightly. “No one wants to die,” she began slowly. “Just as no one wants someone they care for to die. But dying is as much a part of life as living. Always being afraid of death makes us enjoy life that much less.”

  Nate did not butt in. She was entitled to her say, and he would hear her out.

  “You fear for our safety. So you ask us to do that which we would never do on our own. You ask us to go against everything we believe, and everything you believe.”

  “Sometimes we have to. It’s called compromise.”

  “Should anyone ever let their fears destroy their convictions?” Winona countered. “Is it not the mark of cowards to run away from hardship?” She paused. “Would you have us behave as cowards do? You should be proud that we are willing to stand by your side.” She paused again. “How can we compromise that which makes us who we are?”

  “I’ve always been proud of all of you,” Nate said to defend himself.

  “Prove it, husband. Being proud is easy when life is easy. Be proud of us now, when life is hardest, when we must rise up against those who would destroy us. Make us as proud of you as you are of us.”

  Nate stared into her eyes and felt his insides melt. “I’m sorry,” he said, draping an arm over her shoulders. “Through thick and thin it will be.”

  Winona glanced at the nearest vaqueros, none of whom was watching. Impulsively, she kissed her man full on the lips, a display of affection she rarely indulged in when there were strangers around.

  A shout at the head of the column was the signal for the expedition to resume its tired march. Nate pecked Evelyn on the cheek, advised Zach to always stay close to them, and trotted to the front where Don Varga waited. The Spaniard was consulting his map.

  “How soon until we reach the big lake, Señor King?”

  “By tonight.”

  Varga gazed at the lower slopes of Long’s Peak. “Then, if all goes well, by tomorrow night we will be at the mine.”

  Finally. Nate was relieved. But they had to be realistic. “Let’s just hope it’s there.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “The map could still turn out to be wrong about the exact location. And what if the Utes sealed the tunnel after they drove off the soldiers?”

  “Sealed the tunnel?” Don Varga said, shocked. “Mother of God! No! Surely simple savages would not be clever enough to do such a thing?”

  “Those savages, as you keep calling them, are as smart as the two of us.”

  The Spaniard chewed on his lower lip. “It would add weeks, perhaps months, to our effort. Why, if we are not finished by the change of weather in the fall, we might have to stay the winter.”

  “Don’t even think it,” Nate said. “You have no idea of how bad the winters are. Snow piles up higher than my cabin. And the temperature drops to thirty or forty below zero. You’d lose half your people to cold and hunger.”

  “How many winters have you survived?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  Don Varga, in the act of folding his map, jabbed it at Nate as if it were a knife. “It is precisely the point, señor. I should have thought I had made my intentions clear by now, but apparently I have not.” His voice lowered to a throaty growl. “I will not let anything stand in my way. Not these mountains, not the Utes, not all the wild animals alive, and certainly not a single winter.”

  Nate was saved from having to comment by the arrival of the Maricopas. Chivari gestured to the northwest. “Big water not far,” he reported in his heavily accented English. “Many ducks, many geese.”

  Varga frowned. “You came all the way back to tell me you saw the lake and some birds?”

  “Saw heap plenty warriors.”

  Nate’s heart seemed to skip a beat. The moment he had dreaded most of all had come. Somehow, to avert mass bloodshed, he had to influence the outcome. “They must be Utes,” he remarked.

  “How many?” Don Varga asked.

  “We count,” Chivari said, and held up all his fingers and thumbs two times, then another three fingers.

  “Twenty-three,” Varga said pensively. “That’s more than I would like, but we still outnumber them two to one. The odds are with us if we can take them by surprise.”

  Nate swore that he could feel the blood drain from his face. “You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking!”

  Turning his handsome Arabian to face the column, Don Varga sniffed in contempt. “Why not, señor? Have you not warned me again and again that the Utes will rise against us once they learn we are here? Out of your mouth has come their judgment.”

  “Don’t do this,” Nate pleaded.

  Varga acted as if he had not heard. “As I see it, our main objective is to prevent them from alerting the Ute villages. So, it is simple! We must not let a single heathen escape alive.”

  “Please, no.”

  Ignacio, Martin, and Diego converged at a gesture from their father. So did two of Varga’s most trusted vaqueros. A hasty conference in Spanish resulted in the vaqueros moving back down the line, relaying instructions. Rifles were checked, pistols loosened, swords and knives flourished in preparation for the attack.

  Nate could not help himself. He grasped the Spaniard by the wrist. “In heaven’s name, think of what you’re about to do! So long as you don’t kill any Utes there’s a chance—a slim one, I’ll admit—but a chance that they’ll let you go on about your business unmolested. But kill just one of them and there will be no holding them back. They’ll rally from every village. Hundreds and hundreds of warriors will ma
ss against you. They’ll sit in council, pass around the pipe of war, then tear into you like a hailstorm. There will be no stopping them.”

  “You exaggerate, I am sure,” Don Varga said. “I have enough men and guns to hold off an army. We will mow them down like wheat under a scythe. In the end, they will regret their folly and let us get on with the mining without being hindered.”

  How do you convince someone who has closed his mind? How can you persuade a man who thinks he has all the answers that he is on the road to perdition? Nate tightened his grip. “I won’t let you get away with this,” he said grimly.

  “You can’t stop me” was the Spaniard’s rejoinder. At an imperious nod, three vaqueros closed in, unlimbering pistols. Varga issued directions in Spanish, then said in English for Nate’s benefit, “I have ordered them to shoot you if you do not release me by the time I count to four.”

  “Is there no making you understand?” Nate said earnestly.

  “Uno.”

  “You’re dooming everyone in your party.”

  “Dos.”

  “Damn it, Varga! Is the gold worth your lives?”

  “Tres.”

  So mad that he burned with a desire to pound the Spaniard’s face to a pulp, Nate jerked his hand off. “There? Happy? Because you won’t be once this is over.”

  In rapid order, thirty of the vaqueros were selected to accompany the patron and his sons. The rest were to stay behind and safeguard the servants and captives. Nate took it for granted that he would stay also, and turned his horse to go be with his family.

  “Where do you think you are going, señor?’ Manuel Varga was quick to ask. “I insist on the pleasure of your company.”

  “You’re taking me along? Why? I won’t lift a finger against the Utes,” Nate stressed.

  “How noble,” Ignacio said scornfully. “We should leave him here, padre. The gringo will be of no use to us.”

  Don Varga was forming the vaqueros into a column of twos. “That is where you are wrong, my son. A true leader learns to make use of all his resources. The mountain man will not attack the Utes, but I warrant he will not sit still for being attacked. If they catch wind of us and stalk us, he will spot them first.”

  “That is what we have the Maricopas for,” Diego reminded him.

  “Indians cannot always be trusted to turn against other Indians,” Don Varga said. “Always have a plan you can fall back on in case your first one fails through no fault of your own.”

  “Si, mi padre.”

  While all this transpired, Winona, Zach, and Evelyn were herded toward a clearing, along with the servants. Maria, Francisca, and Luisa were shunted to a sunny spot close to them.

  Evelyn was disturbed by the burst of activity. “What’s going on, Ma?” she asked, fingers entwined in her mother’s buckskin dress.

  “I do not know, daughter,” Winona answered. She did not speak Spanish, but the flurry of commands and commotion signaled something important was about to happen. Were they near the mine?

  Maria Varga happened to hear Evelyn’s question. “Our men go to attack the Utes,” she divulged. “Do not worry, though. We will be well guarded while they are gone. You are welcome to join my sisters and me if you would like.”

  Attacking the Utes! Winona rose onto the tips of her toes to see the front of the line. Nate was hemmed in by a trio of vaqueros. The set of his features testified to his feelings. Before she could catch his attention, he was ushered off into the woods. “Do they know what they do?” she said in her own tongue.

  “Why are they bothering the Utes, Mother?” Evelyn asked in the Shoshone language. “The Utes have left us alone for a long time. This will stir up trouble.”

  Winona nodded absently. “Trouble” was an understatement. The Utes would go on the warpath, wiping out every Spaniard, Mexican, and white they could find. That might include her family, for while the Utes were grateful for the truce they had negotiated with her people, the Utes would not forgive their having an indirect part in the slaughter of Ute men.

  “Won’t you join us, Señora King?” Francisca coaxed.

  Taking Evelyn’s hand, Winona ventured to their blanket. She beckoned Zach, but he shook his head. Sitting so she could see the column leave, she said boldly, “Your father makes a grave mistake, señorita. Many will suffer.”

  Francisca scoffed. “My padre is very clever, señora. He is always two steps ahead of everyone else. Trust him. He will show the savages that we are a force to be reckoned with.”

  The other sisters nodded agreement. Winona just stared at them, overcome by sorrow. They were so sure of themselves, and so terribly, utterly wrong. They were innocents about to stick their heads in the gaping maw of a ravenous bear. They were fools.

  “If you truly love your father and brothers,” Winona said, “you will jump on a horse and fly after them. Convince your father to change his mind before it is too late.”

  Maria laughed. “Are you seriously suggesting we tell our father that we believe he is wrong?” She laughed louder. “Señora, we are women, remember? And his daughters. It is not our proper place to question his authority.”

  A sharp reply was on the tip of Winona’s tongue, but she held it in. Who was she to criticize, when among her own people the women had little say in important affairs. It was the warriors who sat in council, the warriors who decided when to go to war, the warriors who policed the villages, and always it was a warrior who led the tribe.

  Shoshone women tended their tepees, cooked and sewed and foraged for berries, and the like. They did not sit in council. Rarely did they go to war. Whatever influence they had was exerted in the privacy of their lodges.

  Once, she had thought that was as it should be. But living with Nate had changed her outlook. He insisted that she have her say in every decision. He treated her more as an equal than any man ever had. Even among whites, that was unusual. Most browbeat their women, never letting them make a decision.

  It had taken time for her to change. At first, when Nate had asked her opinion, she had always said, “I don’t care. Whatever you want is fine.” Later, it had dawned on her that he really did want to know how she felt, and that she put an extra burden on him when she put it all on his shoulders.

  “Isn’t this marvelous!” Luisa said. “What a grand adventure! We will have much to tell our friends and relatives after we return to Spain.”

  You should live that long, child, Winona thought. We all should!

  Sixteen

  Sandy Lake, as some of the trappers had taken to calling it, was two miles above sea level. Its rich blue water was sterling pure and crystal clear. A haven for wildfowl of all kind, it was ringed by thick forest that gave the Spaniard and his vaqueros ample cover as they advanced stealthily on the unsuspecting Utes.

  Nate King’s wrists were bound again, and a vaquero was assigned to ride directly behind him and shoot him dead if he tried to get away.

  The Ute camp was on the northeast shore. On a broad sandy strip were scattered more than a dozen temporary conical lodges constructed of long trimmed limbs and brush.

  It was a large hunting party, out after elk. They had already brought down quite a few. Hundreds of pounds of meat, cut into thin strips, hung drying in the sun on crude racks. Hides were being scraped with fleshing tools, and cured. Many had been stretched taut and tied to big frames.

  Don Varga halted his party several hundred yards from the shore. Accompanied by his sons, the Maricopas, and Nate, he crept closer for a better look.

  Nate wished there were some way he could warn the Utes. But what could he do, with a pistol muzzle jammed against his spine? Any outcry, and the vaquero would blow a hole in his back as wide around as a walnut.

  He did not see any warriors he knew among those engaged in various jobs, but he was horrified to find that four women were present.

  The Utes were joking and laughing, totally at ease. They had no reason to fear enemies this far into their territory. No doubt, no one had eve
r attacked them here. They felt safe, secure. So secure that they had not bothered to post sentries. Bows and quivers had been left in the lodges, for the most part. Not a single warrior was armed with a rifle or pistol. They were easy pickings, and Varga knew it.

  The Spaniard’s brow glistened with sweat. His eyes held a peculiar gleam as he bobbed a finger, counting them. “Twenty-three warriors,” he said with satisfaction. “Just as Chivari told us.”

  Nate noticed that the women did not rate a mention. He saw that the mounts and pack animals were tied near the lodges. The Utes did not mix their horses; each warrior kept his close to his lodge. There had to be more than fifty animals, and that was disturbing. “What if there are more?” he whispered.

  Don Varga turned. “How is that again?”

  “Maybe some of the warriors are off hunting. They’ll hear the shots, and never show themselves.” Ignacio scowled. “They are all there, Father. He tries to scare us off, to make us change our minds.”

  “Perhaps,” Don Varga whispered, “but it is not a chance we can afford to take, my son. We will wait and see if other savages show up.”

  Nate had bought the unsuspecting Utes a little time, at least. He was ordered to sit. The Vargas made themselves comfortable. Martin and Azul were sent back to tell the vaqueros to lie low and keep absolutely quiet.

  Nate was tense with foreboding. It was his fervent prayer that a roving hunter would stumble on them and sound an alarm. The Utes could reach the trees before the vaqueros reached the shore, and most would escape.

  Knowing Manuel de Varga, though, the setback would not stop him. The expedition would forge on to the mine, with appalling consequences for all involved.

  Time dragged. Nate anxiously scanned the lake and the woods, longing to see Utes approach. None did. None of the warriors even left camp.

  Then, about an hour later, three more strode out of the undergrowth to the north, two of them carrying a black-tailed buck on a long pole between them. On their arrival at camp, the women took charge of the deer, setting to work butchering it for the evening meal.