What was he doing? Zach straightened. The stripling had left the butcher knife on a rock by the fire. His Hawken and his flintlocks were on a blanket nearby. How peculiar that he should feel guilty about doing what he did next! Which was to slice his bounds, arm himself, and sit by the end of the log. He laid the rifle, knife, and rope on the ground.
The sobbing went on forever. Zach could have taken his horses and ridden out, and Lou Clark would have been none the wiser. But it was as plain as the nose on his face that the white youth was not in any shape to be traipsing through the wilderness alone. The boy would get himself killed, for sure. So Zach planned on taking Clark with him. His father would see to it the boy reached St. Louis in one piece.
Zach surprised himself. He thought poorly of whites, yet here he was, going out of his way to help one. Wasn’t that what folks called being a hypocrite? Maybe not. His mother and father, both, had long taught that a person should always help others in need.
His attention perked. The sobbing had dwindled to random groans. Soon the boy would reappear. Clasping his hands as if they were still bound, he raised his knees so Clark would not spot the pistols. Footsteps crunched on dry leaves. Soon Clark emerged, a study in human misery.
Louisa hung her head, too sad to care what the Shoshone might think. She had needed a good cry. It was just more cruel injustice that she’d broken down in the presence of a heathen. Suddenly, she did not want him around any longer. He was a constant reminder of her father’s fate – and of those who were to blame for that fate. She was of a mind to cut Stalking Coyote loose and set him on about his own business.
She would rather be alone anyway.
Lou went to the fire. She did not look at the Indian because she did not want him privy to the depths of her sorrow. “Glad I got that out of my system,” she announced harshly. “Now where were we?”
“You were just about to put down your guns and raise your hands.”
Whirling, Lou found herself staring into the muzzle of the Shoshone’s rifle. She glanced at the blanket and did something ladies rarely did. She swore. “Damn!”
Zach reasoned it was smarter to disarm the youth. It would lessen problems later on, and he would not have to worry about a slug in the back on the long ride home. “Set them down, real easy-like. And don’t do anything rambunctious. For your own sake.”
Lou would do no such thing. Once unarmed, she would be completely at his mercy. And how did she know he truly was a Shoshone? Maybe he was lying. Maybe he was a canny hostile who would do all those wicked things Indians were rumored to do to female captives. “I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Zach was in no mood to be bucked. “I give you my promise that you’ll come to no harm.”
“And you expect me to believe you?” Lou laughed icily. “When cows sprout wings and fly.” Her hands inched toward her flintlocks.
Zach leaped erect. “Don’t do anything rash.” He had not anticipated this. But he should have. How often had Shakespeare McNair mentioned that “desperate people are always the most dangerous. When a coon has nothing to lose, son, that’s when he’ll risk it all.”
“I’m tired,” Lou said, continuing to creep her fingers higher.
“So am I. We each need a good night’s sleep.” Zach moved forward slowly so as not to scare the boy into doing something they would both regret.
Lou’s lips curled in a lopsided sneer. The Shoshone didn’t understand. She was tired, all right, but tired of living. With her father and mother gone, life had lost its value. It was too ridiculous for words. Too barbarous. She wanted no part of it. No part of a ruthless world ruled by a stonehearted God who was deaf to the appeals of his own creatures. She would rather join her mother and father in the next life, if there even was a 4 4next life.” Zach was eight feet away. He did not want to shoot, but he might have to. Clark’s expression was ample proof. Wild, wide-eyed, like the fierce visage of a cornered beast. But another emotion was at work, an emotion Zach could not quite identify. “I’ve no hankering to harm you,” he reiterated.
The statement tickled Lou’s funny bone. In a world of madmen, she would qualify as one of the maddest if she accepted him at his word. Indian warriors lived for one thing, and one thing alone. Counting coup. To earn glory in war, to slay many enemies, to steal many horses, these were the standards by which Indian youths like Stalking Coyote were measured. She tensed, and grinned.
Zach was not close enough to stop Clark from drawing. No one would blame him if he fired. It was his life or the white youth’s, and he was not partial to dying so young. Clark’s tear-streaked cheeks induced him to make a final appeal. “Please, Lou. For both our sakes.”
“I’m sorry, Stalking Coyote. I’m so tired.” Louisa had to blink to clear her vision. “I’m at the end of my rope. I’d rather end it.” Her hands stabbed for the flintlocks. Zachary could never say what made him do what he did next. A tap on the trigger would have sufficed. But he leaped to one side even as he reversed his grip on the Hawken and swung it like a club. A pistol boomed, spewing lead and smoke. He felt a tug on his shirt. Then the Hawken’s stock caught Clark on the chin as the white youth raised the other flintlock, and Lou Clark folded like a crumpled piece of paper, to lie in a heap.
“Danged jackass!” Zach said, and swiftly bent to claim the pistols. He need not have worried. The white boy was unconscious. Zach let the guns be and slipped his arm under Clark to carry him to the log. It was like lifting a feather. The buckskins sagged like so much extra skin.
“No wonder you wanted elk meat,” Zach said to himself. The boy needed fattening up. Zach placed Clark next to the pile of rope. By tying the short pieces into one long one, he had enough to bind the white’s wrists. He had to roll Clark onto a hip to grab Clark’s left arm. As he did, Clark’s body rolled against his. Against his right hand.
Zach bounded backward as if he had brushed against a scorpion. Astounded, he gingerly reached out and lowered his palm to a specific spot high on Clark’s chest. “My God!” he breathed. His palm traveled to a corresponding spot on the other side. “It can’t be!” Squatting, he examined the white nose to nose.
Little details he had missed now leaped out at him. The shape of the lips. The dainty ears. In a swirl of confusion, Zach sat back on his haunches to ponder, blurting out, “It’s a girl!” How could he have been so blind? So stupid?
She moaned, and Zach cast the rope from him as if it were a sidewinder. Scooting to the fire, he sat cross-legged. He had no water to dash on her face. And the stream was too far off to leave her unguarded. He would wait for Clark to revive. She should be all right; he hadn’t hit her hard enough to gravely hurt her. He hoped.
Zach stared at the limp figure. She was unlike most white girls he’d met. By and large, they were dainty wisps in frilled clothes who would as soon gargle with broken glass as live in the wilds. Clark was different. She could live off the land. She dressed like a boy, she fought like a boy. Qualities no other girl he’d ever met possessed. Even Shoshone girls liked their frills, their beads and decorated buckskin dresses and whatnot.
Zach had never thought he would see the day when a girl could sneak up on him, could take him prisoner and bind him. She was brave, as well as clever. The traits of a warrior. He liked that.
Clark stirred, but did not yet awaken. Zach had a silly impulse to go over and rest her head in his lap. Instead, he checked his guns. Every few seconds he would glance at her. She was rather ordinary. But he liked the way her upper lip puckered outward, and the way her eyebrows were arched in the center. Her throat bobbed, and so did his.
“Ohhhhh.” Louisa sat bolt upright, befuddled but remembering she had been in a clash with – who? She spotted the Shoshone by the fire. “You!” she exclaimed, and clawed for flintlocks that were not there.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Lou spied her weapons and began to rise, but the Shoshone youth’s reply seared her motionless.
“Why d
idn’t you tell me you were female?”
Louisa scrambled back against the log, then up into a crouch. She was prepared for the worst. “You know? How?”
Zach did not have to see his own face to know he blushed. Averting his gaze, he said, “It’s enough that I do. I wish you had told me from the start. I would not have raised the fuss I did.”
“What will you do with me now?”
Her anxiety aroused Zach’s pity. To soothe her, he attempted to make her laugh. “What else?” he said, light-heartedly. “I’ll truss you up and drag you off to my village.”
Louisa had feared as much. She would not end her days, as the unwilling mate of any man. Her fingers wrapped around the butcher knife that had been carelessly left lying next to the log, and she placed all her weight on her hind leg. “Like hell you will!” Surging upright, she arced her arm around, throwing the weapon as her father had taught her, as she had practiced daily for the past year. It flew true – straight at the chest of Stalking Coyote.
Six
I won’t panic! I won’t panic! I won’t panic! Little Evelyn King mentally yelled at herself as she moved briskly toward the trail to the cabin. Briskly, but she did not run. Her father had told her she must never flee from a nasty old predator. The big cats and wolves and such were used to chasing prey down. When something ran from them, they automatically ran after it.
If a meat-eater was already charging her, that was different. Then, fleeing might be the only way to save her life.
“This doesn’t count for grizzlies,” her pa had explained. “They’re just too unpredictable. Whether you stand still or run won’t matter to them. It all depends on what kind of mood they’re in.”
“Why are they so different from the rest?” she had asked.
“Because they’re not afraid of anything. Silvertips are the only animals in all creation which don’t know the meaning of fear.”
“How can that be, Pa?”
“They’re so big and strong, they can kill any creature that lives. Even buffalo. So they see themselves as the lords of their domain.”
“They’re just plain mean,” Evelyn had said.
Her father had smiled and rested a brawny hand on her shoulder. “Never blame an animal for being true to its nature. Predators survive by killing. That’s what they’re good at. And grizzlies are best of all at what they do.”
“They kill people, too. If that’s not mean, what is?”
“To them we’re just another kind of food. And once they find out how easy we are to kill, they make it a point to hunt us down.”
It had been her turn to laugh. “Easy to kill? You? Pa, you’re the toughest man alive. Even Uncle Shakespeare says so.”
“We might like to think we are. But compared to a grizzly, people are downright puny. Without a rifle and two pistols and a butcher knife, we’re as easy to kill as helpless baby birds. And predators would rather kill prey that can’t hurt them than prey that can.”
“Why did God do that, you reckon?”
“Do what?”
“Make us so puny? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“Maybe it’s God’s way of keeping us humble. Trust me. Have a bear try to eat you just once, and you’ll never be too big for your britches ever again.”
She had giggled. “You’ve tangled with silvertips whole bunches of times. That must make you the humblest man alive, Pa.”
“Just remember my advice, little one. Never run, unless you can’t help it. And then run like hell.”
“Pa! You used a naughty word! I’m going to tell Ma.”
A low sound from the brush ended Evelyn’s recollection. It was not a growl, exactly. Or a snarl. More like a rumbling grunt, if that were possible. She could see the dark shape keeping pace with her. It wound through the undergrowth with an ease born of long experience.
Her only hope lay in reaching the cabin. Or in getting close enough to holler for her mother.
Evelyn clutched her pistol to her chest. She tried to recall the last time she had checked to verify it was loaded, and couldn’t. A misfire would spell her doom. If people were puny, she was one of the puniest, being so young and so small and all. Whatever was stalking her would gobble her down in a few big bites.
Evelyn could not wait to grow up. To be an adult. She would always wear two pistols, like her pa, and carry a rifle wherever she went, like both her parents did. Some of the trappers had poked fun at her father when he’d taught her mother how to shoot and bought her ma some guns. But her pa had been right to do so. Several times now her mother had saved their lives because of it.
Another rumbling sound drew Evelyn’s gaze to the beast. She had been trying not to think about it, hoping it would simply go away. Instead, it was closer now, angling slowly toward her.
She remembered her pa’s other advice. “Never turn your back on a meat-eater. If all else fails, try to stare them down. Sometimes that will make them back off.”
“Why?”
“I don’t rightly know. Some of the mountaineers believe that the Good Lord made us masters of all the creatures on Earth, so all we have to do is look at them and they will bend to our will.”
“That’s silly. Whoever said that never owned a kitten.”
The thing in the bushes was now within springing range. It was just on the other side of some high weeds. Evelyn extended her small pistol and thumbed the hammer back as she had been instructed. Her legs were quaking. Her teeth started to chatter so she grit them tight.
I will not panic! I will not panic!
The weeds rustled. Through them poked a dark snout. Black nostrils flared, sniffing loudly. Part of a large head appeared. Hairy, with pointed ears. Thin lips curled up over tapered teeth, teeth as long as Evelyn’s fingers. The tip of a tongue jutted out.
It was a wolf. One of the biggest she had ever seen. She aimed the flintlock at its head, then recalled her father saying that an animal’s skull was the thickest bone in its body. Head shots were seldom deadly unless a large caliber gun was used. Hers was only a .32.
“Go for the heart or the lungs,” her pa had advised. Which was all well and good if the animal was standing sideways. But what was she to do when it was facing her head-on, like this wolf?
Licking her dry lips, Evelyn said, “Why don’t you step on out here, you varmint. Try to take a bite out of me and see what happens.”
The meat-eater tilted its head and sniffed even louder. Piercing eyes fixed on her as if to devour her alive.
I will not panic! I will not panic! Evelyn thought it over and over, but her legs were quaking worse than ever, and it felt as if a swarm of butterflies were loose in her stomach. It was like the time the mountain lion had attacked. Only worse. Because then she had been so worried about her mother, she had given little thought to her own safety. So she had not been quite as scared.
The wolf slid on into the open, long body slung low to the ground, knobby paws splayed. Evelyn still could not get a good shot at its chest. She sidestepped, placing each foot down carefully for fear of her legs giving out. The pistol commenced to shake. No! No! No! she railed at herself. She must stay calm!
The wolf’s sleek form rippled with corded muscle. Its tail was held straight out, just as her pa said wolves did when they were about to charge. Claws that could rip her wide open now dug into the earth for purchase.
Evelyn could not help herself. She tried to be brave. She tried to do as her ma and pa would do. But ravaging terror seized her. And before she could stop herself, she had done the one thing she had promised herself she would never do in times of danger. She screamed.
As if on signal, the wolf sprang. Evelyn banged off a shot, but her hands were trembling so badly that the lead ball intended for the predator’s chest plowed instead into the soil. The wolf loomed above her. She flung her arms up to ward it off, stumbling backward as she did. A rock snagged her heel, and flung off balance, she fell. Flailing her arms to regain her balance did no good.
&nbs
p; Evelyn landed on her back. She tried to jump up, but the wolf was on her in a flash, straddling her, its great head poised above hers. She saw its teeth, saw the maw part to bite, saw its tongue extend further.
The wolf licked her.
About to scream again, Evelyn froze. It had licked her? The beast did so again, its slick tongue sliding over her cheeks, her chin, her neck. It whined deep in its throat the whole while. Evelyn blinked, looked deep into its eyes, and suddenly knew the truth. She went to fling her arms around its neck.
Abruptly, above them both, towered a living mountain of righteous wrath, a butcher knife aloft for a fatal thrust.
“No, Pa!” Evelyn screeched. “It’s Blaze!”
Nate King had burst from the woods to see a huge wolf on top of his beloved daughter. Since a bullet might go completely through the animal and strike her, he had resorted to his knife. Now, his every sinew vibrating with the urgent need to kill, he saw a wide white blaze on top of the wolf’s head, and heard his daughter yell.
The keen blade did not descend. “Blaze?” Nate said in astonishment, and slowly lowered his arm. The wolf turned, rising on its rear legs so it could lick at his face.
Evelyn stood, laughing in relief and joy. “Zach’s old friend has come back to pay us a visit!”
Nate had almost forgotten about the cub his son had rescued and kept as a pet. It had left years ago to be with its own kind, and the boy had cried and cried. To Nate’s surprise, the wolf did come back from time to time, always for shorter and shorter periods. The last visit had been ages ago. Nate had assumed it was long since worm food. Yet here it was, healthy and obviously happy to see them.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” Evelyn cooed, giving Blaze a warm hug. Some of her fondest memories were of snuggling with him in front of the fireplace on many a cold winter’s night when he was a cub.
“Too bad Zach isn’t here,” Nate said, sliding the knife into its sheath.
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