Bo nodded while adding dry branches to their small fire, built well back from the edge so it couldn’t be seen by hostiles. “When those rocks went rattlin’ out from under my mule, I thought I was a goner.”
A gust of chill wind blew dust down on them from above. “I’ll be glad to reach the next valley,” Jess said. “Cold never did sit well with me.”
“Better get used to it,” Bo replied. “My pa says winters here are fierce. Your breath freezes right in front of your face.”
Jess couldn’t conceive of such a thing. “Shucks, he was probably pullin’ your leg. It never gets that cold.”
“I don’t know. Your ma was in New York once in the winter, remember? She said her snot froze in her nose. Folks there had to go around with their faces wrapped in scarves and such. Here it’s likely worse.”
“Do you think we did the right thing leavin’ the States? Comin’ so far?”
“Where else would we settle? The kin of those people we kilt in Arkansas were huntin’ for us. Sooner or later they would’ve tracked us down and there would’ve been hell to pay.” Bo held his hands close to the flames to warm them. “We had to go somewhere they’d never think to look. Somewhere we could start over.”
“I just wish there were more womenfolk hereabouts.”
“Pickin’s are slim,” Bo agreed. “Cole is takin’ that Yankee, and Vin’s already staked a claim to Cindy Lou.”
“What’s that leave the rest of us? Mary Beth? Unless we start wearin’ dresses and grow some new body parts, she wouldn’t show any interest.” Jess sighed. “I guess we’ll have to settle for the girls at the King place. Hap will likely want the white one. So one of us will get stuck with the little breed.”
“Don’t forget King’s squaw. Maybe Hap will take her instead. He likes his women older.”
Jess brightened. “It would be great if he did. Then you and me can flip a coin to see which one of us gets the white girl and which one gets the mixed-blood brat.”
“You can have the white one.”
“Really? How come you’re being so generous all of a sudden?”
Bo sank onto his haunches. “I ain’t turned Injun lover, if that’s what you’re thinkin’.”
“Then why?”
“A while back Pa told me Injun gals can please a man in ways a white woman usually won’t. Injuns ain’t so fussy about their lovemakin’.” Bo shrugged. “I’d like to try one, is all. See for myself.”
“You’ll have to wait a spell. Ma says she’s too young yet. What’ll you do in the meantime?”
“Promise you won’t tell?”
“Tell what?”
“Swear to me, Jess, by all that’s holy.”
“All right. I swear.”
“That’s not enough. Swear by the ghosts of our grandparents. And vow to burn in hellfire until kingdom come if you ever breathe so much as one word.”
Not another living soul was anywhere within earshot, but Jess moved closer and lowered his voice to vow as his cousin demanded, adding when he was done, “This must be some powerful secret. What, have you been triflin’ with one of the mules?’ ‘
“No.” Bo folded his arms on his knees. “I’ve been pokin’ Mary Beth.”
“You’re joshin’. She doesn’t even like menfolk.”
“That she don’t. But she lets me take a poke now and again in return for me doing her chores. So I reckon I can hold out until the ‘breed is old enough.”
“Mary Beth!” Jess said in amazement. “Who would have thought it? I’d of been afraid to even bring it up for fear she’d scratch my eyes out.”
“She talks tough. But once you get to know her, she’s as harmless as a little kitten.”
Simon Ward didn’t recognize his attacker until she was almost on top of him. The glint of streaking steel gave him an instant’s forewarning as a knife sheared at his throat, and he brought up the Kentucky to parry it. The blade was deflected by the barrel. For a moment they were face-to-face, and Simon saw who it was. “Mary Beth!”
Samuel’s daughter snarled and came at him again. Her features were contorted in a feral mask. All semblance of humanity had drained away. She was more beast than woman, a ghoul draped in flesh and blood. Maniacally, she slashed at his arms, at his chest.
Simon rapidly backpedaled, countering her every move. His natural impulse was to shoot or club her. But she was a woman, and never once in Simon’s whole life had he ever harmed a female. It went against everything his mother and father ever taught him, against all the principles ingrained in him while growing up.
As he retreated before Mary Beth’s berserk fury, it occurred to Simon that this was a special case. She was trying to kill him. Surely, given the circumstances, an exception could be made. She even obliged by halting and lowering the knife. He bunched his shoulders to swing, then hesitated, thinking that if he hit her too hard he might kill her.
His hesitation was costly. For in that instant Mary Beth tore into him anew, the knife flashing down low, at his groin. Caught unprepared, Simon nearly lost his manhood. As it was, he skipped backward, barely evading the knife’s edge, and then stumbled as his right foot came down on an incline instead of flat ground. Too late, he realized he had blundered. He had stepped off the ridge, over the edge. He attempted to dig in his heels to stay upright. Then Mary Beth sprang, slashing as she leaped. The Kentucky warded off her knife but couldn’t deflect her. She slammed into him.
Simon lost his footing. In a jumbled whirl of limbs they tumbled down together. The earth and stars changed places repeatedly. A hard object gouged Simon in the ribs, and he briefly feared it had been her knife. But whatever it was had been blunt and did not dig deep. A lurching impact separated them. Mary Beth went one way, Simon went another. Desperately, he clawed at the ground with his free hand for support that wasn’t there.
Simon had no idea how far the slope went, or how steep it was. He threw his arms to both sides, clutching at thin air. Another jolt sent the Kentucky flying. To safeguard the pistols he placed his hands over them. Seconds later he felt himself bounce, twice, and was pitched into a stand of vegetation. Branches tore at him like daggers as he crashed through thick brush.
Simon began to slow down, which he took as a good sign. He raised his head to see what lay ahead and in so doing exposed it to a large bulky shape in his path. A boulder, judging by the waves of pain that washed over him when he smashed into it. He slid another ten feet, then stopped.
The stars were overhead as they were supposed to be. But they were spinning around and around. And when Simon put his arms at his sides and pushed upward to rise, all of them suddenly blinked out.
Simon Ward dreamed. He was strolling along Third Street in Boston when he felt something poke him in the ribs. Looking down, he discovered that a rock had struck him. Another hit him, and another. Mocking laughter gave the culprits away, a pack of rowdy boys no older than ten or twelve. “Take that!” one of them yelled as they gleefully pelted him. Simon shook a fist. “Savages!” he railed. “Miscreants!” He charged them, only to be hit above the right eye. Blood flowed, and as it seeped over his eyelid, he blinked.
Suddenly Simon was back in the world of the living. Few stars sprinkled the sky. A golden halo to the east explained why. He tried to rise, grimacing when what felt like another rock struck his rib cage. Only, it wasn’t a rock. It was the muzzle of the Kentucky.
“About time you came around. I’ve been jabbin’ you for half an hour. On your feet, polecat.”
Simon stabbed a hand for a pistol, but both were gone. He slowly sat up, his body so bruised and sore, he felt as if he had been the victim of a buffalo stampede. Mary Beth wasn’t much better off. Her right cheek was split, dry blood caked her chin, and her left shin was scraped raw. “What did I ever do to you to deserve this?” Simon asked. “To any of your family?”
“Not another peep. Just stand up and get to walkin’. It’s a long ways back.”
Arguing with a cocked gun was pointless. Simo
n rose, his legs protesting. When he applied his whole weight, his right ankle flared with anguish and almost gave way. Carefully, he tested it.
“What’s wrong?” Mary Beth demanded. In addition to the rifle, she had both pistols tucked under an arm.
“I think I sprained my ankle when I fell.”
“Ain’t that a shame.” She motioned. “So you’ll limp the whole way. It’ll slow us down some, but you shouldn’t complain. The longer we take, the longer you live.”
Simon noticed that the ammo pouch had ripped open and all the ammo spilled out. She had only one shot apiece in each of the guns. Maybe he could use that to his advantage, although exactly how remained to be seen.
“I’m not waitin’ forever,” Mary Beth said. “You’ll limp even worse if I shoot you in the ankle.”
Turning, Simon headed for the distant stream. It turned out he had tumbled into a stand of aspens a good sixty yards below the rim. The slope was dotted with large boulders, any one of which could have crushed his skull like an eggshell.
Mary Beth was limping, too, favoring her left leg. “You’re the luckiest cuss this side of creation, mister. I wanted to kill you real bad last night for what you did to Tinder. He ain’t much as brothers go, but he’s always treated me decent.” She winced. “I couldn’t find you, though, until the sun came up.”
“Why do you hate me so much? Just because I’m a Yankee?”
“That’s partly it. The other part is you’re a man.”
“So?”
“So men are pigs. There ain’t one worth the powder it would take to put a slug in his brain.”
“But you just said you’re fond of your brother.”
“Fond like I’d be for a pet, for a toad or a goat.” Mary Beth prodded his spine with the long gun. “Now, quit your jawin’. Tarnation. You flap your gums more than most ten people. How your wife puts up with it, I’ll never know.”
Simon had over a mile in which to somehow gain the upper hand. Short of rushing her and being shot, he had to rely on his wits. She had calmed down considerably, and since she hadn’t killed him when he was helpless, he doubted she would now unless he stupidly provoked her. “As you pointed out, I might be dead before the day is done. Can you blame me for wanting to talk while I still can?”
“Just don’t talk to me. Jabberin’ gets on my nerves.”
“Like men do?”
“No, menfolk are worse.”
The slope leveled off. Simon could go faster if he were so inclined. But with his life at stake, to say nothing of the life of the woman he loved, he wasn’t about to hurry. Only an idiot hastened to his own execution. “I bet I know why you feel about men like you do.”
“Spare me.”
“It’s because of your family, because of how your father and brothers and cousins behave. But you can’t judge every man by the standard they’ve set. We’re not ail like they are.”
“And how would that be?”
Simon was grasping at the proverbial straw. He knew very little about the clan. They had overpowered him and staked him out so soon after they arrived, he had only random comments and the impressions they had given him to base his comments on. “Take your father, for instance. Always telling you what to do.”
“I don’t like anyone bossing me around,” Mary Beth confessed.
“But in your family you don’t have any choice. Whatever your father says goes. I saw how he lords it over your brothers. He must do the same with you. So naturally you’ve grown to resent it. And because you resent him, you resent all men.”
“Go on. This is mighty interestin’.”
“No two people are alike. Your father rules your family with an iron fist, but not all fathers do the same. Many fathers are kind and loving. They don’t treat their children like slaves.”
“Imagine that.”
“Their daughters grow up to be normal, decent people. They don’t see men as the brutes you do.”
“Normal, huh?”
Simon believed he was making headway. “Haven’t you ever wished you had a different father? Or different brothers and cousins? They’re all the same because they grew up the same. To them, women are cattle to be used as they see fit.”
“What’s this leadin’ up to?”
Halting, Simon faced her. “Just this. Buck them for once. Do the right thing. Help me save my wife and I give you my word I won’t harm any of them. All I want is to get her out of there safe and sound.”
Mary Beth seemed as if she were pondering the proposal.
“There doesn’t have to be any bloodshed. You can sneak Felicity out of the cabin. I’ll have two horses ready, and we’ll be gone before anyone misses us.” Simon smiled when she nodded in apparent agreement. “Your parents will be worried we’ll come back with an army of trappers and Indians, so they’ll leave. But you don’t have to go. You can hide, then come out after they’re gone. My wife and I will help you start a new life, free from their shackles. What do you say?”
“I say,” Mary Beth said softly, leaning toward him, “that you are the sorriest excuse for a man I ever did see, and that takes some doing.” She swung the Kentucky’s barrel outward.
Simon was unprepared. Pinpoints of light exploded before his eyes, and he tottered as if drunk.
“Did you really think I would fall for that nonsense, mister? I love my kin. They love me. I’d never betray them. Not for you. Not for your sow of a wife. Not for anyone else.”
Her taunts, combined with the pain, pushed Simon’s self-control to the brink. Shaking his head, he cleared his vision and saw Mary Beth with her head back, laughing merrily at his stupidity. He thought of how she had been playing with him all along. He thought of the ordeal his wife was suffering. Of his hurt wrists and the wound in his side and his splitting head. Then he did what most any other man would have done.
He snapped.
Uttering a bellow of raw rage, Simon hurled himself at Mary Beth. His right hand wrapped around the barrel and he shoved, but even as he did, her finger closed on the trigger in sheer reflex.
The rifle went off.
Ten
Felicity Ward hardly slept a wink all night. How could she, with all that was going on?
The Coyfields stayed up until almost dawn, nursing the jug and indulging themselves in other ways. They were as rowdy as drunkards in a tavern, always yelling and laughing. Some of their antics were disgraceful, yet they did them right there in front of Felicity as if it were the most natural thing to do.
The festivities started with a card game. Every member of the clan took part, even the women. Cindy Lou had found Felicity’s jar of coins, which Mabel divided evenly among them. The stakes were never more than a few cents, but the Coyfields carried on as if they were wagering hundreds of dollars. They constantly squabbled: over the hands dealt them, over someone trying to peek at their cards, over alleged cheating. It got so that at one point Cole stood up with a hand on a pistol and accused Samuel of dealing from the bottom of the deck. Mabel soothed Cole’s ruffled feathers and the game went on, everyone acting as if nothing had happened.
Felicity couldn’t understand them. She just couldn’t. They were so unlike any family she’d ever met. It bewildered her how they were continually at each other’s throats, yet they stood by one another through thick and thin. How they would threaten to do each other violence, how they fired insults back and forth like bullets, yet it was like so much water off a duck’s back.
In the end it was the Coyfields against the rest of the world. No matter what any of them did, they’d never turn their backs on one of their own. Such loyalty was admirable, but little else about them was.
After the cards they played dice. They shouted, pushed, howled, and cackled, ignoring Felicity, which suited her fine. She sat in the rocking chair by the fire, knitting so she would have something to keep her hands occupied. Every now and then she caught Cole staring at her with unmistakable lust and she prayed he wouldn’t try anything before the night was do
ne.
By one a.m. or so the dice game was over and the Coyfields sat around swapping tall tales and jokes. Felicity was put to work making more coffee. She told them there wasn’t much left, that at the rate they were going they would eat her out of hearth and home in a couple of days.
Mabel chuckled and said, “Don’t worry none, dearie. My menfolk are good hunters. As for the other stuff, well, we’ll go find some of those pilgrims bound for the Oregon country. Persuade them to part with their victuals.”
At that, most of the Coyfields laughed and snickered.
Felicity did not need to ask them to elaborate. The clan would pick a solitary wagon, swoop down on their unsuspecting victims like a pack of starving wolves, and wipe out every last person. Then they would bury the bodies and bring the wagon back to the cabin. No one would ever guess what happened to the pilgrims, not with all the other dangers travelers fell prey to. The deaths would be blamed on Indians or wild beasts. A hideous yet brilliant plan.
While Felicity was at the stove, Tinder and Cindy Lou ambled to the bed. Right there in front of everyone they fondled one another. Felicity tried not to look or listen, but how could she not? No one else paid any attention. Even when Cindy Lou hiked her dress and slid a hand down Tinder’s pants. Even when Tinder pushed Cindy Lou onto her back and took her like a bull elk in rut. Their cries practically shook the timbers, but none of the older Coyfields so much as batted an eye.
Mabel noticed Felicity’s flushed features and grinned. “What’s the matter, missy? Are you one of those who like to do it in the dark so the husband can’t see you?” Mabel picked up the dice for her roll.
“Well, that ain’t our way. Better get used to the notion, ’cause when your time comes, Cole is just as likely to take you on the floor or on this table as on the bed.”
“Have you no shame?”
Mabel reflected a moment. “No, I reckon I don’t. We were taught that everything a body does is natural and normal. That we shouldn’t feel guilty if’n we like to drink and gamble or whatnot.”
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