Season of the Warrior (A Wilderness Giant Edition Western Book 2)

by Robbins, David

  Swiftly Shakespeare reloaded, his fingers a blur. Arrows rained down from all directions, some imbedding themselves in the ground, others thwacking into the trunks and provisions. He was pleased to note Jarvis was holding the other men in check, preventing them from firing until the Piegans were closer just as he had instructed.

  The screeching warriors were twenty yards out when Shakespeare squeezed off his second shot. As before, a Piegan pitched to the earth, and a second later guns opened up all around the perimeter. More Piegans dropped. So did a couple of the defenders, one with a shaft clear through his neck.

  Eric Nash joined the battle. As he’d predicted, he missed.

  And then the Piegans were at the barricade and leaping over it with the smooth, flowing motions of blacktail deer leaping logs or scrambling to the top where they could find a purchase. By now most of the frantic defenders had expended the shots in their two rifles, so they met the confident braves with knives or pistols or their rifles wielded as clubs.

  Shakespeare employed the last method as a pair of Piegans vaulted over the trunks in front of him. The first he clipped with a vicious swing, catapulting the warrior backwards, but the second alighted on his side of the barrier and whirled to impale him with a lance. Twisting, Shakespeare avoided the blow and heard the lance thud into the bottom trunk. The stock of his rifle curled in a tight arc, catching the Piegan full on the face and crushing the man’s nose in a spray of blood. Gurgling, the warrior backed away, trying to buy time to recover, time Shakespeare was not going to give him. A single bound brought the mountain man to his adversary, and he drove the stock into the Piegan’s throat. There was a loud crunch, then the brave fell, wheezing pitiably.

  The interior of the barricade was now a swirling melee of men engaged in desperate life-or-death struggles. War whoops, curses, screams, and inarticulate cries rent the air. Shakespeare saw one of the defenders down and dead and being scalped. He spotted Jarvis, hemmed in by three Piegans but holding his own. A glance back showed Eric Nash rigid as a pole, terrified by the carnage.

  Then Shakespeare thought of Lady Templar. He looked at the tent, and the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickled. A swarthy warrior was almost to the flap, tomahawk in hand. “Diana!” Shakespeare shouted, and raced to her rescue knowing he couldn’t possibly get there in time but resolved to try anyway. A chill seized him as he watched the Piegan grab hold of the flap and throw it open. The warrior grinned, took a step. That was as far as he got, for out of the tent poked the barrel of a rifle, and its booming retort sent the Piegan crashing to the grass.

  Diana stepped outside, her features like granite, just as Shakespeare reached her. “Get back inside!” he yelled. “I’ll protect you.”

  “The Templars fight their own fights!” she responded.

  Arguing under such circumstances would be ridiculous. Shakespeare had his hands full anyhow, as around the tent rushed a stocky Piegan whose knife leaped at the frontiersman’s throat. Shakespeare got his rifle up to block the blade in the nick of time, but the impact of the heavy warrior drove him backwards, making him lose his balance, and they both went down. Hands clawed at his eyes, striving to gouge them out. The knife narrowly missed his temple.

  Coiling his stomach muscles, Shakespeare heaved upward and dislodged his antagonist. The Piegan rolled as he was flipped and jumped up in the blink of an eye, his knife at the ready. Before the brave could pounce, a rifle stock slammed into his temple from behind, staggering him. Never one to let an opportunity go by, Shakespeare whipped out one of his pistols and shot the brave dead.

  Diana Templar hefted her rifle, staring at the crimson stain on the stock. “I couldn’t let him kill you,” she said softly.

  “I’m obliged,” was all Shakespeare had time to say, because the tide of battle had turned in drastic favor of the Piegans and several were racing toward the tent, each eager to be the first to count coup on the grizzled mountain man or to take the fair female captive. Elsewhere, four of the marquis’s party were dead, two more severely wounded. Jarvis had slain four braves but was still hard-pressed.

  Releasing the Hawken and the spent pistol, Shakespeare drew his other flintlock and his tomahawk, which he’d rather use in close combat than his knife; the handle was longer, giving him a greater reach, and the heavy head could be used to smash as well as slash.

  The foremost Piegan was grinning as his arm streaked back to throw his lance.

  Shakespeare put a ball squarely in the center of the man’s teeth. The gun now useless, he let it join the other weapons at his feet and moved between Diana and the onrushing warriors. The outcome was virtually a foregone conclusion, but he wasn’t one to die meekly. Lips curled in a mocking smile, he crouched to meet them head on.

  All around was sheer bedlam. The ground was spattered with blood and gore. Terror-stricken by the uproar, the horses had panicked and were stampeding around inside the circle, adding to the confusion.

  The two Piegans were ten feet from Shakespeare when his gaze flicked past them for an instant and he beheld the most wonderful sight in all the world.

  Attired in a beaver hat and a mackinaw coat, a tall rider astride a magnificent black stallion sailed over the barricade and came down in the midst of the pandemonium. While still in midair he voiced a bloodcurdling war whoop that seemed to cut through the other cries and drew the attention of every man, red and white alike. In his right hand he clutched a cocked Hawken, in his left a cocked Kentucky rifle. As the stallion landed, the rider pointed the Kentucky at a Piegan and from a range of twelve inches shot the man in the forehead. The next instant the stallion rammed into the warriors trying to bring Jarvis down, scattering them like so much chaff in the wind.

  Out beyond the barricade other riders, hollering at the top of their lungs, were rapidly approaching.

  The two Piegans almost on Shakespeare halted in confusion. This new development was not to their liking. They logically concluded that more whites had arrived to reinforce those they fought. And when they saw the tall rider dispatch a second of their number with the Hawken and ride a third down under driving hoofs, they whirled and dashed to the barrier.

  Other warriors were doing the same, scattering every which way. Some were wounded and had to be helped by companions. Had the majority of the remaining defenders not been so shocked by the unexpected turn of events, they could have slain many more warriors before the Piegans scaled the barricade, but most simply stood and gaped as the Indians fled. With a notable exception. Jarvis, armed with a large war club he had stripped from a fallen foe, was wreaking havoc right and left, going after every Piegan in sight. He’d been driven to the brink of a berserker rage by seeing his fellows die and nearly being killed himself, and his wrath was fearsome to behold. Three additional Piegans died at his hands before the remnants of the war party made good their escape.

  Once over the barrier, the Indians fled to the north, south, and east, but not to the west. From that direction were galloping two whooping riders who knew how to shoot on the fly, and proved it by picking off a pair of Piegans who had the brash temerity to charge them.

  In the aftermath of the battle, Shakespeare felt a familiar sensation in his limbs, an agitated quivering brought on by the blood still pumping furiously through his veins. Suddenly tired to his core, he surveyed the dead and dying littering the ground, then glanced up as the tall rider came over to him.

  “I can’t leave you alone for a minute without you getting yourself into heaps of trouble,” Nate King quipped.

  “As I recollect, it’s usually the other way around,” Shakespeare responded with a mock air of offended dignity. He brushed the back of a hand across his perspiring brow and nodded at the nearest body of a Piegan. “You sure showed at the right time. Another few moments and …” He let the statement trail off.

  “I couldn’t very well let you be killed,” Nate responded jokingly, although he was profoundly upset at how close his mentor had come to being slain. He’d seen the Piegans, c
losing in on McNair as he bore down on the barrier, and for several anxious seconds he’d feared that he’d be too late to do any good. “I’d have to put up with my son bawling like a baby for a week.”

  Diana Templar, now that the fighting was over and she had a chance to think about what she had just been through, began trembling ever so slightly. She fully realized that Shakespeare was right.

  If not for the arrival of the handsome stranger, she would have ended her days in a Piegan lodge or suffered an even more horrible fate. With an effort she cleared her throat and commented, “I don’t know who you are, kind sir, but I am forever in your debt. I’m Diana Templar.”

  “Nate King, at your service,” Nate responded, and indicted the two other riders who were now at the barricade. “And yonder is my wife, Winona, and our son, Zachary.”

  “Your wife?” Diana said in amazement as she watched a lovely Indian woman mounted on a sorrel vault the barricade at a low point, followed immediately by a boy of nine or so riding a mare. Then her attention shifted to another point along the barrier and she stiffened and gasped. “William!”

  Lord Templar was rising from the ground, a hand clasped to a nasty gash on his temple from which blood dripped in great drops. He looked toward the tent, took a faltering stride, and fell to his knees.

  Instantly Diana sprinted to his aid. She was halfway there when she saw Eric Nash off to her right, his hands over his abdomen, shuffling awkwardly as if gravely wounded. He spotted her and reached out a hand in mute appeal. Diana slowed, torn between going to her brother or to Nash. Then, ruefully, the tie of family being stronger than the tie that linked her to the artist, she made a decision that unknown to her was to have shattering consequences later on. She ran to her brother.

  Eric Nash halted. No one there saw the intense hurt his eyes reflected, nor did anyone notice the hardening of his pale features. He’d expected Lady Templar to run to him, which she would have done if she loved him as much as he believed he loved her. A sharp pang flared in his chest and he doubled over, wishing he could die on the spot.

  “Where did those no-account bastards get you?”

  The deep voice brought Eric up with a start, and he found their bearded savior standing beside him, regarding him solicitously. “What?” he blurted out.

  “Where are you hurt, mister?” Nate asked, seeking sign of blood.

  “I’m not,” Eric said, blushing. “I’m just sick, is all.”

  “Sick?”

  “I’ve never witnessed such terrible savagery before. The glee those devils took in their killing! Why, it was like seeing the gates of Hades swing open and out spill red demons bent on human destruction. I saw one of them cut off the hair of poor Jensen. His hair! Why would they commit such a meaningless, horrible act?”

  “The hair is a trophy of sorts.”

  “How bloody revolting!”

  “It’s called scalping, a practice that a lot of tribes indulge in. You see, Indians value bravery above all else, and one way for a warrior to show off his bravery is by having a collection of scalps hanging in his lodge or tied to his coup stick.” Nate paused. “Quite a few mountaineers take hair too.”

  “White men take pain in such grisly barbarism?”

  “Mainly those who have taken up Indian ways. They have to earn respect just like anyone else.”

  “I’ve gone mad,” Eric muttered. “Either that, or I’ve been transported by arcane sorcery to an ethereal realm where madness rules and all human virtue is dead.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t hit on the head?” Nate asked.

  “No,” Eric said, sobering. He straightened and lowered his arms. “I assure you I’m fine. But I thank you for your concern.”

  “Then I’d best lend a hand elsewhere,” Nate said, moving off. He glanced back once, saw the man staring blankly at the sky, and wondered if the Englishman might be a bit touched in the head. Then he recalled the very first time he had witnessed the killing of another human being, and how intensely upsetting the experience had been. It seemed like a lifetime ago, yet hadn’t been more than eight or nine years. In the interval he’d slain dozens of enemies without batting an eye, not because he liked killing but because he’d had to kill to stay alive. The deaths didn’t bother him, though, as they once had, and he sometimes questioned whether he was becoming calloused or whether he had maturely learned to accept an inevitable aspect of wilderness life and merely did whatever it took to survive. Shrugging, he put the matter from his mind and concentrated on helping get the camp in order.

  For the next hour everyone was busy. The dead Piegans were dragged to the barricade and thrown over. Those only wounded were dispatched by Jarvis, who appeared to derive inordinate satisfaction from doing so. The four slain members of the marquis’s party were buried at the base of a knoll, while the wounded were placed on blankets near the tent and tended by Lady Templar and Winona.

  Diana said little the whole time. After she’d bandaged her brother, whose gash turned out to be minor, she’d gone to Eric Nash to ask if he was all right, and he had responded to all her queries with curt, cold answers. She saw no rhyme or reason for his attitude, and she had been deeply stung when he’d turned his back on her and declared that he should be aiding the other men and not wasting his time talking to her.

  On the heels of that thunderbolt had come another when the Indian woman had walked up to Diana and asked in faultless English to help out with the wounded. Now, as they finished wrapping the arm of the last man, Diana rose and regarded the woman intently. “Winona, isn’t it? I’m afraid I’ve been terribly remiss in my manners.” She introduced herself.

  Winona offered a tentative smile. She’d been aware of the many stares the white woman had tossed her way while they worked, and she did not know what to make of them since her experience with women of Nate’s race was limited. At a recent Rendezvous she had met two wives of missionaries, women who had impressed her with their gentle, friendly natures. But in a subsequent visit to St. Louis she had run up against a white woman who had tried to kill her, and during her stay in that frightening maze of stone and wood lodges the point had been driven painfully home that in the eyes of many she was an inferior, a “lowly savage” as one woman had tactlessly described her within her hearing. It had been extremely unsettling to

  learn that most white women despised her simply because she was not white. So now Winona made bold to inquire, “How do you know my name?”

  “Your husband told me,” Diana said, racking her brain for more to say. This was the first Indian woman she had ever met, and she wanted to learn all she could about the fascinating creature and her way of life. “He is quite a man, I gather.”

  “There is no one like Grizzly Killer,” Winona said proudly.

  “Who?” Diana replied, thinking the reference was to someone else, perhaps a member of Winona’s tribe.

  “Grizzly Killer is Nate’s Indian name. It was given to him by a mighty Cheyenne warrior when Nate first came west, on the day he killed his first grizzly.”

  “We saw some on our journey here, great brutes capable of shredding a man with a single swipe of their long claws. Or so we’ve been told. And we were advised to stay away from them at all costs.”

  “Sound advice,” Winona said. “Only the bravest of warriors dare face a silver-tip and live to tell of it. My husband has killed more than any man alive, white or Indian.”

  “How is it he’s been able to kill so many?” Diana wanted to know.

  “He is Nate,” Winona said simply.

  “Oh. I see. Of course.” Diana turned away so the woman wouldn’t see the laughter in her eyes. Such puppyish devotion to a man was utterly absurd, and must be the result, she reasoned, of Winona being overawed by her white husband. She’d seen the same thing in Africa, Asia, and South America. Native women everywhere couldn’t help but look up to their white betters. Composing herself, she turned and remarked, “I hope that one day I find a man as worthy of my love as Nate is of yours
.”

  “You are very kind,” Winona said, pleased at the Englishwoman’s unaffected frankness. On an impulse, she added, “Perhaps you would like to visit our cabin and stay with us a while? It is so seldom that we get visitors, and I would enjoy female company.”

  How sweet! Diana thought. Out loud she said, “Thank you for the gracious offer, but our plans are in such disarray that I don’t know what we will do next.” She gazed at the wounded. “We’ve lost so many men, I’m afraid we may need to head back to St. Louis just as soon as these gentlemen are up and about again.” A sigh whispered from her lips. “And I was so hoping to see more of this mysterious land and its many marvels.”

  “I understand,” Winona said. “If there is anything I can do for you, please ask.”

  Here was a golden opportunity, and Diana quickly answered, “Just promise me you’ll stay with us until we know what we’re doing next. I would so like to chat with you over tea and hear of your life and your people.” She paused. “Which tribe do you belong to, by the way?”

  “I am Shoshone.”

  “Will you stay?”

  “If you want,” Winona said, and leaned forward to confide, “I can use the rest. We rode hard to find Shakespeare, and when I am pregnant I tire more easily than I usually do.”

  Diana blinked, unsure whether she had heard correctly. “You’re pregnant?” she whispered in astonishment, remembering how Winona had fought the Piegans and then leaped the barricade on horseback. Here was something the friends in her social circle would never believe!

  “Yes.”

  “My word!”

  Diana brought a chair out of the tent and insisted on having Winona sit down. Then, excusing herself, she went in search of Jarvis, and found him in the company of Nate King and Shakespeare McNair. They were rounding up the last of the horses. “I’m glad you’re all together,” she informed them. “I’d like to invite you to my tent for supper and a meeting this evening.”