Ashworth was more amused than alarmed. It seemed to him that the mountain men had a knack for always expecting the worst. They were as safe behind the thick walls of the fort as if they were camped out in New York City. The Indians couldn’t possibly get at them. Stifling a yawn, he said, “Well, if the excitement is over for the nonce, I’ll retire. Wake me if the heathens presume to attack us.”
“I won’t need to,” Nate said. “You’ll hear their war whoops.” Irritated by the greenhorn’s failure to appreciate the gravity of their situation, he turned to go and nearly bumped into his wife, son, and daughter.
“Come, husband,” Winona said, sensitive to the anger simmering within him. “I will make you some coffee and you can relax.” Switching Blue Flower to her left arm, she clasped Nate’s callused hand.
Young Zachary dogged their heels. Boiling with excitement, he couldn’t make up his mind whether he wanted the Confederacy to attack so he could count coup and rise in standing as a Shoshone warrior or whether he was simply being selfish and it would be best for all concerned if the Indians left them alone. Ashworth seemed to think they were safe enough, and Zach was inclined to agree. But he could see that his pa was worried. And his pa never fretted without cause.
Winona felt the tension in her man’s fingers. She gently massaged them, saying, “Come what may, we are together.” One of her most deep-seated fears was that her man would be slain while off trapping or hunting, that he would die alone and in agony with none of his loved ones around him to make his passing easier. She’d even had occasional nightmares about never knowing his fate and living the rest of her days in misery.
Their small quarters consisted of a framework of saplings covered with heavy robes. Winona got a fire going under the vent hole at the top, then filled the coffeepot with water. She was disturbed by her mate’s silence, by his uncharacteristic brooding. “Are you all right?” she made bold to ask.
“Never ignore your instincts,” Nate said so softly that she could barely hear.
“Everyone knows that. So?”
“So I know it, too, and ever since Scott Kendall showed up at our place, my instincts have been telling me to fight shy of Ashworth and his brigade, that bad times were just over the horizon. And what did I do?” Nate snorted. “I ignored my instincts. I told myself that everything would be fine, that if I took enough precautions we’d outwit the Blackfeet and their allies and get out of this in one piece.”
“We will.”
Nate looked her in the eyes. It pained him that his neglect might cost those he cared for to pay dearly. “There’s no use in trying to fool ourselves. We’re in for a racket the likes of which we haven’t seen since we went up against the Kelawatsets on the Columbia.”
Winona almost shuddered. They had been part of an expedition traveling to the Pacific Ocean. It had been ambushed by the Kelawatsets and nearly wiped out.
Zach also remembered, and suddenly he wanted no part of the Blackfeet. He could always count coup another time. It was more important that his family and friends be spared.
Nate had nothing more to say until the coffee was done. Moving to the opening to get the benefit of the crisp night air, he sipped and pondered. Everyone depended on him to see them through the hard times ahead, and he didn’t want to disappoint them. If worse came to worst, he had to have some sort of plan.
Winona joined him. Sitting so that their shoulders touched, she studied his profile. She never tired of watching him when he wasn’t aware of it. They had been together for more winters than she cared to dwell on, yet she still thought of him as the most handsome man she had ever met. Perhaps it was due to their bond, to the love they had nurtured year after year, to the entwining of their paths for all eternity.
Nate glanced at her, his heart swelling with affection. Not once during their marriage had she ever given him cause to complain, or to regret taking her as his wife. Truth to tell, it secretly astounded him that she had stayed with him as long as she had. He never had understood what she saw in him, but he was profoundly grateful for her love.
“Care to share your thoughts?” Winona prompted.
“I was thinking of that time the Apaches took you captive. For a while there, I was afraid I’d never see you again.” Nate swallowed some coffee. “Losing you or our holy terrors is the one thing that scares me silly. I couldn’t go on without you.”
“And you will not have to.” Winona tried to bolster his spirits. “We are going to be fine.”
As if to prove her wrong, from outside the stockade wavered a horrendous scream. Rising to an earsplitting pitch, the cry lingered on and on, strangling off to a pathetic whine. It pricked the short hairs at the nape of Nate’s neck and made his heart thump louder in his chest. He was in motion before the scream died, passing his cup to Winona and grabbing his rifle. “I’d rather you stay here,” he said as he dashed out.
Other mountaineers were heading for the parapets on the run. Among them was Henry Allen. Nate fell into step beside the Tennessean, who spoke without breaking stride.
“It’s begun, hoss. I reckon our booshway is about to learn a powerful lesson, if he lives through it all.”
A ladder brought Nate to the narrow walkway above the gate. A half-dozen mountaineers had beaten him there and were scouring the wide-open space that bordered the post. Nate was glad that he had seen fit to insist they clear the brush and trees. The Blackfeet and their allies would have a hard time launching a sneak attack, even in the dead of night.
“I saw movement yonder,” one of the trappers manning the southeast bastion shouted. “By that big oak to the southwest.”
Nate had seen the tree many times. Leaning over the top of the stockade, he tried to distinguish activity near it. Just then a new sound fell on their ears, a sound equally as chilling as the scream even though it was far less sinister.
They all heard a robust laugh, a savage, gleeful taunt. It was the laugh of a warrior who couldn’t wait to daub his hands in the blood of his enemies. It reeked of confidence, and a latent hint of raw bloodlust.
“I’d like to have that coon in my sights,” Allen said ruefully.
By this time everyone in the fort was at the walls. Nate’s name was shouted, and he looked down to find Ashworth clambering up the nearest ladder. He gave the greenhorn a hand. Ashworth tottered as he straightened and would have fallen if not for Nate.
“What’s all the uproar?”
“I suspect the Blackfeet are making sport with us,” Nate said. “They want us to know that they’re out there, that we’re at their mercy.”
Ashworth had been cuddled on his cot with Red Blanket, on the verge of dozing off, when the scream made his breath catch in his throat. He’d never heard anything like it. Not even that awful wail made by the pretty Flathead slain by the Crows could match the terror it instilled. “They have another think coming,” he blustered. “Let them try to storm our gates! Just let them!”
“Be careful what you ask for,” Henry Allen said. “It has a way of coming to pass.”
The ladder creaked to a heavy weight. Emilio Barzini wore a sour visage. As lithely as a cat, he jumped onto the walk and rooted himself next to Ashworth. “You should have let me know you were coming over here,” he complained. For once, he had been caught napping.
Ashworth had a mind to let the Sicilian know in no uncertain terms that he could do as he damn well pleased without having to answer to him, when a new sound silenced all of them.
Nate cocked an ear. From the south came the thunk-thunk-thunk of an ax or tomahawk biting into wood. More chopping broke out until it seemed that the forest was alive with a legion of woodcutters.
“What are those red devils up to?” Ashworth wondered.
“Maybe making poles to scale our walls,” Allen said. “Or maybe working on a big log to batter our gates down.”
“A battering ram?” Ashworth said. “Oh, come now. It’s not as if we’re dealing with Greeks or Romans. You credit them with more intellig
ence than they possess.”
Nate was going to set the greenhorn straight but the Southerner beat him to it.
Allen pivoted toward their leader. “How long?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How long before you take your head out of your hind end and see the world the way it really is and not as you fancy it to be? You have a habit of looking down your nose at anyone you think is dumber than you. But Injuns aren’t stupid, mister. In their own way, they’re as bright as any whites who ever lived.”
“Oh, really?” Ashworth said. While he was willing to concede that the red race had a certain innate charm, he drew the line at ranking them with the likes of Napoleon and Julius Caesar. “Do Indians know how to make steel? Where are their great cities? Their magnificent works of art?”
“You’re mixing apples and oranges.”
“Am I?” Ashworth countered. “Well, then, let’s put this in terms you can relate to. If Indians are so brilliant, why do they spend all their time fighting among themselves when they should unite against us? We both know that one day our population will spill across the Mississippi and claim this country for our own just as we did all the land in the East. If your precious Indians are so smart, why haven’t they joined forces to stop us?” Henry Allen didn’t respond. Even Nate had no adequate answer to that one. He had tried to warn his Shoshone kinsmen that there would come a time when the whites would swoop across the prairie and the mountains like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path. But the Shoshones couldn’t comprehend the idea of there being more whites than there were blades of grass on the plains. Nor did they understand the white concept of owning land. To them, and to most other tribes, the land had been bestowed on them by the Great Mystery for all to use. A tribe might lay claim to a particular territory in which to hunt and live, but within that territory each member of the tribe was free to wander as he saw fit and live wherever he wanted.
Richard Ashworth took the silence of the two trappers as proof that he was right. Placing a hand on the top of a cottonwood post, he reveled in his moment of triumph. Belatedly, he realized the chopping in the forest had ceased, and everyone else had noticed except him. “What can those heathens be up to?”
“Well find out soon enough,” Nate answered. “For now, let’s try to get some sleep. Indians rarely attack at night. We should be safe until daylight.”
It was hopeless, though. Nate tossed and worried and couldn’t get his mind to stay still for the life of him. He managed perhaps an hour of sleep before first light brought him out from under the buffalo robe that covered Winona and him. She had fallen asleep with her forehead resting on his shoulder, and he exercised great care in rising without waking her.-Little Evelyn slept soundly beside them, while over against the opposite wall Zach snored lightly.
The morning chill penetrated Nate to the bone. He would have liked a cup of coffee, but it could wait. Stomping his feet to get his blood flowing, he ambled to the front gate. Allen was already up there, along with a number of other mountaineers. To a man, they were gazing intently out over the valley. Not one so much as twitched a muscle.
“Henry?” Nate said on reaching the ladder. The Tennessean made no reply, standing there as one transfixed. Mystified, Nate hastily climbed. As he straightened up, he learned why everyone else had been glued in place. The same happened to him. Total horror had that effect on a person.
Twenty yards out from the fort stood a high thin pole. Sometime during the night the hostiles had carried it in close and erected it without any of the sentries being the wiser. That in itself was remarkable. More so, in a ghastly sense, was the trophy displayed on top.
It was Portis’s head. The old trappers neck had been hacked clean through and his spine snapped in half. Torn holes were all that remained of his eyes, and his tongue had been removed. The bloody stub could be seen through his parted, puffy lips.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Henry Allen whispered timidly, as if reluctant to speak loudly for fear of agitating the departed.
Nate nodded. Portis might not be the only one the Indians had gotten their hands on. “Any sign of the Blackfeet or their friends?”
“Not yet.”
Footsteps pounded below. One of the youngest trappers halted, half out of breath, and pointed to the north. “The other side,” he husked. “You have to see.”
Two heads were perched on poles about the same distance as their counterpart to the south. Both were men Nate recognized as belonging to his trapping party. One was in the same condition as Portis. The other man apparently had incensed his captors, because they not only had ripped out his eyes and tongue, they had sliced off his nose and ears, cut off his lips, and partially scalped him.
“That was Dexter,” Allen said. “He came from North Carolina. Good man, but he never did know when to keep his mouth shut.”
At that moment the sentries in the northwest bastion shouted. Nate hastened over guessing what he would see and scared to death his hunch was correct.
The Blackfoot Confederacy had been as busy as bees overnight. Two more poles, two more heads. These were farther back, close to the trees; they had been in shadow until the sun had risen high enough to reveal them.
“Damn their hides all to hell!” Henry Allen declared, and Nate did not need to ask who he meant.
Other trappers were on the parapet, just as shocked as Nate and the Tennessean. Swallowing hard, Nate glanced eastward. Allen nodded.
Together they hurried to the southeast bastion. The trappers occupying it were staring at the pole to the south. “Here, what’s all the fuss about at the other walls?” a beanpole demanded.
“More trophies,” Nate said, and let it go at that. Stepping to the east corner, he surveyed the cleared tract between the post and the pines. Nothing. Nor did he see any poles along the edge of the forest.
“You were thinkin’ there’d be some on this side?” a sentry said.
“Not likely. This wall is closer to the woods than any of the others. Those buzzards couldn’t do like they done to ol” Portis without one of us seein’.”
“So they made do,” Allen said, extending a finger.
It took a few seconds for Nate to discover what the Southerner had already spied. Deep shadow lingered on this side, only now being dispelled as the sun cleared the tops of the tall trees.
This time the Blackfeet had relied on rawhide ropes instead of poles. From low limbs in two trees dangled heads of men they all had known, men they had ate with, joked with, lived through sheer hell with.
The beanpole turned crimson. “I’ll make every last one of those murderin’ scum pay!” he raged, and whipped off a shot into the undergrowth before anyone could prevent him.
Nate grabbed the muzzle and pushed it down. “Enough,” he said curtly. “No need to waste ammunition.”
Eyes slick with moisture, the mountaineer had to try twice before he could speak. “What’s one ball, more or less? We have enough to rub out a few thousand worthless Blackfeet and the like.”
“And we’ll need every one,” Henry Allen said.
The compound was crammed with trappers, women, and kids. Word had spread, and every last soul had turned out to witness the atrocity. There was no more space on the parapets. Those deprived of the opportunity were urging the stunned dozens who were on the walls to climb down so they could have a turn. But they would have to wait. For those on top had a new sight to contend with: that of scores of painted figures emerging from the vegetation to the west and east, where the trees were closest.
“Dear God!” one of the men with Nate exclaimed.
Nate descended the ladder on the fly and raced to the one beside the front gate. Shoving through the crowd, he gained the walkway and had to shoulder several people aside to make room. Allen stayed by his side the entire time.
“Look at ’em all!” someone said. “We’re doomed! Do you hear me? Doomed!”
More warriors had stepped into view to the sou
th, two solid rows, fifty or sixty prime fighting men in each. At a sharp yip, they raised their weapons and voiced a collective bloodcurdling howl, the din loud enough to spook the horses in the corral and set many of the dogs to barking.
“There must be two hundred or better,” the Tennessean said. “Some Bloods, some Piegans, but mostly Blackfeet.”
Nate hadn’t bothered to count them. He was focused on a particular warrior, a short, cocky fiend who strutted out in front of the rest, elevated a rifle, and roared his hatred. It was Little Soldier.
Twenty-Two
Henry Allen gripped a post so hard that his knuckles turned white. “Tell me my eyes are playing tricks on me, hoss! That bastard should have been wolf meat weeks ago!”
Others recognized the brigade’s sworn enemy, and word was rapidly being spread along the ramparts.
Nate toyed with the notion of trying to drop the Crow, but at that range hitting Little Soldier would have been more a matter of luck than skill. He’d wait. Sooner or later he was bound to get a better chance.
Seconds later the war whoops died. Three warriors conferred with the Crow, resorting to sign language to communicate. One of the three was a Blackfoot, another a Blood, another a Piegan.
“Why haven’t they butchered him?” Allen said, more to himself than anyone else. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
The parley was short. At a gesture from the tall Blackfoot, a dozen warriors darted into the woods and shortly returned forcefully hauling the three missing members of Nate’s trapping party along.
“Oh, hell,” Allen said. “Better for those coons if they’d been killed with their friends.”
At another command from the Blackfoot, the three mountaineers were tied to trees. Then the Blackfoot walked over to a beefy trapper named Wagner, who slumped as if half dead. The Blackfoot entwined his fingers in Wagner’s long brown hair, jerked the mountaineer’s head up, and gazing at Fort Ashworth, lit his features with a sinister smirk. The message was plain.
“We’ve got to do something!” a man to Nate’s right bawled. “We can’t just let those sons of bitches torture our boys!”
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