Filling the coffeepot came next. While coffee brewed, Nate treated himself to pemmican. In his famished state he was tempted to eat every piece he had, but he limited himself to half a dozen.
It felt wonderful have a full belly. To have his horse and food. To have plenty of water. Nate lay back and contentedly patted his stomach. He still needed guns and a knife and footwear. But they were problems for the morrow.
Nate tried not to think of Cynthia in the clutches of the Comanches, tried not to think of what the Comanches might be doing to her. He figured she had witnessed the torture and hoped she could bear the horror. She had impressed him as being strong inside, certainly stronger than her husband, but some things were so unspeakably shocking, inner strength wasn’t a sufficient shield.
Over the course of his years in the wilderness, Nate had witnessed many such acts. He never talked about them, never thought about them if he could help it. But now and again, in unguarded moments, they blazed up out of the depths of his memory to sear him with their violence.
The horror. It was the one aspect of life that most mystified him. That people were born to suffer and die seemed, on the face of it, pointless, if not cruel. Where was the purpose in a baby coming down with the croup and dying? Where the meaning in a village being wiped out by smallpox? Where the sense in what Shipley Beecher had suffered, even if he did bring it down on his own head?
The horror. It pervaded all existence. Every creature was subject to it, from the so-called lowest to the highest. It was part and parcel of all that was, and had been for as long as humankind could remember.
Nate once asked a missionary why bad things happened to good people. The missionary’s answer? That God sent His rain to fall on the just and the unjust. Which was all well and good. But why create life only to have it die? Why fill a breast with hope and inflict the horror?
Some years ago, a Shoshone who had lived more than ninety winters mentioned to Nate that the world made perfect sense if regarded in the right way According to the venerable ancient, all life was born to struggle and die. Nate had agreed, and the wrinkled Shoshone went on to say that the purpose to life lay in the struggle, not the dying. The struggle, the Shoshone argued, was life’s whetstone. Life’s way of sharpening the spirit so that those who left the world left it stronger than when they came into it.
Nate disagreed. The baby who came down with the croup was not made stronger. The Mandans, a friendly, vital people afflicted by smallpox, were not made stronger. They were wiped out.
To Nate, the horror had no purpose. It simply was. The horror was woven into the tapestry of existence much as a thread was woven into a quilt. It could not be denied, although it could be ignored. But it need not be dwelled upon. For the horror was not the only aspect to existence. There was life itself. The sweet, heady feeling of being alive, and of experiencing all the good life offered.
It was with such thoughts running through his head that Nate eventually fell asleep. He slept like one dead and woke up, as usual, before first light. A couple of cups of coffee and several pieces of pemmican, and he headed out in pursuit.
Midmorning brought an unwelcome surprise in the form of gray clouds scuttling in from the west. By early afternoon the cloud cover stretched from horizon to horizon. The wind picked up, bringing with it the scent of moisture.
The signs were all there. Nate needed to find cover, and quickly, but there was none to be had. He was in the middle of miles of flat. There was him, and the bay, and the grass. That was it. He rode faster.
The clouds darkened. To the west flashes of light danced in their depths. Distant rumbling heralded worse to come.
Soon the wind shrieked like a banshee, whipping the grass into a frenzy. A few scattered drops of rain fell. Cold drops, one of which struck Nate’s neck and trickled under his shirt.
Nate was running out of time. Suddenly he stiffened. A hint of uneven ground ahead drew him at a gallop.
It was a buffalo wallow. A depression about ten feet in circumference and about a foot deep. It reeked of buffalo urine. Bulls would urinate in the dirt, then roll in it to cake their hairy bulks with mud to ward off insects.
Nate’s nose crinkled and the bay balked, but he gigged it into the wallow, slid down, and grabbed the bridle. The wind buffeted him. More cold drops fell, slashing at his face like tiny knives. He was running out of time.
Long ago Nate had taught the bay a trick. By tugging on the bridle and placing firm pressure on its front leg, he brought it down onto its side.
“Good boy,” he said as the horse obeyed. “I can’t afford to lose you again.”
The sky was black. Nate could barely see his hand at arm’s length as he lay across the bay with his cheek on its neck. “Easy now,” he said, patting it. “We’ve been through this before.”
The storm broke with a ferocious crash. From the roiling clouds gushed a deluge. Lightning split the heavens, thunder boomed.
Within seconds Nate was drenched. The drops pelted like hail. Between the rain and the wind he could hardly breathe. Covering his mouth and nose, he breathed through his fingers.
The world was a liquid roar. Except for the lightning, Nate might as well be at the bottom of a well. A bolt struck so close he swore it singed his hair. The thunder about deafened him. He felt the bay quake. Worried it would bolt, he stroked its neck and spoke soothingly in its ear, but whether it heard him over the tempest, he couldn’t say.
The shriek of the wind swelled to a constant howl, as if every wolf that ever lived was joined in chorus.
Nate raised himself up to see if he could spot a break to the west and nearly had his head ripped from his neck. Lowering it again, he sucked air into his lungs. He placed a hand flat on the ground to brace himself and discovered the wallow was filling with water. Already it was a couple of inches deep. If it rose much higher the bay would have to stand, turning it into a living lightning rod.
Yet another flash lit the prairie. In its glare Nate saw an animal crouched at the wallow’s edge. It saw him, too, and left no doubt as to its intention by crouching and baring its fangs.
Cynthia had withdrawn into herself. The brutality of the outer world had driven her into the safety of the inner one. She paid no attention to what went on around her. Her eyes were open, but they did not see. She had ears, but they did not hear. To her, the outer world was dead. As dead as her husband. As dead as the man she had wronged, and she could never forgive herself.
For as long as she lived, she would never forget the sounds Shipley made. Those awful, terrible sounds. He had tried to be brave. He had tried not to scream. But the things the Comanches did would break anyone, and poor, luckless Shipley had broken, had become a wailing, weeping husk of a human being.
Cynthia didn’t blame him. She blamed herself. So what if coming west had been his idea? So what is she had argued against it? So what if he had not heeded Nate King? She should have done something. She should have stopped him, somehow. Exactly how, she could not say. It was enough that she blamed herself, enough that she was so wretchedly miserable. She did not care what happened to her.
Such was her mental and emotional state the evening her captors made camp by the spring where One-Eye Jackson had first appeared. She was not aware of being lowered from a horse. She was not aware of the small fire, or when the warriors turned in to sleep, leaving one to keep watch. She sat and stared numbly into nothing and felt only nothingness inside.
Then came the moment that jarred her. That snapped her out of her inner world and into the outer. That reminded her of who she was and where she was and what was being done to her.
The catalyst was a hand on her leg. Not her hand, another’s.
One instant Cynthia was staring blankly into space, the next she was staring at the handsome Comanche. He had squatted in front of her and was regarding her with a look any woman would recognize.
The handsome Comanche said something to her, and smiled, and cupped her chin. Cynthia remembered the same fin
gers holding a knife, the very knife that gouged out her husband’s eyes. The hilt of that knife was inches from her hand, in a sheath on the warrior’s hip.
The handsome Comanche was still smiling when the blade sheared into his throat. The look of astonishment that came over him was almost comical. So was the crimson that spurted from his nostrils and his mouth.
Cynthia was in motion before the handsome Comanche toppled. Yanking the blade out, she dashed to the war horses. She had been riding double on the handsome Comanche’s horse, and the animal was used to her. Which accounted for why it did not try to throw her when she vaulted onto its back and slapped her legs against its sides.
Yells and bellows followed Cynthia into the night. She did not know which direction she was fleeing; she simply rode, hoping she could vanish into the darkness before the Comanches recovered their wits and came after her. She should have known better.
Not for nothing were the Comanches the scourge of the plains.
Sargento led the pursuit. He had been the first to reach Howeah, the first to see what the white woman had done. He was the first to reach the horses and give chase. When he looked back, Nocona was kneeling beside his dead brother while Pahkah and Soko dashed to their mounts.
Sargento smiled. He would overtake the white woman before them. Which was how he wanted it to be. He had not liked having her along. He yearned to do to her as they had done to her husband.
Sargento hated the white race, hated them with an intense passion rare even for a Comanche. Were it up to him, the Nemene would exterminate every last one.
Whites had killed Sargento’s father. Sargento had seen but seven winters when his father went on a raid against white settlers. The raid had been successful in that seventeen whites were slain and over fifty horses stolen. Only one warrior lost his life.
According to warriors who witnessed it, his father had snuck into a corral to steal a particularly fine horse. But the whites inside a cabin to which the corral was attached heard the milling horses. A rifle poked out a window and a slug took the top of his father’s head off.
The war party recovered the body and brought it back to the village.
Sargento would never forget that day. He had stood with his hand in his mother’s hand, staring into the pale, lifeless face that had once been so strong and loving, and a hatred had been born that would last as long as he lived. As soon as he was old enough, he joined every war party he could, went on every raid he could, killed every white he could. Men, women, children, their age or gender made no difference. So long as they were white, he killed them.
Now here Sargento was, about to kill another. He had lost sight of the white woman’s straw-hued hair, but he was confident he would soon catch up to her. His warhorse was swifter than Howeah’s. Not much swifter, it was true, but enough that the outcome was not in doubt.
Too late, Sargento realized he had lost her. She was no longer ahead of him. Instantly, he slowed and twisted every which way, but the white woman and Howeah’s warhorse had disappeared.
Sargento was mad. He had blundered. He had let his mind drift when he should have focused on her and only her. He was scouring the benighted prairie for the umpteenth time when Pahkah and Soko came up on either side of him.
“You have lost her,” the older warrior said. A statement, not a question.
Sargento scowled.
“How could you?” Pahkah criticized. “She is white and a woman, yet you let her elude you?”
“Her horse is a Nemene horse,” Sargento said.
“We cannot track her without torches,” Soko said. “But there is no need. She will head for Bent’s Fort. We can give chase at dawn and will again have her our captive by sunset.”
“Captive?” Sargento spat. “She slew Howeah. For that she dies. She dies as her man died.”
“I have never liked cutting women,” Soko said.
Sargento grunted. “I can cut anyone, anytime. Leave her to me if the rest of you are squeamish.”
They found Nocona preparing to take the body south.
“Wait until morning and one of us will go with you,” Pahkah suggested.
“It is better to ride in the cool of the night,” Nocona said. “I will go alone. He was my brother. The rest of you find the white woman and do what we should have done when we caught her. It was foolish of my brother to want her for a wife, foolish of me not to dispute him.”
“You can depend on me, my friend,” Sargento said. “The white woman will die a hundred deaths for your brother.”
Sargento, Pahkah, and Soko listened to the clomp of hooves until Nocona had faded into the night.
“Now there are three,” Soko said.
“More than enough for one white woman,” Sargento declared. He sat cross-legged by the fire, took a whetstone from his pouch, and honed his knife. He honed it long after the other two fell asleep, all the while thinking of the many ways to kill slowly yet with the utmost pain. The woman had a lot to answer for. For Howeah. For Sargento’s father. For being white.
Dawn was crisp and clear but it did not stay clear. Clouds blanketed the blue, and by noon a storm was imminent.
“The rain will delay us,” Pahkah said.
“It will not delay me,” Sargento asserted, but his boast was thrown back in his face by nature’s tantrum. The whipping wind, the pelting rain forced them to seek shelter in a gully and wait out the worst of it.
There was one consolation. The storm would slow the white woman, too.
The rain ended about the middle of the afternoon. The three warriors had been under way only briefly when Soho raised an arm and pointed.
Outlined against the gradually brightening sky to the northwest was the unmistakable silhouette of a horse and rider. The rider had hair the color of straw.
“She has not seen us yet,” Pahkah said.
“I say we follow and take her after the sun has set and she has stopped for the night,” Soko proposed.
“You can wait if you want,” Sargento said, digging his heels into his mount.
Pahkah and Soko looked at one another.
“We cannot let his knife do all the cutting,” Pahkah said.
“I agree,” Soko replied.
The Wasps swept toward their prey.
Eleven
Nate King drew the folding knife from his pocket. He opened the blade and raised it to strike at the creature crouched on the wallow’s rim. But the next bolt of lightning revealed what it was: a coyote that whirled and raced into the maelstrom.
Nate laughed out loud but could not hear his laughter for the crashing thunder and the whiplash wind. The bay raised its head. The rising water would soon force them to leave the wallow whether Nate wanted to or not. He decided to wait as long as possible. Once they were in the open, they risked a bolt from above.
Not a minute later the rain slackened, the wind dropped, the lighting seared the sky with less and less frequency.
Within ten minutes the storm had rumbled on into the distance, leaving a sodden prairie and cool air in its wake.
Nate resumed the chase. His buckskins were soaked, but he didn’t bother to take them off and wring them out. He had been soaked before. A little wet never hurt anyone. And he had lost time to make up.
The storm had driven all the birds from the sky and all the animals into their burrows, dens, and lairs. Nary a prairie dog stirred. Nate had the plain to himself.
All traces of the war party had been obliterated. But Nate did not need to track them. The warriors had been heading south toward Comanche territory since they left the spring.
Night fell, temporarily ending the pursuit. Nate had to settle for a cold camp; nothing was dry enough to bum. Jerky tided him over.
Daybreak was unusually cold for that time of year. Nate was covered with goose bumps when he headed out. He did not stay covered long. The rising sun brought rising temperatures and by midmorning once again he was sweltering.
Circling buzzards drew Nate’s interest, but
they were to the east, not the south. He was inclined to discount them and rode another half mile before common sense caused him to rein east.
Some of the buzzards scattered at his approach. Others went on feeding.
Nate took one look and was sick. Violently sick. It was worse than the husband, worse than any butchery, ever. He had to avert his gaze from what was left of her in order to do what he had to do. He nudged the remains into the shallow grave, tamped the mound of dirt, and folded his hands.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” Nate began, and recited the rest of Psalm 23. It was all his numbed brain could think of.
Nate walked to the bay, reached for the reins, and paused. Here it was. The decision. North toward Bent’s Fort or south and deeper into Comanche Grass?
Nate did not owe the Beechers. Not this, he didn’t. He thought of Winona, his wife, and Evelyn, his daughter, and Zach, his son, and he climbed on the bay and reined to the south.
“We are being followed,” Soko announced.
Pahkah and Sargento drew rein as Soko had done and turned to gaze intently along their back trail.
“I see no one,” Sargento said.
“There was dust,” Soko assured him.
“There is none now.”
“I think it is one man,” Soko said. “He stalks us.”
The idea of someone hunting them was so extraordinary that neither Pahkah nor Sargento could hide his skepticism.
“We are at peace with the Cheyenne and the Arapaho,” Pahkah mentioned. “Who else would dare?”
“The Utes would dare, but they seldom venture this far out on the prairie,” Soko said. “I believe it is a white man.”
At this, Sargento indulged in a rare laugh. “Whites only hunt us in packs. You know that.”
“Normally that is so,” Soko agreed. “But a warrior from another tribe would not let us see his dust. That this man did, however little, tells me he is a white man.” He lifted his reins. “I will go kill him.”
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