From out of the brush charged a pair of brawny Kelawatsets, one with a war club, the other holding an eyedagg. They yipped fiercely, their faces alight with burning hatred.
Nate shot the foremost warrior in the stomach at such close range the shot left powder bums on the man’s skin. It also left a hole the size of a walnut. The warrior shrieked and toppled, his war club flying. Undaunted, the second Kelawatset kept coming while waving the eyedagg overhead. Nate back-pedaled and clawed at a pistol. He was in the act of drawing when a rifle cracked. Cored through the forehead, the second warrior toppled like a felled tree.
“Climb on, son! Hurry!” Shakespeare urged, riding up in a flurry of dust.
Nate needed no incentive. More arrows flew past, one clipping his beaver hat. He vaulted on behind McNair and they fled, Kelawatsets streaming out of the forest in their wake. Nate was elated. They had survived an ambush and could rally the others.
The elation was short-lived, however. Nate was reaching for his powder horn to try and reload, when the stiff breeze brought to his ears sounds that filled him with dismay and made his breath catch in his throat. Coming from over the next rise, where the expedition should be, were piercing war whoops, the thunderous boom of guns, and screams.
Awful, lingering screams.
Twenty-Three
The Kelawatset war party, numbering forty strong, ambushed the Porter Expedition as the column crossed a shallow basin bordering the surging Columbia River. Shrieking war whoops and yipping like coyotes, painted warriors poured from the wall of vegetation flanking the lowland, many unleashing arrows, others hurling lances, still others racing to get in close so they could use their war clubs or knives.
The Kelawatsets picked the site because the basin was wide enough for all of them to attack at once. They were relying on surprise and their greater force of numbers to carry the fight in their favor; they hoped to overwhelm the whites in minutes. But the reason they had for picking the spot actually worked against them.
The expedition members were close to the water, not the trees. It was a precaution Shakespeare had insisted they take to thwart hostiles. They were riding in a loose cluster, alert for danger since Francois had gone missing. With McNair and Nate gone and Porter in another of his moody sulks, LeBeau was considered the man in charge and rode at the head of the column.
The young riverman had no delusions about his ability, though. LeBeau knew that Winona and Blue Water Woman had forgotten more about wilderness life than he would ever learn, so he intended to rely on their judgment should the need arise. He counted on the two mountain men returning long before he had to.
Winona kept looking back. She wished there had been an opportunity for her to say a few words to Nate before he left, to let him know that her intuition was acting up, telling her that all wasn’t well and would shortly get worse. But he’d gone off with a cheery wave, leaving her with gnawing worry and no one to tell about it. Except for Blue Water Woman, the others might think she was being silly, and she didn’t care to have Cyrus Porter laugh at her. She might forget herself and shoot him.
For the tenth time since her husband left, Winona shifted to see if he was on his way back. As her gaze roved over the trees to the south, she saw a bush move. Yet, at that moment, there was no breeze. She stared at the bush and made out the outline of a figure crouched behind it. Suddenly she saw another, to the right of the first, and divining the reason and their intent, she cried out, “Protect yourselves! We are going to be attacked!”
Everyone looked at her, then at the woods. A heartbeat later the air echoed to war whoops, and the Kelawatsets charged in a ragged line. Had they not been spotted, they would have been among the horses in seconds.
LeBeau whipped his rifle to his shoulder to fire, then thought better of the idea. There were too many Indians. If all the expedition members fired at random, the warriors would be among them in a twinkling. “Hold your fire!” he bawled. “Wait for me to say!”
Winona had been about to squeeze the trigger, but she did as the riverman wanted. It was one of the hardest things she ever had to do, sitting there calmly, waiting word to shoot, while dozens of bloodthirsty warriors bore down on them, and arrows and lances whizzed through the air in swarms. The natural impulse was to shoot, shoot, shoot. She glanced at Zach, saw him awaiting the signal too, his features as grim as death.
“Now!” LeBeau roared when the leading Kelawatsets were less than thirty feet away.
Six rifles blasted at once, and six warriors fell. The line of Kelawatsets wavered but didn’t break. They surged forward again, more determined than ever to punish the whites.
The fate of the expedition hung in the balance. The women and men drew pistols and fired another volley almost in the faces of their attackers. And at just that juncture, a Nez Percé war whoop rent the air as Two Humps and Chavez galloped onto the scene, the old chief firing his bow with uncanny skill and speed, the Mexican adding his dueling pistols to the fray.
Five more Kelawatsets fell, but so did Pierre, pierced by a lance. LeBeau also toppled from the saddle as his horse was shot out from under him, one of nine animals that had gone down and were thrashing madly on the ground. LeBeau jumped clear and sprang to his feet, but as he did, an arrow transfixed his left thigh. He heard Hetty scream as he sank in agony to his knees.
Winona had fired both of her pistols and was trying to reload before the Kelawatsets reached her. On her back Evelyn squirmed, upset by the din and the gunsmoke. The child’s frantic movements made it impossible for Winona to reload while mounted, so she slid off. Opening her powder horn, she set the stock of her Hawken on the ground and went to pour in the black powder.
“Ma! Look out!”
Zach’s shout made Winona look up. A burly warrior holding an axe was almost upon her. No hint of mercy animated his dark eyes. No trace of compassion lined his features. He would split her skull with no more regret than he would feel splitting a log. In that respect he was no different from a Blackfoot, Crow, or Shoshone. When most tribes made war, they did so with a ferocity terrible to behold. Men, women, often even children were routinely wiped out.
Winona knew all this. So when she saw the burly warrior’s uplifted arm, saw his axe glinting in the sunlight, and realized she could not stop his arm from descending, she thought her time had come. A fleeting pang of sorrow filled her heart for the husband she would never see again, and for their children. Then a miracle occurred.
A horse bearing two riders charged into the midst of the warriors, scattering them right and left. A muscular figure launched itself from the back of the horse, straight at the burly Kelawatset. The warrior tried to turn, but Nate King slammed into him and bore them both to the ground. Nate pushed up on one knee, then rammed the stock of his rifle into the warrior’s brow as the warrior was rising. The burly Kelawatset fell. Before the man could rise, Nate drew a pistol, pressed the muzzle against the warrior’s ribs, and fired.
Shakespeare McNair, still astride his mare, saw Blue Water Woman being pressed by a pair of Kelawatsets. They both had knives and were trying to get close enough to use them, but she had a cocked flintlock in her hand and kept them at bay by pointing it at first one, then the other. It was only a matter of moments before one slipped her guard, though, and stabbed her.
Howling like a banshee, Shakespeare rode the mare into the nearest warrior and sent the man sprawling. Shifting in the saddle, he put a ball into the left eye of the other Kelawatset.
The first one leaped up and went to throw his knife into the mountain man’s unprotected back, but the crack of Blue Water Woman’s flintlock ended his throw before it had hardly begun.
Moments later the war party retreated, taking their wounded. They didn’t go far, only to the edge of the trees where they regrouped under the leadership of a warrior sporting a short headdress made from owl feathers.
Shakespeare immediately assumed command. He gave Blue Water Woman’s arm a squeeze, then surveyed the carnage. Over half their ho
rses were dead or dying, and many others had fled. The only riverman still alive was LeBeau, propped behind a dead horse, Hetty at his side. Nate had ushered his family behind another horse, and they were loading guns as fast as they could. Cyrus Porter, who had sustained a shoulder wound, squatted behind a boulder near the river. Chavez was the only one still on horseback. And Two Humps calmly walked from one slain Kelawatset to another, taking scalps. The Nez Percé noticed Shakespeare’s look, and grinned.
“I will have enough to make a robe if they attack us again.”
The Kelawatsets were preparing to do just that. Shakespeare saw there were more than enough left to overrun the expedition. He slid off the mare and took his wife’s wrist. “Climb on up. You can escape if you hug the shore. Ride west to Astoria for help. We’ll hold them off.”
“I would never leave you,” Blue Water Woman said. “And I am hurt you would even ask.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you,” Shakespeare insisted. “Hurry, before they come at us.”
“No.”
“But—”
Blue Water Woman jabbed him in the chest with her pistol. “Husband, you insult me. What kind of wife would I be if I ran off and left my husband when he was fighting for his life? And what about our friends? You know as well as I that I would not reach Astoria in time.” She lowered her pistol and began reloading. “If anyone should go, it is Zach and Evelyn. They have their whole lives to live yet.”
The rebuke stung Shakespeare. He would have argued, but it was too late. The Kelawatsets had fanned out and blocked escape to both the east and the west.
“Any second now,” Nate said.
Shakespeare beckoned the Nez Percé and the tracker. “Get back here, behind a dead animal. And make every shot count.”
Chavez complied, but Two Humps took up a position in front of the uneven row of dead animals and hefted his lance. “I am a chief. I will die as a chief.”
“Please, old friend,” Shakespeare said.
Whether Two Humps would or wouldn’t became moot the very next second, as with a riotous chorus of yells and yips the Kelawatsets charged once more.
“Don’t fire until they’re closer,” Shakespeare cautioned. Abruptly, he realized he had neglected to reload his guns in his concern for his wife. Quickly he started, knowing full well he wouldn’t have time. Then a pistol was shoved into his hand.
“Take one of mine, husband,” Blue Water Woman said. Her eyes conveyed the depth of her love. “We will die together, as we have lived.”
Winona King shared those sentiments about her own mate. She crouched at his side, ready to sell her life if need be to protect his. Evelyn now lay next to the belly of the dead horse, grinning happily as only a child her age could, completely unaware of the tragedy about to happen.
“Ma, Pa,” Zach said. “I know I never say it much, but I love both of you.”
A lump formed in Winona’s throat. And then the battle was joined as Nate became the first to fire, dropping the warrior with the headdress at forty yards. The rest never slowed, never broke ranks. Screaming and waving their weapons, they bounded over the ground like a horde of panthers.
“I thought it might stop them,” Nate remarked.
But nothing did. Not the expedition’s rifle volley, which dropped a half-dozen, nor the pistol volley, which felled even more. The Kelawatsets reached the dead horses and closed in mortal combat.
Nate shot a skinny warrior with his second pistol and drew his tomahawk as the man keeled over. Another warrior was perched on the dead horse, about to fling a lance into Zach, who was so busy taking aim at a different foe that he hadn’t noticed. Nate threw the tomahawk with all his might. The blade bit into the warrior’s neck, severing veins and flesh alike, and the Kelawatset fell, blood spurting everywhere.
Guns thundered. Arrows buzzed. A thick cloud of gunsmoke hung in the air above the battleground.
Nate, Winona, and Zach formed a ring around Evelyn, wielding their knives and tomahawks to keep the Kelawatsets at bay.
Shakespeare and Blue Water Woman were back to back, Blue Water Woman with blood on her right side.
Not far off, LeBeau and Hestia Davin were also back to back, on their knees, LeBeau slashing right and left with a dagger, Hetty awkwardly swinging a lance she had picked up after it had been dropped by a warrior LeBeau shot.
Two Humps had gone down under a pack of enemies.
Chavez’s dueling pistols were empty and he was swinging a Halls rifle like a club, trying to hold back three Kelawatsets at once.
And over by the river, unnoticed by anyone, Cyrus Porter cowered behind the boulder, quaking with fear.
Lives hung in the balance. The war party was on the verge of victory, of overrunning the weakening defenders. No gunshots had sounded for over a minute, but suddenly there were several, followed by a half-dozen more, then a blistering volley that felled over half the remaining warriors.
Startled, some of the Kelawatsets looked around for the source of the shots and were shocked to behold buckskin clad frontiersmen rushing toward them from the west. Ten, twenty, thirty in all, all armed to the teeth. The Kelawatsets shouted to warn their fellows, whirled, and made for the pines, the frontiersmen in swift pursuit.
Nate King saw the newcomers but couldn’t credit the testimony of his own eyes. He stood rigid with surprise, watching Kelawatset after Kelawatset be slain, marveling at the almost military precision of their rescuers. In mere moments the hostile warriors were all gone, either dead or vanished in the forest. Ten of the frontiersmen gave chase, but the rest drew up short at a command from their leader, a huge, powerfully built giant with flowing white hair.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Shakespeare said.
Bewildered, Nate turned. Winona and Zach were both alive and untouched, their faces caked with sweat, smudged by black marks, and covered with red dots. Evelyn still grinned, her small fingers waving in the air. “Thank God,” Nate said softly.
Lifting his head, Nate saw Two Humps and frowned. The old chief had three lances and two knives sticking from his chest. Over on the right, Chavez had taken an arrow in the fleshy part of the upper arm.
A mournful screech pricked the short hairs on Nate’s neck. He spun, thinking a Kelawatset had played possum and just killed someone. But that wasn’t the case.
Hestia Davin was bent over Armand LeBeau, who lay on his side with a shaft protruding from the center of his back. She wept uncontrollably, her body convulsing in great sobs, her sorrow soul-wrenching.
“No,” Nate said softly. “Not him too.” He looked toward the river and saw Cyrus Porter erect, staring in the direction of Hetty. Porter was smiling.
The sight so enraged Nate that he would have shot Porter if he’d had a loaded gun. He glanced down to find one, but just then the man with the white hair and the company of frontiersmen came up.
“Hello, McNair,” the giant said.
Shakespeare wearily nodded. “It’s been a long time, John. You’re quite a ways from Fort Vancouver.”
“Twice a year I pay the Chinooks a visit,” the white-haired man said. “You can thank your lucky stars that this happened to be one of them.” Turning to Nate, he walked over and offered his brawny hand. “John McLoughlin. I’m chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company in this region.” He indicated the sturdy men with him. “These are all HBC men, the cream of the crop as far as I’m concerned. I’ll only have the best working for me.”
“Nate King. Pleased to meet you,” Nate said. “More than I can ever say.”
“Some of my boys are old hands at tending wounds,” McLoughlin said, and snapped his fingers. Four HBC men moved to minister to the wounded. “We’ll set up camp here and stay until you’re ready to push on.” He paused. “Oh. And before I forget. I think I’ve found someone you lost.” The six-foot-four-inch administrator raised a hand and waved twice.
From the west approached three more men. Nate was amazed to see Brett Hughes in the middle. Only then did he rea
lize that Hughes had been missing during the battle.
“That’s Hughes, the clerk of this expedition,”
Shakespeare said. “I was wondering what happened to him. Thought maybe the Kelawatsets got him when no one was looking.”
McLoughlin stared hard at the clerk, who seemed to be trying to wither into the ground. “Hughes, you say?” McLoughlin said. “Bloody hell. His name is Harkness and he works for the HBC. Something very strange is going on here, and I intend to get to the bottom of it after we’ve set up camp.”
The chief factor proved as good as his word. Once all the wounded had been bandaged, the dead were buried and the supplies moved to the west end of the basin, away from the dead horses. There a fire was built, and the exhausted expedition members sat around it, sipping coffee. All except for Hetty, who was off by herself, crying without cease, refusing to be consoled by anyone. She had become hysterical when LeBeau was lowered into the ground, throwing herself on his blanket-shrouded form and tearing at it as if to crawl in beside him. Three men had been needed to pry her off and hold her still long enough for the burial to be finished.
Nate stared at the poor woman’s bent back and wished there was something they could do to lessen her heartache. Inwardly he gave thanks that his family had been spared, for if they hadn’t, he knew he’d be in worse shape than poor Hetty.
None of the wounds suffered by the rest were life-threatening. The arrow that caught Chavez in the arm had missed vital veins. Blue Water Woman’s cut in her side was shallow. And Cyrus Porter’s shoulder wound was a clean one.
Nate found himself thinking that it was unfortunate Porter hadn’t been subjected to the same fate as Two Humps. He avoided even looking at the man, so much did Porter disgust him. Instead, he stared at Brett Hughes, who sat a dozen yards away under the watchful eyes of a pair of beefy HBC men. John McLoughlin had been questioning Hughes for the better part of an hour, and it was clear that Hughes’s answers had made McLoughlin steadily madder.
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