Wilderness Double Edition #10

by David Robbins

  “I’m partial to the notion of a son, myself,” Glen said. “That way, when he’s older, he can help out around the farm. Three or four boys would be even better. They could handle most of the chores and give us more time to ourselves.”

  “Three or four?” Katie said. “How many children would you like to have?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Glen said, keeping an eye on a large rock close to the rutted track. He didn’t want to break a wheel so early in the journey. “Maybe nine or ten, like my pa had.”

  “I think we had better sit down tonight and have us a long talk. I like the idea of a large family too, but my idea of large is four or five at the most.”

  They debated the issue then and there while the sun climbed steadily higher. Toward noon they stopped, as was their custom, in a shaded glade watered by a spring. The oxen were let loose from harness, and the horses tied to the first and third wagons were likewise allowed to drink and graze.

  Katie spread out a blanket under a cottonwood and had a small meal waiting for Glen when he was done with the stock. The other couples were similarly occupied nearby. The Potter girls and the Ringcrest boy scampered about like chipmunks, whooping and hollering.

  “Isn’t life wonderful?” Katie said before taking a bite from a sweetmeat.

  “So long as I’m with you, it is,” Glen said, folding her free hand in his.

  Katie brazenly pecked him on the cheek. As she straightened, her gaze happened to stray to the thickly clustered trees beyond the spring. A patch of brown in the midst of the green foliage piqued her curiosity. For a few moments she studied it. Then the outline solidified and she gasped, unable to credit her own eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” Glen asked.

  Startled so that she was unable to speak, Katie tried to vent a scream. A chill coursed down her spine, immobilizing her. She could see the cruel face clearly. The man’s dark, fearsome eyes bored into hers as if into the depths of her soul.

  Glen was sitting up. “What the dickens is it?” he asked and began to turn to look for himself.

  The abominable face vanished. Katie leaped to her feet and screeched, clutching herself to keep from shivering. She felt Glen grip her arms and heard their friends running up. Even the children came, cowed into timid silence.

  Peter Ringcrest was the first to speak. “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently, his rifle in hand. “Why did you cry out, Mrs. Brandt?”

  Willing her hand to extend, Katie pointed at the spot. “I saw someone there. An Indian, I think. He was watching us.” She paused, the chill spreading. “You should have seen his dreadful eyes! He was a hostile. I just know it!”

  Glen grabbed his rifle. “I’ll go look.”

  “No!” Peter Ringcrest said as he anxiously scoured the glade. “If there are hostiles, that’s what they would want you to do so they can pick you off. Where would that leave your wife?”

  “What do we do then?” Bob Potter asked. A tinker by trade, he was a thin, waspish man whose fear was thick enough to be cut by one of the knives he sharpened for a living.

  “We get out of here while we still can,” Ringcrest said. “Glen, you collect the oxen. Bob, the horses. Ladies, kindly load everything into the wagons. We’ll cut our stop short. Once were out in the open, the hostiles won’t be able to take us unawares.”

  The glade bustled with frantic activity. For once the children were quiet, meekly doing whatever they were told. In less than fifteen minutes the wagons were rolling, the women handling the reins so the men would have their hands free to shoot if necessary.

  No attack materialized. Katie wondered if she had imagined the whole thing, but on reflection she knew there had been a face, that it had been an Indian.

  Once clear of the cottonwoods, the pilgrims breathed easier. Glen had been perched on the edge of the seat, cocked rifle in hand. He sat back and said, “Maybe we were lucky. Maybe there was just the one.”

  “What if he was a scout for a war party?” Katie asked.

  “We’ll play it safe from here on out,” Glen said. “We’ll stick to open country, no matter what. At night we’ll take turns standing guard and keep a fire going at all times. If hostiles are dogging us, they might give up once they see we’re ready for them.”

  “What if they don’t?”

  Glen locked his eyes on hers. “Then we won’t get to have that big family after all.”

  ~*~

  “Three days,” Earl Lassiter said. “Three stinking days and we haven’t been able to make a move.”

  Ben Kingslow shrugged. “It ain’t our fault that they’re being so blamed careful. They’re just cagier than most pilgrims.”

  “Damn them all to hell.” Lassiter said. “I’ll give it another day, two at the most. Then we’re doing whatever it takes to wipe them out.”

  “Sure thing,” Kingslow said, having learned long ago it was healthier to agree with anything and everything their leader said when Lassiter was in one of his foul moods.

  This time around, Kingslow shared the same sentiments. He was weary to death of plodding along in the wake of the wagons, waiting for the golden opportunity to spring an ambush. But ever since leaving a glade many miles back, the pilgrims never once let down their guard. It made him wonder if they suspected that they were being followed, although he couldn’t see how they had guessed.

  The gang rode a full mile behind the wagons to keep from being seen. At night, Lassiter allowed a tiny fire only so long as it was well concealed. There was no way in hell, Kingslow reflected, that the pilgrims could have caught on, yet it appeared that they had.

  A lithe form appeared, jogging tirelessly toward them.

  “Here comes the stinking Blood again,” Dixon said. “I wonder what he wants this time? It’s still early afternoon. The pilgrims can’t have stopped for the day already.”

  Lassiter reined up and awaited their scout. It bothered him that Brule had become more reticent than ever in recent days. The warrior still did as Lassiter wanted, but now he did so with a marked reluctance, leading Lassiter to suspect that the Blood planned to light out on his own sometime soon.

  All Lassiter asked was that Brule waited until after they hit the caravan. He’d sneaked a peek at the three wagons and was elated to learn they were heaped high with household possessions and other articles. It was his impassioned hope that one or two of the pilgrims carried a nest egg worth hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

  If the latter, Lassiter planned to head east, back to the States, and use his ill-gotten grubstake to set himself up in business in New Orleans. He’d long harbored the notion of having his own gambling establishment or tavern. A few thousand were all he needed to make his dream come true.

  Lassiter drew rein to await the Blood. Beside him Bear smacked his thick lips and wiped a grimy hand across his dirty face. “You need a bath,” Lassiter said irritably.

  “What for?” the giant asked. “It’s not August.”

  “What does August have to do with anything?”

  “That’s the month I take my bath. My grandma used to say that anyone who takes more than one a year winds up sickly.”

  “I’d rather you were sickly than rank,” Lassiter said and dropped the subject as the Blood halted in front of them. “What have you seen?” he signed.

  “The whites have stopped at a stream and are making camp.”

  “Can we approach the camp without them seeing?”

  “No. Again they have picked a spot that gives them a clear view in all directions. There are no trees, no brush, no boulders within shooting range. It is a spot they can easily defend. And again they park the wagons in a circle and string rope to keep their animals inside.”

  “Damn them!” Lassiter said aloud, then employed sign again. “Do you have any idea why they are stopping so soon? The sun will not set for a while yet.”

  “I could not get as close as I would have liked,” Brule signed, “but it appears one of the little girls is ill. I saw her mother feelin
g her brow, as if for fever, and mopping her brow with a damp cloth.”

  “You have done well,” Lassiter signed. “Keep a watch on them and inform me of anything new.”

  “I will.”

  After the warrior trotted off, Lassiter swung toward his men and relayed the news. “In a way this is a break for us. They’ll go slower than ever with a sick brat on their hands. And sooner or later they’re going to run out of open country. That’s when we nail their hides to the wall.”

  “It better be soon,” Dixon said. “I’m tired of holding back. Hell, Earl, there’s six of us. Why don’t we crawl up close to them in the dark and blast away? We might drop all the adults with the first volley.”

  “And if we don’t?” Lassiter asked. “If just one of them gets away and somehow makes it to a fort?”

  “It was just a thought,” Dixon said.

  Lassiter was tired of the man’s ceaseless bellyaching. He half wished that Brule had shot Dixon instead of Cano, but then he would have been obliged to kill Brule on the spot. Abiding the death of a lowly breed was one thing; the death of a fellow white quite another.

  They searched for half a mile to the north and south of the trail, but failed to find any water or a suitable place to take shelter for the night. Having no recourse, they bedded down in the open and made a cold camp.

  Ben Kingslow munched on the last of his jerked buffalo meat and lamented the chain of events that had brought him to this low point in his life. A former trapper, and before that a holder of more jobs than he could shake a stick at, he had tired of working like a slave for a living and decided to take the easy way. Only it wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it would be.

  Bear slurped his coffee and thought of the women in those wagons. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on them. Next to killing, the thing Bear liked most was to squeeze a soft female until she screamed.

  Dixon sat by himself, his blue cap pulled low over his brow. He was tired of all the riding, tired of all the time they wasted when all they had to do was ride right up to the pilgrims, acting as innocent as could be, and then shoot them down when they lowered their guard.

  Snip busied himself grooming his horse, a mare he had taken a fancy to.

  Nearest the fire sat Lassiter. He decided to give it three more days. After that they would be too close to the Green River Valley, where many of the trappers congregated, to risk attacking the caravan. Three days it had to be. And then, come hell or high water, those damned pilgrims were going to die!

  Eight

  Jeremiah Sawyer practically crackled with impatience when he said, “Why have you stopped? I swear, King, you’re slower than a snail. Can’t you see that we’re wasting precious time?”

  Nate raised his head from the hoof he was examining. “Would you rather have one of our horses go lame?”

  Instead of answering, Jeremiah glowered at the pack animal responsible for the delay, wheeled his mount, and rode ahead a score of yards to wait for the others.

  Old Bill Zeigler sighed and shook his head. “That coon is as high strung as piano wire. He can’t wait to get his hands on them who rubbed out his kin, and I can’t say as how I blame him.”

  “Me neither,” Nate said. “But you’d think he would be a little less touchy by now.”

  It had been six days since they had left the valley Sawyer had once called home. From dawn to dusk they were in the saddle, except for brief stops when their horses needed rest.

  Originally, they had followed a faint trail, indistinct tracks only Nate recognized as such. He was by far the better tracker, and thanks to him they had gained rapidly on the gang of cutthroats.

  They also had the killers to thank. Apparently the gang had slain three trappers and lost one of their own in the bargain, a breed Sawyer recognized. The trapper’s camp had been pillaged. From the amount of prints, and from the five empty whiskey bottles found scattered about the camp, Nate guessed that the killers had spent two days there, possibly more. A costly mistake.

  Now the tracks were less than a day old and Nate knew that before too long he would at long last confront the callous butchers who stalked the land. The bloodthirsty fiends had to pay for slaying ten innocent people, and perhaps many more, and Nate was going to see that they did.

  It was a confrontation Nate both relished and dreaded. He looked forward to putting an end to their reign of terror, but at the same time he was worried about his family and friends. The odds were such that not all of them would survive, not unless he was very, very careful.

  That would be hard to do with Jeremiah Sawyer primed to explode at the first sight of those they sought. Nate had grown increasingly worried about his friend and keenly regretted giving Jeremiah the spare rifle he always packed along on long journeys.

  These were the thoughts that filtered through Nate’s head as he pulled his butcher knife and pried a small stone loose. Tossing the culprit aside, he lowered the pack animal’s leg, gave it a pat on the neck, and stepped to the stallion.

  Winona and Zach were talking in hushed tones. They stopped as Nate drew alongside them, and his wife spoke so that only he could hear, “We must talk.”

  Nate waved to Jeremiah, who resumed tracking with Old Bill as company. Once the pair were well beyond earshot, Nate brought the stallion to a brisk walk, riding so close to Winona that his stirrup brushed her foot. “So what’s on your mind, as if I can’t guess?”

  “What are we going to do about him? He will get us all killed, the way he is acting.”

  “There’s not much I can do. He won’t listen to reason.”

  “Zach and I have an idea,” Winona said, and their son nodded vigorously. “Tonight, after he falls asleep, we should jump him and tie him up. Between the four of us we can do it, even if he has regained his strength.”

  “And then what?” Nate asked. “We keep him trussed up until we’ve dealt with Lassiter and his bunch?”

  “It would seem to be the smart thing to do,” Winona said as crisply as ever. “Once we have done what must be done, we will cut him loose and all will be well.”

  “There are only two problems with that idea,” Nate said. “One, we can’t do it without him. There are six killers, one of them a full-blooded Blood according to Jeremiah. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  “And the second problem?”

  “He’s liable to hold it against us if we tie him up until it’s all over. You’ve seen the look that comes into his eyes now and again. He’s as close to being a madman as a sane man can be and still claim sanity.”

  “We never should have brought him or old Bill along, husband.”

  Nate didn’t care to be reminded of his mistake. Yet if he had to do it again, he would. His family came first, and with the two men along, he would be better able to protect them. He noticed the position of the sun, some two hours above the western horizon toward which they were headed.

  Over a day and a half ago they had come on the grooved tracks of wagon wheels. “The trail to the Oregon Country,” Nate had said while noting how the hoofprints of the killers swung westward, paralleling the trail. Initially he had been stumped. Were Lassiter and company heading for Oregon to escape retribution for their acts? Then he had realized that several wagons had passed by a short while before Lassiter’s band reached the trail, and he was able to put two and two together.

  The cutthroats were after the pilgrims in those wagons.

  Nate had pushed the horses as hard as he dared until that very morning. To keep on doing so would exhaust them so badly the animals would be useless for days, in which case Lassiter would get clean away.

  But Nate chafed at the delay as much as Jeremiah Sawyer. He looked up to see how far ahead the other two were and was surprised to see only Zeigler, galloping back toward them, and puffs of dust in the distance. “What’s the matter?” he demanded as the older man came to a sliding halt.

  “It’s that danged Sawyer!” Old Bill said. “He’s decided you’re taking too dam
n long, so he’s gone on ahead.”

  “He what?”

  “I tried to talk him out of it. But he wouldn’t listen. He said that he was tired of dragging his heels, that we could catch up when we wanted.”

  Exasperated beyond measure, Nate lifted his reins, then addressed Winona. “I’ll go ahead and stop him. You take your time. There’s no sense in running all our horses into the ground.” He touched her elbow in parting and was off, the big black stallion responding superbly as it always did. A last glance was all he had of his loved ones; then he buckled down to the task of overtaking the lunatic who would ruin everything.

  Fortunately the lay of the land was mostly level. To the north were rolling hills, to the south gullies and ravines. But the wagon trail itself was flat and open so Nate could let the stallion have its head without fear of a mishap.

  Presently Nate spotted Jeremiah. Despite the distance, he could see the man flailing away at his mount with the reins, driving the animal relentlessly.

  Slowly, the stallion narrowed the gap. The packhorse that Sawyer rode was no match for the black over a long haul. Nate smiled grimly to himself as he cut the yardage in half. Meanwhile, the sun arced into the blue sky. The shadows lengthened.

  Jeremiah came to a grade and for the first time looked back. On spying Nate, he renewed his efforts to spur his horse on. The animal faltered, but didn’t go down.

  Bent low over the stallion, Nate rode with the accomplished skill of a Comanche. He held the Hawken close to his chest, not that he thought he would have to use it. But a man in his friend’s condition was too unpredictable to say for sure.

  Loose dirt and small stones spewed out from under the driving hooves of Sawyer’s mount. The animal was on its last legs and slipped several times. Jeremiah pounded it furiously with his fist and rifle.

  It added fuel to Nate’s anger. He didn’t believe in mistreating animals and he had never looked kindly on those who did. Some trappers stuck to the philosophy that the only way to master a horse was to beat the animal into submission, but Nate believed that a little kindness went a long way toward accomplishing the same goal.