He waited until they were gone before advancing. The closer he and Tatu drew to where the cabins should be; the more wary he became. There were bound to be more guards near the cabins, and more dogs.
A minute later he spied four points of light up ahead, and slowed. The lights were lanterns hanging from high posts to the north, south, east, and west of a row of squat ramshackle cabins situated in the middle of a wide field.
The layout, probably arranged by Jacques Debussy, was perfect. There was no way the imprisoned blacks could cross the ring of illuminated ground surrounding the cabins without being seen by one of the two pairs of guards, each with a brute of a dog on a leash, who were constantly patrolling the perimeter of the lighted circle.
He padded up to the last of the trees and knelt to study on the problem of reaching those cabins in one piece. If he was to somehow extinguish one of the lanterns, the guards would converge on the run and perhaps unleash the dogs. Yet it would be impossible to get to Sadiki across that ring of light otherwise. A hand fell on his shoulder.
“What do we do, sir?” Tatu whispered, the words barely audible.
“I don’t know,” Nate admitted. He watched the guards for a while to learn if there was ever a time in their circuit when both pairs were briefly blocked from sight by the cabins. Now and then one of the pairs would momentarily disappear on the far side of one of the buildings, but never both pairs simultaneously. When one pair was to the east of the cabins the second pair was always on the near side. He frowned in frustration. There was simply no way he could do it.
Tatu must have reached the same conclusion. “Tatu could lead them away, sir,” she proposed.
“It’s too dangerous,” Nate responded.
“We must save Sadiki.”
“I will think of something,” Nate said, and gazed thoughtfully at the structures. He heard the rustle of movement and turned just in time. Tatu was about to dart off into the undergrowth. “No,” he whispered harshly, grabbing her wrist.
“We must save him,” Tatu reiterated, her voice quavering. “Please. This is the only way.”
“The dogs would catch you in no time,” Nate told her. “Your sacrifice would be in vain.”
“Tatu love Sadiki.”
The frank declaration touched Nate deeply, reminding him of his own abiding love for Winona. He would gladly have given his own life to keep her alive, and he sympathized strongly with Tatu. A desperate idea occurred to him and he glanced at the cabins. “Are the slaves chained?” he asked.
“No, sir. But the doors are locked and there are no windows.”
“Which cabin is Sadiki in?”
She pointed at the third one.
“All right. Take this to protect yourself.” He drew his butcher knife and held it out, hilt first.
“You have a plan?” Tatu asked, gripping the weapon firmly.
“Root hog or die.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind,” Nate whispered, and took the Hawken. One pair of guards was now to the south of the cabins, one to the north. He lowered himself onto his elbows and knees and crawled toward the illuminated area, directly toward the nearest post. The high grass and weeds concealed him adequately for the time being. He felt Tatu bump his heels as she followed.
Demonstrating the boredom typical of men who had performed the same duty countless times without incident, the guards to the north ambled steadily closer. At the end of the leather leash in the hands of the shortest man stalked a fine muscular mongrel that appeared capable of going head-to-head with a grizzly bear. It was nearly as big as Samson.
Nate parted the grass in front of him with the rifle barrel, never moving the grass more than was absolutely necessary. It would be a fluke if one of the men noticed. And since the breeze was blowing from the northwest to the southeast, unless it abruptly changed the dog would be unable to smell them. As he drew within fifteen feet of the post he heard a woman sobbing in one of the cabins, and then he heard the approaching guards speaking in English.
“—fit to be tied, from what Otis said.”
“I’m surprised Rhey didn’t slap her around some to teach her respect. He’d never let a man talk to him that way.”
“Husbands let their wives do things they’d never tolerate from anyone else.”
Nate halted, all attention, his mind racing with the implications of their statements. Could they be talking about who he thought they were?
“Not me,” said the other guard. “If my wife were to try to boss me around I’d slap her silly.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re not married.”
“What do you mean?”
The pair were almost to the post, their soiled clothes and bearded faces clearly revealed in the lantern’s glow.
Nate couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He pressed the Hawken to his right shoulder, and had started to take aim when the dog suddenly spun directly toward his hiding place and vented a savage snarl.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nate fired. The rifle spat smoke and lead and the dog twisted with the impact, then vaulted toward him, but only sailed a few feet before its brain belatedly ceased working, destroyed by the ball that had torn through the center of its forehead.
Taken unawares by the attack, the two guards were slow to react.
Not so Nate. No sooner did he shoot the mongrel than he placed the Hawken down, surged to his feet, and whipped both flintlocks out in a lightning display of ambidextrous ability. One of the guards was trying to bring his rifle into play when Nate thumbed back the hammers and squeezed off two shots that boomed in unison. The balls took the guards in their chests. Both men staggered, and the one who had been holding
the leash fell first. A second later the other guard, his face etched in stark shock, toppled.
“Let’s go!” Nate urged, beckoning for Tatu. Like an agile doe she was erect and racing toward the cabin containing Sadiki. He jammed the flintlocks under his belt, retrieved his Hawken, and sped on her heels, acutely aware of the shouts arising in different directions. Soon more men and dogs would converge on the cabins, far too many for him to confront alone. Of more immediate concern was the pair on the far side of the field. It would take them all of thirty or forty seconds to reach the buildings.
Tatu reached the third cabin well ahead of him and began yelling urgently in her native language. Excited voices responded inside.
Dashing up to the locked door, Nate halted and drew back his right leg to deliver a kick. He glanced at Tatu, and was startled to see tears in her eyes.
“We are too late!” she exclaimed in agonized horror.
“What?” Nate replied, hesitating with his leg upraised, listening to furious bellowing coming from near the stable.
“Sadiki is dead!”
A dozen questions rushed through Nate’s mind but there wasn’t time to ask even one. He lowered his leg and started reloading the Hawken, his fingers flying as he poured black powder into the palm of his hand. He had to roughly gauge the correct amount by feel alone. Then he quickly fed the powder down the barrel. To the east a man shouted.
“Hornung! Dryer! What is all the shooting about!”
Nate tried not to think of the two armed men and the four-legged terror drawing rapidly closer. Yanking a ball from his ammo pouch, he wrapped it in a patch and hastily fed it into the Hawken using the ramrod. As he was replacing the ramrod in its housing he heard pounding footsteps to the right, and whirled to see the guards and the dog appear.
They had no idea he was there. Both men were staring at the bodies sprawled near the lantern post to the west while the guard dog strained at its leash in front of them.
Hardly bothering to sight, Nate shot the beast, the slug ripping into it above the shoulder and knocking it flat. He bounded forward, drawing the Hawken back, and slammed the stock into one of the men as they rotated to face him. The man went to his knees. Nate spun, sweeping the barrel in a tight arc and catching the second man on the tip of the nose. He h
eard a crunch and blood splattered onto his cheeks and chin, and then he delivered another blow to the man’s chin that felled him on the spot. Turning, he saw the first man feebly struggling to stand, and thwarted the attempt by bashing the stock onto the man’s head.
Both guards were down.
His blood pounding in his temples, Nate swung around. Tatu was slumped against the cabin, her features shrouded in deep shadow. He darted to her side and clasped her hand. “We have to get away!” he urged.
“Sadiki is dead,” Tatu repeated dully. “They beat him some more.” She looked up, the tears streaming down her face. “They wanted to know where Tatu was.”
Nate jerked on her hand, trying to pull her along. “I’m sorry, Tatu. I truly am. But every guard on the estate will be after us in a minute. We must find someplace to hide.”
“Go without me.”
“No,” Nate said, forcing her to move or be dragged behind him. She balked, too anguished to care about the danger, dragging her feet.
“Please, Nate,” she pleaded forlornly. “Tatu has nothing to live for anymore.”
“That’s nonsense,” Nate barked, and succeeded in forcing her into running beside him, although she ran at half the speed she had before. He headed north, away from the mansion, where most of the guards would be coming from, and crossed the ring of light into the veil of night beyond. Trees materialized and he plunged into them, glad for the cover.
A din prevailed to the south, the barking of a dozen dogs mingled with the loud cries of men who were trying to learn what had happened.
Soon the rest would find the bodies and the chase would be on, Nate reflected. He had to put distance behind them, and he wished now he had bothered to learn more about the property from Adeline. Tatu knew the locations of the various buildings and the fields where she had been compelled to work, but she knew nothing of the outlying sections of the Debussy estate. The
guards, knowing the area, would have a distinct advantage.
He covered a hundred yards or better at a brisk clip, and halted to catch his breath. Tatu slumped when he released her hand, her shoulders sagged in bitter defeat.
“Tatu wants to die.”
“Don’t give up now,” Nate responded, and set to work reloading the rifle again. He could hear men at the cabins. It was just a matter of time now.
“Tatu never see her home again,” she said forlornly. “Tatu is all alone.”
“You have me. I’m your friend.”
A wan grin exposed her white teeth. “You are a kind man, Nate King. A decent man.”
“I’m glad you think so. If you give up, it means everything I’ve done to help you has been in vain.”
For half a minute Tatu said nothing. She finally answered in the small voice of a girl of nine or ten rather than that of a full-grown woman. “Tatu will not let you down, sir.”
Replacing the ramrod, he moved northward. While he would have liked to reload the pistols, the task had to wait. At the edge of the trees he spied a tilled field of growing cotton, and he led Tatu between two of the rows.
“They are coming, sir.”
“I know,” Nate answered, hearing the crackle of underbrush in the strip of trees they had passed through as the guards and their frantically barking dogs pursued them, the dogs following the trail by scent.
He felt exposed in the cotton field, and was relieved when they reached more woodland. As he stepped under an oak tree he glanced over his left shoulder and saw a large group of inky figures at the far end of the field.
“They will catch us, sir,” Tatu said.
“Not if I can help it,” Nate told her. He increased his speed, threading among the many tree trunks and skirting heavy thickets. Other than a few minor aches his body was holding up well, and he felt like he could go for miles without tiring.
The woodland came to an end after only a few dozen yards. He drew up in consternation on beholding an expanse of lily- and-reed-choked water. There were cattails off to the left and other vegetation that only grew in swampland.
Behind them the raucous chorus of canine barking had become a feral frenzy.
“Is something wrong, sir?” Tatu asked.
“No,” Nate replied, and bore to the right, intending to skirt the swamp until he located solid ground.
Tatu swiveled to stare toward the cotton field. “Why do we not go straight ahead?” she wondered.
Nate hesitated before answering. He knew they would lose precious time and ground by trying to go around the swamp, and he knew she realized the same thing. But he had heard stories about swamps, unnerving tales about poisonous snakes, quicksand, and treacherously deep holes a person might stumble on and disappear into in the blink of an eye.
The dogs sounded awful close.
“We go straight,” he declared, and took a deep breath as he boldly waded into the chilly water. He held the Hawken at chest height and shoved aside several cattails.
“We must hurry, sir,” Tatu urged. “Tatu does not want you harmed on her account.”
“Don’t worry,” Nate said, forging onward. The water rose to his knees, then to several inches below his waist. His buckskin leggins clung to his legs. On all sides frogs croaked, insects buzzed, and things rustled in the night. He thought he saw something long and sinuous swimming nearby and fervently hoped it was his imagination.
The water impeded their progress, compelling them to go slower than they would on dry land. To compound their problem, in spots the bottom was a sticky muck into which their feet sank up to the ankles. Occasionally what felt like underwater vines tugged at their legs.
Chafing at the delay and dreading an encounter with a cottonmouth or a massasauga, Nate bypassed a stand of high reeds. He repeatedly checked his pistols to make certain the water had not risen high enough to cover them. Although neither was loaded and he didn’t have to worry about the powder being rendered useless, he would still have to thoroughly dry and clean each piece if they became submerged to prevent future fouling.
He looked at Tatu, who was sticking close to him as if for protection. The poor woman. When he thought of the vile injustice she had suffered and the grueling hardships she had endured, it made his blood boil. What he wouldn’t give to
have Jacques Debussy in his sights for a few seconds! Slaying the slaver, though, would be certain suicide since there were bound to be relatives such as Rhey or friends who would seek revenge.
“Listen, sir,” Tatu said.
Nate slowed and cocked his head, puzzled by her request. Most of the frogs and insects had fallen silent, and he could hear the dogs still barking wildly. Then he noticed the difference. The dogs were barking, all right, but the sound was coming from the east, and not to their rear as before.
Mystified, he continued northward. Was it possible the dogs had lost the scent and were being taken around the swamp rather than through it? If so, Tatu and he would easily reach the far side first and escape.
Another twenty yards went by, and then Nate made a startling discovery. The dogs weren’t behind them. The dogs were almost abreast of their position, approximately thirty yards to the east, which meant the guards and their canine helpers were on a parallel course but moving far more swiftly than the two of them could hope to do.
How was this possible?
He concluded his foes were taking a trail through the swamp, perhaps nothing more than a narrow game trail but a dry route nonetheless, a trail he might have found if he had kept skirting the swamp instead of listening to Tatu. Now the guards would get out in front of him and be able to cut him off. “Damn,” he swore, and hastened northward.
Less than fifteen yards away trees appeared, and where there were trees there was usually solid ground. He pumped his legs, making a loud splashing noise that couldn’t be helped. Tatu churned the water beside him. With any luck the noise would frighten off every snake within a mile.
At last he spied the dark outline of a small island. Eager to get on firm footing once again, h
e pulled out well in front of Tatu and reached the bank well before her. Breathing heavily from his exertions, he clambered onto the bank and sank to his knees, grateful for the momentary respite. To the east the dogs barked on.
Or most of them did.
The patter of onrushing paws alerted him to the fact he wasn’t alone on the island, and he glanced up in alarm to see a pair of large dogs bearing down on him with their lips curled back and their razor teeth exposed. Instantly he lifted the Hawken, pointed the muzzle at the bigger of the two, and got off a shot. His target twisted and fell, but the other dog never missed a beat as it ran in close and sprang.
Nate barely got the rifle up in time to deflect the brute’s snapping jaws. He was bowled over onto his back, the dog growling viciously and trying to bite into his neck. To dislodge the dog he rolled to the right, but the beast clung to him as if endowed with talons rather than claws. Those flashing teeth narrowly missed his throat again, and he was about to make a desperate bid for his tomahawk when a shadowy form loomed overhead and a knife streaked through the air.
He heard a thud as the blade hit home.
The dog vented a howl, tried to pull free, and died on its feet, saliva and blood dripping from its bottom jaw.
Drops spattered onto Nate’s face as he shoved the beast to one side and stood. Tatu was holding the dripping knife, her chest heaving.
“I thought it had you, sir,” she said breathlessly.
“It almost did,” Nate responded, and took her arm to lead her northward again. Undergrowth snapped and cracked to the east and he spun, horror creeping over him on spying nine or ten figures charging toward them. Some were guards, some were dogs. “Run!” he shouted, and gave Tatu a shove to get her started. She took only a few strides when a steely voice yelled a warning.
“Stop where you are!”
Tatu ignored the command and took another step, and suddenly the night blossomed with flashes of light and clouds of gray smoke.
As long as Nate lived he would never forget the ghastly sound of the two balls smacking into her flesh, one right after the other. Another buzzed past his head, but he ignored it and dashed to Tatu’s side as her legs buckled. He got an arm around her waist, then heard a low snarl and had to let go and whirl to meet yet another dog head-on. The dog went for his left wrist and clamped down hard before he could evade it. Backing away, he tried to shake the heavy brute off, but the dog clung tenaciously, digging its teeth ever deeper. He awkwardly attempted to club it with the Hawken using only his right arm, and swung twice, gathering strength with each blow. As he lifted the rifle for another swing something slammed into the back of his head, and he saw the earth rushing up to meet his face a moment before his consciousness faded and died.
Hawken Fury (Giant Wilderness Book One) Page 20
