The Darkest Winter

by William W. Johnstone

  But she couldn’t guarantee that, and anyway, it wasn’t just her own life that would enter into such a bargain. There was also the life of the child she was carrying to consider. She had to protect that child above all else. She knew Breckinridge would understand her feelings.

  Carnahan left her alone for the most part, after he realized she wasn’t going to respond to any of his comments about the life they might share once Breckinridge was dead.

  The monster was attracted to her, Dawn Wind realized, but she couldn’t bring herself to try to use Carnahan’s lust to her advantage. Not yet, anyway.

  Several times during the day, Major Ralston showed up at the cabin to deliver reports to Carnahan. There had been no sign of Breckinridge or anyone else from the Crow village.

  “Machitehew is getting restless,” Ralston told Carnahan late that afternoon. “He wants to take his warriors and the prisoners and head back where he came from. He says that travel is just going to get worse as winter goes on.”

  Carnahan grunted and said, “He’s probably right about that. I want him here until Wallace has been dealt with, though.”

  “Then that redheaded bastard had better show up in the next day or two, because I’m not sure you can convince the Blackfeet to stay any longer than that. They got what they wanted. They dealt out misery to their old enemies the Crow, and they have some captives to turn into slaves. They’re ready to go home.”

  Carnahan waved a hand dismissively as he sat at the table. Ralston shrugged, turned, and left the cabin.

  Carnahan looked at Dawn Wind, who sat on the floor near the fire, and said, “Maybe Wallace has decided he’s better off without you, girl. You ever think about that?”

  Dawn Wind ignored him. She knew his words were a lie. Breckinridge would never abandon her. He would come for her.

  Unless he was already dead.

  * * *

  Darkness closed down over the rugged landscape. It was as black and impenetrable as it had been the previous night, but at least the snow wasn’t falling anymore. The air was cold and a slight breeze was blowing.

  Breckinridge and Bitter Mouth paused on the ridge to hunker under a stunted pine and eat some jerky. They debated trying to start a fire but decided not to. For one thing, Breckinridge hadn’t decided whether he was going to stop for long, even though night had fallen.

  “As long as we’re careful and don’t fall off the edge, I don’t see why we can’t keep movin’ once we’ve rested for a while,” he said to Bitter Mouth. “We’re not followin’ sign up here, anyway. Carnahan and the others must have a camp somewhere in these parts. If they’ve got a fire goin’, we ought to be able to spot it from up here.”

  “I am willing to continue,” Bitter Mouth replied. “That may be our best chance of taking them by surprise.”

  Breckinridge smiled, even though his companion wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark.

  “I was just thinkin’ the same thing. Carnahan’s probably got a trap set for us, but maybe we can come at him from a direction he ain’t expectin’.”

  With that settled, they finished their sparse meal, ate some snow to wash it down, and then continued moving carefully along the ridge.

  Despite the fact that both men had keen eyesight, the darkness was so thick they practically had to feel their way along in order to avoid the dangerous drop-off to their right. The ridge was plenty wide, but if it had any ragged edges that angled in sharply with no warning, that might cause a problem. Breckinridge and Bitter Mouth couldn’t afford to be in a hurry.

  That was particularly galling since every instinct in Breckinridge’s body was crying out for him to find and rescue Dawn Wind just as soon as possible.

  They pushed on into the frozen darkness. Breckinridge couldn’t have said for how long. But he knew when he sensed something different.

  He lifted his head and said, “Ssst!” to Bitter Mouth. Breckinridge stood absolutely still and drew in a deep breath of the frigid air.

  “I smell it, too,” Bitter Mouth whispered. “Smoke.”

  “Wood smoke,” Breckinridge replied, equally quietly. “From a good-sized campfire. Actually, doggoned if it don’t smell like a chimney burnin’.”

  Was that possible? he wondered. Could there be some sort of cabin out here in the middle of the wilderness?

  He thought about how much time had passed since the last time he had seen Carnahan, Ralston, and the others. They had had plenty of time to build a cabin, or even several cabins, he realized. All they needed were axes and plenty of trees, and those things were available.

  Carnahan might have himself a damn stronghold up here, Breckinridge thought. He probably believed there was no chance Breck could get to Dawn Wind without being caught.

  Before much longer, Carnahan was going to find out how wrong he was about that.

  “How close you reckon that smoke is?” Breckinridge asked Bitter Mouth.

  “Hard to say. The wind is not strong tonight. The smoke could have drifted for quite a distance. Perhaps a mile or more.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, all we can do is keep going. Just take it slow and careful-like.”

  “That will not be easy.” For the first time, Bitter Mouth’s iron self-control slipped a little. Breckinridge could hear that in his voice as he said, “My heart cries out for vengeance.”

  “Mine, too, my friend. We’ll have it, along with justice for all those folks Carnahan and his bunch murdered.”

  The smoke smell gradually grew stronger as Breckinridge and Bitter Mouth pushed ahead warily along the ridge. Breck knew they were going in the right direction.

  He was slightly in the lead, tasting the footing with each step, when suddenly there was nothing under his right foot except empty air. He caught his breath as he swayed forward and strained with every muscle to pull himself back.

  He might have been able to save himself from a fall, or he might not have, but just then Bitter Mouth caught hold of his buckskin shirt and hauled back on it. Both men toppled to the ground.

  Breckinridge’s heart slugged heavily in his chest. He didn’t know how bad the fall would have been if he had plummeted from the brink, but some sixth sense told him it wouldn’t have been good. After a few moments of lying there to catch his breath, he sat up and then got on hands and knees.

  “Stay where you are,” he whispered to Bitter Mouth. “I’m gonna see if I can tell what’s ahead of us.”

  “Nothing, I think,” Bitter Mouth whispered back.

  Breckinridge had a hunch his friend was right about that. He inched forward, sweeping a hand back and forth across the ground in front of him.

  Within a couple of feet, he felt the edge under his fingers. He eased a little closer and reached out. His hand found nothing but emptiness. It spread out in front of him like a pitch-black sea.

  No, wait . . . In the distance to his left was something. . . a faint glow . . . a few tiny, dancing specks of light . . .

  Glowing bits of ash from a fire, Breckinridge realized, rising on a column of hot air. More than one, in fact. But no flames were visible, which meant the fires were contained. There were fireplaces down there, and that meant cabins. Two or three, he guessed, based on what he could make out.

  He backed away from the edge, reached out, brushed a hand against Bitter Mouth’s shoulder. Leaning close, he breathed, “Looks like a big canyon, best I can tell. There are cabins down there. I can smell the smoke and see some ashes floatin’ in the air, but no flames, so they’re not open campfires.”

  “Cabins?” Bitter Mouth replied. “This man Carnahan wishes to live here?”

  “I reckon he’s gonna spend the winter, and he figured he might as well be comfortable while he’s doin’ it. It’d be a good place to keep prisoners, too.”

  Bitter Mouth didn’t reply for a moment, then, “What will we do now?”

  “We need to get down in there and see if we can find Dawn Wind.”

  “We cannot.”

  Breckinridge started to brist
le at that. “What in blazes—”

  “We cannot climb down into a canyon in darkness like this. We would fall and probably kill ourselves. Then there would be no one to help the prisoners.” The warrior sighed. “I want to kill our enemies every bit as much as you do, Breckinridge, but we must wait until morning when we can see what is down there. And then one of us should go back and let Gray Bear and the others know what we have learned.”

  Bitter Mouth’s words made perfect sense, but Breckinridge didn’t want to hear them. He was close to Dawn Wind now. He could feel that certainty in every bone of his body. She was somewhere down in that canyon and he had to go to her.

  But once again, a small voice of caution in the back of his head spoke up, warning him that he couldn’t do anything to rescue her if he was dead. They needed to wait for morning, as Bitter Mouth said, even though that meant leaving Dawn Wind in Jud Carnahan’s hands for a second night.

  “All right,” he whispered, “but if anybody carries word back to Gray Bear tomorrow, it ain’t gonna be me. Now that I’m this close to Dawn Wind, I ain’t leavin’. I just wish there was some way to let her know that I’m here . . .”

  * * *

  Dawn Wind could tell that Carnahan was growing more impatient. That evening, the bearded man paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back and a scowl on his face.

  Dawn Wind sat at the table and kept her head down and her face carefully impassive, even though she wanted to laugh at Carnahan’s discomfiture. It wouldn’t do to make him angry.

  She had survived so far, and she was determined to stay alive until Breckinridge came for her.

  Carnahan abruptly stopped pacing and swung around to glare at her.

  “I was goading you earlier,” he said, “but now I really am starting to wonder if Wallace decided not to come for you after all.”

  “Life will unfold as the great spirits wish,” she said calmly. “There is little we can do to influence them, other than trying to live as they might wish.”

  Carnahan let out a bark of laughter. “Your great spirits aren’t going to help you, girl. Even if they exist, they don’t give a damn about us. They threw us into this world and left us here to live or die on our own, according to how strong we are. That’s what my life has taught me.”

  “Then I almost feel sorry for you,” Dawn Wind said. “Almost.”

  Carnahan snorted and resumed stalking back and forth in front of the fireplace.

  After a while, Dawn Wind went to her corner, wrapped the blanket around her, and curled up on the floor. The wind wasn’t howling through the cracks between the logs tonight, as it had been the night before, so it wasn’t as cold in the cabin.

  If she had been here with Breckinridge instead of Jud Carnahan, she might have even considered her surroundings cozy and comfortable. She had assumed that when she and Breck spent their lives together, they would do so in a tipi, but perhaps he would prefer to live in a cabin like this, she thought now. White men liked solid buildings.

  She lost herself in musing about what their lives would be like, spending the years to come in a sturdy cabin, Breckinridge going out each day to trap and hunt, while she remained at home to care for their home and all the children they would have. It was a very pretty dream, easy to get lost in . . .

  And dream it became, as she slipped off to sleep.

  * * *

  Once again, weariness from the day’s efforts enabled Breckinridge to sleep better than he expected to.

  However, he was still tired, stiff, and sore when he woke up early the next morning. He had hoped to see the dark clouds breaking this morning, but they hung stubbornly in the sky, as thick and threatening as ever.

  Breckinridge and Bitter Mouth had drawn back well away from the edge of the canyon before making a crude camp under some trees. When both men were good and awake and there was enough gray light in the sky for them to see what they were doing, they crept forward to the brink and risked a look down into the canyon. Breck took his broad-brimmed hat off as he did so, to lessen the chances of drawing attention to his presence.

  The mouth of the canyon was a couple of hundred yards to their right. An equal distance back the other way were three cabins, two set fairly close together, the other a short distance apart.

  There were crude lodges built of brush down there as well. Bitter Mouth pointed them out, grimaced, and mouthed the word Blackfoot.

  Breckinridge nodded. The remaining members of Machitehew’s war party had thrown in with Carnahan; there was no doubt about that now.

  As he and Bitter Mouth watched, faint movements in the rocks around the canyon mouth caught Breckinridge’s eye. He studied them more closely, pointed them out to Bitter Mouth, and then motioned for the two of them to withdraw again.

  When they were away from the edge, Breckinridge whispered, “Carnahan’s got men in those rocks at the canyon mouth. I reckon that’s the trap he plans to spring. He’s hopin’ the rescue party will advance into the canyon, then his men will fall in behind them and catch Gray Bear and the others in a cross fire. We got to keep that from happenin’.”

  “I will go back, find them, and warn them,” Bitter Mouth said. He surprised Breckinridge by smiling faintly. “I know you will not agree to leave this place.”

  “You’re damn right about that. Dawn Wind’s down there, and I ain’t leavin’ until I’ve figured out a way to rescue her.”

  “Wait until I get back with the others,” Bitter Mouth suggested. “We will attack the men at the mouth of the canyon. That will draw the others away from the cabin. Then you can climb down and find her.”

  Breckinridge thought about that for a moment and then nodded. He was no real tactician—his usual plan was to charge in like a big old bull and lay waste to whomever he was fighting—but he recognized that Bitter Mouth’s idea was a good one.

  “Go ahead,” he told the grim-faced warrior. “But don’t waste any time. While you’re gone I’ll do some scoutin’ and find a good way down into the canyon, so I’ll be ready when the time comes to move.”

  Bitter Mouth nodded. He reached out and squeezed Breckinridge’s arm.

  “Good luck, my friend. Before this day is over, you will be reunited with Dawn Wind . . . and I will have my vengeance and be reunited with my wife.”

  Breckinridge nodded and clasped Bitter Mouth’s shoulder in return. Bitter Mouth got to his feet and trotted back the way they had come, fading quickly into the gray dawn light.

  He was gone by the time Breckinridge realized what his friend had meant by that last statement.

  Bitter Mouth intended to die in battle today.

  Chapter 33

  Breckinridge crawled back over to the rimrock and stretched out there, then watched as the light grew stronger and men began to move around, down in the canyon. Several of them emerged from the two cabins that were close together. They tramped around in the snow and seemed to be hunting for firewood. That guess was confirmed when they returned with their arms full of broken branches.

  Other men, these carrying rifles, left the cabins and headed toward the canyon mouth. They were going to relieve the men who were standing guard in the boulders there, Breckinridge supposed.

  He was right about that, too. Several minutes later, roughly the same number of men returned from the canyon mouth. Among them was Major Gordon Ralston.

  Breckinridge’s hands clenched into fists as he recognized the former officer. There was no mistaking the lean, wolfish figure with the patch over one eye and a scabbarded saber hanging from his belt. Breck had a mighty low opinion of Ralston, but evidently the man took his turn standing guard and Breck had to give him credit for that.

  Instead of heading for the cabins where the men had emerged, Ralston walked toward the building standing apart. Before he could get there, a warrior came out of one of the crude lodges and called to him in a harsh voice. Breckinridge couldn’t make out the words, but he could tell that the Blackfoot didn’t sound ha
ppy.

  The warrior strode up to Ralston. The two of them stood there talking for several minutes. Now and then one of them made a curt gesture, usually returned by the other. Judging by that, Breck figured the discussion wasn’t a very friendly one.

  Gray Bear had told him the Blackfeet were led by a well-known war chief known as Machitehew. The Crow had battled him before, during previous raids, and he had been recognized during the attack on the village.

  Breckinridge had a hunch that was Machitehew talking to Ralston now, and the war chief sure wasn’t happy about something.

  Finally, Machitehew flung out both hands abruptly and dismissively, turned his back on Ralston, and walked away. Breckinridge saw Ralston’s hand stray toward the sword for a second.

  Ralston’s impulse may have been to yank out the saber and plunge it into Machitehew’s back, but if that was true, he controlled the urge. Instead he continued on to his destination, the cabin that sat apart from the other two.

  When he reached the door, it looked like he started to go straight in, but then he paused and knocked. That was an indication the cabin belonged to Jud Carnahan. Sure enough, a moment later someone inside jerked the door open, and Breckinridge saw Carnahan’s long, bristling black beard.

  If Carnahan was in there, Breckinridge thought, there was a good chance Dawn Wind was, too. He hadn’t seen any sign of her or the other captives, but they had to be here somewhere. Since Dawn Wind was the bait in the trap, it was likely Carnahan would keep her close to him.

  That thought made a shiver go through Breckinridge. He wanted to get down off this canyon wall somehow, bust into that cabin, and see for himself. He wanted to kill Carnahan, Ralston, and all the others and then take Dawn Wind into his arms and promise he would never let her be hurt again.

  He warned himself that his best chance of being able to do that was to stick to the plan. He had to wait for Bitter Mouth and the others to get here.