Although he fully intended to listen intently as he did most every night, Nate found his mind wandering. Lately he had been thinking about New York City a lot, and especially his family and Adeline. There were days when he missed his mother and father terribly, and other days when he remembered how they had attempted to stifle his adventurous spirit and mold him to follow in his father’s footsteps. They had been the ones, after all, who’d persuaded him to become an accountant despite his feeble protestations. They’d also arranged for him to meet Adeline, no doubt counting on nature and his normal masculine urges to do the rest.
Sweet Adeline.
A twinge of guilt nagged at Nate as he thought about the lovely woman he’d once regarded as a living angel, the woman he’d planned to marry. He recalled the way her blond hair would shimmer in the lamplight and the sparkle in her blue eyes when she laughed. Any man in the state of New York would have gladly given his right arm for the honor of wedding her. And what had he done?
Turned his back on her.
Turned his back on his family.
All because of Uncle Zeke.
The memory of his dear uncle brought an unconscious smile to Nate’s lips. There was a man who had enjoyed life to the fullest, who had grasped every precious second of existence as if it might be his last. Thanks to Ezekiel King, Nate had left New York City perhaps never to return. His uncle had written a letter, proposing to meet Nate in St. Louis and to share a mysterious “treasure.”
Nate should have known better.
Zeke had always been the black sheep in the King clan, always the different one. No one had been too surprised when he’d decided to leave New York, to venture far to the west. And no one had expressed much amazement at later hearing Zeke had built a cabin in the remote Rocky Mountains and taken an Indian woman as his wife.
After that, the subject of Zeke had become taboo in the King household.
But Nate had always retained fond memories of his uncle. When the letter came, he’d been undecided about accepting the offer until he’d realized how much his share of the treasure would mean to his darling Adeline. Accustomed to luxury as she was, Adeline had frankly admitted she expected him to provide for her in the same high fashion. She’d even pressed him to go into the mercantile business with her wealthy father. So with expectations of acquiring the riches Adeline craved, he’d traveled to St. Louis and met his uncle.
Who could have predicted how it would all turn out?
He should have suspected something was amiss when Zeke told him the treasure was at the cabin in the Rockies. He should have balked when Zeke proposed taking him there, taking a year out of his life in the bargain. But he’d gladly gone along, and despite initial reservations related to the slaying of cutthroats and Indians, he’d enjoyed the wilderness experience more than any other in his whole life.
When the double tragedy had occurred, when Zeke had been mortally wounded, and then had revealed there never was a treasure in the sense Nate believed, he could have turned around and headed for civilization. By then, though, he’d come to appreciate the true treasure his uncle had bestowed on him: the priceless gift of genuine freedom.
Who could return to the hectic pace of life in New York City having once tasted the untrammeled richness of life in the Rockies?
Who could adorn himself with the superfluous trappings of civilization having known the naked splendor of the primeval wilderness?
And now look at him. Married to a wonderful Shoshone woman and about to attend his first rendezvous. And look at all that had transpired since leaving St. Louis: He had fought hostile Indians and battled white robbers; he’d participated in a buffalo hunt; he’d shot deer and elk and antelope and fished in crystal-clear streams and lakes; he’d learned to be self-reliant, to live off the land; he’d learned the true meaning of manhood.
But what about the future?
Nate realized he’d given scant consideration to what he would be doing in a week or a month. Did he want to become a trapper? Would he return to Zeke’s cabin or build his own home elsewhere? If he did decide to live at the cabin, how would Winona react to being taken so far from the stamping grounds of her tribe? And how long would Shakespeare be willing to hang around, to devote so much of his time and energy to teaching the basics of surviving in the wilds? Troubled by that question, Nate glanced at the frontiersman.
“Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes,” Shakespeare was reciting. “And then Clarence enters, under guard, with Brakenbury.”
“Shakespeare?” Nate interrupted.
The mountain man looked up in surprise. “This had better be important.”
“When do you have to go back to your cabin?”
Lines formed on the frontiersman’s forehead. “I haven’t given it much thought. Are you in a great rush to get rid of me?”
“No. Just the opposite. I’m hoping you’ll stay a few more weeks and teach me everything you know.”
Shakespeare chuckled. “Are you certain it will take that long?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t fret yourself, Nate. I’ll stay with you until you’re ready to strike off on your own. Then one day you’ll wake up and I’ll be gone.”
Nate leaned forward. “Will I see you again?”
“I hope so, but nothing is certain in this world of ours. You know the old saying. Here today, gone tomorrow. A man never knows from one day to the next whether he’ll greet the dawn, which is the reason we must make the most of every moment the good Lord gives us.”
“You sound like my Uncle Zeke.”
“And who do you think taught him everything he knew?” Shakespeare said with a twinkle in his eyes.
“I wonder if I’ll ever be as skilled as he was,” Nate mentioned wistfully, gazing into the flickering flames.
“Give yourself time. A tadpole doesn’t grow into a frog overnight. First it has to live its allotted time as a tadpole; then it gets to stand on its own legs.”
“Am I still a tadpole, then?”
“Not hardly. I’d say you already have your legs. You’re just a mite timid about leaving the waters you know so well.”
Nate nodded, knowing his companion had hit the nail on the head. He glanced at Winona, admiring her loveliness, amazed she could sit still for so long without badgering him for attention. Her patience amazed him, as did her generally even temperament. He’d never known anyone who took everything so calmly, who remained controlled even in the midst of the worst crisis. Her composure was superb, and he often wished he could be half as self-possessed.
“I could go take a stroll if you’d like,” Shakespeare remarked.
Nate looked at the frontiersman to see if his friend might be poking fun at him again, but Shakespeare had an earnest expression. “Thank you. It’s nice of you to offer. There’s no need, though. We’ll want a good night’s sleep in order to be ready for the rendezvous tomorrow.”
“I could use some sleep myself. Must be a sign of my years. When I was younger, I often went two or three days without a wink of sleep and never felt the effects. Nowadays, I can’t go twenty four hours without yawning myself silly.”
“I don’t know how you do it. I’m only a third your age, yet I can’t last that long without feeling exhausted.”
“That’s what comes from being coddled,” Shakespeare said.
“I was not,” Nate replied, a bit indignantly.
“All children reared in the city are coddled. They have everything provided for them. They never learn how to grow crops, or how to kill game. Most of them can’t even fish. Their parents never teach them much of anything worthwhile, and they never learn nature’s supreme law.”
“Only the hardiest survive,” Nate said, recalling his companion’s comments from earlier in the day.
“You don’t sound convinced,” Shakespeare noted.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not.”
“Give yourself time, Nate. I just pray you don’t learn the lesson
the hard way.”
From off to the west came the hoot of an owl.
The frontiersman straightened and twisted to scan the inky forest surrounding the clearing in which they had camped. They were half a mile from the Bear River, nestled at the base of a low hill.
“Don’t worry about me,” Nate said. “I can take care of myself. I’ve killed two grizzlies, haven’t I?”
“Don’t let the killing of a couple of bears go to your head,” Shakespeare advised.
Again the owl hooted, only closer this time.
Winona raised her eyes from her somber contemplation of the fire and glanced at the woods. She nudged Nate and executed a series of quick signs.
“The owl doesn’t sound right?” Nate said. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what she said,” Shakespeare stated. “That owl doesn’t quite sound like an owl.”
Nate placed his right hand on the rifle by his side. “Indians, you think?”
“Could be. Indians aren’t great ones for traveling after dark unless they’re going on a raid.”
Remembering the eerie silence from before, Nate lifted his Hawken. “Didn’t you claim there wouldn’t be any hostile Indians this close to the rendezvous?”
The frontiersman shrugged. “I could be wrong.”
For several minutes they listened intently, but the call of the owl wasn’t repeated.
At length Shakespeare yawned and stretched. “I reckon I’ll turn in.”
“Do you want me to stand guard?” Nate queried.
“There’s no need. I’m a light sleeper.”
“I really don’t mind standing guard.”
“Get some sleep,” Shakespeare directed. “My horse will whinny if anything comes within thirty yards of our fire.”
“Now that puts my mind at rest,” Nate said dryly. He signed for his wife to prepare their bedding and stood, stretching his legs, facing westward. “How long did you say it will take us to reach the rendezvous tomorrow?”
“An hour and a half at the most.”
“Good,” Nate responded, not bothering to add that the woods in their vicinity were giving him a bad case of nerves. He couldn’t wait to reach the rendezvous where they would be safe from Indians, wild beasts, and whatever caused strange silences.
Winona spread their buffalo hide blankets flat on the ground, placing a heavy hide on the ground for comfort’s sake and a thinner one on top. She crawled underneath and said in perfect English, “Come, husband.”
Nate obligingly eased himself down beside her, sliding his Hawken under the blanket with him. He reclined on his back, the flintlocks still tucked under his belt.
Turning onto her side, Winona snuggled against him, her lips close to his ear. “I love you,” she whispered affectionately.
The soft caress of her breath on his neck gave Nate cause to wish they had erected a makeshift shelter with limbs or else a tent. He resolved to acquire a lodge at the earliest opportunity. Her father’s lodge had been lost during the Blackfoot attack, and to replace it he would have to slay several buffaloes and locate sturdy branches of the proper length to make support poles. “Say, Shakespeare?” he queried.
“Hmmmmmm?” The frontiersman drowsily replied.
“Will I be able to buy a lodge at the rendezvous?”
An extended snicker wafted over the fire.
“Did I say something funny?”
“You still have a long ways to go, Nate, before you fully outgrow your city ways. Why do you want to buy a lodge? Are you too lazy to make your own?”
“No,” Nate said defensively. “I was thinking of Winona. I’d like her to be comfortable. It might be a few days before we go on a buffalo hunt, unless you know something I don’t.”
“A point well taken. No, I don’t think you’ll find many lodges for sale, but you should be able to find someone willing to sell or swap the hides you need. Making the poles will take no time at all.”
“Good. Building a lodge will be my first priority tomorrow. My wife is not going to sleep in the open, on the ground, another night. I won’t have it.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“You don’t?”
“No sirree. Not with all the men who will be there. If I were you, I’d get her an iron chastity belt.”
Nate listened to his friend laughing uproariously, and sighed. In the future he’d remember to keep his big mouth shut. Maybe that way he’d stay out of trouble.
Chapter Five
Bear Lake, which fed into the river of the same name that eventually carried its waters all the way to the Great Salt Lake, had been selected as the site for the 1828 rendezvous for several excellent reasons. First and foremost, the lake was centrally located with respect to the Rockies as a whole, so those trappers ranging far to the north toward Canada and those who were working the southern tributaries of the Green River would have an equal distance to travel. Second, Bear Lake was relatively close to South Pass, the notch in the forbidding wall of the mountains that enabled those daring enough to traverse the Rockies easily. The proximity to South Pass meant the wagons from St. Louis could reach the site without undue delays. Third, the site offered abundant water, ample game, flat land, and was far enough removed from the usual haunts of the Blackfeet to render a conflict with that most aggressive of all tribes a remote possibility.
Sixty miles in circumference, and nestled in a valley surrounded by a high range of snowcapped peaks, Bear Lake had become known by several names. Many of the trappers referred to it as Snake Lake, others called it Black Bear Lake because of the large number of such animals in the land around it, and still others called the body of water Sweet Lake to distinguish it from its brackish cousin to the southwest, the Great Salt Lake.
Nate listened as all of these facts were related by Shakespeare the next morning en route to the rendezvous. They approached the lake from the southwest, following a trail that had been used by game and Indians for decades. “Why don’t they settle on just one name and be done with it?” he inquired after the frontiersman mentioned the different designations.
“They will, eventually,” Shakespeare said. “Sooner or later someone will get around to making an official map and whatever name they use will become the one the lake will be known by.”
“Are there other lakes that have several different names?”
“Not only lakes, but rivers, mountains, and prominent landmarks. It can get downright confusing. But I have a saying that can help you keep it all straight.”
“Which is?”
“When in doubt, use the Indian name.”
“How does that help?”
“Because an Indian tribe has the common sense not to give five names to the same landmark.”
“Do all the tribes use the same name?”
“No. But let’s say another trapper wants you to meet him on such and such a date at Ditch Creek. Well, you’ve never heard of Ditch Creek, but you do know about a Bobcat Creek in the same general vicinity. If it happens that both of you know the Shoshones call it Beaver Creek, then it’s a safe bet you’re talking about the same one.” Shakespeare looked over his shoulder. “Make any sense to you?”
“Sort of.”
“Don’t worry. After you’ve lived out here four or five years, you’ll know most of the major landmarks fairly well. I doubt you’ll become lost more than six or seven times a year.”
“Now there’s a comforting thought.”
Shakespeare chuckled and urged his horse up a rise.
Nate looked at Winona and found her probing eyes on him. What was she thinking about? he wondered. He could never tell. To him, women were a source of infinite mystery. Whether they were white or Indian, their thought processes, their outlook on life, and almost every aspect of their temperament were different from those of men, totally foreign in some respects. The mystery of womanhood intrigued him, aroused his curiosity, and at times made him feel woefully inadequate. Adeline, for instance, had been able to wrap him around he
r little finger. Her slightest wish had been his ardent command.
With Winona, the relationship was not quite the same.
He wanted to please her, of course, and to provide for her to the best of his ability. He loved her passionately, and in moments when she wasn’t gazing at him he would surreptitiously stare at her beautiful features, entranced by her loveliness, marveling that she should love him in return and had picked him as her husband. But he didn’t adore her in the manner of a puppy adoring its master, as had been the case with Adeline. He didn’t set Winona on a pedestal, as he had Miss Van Buren. He regarded Winona more as an equal, a separate and distinct equal, a competent woman who could perform the many tasks required of someone living in the wilderness. She could cook, sew, prepare herbal remedies, skin a buffalo or a bear with admirable precision and dexterity, and keep a lodge clean and tidy.
On top of all those domestic qualities, Winona was a marvelous mate, a woman endowed with a fine sense of humor and a keen zest for life. Perhaps the single trait of hers he most liked was her perpetually sunny disposition, her positive attitude. She took hardships in stride without complaining. She surmounted difficulties instead of whining about them. The deaths of her parents had deeply saddened her, yet she’d recovered and gotten on with her life. She was also affectionate and devoted.
What more could a man ask for?
Smiling, Nate used sign language to convey his intention of buying hides at the rendezvous they could use to build a lodge. He told her the lodge would be small at first, but at the earliest opportunity he would go out after buffalo and acquire the poles needed for a big lodge, a fitting home for the woman he loved.
Winona responded that she was glad they would have their own lodge soon, then pointed out they would need more horses before acquiring a larger dwelling.
Nate wanted to hit himself for not taking that fact into consideration. The bigger the lodge, the more pack horses were required to bear the poles, hides, and other necessary items. An average-sized lodge could be transported adequately by three horses. But any dwelling over fifteen feet in height used much heavier support poles, and many more of them, not to mention larger and thicker hides. The greatest lodge he knew of had been thirty feet tall, braced by thirty poles, and transported on the backs of fifteen horses.
Wilderness: Savage Rendezvous/Blood Fury (A Wilderness Western Book 2) Page 4
