What else could Davy do? There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Setting the pistols down, he elevated both hands and complied.
Hoodoo Tom relaxed, chortling. “Yes, sir. This has been a grand day. I’m finally shed of those pesky Rees. Later on I get to eat until I burst. And I add another treasure to my pack.” He hefted his rifle as Davy came to the base of the knoll. “That’s far enough, hoss.”
More upset that he had failed Flavius than at his own impending fate, Davy said, “We all go to our reward sooner or later. My only regret is that I won’t be around when your past catches up with you. As it surely will.”
“Wishful thinkin’,” Hoodoo Tom said. He encompassed the western horizon with a sweep of his arm. “Think of it, friend. Thousands and thousands of square miles, they say, and not a lick of law anywhere. A man can do as he damn well pleases.”
“You’ll be caught,” Davy insisted.
“Not if I’m careful. The mistake I made with the Rees was not buryin’ the chief’s body deep enough. A stinkin’ mongrel sniffed it out. They put two and two together and lit out after me.”
“So that’s why they wouldn’t give up.”
“The way I see it,” Hoodoo Tom declared, “I can go on treatin’ myself to anyone who takes my fancy until I’m too old and feeble to lift a butcher knife.”
Davy squared his shoulders. He was tired of being played for a fool. Tired of listening to the trapper babble on. And just plain tired. “What are you waiting for? Get it over with.”
Hoodoo Tom cocked his head. “What’s your rush, young coon? I don’t mind chawin’ with you a few minutes more. Then I’ll go slit your friend’s throat and bleed him dry before I carve him up like a turkey.”
Beyond the knoll a tiny black dot appeared high in the sky, roving in circles. A hawk or eagle, Davy reckoned, and did not pay more attention. Of more immediate concern was preventing the lunatic from eating his best friend. “He’s ill, you know. Has been for months.”
“What’s that?” Hoodoo Tom perked up.
“It’s a sickness Flavius picked up in Florida during the Creek War,” Davy fibbed. “Every now and then he breaks out in festering sores. They itch and hurt like the devil. And the doctors don’t know what to do.”
“So?”
“So if he winds up in your stomach, you could catch the same thing.” Davy mentally crossed his fingers that the mountain man would fall for it.
“I don’t believe you,” Hoodoo Tom stated flatly. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
The speck had swelled in proportions. Davy squinted over Hoodoo Tom’s shoulder and felt a surge of disbelief. Keeping his face impassive, his tone neutral, he commented, “Our pasts have a way of catching up with us when we least expect it.”
“Spare me a sermon,” Hoodoo Tom snapped. “I heard it all from my brother.”
The bird banked toward the meadow. It had seen them! Clasping his hands, Davy sank to his knees. “I’m begging you!” he cried out much more loudly than the short distance between them warranted. “Spare me! Spare Flavius! We’ll never tell a soul about you! Honest!”
Hoodoo Tom scowled. “Get up, damn it! I credited you with more grit than this! It ain’t fittin’ to grovel.”
“Please!” Davy shouted. The bird had dipped lower and was hurtling toward the meadow, skimming the tops of the trees. Its huge beak and gigantic talons stood out in stark relief.
“Quit your squawkin’!” Hoodoo Tom groused. “I have half a mind to truss you up and skin you alive. You don’t deserve a manly death.”
“But I don’t want to die!” Davy yelled, flinging himself to the ground. “Spare me! Spare me!” Then, looking into the madman’s mismatched eyes, he smiled.
Hoodoo Tom stiffened. “What the hell—?” he said, and finally heard the high-pitched whistle of rushing air sliced by gargantuan wings. Wheeling, he screeched, and threw up both arms. “Nooooooo!” Feathered lightning streaked out of the blue. The Thunderbird’s talons ripped into Hoodoo Tom’s chest, rending flesh, crushing bones, even as he was yanked off his feet. Wings beating, the creature shot upward, carrying its prey as easily as an eagle might a fish.
Davy saw the lunatic struggle feebly, saw the great bird dip its head and tear at Hoodoo Tom’s neck and shoulder. An arm was ripped off. Spraying scarlet, it fell end over end, crashing down amid the trees to the north.
The Thunderbird, venting a shriek, gained height. Presently it was lost in the distance.
Davy slowly stood. It had all occurred so astoundingly quickly, he could not quite accept it had happened. Rousing himself, he collected his pistols and lost no time returning to the spot where the drag marks disappeared. Closer inspection showed that Hoodoo Tom had lifted Flavius and taken a long bound behind a row of weeds. From there tracks led to a depression created by an uprooted tree.
Lying at the bottom, bound and gagged, was Flavius. The first words out of his mouth were “What’s this all about? Who tied me up? And where’s Hoodoo Tom?”
The last Flavius recollected was being struck by the war club. He listened, stupefied, as Davy related all that had transpired. When the Irishman was done, he said, “That bird did the world a favor. Some folks ought never to be born.”
It took them two hours of hard searching to locate the canoe and dugout, cleverly concealed among reeds.
“What are we going to do with Fitzgerald’s stuff?” Flavius asked.
Davy stepped to the dugout and lifted the wolf skin pack. “I know what I’m doing with this,” he said, and swung his arms back to throw it.
“Wait!” Flavius exclaimed. “What’s in there? Do you know?”
“Yes.”
“I want to see.”
Davy unfastened the cord at the top and upended the pack. Out tumbled the contents into the water, six, seven, eight of them, all told. Most had patches of skin and hair still attached. The freshest belonged to an Arikara chief, his glazed eyes not yet decayed.
“My God!” Flavius blurted, grasping the gunwale to steady himself. “My dear God!”
Bobbing like so many apples, the human heads were caught by the current and borne westward. One by one, they became waterlogged and sank, the last being that of a white man whose mouth gaped wide in the terror he had felt at the moment his own brother slew him.
Davy Crockett lowered himself into their canoe, picked up a paddle, and mustered a wan smile. “Let’s go home.”
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