Predators and Prey

by F. M. Parker

  “Yep, and shouting for all the others to hurry.”

  “Which way did they head?”

  “Like I told you, west.”

  Sam looked across the town of Florence, three short streets running parallel to the Missouri River. “Show me where you last saw them,” he said.

  “Over there on the prairie.” The man pointed. “They were the last to ride west from here, so their sign is the freshest.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said. He mounted the roan horse and rode up the slight bank of the river to the first street. A minute later he was on the outskirts of town. The tracks of DeBreen and his men were plain in the dirt. The pursuit was finally beginning, after all the long days of searching.

  Sam pressed his moccasined heels against the ribs of the horse. He left the small town on the riverbank at a gallop.

  The roan warmed to his work and his pace grew swifter. Soon he was running with a swift stride. The animal’s step was as soft as Mitchell had said; still, the bulging lump in Sam’s stomach was like a rock bouncing and jarring his guts.

  The last two hours of the day passed pain-filled and long. The sun fell from the sky, hemorrhaging a crimson red as it sank below the horizon. Was the blood color an omen that Sam would soon kill DeBreen? Or perhaps it meant that he was riding to his own death.

  Sam pushed on until night shadows masked the trail. He halted near a clump of trees beside a small stream. He swung down slowly, carefully. His stomach ached and his weakened muscles trembled with fatigue. He leaned against the horse for a few seconds to collect his strength.

  At the creek he watered the horse. As the roan stretched its neck to drink, Sam lay down just upstream and slaked his own thirst. He unsaddled the animal and, taking a picket pin and staking rope from a saddlebag, tethered the mount in a grassy spot.

  No fire was built. Sam spread the bedroll and placed his rifle and pistol within easy reach. Pulling his grub sack to him, he fished out a chunk of cheese, part of a loaf of hard bread, and some dried apples. He was not hungry but forced himself to eat a little.

  The roan came to an end of its picket rope and sniffed at the man’s food. “Here,” Sam said. Reaching out, he gave the roan a piece of dried apple. The animal swallowed the sweet tidbit, then lowered its bony head to sniff again at the food.

  “Go eat grass,” Sam said. He stowed away the remaining food.

  Sam slid into his blankets. He consciously did not touch the lump in his stomach. The last thing he heard as he went to sleep was the dry branches of a nearby tree rubbing in the wind and sounding like a cat scratching.

  ***

  The morning was clear and crisp. The path of DeBreen and his band of men through the winter-killed grass was as obvious as a highway. Older, and rained on at least once, were the wheel marks of several vehicles. Sam wondered if DeBreen was trying to overtake those people.

  Well rested, the roan wanted to run. But Sam held him to an easy gallop. The day would be long and hard, so Sam would have to ration the horse’s strength and his own as well.

  He ate a few bites of food as he traveled. He stopped once to water the horse and fill his canteen. He forded the Elkhorn River at the same crossing DeBreen and the wheeled vehicles had used. Sam made a weary night camp on the bank of the Loup River a short distance upstream from where it joined with the silt-laden, slow-flowing Platte River.

  A flock of crows flapped in to land in a tall cottonwood beside the Loup. The crows, hanging to the limbs like the black boils of some awful disease, made Sam think of his own illness, the deadly cyst within his sore stomach.

  He believed the gulf that separated him from death was a narrow one. As he contemplated that thought he was surprised that he had no fear of death. Perhaps death would wait until he found and killed DeBreen.

  Sam lay down on his bedroll. He fretted, feeling very unsettled. After a swift day of riding, he knew he had not gained on his enemy. DeBreen was pushing just as hard as Sam was. Why was that?

  22

  To Caroline, pulling doggedly on the handcart, each mile the caravan covered looked no different from the one before. The rise and fall of the sand hills had the elemental sameness of the broad ocean. Time could have been flowing backward and she would not have known the difference. Except for the frequent deaths.

  On the fourteenth day out from Florence, the caravan had reached the junction of the Platte River with the North Platte. The Mormons veered to follow the North Platte. Within half a day they had entered a land of low, rolling sand hills, a desolate terrain of sparse grass and little live water. For seven days now they had fought the sand hills.

  The wheels of the handcarts cut into the sandy soil and brought heartbreaking labor to the people. Mathias and Anton moved among the converts with encouraging words. They added their strength to help those most in need of assistance to mount the steep upgrades. Still, the weak began to die from exhaustion and the heat.

  Hardly a day passed that someone did not fall upon the earth and not rise. Bad days saw two deaths. The company halted barely long enough to bury the dead in shallow graves.

  Caroline no longer cried at the funerals. She had used up all her tears. Other people, she noted, had also grown numb to death and had ceased crying when it came.

  Mathias had told the people the sand hills stretched for one hundred and fifty miles. Caroline feared for the converts that would die before the far boundary was finally reached.

  A large dust devil whirled through the caravan, spinning up the sand and the old tattered grass of the past summer in a little storm. Caroline closed her eyes and stopped breathing until the rotating funnel had passed. Bending and twisting, the dust devil swept away over the prairie.

  The day wore on, the yellow orb of the sun climbing to its zenith and walking slowly down along its ancient path in the sky. As the sun neared the horizon it threw its sharp, slanting rays to pierce the eyes of the Mormons like needles.

  The night came fuming up from the eastern rim of the world. Nathan called a halt, and the creaking wheels of the handcarts ahead of Caroline stopped. She sagged across the cross bars.

  The carts that trailed at the end of the column straggled up and gathered with the others. Caroline and Pauliina positioned their cart in the usual circular pattern and stepped from inside the cross bars. Ruth and Sophia came from the rear and they all stood silently catching their breath.

  “Not one sign of water,” Caroline said. She stared out over the sand hills to the limits of her vision. There would be rationing of water and no chance to wash away the day’s sweat and dirt.

  The night seemed to fall upon the tired travelers with unnatural swiftness. Caroline and Pauliina hurried at setting up the tent. Ruth and Sophia gathered buffalo chips for fuel. They built their evening cooking fire on the outside perimeter of the handcarts, where it was not so congested and there was only the smoke of their own fire to contend with.

  The four prepared their simple meal of dried apples cooked with rice, fried bacon, and bread. They ate quickly and assembled with the others for the evening religious service.

  Nathan told the people they had made fifteen miles that day, a great accomplishment in the sand. He spoke a short sermon of encouragement for the hard days still to come, led the people in song, and ended the ceremony.

  Caroline rummaged through her possessions and found a piece of cloth. She wiped her face to remove the gritty rime of salt crystals left by the drying of her sweat. She badly wanted a bath.

  But now that the sun was gone, there was a growing chill in the air. Caroline pulled on her coat and went to sit with the other three girls by the small fire of buffalo chips.

  “It will freeze tonight,” Ruth said, buttoning her coat.

  “That’s better than rain,” Caroline replied.

  “Tell me, what is this freeze?” Pauliina asked.

  As they had done for nearly every evening since the trek over the plains had begun, the three girls began to teach Pauliina the pronunciation and meaning of
English words and phrases. The Swedish girl was quick to learn. Her laughter at mastering another piece of the foreign language brightened the days for the other girls. Pauliina was an enjoyable addition to the group. Never once had Caroline seen the girl angry, or difficult to get along with.

  The flames died. The girls’ conversation ceased. They sat looking at the dying fire, a tiny red glow in the darkness. Then, one by one, they climbed to their feet and went off toward their tent.

  Caroline remained by herself and stared into the darkness that lay dense on the awesome, lonely void of the prairie. There was no moon and the stars glittered like ice shards flung across the ebony sky. America was very different from crowded, rainy England. But different or not, here she would stay and make her home.

  Mathias came through the ring of handcarts and approached the fire. “Good evening, Caroline,” he said.

  “Hello, Mathias.”

  “May I sit with you for a moment?”

  “Certainly.” She watched his shadowy form sink wearily down on the opposite side of the glowing coals.

  Mathias pulled up a handful of dry grass and tossed it onto the coals. The grass caught fire easily and bright yellow flames flared up.

  “Was there something special you wanted to say to me?” Caroline asked. The conversations between them always had been about the business of the journey, or a short discourse on religion. Yet at times she had noticed him watching her. She felt that pleasure all women feel when handsome men look at them in that certain manner. Tonight his face seemed more than normally strained. He removed his hat and absently began to rotate it in his hands.

  “Are you and the other girls all right?”

  “Like the rest of the people, we’re tired and food is short. But we have no complaints.”

  “I didn’t expect any complaints from you. In three days we’ll butcher another steer. Then everybody will have a few meals of fresh meat.”

  “I saw some Indians at a distance today. They worry me. When do you think the men from Salt Lake City will arrive to protect us?”

  “We are more than three hundred miles along the trail. I had hoped the men would have met us by now. The farther west we get, the more likely the danger from Indians. On the other hand, there should be less danger from an attack by white renegades.”

  “Can we make it through if the men don’t come?”

  “We must.” Mathias threw another handful of grass on the fire, and the flames leapt up, renewed. He looked intently at Caroline.

  “Almost every man marries shortly after returning home from a mission. I think that I will also.”

  Caroline was surprised at the sudden turn of the conversation. Why was he telling her this? “That should be nice for you,” she murmured.

  Mathias turned his head and swept his eyes over the dark outlines of the handcarts and the blurred forms of the people sitting tiredly around the score of low-burning fires. “Once the people are safely in Salt Lake City and no longer my responsibility, then I shall ask a woman to be my wife.”

  He looked at Caroline. “Until then I must wait. And also the woman I would ask must wait.”

  Caroline thought Mathias’s face had become flushed, but in the ruddy yellow light of the fire she was not sure.

  “Does that seem like a reasonable plan?” he asked.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Good.” Mathias climbed to his feet. “There are some sick people I must visit before it gets too late. I think one of them will die. Good night, Caroline.”

  “Good night.” She thought the conversation had ended very abruptly.

  Mathias moved away from the fire. His form became mingled with the murk of the night as he went back inside the circle of handcarts. Her heart was beating rapidly. Had she just been proposed to? What would her answer be if the direct question was put to her? Without doubt, he was a handsome man and intelligent and gentle.

  Then the bone-chilling remembrance came to Caroline of her slaying Varick, the captain of the African Blackbird. Mathias had refused to kill the man when she so desperately needed protection.

  There were many long days of travel ahead. She would have plenty of time to think about marriage and Mathias Rowley.

  She felt the cold deepening. She pulled her coat around her and walked to the tent.

  Ruth sat close to the single candle that lit the tent. She studied The Book of Mormon, holding it so that the feeble light fell upon the pages. She read from the religious book every night. Her head rose as Caroline entered.

  “Ruth, are you sorry that you came on this journey with the Mormons?” Caroline asked.

  “Oh, my, no. I’m sure they have the true religion. It gives me strength for the hard work of pulling the handcarts, and it will surely take us all to heaven. Don’t you think so too?”

  Caroline did not answer the question. She wished she saw things as clearly and simply as Ruth did. “How does a man fit into your religion?”

  “I can have both,” Ruth said. Her eyes sparkled and she smiled. She closed the book of Mormon.

  “That’s the way to talk,” Sophia said with a chuckle from her blankets.

  “Amen,” Pauliina said.

  “I guess that says it all.” Caroline joined in the burst of laughter.

  Removing only her shoes, she snuffed out the candle and wrapped herself in the blankets. So Mathias wanted to marry her—or at least that was her interpretation of his words. All in all, perhaps that was not a bad thought.

  Sleep came to Caroline’s weary body within a handful of heartbeats.

  23

  Nathan came awake with the sound of a moan lying on the wind. He sat bolt upright, his hand scooping up his pistol.

  The moan came from the darkness again off to his right. In the faint light of the star shine he saw Charlie sitting in his blankets.

  “What’s the matter, Charlie?” Nathan asked.

  “I’m sick. My stomach is cramping like hell. Must’ve eaten something bad yesterday.”

  “Anything I can do for you?”

  “If you were a doctor, maybe then.”

  “Can’t help you there.”

  “Then I’ll just have to bear it,” Charlie said. He lay back on his bedroll. “Sorry I woke you.”

  Nathan checked Polaris in the north sky, and the Big Dipper. The Dipper rotated like the hand of a great celestial clock around the polestar once each twenty-four hours, measuring off the passage of time. Nathan judged daylight was an hour away.

  He lay resting, watching the slow drift of the stars across the black dome of the heavens. The band of men had crossed the Canadian River and the Cimarron River. The Arkansas River lay probably less than a hundred miles ahead. Then another six or seven days and three hundred miles would bring them to the Platte River. There they should find the trail of the Mormons, or so Drum said.

  Nathan thought of Jason. Time should have lessened his sorrow at his brother’s death but it had not, and the poignant memory of what his brother had meant to him constricted his throat and tears came to his eyes. Perhaps a wife would occupy his time in the evening, when Nathan’s mind most often tended to remember Jason.

  What would Jason have said about Nathan taking a wife? Nathan smiled at the thought. Jason would have laughed his gentle laugh and hugged the new member of his family.

  Gradually the dawn chased the blackness from the prairie. The stars winked out one by one. The sky began to turn blue.

  One of the horses nickered and stomped the ground. A second whinnied an answer.

  “Roll out,” Drum called. “Let’s ride. There’s pretty women waiting.”

  The men began to climb from their beds. Charlie rose last, his face pale and pinched.

  Charlie looked at Nathan and grinned weakly. “I’ll be all right once I’m in the saddle.”

  “Okay, Charlie,” Nathan said, and walked toward his picketed horse.

  “Charlie, go get my horse,” Drum called across the camp. “The brute has slipped his hobbles a
nd is off over there half a mile or so.”

  “I don’t feel up to doing that, Drum,” Charlie said. “I was sick last night and I’m not much better this morning. I’m just barely able to take care of myself.”

  “Go get the damn horse,” Drum ordered. “Saddle up and ride over there and bring it back. It’s too far for me to walk.”

  Drum’s harsh commands to the ill man scratched Nathan’s nerves. “Go get your own horse, Drum. And stop ordering Charlie around.”

  The camp instantly became silent as every man ceased what he was doing and turned to look at Nathan.

  “What’s that you said?” Drum asked in a belligerent voice.

  “You heard right. Leave Charlie alone.”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “Every man should take care of his own needs.”

  “I’m leading this outfit, so I’ll give the orders.”

  “You can lead all you want,” Nathan said. “But that’s just as long as what you do is right for all of us.”

  “I’ll put you in your place,” Drum said. He advanced toward Nathan, his booted feet thudding on the ground.

  Ash spoke. “Drum, we don’t want fighting in the group.’’

  Jake Payne, the blacksmith, intercepted Drum and caught him by the arm. “Let it drop. You two fellows beating each other up won’t do us any good.”

  “I can take him easy,” Drum said.

  “I’m not so sure you could. I suspect Nathan’s been in some fights, and probably won most of them. Besides, you have been riding Charlie and that’s not right. We’re all equals regardless of how old or young you are. And if the strongest man was the leader, then that’d be me, for I can whip any one of you. So let’s get traveling north.”

  Les came to stand beside Ash and Jake. Without any communication among themselves they blocked Drum’s path toward Nathan.

  “Jake said it straight,” Les said. “We should’ve stopped you before now from ordering Charlie around like a slave.”

  “We’ve got women to find,” Ash said. “Let’s not allow anything to slow us down.”