Wilderness: Northwest Passage/Apache Blood (A Wilderness Double Western #6)

by Robbins, David

  Like most free trappers, Nate was a walking arsenal. In addition to the rifle, he carried a pair of single-shot .55-caliber flintlocks tucked under his wide brown leather belt. On his right hip, in a beaded sheath, was a large hunting knife. Wedged under his belt above his left hip was a tomahawk. And slanted across his powerful chest was a powder horn and an ammo pouch.

  “Should we take cover, Pa?” inquired the boy, seated astride his roan a few yards from McNair.

  “No, Zach,” answered Nate. “We hold still until they’re gone. Remember what I taught you about how much easier it is to see something that’s moving than something that’s not?”

  “Yep,” Zachary said. “And I’ve been practicing, Pa. The other day an old she-bear walked right by me and didn’t bat an eye. She figured I was a tree or a bush, I bet!”

  “Oh? I thought I told you to stay away from bears. Grizzlies will tear you to pieces, boy. And even black bears can be mean when—”

  “The Utes,” Shakespeare interrupted urgently.

  One look showed Nate why. The band had stopped for some reason, and the last several warriors were still visible in the gap between the hills.

  Suddenly the warrior bringing up the rear stretched and idly surveyed the surrounding countryside. He scanned both hills, then twisted to admire the snow-crowned Rockies.

  “Keep your horses still,” Nate cautioned the others, and hoping the swishing of their animals’ tails wouldn’t give them away. There was no way to stop their mounts and the four packhorses from moving their tails. But at such a distance, the odds of the Ute noticing were slim. It would take someone with sharper eyes than McNair to spot such slight motion.

  His own horse, a superb gelding distinguished by black leopard spots on a dusky background, was holding itself as rigid as a statue. Pegasus was the name he had given it, in remembrance of a mythical flying steed he had often read about as a child. The gelding was a gift from the grateful Nez Percé, bestowed after he helped them fight off a Blackfoot war party.

  Few white men owned a Nez Percé horse, although most would give a year’s wages to do so. This was because the Nez Percé had been breeding their Palouses, as the breed was commonly called, ever since the days of the Spanish conquistadors. Now, few horses could match a Palouse for speed and endurance. They were highly prized by all men who knew their horseflesh.

  Pegasus, in fact, had been the object of much envy from Nate’s fellow trappers at the annual Rendezvous. Some had made generous offers to buy him, but Nate had refused them all. Pegasus was the best horse he’d ever owned—the best he had ever seen—and he would rather part with an arm or a leg than the gelding.

  So now, as the Palouse stood stock-still as if sensing their danger, he affectionately touched his hand to its neck and whispered, “Good boy!” He saw the Ute warrior face front again, and moments later the band vanished into dense forest.

  “Do you reckon that one saw us?” Zachary asked.

  “I don’t rightly know,” Nate said uncertainly.

  Shakespeare voiced his thoughts. “If he did, he wouldn’t let on. He’d wait until they were out of sight, then tell the rest. And as sure as shootin’, they’d decide to shadow us and ambush us when we least expect it.”

  “Maybe you’re wrong,” Zach said with the typical optimism of the very young. “Maybe all they’d want to do is trade. We have plenty of supplies we can do without.”

  “Trust me,” Shakespeare said. “They wouldn’t settle for a few fixin’s when so much more could be theirs for the taking.”

  “Like the horses and stuff?”

  “And stuff,” Shakespeare replied grimly.

  The mountain man’s underlying meaning was plain to Nate, who studiously avoided glancing at the two women behind his son. Both his wife and Shakespeare’s made no comment, but he knew they both understood. Both had lived all their lives in the Rocky Mountain region; both were fully aware of the harsh realities of life in the savage wilderness.

  He tapped his heels on Pegasus’s flanks and began the descent. After going ten yards he looked back and smiled at Winona, the Shoshone beauty who had claimed his heart the very first time he ever laid eyes on her, although he had been too stubborn to admit as much for a short while thereafter. She had on an attractive buffalo hide dress she had made herself, as she had all of the family’s clothing. Her raven hair, which hung past her hips when she was standing, swayed with every stride her mare took.

  “I do declare!” Shakespeare said with a grin. “You are the darnedest one for making cow eyes that I ever did see!”

  “And you never do?” Nate retorted.

  “Not on your life. A growed man like me has too much dignity for such tomfoolishness.”

  Light laughter burst from the lips of the woman riding beside Winona. Blue Water Woman, a full-blooded Flathead, was more than twice as old as Nate’s wife but hardly showed her age. A few streaks of gray in her hair and small telltale wrinkles at the corners of her lively eyes were the only evidence of her added years. She pointed at McNair, then said in slightly accented English, “If I was given a prime beaver pelt every time you bend the truth, husband, I would have more than have been caught by all the trappers who ever lived.”

  “He makes cow eyes too?” Nate asked, enjoying the slight crimson tinge on his friend’s full cheeks.

  “I tell you, Nate,” Blue Water Woman said. “One of the reasons I became his wife is because he makes better cow eyes than any man I have known.”

  “Women!” Shakespeare muttered. “They are all but stomachs and we all but food. They eat us hungerly, and when they are full they belch us.”

  Unfazed, Blue Water Woman replied, “When it comes to belching, husband, you outdo a gorged buffalo.”

  Tickled by their banter, Nate grinned as he rode to the bottom of the ridge and swung to the southeast. It pleased him to see McNair bested. Blue Water Woman was one of the few people who could hold their own against Shakespeare in a battle of wits, which perhaps helped explain why they were so happy together.

  Nate checked the gap once more. The Utes appeared to be long gone, but he wasn’t taking any undue chances. For the next hour and a half he repeatedly searched for any sign of the band.

  “I can hardly wait to get there,” Zachary commented as they wound among the foothills toward the plain. “How long will it take us again?”

  “That depends on a lot of things, young’un,” Shakespeare said patiently, although the same question had been posed a half-dozen times since they left Nate’s cabin. “It depends on how well the horses hold up, on the weather, on the water situation, and on whether we run into a lot of hostiles.”

  “Do you think we’ll see Comanches?” Zach asked, fearfully accenting the last word.

  “We might,” Shakespeare said, “but I’m more worried about running into Apaches. They make the Comanches look like a ladies’ sewing circle.”

  “They do? But Rafe Bodeen says the Comanches are the fiercest Indians this side of the Rockies. He says they can scalp a man so he never even notices his hair is missing.”

  “Bodeen?” Shakespeare exclaimed. “Why, he’s the biggest liar who ever donned britches. And what would he know about the Comanches anyway? He’s never been south of Long’s Peak.”

  “But he’s heard tell all about them,” Zach objected. “He told me so himself.”

  “Rafe Bodeen is a braggart who loves to hear himself jabber and to fill the heads of little boys with tall tales,” Shakespeare said. “Why, if Rafe wasn’t a human he’d be one of them there sperm whales.”

  “Tell me about the Apaches,” Zachary prompted.

  “Another time.”

  “Please, Uncle Shakespeare.”

  Nate looked over his shoulder and saw McNair’s grizzled features soften. The mountain man liked being regarded as Zach’s uncle, even though they weren’t kin. And much to Nate’s delight, Shakespeare enjoyed teaching Zach all the things a growing boy should know if he hoped to one day make a go of i
t in the mountains. Since Zach wasn’t the only one who still had a lot to learn, Nate listened, engrossed, as the mountain man talked.

  “The Apaches aren’t like any tribe around. They keep to themselves high in the mountain country around Santa Fe and on down toward Mexico. Those who know say the Apaches have lived there forever, and none of the other tribes have been able to drive them out. Truth is, the other tribes are a mite scared of them.”

  “Even the Comanches?”

  “Even the Comanches, though you’d have a dickens of a time making one own up to it. You see, Zach, the Apaches are warriors through and through. They love to go on raids to kill and plunder, and they’re not too particular about who they raid. Whites, Mexicans, other Indians, it’s all the same to them.” Shakespeare paused and gazed thoughtfully at the remote horizon. “They’re not at all like the Indians you know, the Shoshones and the Flatheads and the like, who organize war parties every now and then to teach their enemies a lesson or to steal horses. The Apaches live to make war and nothing else. They don’t care much about buffalo hunting or fishing and whatnot. To them, war is everything.”

  “Gosh,” Zach said.

  “Don’t get me wrong, son,” Shakespeare went on. “I regard them highly. In their own way, the Apaches are a noble bunch. They admire courage more than anything else. Which is why when they capture a man, they like to torture him. Not because they’re more bloodthirsty than most. No, the torture is their way of measuring how brave a man is. If they think he’s brave, they’ll put him out of his misery quickly.”

  “And if they don’t figure he’s brave?”

  “Then they’ll keep on doing what they’re doing until he dies. They’re not ones to show mercy to cowards.” Zach had moved his roan closer to Shakespeare’s white horse. “Have you ever seen an Apache up close?”

  “Fairly close, once, more years back than I care to think about.”

  “What happened?”

  A shadow seemed to pass over the mountain man’s face. “It was on my first trip to Santa Fe. Our caravan was camped a day shy of the town when some Apaches snuck into our camp and took one of the women, a wife of one of the traders. She screamed as they were hauling her off and we all ran to her rescue.”

  Zach was practically glued to McNair. “Did you save her?”

  The answer took a full five seconds in coming. “No, we didn’t. Tried our hardest, mind you, but the devils had too much of a head start. We caught a few glimpses of them as they glided off like ghosts, but that was all.”

  “And the lady?”

  “I’d imagine she became the wife of an Apache warrior. She might even still be alive, though the odds are against it. White women don’t take well to Indian living. They’re too soft.”

  They rode in silence for a while, Nate pondering his friend’s words and wondering if he had made a mistake in agreeing to this trip to Santa Fe. The journey had been Shakespeare’s notion, the first lengthy break any of them had taken from their daily responsibilities since a similar trip to St. Louis a while back.

  Ordinarily, the mere thought of the time and expense involved would have been enough to convince Nate to decline. But much to his surprise, Winona had expressed interest. And when Blue Water Woman also wanted to go, the die had been cast.

  Perhaps, he reasoned, spring had something to do with it. The regal Rockies were aglow in the verdant splendor of springtime, with the tall trees and the high grass daily turning greener while the wild creatures resumed the active pace of their lives that had been disrupted by the bleak winter. After months of bitter cold and little food, the wildlife throbbed with vitality once again. The steep slopes echoed to the sharp cries of birds of prey and the strident calls of ravens and jays. Coyotes yipped on occasion, while at night the howls of wolves wafted eerily on the wind.

  Spring transformed the mountains from a barren domain of snow and stone into a lush paradise. The buffalo resumed feeding in great herds out in the open. Deer and elk were in abundance. Panthers prowled the thickets. Bears were ever in search of food, shuffling over hill and down dale. And a man had only to breathe in the cool, crisp, invigorating air to feel alive in the depths of his being.

  The rekindling of life on such a grand scale was bound to have an effect on those who had been cooped up in their small cabins or lodges for months on end. Whites and Indians alike were eager to get out in the sun again, to hunt, fish, and frolic to their heart’s content. Winona and Blue Water Woman were no exception. They’d longed for a break in their daily routine, and what better way than to take a trip to distant Santa Fe, a trip few Indian women ever got to make, a trip they could proudly tell their grandchildren about in the decades to come?

  Nate was equally thrilled at the prospect of seeing new country and spending time in the leading center of the Mexican province of New Mexico. Santa Fe, he had been told, was founded by the Spanish way back in 1610, and since then it had grown and prospered remarkably well to where it now served as a focal point of trade between the United States and Mexico. Large caravans from the States regularly carried a wide variety of trade goods there. Trappers and mountain men frequently paid Santa Fe a visit to kick up their heels and squander their hard-earned money.

  All of that was appealing, but Nate still had reservations. They would have to journey hundreds of miles through territory only Shakespeare had ever visited, and once south of Bent’s Fort they ran the very great risk of encountering hostile bands of Kiowas, Comanches, or Apaches. The thought of them made him wish he had left his wife and son at home, but he knew trying to convince them to stay behind would have been a hopeless task. When Winona set her mind to something, she was as immovable as a giant boulder.

  Nate was brought out of his reflection by another question from Zach.

  “Uncle Shakespeare, what did you mean by white women are soft? Do Ma and Blue Water Woman have harder skin ’cause they’re outside a lot?”

  Somehow McNair kept a straight face. “No, Stalking Coyote,” he said, using Zach’s Shoshone name. “White women are soft because, generally speaking, they’re lazy. At least the well-to-do ones are. They’d rather have servants make their meals and mend their clothes and grow their vegetables than do it themselves. Instead of making their own dresses, they go to stores to buy the fanciest finery they can afford. When they need shoes, they buy them. When they need a new winter coat, they buy it.” He sighed. “They’re pampered from cradle to grave, so it’s no wonder they don’t last long when they wind up in the hands of some warrior.”

  “There must be something they can do right,” Zach said.

  “True. I reckon I’m being too finicky about their habits. They do know how to spend money better than most other folks.”

  “Some of them are awful pretty. I saw some in St. Louis, remember?”

  “That you did, but I figured you were too young to notice their eyelashes and such,” Shakespeare said with a snicker.

  “What’s so funny?” the boy asked.

  “You take after your pa,” Shakespeare replied, and quoted again, “You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings and soar with them above a common bound.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means,” Nate interjected, “that your uncle better put a rein on that tongue of his before it gets him in deep trouble.”

  “God shield I should disturb devotion,” Shakespeare declared.

  Zachary frowned. “I’ll be happy when I’m older so I can understand what you say.”

  “Don’t count on that, son,” Nate told him. “I’m full-grown and half the time I don’t have the slightest idea what he’s babbling about.”

  “Babbling?” the mountain man blustered. “What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?”

  Nate knew better than to debate the point when Shakespeare was in one of his infamous moods. McNair could quote the English bard at a drop of the hat and rant on for hours at a stretch if not cut short. As if to prove him right,
Shakespeare pressed a hand to his chest in a perfect mimicry of a stage actor and commenced reciting some of his favorite lines.

  “To be, or not to be. That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. To die, to—”

  “Husband dearest,” Blue Water Woman interrupted.

  “Yes, my sweet dove?” McNair responded grandly.

  “Much more of that and our horses will start dropping like flies. Maybe you should wait to entertain us until we stop for the night.”

  “Ouch. You’ve cut me to the quick, wench.”

  “Do you want me to make a salve of beaver oil and castoreum so you’ll heal faster?”

  The two women tittered.

  “Do you see?” Shakespeare addressed Nate. “Do you see what happens when you teach your wife English too well? She turns on you like a rattler the first chance she gets.”

  Everyone was in such fine spirits that Nate temporarily forgot all about his concerns for their safety. He continued making for the edge of the prairie where the going would be easier, though they would be close enough to the forest-covered foothills to swiftly seek cover should hostiles appear. Beside Pegasus walked Samson.

  He marveled again at the good fortune that had resulted in his becoming a free trapper. When he looked back at his past, at his one-time plan to be an accountant in New York City, he had to chuckle at his foolishness. If not for the many strange twists and turns his life had taken, he would still be there, spending his days seated at a desk instead of getting out and about, dealing each month with mountains of clerical work rather than admiring Nature’s handiwork, dying a little more inside with the passing of each day, his soul withering away like a parched plant for lack of the things that mattered most in life.

  A dense tract of undergrowth materialized on his right and Nate swung left to go around it. He absently peered into its depths, thinking he might spy a black-tailed deer he could shoot for their supper, but as his eyes roved over the tangle of branches and leaves he saw something else entirely, a massive dark shape that moved a few feet in his direction and then stopped. Alarmed it might be a bear, he reined up.