Sure as Shooting

by Karen Mercury

  Whit’s eyes flashed angrily. “I’ll swim that stream and capture them!”

  “Bully for you, Doc,” Huntley replied. “Take them alive if you can, but take them anyhow.”

  Whit took Captain Din, Terrell, Bud, and two others upstream to find a fording place while Huntley took his boys to retrace their way downstream. Huntley found a sloping bank where his stubborn mustang would enter the water, and gave it the spur. The boys swam their mules across the Merced behind him, and this unexpected tactic alarmed the Indians. They raced off at full chisel, so Huntley commanded everyone abandon their mounts and follow on foot.

  They came to the base of a spur—what had Belle said the Diggers called it, from its resemblance to three frogs sitting up ready to leap? “Mountains playing leapfrog.” Here there was a saddle of rock debris where the Indians vanished. Huntley scrambled up on all fours, hands and feet skittering and tossing rocks every which way.

  At the summit of the saddle there was a granite ledge where they were likely hidden, as Huntley detected no disturbance in foliage or fowl and no further footprints in the patches of snow—unless they had traveled over the rocky portions of the saddle. Motioning for two battalion boys to flank him, Huntley proceeded cautiously to the ledge shouldering his rifle.

  But a sharp “hey you!” emanated from the opposite side of the saddle, flushing the five Indians off the ledge like a flock of startled quail. They came pouring over the rim directly for Huntley, and while one of them had an old flintlock rifle that was probably useless, they halted at Huntley’s order.

  It was Whit’s contingent who came up the opposite side, Bud naturally proclaiming, “These imps of Satan! I’m sick of this Quaker style of subduing Indians. I’ll make a few of ’em squawk this time!”

  Huntley motioned for Bud to stand down, which he did, with much show of rock-throwing and cursing. Huntley regarded the Indians, instantly recognizing two of them as sons of Tenaya. He asked why they’d exposed themselves to his view. They told him Tenaya knew of the battalion’s approach, and they’d been sent to watch their movements and report back. They had not thought the Yankees could cross the Merced, so they were not afraid. When Huntley asked where Tenaya could be found, they pointed east toward a monolith they called Tokoya, “The Basket,” saying, “He is there now.”

  When Huntley interpreted these remarks to Whit, Bud broke in again. “I’ve long learned to discredit everything said by a red devil! Since our muster-in, we’ve had plenty of hard work and no honor at all. We may as well be armed with only clubs like any other jackass police!”

  Huntley lost control of his cool. “Cheese it, you worthless shit!” If that dough-headed shrimp wasn’t Belle’s brother, Huntley would have had him booted a long time ago. Huntley took Whit, Boling, and Din aside and said, “Look. It’s too late in the day to go in the direction they indicate. They’ve said there’s a trail leading to Tenaya’s hiding place, so I propose to take one of Tenaya’s sons and one more captive just to find the trail, leaving the others as hostages.”

  “I’ll go,” Whit said decisively.

  “Doc,” said Huntley. “You’re hardly a scout.”

  “I’m as experienced as Boling with a firearm, aren’t I, Boling? You run a hotel and I doctor people, so I expect we’ve shot as many men in our time. Besides.” His voice became more confidential now. “I expect you’ll be wanting to go over these captives’ reports with Miss Belle.”

  That was true and seemed to solve a dilemma that had been foremost in Huntley’s mind for a few days now. So he allowed Whit to depart toward “The Basket” with the promise to not allow anyone to bother the captives and be back by nightfall. Huntley herded the remaining prisoners back to camp.

  Yes, there was a dilemma that had been distracting Huntley lately. When they had last been all dovetailed together atop that infernal buckaroo saddle, Huntley had distinctly heard Whit tell Belle that he loved her. That devious rat had given him the double cross! He had gotten there first with his insipid poetry and manual manipulations of her labia!

  Huntley’s main solace was that Belle hadn’t answered Whit’s proclamation. Now a fist of panic gripped Huntley’s heart to think that maybe she hadn’t answered Whit because she didn’t want Huntley to hear her positive response. That it was something the two of them shared, and now Huntley, as the outsider, would be booted from their presence.

  No, it was probably not something Belle wished to discuss in front of Huntley. When he was buried balls-deep in the man she loved.

  * * * *

  They soon left behind the bullfrog mountains that Whit was now privately calling “The Three Brothers.” He had determined that in addition to capturing two of Tenaya’s sons, another captive was married to one of Tenaya’s daughters. So in essence, in one ambush they had captured three very important hostages indeed.

  Braced with exhilaration and the thin air of the High Sierras, Whit followed the brothers’ trail. They had made sure to point out caches of acorn baskets, and Whit knew the baskets had been placed there to lead Yankees astray. Ambushes of falling rocks were probably waiting at the top of these precipitous trails, so Whit continuously commanded the Grizzlies to walk around them. He wasn’t a rattlebrained saphead. Whit knew the meaning of those acorn baskets.

  So they filed along at the base of the lofty dome of “The Basket” past frozen ponds that appeared encrusted with pulverized quartz crystals. Whit’s mind wandered to the incident that had occurred after he’d taken a dive into the Merced.

  He’d been carried away with the exaltation of the moment, when he’d uttered those fateful words to Belle. The words themselves were a statement of truth. He did love Belle. He was in love with Belle. It was just that…he had not planned on speaking it so baldly, and while in such a compromising position. It was perhaps easy enough to tell a woman you loved her while sitting coupled atop a saddle, having just deposited a great load inside of her.

  Perhaps easy for regular men. Whit knew he was a far cry from a regular man, having only fucked a few hookers before. That made his proclamation of love even more suspect. Of course a man would imagine he was in love—with the first woman who had ever allowed him to fuck her without expecting payment! No wonder Belle hadn’t responded. She was probably brushing him off as a smitten schoolboy. She’d been married and had had a lover before that, and Huntley was King of the Tulareños. Between them they had enough experience with the opposite sex to, well, start their own Mormon outpost.

  Belle—and Huntley—didn’t need him! Besides, what sort of arrogant half-caste bastard would assume such a highfalutin lady, a graduate of a Female Academy, would deem to marry a man who was partially red? Whit had seen with his own eyes the feeling of these California Yankees toward the Indians. Americans tolerated Whit because they were desperate for a physician, but if he were to aspire to marry one of their own, why, he’d have a heap of—

  The two Grizzlies walking in front of him sprang aside to cling to the vertical cliff. Hollering in frightened Indian lingo, they pointed ahead on their trail.

  “Hello!” Whit called. “What’s up now?”

  Bud Pennington, his rifle leveled at Whit, appeared at a rise in the trail. What in Sam Hill…? Bud gnashed his teeth with his usual strange combination of merriment and rage.

  Whit held up a palm to Bud. “Hold on, Bud! These Indians are under my care.”

  “Get out of the way, Doctor. Those Indians have got to die.”

  Behind Bud stood his roommate Jim Fell, oddly enough with a battalion boy slung over his shoulders. Bud motioned for Jim to place the man on the ground, and Whit came forward to see it was Bill Little, who Whit had doctored back to health after getting an arrowhead stuck in his lung. Now poor Bill was once again bashed and bloodied. His face was swollen and discolored, and his pants torn clean away above the knees to reveal deep gashes spouting blood so rapidly, already a pool had gathered beneath his lower extremities. Whit instantly gathered they had followed one of the acorn basket t
rails.

  Bud kept his rifle leveled at Whit’s head. “Stand aside, if you value your own safety.”

  Whit wanted to examine the wounded man, but he had to deal with Bud first. “Hold on, boys! Major Ashbury sent me to guard these Indians, and I shall obey orders.”

  Bud bellowed, “They have almost killed Little, and now these imps of Satan have got to die! Give way, Whitney. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “If you shoot, you commit murder.”

  “Dr. Whitney!” It was the patient Bill Little, lying in a heap of blood, calling for Whit.

  But Whit didn’t want to go to him, for that would leave the Indians unguarded and an easy target for the callous Bud. Little raised himself to a sitting position, regarded the situation, and called out, “Whitney is right, boys. Don’t shoot. Mine is but the fortune of war.”

  “What happened?” Whit shouted. Little collapsed again, perhaps in a dead faint. Whit moved closer, and Bud and Jim Fell reluctantly lowered their rifles so he could examine Little.

  Bud snarled, “Come in with your friends, Doctor, and thank Little for their safety.”

  Fell added, “You’re an asshole’s sight too high-toned for people who’ve always stood by you, Doctor.”

  As Whit examined Little, Bud told the story. “We saw the acorn baskets on the trail and decided to follow them to the devil’s hiding place. The trail narrowed so much that we threw off our boots and climbed up the slippery granite. Suddenly and not so mysteriously, a thunder of rocks came down toward us. We would’ve vamoosed the ranch if it wasn’t for this overhang above us that deflected most of the rocks. But one piece struck Little’s rifle from his hand and tossed him fifty feet down that steep wall. Boulders rained all over him, as you can see!

  “An Injun peeked over the cliff, so I dropped him in his tracks, and instantly a great howling rose up, rocks alive with demons!”

  Fell added, “We was just trying to get a look at that split mountain—that half dome. Instead we got caught in a deadfall!”

  Bud growled. “We’ll pay them back for this. You’re much too conscientious, Doc.”

  They carried Little back to camp, keeping the Indian captives before them. Bud was of no use in carrying his wounded comrade, as he kept his rifle pointed at the Grizzlies.

  Back in camp, Huntley listened to the story and told Whit, “These hostages will have to stay in camp. They won’t be safe outside, if some of the boys get their eyes on them.”

  Apparently the captives knew of Tenaya’s intentions to roll rocks down on any who might follow the trail. Now the captives trembled in fear for their lives, and rightly so.

  * * * *

  Belle instantly went in search of Whit when she heard what had happened.

  She had been in turmoil since the incident with the buckaroo saddle. Going over and over it in her mind, she concluded that Whit definitely had said, “I love you, Miss Belle.” She had simply been so muddled from the intensity of their masculine assault she could not think or even hear straight.

  She was in love with Whit—her feelings for him bypassed the magnitude of what she’d felt for Ned—and this terrified her. Would it not be so much easier if she remained a mistress to both men, and professed love to no one? Surely here in the West nobody would look askance at such an arrangement, and she could go about her day without concern. Yet she had truly already given her heart to Whit, and she had an inner conflict because she was starting to feel the same way about Huntley. Was such a thing possible? To love two men at once?

  Whit was tending to Bill Little in his tent, wrapping poultices around his swollen, bashed feet. He barely glanced at Belle.

  She ventured, “I heard that Tenaya is unwilling to come in. He’ll make peace with us only if he’s allowed to remain in his own territory.”

  “Yes,” Whit agreed, distractedly. “He says he’ll either stay in these mountains or go back to the Monos by the saline lake.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence while Whit finished his task. He stood, shuffling about in his medicine pouch. “Hmm.”

  “Is there something you need? I can go gathering items for you, if you need something.”

  “Yes,” Whit said to the bag. “I need some balsam of fir.”

  “Oh, I know how to get that. I’ll be back within the hour.”

  “Don’t bother. I can get it.”

  “No, allow me!”

  Whit finally looked at her. He sighed with apparent disgust. “Let us both go.” And he barged out of the tent ahead of her.

  Belle berated herself for her insensitivity during their bivouac on the Merced. Had she lost her only chance to tell Whit how she felt about him? Would he forever be riled that she hadn’t returned his heartfelt sentiment? For surely it must have been an enormous blow to his pride. To tell someone you love them, only to have them kneel there like a tomfool utter shit sack!

  Eager to explain to Whit, Belle followed him past where the sons of Tenaya were under guard. After the attack on Little, they had been tied back to back with reatas and then fastened to an oak tree in the middle of the camp. The new guard, a Thaddeus Martin from Texas, was supposed to be impartial to Indians, but he smirked smugly at them as they passed.

  Whit stopped short. “Martin. It looks as though they’re trying to untie each other.”

  Whit was right. Their nimble fingers behind their backs were definitely working at the knots.

  Martin shrugged. “The officers already know what they’re doing.”

  Whit said more forcefully, “They should be separated, and nothing left to fate.”

  Martin tilted his head as though regarding Whit thoughtfully. “Are you on guard duty? No? I didn’t think so.”

  Whit finally gave vent to his irritation. “I’m not on guard duty because I’m a physician. See to it at once they’re separated.”

  And he stormed toward the edge of camp, furiously jamming the strap of his medicine bag over his shoulder.

  Belle waited until they had gone a good ten minutes into the forest to dare speak to Whit. She had located the ideal tree, had hacked the bark, and the sap was now pouring into her funnel. Whit crouched down nearby, attentive to the balsam seeping into the funnel.

  “Whit,” she said quietly. When he didn’t respond, she continued, “It appears I made a great error a few days ago. On the Merced.”

  Whit remained still but finally responded. “Oh, yes? And what was that?”

  Belle watched the funnel. She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the face. “When you told me you love me. I was unprepared for that. I didn’t even know how to reply to that when my husband first said it to me. I was completely unprepared for you to say it. I’ve been feeling it in my heart as well, but I thought it was the last thing you’d ever say to me. Especially immediately after…”

  Whit filled in for her. “Immediately after ejaculating in your warm pussy?”

  She was glad there was a hint of humor in his voice now, and she exhaled with relief. She finally looked at him, and yes, there was a slight smile at the corners of his mouth. “Yes, especially immediately after that. And with Huntley’s penis up your ass.”

  “And with the saddle horn up his ass?”

  “Yes!” Belle cried with relief. “It just wasn’t…wasn’t the very first thing that would have come to my mind, you saying that. At that very moment. But Whit, I’ve been feeling it too. I’ve just been struggling with my feelings.” She paused, regarding him warmly. “I do love you, Whitman Whitney. I’ve known that for awhile. I just wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge.”

  Whit settled back on his behind, hands clasped between his knees. “I must apologize. It just came out of my mouth without forethought.”

  “No!” Belle cried, nearly upsetting the wooden bucket that caught the sap. “If it’s true, why apologize for it? I mean. It is true…Isn’t it?”

  Whit nodded. His eyes glittered with emotion. “Yes, Belle. I have been in love with you since I first laid eyes on you.
But I thought it hopeless, pointless. I could have ten medical degrees and it wouldn’t erase that I am made up of one-fourth Cherokee and one-fourth Negro. How could I ever hope to marry you? Even here”—he gestured about him at the trees, at the Indian encampment they knew was up on one of the many projecting ledges above them—“such a marriage would not be tolerated.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” Belle became so excited that Whit took the funnel from her, holding it against the weeping bark. “Why would it not be tolerated? Why, one of the major political figures in San Francisco, and a big landowner near Captain Sutter’s fort, is mulatto!”

  “Leidesdorff? He was descended from Caribbean slaves, true. He died of brain fever not long ago. But yes, he was buried honorably at the Mission Dolores. He also never married.”

  “Well!” Belle sputtered. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we’re in love, Whit. You remembered all the phrases from that pillow book. You thought to remember them, and that just melted my heart.”

  Whit’s heart appeared to melt, too, from the look he gave her. Vaulting herself up on her knees, Belle kissed him, but gently, so as not to knock the funnel from his hand.

  “I love you, Dr. Whitney,” she said against his mouth.

  “I love you, Miss Belle Pennington.”

  He pulled away a few inches then and looked back to the funnel. “What about Huntley?”

  “Well. Yes. You both obviously love each other, and I would never want to step in the middle of what you two have together.”

  Whit flashed her a devilish grin. “I would never let you.”

  Both were galvanized to the spot when a heap of yelling came from their camp ten minutes away. From the sounds of it, men appeared to be running every which way, some voices becoming louder as they ran toward Belle and Whit.

  Whit tossed the funnel into the bucket and stood, grabbing Belle by the hand. Without a word, they dashed off down the snowy incline, dodging boulders and ducking under tree limbs.