~*~
Winona raced for a quarter of a mile before she saw signs of pursuit. Two Arapahos on sturdy, fleet horses were hot on her trail. They spied her and whooped in delight.
She grit her teeth and fled ever westward, desperately seeking a means of outsmarting the duo and escaping. The mantle of snow would thwart any attempt she made to conceal her tracks. Unless she could outrun them, a slim chance given that her horse was fatigued already, she would fall into their clutches.
In one respect she was grateful. Had the war party been composed of Kiowas or Comanches, her life would be in immediate danger; both frequently killed female captives. Arapahos, on the other hand, weren’t quite as bloodthirsty and often adopted females taken in raids into their tribes. Not that living as a prisoner of the Arapahos was in itself appealing.
She wanted her Nate, wanted to see his handsome face again and hold his powerful body in her arms. He must be out of his mind with worry for her and it was all her fault. She should have checked out the window before heading outside to feed the horses. At the very least she should have taken a flintlock. If she’d had a pistol in her hand when she opened the door and saw that man pointing a rifle at her, she could have tried to shoot him. Even if she’d failed, the delay would have given Nate time to bring his weapons to bear.
Yes, she had failed her husband and she felt mightily shamed by it. Shoshone women prided themselves on being good wives. A woman who couldn’t keep her lodge clean and tidy, or couldn’t cook or sew or prepare hides, or who failed to anticipate her husband’s needs and give him the support he needed, was regarded as a failure in Shoshone society. She would be cast out by the other women and refused membership into the various women’s’ societies devoted to excellence in those arts and crafts so crucial to the happiness and welfare of any family. And although Shoshone women seldom went on raids, they were expected to aid in the defense of the village and to be there when their husbands needed them.
Nate had told her conditions were quite different among the whites. Many white women no longer bothered with those responsibilities that were common expressions of a Shoshone woman’s love for her family, the cleaning and washing and sewing. They hired other women to do those chores and devoted themselves to sitting around and chatting or buying new clothes or taking strolls to get ‘fresh air’. She couldn’t conceive of any woman spending time in such a frivolous fashion, but then the ways of the whites often mystified her. As a race they had lost touch with the Great Medicine and were no longer guided by the spirit in all things. They were too interested in things going on outside them and not enough in their inner being.
She looked back to discover the Arapahos had gained hundreds of yards. Both men were grinning. To them catching an unarmed woman constituted a pleasant game. She wished she had a gun, or a bow or a knife. She would teach them that Shoshone women were not to be taken lightly.
The chase took them over a rise and ever farther into the valley. Deer took flight at their approach. A hawk observed the proceeding from far overhead. Rabbits bounded into the brush.
Winona’s horse began to flag. She felt equally weary. Since her abduction she had been unable to catch more than snatches of sleep. Her appetite had diminished, and in her condition she needed to eat for two. Traveling all night had further weakened her. But she refused to give up. She would resist the Arapahos until she collapsed from fatigue.
Suddenly nature itself conspired against her. In front of her loomed a steep hillock slick with snow. If she tried to go around she would lose much ground so she went straight up. Her horse managed to go a dozen feet before its hooves started slipping and sliding.
Winona felt the animal going down. Fearful of the consequences to the baby should the horse roll over her, she threw herself to the right onto her shoulder. The heavy buffalo robe absorbed the brunt of the plunge and she rolled upright. Her horse was on its side, sliding down to the bottom of the hillock, plowing a wide path through the snow.
She forged through the clinging white blanket and reached the animal as it went to stand. Speaking softly, she grabbed the bridle and tried to soothe its jangled nerves. Brittle laughter brought her around to confront its source.
Thirty feet out, riding slowly, were the two Arapahos. They joked and laughed, pointing at her horse and the slope.
Winona went to swing on her mount, but a sharp pain in her belly made her double over and gasp. She must be careful or she would hurt the baby. The possibility of losing the child filled her with dread. Struggling to keep her composure, she straightened and faced the Arapahos.
Both were rugged examples of their tribe, hardened by a life that brooked no flabbiness or laziness. They wore buckskins styled in the manner of their people. One wore his hair long and flowing, the other wore his braided. They both carried bows and sported full quivers on their backs.
Grinning, the warriors rode closer and halted. The man with the braided hair addressed her in his own tongue.
Winona stood impassively. She knew few words in the Arapaho language and refused to respond in sign. Then she received a shock.
“What is a Shoshone woman doing so far from her tribe?” the braided one asked in perfect Shoshone.
Instead of answering, Winona rejoined sarcastically, “Where did an Arapaho dog learn to speak the language of those who are his betters?”
The warrior laughed uproariously. He translated for the other man and they both regarded her with commingled amusement and respect.
“I am He Wolf,” the braided warrior announced. “I once had a Shoshone wife for several winters after I took her in a raid. She taught me your tongue, but otherwise she was useless. She could not cook and her feet were cold at night. I traded her for three horses.” He pointed at his companion. “This is Swift Wind In The Morning. How are you called?”
“Winona.”
“And what were you doing with that fat white man?”
“He stole me from my lodge, which is only a few sleeps from here. Soon my husband will come to take me back.”
He Wolf translated again. Swift Wind In The Morning shifted and began to scan the surrounding woods carefully.
“You lie, woman,” He Wolf declared. “There are no Shoshone lodges in this part of the mountains.”
Winona allowed herself the luxury of a smirk. “I did not say it was a Shoshone lodge. My husband is a white man and we live in a house of wood. He is as strong as three men and does not know the meaning of fear. You would be wise to let me go to him before he finds you and feeds you to the buzzard and bear.”
“How is this great warrior called?” He Wolf inquired sarcastically.
“He is known as Grizzly Killer.”
He Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “I have heard of such a white from our brothers, the Cheyennes. They say this man killed a grizzly using just a knife.”
“He has killed three grizzlies,” Winona boasted proudly, “and ten times that many enemies. Soon he will add your hair to the list.”
After mulling her words for a bit, He Wolf turned to Swift Wind In The Morning and the two conversed in their own language. Finally He Wolf stared at her again.
“We are taking you with us. Get on your horse.”
“You will not live to regret this,” Winona assured him.
“There are seven of us on this raid. We are more than a match for any ten white men, let alone one,” He Wolf asserted, and jerked his thumb at her animal. “Now climb on your horse.”
Since there was no other choice, Winona complied, her buffalo robe falling open as she did. The pain in her abdomen had abated and she felt well enough to ride.
He Wolf leaned forward, studying her figure as she settled on the animal. “You are with child,” he stated in surprise. “How many moons until the baby will be born?”
“Three.”
“This is bad news,” He Wolf said. “We do not want a half-breed in our village.”
“My son will be a great man like his father. He will honor any tribe w
ho befriends him.”
“How do you know it is a boy?”
“I know.”
Grunting, He Wolf motioned for her to precede them.
Despite Winona’s display of courage and her confidence in Nate, she was extremely worried. The Arapaho warrior had a point. They were seven; Nate but one. The odds were overwhelmingly in their favor. She must find a way to aid her husband. Outsmarting those two wicked trappers and the lecher Kennedy had been relatively easy; she’d been able to hide Nate’s knife and tomahawk under their bed without being detected, and later had left the Hawken propped against a tree for Nate instead of putting it on the pack animals as Kennedy had ordered. But tricking the Arapahos would not be so easy. They were naturally more alert than the white men had been, and one of them was bound to be watching every move she made. Still, as Nate’s partner for life she couldn’t sit idly by and do nothing. A good wife always stood by her husband’s side no matter the odds.
They rode back to the pack animals.
Winona saw Isaac Kennedy lying dead in crimson stained snow, his face split wide open. The five other warriors were laughing and joking, standing near a crate that had broken apart, each man holding in his hands one of the items that had been packed inside.
Rifles!
Startled, Winona gazed at the other crates. From the comments the trappers and Kennedy had made, she now understood everything. When Newton and Lambert had been captured by Two Owls a year ago, they must have promised to bring the Ute chief guns in exchange for their lives. No doubt they had offered to trade the firearms for prime beaver pelts and other furs. But now dozens of top quality rifles were in the possession of the Arapahos, who would not hesitate to use them against other tribes and whites alike if need be.
She knew that rifles were formidable weapons. The more powerful guns could shoot farther than bows and in the hands of skilled shooters, such as Nate, they were amazingly accurate and reliable. Already she knew of instances where badly outnumbered trappers had held off determined attacking warriors using the lethal firepower of their rifles.
Most of the guns owned by Indians were inferior to those employed by the whites. Fusees, those cheap trade rifles frequently bestowed on unsuspecting warriors, had neither the range nor the accuracy of Kentucky rifles and Hawkens. Consequently, the possession of guns had not made any difference so far in deciding the outcome of the many raids and encounters between various tribes. But all that could change, she realized. If the Arapahos learned to use the rifles in those crates, they might well be able to conquer all their foes and become the dominant tribe west of the Great River.
The warriors prepared to depart. He Wolf and Swift Wind In The Morning also claimed rifles, and the rest from the broken crate were tied in a bundle on a packhorse. As the men worked they glanced repeatedly at the surrounding forest.
Winona knew they were looking for Utes. The shot fired earlier would attract any Ute warriors in the vicinity. And since this was Ute territory, the Arapahos could find themselves overwhelmed by the fierce mountain dwellers.
Soon they were on their way, bearing to the northeast. They crossed the stream and made for the hills bordering the valley. Forced to ride between He Wolf and Swift Wind in the Morning, Winona resigned herself to going along with them for the time being. She only hoped she could escape before Nate overtook the band or there would be much blood spilled—and some of it might be his.
Chapter Seventeen
Nate sat astride Lambert’s horse and stared down at the grisly remains of Isaac Kennedy. Jagged flesh and a portion of the cranium had been exposed by a tomahawk blow to the head. Congealed blood coated the man’s chin and neck. The buzzards had yet to discover the body and none of the carrion eaters had touched it. He felt a twinge of regret that the kindly storekeeper had been killed. The man should never have ventured into the Rocky Mountains. Kennedy had been as out of place in the wilderness as he would be now back in the city.
Turning the horse, Nate examined the snow, discovering the tracks of many Indians, as well as those of the pack animals, and the trail they’d made heading to the northeast. As near as he could tell, Kennedy and Winona had been alone when they were ambushed by warriors. He saw where a single horse had ridden on west at great speed, and then three horses had returned. By the depth of the hooves he knew all three carried riders and surmised one of them had been his darling wife. He wasn’t skilled enough to tell if the footprints scattered about had been made by Utes or warriors from another tribe, but the direction of travel hinted that he wasn’t dealing with Two Owls’ people.
He squared his broad shoulders and rode out, squinting up at the sun. If he pushed himself he might overtake the band by nightfall. He estimated there were at least a half-dozen warriors in the war party, enough to give any sane man pause. But short of death, he wasn’t about to stop.
The gleaming snow bothered his eyes again, compelling him to avert his gaze from the brilliant crust as much as possible. He was hungry and thirsty but ignored both sensations. There would be time to eat after Winona was safe in his arms, not before.
The trail brought him to the hills on the north side of the valley. The band had skirted the base of one, passed between it and the next hill, then turned to the east, staying in a narrow tract between the hills and a high range of mountains rearing up to the clouds.
He became convinced that the band didn’t consist of Utes. Whoever these warriors were, they were trying to keep out of sight by taking the route between the foothills and the mountains, a tactic only warriors belonging to a tribe at war with the Utes would use. He mentally ticked off a list of likely candidates. There were the feared Blackfeet, the Bloods, the Crows, the Cheyennes, the Arapahos, or possibly the Kiowas or Comanches. He wouldn’t know until he saw them, and even then he might not be able to identify the band because he hadn’t previously encountered members from all of those tribes.
All he could do was ride and pray.
The golden orb in the azure sky arced ever higher and he drew abreast of a narrow gap in the mountains. The tracks went right into it. Stopping, he studied the opening, his suspicions aroused. Only twenty feet wide and winding in serpentine fashion, the gap was a perfect spot for an ambush. The slopes on both sides were covered with snow-laden trees. There could be warriors concealed there at that very moment, watching his every move.
He hesitated, torn between common sense and devotion to Winona. To go around the gap would take him hours. Since time was of the essence, he rested the Hawken across his pommel and rode on, a swarm of butterflies fluttering in his stomach. He searched the snow for telltale tracks leading into the trees. To his surprise, there were none.
At the north end of the gap he halted once more. Before him stretched a ‘hole’, as most trappers and mountaineers would call it, a level valley averaging five miles in width and completely hemmed in by mountains. The trail went straight across the open ground into woods a hundred yards off.
Evidently the war party had no idea anyone was following them. He nodded in satisfaction and moved out, firmly gripping the lead rope to Barking Dog’s horse. Lambert’s animal diligently forged through the deep snow, cold breath puffing from its nostrils.
Somewhere a bird screeched.
Nate scanned the tree line, not really expecting trouble. Any ambush would have been sprung in the gap—or so he believed until he registered movement in the shadows. A second later a pair of mounted warriors appeared, each armed with a bow and arrow. At once they voiced their war cries and charged.
~*~
When Winona saw the two Arapahos drop back from the column she immediately knew their purpose and unconsciously halted, her anxiety over Nate’s welfare eclipsing her prudence.
“Keep going,” He Wolf instructed gruffly. He was on her right and had reined in when she did.
Reluctantly Winona complied, her heart pounding in her chest. Those men would wait for Nate and attack him as soon as he showed up. She licked her lips, debating whether to
bolt into the trees in an effort to escape. Only the knowledge that the Arapahos would easily catch her dissuaded her from making the attempt. That, and her concern for the new life in her body. More strenuous riding might well cause her to deliver prematurely, a fate she would avoid at all costs. The baby hadn’t been born yet but already it was a part of Nate and her, as important to them as their own lives. This was a fulfillment of their cherished dreams and an investment in the future of their bloodline, a full-fledged member of the family to be carefully nurtured every moment.
She had noticed that the two warriors staying behind took only bows and arrows. As near as she could determine, although the Arapahos were tremendously excited over discovering the guns there wasn’t a one of them who had ever fired a rifle and knew how to properly load the black powder and a ball. No doubt they would learn in time. But for now they couldn’t make use of the devastating firepower the dozens of rifles held against Nate, which relieved her greatly.
She rode in tense anticipation of hearing gunshots, paying no attention to her captors until He Wolf addressed her.
“You are worried about your precious Grizzly Killer,” he commented sarcastically.
“No,” Winona lied.
“If he is all you claimed, you would have nothing to worry about,” He Wolf mocked her. “His reputation is probably highly overrated. After all, he is only a white man.”
“But he has learned to live like us and to like our ways,” Winona told him. “He is not like most whites. He does not look down on us.”
“All whites should be rubbed out,” the Arapaho stated emphatically. “They are not worth the air they breathe.”
“Why do you hate them so?”
“Because they have no respect for the spirits,” He Wolf declared. “Most of them care about nothing except furs and money. They know nothing of the Great Medicine, nothing of the spirit in all things. They come to our land, kill the beaver and the buffalo, and act like they are better than us.” He snorted. “I say wipe them all out.”
Tomahawk Revenge/ Black Powder Justice (A Wilderness Double Western Book 3) Page 26
