“A sense of humor?”
“People who cannot laugh at their own mistakes take themselves far too seriously to be able to get along well with others. Life was meant for laughing.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
“I think loyalty is the most important,” Touch The Clouds said. “Without loyalty, a couple will quickly drift apart. If the man’s eyes stray to other women and the wife’s to other men, they might as well not get married.”
“Their eyes would not stray if they would remember that the true beauty of a person is not found on the outside, but deep inside. When I was a young married man and I found myself looking at another pretty woman, thinking of how nice it would be to lie with her under my robe, I always reminded myself that I already had a woman who kept me warm at night and she did not mind touching my cold feet.”
Nate laughed heartily. For the next several hours he conversed with the Shoshones about everything from proper hunting techniques to ways to determine changes in the weather. At midday Spotted Bull called a halt on the bank of a stream and the warriors watered their mounts. Drags The Rope walked up to Nate as he was checking the cinch on his saddle.
“This will be a fine hunt, my friend. I had a dream last night that I killed nine buffalo.”
“I am eager to find the herd,” Nate said, neglecting to mention that he was also eager to get the surround over with so he could spend time with Winona and Zachary.
“If I do well, it will greatly impress Singing Bird,” Drags The Rope said. “She will gladly give her word to marry me.” He paused. “I have wanted to ask you about Shakespeare. I thought the two of you were inseparable. Where is he?”
“He went and got himself married to a Flathead woman. I haven’t seen him in a while, but when this is over I intend to swing by his cabin and see if he’s back home yet.”
Drags The Rope smirked. “Shakespeare too. I guess the saying is true.”
“What saying?”
“A warrior is never too old to be stung by a bee while collecting honey.”
Soon they were back on their horses and heading ever eastward, wending among stark, towering peaks that seemed to touch the pillowy white clouds floating far overhead. They traversed lush valleys, crossed grassy meadows, and skirted high ridges. The Rocky Mountain wildlife, as always, was abundant, and they spotted scores of deer and elk, as well as smaller game such as rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks.
By the end of the first day Nate began to thoroughly enjoy himself. Or at least, he tried to. But every time he let himself get into the spirit of things, guilt at being away from his family would spoil his good mood. He kept thinking of Winona, who undoubtedly was miserable, pining for him back at the village, and he couldn’t bring himself to be happy when he knew she wasn’t. Then he would become involved in a lively discussion and forget all about her until he had a spare moment to reflect and realized his oversight, at which point he would be racked with guilt again.
Since he wasn’t selected to pull sentry duty, Nate slept soundly the whole night through, exhausted more by his emotional turmoil than the many hours in the saddle. He was roused out of slumber the next morning by Drags The Rope, and together they shuffled to the stream to drink and splash frigid water on their faces. It was the part of traveling that Nate liked the least. There was something about being transformed into gooseflesh the first thing in the morning that smacked of outright torture.
After a breakfast of jerked venison and pemmican, the Shoshones resumed their journey. Nate noticed that the warriors were not quite as lighthearted as the day before. Indeed, the closer they drew to prime buffalo country, which also happened to be the hunting grounds of their many enemies, the more subdued the Shoshones became. By the afternoon of the second day, Spotted Bull had selected four men to ride half a mile ahead of the main group. He was taking no chances.
Nate got to know other warriors quite well. There was Little Beaver, who stood only an inch over five feet but could shoot an arrow with uncanny precision. There was Worm, who had lost his left ear and half of his face to a grizzly. And there was Lone Wolf, who had three wives and was considering taking another.
From his talks, Nate learned that about half of the Shoshone men had more than one wife. The shortage of warriors was the main reason; there simply weren’t enough men to go around. Many of the men, though, such as Spotted Bull, disliked the idea of having two or three wives and steadfastly refused to do so. Which pleased Lone Wolf no end, because then there were more women to go around to those warriors who wanted them.
That afternoon, as they ascended a low hill, Lone Wolf turned to Nate in all earnestness and said, “You should take another wife or two for your own. You will be a happier man if you do.”
“You think so?” Nate said, suppressing a grin.
“Most definitely,” Lone Wolf said. “Think of the benefits. Your lodge will always be clean and kept in perfect condition. The women will compete with each other to see who can make you the best food. And at night, there will always be at least one who is in the mood for love.” He grinned. “I could never go back to having one wife now that I know the joys of having three.”
“You are a braver man than I am,” Nate said.
“What do—” Lone Wolf began, then stopped speaking and reined up sharply.
Nate automatically did the same. He saw that Spotted Bull had halted and was peering intently to the northwest.
Not a quarter of a mile away was another large band of Indians.
Chapter Fifteen
All the Shoshones came to a stop.
Nate shielded his eyes from the bright sun with his left hand, trying to identify the other party. They were too far off for him to note much detail except that they were on foot. He hoped—he prayed—they weren’t Blackfeet.
“Bloods,” Touch The Clouds said.
“Twenty-four of them,” Drags The Rope added.
The news caused Nate’s pulse to quicken. The Bloods were allies of the Blackfeet, who enjoyed a fierce reputation in their own right. He’d tangled with them once before and barely escaped with his hide.
“They have seen us,” Spotted Bull said.
The Bloods were aligned in the formation they typically used when a war party was on the march. They stood in a single file arranged in the shape of a crescent with the central arc out in front of the curved arms. They were crossing the open slope of a mountain; in another minute, they would have been into dense forest.
“Our scouts missed seeing them,” Touch The Clouds said.
“They were probably not in sight when our scouts went over this hill,” Spotted Bull said. He twisted to scan the rest of the Shoshones, his face alight with excitement. “This is an opportunity we cannot let pass. We outnumber them, and we have horses. They will not be able to run away. I say we attack them and take as many scalps as we can.”
“Yes!” Touch The Clouds said, hefting his huge lance.
Nate looked at the others, hoping a voice of reason would be raised. But the warriors all vented whoops of joy at the prospect of bloody battle. Wildly waving their weapons in the air, they worked themselves into a fever pitch. He wondered whether he should object, reminding them that they were after buffalo hides, not scalps.
With a strident shriek, Spotted Bull urged his horse down the hill, leading the charge. The rest of the Shoshones fell in behind him, forming a screeching mass of bloodthirsty riders each anxious to claim the first coup.
Nate found himself left behind. He goaded the stallion into a run, trailing the rest by ten yards or more, firming his grip on the Hawken. The ground was rough, dotted with fallen trees and lined with shallow gullies. He had to concentrate exclusively on avoiding all obstacles and keeping the Shoshones in sight, and before he knew it they were almost to the mountain slope. He looked up to find that the Bloods had disappeared into the trees, where they would be able to give a good account of themselves, and he dreaded a slaughter if the Shoshones rode into a hail of arr
ows.
Spotted Bull apparently had the same thought. He angled into the forest well below the spot where the Bloods had been and promptly slowed. The other warriors fanned out, forming a skirmish line, staying on their horses so they could see farther even though it made them better targets.
Nate caught up with them shortly after they spread out. He took up a position near Red Hawk, who had stayed with the Shoshones every step of the way. Before them lay thick undergrowth and tall trees. Underfoot lay a carpet of pine needles and matted vegetation. A deathly silence shrouded the wilderness.
Nate wondered if the Bloods would employ a tactic invariably resorted to by the Blackfeet when they were on the defensive. When pressed, the Blackfeet would hastily erect conical forts constructed from long tree limbs, then wage their fight from inside such crude shelters. The forts were proof against arrows and lances, but they were of little protection against guns. Once a group of trappers had surrounded a fort occupied by ten Blackfeet and slain all but one simply by shooting into the center of the structure.
Something moved up ahead.
Leaning low over the pommel to minimize his silhouette, Nate scoured the forest. Since the Bloods hadn’t had the time to erect forts, they would try to spring an ambush at any moment, and Nate didn’t intend to be on the receiving end of one of their barbed shafts.
Spotted Bull and Touch The Clouds had pulled slightly in front of the others. The giant held his lance poised to throw.
Suddenly harsh cries rent the stillness, and the Bloods swarmed from concealment in a frenzy of swirling tomahawks and war clubs. Several employed bows with lethal effect.
In the opening moments of the battle Nate saw three Shoshones go down, and then the band retaliated with vigor, bearing down on their enemies and fighting man to man, many leaping from their horses and forsaking their height advantage to get in close. He marveled that few of the Shoshones used their bows, but then recalled that it was considered far braver for a warrior to kill with a club or a tomahawk than to kill from a distance with an arrow. The highest coup always went to those who slew their foes in personal combat.
The next moment reflection became impossible. A beefy Blood dashed toward him, a war club uplifted to strike. Nate felt no compunction about killing from a distance; the Blood was still twelve feet away when he took a hasty bead and fired, his ball coring the man’s brain and flipping the warrior onto his back.
He wrenched on the reins, bringing his stallion to a halt behind a pine tree, and grabbed his powder horn to reload. To his right was Red Hawk, still mounted and trying to pierce a Blood with his lance. The Blood pranced just out of range, waving a tomahawk and taunting the Oglala to try harder.
Nate spied another Blood, armed with a war club, closing on Red Hawk from the rear. He quickly drew his right flintlock, extended the pistol, and when the Blood drew back an arm to smash the war club against Red Hawk’s spine, he fired. Lead and smoke spurted from the pistol at the sharp report, and a hole blossomed in the center of the Blood’s chest. The warrior clutched at the wound, screamed, and pitched onto his face.
All around Nate was a whirling melee of savage combatants. The Bloods, for the most part, were naked from the waist up and had their faces painted for war. Otherwise, Nate would have had a difficult time telling the two factions apart.
He constantly glanced right and left, his body tingling in expectation of being hit by an arrow, as he hurriedly reloaded the flintlock, then the rifle. When under pressure he could load any of his weapons in under thirty seconds. This time he did the two in under forty.
The Shoshones were keeping the Bloods busy. Outnumbered, the Bloods fought valiantly, refusing to give up. Bodies dotted the ground, some twitching and convulsing. A horse was down on its side, accidentally struck in the neck by an arrow.
Nate tried to keep track of his friends, but the task was hopeless. He’d lost sight of Spotted Bull and Touch The Clouds. Drags The Rope was off somewhere to the west. Red Hawk had dispatched the prancing Blood and was now after another.
A strident chorus of whoops and yells filled the woods, mixed intermittently with the death wail of a dying warrior. Bedlam and unbridled brutality reigned throughout the forest.
Wedging the reloaded pistol under his belt, Nate rode forward, prepared to aid Shoshones in trouble, but not intending to become actively involved unless put upon. Almost immediately, he was. A lean Blood, a tomahawk in one hand and a bloody scalp in the other, bounded at him with the feline grace of a lynx about to spring on its prey.
Nate didn’t have time to aim. He simply pointed the Hawken in the Blood’s direction and hastily fired, the rifle recoiling as it boomed. The ball smashed into the warrior’s forehead. Then the Blood stumbled forward, propelled by his momentum, and thudded to the earth at the stallion’s feet.
An arrow streaked out of nowhere and smacked into a nearby tree.
To the right a Shoshone and a Blood were grappling on the ground, locked in a grim clash to the death.
Nate kept going. If he stayed in one spot, he practically invited the Bloods to use him as a pincushion. He drew his pistol again and twisted this way and that, trying to see every which way at once. The short hairs at the nape of his neck prickled, but he resisted an urge to wheel his horse and race to safety.
The stallion abruptly shied, and Nate looked down to see a dead Shoshone in their path. Jerking on the reins, he skirted the corpse. From the sound of the conflict, it appeared the battle was drifting to the northwest. Perhaps the Bloods had finally realized they couldn’t win and were retreating.
A rider appeared, coming slowly toward him, swaying on his animal, his arms limp at his sides.
Nate moved to help the man. He was almost to the warrior’s side before he recognized Little Beaver and saw the feathered end of an arrow sticking out of the base of the Shoshone’s throat. “Little Beaver!” he said and drew alongside the warrior just as his injured friend started to fall. With a rifle and the reins in one hand and a pistol in the other, there was little Nate could do other than throw out an arm in an attempt stop the Shoshone from toppling. He managed to brace his right forearm against the warrior’s shoulder, checking the fall.
Little Beaver’s eyes were closed. They suddenly fluttered and opened, and he looked at Nate. “Grizzly Killer?” he said softly. “I am so cold.” As he spoke, blood spurted from the corners of his mouth.
“I will help you,” Nate said and went to slip the pistol under his belt.
“Tell my wife I was thinking of her,” Little Beaver said and keeled over backwards, a protracted breath fluttering from his lips.
“No!” Nate cried and tried to clutch the warrior’s hand. He missed, and the next moment Little Beaver dropped to the pine needles and lay still. Furious, Nate scanned the area for a Blood he could shoot only to find there were no other men in sight, Bloods or Shoshones. He kneed his stallion forward, alert for adversaries, and covered twenty yards without seeing a soul. Then he came to a wide clearing and discovered six Bloods lying sprawled in the positions their bodies had assumed when death claimed them. He halted to get his bearings.
To the northwest arose a few shouts. Otherwise, the battle seemed to have wound down.
Was it truly over? Nate reflected hopefully. Another mounted warrior materialized in the trees across the clearing. It was Spotted Bull, riding proudly, a bloody tomahawk in his right hand, his bow and arrows slung over his back, untouched.
“Hello, Grizzly Killer,” the Shoshone said and smiled. “It was a good fight.”
Nate said nothing. He would have much rather avoided the bloodshed.
“Touch The Clouds and the others are chasing the few Bloods still alive back toward their own territory,” Spotted Bull said. “They will be fortunate if one of them survives to tell of their great defeat.”
“Your own people will be quite proud,” Nate said politely.
“There will be much rejoicing,” Spotted Bull agreed. He stopped next to one of the dead Bloo
ds and dismounted. “This one is mine. How many did you slay?”
Nate had to think before he answered. “Three.”
“Truly you are a mighty fighter,” Spotted Bull said. “I only killed two myself.” He stuck the tomahawk under the leather cord supporting his pants and drew his butcher knife. “You should take their scalps right away, while the flesh is still warm and soft and easy to slice.”
“I will,” Nate said, and turned the stallion. He’d witnessed enough scalp taking to last him a lifetime and had no desire to watch Spotted Bull take another.
Back into the trees he went, pondering what to do about the trophies he had earned. If he didn’t take the hair of the men he’d shot, the Shoshones would wonder about his manhood. Every warrior was expected to take scalps and keep them as mementos of his prowess in battle. Not to do so was a serious breach of the unwritten warrior code of conduct to which every Shoshone male subscribed.
He came to the spot where the third Blood he’d shot still lay and stared down at the body, torn between his responsibilities as an adopted Shoshone and his repugnance at the thought of scalping a corpse. He’d taken a few scalps himself in the past, but he still couldn’t accept the practice as necessary or desirable. Of the few Indian customs that he viewed as truly barbaric, scalping was the worst.
Voices sounded, and he knew the rest of the Shoshones were on their way back. They would soon be there, and would no doubt inquire as to why he wasn’t taking the scalps to which he was entitled. They would surely laugh if they found that the great Grizzly Killer was afraid to take a little hair.
Nate swung down, stuck the pistol under his belt again, and carefully placed the rifle on the ground. He drew his knife, knelt, seized the Blood’s long hair in his free hand, and inserted the tip of the blade under the skin at the top of the man’s forehead. Blood seeped out, and he had to gird himself before he could make the first precise incision. He cut methodically, separating enough of the scalp from the head that the rest could be lifted in a quick motion once the knife had completed its grisly handiwork. Gore spattered onto his leggings and moccasins as the prize dangled in his grip, and he thought for a second that he might be sick.
Wilderness: Vengeance Trail/ Death Hunt (A Wilderness Western Book 4) Page 25
