The grass had been partially flattened by the wagon’s passage. It rustled against Davy’s legs as he walked, no matter how hard he tried to move silently. Human ears might not detect it, but the ears of a panther or another beast undoubtedly would.
Davy never relaxed, never let down his guard. Doing so had killed more frontiersmen than old age. It only took one mistake, and a man paid a fatal price. Frequently Davy would rise onto the tips of his toes to scour their immediate area.
They had gone less than a mile when wildlife appeared. A small herd of deer, four does and a large buck, spooked from concealment, bounded toward the river. Flavius automatically brought up his rifle but the grass closed around their bouncing white rumps before he could squeeze the trigger. “Figures,” he grumbled.
Another hour went by. Flavius’s feet became sore and he stopped now and again to rub them. Each time, Davy got a little further ahead of him.
By the middle of the afternoon, twenty-five yards separated them. Flavius dragged his heels, wishing Davy would halt for a bit. He plodded along with his chin bowed, as glum as a rainy day.
Suddenly the high grass to his right rustled noisily. Startled, Flavius spun and glimpsed a dark bulky form moving parallel with him. Wedging his rifle against his shoulder, he waited with bated breath for the creature to show itself. The next moment the grass swallowed the thing whole. The sounds ceased.
What was it? Flavius asked himself. Another black bear? More deer? Or something infinitely worse? Cautiously, he advanced, the rifle held steady.
Davy was thirty yards ahead, or better. Flavius opened his mouth to call out, then thought better of it. A shout might provoke the animal into attacking. He walked faster, so fast that he nearly tripped when his left foot snagged on a clump of grass.
As Flavius regained his balance, he caught another fleeting glimpse of something huge and dark off among the waving stems. His skin prickled with bumps.
Whatever it was, the thing was stalking them.
Flavius tried to lick his lips, but he had no spittle to spare. His mouth had become as dry as a desert. He trained his rifle on a patch of barely visible hide at the very moment it vanished. “Damn!”
Worry gnawed at him like termites at wood. Every nerve aflame, Flavius commenced jogging. If only he could reach Davy! The beast might think twice about attacking two grown men.
Flavius tore his gaze from the grass long enough to see how much distance he had to cover. To his utter amazement, the Irishman was nowhere to be seen. Bewilderment brought him to a lurching stop. “Davy?” he whispered.
There was no answer.
A low, rumbling grunt brought Flavius around in a flash. The creature was closer. Had it already gotten hold of Davy? Terror welled up in Flavius, terror so intense and overpowering that he almost bolted in blind panic.
By a supreme effort of will, Flavius calmed himself. All was not lost. He had a rifle, two pistols, and a knife. And when he had to, he could run like a jackrabbit.
Slowly moving forward, Flavius sought Davy’s tracks. Any clue that shed light on Davy’s disappearance would do. But the grass acted as a cushion, a barrier, preventing the earth from showing many prints. He saw a smudge here, a heel crease there.
Flavius heard a thud and crouched. Had that been Davy’s body? Another thud, a lot nearer, enabled him to pinpoint exactly where the creature was.
He peered down the rifle barrel, afraid his hands would shake when the moment of truth came. Flavius would readily admit that he wasn’t the bravest of men. Neither was he a coward. If need be, he would fight for his life with all the desperation of any cornered critter.
In the grass, a vague shape materialized, the same enormous, dark monster. Rumbling again, the thing barreled toward him.
Chapter Two
It was a buffalo cow. She came to an abrupt halt not six feet from Flavius Harris. They stared at one another, Flavius hoping she would consider him harmless and go on her way. Then, beyond her, a calf appeared.
Flavius did not so much as twitch. Any movement might spark an attack. Even though it was a cow, she could be as deadly as her male counterparts, particularly if she perceived him as a threat to her offspring.
While not as big or as heavy as the bulls, cows grew to a height of five feet or more at the shoulder and could weigh in excess of a thousand pounds. With their dark brown shaggy coats, broad, massive heads, and humped shoulders, they reminded Flavius of those ancient Greek monsters, those Minotaurs and suchlike, his teacher had prattled on about back when he’d attended school for five years.
The cow snorted and pawed the ground. It was not a good sign. Flavius continued to hold himself, and his rifle, rock steady. At that range he could not miss. But a single shot often failed to bring buffalo down, and the cow would be on him before he could reload.
Again she snorted. She took a step toward him, her flanks rippling with muscle. Cocking her triangular head, she regarded him closely. Nostrils flared, she sniffed loudly.
Not all cows sported horns. Flavius considered it just his dumb luck that this one did. She took another half step but displayed no more hostility. Apparently, she had decided he was not dangerous.
Then the calf bleated. It probably just wanted its mother back at its side. But the cow misconstrued. Bellowing belligerently, she lowered her head, tore at the soil with her heavy hooves, and charged.
Flavius had a couple of seconds in which to react. When she lowered her head, he whirled and bolted, fleeing pell-mell into the high grass, heedless of the stems that lashed his hands and neck.
A thunderous snort heralded the cow’s onslaught. Flavius shot a glance over his shoulder and squeaked like a mouse. The huge brute was hurtling toward him like a runaway steam engine.
He started to spin and bring up the rifle. Fortunately, his left foot snagged on something and he pitched onto his side. By a sheer fluke, the fall saved his life.
The cow was almost on top of him when he tripped. She had gained so much speed that she could not bring herself up short, although she did slash at him as she went by, narrowly missing his hip.
Flavius shoved to his feet and ran. Why did these things always happen to him? He made it a point to always be considerate toward others and never mistreated animals, yet it seemed as if every time he turned around, somebody or something was trying to kill him.
His intention was to put a little distance between him and the buffalo, then flatten and pray she couldn’t sniff him out. Eventually she was bound to drift elsewhere.
Another bleat brought Flavius to a stupefied stop. The calf was right there in front of him. In his unthinking haste, he had run toward the blamed thing, not away from it.
One look sufficed to confirm that the cow was bearing down on him with blood lust in her smoldering eyes. She believed that he was after the calf, and no wrath on God’s green earth matched that of a mother protecting her child. She would rip and rend him to bits and stomp what was left into the dirt.
Flavius had no other recourse. Snapping the rifle up, he took a bead on her broad head. It wouldn’t kill her, not with the thick bone that shielded her brain, but it might stun her and slow her down long enough for him to get away.
“No!”
The shout startled Flavius so badly that his trigger finger tightened. The rifle boomed, belching lead and smoke, at the very instant that a strong arm looped around his waist and bore him to the ground. He saw the slug gouge into the soil in front of the buffalo.
Davy Crockett held his friend down as the cow pounded past them. He had heard the bellowing and snorting and rushed back to help. “Do as I do,” he directed, and scrambled southward on his hands and knees.
Flavius complied. The Irishman had a flair for survival, for always instinctively knowing what to do in any given situation. Time and again Davy had saved their hides when Flavius had been convinced they were going to give up the ghost.
Davy plowed through the grass, scuttling like an oversize crab. The drum of hoof
beats disclosed that the cow was looping around to come at them again. He glanced around, and couldn’t believe his eyes.
The calf was following them! Tail bobbing, head high, it had playfully tagged along.
Seeing Davy’s expression, Flavius looked back. His heart sank. “Shoo! Scat!” he hollered, but the calf just stood there staring at him with its moon-shaped trusting eyes. “Go, you little idiot!”
Out of the grass swept Nature incarnate. Clods of dirt flew every which way. Fragile stems bent and snapped as a thousand pounds of raw brute force tore through the ocean of grass like a living hurricane.
Davy threw himself at Flavius, caught his friend by the shirt, and propelled them both to the left, rolling over and over as the ground under them seemed to shake and the hammering of hoofs rocked his ears. A clod struck his temple. Another hit his shoulder.
In a twinkling, the cow had gone by. She had missed again, though not by much. Davy leaped erect. Trying to hide would be pointless. She would not rest until they were dead. Unless he had an inspiration, and mighty quick, his wanderlust was going to be the death of them. It was root hog or die.
Flavius had risen to his knees. He was bruised and outraged by the antics of the stupid calf, which now trotted meekly toward him as if they were the best of friends. “Let us be!” he shouted, pumping his arms to emphasis. The calf completely ignored him.
Thirty yards out, the cow had circled and was on a beeline for them again. Her horns glinted in the sunlight, her immense form moving with remarkable fluid agility for a creature her size.
“What do we do?” Flavius cried.
Davy’s response was to shove Liz into Flavius’s hands, then leap toward the calf. It halted, enabling him to bend and slip both arms under its belly. Another moment, and Davy had hoisted the animal into the air. Holding it in front of him, he faced the onrushing cow.
The calf bleated and struggled, its legs thrashing, but Davy was not about to put it down. He braced himself, prepared for the worst.
The cow kept on coming. She was snorting and grunting like a grizzly on a hot scent. When she was a mere ten yards out, she lifted her head. Another few yards, and she swerved in a tight arc that brought her to a point slightly behind them and to the right.
Davy pivoted, holding the calf where she could plainly see it. “Get behind me,” he told Flavius.
“I can shoot her now. I have a clear shot at her heart.”
“No. The calf wouldn’t last a week without its mother. Just stand behind me so she can’t get at you without going through it.”
Flavius was too exasperated for words. Common sense dictated that they kill the cow before she killed them. But as always, Davy insisted on doing what was right. One day, Flavius mused, that outlook was going to get his friend in a heap of trouble.
The buffalo was tossing her head and digging furrows with her front hoofs. Beside herself with concern, she plainly yearned to tear into them. All that held her back were her maternal impulses.
“Back off real slow,” Davy instructed softly. Rubbing the calf’s belly, he suited action to words and carefully tread backward. The calf had calmed somewhat but it continued to voice plaintive bleats.
Flavius did not take his eyes off the cow. If she came at them again, it would be up to him to stop her. He had both rifles.
“There, there,” Davy said soothingly. “We mean you no harm, momma. No need to raise such a fuss. Calm yourself. All we want is to go about our business in peace.”
The tone, not the words, had an effect. The cow stopped taking out her spite on the earth and stared squarely at them.
“See?” Davy said. “We can get along if you’ll control that nasty temper of yours. We’re just passing through.” All the while, his left palm stroked the calf, which was quieting.
After retreating another five yards, Davy gingerly set the animal down. He patted its head, then resumed backing off. The calf looked from them to its mother and back again. “Stay, little one,” he coaxed.
The cow shambled forward, grunting.
Flavius started to bring up his rifle but Davy grasped the barrel. “You’re making a mistake,” Flavius warned.
Prancing merrily, the calf rejoined its mother. They touched noses, then the cow nudged it and the calf skipped off into the grass. In its wake trotted its enormous guardian angel, tail curled high.
Only when the thud of hooves dwindled did Flavius breathe easily again. “That chuckleheaded shorthorn about done us in,” he said, the tension draining from him like water from a sieve. He had always rated cows and their kin as being next to brainless, but this incident took the cake.
Davy claimed Liz, brushed the dust from the barrel, and grinned wryly. “It’s our day for youngsters, I reckon.”
“How’s that?” Flavius said, and remembered the tracks of the child. “Oh. I plumb forgot.” The encounter impressed him in a new vein. “Maybe this was an omen. We should light a shuck for the Mississippi while we’re still in one piece.”
“After we talk to the folks in the wagon,” Davy persisted. Bending his steps northward, he found the ruts and hiked to the west. He hummed quietly, the clash with the cow all but forgotten. To him, it was just a routine incident in a routine day. Compared to some scrapes he had been in, this latest was of no consequence.
Flavius did not fall behind. He had learned his lesson. But he did pout, convinced they were making a monumental mistake.
The prairie rippled around them, the buzz of insects a constant drone. Based on the oxen prints, Davy calculated that the wagon was an hour ahead, if that.
A break in the grass drew their interest. On the left was a saucer-shaped depression some ten feet in diameter. The exposed earth was hard packed and reeked of urine.
“A wallow,” Flavius stated the obvious. It added to his worries, since there must be more buffalo in the general vicinity. Wallows were made by buffalo rolling and rubbing the ground to form a dust bath. Bulls would then urinate in the dirt and roll in the mud. It helped rid them of bothersome insects and relieved chronic itching.
“An old wallow,” Davy amended.
Another appeared on the right. Then several more, scattered about. Dried buffalo droppings were added proof a herd had traveled through the region recently.
Davy guessed that the cow and her calf were stragglers. He was surprised that the herd had ventured so far to the southeast of their customary haunts, but it was not unheard of for them to travel clear to the Mississippi on occasion.
Without warning, the ground slanted downward. Davy found himself on the rim of a gigantic basin, a bowl worn by erosion over the course of many years. It had to be ten acres across and was dotted with more wallows. But what interested him the most was the object at rest near the center of the bowl.
“The wagon!” Flavius exclaimed, elated that they had caught up to it sooner than expected.
The oxen stood docilely in the hot sun, heads low. Tied to the back was a bay horse. It had heard Flavius and pricked its ears. But of the occupants, there was nary a trace.
Flavius scratched his head. “Where are the people?”
“They must be close by,” Davy predicted. It would be the height of folly to leave the wagon and team unattended. Cradling Liz, he descended the gradual incline.
“Give a holler,” Flavius suggested.
“What if they’re resting inside?” Davy replied. The wagon was a style new to him. It had a cloth cover fitted to a frame, like the big Conestogas built by Pennsylvania Germans, but this one was smaller than a Conestoga and had smaller wheels in front than at the rear. The tongue was extra long to accommodate the four-ox team. Wagon, canvas, and rigging had a new look to them. Whoever owned the outfit had purchased it not long ago.
“See the sprout anywhere?” Flavius asked. Kids were forever conspicuous because they couldn’t sit still or keep quiet for more than five seconds.
“Not yet.”
Davy surveyed the basin from end to end. No figures were in ev
idence. He could not understand why the driver had stopped until he saw the busted rear wheel. “Look at that,” he said, pointing.
“They must have hit a hole,” Flavius said.
“Or gone through a wallow.”
“Only a greenhorn would be that silly.”
They were near the wagon. Davy made for the loading gate and was raising an arm to rap on it when the muzzle of a rifle jutted over the upper edge, almost in his face. “Not another step, mister.”
Long ago Davy had learned never to dispute a man who held a gun on him. Going rigid, he mustered a friendly smile. “Hold on there. We’re not your enemies.”
“So you claim.”
The speaker was young, if his voice was any gauge. And nervous. Which put Davy doubly at risk. Skittish sorts were more apt to pull the trigger at the least little provocation.
“Honest to goodness. We’re from Tennessee. We were canoeing down the Mississippi when we came across your tracks.”
“And you trailed us all the way from the river just to pass the time of day, I suppose?”
The man’s sarcasm was thick enough to cut with a knife. Davy answered, “No. To be honest, we were worried about you and your family.”
Flavius could not keep silent. It rankled him that the man was treating them as if they were scalawags when they only had his best interests at heart. “Bringing a family out here is a boneheaded stunt. You ought to fix your wheel and turn around, or before long you won’t have a scalp left.”
The owner of the wagon rose above the gate. Twenty-five, at most, he had boyish good looks and was as thin as a rail. Homespun clothes covered his lanky frame. “Boneheaded, am I?” he said.
“My partner didn’t mean anything by that,” Davy apologized. “He doesn’t keep as tight a rein on his tongue as he should.”
“Think I don’t know what the two of you are up to?” snapped the young man. “Think I don’t know who hired you to track us down?”
Blood Rage (A Davy Crockett Western Book 5) Page 2
