“Only a fool is not afraid of ghosts. You know as well as I do that they like forest and rivers. Look below us. What do you see? Forests, and in the distance a river.”
“I see smoke,” Double Walker said, and pointed.
Rising out of a shadowed valley below were gray tendrils that writhed and coiled like snakes. The valley was thick with timber and dark with gloom thanks to sheer red cliffs that hemmed it on three sides. One of the cliffs had been split long ago by a mighty cataclysm.
“A village?” Small Otter wondered.
“Not enough smoke,” was Black Elk’s opinion. “It is a campfire.”
“We should go see,” Mad Wolf proposed.
The game trail wound down into the dark valley. They were just entering the dense forest when Double Walker thrust out a muscular arm. “Look there!”
A dead cow elk lay on her back, her legs wide, her belly ripped open. Ropy loops of intestine and other organs had spilled out, along with a flood of blood, now dry.
“Dead five or six sleeps, at least,” Small Otter guessed.
Black Elk leaned down as low as he could to examine the cow elk. “I have never seen a kill like this. See these bite marks? Where something has chewed meat off the rib bone? What animal bites like that?”
None of them could say. They rode on, their bows strung and shafts notched. The stillness of the forest was unnatural, the quiet absolute. The dense ranks of trees could hide a multitude of enemies.
“There are ghosts here, I tell you,” Small Otter whispered.
A stream gurgled to their right, but they couldn’t see it. Once Black Elk thought he glimpsed a flicker of movement. He didn’t like this place, but he didn’t tell the others. Mad Wolf and Double Walker would tease him as they teased Small Otter about ghosts.
The smell of smoke grew stronger even as the cliffs seemed to grow higher. When they looked straight up, all they saw were the cliffs and a small patch of blue sky.
“Let us leave this place,” Small Otter declared.
Black Elk gave him a sharp glance. As he did, once again he thought he glimpsed movement in the heavy undergrowth. He strained his eyes but saw nothing.
The trail curved, and a clearing appeared. But it wasn’t the clearing that caused Black Elk to draw rein in amazement. It was what stood on the other side of the clearing.
Mad Wolf, Double Walker and Small Otter came to a stop to the right and left of him. Their expressions mirrored the same astonishment.
“This cannot be,” Double Walker whispered.
“I would ask you to hit me to wake me, but I know I am already awake,” Small Otter said.
Mad Wolf made a stabbing gesture. “Are the whites everywhere now? It is one of their wooden lodges.”
Black Elk thought he understood. “This is where Grizzly Killer and the others are coming. They must have friends in that lodge.”
“We should kill them and wait in ambush,” Mad Wolf advised. “Grizzly Killer will ride up and—” He suddenly stopped, his eyebrows arching toward his hair. “Do you hear what I hear?”
From the structure came loud, merry singing. Not good singing, either, but the kind that set the ears on edge.
“It is a woman,” Black Elk said.
“She has the voice of a frog,” was Mad Wolf’s opinion.
At a gesture from Black Elk, they dismounted. Each tied his horse to a tree. Then, bows at the ready, they advanced in a skirmish line, spreading out as they went. They were within a stone’s throw when the singing suddenly stopped.
Black Elk halted and the others followed his example. He had seen such dwellings before. Unlike the buffalo-hide lodges of his people, which had flaps for entering and leaving, the lodges of the whites had rectangles of wood that swung out and in. He remembered that the entrances were usually in the middle of the front wall, and sure enough, he saw a rectangle of wood in this wall. He also saw a square opening to one side, covered by a red cloth. Even as he set eyes on it, the red cloth parted and a pale face peered out at them. A female face.
“She has seen us!” Mad Wolf cried.
Black Elk braced for an outcry, for a shriek of warning that would bring armed white men rushing from the lodge. But the woman didn’t cry out. She didn’t scream. She did the last thing Black Elk expected her to do: she smiled at them. Then the red cloth closed.
“That was strange,” Small Otter whispered.
“She showed no fear,” Double Walker said.
Black Elk sighted down his arrow at the square with the red cloth. He was sure that was where the white men would show themselves. But to his surprise, the flat wood in the center of the front wall opened and out stepped the white woman. She showed all her teeth, and held what appeared to be long needles and part of a blanket.
Instantly, all four of them trained their bows on her.
“Why is she smiling?” Small Otter wondered.
“She is ugly,” Double Walker said. “If she was not wearing clothes, I would take her for a buffalo.”
To their utter bewilderment, the woman began to sing.
Black Elk glanced at his friends. It was plain they shared his perplexity. “Be careful,” he cautioned. “This might be a trick.”
The white woman smiled and sang and was not afraid, not even when Mad Wolf took a step toward her and made as if to shoot an arrow into her belly. “I will spare our ears.”
“Wait,” Small Otter said uneasily. “I do not like this. What if her head is in a whirl?”
“She must be alone,” Double Walker said. “No one else has come out of the lodge.”
Black Elk didn’t know what to think of the white woman’s behavior. He realized that her singing was not really singing at all. She was chanting. But what she had to chant about was as great a mystery as her presence.
“Do I kill this buffalo or not?” Mad Wolf asked.
Black Elk was about to say it would be best if they silenced her when the white woman gazed toward the woods and clasped her arms to her bosom as in great joy. He looked to see what she had seen and his blood turned to ice in his veins. Shock sent him back a step. “Beware!”
The others whirled.
Mad Wolf instantly let fly with his arrow but the thing that had come out of the forest bounded aside and the arrow missed.
“It is a ghost!” Small Otter cried.
Black Elk disagreed. Whatever it was, it was flesh and blood. He snapped his bow up to let his own shaft fly.
“There is another!” Double Walker shouted, thrusting his arm toward a second apparition.
“And a third!” Mad Wolf warned. “Where do they come from? What are they?”
“We must flee!” Small Otter exclaimed.
Black Elk refused to run. He had never run from anyone or anything in his life; his bravery was a byword among his people. For him there was one recourse, and that was to slay the things before the things slew them. Accordingly, his bowstring twanged—and the shaft flew wide of his leaping target.
“Behind you!” Double Walker bellowed.
Uncertain whether the warning was intended for him or one of the others, Black Elk started to turn. He was only halfway around when something slammed into his back with such force that he was driven to his hands and knees. He lost his bow. Pain racked him, but not enough to stop him from grabbing for his knife. Before he could jerk it from its sheath, his wrist was seized in an immensely strong hand. A stinging pain in his throat resulted in a warm, wet sensation spreading down his neck and chest. He became unaccountably weak, and pitched onto his side. Something tore at him and he couldn’t lift a finger to stop it.
Black Elk saw Mad Wolf and Double Walker, both down and being ripped limb from limb. He saw Small Otter flee toward the white lodge. For a few moments he thought Small Otter would make it into the lodge, but the buffalo woman sprang with remarkable speed and ferocity and buried one of her long needles in Small Otter’s eye.
Black Elk’s own eyes became wet and sticky with his blood. The worl
d faded around him. The last sound he heard was a gurgling whine that came from his own ravaged throat.
Pinpoints
“Do we go on, or do we stop for the night?”
The question was posed by Peter Woodrow. They had descended a short way from the pass and were winding down a steep slope that severely taxed their mounts. The sun, low in the western sky, cast long shadows that were slowly growing longer.
Nate King gazed to the southwest. In the distance were sandstone cliffs. If his memory served, that was where they would find the valley Sully had mentioned in his one and only letter to his parents. But getting there before night fell was impossible unless they could sprout wings and fly. “I say we find a level spot to make camp.”
Ryker overheard, and disagreed. “Why stop when we’re so close? When we could have a roof over our heads tonight?”
“I can give you a whole list of reasons,” Nate said. “One, our horses are worn out. Two, so are we. Three, we would have to ride for hours in the dark, and you know how dangerous that is. Four, even if we reach the valley, it could take us hours more to find the cabin. Five—”
“All right. All right. You’ve made your point.” “I agree with Mr. King,” Peter said. “My family is exhausted. You mustn’t forget there are women and children.”
“I gave in, didn’t I?”
“Why are you in such a foul temper, Mr. Ryker?”
“I can give you a whole list of reasons,” Ryker mimicked. “But I won’t.” He gigged his horse.
“A most puzzling man,” Peter remarked. “Some days he is as nice as can be. Other days he is mad at the world and everyone in it.” Shaking his head, he followed Ryker.
Nate was still at the rear, behind Tyne. He had a crick in his neck from glancing over his shoulder so many times. There had been no sign of the Black-feet, but he wasn’t convinced they had given up.
Someone else hung back, and reined in alongside his bay. “I hope you don’t mind my company,” Aunt Aggie said. “We never had our chat about readers and reading.”
“It will be hard to talk with all the riding we must do.”
“Oh, we’ll manage.”
And they did, off and on. Agatha did most of the talking. About how her mother had read to her when she was barely old enough to toddle. About how she had loved to hear bedtime stories. “Fairy tales and fables were my favorites. I particularly liked the little red hen and the grain of wheat, and Aesop’s fable about the fox and the stork.”
Nate admitted to liking Bible stories, and tales about great heroes of the past. One of his favorites was “Jason and the Argonauts.” As a boy, one of his prized books had been a copy of the work by Apollonius of Rhodes. His father called it an extravagance but let him have it.
“Typical,” Aunt Aggie said. “Boys are fond of tales of derring-do, while girls go for more practical stories.”
Nate mentioned that his daughter, Evelyn, most liked “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and “Jack and the Magic Beanstalk,” when she was little. It brought fond remembrances of the many nights he had read to Evelyn and Zach in front of the cozy fire-place in their cabin. Those were glorious times.
Nate missed those days. Life seemed simpler then. When children were young their needs were few, and meeting those needs was easy. But when they grew older, a whole host of new problems arose, and being a good father became more of a challenge. The best a father could ask was that the problems were few and far between, and that they lived through them.
Ryker gave out a yell. He had found a suitable spot to camp for the night. Just in time. The horizon had devoured half the sun.
Sheltered from the wind by fir trees, Nate kindled a fire while Ryker and Peter tethered the horses. Aunt Aggie had Fitch and Harper gather firewood and drag logs over for everyone to sit on. Anora helped her mother fix supper. That left Tyne, who came and hunkered next to Nate.
“My aunt says you did me a favor today.”
“Oh?” Nate was concerned that Aggie had mentioned the Blackfeet wanted more than Tyne’s hair, but he should have known better.
“Only that you are a nice man and she is glad we ran into you.” Tyne smiled. “So am I.”
Nate added a piece of tree limb to the fire and the flames spat and hissed.
“Tell me about your girl, Evelyn,” Tyne requested. “What is she like?”
“She will be seventeen her next birthday. She likes flowers and pretty dresses, but she can shoot the eye out of a buck at fifty paces, and she can ride like the wind when she has to.”
“You sound very proud of her.”
“I am. When she was younger, she didn’t like the mountains. Her mother and I thought she would move back East one day, but she hasn’t talked about doing that in over a year now. I guess she decided the mountains aren’t so bad, after all.”
“Are they?” Tyne asked.
Nate stared at the encircling veil of darkness. “The mountains are as they have always been. They have beauty, and they have perils. We can admire the beauty, but we must watch out for the perils.”
Erleen was suddenly there, her hands on her hips. “I will thank you not to scare my daughter. We have made it this far without mishap. It puts the lie to all those tales about savages behind every tree and beasts behind every bush.”
“All it proves is that you and your family have been very lucky But no one’s luck lasts forever.”
Erleen patted Tyne’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, dear. He’s lived in the wilderness for so long, he has forgotten how to behave in polite company.”
Nate resented the accusation, but he bit off a reply. He reminded himself that Erleen Woodrow was used to the tame and peaceful East. He sincerely hoped she made it back there without having to learn that her world and the West were not the same. It could be a painful lesson.
The aroma of boiling stew filled the clearing. Everyone settled down, making themselves comfortable. Nate remarked that if all went well, tomorrow they should learn the fate of Sullivan and his family.
“I pray to God they are all right,” Peter said.
“They will be,” Erleen predicted.
“I hope we can talk them into coming back with us,” Peter remarked, adding for Nate’s benefit, “That’s another reason I came in person. I would like to convince Sully that enough is enough. He should buy property near mine so we can be like we were before he got it into his head to live in the Rockies.”
“He loves the outdoors too much,” Aunt Aggie said.
The stew was mostly water with bits of squirrel meat and some flour for thickening, but it was hot and it was filling. Nate poured coffee into his tin cup and sat back on a log to relax, but just as he raised the cup to his lips the night was shattered by a howl to the southwest.
“A wolf!” Tyne exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “I have yet to see one this whole trip.”
Nate wasn’t so sure. He listened for the howl to be repeated, and it was. A long, high, wavering cry, shrill and piercing.
The next moment Ryker was at his elbow. “Have you ever heard a cry like that?”
“Never,” Nate admitted.
“Me neither. It wasn’t no wolf, though. And it wasn’t a coyote or anything else I can think of. What the hell?”
Other howls rent the night. There was more than one of the beasts, whatever they were.
“Mr. Ryker, you swore again.”
“Sorry, ma’am. I will stop cussing when I stop breathing. Until then you’ll just have to put up with it.”
Erleen looked mad enough to smack him. “I am sorry to say this, Mr. Ryker, but you frontiersmen are a scurvy lot. Some of you, anyway.”
“And I’m not sorry to say this, ma’am, but I ride a horse and not on a ship, and my name isn’t Black-beard.”
Aunt Aggie chortled.
“Had I known you could be so petty, Mr. Ryker, I would have hired someone else to be our guide.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but there aren’t many who will com
e this far in. Bridger would do it, but last I heard, he was guiding wagon trains. Walker would do it, but last I heard, he was in California. Jedidiah Smith went and got himself killed by Comanches. That leaves King, here. You’re getting two for the price of one.”
“Was that a barb, Mr. Ryker?”
“Perish the thought, ma’am.”
Peter broke in with, “As soon as everyone is done eating, we should all turn in.”
Fitch raised his face from his soup. “But I’m eigh-teen. I should get to stay up as long as I want.”
“I want to get an early start, son, and we all need rest.”
The howling stopped. Whatever gave voice to it had gone quiet.
“We should take turns keeping watch,” Nate proposed. “Two hours each. I’ll take the first turn. Then Fitch, Harper, and you, Mr. Woodrow. That will leave an hour or so for Edwin.”
“Don’t call me that. I hate that name.”
“Very well, Mr. King,” Peter said. “If you feel it necessary.”
“I do.”
Tyne gave Nate a hug before she turned in. Soon he was the only one not bundled under blankets. Perched on a log by the fire, his rifle across his thighs, he sipped coffee and listened to the night sounds.And there were a lot. The meat-eaters were abroad. Coyotes yipped. Owls screeched. Occasionally the roar of a griz announced that the monarch of the land was on the prowl. The screams of mountain lions were rarer yet. Twice, Nate heard howls that he was sure were made by wolves. He didn’t hear the strange howls again.
Before long, Fitch took over.
Nate lay on his back with his saddle for a pillow and a blanket pulled to his chin. He gazed up at the myriad of sparkling pinpoints in the night firmament, waiting for sleep to claim him.
Nate was on the verge of dozing off when Fitch whispered, “Mr. King, are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“I think something is out there.”
Smothering a yawn, Nate rose on his elbows. “I didn’t hear anything.” He saw only darkness.
“It was there.” Fitch pointed to the southwest. “Something moved. I didn’t get a good look at it.”
Nate stared until his eyes ached. “There’s noth—” he began, and stopped. Something did move, a flicker of white against the backdrop of black. He sat up and grabbed his Hawken.
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