Flavius had no illusions about how long he would hold up if he was caught by a tribe so disposed. He was brave enough when need be, but he did not possess the solid steel backbone Davy did. If tormented, he would weep and gnash his teeth and plead to be put out of his misery, something Davy would never, ever do.
Davy was canny in that regard. When faced with overwhelming odds or certain death, he would rather rely on his wits than his gun to get him out of trouble. But then, Davy was a born gabber. The man could talk rings around trees, a knack Flavius envied.
On more than one occasion Flavius had jested that Davy was so adept at spreading words around as if they were manure, he should go into politics.
“I wish I may be shot if I ever stoop so low,” Davy was fond of responding.
Now, anxiously longing to rejoin the brawny Irishman, Flavius swung wide to the north, then back to the south, always on the lookout for tracks, repeating the pattern over and over for close to half an hour with no result. The calf stayed by him the whole time. When he stopped, it stopped. Whatever pace he set, it adopted.
“You must think I’m your mother,” Flavius mentioned once.
An added worry was the growing lack of daylight. Soon the sun would set, leaving Flavius alone in the dark in the middle of the vast prairie. He’d rather swim across molten lava. Nighttime was when the predators were abroad: wolves, coyotes, painters, bears, and more.
“Oh, my,” Flavius said softly. Not so much as a lick of cover was to be seen. He’d settle for a stand of trees or another gully. Anything that would offer some protection was fine by him.
To complicate matters, the calf showed signs of flagging. It dropped behind often and had to exert itself to catch up. Several times it bawled as if upset that they did not stop and rest. Flavius felt sorry for it, but he was determined to rove as wide an area as he could before the last light faded. Finding Davy was paramount.
Toward twilight a pack of skulking four-legged figures materialized to the north. Flavius mistook them for coyotes and did not give them another thought until one happened to sit on its haunches and howl.
They were wolves.
Flavius fingered his rifle. Normally wolves avoided humans, but he was in company with the calf, and buffalo calves were prime prey. The young and the old, the weak and the infirm, always were. It was Nature’s way of ensuring that only the fittest survived.
The calf apparently detected their scent, because it bleated in fright and moved so close to the dun that the horse shied. Flavius had to keep a tight rein thereafter, never taking his eyes off the wolves for long. He grew perturbed when they showed no inclination to go hunt different prey. There were seven in all, a gray male in the lead.
“I should just ride off and let them have you,” Flavius told the calf. “You don’t mean diddly to me, critter.” Yet he could not bring himself to do it. For better or worse, he would permit the calf to travel with him until he found Davy or they stumbled on some more buffalo.
The twilight began to deepen. Flavius had about resigned himself to making camp in the open, when to the south he discerned a break in the monotonous flat terrain. Whatever it was, it was bound to be better than no cover at all.
The calf balked at heading into the high grass. A swat on its rump with the reins sufficed to spur it to a basin approximately five acres across. Weeds and thickets choked the north bank.
Flavius sought a means down. A game trail served the purpose and he descended swiftly, aiming to get a fire started before full night sheathed them. He was only a few yards from the bottom when a piercing cry let him know that the calf had not followed. “What a yak!” he said, turning his mount. Just then the calf’s bawling was drowned out by more bestial noises.
Specifically, the snarling of wolves.
Chapter Three
Davy Crockett could tell that the warrior was as startled by his sudden appearance as he was by the warriors. About to loose a shaft, the man hesitated, scrutinizing Davy from head to toe. Davy seized the moment, flinging both arms over his head and saying, “Friend! I mean you no harm!”
It was a risky gambit. Some Indians, like some white men, were inclined to shoot strangers of another race at first sight.
The warrior was stout, young, and handsome. He wore his long black hair parted in the middle, braided on each side. A band of quilling ringed it at the top, while at the back were a pair of eagle feathers. Adorning his throat was a bear-claw necklace. He also sported shell earrings, which were unique for a warrior. His attire consisted of leggings, a breechclout, and moccasins.
That Davy did not try to shoot the warrior seemed to make an impression. The man slowly lowered the bow partway, his eyebrows knitting in puzzlement.
Davy lowered his arms, careful not to point his rifle in the warrior’s direction. “Friend!” he repeated in English, the Creek tongue, and the Ojibwa language. It was plain the man did not understand.
At a loss as to how to get his point across, Davy struck on the idea of placing Liz across his thighs, then clasping his hands together and accenting the gesture by smiling broadly and saying over and over, “Friends! Friends!”
Again the warrior merely sat there. After a bit he hesitantly set his bow across his lap, then did an odd thing. Holding his right hand in front of his neck with the palm out, he extended his index and second fingers and raised his hand until the tips of the two fingers were as high as his head. He looked at Davy expectantly.
Now, what was that all about? Davy wondered. It must be a hand sign of some kind, yet what it stood for eluded him. He shook his head to signify he failed to comprehend.
The warrior repeated the gesture. After waiting half a minute for a reply, he launched into a series of similar hand movements, his fingers moving so swiftly that Davy could not follow them. Again he looked at Davy as if anticipating a response.
“I’m sorry,” Davy said. “I don’t savvy. Where I come from the Indians don’t do any talking with their hands. As for my kind, we love to hear the sound of our own voices too much for us to palaver any other way.”
This time the warrior tossed his head. Unnotching the arrow, he slid it into a small quiver on his back. His horse, a young gelding built for speed and stamina, pranced in place as if eager to be off after more buffalo. The warrior kneed it forward, moving in a slow circle around the sorrel, inspecting everything but touching nothing. The rifle and pistol aroused the most interest. Davy’s coonskin cap elicited a grin. On completing the circuit, the warrior motioned to the east, then beckoned for Davy to follow him.
Davy hesitated. To refuse might antagonize the man, but he had Flavius to think of. “I’d like to go with you, but I can’t,” he explained, even though the words were next to useless. “A friend of mine is back there somewhere.” He pointed to the west.
The young warrior pointed eastward and once more beckoned.
“I’m sorry,” Davy said, putting on a sad face to emphasize his meaning. “I have to find out if my partner is still alive.” He started to rein the dun around, hoping the young man would not resort to weapons.
Suddenly two more warriors galloped out of the settling dust. Both were older than the first, and both held bows. At sight of Davy, they trained their arrows on him and the stockier of the pair, a surly specimen whose features were twisted in a perpetual scowl, snapped questions at the young warrior. Apparently the answers did not please him, for he glanced at the young warrior in blatant contempt.
Davy wished he had ridden off while he could. He had no doubt that if he so much as lifted a finger, those two arrows would be embedded in his chest quicker than he could blink. “I’m a friend!” he said when the surly warrior paused. “Can’t you just let me go my own way in peace?”
Evidently not. The surly specimen bobbed his head and growled a few words.
Davy had the idea they wanted him to do something but no notion of what it might be. “I don’t want any trouble,” he stressed.
Without warning, the second newc
omer nudged his mount closer, grabbed the end of Liz’s barrel, and yanked. The rifle blasted, the ball striking the warrior low on the right side, flinging him from his horse and killing him.
It happened so fast, there was nothing Davy could do. He had lowered his right hand to surreptitiously cock the hammer when the newcomers appeared, and his finger was on the trigger when the gun was pulled. Since Liz had a hair trigger, all it took was the slightest pressure and she would discharge.
Aghast, Davy wheeled the sorrel. The fat was in the fire now. The Indians would never believe it had been an accident. He had to get out of there. But he had covered only ten feet when the surly one was on him.
The warrior did not fire. Instead, barreling in on his large roan, he deliberately rammed his mount broadside into Davy’s. The collision jolted the sorrel sideways. It tripped, tottered, nearly went down, and it was all Davy could do to stay in the saddle. Somehow he accomplished it. He heard a war whoop and raised his head just as the surly warrior closed in, swinging a large knife. Its bone hilt connected with Davy’s temple.
The world spun wildly. Davy struggled to stay conscious, flapping his legs to spur the sorrel out of there. His rifle began to slip from his fingers and he tightened his grip to keep from losing it. When a second blow caught him on the forehead, agony speared through him clear down to his toes.
A black cloud swallowed Davy like the big fish did Jonah. He was dimly aware of falling, of hitting the ground on his left side. After that he knew nothing for the longest while.
A swaying motion brought Davy around. His head throbbed so, he could hardly think. He was lying on his stomach. His hands and legs were bound.
Nausea eclipsed the pain. For a few moments he feared he would be sick, but the black cloud came to his rescue. Mercifully, it devoured him again.
How long Davy was out to the world, he did not know. His next sensation was of being jostled. There seemed to be voices murmuring all around him, but he chalked that up to his imagination. He passed out.
He awoke to the sound of a woman humming. For a while he lay still, listening, admiring the musical lilt to her voice. It must be Elizabeth, he thought. Funny that he had never heard her hum like that before.
Davy could not quite recollect where he was or what he had last been doing. He shifted, provoking a pang that seared him through and through and made him want to scream in anguish. In a rush of vivid memory his encounter with the three Indians came back to him. He remembered being hit. A groan nearly escaped his lips.
The humming stopped. Davy inadvertently flinched when a warm hand brushed his brow. The woman commented in a tongue he had never heard. He had a hunch that she knew he had come around, so he opened his eyes to behold one of the loveliest females in all creation.
She could not be more than twenty. Her hair was raven black, her face as smooth as marble.
She wore a dress of the finest buckskin decorated with beadwork on the front and on the sleeves. Kindly eyes mirroring keen intellect regarded him frankly, without the least hint of fear. Lips as red as cherries parted in a friendly smile as she withdrew her hand.
“Howdy, ma’am,” Davy said. The effort sparked more pain. He reached up, his fingers finding a sizable gash on his temple and a welt on his brow.
The woman was on her knees beside him. Turning, she produced a moist cloth that she applied to his forehead, adding a gentle remark.
Davy sorely longed to know what she had said. Returning her smile, he stated, “I can’t thank you enough for looking after me. You don’t happen to speak my language, do you?”
It was a silly question. Resuming her humming, the woman turned to a small fire and leaned over a buffalo-paunch cooking pot.
They were in a lodge, but a lodge as different from those of the Creeks and Seminoles as night from day. Circular in shape, it was wider at the bottom than the top, and spacious enough for a family of four. Davy was lying next to the side. Running a hand over it confirmed that the dwelling had been fashioned from buffalo hides supported by long poles. At the top was an opening for smoke to escape.
Of equal interest were the furnishings. Around the lower third of the lodge hung a lining of some sort, gaily painted. Leather bags hung from the side or were piled where they were out of the way. A shield that bore the emblem of a buffalo had been propped near the entrance.
Firewood was stacked neatly. Near it was a wooden affair that might be a backrest. On the floor lay a bag that had spilled open, revealing a roll of sinew thread, bone awls, beads, and quills.
Davy heard a tiny gurgle. Around the woman crawled a small child, no more than a year and a half old. The boy was buck-naked. He pushed a rounded stone, giggling when it rolled. “Hello there, sprout,” Davy said.
The child halted. Wide, wondering eyes fixed on him. Cooing like a dove, the boy changed course, but he was scooped up by his mother before he could reach Davy.
Laughing lightly, the woman gave the child a playful shake and placed him flat on his back. He lay there as docile as a lamb while she dressed him, cackling when she tickled his ribs.
The scene reminded Davy of his own family. Elizabeth often frolicked with the children, tickling the younger ones until they begged for mercy. For a grown woman, she had a playful streak in her a mile wide. Several times she had enticed him into taking moonlit swims down at the river. The fact that he was always scared to death someone would stumble on them amused her to no end.
Davy idly slid a hand to his belt. It did not surprise him to discover that his knife and tomahawk were gone. So were his pistols, powder horn, and ammunition pouch. His cap was gone, too, and that peeved him. Unless he took the time to hunt down or trap a raccoon, he’d have to go without until he was home again.
Coonskin caps were popular with the backwoodsmen of states like Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Carolinas, but not, Davy had learned in his travels, with frontiersmen elsewhere. Which made no sense to him. In his opinion coonskin was superior to buckskin, wool, and ordinary leather when it came to shedding water and keeping his head warm on cold days. It also beat possum and skunk all hollow.
A pat on the foot brought Davy’s reflection to an end. The boy, now dressed, amused himself by swatting Davy’s moccasin as if it were a fly. “Better not inhale,” Davy joked. “It’s been a spell since I bathed last, and I’m liable to be getting a mite whiffy.”
The woman was upending a water skin over a battered tin cup. She brought it to him, protesting when Davy propped himself on an elbow.
“I can manage,” Davy assured her. Accepting the cup, he sipped, wondering where it had come from. The only way Indians obtained tin utensils was in trade with white men. Despite their unfamiliarity with English, her people must have been in contact with whites sometime in the past.
On the one hand, that was encouraging. If white trappers or traders came by on occasion, the tribe would be less likely to dispose of him.
On the other hand, the previous owners of the cup might have been slain just so the Indians could get their hands on the owner’s possessions. In which case the tribe would not hesitate to kill him once it suited their purpose.
Davy worried about Flavius. Had his friend been caught in the stampede? Or had the Indians taken him captive, as well? When he finished the water, he handed the cup back. “I’m obliged,” he said.
He decided to sit up. As the old saying went, he was not getting any younger. The sooner he established what the Indians had in mind, the better.
As if on cue, the front flap parted and in came the young warrior Davy had run into after the stampede. The man glanced first at the woman and the boy, the love he bore for them as plain as the nose on his face. The woman addressed him. His answer seemed to worry her.
Hanging his bow and quiver on the hide wall, the warrior approached the buffalo-hide bedding on which Davy had been placed. Again the man’s fingers flew in a series of hand signs, which left Davy as baffled as before. When the warrior realized that Davy was at a loss, he sighed a
nd hung his head, pondering.
Davy was not discouraged. He had always been a quick study once he put his mind to something, and it occurred to him that if the warrior was willing, he could learn enough of their peculiar finger talk to communicate. Accordingly, Davy tapped his chest, then held out his hands and wagged them up and down.
It took a bit for the warrior to divine his meaning. Actually, it was the woman who caught on first. Brightening, she spoke to her husband, who then pointed at Davy and held his right hand to the left of his face about level with his eyes. Index finger extended, he moved the hand from left to right, the finger passing across both eyes.
Wonderful, Davy mused. What did that mean? Did it pertain to him specifically? To white men in general? Or did it mean, maybe, “enemy”?
“Let’s try this again,” Davy said, indicating the little boy. In turn, he was shown the sign for the child, the woman, and the warrior, who warmed to the task once Davy caught on. Soon Davy was pointing at various objects in the lodge, and the warrior or the woman would reveal the sign for each.
That was all well and good. But knowing the sign for a shield or parfleche was one thing. Being able to express questions and ideas was quite another.
The woman devoted part of her time to helping her husband and the rest to preparing a meal. Presently the heady aroma of boiling stew filled the lodge, reminding Davy of how famished he was. He was so hungry, his gut hurt. That alone hinted that he had been unconscious for quite a long time.
In addition to the stew, the woman served a boiled flour pudding made with dried fruit, and small cakes of a type unknown to Davy. He wolfed his portions with relish. Water sufficed to wash it down.
Sioux Slaughter (A Davy Crockett Western Book 2) Page 3
