Wilderness Double Edition 25

by David Robbins

  The mare had stopped grazing and was staring at him.

  “What are you looking at?” Shakespeare demanded. “So what if I talk to myself? There’s no one else to talk to out here. You sure can’t hold up your end of a conversation.” He laughed, and the mare went back to grazing.

  Shakespeare could see the cabins from where he sat, so far below that they were the size of a child’s play blocks. Blue Water Woman was probably having tea, as was her midday custom. He wished he were with her. He would much rather be down there, safe and doting over her and being doted over, than on a quest to bait fur-clad dragons in their lair.

  “That’s another gripe I have,” Shakespeare said to the sky. “Why must everything be so complicated? Why couldn’t you make it easier? We don’t need the aggravation.” He idly pulled at his beard. “Take these wolverines of yours. What purpose do they serve? If I were a cynic, I’d say you put them here, along with grizzlies and rattlesnakes and the like, just to keep us on our toes.” The sky did not answer but Shakespeare went on anyway. “Why give life and promise death? Why is there only one way to be born but a thousand ways to die? Why wind us up and let us loose only to have us wear down and break?” He let out a sigh. “I don’t mind admitting, between you and me, that you are a puzzlement sometimes, and a bafflement the rest. There is no rhyme or sense to giving a gift of fool’s gold.”

  Shakespeare grew somber. “The Bard isn’t the only one I’ve read, you know. I’ve been through Scripture end to end and back again. Eye for an eye. Love thy neighbor. Slay the Philistines. Him crucified. From one extreme to the other. But I’ve tried my best, and if I got it wrong, it wasn’t from a lack of trying.”

  Sighing, Shakespeare stood and moved to the white mare. “Old William S. would be ashamed of me. I’m waxing maudlin in my dotage.” He gripped the saddle and swung up. “What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unus’d.” He stopped quoting to cluck to the mare. “Now, whether it be bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event—a thought which, quarter’d, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward—I do not know why yet I live to say, ‘This thing’s to do.’”

  The climb grew steeper. Shakespeare passed through shaded file after shaded file of leafy boughs and pines. The undergrowth was erratic; thick here, thin there, but always there were obstacles in the form of logs, boulders and talus. Treacherous talus; the ground might appear solid but it would shift like slippery grains of quicksand, threatening to pitch the mare onto her side and send them tumbling. He rode with the utmost care. He could ill afford to lose her. A man stranded afoot, as the mountain men were wont to quip, was a coon begging for an early grave.

  Shakespeare amused himself by recollecting the tapestry of his life. His early years, when he did not know a mountain from a pimple but thought he knew everything. His years of exploration, when he roamed where no white man had ever roamed before, and in the roaming learned there was, indeed, much more to the world than he ever dreamed. His trapping years, when he plied frigid mountain streams and sold plews at the annual rendezvous. His middle years, when he lost one wife but found the true love he had assumed was lost to him forever.

  And now? Shakespeare had seldom been so content. Blue Water Woman was everything he ever imagined the other half of his heart would be. He cherished her as he did life. He was happy, genuinely and truly and sincerely happy, a state as elusive as a ghost yet as precious as the finest gems from Samarkand.

  He did not want it to end. He wanted to go on with her forever. The knowledge that it was not up to him, that the final curtain fell for all, made the nectar of their love that much sweeter.

  The white mare gave a snort and pricked her ears.

  Annoyed at himself, Shakespeare drew rein. Here he was indulging in whimsy when he should be focusing every iota of his being on his surroundings. He scanned the forest but saw no reason for the mare’s unease.

  “What is it, old girl?” Shakespeare asked, and fluttered his lips at his silliness. “But you’re not my old girl, are you? You’re my new girl and yet to be tempered.” He nudged her on with his legs and bent to compensate for the angle of their climb.

  The forest had gone silent, never a welcome sign. Shakespeare glanced right and left and twisted to look behind him. He kept one eye on the mare and saw her nostrils flare, but he would be damned if he could divine why.

  “Leave it to the Almighty to give humans a nose as puny as their brain pans,” Shakespeare grumbled. He would like to have the nose of a wolf, or a fox—or a wolverine. They could smell things a mile off.

  A shelf broadened before him. To one side was talus. He veered wide, spotted a game trail and wound steadily higher through murk-mired firs. He realized he was scarcely breathing. “Valiant flea,” he criticized himself. “I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry.”

  Above the firs was a belt of aspens. Shakespeare threaded through their pale boles, their leaves shaking with fits, courtesy of the northwest breeze. Here, it was sunnier and the brightness dispelled some of the darkling tendrils that clung to his confidence. “A pox on my nerves.”

  Another quarter of a mile brought him out of the aspens. Ahead, he beheld a welcome sight: a spring nestled at the foot of a bluff. He had a full water skin, but it was wise to use it sparingly and keep it in reserve for when water proved hard to find.

  “What do you say, horse? Care to partake? Is this what you smelled?”

  The mare quickened her steps and plunged her muzzle in the water. Shakespeare stayed in the saddle. It was too early to stop for the night and too soon for another rest. “Don’t take forever.”

  To the west several buzzards appeared, soaring in wide loops in search of carrion. “Will you look there,” Shakespeare grinned. “Rotten flesh is their delicacy. If anything has a gripe about their purpose in life, it’s them.”

  The mare went on drinking.

  “Don’t overdo it, girl,” Shakespeare cautioned. “Floundering is for fish, not horses.” He winced at his pun, and raised the reins. “Let’s go before you’re so waterlogged, you’ll have to ride me.” He gigged her to the right to parallel the base of the bluff, but she took only a few steps when a loud, brittle rattling erupted almost from under her front hooves and a sinuous form slithered swiftly under a boulder.

  The rattlesnake did not strike, but it did not need to. The harm had been done. Shakespeare felt the mare start to rise and cried out, “No, girl, no!” His old mare would not have panicked, but this one was young, and fear came readily to natures not buttressed by experience. She reared straight up, her front hooves churning.

  Gravity would not be denied. In vain Shakespeare clutched at his saddle and her mane, but he could not keep from falling. He remembered to kick free of the stirrups, and a moment later hit hard on his back.

  The mare nickered and bolted.

  “Come back here!” Shakespeare fumed, pushing quickly to his feet. But he was molasses compared to the mare, and she was at the aspens before he had gone a dozen yards.

  “Damnation!” Shakespeare drew up short and shook his fist in impotent indignation. He had not been thrown from a horse in years. It was downright humiliating.

  Fear lent wings to the mare’s hooves. Shakespeare stood and listened to the crack and crackle of undergrowth until it faded with distance.

  Silence fell.

  Complete, awful silence.

  Shakespeare swallowed a desire to swear a mean streak. The horse was only being a horse. There was a chance, a very slim chance, she might come back once her fear subsided, although it was more likely she would keep going until she reached the valley floor, and the corral.

  Blue Water Woman would be worried sick. No doubt she would rush to Nate and the two of them would backtrack Shakespeare’s mare. The earliest they could re
ach him, though, was early tomorrow afternoon. Until then, he was on his own.

  It could be worse, Shakespeare told himself. He had water close by, and he could hunt for food. His ammo pouch bulged with bullets and patches, and his powder horn was full. In his possibles bag he always carried a fire steel and flint and other items that would come in handy.

  Shakespeare returned to the spring. High above, the sun was well on its westward arc. In a couple of hours, or thereabouts, it would set.

  Something else would occur. Something that took on a whole new significance now that Shakespeare did not have a mount and a means to escape if he had to.

  The wolverines would be abroad.

  And they would be hungry.

  Seven

  The picnic was everything Louisa King hoped it would be. The site she chose was a sawtooth ridge about four miles from the lake, high on a densely timbered ridge. The crest was mostly grass with a few small pines. It afforded a marvelous view of their new valley from north to south.

  Lou spread out the blanket she brought and placed the parfleches bulging with food and the water skin beside it. Humming softly, she arranged everything to her satisfaction.

  Zach, meanwhile, walked in a wide circle, checking for recent sign of hostile men or hostile animals. There was none. He let the horses graze and did not bother to hobble them since they were close by. Plastering what he hoped was a happy smile on his face, he sank down cross-legged on the blanket, set his Hawken next to him, propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in his hand. “Nice day for our feed.”

  Lou smiled and nodded. “That it is,” she heartily agreed. Nature provided a wealth of colors: the bright yellow of the sun, the distant deep blue of the lake and the far off green-blue of the glacier, the green of the forest and the white of a handful of large fluffy clouds drifting like airborne pillows. Nature also provided the chirping of sparrows and the sigh of the breeze to please the ear and calm the nerves.

  Not that Lou was nervous. They were both well-armed, and it was doubtful meat eaters were abroad that early. They had the day, and the ridge, to themselves, and she intended to make the most of it by enjoying their picnic fully. “I sure worked up an appetite on the ride here.”

  “So did I,” Zach said. The food was always the best part of a picnic. The chatter that inevitably went with it was sometimes a trial in that women did love to prattle, but for her sake he would sit and listen to whatever silliness she came up with.

  “I’m glad you agree with me,” Lou said, while placing the bread on the blanket. “I was worried you wouldn’t.”

  “I am always hungry,” Zach said. “You know that.” She liked to call him her “bottomless pit.”

  Lou glanced up. “I wasn’t talking about the food, dearest. I was talking about what we discussed on the way up.”

  Zach remembered missing some of what she said, and wanted to beat his head against a tree. If he admitted his lapse she would be furious. She would accuse him of not really wanting to come, or some such female ridiculousness. Somehow he must find out what she had talked about without giving his inattention away. “Are you sure?” He fished for information, and congratulated himself on how clever he was being.

  “Of course I’m sure,” Lou said indignantly. “It’s not a decision we should make lightly, is it?”

  “Not many decisions are,” Zach hedged. He waited for her to say more but when all she did was lay out more food, he tried again. “What made you decide?”

  “I thought I covered all that,” Lou said. She did not blame him for wanting to sound her out. It was a big decision, the biggest they could make, even bigger than the decision to move.

  “Well, you know,” Zach said, and shrugged, a tactic he had used before on similar occasions.

  “We are not getting any younger,” Lou recited the first on her list. “Granted, we have a lot of good years left, but why wait until we’re so old we can’t hold up our end?”

  Although he was unclear what she was alluding to, Zach responded, “That makes sense. You always did have a good noggin on your shoulders.”

  “Why, thank you.” Lou appreciated the compliment. “Then there’s the fact our new cabin is bigger than our old one.”

  His confusion mounting, Zach sought to figure out how that applied to anything. “You always did say our old cabin was a bit small for your liking.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I loved that cabin. It was special. Our very first home. You built it with your own hands.”

  “You helped,” Zach offered.

  “But you did most of the work. Remember when you made the bed, and how we tested it to see if it would bear both our weight?”

  Zach felt his ears grow warm. He was never comfortable discussing that, as much as he liked to do it. “That was your brainstorm.” She was feisty in that regard. Not that he was complaining.

  “Can I help it I adore you so much?” Lou grinned. She had finished placing the food out. Folding her legs in front of her, she wrapped her arms around her knees and regarded him lovingly. “Don’t worry. We’re making the right decision.”

  “I’m sure we are,” Zach said, wishing he knew what in hell they had decided. Whenever she said not to worry about something, he invariably had cause to do so. “If you think so.”

  “Don’t tell me you are having second thoughts?” Lou asked. She would be crushed if he changed his mind. “I talked it over with Winona and she agreed with me.”

  “You talked to my mother before you talked to me?” Zach’s worry swelled. It had to be something really important.

  Lou nodded. “I talked to Blue Water Woman, too. After all, they’re both women, aren’t they?”

  Zach couldn’t argue with that, but what in heaven’s name being female had to do with whatever decision she had come to eluded him. Cleverly, he threw out another fishing line. “What did they say?”

  “Your mother said she started even younger,” Lou answered. “Not that they planned it. It just sort of happened.” She winked and giggled.

  “What age was she, exactly?”

  Louisa laughed in delight. “Aren’t you the kidder! As if you don’t know. Not that we recollect much. But still.”

  Zach’s temper flared. He resisted an urge to grab her by the shoulders and shout, Tell me what in God’s name you’re talking about! Instead, he inquired, “How much do you recollect?”

  Again Lou laughed. She tended to forget that he had a wonderful sense of humor because he so rarely exercised it. “Not much. But who does? I have a cousin who swore she remembered her gums hurting when a tooth came in, but she always made all sorts of outlandish claims.”

  It had to do with teeth? Zach bought time to ponder by plucking a blade of grass and sticking the stem between his own. “I’ve always had healthy teeth. So do my ma and pa.”

  “They say things like that run in a family,” Lou said. “There was an aunt of mine who had to have all her teeth out before she turned twenty. She wore dentures after that. When she married, her children were the same as her. Bad teeth.”

  Zach was glad they were finally talking about something he understood. “Bears need strong teeth so they can crack bones and stuff.”

  Lou blinked. “True. We’re not bears, however, so cracking bones isn’t all that important.”

  “Well, I just meant they have good teeth.”

  “I suppose most animals do. They would have to, wouldn’t they? Or they wouldn’t survive.”

  Zach hoped she would talk about something else. The conversation had gone from confusing to stupid.

  “It’s interesting, isn’t it, all the traits things have? Bears with their hairy bodies. Turtles with their shells. Birds with their feathers and wings. Do you ever wonder how each creature knows to grow as it should? Why don’t buffalo have wings? Or birds have horns?”

  “Horns?” Zach repeated. Now it had gone from stupid to ridiculous. “Be serious. Buffalo can’t fly, and birds have beaks. To each according to their
nature.” He had heard his father say that once.

  “Sometimes you surprise me,” Lou said. Levering forward on her knees, she kissed him.

  Zach enfolded her in his arms and they sat admiring the view, Lou with her head on his chest.

  “Days like this make me thankful to be alive.” She touched his chin. “You are the sweetest man who ever lived.”

  “I am a warrior,” Zach said. Before and beyond and above all else. He lived to count coup and one day be prominent in Shoshone councils.

  “You are a husband first, a warrior second,” Lou amended, “and before too long, you’ll be a warrior third.”

  Zach did not see how that could be but he did not dispute her.

  “I’ve never had a yearning to be more than a good wife and a good mother,” Lou went on. “Hopefully, I will prove to be as fine as yours.” Her own mother had died when she was too young to fully appreciate the nuances of womanhood.

  “You will be,” Zach predicted, to hold up his end. Truth was, he had no complaints. Lou did not cook quite as well or sew quite as well or clean quite as well as Winona, but she tried her best.

  “Do you ever wonder what kind of father you will be?”

  Zach had not given it much thought. He shrugged. “I will raise my son as my father raised me.”

  “What if we have a daughter?”

  “I will leave her to you,” Zach said, and chortled at the shocked expression he provoked.

  “You will do no such thing! Daughters need fathers as much as mothers. My father taught me a lot.” Lou recalled his death at the hands of hostiles, and felt her throat constrict. “He had his flaws. He was stubborn, and he always believed he was right. But he was still one of the kindest, most decent men who ever lived.”

  “That he was,” Zach agreed, even though he never met the man. He pecked Lou on the ear and she smiled gratefully and snuggled against him.