Wilderness Double Edition 25

by David Robbins

  “No! Let him go,” Teni urged. “There has been enough killing.”

  Dega almost went after the white man anyway. “What they did—” he blurted, but did not finish. The deed the whites had been about to do was too hideous to be spoken of.

  “It is over,” Teni said soothingly. Worry filled her, both for him and for her people, over the consequences of his anger.

  Degamawaku of the Nansusequa gazed at the blood-smeared forms on the ground. “What have I done?” he breathed.

  Teni did not bother checking Byram Forge for a pulse. There was no need. But she did kneel next to the other two, and in turn took their wrists and pressed a finger to their veins. One was dead. The other had a weak heartbeat. He would not last long.

  The white man’s eyes opened. He swallowed a few times, then mewed and blubbered.

  Teni shook her head to signify she did not understand. Only a few of the People of the Forest spoke the white tongue with any fluency. Most, like herself, knew only a few white words, mainly having to do with the barter of furs for the marvelous assortment of white trade goods.

  Dega stood with his knife at his side, scarlet dripping from the blade and spattering his moccasins and the ground.

  The white man wailed at the sky. He clutched Teni’s wrist and squeezed with phenomenal strength, pleading to her with tears in his eyes.

  Teni tried to pry his fingers off but couldn’t. His dirty nails dug into her, breaking her skin.

  A strident cry tore from the white man’s throat. In the extremity of his impending fate, he lunged at Teni’s neck, seeking to wrap his hands around her throat.

  There was a blur of steel. The white man arched his back, gasped, and collapsed, staring blankly at the knife buried in his chest and at Dega’s hand on the hilt.

  Another groan sounded, but not from the white man. His days of making sounds of any kind were over. The groan came from Teni. “Three of them, my brother. Three lives our people must answer for.”

  “They deserved to die for what they were going to do to you,” Dega replied.

  “They were living creatures. They had in them That Which Is In All Things,” Teni said. The People of the Forest had a name for the mystery of mysteries, but it was seldom spoken out loud. To do so would reap calamity.

  “Did they?” Dega questioned. “Do any of them?” He was skeptical. The whites reminded him of nothing so much as locusts. At first there had only been a few. Then more came, and even more, until the land between Nansusequa territory and the great salt sea far to the east was crawling with them. And still more whites were arriving all the time.

  The growth of New Albion was added proof of the influx. It had started as a trading post, but the population swelled summer by summer until now nearly a hundred wooden lodges flanked the Serpent River, which the whites had renamed the Albion River.

  “They are people like us,” Teni said.

  “Not like us,” Dega retorted. “Never like us.” He began wiping his knife blade on the shirt of one of the dead men. When he was done he slid it into the sheath wedged under his green breechclout. The breechclout and knee-high green moccasins were all he wore. In the winter Nansusequa men preferred buckskins, but in the heat of summer breechclouts were favored.

  Brother and sister showed their blood ties in their similar builds and facial features. Both were slender, but then, all the People of the Forest were prone to leanness and long limbs. Both had black hair, slicked with bear fat, that hung past their shoulders. In addition, Dega had a short clasp, made from porcupine quills, that splayed his hair at the back in a fan effect. Their eyes were dark brown. High foreheads, prominent cheekbones, and oval chins completed the image.

  By any standard, red or white, Tenikawaku was a beauty, her brother strikingly handsome. Not that either gave much thought to such matters. Among the People of the Forest, a person’s worth was not measured by how attractive he or she was, but by character, maturity, and wisdom.

  “We must tell Father and Mother,” Teni urged. She could not keep it to herself now, not with three dead whites.

  “I should go after the one who got away,” Dega said.

  “What for?”

  “Maybe I can catch him before he reaches New Albion.” Dega did not say the rest of it.

  “And do what? Kill him?” Teni gestured at the sprawled forms. “Has there not been enough blood spilled?”

  “If I silence him he cannot tell the other whites,” Dega noted. “They will not know who did this.”

  “You would have us keep our part in it a secret?”

  “Either that or risk war.”

  “Surely it would not come to that?” Teni said. “We have traded with the whites for many summers. We are their friends.”

  “Are we?”

  “You have never truly trusted them, brother. Not from the very beginning. Why is that?”

  “Their eyes always say one thing and their mouths another.” Dega nudged the body of Byram Forge. “I sometimes wonder if any of the whites are truly our friends. Even Reverend Stilljoy.” He sighed. “But I will not go after the last one if you do not want me to.”

  “Thank you,” Teni said, and clasped his hand. “Now come. We must not delay any longer.”

  They headed west, loping at a pace that would eat the distance rapidly.

  “I hope you are right, sister,” Degamawaku said. “If you are not, more blood will stain the earth.” He added ominously, “A lot more.”

  One

  It was rare for Evelyn King to get to sleep in. Her mother insisted she be up at the crack of dawn to begin her chores. So when Evelyn opened her green eyes and saw by the sunlight streaming in her window that the sun had been up an hour or more, she was sure she must be dreaming. But no, for when she rolled on her back and languidly stretched, she heard voices coming from the front room of their cabin. Her bedroom door was closed, and she could not tell what her parents were talking about.

  Evelyn opened her mouth to call out to her mother and ask why she had been allowed the extra sleep, then changed her mind. If her mother had seen fit to grace her with this rare treat, why spoil it? Grinning, Evelyn pulled the quilt over her head and closed her eyes. Another hour would be deliciously wonderful. The only other days she was allowed to stay in bed were her birthday and January first. It was a King tradition to celebrate the new year by loafing the entire day. Needless to say, it was Evelyn’s favorite tradition.

  A pleasant drowsiness came over her. She felt herself drift on the incoming tide of slumber. Another few moments and she would float away. Then came a knock on her door.

  “I knew it was too good to be true,” Evelyn muttered. Louder, she hollered, “It’s open, Ma.” She heard the latch and a light tread on the plank floor. “How come you let me sleep in so late?”

  The voice that answered was not her mother’s.

  “Is that your excuse? You’ve always been lazy as sin, brat. When you were little, I was always cleaning up after you.”

  Evelyn poked her head out from under the quilt and glared. “What in blazes are you doing here?” she demanded of her sibling. “You have a place of your own now. Or have you forgotten?”

  Zachary King grinned. He was her senior by nine years, and he had a wife. He looked every inch the Indian half of his ancestry except for his piercing blue eyes. As was his custom, his muscular frame was clothed in beaded buckskins. A walking armory, he had a Hawken rifle in the crook of an elbow, a pair of flintlocks under his leather belt, a tomahawk on his right hip and a Bowie on his left. “I had to come see for myself once I heard.”

  “Heard what?” Evelyn asked, sleepily rubbing her eyes.

  Zach did not answer right away. He walked to her window and gazed out over the lake. “Lou told me about it. She came over early to borrow syrup for breakfast.”

  Evelyn’s brow puckered. Lou was short for Louisa, her brother’s wife. “What are you babbling about?”

  His back to her, Zach said, “I’m surprised you did
n’t say anything to me.” He deliberately sounded hurt. Teasing his sister had always been great fun, and this latest development would give him ammunition for months to come.

  “About what?” Irritated, Evelyn sat up.

  Zach turned. He tried to adopt a serious expression but his mouth kept quirking. “What will you two do? Build a cabin of your own? Let’s see. I live on the north side of the lake, Shakespeare lives on the south side, Ma and Pa live here on the west. That leaves the east for you and your beloved.”

  Evelyn practically exploded. “Beloved!” At last she thought she knew what he was prattling about. “I don’t love Chases Rabbits or Niwot. Not in the way you mean, anyhow.”

  Much to Evelyn’s considerable consternation, she had acquired suitors. A young Crow named Chases Rabbits and a young Ute named Niwot were vying for her affection, despite making it plain she had no interest whatsoever in acquiring a husband. For eight months now, the pair had visited the valley every chance they got, pressing their suits. Sometimes they both showed up at the same time, which created no end of embarrassment for her. An uneasy truce existed between the Crows and the Utes, and so far Chases Rabbits and Niwot had honored it, but Evelyn fretted that one day one or the other would pounce on his rival, precipitating all-out war.

  At the moment, though, Evelyn’s immediate headache was her brother. “Unless you have something important to say, scat. I want to get dressed.”

  “Wear your best dress in honor of the occasion,” Zach suggested.

  “What occasion, dang you?”

  “It isn’t every day a girl is asked for her hand in marriage.”

  Evelyn forgot herself and sprang out of bed in her nightshirt. She went to poke Zach in the chest and demand that he explain when she heard a new voice out in the front room. “Is that who I think it is?”

  Zach nodded, then sputtered, fighting down his glee. “Niwot. He has six horses tied out front, along with a pile of furs. You should be flattered. That’s quite a lot to offer for a runt like you.”

  “Dear God!”

  No longer able to contain himself, Zach cackled uproariously.

  “It’s not that hilarious.” Evelyn had dreaded this. She could only put her suitors off for so long. Eventually, impatience had been bound to drive one or the other to do what Niwot was about to do, propose. Among his people, when a man wanted to take a woman for his wife, he left a horse outside his intended’s lodge. If the woman accepted the horse, she in effect agreed to become his wife. If she left the horse untended, she had no interest.

  “Ah, but it is,” Zach teased. “You were the one who was always going to live east of the Mississippi, remember? You wanted nothing to do with the wilderness. Nothing to do with Indians, or Indian ways.”

  “I never said that,” Evelyn snapped. While it was true that for the longest time she was more partial to her father’s people than her mother’s, she did not dislike the Shoshones. She merely disliked living as they lived.

  “You didn’t have to,” Zach said. “It was as plain as the big nose on your face.” He dodged a hastily thrown fist and backpedaled to the door. “I’d best leave you to get dressed. Your suitor is probably eager for a glimpse of your beauty.” Zach snickered.

  Evelyn would gladly have beaned him with a rock, were one handy, but he skipped out the door, chortling merrily. She slammed the door after him, then strode to her closet to decide what to wear. Usually she dressed as white women did, in dresses bought in St. Louis or ones she had made herself, patterned after the latest fashions. Today, she tried something different. She donned a buckskin dress, the plainest she owned, and let her hair hang limp instead of doing anything fancy with it. She figured she’d show Niwot she was as ordinary as dishwater, and not the beauty he claimed.

  The instant Evelyn stepped from her bedroom, she realized she had blundered. Niwot was by the table, chatting with her mother and father. A stocky, swarthy youth, attired in his best buckskins, his dark eyes lit up like twin candles at the sight of her. In thickly accented English, he exclaimed, “Pretty dress! You never wear.”

  “It’s just some old thing I threw on.”

  “It give hope,” Niwot said.

  Puzzled by his meaning, Evelyn was given a temporary reprieve by her mother.

  “If you don’t mind, Niwot,” Winona King said kindly, “my husband and I would like a few words alone with our daughter.” Her English, unlike Niwot’s, was flawless, a result of years of hard study and use, as well as her knack for learning languages.

  Winona was a full-blooded Shoshone. She had met Nate King shortly after he came to the mountains to hunt beaver, and ever since, the two had been inseparable. She liked to say there were two things the Great Mystery had bestowed on her that she valued more than anything else: life itself and Nate.

  Though in her forties, Winona looked younger. A beaded buckskin dress, most of the beads blue, added a splash of color. She had an air of perpetual calmness about her, but it was deceptive. When aroused, she made a fierce adversary.

  “Alone?” Niwot repeated.

  “Oh. Yes. Me wait outside.” Smiling adoringly at Evelyn, he strolled out.

  “Me wait outside, too,” Zach playfully mimicked. At the door, Zach paused to glance at Evelyn and indulge in a long sigh. “There’s nothing quite as grand as two children in love, is there?” With that parting volley, he was gone.

  “I could strangle him,” Evelyn complained, crossing to the table.

  The other person in the room stirred. Nate King was a mountain of a man with a deep, rumbling voice. He was dressed exactly like his son. He had green eyes and a black beard that he kept neatly trimmed, as his wife liked it. His was an imposing presence, and when he spoke, others listened. “This is serious, daughter.”

  “It’s true, then?” Evelyn said, looking from mother to father and back again. “Niwot isn’t leaving me any wiggle room?”

  “I am afraid not,” Winona answered. “He arrived late last night. I was first up, and when I looked out the window, there he was with all his horses and furs. I woke your father.”

  Nate continued the account. “We have been trying to convince him he is rushing things, but he won’t listen. He has already courted you longer than most Utes court their intendeds.”

  “What am I to do?” Evelyn asked. She did not want to hurt Niwot’s feelings, but she simply and truly did not love him. Not that way. Her parents were aware of her sentiments.

  “Be honest with him,” Winona said. She was a firm believer in always being honest. In her estimation, truth was the bedrock of love. “Tell him you are sorry but you cannot be his wife.”

  “But what if it makes him mad?” Evelyn worried. “We don’t need trouble with the Utes.”

  The relationship between the King family and the Ute tribe had been strained at times, to put it mildly. When Nate first came to the mountains, he had lived in a cabin built by his uncle. A cabin that happened to be in Ute territory. The Utes took exception, and for many years tried repeatedly to take his life. After Nate befriended a Ute chief and helped rid the Utes of the menace of a killer grizzly, the tribe regarded him more favorably. But he was still white, and that made a difference.

  Now Nate raised a tin cup to his lips and took a sip of steaming hot coffee before commenting. “Your mother is right. Do what you have to. We are no longer in Ute territory, and I can’t see them going on the warpath over a rejected suitor.”

  Vexed by the unwanted stress, Evelyn stamped a small foot and said bitterly, “Why did this have to happen to me?”

  “It is life, daughter,” Winona said. “Difficulties happen to everyone, whether we want them to or not.” Nate shrugged. “You are young. You are pretty. If we were back in civilization, you would have more beaus than you could shake a stick at.”

  “But I don’t want any!” Evelyn declared. “I’m not hankering for a husband. I might never get married, in fact.” She noticed her mother’s smile, and asked, “What is so amusing?”


  “I felt the same way at your age,” Winona replied. “Most girls do. We think we will never meet a man who can claim our heart. We imagine we will live our lives alone, and think we prefer it that way. But we will and we won’t and we don’t.”

  Evelyn moved to the window. Zach and Niwot were standing by a hill of furs, talking. Judging by her brother’s expression, he was having a marvelous time. “I suppose I should go out there.”

  Winona rose and came over. “We have tried every argument we can think of, but Niwot is in love with you, and love will not be denied.”

  “It will in my case,” Evelyn said flatly.

  From behind her came her father’s rumbling tones. “Go easy on him, girl. He might not look it, but he has butterflies in his stomach. It takes a heap of nerves to ask a girl to wed. Believe me. I know.”

  Winona glanced over her shoulder. “It was that hard for you with me?” She did seem to recall he had been a bundle of nerves.

  “You have no idea,” Nate assured her. “For a man, asking for a woman’s hand is one of the hardest things he ever has to do.”

  Evelyn’s interest was piqued. “Why should that be? Didn’t you tell me once that when two people are in love, it’s like—” she strived to recall his exact words, “—how did you put it? Like having their two hearts entwined?”

  “That’s how it is,” Nate confirmed, “but it doesn’t make the asking easier.”

  “You have an eloquent way of phrasing things, husband,” Winona said in her impeccable English.

  Nate shrugged again. “Blame the books.”

  Against a wall stood a large bookcase. The books that crammed the shelves were Nate’s most valued possessions. He had always been a reader, even as a boy. Many an hour he had whiled away absorbed in works of fiction, like those of his favorite writer, James Fenimore Cooper. He loved The Last of the Mohicans, and had read it several times. Among the many other works that adorned his shelves: The Iliad and The Odyssey, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, Ivan hoe, Pride and Prejudice, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon. He had works by Byron, Shelley, and Keats, although mainly for Winona’s benefit; she adored poetry. Among the score of non-fiction volumes, perhaps the ones he cherished most were the writings of Thomas Paine. In particular was he fond of The Rights of Man.