Wilderness Double Edition 25

by David Robbins

“It is not safe,” Dega whispered. The warriors were astir, preparing to leave, and Dega was worried one might spot them.

  “The world is not safe, my son,” Waku responded. “Manitoa has the taint of madness. We should tell these men, that they may know the fault is not entirely theirs.”

  Panicked that his father would give them away, Dega gripped Waku’s wrist. “They would not care.”

  “What about you, son? Do you care?”

  “We should talk about this later,” Dega suggested. Preferably when the painted warriors were leagues away.

  “What good is talk?” Waku asked. “We talked to Stilljoy. We talked to other whites in New Albion who said they were our friends. All that talk, and they slaughtered our people. No, talk is empty air.”

  “Then talking to those warriors would not help them or us.”

  Waku considered that. “You speak with a true tongue. I am sorry, my son. I was not thinking.”

  “What is wrong with you, Father?”

  “I do not know. I feel—” Waku looked down at himself. “I feel empty inside. I am not the man I was.”

  “You can be so again if you try,” Dega ventured.

  “Do I want to try? That is the question.”

  “For our sakes,” Dega said. “You were a great man of peace. You can be so again.”

  “In a world tainted by madness, what use is there for peace?” Waku asked. “The whites do not believe in peace. Those warriors do not believe in peace. Their answer to everything is to kill.”

  “Our answer need not be.”

  Waku smiled and whispered tenderly, “Son. My son. Once that would have made me so proud. But we have both seen what those who kill do to those who value the path of peace.”

  “Should we judge all men by the actions of a few?” Dega had been casting furtive glances at the painted warriors. Most had mounted. They would soon leave. All he had to do was keep his father talking a while more.

  “Once I would have said no,” Waku responded. “But perhaps we must if we are to survive.”

  “We will find a new home. Our life will be as it was.” Waku’s features clouded. “Am I five winters old? Our life will never be as it was. All those we loved, all our brothers and sisters, are gone. Our land has been taken from us. We have nothing left.”

  “We have each other,” Dega said. “We have our family. That is the one thing no one can take.”

  Horses nickered and hooves drummed. The painted warriors were leaving. They headed to the northwest and were soon swallowed by their dust.

  Dega rose. “I will get Mother and the girls.” He found them seated on a log, their expressions glum. Not that long ago, his mother had been perpetually happy, and Miki had always worn a smile. “It is safe,” he announced.

  Teni fell into step beside him. “Maybe we should only travel at night until we reach the mountains.”

  “The meat eaters are abroad at night,” Dega reminded her. Of late, some nights the roars, grunts, shrieks and howls of the predators were a constant cacophony from dusk until dawn. Of particular worry to Dega was the amount of bear sign. Black bears he was familiar with. But much of the sign he found was of bears many times larger. Their footprints suggested a size bordering on the gigantic.

  Dega had heard stories about the great silver bears, so-called, even though they were shades of brown in color, because the tips of their hairs were supposedly silverish. He had heard they were the most formidable creatures alive, but after seeing buffalo, that seemed doubtful. Whether true or not, he did not want to encounter one. If only half the reports of their ferocity and hardiness were to be believed, they were still next to impossible to slay.

  “Dega,” Teni suddenly said.

  Dega looked up. His father was not where he had left him. Waku had gone to the clearing and was standing next to the remains of the couple who had been tortured. “What is he doing?”

  Just standing and staring, as near as Dega could tell. “Take Mother and Miki around the clearing.” He hurried forward. “Father?”

  “Their faces are gone,” Waku said. “It is sad to die without a face.”

  “We should not be out in the open like this.” Dega took his father’s wrist but Waku did not move.

  “I had a face once.”

  Dega tugged on his father’s arm. “Please. The warriors might come back.” He deemed that unlikely, but why take the chance?

  “I had a strong face. Now I see my reflection in the water and all I see is fog. Is that not strange?”

  Dega refused to answer. It would only upset him. “Mother and the girls are waiting.”

  “Our people were too proud,” Waku said. “We thought we would last forever. We thought we were special. We thought we were in harmony with Manitoa and Manitoa was in us. But we were wrong.”

  “We must go, Father.”

  Waku seemed not to hear. “We thought we could persuade the whites to be as we were. We had been told how the whites destroyed tribe after tribe, but we refused to believe the whites would do the same to us.” Dega gave up trying to get him to listen.

  “Our people learned an important lesson, but they learned it at the point of white knives and to the sound of white guns.” Waku turned from the gory remains at his feet. “You and I have been more fortunate, son. We learned an important lesson, and we survived. Never again will we trust a white man. Never again will we offer the sign of friendship to anyone white. We will find the mountains we have heard so much about and make them our new home. If any whites dare to try to take our new home away from us, we will do to them as the whites did to our people. We will kill them and mutilate them and leave their carcasses for the coyotes.” Waku raised his arms to the sky. “To this do I, Wakumassee of the Nansusequa, so vow! To this do I, Wakumassee of the Nansusequa, give my sacred pledge! Are you with me in this, my son?”

  “I am with you,” Dega said.

  Thirteen

  Finding the Rocky Mountains proved to be ridiculously easy. All they had to do was continue west far enough and there the mountains were.

  First to spot them was Degamawaku. He was studying what he took to be a massive thunderhead on the far horizon, trying to figure out why parts of the cloud bank appeared white instead of the usual ominous black, when it dawned on him that the thunderhead was a mountain range and the white was snow that crowned the highest of the peaks. He informed the others.

  Teni clapped her hands in glee and exclaimed, “At last!”

  “I had begun to think they did not exist,” Tihikanima said, her eyes filling with tears of happiness. Clasping Miki to her, she said, “Do you see them, daughter? Our quest is almost at an end.”

  Wakumassee bowed his head.

  Soon the plain began to slope gradually upward to a high rise. The climb taxed them. From the crest they saw that it was but the first of more to come. Beyond lay the foothills. Beyond them, the mountains.

  It was the middle of the afternoon when they came to a broken crest overlooking a wooded waterway and saw seven riders heading from north to south perhaps five flights of an arrow distant.

  “Down!” Dega barked, and flung himself flat. He took it for granted the rest would do as he had said, which compounded his shock when he saw that his father was still standing. “Father! They might see you!”

  “Let them,” Waku declared. “They are white men, and I am at war against all whites.”

  Dega looked at the riders again. They wore buckskins, as Indians would. But there was no mistaking their bushy beards and beaver hats.

  “Where are they bound?” Tihi asked.

  “Who can say?” Dega responded. They knew nothing of this country other than one fact which now appeared in dispute. “There are not supposed to be many whites here.”

  “Maybe there are,” Waku said. “Maybe there are as many here as there are east of the Father of Rivers. Maybe we have come all this way only to die at the hands of more white locusts.”

  “Please do not talk like that,” Tih
i said, with a meaningful nod at Miki. Her husband had grown so unpredictable of late, she did not know what to expect next.

  “Fire your rifle, son,” Waku said. “Attract them to us so we may slay them.”

  “There are too many,” Dega said, and watched that his father did not shout or do something equally reckless.

  Once the whites were out of sight, Dega hustled his family to the stream and the woodland that bordered it. “We will stay here until dark, then try to reach the foothills before dawn.”

  “Are we rabbits that we cower in holes?” Waku dripped sarcasm. “I am not afraid.”

  “You should be,” Dega said. He was afraid for all of them, but most of all for the kind, gentle man who had once been supremely devoted to peace but who now acted more bloodthirsty than the whites he reviled.

  Tihikanima took her youngest’s hand. “Miki and I will go wash. Are you coming, Teni?”

  “You go ahead, Mother.”

  The stream was the width of two bows laid end to end, and came midway to Tihi’s knees at its deepest. She was hoping to find a deeper spot and pushed on until they rounded a bend and startled a pair of ducks from a broad pool that glistened in hues of green and blue. “This will do, little one.”

  “I do not want to,” Miki said.

  “You never want to,” Tihi countered. “At your age I did not want to, either. But our dresses are dirty. We are dirty. A bath will be nice.”

  “You first.”

  Tihi squatted and dipped her hand in. “The water is cool. Undress and we will go in together.” She sat and began to undo her moccasins. She felt fingers tug at her dress and said, “Do as I say. We must not be at this all day.”

  “Mother?” Miki said.

  “Do not argue.” Tihi pulled off one moccasin and tugged on the other. She shrugged her daughter’s hand off her shoulder, saying sternly, “Enough. If you do not undress I will throw you in as you are.”

  “That would be mean.”

  Tihi rarely lost her temper. Like the rest of her people, she prided herself on her self-control. But she was losing it now. “You will wash, and you will do so without talking back.”

  “But what if we go in the water and it attacks us?”

  “It?” Tihi glanced at Miki and then gazed in the direction Miki was gazing. A gasp tore from her throat. Her hand flew to Miki and she pulled Miki to her even as she swept to her feet.

  On the other side of the pool, intently regarding them, was a bear. Not a black bear, like those that roamed the verdant forests after which the Nansuseqa took their name, but a bear that dwarfed black bears as black bears dwarfed dogs.

  “A silver bear!”

  “Should we run?” Miki timidly whispered.

  “No!” Tihi answered much too loudly, provoking a growl. The monster would overtake them before they took ten steps. “Stand still and do not speak.”

  “I am scared, Mother.”

  So was Tihi. So scared her legs trembled. But she did not give in to her fear. She must be brave for her daughter’s sake.

  The monster took a ponderous step. Its huge triangular head lifted and its black nostrils flared. Thin lips curled from teeth as long as Tihi’s fingers. It opened its maw as if to roar but closed its mouth again after uttering a snuffling snort. It was as tall as Tihi at the front shoulders. Above them rose a pronounced hump that added to its height. The body was incredibly massive, and as long as a Nansusequa canoe. Raw brute strength radiated from the beast like heat and light from the sun. Its claws were knives.

  “Mother!” Miki said again.

  “Quiet.” Were it a black bear, Tihi would slowly back away. Black bears usually left people alone. But the thing in front of her had a reputation as a man-eater. The slightest movement might incite an attack. She had her bow and quiver slung across her back, but her arrows would do little more than sting.

  The silver bear huffed and dipped a paw in the pool.

  Certain it was about to cross, Tihi swung Miki behind her, putting herself between her daughter and the danger. “When it attacks, run to your father and brother.”

  “Not without you.”

  The bear stopped. It batted its paw at the water a few times, then abruptly wheeled and ambled off into the cottonwoods without a backward glance.

  Tihi held on to Miki to keep from collapsing. Her legs would not stop shaking; her heart hammered in her chest. That had been as close as she ever wanted to come to being eaten alive.

  “Do we wash now?” Miki asked.

  “Bathing is not as important as I thought it was,” Tihi said, and retreated along the stream without taking her eyes off the spot where the bear had vanished.

  One glance at his mother and younger sister warned Dega something was amiss. He listened to his mother’s brief recital. Before she was done, he had the family on the move.

  Unknown to the others, Dega had seen several of the gargantuan brutes on the journey west. Once, he had come on one as it rooted at a prairie dog burrow. The bear was so intent on treating itself to a tasty morsel that it did not notice as Dega slunk quickly and quietly away.

  Their size stunned him. But then, the size of the wildlife here in general had become a source of wonderment.

  It was Dega’s settled opinion that animals west of the Mississippi were larger than their cousins east of it. Rabbits, squirrels, deer, coyotes, bears, it was the same with all of them. Dega thought he had an answer as to why. Because there were fewer people, both red and white, there was less hunting. Because there was less hunting, the animals lived longer. The longer they lived, the bigger they grew. A good explanation, except that it did not explain the buffalo and the silver-tips.

  They hiked all night. The sun was painting the eastern sky pink when they came to the foothills. Dega brought down a doe with his father’s bow and they spent the entire day and night resting.

  That night, Dega was startled to behold not one, not two, but three campfires. All were at a safe distance.

  Dawn broke bright and clear. Before them reared the Rockies, breathtaking in their sweep and grandeur, several peaks mantled in the ivory of deep-packed snow.

  “How will we ever climb them?” Teni wondered.

  “There will be trails,” Dega predicted.

  Little Miki had her head tilted so far back, she was about to topple. “From up there,” she marveled, “we can see to the ends of the world. We could even see our village.”

  Waku had been sitting with his arms wrapped around his chest. Now he stirred and asked, “Why would you want to, young one? There is nothing left of it. Nothing left of the Nansusequa.”

  “I still think of it,” Miki said. “I still think of our people.”

  “Better if you stop,” Waku advised. “Dwell in the past and it will bring you misery and sorrow.”

  Tihi came to her daughter’s defense. “Not all memories are sad ones. Are we to forget all those we loved? All our relatives and friends?”

  “If you want to sleep at night, yes,” Waku said.

  “Your worry me, husband,” Tihi remarked. “You are not the man who fathered my children. You look like him, but you do not act like him. You are a stranger to me.”

  “I am a stranger to myself,” Waku said.

  “My husband of old would not try to lure white riders in close that he might slay them, as you wanted to do.”

  “Your husband of old was a fool.”

  “Not in my eyes,” Tihi said. “He was kind and gentle, and I loved him dearly for those qualities.”

  “A fool,” Waku repeated, “whose kindness blinded him to the violence in others. He advocated peace with the whites, remember? Peace with those who wiped out his people.”

  “You did what you thought best for the good of all,” Tihi said. “Why must you be so hard on yourself?” Waku uttered an angry hiss. “How can you sit there and ask that? They are all gone! Our way of life is no more. We have nothing left.”

  “We have each other.”

  “Wau
gh!” Waku said in disgust. “You have eyes, but you do not see. You have ears, but you do not hear.”

  “Yet another way you have changed,” Tihi said sorrowfully. “My old husband never talked to me as you do.” Waku looked away and then back again. “I love you as deeply as ever. Never think for a moment I do not.”

  “I do not like the new you,” Tihi said. “I want my old husband back.”

  “He died when our people died. It is good he is gone. Your new husband will protect you much better than the old ever did.”

  “I am a grown woman. I do not need protecting.”

  “Tell that to the Nansusequa women who died that day. Tell it to their children.” Waku shook a clenched fist. “The person who does not learn from a mistake will repeat it. I will not be found wanting twice.”

  “I never found you lacking in any manner,” Tihi said affectionately. “Nor did my father.”

  “Do not remind me.”

  Dega was tempted to say something, but it was regarded as the height of rudeness to intrude on one’s elders, especially one’s parents. He was glad when his mother lapsed into silence. The bickering between the two had become much too common.

  Dega’s prediction about a trail was borne out shortly after they began to climb. Deer and elk tracks were conspicuous. So were the prints of shod and unshod horses. The most recent looked about a week old.

  They climbed all day. And the next day. And the one after that. On past the emerald foothills, to the threshold of the timbered heights.

  Eventually they came to a rocky gorge bisected by gurgling rapids. The gorge brought them to a crag-rent escarpment. They were not accustomed to the altitude, and their lungs strained for air. Miki was so red in the face and breathing so raggedly that Tihi and Teni took turns carrying her.

  As usual, Dega was in the lead. He negotiated a switchback and plodded up a steep incline. At the top he stopped as abruptly as if he had walked into a tree.

  “It is beautiful,” Teni breathed.

  “Is this where we will live?” Miki asked.

  Before them spread a valley. Roughly oval, much of it was thick forest. A small lake was home to scores of ducks, geese and brants. The racket the waterfowl were making explained why Dega did not hear the two men and the dog before he saw them. They came out of the woods to the south of the lake and walked west along the shore, their backs to him, the dog scampering about the two buckskin-clad figures and frolicking in the water.