Wilderness Double Edition 25

by David Robbins

  Winona practically flew back out and toward the trees. To the north, Nate and Shakespeare were standing near Zach’s cabin, talking to Zach. All three had heard the crack of the rifle and were staring in her direction. They had to see her. Pumping an arm, Winona screeched her husband’s name. Then she was in the forest and streaking to the west.

  “Evelyn!” Winona shouted in English. “Blue Flower!” she hollered in her own tongue. Neither was answered.

  Her fear mounting, Winona glanced wildly about. She had told Evelyn not to go far but Evelyn did not always listen as she should. Winona vaulted a log, avoided a thicket, and saw, up ahead, wisps of gray that might be lingering tendrils from the shot. Past the tendrils was a rise. The very rise, Winona recalled, where Evelyn sometimes came to pick flowers.

  An acrid odor proved Winona right. So did the glint of metal. Stopping so suddenly she nearly fell, Winona snatched her daughter’s rifle off the ground. That it was Evelyn’s there could be no doubt. The Hawken brothers had custom made it for Evelyn at Nate’s request. The barrel was shorter than most Hawkens, the stock not quite as thick.

  “Evelyn!” Winona yelled again, without result. Rather than plunge blindly on, she searched for tracks. She was not the tracker her husband was, but she was no slouch, either, as the whites would say. She found partial prints and scrape marks, indicating several attackers had swarmed Evelyn and carried her off.

  The tracks led to the northwest.

  Winona sprinted in pursuit, her fear palpable, fear bordering on terror, terror that one of her worst nightmares had come true and her daughter was in the hands of hostiles who would hurt her in ways no human being should ever be hurt, or force Evelyn to become the unwilling blanket mate to a warrior whose only interest in her was as a trophy.

  Spurred by her terror, Winona neglected to scan the ground. When she remembered, she halted, aghast. She had lost the trail.

  Frantic, Winona spun. She must find the prints, and quickly. Every second of delay made it that much more likely Evelyn’s kidnappers would escape.

  “Gai, gai, gai,” Winona said aloud in Shoshone, which was the equivalent of ‘No! No! No!’ “Haga u ahti?” She had gone farther than she thought. There were no tracks anywhere. She ran to one side and then the other, shouldering through high grass and brushing low tree limbs aside.

  Lodgepole pines reared ahead. Winona did not recall passing them. She turned to the southwest, in the direction of the rise. A whisper of sound and a hint of movement caused her to snap her head up. Unwittingly, she made what happened next easier.

  A noose settled over Winona from behind. She dropped Evelyn’s rifle and grabbed at the rope to tear it off but whoever held the other end gave a powerful tug. The noose constricted around her throat and she was wrenched backward. Stumbling, she let go of her own Hawken and gripped the rope with both hands, but she could not tear it off.

  Winona fell onto her back. The rope dug deep and choked off her breath. She pried and pulled but could not loosen it. In desperation she tried to get to her knees and was violently yanked back down. Her vision swam. Her chest was on fire. Gasping for air that was not there, she rolled onto her side and succeeded in heaving onto her right knee. It did no good. The rope did not grow slack.

  Winona stabbed for a pistol. Another wrench on the rope made her sprawl facedown. Odd sounds fell on her ears. Through the blur the world had become hurtled a burly figure, moving in an ungainly fashion. It did not look quite human. She blinked and saw the apparition clearly, and thought she had gone mad.

  A club arced at Winona’s head. She evaded the first blow and the second, but, hampered as she was by the rope, the outcome was inevitable.

  Agony filled the space between her ears.

  Then came blackness, and nothing more.

  The sound of the shot filled Nate King with alarm. He recognized the lighter boom of his daughter’s rifle. It was distinct from the heavy-caliber rifles he and his wife used. Then he glimpsed Winona flying toward the trees. Her faint shriek was all that was needed to galvanize him into swinging onto the bay and riding like a madman to the south.

  Nate could not begin to guess what had happened. Evelyn rarely fired her rifle except for practice. She was not fond of hunting and always left that chore to them. It could be she had been attacked by a wild animal. Images of her body, torn to pieces, nearly paralyzed him. Shaking them off, he lashed the reins and jabbed the bay with his heels.

  “Winona!” Nate shouted. “Evelyn! Where are you?”

  Nate had complete confidence in his wife. Winona would get to Evelyn and save her, whether from beast or man. No frail female, his woman. In defense of her loved ones she was a she-cat unleashed, as fierce as any four-legged predator could ever hope to be. On occasions without number she had proven her mettle. She would do so again now.

  Yet it compounded Nate’s worry that she did not reappear before he came to the cleared area near his cabin. He did not slacken his speed but rode pell-mell into the pines, reckless in his bid to find them. Again he called their names, and was mocked by silence.

  About fifty yards in, Nate reined up. He strained to hear the slightest sound, but heard none that would point him in the direction he should go. He rode on, more slowly, and had gone a dozen yards when the undergrowth crackled and popped to the passage of other riders.

  Shakespeare and Zach had caught up to him. Zach was riding bareback. They came up on either side and drew rein.

  “Any sign of them, Pa?”

  Nate shook his head.

  “Lou is saddling her horse. I told her to wait at your cabin until she hears from us.” Zach began seeking tracks, and suddenly pointed sharply. “There, in that dirt. Those are Ma’s. I’d know them anywhere.”

  So would Nate. He read the sign as readily as he would a page in one of his cherished books. When he spied the rise, and the flowers that grew among the rocks, he drew rein. “I wonder.”

  “Wonder what?” Shakespeare asked. He was being uncharacteristically quiet, a trait of his when he was worried.

  “That daughter of mine and her flowers,” Nate said. “Let’s climb down and look around.”

  Between them they reconstructed the series of events: Evelyn alone, Evelyn set upon by four Indians, Winona rushing to help, Winona racing to the northwest.

  Shakespeare was hunkered over a clear track left by one of the four. “Have you taken a gander at these? I’ve never seen the like, and I know most every kind of moccasin made by most every tribe in these mountains.”

  “Heart Eaters, do you reckon?” Ever since blowing up the pass, Nate had lived in dread of a Heart Eater war party paying them a visit.

  “Their tracks were different.” Taking his reins in hand, Shakespeare began tracking on foot. The prints wound around the rise and into the verdant forest. Presently, Shakespeare halted, and frowned. “Damn.”

  “What?” Zach asked.

  “The four who grabbed your sister changed direction and went west. Your mother never noticed. She ran to the northwest.” Shakespeare walked in a circle. “There’s no sign she caught on to her mistake and came back, either. Mighty strange, that. Winona has a keen eye.”

  Nate shifted toward his son. “Find her and bring her as quickly as you can. Shakespeare and I will keep after your sister.”

  Zach opened his mouth to argue. He would never admit it in front of others, but he cared for his sister, cared deeply, and he wanted to get his hands on the sons of bitches who had snatched her. But quibbling would not help rescue her, and that came before all else. “On my way, Pa,” he said, and applied his reins.

  Shakespeare was climbing onto the mare. “Whoever these four are, they’re making no attempt to hide their trail.”

  “Think they are setting a trap?”

  “Possibly. Or they’re just in an all-fired hurry to make themselves scarce,” Shakespeare postulated.

  “They’re not shaking me this side of the grave,” Nate vowed. He would not rest until Evelyn was safe
.

  Shakespeare clucked to the mare, but he only went a short distance. Sliding down, he squatted. “They’ve split up. Probably to throw us off the scent. Two have gone to the southwest. The other two are still headed west.”

  “Which two have Evelyn?”

  Shakespeare extended an arm to the west.

  “Then you take the other pair. I want the ones who have my daughter.” Without waiting for a reply, Nate took up the chase. He leaned first to one side and then the other, alert for sign. Crushed grass here. A broken twig there. A bent bush at another spot. There a partial print. The trail was faint in spots but not so faint that he lost it. He had the advantage of being on horseback. He could travel faster.

  The pair were making a beeline for somewhere. Nate noticed that one had a long, even stride, the second a shorter pace with the feet spaced more to either side. It suggested the second one was female. But that made no kind of sense. War parties rarely included women.

  Not that it mattered. Male, female, they had abducted Evelyn, and for that Nate would see them dead. He was not violent by nature, but there were certain things he would not abide, and harming his family was at the top of the list.

  Nate came to a stream. The tracks showed where the pair had stopped and turned. They had heard the bay. They knew he was after them. The man’s prints continued west. The woman’s angled to the south. Nate was set to gig the bay in pursuit of the man when he saw that the woman’s tracks were deeper than before, more clearly defined, as if she now bore extra weight.

  It could be, Nate mused, that the man had given Evelyn to the woman in an effort to shake him.

  Nate went after the woman. Presently ranks of firs hemmed him and he rode in shadow. He was so intent on the woman’s tracks that he did not pay attention to his surroundings. Suddenly the bay nickered. Nate snapped his head up—just as a lance flashed out of the gloom toward his chest.

  Shakespeare McNair knew better than to rush. He assumed the pair he was after were armed, and he had no hankering to ride into an ambush. Nice and slow was called for, so nice and slow he rode.

  The pair were jogging shoulder to shoulder, which Shakespeare thought was touching, given that one was a man and the other a woman. He tried to recollect if he had mentioned to Nate that they were chasing two of each gender. In the excitement he might have forgotten.

  Given his druthers, Shakespeare would have stayed with Nate. Usually, Nate had a level head, but when his family was in danger he tended to be reckless. Not as reckless as Zach, whose fits of fury transformed him into a berserker. But Nate had his moments.

  The pair had changed direction again. They swung more south than east and were running faster.

  Shakespeare wondered if they knew he was hard on their trail or if they had some deviltry in mind. His opinion inclined toward the deviltry when he spied the rise.

  They had gone in a circle.

  Shakespeare slowed. He held the Hawken across the pommel, his thumb on the hammer, his finger curled to the trigger. He discovered the pair had gone up the rise instead of around it as they had done before.

  It reeked of a trap, and Shakespeare had not lived to have a head of white hair by ignoring his nose. He drew rein and gazed from tree to tree and boulder to boulder. Nothing.

  Stumped, Shakespeare stayed where he was. If they planned to jump him, he would not make it easy. Let them come to him. Let them show themselves and he would blow them to Hades and back and sort out the mystery of who they were later.

  The seconds crawled into minutes.

  The mare began to fidget. Shakespeare grew impatient himself. Against his better judgment he reined to the right and rode slowly along the base of the rise. Either the pair were extraordinarily well hidden, or they were not up there. He came to the opposite side, and swore.

  Their tracks came down off the rise and pushed east.

  Shakespeare started after them, wondering where they were bound. There was nothing in that direction except the lake—and the cabins. Louisa and Blue Water Woman were there. As if seared by a bolt of lightning, Shakespeare jolted to life and goaded the mare into a gallop.

  “How could I have been such a lunkhead?” Shakespeare castigated himself aloud. Of course the pair had circled back! They must be looking to abduct someone else, or maybe they intended to burn down the cabins. His delay at the rise had given them plenty of time to get there ahead of him.

  “Damn me!”

  The mare became a streak of white amid the green.

  Shakespeare prayed he was not too late. Lou was supposed to be at Nate’s cabin, and Blue Water Woman was at theirs. Both should be safe if they kept the doors bolted, but neither was scrupulous in that regard. Blue Water Woman, in particular, seldom used the bolt or the bar Shakespeare had installed. When he took her to task for it one day, she had retorted, “All the years I lived in a teepee, I got by just fine. And all a teepee has is a flap.”

  “You lived in a village, surrounded by your people. There was little danger of an enemy trying to sneak into your teepee,” Shakespeare had noted.

  “Even so, I refuse to live in fear. Were it up to me, I would have you take off the door and replace it with a flap.”

  There was no arguing with female logic.

  Just then patches of blue appeared through the trees. Shakespeare smiled. He was almost there.

  Suddenly the morning air was rent by a war whoop. A rifle imitated thunder and was punctuated by a scream.

  Sixteen

  Decades in the wilderness, decades of clashes with wild beasts and savage men, had honed Nate King’s reflexes to the quickness of lightning. He had that to thank for his narrow escape from eternity, for as the lance flashed toward his chest, Nate threw himself to one side and left the saddle in a headlong dive. The lance cleaved the space Nate had occupied, struck a fir, and pierced the bole. Caught fast, it quivered.

  As Nate fell, he contrived to roll so that his shoulder bore the brunt of his weight. He grunted from the pain of impact but did not let it slow him. Rising into a crouch, he aimed his Hawken at the spot the lance had come from. He did not shoot.

  A slim figure in a green buckskin dress was running off with the speed of a bounding doe.

  Nate raced after her, determined not to let her get away. She glanced back and saw him. Her features did not betray fear. Rather, they mirrored grim determination to match his own. He poured on extra speed, and then an iota more, but only narrowed the gap by a couple of yards.

  The woman glanced back again. Inadvertently, because the firs were so closely spaced in somber phalanxes, it proved her undoing. A trunk loomed directly in her path. Too late, she faced front, saw her peril, and tried to swerve. The thwack of her body striking the tree was loud even to Nate, ten yards back.

  Slammed off her feet, the woman clutched at her bosom and thrashed about in torment. A trickle of blood seeped from her lower lip.

  Nate came to a stop above her. For the first time he beheld her face clearly. She was much younger than he thought, not a grown woman at all, but a girl barely older than Evelyn. He bent to help her.

  A knife swept up and out from the girl’s hip. She caught Nate flat-footed. If she had stabbed at his throat, he would be through. But she did not try to cut him. She pumped backward on her elbows, swinging the blade from side to side to keep him at bay.

  Nate made no attempt to grapple with her. Straightening, he stepped back, placed the Hawken’s stock on the ground and leaned on the barrel. “Make up your mind. Do you want to kill me or not?”

  The girl backed against a fir and stopped, breathing heavily, still in pain, and if her expression was any indication, as confused as Nate. Still wagging the knife, she tried to stand but sank down again. The collision had knocked the breath out of her and she had yet to recover.

  “I don’t savvy this,” Nate said. “I don’t savvy any of this. Do you speak English by any chance?”

  Her blank look was eloquent answer.

  “Do you speak Sosoni
?” Nate tried in that tongue.

  Again, only puzzlement.

  Nate tried sign language. Invariably, that worked.

  Sign was used by virtually every tribe on the plains and in the central and northern mountains. Yet once again, incomprehension. Which suggested to Nate she was from a tribe east of the Mississippi, where sign was not as common, or else from a tribe along the far west coast of the continent. Going by her green buckskins, he favored the former. He had been born and raised in New York, and recalled that a tribe or two back East dyed their garb in a similar manner.

  “Well, this is a fine pickle,” Nate said in exasperation. “Where’s my daughter, damn it? Does the other one have her?”

  The girl slowly sat up. She dabbed at a split lip with her sleeve.

  “My daughter?” Nate repeated. He pointed at her, held his hand at chest height. “A girl about your age, only so high.” It was hopeless. She stared up at him in bewilderment. With a sigh, he offered her his hand. “Here. Let me help you up.”

  Suspicion flared, and she tensed, as if to spring at him, or to bolt.

  Hunkering, Nate locked eyes with hers, attempting to take her measure by her reaction.

  The girl met his gaze unflinchingly. She acted more curious than scared. She plainly did not know what to make of him.

  “You’re no killer,” Nate said, and unfurled. Again he held out his hand, and when she stayed where she was, he shrugged and made haste to reclaim the bay. He had only taken a few strides when he heard her dress rustle. She was following him. When he stopped, she stopped. When he went on, she went on. So long as she stayed far enough back that she could not reach him with the knife, he did not care what she did. He was thinking only of Evelyn, of finding her as quickly as possible.

  The bay was nipping grass. Nate snagged the reins and swung up. The girl had stopped and seemed more confused than ever. She stared at his rifle, then at the pistols at his waist. “What’s the matter with you? Haven’t you ever seen guns before?” Nate went to ride off but she suddenly raised her hand as if appealing to him not to.