Despite her tender years, Evelyn had seen blood spilled on more than one occasion. She had witnessed whites battling red men, whites battling whites, red men battling red men. She had heard the heavy punch of lead balls when they struck the human body, and the sound a knife made when it sliced into flesh. She knew what had happened to Dega; she just did not know where the knife had hit him. Lunging, she wrapped her left arm around his waist and pulled him toward the woods on the other side.
Dega did not resist. He was growing weaker by the moment. He groped at the wound, tracing the contours of the knife with his fingertips. It was buried to the hilt. He gingerly tried to pull it out but only succeeded in worsening the flow of blood.
Evelyn did not take her gaze off the spot where the limb had come from. She was rewarded with a shaking of the brush, and a figure appeared, hunkered so that only his head and shoulders were visible, and then only in silhouette. Impulsively, she aimed and fired. The silhouette vanished, but she doubted she had hit it.
The undergrowth closed around them. Dega tottered to the south but Evelyn firmed her hold and led him to the east. In that direction lay the valley floor and help.
His teeth clenched so he would not cry out, Dega did his best not to hamper her. But he could not move as fast as they needed to move. His stomach was a pit of nausea, and waves of dizziness made focusing impossible.
Evelyn had jammed the spent pistol under her belt and drawn her spare. She was bearing most of Dega’s weight, her cheek against his shirt, and she became alarmed when the shirt, and her cheek, grew wet with what could only be slowly spreading blood. Ducking under the low boughs of a spruce, she eased him down so his back was to the trunk. “Dega?” she whispered.
His name came to him as if down a deep hole. “Ev-lyn?” Dega breathed. Between the dizziness and the nausea he was close to passing out.
Lightly running her fingers up his chest to the knife, Evelyn grimaced at the contact. She explored the hilt. Blood dampened her hand and trickled between her fingers. The blade had to come out, that much was certain, but would pulling it out help or make him worse? Should she or shouldn’t she?
Dega decided the issue. “Take the knife out,” he whispered in his own tongue, and weakly moved his left hand to show what he wanted done.
“Oh God.” Evelyn put one hand flat on his chest and gripped the hilt with her other. “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” she said, and yanked. The blade came out much more easily than she had anticipated. She tottered back, thrown off balance, then immediately bent over Dega. The blood flow did not appear to have increased.
Evelyn was smiling in relief when the feel of the knife hilt on her palm stirred a recollection of a knife that was exactly the same, from the texture of the antler hilt to how much it weighed to the general shape of the blade. Puzzled, she stepped from under the spruce and held the knife aloft so the starlight played over it. Several seconds went by before the truth dawned. Evelyn had seen this knife before, many times. She had held it before, used it to skin deer and elk.
It was her mother’s.
Eighteen
Life throws moments at people, who never forget them for as long as they live. Moments of crushing clarity, moments of blinding beauty, moments of sublime peace, and, for Evelyn King, a moment of unrivaled terror that turned her world topsy-turvy and tore at her heartstrings with razor talons.
Evelyn stared at the knife she held over her head, trying to make sense of an impossible madness. If the knife was her mother’s—and it was—then it had fallen into the hands of whoever was out there in the dark, and since her mother would never willingly part with the knife—it had been a gift from Evelyn’s father—the inescapable conclusion was that it had been taken from Winona’s cold, lifeless body.
Evelyn ducked under the spruce. She would think more on her mother later. Right now she had two lives to save, hers and the handsome young warrior she should hate for abducting her, but didn’t. His chin was on his chest. Unconscious, she thought, but when she touched his arm, his head rose and he softy spoke her name.
“We have to get out of here,” Evelyn said. “He’ll find us if we don’t.”
Even though Dega only knew a dozen or so words of the white tongue, he understood her. They must keep moving. Whoever had thrown the knife at them would try again, and next time, he might try to kill the girl. The image of her lying on the ground in a scarlet pool galvanized Dega into standing without her help. “We must hurry,” he said in Nansusequa, and lurched from under the spruce.
Evelyn followed, twisting at the waist so she could watch their back trail. She held on to her mother’s knife.
The silence of the timber was nigh unnatural. Even the wind had stilled, so that every tree, every leaf, every blade of grass and every bush, had an unreal quality, as if the plant life had been carved from obsidian and was not living matter at all.
Evelyn bumped into Dega. He walked with a shuffling gait, as unsteady on his feet as a sailor on a storm-tossed deck. The loss of blood was to blame. Evelyn had seen wounded warriors so weak they could not lift their heads off the ground. She looked back, just in time to detect a spurt of movement as a squat shape flowed over the ground a score of feet back. Their attacker was closing in. Perhaps overconfidence had made him careless. Or maybe he wanted them to know he was there to further fray their nerves.
Evelyn considered yelling, in the hope her father would hear, but it might provoke their stalker into rushing them. In the shape Dega was in, he wouldn’t last ten seconds. And, too, there was no guarantee her father would hear her.
Dega stumbled but plodded on. His legs were next to useless. At any moment he might collapse.
Devoting her attention between the stricken warrior and the forest, Evelyn almost missed another glimpse of the man out to kill them. Lightning quick, he scuttled from one tree to another. She could tell nothing about him other than that he appeared to be down on all fours.
A small log barred Dega’s path. He willed his right leg to lift and nearly lost his balance. Furious at his weakness, he stumbled on into the night. The girl put a hand on his back, as if to reassure him, but it only fed his fury. She was in danger because of him. She would be safe in her cabin if he had not taken her. Yet, incredibly, here she was, protecting him, placing her own life at risk to preserve his. He could not permit that. He must do something.
A boulder-strewn slope spread before them. Dega started down. He went slowly in order to avoid obstacles he might trip over. Then a slender shoulder slipped under his arm, and a hand snaked around his waist.
“I’ll help you,” Evelyn said.
Dega had occasionally sat in on the long talks between his father and Reverend Stilljoy. He struggled to remember, to find the right English. “Go me,” he said, and fluttered his fingers to demonstrate.
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you.”
Dega tried again. He had to make her understand. He chose another word that might work. “Leave.”
“What?” Evelyn studied his pale, sweaty face. “You want me to go on without you? Is that it?”
“Haa,” Dega said, the Shoshone word she had taught him for ‘yes.’
“Not on your life,” Evelyn told him. “Not with you ready to keel over. We’re in this together.”
Degas deduced all that meant ‘no.’ “Please.”
“Hush. Save your strength. It’s only four or five miles to my family’s cabin. We can make it.” Evelyn was not being sincere. Their would-be slayer was bound to strike long before they reached the valley floor.
“Please,” Dega pleaded.
“Enough of that,” Evelyn said more harshly than she intended. She was watching the trees and could not afford to be distracted.
Crestfallen, Dega was nonetheless deeply stirred. She possessed courage, this girl, and a poise beyond her years. Abducting her had been a mistake, and he would tell his father that when next they met. If they met.
A low whizzing broke the stillness. Evelyn
glanced sharply around and saw an object streak toward them. “Get down!” she yelled, and sought to pull Dega down beside her. A melon-sized boulder thwarted her, and, ironically, saved Dega’s life. He tripped when she pulled, and sprawled forward, with the result that the whizzing object passed over his shoulder.
Evelyn tried to keep him on his feet but went down herself, banging her knees on the rocks. Swiveling, she spotted a quicksilver form at the top of the slope. She had no chance of hitting it but she fired anyway and had the satisfaction of seeing it dart back into the foliage.
Doubled over, Dega battled more dizziness. Never had he felt so weak, so helpless. He wanted to scream and beat his fists on the ground. The yearning jarred him. He was Degamawaku of the Nansusequa. The People of the Forest prided themselves on their self-control, on never permitting their emotions to rule their reason. Yet here he was, behaving like an infant. He must teach his emotions who was the master. He must show the white girl he was worthy of her noble sacrifice.
Evelyn was reloading. She uncapped her powderhorn and measured out the right amount in her palm by feel alone. “What was that he threw at us?” she whispered. It had been too small to be a knife.
Dega felt his wound. The bleeding had stopped.
“Maybe we should stay right where we are,” Evelyn speculated aloud. “He can’t get close without us seeing him.” She wrapped a patch around the lead ball and tamped it down the barrel.
Dega did not know what she was saying. It did not matter. Time for him to show her he was not helpless. Girding his leg muscles, he pushed erect, steadied himself, and was off down the slope.
“Wait!” Evelyn was caught by surprise. Wondering what had gotten into him, she hastened to catch up. Worried that he would fall and hurt himself, she did not keep one eye cocked behind them. The whizzing sound registered too late. She tried to turn but she was only halfway around when something struck her high on the left shoulder. A sharp, stabbing pain caused her to cry out.
To her right a few yards was a waist-high boulder. Dashing behind it, Evelyn dropped to her knees. She reached over her shoulder but could not quite touch whatever was imbedded in her back. A burning sensation had taken hold and was spreading. She bent her spine into a bow but still could not grip it.
A form brushed hers.
Dega saw what she was trying to do and gently moved her groping fingers aside. The thing stuck in her back was much too small to be an arrow and much too thin to be a knife. He bent closer.
“What is it?” Evelyn asked in English. Then, in Shoshone, “Hagai?”
Dega did not answer. He could not speak the tongue she had been trying to teach him or the white man’s tongue well enough to describe it. Since to pull it out slowly would only increase her pain, he took hold of the end and gave a quick wrench.
A gasp escaped Evelyn. But she was glad to have it out. The pain lessened a bit but the burning sensation had spread to her neck and down her left arm to her elbow.
Dega held the object out for her to take.
“I’ve never seen the like,” Evelyn declared. What she now held was a dart. Six inches long and as thick as her father’s middle finger, it had been whittled from an ash branch. The tip had been sharpened and fire-hardened so that it was as black as coal. Three raven feathers were attached to the other end, much like an arrow. The feathers had been cut midway and pine sap applied to the cut edge. Then the feather had been pressed to the dart. Once the sap dried, it worked as well as glue.
“This is all it was?” Evelyn asked in relief. The dart was too small to do grave harm unless it hit someone in the throat or the eye. She went to cast it aside. A whiff of the tip stayed her arm. Holding it under her nose, she sniffed. The odor reminded her of the stink of rotting flesh.
Suddenly the burning sensation took on a whole new significance. Some Indian tribes, Evelyn was aware, applied poison to the tips of their arrows. One tribe dipped their arrowheads in rattlesnake venom. Another was partial to tainting their tips in the bodies of dead skunks. The reek on the tip of the dart might be from a skunk or something else.
Dega did not understand why she sniffed the dart and recoiled. He took it from her and held the tip to his nose. The foul odor stirred a memory. The Nansusequa did not poison their arrows, but they had clashed with tribes that did. When he was a small boy, a raiding party had attacked their village. Several Nansusequa warriors had been wounded by poison arrows. Two of the three died hideous deaths, their bodies swollen and covered with vile sores.
Dega threw the dart away. He bent over Evelyn, nearly touching his nose to the hole the dart had made. The stink was there, as strong if not stronger than it had been on the tip of the dart. Most of the poison that had been smeared on the dart was now inside her body.
“I will die if I don’t get help,” Evelyn said.
Once again her inflection made clear to him what her words could not. Taking her elbow, Dega motioned at the valley floor, then wriggled two fingers to suggest a pair of running legs.
“Yes,” Evelyn said. “Haa.”
The boulders slowed them even though Dega went faster than he had since being wounded. The constant weaving did not help his dizziness.
To Evelyn’s dismay, she discovered that the faster she ran, the faster the burning sensation spread. Half her chest was on fire before they were halfway to the bottom. Pain seared her lungs with every breath.
A clattering sound, as of a dislodged stone, brought them to a stop. It came from a cluster of boulders ahead and to the right.
Dega and Evelyn immediately dropped down, Dega in front of Evelyn so if more darts were thrown they would strike him and not her. He did it so casually that he did not think she would notice.
Evelyn did. She moved next to him so they were in equal danger. No other sound came from the boulders but they stayed where they were. Their attacker was out there somewhere, waiting for them to make a mistake.
Abruptly, unexpectedly, another stone clattered, this time to the left.
New worry spiked Evelyn. Until that moment, it had not occurred to her there might be more than one enemy. A war party could be surrounding them right at that moment. Plucking at Dega’s shirt, she turned and crept back up the slope until she was sure the warriors below could not possibly see her, then she made to the south.
Dega stayed close. She had helped him when he was weak. He could do no less for her.
The boulders thinned. A strip of mostly grass separated them from the forest. Twenty steps should do it. Twenty steps and they would gain good cover.
“I will go first,” Evelyn whispered, and rose to do so.
But Dega was up and running before the words were out of her mouth. Weaving as much from weakness as his desire to make himself harder to hit, he ignored the throbbing in his chest. No war cries rang out. No more darts were thrown with inhuman accuracy. The instant the vegetation enfolded him in its verdant embrace, he turned and squatted and beckoned.
Evelyn saw his arm move, then could not see him at all for the gloom. He had made it. She could, too. Her left arm against her side, she bounded to join him. But after only a few steps a strange thing happened. Her legs tingled and slowed and then would not work at all. Like a statue stripped of its foundation, Evelyn tipped onto her side. Her left arm would not move no matter how hard she tried. Her right arm burned abominably but was not yet useless.
Evelyn waited, thinking Dega would come help her. She heard a whisper, and then what sounded like a blow, and silence. Fright clawed at Evelyn’s insides like a badger in a frenzy. When she could no longer take the silence, she whispered, “Dega? Are you all right?”
The ensuing silence told Evelyn their attackers had him. She was on her own. She slid her right hand under her hip and levered herself up. Her entire body was burning, her chest worst of all. It could be that the poison would stop her heart, and that would be that.
Evelyn refused to stay there like a helpless lamb awaiting slaughter. She was a King and Kings never gav
e up. Since her legs would not respond, she hooked her right elbow under her and crawled. It was slow going. Half a foot at a time was the best she could manage.
An eternity of effort brought Evelyn to the trees. There was no sign of Dega. She kept crawling. Her arm grew leaden with fatigue but she kept crawling. The skin on her elbow scraped off but she kept crawling. She crawled until her right arm burned as agonizingly as the rest of her. She crawled until she could not crawl another inch.
Evelyn had done all she could. She thought of her mother and father, and how much she loved them. She thought of Zach, and the fun they had had growing up together. She thought of many pleasant memories and many pleasant times, and then she closed her eyes and composed herself, and waited to die.
The voice was soft but insistent. A young voice, the voice of a girl, speaking in an unknown tongue.
Through the painful haze of Winona’s return to consciousness, she grasped at the voice like a person who was drowning would grasp at a rope. The voice pulled her out of herself. She blinked, floundering on the brink of the abyss that had claimed her, then opened her eyes and was back in the world of the living.
Or was she? Winona looked about her. The dark of the abyss was not much blacker than the darkness in which she found herself. She had the impression of being in an enclosed space. Her wrists were bound behind her. Her ankles were tightly lashed. The voice droned on, spurring her to swallow to relieve her dry mouth, and say, weakly, “Who is it? Who is there?”
The voice stopped, but only for a moment. An excited squeal brought a torrent of the unknown tongue.
“I do not understand what you are saying,” Winona said in English and in Shoshone.
A new urgency came into the voice, as if the girl were trying to impart important information.
Winona’s eyes were adjusting. She distinguished a small figure lying on its side. “Hold on. I will come to you.” Which proved to be wishful thinking. No sooner did she start to wriggle toward the figure than she was brought to a stop by a tug from behind. Twisting her head, she saw why. The other end of the rope that secured her ankles was tied to a boulder too big and heavy for her to lift or slide.
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