Wilderness Double Edition 19, page 10
“I know I will hunt them to the ends of the earth if they harm one hair on Blue Flower’s head,” Winona pledged.
Further conversation was nipped by their arrival at the steep slope below the tree where the kidnappers had hung the lifelike effigy wearing Melissa’s dress. Dismounting, they climbed on foot, the reins wrapped around their wrists. The bay and the mare were as surefooted as any horse on the frontier, but talus necessitated a slow pace.
They had passed the tree and were ascending the hardest slope yet when Winona coughed to clear her throat of the dust they were raising. “Do you want to know what bothers me the most, husband?”
Nate thought he knew. “Our valley was invaded. Our haven from the rest of the world isn’t as safe as we’d like it to be. More and more whites are coming to the mountains, and fewer and fewer are men of moral fiber like Scott Kendall and Simon Ward. The new batch are outcasts and outlaws who prey on decent settlers like wolves on sheep. You’re afraid this won’t be the last time something like this happens, and I don’t blame you.”
“No. That is not it.”
So much for reading his spouse’s mind, Nate reflected. “Then what?”
“Blue Flower plans to leave us when she is old enough. Time and again she has told us the mountains are no fit place for a family to live. Time and again I have tried to get her to see that the freedom we enjoy is worth the risks we entail. Now these evil men have come along and proven her right, and she will be more determined than ever to go off on her own.”
They had debated the issue countless times, and Nate no longer took part when his wife and daughter locked horns. He sympathized with Winona’s desire to have Evelyn live nearby, as Zach was doing, but he also empathized with his daughter’s yearning to live where her life wasn’t in danger every time she stepped out the door.
“My mother warned me this might happen,” Winona said.
Nate glanced back. Morning Dew had been slain by Blackfeet not long after they met, decades ago, and not once in all that time had Winona ever mentioned her mother’s outlook on their marriage. “What would?”
“She said mixed marriages are both good and bad medicine, or, as you whites would say, a blessing and a curse.” As always, Winona’s grasp of English was excellent. She was a much better linguist than he was. “The blessing is that the children are the product of two cultures and are that much wiser for it. The curse is that sometimes the children choose one culture over the other, and one parent suffers as a consequence.”
“Your mother said all that?”
“And more. Do not misconstrue, husband. She liked you. She said you were pure of spirit. But in her heart she was sad I did not take a Shoshone warrior as my mate.”
“Oh.” Nate felt as if someone had lanced his side with a spear.
“Why the long face? I married you, did I not? Never once have I regretted it.” Winona smirked. “Although you can be aggravating, as all men are, and more stubborn than most.”
Nate laughed, pleased she was no longer boiling with rage. His gaze happened to fall on her left hand, on the first two fingers, the same fingers she had mutilated when her parents were slain. As was Shoshone custom, she had chopped the tips off. Funny how he hadn’t thought about that in years.
“The men we are after do not know it yet, husband, but they are dead men. For the terrible deed they have done, for the anguish in my heart now and the anguish I will suffer if Blue Flower goes east, they will not leave these mountains alive.”
Funny, too, Nate thought, how he tended to forget how fierce his wife could be.
Eight
The sensation of heat on Evelyn King’s face woke her up. Her eyes opened and she went to sit up, but her body refused to respond. She felt bloated, like a deer intestine that had lain too long in the sun, and sluggish as a snail. Not to mention how sore her legs and feet were. So she lay quietly, gathering her energy, and listened to Melissa snore lightly close by.
The sun was on its westward descent. Evelyn had slept most of the afternoon away. She hadn’t wanted to, but as exhausted as she had been, it was a wonder she hadn’t slept longer. Rising on her elbows required a tremendous effort. Other than a hawk circling lazily to the south, the wilderness was still, the woodland serene.
Evelyn sat up, twisted her head to relieve a cramp in her neck, then stiffly rose. Her legs complained at being put to work, but she grit her teeth and shuffled to the edge of the bluff for a look-see. Nothing stirred below or in the nearby forest. She looked left, along their back trail, and suddenly her fatigue and sore muscles were forgotten and she flattened on her belly with only her eyes and forehead above the rim.
Two figures were several hundred yards off, the foremost bent low to the ground, studying it intently. Dappled by shadow, they were no more than shadows themselves.
Evelyn knew who it was: Haro and Bittner. The half-breed was doing the tracking, and he was right on their trail. It was slow going, though. As small and lightweight as she and Melissa were, in their stockings the only sign they left were smudges and scrapes. Enough for an exceptional tracker to follow, sure, but only very slowly. Each strip of soil had to be examined for the tiniest of marks. Evelyn had helped her pa track small game on many occasions and knew how difficult it could be.
Sliding back from the edge, Evelyn rose and bent over her companion. “Melissa?” she whispered. “Time to wake up.”
The young girl snored on.
Evelyn gently shook Melissa’s shoulder, but all Melissa did was roll onto her side. Shaking harder, Evelyn said forcefully, “Wake up, damn it! We have to get out of here.” Melissa groaned, blinked a few times, and mumbled, “What’s all the fuss about? Leave me be. I want to sleep.”
“You can’t,” Evelyn said, and tugged. “They’re still after us. On your feet! Now!”
“Ah, jeez. I was having such a great dream.” Melissa slowly sat up and yawned. “I feel as if I was stomped by a mule and left for dead.”
“Get up.” Moving behind her, Evelyn boosted Melissa upright. “We'll head off over the next rise. If we can stay ahead of them until dark, we’ll be safe until morning. Haro can’t track at night.” Not even Apaches could and they were the best trackers alive.
Melissa took a few awkward steps, shambling stiffly as Evelyn had done. “My legs don’t want to move.”
“Keep at it. They’ll limber up.” Evelyn stepped to the north end of the bluff. There, a grassy slope rose to a forested tableland. Once they were in among the trees they would be invisible to their pursuers, but getting there across that open slope was daunting. All Haro or Bittner had to do was look up, and Melissa and she would stand out like white mountain sheep on a mountain peak.
“I’m awful hungry,” Melissa mentioned.
“Not now.” Evelyn dropped onto her hands and knees, her shoes in her hands. “We’ll crawl to the top. Stay low.” She went first, casting a look over her shoulder at the figures in the woods. The ’breed and the big man were passing through some spruce, and at the moment Haro was hunkered down, seeking sign. She faced forward, pumped her legs and arms, and didn’t look back again until she reached the top. Lying on her belly, she rotated.
Melissa was only halfway up. She had little enthusiasm for the climb and was taking her sweet time.
Evelyn beckoned to spur Melissa to move faster, but the younger girl maintained the same plodding pace.
Haro and Bittner were on the move again, coming straight toward the bluff. In another couple of minutes they would be in the open, and they couldn’t fail to spot Melissa.
“Hurry!” Evelyn whispered.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Melissa replied, but she made no attempt to increase her speed.
Next to Evelyn’s leg was a rock the size of a walnut. Hefting it, Evelyn held it so Melissa could see. “I’ll count to ten. If you’re not up here by then, I’m throwing this at you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“One.”
Melissa grinned as if it were a huge joke.
“Two.”
“What has gotten into you? I’m doing the best I can.”
“Three.”
Anger galvanized Melissa into rapidly scrabbling higher. She had gone only a few feet when she dropped one of her shoes and had to bend to retrieve it.
“Four,” Evelyn counted. “Five. Six. Seven.”
Melissa flew, her small teeth bared like those of a wolf cub that was exerting itself to its limit.
“Eight,” Evelyn said, and raised the rock. “Nine.”
Over the rise slid Melissa, terribly winded, her hands and knees chafed, the poncho rumpled and streaked with grass stains. “I don’t like how you’ve been treating me,” she spat resentfully. “I used to like you a lot, but I don’t anymore.”
“This isn’t any easier for me.” Evelyn tossed the rock to one side, moved to a log, and sat. “You can put your shoes on now.”
“I thought you didn’t want to leave any tracks?”
Evelyn was miffed and didn’t answer. Here she was, doing her best to keep the two of them alive and out of the clutches of their abductors, and Melissa persisted in giving her a hard time every step of the way.
“I have blisters on my soles,” Melissa said while tugging her first shoe on. “It’ll hurt like the dickens when I walk.”
“Do you ever do anything except gripe?” Evelyn asked. She finished and stood and stepped over the log. She had blisters, too, but Melissa didn’t hear her complaining. The woods were a verdant labyrinth of predominantly pine buttressed by dense brush. How far the tableland ran, she couldn’t say.
“I’m ready,” Melissa announced, adjusting the poncho. Reaching underneath, she scratched furiously. “This thing is itching worse than ever. What if I have fleas?”
“Run,” Evelyn said, and did so, jogging northwest. The important thing now was to cover as much ground as they could before the sun went down. Her leg muscles ached abominably for about fifty yards, but after that the pain faded.
Only a few minutes had gone by when Evelyn began to feel sickly. Nausea clawed at her innards, and she broke out in a cold sweat. The lack of food was to blame. She had to find something to eat by tomorrow morning or they would become too weak to go on.
Melissa had stopped complaining and was doggedly keeping up. “I’m sorry about back there,” she said at one point. “It’s just that I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Do you think I have?” Evelyn rejoined. She wasn’t being entirely fair, though. She hadn’t been born and bred back east, hadn’t led the soft life Melissa had. She was older, stronger, tougher. She also had to be kinder. “I’m sorry, too. I really wouldn’t have beaned you with that rock.”
“They’re real close, aren’t they?” Melissa asked.
“Real close.”
It was a race now, a race to keep ahead of Haro and Bittner until dark. The sun wouldn’t set for several hours yet, and Evelyn knew that once the pair reached the top of the bluff they would come on swiftly. The only other thing she could think of to do was hide, but there wasn’t anywhere they could hide that Haro wouldn’t find them. So it was run or be taken captive again.
Evelyn’s queasiness worsened. She had been pushing herself so hard for so long, her body was rebelling. A glance at Melissa showed she was feeling the same, if not worse. They’d wear themselves to a frazzle before too long—and be helpless to resist when Haro and Bittner overtook them.
“There has to be a way,” Evelyn said grimly.
“How do you mean?” Melissa panted. She was starting to flag and had acquired a slight limp in her left leg.
Desperate, Evelyn scoured the woodland. Trees, trees, and more trees greeted her scrutiny. She raced on, but as the minutes passed she ran more and more slowly, a pain in her ribs compounding her worn condition. Just when she was ready to stop to catch her breath, they jogged into the open and before them broadened a wide basin heaped with deadfall. A cataclysm of nature, a severe storm or a Chinook of cyclonic proportions, had flattened scores of trees, strewing them one on top of the other. In some places they were stacked five and six high, no two lying in the same position.
Evelyn smiled. “This is just what we needed.” Deadfalls were the bane of mountain travel. Impassable to riders and a formidable obstacle to anyone on foot, they were invariably given a wide berth. No one in their right mind ever tried to go through one.
“How do you figure? It’ll take us a month of Sundays to get through that tangle.”
“Trust me,” Evelyn said. Moving to the edge of the fall, she was afflicted by momentary doubt. The jumbled trees were heaped higher than a cabin and choked with broken limbs and new growth.
“Why are we doing this, exactly?” Melissa timorously inquired.
“Haro can’t track us if there aren’t any tracks,” Evelyn said. Grasping a limb at chest height, she pulled herself up and climbed atop the first pile. Melissa had to give a little hop to reach the same limb, but once she had a handhold she scampered upward with the agility of a squirrel.
So far, so good, Evelyn thought. But as she soon discovered, penetrating deeper into the deadfall was a life-threatening proposition. More times than she cared to count they had to balance precariously on slender logs, or work their way hand over hand along branches that dangled over drops of twenty or thirty feet. Five minutes in, they came to a gap between a pair of pines lying at right angles on top of an even larger tree. Cracked and splintered limbs formed a partial roof that screened the opening from prying eyes.
“This will do us right fine.” Gripping one of the limbs, Evelyn carefully lowered herself into the hole. There was ample room for her to sit with her back to one of the pines, and for Melissa to sit with her back to the other.
“How long are we staying here?” the smaller girl wanted to know.
“All night if need be.” Evelyn’s stomach growled in protest at the thought. A second later Melissa’s stomach answered, and the two of them laughed merrily.
“I've always wondered what it would be like to starve to death,” Melissa joked. “Now I reckon I’ll get to find out.”
Evelyn broke a small shoot off one of the branches overhead and held it out. “Gnaw on this awhile.”
“You want me to eat a tree?” Melissa’s mirth was contagious. “I’m a person, not a beaver.”
“It won’t kill you,” Evelyn said. “Chew on the bark until it’s pulp, then swallow.” She selected a shoot for herself and stripped off the needles. The pine had a not-unpleasant minty taste.
Melissa nibbled at hers as if nibbling at an ear of com. Scrunching her mouth, she remarked, “I don’t see how you do it. I want to gag.”
“I've eaten a lot worse.”
Once, on a trek to the Pacific Ocean, Evelyn had been forced to eat grubs her mother found under a log. Another time, on the family’s journey to Santa Fe, she had been treated to lizard, roasted rare.
“How you can live in these mountains is beyond me,” Melissa said. “You’re a lot braver than I am.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Oh, please. That bear. Killibrew’s bunch. You've handled them all without batting an eye. You’re at home here. I’m not, and never will be. Once I reach my uncle’s plantation, I’m never leaving it.”
“I’m just as at home in St. Louis,” Evelyn said.
“Maybe so. But my father used to say everything has its natural element. Fish live in water. Bears live in the woods. Eagles have the sky.” Melissa gnawed at the bark. “Your natural element are these mountains.”
Evelyn scoffed at the notion. She had never felt at home in the wilds, and she couldn’t see that she ever would. What did the wilderness have to offer besides a life of unending toil and a violent death? Few whites and Indians died in their sleep. Among the Shoshones, a nation more than five thousand strong, comparatively few lived to what whites would call a ripe old age. Being eaten by a bear or riddled by Blackfoot arrows wasn’t how she wanted to end her days.
Melissa had more to say. “You know the animals, you know the land. You can do things other people can’t. In St. Louis you’d be just another little girl. Nothing special about that.”
“I don’t want to be special. I want to be safe.”
Stifling a yawn, Melissa said, “Safe how? From dying? Heck, in the States you can die as easily as out here. People get sick and keel over all the time. Accidents claim a lot, too. My grandfather fell from a moving wagon and had his neck broke.”
“There aren’t any grizzlies in North Carolina,” Evelyn noted.
“So? We have rattlers and copperheads and cotton-mouths and coral snakes. We have footpads who will steal the clothes off your back, and brigands who will stab you for the coins in your purse. And others who will do a lot worse.” Melissa yawned again. Their exertions were telling on her. “If you ask me, I don’t think it’s all that different from out here.”
Evelyn was inclined to disagree, but a faint sound intruded, a gruff voice she pegged as Bittner’s. Placing a finger to her lips, she rose high enough to peer out the opening. The ’breed and the bear were clambering across the deadfall in their general direction. She immediately ducked back down. “It’s them!” she whispered. “Don’t let out a peep.”
The voices became louder. More sounds filtered down; the scrape of moccasins and boots, the creaking of limbs under great weight, the crack of a branch being broken.
“—sick and tired of this! Killibrew ain’t going to like it. He ain’t going to like it one bit.”
“I have brought us this far,” Haro said in his clipped, precise English. “We will catch them soon.”
“You’ve been saying that since yesterday. Killibrew expected us to meet him at Buzzard Creek by noon. We’re already five hours late.” Bittner swore, and a fist smacked a palm. “You know how he gets when things don’t work out how he wants. He’ll take it out on me.”
“It is the King girl,” Haro said. “She is clever, that one. A worthy enemy.”
Judging by their voices, they were twenty feet away and slightly to the left. Evelyn saw that Melissa had jammed a hand into her mouth and was hunched over in mortal terror.
