Wilderness Double Edition 18, page 10
Nate thought they were making a terrible mistake. But he had never been one to refuse his wife anything. Lowering his shoulder, he drove against the door like a human battering ram. There was a resounding crash but the door stood firm. He drew back to try again. Suddenly the manor rocked to the boom of a shot, and wood slivers flew every which way. A slug had ripped through the center of the door, narrowly missing them. Nate jumped back, hauling her with him.
“No! We must kill Proctor!” Winona did not want to leave the lecher alive to prey on other girls as he had done to Harriet.
“Another time, maybe, beloved,” Nate said. Elsewhere in the manor feet were pounding, and outside someone was bellowing. He started toward the dining room, pulling her along. Since there was no longer any need for stealth, it didn’t matter whether they went out the front or the back.
Winona resisted a few moments longer, until the crack of a pistol outdoors brought her to her senses. It was a signal. The militiamen would rouse out of bed and converge on the manor in force. Her husband was right.
“Are you okay, Ma?”
Winona looked down into her daughter’s upturned face, lined with fear for her welfare. “Do not fret, little one,” she said, taking Evelyn’s hand. “I lost my head for a bit but I am fine now.”
Ezriah brought up the rear, muttering to himself as usual. “Consarndest family I ever did see! A woman who thinks she’s a warrior, and a man who goes around being more mushy than one of them play actors.”
The dining room was dark and deserted. Nate flew across to the door at the rear and down a narrow hall into the kitchen. Two large stoves took up most of the room. They passed a hardwood counter, a washbasin, scores of cooking utensils, and a storage closet.
The door to the outside was barred.
“Watch our backs, Ezriah,” Nate said. Removing the bar, he cracked the door wide enough to scan the yard. The bloodhounds were in an uproar. Agitated by all the commotion, they brayed and threw themselves against the fence.
Nate didn’t see Private Bell anywhere. Motioning, he jogged to the right along the wall. They needed horses, and the nearest place to acquire some was the stable. In the manor men were yelling. One voice was Colonel Proctor’s, roaring orders from the sound of it. Nate ducked under a lit window.
“Halt! Halt or I’ll fire!”
Nate glanced back. Private Bell was at the far end of Huntington Manor, a rifle tucked to his shoulder, the bloodhound at his side.
“Go to hell!” Ezriah hollered. Snapping up his Kentucky, he fired first. In his haste he missed, but it had the effect of compelling Bell to seek cover around the corner. Cackling, Ezriah said, “That’ll teach the buzzard!”
Nate saw a blur of movement close to the ground. Private Bell had sicced the bloodhound on them, and the dog was a molten streak, loping in long, fluid bounds. Even as he spotted it, the animal vented a ferocious growl. He brought up his Hawken but Ezriah blundered into his line of fire.
“Ma!” Evelyn yelled.
Winona had seen it, too. Extending her rifle, she fixed a bead on the creature’s chest, curled back the hammer, and fired. The ball sped true. The dog tumbled head over tail for eight to ten feet and came to rest on its side, as limp as a wet rag.
Nate pushed on. Now two of their rifles were empty and they couldn’t afford the time to reload. Reaching the corner, he checked before he strode into the open, and it was well he did.
Rushing toward the manor from the stable was big, brawny Rufus, holding a pitchfork. He had on overalls and boots but no shirt, and his huge chest bulged with muscles. Throwing a side door wide, he plunged inside, shouting, “Colonel Proctor! Colonel Proctor! Where are you at?”
“Now!” Nate said, and broke for the stable. He matched his pace to that of Winona, who, in turn, went no faster than Evelyn was able to run. Ezriah trailed them, mumbling something about “turtles and snails.”
The corral attached to the stable was empty. Nate assumed the animals had been taken inside for the night. When he came to the double doors, he flung the left one open. Sure enough, the stalls were filled. Some of the horses nickered nervously at the intrusion. “Pick one and climb on,” he said.
“What about saddles and saddle blankets?” Ezriah asked.
“It would take too long.” Nate moved down the center aisle. “We’ll ride bareback.”
“I hate doing that,” Ezriah complained. “I get so sore I can’t sit for a week.”
“Would you rather be so dead you can’t sit at all?” Nate countered.
“Good point, sonny.”
“We do need bridles, though,” Nate said. There had to be a tack room, but in the gloom he couldn’t locate it. Toward the back, he figured.
“Listen, Pa!” Evelyn abruptly cried. “Do you hear what I hear?”
Nate paused. To the west hooves drummed. Militiamen were galloping toward Huntington Manor. “Damn!” He hadn’t expected them to show up so soon. But then, they were soldiers, men trained to respond swiftly in a crisis. Before long the area would be swarming with them.
Winona was seeking a suitable mount for Evelyn. The first stall contained a skittish stallion, the next a large bay. The third held a mare, and Winona was about to open the door when she realized the mare was swollen like a pumpkin. Any day now the foal was due.
Nate thought he espied an opening that might be the tack room but as he started toward it a rumbling challenge filled the stable.
“What do you folks think you’re doin?”
Rufus was at the double doors, pitchfork in hand. In the dark he loomed like an ebony carven statue.
Ezriah was closest. Facing around, he said, “What does it look like we’re doing, genius? We’re getting set to light a shuck. Do yourself a favor and put down that fork before you get hurt.”
“I can’t let you steal the colonel’s animals,” Rufus said. “Give up while you can or you’re the ones who will be hurt.”
From under Ezriah’s cloak a pistol materialized. “You’ve got more muscles than most ten men, but muscles don’t make you bulletproof. So why don’t you toddle along back to your lord and master and tell him we’ll do this again sometime when we’re all out of our minds?”
“Huh?” Rufus said.
“Scoot. Skedaddle. Get lost.” Ezriah waved the pistol. “Go play in the kennel with the bloodhounds.”
“You’re pokin’ fun at me,” Rufus grated. “And I don’t like it much when folks poke fun at me.”
“And I don’t like being poked, period.” Ezriah steadied the flintlock. “Drop it, or so help me God, I’ll drop you.”
Nate rushed back down the aisle and stepped in front of the trapper. “No. He’s only doing what he thinks is right. Don’t kill him.”
“Are you addle pated?” Ezriah responded. “Look at him! He’ll stick us if we don’t put a window in his skull.”
Rufus was gliding toward them with the pitchfork ready to thrust. “Drop your guns! I’m takin’ you to the colonel.”
Nate had to marvel at the man’s devotion to someone who owned him. “Don’t make us shoot. Our quarrel isn’t with you.”
“And I ain’t got no quarrel with you, white man,” Rufus said, planting himself a few yards off. “But I can’t let you escape. The colonel wouldn’t like that.”
“Is he worth dying for, boy?” Ezriah said.
“I ain’t your boy, mister,” Rufus declared. “And it ain’t him I’m doing it for. It’s so I can have a night with Harriet.
Harriet?” Winona had been content to stay out of it until that moment. Her husband and the trapper were between her and the black, so she sidled to the left to where she could see him clearly. “What does she have to do with it?”
“I’m powerful fond of her, lady. The colonel, he promised I could have her one day if’n I’m real good and don’t get him mad at me. Maybe this will be the day.”
Winona remembered Thomas telling her how Proctor would cast Harriet aside when he tired of her. She remembered the tears in Thomas’s eyes, the sorrow in his voice, and she drew a pistol and put a bullet into Rufus’s left thigh.
The stableman collapsed with a howl, his big hands pressed over the spurting hole, the pitchfork forgotten beside him. “You shot me! You done shot me!”
Nate was just as astounded. He didn’t know what to make of Winona’s behavior. She had never been so cold-hearted, so merciless. It was as if he were married to a whole new person. “Why?” he asked.
Ezriah laughed. “Hell, I can answer that one. Your missus has bigger oysters than you do, hoss.”
Clenching a fist, Nate shook it in the oldster’s nose. “Remember Latham? One of these days that mouth of yours will earn you a fat lip.”
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it?” Ezriah said, and guffawed.
Out in the night hooves hammered, approaching at a rapid clip, four or five horses from the sound of things. Nate spun toward the rear. “Out the rear!” he cried. Rufus had delayed them just long enough to prevent them from helping themselves to mounts. Their only recourse now was to flee on foot.
Rufus twisted toward the double doors and cupped a bloody hand to his mouth. “In here! They’re in here!”
Nate’s temper was at the boiling point. Taking two swift steps, he kicked the stableman flush on the jaw and Rufus sprawled onto his stomach, dazed but not quite unconscious.
“I see your wife is rubbing off on you,” Ezriah said.
Grabbing him, Nate shoved the trapper down the aisle. “Run or they’ll catch us!”
He kept one eye on the double doors but no one appeared and within moments they were at the back. Most stables had a rear entrance and this one was no exception. Spread before them were acres of high grass sprinkled by stands of trees. A mile and a half off were the mountains. “Go!” he urged. “I’ll cover you!”
A horse whinnied out in front as they sprinted into the grass. Nate heard hard voices, heard someone say, “Rufus! Rufus! Snap out of it! Where the hell did they go?”
Nate guessed they had maybe sixty seconds, if that. He overtook the others, Ezriah huffing and puffing like a broken steam engine, Evelyn striving her utmost not to slow them down.
A stone’s throw to the northeast were some cottonwoods. “There!” Nate said, veering toward them. He covered another ten yards, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder. Motion at the front of the stable was his cue to wrap his arms around Winona and Evelyn and pull them down beside him, saying, “They’re coming!”
Ezriah sagged onto his knees, gasping for breath. “It’s all that food I ate,” he husked. “I feel heavy as a whale.”
Nate was only interested in their pursuers. Four riders swept around the stable and drew rein. Sergeant Braddock was in the lead, with Privates Stuart, Mitchell, and Timmons. “Spread out!” the noncom commanded. “They can’t have gotten far! Don’t forget, the colonel wants them alive if possible!”
Ezriah reached for a pistol, saying, “I’d like to see them try!”
“No!” Nate whispered, jerking the old trapper to the ground. He had no guarantee the militiamen wouldn’t shoot back, and in the dark Winona or Evelyn might take a bullet. “We don’t fire unless they do.”
“You’re downright pitiful, you know that?” Ezriah grumped. “If you’d been George Washington, the British would still run this country.”
“Quiet!”
The quartet were fanning out at a brisk walk, Stuart to the south, Braddock and Mitchell bearing east, Timmons riding almost straight toward them.
“I can drop him easy,” Ezriah whispered.
“Not unless I say so.”
Winona had an arm around Evelyn, shielding her daughter with her own body. She regretted not being able to confront Proctor, and promised herself that if they survived, she would return one day soon to either slay him or convince him to part with Thomas and Harriet. She would bring along her cousin Touch The Clouds and a couple of dozen Shoshone warriors to help persuade him.
Private Timmons was forty feet out, looking right and left, a rifle slanted across his thighs. “Did you hear they shot Old Blue?” he hollered.
“No, it was Young Blue,” Private Mitchell responded. “Yates told me the squaw did it. Shot him plumb in the brisket.”
Sergeant Braddock twisted in the saddle. “Not another word, you jackasses! We can’t hear anything with the two of you jawing.”
“Sorry, Sarge,” Timmons said.
Nate sighted down his Hawken. Another ten feet or so and the militiaman was bound to spot them. But just at that juncture, to the south, Private Stuart yipped.
“Over here! I see something moving! I think it’s them! It’s them!”
Braddock, Mitchell, and Timmons reined their animals around and applied their spurs, and in no time the night had swallowed them.
“To the trees,” Nate said, rising. Capricious fate had granted a temporary reprieve and they had to make the most of it.
“Who did that man see, Pa?” Evelyn asked. “It sure wasn’t us.”
Nate recalled the deer in the road. “It could be anything. Run, run as hard as you can, and don’t look back.”
A great hubbub arose at the manor. Torches had been brought, and in their flickering glow over a dozen figures milled, some in dresses.
As soon as the cottonwoods closed around them, Nate turned and scoured the valley. Dawn was five or six hours off yet. By then they should be well up in the mountains. The New Edenites would expect them to try to break out through the pass to the east or the notch to the west, and would post militiamen to stop them. But it had been his experience that there were many routes over any given range; all he had to do was find another.
“We shouldn’t stay here long,” Winona mentioned. Another island of trees to the north was larger and offered thicker cover.
“Give me a bit,” Ezriah said, a hand to his side. “I’ve got a godawful pain. It’s like someone is gouging me with a spike.”
“I can carry you,” Nate suggested.
“You do and I’ll bite your damn nose off. I’m not no kid. I can manage on my own perfectly fine if you’ll give me a minute to catch my breath.”
Evelyn wagged a finger. “You sure do use a lot of cuss words, Mr. Hampton.”
“When you get as old and cranky as me, you’ll use a lot of cuss words, too, missy,” Ezriah said. “Everyone my age does.”
“Not everyone,” Evelyn said. “We have a friend called Shakespeare McNair, and he hardly ever cusses.”
“McNair?” Ezriah said. “That old coon is still around? Hell, he must be pushing a hundred.”
“He has hair as white as snow,” Evelyn mentioned. “Just like you.”
“We’re the last of our kind, sprout. He and I were two of the first white men to set foot in the Rockies. Me, I went and got myself taken prisoner by the Sa-gah-lee and spent a good chunk of my life as their captive. What’s McNair been up to?”
“He lives in a nice cabin and has a pretty Flathead, Blue Water Woman, as his wife. We go to visit them now and then. He doesn’t get around as much as he used to.”
“At our age we’re lucky if we have the energy to pick our nose,” Ezriah said. “Growing old is a curse, girl. It’s God’s way of punishing us for what Adam did in the Garden. Our bodies wither and weaken until we can’t hardly get about, yet deep inside we still feel as young as we were when we were your age. It’s cruel, is what it is. And puts the lie to those Bible-thumpers who claim the Almighty is all sweetness and light.”
“Pa says God is never cruel to folks. He says we bring a lot of bad things down on our own heads.”
Ezriah chortled. “No offense, dearie, but your pa ain’t exactly brimming with brains. He got himself caught by the Sa-gah-lee too didn’t he? And then he went and got all of us into this mess.”
Evelyn’s jaw jutted out. “Don’t talk about my pa like that, Mr. Hampton. He’s the smartest and best man there is.”
“Sure, girl. Sure.”
Nate had been listening for hoofbeats or any other sign that Braddock and the others were returning. The clamor at the manor had grown louder, with considerable activity over by the mercantile, too. What that was all about he couldn’t say. ‘‘Enough rest,” he told the trapper. “Let’s keep going.”
Staying low, the four of them dog-trotted to the next cluster of vegetation. Heavy thickets had to be negotiated, a tricky proposition in the shadowy murk. Nate’s face and hands bore half a dozen scratches and nicks when he stopped at the far edge of the stand and hunkered. His confidence they could elude the militiamen was mounting.
Another open tract of grass separated them from broad woodland. The moon, Nate observed, would soon disappear behind some clouds, providing them with a welcome mantle of darkness. He mentioned it to the others. “We’ll wait. It shouldn’t be more than a minute or two.”
Ezriah was holding his side again. “Too bad it’s not ten,” he said. “You might have to go on without me.”
Winona placed her hand on his shoulder. “Are you that bad off?”
“It feels as if I was gored by a buffalo.” Ezriah took a few deep breaths, and groaned. “Life. Got to love it.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Hampton?” Evelyn whispered. “Every time things are going our way, life ups and kicks us in the teeth. I used to think real happiness was a sham, that the only reason we were put on this earth was to suffer, grow old, and die.”
Winona gave him a friendly squeeze. “What a horrible outlook.”
“Spend two decades in captivity and see how cheerful your outlook is,” Ezriah rebutted. “I must have done something really rotten when I was young to get the Almighty so mad at me.
That’s plain silly,” Evelyn said.
“Is it? I used to pluck the wings off flies for the fun of it. I liked to collect ants and pour them onto a fire. I’d catch frogs and toads and lizards and cut them open just to see what was inside.”
Nate was marking the progress of the clouds. “All boys pull stupid stunts like that,” he commented. “My brother liked to tie cats and dogs together and watch them fight.”
