Wilderness Double Edition 19, page 16
“I wonder if he’ll still love you when I get through?” Killibrew said. “You won’t be nearly as good-lookin’. Not unless he’s partial to females without noses and ears.” He pressed the dagger to the side of her nose and gave a light twist. “My, my. You sure do bleed nice.”
Winona started to kick him but saw Hampton over by the fire, as helpless as a newborn babe. In frustration she stamped her foot and spat blood at their feet.
“If you have something to say, feel free,” Killibrew said. “Might as well use your tongue while you still have it.” Again his dagger licked out.
This time Winona’s upper arm was the target, and this time he did cut deep. So deep she nearly cried out. Steeling herself against the inevitable, she closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see the effect he was having.
“Now, now. I don’t want you failin’ asleep on me.” Killibrew pricked her side, and when that provoked no reaction, he jabbed the dagger into her shoulder. “Look at me when I’m carvin’ you up like a Sunday grouse.”
Winona rubbed her hands from side to side, seeking to loosen the rope enough to slip free. It gouged into her wrists, promising to scrape them raw if she didn’t stop. But raw wrists were nothing compared to what the moon-faced killer had in store.
“I’ll only tell you once,” Killibrew said, and stabbed her in the hip.
Winona’s eyes opened of their own accord, and she threw back her head to scream. The blade had bit to the bone. It was excruciating. She thought her leg would give way under her, but it didn’t.
“Go ahead. Shriek your lungs out,” Killibrew goaded. “I told you that you would.”
The reminder saved Winona from weakening. Closing her mouth, she glared defiantly.
Killibrew straightened and positioned himself in front of her. “So which will it be first? Your nose? An ear? Your tongue?” Mulling what to do, he scrutinized her with renewed carnal interest. “I shouldn’t be hasty, though, should I? It would be a shame to let a luscious body like yours go to waste.”
“Cut me if you must, but not the other.”
“You don’t have a say in the matter,” Killibrew said, and placed his left hand on her bosom. “My-oh-my. Are these breasts or watermelons?”
Killibrew cackled, and it was then, as his head was bent back and his gaze was to the sky, that Winona kneed him between the legs, slamming her knee up and in with all her strength. It connected solidly, and it was her turn to laugh as Killibrew tottered backward, his face as purple as a grape, his eyes half bulging from their sockets. “My-oh-my,” she mimicked him. “Was that your manhood or a twig?”
Killibrew couldn’t answer. Gasping and shuddering, he oozed to his knees and cupped himself. The dagger fell to the dirt at his side. Spittle running over his lower lip, he whined like a stricken dog and bent partway over.
“I will not be groped,” Winona said. “I will not be abused.” Sliding as low as the rope permitted, she tried to kick him in the face, but he was just out of her reach.
“Bitch!” Killibrew spat. “Filthy, rotten bitch!” He attempted to stand, but his legs wouldn’t support him. “As soon as I can get to my feet, you’re mine. Hear me? Mine to do with as I please!”
Winona rubbed her wrists harder. They throbbed with agony as she twisted them right and left. She wouldn’t stop until she rubbed them down to the bone, if that was what it took. But it shouldn’t take quite that long. They were slick with blood, and the loops were slowly loosening.
“God, how you’ll suffer!” Killibrew snarled. “I’ll show you some tricks I’ve learned. Tricks an Apache would envy.”
Winona strained to her utmost. She had to free herself before he recovered or all was lost.
“This is what I get for going easy on you,” Killibrew said. “For not gutting you the moment I caught you spyin’ on us.”
Another factor was working against Winona. Blood had been seeping down her neck, down her thigh, and down both legs. In time the loss would weaken her to where she couldn’t lift a finger in her defense. Desperate, she rubbed, rubbed, rubbed.
Fueled by anger, Killibrew lurched upright and teetered a few steps. One hand over his private parts, he steadied himself. “I was content to let you live until your old man showed up, but now that’s changed, squaw. Now he’ll find your lifeless body.”
“Cut me loose!” Winona challenged. “Give me a knife and I will fight you, woman to man.”
The color was fading from Killibrew’s face. His mouth curling in contempt, he bent and retrieved his dagger. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? For me to be stupid enough to accept? It ain’t going to happen. You’ll die like a trussed lamb, a fitting end for a heathen who acts so high and mighty.”
Winona was perplexed when he shoved the dagger into its sheath and walked to the fire. What is he up to? she wondered.
Killibrew selected a slender branch from the pile of firewood, broke the branch in half, and carefully poked at the burning logs. Twice he had to draw back from the flames. Finally he succeeded in rolling a red-hot piece of wood from the fire’s heart. It hissed and gave off smoke as he pressed the two sticks against it and slowly stood.
Winona’s wrists throbbed, but the rope wasn’t loose enough yet. She braced herself against the oak, intending to kick him when he came close enough, but he had learned from his mistakes.
Killibrew placed the coal down, moved to the right as if to go behind the tree and check the rope, then abruptly pivoted and slammed his fist into her abdomen.
Brilliant pinpoints of light flared before Winona’s eyes. She slumped forward, bile pumping from her throat into her mouth.
“Hungry, bitch?”
Iron fingers fastened onto Winona’s chin. Her head was pushed back and bent at a spine-cracking angle. Her mouth was forced open. Through a haze she glimpsed the burning piece of wood, grasped between the two halves of the branch, and terror speared through her. Killibrew was going to force it down her throat!
“I saw this done to an Arapaho once. He got drunk and slapped a white fella, so a bunch of his friends took him out and fed him five or six burning coals.”
The heat seared Winona’s lips. She jerked to the side, or sought to. Killibrew had her in an unbreakable vise.
“You should have heard that Arapaho scream. It was a sight to behold, how blood kept pourin’ from his mouth and nose, and how his stomach swelled up like an overheated water skin.”
Winona’s vision cleared. Killibrew’s leering face was inches from hers. The coal was next to her open mouth. A shake of his arm, and it would slide down her throat. Her end was imminent. Then a miracle occurred. Killibrew stiffened, and the point of a sword sliced up out of the center of his chest. He looked down at himself in stunned amazement, let go of the branches, and turned.
Ezriah Hampton couldn’t keep his grip on the hilt. Too weak to do more than shake a gnarled fist, he cried, “Get away from her, you miserable son of a bitch!”
Killibrew opened his mouth, but all that came out was blood. His movements wooden and methodical, he drew a pistol and raised it to fire. He would be dead soon, but he wasn’t dying alone. The hammer clicked as he curled it back.
Without hesitation, Winona gripped the oak and swung her legs as high as she could. It was high enough. Her ankles wrapped around Killibrew’s neck, and she wrenched as the pistol went off. The ball meant for Hampton whizzed off into the trees.
“Damn you!” Killibrew railed, and smashed the flintlock against her leg.
Exerting every sinew in her body, Winona squeezed her ankles together. Ezriah reached out to help, but he was still hurting and keeled to his knees. It was up to her now to finish it—her and her alone. Winona squeezed harder, her ankles digging into Killibrew’s neck as the rope had dug into her wrists. She squeezed and squeezed, her legs as taut as bowstrings.
Killibrew fought dearly for his waning life. He hit her. He tore at her ankles. He gripped her feet and pried. In a crazed frenzy, he bent his head and sank his teeth into her right leg.
“Die!” Winona cried, whipping from side to side. Her shoulders, her back, her arms were on fire. Suddenly throwing her whole body to the left, she twisted her ankles sharply in the opposite direction.
At a loud crack, Killibrew went limp. The flintlock fell from fingers sapped of vitality, and his legs gave way.
His weight was too much for Winona to bear. Her ankles parted, and Killibrew toppled with a thump, landing beside Ezriah. The old man roused and squinted up at her, grinning through the blood and the pulped flesh.
“For a female you’re downright feisty.”
At that, he passed out.
Three hours later, Nate King galloped out of the darkness into the clearing beside Buzzard Creek and drew rein. In front of him, his arm around her waist, sat Melissa. Behind him, her fingers hooked in his belt, was Evelyn. Nate saw two bodies stretched side by side under an oak tree, covered by blankets. Beside the fire, laughing and joking, were the love of his life and Ezriah Hampton.
“Ma!” Evelyn screeched, and she was off the lathered bay in a streak.
Mother and daughter ran to each other and embraced as Nate lowered a drowsy Melissa, then slid off himself.
Winona’s dress was ripped and stained dark in spots and she was extremely pale, but otherwise she appeared to be all right. She came to him, and hugged him, and whispered in his ear, “My heart sings with joy, husband. I love you so, and always will.”
Nate kissed her, speechless with elation. Evelyn clung to the both of them, sobbing for joy, and was joined by Melissa.
Ezriah Hampton hobbled over, chuckling to himself. The old-timer looked as if he had been stomped by a bull buffalo, but he was in exceptional spirits.
“Happy to see us?” Nate asked.
Ezriah glanced at Winona. “Do you want to spring the surprise, sugarplum, or should I do the honors?”
“Sugarplum?” Nate smiled at his wife. “Did he get his hands on some whiskey again?”
“Ezriah has changed his mind about returning to civilization so soon,” Winona revealed. “He would rather live in the mountains awhile yet.”
“And he’ll need our help building a cabin,” Nate guessed. “I understand.”
Ezriah tittered. “Not quite, you don’t. You see, I already have a place to live. For as long as I want.” He winked at Winona. “Ain’t that right?”
Nate King looked from one to the other, and as the truth sank in, he reached up and pinched himself. As luck would have it, he was wide awake.
Melissa Braddock’s uncle did take her to North Carolina and raised her as if she were his own. She grew to be an independent, strong-willed young woman. At the outbreak of the Civil War she was working as a nurse, and it was while ministering to the wounded in an army hospital that she met Captain Jedidiah Lee, no relation to the great general, and fell in love. Their marriage lasted forty-nine years. It was Captain Lee who included her reminiscences on her ordeal in the Rockies in his private journal, which formed the basis for this book.
WILDERNESS 38:
MOUNTAIN MAN
One
Faith was the key. A person must always have faith.
Rosemary Spencer had it to spare. She had faith in her husband, Bert. Faith in his decision to uproot their family and trek overland more than a thousand miles to the Promised Land, or Oregon Country, as it was known. She had faith in their children, fifteen-year-old Sam and nine-year-old Eddy, faith they were mature enough to endure without complaint the hardships they would encounter. She had faith in their team of oxen, in the plodding, steadfast, tireless brutes on whom their lives depended. She had faith in the new Conestoga the oxen were pulling, in its sturdy construction and reliability. But most of all, Rosemary had faith in their Maker. God Almighty would see them through to Oregon, would see to it they reached their homestead in the Willamette Valley with their scalps and hides intact.
Their wagon train was two and a half weeks out of Fort Leavenworth, paralleling the sluggish Platte River.
In all her born days, Rosemary had never imagined so much grass existed. A great, rollicking sea of greenish brown, unending wave after unending wave, the stems ceaselessly rippled by the breeze. Gazing out across its limitless expanse, she could well believe it went on forever, although she knew better, knew that eventually the formidable Rocky Mountains would rear before them and they would come to South Pass, their gateway over the Divide, and to their new future.
Humming happily, Rosemary resumed knitting. In the creaking seat beside her sat Sam, her oldest. His sandy hair spilled from under his floppy hat, and Rosemary made a mental note to give him a trimming in the next day or two. He caught her glance and smiled, his sunburned face speckled as always with dozens of freckles.
“Ain’t this something, Ma?”
“Isn’t it something,” Rosemary corrected him. “And yes, dear, it is.” Her boys saw the journey as a grand adventure. Ever since Bert made the announcement at supper several months ago, they had been bubbling over with excitement.
At first, Rosemary hadn’t shared their enthusiasm. That night, after she had tucked the boys into bed, she’d sat in her rocking chair on the front porch and listened awhile to Bert puff on his pipe in the darkness. At last she had made bold to comment, “I wish you had let me in on your plans, Bertram. I have a lot to do to get ready.”
Bert stopped puffing and shifted on the porch step. “I just made up my mind this morning, Rose. Folks have nothing but praise for Oregon. They say it never wants for rain, and the soil is so rich crops practically grow themselves.”
Rosemary had gazed across their yard at their bam and the cornfields beyond. Their farm was modest, but she loved it, loved their quaint house, loved hearing the rooster crow in the morning and their cows low in the evening. Forty acres wasn’t much, but it had been her father’s, and his father’s before him, and it was enough for them to get by. “This land has been in my family for generations.”
“I’ll get you more land out to Oregon,” Bert boasted. “One hundred and sixty acres for every settler. Four times as much as we have now.” He’d taken his pipe from his mouth. “I’ve already got a buyer and sealed the deal.”
A twinge of apprehension gripped Rosemary. “Who, might I ask?”
“Pringle.”
Harvey Pringle’s huge farm abutted theirs, and he had been after Bert for years to sell. But of all the people in the world, Rosemary would rather it were someone else. She had never liked Pringle, never liked how he looked at her with those hungry eyes of his, and how he contrived to brush his grossly overweight body against hers whenever they met in town or when he came to visit.
“He’s offering us top dollar,” Bert had gone on, then he told her the price. “Twice what the land is worth. Of course, I have to throw in the cows and chickens, and he gets to harvest the com. That’s fair, don’t you think?”
Rosemary’s hands had tightened on the arms of her chair. Her husband, bless his soul, had the business sense of a tree stump. A fairer price would be three times as much, but she had smiled and said softly, “Yes, dear.”
Now Rosemary was glad she did. Things had gone without a hitch. The sale had gone through on time. Bert had bought a brand-new wagon in town, and Pringle let him have a team of oxen for half price, “out of the goodness of my heart,” as Pringle put it.
The jumping-off point to the uncharted frontier was bustling Independence, Missouri, at the other end of the state from Holstein, where she had been born and spent her entire life. But it might as well have been a whole new world. Rosemary had marveled at the colorful ebb and flow of humanity: energetic townspeople in dapper suits and elegant dresses; steely-eyed gamblers in black frock coats and wide-brimmed hats; bronzed frontiersmen in fringed buckskins. Most remarkable of all were the Indians, members of peaceful tribes who came to trade. Civilized Indians, some called them. Tame Indians, others said. But to Rosemary they didn’t seem particularly civilized or tame, and she couldn’t stop thinking of the brutal atrocities Missourians had suffered at red hands before the last of the uprisings were put down. She saw tall, stately Mandans, with finely chiseled features. She saw painted Pawnees, their hair cropped into crests down the center of their heads. And there were Osages, too, miserable wretches whose tribe was pitiably poor, and who were the laughingstock of the other tribes and whites, alike.
They all made Rosemary’s skin crawl. She couldn’t help it. She tried not to let their presence bother her, but she kept remembering her grandfather.
Bert had asked around and learned a wagon train was leaving for Oregon within the week. It was late in the season, and he had been worried there might not be another until next spring. But the old man at the stable had introduced them to Harry Trapp, and now here they were, the last of nine wagons rolling in single file across the prairie.
The sun was warm on Rosemary’s face, the scent of grass reminiscent of alfalfa. She hummed louder and tried not to think of the warning the owner of the general store had given them. Bert had gone there to stock up on provisions, and when the proprietor learned where they were bound, he had motioned them aside.
“Listen, it’s none of my business, but you seem like nice folks, and I’d hate for anything to happen to you.”
“How do you mean, Mr. Carpenter?” Bert had asked.
“You’re better off waiting until next year. It’s September already. Snow comes mighty early to the high country, and once you’re past South Pass, you’re taking your life into your hands.” Carpenter had turned his back to the other customers and lowered his voice. “For another thing, your train is too small. There won’t be enough men to ward off an Indian attack, if it comes.” He’d lowered his voice still further. “And there’s something else. Something between you and me. Something I’ll deny if you tell anyone.” Carpenter paused. “Your wagon master doesn’t have the best of reputations. Last year about this same time he took twelve wagons out and only half made it through to Oregon.”
