Wilderness Double Edition 19, page 30
It was the first time he had called her by her first name, and Rosemary’s ears tingled. “Thank you,” she said huskily.
Sam, however, wasn’t anywhere near as pleased. “What’s wrong with me shooting one of them? I don’t mind killing.”
“An eye for an eye, is that it?” Rosemary said, unsettled. “Do you want the death of another person on your conscience for the rest of your life?”
“Listen to your mother,” King rallied to her cause. “Taking a human life isn’t to be taken lightly. There’s no going back. I’ve done it, but only when I had to.”
“We have to now,” Sam said, “or we’ll be rubbed out.” He appealed to Rosemary. “Won’t you reconsider, Ma? There might be too many for Mr. King to drop by his lonesome. He’ll need my help.”
“I’m sorry, Samuel.”
Sam wasn’t done arguing. He opened his mouth—and was promptly silenced by the mountain man’s big hand thrust over the lower half of his face.
“Quiet!” Nate King whispered. “Company has come calling.”
The circle of firelight had acquired a two-legged moth flitting about its edges as soundlessly as a specter. As Rosemary looked on, the stalker edged into the open, a pistol in each hand. The slight stature, the wiry build, the raccoon hat, and the ferret-like bob of the man’s head left no doubt who it was. “Chaco! But how?”
“If you meet in the next life, ask him,” Nate King said, and took a deliberate bead. His forefinger curled around the trigger, his thumb around the hammer.
Pausing every few steps, Chaco slunk toward their blankets like a cat slinking toward mice.
Rosemary tensed for the blast of King’s Hawken. Precious seconds elapsed. In another five or six strides Chaco would discover their ruse. “What are you waiting for?” she nervously asked.
“I saw three riders,” King whispered. “I want them all in the light when I fire.”
Chaco had stopped and was suspiciously studying the nearest blanket. He glanced toward the horses, then swiveled toward the bluff.
“He’s figured it out!” Rosemary exclaimed. “He knows where we are.”
“That’s impossible,” Nate King said. “He wouldn’t look this way unless—” Suddenly he heaved erect and whirled.
Rosemary leaped up, too, and in doing so, she blundered into the path of King’s rifle, which was swinging in a tight arc toward a matching pair of giant forms who had crept up on them undetected. She saw twin muzzles trained on them, saw twin grins crease the unkempt beards of the hulking Morton brothers.
“Not another twitch, mountain man!” Gault Morton barked.
“Not unless you want us to make wolf bait of the woman and her brats,” Garvey Morton echoed.
Rosemary didn’t blame Nate King for freezing. He might get one, but the other would surely drop her or one of the boys. “Don’t fire!” she cried. “We’ll do as you say.”
“Like hell we will!” Sam surged up off the ground, pivoting and aiming in the blink of an eye. As fast as he was, the crack of his rifle came a split second after the crack of Gault Morton’s.
Unadulterated horror coursed through Rosemary as her son was jolted backward by the heavy slug. Sam tottered on the rim, his arms pinwheeling. Nate King sprang, an arm outstretched, but his fingers missed their hold and Sam went over the edge in a swirl of dust.
A cry of utter anguish was tom from Rosemary’s throat, a cry such as only a mother could voice. She bounded to the brink and peered over, but the brush that grew out from the cliff obstructed her view of the bottom.
“Back away from there, lady, or you can follow him down.” Gault had drawn a pistol and both brothers were cautiously advancing.
Rosemary spun, her temples pounding from red-hot rage. Forgetting herself, forgetting she was armed with a rifle and had a pistol at her waist, she shrieked like a wildcat and threw herself at her son’s murderer. Surprise slowed Gault’s reaction. He hiked his arm to club her, but she was on him before the blow could descend, raking his face and neck with her nails. Only vaguely was she aware of a rush of movement to her left, of the boom of a rifle and the sounds of a struggle. Her whole being was focused on Gault Morton. On the scum she was going to kill for killing her son. The next swing of her right arm nearly blinded him, leaving bloody furrows in its wake.
“Damn you, bitch!”
A fist clipped Rosemary’s left cheek and rocked her on her heels, but her fury propelled her forward again. Gault dwarfed her, yet she tore into him like a terrier into a wild boar. Clamping both hands onto his throat, she sank her fingernails in as deep as they would go. It evoked a howl of pain. Gault thrashed right and left, seeking to tear her off, but Rosemary clung on, feeling a damp sensation between her fingers and on her palms. Something—Gault’s pistol, maybe—whisked toward her head and she received a jarring blow. Her vision blurred and her knees buckled. A callused hand was pressed against her face and she was shoved to the ground.
Rosemary braced for the blast of a shot, for the searing impact of a lead ball. Instead she heard muttered oaths and the pad of footfalls receding into the darkness.
Strong hands gripped her by the shoulders and she was aided to her feet.
Nate King swiped a bang from her eyes and asked, “How bad are you hurt?”
“My head,” Rosemary said, touching the goose egg. “Stay with Eddy,” King said. Drawing a pistol, he spun and sped after Gault Morton. Within moments he was out of sight.
The mention of her youngest reminded Rosemary of her oldest’s fate. Fighting dizziness and nausea, she turned. Eddy was gaping at the prone form of Garvey Morton. Rosemary stumbled closer, afraid the killer would rise up and attack them. She should have known better. She should have known Nate King wouldn’t have left them if there was any chance of that happening.
Garvey Morton was dead. He had been shot high in the chest, but the bullet wound hadn’t ended his vile life. King’s Bowie had that honor. The hilt jutted from just below Garvey’s sternum; the blade was completely buried. Copious amounts of blood flowed, forming a pool under the body.
“Edward?” Rosemary croaked. Her throat was dry and her lips felt stiff. She extended her arms and he ran into them, wrapping his own around her legs.
“Take me home, Ma! Please take me home!”
“Would that I could,” Rosemary said tenderly, running her bloody fingers through his hair.
“First Pa, now Sam. I hate this awful prairie! Hate it! Hate it! Hate it!”
Rosemary’s dizziness was almost gone, but her head was pounding fiercely, so much so, she could barely think. “Fetch my rifle,” she directed. “We’re going to find your brother.”
“Do we have to, Ma?” Eddy balked. “I didn’t like seeing Pa dead. I don’t want to see Sam dead, too.”
“Do it.” Rosemary glanced down at her waist to verify that her pistol was still wedged under her belt. The simple movement lanced more agony through her skull. Her legs weakened and she staggered, then bit her lip so as not to cry out.
“Ma?” Eddy said anxiously.
His small hand found hers, and Rosemary leaned on him until the hammering eased to a manageable level and she could straighten. “Lead the way down,” she said, accepting her rifle. “Go slow so I can keep up with you.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for Mr. King?”
“There’s no telling how long he’ll be.” Rosemary had to find Sam, had to know for sure one way or the other. With the rifle to help steady her, she shuffled to the game trail. The steep incline daunted her. Her teeth clamped against the anguish, she eased onto her backside and slid down until they were midway to the bottom, where it was level enough to stand. As she rose, a gun boomed to the northwest.
Eddy gazed toward the ring of hills. “Mr. King is still after that fella.”
“Let’s hope he kills the son of a bitch.”
“Ma!” Eddy declared, appalled. “What you just said!”
Rosemary stopped short and pressed a hand to her pounding head. “I’m sorry, son.” He had never heard her swear. None of her family had. At an early age her mother had impressed on her that there were three things a woman never did: “Never talk to strangers, never let anyone know your true feelings, and never use foul language.” The second taboo had always perplexed her, but her mother swore it was in her own best interests.
Now, with Eddy’s eyes as wide around as walnuts, Rosemary said contritely, “It was unseemly of me, I know. But I’m only human. Women get mad, just like men do. And I’m powerful mad at what happened to your brother.”
“I understand,” Eddy responded. “Sometimes I feel like cussing, too. But Pa always said he’d take a hickory switch to me if I did.”
They continued lower. As they neared the bottom, Rosemary scoured the tall grass.
Eddy hurried ahead. “Where is he? I don’t see him.”
Neither did Rosemary. “Wait for me,” she said, but her youngest wasn’t about to slow down.
To the northwest another shot shattered the stillness, farther off this time. Suddenly Rosemary remembered the third cutthroat, Chaco. She turned toward their camp, but he had vanished. Good riddance, she thought, and moved into pitch-black shadow at the base of the bluff. “Edward?”
“Over here, Ma. I still can’t find Sam anywhere.” Rosemary moved toward him.
“Keep talking so I can find you.” She couldn’t see more than a yard in front of her, if that.
“I’m close to the cliff. There’s a lot of brambles and bushes.”
That there was, more than Rosemary realized. She nearly bumped into Eddy, and together they roved blindly through the brush, twigs crackling underfoot, limbs snapping to the passage of their bodies. Halting, Rosemary craned her neck and tried to pinpoint exactly where Sam had gone over the edge. She thought it had been more to their left, so she pushed on for fifteen feet or more, without result.
“Too bad we don’t have a lantern or a torch,” Eddy said.
“Or a brand from the fire.” Tugging on his sleeve, Rosemary led him toward their camp. She nearly tripped over her own feet when her youngest abruptly stopped and pivoted.
“Did you hear something, Ma?”
“Like what?”
“A moan.”
“No, son, I didn’t.” Rosemary listened, and when the sound wasn’t repeated, she chalked it up to wishful thinking or a trick of the wind.
The horses all had their heads high and their ears pricked. Rosemary debated whether to conduct the search on horseback and dismissed the idea as impractical. Hunkering by the fire, she selected the unlit end of a thick branch and carefully pulled it from the flames. “This one is yours.” She gave it to Edward.
Rosemary sidled to the right, seeking another suitable brand. Most of the firewood was burned completely through. She had to poke and prod with her rifle before she spied another thick piece that would do.
“Ma?” Eddy said.
“Just a moment.” Rosemary gripped the brand and yanked it out. Spikes of flame nearly singed her fingers, and she stepped back to avoid being burned. “What is it?”
Eddy was pointing to their left, his features mirroring unbridled dread.
Her gut balling into a knot, Rosemary whirled, but she was already covered by two pistols.
“We meet again, bitch,” Chaco leered. “Did you miss me?”
Twelve
Rosemary Spencer had never thought of herself as particularly brave. Life on the farm had been simple and peaceful, the way she liked her life to be. The only danger she had ever been in was the time one of the plow horses was frightened by a snake and reared, and she nearly had her head stove in by a flailing hoof.
In the past few days Rosemary had confronted more perils than in all the previous years of her life combined. She had encountered a marauding bear, eluded a Sioux war party, and escaped the clutches of a pack of human wolves. In the process she had learned a lot about herself. She had learned she possessed more backbone than she had given herself credit for, and when she had to, she could stand up to anyone or anything.
So when Chaco leered and extended his pistols, Rosemary smiled and said mockingly, “How proud you must be. It isn’t every man who can gun down a woman and a child.”
Her barb nettled him. “It takes more sand than you’d guess, lady,” Chaco snapped. “But you can rest easy a while yet. I’ll wait to dispose of you until Gault and Garvey get here.”
“You’ve got a long wait, then,” Rosemary said defiantly. “Garvey is dead and Nate King is after Gault as we speak.”
Chaco hissed like a sidewinder, his swarthy countenance clouding. “That damned mountain man again! He almost got us killed by the stinking Sioux. Now this.”
“How did you get away?” Rosemary asked, as much out of curiosity as to stall in the hope Nate King would show up.
“Thank the storm.” Walking up to her, Chaco shoved one of his pistols under his belt and relieved her of her rifle and her own pistol. He threw them beyond the circle of firelight, then did likewise with Eddy’s weapons.
“How did the storm help?” Rosemary prodded when it became apparent he wasn’t going to elaborate.
“All that rain,” Chaco absently answered while backing toward the horses. “It made our wrists all wet and slippery. I worked myself loose first and freed the rest.” Without taking his eyes off her, he squatted to undo the picket rope.
“How did you get your guns back?” Rosemary asked, her hope fading. That last gunshot had been a long way off. King couldn’t possibly get there in time to prevent whatever Chaco had in mind.
“We searched near where the mountain man jumped us. Kicking Bull figured that was where we’d find our guns, and sure enough, he was right.”
Rosemary had forgotten about the fourth member of the vicious quartet. “Where is your Indian friend, anyway?”
“Wherever Injuns go to when they die.” Chaco started leading the horses toward them. “The Happy Hunting Ground, or some nonsense like that.” He wagged a pistol. “Climb on the pinto, lady. Your son can ride the mare. I’ll take the dun.”
Rosemary fiddled with the dun’s bridle, buying yet more time. “How did your friend die?”
“How else? The Sioux. A passel of them came riding up, and we blew half off their horses before they knew what hit them. The rest skedaddled, but one put an arrow through Kicking Bull.” Chaco vaulted astride the dun. “We caught three of their animals, and here we are. Only now we have our own horses back, and I have you and your boy as hostages.” A thought seemed to strike him. “Where’s your other kid? The older one Gault told me about?”
“Gault shot him.”
Chaco stared, reading her expression. “Damn me if you’re not telling the truth. Don’t take it so hard, though. Pretty soon you and your other brat will join him.” He gestured westward. “Light a shuck. And no tricks, or I’ll splatter your son’s brains all over creation.”
Rosemary believed him. With a last longing glance at the bluff, she reined the pinto toward the Oregon Trail. Eddy followed. Chaco came last, a pistol in his left hand.
Until that moment Rosemary had not let herself feel the full effect of losing Samuel. She had been able to block it from her mind. But now, with Stygian gloom on all sides and nothing to occupy her but fear for her youngest’s welfare, she succumbed to a seething whirlpool of bubbling emotion. First her beloved Bert, now her firstborn. She tried not to cry, she truly did, but her heart wasn’t to be denied its outlet. Tears flowed, and her throat became congested.
Rosemary wept silently. She refused to show weakness in front of Chaco. He would use it as an excuse to taunt her, or gloat at Sam’s expense.
In due course her tears ebbed, and Rosemary wiped her cheeks with the back of her left hand, then checked on Eddy. He was slouched over, in the grip of deep despair. Smiling to cheer him, she said, “Two bits for your thoughts.”
“It’s supposed to be a penny, Ma,” her boy said glumly.
“You’re my son. You’re worth the extra money.” Eddy’s teeth gleamed. “I love you. You’re the best mother a kid could have. You’re always there for us when we need you.”
“Always.”
Chaco snickered in contempt. “Listen to you two simpletons. You’re enough to give me indigestion. Keep your mouths shut until we get to where we’re going.”
“And where would that be?” Rosemary inquired, paying his threat no heed.
“A spot up yonder.” Chaco peered toward the hills. “If Gault gives King the slip, he’ll know to meet me there. And if that miserable mountain man comes after us, we’ll dry-gulch the bastard. After we tend to you, of course.”
Rosemary digested his comments. They implied he wasn’t going to kill her until morning, or later. She construed that as good news until it occurred to her why. She shuddered at the thought of his hands on her body and vowed then and there she would die before she let him take liberties.
“I’ve always been right fond of yellow hair,” Chaco said. “The last blonde I had was a woman on a wagon train that came through about a month and a half ago. She strayed off to gather firewood, and the Mortons and me jumped her and took her to our hiding place. Had us a fine time, we did, before she—”
“Enough!” The vehemence in Rosemary’s tone surprised even her. “Spare us your lechery. There’s a child present.”
“What do I care?” Chaco said, snorting, and looked at Eddy. “How old are you, kid?”
“Nine. But I’ll be ten next month.”
“Hell, by the time I was ten I’d killed my first man and done things with women that would curl your toes. I remember this one gal, a ’breed like me, she’d do whatever anyone wanted for a dol—”
Reining sharply around, Rosemary coiled to spring. “I won’t warn you again.” She refused to have her son tainted by their captor’s depraved wickedness.
Chaco trained his pistol on her torso. “You’re one of those holier-than-thou types, ain’t you? Well, it won’t make a difference. You’ll taste just as sweet. Now, turn that damn cayuse around and keep going.”
“Please, Ma,” Eddy coaxed when she hesitated. “Don’t make him mad.”
