Homecoming, page 6
Davy did not hold her fright against her. Only an idiot would take a grizzly lightly. Probably the only reason he wasn’t scared to death was that he had hunted black bear many times in Tennessee and elsewhere. He didn’t see a grizzly as some sort of indestructible behemoth, as many whites and red men were wont to do.
Wawaneechotinka sidled closer. Her shoulder brushed his, her breath caressed his face. “Again you save me, Red Cheeks,” she whispered.
“All I did was run like hell,” Davy noted. “It hardly makes me a hero.”
“Hero?”
“Someone who does what has to be done even when the odds are stacked against him,” Davy explained. Seeing that she did not quite comprehend, he added, “Someone who is brave where others might not be.”
Wawaneechotinka placed her hand on his. “You are hero, Red Cheeks.”
Davy did not like the sound of that. Here he was, just trying to do her a good turn, and she’d gone and fallen for him. Who would have thought it? Elizabeth would bust a gut laughing if she heard tell.
“There’s something you’d better keep in mind,” Davy said kindly. “As soon as I fetch you back to your kin, I’m leaving. Likely as not, we’ll never see each other again.”
“That make me sad,” Wawaneechotinka confessed. “What if I find way you stay?”
“I can’t,” Davy emphasized. “Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? I have a wife and sprouts to get home to. It wouldn’t hardly be right to up and desert them.”
“You always do what be right?”
“I try mighty hard,” Dave replied. “My pa used to say that a man should always be sure he’s in the right, then go ahead and get done what needs doing. You could say I’ve lived by that motto all my life, and I reckon I’ll go on living by it until the day I die.”
Wawaneechotinka was going to say something, but a rumbling snort from the woods to their south transformed her into stone. Her nails bit into his hand again. She looked like a frightened fawn about to flee for its life.
So she should. The grizzly was stalking them. Davy rose and ran northward, making as little noise as he could, Wawaneechotinka in tow.
A grizzly’s eyesight was poor compared to that of a hawk or eagle, its hearing no better than that of a mountain lion. But its sense of smell was exceptional, and that was how this particular beast was tracking them. So long as it did not actually spot them, it would take its sweet time.
Davy kept his eyes peeled for somewhere to make a stand or some way of eluding the brute. A stream would be ideal, but it was just their luck that they did not stumble on one. He contemplated giving Wawaneechotinka a boost into a high tree and following her up. Since grizzlies were too heavy to climb, they could wait the bear out. Eventually it would grow so famished that it would wander off, allowing them to effect their escape.
On the other hand, there had been instances where bears had treed someone and waited for days on end for their quarry to descend. Sometimes it became a contest to see which weakened first.
There was a story making the rounds that a few years back a trapper had been treed and grown so weak from lack of food and water that he had lashed himself to a limb so he would not fall. An account of his ordeal had been committed to a few scraps of paper he carried in his possibles bag. Over eighteen months later other trappers had found his skeleton, still strapped to the limb.
Davy did not want that to happen to the maiden and him. There had to be a better way than climbing a tree. But seek as he might, none presented themselves.
Hundreds of yards from the boulder, Davy paused to verify that the grizzly had not given up. The muted crack of a twig was all the proof he needed. Hastening on, he looped his free arm around Wawaneechotinka, who had taken to stumbling every half-dozen feet or so.
“Can you make it?” he whispered.
“I try.”
“If the worst happens, I’ll keep it busy as long as I can while you go on,” Davy proposed. “Should you ever run into another white man, mention me to him and ask him to get word back to my family.”
Surprisingly, Wawaneechotinka smiled. “Hero,” she said.
Davy sighed. Maybe one day someone would explain to him why women only heard what they wanted to hear. Until then, he’d do well to remember that it was wise to mark his words carefully.
“Red Cheeks!” Wawaneechotinka abruptly cried, making no pretense at being quiet.
Davy had heard it too. The thud of heavy paws hammering the earth. A snarl ripped the dark, a snarl that reverberated as if it issued from the depths of a bottomless well. He sped off, bracing her as best he was able, plowing through brush, trampling high grass and weeds, the grizzly growing closer and closer, so close now that its breathing reminded him of the wheeze of a blacksmith’s bellows, so close that in another few seconds it would be on them.
Then the vegetation parted and before them glistened the surface of a wide waterway. Without hesitation Davy plunged in, the water so cold that it jolted his already primed senses. It came as high as his waist, rising rapidly as he surged further out. To his chest it climbed. To his neck.
Wawaneechotinka clung to him as if for dear life. Her whole body became diamond hard, and Davy did not need to look back to know why. But he did anyway, and froze.
On the bank loomed a hulking mountain of sinew, rapier teeth, and sword-like claws. The grizzly had stopped at the water’s edge. It was sniffing loudly.
Davy stood firm, resisting the tug of the current. He prayed they were invisible against the backdrop of darkly flowing water. The stream would mask their scent, so unless they made a sound, the bear might have no notion of where they were.
Growling ferociously, the silvertip padded from side to side, its head bobbing and swaying.
The maiden trembled. Davy held her tighter to calm her, but she shook like a falling leaf. Afraid she would give them away, he pressed her head down on his shoulder. Her lips closed on his neck, lingering in a spontaneous grateful kiss.
A roar blasted from the bank, a roar so loud it raised the short hairs on the nape of Davy’s neck, a roar so bestial it made him want to resume running.
The grizzly could not find them and was growing madder by the moment. It paced. It snarled. It grumbled to itself just as a cranky man would do. For an eternity it did all this. Finally, it turned to take its leave.
Wawaneechotinka exhaled in relief.
Like a striking rattler the immense creature pivoted and took two long strides into the stream. Head uplifted, it sniffed and sniffed.
Davy’s heart missed a beat. Or so it felt as he dipped lower, the water rising as high as his chin. The grizzly was no more than ten feet away, its massive head starkly silhouetted against the stars. He swore that he could see its nostrils widening.
The Ojibwa maiden faced her moment of truth. Her body shook so hard that Davy nearly lost his grip. Her breathing was erratic. He recognized the signs. In another few seconds either her fear would overwhelm her and provoke her into doing something they would both regret, or she would marshal her self-control.
It was the latter. After a last convulsive shudder, Wawaneechotinka reined in her tumultuous emotions. Relaxing in his grasp, she stared boldly at the grizzly as if inwardly defying it to charge them.
From one extreme to the other, Davy mused, not taking his own eyes off the hairy colossus. It was moving slowly upstream, parallel to the bank. The bear acted as if it had caught their scent, but whatever it was smelling was plainly not them. Davy had to clamp a lid on an urge to whoop for joy when the grizzly splashed on around a bend.
For the longest while neither Davy nor Wawaneechotinka moved. Davy strained his ears until his head hurt, but he did not hear any evidence that the bear was in their vicinity. He glanced at the maiden, who nodded, then helped her to the opposite bank. It was steeper than the other. Both of them were so soaked, their moccasins so slippery, that they had to climb to the top on their hands and knees.
Exhausted, Wawaneechotinka lay on her belly and rested her head on her arms. “I sleep for one moon,” she said wearily.
“Not yet you don’t,” Davy cautioned. He wouldn’t put it past the grizzly to return. Forking his hands under her shoulders, he heaved her upright. Quite by accident his hands slipped on her slick dress, his palms sliding up onto her breasts. She gasped. So did he, instantly jerking his hands off as if they had been scorched.
“Sorry,” Davy blurted. So ingrained was his respect for womanhood that he figured she would be outraged and wallop him so hard his teeth would come loose. Instead, that perplexing grin of hers spread across her lovely features.
“You say one thing, do another. Maybe you not want go home. Maybe you really want stay.”
Wonderful! Davy thought. Choosing not to comment, he pushed on through the undergrowth until he struck a small clearing. Since in another hour or so it would be daylight, he saw no sense in pressing on. “We’ll rest here,” he suggested.
“We must dry clothes,” Wawaneechotinka said, and just like that she bent to peel off her dress.
“Hold on!” Davy declared, spinning so he would not see something he was not meant to. Her brazen behavior shocked him, until he recalled that among some tribes nakedness was not viewed as shameful. There had been one in North Carolina where the women walked around as boldly as could be with not so much as a stitch of clothing from their waists up.
He’d heard no reports one way or the other about the Chippewas. So he could not say whether Wawaneechotinka was doing what came naturally to her, or whether it was a ruse to entice him into changing his mind about going back to Tennessee.
“I need to dry mine too,” Davy said, “but we both should have some privacy.” He walked toward a thicket. “I’ll go behind here so you can spread your dress out as you like. Give a yell if you need me.”
Wawaneechotinka was disappointed. “There be enough room for both,” she said. “I not mind.”
“I would,” Davy said. She must have thought he was being ridiculous. So would quite a few fellow backwoodsmen he could name. But he couldn’t help it. His ma had drilled into his head the ideal that all women were to be treated like ladies, whether they were ladies or not. White or red or black, it was of no consequence.
Once the thicket sheltered him, Davy sat and took off his powder horn, ammo pouch, and leather bag. The lead balls in the ammo pouch were wet, but all he had to do was spread them out for the air to dry. No water had gotten into the powder horn, so his black powder was fine. A few of his personal effects he wiped off with handfuls of grass.
Both pistols and the rifle had to be dried, cleaned, and reloaded. He draped his shirt and leggings over low limbs, but left his underthings on in case Wawaneechotinka paid him a visit.
Everything tended to, Davy plopped onto his back. He drifted asleep as the first pale streaks of pink in the eastern sky heralded the advent of another dawn. When next he opened his eyes, he was mildly surprised to discover the sun was straight overhead. He had slept half the day away.
The lead balls and the rest were dry. His clothes and coonskin cap were slightly damp, but he put them on anyway. Circling the thicket, he stopped short of the clearing and called out softly, “Rise and shine, woman. Time’s a-wasting. We have to be on our way.”
When Wawaneechotinka did not answer, Davy said it again. Troubled by her failure to acknowledge him a second time, he dared to take a peek.
The clearing was empty.
Davy strode into the open. “Wawaneechotinka?” he yelled, but not too loudly in case the grizzly was within earshot. She failed to answer. Worried, he crossed the clearing, passed through the brush, and came out on the bank of the stream.
The tinkle of laughter came from a shallow pool to the right. Davy turned toward it—and wished he hadn’t. For frolicking naked in the middle was the Chippewa maiden. She laughed again as a flush crept up his face and he put his back to her. “You should have warned me,” he scolded.
“Why you act so?” Wawaneechotinka asked. “You say you have two wives. You must see women without clothes.”
“I wish,” Davy said to himself. To her, he declared, “My wives have been the kind who only bare themselves when the lights are out. I never saw my first or my second without their clothes on in broad daylight.”
Wawaneechotinka’s jaw dropped. “You joke, Red Cheeks.”
“Many white women are that way,” Davy revealed. “It has to do with their upbringing. White folks don’t think it proper for a woman to show too much skin.”
The maiden rose to her full height, water dripping from her sleek shoulders, from her shapely thighs, and from her other ample endowments. “What you think?”
“I think I’d better go for a stroll to cool down my boilers while you finish up,” Davy said. Doffing his coonskin cap, he scampered westward until the pool was out of sight.
Davy let out a long breath. He mopped his brow and filled his head with favorite images of his wife. “Elizabeth, Elizabeth,” he said. “If only you knew how hard I try to be true, maybe you wouldn’t be so upset when I go off on a gallivant.”
From his possibles bag Davy took a piece of jerked venison packed for him weeks ago by Elizabeth. The tangy scent reminded him of the delicious aroma that had filled their cabin when she prepared it. The smooth texture reminded him of the feel of her, of the embrace they had shared shortly before he left. A wave of longing washed over him. He missed her keenly, more than he had at any other point during the trek.
“A sure enough sign I should head home,” Davy told himself. Which he would, just as soon as he escorted Wawaneechotinka to her people and rounded up Flavius.
That reminded him. Where could his friend be? Knowing Harris, he was probably holed up somewhere waiting for Davy to find him, all the while gorging himself on rabbit stew or whatever else he bagged.
Flavius had a knack for making the best of the worst situations.
~*~
At that very moment, miles to the northwest, Flavius Harris glumly picked at a flea crawling up his leg. Crushing the insect, he threw it aside. The motion of his arm attracted one of the village mongrels, which came close and growled, baring its vicious teeth.
“Go pester someone else,” Flavius said, kicking dirt at it. A score of times during the day a dog had approached to sniff and snarl, but as yet none had seen fit to take a bite out of him.
The word “bite” brought to mind the subject of food. His stomach imitated a riled chipmunk, reminding him that he had not eaten since the evening before when the old woman had brought him the mash. He’d give anything for another bite of her concoction.
As if she had read his thoughts, the Ojibwa woman came out of her wigwam bearing a birch-bark bowl.
Leaning heavily on her cane, she walked with an uneven gait to the post.
Flavius smiled, receiving a scowl in response. His mouth watering at the prospect of eating, he inhaled the tantalizing odor. He eagerly reached out, then yelped.
The old woman had rapped him on the knuckles. She spoke sternly, wagging her cane, as if she were scolding an errant child. Bobbing her bony chin at the bowl, she said, “Manomini.”
“Thank you,” Flavius said, taking that as a sign that he could help himself. For his audacity he was rapped once more. She could flick that cane of hers faster than a bee could flick its stinger, and the cane hurt a lot more.
“What’s the matter with you?” Flavius groused, rubbing his hand. “Quit playing with me. If I’m entitled to eat, give me the food and go away.”
The woman tapped the bowl. “Manomini,” she repeated.
Flavius had an inspiration. “Manomini,” he said, not having the slightest idea what it meant. His hunch proved accurate. Grinning, she offered the mash, and did not hit him when he gingerly accepted it.
As the woman limped away, Flavius dipped his fingers and shoveled some into his mouth. He had learned his lesson the day before. Rather than wolf it down in ten seconds flat, he ate slowly, a tiny bit at a time, drawing the meal out so that it took him fifteen minutes to clean the bowl.
He longed for seconds. In vain he watched the old woman’s wigwam with the aim of getting her attention should she reappear. An hour elapsed. Then two.
His stomach rumbled the entire time.
At the rate he was going, Flavius mused, he’d be skin and bones before the three days were up.
Around a wigwam came Keekweechiweepinank and Kawakatusk, in earnest conversation. They slanted toward him, the leader’s visage etched in displeasure.
Flavius set the bowl down and rose onto his knees. “Howdy,” he greeted them. “Any sign of my friend yet?”
The Ojibwa leader had his hands clasped behind his back. His brow puckered as he fixed the Tennessean with an icy glare. “Many warriors out looking. Some find tracks.” Keekweechiweepinank paused. “Your friend take sister on his horse.”
“I could have told you that,” Flavius said. “It was the only way he could save her from those other Indians.”
“Is so? Then why they not ride this way?” the chief demanded. “They be here by now.”
Flavius did not know, so he shrugged.
Keekweechiweepinank gestured at the blazing orb that dominated the sky, well on its downward arc. “Soon sun set. That leave you two sleeps.”
“Davy will be here,” Flavius insisted, but he did not sound confident, even to himself. His anxiety was transparent. The old warrior stepped nearer, rattling words, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Kawakatusk say not to be afraid,” Keekweechiweepinank translated. “If friend not come, Kawakatusk will kill you fast so you not suffer.”
“He’s all heart.”
Chapter Seven
Davy Crockett sorely missed his mount. Whereas on horseback they could travel at the rate of four or five miles an hour, on foot they crawled along at a snail’s pace. Due to the rough terrain, they covered only seven miles or so by twilight.
According to what Wawaneechotinka told him, it would take five days to reach her village. Possibly more. That was much too long to suit him. Who knew what trouble Flavius could get into in that time?
