Winter Woman, page 22
He had lain all night, sleeping fitfully, awakening often, waiting for Cora to come to him. Once, for just a brief moment, he thought he saw her white, spectral body standing in the frail light of the cabin. Then the pale form was gone.
Several times he had swung his legs out of bed and sat with his feet on the cold earthen floor, tempted greatly to go to her. Because of the way she had acted toward him during the day, he had not taken the first step from his bunk. He cursed the damnable gods who would put the beautiful Cora so near, but prevent him from making love to her.
As Jacob had reflected upon Cora's behavior, and Maude's part in it, his pace over the snow had been fast. Now he halted and stood catching his wind, his white breath pluming out in the sub-zero air. The ice fog seemed less dense than earlier in the morning. There was a slight motion in the mist. Perhaps it would soon move out of the valley.
The stillness was broken by the sound of running animals. He wheeled about to look in the direction of the sound. A band of nine elk, cows, calves and a big bull, came into view trotting across the valley. One of the calves limped badly from an injured right front leg. The elk frequently glanced apprehensively to the rear.
The bull, carrying a huge spread of antlers, veered off from the cows and calves and went into a stand of pine not far from Jacob. The remainder of the animals hurried on. A few seconds later, a family of wolves, two adults and four pups of the spring, broke out of the fog on the trail of the elk.
The wolves ran in great leaping bounds through the snow, moving as smoothly as streams of flowing mercury. The young ones did not appear to be taking the chase seriously. They tunneled their noses in the snow, mouthing a little of the frozen wetness, and shouldering each other in a playful manner as they ran. Then one of the pups saw the older wolves drawing away and leapt off after them with determined speed. The remaining pups gave up their foolery and fell in behind. Jacob knew the wolves would soon pull down the injured elk calf.
The bull elk had not detected Jacob's motionless form a short distance away. Jacob killed him with an easy rifle shot. Within a few minutes, he had field-dressed .and quartered the elk. He hung the quarters in a tree. With long strides, spraddle-legged strides to keep the bearpaw snowshoes from becoming tangled and dumping him in the snow, he continued on.
* * *
Jacob had found eight traps by the time the black wave of the night came stalking. Five of them held animals, their legs penned between the steel jaws of the traps. He had slain them with a club and skinned them while they were still warm. Frozen, they would have been impossible to skin without damaging the pelts. He reset each trap.
In the edge of darkness, he made a lean-to of pine boughs and built a fire close in front so that it would throw heat inside. On the ground, he carefully placed more boughs, overlapping them for a soft bed. On this he spread his sleeping robe. He would sleep as warm as did a bear with his fur and fat in a cave.
Seated on his robe, he began to roast a piece of fresh elk meat over the fire. With Cora acting as she was, and the surly Maude watching his every move, he had no desire to return to the cabin. He would make a diligent effort to locate all the traps and take the pelts of every game animal that had been caught. In three or four days, he would go back to the cabin and see if things had changed for the better.
The top of the pine tree above his head started to sway under the press of a slow, cold breeze. The ice fog stirred. Gradually the breeze became more boisterous, growing into a wind. The wind swiftly became a violent blast, shredding the ice fog and ripping it from its cloaking hold on the valley. High above, a yellow-eyed moon came into sight orbiting the earth.
Jacob looked around at the moonlit snow and forest. The tops of the trees were gilded with silver. The snow seemed to glow with its own light, against which the trunks of the trees were sharply outlined. It was a fine thing to see a goodly distance over the land again.
It was not long before shadows began to ripple through the night as clouds chased across the heavens. The wind that had removed the fog was the forerunner of a new storm. Within an hour, the many shadows had become but one that blanked out the entire sky. The snowstorm fell on the mountains like a big, white dog.
Jacob pulled his robe more tightly around his shoulders to ward off the cold. The flames of his little fire sawed about in the stiff wind. The snowflakes fell steadily, hissing as they died in the yellow flames.
Jacob reached into a pocket of his mind where he had stored the memories of the two wonderful nights Cora had spent in his bed, and relived both grand experiences staring into the fire. He felt her warmth as he had felt it those nights, and neither the cold nor the buffeting wind could reach him to disturb his reverie.
* * *
Cora loaded her arms with wood from the rick behind the cabin and stood erect. In the dusk that was deepening to darkness, the fog was coming alive, wispy streamers of it beginning to undulate back and forth. Still the valley was totally silent, as it had been for two days. She strained to hear the wind that could be stirring the fog, listening for anything that would break the stillness of the wilderness.
Jacob was out there someplace making his bed in the frigid snow. Had he become ill? Had he gotten hurt where no one would ever come to his aid? The thought of him dying sent shivers through her.
She had lost Jacob because of her fear that Maude would lose her mind if Clive would not marry her. The Mormon was a hard man and cared nothing for Maude. Cora was certain of that. He would not take Maude as wife if Cora did not also become one. She believed she must marry Pateman to save Maude's sanity. As Maude had said, she had contributed more to raising Cora than had any other person in the world, and Cora owed her a very great debt. That to only a very small degree lessened her pain from the loss of Jacob. Cora's head ached with the sorrow of her loss. Her sorrow tore tears from her eyes.
She blinked aside her tears so she could see, and circled the cabin to the front door and entered. The cabin was illuminated only by the flames in the fireplace. With head lowered so Maude would not see her tears, Cora crossed the room and laid the wood on the floor by the fireplace.
Maude arose from her bunk and dropped the bar across the door to secure it behind Cora. She then reseated herself on her bunk. Cora went to her own bed and lay down without a word. She turned her back to her sister.
Maude sat motionless and watched the fire die. She waited for time to pass. With the trapper absent from the cabin, she felt more at peace, more in control of Cora, and of herself. His presence greatly disturbed her, for she sensed his liking for Cora, and his hatred for her. It was becoming ever more clear that she would have to kill the trapper. He was very strong and she must prepare well. She had slain two men in New Orleans, maybe three men if the third one she shot had died of his wounds. She would not fail to kill the trapper.
She heard Cora's sobs come out of the gloom of the cabin and echo off the walls. It did not matter that she cried. It mattered only that she marry Clive.
* * *
Jacob felt joyous in a ferocious sort of way. He lay in the blowing, streaming ground blizzard at the mouth of the valley and spied upon the camp of the Crow Indians. He had found the camp in late evening and now it was full night. It consisted of a big lean-to of pine boughs located at the base of a narrow ridge of land extending out from the mountainside and onto the valley floor. He knew the area from past travels past it.
Near the camp, the ridge was pine-covered, while higher up it was but a rocky spine.
He had stashed his pack of skins, sleeping robe, and snowshoes some five miles back up the valley near the last trap he had found. Knowing the snow would be considerably less deep at the lower elevation near the edge of the plains than in the mountains, he had decided to leave the snowshoes behind. Carrying only his weapons, he had stolen downstream to search for the Crows, should they still be in the valley.
As he had worked lower and came out of the wind-shadow of the mountain, he found a ground blizzard in full raging fury. The snow was being picked up by the strong wind and carried a ways, dropped, only to be picked up and carried again, the motion repeated endlessly. A multitude of turbulent snow currents raced eastward away from the mountains.
The tumbling streams of snow reached to Jacob's waist. Above that, the air was clear. Overhead the frozen, full-faced moon was slowly climbing the black wall of the sky. In the moonlight, he could see for miles across the snowy land.
The size of the lean-to the Crows had erected indicated to Jacob that there were several men using it. He counted six Crow horses tethered close by the shelter. How many were packhorses and how many were mounts?
He noted the ridge of land hid the camp from anyone who would be approaching the mountain from the plains. The Indians must expect the women, and the men who had rescued them, to come from that direction. After the Indians had raided the cabin of the trappers and killed Renne, they had set up camp in the mouth Of the valley. Now they were waiting for their prey.
The hot blood of battle raced through Jacob's veins. The Crows had killed Glen and Renne. Now revenge for his comrades' deaths was possible, here close at hand, and he couldn't just walk away. Before the night was over he would kill some of the murdering bastards.
A chill went through him as a voice seemed to call to him, a voice from the void beyond life; "Kill all of them, Jacob." The voice sounded like that of Glen, gruff and matter-of-fact, as if it would be an easy thing to kill the warriors.
Jacob shook his head. He could have only imagined the voice. And anyway, he had already decided from the number of horses that there were too many of the Crows for him to kill them all. But they must not be allowed to remain within the valley, for then they might decide to ride up the stream and investigate the cabin again. Was there a way to slay some of them, and at the same time, in some manner, cause them to leave the valley?
There was danger for Cora in any move he made against the Crows. Should they reason correctly that the attack came from someone in the valley, they would immediately ride on the cabin. But surely there must be a way to trick them.
Slinking low and slow and hiding most of his body in the ground blizzard, for the moonlight would outline him against the white snow, he stole in a circle around the Crow camp. There would be a warrior posted on lookout and Jacob must find the man before he spotted Jacob.
Jacob thought the lookout would be on the top of the ridge above the camp, where he could have a good view in all directions. He crept forward, taking a step, then pausing, his eyes probing the blowing snow and the night.
Drawing closer to where he reasoned the man should be, he dropped down into the ground blizzard on all fours and crawled. He could see little, but in turn, little of him could be seen by an enemy. The stream of running snow had a discernible body, and to Jacob gave the sensation that he was doing a slow-motion swim in a thin, white fluid that was very cold.
A few minutes later, the trees took shape in the snow. He lifted his head above the ground-blown snow.
Jacob saw the movement of the Crow lookout as the man shifted his back to a new position on the boulder against which he sat and rested. He was wrapped in a buffalo hide. Snow had drifted around him, covering him halfway up his chest. Had he not stirred, Jacob would have mistakenly taken his form in the darkness for part of the boulder. The brave had chosen a good location. From it he could see the wide mouth of the valley, the plains beyond, and also his camp below.
Jacob angled off to the side to come up behind the brave. The swish of the wind and hiss of the moving snow masked the small sounds he made. The woods closed around him, and he climbed the rise to be above the Crow, who would be looking down over the land.
Close at the rear of the man, Jacob leaned his rifle on a tree and pulled his skinning knife. He snaked forward to the boulder and raised up to look. The mere top of the man's head protruded above the rock.
Jacob lunged upon the rock and reached across to clamp the man about the face in the crook of his arm. Instantly he snapped the man's head back and slashed the knife across his neck.
The heavy buffalo hide wrapped about the brave deflected Jacob's knife and kept the sharp blade from slicing the man's throat. The man surged upward, trying to gain his feet. But Jacob's weight forestalled the effort, holding him pressed down in his sitting position. Jacob swung over the boulder, and as he fell upon the Crow stabbed through the robe and into the man. The knife plunged deeply, grating off bone.
Jacob's momentum flung the two men down to roll on the snowy ground. Jacob stopped their roll with him on top of the thrashing body of the Crow. He held the man firmly. The Crow cried out and desperately fought to throw off Jacob and the entangling robe. Jacob thrust the knife to the hilt in his opponent. He felt the man shudder with a terrible spasm of pain. The man's struggle weakened rapidly, then ceased as he died.
Jacob lay breathing hard on top of the dead Indian. That was for Glen. Now one for Renne.
He sat the man up where the moonlight shone on his face. He was a young man about Jacob's age. Too bad he wasn't Wolf Voice or Long Running, thought Jacob. He dragged the limp body to a nearby snowdrift, scooped out a trench in the drift, and buried the body.
Going back to the boulder, he found the Crow's rifle. He seated himself where the man had sat and wrapped himself in the buffalo skin. But not tightly, not trapped so he could not move quickly, as had been the Indian. Having laid aside his brimmed hat after first reaching the cabin, he now wore a fur cap similar to the Indian. With the snow and the darkness, he could easily be taken for the dead man by the next Crow lookout until he was very close.
Holding the dead man's rifle, he prepared to wait. The snow had drifted deeply around the Crow indicating he had been on guard for a considerable time. His relief should not be long in coming.
The wind droned over the boulder and talked in ragged sounds in the pines. It began to build a drift around Jacob. The cold increased.
The ghost of Renne came and sat in the snow beside Jacob. He was not visible, nor did he speak. Yet Jacob sensed his presence. "All right, old friend, I understand what you want me to do," Jacob said into the wind and the night.
He saw below him the dark form of half a man, the bottom half hidden in the swirling ground blizzard, leave the camp of the Crows and move toward him.
Twenty-eight
The Crow warrior climbed up the slope through the ground blizzard toward Jacob. He trailed a rifle in his hand and scanned up and down the moonlit valley. Detecting nothing threatening, he focused on the figure propped against the boulder in the snow.
Jacob lowered his face when the Indian looked directly at him, and parted the buffalo hide to free his arms. He had gathered his feet beneath him upon first seeing the Crow leave his camp, and now he could rise swiftly. He took a firm grip on the stock of the dead Indian's rifle.
"Elk Piss, are you awake?" Far Thunder called.
Jacob grunted and shook some snow from his shoulders.
"Well, get up and go get some sleep."
Jacob rose, shoulders hunched, head still tilted downward. In a slow, sleepy manner, he shoved the rifle outside the robe that hung loosely around him.
"This is all foolishness, this waiting for the white women to come," Far Thunder said. "And Wolf Voice thinks the men who took them from us are the very same white trappers who killed so many of our warriors. He burns with hate for them and he has convinced our father to stay here with him. As for me, I'm ready to return home. It's too cold to wait longer. What do you think?"
Far Thunder was three steps away and slightly below when Jacob raised his head and looked at him. Far Thunder took one additional step as he peered through the night's murk, trying to better discern the features of the face rising toward him. Then the moonlight fell upon the face and illuminated it. The man was not Elk Piss, but a bearded white man. Far Thunder hastily jerked up his rifle.
Jacob straightened swiftly to his full height and struck a powerful roundhouse blow with the rifle. The heavy iron barrel of the weapon crashed into Far Thunder's temple. The dull crushing sound of skull bones breaking came to Jacob. The jar of the blow vibrating up the rifle and into his arms was so damn satisfying.
Far Thunder collapsed long slivers of bone driven deeply into his brain. His body rolled a few times down the hill, then stopped and lay in a crumpled, dark heap in the blowing snow.
Jacob went to the body of the Crow and turned it face up in the moonlight. The dead man was another young buck Indian, like the one before. They had been brothers, Jacob knew, for he could understand enough of their language to have learned that from the man's words.
He had killed the man for Renne. Yet as he knelt by the slack body, some of the gratification he had felt when he had struck the man down washed away. If only the two dead men had been Wolf Voice and Long Running, then the killing would have given Jacob total satisfaction. Still, he had gained much, for now Cora and he had two less enemies searching for them.
For half a score of minutes, he looked down at the Crow camp watching for men moving. The camp remained quiet. No one there had taken alarm.
Now to complete his plan for misleading his enemies.
All of his previous tracks had long since been blown away by the wind and the Crows would not know the direction from which he came. However, they must know the direction by which he left. The sign that would mislead them must be quickly and properly laid.
He retrieved the rifles of the two braves he had slain and then carried them up the ridge above the tree line and cached them there. He recovered his own weapon and dropped back down to the pine woods near the Crow's lookout. There he hurried to the east through the snow lying among the trees. With the wind blowing gently and drifting the snow but Little, his tracks would last for hours before they were completely blown full of snow.
He hurried from the woods and onto the plains. Now the wind had a broad, open sweep and filled his tracks almost as swiftly as he made them.
