Wilderness double editio.., p.1
Wilderness Double Edition 19, page 1
Perils of the Wind
It takes a special breed of man to survive in the wilds of the American frontier. A man like Nate King has the courage, the strength and the skills he needs to endure the hardships of the magnificent Rockies. But the four cutthroats who heard about Nate paying for provisions with gold don’t plan to make it on their own. They figure they can get Nate’s gold for themselves. When they kidnap Nate’s younger daughter they think they’ve struck it rich. They don’t know Nate very well. They don’t know that he’ll do anything to protect his family. But what Nate doesn’t know is that his little girl escaped on her own…and now has to face the dangers of the Rockies alone and unarmed.
Mountain Man
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.
To Judy, Joshua, and Shane
WILDERNESS 37:
PERILS OF THE WIND
Foreword
Enjoyed by millions, Wilderness is the longest-running Mountain Man series published today, an exciting saga that chronicles the adventures of the King family and their close friends. The Kings had a cabin high in the Rockies, in an area now occupied by Estes Park, Colorado, long before the tide of settlers arrived. They were one of the first to brave the untamed frontier, and their struggles and heartbreaks make for stirring entertainment.
The book you hold in your hands, like all those before it, is based on the journals of trapper Nate King. Many of his entries are quite detailed and require little embellishment. Others are no more than hastily scribbled notes. The latter applies to the story you are about to read. In his journal entry Nate King wrote: “My daughter and the other girl have been taken. We are off after them at first light, and may the Almighty look with mercy on those who are to blame because I sure as hell will not. “
Fortunately, the author was able to locate a secondary source. It will be detailed at the end of the narrative.
One
Evelyn King was only eleven, but she was old enough to know that when the forest fell suddenly quiet, it was a bad sign. Her father, Nate, had taught her much wood lore; her Shoshone mother, Winona, had added to her store. So when all the birds in her vicinity stopped chirping and a red squirrel in a nearby pine abruptly stopped chattering, she gripped the arm of her companion, put a finger to the girl’s lips, and whispered, “Don’t make any noise, Melissa. Something’s not right.”
Melissa Braddock glanced around in confusion. She was almost three years younger and four inches shorter. Her fine sandy hair, clipped short at the shoulders, was only a few shades lighter than the faded brown homespun dress she wore. “What do you mean?” she blurted, louder than she should.
Evelyn had to remember to be patient with her new friend. As her mother had pointed out a few days earlier, Melissa hadn’t spent her entire life in the wilderness, as she had. Nor had Melissa ever lived among Indians, as the Kings did every year during their annual get-together with the Shoshones. She was, as Evelyn’s father put it, a “babe in the woods.”
“Hush!” Evelyn whispered. “Hunker and listen.” Pulling Melissa down beside her, she cocked her head from side to side. It was a trick her pa had taught her for detecting faint sounds.
“What’s out there?” Melissa softly asked. Fear had crept into her face, and she looked like a scared rabbit set to bolt.
“I don’t know yet.” Evelyn was glad they were in high weeds. Her green dress, which was almost the same hue as the green eyes she had inherited from her father, blended in perfectly. Absently swiping at a stray bang of her raven hair, she turned into the breeze.
“Maybe we should run for it,” Melissa suggested.
“Will you please be quiet,” Evelyn said. The smaller girl didn’t seem to realize the potential danger. The wilderness was filled with grizzlies and mountain lions and other hungry beasts, and while her pa had exterminated all the meat-eaters in their valley, from time to time new ones drifted in. Then there were hostiles to worry about, the Bloods and Piegans and Blackfeet and others who delighted in counting coup and taking scalps.
Melissa didn’t know how to do as she was told. “Why don’t we run for the cabin?” she insisted.
Evelyn shook her head. They were halfway around the lake and had a lot of open ground to cover. If something or someone was out there, they wouldn’t get far. She strained her ears but heard nothing to explain the unnatural quiet.
“At least you have your gun,” the chatterbox said.
Evelyn didn’t say anything. Her small rifle, custom-built by friends of her pa’s, the Hawken brothers in St. Louis, was only .31-caliber. For dropping small game it was just dandy, but it wouldn’t stop the likes of a griz.
Another minute of awful stillness went by. Melissa fidgeted and gnawed on her lower lip, as nervous as a chipmunk when a bobcat was abroad. “Are we going to squat here all day?” she whispered.
“Be patient.” Evelyn had learned long ago that a person could never be too careful. In her eleven years she had seen a lot of people die, whites and Indians alike. Some had died in battle, some had been victims of disease. A few had passed on of old age. And then there were the dozens slain by wild beasts, her least favorite way to die.
Some were indelibly impressed on Evelyn’s mind. There was the Shoshone who had been gored by a bull buffalo, for instance. It had been during the Heat Moon, the month of July, when vast herds filled the prairies. A dozen warriors had gone on a surround, and Laughs Loud, a kindly man who once gave her some honey to eat, was thrown from his horse when it stepped into a prairie dog hole. Before he could climb back on, a bull charged, hooked a horn in his belly, and ripped him wide open. Laughs Loud had been brought back to the village on a travois and somehow lived until sunset.
Evelyn remembered standing there, staring at a spreading dark stain on the blanket someone had covered him with. At one point, Laughs Loud’s wife had lifted the blanket to vainly apply a poultice, and Evelyn had glimpsed jagged rib bones laid bare and his intestines slowly oozing from his abdomen.
The worst, though, had been a white man mauled by a silvertip. Palmer was his name, and he had been off picking berries when he spooked a cub. Its mother came roaring out of the underbrush and proceeded to bite and tear at him in a frenzy. He was clinging to life by a thread when he was brought to the rendezvous site. Her father had gone over to see what the ruckus was about and she had innocently tagged along, never dreaming what she would find.
Palmer was a ruin. Half his face was missing. The rest had been partially caved in by a mighty blow, and his eyeball had popped out and was dangling over his ravaged cheek.
Whole chunks of flesh had been shredded from his body. His right shoulder, right arm, and right thigh were exposed down to the bone. His left arm had been mangled, his left leg half bitten off. Blood sprayed from a gash in his throat every time he breathed. He lingered long enough to request word be sent to his wife back in Ohio.
Small wonder Evelyn had no desire to be torn to ribbons by a bear or other animal. Melissa could gripe to high heaven, but Evelyn wasn’t about to budge until she was sure it was safe. She shifted to the left, away from the lake, and stiffened at the faint scrape of a stealthy tread.
“I’m tired of squatting here,” Melissa grumbled. “I want to go back. I’m hungry, and your mother baked all those cookies for us this morning. Let’s go have some.” She started to rise.
“No!” Evelyn grabbed the younger girl’s wrist and yanked her back down. “There’s someone out there!”
“Are you sure?” Melissa cast wide eyes at the heavy growth.
The crack of a dry twig confirmed it. Evelyn spied a darkling shape off in the pines, prowling toward them.
Melissa had seen it too, and was trembling like an aspen leaf in a Chinook. “How do you know it’s not a deer or an elk?” she whispered.
“They don’t walk on two legs,” Evelyn responded. That much she could tell. Since everyone else was back at the cabin, whoever was stalking them had to be a stranger, and a stranger often spelled trouble. It might be a scout for a hostile war party. Gripping Melissa’s hand, she said, “We’ll have to move fast. Stay by me.”
“What do you have in mind?” Melissa wanted to know.
Evelyn had two choices. They could loop westward along the shore to the trail that linked the lake to her family’s homestead, but to do so they had to pass uncomfortably close to the figure in the trees. Or they could head for the east end of the lake and work their way completely around.
It would take a lot longer, but it promised to be a lot safer and that’s what counted.
Melissa dug her nails into Evelyn’s hand. “He’s coming closer!”
The vague shape was skirting a thicket not forty feet from where they were concealed. Evelyn had to decide, and she had to decide quickly. She moved eastward, tugging on Melissa when Melissa balked, her Hawken in her other hand. Only if she had to would she resort to the rifle; it only held one shot, a shot that would be folly to waste.
Evelyn stayed in a crouch. Every few yards she glanced back. Apparently, the figure in the trees hadn’t spotted them. With a little luck they'd reach a cluster of boulders ahead and duck into them unseen.
Then Melissa sneezed. Not a tiny sneeze, either, but a sneeze worthy of a moose or an elk.
Evelyn was dumbfounded. Hoping against hope that the skulker hadn’t heard, she glanced toward the figure and saw that it had pivoted in their direction. “Light a shuck!” she directed, and gave her companion a shove.
Bleating in dismay, Melissa stumbled onto one knee and would have pitched onto her stomach had she not thrown both arms out to check her fall. “What did you do that for?” she complained.
“Don’t just lie there,” Evelyn said, slipping a hand under the other girl’s arm. “Run!” She gave her another push.
Melissa looked over a shoulder, spied the shadowy shape now hurrying purposefully toward them, and bolted like a mountain goat being stalked by a cougar. “Shoot him! Shoot him!” she bawled.
Evelyn did no such thing. She paced the younger girl, wishing for a clear view of their pursuer. Her pa had taught her that she must never discharge her weapon unless she was absolutely sure of her target. A wounded man, like a wounded beast, could be twice as dangerous. “Better to go for a kill with your first shot,” her father cautioned her, “than to have a riled grizzly or an enraged hostile out for your hide.”
Melissa dashed into a gap in the boulders and flattened against a slab of rock. The whites of her eyes were showing and the color had drained from her face. “What are you waiting for?” she demanded. “Do you want us to end up like my folks?”
The reminder helped Evelyn better understand the younger girl’s fright. It wasn’t all that long ago that Melissa’s entire family—mother, father, and siblings—had been wiped out in a savage clash with marauding members of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Melissa had witnessed their final moments, and ever since had been prone to horrible nightmares that snapped her awake, screaming and crying, in the middle of the night.
“We don’t know who it is yet,” Evelyn said.
“So? They’re after us, aren’t they?” Melissa looking longingly at the Hawken. “If you don’t have the nerve to do it, give your gun to me.”
Evelyn wasn’t about to. She doubted the smaller girl could shoot all that well, for one thing. For another, her parents had made it plain she was to never, ever give her rifle to another person unless she knew and trusted them completely. And while she liked Melissa, Evelyn couldn’t say with all honesty that she trusted her to do what was best.
“Well?” Melissa urged. “Do something!”
“Keep quiet,” Evelyn said sternly, and craned her neck to the end of the slab for a look-see. The figure was gone. She scoured the woods and the high weeds, but it was nowhere to be seen. Either the man had run off, which was unlikely, or he was sneaking up on them. Straightening, she scanned the boulders and the tall trees beyond.
Melissa caught on that something was amiss. “What is it? Where did they get to?”
“I don’t know,” Evelyn said. As the oldest and most experienced, it was up to her to find out. She edged past Melissa and peered past an oval boulder pockmarked with holes the size of small coins. The wall of undergrowth offered no clues.
“We can’t just stand here!” Melissa said.
“Do you have a better idea?” Evelyn countered. Since the stalker couldn’t get at them without being spotted, they were safe enough for the moment. She gazed out over the lake, its tranquil, shimmering surface sprinkled with geese, ducks, and brants. To the west a slender column of smoke rose into the afternoon air. Her mother was getting an early start on supper. Her father, as she recollected, was shoeing his bay in the corral. A shot in the air would bring him on the run. But it would take a minute to reload, and whoever was in the nearby woods might attack. Except for her bone-handled knife, she would be defenseless.
“I don’t want to die!” Melissa declared.
“Who does?” Personally, Evelyn would love to live to a ripe old age and die in bed, as her great-grandmother was supposed to have done. But odds were she wouldn’t if she stayed on the frontier.
Melissa jabbed a finger to the north. “There! I saw something move!”
So did Evelyn. Whether it had been their stalker or a branch waving in the breeze was impossible to say. She trained the Hawken on the spot, but no one appeared. Suddenly Melissa began to cry, sniffling loudly as tears streaked her cheeks. “Cut that out,” Evelyn said. She wouldn’t be able to hear if the man tried to slink closer. “What in the world is the matter with you?”
“I’m afraid.”
“That’s no excuse to blubber like a baby,” Evelyn said in mild disgust. As her pa had stressed over and over, the key to surviving in the wilds was to keep calm in a crisis. Those who gave in to brain-numbing fear were the ones who became worm food. In the belief that Melissa would be braver if she were armed, Evelyn drew her knife and held it out, hilt first. “Take this. Just in case.”
“In case what?” Melissa swiped at her nose with a forearm. “You expect me to stab someone?” She didn’t bother to reach for it. “I’m just a girl.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Evelyn didn’t regard being female as some sort of handicap. Her mother was every bit as courageous and capable as her father, and could kill when the occasion called for it. “When your life is at stake, you do what you have to.”
Something struck the slab behind them with a loud retort. Evelyn and Melissa both spun, and Evelyn saw a small stone that had bounced off the slab and was rolling to a stop. The man in the trees had thrown it! He was trying to spook them, she deduced, and it had worked. Melissa started to quake again, worse than before.
Evelyn shoved the knife into its sheath and started to turn. Only then, when she heard the pad of onrushing feet, did it occur to her that the rock had been meant to distract them. She had made a grievous mistake. She tried to whirl in time, but an arm looped around her waist and she was hoisted into the air as if she weighed no more than one of her rag dolls.
Melissa screamed.
A high-pitched cackle pealed in Evelyn’s ears, and a voice that crackled like gravel in a tin pot howled, “I did it! I got the better of you, sprout, fair and square!” Evelyn was swung in a circle, then deposited lightly on her feet. “Wait until I tell your ma! It’ll teach her to always go on so about how savvy you are!”
Anger coursed through Evelyn’s veins, anger so potent she almost reversed her grip on the Hawken to use it as a club and bash the prancing dervish in front of them. “Mr. Hampton!” she exclaimed. “You shouldn’t go around scaring folks like that!”
Ezriah Hampton paid her no heed. Laughing merrily, he danced an energetic if ungainly jig. He was well on in years, his hair and beard as white as driven snow, his face as wrinkled and seamed as old leather. When he was excited, as now, his right eye had a habit of twitching uncontrollably. His left eye was gone, lost long ago to an Indian lance, and in its place had grown a stitch-work ridge of scar tissue.
“My pa won’t take kindly to what you’ve done,” Evelyn scolded.
Ezriah stopped dancing and scowled. “I never took you for a tattletale, girl.” He put his hands on his scrawny hips. “Did I tell on you that time you swiped a bunch of cookies without your mother’s permission?” Standing there in his loose-fitting purple shirt, buckskin pants, and red velvet coat, he looked almost comical. Over the coat hung a blue cloak, the collar trimmed with white lace. Knee-high black boots served as his footwear.
“I didn’t swipe them, exactly,” Evelyn replied. “Ma said I could help myself.”
“To one cookie, not four,” Ezriah said. “She didn’t want you spoiling your meal, remember?” He had a rifle slung across his back, and two large flintlocks tucked under a leather belt inlaid with silver studs. In an ornate scabbard on his right hip hung a curved sword with a fancy hilt. His most prized possession, though, was one he never let anyone touch: a large, finely tooled leather bag attached to his belt behind the scabbard. “So if you tell on me, missy, I’ll squeal on you.”
