Nate King seldom felt proud of killing an animal. Usually he did so to put food on his family’s table. Sometimes he had to slay to preserve his life or the lives of others. They were routine occurrences, an integral part of life in the wilderness, and once done, largely forgotten. But today Nate felt immense pride. He had done it. He had slain the beast responsible for bringing so much sorrow and suffering to the Utes. Untold lives had been saved. So he could be excused for feeling immense personal satisfaction for a job well done. He held his head high as he came to the river bordering the Ute encampment, and smiled as he forded it.
The Utes were back. The ceremony had concluded and they were listlessly standing about, awaiting the command to take down their lodges and prepare for the long ride to a new site. Someone spotted Nate and a shout went up. By the time he came to the far bank, Hototo and a dozen others were waiting for him.
“Why are you so happy?” the old hawk-eyed warrior signed.
“Where is Neota?” Nate responded.
“Over by what is left of his lodge.”
The Ute leader was on his knees amid the debris, sifting through it for personal effects that had not been damaged. He found a small doll and held it close to his breast, his eyes closed. But he opened them as the bay came to a stop, and reverently set it down so he could sign, “I have made a decision, Grizzly Killer. It was wrong of me to impose on you. Scar is our problem. We must deal with him ourselves. You can leave whenever you like and there will be no hard feelings.”
“I will go soon enough, but only because my work here is done. Scar has killed his last human being.”
Neota’s eyes narrowed, then widened in budding amazement. “You cannot mean what I think you mean.”
“Would you like to see his body?”
Hototo and others had witnessed the exchange, and an excited flurry of voices broke out. Yells were raised. Word spread through the village like a prairie wildfire, and Utes rushed from all over to hear for themselves. Their sadness gave way to smiles of heartfelt joy. Some burst into tears of happiness. Many embraced one another.
Neota slowly rose and came over to the bay. “My head tells my heart this cannot be, yet my heart knows you always speak with a straight tongue. Yes, I would very much like to see the killer of my family up close. I will help you skin him and dry the meat for your trip home.”
“The meat I give to your people,” Nate signed. “The hide is yours to do with as you will.”
“I have nothing to give you in return.”
“The gift of your friendship is enough.”
Neota looked away and coughed, then clutched Nate’s hand. There and then an unbreakable bond was forged between them. Nate had a new friend for as long as they both should live.
Hototo had been talking to others. “Everyone would like to see Scar’s body. I suggest we make a travois and haul it back. How far is it to where you slew him, Grizzly Killer?”
“We can be there and back by dark,” Nate answered. But retrieving the mangled remains would pose a problem. He had not seen any way down to the bottom of the cliff.
Composing himself, Neota turned to Hototo. “Select twenty men to accompany us. Tonight our people feast. Tonight we celebrate as we have never celebrated before.”
“But the period of mourning for your wife and daughters—” the old warrior signed.
“Were they able to speak for themselves, they would agree with me. For too long have our people lived in fear. Tonight we must banish it from our hearts.” Neota strode toward the horse herd.
Hototo frowned and signed to Nate, “I do not like it. Grief must be shared or it festers like a boil. He must not keep his in.”
Nate had long been intrigued by the differing attitudes of the white and red cultures. Their outlooks on land, on marriage, on the rearing of children, and on life itself, were worlds apart. He had been raised to believe a man bottled up his grief and kept it pent-in his whole life long. Crying was considered unseemly. In contrast, quite a few Indian tribes indulged in public outpourings of sadness on certain occasions, and it was not uncommon at such times to see tears stain the cheeks of grown warriors.
The village bustled with activity. The warriors chosen by Hototo hurried to their lodges for their weapons, while their sons rushed to fetch their horses. Women were gathering in groups to revel in the good news.
Nate rode to the river to wait. He figured the Utes would want him to stay the night and take part in their celebration. But come morning he was heading for home. Leaning on the pommel, he smiled. All the tension had drained from him like water from a sieve. He felt truly at ease for the first time in weeks.
The warriors lost no time in getting ready. Nate nodded at Neota and Hototo, then guided the bay across the river. Niwot was also along, but Nate ignored him. The sooner the youth realized his interest in Evelyn wasn’t appreciated, the better for all of them.
Years of life in the wild had given Nate the instincts of a homing pigeon. Once he had been somewhere, he never forgot how to get there. Unerringly, he led the Utes to the boulder field, and from the cliff rim they gazed down in sober silence on the legend laid low.
“It is over at last,” Neota signed.
“His neck must be broken,” Hototo observed. “See how the head is bent under the body?”
The cliff ran for hundreds of feet in both directions, ending in treacherous talus slopes. Neota dispatched warriors to find a way to the bottom, then squatted and stared at the shattered body of the creature that had cost him so dearly. “The tale of your deed, Grizzly Killer, will be told around our lodge fires for as long as my people live.
Nate hunkered beside him. Luck, more than anything else, had accounted for Scar’s comeuppance. Being in the right place at the right time, and spotting the griz on the ridge. “I am happy to do what I could. Now your people can sleep in peace at night.”
Neota’s features darkened. “Not all of them.”
Nate thought of Star At Morning, so radiant, so lovely, and those three adorable girls. Four innocents, snuffed out like candles. The injustice of it all brought a sour taste to his mouth. It tried a man’s soul to think that the Almighty permitted such atrocities.
Evelyn once asked Nate why bad things happened to good people. He told her that some folks believed it was God’s way of testing people. Others, that God was punishing them. Still others felt that after setting creation in order, the Almighty no longer took a direct hand and bad things just happened. Then there was a fourth view that held God didn’t exist and never had, and that the bad was the natural order of things.
“What do you think, Pa?” Evelyn had persisted.
“I honestly don’t know, daughter,” Nate admitted, and had been stung by the disappointment in her eyes. But he’d always striven to be honest with her, and he wasn’t about to deceive her by claiming knowledge he didn’t possess. “I’ve pondered on it a lot. Most any thinking person has. And I’m no closer now to understanding why things are the way they are than I was when I was your age.”
“But you’ve lived so long, seen so much,” Evelyn noted. “You’ve read the Bible through and through.”
“It raised as many questions as it answered,” Nate had said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. When you were younger, you always thought your ma and I had answers to everything. But the truth is, we don’t.”
The clatter of hooves ended Nate’s reverie. Warriors were returning. They had found a trail to the bottom. Everyone mounted up, and within half an hour they were at the bottom of the cliff and drawing rein two dozen yards from the dead grizzly. They couldn’t get any closer on horseback, because their animals had caught Scar’s scent and were shying and balking.
Nate wanted to be the first there. Scaling a boulder, he hopped from one to another until he was next to the body. The smell of blood was thick in the air. From Scar’s hump and back protruded the jagged ends of broken bones. The neck was bent under the shoulders, hiding the hideous face. Nate gripped the bear’s blood-soaked fur and tugged, but he couldn’t straighten it.
The Utes surrounded their former nemesis. No one said a word until Neota moved in close, signing, “Allow us, Grizzly Killer.”
It took five husky warriors to lift the body high enough for Neota and several others to pull the head from underneath. Almost to a man, they recoiled in consternation. Neota dropped to his knees and flung his arms to the sky as if to scream, “Why? Why? Why?”
Nate gaped in astonishment, his mind awhirl with the implications.
“Do not feel bad, Grizzly Killer,” Hototo signed. “Anyone could have made the same mistake.”
It wasn’t Scar. The skull had partially caved in and both eyes had popped from their sockets, but the head was intact enough for Nate to tell it was otherwise perfectly normal. There was no hairless skin, not a single scar.
“Who would have thought another bear was in our valley?” Hototo tried to soothe him. “Scar was the first we had seen in a long time.”
Suddenly Nate remembered the nocturnal prowler that paid his camp a visit the night before he arrived. He was sure it had been a bear. That was the same night Sakima’s family was slain and Sakima’s wife dragged off. Since not even Scar could be in two places at once, he should have guessed there was another bear in the area.
Neota had slumped forward, his forehead resting on the boulder, but suddenly he pushed to his feet and signed, “I agree, Grizzly Killer. You cannot blame yourself.” An icy smile spread across his face. “In a way I am glad. Now I have the chance to kill Scar myself.”
Nate felt like a prized dunce. He had been remiss in not making sure before he rode to the village and broke the news. The women and children would be devastated to learn the monster was still on the loose. “I apologize to your people for my stupidity. And I give them my word I will not rest until I bring them Scar’s head on a pole.”
“We will start tomorrow,” Neota signed. “I will bring extra horses. Once we flush Scar, we will ride them in relays and chase him until he is too exhausted to go another step. Then I can have my revenge.”
It was an old trick. The Comanches used it to catch wild horses. The Shoshones used it on occasion to run down buffalo. But Nate was skeptical it would work on a grizzly. For one thing, mustangs and buffalo favored the open plains, not dense woodland. For another, grizzlies were much more apt to turn on their pursuers. But until he could come up with a better idea, he shouldn’t nitpick. “I will be ready to ride out when you are.”
The wind, always Scar’s friend, alerted him to the presence of his enemies. He was asleep in a thicket high on a north-facing slope when his nose registered the scent of Feather Heads. Instantly he raised his head and sniffed. The wind was from the northwest, the scent faint, which told him the direction and gave him some inkling of the distance. They posed no danger.
Scar was about to lower his head and resume his nap when another, fainter, scent brought him upright with every nerve vibrant. As soon as he rose, he lost it. He moved a few steps to the left and sniffed, but he couldn’t pick it up. He lumbered to the right with the same result.
Frustrated, Scar headed lower. Feather Heads or no, he had to find out. Only a few Warblers and Bushy Tails were abroad. Scar never liked the abuse the Bushy Tails heaped on him, but they always stayed high in the trees, well out of his reach, so he ignored them. The scent of the Feather Heads grew stronger. But try as he might, Scar couldn’t detect the scent that had mattered more.
The wind died, and Scar halted. He had come far enough. Without the wind he could never pick up the scent again, if it had been there at all. His infallible nose might finally have been wrong. Then a gust ruffled the fur on his neck and brought with it the undeniable odor he knew so well. Head craned, Scar moved from side to side. He established that the scent came from the same direction as that of the Feather Heads, and concern launched him down the mountain at a trot.
Memories stirred. Memories of the den time, the happiest of his life. Of playing with his brother and sister. Of Caregiver leading the three of them off on new grand adventures into the outside world. He thought of those times often. He dreamed of them often. And now he was being reminded of them again by a scent out of his past.
The babble of Feather Heads slowed Scar to a wary walk. They were below the next slope, among boulders at the base of a cliff. He could not quite tell what they were doing, but it involved their short shiny sticks. Their scent, combined with that of fresh blood, had smothered the other scent. He circled to the west to go around and resume his search, but stopped when the Feather Heads began filing to their Manes. Soon they rode off. Among them, Scar noticed at the last moment, was Wood Eater Head.
Scar let them go. He was interested only in that special scent. Continuing westward, he happened to look toward the base of the cliff. A carcass lay there, the remains of an animal stripped of its hide and much of its meat. White bone glistened in the sun, from which stringy flesh clung loosely.
Scar took the slope at a lope. Near the bottom the familiar scent returned, but so faint he could barely smell it. The odor of the Feather Heads, the droppings of their Manes, and puddles of blood were partly to blame. The other reason emptied Scar’s mind of conscious thought and numbed him as Caregiver’s death so long ago had done. Slowly, almost timidly, he climbed onto the boulders and over to what was left of the body. There the familiar scent was strongest. He stared at the grisly husk that had once been one of his own kind. At the husk that had once been his brother.
Were it not for the faint scent that clung to the remains, Mean would be unrecognizable. His eyes had been cut off when the hide was removed and lay drawing flies in the dirt. His chest had been carved clean of meat clear down to the ribs, as had his haunches. All four limbs were attached, but his forelegs were broken in several places and the Feather Heads had snipped the claws from all his paws.
Scar backed away. Leaving the boulders, he entered a stand of pines and sank onto his stomach. He had always wanted to run into Mean again but never had. Once, many seasons past, he saw Nice, but she had wanted nothing to do with him. He had been catching his fill in a fish-choked river when a cub appeared. Since he never developed a taste for his own kind, he ignored it. But it started bawling anyway, and out of the briars came its incensed mother. She roared and waded in after him. Scar had no inclination to give up his fishing spot and was set to hold his ground—until he caught her scent. The surprise, along with her flying paws, caused him to retreat to the bank, where he stood and waited for her to recognize him. But if she had caught his scent, she gave no sign of it. Rising on her rear legs, she roared all the louder, giving every indication she would rip into him if he dared come any closer.
His own sister.
Scar had no desire to hurt Nice, so he left. He came back the next day and every day thereafter until the leaves changed color, hoping she would return, but she never did. That was the last contact he had with any of his family—until now.
The cold fury that always lurked deep inside Scar spread outward from his core. There was no end to the Feather Heads’ savagery. Nor would there be an end to his. Starting that very night, he would stalk and slay until his coat ran scarlet with their blood. He would never stop so long as a Feather Head remained alive.
Rising, Scar headed for the trail his brother’s slayers had taken. They had a head start, but that was all right. He knew where they were bound. By nightfall he would reach the river, and soon after the killing would begin.
An aura of impending doom hung over the Ute encampment. The news that Scar was still alive hit them like an avalanche, smothering their newfound joy and crushing their spirit. Most went into their lodges and stayed there. The few who moved about did so listlessly, all their vitality sapped. Their despair was as boundless as their happiness had been only a few hours ago.
Nate was treated as if he had contracted the plague. His hosts deliberately avoided him as he strolled about the village. They would turn their backs, or veer aside so as not to pass anywhere near him. Not one would meet his gaze.
Nate didn’t hold it against them. He never should have announced that Scar was dead without verifying it. Neota had tried to boost their morale with a short speech, but it was greeted with stony silence. Soon after, he disappeared, and now Nate was trying to find him so they could head out again after Scar.
A complete circuit of the village failed to turn up Neota, and Nate ended up back at his horses. He was anxious to be shed of the place, and annoyed he had to stick around waiting for Neota to show. Squatting, he poked at the ground with a twig until footsteps approached from the rear. “About time,” he said to himself, and rose. But it wasn’t whom he expected.
Hototo was holding a flat piece of wood on which rested several strips of roast venison and a generous portion of dried berries. He held it out, and when Nate accepted, he signed, “My woman thought you might be hungry, Grizzly Killer.”
Nate didn’t have much of an appetite, but he sat down with the plate across his legs and responded, “Thank her for me.” It was touching that someone should be so thoughtful after what he had done. Selecting a warm strip, he bit into the juicy meat. Spices had been added for extra flavor.
Hototo hunkered in front of him. “Please do not be angry at my people. If you had been through what they have, you would understand why they treat you as they do.”
“I hold no grudge.” Nate understood all too well. He was mad at himself, not at the Utes. “Please let them know I am sorry.”
“They already do,” Hototo responded. “They do not avoid you because they hate you. Have you not noticed they also avoid one another? Their hearts are broken. They stay in their lodges like turtles in their shells, staring at the walls with empty eyes. I have never seen such a thing in all the winters of my life. Should Scar attack again tonight, I fear they will not lift a finger to defend themselves.”
Nate thoughtfully bit off another piece. The old warrior had a point. Scar had struck two nights running. It made sense the rogue would pay the village another visit tonight.
“There are times when I think Scar is not a bear at all. That he is not flesh and blood but a shade from the other side sent to torment us.”
“You have seen its tracks with your own eyes. Spirits do not leave footprints.”
“Who among us can say with certainty what spirits can and cannot do? In a lake to the west lives a spirit creature that cannot be killed. It capsizes canoes and eats those in them. And when it comes on shore it leaves tracks, just like Scar does. But everyone knows it is not flesh and blood as we are.”
The Shoshones, too, believed in the existence of several lake creatures to which they ascribed supernatural abilities. Nate had never seen one, himself, although he would dearly love to. “Scar can be killed,” he insisted. He gazed out across the sea of lodges, wondering which Scar would pick next and how he could prevent it. The next second insight washed over him with the icy sensation of a frigid mountain stream. “We have been going about this all wrong. So did the other bands.”
Hototo looked at him expectantly.
“Scar has always been able to do as he pleases. He attacks and then disappears in the forest, forcing your people to go after him. Forcing them to fight him in his element. Why not make him fight in yours?”
“I have lost your sign.”
“The village is your element. It is where your people are strongest. Tonight when Scar attacks we must use that against him. We must set a trap to prevent him from getting out of the village alive.”
Hototo was clearly interested in the proposal. “How do you suggest we do this? By making large fires so we can see him coming?”
“No. That would only scare him off. We want him to think the village is the same as it was last night and the night before.” Setting down the bark plate, Nate stood and pivoted a full three hundred and sixty degrees, contemplating the possibilities. It would take considerable work, but it could be done. “Find Neota. Have him call a council and submit my idea to them. For it to work, everyone in the village must work together.”
“It will be done.”
The old warrior was as good as his word. Every warrior in the band wanted to be in on the meeting, but there wasn’t room for all of them in the lodge, so a huge crowd gathered around it, with updates relayed by those near the entrance. An air of excitement gripped the village. The emotional lethargy that had them in its thrall had been broken.
The council lasted a quarter of an hour. Neota led a delegation of leaders and elders to where Nate was waiting, and expressed the outcome succinctly by signing, “What would you have us do?”
Nate had been giving it a lot of thought. He had Neota divide the warriors into groups. One group went into the forest to chop down trees and strip the limbs. Another was set to work digging pits, one near the riverbank to the south and another near the river to the east. Those were the directions in which Scar had left the village previously, and if the grizzly managed to break out of their trap, Nate was hopeful it would choose one or the other again.
Women were set to work collecting firewood, which Nate had them pile at several locations within the village. Others sharpened the stakes that would be embedded in the bottom of the pits. The older children were told to cut suitable lengths of rope to be used in the construction of half a dozen fifteen-foot platforms, one at each point of the compass along the outer perimeter and two more toward the middle of the village. Younger children were instructed to gather every buffalo robe and bear hide to be found in every lodge.
As Nate walked among them, checking on their progress, he was treated to friendly smiles of appreciation. He returned them, and encouraged the workers with sign talk, spreading the message that if all went well, tonight would be the last night of Scar’s existence.
Even with every living soul in the village involved, it was after sunset before the work was done. Neota called his people together to impart Nate’s detailed instructions, and then the Utes went to their assigned positions.
Everything was set.
Now all they could do was wait.
Scar was in no great hurry to reach the Feather Head lair. Since he couldn’t cross the river undetected until dark, he took his time getting there. Stars speckled the sky when he came to the last hill and halted to test the wind. All appeared normal. Smoke wafted from many of the cones, and a few Feather Heads were moving about.
As silently as a whisper of wind, Scar descended to the near riverbank. Memories of how his mother and brother had died gnawed at him, and he gnashed his great teeth together in anticipation of the flesh he would soon rip and rend. Placing a giant paw into the water, he stopped.
Scar’s infallible nose tingled with the scent of Shaggies and Lesser Bears. Such scents were typical of the Feather Heads, but tonight the odors were stronger than they had ever been. He twisted his head, sniffing and analyzing, and when he detected nothing else out of the ordinary, he started across the river.
Halfway across, Scar halted again. There was a tree on the opposite bank where there had never been a tree before. Peering closer, he saw that it wasn’t a tree at all but something the Feather Heads had built, much as they did their cones. Rising onto his hind legs to better catch the breeze, he sniffed and sniffed, but all he smelled was the same scent he did when Wood Eaters gnawed down trees. Whatever it was, it did not pose a threat.
Dropping onto all fours, Scar quietly waded to the opposite shore and was almost to the top of the embankment when a jumble of new odors reached him. He smelled more gnawed wood, and cropped grass, and the scent of many Feather Heads, shes and young alike. They had been near that spot not long ago, but they were gone now.
Scar raised his head high enough to see over the bank. The odors were strongest to his left, where a large patch of ground looked different from the rest. Grass and leaves had been scattered for a purpose that eluded him. It looked harmless enough, but he did not like it. Warily, he levered his huge body up over the rim and bore to the right to avoid it.
The warble of a bird from atop the tree the Feather Heads had made brought Scar up short. He listened intently, but it was not repeated, and his nose gave him no reason to be alarmed. Moving on, he passed between two cones. He saw more strange trees and something else, something that raised the hackles along his neck. Near many of the cones, low to the ground, were peculiar hairy humps. Never, in all the times he had visited Feather Head lairs, had he seen anything like them. They appeared to be the hides of Shaggies and Lesser Bears, and accounted for the uncommonly strong odors of both. But like the strange trees, the reason they were there was a mystery.
So were the tall piles of branches Scar now discovered. One was close by, and he glimpsed others farther off.
An impulse to turn and leave welled within him. Too much was new, too much uncertain. But countering the impulse was his urge to slay more Feather Heads. To feel his claws shear through their fragile bodies and his mouth fill with their blood. He moved on, stopping frequently to sniff and cock his head for sounds. Instead of penetrating to the center of the lair, as he had intended, Scar stalked toward the next cone.
The Feather Heads inside were about to die.