Chapter Eighteen

Samuel and his trapping partner had worked since dawn, walking out on the log jam and freeing animals from the russet-colored waters of Red River. Lunging into the flood, Samuel rescued three frightened deer, six white-faced calves, and two cows. He carried the calves to higher ground and taxed his massive muscles to the limit. He began to tire, and his partner looked weary after freeing smaller animals that swam or floated within his reach.

“Looks like we got all the calves that made it this far, Benjamin,” Samuel shouted at his companion over the roar of rushing water.

“Must have been on that ferryboat we seen planks of,” Benjamin shouted back, cupping his hands around his mouth to direct his voice toward Samuel. “I never seen this breed of cattle before.”

The wind whipped cold, sienna spray against the men’s clothing, now clinging to them like a wrinkled, second skin. Large pieces of frothy foam continued to rush down the river, a sure sign that boded more flooding. The swollen river, now spilling out of its banks and flooding fertile bottomlands, continued to rise. It reached out on both sides like chubby fingers, pulling more earth under its wet palm before extending its fingers again to devour more feet of sand. Dry land disappeared in a swirling mass of red liquid.

The trappers looked at one another and shook their heads in dismay.

Benjamin cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Let’s go to higher ground.”

Samuel nodded and began threading his way over a pile of uprooted trees and debris, searching for strong logs firmly locked into the jam to support his bulky frame. He paused long enough to take one last look upstream and frowned.

“Hey, Benjamin, here comes another piece of that ferry!” He pointed upstream.

Benjamin looked, then nodded and walked away.

Samuel stood motionless, watching broken pieces of lumber approach. Thick plank flooring had been ripped apart by the force of the wild river which tossed things about like feathers, breaking everything up again and again into small, ragged pieces.

When the broken structure came closer, Samuel spotted a cradle board, the top of it sticking high above the raging water. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at Benjamin, “Come help me! Somebody’s hangin’ on to that scrap. I see a papoose.”

Benjamin scurried to where Samuel stood. They gathered up their long poles again to push debris away to maneuver the remnants of the ferryboat to their portion of the log jam. After a few minutes, they captured their quarry and pulled it to the river’s edge, wedging it into the outer corner of the jam.

“Well, I’ll be,” Samuel said and chuckled. “I thought sure it’d be a squaw when I saw the papoose board.”

Benjamin whistled through his few teeth when he saw long, reddish hair matted around a woman’s light-skinned face.

Samuel spoke, his tone soft. “Ma’am, you can let go now. We’ve got you.”

But Belle’s hands remained locked around the railing in a death-like vise.

“She can’t hear me, Benjamin.” They pried the young woman’s hands loose from the railing and released her arm and neck from the strap of the cradle board. Rope-like burns marred her skin.

Samuel talked to the babe, comforting him with his deep, resonant voice. With a gentle hand, he pinched the babe’s pudgy cheeks until Johnathan smiled and babbled back at the big man. Samuel handed him to Benjamin.

When Samuel couldn’t get a response from Belle, he leaned down, placing his ear on her chest. Plugging his other ear, he strained to hear a heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard hers, faint but beating. He lifted her up and bent her body forward over his arm for her to expel water. She didn’t seem to have swallowed much of the swirling liquid and hung over his huge arm like a child’s favorite rag doll. He shifted Belle’s listless form to clasp her in his arms, her head resting on his heavily-muscled shoulder, and carried her to higher ground. Saturated clothes left little to the men’s imaginations. Belle’s shapely legs, completely exposed, glistened with river droplets.

Later, Benjamin sat on a rotting tree stump, staring at the girl’s sleeping form while he rubbed the swelling in his groin. Mesmerized by her shapely beauty and the mere fact a lone woman materialized in his life, he allowed his latent lustiness free rein. He stood straight, his leering face fastened to her enticing female body as if imprisoned by an invisible chain. He pulled at the button fasteners on his woolen trousers.

“Whoa, there!” Samuel’s booming voice threatened to shake the nearby trees. He sent Benjamin a hard, cold stare.

Benjamin gave Samuel a strange look and covered his gaping, trouser placket with his hands. “I wasn’t going to hurt her none,” he said in a strong, defiant voice. Gazing again at the fragile-looking young woman on the ground and with his primeval need so powerful, he offered his defense. “She ain’t no innocent, you know.” He gestured toward the drenched pair. “What with the babe and all. She’s had a man before.”

Samuel continued to glare at his partner, trying hard to control his anger. “Leave it to you, Benjamin,” he replied, his voice cold, “to take advantage of a little thing like this.”

Starting to stroke his burgeoning crotch again, Benjamin said, “But, lookee, she might never know it if’n she don’t wake up durin’ it.” He continued to wheedle, yet he was bold enough to add, “And if’n she does wake up, she might enjoy it.”

This pushed Samuel to take slow, measured steps toward his trusted friend. They had lived and trapped together for five years, depending on one another when in danger, but this was too much—too wrong.

Benjamin took a few steps backward from the girl, putting more space between the big man and himself. He begged. “But, but, there ain’t another woman for miles, and Old Sally done took off with some cantankerous bully of a sergeant and went south with him.” He paused and looked at the girl again. “And she is such a purty thing, even if’n she is all tuckered out and looks like a drowned rat.”

Like an enraged bull, Samuel roared, his menacing bulk closing the space between the two trappers, his immense anger and disgust powerful incentives to right things.

To avoid the wrath of the hostile giant, Benjamin turned and retreated to the tree line.

Generally a mild-mannered man, Samuel knew no bounds in his role as protector. He would have gone to hell and back to protect the young woman and her babe, even if he had not recognized her, his sense of duty, his sense of right and wrong infallible. He might have killed Benjamin with his bare hands when he caught up with him had the woman not moaned loud enough to penetrate his rage. He stopped chasing Benjamin and took deep breaths to relax his tensed muscles, allowing his anger to uncoil from its twisted bonds of fury before he turned his attention to the trembling girl.

He had no idea how long she swam. Samuel took long strides back the way he had come after retrieving a large blanket from his pack. He spread the coarse blanket on dry ground and lifted Belle onto the center of the blanket at an angle, covering her with all four corners. He wrapped her, encasing her in the woolen envelope, exposing only her face.

She looked delicate and fragile to Samuel, but Mrs. Strong had to have a hidden strength to save herself and her babe. That took nerve and determination.

“This woman has grit.” He smiled down at her, hoping she could avoid sickness from her ordeal.

Glancing toward the timber, Samuel watched Benjamin like a hawk concentrates on its prey. With women a scarce commodity this far west, many a man suffered in one way or another while trying to entice a woman to live with him or to hang on to the one he had. Some men married or captured Indian women to substitute for the lack of white women while others traded with the friendly Indians for their captive women, sometimes picking up a Mexican female. All of this was risky business, though, as some soon found out.

Not all trades were meant to be final, and some of the captives, whether Indian or Mexican, either escaped by first light or stayed and transformed their white captors into captives. Some viewed the white man as weak, but all kinds of personalities existed in all colors. Some temperaments meshed while others revolved inside a violent whirlwind.

Samuel smiled down at the exhausted woman and brushed auburn tendrils from her creamy cheeks. He thought how different she looked now from the time he first saw her in Horseshoe Bend. He had worried then about her survival, because she looked too fragile to withstand the elements, let alone other trepidations that might come her way. Samuel felt it an honor when Trader Jake, before setting sail for China, requested Samuel provide game for the spirited female.

Just before sunup and without detection, Samuel deposited game outside the Strong dugout at least twice a week. He enjoyed hunting for someone other than Benjamin and himself. It gave him a source of pride when Trader Jake shook his massive hand and uttered just one simple word—thanks. But that one word coming from a man of Trader Jake’s status carried a lot of weight. Samuel scratched his thick beard and glanced at the sleeping babe lying close by, apparently none the worse for wear.

“Poor little feller, all tuckered out,” Samuel mumbled. He hadn’t known the Widow Strong had become a mother. “What a surprise,” he whispered. “I wonder if Trader Jake knows about the little one.”

Samuel stood and motioned for Benjamin to follow him into the woods. As they left the clearing beside the river bank, he spoke to his partner in low tones, warning him to never lay a hand on the young widow. “And if you get that horny again, Benjamin, you old greedy lecher,” he said, “you just steal yourself a squaw if you can’t trade for one.” He raised his voice for emphasis. “You hear me?”

Benjamin nodded. “Reckon I lost my head, Samuel.”

“Reckon you did. And it better be the only time you ever do.”

“Reckon I lost…” Benjamin mumbled before he walked away.

“Was that remorse for what he almost did or was that sadness for not accomplishing his goal?” Samuel whispered the words and decided to continue his watch to save the young widow from his trapping partner.

Benjamin went back down to the river bank to butcher a beef carcass from a cow that didn’t possess the strength of the others Samuel had saved. The trappers would dine on beefsteak that night, and Benjamin returned with the meat.

“No need to hunt when food just washes downstream toward you,” Samuel said.

When the embers of the fire glowed red-hot, he hung strip steaks from the cooking sticks, tender beef a welcome change from bear, beaver, and buffalo. He and Benjamin could hardly wait, so they scorched their tongues and the tips of their fingers by tasting a piece before the beef finished cooking.

Enticing aroma from the fresh steaks must have reached Belle. She stirred, talking in her weariness, her sleep troubled, probably reliving the nightmare of the flood.

Samuel went to her, his touch gentle. He readjusted her relaxed body into a sitting position so she could lean against him for support and stroked her auburn tresses. Speaking in a soft voice, he assured her that danger lay behind her and she was safe now, identical to the way he reassured a baby animal whose parent he had snared in a trap for its pelt. When others talked of a gentle giant, they spoke only words. Samuel was such a man.

He watched Benjamin out of the corner of his eye, expecting a rush of jealousy. Instead, he saw the same, concerned look on his partner’s face he knew must show on his own. “Perhaps,” he whispered, “it was only a momentary lapse from reality. It could happen to any one of us, living without women out here for too long. Occasionally, men turn to other men when they feel so desperate for a woman, but that could never be my choice.”

Samuel had abstained from sex for years for a couple of reasons. There were few, if any, women where he lived and hunted, and he worried about his size. Other trappers teased him that women might even pay for a romp in the hay with him, but Samuel shrugged and ignored the teasing. As a young man, he frequented one of the brothels in New Orleans where an immense octoroon taught him how to make love. He never forgot those lessons, although he tried not to dwell on them—not until the right woman came along, if she ever did.

When Belle came fully awake, she pulled away from Samuel and gave the compassionate giant a frightened look. She resembled a cornered rabbit with nowhere to run. He released her and handed her the bundle, hidden from view by his massive frame.

She snatched the babe, checking for injuries. Then, she gave Samuel a sheepish look and apologized. “I’m sorry. I’ve just now dreamed a terrible nightmare that Johnathan died, and I didn’t.” She shuddered before going on and Samuel covered her shoulders again with the blanket. “I could not live without him. He’s all I have.” She sobbed.

Samuel took her and the child into his aching arms, wishful to have them both as his. He searched for words to make her smile, because he didn’t think he could bear to see her cry.

“You have us,” he said. “Me and old ornery Benjamin here. We’ll take good care of you for a spell ’til we can get you back to Horseshoe Bend.”

She had stopped crying, but then, she burst out with a new supply of tears that flooded her cheeks.

Samuel didn’t know what to do. He thought he had handled things well. “And then, we can get you back to your place.”

That must have been the wrong thing to say, he decided, because not only did she cry again, she cried louder, almost wailing. He couldn’t understand why, and the babe joined in with cries of his own.

The giant couldn’t stand the combination of terror and despair emanating from the young woman’s emerald eyes. Not knowing what to do, he held her close, rocking and crooning until she wore herself out. She cried in her sleep, a forlorn little creature that looked like she had no one in the world to turn to. He laid her down again, covering the woman and her babe with the warm blanket.

“Maybe after you wake this time, you’ll be hungry enough to eat,” he whispered. With a tired sigh, he joined Benjamin for their evening meal, this time savoring the fresh beefsteaks along with warmed-over beans left from noon.

“You know, Benjamin, we can’t really keep this woman and babe. Come morning, we’d best take her by Owens’ place and see if she can stay there awhile.”