EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT OF ZEKIAL

“DICK!” ZEKIAL REINED UP IN front of the store. Tilly was gone, and he was beside himself with concern. Nothing needed to happen to his woman.

Hogan’s wide-brimmed hat appeared in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s taken Tilly. Come help me sort out the tracks.” He booted the red horse up close and gave him the reins to his bay.

Hogan ran out the door and vaulted up on his saddle. “Who did it?”

“What’s wrong?” The storekeeper came outside to see what was wrong.

“Someone stole his woman.” Dick wheeled his horse hard, and punched his spurs, starting off after Broome at a run. He rode up close behind his friend and trotting his animal. “No sign of her?”

“No sign. I figured you could see something in the mud that I missed.”

“She run off?”

“She’s pregnant with our child. No, she didn’t run away.”

The pack animals tugged on their leads as they approached. Impatient he glanced back. Dick moved in and waved his arms to make them go. They reigned in to a stop at the place where he’d found the horses grazing. Dick dismounted and began to circle the area in a widening ring while Zekial rolled his chapped lower lip under his sharp upper teeth.

“Two men in moccasins took her.”

“White or red?”

“Can’t tell. They weren’t big men.” Dick leaned over and studied the ground.

“Where did they go?”

“West.”

Zekial knew one thing. It wasn’t Grissum McCord. He had big feet. “Let’s get these animals undone and go after them.”

—

A DEEP-ROOTED NAUSEA SET in as he followed Dick through the tall cane breaks. Irritated at the horses, he realized that she’d been the one to handle or drive them in the past weeks. He’d forgotten how stubborn they could be.

They reached a wide beach with several canoes sitting on the high ground above the river. Dick rode to the water’s edge and came back. He studied the far side. Smoke rose in the sycamores from cooking fires across the Arkansas. “They took her by canoe from right here.”

“Wonder where they took her?” Zekial asked, filled with a new urgency. Water didn’t leave any tracks.

‘We can cross over in one of these canoes.”

“We need to cache our things and horses first.” Zekial strained his eyes to see across the muddy river.

“Looks like an Injun camp over there.”

He agreed, from what he could make out. Lodges and shelters cloistered across the stream. Enough wood smoke that it was obvious there were people over there. Damn, they had to find her.

The sharp wind swept his face. He rode back into the head high cane breaks to search for a place to leave their horses and halfway hide their possessions.

He turned the horses out, the gray mare hobbled so they’d stay close. Their things hidden in the cane, they hurried back to the river.

“Strange, they didn’t touch a thing but her.”

Zekial had noted that, as well. Grateful he had Dick and his tracking skills to assist him, they shoved the best-looking canoe into the water and used the hand carved paddles to send them flying over the strong current and across the river. On the far bank, Zekial leaped out with his rifle in hand. He dragged the bow up onto the sandbar.

“You go that way.” Dick leapt out and headed north. “They left tracks if they came over here.”

Zekial hurried down the sticky clay shoreline. At the second canoe, barely beached, he spotted her familiar splayed toe tracks.

“Hey! Here they are.” He waved Dick back, feeling satisfied that they weren’t far behind the kidnappers.

Dick came on the run with his rifle in his right hand. He agreed they were the right tracks and they both looked at the village spread down the bank above them. A few onlookers had come to stare at them. Many were small children dressed only in thin shirts that didn’t reach their waists. Girls and boys were obvious from their exposed genitals.

“You see two men with a black girl?” Dick asked the oldest one when the two of them reached the top of the bank.

The youth’s nod settled Zekial some. Still filled with gut wrenching concern, he stood on his toes and tried to see up river.

“Who was it?” Dick asked carefully.

“One called Gut Line, the other Black Heron. Don’t know black girl’s name in the wolf-skin hood,” the boy said.

“That’s Tilly,” Broome said.

“Which way did they go?” Dick asked.

“Have horses. Ride south.”

“Three horses?”

The boy shook his head. He held up two dirt stained fingers to show the number they rode out on.

“Show me their tracks,” Dick said and then turned to Zekial. “You better go back and get the saddle horses and our things. They’ve taken it on the run with her. I’ll follow the tracks on foot until you catch up.”

“Good enough.”

Zekial set out in a run for the canoe. He found, with only one man rowing, the current proved powerful. Paddle in hand, he wondered about swimming the stock across the river. The water was deep enough under the muddy waves that slapped the side that they would have to swim to ever cross it. On the far side at last, he rushed to locate the horses.

Out of wind, he found the grazing horses and with fumbling fingers saddled the three, then repacked the mule and Dick’s pack animal. It would be a long crossing and he dreaded the prospects. No time to wait, he swung up on Red and led the resistant line through the cane breaks until they emerged at the riverbank.

He’d have to drive them across. Otherwise, the stubborn mule would stay on this bank. He herded the gray mare in the water. She paused to drop her head and drink. The others followed to get their fill. When she raised her head and looked at the far bank, he began to shout and pound his leg to get them started into the river.

He hurried Red up and down the boggy shallows behind them, hoping there was no quicksand. Shouting and yelling at the horses to get them into the water. At last, the gray took the lead. In the river, she leaped high in the water, when the bottom gave out. Her shrill squeal made him sick. But on the second leap, she began to swim in the swift current and her head pointed across the stream. The mule joined her route, his packs bobbing on both sides. Dick’s two began to tread water after them.

He put heels to Red with a great “Yee Haw!” When the sorrel horse began to swim, Zekial held the rifle up in one hand and clung to the horn, using his feet to kick. His arms ached, and the frigid water sought his leg muscles. His leather pants grew heavier.

Ahead, the gray climbed out and shook. He staggered up from the shallows and noticed the entire Indian village had come out to see what sort of damn fool swam five horses across the river on the coldest day of the year. He swung his wet cramping leg over Red and went to gathering leads. No time for drying out. Dick was already somewhere ahead on their back trail.

“Crazy white man!” a gray-haired Indian said out loud to a pregnant squaw standing beside him.

Several more nodded. One teenage girl pointed at him and giggled. Zekial barely noticed them as he set Red into a lope and his string came on the double. Crazy or not, he had a woman to find.

In an hour, he caught up with Hogan loping along with his rifle in hand.

Dick took his bay horse’s reins. “Have any trouble?”

He shook his head. “They far ahead?”

“No, we should catch them by dark.”

“Good, on the move they can’t hurt her much,” Broome said.

“We have to be careful when we get close,” Dick said, standing in the stirrups. “They might try to kill her.”

Zekial nodded and then whipped Red into a lope.

They rode through the tall-brown bluestem, following a dim wagon trail that headed for the mountains which rose in the southern sky, a place where Zekial had never been. Their barefoot horse tracks plain in the soft ground, he finally let Red drop into a walk and get his breath. The mule snorted, sounding grateful for the reprieve.

“I think we’re close.” Dick reined in beside him.

“Whatever you think.” He rose in his saddle and tried to see across the sea of windswept tall brown stalks. A half-mile ahead, something bobbed in the seed-tops and it resembled someone on horseback.

“What should we do?” Zekial asked.

“Leave the pack stock here and give them a rush.”

“Good enough. We’ll let the horses breathe a little, then do it.”

Zekial stepped off Red and caught the gray. His left shoulder ached, and the bandage had gotten wet from the river crossing. He decided, in a race, the mare could catch any horse. Besides, she hadn’t been carrying anything but the saddle all day.

“She fast?” Dick asked.

“Very.”

“She looks it. You ready?”

Zekial nodded and mounted her. They left the mule, Red, and Dick’s packhorse to graze. On the start, they rode nose-to-nose as their two ponies parted the grassy sea. Seed heads pounded their legs while the fresh wind swept their faces.

In his right hand, Broome held the rifle. Leaned forward, he urged the mare to greater speed. She swept away from Dick’s bay, the steady stride of her powerful legs drumming the ground, and quickly outdistanced the other horse.

The riders ahead began to whip their ponies, looking back in fear, but it was too late. The gray quickly closed the quarter mile distance. He swung his rifle and batted the back rider off his mount with the rifle barrel.

The rider rolled off his mount on the other side and disappeared in the thick grass while his empty saddle bounced away on his spooked horse.

The hard-eyed buck riding behind her looked back. Zekial’s heart sunk as he watched him draw his knife as if he would slit her throat. He urged the gray on and the mare gave a burst of speed. The rider with Tilly in front started to reach around her with his knife. The gray closed the gap. Desperate not to hit her, Zekial could only hope his desperate ploy worked.

He cocked the hammer, pushing the gray up close enough, stuck the muzzle at the renegade’s head and fired upward. The gray shied at the shot and went tearing off to the side. Acrid smoke blinded Zekial as he tried to see the results. He sawed on the reins one-handed and looked back to try and see if it had worked, or if Tilly lay on the ground, her throat slit.

Excerpt from Zekial copyright © 2018 by Dusty Richards