Caroline gathered a clean change of clothing, left the camp, and aimed her steps toward the creek. A cool bath in the morning and a day of reprieve from the cruel harness and handle of the handcart was an event she would thoroughly enjoy.
She bent and picked up a stalk of the new buffalo grass and chewed on it as she walked along. All around her the prairie was becoming gilded in bright sun colors. Hidden in the grass, a meadowlark trilled its short series of notes. A bumblebee droned over the ground, checking the emerging flower heads for nectar.
She entered the woods as the top limbs of the trees began to tremble to the first faint puffs of the morning wind. The creek came into view, flowing among the gray boles of the trees.
She walked slowly up the stream until she found a pool of water some forty feet long and three feet deep. She stripped, tossed her soiled clothing into the water to soak, and waded in. She began to hum and leisurely bathe herself.
A blue jay came flapping in, the white sections of its wings like little semaphores signaling its arrival. The bird landed on the high branch of a sycamore and chattered away as it cocked its head from side to side and watched her with first one black eye and then the other.
***
Nathan’s eyes probed out ahead as he crept through the grove of walnut trees. The sound of the woman humming came from directly ahead. He left the walnuts and entered a stand of sycamores. A blue jay darted away with a call of alarm.
Nathan stopped instantly, listening intently. The humming continued, the woman taking no warning from the bird’s cry. And she was close, only a few feet in front of him.
Nathan peered past the trunk of a big sycamore. His breath caught in his throat. A nude woman stood knee-deep in a pool of water in the creek. She was bathing, scooping up the water in her double hands and splashing her body, then rubbing. It was the green-eyed woman. She was humming to herself, altogether a most pleasant voice.
He pressed against the tree, staring at the ivory-white body of the woman, at the swell of her hips, the bounce of her bosom as she moved. The beauty of her mesmerized him. Was she real or something dreamed?
Nathan had made love to pretty girls twice before as he had roamed the frontier. But never had he encountered one he craved as much as he craved the green-eyed girl. He felt his mood brighten to a glorious exhilaration as he watched her.
The girl knelt in the water and started to wash her hair. Her humming ceased as she worked on her long, tawny mane.
Nathan knew she would hate him if she knew he’d spied upon her. Yet he’d spied, and he felt no more guilt than if he were looking at a beautiful flower. But what flower could attract a man the way a beautiful young woman could?
Caroline finished her bathing. She scrubbed her clothes. The wet garments were wrung out and hung on a branch extending out over the creek. She waded to the shallow end of the pool and began to peer down into the water.
Her two hands were inserted into the water, then quickly brought together. She lifted a crayfish some five inches long into the air. Its strong pincers snapped at her, trying to catch her fingers. But she held it safely by the back. With a happy laugh Caroline tossed the crayfish into the grass on the creek bank.
Nathan saw the grass jerk and tremble as the crayfish tried to fight its way back to the water. The stiff stems held it imprisoned. Caroline bent again to peer into the water.
Her wet tangle of hair fell around her face. She straightened, twisted her hair into a thick braid, and tied it in one loose loop at the rear of her head. She went back to catching crayfish, tossing them one after another on the bank.
Nathan could not get enough of watching the nude huntress. Believing herself all alone, her every action, every movement, was beautifully uninhibited, pure animal, young and graceful. He knew he was viewing a jewel, a jewel of incalculable value to a man in this lonely land. With such a woman a man would be complete. Never again to feel wanting wherever he journeyed in the universe.
It was a grand day to find a woman he wanted as a wife. However, it might be very difficult to get her to agree to that.
The girl froze in mid-motion, bent at the waist. Her head rose, questioning. Nathan could see her testing the air for sound. Then her eyes swung to the far side of the pool.
She seemed to shrink into herself. She cowered down in the water, sinking as deeply as the shallow water would allow but still only barely to her waist.
Nathan crept forward a foot so that he could see around the trunk of the tree and determine what scared her. Two men in buckskins and flat-crowned trapper hats stood on the creek bank and stared at the girl. Each man wore a pistol and a knife on his belt. They were men Nathan had never seen before.
“Come out of the water, pretty girl, and give us a little lovin’,” one of the men said.
“Go away,” Caroline replied sternly. “Leave me alone.”
“We can’t do that,” said the men. “We haven’t had a girl for a spell. We’re not going to pass up this chance at a pretty one.”
The second man nodded his head in agreement. He licked his coarse lips in anticipation.
“If you don’t go away at once, I’ll scream.”
“Well, if you do, it’ll only be a short one,” said the first man. “For I’ll jump out there and bash you in the mouth.”
The second man spoke. “You don’t want my friend to get his moccasins wet, now do you? Come on out of the water. Here on the bank the grass is nice and soft for you to lay on.”
Nathan felt sorrow at the frightened expression on the ashen face of the girl. His anger flared bright and cold.
“Never!” cried Caroline.
“Then I guess I’ll just have to carry you out,” said the first man. “If I have to do that, then I’m not going to be as gentle as I would be if you would love us willingly.”
Caroline’s hands frantically searched the bottom of the creek for a weapon. They closed upon two fist-sized stones. She gripped one in each hand and stood up, the water dripping from her body.
“Damnation, ain’t that something,” said the second man, his eyes devouring the girl.
“I’ll brain the first man who gets near me,” Caroline threatened, cocking her right arm.
God! Nathan liked her spirit. He pulled his revolver and cocked it under his cupped hand to deaden the sound. He stepped from behind the tree and stood in the open.
Intent on the girl, the trappers did not see Nathan appear. They laughed derisively at Caroline and her rocks. “Here I come,” said the first man.
“If you do, you’re a dead man,” Nathan said.
The two trappers jerked at the unexpected challenge. They spun a quarter turn to face Nathan.
Caroline twisted to look in the direction of the voice. The Texan called Nathan stood in the shadows at the edge of the woods. He was so still, he seemed cast of stone. He leaned slightly forward, a half-raised pistol in his hand.
How long had he been there watching her bathe? She did not care. An overwhelming relief flooded her being. Then a sickening thought came to her. There were two trappers against him.
Nathan took three slow paces off at an angle to get the girl more out of the line of fire. These men would fight.
“I want you two to get out of here and let the girl alone.” Nathan’s voice was hard.
“What you want doesn’t mean spit in the wind,” the first man growled.
“Make them go,” Caroline cried to Nathan. She shivered at the thought of the two trappers alone with her in the woods. How brave was the Texan? Was he like Mathias, afraid to fight and kill? Her eyes scoured Nathan’s face. The rims of his nostrils were ice-white and his eyes burned with a controlled fury. She sensed no fear in him. The sun sent a ruddy glint from the iron of his pistol as he shifted it ever so slightly. She could not imagine a man more ready to fight.
“We’re not leavin’, he is,” said the first man.
“You’re wrong,” Nathan said. “I’m staying.” His words were flat and ugly.
“Do you plan to fight both of us and die for a woman?”
“I’m not going to be the one who dies. However, if it should by some miracle be me, then that’s all right too.”
The trappers looked at Nathan’s pistol, pointing at the ground just in front of them. Only a slight lift, a tiny fraction of a second, would be needed to bring the weapon to bear on them. Their weapons were still holstered.
“Let’s go, Phillips,” Ross said. “She’s not worth gettin’ killed for.”
“We can take him,” Phillips said.
“I don’t think so. He’s too ready. I’m leavin’.”
Phillips studied Nathan a moment longer. “All right,” he told Ross.
The trappers wheeled around and walked from the creek and into the woods.
Nathan waited for the count of five, then he dashed across the creek and entered the woods upstream from the men. He had seen the implacable malevolence in the men’s faces. They must be the last two of DeBreen’s band. That meant they could not leave him or the girl alive to tell of their presence.
Caroline was greatly surprised at the Texan’s sudden disappearance. He had driven the trappers off. Why hadn’t he waited for her to thank him? She hastened from the water and began to dress hurriedly in her fresh clothing.
As she buttoned the shirt over her breast she caught movement in the woods. The trappers were returning, slinking warily forward at the border of the trees. Their pistols were gripped in their hands. Their hard eyes scuttled about in all directions.
***
Nathan moved quietly into the woods a score of paces, then turned left and slipped onward. The course of the trappers should lie just ahead.
He heard whispered voices and slowed. The men came into his view. They nodded in agreement to some plan and pulled their revolvers. They crept back in the direction of the creek. Nathan trailed behind.
The men halted to peer out into the opening surrounding the pool of water where Caroline had bathed. Nathan raised his Colt and aimed it between the men.
Nathan hissed like a cat. Both men whirled.
He shot the man on the right because he moved most quickly. The barrel of Nathan’s gun swung the short arc and came into alignment with the second man. He squeezed the trigger. The speeding ball of lead tore into the man, shattering his throbbing heart. Caroline heard the explosions of the pistol in the woods and the crushing sound of bullets striking flesh, a sound she would never forget. The first man was flung back. He dropped his pistol and his hands rose to hold his chest. He fell half into the water. The second man crashed down beside him.
Nathan stepped out of the woods. Gunpowder smoke still curled up from the wicked black barrel of his pistol.
“My God, you killed them.” Caroline was stunned by the roar of the gun and the violent deaths.
“Just what they planned to do to us,” Nathan said. “Hurry and finish dressing,” he told her.
He stepped to the grass where the crayfish lay, and rapidly began to snap off their tails.
“Put your wet clothes over your shoulder to free your hands,” he said, and scooped up a double handful of crayfish tails.
Caroline, puzzled, did as directed. The Texan’s tone brooked no delay or argument.
“Here.” He placed the crayfish tails in her hands. “Hurry out of the woods. Keep everyone from coming here. Show them the crawdads and tell them what a good meal you will have. Explain the gunshots by saying a Texan was showing you how he fired his pistol.”
“Why not tell what happened?”
“Nobody must see these bodies. I’ll explain later, when we have time to talk. Go now. I’ve got to get rid of these dead men.” DeBreen must be kept off-balance. He must not find out about the deaths of his two men.
Caroline trotted through the woods and broke onto the open prairie. Mathias was walking swiftly from the camp. DeBreen and two of his men were riding toward her. She put a smile on her face and held up the double handful of crayfish tails.
***
Nathan slung one of the bodies over his shoulder and hustled off with it down the stream. When he judged he was far enough away from the killing ground that no one would come to search, he dumped the corpse in a dense patch of briars. A few minutes later the second body lay with the first. He pulled the tangled briars over the two still forms and laid some brush over that. He hoped the buzzards did not find the dead men before the handcart company moved on. He returned and obliterated all sign of the men at the creek.
Blood from the corpses had stained his shirt. He removed the garment and began to wash it in the creek. He was worried. The battle between the Texans and DeBreen’s gang had started. How many of his friends, how many Mormons, would die before the fight ended? Who would win in the end?