For a heartbeat the tableau was frozen in time and place. Then Rebecca Worthington flung a hand to her bosom and backed up, shouting, “Run, my love! It’s a trap!”
Instead of fleeing by himself, however, Pashipaho leaped forward, snagged her wrist, and spun with her. It was a grand but futile gesture. Futile, in that Norval moved between them and the trees and trained a cocked pistol on the Sauk.
“You’re not going anywhere, Injun,” the settler said. “We’ve got plans for you.”
Davy was helpless to intervene. Cyrus had him covered. One twitch and he’d be shot, if the mad gleam in Cyrus’s beady eyes was any indication.
John Kayne came over. Acting discomfited by what he had to do, he said, “I’m real sorry about this, friend,” and stripped Davy of weapons. “But I can’t risk having you do something we’ll both regret. I’ve no desire to make wolf meat of you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cyrus growled, extending his pistol. “Were it up to me, I’d as soon blow his stinkin’ brains out or gut him for the buzzards to finish off.”
Kayne turned, the muzzle of his rifle ending up a hand’s width from the hothead’s abdomen. “I’ve warned you once. I won’t waste my breath again. He’s given us no call to rub him out.”
Cyrus snorted. “I don’t cotton to meddlers,” he said, as if that were justification enough to kill someone.
“We can’t fault a man for doing what he thinks is right,” Kayne said. “Besides, he fought by our side up on that hill. I saw him kill one of the heathens with my own eyes.” Moving a safe distance, Kayne deposited Davy’s arms on the grass. “We’ll stick to the plan, Cy. That’s final.”
Rebecca had slid around Pashipaho to shield him with her own body from Norval’s pistol. “What plan were you talking about, Uncle?” she demanded apprehensively.
It was Cyrus who answered, venom lacing each syllable. “We’ve decided to make an example of your red bastard, girl. We’re takin’ him back with us and holdin’ a trial, all legal-like. And then we’re going to hang the son of a bitch, just as legal-like.”
Norval nodded. “It’ll show the Sauks that our law applies to their kind as well as ours, and it’ll teach them not to rise up against their betters.”
A brittle laugh rattled from Cyrus. “Folks will come from miles around to see the scum’s neck stretched. We’ll make a holiday of it, with a picnic and a church social and all. Everyone will have a fine time.”
Rebecca pressed back against Pashipaho. “Dear Lord, no! I won’t let you hurt him!”
“Let us?” Cyrus said, and guffawed. “Sugarplum, there ain’t a damn thing you can do to stop us.”
Davy had noticed that despite the loud voices and the commotion, Flavius had not moved. “What did you do to my pard?” he asked.
John Kayne motioned, implicitly giving permission for Davy to go to the stump. “I’m afraid that I had to rap him on the noggin with a limb. But I didn’t use my full strength. He should come around shortly.”
Flavius was breathing evenly. His pulse was normal. Davy ran a hand over his friend’s head, finding a bump the size of a walnut. Going to the stream, he filled his coonskin cap. As the cold water trickled down over Flavius’s face, Harris groaned, then coughed, then revived, sitting bolt upright.
“What the hell?”
“Relax. You’re still in the land of the living.” Davy stopped pouring and emptied out the rest.
Pain pounded dully between Flavius’s ears. Wincing, he slowly rose high enough to sit on the stump. He did not need to ask what had happened. The last he remembered was hearing a stealthy footfall behind him, and starting to pivot. “If we ever make it home to Tennessee,” he muttered, “I swear to high heaven that I’m never leaving Matilda again. I’ve learned my lesson.”
Cyrus tittered. “Too bad others ain’t as smart as you, fat man. We’d all have been saved a heap of grief if my bride-to-be knew her proper place.”
“Damn you!” Rebecca railed. “I don’t care what my father wants. Drag me back, if you will, but I’ll never marry you. I’ll shoot myself first.”
“You say that now,” Cyrus said. “But in a few months you’ll have forgotten all about this Injun. In a year, you’ll leap at the chance to be my wife. Any gal would.”
The settlers wasted no more time. Pashipaho was bound, and none too gently. When Rebecca objected to how hard Cyrus was tying the knots, Cyrus bound her, as well. She and the Sauk were swung onto the horses. With Cyrus leading the sorrel and Kayne the bay, their little group wended their way southward.
Davy and Flavius trailed the horses and were in turn followed by Norval, whose cocked pistol was rock-steady. A strip torn from his shirt served as a bandage.
Depressed by the turn of events, Flavius hiked morosely along. He had looked forward to being shed of the woman and the warrior. Now they were no better off than they had been earlier—worse even, since it might be days before they were allowed to resume their journey.
Davy plodded glumly, too, more for show than anything else. Giving up was as foreign to him as the Greek alphabet. He wanted to dupe Norval into believing he had resigned himself to his fate, though, so Norval would lower that pistol and he could turn the tables.
The afternoon sun blazed a tedious arc. Davy plucked the end off a blade of grass and chewed on it to moisten his mouth. He did not waste his energy trying to persuade Cyrus to be lenient with Pashipaho. Hatred fed on bloodshed, and Cyrus was hate incarnate.
Out of the woodland hove the hill. John Kayne gave it a wide berth and slowed so drastically that Cyrus complained. “Have you forgotten so soon, boy?” Kayne responded. “He-Bear and his savage ilk are roaming these parts, seeking our scalps. And I’m partial to mine, thank you.”
As usual, Cyrus scoffed. “Hell, those vermin are hightailin’ it back to whatever pit spawned them with their tails between their legs.”
“They licked us, as I recollect,” Kayne said dryly.
“Through no fault of ours,” Cyrus said. “Some of the connivin’ devils were hidin’ in the weeds. They didn’t fight fair.”
Davy could not resist. “And you did? With those men you had up in the trees?”
“That was a precaution, nothin’ more. When dealin’ with rabid wolves, anything goes.”
Some men, Davy reflected, made a habit of bending and twisting the truth to suit their own fancy. For Cyrus to brand the Atsinas as rabid was an injustice to the Atsinas. But when it came to being ruthless, few could hold a candle to the impending groom.
Davy stretched to relieve stiffness in his back. In doing so, he caught a furtive glance that Pashipaho gave John Kayne and Cyrus. The Sauk was up to something. He saw Pashipaho look at Rebecca, saw the slight bob of her chin.
They were going to make a break for it. Davy would do what he could, even at the cost of taking a bullet. He tried to catch Flavius’s eye, but Flavius walked as one en route to the gallows, with head low and features downcast. To distract the settlers, Davy cleared his throat and said, “You know, I’ve had runs of bad luck before, but this beats all. Reminds me of the time I was bear hunting. My dogs sniffed one out, and it lit out like its paws were on fire. When I caught up to them, that old bear was skinning up a huge tree. I took a bead, but he dropped quick as a snake into a hole.”
“Who cares?” Cyrus said.
“I haven’t gotten to the point yet,” Davy said. Out of the corner of an eye he glimpsed Pashipaho grip the sorrel’s mane. “For no sooner did that bear vanish inside the trunk of that tree than the most godawful roaring and rumbling came out of the hole. And the next second, so did the bear, with an even bigger bear nipping at its hindquarters.”
“How interesting,” Cyrus commented sarcastically.
“What’s your point?” Norval asked.
“My point is that bears and people have more in common than you’d think. We ought to never go poking our noses into someone else’s private space.”
Cyrus looked back at him. “Strange talk comin’ from a meddler like you, Tennessee.”
Suddenly Pashipaho whooped and slapped his legs against the bay’s sides. The horse exploded, hurtling into John Kayne and sending him sprawling. Guiding the horse with his legs alone, Pashipaho sped toward the undergrowth.
Rebecca tried to follow him. She kicked and prodded, but Cyrus held on to the sorrel’s reins with both hands. The sorrel trotted a few yards and stopped.
“Stop, you!” Norval bellowed, scampering to the left to get a clear shot. “Come back here or I’ll shoot!”
Pashipaho could have made it anyway. He was so close to cover that in another few bounds he would have been lost among the trees. But on seeing that Rebecca had been caught, he straightened and called out, “I will do as you say! Do not fire!”
“No!” Rebecca urged. “Keep going! I’ll be fine! You matter more!”
The Sauk would not listen. Swinging the horse around, he meekly brought it to a halt next to John Kayne, who had risen. Kayne grasped the reins without comment and did not retaliate.
Cyrus did not share the tall frontiersman’s forgiving mood. Stomping to the bay, he hooked his left hand into Pashipaho’s shirt and heaved, upending the Sauk. Pashipaho hit on his shoulder and attempted to get up, but Cyrus was on him in a whirlwind of maddened blows, battering him relentlessly on his head and shoulders. Under the onslaught, the warrior crumbled.
“Stop, damn you!” Rebecca raged. She slid off the sorrel, and was seized by her uncle.
Davy took a step, but the business end of Kayne’s rifle prevented him from taking another. He had to stand there and watch as Pashipaho was pounded and kicked and smashed with the rifle’s stock.
Cyrus did not relent until he was flushed and out of breath. “Try that again and there’ll be hell to pay,” he rasped, wiping blood off the barrel with a sleeve.
Pashipaho took a long time to stir. Blood seeped from his split forehead, and one ear had been pulped. His turban had fallen off. Cracked knuckles sought purchase on the earth as he pushed to his knees.
Someone groaned, but not the Sauk. Rebecca smacked a heel against Norval’s shins. He released her. She darted to the warrior, braced him up, and was brutally shoved by Cyrus.
“Look at you, girl! Makin’ a spectacle of yourself! If the good people of Peoria could see you now, they’d want nothin’ to do with you.”
Boiling with indignation, Rebecca said, “Didn’t it ever occur to you, Cy, that maybe I don’t care what they want? That I’d be perfectly content if they, and you, would all just drop dead?”
Cy raised a hand to strike her but was foiled when Norval scampered between them “Don’t you dare lay a finger on her,” he warned, the pistol now centered on her suitor. “The poor child is mistreated enough by her own father.”
“You heard her!” Cyrus snapped. “No wonder her pa slaps her around if she won’t clamp a lid on that tongue of hers.” Chest swelling, he bragged, “No wife of mine will ever have loose lips, I can tell you! Once we’re hitched, I’ll see that she shows some respect.”
“I’ll never marry you!” Rebecca said.
“Oh?” Chuckling, Cy walked to the bay. “After everyone hears what you’ve done, no other man but me would want to be your husband. We’re destined to be together.” To Pashipaho he said, “This time I’m leadin’ your horse. And I won’t think twice if you act up.”
The warrior had to be helped on. Rebecca lingered, tenderly caressing his split cheek.
“Come, girl,” Norval said, prying her away.
Rebecca jerked free. “Don’t touch me ever again, Uncle. I used to think that you were special, but now I know you’re no better than Cy and his breed.”
Davy and Flavius trudged elbow to elbow. “I reckon this is another fine fix I’ve gotten us into,” the Irishman confessed.
“If it ain’t chickens, it’s feathers,” Flavius said, and mustered a grin. “You do have a knack, though. Some men were born to be great painters. Some are wizards at music. You just happen to have a talent for attracting trouble like manure attracts flies.”
“Lucky me,” Davy joked.
Soon the raucous chattering of a squirrel arrested Davy’s interest. It was in a tree about seventy yards to their rear, yet it had not uttered a peep when they went by. Hopping from limb to limb, the animal vented its spleen on something in the brush below.
Davy did not attach much importance to the tirade until a flock of sparrows took frenzied wing to the northeast, approximately sixty yards distant. Whatever was out there was drawing closer. “Kayne!” he whispered.
The tall frontiersman gave the sorrel’s reins to Norval and waited for Davy and Flavius to catch up. “What’s the matter?”
“Didn’t you hear that squirrel?”
Kayne scanned the forest. “No. I’ve been mulling over what we’re doing.” His hawkish features were a study in inner torment. “Just between you and me, Crockett, I’m beginning to have my doubts.”
“About time,” Davy said.
“Who am I to deny Rebecca happiness? Just because I don’t think it’s right, should I be a party to hanging the man she loves? I’ll admit I look down my nose at his kind, but having him for a husband beats leading apes in hell.”
The figure of speech was not new to Davy. It alluded to women who died unwed, and stemmed from the general low esteem in which spinsters were held.
A squawking blue jay flapped skyward from a thicket forty-five yards to the north. Davy and Kayne both slowed, Kayne saying softly, “When will I learn? I shouldn’t have let my mind wander.”
“Warn the others,” Davy suggested. “And give us rifles. Empty-handed we can’t help much.”
Kayne hastened to Norval, whispered in his ear, and passed on to Cyrus, who thoughtlessly brought their small caravan to a stop and announced loudly, “Injuns? Are you sure?”
Flavius swallowed hard. They should have kept going and not let on that they knew they were being shadowed. He was not a violent man, and he had never been given to holding grudges, but it would please him immensely to punch Cyrus full in the mouth.
Davy spotted rustling grass thirty yards off. Elsewhere, a sapling shook. At still another point, weeds bent. Yet the wind had died. So there was more than one. Whether they were Sauks or Atsinas was irrelevant. Either would be out for blood.
Cyrus had let go of the bay and was walking back. “Maybe the Tennesseans are trying to trick us,” he said to John Kayne. “I’m not about to hand them a gun until I know for a fact that hostiles are out there.”
Out of thin air whizzed an arrow. The shaft thudded into Cyrus’s left shoulder, transfixing him and jolting him backward. In sheer reflex he banged off a wild shot, then turned and staggered toward the horses.
More arrows buzzed like riled hornets. Rifles banged, smoke sprouting to pinpoint the shooters. Davy ducked as John Kayne fired, the blast setting his ear to ringing. He skipped backward to grab one of the rifles that had been tied to the sorrel.
A whinny and the sound of a scuffle brought Davy around in a crouch. Flabbergasted, he saw Cyrus yank Rebecca out of the saddle, then hook a foot in a stirrup and clamber on. The next moment, the sorrel was racing southward with Cyrus clinging on for dear life. And with it went the extra rifles and pistols.
A lead ball thudded into the soil next to Flavius. Crabbing to the left, he hollered, “A rifle! Give me a rifle!” Then he saw the fleeing settler. Queasiness overcame him as he realized that they must face the war party unarmed. “Davy? What do we do?”
Davy was asking himself the same question. He scampered toward Rebecca, but Pashipaho beat him to her side by vaulting from the bay, which immediately ran off after the sorrel.
It dawned on Davy that Norval had not entered the fray. Looking, he learned why. The grizzled oldster was on his knees, a lance jutting from his left thigh.
They were being decimated.
Only John Kayne held the warriors at bay. He had fired one pistol and drawn his other one. Slowly retreating, he swung from right to left and back again, seeking a target the elusive Indians were loath to present.
Pashipaho, even with his wrists bound, practically threw Rebecca into the vegetation, then hurtled in after her. Norval, somehow heaving upright, tottered on their heels.
Davy was left in the open, arrows and bullets whisking on either side. “We have to find cover!” he yelled to Flavius, and suited his own actions to his words. Angling into the trees, he ran flat out for over fifty feet, fully expecting his friend to follow him. But when he drew up in a patch of wildflowers, Flavius was nowhere to be seen.
Eager to go find him, Davy started to retrace his steps. A dusky silhouette materialized a dozen yards off. It was a warrior armed with a war club.
The thick foliage kept Davy from seeing whether the man was a Sauk or an Atsina. Lowering onto his stomach, he crawled eastward, applying his weight carefully in order to avoid breaking twigs.
The warrior moved into the open. A raven mane, husky build, and war paint pegged him as a member of He-Bear’s band. The Big Belly prowled southward, passing within thirty feet.
What Davy would not have given for a gun! He had a perfect shot and could not take it. Obtaining a weapon was critical. He heard Kayne’s second pistol boom, heard the whoops of the Atsinas, two more rifle shots, then the drum of feet speeding to the southwest.
Kayne was seeking to escape. The Atsinas were after him. But not all of them, as furtive movement told Davy. Another warrior was creeping in his general direction, this one holding a rifle with a brass name-plate on the stock.
Davy dug his fingers into the soil and palmed a handful of dirt and grass. The Atsina was gazing intently beyond him. Clearly, the warrior had spotted someone.
Tucking his chin to his chest, Davy shifted just enough to see the area behind him. His blood chilled. He was not given to profanity, as many were by habit and sloth, but he mentally cursed a storm.
Norval Worthington was propped against an oak. Bent in weakness and fatigue, sweat dripping from his glistening brow, he had wrapped both hands around the lance embedded in his thigh and was struggling his utmost to pull it out. Blood soaked the bottom of his leg and his palms. A sob tore from him when the lance moved a fraction.
The Atsina slid nearer, his attention focused on the settler to the exclusion of all else. Stopping, he raised the rifle, but held his fire, opting to get a little closer.
Davy prayed that the warrior would not notice him. Bracing his elbows and knees, he held his breath as the Big Belly came to within ten feet, then eight, then six.
Halting again, the warrior sighted down the barrel while slowly uncoiling. At that range he could not possibly miss.
Come closer! Davy mentally screamed, and when the man didn’t, when the Atsina was undeniably about to fire, he heaved up and attacked.
The startled Atsina automatically recoiled. Davy swatted at the rifle at the very split second that it discharged. The black powder flashed. Burning smoke enveloped him, stinging his eyes, shrouding the warrior.
Flailing at the cloud, Davy glided to one side. He must not give the Atsina time to reload! As he took another step, the warrior reared out of the cloud, gripping his rifle by the barrel.
Davy jerked his arm up as the rifle swept down. Intense agony spiked his arm, his shoulder. Another blow smashed into his ribs. His knees bent as the Atsina towered over him, the man’s eyes wide with hatred.
Like a lashing bullwhip, Davy drove himself upward and hurled the dirt into the Atsina’s face. The man backed off, blinking rapidly. Tears smeared brown by the dirt trickled from the corners of his eyes.
Davy grabbed the rifle and the warrior grabbed him. Grappling, they staggered against a tree. The Atsina’s sturdy legs pumped, slamming Davy against the trunk. The rifle was across his chest, pinning him in place. Grunting, the man wrenched the rifle higher. Cool metal gouged into Davy’s neck, choking off his breath and threatening to crush his throat.
Straining, Davy pushed the rifle off him, but only a few inches. The Atsina was uncommonly strong. Davy’s muscles bulged, yet he could not move the man any farther. The warrior’s snarling visage was so close, drops of spittle sprinkled him when the Atsina unexpectedly threw everything he had into a supreme effort.
The rifle gouged into Davy’s throat again. And now, try as he might, Davy could not push it off. He found it first hard to breathe, then impossible. A fraction at a time, the Atsina was accomplishing what none of the Creeks had ever been able to do.
He was killing Davy.