The evening before, at the same time that Zachary King was galloping to the northwest in pursuit of the sorrel, Nate and Winona King were following his tracks westward along the south shore of the Yellowstone River. Or they were trying to, because by now the sky had grown so dark they could barely see the grass at their feet. To aggravate their fears, it had started to rain, and Nate voiced the thought on both their minds, “The prints will be washed out.”
“Would a torch help?” Winona asked.
For an answer Nate pointed at the nearby trees which were being bent nearly in half by the blustery winds. He was walking in front of Winona’s mare, stooped over as he tried to read sign. Straightening, he stared at the river where small waves lapped the shore, then
at the rapidly worsening storm. “Damn!” he snapped.
“We will find him,” Winona said with her customary confidence. “He can’t have gone far.”
Nate cupped his hands to his mouth as he had done twenty times already and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Zach! Where are you?”
The only reply came from the shrieking wind.
“I shouldn’t have let him go after the horse alone,” Nate scolded himself. “One of us should have gone with him.”
“He is old enough to handle such chores alone, husband. Wise are the parents who know when to keep their young ones close to the nest and when to let the young ones stretch their wings. Fewer feathers are ruffled that way.”
Nate couldn’t resist a grin.” Another one of your Shoshone sayings?”
“More or less.”
Swiveling, Nate gazed toward the prairie to the south. Thanks to the Stygian murk, all he could see were a few sable patches of grass off through the waving trees. “Maybe’s he’s out in the open somewhere. Luck might smile on us and we’d spot him from a ways off.”
“Want me to look?”
A crack of lightning and a blast of thunder made Nate’s decision an easy one. “All right. But if you don’t see him, hurry on back and we’ll go tell Shakespeare.” He paused, his apprehension obvious. “I didn’t like leaving him behind, but he had to stay in case Zach showed while we were gone.”
“You are doing all you can,” Winona said. Leaning down as best she was able given her condition, she kissed him on his upturned lips, then jabbed her heels into the mare and trotted toward the open plain.
Nate watched her go with a sense of sinister foreboding in his heart. He shrugged the feeling off as a case of bad nerves and devoted himself to finding tracks.
For several minutes Nate pushed on with his nose inches from the damp ground, fighting the wind every step of the way and ignoring the barrage of huge raindrops. The tracks took him close to the Yellowstone, which was covered with whitecaps. He wondered if maybe, just maybe, his son had crossed to the opposite shore, then dismissed the notion as ridiculous. Zach knew better than to go into Blackfoot country by himself.
The next instant the heavens unleashed a hellish torrent. Raindrops the size of walnuts stung Nate like liquid hail. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he faced to the south, thinking of Winona out on the prairie in her state, unprotected. Should he go after her or continue after Zach?
There could only be one answer. As much as Nate loved his son—and he loved the boy as dearly as any man living had ever loved his offspring—his wife claimed first priority. Tucking his chin to his chest, he hastened through the trees, the brutal gale pounding him every step of the way.
It was now so dark that Nate couldn’t see his hand six inches in front of his face. He shouted
Winona’s name several times but received no response. Without warning there was a rending snap and a limb hurtled at his face from out of the gloom. He saw the branch and ducked, losing his hat but not any flesh.
The wind, incredibly, became stronger. Nate had to bow into the brunt of the storm to keep his footing. He made tortuous progress, losing a foot for every yard he gained. At last the trees fell behind him and he knew he was at the edge of the prairie.
All Nate saw was a wall of rain falling against a backdrop of near solid black which was illuminated every few seconds by thunderbolts. In the light of the flashes he sought Winona and thought he spotted her far, far out on the plain.
“Winona!” Nate shouted so stridently he hurt his throat. He coughed, tried again. Whatever was out there came no closer, and it occurred to him that he had lost both his wife and son in the midst of the worst tempest he had ever experienced.
What else could go wrong? Nate bitterly asked himself as he took several strides. That was when he heard the new noise, the oddest noise he had ever heard, a noise that raised the short hairs at the nape of his neck and sent his heart to racing even though he had no idea what it might be.
In the distance, to the west, there arose a strange howling roar, a sound not unlike that of a wolf in its death throes only a thousand times louder. No, a million times louder.
Nate faced around, his head cocked, trying to hear better above the squalling wind and the driving rain. It seemed as if the roar was getting closer and closer with each passing second. He had never heard anything like it, although he had a nagging feeling that he should know what it was.
Suddenly the sky changed. It moved of its own accord, seeming to shift and swirl and expand as if imbued with dark life of its own.
Nate squinted, trying to make sense of the motion. In his confused frame of mind he had the impression a huge section of the heavens had detached itself from the rest and was bearing down on him like some supernatural behemoth. The rain slackened slightly, permitting him to see the source of the roar more clearly, and the sight he beheld caused his breath to catch in his throat and his blood to run cold.
A colossal grayish funnel over half a mile wide and thousands of feet high was tearing across the grassland, ripping up the earth at its wide base and sucking trees, grass, and other debris into its maw. A monumental engine of destruction, irresistible in its awesome grandeur, it screeched like a demented banshee as it bore steadily eastward.
Nate looked on the aerial leviathan and was riveted in place with unbridled shock. A single word blared in his brain, over and over again: Whirlwind! It towered above him as high as a mountain, twisting and dancing like a snake about to strike, the mushroom shaped crown rearing so high up Nate had to tilt his head back to see it.
The spell broke, and Nate spun and ran even though he knew the futility of trying to flee.
He was directly in the tornado’s path. He had nowhere to go.
To Nate’s rear the ground churned and was ground to dust or ripped into the air and sent whirling. Sprinting as he had never sprinted before, Nate flinched as the howl blistered his eardrums. He tensed for the doom poised to claim him, his only consolation the fact Winona was far enough south to be spared. About Zach he had no idea, but he hoped the boy had crossed the Yellowstone so the whirlwind hadn’t swept him up.
Nate thought of Shakespeare, waiting at their camp, and wished there was some way of warning his long-time friend and mentor. They had been through so much together, shared so many good times that
Nate was thrown violently forward. It felt as if a giant hand had slapped against his back, and he only kept his footing with the utmost effort. He ran on, the shriek of the wind so piercing it sent goosebumps shooting down his body.
Again was Nate’s back pummeled, and this time he was driven to his knees. He began to shove erect, glancing over his shoulder to see how much of a lead he had on the whirlwind. He had none. The tornado hung in the air above him, its sides spinning round and round and round.
Nate stared straight up at the flared top, so far overhead it appeared to be on a distant planet. He instinctively clutched the Hawken to him, and the next moment he was engulfed in a wall of whirling wind. Like a feather in a gale he was lifted bodily and streaked high into the air.
Now everything happened so fast that Nate had only fleeting impressions of the next few minutes. His senses swam as he tumbled out of control. He had trouble breathing but managed to take labored breaths, and his skin felt as if it was being blasted by stinging sand.
Dimly, Nate was conscious of moving in a great circle over and over again at an incredible rate of speed. He became slightly dizzy and felt his stomach churn. Something bumped into his shoulder, and when he twisted his head he was shocked to behold an entire tree sailing along beside him. He blinked, and the tree was gone.
Suddenly Nate became aware of a quiet pocket of space to one side. He looked and promptly wished he hadn’t, because he seemed to be perched hundreds of feet in the air next to the inner edge of a mammoth shaft. Inside the shaft miniature blue lightning bolts danced in eerie silence. At the very bottom was a circular path of ground, stripped of all vegetation. As Nate watched, the shaft moved, and he realized with a start that he was gazing upon the bowels of the monster that had claimed him.
A hard object rapped Nate’s skull and his vision blurred. Vaguely he realized he was spinning steadily lower, and he wondered if he would be smashed to bits on the earth. Then his whole body was flung outward and cold air struck his face, reviving him.
Nate could hear the whirlwind off to one side. He tried to turn but couldn’t. Gravity had him in its unyielding grip and he knew he was falling. He mentally pictured every last bone in his body being shattered on impact, and braced himself.
Seconds later Nate hit. To his amazement, there was no bone-wrenching jolt, no crack of bones and cartilage. His shoulder bounced once, then he was sliding over slick grass, sliding for yards and yards, and just as he started to slow he hurtled over the lip of a precipice and plummeted,
The next impact was brutal. Nate involuntarily cried out. He tumbled end over end and ultimately smashed into something with such force he was left barely conscious, his chest in agony.
Gritting his teeth, Nate tried to stand. He had to insure Winona was safe and check on Shakespeare. He put a hand under him and shoved, but instead of pushing away from the ground, the ground leaped up to strike him in the face. An indigo cloud formed out of nowhere, enclosing his mind, and he collapsed.
It was warmth that brought Nate around, the welcome warmth of sunshine on his cheek. Dazed, he sat up and blinked in confusion, trying to recollect exactly what had happened to him and why he was sitting at the bottom of what appeared to be an earthen cliff.
Nate touched a hand to his head and winced. His entire body was sore and battered and there was dried blood on his temple. He gazed skyward, saw a puffy pillow of a cloud, and suddenly remembered everything.
Pushing upright, Nate licked his dry lips and took stock. He was in a wide, barren ravine. A trickle of water that barely qualified as a stream flowed past on his left. He wagged his arms, shook his legs, and found no broken bones.
Nate saw a game trail leading to the top. Before ascending, he hunted for his Hawken and failed to find it. One of his pistols was also missing. He still had the other pistol, though, and the knife and tomahawk.
As Nate climbed he tried to make sense of what had happened. The whirlwind had picked him up and cast him down again. That much was certain. Miraculously, he had survived. But where was he? He remembered tall tales he’d heard of men being sucked into tornadoes and carried to far-off lands, and while he had always doubted such stories were true, a finger of fear gnawed at his innards, fear that it just might have happened to him.
Eagerly Nate scaled the final few feet and stepped onto the upper rim. In all directions stretched the vast rolling prairie with which he was so familiar. So much for the tall tales! But when he pivoted on a heel, scanning the far horizon, he was flabbergasted to find no trace of the Yellowstone River, nor a vestige of vegetation other than the ever present buffalo grass.
‘‘Where the blazes is it?” Nate asked aloud, bewildered. The river should be in sight, had to be in sight! On the open plain the strip of trees bordering it was visible from miles off.
Nate took a few steps, pondering. Since he couldn’t see the Yellowstone, that meant he had to be at least five miles away. Had the whirlwind carried him that far? Surely not. He moved along the rim, totally confused.
Suddenly the quiet was shattered by a low, wavering groan.
Nate stiffened, his hand dropping to his pistol. He spun toward the source and was stunned to discover a figure sprawled on the opposite rim, forty feet away. High weeds prevented him from seeing more than a buckskin-clad outline.
“Winona!” Nate cried. She must have been caught in the whirlwind too and deposited at the same time! Spinning, he dashed to the game trail and went down it at a reckless pace, nearly falling twice. Once on the bottom he searched for a trail up the other earthen wall but there was none. Exasperated, he stood directly under the figure and studied a cleft to his left. Could he do it?
The crack was wide enough for Nate to brace his back against one side, his feet against the other. Pressing his hands flat behind him, he slowly worked his way upward. The groaning had ceased, and he worried that his beloved had breathed her last.
The ravine was only twenty-five feet high but to Nate the climb seemed to take forever. He ached to be on top, to be holding his wife in his arms. Near the rim he felt the dirt behind him give way and heard clods rattle down the cleft. Freezing, he waited for the slide to stop, then cautiously resumed, placing each hand and foot carefully. A fall from that height might seriously injure him.
The thought brought a grin. Nate glanced at the deep blue sky, thinking of his fall from the tornado. Compared to that, a tumble down the cleft would be like nothing.
At last Nate was able to reach up, grip the rim, and pull. Inch by inch he lifted himself higher and finally rolled out onto the grass. Rising, he ran to the unconscious figure, a warm smile curling his mouth, his heart singing for joy. Then he saw the face of the one he had assumed was Winona, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
It was a man, a warrior with hawkish features and hair cropped in a style Nate had never seen before; the head had been shaved bare except for a strip running from the forehead to the nape of the neck. Red paint had been smeared on the warrior’s brow and both cheeks. And on the front of his buckskin shirt had been painted the likeness of a gigantic bear, again in red.
Nate racked his brain, trying to identify the tribe the man belonged to. No two tribes dressed the same or wore their hair the same way so it was possible for an experienced mountaineer to tell the members of each apart at a glance. But this style was new to him.
Placing a hand on the flintlock, Nate knelt and searched for evidence of a wound or blood. There was neither. He rolled the warrior onto his back and felt the man’s wrist to gauge the strength of the pulse. As he did, the warrior’s dark eyes unexpectedly snapped wide.
Nate smiled to show his friendly intentions and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter a word the Indian’s features contorted in stark terror and the warrior yanked his wrist loose and jumped to his feet. Astonished, Nate gaped as the man spun and fled down the slope of a hill flanking the ravine, fleeing as if his very life depended on it.
“Wait!” Nate yelled, to no effect.
The warrior glanced back once, his face still reflecting abject fright. At the bottom of the hill stood a stand of trees, and into this he plunged at full speed and was soon lost from view.
Scratching his head, Nate stood. He’d never seen any Indian react in such a bizarre fashion and he didn’t know what to make of the man’s behavior. The only explanation he could think of was that the warrior had never set eyes on a white man before. Even so, it hardly accounted for the extreme terror the man had shown.
From this side of the ravine Nate enjoyed a sweeping vista of seemingly limitless prairie to the southwest. There were a few scattered stands of trees, fewer hills, and grass everywhere else. He detected movement to the southeast and spotted several buffalo.
Nate debated his next move. By his reckoning the Yellowstone River should be to the north, so if he walked long enough in that direction eventually he would find it. But what if he was wrong? What if the whirlwind had carried him much farther than he suspected?
There was one person who knew exactly where Nate was, and with that in mind Nate ventured down the slope to the edge of the trees. He listened intently but heard no sounds other than the sighing wind and the rustle of leaves.
Harsh experience had taught Nate the value of caution. Instead of entering the vegetation and risking attack, he skirted the perimeter, probing the shadows in search of the warrior. He glimpsed a flash of buckskin racing away from him and called out, “Hold on! I’m not going to hurt you!” Realizing the man probably did not understand English, he switched to Shoshone and shouted, “Stop! I come in peace!”
No response was forthcoming.
Nate walked on, often squatting to peer into the undergrowth. He saw sparrows and a squirrel but no trace of the warrior. Nor were there any tracks, but that was to be expected. The condition of the grass, which had been flattened in spots and was damp close to the roots, testified to the severity of the storm the night before.
The stand covered over five acres. Nate had gone half the way around it when he finally caught sight of the warrior, and when he did he sank low so as not to be seen.
Twenty yards in was a small clearing. In the middle of it knelt the Indian. He had opened a leather bag and removed a number of peculiar items: sticks, bones, feathers, and such. As Nate looked on, the warrior picked up several small bones and cast them at the ground, then bent over them, studying their arrangement.
Nate had no idea what the man was doing. The Shoshones did not indulge in the practice, and neither, to his knowledge, did the Flatheads or the Nez Perce. He saw the warrior recoil in shock, then hold his arms aloft, close his eyes, and silently mouth words, apparently chanting to himself.
Figuring that it might have religious significance, Nate stayed where he was, reluctant to interrupt. After a while the man stopped chanting and collected the items into the bag. The warrior rose, turned to scan the trees, and slowly backed in Nate’s direction.
Standing, Nate stayed still so as not to spook the man, and when the warrior was closer, spoke softly in Shoshone. “Please do not run away again, friend. I would talk to you.”
At the first word the man jumped and whirled, his features betraying the same fear as before. Venting an inarticulate cry, he threw his hands in front of his face as if to ward off an assault, then he dashed into the brush, just like before.
“Wait!” Nate urged, and again met with disappointment. The warrior was soon out of sight. Had Nate not been so annoyed, he would have laughed at the man’s comical antics.
Nate speculated. Could it be the Indian was touched in the head? He knew that various tribes sometimes banished crazy members, who lived in isolation far from any village. Maybe he had stumbled on one of them.
One thing was apparent. Nate would learn nothing from the red-faced Indian. He would be better off heading north and hope he was as close to the Yellowstone as he believed.
Having made up his mind, Nate faced around and began hiking. From the position of the sun he knew the day was only four hours old so there was plenty of time for him to find the river before nightfall. His stomach rumbled, reminding him it had been almost a full day since last he ate, but he was not about to stop to eat until he had learned the fate of his family and Shakespeare.
Thinking of them brought a frown. Nate sometimes fretted that he was doing the wrong thing by living in the wilderness where those he cared most about were subjected to constant danger. Whether from wild beasts, hostile Indians, or the weather, threats arose on almost a daily basis. They would be so much safer back in one of the settlements. There they could live to ripe old ages without fear of being scalped, mauled, or snatched up by errant whirlwinds.
But would they be happy there? That was the main question, and Nate knew the answer, a resounding no. In the settlements they would be confined to a small plot of land and have to live as others expected them to live. They would always have to conform to rules and laws set down by a bunch of elected officials who had nothing better to do with their time than to think up new ways of telling folks how they should spend every waking moment from the cradle to the grave.
Nate cherished his freedom too much to permit that, and Winona and Zach were the same way. They’d rather be free to do as they pleased when they pleased, and have to abide all the dangers being truly free entailed, than let themselves be lorded over by a bunch of power-seeking politicians.
Suddenly the drum of hoof beats shattered Nate’s reverie and he turned to find nine warriors galloping toward him with shafts notched to bows and lances upraised. By their hair he knew they belonged to the same tribe as the man in the trees. He was lifting a hand to make the sign for friend when the foremost brave took aim and let an arrow fly.