Wilderness double editio.., p.20
Wilderness Double Edition 18, page 20
Shakespeare rubbed his tired eyes and grinned. Both windows were aglow with morning sunshine. “You needed to rest.” Blue Water Woman was fully dressed, her raven hair brushed. “So did you. Now you will be tired when we ride out.”
“Ride out?” Shakespeare assumed she was referring to their trek to the Kings, but he had forgotten her brainstorm.
“Today we go after the creature and end this, one way or the other.”
Four
Among various aspects of the affair that puzzled Shakespeare McNair was why the creature never went after their horses. Most predators would; mountain lions, grizzlies, wolves, they all craved horse flesh. Hostiles would go after them, too; stealing a horse enhanced a warrior’s esteem among his people. Not that Shakespeare was complaining. Horses were hard to come by, and he didn’t care to have to replace their mounts and two pack animals.
A corral was attached to the rear of the cabin, but the horses weren’t in it. A hundred yards to the south was a grassy meadow where Shakespeare often tethered the animals for days at a stretch so they could graze to their heart’s content. That was where they had been the whole time.
Every morning and each evening Shakespeare and Blue Water Woman checked on them, and Shakespeare never found anything to suggest that the creature went anywhere near the meadow. Either the creature never realized the horses were there, or it had no interest. Yet another of its remarkable and inexplicable traits.
So now here Shakespeare was, astride his white mare, heading up into the mountains with his Hawken across his legs. Snowcap, as he called her, was the third white mare he had owned, the granddaughter of the original. Except for a tendency toward skittishness, she was as surefooted and dependable as the others.
Blue Water Woman rode a dun. His wife made it a point to never become attached to animals, because, as she once put it, “why let yourself grow fond of something that will die one day?” I’ll die one day,” Shakespeare had responded.
“So you will,” Blue Water Woman said, grinning, “but my horse doesn’t share my bed.”
Practical, but hardly warmhearted. When Shakespeare was a lot younger, before his beard bloomed, he suffered from a delusion all young men did—namely, that females were the kindest, sweetest, most romantic critters on the planet. Subsequent experience had taught him it was a myth foisted by women to hide the fact that womenfolk, by and large, were much more logical and calculating then they let on. Oh, they liked to pretend, to put on an act to lure men in. But it was never the “real” them.
Some men became downright mad when they learned the truth, but Shakespeare just shrugged and bore it. There were things in life no man could change, and the female constitution was at the top of the list. Attempting to change them was like butting heads with a tree. It got a man nowhere and left him with a whopper of a headache.
Shakespeare’s musing came to end when his wife declared, “More blood! We have come a long way from the cabin and still the thing was bleeding. It must be hurt worse than I thought.”
“Maybe,” Shakespeare said. There were only a few sprinkles, not enough, in his estimation, to suggest a wound of any consequence.
Following the trails wasn’t difficult. The creature had been in a hurry when it left, as its long strides demonstrated, and hadn’t bothered to hide its tracks. Shakespeare leaned back in the saddle and scoured the slopes above, trying to divine where the thing was headed. It had to hole up somewhere.
Of equal interest was why no one had encountered it sooner. A creature that large, that aggressive and violent, was bound to have attracted notice long ago. Yet Shakespeare never heard tell of anyone running into it.
Another mystery in an abundance of mysteries.
About to wind through a heavily thicketed area, Shakespeare drew rein. “Look at these,” he said, and bending down, he plucked several black hairs from a thorny bush. He thought they might be the creature’s, but they were hairs from a black bear, and whatever they were after, it certainly wasn’t a bruin.
“What if we haven’t found it by nightfall?” Blue Water Woman said. “I don’t relish the idea of camping out overnight.”
“That makes two of us, m’lady,” Shakespeare said. “We’ll head back down well before dark.”
“And tomorrow head for Zach’s?”
“My intention exactly,” Shakespeare agreed. “If he’s not there, we’ll go on to his pa’s. Nate has tangled with more grizzlies and unusual beasties than any coon alive. He’ll know how to deal with this thing, if anyone does.”
“What if it follows us there?” Blue Water Woman mentioned. “Winona and Evelyn will be in great peril.”
Shakespeare hadn’t thought of that. The last thing he wanted was to endanger Nate’s family. Maybe he should rethink their plan.
Soon the vegetation thinned, and before them rose a gradual slope, barren except for occasional large boulders. Imprinted in the dirt were the creature’s tracks, making a beeline for the crest.
Shakespeare clucked to Snowcap and applied his heels. The mare climbed higher, her ears alertly pricked, her nostrils flaring as she tested the wind. He watched her closely. Like her mother, and her mother before her, many a time she had warned him of danger well before his own senses registered it.
Midway to the top, Shakespeare reined up a second time. He’d assumed the creature was half a day ahead of them, but a clear pair of tracks hinted differently. They showed where the thing had stopped and turned to survey its back trail, and Shakespeare would swear they weren’t more than a couple of hours old. Grasping the Hawken, he held it with the stock against his thigh, ready for swift use. “Keep your eyes skinned, wife,” he advised.
A sawtooth switchback led them toward a lush tableland. Shakespeare had been there before on elk hunts. A pristine paradise, it was seldom visited by anyone else. He eyed the dense undergrowth as they ascended. If ever there was a prime spot for an ambush, this was it.
“I have that feeling again, Carcajou,” Blue Water Woman said.
Shakespeare had it, too, the feeling they were being watched. The mention of the name by which the Flatheads and some other tribes knew him provoked memories of his early days in the mountains, back when French voyageurs down from Canada plied the rivers and byways, decades prior to the arrival of trappers from the States. The voyageurs were great roamers and enthusiastic explorers. They shared a great rapport with the Indians, and many took Indian wives.
One such specimen, a husky, laconic voyageur who had taken a Flathead wife, was responsible for bestowing Shakespeare’s Indian name. It was after a battle with the Piegans. A war party had attacked the Flathead village, and in the ensuing bloodbath Shakespeare had slain half a dozen in brutal hand-to-hand fighting. Impressed by his ferocity, the voyageur commented that he fought like a “Carcajou,” or wolverine. The name stuck, and ever since, on blustery winter nights when the Flatheads were huddled in their lodges keeping warm, the tale of the white man who fought with the savagery of the most fierce of animals was often related.
Shakespeare grinned self-consciously. Those had been grand days, grand times! He had been in the flower of his youth. Old age had seemed as remote as the moon. So it always was with young men and women. They exulted in their vitality, unwilling to admit that one day it would drain away like runoff down a sinkhole, leaving them shriveled and enfeebled.
Life was so damned unfair it wasn’t funny.
In a few more yards Shakespeare saw where the creature had halted and looked back again. There was no doubt now the thing wasn’t all that far ahead, but try as he might he couldn’t spot it.
“Look! Up in the sky!” Blue Water Woman urged.
Shakespeare did, and spied a majestic bald eagle winging high on the currents. He didn’t understand why his wife was excited until he realized the eagle was circling above something that had caught its interest. Coincidentally enough, the spot was just above the switchback, at the edge of the tableland.
“Maybe it sees the creature,” Blue Water Woman said.
“Could just be a rabbit or squirrel,” Shakespeare guessed. He waited for the bird of prey to tuck its wings and dive, but the eagle circled a few more times and then winged rapidly westward.
Judging by the position of the sun, Shakespeare figured it was between ten and eleven. Five or six more hours and they needed to turn back. He rode toward the spot the eagle had circled, but when they got there all they found were trees and weeds. Reining up, Shakespeare shifted in the saddle as his wife came up alongside him. “I wish you stayed home as I wanted,” he absently remarked. He had tried his best to talk her out of coming, but it had been a waste of breath.
“This is my idea. It is only fair I come along.” Blue Water Woman unhooked a water skin from her Flathead style saddle and uncorked it. “Care for a sip?”
“Ladies first.”
“Ever the gentleman.” Grinning, Blue Water Woman tilted the tip to her mouth and gingerly swallowed so as not to spill any down her dress.
When it was Shakespeare’s turn, he gulped greedily, oblivious to the water that splashed on his chin and shirt.
“In the light of day the creature doesn’t frighten me nearly as much as at night,” Blue Water Woman commented, searching the forest.
“The shadows of things unseen are always scarier than the things we know,” Shakespeare said. “As monsters go, we should be thankful this one has the decency to abide by the rules.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“For starters, it’s always gone by dawn.” Shakespeare quoted William S: “‘I have heard the cock, that is the trumpet to the mom, doft with his lofty and shrill sounding throat awake the god of day, and at his warning, whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, the extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine.’”
“The thing we are after is flesh and blood,” Blue Water Woman said.
“A monster in any form is still a monster,” Shakespeare nitpicked. “Your own people believe certain lakes are inhabited by water beasts, don’t they? And to appease them, your warriors toss dead ducks and rabbits into the water as sacrifices so they can cross unmolested in their canoes.”
“So?”
“So even your lake monsters abide by rules.” Shakespeare reined to the right and threaded among thin boles and dappled growth. Ail morning they had heard birds chirp and the cries of other wildlife, but now the woods were preternaturally still, as the woods around their homestead had been the past week.
“When did you hunt here last?” Blue Water Woman asked.
Shakespeare had to think a bit. “Last spring. Remember? I came up right after the snow melted off to catch the elk before they headed up into the high country for the summer.”
“You brought home a fine bull, as I recall.”
“Eight hundred pounds or better,” Shakespeare said. They had dried and salted most of the meat and still had some stored in the cool confines of their root cellar. Next to buffalo, he liked elk best. A thick, juicy slab smothered in wild onions and seasoned with salt and butter was one of life’s prime delights. Of course, neither could hold a candle to painter meat. Mountain men from one end of the Rockies to the other were in universal agreement; mountain lion was the tastiest animal in existence. “Why did you ask?”
“If the creature had been here then, you would have come across sign,” Blue Water Woman said.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Shakespeare responded, wondering what she was getting at until he glanced down. More giant prints sprinkled the ground, new as well as old. Some had been made months ago and were barely discernible. Others were as fresh as that morning’s dew.
“It has been living up here a good long while, but it has not bothered us until recently. I find that strange.”
“Count your blessings,” Shakespeare said. “Trouble finds us regularly enough without us pining for more.”
Another surprise awaited them around the next knoll. Both their mounts suddenly nickered, and the dun shied and tried to run off, but Blue Water Woman spoke sternly and asserted control.
The cause was a gleaming pile of bones in the center of a small clearing. Shakespeare recognized the remains of a long-dead horse, the flesh stripped by scavengers, the skull on its side with the teeth agape. The bones were old, very old, and it was a wonder they hadn’t been reduced to the essence from which they came.
Dead horses were a rarity in the wild. Most perished on battlefields or wound up in supper pots, their parts used for everything from sinew string to hide shields.
Skeletons always intrigued Shakespeare. They were Nature’s tombstones. Just as cemetery markers bore the names and dates of the deceased, bones told a similar story: the kind of animal, its sex, its general age, and how it died. Swinging down, he nudged a leg bone with his moccasin and the bone rolled over, exposing the bottom of the hoof. “What have we here?” he said, hunkering, his interest intensified tenfold.
“The horse was shod,” Blue Water Woman said.
Shakespeare picked up the leg bone. Since Indians rarely used horseshoes, odds were the owner had been white. The craftsmanship was superior, the metal still in excellent condition. The workmanship suggested it hadn’t been forged at any of the forts along the frontier.
“Carcajou, look at this.”
Blue Water Woman had also dismounted and was examining an object hidden by high weeds. Shakespeare walked over, thinking maybe she had found the body of the rider, but it was a saddle, just about the fanciest saddle he ever set eyes on. The skirt was inlaid with intricately designed silver. Both stirrups and the bow were nearly solid silver, and a silver rim half an inch wide lined the cantle. In addition, inset into the fork where the apple should be was a red gem the size of a hen’s egg. Unless he was mistaken, the rig was European made. How it wound up in the middle of nowhere was beyond him.
“I have never seen a saddle like this,” Blue Water Woman breathed.
Rodents and the like had been at the leather, but the silver was untouched and worth a small fortune. To say nothing of the gem. Drawing his Green River knife, Shakespeare pried with the blade, but the gem was stuck fast. “A ruby, you reckon?”
“Like those we saw at the jewelry exchange in St. Louis?” Blue Water Woman bent lower. “It could be, yes.”
Shakespeare inserted his blade into the leather ringing the gem and met with success. Bit by bit the ruby came free. A last slice of the knife, and he handed the precious stone to his wife. “You can’t say I never give you anything.”
Blue Water Woman held the precious stone up to the sunlight. “See how it sparkles! Do you think we can keep it?”
“Whoever owned it is long since dead,” Shakespeare said. “We have as much right to it as anyone else.”
“The owner’s remains must be nearby,” Blue Water Woman said. “Let’s search for them.”
“Another time. We have more important business.” Shakespeare rose and replaced his knife in its beaded sheath.
Blue Water Woman’s forehead creased. “Is it possible whoever owned this animal was killed by the creature? Maybe the horse, as well?”
Shakespeare hunkered next to the skeleton. The head and neck were intact and untouched by claw, arrow, or lead. Likewise with the rib cage. The right front leg, however, was bent to one side at an impossible angle. The horse had suffered a severe compound fracture below the knee. He discovered why when he parted the grass and groped the soil. “We can’t blame this on the creature. The horse stepped into a rut and snapped its leg.”
“Then the rider might have survived.”
“Not if he was thrown hard enough,” Shakespeare said. At a rendezvous he’d witnessed a collision during a horse race in which a trapper was sent sailing over his mount’s neck and smashed face-first into the earth. Everyone had laughed and snickered until it dawned on them that the man wasn’t getting back up. He couldn’t. His neck had been broken.
Blue Water Woman gazed off into the trees. “When this is over I would like to—” A gasp escaped her, and she took a step back.
Rising, Shakespeare felt his blood curdle. A hundred yards away amid a stand of spruce stood a massive black shape he mistook for a shadow until it moved, until it lurched toward them with an awkward rolling gait. “The creature!” he cried, elevating the Hawken. But in the blink of an eye the thing melted into the greenery.
Blue Water Woman pointed. “There! It’s circling us!”
The creature was gliding at incredible speed from tree to tree and thicket to thicket. All Shakespeare could see were broken patches of black, not enough of a target to take a bead. “Mount up!” he hollered, and the two of them sidestepped toward their mounts. A hasty retreat was called for, out of the woods and into the open, where they could better hold their own.
The dun had other ideas. As Blue Water Woman grabbed for its reins, the horse snorted and backed away. The breeze was to blame. The dun had caught the creature’s fetid scent and wanted out of there. Blue Water Woman leaped, snagging its reins on the fly, and grabbed at the saddle to pull herself up. She would have made it had the dun not chosen that instant to take another bound backward. Upended, Blue Water Woman lost her hold and toppled, her rifle jammed underneath her. Involuntarily, she cried out.
Shakespeare sprang to help. As he hoisted her erect, she grit her teeth in torment and arched her spine. “Can you walk?” he asked. Blue Water Woman shook her head, so he wrapped his left arm around her waist and propelled her toward the dun. He attempted to snag the reins himself, but the animal pranced out of reach. Cursing under his breath, he tried again. This time the dun whirled and ran off, deserting them.
Shakespeare had never shot a horse in anger, but he was sorely tempted to do so now. A whinny from the mare gave him something else to worry about. Pivoting, he saw the creature barreling toward them like a bull buffalo. Body hunched forward, it plowed through every obstacle in its path: briars, bushes, even small trees. In another thirty seconds it would be on top of them. “Damn!” he declared.
