His father and mother always cautioned him that if he wasn’t careful, one day his temper would get him into trouble. They were right. He ended up being put on trial and nearly hanged.
Since meeting Lou, Zach had tried extra hard to keep his temper under control. He got angry, sure, but these days he rarely became so mad that he was beside himself with fury.
This day was one of them.
As Zach tracked the warrior who had taken his wife, he boiled like molten lava. The woman he loved, abducted. That Zach had just found out she was with child added to his rage. If anything happened to her, if anything happened to them, Zach would wage a war of extermination on the Bloods. He couldn’t kill them all. They would probably slay him in the end. But he would rub out as many as he could. They would pay a hundredfold for what they had done.
Zach was so mad that when he had gone barely a hundred yards into the forest, he drew rein and took deep breaths to calm himself. He had to concentrate, to keep his senses sharp. The Blood would count on being pursued and be watching his back trail.
As McNair had pointed out, it was unlikely the warrior was alone. There must have been more. How many, Zach wouldn’t know until he struck their trail. They were probably waiting in ambush. All the more reason for him to keep his wits and not let his wrath sweep him away.
The tracks were easy to follow, as fresh as they were. Zach came to where they entered a stream. He crossed to the other side and stopped. The ground was undisturbed. The warrior had stayed in the water and gone either upstream or down-stream.
Zach reined around and rode to the middle. Bending as low as he could, he examined the stream bed. Much of it was gravel. Some of it was rock. Here and there was plain mud, and in a muddy spot a partial hoof pointed upstream toward the mountains to the west.
Straightening, Zach gigged the bay. He held his rifle across his saddle in front of him. Eyes narrowed, he scanned both banks. Sooner or later the warrior had to leave the stream, and when he did, there would be evidence of it.
Zach struggled to focus on the hunt. He kept thinking of Lou, of what she must be going through. It was like having a knife pierce his heart. The ache was almost more than he could bear. He resisted the urge to fly blindly ahead so that he could rend the warrior limb from limb.
Zach would do it, too. When he caught up to them he would kill the warrior slow so that he suffered as few ever had. Anyone who would abduct a pregnant woman deserved no less.
Zach wondered how it was that the Bloods found the valley. There was only one way in, as far as he knew. His father and Shakespeare had blocked the other passes. They did it to keep something like this from happening, yet it had happened anyway. Life was fickle. The things a person least wanted to happen happened.
Zach remembered Lou’s last embrace. How she had looked into his eyes, her own so happy and alive with love and the knowledge that in nine months they would be parents. She’d told him that she loved him. She said it a lot, far more than he did. His nose clogged and his throat grew tight. He went to cough to clear them but caught himself. Sounds could carry.
He wished his pa were there. There was no finer shot, no man alive more resourceful. With his pa at his side, Zach would be assured of rescuing Lou and bringing her home safe.
The grass on the left bank was trampled.
Zach drew rein. He had found where the Blood’s horse climbed out. Of the Blood and Lou, there was no sign. Apparently the warrior had gone off up the mountain, perhaps to rejoin the rest of the war party. Zach poked the bay with his heels. The bay started out, slipped, and fell back when part of the bank broke and slid into the water.
The bay snorted and stamped.
“Easy, boy,” Zach said, and patted its neck. He slapped his legs and the bay started up the bank a second time. It was even slipperier now, and loose dirt dribbled from under the bay’s hooves.
“You can do it,” Zach coaxed.
The bay lunged and dug in its rear hooves. It whinnied as if in pain. More of the bank broke off, but the bay made it up and over, and stopped.
Zach climbed down. He inspected each leg, and they appeared fine. “You seem all right to me.” He went to climb back on and his gaze strayed to the ground ahead. Something pricked at him, a feeling that did not seem right somehow. It bore closer scrutiny.
Zach took a few steps. A downed pine branch was at his feet. He looked around. There were saplings on both sides, and grass and brush. All perfectly normal. Then he noticed another pine limb propped against a bent sapling, and he looked again at the pine limb at his feet, and it hit him that there wasn’t a pine tree within fifty feet. The limbs couldn’t have fallen there. They had to have been put there deliberately.
Zach edged around the limb. He saw a rope and two notched sticks rigged as a trigger. The bent sapling took on new significance. Careful not to bump the branch, he moved closer. At just the right height to impale a man on horseback was a sharp spike.
Zach grinned. It was a clever trap. No doubt there would be others. But they wouldn’t stop him from rescuing Lou. The warrior who took her would come to rue the day.
Zach unlimbered his tomahawk. He had practiced throwing it so many times that hitting the two sticks was easy. The sapling whipped up, the spike cleaving thin air instead of him. Now any deer or elk that happened by wouldn’t be hurt in his stead.
Picking up the tomahawk, Zach slid the handle under his belt. He climbed on the bay and raised the reins. “Nice try. But I’m coming for you, Blood. It’s you or me, to the death.”
The Outcast did not have a high opinion of white men. The few he had encountered had not impressed him. It was ridiculously easy to steal their horses. They made their campfires so big and so bright that the flames could be seen from far off. They made so much noise when they were on the move that they could be heard from far off, too. The whites were tough fighters, though. He would concede that much. Add to that the advantage their guns gave them, and it was wise not to take them lightly in battle.
The Outcast did not have a high opinion of half-breeds, either. Breeds were not as other men. The mixing of blood made them more violent than most. He had never seen this for himself, but he had heard it from so many people that it must be true. Breeds were also formidable fighters. Like whites, they should not be taken lightly.
The Outcast expected both the old white and the young breed to come after him. He had the female. She was perfect bait to draw them up into the mountains, where he could slay them.
So when the Outcast checked his back trail as he had done a hundred times that day and spotted a lone rider far below, he congratulated himself. The sapling with the spike must have gotten one of them. He tried to tell which one was still after him, the old man or the breed, but the distance was too great and he saw only the rider, who was in shadow, for a few brief moments.
No matter, the Outcast told himself. Whichever one it was, the rider was as good as dead. He continued to climb. His captive squirmed and looked up at him. She looked at him a lot and always in the same way. It bothered him. He turned his face away and pretended to be interested in a peak to the south.
Lou was weary and sore and scared. She was afraid that Zach or Shakespeare would be caught by the trap the warrior had set. She was worried, too, by pains in her belly, cramps that came and went. She didn’t know if she could lose the baby so soon after she had conceived, but she did not want to take the risk. She wished her captor would stop and let her rest. She kept looking at him, but he ignored her.