That he was alive was a quirk of fate. If he had wound up facedown, he’d have suffocated. He thought of Lou—and sought to break free. Dust got into his nose, making him cough. He cut his fingers, but he didn’t care. After hard effort he was able to sit up. He looked around. The talus had swept him into the pines.
A lot of tugging and digging freed his legs. He slowly rose, half dreading a leg was broken. He was bruised and sore but otherwise fine
His rifle was missing. He’d also lost one of his pistols. A glint of metal drew him to the Hawken’s barrel, which poked from a bush. He picked it up and was relieved to find it undamaged except for scrapes and nicks. He looked around again but did not see the pistol.
Zach moved out of the pines. The talus slope was much as it had been. He scoured it from bottom to top, but there was no sign of Louisa. He cupped his mouth to shout her name and hesitated. If the Blood was alive, the warrior would hear and come after him. Zach shouted anyway.
The silence was a stab to his gut.
Zach moved along the edge of the talus, seeking some sign. A whinny brought more relief as the bay came out of the trees. It was covered with dust and the parfleche he had tied on was missing, but otherwise the horse was unhurt. He climbed on and called Lou’s name again.
Worry clawed his insides. He imagined her buried alive. It would be an awful way to go. He debated whether to scale the slope on foot and search every square inch. Instead he swung wide and rode to the top. Dismounting, he checked for sign. In the dirt were tracks—a lot of tracks. They told a story that sent a thrill of joy and then a chill of horror down his spine.
Lou was alive! But other warriors had her. Her footprints led to where a horse had been tied. From there, hoofprints led up the mountain, with the tracks of warriors on either side.
Zach knew of the tribe on the other side of the divide; he had fought and killed one of its warriors. His pa and Shakespeare had used a keg of black powder to blow the pass—the only way over, they thought. Apparently there was another, and a war party had come into the valley. Those warriors now had Lou and were taking her back to their village.
That was how Zach read the sign. Lou faced a worse end than if she had been entombed in the talus.
Zach swallowed and gigged the bay. He figured they weren’t far ahead, no more than an hour, but they would move fast and it would take some doing to overtake them before they got over the range.
A grim fury seized him. All Zach wanted was to live in peace with his wife and the others. All he asked was to be left alone by the outside world. His days of living to count coup were over. But enemies kept putting them in peril. Danger kept rearing its unwanted head. Life was a constant struggle for survival, and he was tired of it.
The idea surprised him. He had never thought like this before. And now was hardly the time to start.
The Heart Eaters had his wife.
So be it.
He would have to save her and take their lives, or perish in the attempt.
From the woods below the talus, the Outcast watched the breed head up the mountain. Limping into the open, he started after him. His left knee throbbed and his head pounded. He’d lost his bow and his quiver, but he still had his knife and tomahawk. They would have to do.
The Outcast had not lost consciousness. For a while he had lain in a daze but finally he recovered enough to stand on wobbly legs. He almost gave himself away when he had moved through the trees, but fortunately he saw the seven warriors before they saw him.
They were strange, these warriors. The Outcast had never beheld their like. Their scarred faces were hideous. He imagined they did it to strike fear into their enemies, but he could have been wrong. He saw them uncover the white woman, saw their hand talk although they were too far away for him to tell what they were signing. Then the warrior had made the woman climb onto his pinto and they went off up the mountain.
The Outcast had two reasons to go after them—they had taken his horse and his captive. A third reason gnawed at him like a beaver at a tree, but he refused to let it take root. He cared for no one but himself. He had lost all feelings for others the day she died.
Or, rather, the day he killed her and their baby.
He relived it in his mind, that terrible event, seared into his memory forever. The day he came back to his lodge to find Mad Wolf there. She had the baby to her bosom and was pleading with Mad Wolf to leave.
For half a dozen moons Mad Wolf tried to win her away. Mad Wolf had more horses and his father was high in the council, and he thought he had the right to any woman he wanted. Mad Wolf wanted Yellow Fox. Mad Wolf didn’t care that she was spoken for. Mad Wolf didn’t care that she had told him over and over that she would never come to live with him.
Mad Wolf kept after her. One fateful day he had dared to enter their lodge and press his suit.
The Outcast had never been so mad. Even now, it made his blood grow hot in his veins. They had heated words, Mad Wolf and he. One angry word led to another, and Mad Wolf reached for his knife.
Without thinking, the Outcast reacted. He drove his lance into Mad Wolf’s body with all the strength in his sinews.
The Outcast hadn’t realized that Yellow Fox had come up behind Mad Wolf. He hadn’t realized his lance went all the way through Mad Wolf and through the baby and into her until she cried out.
It wasn’t one body that fell.
It was three.
It was the day the Outcast died inside. When the elders called him before them, he listened with an empty heart. No Kainai had ever done such a thing. Kainai were never to kill Kainai. To kill a woman and an infant—it was unthinkable. It was bad medicine. With deep regret the council acted for the good of all.
They banished him.
No one came to see him off the day he rode from the village. Those he passed turned their backs to him.
The Outcast wandered. An empty vessel that refused to be filled, he traveled where whim took him. In his sorrow and grief he thought he would never feel again.
He hadn’t, until now.
In grim anger, the Outcast started after the scarred warriors.
They had taken his horse and his captive.
He would have their lives—or they would have his.
Chapter Fourteen
“There.” Star Dancer pointed.
“I see him,” Skin Shredder said.
The breed was after them. As yet he was well down the mountain, but climbing rapidly.
“He will overtake us before the sun goes down.”
“Let him.” Skin Shredder would rise high in the esteem of his people if he brought back two captives instead of one.
Louisa wondered what they were talking about. She was on the pinto a little way ahead in the trees and could not see where they were looking. She hoped against hope that Zach was coming. She refused to believe he was dead. She’d survived the talus; so could he. He was a lot tougher.
The Heart Eaters continued their ascent.
Lou was tempted to try to escape. All she had to do was yank the reins from the hands of the Indian holding them, and use her heels. But with warriors on both sides and the leader and his friends behind, she would be lucky if she got ten feet.
Lou had to do something. Not just for her sake. She had the new life to think of. If something had happened to Zach, she owed it to him to stay alive so she could give birth to his legacy.
Lou put a hand on her belly. It was too soon to feel the baby kick, but she told herself that now and then she felt it move. Her imagination, most likely, but there it was.
Skin Shredder was watching her. He’d noticed how she was constantly putting a hand on her stomach. At first he thought she had been hurt when she was caught in the talus. Then he thought maybe she was sick. Finally he remembered his own women and the one who had just given him a son, and he blurted, “She is with child.”