Splashes Blood looked at him. “Who?”
“How many captives do we have?” Skin Shredder nodded at the white woman. “We must keep her alive until it is born.” Of all the delicacies life offered, of all the delicious kinds of meat, the heart of a baby was the choicest.
“The other Bear People will come after us,” Splashes Blood mentioned.
Skin Shredder knew of whom he spoke—the giant with the black beard and the old man with the white beard. They were dangerous, that pair. “Let them come to our valley. They will never leave it.”
A slope of lodgepole pines was mired in gloom. The slender trees grew in ranks so close together that at times there was barely space for the pinto. Skin Shredder doubted the white woman would try to escape until they were out of them. She could not ride fast with the trees pressing in on her. He relaxed his guard and stopped watching her.
Lou was bubbling with excitement. Here was her chance. She girded herself, and when most of the warriors were looking the other way, she coiled her legs and leaped. Her outstretched hands wrapped around a lodgepole, and with a lithe swing she was on the ground and running. She moved so quickly that she had a five-yard lead before a harsh cry alerted her captors to her flight.
Lou was fleet of foot. She wasn’t as fast as Zach, but he often liked to say that she was a female antelope. In britches, anyway. Dresses slowed her. She poured all she had into her legs and bounded down the mountain in long loping strides. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw that four of the Heart Eaters were after her. The rest had stayed with the pinto.
Skin Shredder was startled by how fast she was. He was going all out, but he couldn’t gain. Star Dancer, though, was faster, and would catch her before she was out of the lodgepoles.
Heavy breathing and the thud of flying feet warned Lou one of them was almost on top of her. She dared another glance and saw bronzed fingers reaching for the back of her dress. The warrior was intent on her to the exclusion of all else. Inspiration struck, and she ran straight at one of the pines. The warrior’s fingertips brushed her, and he smiled, thinking that he almost had her. He didn’t see the tree until Lou swerved.
Skin Shredder heard the thud of impact. He didn’t stop. He streaked past Star Dancer, who was holding an arm and thrashing about in pain. Now it was up to him.
Lou was pleased with herself. Her little ploy had worked. But now their leader was hard after her, and she didn’t think the same trick would work twice. She started weaving among the slender boles, turning right and left, never running straight for more than a few yards. As she hoped, he lost a little ground.
Skin Shredder fumed. She was clever, this white woman. He settled into a rhythm, pacing himself, conserving his energy for a spurt when his chance came to catch her. And it would. He could run for many leagues without tiring. His stamina was superior to hers, and in the end, it would be her undoing.
An ache in Lou’s side reminded her of how long it had been since she had run any distance. Cabin life had softened her. Add to that her condition, and it was small wonder that soon she was panting and her legs pained in protest at their abuse.
Lou refused to stop. She would never give up, not so long as she had breath in her body. She weaved right, ducked under a limb, weaved left and had her cheek opened. A branch snatched her dress and broke.
Skin Shredder admired her tenacity. She was so slight and frail that he would not have thought she had it in her.
The lodgepoles were almost at an end. Below was a slope sprinkled with spruce.
Lou must do something to slow Skin Shredder, but what? The breaking of the limb gave her an idea. She deliberately ran at another and snapped it off without breaking stride. Then, twisting, she threw the branch at his face.
Skin Shredder was caught by surprise. It was so unexpected, and she was so quick, that he swerved aside a fraction too late. The branch slashed his temple, missing his eye by a finger’s width. He slowed, and she increased her lead.
Skin Shredder smiled. She was a firebrand, this small one. It was too bad she must die. She had the kind of spirit he liked in his wives.
Lou was glad she had slowed him down but she was only delaying the inevitable. She would run out of tricks and energy and the warriors would be on her. She imagined they would be mad, imagined them hitting and kicking her. A beating might cost her the baby. Added incentive for her to make her feet fly.
Lou was running so fast, the trees were a blur. She burst from the lodgepoles. A boulder filled her vision and she swept around it. On the other side was a badger mound and a badger hole. She willed her body to jump but she was not quite quick enough.
Her left foot went into the hole, and down she crashed.
Zach King pushed the bay harder than he had ever ridden it. He lashed the reins and used his heels and climbed as fast as the terrain permitted. The steep slopes chafed at his patience. His temper, held in check by a thin veneer of self-control, snapped. The more he thought about what Lou had gone through—first abducted by the Blood and now the Heart Eaters—the angrier he became.
Zach was in the grip of bloodlust. It made him think of when he was younger, when he lived for counting coup. He hadn’t felt this way in many a moon, and it felt good to be his old self again.
He was eager for a glimpse of Lou and her captors. He had checked the Hawken and his remaining pistol. His knife was razor sharp. His tomahawk had a keen edge. He craved the coming fight as a drunk craved a drink or a person with a sweet tooth craved pies and cakes.
Whenever he came to a gap in the trees Zach rose in the stirrups and scanned the higher slopes. He figured the Heart Eaters were making for their secret pass over the top of the range. After he dealt with them and got Lou safely back home, he would take a keg of black powder and ensure the Heart Eaters never again invaded King Valley.
Better yet, Zach would like to find their village. Two or three kegs should suffice to blow the tribe to the white man’s kingdom come—or enough of them that the few left would retreat deeper into the mountains and cease to be a threat to his loved ones or anyone else.
That had been one of life’s hardest lessons. His father and mother were such good people, and they had raised him with so much kindness and love, that when he was little he took it for granted that everyone else was the same. It had come as a shock to discover that a lot of people weren’t kind or loving—that they were, in fact, anything but. A lot of folks didn’t care about anything except themselves. Even worse, some people, red and white, lived to hurt others. They relished the pain they inflicted, whether physical or emotional. They were hateful and mean, and reveled in their vileness. His pa said it was the way of the world. He thought they should all be chucked off a cliff.
Zach rose in the stirrups. He saw no one and was about to sink back down when he caught movement near a phalanx of lodgepole pines. It took a few seconds for what he was seeing to make sense. When it did, his breath caught in his throat. Lou was on foot and fleeing for her life. He reached for his parfleche to take out his spyglass and remembered he had left it on a shelf in their bedroom.
“Damn my stupidity, anyhow.”
Lou suddenly stumbled—or so it appeared to Zach—and fell. The others were on her in a twinkling. One of them yanked her to her feet and hauled her toward the lodgepoles. The others bent and seemed to be carrying or rolling something up the slope.