“Forget about me. It’s King, here, you should heed. Take him up on his offer or you’ll live to regret it.”
“I will do as I please,” Wendell said.
Nate was as bewildered as the farmer. “Both of you need to calm down,” he advised.
“I am perfectly calm,” Maklin said. “I just can’t stand to see this woman lose her life because her husband is too stupid to know when he’s being dumb. They’ll never make it to Oregon on their own. You know it and I know it and I wish to God they did.” Suddenly stepping back, Maklin slid the pistol under his belt, wheeled, and melted into the darkness.
“Goodness gracious,” Maddy breathed. “What on earth got into him?”
Nate was wondering the same thing. “I’ll go have a talk with him. In the meantime, you two hash it over and decide.” He turned partway. “He’s right, though. On your own you’re easy prey for every hostile who comes along. You would be a lot safer with the freighters.” He walked up the slope and nearly tripped over Maklin, who had squatted on the rim. “What got into you down there?”
The Texan didn’t answer.
“Why did you talk to him like that? It was bound to make him mad.”
“He’s a fool.”
“He’s doing what he can. We can’t fault him for wanting a better life for his family.”
“We can fault him for getting them killed, which he sure as hell will do unless he has more brains than I give him credit for.”
Nate leaned on the Hawken. “There’s more to it than that. I saw how you looked at that woman.”
“I don’t want her dead.”
“What is she to you that you care so much? You just met her.”
“She’s noting to me. She’s female, though, and females shouldn’t have to go through that.”
“Go through what?” Nate wished he could see Maklin’s face, but it was hidden by the black hat’s wide brim.
“What hostiles will do to her if they get their hands on her.” Maklin bowed his head and said quietly, “I told you my wife is dead. I didn’t tell you how she died.”
Nate had an inkling and quickly said, “If you don’t care to talk about it, that’s fine.”
“No. I want you to know. I want you to understand why that farmer made me so damn mad.” Maklin’s voice dropped lower. “The Comanches got hold of her, Nate. The Lipans and the Comanches have been enemies for as long as anyone can remember. They exterminate each other on sight.”
“The Shoshones have their enemies, too.” To Nate’s knowledge all tribes did.
When it came to hate, the white and the red were more alike than either was willing to admit.
“Na-lin was off with four other women picking berries and they were taken by surprise. They ran, and one of the women hid in the bushes. She saw what happened.” Maklin paused. “The Comanches caught Na-lin and the others. Na-lin fought them. She drew her knife and cut a warrior, so they threw her down and did things…” Maklin stopped.
“No need to tell me more.”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to.”
“Stay here. I’ll be right back.” Nate retraced his step to the bottom of the basin. They were waiting, the four of them, the father and mother with their arms around their children. “Have you decided?”
“Yes, we have,” Wendell said. “We thank you for your offer, but we will continue on our own. It’s not that we don’t trust you—”
“But we don’t know you,” Maddy quickly explained.
“So we figure to keep going on our own,” Wendell finished. He grinned and shrugged. “Heck, we’ve made it this far, we’ll make it the rest of the way.”
“God help you,” Nate King said.
Chapter Seven
“Are those buzzards?” Jeremiah Blunt wondered.
Nate King had been deep in thought. He was thinking of Evelyn and the Nansusequa and hoping Shakespeare got them home safely. Now he glanced at the captain and then in the direction Blunt was staring and a chill rippled down his spine. To the northeast vultures were circling, an awful lot of them.
The freight wagons had been under way an hour and were strung out in single file.
Maklin rode on Nate’s left. He had been with Nate since Nate woke up, at Blunt’s orders, Nate suspected. Now the Texan swore and said, “That’s about where we ran into that dirt farmer and his family.”
“I’ll catch up,” Nate told Blunt, and brought the bay to a gallop. His shadow stayed with him. In due course they were close enough that Nate could see the bald heads and hooked beaks of the winged carrion eaters. He hoped against hope, but when he drew rein at the basin’s rim, his hopes were dashed. “God, no.”
“I hate idiots,” Maklin said.
Nate gigged the bay down. A score of vultures rose into the air, flapping heavily, disturbed from their feast
The scent of so much fresh blood caused the bay to shy and snort. Nate had to calm it to get it to go all the way to the bottom. The gore, the viscera, the abominable things that had been done, churned his stomach. He came close to being violently sick.
“This wasn’t no ordinary butchery,” the Texan remarked.
Nate nodded, his mouth too dry to speak. The family had been tortured, tortured horribly, and then hacked and cut and chopped, even the little girl and boy.
Maklin asked the pertinent question. “Was it the Pawnees or someone else?”
Nate slid down. He tried to avoid stepping in the blood, but there was so much it was impossible. The killers had stepped in the blood, too, leaving footprints. He examined them.
No two tribes made their footwear the same way. A person would think that feet were feet, but each tribe had a distinct shape and stitch. Cheyenne moccasins were wider across the ball of the foot and tapered at the toes and the heel. Crow moccasins were a crescent. On Sioux moccasins the toes all curved inward. Pawnee moccasins were usually shorter than most others and narrowed from about the middle of the foot to the heel.
The footprints in the blood were short and narrowed from about the middle of the foot to the heel.
“Now we know,” Maklin said.
Nate bowed his head. This was Kuruk’s doing. He was as sure of it as he was of anything.
“He’s rubbing your nose in his hate. Letting you know what he has in store for you.”
Choked with emotion, Nate vowed, “Not if I kill him first.”
The Texan nudged a severed finger with his toes. “This reminds me of what the Comanches did to Na-lin.” He swore under his breath. “What kind of world is it that things like this can happen?”
Nate didn’t have an answer. He had long since stopped trying to figure it out. The best he could do, the best any man could do, was protect his loved ones as best he could from the cruelties life threw at him.
“Are you fixing to go after them?”
Nate considered. The freighters were on open prairie and had days of easy travel before they would reach South Pass. They didn’t need him right now. “Your boss won’t mind you tagging along?”
“He was the one who told me to stick to you like prickly pear.” Maklin confirmed Nate’s earlier hunch. “He doesn’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I told him I don’t need a nursemaid.”
“All I’m to do is watch your back.”
“It might take a lot of watching.”
Maklin motioned at the slaughter. “Do you want to bury them or leave them for the scavengers?”
“We’ll do it on the way back.” To Nate the important thing was to catch the culprits.
Their trail was plain enough. Eleven horses left a lot of tracks. They led to the north for over a mile and then off to the northeast.