Evelyn looked at her. “You are welcome. Now be still.” She focused on the opening and only the opening. No sounds drifted in save now and then the faraway yip of a coyote. Her shoulders ached and her arms grew weary from holding the pistol. Over an hour had gone by when she let the muzzle dip and winced at the pain in her shoulders. “I think it has gone.” She broke their long silence.
“Or it is waiting for us to crawl out.”
“That could be,” Evelyn admitted. “Which is why we are staying put until daylight.”
“I will do whatever you ask of me,” Bright Rainbow said.
Something in the girl’s voice prompted Evelyn to ask, “Are you all right?”
“I am tired and dizzy.”
“Dizzy?” Evelyn repeated. “Why?”
“Maybe from all the blood.”
“Your side wasn’t bleeding that badly,” Evelyn recollected.
“Not my side, my back. The Devil Cat clawed me there, too, as I fell. I think its claws went deep.”
“Let me see.” Evelyn slid her hand over the dirt and groped the girl’s arm and shoulder and slid it down her back. She felt rips in the buckskin, and her questing fingers brushed deep cuts. The cat’s claws had gone in an inch or more. She pried at the dress and realized it was soaked. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“We had to get in here or it would hurt you, too.”
“Consarn you,” Evelyn said in English.
“It hurts.”
Evelyn eased her hand out and wiped it on her dress. The smell of fresh blood mixed with the scent of the dirt. “There is nothing I can do until morning.”
“I understand.”
Evelyn bit her lower lip. The girl needed stitching. Worse, if dirt got into the wounds, they might become infected. “Let me know if you start to feel worse.”
There was no answer.
“Bright Rainbow?”
“I am sleepy.”
Evelyn touched the girl’s cheek. It was as cold as ice. She tried to remember everything her mother had told her about flesh wounds. Where
The minutes were eternities. Evelyn’s eyelids grew heavy and twice her chin drooped, but each time she jerked her head up and shook the need to sleep away. She was terribly uncomfortable and her body became stiff and cold. She could only imagine how much worse Bright Rainbow must feel.
In the woods below a finch warbled.
Evelyn perked her ears. Birds always greeted the new day with a chorus of cries, and sure enough, the finch’s warble was the signal for dozens more to break into song and for jays to utter raucous shrieks. Holding the pistol in front of her, she edged to the opening. To the east a pink tinge marked the break of the new day. Below, the slope was empty. Shadow shrouded the forest. The mountain lion was gone. Or it could be that that was what it wanted her to think. Regardless, she wriggled out of the hole and onto her knees. Her legs were so stiff she could hardly move them.
One eye on the forest, Evelyn reached back in for the Hawken. She hurriedly reloaded and slid the pistol under her belt. Now came the dangerous part. Setting the rifle down, she poked her arms and head into the hole and took hold of the little Tukaduka. “Bright Rainbow?”
The girl didn’t stir.
“Bright Rainbow, can you hear me?” Evelyn shook her. When that failed to provoke a reply, she bunched her shoulders and pulled. It took some doing. She had to tug and twist, but she got the girl out and laid her on her back. “Bright Rainbow?” She moved her chin back and forth. All the girl did was groan.
Evelyn would never know what made her look over her shoulder. Some sixth sense, maybe. The sight of the black mountain lion slinking silently toward her with its chin practically brushing the ground sent her blood to racing. Its fiery eyes locked on hers. Mesmerized, she couldn’t move. She saw its paws flex, and then, with a scream that set her neck hairs to prickling, it launched itself at her. She grabbed for the Hawken but got hold of it by the barrel and not the stock. In self-preservation she swung with all her strength.
Struck full in the face, the mountain lion fell onto all fours. Evelyn staggered against the boulder. The lion snarled and crouched to spring, and she raised her rifle to swing again. For a span of heartbeats they were statues—and then there was a buzz and a
Up the slope ran a figure clad in green. He had another shaft nocked and raised his bow, but the cat gained cover before he could let fly. He stopped a few feet from Evelyn and gave her a look of such worry and devotion, her heart melted.
“Dega!”
“Evelyn.” Dega opened his arms and she stepped into them. For a moment he forgot about the cat and the girl at their feet. His joy was boundless. He had run all through the night, driving himself to the point of exhaustion and beyond. His legs were welters of torment and his lungs hurt with every breath.
Evelyn stepped back. “Where are my father and mother?”
Dega told her about his horse, and how he’d had a decision to make: continue on foot and not get back to her until much later than she expected or return to help her get the girl to King Valley. “I hope you not mad,” he said breathlessly. “I come back to you.”
“Mad?” Evelyn said, and couldn’t say any more for the constriction in her throat. She saw that his buckskins were drenched and that he was red in the face, and panting. “You big lunkhead. Why would I be mad?”
Dega was shocked. A lunkhead, Shakespeare McNair had told him, was someone who had, as McNair put it, “rocks between their ears.” Implying they were stupid. “I have rocks in head?”
“What? Oh, no, no, no.” Evelyn forgot herself and kissed him on the neck and the cheek. “You did exactly right.”
Dega thought his chest would explode. All night he had thought about how much he cared for her. All night he had been thinking about their argument and his mother, and he had come to a decision. “I want you know, our children be Nansusequa and white.”
“Oh, Dega.” Evelyn woud have lavished more kisses on him, but just then Bright Rainbow groaned. Bending, she slid her arms under her and picked her up. “We have to get her to the clearing. Guard me.”
Dega would die for her if he had to. That was another conclusion he had come to. When they got home he would sit down with his mother and explain his feelings. She had always been so caring and considerate, he was sure she would understand.
Bright Rainbow weighed more than Evelyn reckoned. Huffing, she got her to the bottom of the slope and merged with the woods. The sky had brightened and the shadows were dispersing.
Dega trailed her, protecting her, the bowstring pulled back, ready to loose a shaft at the first sign of the black mountain lion.
Evelyn tripped over an exposed root and firmed her hold on Bright Rainbow. A lot of birds were still singing. A rose-red grosbeak with black wings and a black tail flew over them, its brown mate at its side. She skirted several alders and spied the clearing and turned her head to tell Dega just as a sable battering ram launched itself out of a thicket and slammed into him from the side. She screamed his name and bent to deposit the girl.
Dega had caught movement out of the corner of his eye and tried to turn, but he wasn’t quick enough. Pain shot up his arm and along his side, and he was knocked against a pine and fell. Suddenly he was face-to-snarling- face with the cat, its forepaws on his chests, its fangs gaping wide to close on his throat. He jammed the bow into its mouth and razors opened his fingers. Before he could draw his hand away, the cat bit down. The pain was more than he could bear, and he cried out.
