He must find out.
The sickening stench seemed worse than the day before, if that was possible. Nate fought down more bitter bile. He avoided looking at the grisly remains, and at the legion of flies and maggots crawling over the putrid flesh.
Nate stopped again. He was in clear view, and he braced for a howling rush. But nothing happened. The flies and maggots continued to eddy and the reek filled his nose, but nothing else. They weren’t there.
Nate turned to hurry back to the cabin. Yet again, he thought he’d made the right decision and it turned out to be a mistake. He should never have left Aggie and Tyne alone.
Overcome by guilt, Nate nearly missed the patter of feet behind him. He whirled just as the youngest of the three leaped. Blayne’s eyes were aglow with unholy bloodlust, and his teeth were bared. In mid-air he howled. And in midair, Nate shot him.
The Hawken’s muzzle was inches from the mad youth’s chest when it went off. The heavy slug cored Blayne’s sternum, and the impact flipped him onto his back. Growling and spurting crimson, he tried to stand but only made it to his hands and knees when his life fled and his limbs gave out.
Nate had no time to congratulate himself. The other two were almost on him. He dropped the rifle and streaked his hands to his waist. But he had not quite drawn his flintlock and knife when Norton and Liford slammed into him. Teeth sought his throat. Fingers gouged and ripped.
Spinning, Nate sent Norton tumbling. Liford clung on; dementia given form and substance, he shrieked and bit at Nate’s jugular.
Jerking aside, Nate tugged his pistol loose and slammed it against the madman’s temple. Liford sagged but didn’t go down. Nate smashed him a second time, and then a third, crushing an ear and splitting a cheek. But Liford still clung on. Jamming the flintlock against Liford’s ribs, Nate fired.
The lunatic staggered. He gawked at the hole in his side and let out a screech of rage and pain. Amazingly, he stayed on his feet and flew at Nate again in a frenzy of teeth and nails.
But Nate had the bowie out. He sheared it into Liford’s belly down low, and sliced upward until the steel grated on rib. Liford’s insides spilled out and he collapsed in a heap, dead before he sprawled in the dirt.
Two down, Nate thought to himself. He spun, looking for the third, but Norton had disappeared. Nate had a choice to make. Reload, or go after him. Thinking of Aggie and Tyne, Nate stuck the flintlock under his belt, drew his tomahawk, and dashed into the forest. To his right was a pine, to his left a thicket. He ran between them, watching the thicket since it offered better concealment. Above him a bough swayed, and the next instant a hurtling form slammed into his shoulder blades and he was bowled to the earth.
Norton screeched as he scrambled up into a crouch.
Dazed, Nate groped for his knife. He had lost it when he fell. The madman charged, and Nate cleaved the tomahawk at Norton’s contorted face. By rights the keen edge should have split it like a melon, but the lunatic’s speed was superhuman. Norton sidestepped, shifted, and sprang at Nate again.
Nate swung, and swung again, but it was like trying to imbed the tomahawk in a ghost. Norton dodged and laughed, and danced and laughed. And just when Nate began to think the madman was treating their life-and-death struggle as some sort of game, he swung again, and missed again, and before he could recover his balance, Norton sprang.
Fetid breath fanned Nate’s neck as Norton sought to sink his teeth into Nate’s throat.
Nate did the only thing he could think of; he smashed his head into Norton’s face. Cartilage crunched, and moist drops spattered Nate’s brow. Howling, Norton leaped back, shaking his head to clear it.
His arm a blur, Nate sank the tomahawk into the lunatic’s head.
Norton stiffened. Arms rigid, his eyelids fluttering, he tottered. His mouth worked, but no sounds came out. Like mud oozing down a rain-soaked slope, he slowly oozed to the ground. The convulsions he broke into were brief. A last strangled gasp was the last sound he ever made, and then the last of the madmen died.
But Nate wasn’t done yet. There was still the mad-woman to deal with.
Placing his foot on Norton’s chest, Nate gripped the tomahawk handle, and wrenched. He wiped the blade clean on the grass, then gathered his weapons and began to reload. He had finished with the Hawken and was about to load the flintlock when a shot cracked in the distance. On its heels, faint but unmistakable, came a scream.
Fear filling his breast, Nate raced for the cabin. He told himself that Agatha wouldn’t be foolish enough to open the door or undo the curtains, that she knew better than to put herself and Tyne at grave risk. But then he remembered the other times she hadn’t heeded his advice, and he pushed himself to run faster.
Branches tore at his buckskins. A low limb tried to gouge his eye. Nate plowed on, heedless of the cuts and nicks. He had come a long way and it would take much too long to reach the cabin. By the time he got there, whatever had happened would be over.
Still, Nate didn’t slow. He ran until his lungs were fit to rupture and his legs throbbed with pain. He ran until he was caked with sweat from his hair to his toes, and on the verge of collapse. And then the cabin and the corral were only a dozen yards away.
Nate almost called out. But that would give him away. Slowing, he crept forward. The horses hadn’t been harmed or let loose, thank God. To be stranded afoot in the Rockies, the old trappers liked to say, was a surefire invite to an early grave.
Nate came to the front of the cabin, and froze. From inside came humming. A chill rippled down his spine. He had to will his legs to move.
The front door was closed, the curtains were still tied shut.
Muffled voices caused Nate’s heart to leap into his throat. At least one of them was still alive! He darted to the door, hunkered, and put his ear to it.
“—what you intend to do with us? And this time I would be grateful for an answer, if you don’t mind.”
Nate had rarely heard a sound as sweet as Agatha’s angry voice.
Philberta’s titter was laced with lunacy. “Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush, on a cold and frosty morning.”
“If I never hear another nursery rhyme for as long as I live, it will be too soon,” Aunt Aggie said.
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.”
“Damn you, Philberta. Enough is enough. Talk plain and simple, not your gibberish. What do you intend to do?”
Nate heard Philberta laugh. Judging by the sounds, Agatha was over near the fireplace. Philberta was nearer.
“My, oh my. What a tart tongue you have, dear Aggie. And you always on your high horse about not swearing in front of the children.”
“So you can talk normally when you want to?”
“Billy, Billy come along and I will sing a pretty song.”
“Why have you tied me in this rocking chair?”
“The better to keep an eye on you, granny,” Philberta said, and snickered.
“I demand you cut me loose.”
“There was an old owl lived in an oak, wiskey, wasky, weedle. And all the words he ever spoke were fiddle, faddle, feedle.”
“Answer me another question,” Agatha prompted. “How is it you’re not as insane as your sons? You have lucid moments, do you not?”
“Are any of us ever lucid?” was Philberta’s response. “As for the why, I suspect it’s because they ate more of the thorn apples than I did. I liked the mushrooms better.”
Agatha suddenly asked in alarm, “What are you doing there? Take your hands off Tyne.”
Dread choked Nate’s breath in his throat. He gripped the latch and lightly lifted but the door wouldn’t open. The bar was in place.
“Didn’t you hear me!” Agatha cried. “It’s bad enough you hit her with that horse pistol. She’s lucky you didn’t split her head open.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it luck. She should come around soon, and the moment she opens her eyes, I will send her to join her father and mother and sister.”
“Damn you, leave her be! Why are you dragging her toward the pantry?”
