Fear Weaver

“Mr. King! My mother says we shouldn’t ever use that kind of language. When my brothers do it, she makes them wash their mouths out with soap.”

Nate drew his bowie knife. “Bend your head down.”

“Whatever for?”

“I need a lock of your hair. Do you mind?” Nate started to reach up but Tyne recoiled.

“This is most peculiar.”

“It’s not for me. The Indian with the big nose has taken a fancy to you. If we give him a lock, he and his friends will go away and leave us be.”

“And if I would rather keep all my hair right where it is?”

“Then they will bide their time and jump us when we least expect. Instead of settling for your hair, they might take you. And your mother and father and brothers and sister might lose their lives protecting you.”

“Oh my.” Tyne gazed at Black Elk. “I suppose I should let you have it, then. I would die before I let harm come to my family. But take it from the back of my head so I don’t have to see.”

“Good girl. Now bend down.” A single stroke was all Nate needed. Cupping the snippet, he left his Hawken where it was and descended a dozen steps. He held his hand out so Black Elk could see the golden lock, and beckoned with the other.

Black Elk dismounted. Head high, shoulders squared, he came up the slope. He didn’t sign or say anything. He accepted the lock, held it almost reverently in his own palm, and stroked it with a fingertip.

“Question. We friends?” Nate signed.

Black Elk smiled at Tyne, said something in the Blackfoot language, and headed back down. He placed the lock of hair in his pouch. Rejoining his companions, he climbed on his horse. Without a backward glance the four warriors wheeled their mounts and made for the trees.

Nate felt tension drain from him like water from a sieve. He climbed to the boulders and reclaimed his Hawken.

“Why did you look so worried?” Tyne asked. “You had me thinking they might be out to hurt us when all they wanted was a piece of my hair.”

Nate saw no reason to tell her the truth.

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mr. King, that was awful silly. My mother would say you didn’t use your head. She says that a lot about men.”

“Does she, now?”

“Oh, yes. She says men need women to tell them what to do.”

“How did your mother get so wise?”

“I don’t know. It comes naturally to her, I guess.”

Hate and Love

The pass was a wagon-wide gap high on the divide. Once through it they would be on the west side of the Rockies. Rock walls reared on either side. Normally, the gap was in deep shadow, but they reached it when the afternoon sun was at its zenith.

Nate still brought up the rear. He didn’t trust the Blackfeet. They were devious enough to let him think they’d left, only to sneak back and pounce when he was off his guard.

The others filed into the pass ahead of him. All except one. Nate was surprised to find Edwin Ryker waiting for him.

“Where did you get to earlier? You disappeared for a while.”

Nate remembered a story he heard about how Ryker lost his ear. “I checked our back trail.”

“You don’t say.” Ryker smirked. “That isn’t what Tyne told me. She says you ran into some Indians and gave them a lock of her hair. Her mother is fit to be tied.”

“I’ll explain to Erleen and Peter when we stop for the night.”

“What I would like to know,” Ryker said much too casually, “is which tribe they belonged to.”

“Does it matter?”

“It does Tome. Were they Cheyenne? Nez Perce? Utes? Which?”

“I suspect Tyne already told you.”

Ryker hissed in anger. “You’re damn right she did. They were Blackfeet. And only four bucks.” He jerked on the reins to swing his sorrel back down the mountain. “Take the Woodrows on by your lonesome. I’ll catch up when I can.”

“No you don’t.” Lunging, Nate grabbed the sorrel’s bridle. “You’re staying with us. They hired you, not me.”

“Let go.” Ryker sought to break away. “I have a score to settle with those sons of bitches.” He went to raise his rifle.

In the blink of an eye Nate had a pistol in his hand. “I am not one for threats. But if you try to ride off, I’ll shoot you out of the saddle. Rile the Blackfeet and the Woodrows might suffer.”

“What about me?” Ryker was livid. “How about my suffering? Who do you think did this?” He snatched off his floppy hat and smacked the jagged scar tissue. “It was Blackfeet. A war party caught me when I was camped near the Missouri River. I thought for sure I was a goner. But do you know what those devils did?” He didn’t wait for Nate to answer. “They made me run a gauntlet. Instead of filling me with arrows and lifting my scalp, they stripped me naked and made me run between two rows of painted bucks armed with war-clubs and knives. Do you have any idea what that is like?”

As a matter of fact, Nate did. But he held his tongue.

“I was never so scared in my life, and I am not ashamed to admit it. There were twenty of them on either side, screeching and whooping and waving their weapons. I didn’t think I would live to reach the end. But when their leader prodded me with a lance, I took off like a spooked rabbit. I held my arms over my head but it didn’t do me much good. I hadn’t gone ten steps when it felt like every bone in my body was broke.” Ryker stopped, and trembled.

“You don’t need to tell me this.”

Ryker didn’t seem to hear him. “And God, the pain! I hurt so bad, it is a wonder I didn’t pass out. Then one of them hit me on the shin and I tripped and fell to my knees. That was when a tomahawk caught me on the side of my head.” Ryker ran his fingers over the hideous scar. “Took off my whole damn ear. But in a way it was a good thing.”

“How could that be good?”

“Because it brought me out of myself. It sank in that I was going to die unless I did something. Something they didn’t expect.” Ryker chuckled a strange sort of chuckle. “I went to my hands and knees, as if I was about to collapse, and they stopped beating on me. Maybe they figured I was done for, what with all the blood and my ear torn off, and all. But I tricked the bastards! I pushed between two of them and lit out of there like my backside was on fire.”

“And you got away,” Nate stated the obvious.

“It wasn’t easy. Some of those bucks were fast, damn fast. But I ran and I ran and somehow or other I outlasted them. They still might have caught me, but I found a hollow tree to hide in. They didn’t think to look in it and I heard them go right on by. I was never so glad of anything in all my born days.”

“You were lucky.” Nate knew of other frontiersmen who hadn’t been. Only three men, as far as he was aware, ever ran a gauntlet and survived. He was one of them.

“Ever since that terrible day, I’ve made it a point to kill every Blackfoot I come across. So far my tally is seven. That doesn’t count the three squaws I caught last winter out gathering firewood—” Ryker stopped.

“You killed women?”

“So what? They were Blackfoot and that was enough.” Ryker glared down the mountain. “Now you want me to let four of those vermin get away? You ask a lot. You and me aren’t even pards.”

“All I care about are the Woodrows,” Nate told him. If Ryker only killed one or two of the Blackfeet, the rest might go fetch friends.