Only The Strong

“Emala!” Samuel cried.

“Ma!” Randa wailed.

Chickory was dumbstruck with horror.

Wesley clutched his hand, grit his teeth and hissed, “The bitch! The miserable bitch!” He pressed his bleeding finger to his side and grimaced. “First my teeth. Now this.”

Samuel stared aghast at the blood trickling from his wife’s brow. “If you’ve busted her skull, so help me —”

“As thick as her head is?” Olan responded, and laughed. “Hell, I’m lucky I didn’t bust my rifle.”

“In all the years I’ve been at this,” Wesley said, “no runaways have ever given me as much trouble. And I have a feeling the worst is yet to come.”

“The mountain man?”

“And his squaw. Don’t forget her.”

“She’s female, for God’s sake.”

“She’s a red savage, and she will kill if she has to.” Wesley gazed to the west. “As surely as anything, they’ll try to stop us. I don’t know when and I can’t say how, but they will.”

“Let them. Nate King won’t be so lucky next time.” Olan fingered the hilt of his knife. “Me, I’m looking forward to making a tobacco pouch out of his wife’s hide.”

Chapter Eighteen

A bee buzzed past Emala and she gave a slight start. Ordinarily she would be near panic. Bee stings hurt like the dickens and made her puff up something awful. But she was too upset to panic. Her world had come crashing down around her. Not only that, her head was pounding. Not as bad as the night before but bad enough that she could hardly think.

The slave hunters were strung out in a line. Bromley was in the lead, his shotgun across his saddle. Next came Wesley and Trumbo. Kleist was leading the Worths’ mounts. Last came Olan, in charge of the pack horse, whistling to himself.

For the hundredth time Emala tested the rope that bound her wrists. It was as tight as ever. She bit off a cuss word. She didn’t believe in swearing, and she was doing her best to convince Samuel not to, but Samuel was a man and men had been put on earth to try female patience.

“Lord, preserve us,” Emala breathed.

“What did you say?” Samuel twisted around. “Are you all right? How are you holdin’ up?”

Emala couldn’t get over how devoted he had acted all day. He hung on her every word and was always asking how she was doing. It made her suspicious. When men are nice, they have a secret reason. “I’m fine,” she fibbed. “But thank you for askin’.” If he could be polite, so could she.

They neared a bend in the Platte. The river, usually shallow, deepened and widened into a series of pools. Finches and sparrows chirped in the brush. Warblers sang high in the trees. Squirrels scampered from limb to limb, and a long-eared rabbit bounded off. Does pricked their ears and fled with their white tails erect. In one of the pools a large beaver swam toward a mound of sticks.

Emala couldn’t get over it all. So many creatures, it was the Garden of Eden all over again. It was strange how things worked out, she reflected. Here she had been dragged against her will from her life as a slave, only to find Samuel had been right and being a slave was no life at all. She wouldn’t ever admit it, but she loved being free, loved it more than anything except her children and possibly Samuel.

And just when Emala was starting to savor the joy of being alive, along came the slave hunters and their hired killers to drag her and hers back to the life she despised.

Life just wasn’t fair.

“No, it sure ain’t,” Samuel declared.

Emala realized she had spoken aloud.

“If only we’d made it to the mountains, they’d never have found us. We’d be free forever.”

Wesley slowed and waited for Samuel to come up alongside him. “I heard that. The price on your heads, you’d have hunters after you from now until you’re six feet under.”

“Surely they wouldn’t follow us all the way to the Rocky Mountains?” Emala said, surprised.

“How long before it sinks in? Five thousand dollars is more than most men make in ten years.”

They started around the bend. Trees hid the next stretch of trail. Emala was surprised when Wesley suddenly drew rein and rose in the stirrups. She was even more surprised when she saw why.

Bromley and Trumbo had stopped. They had to.

The trail ahead was blocked. A pine tree had fallen across it. That wasn’t unusual. Trees were felled all the time by high winds or heavy rain or simple age.

“Go around,” Wesley commanded.

Bromley nodded and jabbed his heels. To the left of the fallen tree were briars, so he reined to the right to pass between the downed tree and a stand of saplings. There was a loud crunch, as if his horse had stepped on a branch, and a sapling whipped up off the ground with a whoosh. Bromley saw it and tried to dodge but he was too slow.

Emala was flabbergasted by what happened next.

One of the sapling’s limbs had been trimmed and sharpened to a point. The tip lanced into Bromley’s left side, and he cried out. Then the sapling whipped back again, pulling Bromley with it. The spear jerked free, spraying blood, and Bromley sprawled onto the ground and clutched at the spurting hole.

“Help him!” Wesley roared.

Trumbo, stunned, recovered his wits and swung down. He dashed to Bromley, who was flopping wildly about and swearing like a madman. Trumbo grabbed Bromley’s shoulder, but Bromley pushed his hand away and went on thrashing.

“Oh, God! Not like this! Don’t let it be like this!”

Wesley and the others swung down. Kleist dashed over to Trumbo, yelling at Bromley, “Lie still so we can see how bad it is!”

Emala never liked the sight of blood. So much was pumping from Bromley, it about made her sick. But God help her, she couldn’t look away.

Trumbo and Kleist both got hold of Bromley just as he arched his head to the sky, let out a strangled gasp and went limp.

“Bromley?” Kleist said, and shook him. He put his ear to the bloody shirt and then felt for a pulse. “He’s dead!”

“There must be redskins hereabouts,” Trumbo declared.

Wesley went over to the sapling and stared at the blood dripping from the sharpened limb. “Injuns, hell. This is Nate King’s doing. His and that squaw of his.”

“But how?” Trumbo said. “They’re on foot and we have horses. How’d they get ahead of us?”

“Only one way they could have,” Wesley surmised. “They didn’t stop at night like we did.”

Olan pushed Trumbo aside and knelt next to Bromley. “Damn them to hell. Brom and me were pards for years.”

“We need to bury him,” Kleist said.

Wesley shook his head. “Like hell. That could be just what the Kings want us to do. Let down our guard so they can jump us. Take Bromley’s shotgun and his knife and what ever else is worth taking and we’ll light a shuck.”

“You just hold on,” Olan said. “He was our pard. We owe it to him to plant him so the critters don’t feed on his remains.”