Fear Weaver (2 page)

“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.”

The man was off the bench and reached her in three bounds. Gripping her by the arms, he shook her as hard as he could.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!”

The woman went on beaming. “Calm yourself, Sully. Haven’t I always taken care of you?” She cupped his chin and gazed deep into his eyes. “My sweet, sour, splendid, awful, caring, cold codpiece.”

Sully staggered back, his cheeks damp. He groped behind him until his hand found the rough-hewn table. Sinking onto the bench, he trembled. “I can feel it clawing at me. It never stops. When it takes hold I am lost to everything. But then I come out of it for a while, like you.”

“Bat, bat, come under my hat, and I’ll give you a slice of bacon.” The woman chortled. “Is that what you would like to eat? A bat?”

“Philberta, please. I did all I could. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough. The thing now is to get away. We must leave while I am clear in the head. Try to shake it off so we—” Sully stopped at a sudden scratching at the door, as if a claw was scraping it from top to bottom. “No. Not now.”

“My darlings!” Philberta happily exclaimed. “They have come to pay me another visit. I wonder what sweetmeats they have brought me this time.” She started toward the door, but Sully got there ahead of her and thrust out his hand.

“No! Think! You know what is out there. You know what they will do to us.”

As if to prove him right, from the other side of the
door came a low growl, followed by more, and harder, scratching.

“Let me past,” Philberta insisted, and shoved him out of her way. “Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub. And who do you think they be?” She placed her hand on the latch.

Sully shoved her and she stumbled back. “I will not warn you again! Heed me, woman!”

“Heed a fool? What would that make me? Twice the idiot?” Philberta shook her head. “You have come to the wrong place if it is heeding you are after.”

The scratching became a frenzy of clawing and growls and snarls. The door shook to fierce blows, the leather hinges creaking.

“Do you hear them?” Philberta asked. “Aren’t they grand?”

Sully faced the door and raised his knife. “I am ready for them! If they get in, there will be the devil to pay”

Philberta stepped to the counter and gripped a cast iron pan. “Dickery, dickery dare, the pig flew up in the air.” She walked up behind Sully and brought the pan crashing down on the top of his head. The
crunch
of his skull was loud and final. He slumped onto his side, briefly convulsed, and went limp.

“Serves him right,” Philberta said. Fluffing her hair, she called out, “Can you hear me, my sweets?”

Something outside the door howled.

“Birds of a feather flock together,” Philberta said, and opened it.

Few natural wonders stirred Nate King like the Rocky Mountains. He still remembered the first time he set eyes on them: the emerald foothills, the green of the thick timber that covered the higher slopes, the brown of the rocky heights crowned by white caps of snow. Peaks that reared miles into the sky. Compared to the splendor of the Rockies, the mountains of his native New York were so many pitiful bumps.

On this particular morning Nate was many miles from the remote valley his family called home. He was astride his favorite bay, on his way to the village of his wife’s cousin, Touch The Clouds. The Shoshones were contemplating a raid on their enemies the Blackfeet, and Touch The Clouds wanted Nate to sit in on the council. It showed the high regard in which the Sho-shones held him. That, and Nate suspected the Shoshones hoped he would help them get their hands on a few more rifles.

The last thing Nate expected to come across so deep in the mountains were other whites. But from high atop a ridge Nate spied eight riders, the last leading a couple of pack horses, winding west in his direction. They had no inkling he was there.

Nate was heading north. He raised his reins to ride on, but curiosity got the better of him. Reaching back, he opened a beaded parfleche his wife had made and brought out a collapsible metal tube. Extending it, he pressed the scalloped eyepiece to his eye.

Nate was a big man, broad of shoulder and narrow of waist. He was dressed in buckskins. A beaver hat crowned his black thatch of hair. An ammo pouch, powder horn and possibles bag crisscrossed his broad chest. Wedged under his wide leather belt were a pair of flintlocks, while jutting from a beaded saddle sheath was the stock of a Hawken rifle. On his right hip hung a bowie, on his left a tomahawk. He was, in short, a walking arsenal. He needed to be.

As Nate studied the eight riders through his spy-glass, his mouth curled in a frown. “I’ll be switched,” he said to his bay. Four of the eight in particular were responsible for his frown. “Some folks have no more sense than a tree stump.”

Angry, Nate snapped the telescope in upon itself, and shoved it into his parfleche. “They are none of my business,” he declared, and again went to ride on to the north and the Shoshone village.

Nate hesitated. His conscience pricked him, as it often did in situations like this. For long minutes he debated whether to go on or go down and talk to the party below. Exasperated with himself, he reined sharply down the slope.

The lead rider spotted him and pointed. As well the man should, since he, like Nate, was a frontiersman.

Nate threaded through a belt of lodgepole pines and came out on a flat bench. Rather than go lower,
he drew rein and dismounted to await the eight. It was a quarter of an hour before they reached him, and in that time Nate gathered dead limbs, used his fire steel and flint, and tinder from his tinderbox, to kindle a fire, and put coffee on to brew.

When the other frontiersman came over the crest, Nate was seated on a log he had dragged close to the fire, his Hawken across his legs. He didn’t smile or lift a hand in greeting. Instead, he leveled the Hawken and said bluntly, “I should kill you here and now.”

The man made no attempt to raise his own rifle. Lean and bony, he had a high forehead, stringy brown hair that hung limp under a floppy brown hat, and a jagged scar where his left ear should be. “I thought it might be you. Not many are your size.”

“My son tells me you were there when he was whipped.” Nate was referring to an incident not long ago in which his oldest, Zach, had tangled with an English lord.

“Did he also tell you I had no hand in the whipping? And that I did what I could to help him escape?”

Nate slowly lowered the Hawken. The mere thought of harm coming to either of his children was enough to fill him with fury. He loved Zach and Evelyn dearly and devotedly, and anyone who hurt them must answer to him. “He told me, Ryker. Which is why I’m not going to blow out your wick.”

Edwin Ryker let out a long breath. “You had me worried there. I don’t want you for an enemy.”

“We have never been bosom friends.”

The other riders were filing onto the bench. A white-haired bantam of a woman in a floral dress and yellow bonnet jabbed a bony finger at Nate and demanded, “Why were you pointing your rifle at
our guide just now? If you are a brigand, all you will get from us is an early grave.”

“Aunt Aggie, please,” said a man of fifty or so. His clothes were store bought. He had a thin mustache and thin sideburns and no chin to speak off. “Hush, and let us men handle this.”

The woman who had threatened Nate was not the least bit intimidated. “Pshaw, Peter. Men are good for two things in this world. As beasts of burden and to help breed. Beyond that, we women would be better off without you.”

Nate laughed.

Aunt Aggie’s back became ramrod straight. “Find me humorous, do you, you great lump of muscle?”

“I find you marvelous. My wife would agree with your opinion of my gender. She has tongue-lashed my ears many a time.”

“I dare say you deserved it,” Aunt Aggie said, but she was smiling. “Although I must admire her taste. For a lump of muscle you are uncommonly handsome.”

A woman about the same age as Peter let out with a loud sigh. “Enough, Aggie. Must you always embarrass us?”

“I speak my mind, Erleen. You would do well to do the same. Timidity never got anyone anywhere.”

“We don’t know this man from Adam, yet you carry on with him like some tavern tart. I wish just once you would remember you are supposed to act like a lady. And if you can’t do that, at least act your age.”

“Did you hear her?” Aunt Aggie said to Nate. “She was born with a sour disposition, and life has not improved it much.”

“Agatha!” Erleen declared. “I will thank you to
shush until we find out who this man is and whether he is trustworthy.”

“I can answer both questions,” Edwin Ryker said. “This here is Nate King. He got his start as a free trapper years ago, and now he lives somewhere in these mountains with his family and a few close friends. As for trusting him, he is as trustworthy as a man can be this side of walking on water.”

“That is some recommendation,” Aunt Aggie said.

Peter kneed his horse forward, dismounted, and held out a hand as limp as his hair. “Permit me to introduce us. I am Peter Woodrow out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

Nate wondered if they were Quakers, but then quickly realized they must not be since they were armed. Quakers never, ever carried guns; they didn’t believe in violence of any kind.

“This fine woman is my wife, Erleen. Agatha is her older sister. All of us call her Aunt Aggie. We’ve hired Mr. Ryker on an urgent matter and have spent the better part of two weeks making our way ever deeper into these mountains.”

The last four riders had come over the top. It confirmed what Nate had seen through his spyglass, and his frown returned. Standing, he rounded on Edwin Ryker. “What in God’s name are you doing, bringing these pilgrims this far in? Have you warned them they could lose their hair?”

“Many a time and then some,” Ryker replied. “Don’t be mad at me. They would have come by themselves if they couldn’t find a guide. The way I look at it, I’m doing them a favor. And being paid for it.”

“You seem agitated, Mr. King,” Aunt Aggie said.

“I have reason to be. You folks are asking for grief. You’ve made a mistake. You shouldn’t be here.”

“Care to tell us why?” Peter asked.

“Where to begin?” Nate scratched his chin. “Let’s start with the meat-eaters. Most haven’t been killed off, as they have east of the Mississippi. They are everywhere. Then there are the hostiles. Indians who will slit your throat for no other reason than you are white. And even if you are lucky and don’t run into a griz or a war party your horse could throw you and you could break a leg or come down sick. And there aren’t any doctors.”

“That was some speech, handsome.”

“Aggie, please,” Erleen said, and turned to Nate. “We appreciate your concern, Mr. King. But you are the one who is mistaken. We
must
be here, come what may.”

Peter nodded. “We are looking for someone.”

“And did you have to bring
them?”
Nate asked, nodding at the last four riders. More of the Woodrow brood: two boys and two girls, all smartly dressed.

“Of course,” Peter said. “We are a family. We do everything together. Where Erleen and I go, our children go.” He pointed at a spitting image of himself. “That’s Fitch. He is eighteen.” He pointed at his other son, who took after the mother. “That’s Harper. He’s seventeen. As you can see, both are armed, and fair shots.”

“Fair isn’t always good enough out here.”

Peter Woodrow pointed at a girl in a blue bonnet. “That’s Anora. She’s fifteen, and as fine a little lady as a father could ask for.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir.”

Peter indicated the last of his offspring. “And this is Tyne, our youngest. She’s only twelve, and a lively bundle, if I do say so myself.”

Tyne smiled sweetly. Unlike the rest of her family,
who all had dark eyes and dark hair, Tyne had straw-colored curls, and her eyes were lake blue, like Nate’s own. “Aren’t these mountains wonderful, Mr. King?”

“They can be deadly, too.”

“As Aunt Aggie likes to say, we can’t fret over what might never happen. She says we should look for the good in life, not the bad.”

Agatha grinned. “I am a regular sage.”

“I wish I could make you understand,” Nate said.

“We have done well so far,” Peter said. “The dangers in these mountains have been exaggerated.”

“That they have,” Erleen agreed. “To hear folks back home talk, we should have been scalped the minute we crossed the Mississippi River.”

Nate sighed. “You mentioned that you are searching for someone?”

“My younger brother, Sullivan,” Peter answered. “He came west with his wife and three boys about a year and a half ago. He managed to get a letter back to us shortly after they got here, and then nothing. I mean to find out if he is still alive, and if not, to learn his fate.”

“He came to the Rockies?” Nate was mildly surprised. He could count the number of settlers on two hands and have fingers left over. “I’ve never heard of any Sullivan Woodrow.”

Peter gestured at the towering peaks to the west. “Sully is somewhere in there. He wrote us how to find his cabin. Even with his directions, though, Mr. Ryker is having a hard time.”

Edwin Ryker had been listening to their exchange. Now he addressed Nate, saying, “I’ve read the letter. You won’t believe it. This Sully wanted to live as a trapper.”

“The beaver trade died out long ago.”

“You know that and I know that, but this Sully figured there must be enough beaver and other animals around to make a living.”

Nate grunted. A man
could
make a living at it. Good furs were always in demand. But trapping was hard, brutal work, and the money to be made wasn’t enough for a family of five to live comfortably. “Was this Sully a woodsman? Could he live off the land?”

“I would rather you didn’t use the past tense,” Peter said. “And yes, my brother is the best woodsman I know. Back East, he spent nearly all his time hunting or fishing. One year he brought down six deer.”

“Sully has always loved the outdoors,” Erleen added. “The forest was in his blood.”