Slocum and the Spirit Bear (9781101618790) (12 page)

12

The following morning was almost as quiet as the previous night. Franco got up before everyone except the man on watch duty and brewed a pot of coffee while frying up some cuts of salted bacon. He scrambled some eggs and added chopped peppers, which he considered to be a plain, almost sorry excuse for breakfast. Slocum forgot all about sleeping in his bedroll on the ground near the fire when he caught the scent of that bacon. By the time he'd fixed himself a plate, several others were making their way out of the wagons or from the other bedrolls that had been scattered on the ground near the fire.

Even the children were quieter than normal. Their heads remained cast downward, only to be raised when seeking occasional assurances from parents that were busily glancing along the horizon for silhouettes of unwelcome visitors. Nobody mentioned the topic that had dominated the previous night's discussion, but it was obvious that everyone was thinking about Spirit Bear. If the strange hunter had wanted to weaken the wagon train by sowing seeds of fear and anxiousness among its members, he'd done one hell of a good job.

As Franco was cleaning up and everyone else was preparing to get moving again, a horse rode in from the north. All eyes fixed upon that horse, and when it got within range, Josiah and Ed pointed their rifles in its direction. The rider came to a stop and raised his hands.

“Lower your guns,” Slocum said while stepping forward. “It's Hevo.”

Although Ed was quick to respond, Josiah kept his Winchester where it was. “He's not even armed,” Ed reminded the older man.

“Still don't mean he ain't dangerous,” Josiah replied.

Slocum walked by him and slapped the rifle down. “We've already been through this. Just stay here and I'll go have a word with him.”

Hevo slowly approached the wagons, meeting Slocum a bit closer than the halfway point. “Are we to hunt together or not?” the Indian asked.

“We are. Will you be needing your weapons?”

Twisting around to show Slocum his back, Hevo pointed to the blades kept there by a leather strap crossing his chest. “Already have them.”

“When did you get those?”

Hevo smirked. “The old man speaks loud, but not as loudly as he snores. Tell him if I wished him harm, I could have easily slit his throat when I came back for my weapons in the night.”

“If anyone asks, why don't we tell them I gave them to you?” Slocum said while leading the way back to the wagons. “I doubt he'll take much comfort from what you said.”

“As you wish.”

“By the way . . . what else did you see when you were sneaking around here last night?”

Hevo looked over at Slocum with a sly grin on his face. The grin didn't tell Slocum enough, however, to let him know if it was there because of taking the weapons out from under Josiah's nose or if he might have seen anything involving Slocum and Theresa. The Indian replied, “I came only for the weapons,” which still didn't put Slocum's question to rest.

Deciding to let the matter drop, Slocum approached Ed and Josiah. Both men came out to meet them with their rifles held in a low grip.

“So did this one come by for some grub?” Josiah asked.

“No,” Slocum said. “He's here to ride with us in case this Spirit Bear comes back.”

“I will not ride with you,” Hevo announced.

Slocum turned to look back at him. “Pardon me?”

“I can do more good if Spirit Bear does not see me with the rest of you.”

“What if him or one of them Dirt Swimmers is watching right now?” Josiah asked.

“Then they will still have to divide their numbers if they want to keep watching me after I leave. If they let me go or if they do not yet know I am on the same hunt, they will be taken by surprise. Either way, it works to our advantage.”

“He's got a point,” Ed said.

Josiah wheeled around to glare at him and say, “You always been on his side!”

“I have?”

“Do whatever the hell you want,” Josiah said while throwing a spiteful wave at them. “Last time I try to be the voice of reason around here.”

“Was there a first time?” Slocum asked. When nobody saw fit to answer, he shrugged and said, “Must have been before I signed on. You want something to eat, Hevo?”

After giving Hevo some food, Slocum sent him on his way and the wagons got rolling right on schedule. Before noon, the clouds parted and the sun's bright rays flooded everything in sight. The glare from the sky as well as the nip in the air gave everything a sharp edge, like a picture that had been developed in stark contrast. Slocum didn't allow himself to be lulled into a sense of security, even when the children started singing a song that had James and Michael calling back and forth to each other from their wagons.

When Tom McCauley rode back to the wagons after scouting the trail ahead, a strangely familiar howl rolled through the air. Rather than watch what Tom was doing, Slocum shifted his focus to the ground on either side of the trail. Now that he had an idea of what to look for, he was able to pick out mounds of leaves that seemed to be moving of their own accord.

“Tom! Watch yourself!” Slocum shouted. He didn't wait for a response before reaching to the boot of his saddle and drawing the rifle kept there.

Reaching for his own rifle, Tom twisted back and forth to get a look at what could have caused such a reaction. The moment he found one of the mounds of dirt and leaves, a shape exploded from it amid an earthen spray. Tom recoiled and fumbled with his rifle, but wasn't quick enough to get the weapon out before he was beset from two sides.

Yes, Slocum realized. Two sides.

He hadn't seen the second mound of shifting dirt until it had begun to rise up on the other side of the trail. While Tom was turning toward the first figure, the second was ready to attack him from behind. Slocum placed his rifle to his shoulder, took half a second to steady himself, and fired. The shot flew a bit high and to one side, due to the fact that Slocum was rushed and didn't want to risk knocking Tom from his saddle.

It was even difficult to say if Slocum's next shot hit its target. The figures covered in their leafy cloaks moved like wild animals, reaching for Tom with gangly arms and keeping their backs hunched over. Their strange behavior as well as the leaves that flew off them could have been normal or caused by hot lead. Tom fired a shot, but his rifle was pointed nowhere near its target. The panicked reaction did nothing to discourage his attackers from pulling him down from the saddle.

“What the hell are those things?” Josiah hollered as he charged toward the wagons from a different angle. The two men must have split up sometime after parting ways with the wagons.

“Those are the same ones that attacked me and John,” Ed replied as he stood up in his driver's seat. His Spencer rifle was at his shoulder, and he lined up a shot before pulling his trigger.

The Dirt Swimmers had already gotten what they were after and were smothering Tom's face with some sort of rag. Slocum reined his horse to a stop, took aim, and squeezed his trigger again. This time, he knew he'd hit his mark. The Swimmer that had been coming up behind Tom was knocked away as if he'd been kicked by a mule. When that one's body landed in the dirt, three more sections of ground sprang to life.

Where Ed's gunfire had been calmly focused before, it suddenly became hurried and sporadic. Slocum could see the fear building in Ed's trembling arms and increasingly unsteady legs. When the howl drifted through the air again, this time much closer than before, his fear built to a new height.

“Damn it!” Slocum said through gritted teeth as he snapped his reins and rode toward Tom's horse. Even when everyone in that wagon train had been expecting it, Spirit Bear had still managed to scatter them like a bunch of mindless birds.

The Dirt Swimmers almost caught him off guard yet again when another mound of dirt beside the trail stood up. This one was within spitting distance of Slocum's horse, but he was on the lookout for pieces of terrain that didn't seem to belong. As he rode, Slocum adjusted his grip on the rifle so his fingers wrapped around it like a club. With one scooping downward swing, he smashed the barrel against the top portion of a leaf-covered figure. Thanks to the swing as well as the horse's momentum, the impact was enough to send the figure sailing through the air to land in a heap.

More gunshots rang out, coming from Tom, who was still firing wildly without any prayer of hitting anything apart from the ground. Having felt the effects of the stuff the Dirt Swimmers had given him, Slocum knew the big man's vision was just as clouded as his mind. In fact, when Tom spun toward the sound of an approaching horse, it seemed he might pose as much of a danger to Slocum as the attackers themselves.

After reining to a stop, Slocum swung down from his saddle and held his rifle at hip level. He fired a shot at the first Dirt Swimmer to emerge from the ground, hoping to convince the attacker to back away from Tom. Since two of the other three were coming at him, Slocum couldn't afford to wait and see if the first one had heeded the warning he'd been given.

Now that he wasn't under the influence of Spirit Bear's concoction, Slocum could see the attackers for what they were: rowdy little men wrapped up in some kind of netting made to look like the surrounding terrain. Their covering swayed as the attackers moved, sending leaves and bits of dirt in all directions. As for the men themselves, it was difficult to tell how big they were exactly since they remained hunched over. What Slocum was more concerned about were the weapons in those men's hands. Two carried pistols and the rest held foot-long blades in a grip that kept the weapons flush against their forearms. They got to Slocum in a hurry, swinging their arms so the blade snapped out at the last moment like the end of a whip.

He used the rifle to deflect an incoming blade and then followed through by bringing his elbow around in a sharp semicircle. Slocum's arm cracked against the Swimmer's head, but some of the blow's impact was absorbed by the netting covering the other man's face. Even so, the Swimmer staggered back a step before lashing out with a swing intended to open Slocum's belly and spill his guts to the ground.

Slocum hopped back to clear a path. Knowing he was too close to make good use of the rifle as anything but a large cudgel, he shifted it to his left hand and drew his Colt with the right. Even if he'd been given a dose of Spirit Bear's medicine, Slocum would have had a difficult time missing his target from such a short distance. He fired and hit the Swimmer in the chest, sending him flailing to the ground.

“You have been warned!”

The last time Slocum heard that voice, it had sounded hollow and unearthly. Now that he didn't have a peyote mixture clouding his judgment, it sounded very human indeed. He looked for the source and found a tall man about fifty yards away wearing a thick, shaggy pelt over his shoulders like it was a kingly robe. Instead of a scepter, he waved a large stick with something attached to the top. When he waved that stick from one side to another, all of the Dirt Swimmers pulled back and crouched down beneath their netting.

“I gave you a chance to turn back and instead you sullied more of my ground with your feet and wheels,” Spirit Bear said.

“If you'd just step aside, we'll be on our way,” Slocum said.

The man in the pelt stepped closer. He was still some distance away, but carried himself as if he were close enough to slap Slocum in the face. “You have not seen a fight yet, white man!” Then, he hollered something in a language Slocum didn't recognize. It must have been an order to charge, because that's exactly what the Dirt Swimmers did.

13

Slocum fired at the closest two Dirt Swimmers that ran at him. They sprang at him like dogs that had been cut from their leashes and reeled away when they were met by bullets from Slocum's gun. Unsure as to how badly or even where the obscured figures had been hit, Slocum ran over to Tom.

The big man wheeled around and reflexively pulled his trigger. His pistol went off, sending its round into the tops of some nearby trees. “They're everywhere!” he said to nobody in particular. “They're demons crawling up from hell!” His face was covered in the sweet-smelling paste, which meant there was no way for Slocum or any man in his right mind to know for certain what he was seeing.

“It's me, Tom!” Slocum shouted. “John Slocum! Over here!”

When he turned toward Slocum, Tom led with his gun. Fortunately, Slocum was close enough to grab the pistol from his hand before it went off again.

“Get away, John!” Tom said, seeming not to notice the fact that he'd been disarmed. He swung his arms fiercely and stared in every direction with eyes that were obviously seeing things that weren't truly there.

As a pair of Dirt Swimmers came at Slocum, he fired two quick shots. Once more, he was unsure as to whether he'd hit them or if they were simply jumping aside to get out of the way of any more incoming fire. Ed and Josiah had joined the fray by now, firing their rifles at mounds of leaves that had the rough shape of men and moved about like overgrown rodents.

Slocum reached out to place a steadying hand upon Tom's shoulder. “Tom, listen to me. Take a breath and calm down. You're only seeing—” He was cut short by a sharp jab across his face.

“I think I got one!” Tom declared. “I think I struck down one of them demons!”

Slocum followed up with a punch that caught Tom square in the jaw. His head snapped back and his arms were still flailing as he fell over.

Now that he'd dealt with one crazy man, Slocum shifted his attention to the others. Several Dirt Swimmers straightened up and threw their cloaks back to reveal muscled chests covered in thick layers of caked mud. Strange circular symbols were drawn over their hearts and stomachs. The ones with pistols fired at Ed and Josiah. Since Slocum was closer, the ones carrying blades rushed at him.

Slocum dropped the rifle so it didn't throw off his balance when he fired the Colt. It bucked against his palm, drilling a hole through the chest of the closest Swimmer. The next attacker was so fast that Slocum didn't have enough time to shift his aim before needing to defend himself. They swarmed him so quickly and with so much reckless abandon that Slocum lost track of how many there were. It was all he could do to keep from getting chopped to pieces by the blades slashing at him.

When he saw movement to his left, Slocum turned to face that direction while swinging his Colt around. The side of the pistol knocked against a Swimmer's arm and he could barely make out the pained expression on a mud-covered face before something rustled behind him. Rather than taking the time to turn all the way around again, Slocum pivoted and dropped to one knee while keeping his Colt tucked in close to his body. Slocum snapped his left arm down and under the blade that had been sailing toward the back of his neck. Deflecting the blow before it landed, Slocum fired a shot directly into the Swimmer's stomach. The bullet sent the warrior staggering away after exploding out through a messy hole in his back.

The dead man's blade landed heavily on the ground, so Slocum scooped it up and stood to face his next opponent.

In the distance, Spirit Bear raised his staff, reared back, and howled. His call was answered by a row of three men on horseback carrying long spears and rifles. A fourth horseman was a bit farther back and rode at a full gallop to catch up with the other three. They thundered in from the left side of the trail where they could hit the rear and middle portion of the wagon train. With all the commotion so far, they must have had all the time in the world to sneak up and get in position. No longer needing to sneak, the three up front sent their spears sailing through the air.

One of the spears stuck into a wheel of Franco's wagon.

The second spear passed over the wagons to land less than a foot away from Josiah.

The third ripped through the tarp covering the McCauley wagon. A second later, a child's scream pierced the air.

Now, the three riders closest to the wagons shifted to their rifles. The weapons were all decorated with charms, feathers, and bones. Slocum's intent was to deny them their hunt. Apparently, that intent was shared by the fourth rider, who'd been charging up to the other three.

Until now, it had seemed the fourth rider was another one of Spirit Bear's warriors. Once he got a little closer, Slocum recognized the horse as well as the man upon its back. Hevo rode tall and rose up as if he had stirrups instead of just strong legs to remain in position. He and the horse moved like one creature, and even when both hands were filled with a weapon, he still managed to steer his horse expertly among the other animals.

At first, the attackers with the rifles didn't respond to Hevo's presence. Perhaps they were accustomed to seeing wild-eyed Indians charging in to join them or they could have also been shocked by the sheer intensity in this one's face. When their surprise wore off, they brought their horses around to try and stop him. They weren't able to do anything but fire a few hurried shots before Hevo was close enough to strike. He carried a knife in each hand. The blades were about a foot long and curved in the middle. Hevo swung them around his upper body so the blades looked like nothing more than blurs that caught the occasional glint of light. When one of the weapons found its target, the blur was tainted by the crimson spray of blood.

One of the riders flew from his saddle, knocked backward by the impact of Hevo's blade. Slocum saw the rifle sail from the man's grasp and couldn't be sure if the Indian's hand had flown with it. Hevo's next swing sparked against a rifle, turning the barrel away a split second before the trigger was pulled. He drove the other blade straight into that man's gut while letting out a fierce war cry that rivaled Spirit Bear's howl.

Slocum let Hevo mop up those riders and shifted his attention back to the wagons. Josiah was blazing away with his Winchester, firing round after round into the dirt mounds at his feet. Ed's horse was beside Josiah, but the man himself could not be seen. When Spirit Bear howled again, everyone stopped what they were doing. Even Slocum, who had no intention of obeying the whims of a lunatic, was compelled to hold off from pulling his trigger.

“The men you have slain this day,” Spirit Bear said, “will rise again! They will attack with the might of devils! They will strike you down for trespassing upon my soil!” As he spoke, a thick, greenish fog formed behind him. He raised his staff above his head, turned his back to the wagons, and strode into the smoke.

All of the Dirt Swimmers dropped down to scamper away like four-legged animals and the one remaining rider broke away from Hevo so he could gallop toward the growing, murky cloud.

The rider thundered past Slocum and the wagons. Hevo followed close behind and slowed only so he could steady his arm to throw one of his blades at the retreating Indian. Slocum heard that blade slice through the air as it spun toward the rider's back, landing with a solid thump between the warrior's shoulders. For a few seconds, it seemed the man would keep riding toward Spirit Bear's fog. Then, he toppled from the horse's back, allowing the animal to continue on without him.

“You ain't goin'
nowhere!”
Josiah shouted as he fired at the attackers.

For once, Slocum was in total agreement with him. He ran to his horse, jumped in the saddle, and knocked his heels against the animal's sides. The horse bolted forward and Slocum joined Josiah in sending hot lead into the ever-expanding fog.

The moment the first wisp of that green smoke entered his nose, Slocum knew it was something similar to the mixture that had affected him before. One sniff was all it took to make Slocum unsteady in his saddle. Suddenly, he felt as if he was going much faster than before.

Too fast.

His horse was going wild.

Slocum had a hard time seeing through the tears flowing from his stinging eyes. When he tried to aim his Colt, he couldn't even be sure if he was lifting the damn thing high enough to hit something other than the ground. There didn't seem to be an end to the smoke. The ground felt as if it was teetering beneath him. Slocum felt the whole world tilting crazily in one direction and then another. He grabbed his reins reflexively when he thought he might fall backward from his saddle. That's when he realized the smoke wasn't affecting just him.

“Josiah!” he shouted. “Can you hear me?”

“I . . . hear ya . . . damn it!” Josiah said between hacking coughs.

“We need to turn back. The smoke is getting to the horses. They're gonna throw us and bolt!”

“To hell with—”

As if responding to what Slocum said, Josiah's horse whinnied and stomped the ground. Slocum couldn't see much but he could hear the fit the horse was throwing as well as Josiah's attempts to calm it. Finally, Josiah swore and said, “Let's just get out of this damn smoke!”

Slocum followed the sound of the other horse's steps as best he could. He thought they were still mostly following their original course, but when the smoke began to clear, he saw they'd veered well away from the trail. That didn't matter, however, since Spirit Bear and his followers were nowhere to be seen.

“Where'd that damn Injun git to?” Josiah growled.

Looking around for any trace of the attackers, Slocum replied, “He knows this land better than we do. Could be anywhere.”

“So you just wanna give up, then? Those savages fire at us and hurt our young ones and you just wanna let 'em go?”

“What would you rather do? Pick a direction and ride that way for a few miles, firing at nothing?”

“They must've left a trail. Let's find it!”

“We'll wait for the rest of that smoke to burn off and then that's just what we'll do.”

Josiah rode up close to Slocum, holding his rifle as if he meant to use it. “Know what I think? You're scouting for them, not us.”

“What?”

“None of this hell found us until you arrived,” Josiah said. “Maybe you brought it with you!”

“You hear that crying? You hear those voices? That's our own people. They're hurt and scared and they're
alone
. If those Indians really want to finish off this wagon train, the best time to do it would be when the men that are supposed to be protecting it go riding off half-cocked and leave the others to fend for themselves. If you want to do that, I say it's not me who's the one putting those good people in harm's way.”

Josiah chewed on those words and he chewed them hard. Every muscle in his face jumped beneath his skin. Water streamed from his eyes and nearly every pore as if something were wringing him out like a dirty rag. Before he could say anything, a familiar cry pierced the air. It was the child's cry that had erupted when one of the mounted attackers threw a spear into the McCauley wagon.

Neither man had to say another word. Both of them rode around the perimeter of the smoke and found their way back to the wagons. Theresa and Franco stood side by side, each holding a weapon. As Slocum drew closer, he could see them trembling like blades of grass in a stiff breeze.

“Who's hurt?” Slocum asked while dismounting. “Is anyone injured?”

Franco stepped forward. He lowered his shotgun so as not to point it at Slocum. “Mrs. McCauley is inside with her children. One of them was hit by a spear.”

“How bad?” When Franco shook his head, Slocum turned to Theresa. “How bad is it?”

“Can't say yet, but she's putting up an awfully loud fuss. Sometimes that's a good sign.”

Slocum had seen plenty of wounded people to know Theresa had a point. More often than not, the gravest wounds were the silent ones and those who suffered from them didn't suffer long. When someone was hollering, it meant they were still kicking. Even so, hearing a child holler that way wasn't an easy thing to bear. “Is that Elsie?” he asked.

“Yes,” Franco said. “The poor little thing . . . she . . .”

Josiah lunged at the cook, grabbed the front of his shirt, and shook him as he snarled, “You hid inside yer goddamn wagon like a yellow dog while the rest of us were out here chasing away them savages?”

Franco didn't have the strength to meet the other man's accusing glare.

“I should kill you where you stand.”

Before Josiah could make good on his threat, Theresa pointed her hunting rifle at him. “Let him go,” she said in an even tone.

“Oh, you're gonna turn on us now? At least them savages got reasons to attack us. They're animals! They don't know no better! You want to take sides with a coward?”

“He's no coward,” she said. “Look for yourself.”

Josiah leaned to one side so he could look past Theresa. Behind her, a body lay sprawled on its back. It was one of the Dirt Swimmers, still wrapped in its netted cloak, lying in a pool of mud that had been created by the blood that had been spilled onto the dirt. One of his legs was caught in the spokes of a wagon wheel and an expression of wild fury was frozen on his painted face. His torso was blown open; the edges of the horrific wound charred in a way that marked it as having been created by a close-range shotgun blast.

Franco stopped trembling when he looked at the body. A cold, haunted look showed in his eyes, which would most likely be with him for the rest of his life.

“That one down there slipped past you men,” Theresa explained. “He meant to climb up into my wagon and . . .” She couldn't finish her sentence, especially when James peeked out at her. “I was too slow to shoot him . . . maybe too frightened. I don't know. But Franco stepped in for me. He stood his ground here to hold back the ones that slipped past everyone else.”