Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03] (29 page)

A shower of stars flashed before Aee’s eyes as she fell into a pit of darkness.

*  *  *

Still giggling over Aee’s reference to the twig as Eli’s rear end, Maggie ran to the homestead, darted into the shed where Light had left their packs, and picked up her whip. She coiled it, looped it over her shoulder and tucked the handle in the belt around her waist.

Maggie wished that Aee liked Eli as much as she did. He was unhappy and frowning most of the time, but that was because he was troubled about something besides Kruger sinking his boat. He had growled at her when she asked him why he watched Light and told her to tend her own business when she got after him for teasing Aee. Maybe he liked Aee. The only times he laughed were when he was teasing her.

With her pet chicken under her arm, Eee came toward Maggie as she left the shed.

“’Lo, Miz Lightbody. What ya doin’?”

“I’m helpin’ Aee wash.”

“Want to hold Chicken?”

“Shore. What’s her name?” Maggie dropped down on her knees and took the docile bird. It settled in Maggie’s arms and closed its eyes.

“Chicken.” Eee stroked the red comb on the top of the chicken’s head.

“It’s a good name. I had a dog once named Dog.”

“Dog? I couldn’t name her Dog ’cause she’s a chicken.”

Maggie returned her pet to Eee and stood. “I got t’help Aee.”

“Can I come?”

“If yore ma says ya can.”

“She won’t let me. I got to hold the meal bag. . . and I don’t want to.”

“But ya got to mind yore ma. I’ll be back when we get the washin’ done, and we’ll play a game of blind-man’s bluff. Won’t that be fun?”

“I guess so,” Eee said begrudgingly.

Maggie ran through the woods toward the creek singin’ one of her favorite ditties.

Yan-kee Doo-dle is the tune

Amer-i-cans de-light in;

’Twill do to whis-tle, sing or play,

And just the thin’ for fight-in’.

“Aee, Eee was wantin’ t’ come, but—”

Something was wrong. Aee wasn’t there—and the crock of soap was tipped over. Instantly alert, Maggie stood as still as a doe. Then she heard a sound unrelated to the sounds of the woods—a muffled sound. Quickly, and as quietly as a darting wood mouse, she was through the sumac and into the clearing beside the creek.

There was Aee lying still as death on the ground! And Kruger was on his knees, pulling her skirt up around her waist. So intent was he on what he was doing that he hadn’t heard Maggie enter the clearing.

“Get way from her!” The words burst from Maggie’s mouth in a shrill scream.

Kruger jumped to his feet and turned to face her.

“I vas comin’ for ya.”

Maggie could see the craziness in his eyes. She took a deep breath, put her two fingers in her mouth and whistled two long loud blasts.

“
Verdammt!
Stop dat!”

Maggie jerked the whip from her shoulder and shagged it back when he took a step toward her. Her eyes never left his face.

The German watched her with an amused smile. The chance to get her had come sooner than he had thought. He had been watching since the two women had come to the creek and built a fire under the pot. When Maggie had left he had decided to take his pleasure with the other one until she got back, then he would take her away with him.

“Foolish voman,” he muttered. “Ya tink to hold me off vit’ dat silly vhip?”

The first blow answered his question. The tip of the lash caught him across the face, cutting a gash in his cheek, laying the flesh open to the bone. He stopped in his tracks and grabbed at his face.

“Ohhh . . . ow! Gott damn!”

Wild with fury, Maggie shagged the lash backward and with all her strength brought the thin strip of leather down on the arm he had thrown up to protect his face. He was bleeding where the forked tip had taken away skin. He let out another helpless bleat of rage, tried to catch the punishing strip of leather and discovered it was like trying to snare a striking rattlesnake.

Maggie went after him with a vengeance. Again and again, she cast, catching him on the ear, the shoulder, the neck. Flesh and blood flew. He backpedaled.

The only weapons Maggie had to use against this crazed man who outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds were the whip and her powerful voice. She used both. While she stalked him, she took another deep breath.

“Y-oo-al-al-al-ee. Y-oo-al-al-al-ee. Y-oo-al-al-al-ee!” The yodeling cry resounded throughout the woods.

“I kill dat breed, he come—”

Kruger managed to get the knife from the back of his belt. When he brought it forward, she opened the back of his hand and he dropped it before he could use it. He bellowed with rage and stooped to pick it up. Maggie’s whip ripped open his shirt from shoulder to waist, drawing a long bloody line across his bared back.

She was tiring. She allowed the whip to wrap around his arm once, but jerked it away before he could grab it. Another mistake like that and the whipping would be over.

Otto Kruger was like a wild man. The blood that ran down his face mixed with the froth from his mouth. He roared with rage, but he did not retreat. Taking the lash full in the face, he threw out his arms and lunged at her.

“Drop, Maggie.” Light’s commanding voice came from behind her.

Kruger was only a few feet from her when she threw herself to the ground. Light’s knife sailed over her, sure and swift. Kruger staggered back, stumbled over his feet and fell.

“She
meine
. . . voman—” They were his last words as blood gushed from his mouth.

Light stood over Kruger until he was sure he was dead. Then he knelt beside Maggie and took her in his arms.

“
Mon trésor! Mon amour!
” His voice was hoarse with worry.

“Ya killed him, didn’t ya? I knew ya’d come.”

“I killed him. I’ll always come when you call, my sweet pet.”

“Aee! He hurt Aee.” Maggie turned her head to look around.

Eli, breathing hard, burst into the clearing. His eyes passed over Kruger lying on his back, Light’s knife in his chest. Then he rushed to where Aee lay unconscious on the ground, her white limbs exposed.

“Godamighty!” He pulled her skirt down over her thighs. “What did that crazy bastard do to her?” he demanded of no one in particular.

She looked so . . . defenseless lying there. She was no longer the proud, lippy woman, but a young, pretty girl who had been overpowered by the German’s superior strength. Eli turned Aee’s head. He could see that her cheek had been cut and bruised, and her lips were swollen and bleeding. He cursed again.
The bastard had hit her in the face with his fist.

Then fear of something even worse than the blow came to his mind. Without hesitation he flipped up her skirt. Her underclothing had not been disturbed.
Thank God! He had not raped he
r. Eli quickly covered her thighs again as her father and Paul arrived.

Aee was revived with a cloth dipped in the cold creek water. She sat up and stared dazedly about. What was the Swede doing there? He looked worried and was supporting her with an arm around her back.

“Don’t try to get up just yet. He hit you pretty hard.” Eli took the wet cloth from Paul and gently wiped the blood from her face.

“Where . . . is he?”

“In hell where he should have been sent days ago,” Eli said passionately. “It’s my fault, Aee. I saw him the day of the celebration and let him go. And I was sure he had gone downriver after he busted up my boat.”

“Maggie?”

“She’s all right.”

In the safe haven of Light’s arms, Maggie told him what had happened. The marks on Kruger’s body spoke of the vicious fight the small woman had waged against the crazed man.

“If he’d caught the whip, I was goin’ t’ throw the knife.”

“You did right, my treasure.” Light gently brushed the hair back from her forehead and placed his lips there.

He was proud of her. She had dropped to the ground the instant he spoke so that he could throw his knife. But now, reaction had set in, and he trembled at the thought of the danger she had been in.

Maggie touched Light’s cheek with her fingertips. “I knew ya’d come,” she said again.

After making sure that Aee was all right, MacMillan squatted down beside Light and Maggie.

“Yore little woman shore knows how to use that whip,” MacMillan said. “She held him off till ya could get here. Ma’am, I ain’t never seen nobody move so fast as yore man did when he heard ya whistle. One minute he was there, next he was off like a shot. We knowed somethin’ was wrong. It was like tryin’ to follow a scalded cat. We couldn’t keep up. Then we heared ya yodel. I ain’t never heared nothin’ like it.”

“Is Aee all right?”

“She’s got a busted lip. She don’t seemed t’ be hurt none, but she’ll be mad as a hornet.”

Maggie leaned up and put her lips close to MacMillan’s ear.

“He . . . was goin’ t’ get in her . . . drawers. But he didn’t—”

MacMillan was startled by the frank words. Then he nodded.

“I thank God for it. And ya too, ma’am, for savin’ her.”

“I ain’t goin’ to just walk off and leave the cloth in the washpot,” Aee protested.

“To hell with the cloth!” Eli held her elbow securely in his hand and walked her back to the cabin. Then he stood by while her mother and sisters fussed over her.

With a wet cloth held to her face, more to hide it from the Swede and the rivermen than to ease the ache, Aee listened to her father telling her mother what had happened.

“Miz Lightbody whistled, then lashed ’im with the whip. Lightbody heared that whistle an’ took off like a scalded cat. Little woman’s got a powerful voice. Did ya hear that racket she made?”

“It was
odle, odle, odle,
Pa,” Dee said. “Reckon I could learn it?”

“I bet ya could, sis.” MacMillan pulled his second youngest daughter up onto his knee. “Why don’t ya ask Miz Lightbody t’ show ya how.”

At Mrs. MacMillan’s suggestion Dixon went with Bee and Cee to the creek to finish washing the cloth. The girls were leery of going there alone so soon after Aee had been attacked. Bodkin stayed at the homestead and turned the crank on the corn grinder for Mrs. MacMillan, who was still weak from giving birth. It brought to Eli’s mind how readily the two rivermen had been accepted by the MacMillans.

Did Bodkin think he’d have a chance with Aee if he got in good with her mother? Eli scoffed at the thought of the two of them together. MacMillan’s eldest daughter needed a firmer hand than the riverman would give her, and Eli decided to tell MacMillan so at the first opportunity. She would be miserable with a bumpkin like Bodkin.

As the thought came into Eli’s head, he realized he had made a rhyme. Bumpkin Bodkin. A chuckle bubbled up and he glanced at Aee. She was looking at him. Their eyes met; she lifted her chin and stared at him defiantly.
Hell and high-water! He’d done it now. She thought he was laughing at her!

*  *  *

The rest of the day was spent in almost awed silence.

Aee’s and Maggie’s narrow escape from the madman had shaken everyone at the homestead, even little Eee, who cried when she saw her sister’s face. All felt relief knowing that the mad German was dead.

“God was with us this day,” MacMillan declared as he and Paul left to dig a grave for Kruger.

They each took an arm and dragged the body to the knoll where the other rivermen had been buried. The soil was soft and the digging easy. They had almost finished when Many Spots and two of his warriors rode in to speak to MacMillan.

“How do, Mac.”

“How do, Many Spots.” The two men shook hands.

“Downriver we find big boom gun.”

“How big?”

“This big.” Many Spots curled his hands to form a large circle.

“A cannon?”

“Big,” he said again, shrugged, and looked down at the dead man. “Who kill?”

“Sharp Knife.”

“No Hair,” the Indian said with disgust.

“Reckon he warn’t worthy of hair.”

“That is so. Where Sharp Knife go?”

“He went to look for the canoe this one came in.”

“He will find it.” Many Spots looked at Kruger’s body with disgust. “Scalp with no hair! Nothing to hang on belt.”

“It’s a shame,” Mac agreed dryly. “Seen any sign of Delaware?”

“Delaware go that way.” Many Spots pointed across the river toward the south.

“That is good.”

“This many canoe comin’.” He held up two fingers. “Three, four days upriver.”

“Trappers?”

“Bring furs and bear oil.”

Having said all he had to say, Many Spots motioned to his warriors and they rode away.

Paul watched him leave, then turned to MacMillan.

“How does he know that? He’s been
down
river.”

MacMillan scratched his head. “Beats me. He may know the canoe carries bear oil because of the kind a canoe it is. When the dugout is made, two partitions are left in the middle. They pour bear oil in the center compartment. A skin is drawn tight over the top. Bear oil sells good in St. Louis.”

Paul threw out a few more shovelfuls of dirt while he absorbed this information. When he thought the grave deep enough, he climbed out.