Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03] (7 page)

“I’ll mind ya next time.” She smiled at him beguilingly.

“Imp!”

“Who’s comin’?”

“Flatboat. Three men, that I can see. Two at the poles, one at the sweep oar.”

The flatboat that approached was one that had been put together by a master craftsman. Light knew that at first glance. It was long and narrow and, judging by the way it rode the water, lightweight. A railing ran along the two long sides and a low open-ended shed squatted in the middle with a mast pole rising from its closed end. It was a worthy craft that could be sailed, poled, or rowed.

The man at the sweep oar stood on spread legs. He was broad-shouldered and slim-hipped. His shoulder-length hair glinted red, and the close-cropped beard was a darker brown. Two pole-men moved the craft along the water outside the reeds.

“Down,” Light said suddenly. One of the men had raised a nautical glass to his eye and was scanning the riverbank.

“Are they Delaware, Light?”

“No.”

“Why are we afraid of them?”

“It’s best to make sure who they are, pet, before we show ourselves.”

As the last word left Light’s mouth, a bloodcurdling screech came from behind them.

Caught in an unguarded moment, Light turned to see two Delaware braves leap from a thicket of wild rose with tomahawks raised for the kill. Sure of their success, the braves had given their victory cry before the battle began.

Light had no time to raise his gun and fire; but, in swift reflex, he stepped back and swung the butt end, smashing one warrior in the face. Bones crunched and blood gushed from the man’s broken nose and cheek. With an agonized howl, he fell back holding his hand to his face.

Maggie had bounced to her feet like a cat and ducked as the second brave swung his tomahawk at her head. Too close to the Indian to throw her knife, she plunged it into his bare side and fell back away from him. In pain and shock the Indian hesitated for only a second, just long enough for Light to swing the end of his long gun around and fire. Blood blossomed on the brave’s chest as the shot tore into his flesh and flung him back.

The other brave, still howling in pain, took to his heels and disappeared in the bush. Light dropped his rifle and leaped after him, easily overtaking him. Without mercy he ran his knife through the Delaware’s back to his heart. He stooped over the fallen warrior to retrieve his blade, then raced back to where he had left Maggie.

The small clearing was empty except for the dead Indian. Light’s breath was stopped by a dread so acute he was unable to breathe.

His precious treasure was gone!

“Maggie!” The agonized cry came roaring up from the depth of his soul. “Mag . . . gie!” He grabbed up his gun and, half-blinded by fear and dread, tore through the brush to where they had left the horses.

He reached the clearing and found Maggie, standing with hands on her hips, peering after two braves riding away on their ponies.

“They took our horses, Light. Don’t that beat all?”

“To hell with the damn horses!” His next dozen words were a mixture of French and Osage. He said them crossly while shaking her. Then he pulled her to him and hugged her fiercely. “
Mon Dieu, chérie!
You scared me. After this, stay where I put you!”

Maggie nestled in his embrace for a brief moment, then moved back to look up at him. She caressed his cheeks soothingly as if she were quieting an excited animal.

“If I had, I’d be gone with the horses.”

“
Mon Dieu,
that is so, my treasure.” He held her against him for a moment.

“What will we do without our horses?” Maggie asked sadly.

“I don’t know. I was hoping to meet some of my mother’s people and trade them.” Light echoed Maggie’s disappointment. “We will need stouter horses for our trip across the plains.”

“We’ll make out, Light. Don’t worry.” Maggie reassured him with a sweet confident smile.

“It is good that we had not put the packs on the horses,” he answered, looking for a way to support her optimism.

“What now, Light?”

“We’ll see who’s on that flatboat coming upriver. There are only three of them to worry about, and Lord only knows how many Delaware between here and the bend.”

*  *  *

Since sundown the day before, Eli Nielson had been aware that there was a man upriver and that he was traveling light. Only a man alone would have butchered a deer in such a way, taking only what he could use before the meat spoiled and leaving the rest of the carcass to float downriver. After spotting the dead deer, Nielson, Deschanel and a German named Kruger had moved the flatboat upriver until it became too dark to spot a dangerous sawyer or an unruly current.

At dawn Nielson had taken his turn at the steering oar while Otto Kruger, possibly the best carpenter in the territory and also the most ill-tempered, and Paul Deschanel, Nielson’s friend and companion for most of his life, took the poles.

“You think it’s him?” Paul asked as he pulled his pole from the muddy river bottom.

“Could be. Merrick said he was a week out of St. Charles.”

“If it is,
mon ami,
you’ll get a look at him before nightfall, that’s if the Delaware don’t take a notion to set on us . . . or him.”

“I was sure that he wouldn’t have turned inland. Merrick didn’t say, but it’s logical that he would follow the river if he was goin’ to the Bluffs.”

“
Mon Dieu.
Merrick didn’t say he was going to the Bluffs.”

“Cautious man.”

Paul snorted a reply.

“Trappers comin’ down riffer two days back see no vhite man.” The German spoke with a heavy accent.

“They might’ve thought he was an Indian.”

“
Eh, bien!
” Paul took one hand off the pole to remove his fur cap. “Is he not?”

“He iss a saffage?” Kruger’s bald head swiveled on his thick neck.

Eli was looking through his spyglass and didn’t answer.

“If he has any sense, he’s cut a wide path round them Delaware.” Paul grunted and heaved on the pole. “If he went through them, he could’a come out without hair.
Mon ami,
them Delawares is mean sonsabitches.”

“If he planned to get to the Bluffs before winter, he took to the river.” Eli lifted the spyglass to his eye again.

“Who knows,
mon ami,
why a Frenchman does anything.” Paul grinned over his shoulder at Eli. “A Frenchman with Osage blood is”—he waved his hands—“crazy like fox. Knowing about Baptiste Lightbody’s been eating on you for going on five year now.”

The tall sharp-eyed man agreed but showed no outward sign of it.

Had it been only five years since Sloan Carroll, of Carrolltown up on the Ohio, had sent word that he had a spot of business to discuss with him? What Carroll had told him had changed his life. From that day on he had even viewed himself in a different way.

A few months after his visit to the Carrolls, he had received another blow to his pride. Sloan’s daughter, Orah Delle, had told him that she was going back to her father’s ancestral home in Virginia to study music. To give the lady credit, he was sure that she had no idea that he had lain in his bed night after night dreaming of her and had come to the Carroll home as often as possible in hopes of seeing her.

Five years ago he had been so young and inexperienced, unable to recognize that the beautiful and gracious Orah Delle had offered him only the same courtesy that she would have shown any of her father’s acquaintances.

Eli Nielson had heard about the profits to be made by freighting up the Mississippi. It was one of the reasons, a minor one he admitted to himself, that he had left the Ohio Valley, come down the Ohio to the Mississippi and up to St. Louis, where he had bought guns, gunpowder, tools, blankets and tobacco with the intention of taking them upriver perhaps as far as the French settlement of Prairie du Chien.

From a word here and a word there he had learned that Baptiste Lightbody was a well-known scout that Zeb Pike had tried to hire. It seemed that he had no close ties to anyone other than the men Sloan named, Jefferson Merrick and Will Murdock. That information had led Neilson to Jefferson Merrick, and now here to this wilderness.

In this country Eli felt marvelously alive. He would never regret this journey no matter how it turned out. He fully intended to spend the rest of his life in this land beyond the great river.

Flocks of disgruntled waterfowl squawked and rose as the flatboat approached each group feeding in the reeds along the bank. On a sandy bank a raccoon washed a squirming crayfish and did not observe the flatboat until the sudden smell of it startled him into releasing his grip on his meal. The crayfish scampered into the water; the raccoon scampered into the underbrush.

While the two men poled in silence, the other scanned the riverbank. After they had bought the flatboat from him, Kruger had joined Paul and Eli in St. Louis. The German owed a sizeable gambling debt at the saloon and was being pressed for payment. With the money from Eli, he had paid up and proceeded to beat the saloon keeper senseless; then needing to leave town in a hurry, he had joined them on the trip up the Missouri to the homestead of Jefferson Merrick. Aware that the barkeeper and his cronies would be lying in wait for him back in St. Louis, Kruger had continued on with the pair up the Missouri.

The morning quiet was abruptly broken by the screeching of a Delaware attack. Almost before the men on the boat could recover from the surprise, they heard the sound of a shot. Eli scanned the upper bank and saw nothing. He dropped the spyglass and swung the steering oar to head the craft to the sandbar.

“Turn in! Turn in!”

“
Verdammt!
” Kruger snarled.

Paul cursed in French and pulled mightily on the pole to do as he was told.

As soon as the flatboat touched the sandy bottom next to the sandbar, the three men grabbed rifles and crouched behind the shed. The flatboat floated gently among the reeds.

“Mag . . . gie!” The shout echoed up and down the river. “Mag . . . gie!”

“Maggie?” Paul said. “Maybe that’s his squaw, or his horse. Leastways it wasn’t him what was shot.” When Paul grinned at his friend his teeth gleamed white against his black beard. “You’d not be fit to live with,
mon ami,
to come all this way and find the bastard dead.”

Eli didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed on the small ridge above the sandbar. The minutes ticked away. It suddenly occurred to him that if it was Lightbody up there, he might not have survived the attack or if he had, he might be injured. Eli stood and cupped his hands about his mouth and shouted.

“Lightbody!” Again the shout echoed up and down the river. After a moment of strained silence, Eli yelled again. “Lightbody.”

Paul, squatting on his heels, shook his head.

“
Mon Dieu!
You damned Swede! Someday you’re going to get your foolish head shot off.”

Light peered through the bushes toward the river. He had watched the flatboat hit the sandbar and the men take shelter behind the shed. He couldn’t have been more surprised when the man stood and shouted his name.

“He called yore name, Light. Do ya know him?”

“I don’t think so.” He looked down at her. “Button your shirt up to your neck, pet. And stay close.”

“Are they bad men?”

“I don’t know. But we’ve got to risk it. It’s them or the Delaware.”

Light stood so that he was in plain sight of the men on the boat and lifted his rifle over his head. Sun glinted on the hair of the tall man who waved back. Leaving their packs on the edge of the ridge, Light and Maggie walked hand in hand down to the sandy beach.

The men jumped off the boat and one of them secured it to a stunted tree that grew along the river’s edge. They stood waiting, rifles in hand, and watched the pair approach. Light had his long gun ready. Maggie’s whip was coiled and looped over her shoulder.

A sudden hotness crawled over Light’s skin. These men, he was sure, had not seen a woman like Maggie, ever in all their lives. Were they honorable men like his two friends back in St. Charles, or the other kind like Jeff’s brother, Jason? Would he be able to protect her if the three of them jumped him? He sized up the men as they drew near them.

The one who had called out was obviously in charge. Light knew that instinctively. A wide-shouldered man with a lean, strong-boned face, the boatman seemed to be thirty-odd years old.

The dark one appeared slightly older. Gray streaked his hair. He was thick in the chest and his legs were like tree trunks. Light suspected that he was not a leader, but a man with strong convictions who would fight for what he considered his due. If he could be judged by the jaunty angle at which he wore his fur cap, he had a cheerful disposition.

The other man was as tall as the light-haired one but much heavier. The hand holding his fire-piece was the size of a ham. He was hatless and hairless, his head slick as a peeled onion. Intuition and experience had taught Light to read men as he would a forest trail. The bald head was small for a big man, his features lean and vulpine, his eyes like those of a weasel. This was a man to watch.