Gone West (19 page)

Maggie struggled to acquiesce and finally was upright, a little less dizzy this time. She tasted from the bowl held out to her and gagged. The brew was hot and bitter. Poison? She studied the other woman’s eyes. No. There was only concern written there. It must be an herbal remedy of the Indian’s concoction, something with which she was unfamiliar.

Another sip was taken and strength began returning to her limbs. Maggie held the bowl close to her lips with two trembling hands. She drank everything left and dropped again into her soft mattress. Corn Girl smiled. She carefully placed the bowl away to sketch out evocative motions. Maggie was to rest. She, Corn Girl, must return to the fields. Maggie nodded understanding and drifted off to sleep as Red Eagle’s eldest wife quietly disappeared.

Maggie dozed fitfully, her dreams pierced with sharp, nightmarish visions. There was her baby, growing thin and wan, unable even to cry. Jamie~also rail thin~was riding a painted pony, feverishly trying to shoot an arrow at a huge, monolithic beast thundering down upon him. Maggie twisted and turned, trying to escape the images. New ones appeared. Now it was Johnny. He was entwined in the vise-like grip of an enemy. The enemy’s arms were thick and sinuous, like some vast prehistoric snake. Johnny was growing paler and paler. He was bleeding around his head and face. Maggie fought the dream, fought the terror. Suddenly she sat up like a shot, completely awake and aware. Completely lucid.

Someone had entered the lodge and was coming close to her. She tried to adjust her eyes to the dim light. It was not Corn Girl. Instinctively she knew it was not a woman at all. The movements were too stealthy. Had Red Eagle returned? No. He would not sneak into his own lodge. He would come as a conqueror, to take what he felt was rightly his. Terror crept slowly, steadily up Maggie’s spine. The feeling had reached her neck when the hated face of Snake appeared above hers, leering. Her eyes raced down his unwashed body to the hands reaching out for her. Maggie opened her mouth to scream.

The hunting party, with Johnny hard on its heels, arrived at the village in a cloud of dust and barking dogs. Johnny had only a moment to take in the huts and the expressions of surprise on the faces of the toothless old women sitting in the sun. Then he was off his horse, mad with the need to find his wife, to assure himself that she was alive and well. He’d barely touched the ground when a piercing scream rang through the village. Johnny did not stop to think. He raced towards the sound, followed by Red Eagle, equally distressed.

The scream rang out again, and Johnny located its source. It came from the slightly larger lodge in the center of the settlement. He’d never heard Meg scream, but he knew definitively it was she. His hand reached for the only weapon he possessed~the hunting knife at his belt~as he ducked his tall frame to enter the hut.

The scream was coming from a pile of furs and bodies. Knife poised, Johnny drew back his arm to propel the blade into the alien back. He paused as the head was raised and two eyes black with hatred met his.

“Get up and fight like a man, you heathen bastard, or I’ll stab you in the back like you deserve!”

Johnny’s growled words were registered. Their meaning was clear in any language. Snake rose in one sinuous movement. When his right hand appeared it, too, was sporting a flashing blade. Hunched beneath the low dome of the lodge’s roof, the two men faced each other. Their frozen bodies turned mobile as a feinting dance of death began.

Snake’s blade shot out first, grazing Johnny’s neck. Johnny ignored the warm trickle of blood that began to ooze from the wound, ignored the hot glow from the dying embers of fire near his feet, ignored even the silent eyes of both Meg and Red Eagle, watching. He knew only one thing. This man, this man who had dared to touch his wife, to make her scream with such hopelessness~this man must die.

Johnny did not know it, but he was screaming himself. He was yelling the war cry of his Highland ancestors, the cry of battle heard a hundred years past over the plains of Culloden. His mouth opened yet again, sending out another bloodcurdling shriek as he moved in on Snake, shoving aside the Indian’s blooded knife as if it were naught.

He thrust, and felt his own blade strike home. It struck true and clean into the Snake’s chest. Johnny thrust again, and yet again, until he was making useless movements into a body that he himself was supporting, a body that gave no resistance. Johnny shoved the body away from him. He watched it fall in slow motion across the fire, crushing a pottery bowl beneath it. He stood staring at it until the acrid smell of burning flesh hit his nostrils. Only then did he give the dead Indian a kick, propelling Snake’s corpse in a heap to the side of the fire.

There was one final thing he must do.

Johnny bent over Snake’s head. Knife in hand, he carefully took a fistful of the straight black hair. Methodically, Johnny carved off the hank and its skin. He stood up then, staring, almost mesmerized at his first scalp. It did not please him. His stomach suddenly heaving, Johnny flung the scalp to the floor and turned to his wife.

Maggie was waiting. Her eyes were large with the horror of what they had witnessed. Her husband said nothing, just took her into his arms. His voice returned slowly.

“You are alive, my love? You are unharmed?”

“Oh, Johnny!” She clung closer. “Yes. Yes! Snake, he . . . He didn’t have time . . .”

Johnny ignored the implications of that left unsaid. “I’ve come to take you back home. The children will be missing you. And I have great need for you, too.”

“Johnny. I was going to escape, tonight . . . But I felt so weak. They helped me . . . the women.” She paused, gasping for breath between the sobs that had started, unwanted. “They were very kind. And he~Red Eagle~he was, too, in his own way . . . And then, and then, the Snake came . . .” She burst into another spasm of sobs.

“Hush. Save it for later. You’re safe now. I have but one more thing to do.”

Maggie choked, but stopped her flow of tears at the sudden iron in her husband’s voice. “What must you do?”

“I must buy your freedom. By killing Red Eagle.”

“Need it come to that? Need there be more blood?”

“Yes. But it will be done honorably. A gentleman’s duel. Not like this piece of trash.” He kicked at Snake’s body, rolling it farther from his line of vision.

“How will you fight him?”

Johnny suddenly knew. “What the knife has done once, it can do again.” He turned, and saw Red Eagle hunched inside the entrance, studying the scene. “If it be done, it must be done quickly, before the strength of righteous anger leaves me.”

Johnny moved to the door, but Red Eagle rose to block him.

“You forget something, Stew-ert.” His eyes moved to the scalp lying on the packed dirt floor.

Johnny followed his look. “I forget nothing. It is worthless. A snake may shed his skin many times, but it does not make of him a man.”

Red Eagle nodded silent agreement, but still blocked the way.

“Stew-ert,” he began again.

Johnny, feeling the knife still in his hand, wiped its blade along one pants leg, then held it up, a signal that he was ready for the next battle.

“Stew-ert. Unknown, you have made me the gift of a great boon. This Snake that lies dead was my sworn enemy. He was but half Pawnee, the other half the gift of a wandering war party of Comanche. He strove for my power, my wives. He insulted the woman of my heart. Your wife. You have honored me by your action. For this I will return your woman.”

Johnny’s fist tightened on the knife. “You mean~”

“I believe still that I am stronger than you. I would have won her freely and with honor. But that will be left to the heavens. You may go.”

Behind him, Johnny heard Meg’s stifled sob of relief. He turned once more to the chief.

“You are a man of honor, indeed, Red Eagle. A worthy foe, and a worthy friend. I wish that your tribe may thrive, and your women bear you many strong sons.”

Johnny passed out of the hut into the bright sunlight, Maggie beside him. They were free.