Mountain Rose (32 page)

Raegan and how much he missed her, and wondered if she was all right. He had thought that by now they would have caught up with Roscoe and would be on their way home. They had been following his course down the river for four days now. But Chase and the other men hadn't reckoned that along the river they would come upon stretches of underbrush so thick and wide that they would waste hours hacking a path through it. Consquently Roscoe was always a day ahead of them.

When the men had separated four days back, Sid Johnson's hound had picked up Roscoe's scent the following morning. Sid had insisted on bringing along the old dog. The men had teased the fur post owner, declaring that he'd have to let the dog ride with him every once in a while to rest up. And Sid had indeed taken the old fellow up on the horse occasionally to give his legs a rest.

But old Sounder, as Sid called him, was much praised when it was he who discovered where Roscoe had slept the night before, letting them know they were on the right track.

"He's picked up Roscoe's trail," Sid had yelled, pointing to the hound, who sniffed the river bank, the hair on his neck bristling. Some doubted that was the case as they headed their mounts toward the hound, and one man mused out loud that he was smelling a wolf track, while another laughingly said he was smelling his own tracks. It turned out they were both wrong, for there were Roscoe's tracks and the scuff marks where he had dragged the canoe into the water. With

wild whoops, the chase was on.

By now the other group of men were back home, Chase thought with some envy.

A shrill burst of feminine laughter brought Chase back to the present. The trappers had insisted that the skinny whore from the tavern accompany them. When Chase had demurred, they had argued that at the end of a hard day, a man needed his pleasuring. They pointed out that he, a married man, should surely understand that.

He had argued back that her presence would cause trouble among the men, but when the men promised faithfully not to fight over her and to draw cards for their turn in her blanket, he had agreed. Half the men were married anyhow and shouldn't be interested in the whore, he had told himself. He soon discovered that to some of the men, their married state didn't make any difference.

A wry smile tugged at the corners of his lips. As it turned out, only he, Sid, and one other man hadn't visited the woman he had previously spent a lot of time with. Even young Johnny had been introduced to the pleasure of a woman's body, the trappers donating the money for the young man's first sexual experience.

Chase stood up when Sid called out that the meat was done and they should get their plates and line up. There followed a few minutes of clattering tin plates and cups as the men dug into saddlebags for their own personal tins.

There was little conversation as the men hungrily consumed the roasted squirrel and drank the coffee. There was one small roasted squirrel leftover from the meal, and stripping the meat from the bones, Sid fed it to the old Sounder. "You sure do pamper that old hound," one of the men ragged Sid.

"He ain't got many teeth left." Sid defended his old friend.

"Yeah, I reckon." The man looked a little shame-faced and pulled a deck of cards from his vest pocket. "Come on, gents." He grinned. "Time to draw for the first crack at our fair lady."

The man who drew the high card gave a whoop and, grabbing the giggling whore by the hand, rushed her to the blanket spread under a pine, not too far away from the fire. The nights were chilly this time of year, and there was always the danger of curious wolves coming around camp.

The fire burned down to coals, and as cards were drawn again, Sid piled more wood on the fire, then sat down beside Chase. As the coals hissed, smoked voluminously, then leaped into flames, he groused, "Do you think we'll ever catch up with that bastard?"

"We will, Sid. Sooner or later he's bound to light somewhere. Probably at the first village or town he comes to. Hell be needin' a woman by now."

"He ain't the only one." Sid half laughed. "I need Ruthie real bad. This is the first time I've gone longer than two days without her pleasurin' me."

"I sympathize with you, friend," Chase said, grinning.

"Does Roscoe have a last name?" Sid asked after a few minutes of silence as one man left

the whore's blanket and another took his place.

"I'm sure he does," Chase answered with amusement. "Most men do. We'll probably never know his, though."

Sid nodded agreement. "There's a good many men who have left their names behind them for some reason or other. There's no tellin' what made that bastard run from his."

After a while Sid said good night and rolled up in his blanket. All the men but one had sought their blankets as soon as they finished their turn with the whore. Finally, her last customer rolled off the skinny woman and unrolled his sleeping gear.

But Chase sat on, staring into the ruddy glow of the campfire, thinking of Raegan. It grew quiet, the only sound in the night an occasional stamp of a horse's hoof and the snores coming from most of the blankets spread around the fire. Suddenly, Chase cocked his head and listened intently. He had heard an alien sound in the forest. At length, he caught a swishing sound, like that of a body moving carefully against brush. Indian? he asked himself.

Keeping the movement of his hand hidden, he drew his gun from its holster, slowly twirled the cylinder, found it full of cartridges, then replaced it, making sure the holster flap was out of the way so that it wouldn't catch or drag at the weapon in case he had to use it.

He rose slowly, in a casual way, and walked over to the horses, pretending that he was checking to see if all were securely tied. All the time, his eyes were sweeping the area. He moved on to a tree opposite the campfire and, seemingly at ease, answered nature's call, the act of a man about to retire. His eyes roamed over that area too. He saw nothing but the thick growth of trees.

Relacing his buckskins, Chase returned to the fire. Whoever had been out there in the darkness was gone now. Nevertheless, when he crawled into his bedroll, he kept the Colt handy to his touch.

All day a thick mist had hung over the river, and the sun hadn't once broken through the clouds that hovered like a gray cloak. Roscoe, lifting and dipping the paddle, sending the canoe skimming downstream, looked up at the angry clouds and knew that he would be rained on before the day was over.

An hour later, heavy rain was pouring down on him and there was no chance of leaving the river. Trees were a dense barricade right up to the edge of the water. And to worsen matters, the canoe was beginning to fill up with water and there wasn't a thing he could do about it except swear and sweat. If it should sink, he'd be a goner. He couldn't swim.

The vessel was nearly ready to capsize when Roscoe paddled around a bend in the river and sighted a rude log building about thirty yards away. "A fur post, by God," he exclaimed and nosed the water-swamped vessel toward the long, low-to-the-ground structure. At that moment, the rain that had slowed down a bit renewed itself and came down so fiercely that Roscoe couldn't see a foot ahead of him. He didn't see the huge log floating downstream, but he felt it when it rammed the canoe, breaking it in two.

As the craft broke apart, one half sinking immediately, Roscoe grabbed onto the part that still floated, yelling for help at the top of his lungs as he stared death in the face. His strength was giving out when a pair of hands grabbed him under the arms and dragged him into a boat. More dead than alive, he was rowed to the fur post and flung into a chair before a burning fireplace.

On their fifth day of tracking Roscoe, bitterly cold wind beat against Chase and the men. Dark clouds had run before its onslaught, tumbling and rolling like a turbulent sea.

Sid rode up alongside Chase. "We're gonna get rained on before dark."

"I'm afraid so." Chase bent his head against a blast of wind. "As cold as it is, we'll be lucky if we don't get snowed on."

Sid dropped back behind him, and the single file of mounts clomped along. The wind grew to a howl, and the pine branches overhead waved and creaked. Then, half an hour later, the wind died away and the rain came, shooting straight down. The men were soaked before they could dig the slickers out of their gear and shrug into them.

It grew dark early, brought on by the rain clouds, and Chase peered ahead, searching for some kind of shelter. Finally he saw a stand of spruce, so thick he doubted the sun ever managed to pierce through the interwoven branches.

He smiled his relief. He had thought that tonight's supper would be strips of dried beef, but under that thick shelter, a fire could be built. "This way, men," he called and turned Sampson toward the trees.

As Chase had surmised, the forest floor was barely damp as he swung out of the saddle. He tied the stallion to a tree, then called to Johnny, and the two of them went searching for dry wood. They found that the supply was plentiful, and within minutes each had gathered an armful of dry sticks and good-sized limbs. While Chase went to get the tarpaulin tied behind his saddle, Johnny got a fire going. Chase spread the large piece of canvas alongside the campfire, then emptied the grubsack onto it.

As sparks rose from the crackling fire and disappeared into the shadows, the men and the whore came and stood around its warmth, rubbing their cold hands together as their wet clothes steamed.

"You men are gonna have to step back if you want any supper tonight." Sid pushed his way between them, a brace of young pheasants he had shot that day swinging from his hand, green slender sticks in the other.

The men moved back a few steps, leaving the cook barely enough room to spear the plucked fowl with the wooden spits, then rig them over the fire. Sid shot them dark looks, mumbling sarcastically that they were fine trappers if they couldn't stand a little wet and cold.

The trappers only grinned, confident of their ability to withstand most anything Mother

Nature saw fit to visit on them. But if there was a warm fire nearby, they were as eager as the next man to feel its warmth.

Sid didn't object, however, when the skinny little whore edged closer and closer to the heat. He even folded a blanket quite close to the fire and motioned her to sit on it. The big man had a softness for children and the weaker sex. It didn't matter to him if the female was his wife, a neighbor woman, or a worn-out whore. The woman smiled her thanks and held her hands out to the heat radiating off the flames. Evidently, there was another man in the group who shared Sid's sentiments, for one of them had given up his slicker to the woman.

Solid darkness came quickly to the sodden forest, but as the weary men and one woman fell upon the roasted meat, the roaring fire pushed the gloom back. The meal was quickly eaten and wet clothes hung around the fire to dry; then the men sought their blankets, none interested in drawing cards tonight. The skinny whore sighed in relief and scooted into her blanket before one of them changed his mind.

The next morning, Chase rolled out of his blankets and stood up, feeling cramped and sore. It had stopped raining sometime during the night, but the air was damp and bitterly cold. He looked at young Johnny's thin body hunched up in his bedding and didn't have the heart to awaken him. The boy had been dead beat last night when they made camp, but hadn't uttered one word of complaint. This morning he would make the fire and let the kid sleep a little longer.

He hunkered down and began raking together the remains of last night's fire. There were some live coals among the ashes, and the small pieces of wood he laid on them caught readily. When it flamed to his satisfaction, he picked up the coffee pot and walked down to the river to fill it. Heavy clouds still hung overhead, and white mists curled along the river as he dipped the vessel into the water.

Chase returned to the fire, piled on more wood, then started the coffee to brewing. Soon the heat he had created reached the men, and they began to stir. They sniffed the aroma of the coffee and within minutes, buck naked, they were crowding each other for a spot before the fire.

"Your clothes are dry, men," Chase informed with a frown, "so get them on and drink your coffee."

A few minutes later, dry and comfortable, their bellies warm from the black brew, some of the men began to eye the refreshed woman with an interest they'd lacked the night before. Chase caught their looks and shook his head at them. "There'll be no card drawin' now. Saddle up and let's get goin'."

There was some grumbling, but ten minutes later, the men were mounting up and following after Chase.

The early chill of the morning struck Raegan's uncovered shoulders, bringing her slowly awake. As she pulled the soft fur covering up to her chin, Boy's grandmother rose from her bed beside him and kindled the red coals in the

fire pit into leaping flames.

As Raegan gazed into the glow of the fire, her first thought as usual on awakening was, what would the new day bring? She was no longer afraid for her safety in the Indian village. Although she received many hostile looks, no one had bothered or approached her. She had even made two friends—Boy's grandmother for one. Because of the love they both shared for the baby, a close bond had grown between them. It saddened her, though, that she no longer had the care of the little fellow. His grandmother had taken over that duty with great tenderness.

However, for an hour each day she was allowed to hold and play with the baby, whose first weak cry had sounded in her cabin. But she could only watch as he was bathed and given his bottle, the two things she had most enjoyed doing. But as the chief had said, the little one had to be weaned away from her.

Boy, as she continued to call him, now drank goat's milk. Where the animal had come from she didn't know, but she suspected that its previous home had been in some white man's pen. At any rate, the baby was thriving on his new milk.

Raegan looked across the fire pit to a small figure huddled in a bed of furs. She smiled. The chief s ten-year-old son was her other friend. The youngster had learned quite a bit of English from his father and he was her interpreter when she wanted to converse with his grandmother.

From their first meeting, the solemn-eyed boy had been drawn to her. When they were alone together, he let her cuddle him a bit, for he grieved for his mother. Sensing that the white woman would sympathize with him, he had let fall the tears that would be ridiculed had his people seen them. Always the Indian male, from five years on, must be stoic and show no weakness.