King of the Mountain (Wilderness # 1) Page 5

  For three days Nathaniel spent the daylight hours venturing about St. Louis and the evening hours reading The Last of the Mohicans. He made the acquaintance of the owner of The Bradley Hostelry, and of several other folks staying there, and during casual conversations learned more particulars about St. Louis and its history. Mr. Bradley warned him to avoid the taverns and grogshops if he valued his life. St. Louis, it turned out, was infested with the same blight as New York. Cutthroats and thieves prowled the streets after dark. There had even been several kidnappings of affluent citizens, who were returned after a suitable ransom was paid. Nathaniel was astonished to learn that the city did not have a regular police force.

  On the morning of May 4 he hurried to The Chouteau House and inquired about his uncle, but no one named Ezekiel King had taken a room. Disappointed, he walked about the general vicinity for several hours, then returned. Again the clerk at the desk informed him that his uncle had not arrived. Troubled by the fact he might have traveled so far for nothing, Nathaniel walked aimlessly until midday. He checked once more, and once again had his hopes dashed.

  “You should call again at five o’clock,” the desk clerk suggested. “Few travelers like to be on the road at night, and if your uncle intends to register today he’ll probably be here by then.”

  “Thank you,” Nathaniel responded. He returned to his room and finished his book, then paced nervously until half past four, reflecting on the consequences if Zeke should fail to show as promised. He winced at the mere thought of going back to New York City empty-handed, convinced he would become the laughingstock of his family. Not only that, but Adeline might well give him the cold shoulder after he failed to deliver on all the promises he had made her. Over and over the same question repeated itself in his mind: Where was Zeke?

  Nathaniel hastened to The Chouteau House and learned, to his utter chagrin, that Ezekiel had not arrived.

  The clerk nodded at several nearby maple chairs. “You’re perfectly welcome to wait, if you like.”

  A rumble in Nathaniel’s stomach reminded him that he had not eaten since morning. “Thank you, but I’ll eat a meal and come back. By then he should be here.”

  “There’s a tavern just around the corner called The Ark,” the man recommended. “They serve fine hot meals.”

  “I don’t know,” Nathaniel said uncertainly.

  “They have an excellent reputation, I can assure you.”

  “Why not?” Nathaniel said with a shrug. “I’ll eat there and see you in an hour.”

  “If your uncle should show up, I’ll inform him you’ve been here. ”

  “Thank you,” Nathaniel said, expressing his gratitude, and left. He found the tavern easily, and took a seat in the corner, then ordered a meal of chicken and corn bread. He hardly paid attention to the raucous drinkers, so concerned was he about his uncle, and consequently he experienced considerable surprise when a man abruptly took a seat at his table.

  “Hello, there, good si,” the intruder said congenially, with just the slightest trace of a slur to his words, a broad smile on his oval face.

  “Hello,” Nathaniel automatically responded, the last forkful of chicken halfway to his lips. “May I help you?”

  The man wore a fashionable black suit, a fur-collared cape, and an expensive beaver hat. Held in his left hand was a half-empty glass of whiskey. “I saw you sitting over here by yourself and thought you might be inclined to accept some companionship,” he said.

  “I’m not staying,” Nathaniel said, and slid the fork into his mouth.

  The other shrugged. “Well, no matter. I simply wanted to share a few drinks and conversation. Never let it be said that Joseph Lowe stays where he’s not wanted.” he declared and started to rise.

  Aware he had unconsciously offended the stranger, and rating the man as a harmless drunk, Nathaniel set down his fork and said, “Hold on. Mr. Lowe. I don’t mean to be stand-offish. I have a few minutes to share a drink with you.”

  Lowe beamed and faced around. “How kind of you. The drink will be on me. What are you having?”

  “I could use another ale.”

  “Then ale it shall be,” Lowe said, and bellowed for service. He gave the order and sat back in his chair. “I didn’t catch your name?”

  “King. Nathaniel King. My friends call me Nate.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Nate. I haven’t seen you in here before, and I know most of the regulars.”

  “I’m new to St. Louis,” Nathaniel divulged. “I’ve only been here a few days.”

  “And what do you think of our fair city?” Lowe inquired, and took a sip of whiskey.

  “It’s quite different from New York.”

  Lowe sat forward, all interest. “Is that where you’re from, then? I’ve never been to New York City, but I’ve always wanted to see it. I was raised in Pittsburgh myself, but I haven’t been home in many years.”

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Lowe?”

  “Call me Joe. I’m a speculator, Nate. Land, furs, trade goods, you name it, I’ve dabbled in it at one time or another. What about yourself?”

  “I was an accountant,” Nathaniel said.

  “Was?”

  “Did I say was? I worked as an accountant in New York, and depending on how events develop here, I may be an accountant again after I return.”

  “Ahhhh. So you’re planning to go back?”

  “Yes. Hopefully within a few months. Everything depends on my uncle.”

  Lowe glanced around the tavern. “Your uncle? Is he here with you?”

  “Not yet. I’m supposed to meet him at The Chouteau House later.”

  Lowe’s eyebrows arched toward the smoke shrouded ceiling. “The Chouteau House? This uncle of yours must be rich.”

  “I don’t know,” Nathaniel replied. “I haven’t seen him in ten years.”

  “He sent for you, did he?”

  Nathaniel stared at the other man. “Why, yes. How did you know?”

  “Simple logic. Here’s to your uncle,” Lowe said, and swallowed some more whiskey.

  Nathaniel gazed at the front window, noticing the gathering twilight. “I should be leaving soon. My uncle might be there by now.”

  “I should be leaving too. Why don’t I walk with you? The Chouteau House is on the way to the residence I’m renting.”

  “Fair enough,” Nathaniel agreed, taking a shine to the friendly speculator. He paid his bill and followed Lowe out the door, then halted when the other man took a right. “Where are you going, Joe? The Chouteau House is this way,” he said, pointing to the left.

  “This is a shortcut. Your way we have to go around the corner and down the block. My way there is an alley that takes us almost to the entrance of The Chouteau House,” Lowe stated.

  Nathaniel hesitated, wondering if he could rely upon the other man, until Lowe gave him a friendly smile and hurried on. Chiding himself for being unduly suspicious, Nathaniel trailed after the speculator until they came to a narrow alley. He entered on Lowe’s heels, passing a stack of crates propped against the right-hand wall. Three strides farther a hard object jammed him in the spine and a harder voice declared, “One word and you’re a dead man.”

  Chapter Five

  As stark astonishment will eclipse reason, so instinct will eclipse both in a crisis, and such instinct has at times meant the difference between life and death for the person imperiled. Even as Nathaniel felt the object ram him in the back, an object he intuitively deduced to be a firearm and most likely a pistol, and even though he heard the gruff threat from his rear, he was about to react out of instinct and call out to his companion when Joseph Lowe did a most remarkable thing.

  The alleged speculator suddenly whirled, a knife grasped in his right hand, and sneered at the youth. “You heard my friend, lad. Stand still or else.”

  Shock overcame whatever resistance Nathaniel might have offered, and he stood mute as Lowe pressed the knife against his abdomen and another man came around the left side
holding a cocked pistol in his right hand.

  “Let’s see your money,” Lowe directed.

  “Money?” Nathaniel repeated, too dazed by the betrayal and abrupt turn of events to think clearly.

  “Don’t stall, boy!” Lowe snapped. “Your clothes hardly mark you as a pauper. You have a purse. I want it. Now. ”

  Nathaniel sluggishly started to reach for his money in his inner pocket.

  “Watch he doesn’t pull on you!” warned the man with the gun, a weasel of a ruffian dressed in a gray coat and a green cap.

  “This babe in the woods?” Lowe said contemptuously. “He won’t resist.”

  The weasel snickered.

  “In fact,” Lowe went on, “I have half a a mind to teach this lad a lesson he won’t soon forget.” He balled his left hand into a fist. “You should have stayed in New York, Nate. The East is a safe haven for pampered maggots like yourself. Out here only the strong survive.”

  Nathaniel’s fingers closed on his money.

  “Perhaps a broken nose will show you the error of your ways,” Lowe stated, smirking.

  At that juncture, as Lowe raised his fist to strike Nathaniel in the face, someone else spoke from the mouth of the alley, the words harsh and cracking like a whip. “And perhaps dying will teach you the error of yours.”

  Displaying lightning reflexes, the weasel pivoted toward the speaker, leveling his pistol as he turned, but as fast as he was, he wasn’t fast enough. The thunderous boom of a large-caliber rifle was punctuated by the ball hitting the weasel in the right temple. The impact hurled the man from his feet to crash against the left-hand wall, where he collapsed in a heap, a neat hole marking the ball’s entry point.

  Lowe looked over Nathaniel’s right shoulder, his eyes widening in alarm, and began to back away.

  “Try me, cutthroat!” cried the newcomer in a resounding challenge, and the next moment a buckskin-clad figure rushed past Nathaniel, a gleaming hunting knife in his right hand.

  Dumbfounded, his city-bred reflexes not equal to the occasion, Nathaniel could only gape as the two men closed. He caught a fleeting glimpse of his rescuer, a pantherish frontiersman attired in the typical garb of those who dwelt on the outskirts of civilization, and then the two men were feinting and thrusting, dodging and twisting, their blades weaving a glittering tapestry in the dusky air, the steel accenting the fading rays of the far-off setting sun that penetrated into the byways of the city.

  Joseph Lowe fought with the ferocity of a cornered beast, but all his efforts were in vain. He tried every knife-fighting trick he knew, and each stab, each slash, was parried or evaded with bewildering ease.

  Nathaniel saw the frontiersman press Lowe mercilessly, and then his rescuer, who wore a red cloth cap decorated with an odd length of swirling fur, sidestepped a frantic lunge and speared his knife into Lowe’s chest.

  Lowe stiffened and gasped, then stumbled backwards until he touched the wall, the hilt of the frontiersman’s knife protruding from his ribs. He released his own knife and clutched at the hilt, but his limbs were too weak to extract the blade. His eyes wide, fear etched in his countenance, he gawked at his slayer. “You’ve killed me!” he cried.

  “Take your medicine without whimpering, dog,” the frontiersman said. “You’ve reaped your just desserts.”

  “Oh, God!” Lowe wailed, slipping downward slowly, blood trickling from the right corner of his mouth. “Oh, God!”.

  Both fascinated and horrified, Nathaniel watched the man die. He had hardly moved a muscle since entering the alley except to reach for his money, and now he realized his hand was still under his coat. He pulled it out and took a deep breath, dispelling the trance that held him. Hushed voices sounded to his rear and he glanced back, astounded to see over a dozen people.

  “Help me!” Lowe whined. “Someone help me!”

  The man in the buckskins walked over, took hold of his knife, and yanked it free, the blade dripping crimson over Lowe’s clothes.

  “No!” Lowe declared weakly, and made a sucking noise, as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

  Kneeling, the frontiersman looked Lowe in the eyes and started to wipe his knife clean on Lowe’s coat. After a minute he stood and slid the hunting knife into a beaded sheath on his left hip.

  Only then did Nathaniel gaze at his rescuer.

  Like most mountain men and fur trappers who came from the distant plains and mountains to taste the sophisticated culture of St. Louis, this man radiated a raw vitality. His long brown hair, streaked with generous widths of gray, hung to below his shoulders. His blue eyes, as vivid as any mountain lake, regarded the world almost sternly, complementing his hawkish visage. From constant exposure to the sun and the elements, his skin had acquired a dark hue, nearly as dark as any Indian. His buckskins were beaded about the shoulders and down the seams. His moccasins were plain and worn. From the brown leather belt encircling his waist hung his knife and a bullet pouch.

  “I want to thank you, sir, for saving my life,” Nathaniel said.

  A wry grin curled the mountain man’s mouth, and he stared at Nathaniel with a curious expression, a mixture of relief and restrained mirth, before responding. “Do you now, Nate? That’s nice to hear.”

  “How do you—” Nathaniel began, then focused on the red cap. A line from his uncle’s letter rushed into his mind. “I’ll be wearing the red so you know me.” He impulsively stepped forward and placed his hands on the frontiersman’s wide shoulders. “Ezekiel?”

  The mountain man nodded and smiled. “Uncle Zeke to you.”

  Elated, Nathaniel felt himself taken in a bear hug and squeezed until he thought his back would break. He was abruptly released and inspected as if under a magnifying glass.

  “By the Eternal, how you’ve grown!” Zeke declared heartily. “lf that fellow at The Chouteau House hadn’t given me a description, I’d never have known you.”

  “The desk clerk told you where to find me?”

  Zeke nodded. “And you’re fortunate I came straightaway instead of taking the time to unpack in my room.” He glanced at the onlookers. “You let me handle this.”

  “Help me!’ Lowe pleaded.

  Nathaniel looked down at the robber, who was wheezing and moaning while more and more blood spurted from his mouth. Lowe returned the gaze with a pathetic, pleading countenance, silently imploring for aid beyond the power of any human agency to render.

  “I’ll put you out of your misery if you want,” Zeke offered.

  Lowe tried to focus on the frontiersman, but a fit of sputtering and coughing made him double over. He straightened, blubbered incoherently for several seconds, then suddenly stiffened and keeled over onto his right side, his blood-flecked mouth hanging open.

  “Good riddance,” Zeke said, and walked to the mouth of the alley. A large rifle was propped against the right-hand wall, and he scooped the gun into his arms and faced the growing crowd. “These men were attempting to rob my nephew,” he announced, and pointed at the two corpses. “They were about to harm him when I arrived.”

  “Let me through! Let me through!” a man at the rear of the onlookers bellowed, and a moment later a portly gentleman dressed in a brown coat and breeches advanced to the forefront. His ruddy cheeks were accented by flared sideburns and prolific whiskers. He stared at the bodies in disapproval, then looked at the frontiersman.

  Nathaniel tensed, anticipating trouble over the killings. In New York City, his uncle would be taken into custody and tossed into a jail until a trial could be convened. In St. Louis, where there was no police force, vigilante justice might prevail. To his surprise, the apparently distinguished citizen smiled and exclaimed happily, “Firebrand! Is it really you?”

  “It’s truly me, friend Osborne,” Ezekiel responded.

  “What brings you to these parts? We haven’t seen you in. what, two years?”

  “City life holds little attraction for a man who has learned to live in harmony with Nature,” the frontiersman said sol
emnly.

  “Ever the philosopher, eh?” Osborne replied goodnaturedly, and glanced at Nathaniel. “Did I hear you say this is your nephew?”

  “You did. Nathaniel King, my brother’s son.”

  Osborne nodded. “I’m pleased to meet you, young man.”

  “My uncle did no wrong,” Nathaniel said. “These ruffians were trying to take my money.”

  “So I gathered,” Osborne responded. “Have no fear, Nathaniel. No one will hold these killings against your uncle. Those of us who have lived in St. Louis for a spell know your uncle well, and his word is widely respected.”

  “Osborne, I would be in your debt if you would see to it that these two scoundrels are disposed of properly,” Zeke said.

  “For you, Firebrand, anything,” Osborne answered. “Will you be in town long?”

  “No longer than necessary.”

  “Are you boarding in town?”

  “The Chouteau House.”

  “Where else?” Osborne said, and chuckled. “I’ll be around to visit you as soon as I can.”

  “We’ll share a few drinks and tall, over old times,” Zeke proposed. He motioned for Nathaniel to come with him, and together they weaved through the crowd and departed.

  “Where are you staying?” Zeke asked.

  “The Bradley Hostelry,” Nathaniel responded, staring at his uncle in awe, hardly able to believe they were reunited again.

  “Let’s fetch your belongings and move you in with me right away,” Zeke said. “We have much to discuss.”