Into the Unknown w-55 Page 8

  Zach nodded. “The Shoshones call them water buffalo but say they are not like buffalo at all. The Nez Perce won’t go near Wallowa Lake for fear of them. Word is, the things are also in that big lake up in Flathead country.”

  “But what are they?” I stared out over the lake, hoping to see the swell again.

  “Some tribes say they are big snakes. The Nez Perce think they’re giant crayfish or lobsters.”

  “That’s absurd,” I said.

  “Ask them yourself if you don’t believe me. They have a legend that these things used to come out of Wallowa Lake at night from time to time to kill animals and people.” Zach paused. “It gets even stranger. Although the Nez Perce swear the creatures are lobsters, they say the things have flippers.”

  “Flippers?”

  “There is another lake off in Oregon Country where these giant lobsters are supposed to live,” Zach related. “The lake is in an extinct volcano, or so I have been told.”

  I did not know what to make of it, but I determined to always keep one eye on the lake. “Do you believe these tales, yourself?”

  Zach shrugged. “I don’t dismiss them out of hand, like most whites do. “The NunumBi turned out to be true, so why not lake monsters?”

  I was developing the habit of repeating what he said. “NunumBi?” But he rode on without responding.

  It came to me that perhaps I should include a section on Indian legends in my journal. Strictly speaking, they are not the province of a naturalist, but they would be of interest to those who studied folklore and the like.

  I was so deep in thought that I fell farther behind than I intended. At a shout from Zach I glanced up. He was fifty yards away, jabbing a finger at me.

  “Look out! It’s heading your way!”

  I turned toward the lake, thinking he referred to the lake creature, but the surface was tranquil and undisturbed. Then I heard a mewing sound, and turning toward where a finger of forest poked at the shore, I saw a bear cub waddling toward me. A black bear cub, so cute and adorable I grinned in delight. Apparently, it was making for the lake to drink.

  “Get out of there!” Zach hollered.

  The cub had its head low to the ground and was mewing and grunting as bears often do. It did not realize I was there until I reined my mount to one side. Instantly, it stopped, rose onto its hind legs, and let out with the most awful cry. Almost immediately the undergrowth crackled and snapped, and out of the woods flew four hundred pounds of motherly fury.

  Jabbing my heels, I galloped toward Zach. I reasoned that when the mother bear saw me move away from her cub, she would no longer consider me a threat.

  “Ride, Robert, ride!”

  The mother bear had not slowed. In fact, she was angling to intercept me, and moving with amazing speed. Over short distances bears can outrun horses, and she was rapidly overtaking mine.

  “Shoot her!” Zach shouted. He had reined around and was racing to my aid.

  I refused to do any such thing. She was only protecting her young. I still thought I could escape, and goaded my horse to go faster. My effort was too little, too late.

  Hurtling headlong, the mother bear slammed into my mount broadside. The impact bowled us over, and my horse shrieked in terror. I pushed free of the saddle to avoid being crushed. I was successful, but instead of landing on my side and rolling away, as I intended, I came down in the lake. The water wasn’t deep, no more than knee high, but I got it in my eyes and my nose and came up blinking and sputtering. For a few seconds everything was a blur. Then my vision cleared, and I saw that my horse had scrambled upright and was fleeing.

  The mother bear let it go.

  She was more interested in me.

  Not six feet separated us. Her hackles were up and her teeth were bared. Rage incarnate, she intended to rip me limb from limb.

  Zach was bellowing for me to shoot her.

  I still had my rifle, but it had gone under the water. It would probably misfire. I had a pistol, but that, too, had gotten wet. Even if I could use them, though, I wouldn’t. As I have already stressed, I refrain from killing when at all possible.

  My noble purpose notwithstanding, she was in a bestial frenzy, and in another instant would charge.

  Then hooves pounded, and Zach went flying by. He let out a whoop, perhaps to draw the mother bear’s attention, and slid onto the side of his horse, as he had done that day he snatched up my sketchbook. Only this time it was the cub he snatched. Exhibiting uncanny skill, he grabbed hold of the scruff of its neck, yanked it off the ground and swung back up.

  The cub squalled in terror.

  At that, the mother bear whirled. In a heartbeat she was off after Zach. He had reined toward the forest, and when he was almost there, he again swung onto the side of his horse and dropped the cub gently to the ground. It rolled and came up unscathed. Zach did not stop; he rode in a half circle that would bring him back to me.

  As for the mother bear, she reached her offspring and without seeming to break stride, caught the cub up in her mouth. In the bat of an eye they were in among the trees. The racket raised by her flight soon faded.

  I shuffled out of the lake and let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.

  Zach came to a stop and looked down at me. “What got into you? You didn’t even try to kill her.”

  “You didn’t either, I noticed,” I responded.

  “It is hard to aim from horseback,” Zach said. “I didn’t want to risk wounding her and making her madder.”

  I grinned. “Pretend all you want, but I know the truth about you now.”

  “Which truth would that be?”

  “You are a fraud, Zachary King. You have a reputation for being a savage killer when you are no such thing. You are as tenderhearted as I or the next person.”

  Voices ended our banter. People were running toward us, and several of them were calling out Zach’s name. He dismounted.

  I had been told enough about them that I knew who they were before I was introduced.

  Louisa King, Zach’s wife, was a petite bundle of energy in buckskins. Short sandy hair lent her a boyish aspect. Her eyes were the same bright blue as the lake. Squealing in delight, she threw herself at her husband and wrapped her slender arms tight. “I’ve missed you!”

  Next to arrive was a tall, broad-shouldered man whose green eyes, high cheekbones and strong jaw were mirror images of Zach’s. Or should I say it was the other way around? For this was Zach’s sire, Nate King, a mountain man ranked with the likes of Kit Carson and Jim Bridger, according to Ceran St. Vrain. The father, too, wore buckskins, and he, like Zach, was a walking armory.

  The woman at Nate’s side had to be his Shoshone wife, Winona. She was quite lovely. I read in her an uncommon alertness and intelligence. Zach had said she possessed a tender temperament, and I could read that, as well, in the loving gaze she bestowed on him. She wore a beautiful doeskin dress decorated with blue beads.

  A girl of sixteen or so proved to be Zach’s sister, Evelyn King. Where Zach had more of his mother in him, she had more of her father. Not that she was unattractive. Far from it. She was adorable. She also wore a dress, but a dress such as women on the streets of St. Louis or New Orleans would wear. She was the only one of the Kings who did not wear moccasins. Her footwear? Ordinary shoes.

  An older couple were the last to arrive. The man’s hair and beard were as white as pristine snow. He had to be in his seventies or eighties, yet his vitality was that of someone half his age. His craggy face glowed with warmth and friendliness, and I took an immediate liking to him. He could be none other than Shakespeare McNair.

  McNair’s Flathead wife was known as Blue Water Woman. She was quiet, almost shy. Her hair had a few gray streaks, but otherwise she did not look her age. Her dress was also adorned with beads, but her beads were red and yellow, not blue. She was quite exquisite, more so to me than the other women. Why that should be, who can say?

  These, then, were the Kings and their deares
t friends. They greeted me cordially enough.

  Nate King’s hand was twice the size of mine. He shook firmly while scrutinizing me from head to toe. “So you are a naturalist?”

  “I hope my visit will not be an imposition.”

  “We don’t get many visitors,” Nate said. He did not add “I like it that way,” but that is the feeling he gave me. Instead he said, “My son vouches for you. You are welcome to stay as long as you want.”

  “Thank you.”

  Winona and Evelyn were models of decorum. Then it was Shakespeare McNair’s turn. He worked my arm as if it were a pump lever and gave a mock bow.

  “‘Here, Winchester, I offer thee my hand,’” he quoted. “‘I bid thee greetings.’”

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir,” I said. “Your notoriety precedes you.”

  “All mimicry, I am afraid,” Shakespeare said. “‘Oh, for a Muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.’”

  “Is that from King John?” I asked.

  “Henry the Fifth,” Shakespeare corrected. “You are familiar with the Bard, then?”

  “A few of his works,” I admitted. “But nowhere near the degree you are.”

  “A little is better than none.” Shakespeare nodded at Nate King. “For years I have been trying to get Horatio there to appreciate the Bard as much as I do, but he would rather read the likes of Cooper, Irving and Scott. Which shows there is no taste like no taste.”

  Nate chuckled. “I will have you know James Feni-more Cooper’s works are as good as your namesake’s any day.”

  Shakespeare pressed a hand to his chest and took a step back as if in shock. “Did my ears hear aright? ‘Methink’s thou art a general offense and every man should beat thee.’”

  I could not help but laugh.

  “Pay him no mind,” Nate said to me. “He prattles on like this constantly. I can lend you bits of cotton to stick in your ears if need be.”

  McNair sputtered, then exclaimed dramatically, “‘There can be no kernel in this light nut! The soul of this man is in his clothes.’”

  “Honestly, now,” Nate said. “Do you want Mr. Parker to think you are not in your right mind?”

  “I find the ass in compound with the major part of your syllables,” Shakespeare jousted.

  Again I laughed. “‘A hit,’” I quoted from Hamlet. “‘A very palpable hit.’”

  To my consternation, McNair seized me by the shoulders and kissed me roughly on the cheek. “Did you hear him, Horatio? He knows! He knows! I believe I am in love.”

  “Please, sir,” I said, disentangling myself. “Constrain yourself. You are spoken for, in case you have forgotten.”

  Nate King cackled and clapped McNair on the back. “That is what you get for not using English like the rest of us.”

  “English!” Shakespeare roared. “Are you a simpleton? Is the Bard from Norway, then?”

  “I seem to recollect he scribbled most of his lines in a place called Avon,” Nate said.

  “Scribbled?”

  I would swear McNair was fit to burst a vein.

  That was when Blue Water Woman said quietly, “Enough, husband.”

  Shakespeare turned to her, his mock outrage evaporating in a twinkling. “As you wish, love of my life.”

  “Robert Parker will think your head is in a whirl,” Blue Water Woman said. “Behave yourself for a while so he can see you are sane.”

  Nate snickered.

  “From your heart to mine,” Shakespeare said to her quite tenderly. Then he looked at me, grinned, and winked. “But mark you, hoss. This truce is temporary.” To Nate he said, “As for you, you ox, you are lucky I don’t dunk you in the lake.”

  “Do that,” I said, “and the monster might get him.”

  “Heard about that thing, have you?” Shakespeare said, and faced the water.

  “I saw it,” I explained. “Or, rather, the swell it caused.”

  “Ah. I have seen that swell more times than I can count,” Shakespeare said. “It baffles me, and I do not like being baffled. Before the summer is done, I mean to find out what causes it.”

  “How?”

  McNair was about to answer when he unexpectedly stiffened and pointed at the valley rim to the east. “Look there!” he cried.

  I glanced over my shoulder and spotted a flash of light, as of sunlight off metal. All the others were staring, and their faces were grim. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  It was Nate King who answered. “We have visitors, and visitors nearly always spell trouble.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The effect of that flash of light was remarkable.

  Nate and Shakespeare rushed off to get their horses. Winona and Blue Water Woman hustled the younger women toward Nate’s cabin. I was left with Zach, who was intently watching the rim.

  “Damn me for a fool.”

  “Why?”

  “I was careless,” Zach said. “We were followed all the way here.” He pointed. “Look! There it is again.”

  Indeed, the flash was repeated in the same spot as before, only this time it persisted for several seconds before blinking out.

  “What do you make of it?” I inquired.

  “Whoever is up there is using a spyglass,” Zach said. “Which means they are up to no good.” He indulged in a rare burst of lurid swearing.

  “You are guessing.”

  “It’s a good guess,” Zach replied. “If they were friendly, why didn’t they show themselves to us on the way here?”

  “They?”

  “No white man would come this far into the mountains alone.”

  I was thinking of his trick with the talus and the stream we had ridden in for so many miles. I reminded him of them.

  “It wouldn’t shake a good tracker off our scent.”

  “What will you do if you are right and you catch them?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On who they are and why they are here,” Zach said.

  “What if they refused to tell you?”

  His smile was chilling. “Whether they want to or not, they will.”

  Presently, his father and McNair came galloping from the cabin. I swung on my horse, which Zach had recovered, and Zach and I fell in behind them as they swept by. I must confess, I thought they were far more agitated than the occasion warranted.

  That ride was something. We fairly flew around the lake. When we reached the green lodge of the Nansusequa, we stopped long enough for Nate King to inform them of what was going on. “Keep a close watch,” he said to Wakumassee. “We’ll let you know what we find.”

  Then we were off again. We climbed through the heavy timber until we neared a wide cleft that turned out to be the mouth of a canyon. It was here Nate drew rein and alighted. Shakespeare was quick to join him. Bent at the waist, they scoured the ground. After a while they straightened and looked at one another, and I could tell they were puzzled.

  “Deucedly strange, Horatio,” Shakespeare said.

  “Or clever,” Nate responded.

  Zach stirred. “There aren’t any tracks, Pa?”

  “The most recent are yours and Mr. Parker’s and your packhorses,” Nate said.

  “There are a few spots where the grass has been bent since but no clear prints,” Shakespeares said. “Odds are they cut up a blanket and tied the pieces over their horses’ hooves.”

  Nate stepped to his mount, opened a parfleche, and took out a shiny brass tube. A flick of his wrist, and the tube telescoped into a spyglass. He spent several minutes surveying the woods and the valley floor. Finally he scowled and lowered it. “No sign of anyone.”

  “They have to be somewhere,” Zach said.

  “‘Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me,’” Shakespeare quoted.

  I felt I must contribute, and so, motivated by my doubts, I remarked, “Perhaps we are overreacting.”

  Nate King gave me a kindly smile. “Our families are her
e. Our loved ones. Our friends. Threats to their lives must be met swiftly.”

  “But we don’t even know there is a threat,” I said.

  Shakespeare wagged a finger at me. “Would you have us be like Caesar and ignore the portents? Constant vigilance is the price we must pay if we would go on living where we will.”

  Part of me agreed, but another part felt a tad silly. “What now?”

  “We split up,” Nate King said. “Shakespeare and I will swing to the south. Zach, you and Mr. Parker try the north. Work your way down and stay alert for sign. Fire two shots in the air if you find anything.”

  I was in no mood for this. I was tired and hungry and had relished the idea of spending the rest of the day resting. But they were my hosts, I their guest, and it would be remiss of me not to help them. Still, since I cannot track, there was little I could do other than follow after Zach and watch for evidence of anything out of the ordinary.

  We roved back and forth for over an hour, gradually descending until we were once again at the lake shore. Once there, Zach drew rein in disgust.

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe we are mistaken,” I suggested. By “we” I meant “them,” but I was being tactful.

  At that moment his father and McNair emerged from the woods to the south of the lake. Nate spotted us and waved, and they came around to meet us at Nate’s cabin. By the look on his face, it was plain they had not found the sign they were looking for.

  “Not so much as a trace,” Nate confirmed.

  “All we can do is wait,” Shakespeare said, and once again reached into his bottomless bag of quotes. “‘It is the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.’”

  “If you are saying it stinks, I agree,” Zach said.

  I sought to be the voice of reason. “It could be they will prove to be friendly.”

  “‘One may smile and smile, and be a villain,’” Shakespeare quoted.

  Nate cleared his throat. “This is what we will do. I will go warn Waku and his family to stay on their guard. The rest of you wait here. We will have supper together, and later decide our course of action for tomorrow.”