Two in the pen were better than two on the roof, and now they were dangling by a thread from their spurs as their wings flopped down over the doorway. The heads were gone and the blood was smeared across the front of the dwelling. It was an omen and a bad one at that.
The fierceness of the storm had driven them back so that they had to camp another night before returning to the sorted ruins. The elements had remained unchanged so far and it hadn’t turned the day in their favor. The wagon, billowing with smoke, sent gusts of vapor above the mountains peak that sloped into the base of the river.
Daniel cursed at what was left of a wagon wheel and saw that the barrels had been charred to ashes. “Best keep what we’ve got and move on. No use going inside.., could be a trap.”
Annabelle shook her head in frantic worry. Never before had she considered a threat posed so hostile, and she sensed that it was only a matter of time before the natives returned.
“What’ll we do for water?” she asked.
“We’ll have to go along the river for now,” he urged them along.
Emmett merely listened and was too afraid to express his opinion that others might hear, like watchers in the trees and the insects that carried signals to the silent. So were his thoughts sending out warnings to any who might oppose them and weary of an attack.
Annabelle led the horse along the path in the woods and didn’t look back. “Don’t you think they’ll be expecting us along through here.”
“Probably, but what other choice do we have?” he turned back to her, pulling the mule by the bit and about to swat it for its spite.
“We’re going to have to get to an unsuspecting ridge, or somewhere that you two can hide out while I get us some game. Otherwise, we’ll have nothing for the miles in between. Besides that, we’ll be needing some furs for trading. It’s all we’ve got,” he insisted.
“What about the opals?” whispered Emmett, eyeing the limbs of the surrounding trees.
“We can’t use them until we make it to the city. Then we’ll have to find a buyer and hope they’re of value,” he said as it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Annabelle could hear the discouragement in his voice and said, “You don’t have to quit because of us.., we can still stake a claim just like you set out to do. Maybe we should find someplace else to settle for a while, away from this territory.”
“Nope,” he shook his head in disagreement. “Settling is what you do when you don’t know what else to do, and many have lost their scalps trying to do as much. If we had been back there, they could have gotten us in our sleep. We have to be careful from here on out, and not think too peaceably of the land. I can already tell, that it is littered with ghosts and the makings of ‘em.”
“Let’s just go back home,” said Emmett. “We can get in Grandmamere’s good graces. She’ll take us back!”
“No, son!” Annabelle turned around and forced a stern eye that said there was no compromise. “There’s no going back. We’ll forge our way through here, and that’s a promise.”
Emmett looked away at the ground and tightened his jaw so that no tears escaped from fear. “Okay,” he replied. “I won’t bring it up again.”
“Good,” she answered with a stout grip on the horses rein. “Do you want to ride?” she questioned.
He gave a nod and she helped him onto the saddle. It gave him a different perspective higher up and he could see above the brush in the wooded areas, even though he also felt like a target.
Around mid-day they had traveled so long that they needed to stop by the rivers edge to allow the horses to drink. The land had changed so that with one curvy turn the river would veer north east, and the mountains were increasing in size and the thickness of green pines made them dense.
“We’ll have to move out westward now, or we’ll end up in the Dakotas,” he said as Annabelle and Emmett judged it the same, taking in the mountain air and grateful they had made it that far.
Then Daniel dipped his hands into the water to wash off his face and neck, while Emmett leaned over the bank and pursed his open mouth into the current. It was cool against his gums and the day had warmed so that he wanted to take a dip. He looked up at Daniel who already knew what he was thinking, but instead motioned for him to wait. Annabelle had slipped away out of sight and he didn’t know where she had went to.
“Probably just wanted some privacy,” said Emmett in his mothers defense. So they waited there and rested until more time had passed than either were comfortable with.
The water rippled over the rocks like a sparkling clean washboard. It had been three days since she had had the chance to soak herself in anything buy dry dirt, and it might be several more days before they came across another river bed. So she unbuttoned her blouse and slinked out of her skirt, with the cotton white undergarments remaining against her pale bare skin. Then she left the clothes on the ground, along with her rifle, and stepped barefoot down the slope of sandy soil and rocks that slipped beneath the water. It felt icy and when she brought her foot back out of the water it was reddened from the cold, but she took a deep breath and buckled it in as she waded into the deep that swelled up to her breast and then dipped. And just as quickly, she sprang back up, drenched with a chill that left her trembling as she sloshed her way back over to the bank. Then she picked up her skirt and wrapped it tight around her shoulders as though to absorb the wetness, and then shifted it down around her legs, patting herself dry and slipped it back on. Her hairpin had come loose in the water and her hair was dangling wet. She just wanted to hurry and get dressed before Daniel and Emmett came looking for her, so she gathered up her blouse and slipped her arms into it, as the wet undergarment streamlined her slender frame. Then there was an instinctive notion to glance across the opposite side of the river.
Some squirrels scurried from the limb above her and the brown macaws lifted away at the disruption. At once, she reached down and grabbed the rifle and aimed it, her blouse half buttoned and a ribbon of hair coiled wet against her face. The Comanche, with his long black hair and piercing eyes, only stood beside the tree he had stepped out from and glared in her direction. His leathery expression was not one of fear, but of daring, with the feathers spiking above his stance so that he looked formidable, and she dared not move.
Then there was the sound of Daniel and Emmett, with the trotting of the horse and mule along the path and then they stopped. She turned quickly to see that it was them and when she swung back around, the Comanche was gone. It was as if he had disappeared back into the trees and was still observing them from some place unseen.
“What are you doing, Belle?” questioned Daniel cautiously as he scanned the area with his eyes and wondered about the gun.
“You didn’t see him?” her heart was racing and she was breathing hard, with her fingers still trembling at the trigger.
“No,” he replied and went to help her up to the leveled path with the horses. “Was it an Indian?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said, too anxious to stay still, but lowered the gun enough to pull on her boots and she struggled up the hill.
“What did he look like, Mama?” asked Emmett, as he took the gun from her, yet wanting to clear away from the area, rather than seeing for himself.
“Defiant,” she said in a harsh breath. “You should’ve seen him. He wasn’t afraid of me or my gun. Despised the very likes of me, I could tell it!”
Daniel hoisted her onto the horse and draped his jacket around her shoulders. “You just can’t go pointing a gun at ‘em, Belle,” he insinuated. “There’s no telling how he took it!”
Then he grabbed the shotgun away from Emmett and packed it onto the mule, grabbing it by the bit and forcing it onward.
She hadn’t spoken to him after that for another two hours, and he didn’t warrant the need for conversation.
Eventually, they came to a ridgeline where the valley spread green beneath them and about twenty or more odd buffalo grazed on the t
all grass. Emmett had never seen beasts as big in his natural born days, but he knew to keep quiet and lay low against the ground, while Annabelle concealed the horses away from the side of the slope.
“We’ve gotta nail it square in the head,” Daniel whispered to Emmett as he squinted an eye above the barrel and scoped the distance.
“Give it all you got,” said Emmett with all the insightfulness he could muster, anxious and wondering how they would ever handle such an undertaking.
At once, the burst rang out across the sky, rocketing the quiet as the herd stampeded away. But the one, with knotted brown fur and long broad horns, swung its head from side to side until its forearms collapsed beneath the weight of its struggle, and was left sprawled out on its side.
“Yip, yip!” he yelled, as Emmett turned toward his mother, who gave him a thumbs up and was smiling for the first time that day.
Daniel was so proud of the kill that he went scrambling down the slope to where the buffalo laid. A few minutes later they had joined them, along with the mare and mule as they pondered over the possibilities.
“We can only take enough for a day or two. It’ll spoil beyond that,” he reasoned.
“We’ll need to cook it tough enough for jerky,” said Annabelle, realizing that they would have to work fast. “We’ve got enough salt to preserve it.”
“Good,” he grinned in her direction as he took the jagged knife from his boots and plugged it beneath its rubbery stomach. “I’m gonna need your help,” he nodded to Emmett, who was ready to get his hands in place as the blood gushed onto the ground. Then there was a waving movement along the inside of its protruding stomach that bowed out, and shot out a great burst of air from its backside with a harrowing groan.
“Poo yee,” wailed Emmett as he caught wind of the stench and had to step back a few paces to catch his breath.
Even Annabelle was taken back by it and turned around to keep from laughing directly at them, as her shoulders shook from not being able to keep her composure.
Only Daniel buried his nose against his sleeve until the nauseous feeling passed. He was more concerned with the organs that had dropped into his hands and wanted to rid the buffalo of its hide while daylight still burned. Then once he had quartered away the sections of meat, there was interest growing with some buzzards that circled the sky above them.
That night, they camped close by while he scraped at the hide and removed the fat, while Annabelle cut the meat into strips and cooked it over a campfire. Being obscure seemed no longer as much of an issue as was the need for survival.
“Bet these skins will bring us a fair price in Santa Fe. By then, we should be able to add to it.” Daniel reasoned, as he stretched it out over some limbs that allowed it to drape close to the heat from the fire.
Emmett was thumbing through his deck of cards next to the fire and thinking about earlier that day.
“Whomp..,” he exaggerated the sound with his lips, as he patted the cards face down on the ground and laughed, picking up a game of Solitaire.
Daniel just eyed him speculatively with a grin, and reached over the flame and grabbed a strip of the meat from the top of the heated stones. It was so hot that he had to juggle it between his palms until it cooled enough to taste the tip of it.
“He sure does taste better than he smells,” he glanced down at the boy who laughed out loud with a ruckus.
Annabelle joined in as well. “Don’t bust a gut over it, we do owe it a homage of some sort. After all, that buffalo did us a grand favor.”
“And so did his friends for leaving him behind,” he jeered over to Emmett with his elbow, as he plopped down beside him.
Annabelle scoffed them off with a smile and began removing some of the meat from the flames that had cooked through.
“Have yet to understand,” said Daniel, “how this here boy managed to get a deck of playing cards.”
“Somebody must have wanted me to have ‘em,” he laughed off a nervous smile as he gathered the cards together and began to shuffle them.
Annabelle walked over to him and bent down, offering a sliver of meat to his mouth. “And I bet you sure wanted her to have something, too,” she eyed him with a knowing sneer.
All the while Daniel was content on allowing their secrets to remain among them, knowing that any interference would only predicate matters that were already delicate enough. Then he grabbed the deck from the boys hands and began to sort them out.
“Are you in, Belle?” he asked, as she made her way back to the roast.
“No,” she replied “you two have your fun, you deserve it.”
Twilight had a way of creeping in like the coral snake that looped its curvy spine from the branch of the Redwood sapling. Amidst the leaves and raw limbs that protruded from the forest as though pointing, spindly and sharp towards the sleeping, were the host of strangers, four in all, with bands of wrath about their heads and arrows ready.
Annabelle and Emmett scarcely moved a muscle that didn’t twitch with the shrieks of the owl. She had protectively covered him with her arm as they laid upon the open ground.
Daniel leaned with his back arched against the stone, his shoulders aching from his head being slumped for too long, but the dreaming was deep. There was a box before him, gold and shimmering in a brilliant light. A fanciful bird, with beautiful colors of sapphire and emerald hues flew from the box and into the stream of light. Beyond the box was the river, rolling and rumbling as it churned to boiling depths.
He wanted to look closer.., to see what made the water so troubled. If he could only get to the other side a white bird awaited him with the answer Then an arrow landed beside him and the bird flew away.
He startled at the sounds of her broken voice, screaming as they pulled her away. He kicked violently as he tore at the face that murmured expletives unknown, but harshly understood. The rifle was but an object that had been carried away with the two of them on the backs of the horse and the mule, as they were forced into the woods.
“Annabelle!” he yelled, though he was gasping for his next breath as he fought with both hands.
“Daniel!” screamed the voice that faded behind the limbs that slapped at the daylight.
It was a struggle to grip onto the axe-pick as he managed to stab it into the rib of the one, as his blood spilled down the handle, but another was forthcoming, and his eyes grew dark after that.
visions of light