Fear Weaver

Pinpoints

“Do we go on, or do we stop for the night?”

The question was posed by Peter Woodrow. They had descended a short way from the pass and were winding down a steep slope that severely taxed their mounts. The sun, low in the western sky, cast long shadows that were slowly growing longer.

Nate King gazed to the southwest. In the distance were sandstone cliffs. If his memory served, that was where they would find the valley Sully had mentioned in his one and only letter to his parents. But getting there before night fell was impossible unless they could sprout wings and fly. “I say we find a level spot to make camp.”

Ryker overheard, and disagreed. “Why stop when we’re so close? When we could have a roof over our heads tonight?”

“I can give you a whole list of reasons,” Nate said. “One, our horses are worn out. Two, so are we. Three, we would have to ride for hours in the dark, and you know how dangerous that is. Four, even if we reach the valley, it could take us hours more to find the cabin. Five—”

“All right. All right. You’ve made your point.” “I agree with Mr. King,” Peter said. “My family is exhausted. You mustn’t forget there are women and children.”

“I gave in, didn’t I?”

“Why are you in such a foul temper, Mr. Ryker?”

“I can give you a whole list of reasons,” Ryker mimicked. “But I won’t.” He gigged his horse.

“A most puzzling man,” Peter remarked. “Some days he is as nice as can be. Other days he is mad at the world and everyone in it.” Shaking his head, he followed Ryker.

Nate was still at the rear, behind Tyne. He had a crick in his neck from glancing over his shoulder so many times. There had been no sign of the Black-feet, but he wasn’t convinced they had given up.

Someone else hung back, and reined in alongside his bay. “I hope you don’t mind my company,” Aunt Aggie said. “We never had our chat about readers and reading.”

“It will be hard to talk with all the riding we must do.”

“Oh, we’ll manage.”

And they did, off and on. Agatha did most of the talking. About how her mother had read to her when she was barely old enough to toddle. About how she had loved to hear bedtime stories. “Fairy tales and fables were my favorites. I particularly liked the little red hen and the grain of wheat, and Aesop’s fable about the fox and the stork.”

Nate admitted to liking Bible stories, and tales about great heroes of the past. One of his favorites was “Jason and the Argonauts.” As a boy, one of his prized books had been a copy of the work by Apollonius of Rhodes. His father called it an extravagance but let him have it.

“Typical,” Aunt Aggie said. “Boys are fond of tales of derring-do, while girls go for more practical stories.”

Nate mentioned that his daughter, Evelyn, most liked “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and “Jack and the Magic Beanstalk,” when she was little. It brought fond remembrances of the many nights he had read to Evelyn and Zach in front of the cozy fire-place in their cabin. Those were glorious times.

Nate missed those days. Life seemed simpler then. When children were young their needs were few, and meeting those needs was easy. But when they grew older, a whole host of new problems arose, and being a good father became more of a challenge. The best a father could ask was that the problems were few and far between, and that they lived through them.

Ryker gave out a yell. He had found a suitable spot to camp for the night. Just in time. The horizon had devoured half the sun.

Sheltered from the wind by fir trees, Nate kindled a fire while Ryker and Peter tethered the horses. Aunt Aggie had Fitch and Harper gather firewood and drag logs over for everyone to sit on. Anora helped her mother fix supper. That left Tyne, who came and hunkered next to Nate.

“My aunt says you did me a favor today.”

“Oh?” Nate was concerned that Aggie had mentioned the Blackfeet wanted more than Tyne’s hair, but he should have known better.

“Only that you are a nice man and she is glad we ran into you.” Tyne smiled. “So am I.”

Nate added a piece of tree limb to the fire and the flames spat and hissed.

“Tell me about your girl, Evelyn,” Tyne requested. “What is she like?”

“She will be seventeen her next birthday. She likes flowers and pretty dresses, but she can shoot the eye out of a buck at fifty paces, and she can ride like the wind when she has to.”

“You sound very proud of her.”

“I am. When she was younger, she didn’t like the mountains. Her mother and I thought she would move back East one day, but she hasn’t talked about doing that in over a year now. I guess she decided the mountains aren’t so bad, after all.”

“Are they?” Tyne asked.

Nate stared at the encircling veil of darkness. “The mountains are as they have always been. They have beauty, and they have perils. We can admire the beauty, but we must watch out for the perils.”

Erleen was suddenly there, her hands on her hips. “I will thank you not to scare my daughter. We have made it this far without mishap. It puts the lie to all those tales about savages behind every tree and beasts behind every bush.”

“All it proves is that you and your family have been very lucky But no one’s luck lasts forever.”

Erleen patted Tyne’s shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, dear. He’s lived in the wilderness for so long, he has forgotten how to behave in polite company.”

Nate resented the accusation, but he bit off a reply. He reminded himself that Erleen Woodrow was used to the tame and peaceful East. He sincerely hoped she made it back there without having to learn that her world and the West were not the same. It could be a painful lesson.

The aroma of boiling stew filled the clearing. Everyone settled down, making themselves comfortable. Nate remarked that if all went well, tomorrow they should learn the fate of Sullivan and his family.

“I pray to God they are all right,” Peter said.

“They will be,” Erleen predicted.

“I hope we can talk them into coming back with us,” Peter remarked, adding for Nate’s benefit, “That’s another reason I came in person. I would like to convince Sully that enough is enough. He should buy property near mine so we can be like we were before he got it into his head to live in the Rockies.”

“He loves the outdoors too much,” Aunt Aggie said.

The stew was mostly water with bits of squirrel meat and some flour for thickening, but it was hot and it was filling. Nate poured coffee into his tin cup and sat back on a log to relax, but just as he raised the cup to his lips the night was shattered by a howl to the southwest.

“A wolf!” Tyne exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “I have yet to see one this whole trip.”

Nate wasn’t so sure. He listened for the howl to be repeated, and it was. A long, high, wavering cry, shrill and piercing.

The next moment Ryker was at his elbow. “Have you ever heard a cry like that?”

“Never,” Nate admitted.

“Me neither. It wasn’t no wolf, though. And it wasn’t a coyote or anything else I can think of. What the hell?”

Other howls rent the night. There was more than one of the beasts, whatever they were.

“Mr. Ryker, you swore again.”

“Sorry, ma’am. I will stop cussing when I stop breathing. Until then you’ll just have to put up with it.”

Erleen looked mad enough to smack him. “I am sorry to say this, Mr. Ryker, but you frontiersmen are a scurvy lot. Some of you, anyway.”

“And I’m not sorry to say this, ma’am, but I ride a horse and not on a ship, and my name isn’t Black-beard.”

Aunt Aggie chortled.

“Had I known you could be so petty, Mr. Ryker, I would have hired someone else to be our guide.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but there aren’t many who will come this far in. Bridger would do it, but last I heard, he was guiding wagon trains. Walker would do it, but last I heard, he was in California. Jedidiah Smith went and got himself killed by Comanches. That leaves King, here. You’re getting two for the price of one.”

“Was that a barb, Mr. Ryker?”

“Perish the thought, ma’am.”

Peter broke in with, “As soon as everyone is done eating, we should all turn in.”

Fitch raised his face from his soup. “But I’m eigh-teen. I should get to stay up as long as I want.”

“I want to get an early start, son, and we all need rest.”

The howling stopped. Whatever gave voice to it had gone quiet.

“We should take turns keeping watch,” Nate proposed. “Two hours each. I’ll take the first turn. Then Fitch, Harper, and you, Mr. Woodrow. That will leave an hour or so for Edwin.”

“Don’t call me that. I hate that name.”

“Very well, Mr. King,” Peter said. “If you feel it necessary.”

“I do.”

Tyne gave Nate a hug before she turned in. Soon he was the only one not bundled under blankets. Perched on a log by the fire, his rifle across his thighs, he sipped coffee and listened to the night sounds.And there were a lot. The meat-eaters were abroad. Coyotes yipped. Owls screeched. Occasionally the roar of a griz announced that the monarch of the land was on the prowl. The screams of mountain lions were rarer yet. Twice, Nate heard howls that he was sure were made by wolves. He didn’t hear the strange howls again.

Before long, Fitch took over.

Nate lay on his back with his saddle for a pillow and a blanket pulled to his chin. He gazed up at the myriad of sparkling pinpoints in the night firmament, waiting for sleep to claim him.

Nate was on the verge of dozing off when Fitch whispered, “Mr. King, are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“I think something is out there.”

Smothering a yawn, Nate rose on his elbows. “I didn’t hear anything.” He saw only darkness.

“It was there.” Fitch pointed to the southwest. “Something moved. I didn’t get a good look at it.”

Nate stared until his eyes ached. “There’s noth—” he began, and stopped. Something did move, a flicker of white against the backdrop of black. He sat up and grabbed his Hawken.

“Did you see that?” Fitch breathlessly asked. “What on earth was it? A deer?”

Nate didn’t know. He had never seen anything like it: a hunched-over form, as pale as a sheet, that was lightning quick. He would almost swear it was on two legs but that was preposterous. It moved too silently, too swiftly.

“Mr. King?”

Nate threw off his blanket. “I’ll keep watch awhile. You turn in.”

“That wouldn’t be fair. You just laid down.”

Of all of them, Nate had talked to the boys the least. Fitch and Harper tended to keep to themselves. They had their father’s reserve and were not as open as the girls. But Nate liked them. They were dutiful, decent young men who would soon make their own mark in the world. “I don’t mind.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

Nate smiled in wry amusement. His own son hardly ever said “sir” to him. Zach was too independent, too much his own person. Nate wished Zach were there now. With his son to back him, he would take on anyone or anything without any qualms.

Nate took Fitch’s place on the log. The night had gone quiet, a temporary lull in the beastly bedlam of predator and prey. It sobered Nate to contemplate that at that very moment, scores of meat-eaters, everything from martins to bobcats to wolves to grizzlies, were feasting on fresh, succulent flesh. It made a man thankful for the senses God gave him, and the brains to use them.

Nate refilled his tin cup. His eyes were leaden, his limbs sluggish. He probably should have let Fitch continue to keep watch, but Nate was a firm believer in the old saw that if you wanted something done right, do it yourself. And while Fitch was able enough, the boy lacked Nate’s experience.

Half a cup later, Nate was having trouble keeping his chin up when a feeling came over him that he was being watched. He gripped the Hawken and peered into the dark, but nothing moved. Dismissing it as nerves, he went on sipping and struggling to stay awake.

The feeling persisted. Nate set the cup down and stood. His Hawken level at his waist, he warily stepped to the edge of the clearing.

Everyone else was sound asleep. Erleen snored loud enough to be heard in California. The horses dozed.

Nate grinned at his foolishness. He was about to turn back when he thought he saw, at the limit of his vision, a pair of tiny dots, virtually pinheads of light. It took him a few moments to realize what they were. Eyes, reflecting the glow of the campfire. Eyes fixed unblinkingly on him. As Nate looked on, a second and then a third pair of dots appeared. There were three of them. He snapped the Hawken to his shoulder even though he didn’t intend to shoot, not without knowing what they were. But the instant he raised the rifle, the three pair of dots disappeared, as if they had blinked out of existence, or melted away.

A shiver ran through him. More nerves, Nate thought. Whatever those things were, they hadn’t tried to harm him or any of the others.

What were they? Despite Nate’s many years in the mountains, despite his familiarity with every animal in the wild, he couldn’t say. And he didn’t like that. He didn’t like it one bit.

Nate hoped he had seen the last of them.