Passion's Series (32 page)

“I know our paths will come together again.  Because of this, I will not fear when you go to find my father.  That man that I attacked knew who I was.  He knew I was James Fitzgerald’s daughter…Buffalo, you are squeezing my hand too tightly.”

Raven blinked and softened his grip.  “I am sorry.  What did this man say to you?”

“He said he had hit the jackpot when he found James Fitzgerald’s little brat.  He was going to take me with him.  I should not have fought back.  I should have gone with him and laid a trail for you to follow.”  The tears flowed freely now as she questioned her own actions.

“Nonsense, Dawn,” her words worried him more than he cared to admit to himself, “You have spouted more nonsense in the past few minutes than I ever thought to hear from you.  You are here…right where you belong, and you are alive.”  He softened his voice, “I will find your father, and when I return you will be here safe and well.  Promise me you will never put yourself in danger over some silly notion that you can live through anything.”

As he pushed himself up, he realize Dawn still gripped his hand.  “Raven Who Flies To Meet The Clouds?”

He noticed how strained her voice sounded and felt ashamed for being gruff, “Yes, Funny Face.”  Raven squatted again.

             
“There is one thing you need to know.  You need to know that when you need me, I will come to you.  The Great Spirit will guide me.  This is my promise to you.  I will walk my path, Raven Who Flies To Meet The Clouds, no matter the price.” 

Her voice grew softer as she spoke and he felt a sense of alarm.  “You are talking nonsense, little sister.  He bent down and kissed her forehead.  “You rest.  I will find Red Panther and bring him home.”

Chapter Eight

New Moon quietly ran through the woods, staying close behind the warriors ahead.  They stopped often, studying the forest floor with careful attention.  New Moon knew the frequent stops were not for her benefit, but they did help her to keep up with the powerful braves.  She was just as strong in many ways... she knew this.  However, they were out on the hunt much more often, and had thicker legs and corded veins.

New Moon was impressed by the strategy taken by the leader of their party as the group took a direct route to the trading post, but then skirted its edges instead of entering.  By doing this, they were able to see the common paths others took when leaving the post and not risk being seen on the post by potential enemies of Red Panther.

Climbing Bear paused as the post came into view, considering it carefully.  He shook his head, discarding those contained within its walls.  With a few quick hand signals, he directed the party.  They would start at the small town's wooded edges, exploring the common paths and trails for anything unusual.  It was tiring work with little reward.

The haystack was a forest across acres of land, their needle a single man.  Often they would split up, with two going down one path while the other three would loop around on another.  It became something of a competition to see who would finish their trail first.  Despite such a push for speed, all were extremely cautious in their attention to detail and possible sign.

The next day, they decided to look for less-traveled trails or signs of newly blazed paths. Here they were favored with nearly immediate results, finding hints of campsites that led in one general direction.  Once they knew what to look for, these were easily discovered.  It was obvious some of the sites were used multiple times.  Someone had been using a hidden path for some time, and yet, where did it lead?

Three days after they'd left Chota Town, New Moon found signs of a struggle. In particular, a small oak had dark spatter caked on parts of its trunk.  She squatted down and touched the dried blood. 
If this were the blood of my beloved husband, I would know,
she told herself and believed it completely.  While there was no way of telling if the blood had been human, it seemed too coincidental to find such evidence along the clandestine way.  They slowed themselves, searching around the site in widening circles for further proof.  The entire time, Moon's teeth clenched as she told herself over and over,
I will not find my warrior discarded among the trees.

They did not find bodies, but rather loosely piled dirt mounds.  One of these seemed as if a wild animal might have begun digging.  Another one was barely filled enough to cover the body beneath.  There was no telling who was already interred, but New Moon knew by a small scrap of fabric exposed beneath dirt it was not Panther.  She would not go so far as to dig up the other corpses, though the thought did occur to her.

Squeezing her eyes tight, she brought the image of her beloved holding her daughter in his arms back to mind.  ‘
Panther is still living
.’

The group worked together in silence as they did what they could to properly cover the graves.  A bad wind, as dark and heavy as each warrior’s thoughts, whiffed about them, causing more than one to shiver in apprehension.  Panther was
Beloved
by all in the village.  New Moon realized the others did not know what she knew.  They feared he was lost to them and all would mourn if he were.

“But you are not lost, my Beloved.  I will find you.  I will always find you,” New Moon whispered.  If anyone heard her break the silence, he did not look up.

Moon knew they all prayed they would not find more bodies further down the path.  The silence was not broken again as everyone worked to finding large stones to properly secure the dead below.

The signs that they were on the right track were increasing.  With continued luck, they would find Panther or those responsible for stealing him away.  All they had to do now was continue following the path into the woods with cautious readiness.  Their pace slowed even more, and Climbing Bear spread them out to either side of the trail.  New Moon brought up the rear with one of the others, while two in the middle crept twenty paces away to either side of their direction of travel.  Bear remained in the front.

Their caution paid off.  With waning daylight close to prompting them to stop, one of the braves far to the left sent a warning call.  At the first sound of a whippoorwill, the party froze in their tracks.  With a repeat of the signal, each of them took pained care to sneak soundlessly toward the call's source.

This led them up a small hill, and the brave who had called was lying on the ground while peering over a cliff's edge.  Below them was a small fire with three young men sitting close to the glow.  Two of these seemed to be Choctaw, while the third was a Spanish man in leather armor with a steel helmet set beside him.  The Spaniard was scratching at a long, dark beard.  Bits of their conversation drifted to the stalkers from Chota Town.

“We will hurry back to our camp
en la mañana
,” said the Spanish man, poking a bit of meat onto his knife before sticking this above the fire to cook, “I am tired, and you two have been going quickly all day.”

One of the Choctaw gestured at the fire, “Your obsession with making a fire every evening and stopping every fifty paces slows us down, and we must make up time by running through the woods.”

The other at the fire snorted, “Perhaps you should discard your cumbersome garments.  They make you slow and tire you quickly.”

The Spaniard grunted, though it seemed to be more of a laugh than any sound of complaint, “My 'cumbersome garments,' as you call them, have saved my life more times than I can count.  Old Colonel Fitzgerald would've done me in had my helmet been missing.”  As if to prove this, the man picked up his headpiece, pointing at a dented part of the covering, “I'll be glad when the man is dead.  He smiles at me every time he sees my face,
Creo que está en mi contra.”

The first Choctaw to talk chuckled, “Do not fear a man in chains, it does little for your manhood.”

The wind changed, and the sounds of the group's discussion became hard to discern.  Fortunately, New Moon felt as if she had heard enough.  Red Panther was alive, captive, but alive.  A strong hand shot out to her arm, and with reluctance, she realized that she had been rising to stand, eager to jump out and attack the men below.

Climbing Bear pulled New Moon back down and got the attention of the other warriors.  With some quick gestures, he got across a simple idea, attack, and capture.  Everyone understood, and watched Bear, awaiting a signal.  Instead, the older man beckoned them to remain still, and pointed at the fire.  They would wait until it was dark.

Hours passed, those down the cliff mostly lounging near the fire while eating and jabbering.  It was infuriating waiting for them, and muscles stiffened to make it painful as well.  Eventually, the fire died down and everyone below seemed still and asleep.

Good
, thought New Moon,
they did not set a guard to watch them.  Foolish for them, but good for us
.  She narrowed her eyes, itching to move, to attack, and glanced at Bear yet again for a signal.

This time, the signal was an aggressive gesture to attack.  The braves spread out, creeping down either side of the hill.  Bear circled around, planning to attack opposite the cliff.  New Moon remained on the higher ground, bow prepped and arrow notched.  She would draw if any of those below tried to escape, loosing for a kill to prevent cries of alarm or a runner's warning.

The attack was over in but a couple of heartbeats.  One of the Choctaw woke in a flash of motion, striking out with a dagger that almost killed Climbing Bear.  The fight turned brutal, and Bear was forced to kill his adversary.  The other two Chota braves had even less success.  The remaining Choctaw came awake quickly, taking in the situation and bolting for the forest edge.  New Moon killed that one, sending an arrow through the chest.

The Spaniard was tough, and his armor made him hard to fight.  Bear paired up with the brave who tumbled with the dark bearded man and together they nearly managed to subdue him.  Then, using the helmet to head-butt Climbing Bear, the armored foe rolled away, yanking the younger brave along for the ride.  Getting his knife free, the Spanish man used his superior weight to pin down the warrior.  Just as it seemed that one of their party would have their throat cut, the second young brave jumped on their opponent's back, plunging a blade into an exposed armpit.

The pain was too much for the Spaniard, blood gushing from the wound as the knife was twisted and drawn out.  Falling to one side, the body gave a spasm before going still.  He had passed out on the way to dying.

Once Climbing Bear's party regrouped in the clearing, they spent some time scalping, roughly mending wounds, burying, and then planning their next step.  Bear seemed reluctant to go on without more warriors, “They mentioned that they were heading to a camp.  There may be many more of them, and we are but five.  “He held his left arm as he spoke, the near miss from before still sliced deep into his bicep.

The other two braves were only nicked and scratched, and Moon had not seen any fighting up close.  To them, continuing until they found the camp seemed worthwhile, if only to find its location.

However, it was New Moon who, despite desperately wanting to find Red Panther, cautioned the group to turn back for Chota Town so that they might prepare, “We can find our way back here, and with a larger party we are assured to find success.  If we go now, we risk being captured or killed.”  She grimaced, “Then, none would know what happened to us, and Panther would still be captive.”  It was not needed for her to voice the second part of that thought.  If they did not hurry, he might end up killed too.

Chapter Nine

Raven Cloud's group started at the cove.  To their surprise, the dead intruder had left no sign, a testament to his ability.  The warriors took time to search the cove again before working their way into the woods closer to their village.  They were not going near the trading post for clues.  Instead, they spread into a rough, wide column all heading in the same direction.  This way, zigzagging through the woods, they were able to cover a large amount of ground while moving at a decent pace.

When one of them thought he’d found something, they merely had to call to either side and the message would be passed along.  This happened several times, with all of them jogging up with excited expectation.  However, the other three would take a look at what had been found, and soon a consensus would be made that it wasn't important.  The trail was too old, it was only the sign of an animal's passing, or perhaps the brave had imagined what he saw.

The pressure to find something useful intensified, and their calls of having found something decreased as the day's hours passed.  It was disheartening to search the broad, forested expanse without finding anything.  There were not any ways to know they were heading in the right direction and, worse yet, they could not be sure they had not missed something.

Two days passed with fruitless searching.  They lost some of their focus, using some of their time to hunt and repair tools.  It was not a matter of giving up, they just needed to rest their minds from the intense focus required while roving the woods.

During the third day, they found the first hints that someone unknown had been in this part of the forest.  That they found any sign whatsoever seemed to speak of someone without caution or care.  It was common practice for the Cherokee as well as Choctaw to return campsites to the land, removing any trace of passing through.  Whoever left the trail was being sloppy, with fires hastily buried and undergrowth stripped of branches and leaves easily found.  Nevertheless, to find anything renewed the group's sense of purpose.

The going was easier and much more direct after that.  Raven Cloud drew the group back together and they ran in a single file of silence and concentration.  Hints of a trail began to show, and more campsites were found along its rough path.  Whomever they were tracking, it was not a large group, and they had not been in the area for very long.

Other paths were showing up, and some still had bundles of branches and young trees tossed to the side of places that had been cleared.  It was not land that settlers had approached before, and Chota Town was known to use the area.  There should not have been anyone in this part of the forest.

At the end of the third day, Raven turned to follow a creek upstream until they found a good area surrounded by dense brambles and thorny bushes.  It would make it difficult for someone to sneak up on their group.  They decided to forgo building a fire that night, and chose guard shifts that would last until dawn.  Sleep would be fitful.  They felt as if they were in the territory of an enemy they did not know.

***

Soft-Spoken Hawk kneeled at the edge of the creek, refilling his water skin with eyes peering out into the darkness.  His felt his energy sapped by cold, the edge of frost creeping into muscles that ached from constant running.  Temperatures always dropped close to true dawn, and Hawk found it difficult to prevent himself from shivering.  The other three in the group slept back-to-back, sitting up to prevent the ground from stealing what little warmth they could gather.

His gaze snapped upstream along the creek.  There had been something there, he was sure of it.  Slipping his water skin back into place, he drew his knife, creeping at a crouch upstream.  The water's edge suddenly lapped noisily at the bank.  Something moved through the water, disturbing the liquid's lazy movement.  Hawk raised his blade, sensing his adversary's position rather than seeing it.  He struck!

A war-cry drew the entire camp awake as a Choctaw warrior found Hawk's knife buried in his shoulder.  The yell of pain and defiance cut off sharply as he sprung from the water he'd crept along, hoping to catch the four unaware.  Already losing too much blood, he snarled at his opponent, “I will send you to death with me, Cherokee!”

Soft-Spoken Hawk's knife caught on the other man's bone, a jarring sensation.  He yanked it free and blocked a strike from the other's own weapon.  Hawk tackled the assassin, having trouble gripping a body already slick with blood.  They grappled, rolling while trying to control one-another's blade.  Somewhere else in the thicket, they heard a gunshot.  Someone else yelled.  It was an ambush.

Soon, every one of them was fighting someone.  In addition to the one that had tried creeping up the creek, there were three Spaniards and two other Choctaw braves.  If not for Raven Cloud's careful selection of a campsite, they might have been lost.  It was difficult for the enemy to see into the thicket, and
moving through the brambles was difficult and painful.  Thorns grabbed at the heavy clothes of the Spanish and gashed the bare skin of the Choctaw.

They had been forced to rush in when Hawk stabbed their would-be assassin, and now they were already wounded and aching by the time they made it close to the clearing near the creek.  What's more, the light was still too low to depend entirely on eyesight.  One of the Spaniards had fired his rifle, but the shot went wild.

Raven yanked at the feet of one of the Spaniards trying to push through the thicket.  He sent the man flying backward, slamming him to the ground.  Raven dragged at the opponent's foot to pull him into the clearing, dispatching him quickly with a twisted stab up the throat.

Hawk had finished off the first assailant and joined with one of the other Cherokee to drag a Spaniard away from choking one of them to death.  Amidst gasps for air, they managed to pull a loaded rifle from the man's grasp and fire it point-blank at its owner.

The third Spaniard turned to run as he saw the fate of his two countrymen.  He tried to run away straight through the brambles, but was caught by their vicious thorns.  Realizing his predicament, he turned with difficulty, raising his rifle to fend off any that might attack him.

Soft-Spoken Hawk slung his knife at the Spaniard, preventing a shot that would have torn two of the Cherokee braves to shreds.

The second Choctaw knocked Raven Cloud to the side with a blow that made his head ring.  He had trouble standing up, vision blurring.  Raven saw Hawk reaching to retrieve his knife from the dead Spaniard, and the Choctaw sprang on his friend's back and wrapped an arm around the young-man's throat.

The other two Cherokee warriors were having trouble getting rid of the last Choctaw.  Raven Cloud struggled to push himself up, time slowing around him.  Rushing forward, he leapt at Hawk's attacker.

Spinning to face Raven's attack, the Choctaw held Hawk's bloody knife.  Soft-Spoken Hawk fell to the ground.  Another battle ensued, bodies colliding as Raven sank a knee into the killer's gut.  Somehow, both knives were knocked aside.

Raven Cloud was slamming his fist into the Choctaw brave's chest when the other two Cherokee pulled him away from the dying.

“It is done, Raven Who Flies To Meet With The Clouds.  All of our opponents have been killed.”

The day's light was just beginning to filter through the heavy cover of trees and brush.  It was hardly morning, and the ambush had already come and gone. 
They had not been able to capture any of the enemy, and Soft-Spoken Hawk was dead.

Raven's blood still pounded in his skull, anger flooding his every sense.  He went to those he had killed, scalping them with a vicious yank.  He felt responsible for this.  They had let him lead them to this place, and now one of them had been killed.  Breathing hard, he fought for control.  Stripping, he dunked himself in the creek as well as he could, trying to wash away the anger.

Eventually, they all finished scalping the enemy, cleansing wounds, and recovering from the early morning attack.  Everyone put on a solemn face, but anger hid just behind their eyes.

Raven Cloud crouched down beside the body of his friend, Soft-Spoken Hawk, “We will return to the village and perhaps now we will be able to convince others that a larger party is needed.  Soft-Spoken Hawk's family must know of his death.  I have no stomach to leave the body of our friend among these cowards.  We must carry him home as bestows a great warrior.  ”

The group was in agreement.  After carefully withdrawing from the thicket, they took a direct route back toward Chota Town.  They had dark news to deliver.