The Shadow Man (2 page)

The forest grew dimmer and the falling temperatures sent cold, probing fingers through his fur coat and buckskins. Still he did not stir, letting the minutes pass, his eyes constantly roaming and his ears straining to pierce the moan of the rising wind.

The frigid front of the storm overran Jacob. A mighty wind pounded him. All around him, the pines groaned at the onslaught, bucking and bending. A mammoth pine creaked under the strain. One of its high limbs broke and fell crashing to the ground.

Icy sleet began to fall in long, slanting diagonals from the swollen bellies of the clouds. The hurtling ice pellets stung like fire, and Jacob ducked his head to protect his face.

The storm intensified. The sleet became a white torrent. Visibility lessened to a few yards. A hissing strumming filled the forest as billions of sleet pellets struck the pines, drummed on the limbs and tree trunks, and bounced down to roll on the ground. The noise was deafening, pressing in upon Jacob from all sides like an invisible force.

The wall of sleet thinned. In the white curtain, not twenty yards distant, five Arapaho warriors on snow-shoes glided as soundlessly as phantoms along the border of the creek. The leader lifted his hand and the band stopped instantly.

Jacob moved a few inches to shelter behind the trunk of the tree. He stared past the rough bark and watched the Indians standing motionless, the sleet swiftly collecting on their fur coats. Each man was warily scrutinizing the valley bottom and the mountainsides.

The warriors were lean and hard, not old, not young, seasoned fighting men. They wasted not a word or motion, as if they had fought together before and each knew what was expected of him. The leader carried a rifle, and the other men strong war bows. The Arapaho would be tough to kill.

The sharp eyes of the Indians ranged the limits of their vision, searching the forest to detect something that should not be there. The warrior in the rear stared directly up the slope toward Jacob. An arrow was nocked in his bow and half drawn.

The man raised his face, almost black against the sleet. He pulled in a breath of cold air, testing with his keen nostrils for an alien scent. His tongue ran out, as if he were tasting the wind.

Jacob knew why the Arapaho were here in the valley. Over the years they had developed a successful tactic for killing and robbing the white trappers that invaded their land. Before the spring arrived and the trappers loaded their pelts on packhorses and left for Saint Joseph or Santa Fe and the fur buyers there, the Indians would leave their winter camps on the low, warmer plains lying to the east and come up into the mountains. Ranging in small war parties along the creeks, the Arapaho would ambush the white men and carry off their winter catch of fur.

The leader of the band of Indians made an almost imperceptible signal with his hand. The Arapaho moved as if they were all part of one large, hungry hunting animal, disappearing up the creek and into the masking sleet.

Jacob hastened down the remaining stretch of slope and off along the trail of the Arapaho. His partner would not expect an attack in such foul weather, and Jacob could not call out or shoot to warn him for that would turn the warriors back upon himself. He had to follow close behind and he prepared to join Daniel in the fight, to strike and kill the moment the battle began.

He hurried faster through the thrashing trees and stinging ice pellets. The cabin was a quarter of a mile up the creek and on a south-facing meadow. It would be easy for the Indians to locate.

A rifle crashed close ahead. A second boomed an instant later.

“Damnation,” cursed Jacob. The battle had started too soon. He darted forward. As he ran, he untied the leather strap that held his coat shut around him, putting his five-shot Colt revolver and skinning knife ready at hand.

The dark figures of several men took form in the streaming sleet near the wall of a small log cabin. Two forms lay partially buried in the deep snow. An Indian was leaning over one of the still bodies.

Jacob recognized the fallen man as Daniel. Before he fell, his tough old partner had shot one of the Indians.

Jacob lifted his rifle, sighted along the iron barrel, and squeezed the trigger. The long weapon jumped in his hands like a live thing. The Arapaho bending over Daniel was slammed down onto the snowy earth. Jacob swung the rifle into his left hand. His right snatched the revolver from its holster.

He cocked the gun as he extended it. His finger pressed the trigger.

With amazing swiftness the Indians had pivoted toward their attackers. One, faster than the others, jerked up his bow and bent it. An arrow sprang toward the trapper.

Jacob heard the whizzing flight of the shaft and felt the feathers of the fletching brush his cheek. You're a brave bastard, Jacob thought, but you missed. He fired the revolver.

The Arapaho stumbled. He caught his balance and started to reach behind his back for a second arrow from the quiver. His fingers fumbled at the arrow. He fell to his knees and collapsed onto the snow-covered ground.

During Jacob's short fight with the second Indian the remaining warriors had sprung away into the storm. Now Jacob hastily backed away until he could no longer see the crumpled forms of the men in the snow. The Indians probably thought he'd go and investigate the condition of his partner and they could circle and steal up on him. But he would not make that mistake. Daniel, old friend, if you're still alive, hold on for a few minutes longer.

Jacob sheltered his rifle from the falling sleet with his body as he hurriedly poured a measure of powder down the barrel and rammed home the greased patch-and-lead ball. A fresh firing cap was pressed firmly upon the nipple. There were still four rounds in his revolver, and he didn't take the weapon apart to reload the one empty chamber.

Jacob knelt, hunkered low as the wind and sleet swirled around him. He waited, staring intently into the blinding whiteness.

Jacob knew that too much time was passing. He leapt erect and lunged into the storm. Indians almost always liked to have the enemy far outnumbered. The three Arapaho were not going to continue the battle. They would be searching for the trappers' horses.

Jacob crossed the narrow meadow and the frozen channel of Saruche Creek at a dead run. He veered slightly left, aiming to enter the downstream edge of the aspen thicket. That was where the horses would most likely be, for they liked to feed upon the tender, sweet sprouts and limbs of the trees. When he caught the first glimpse of the grove of aspen, he slowed.

Two horses burst from the trees. One animal carried two riders, the other the remaining Arapaho. The single Indian saw Jacob running to intercept their course. He began to shout at his companions.

The Arapaho had found only two of the horses, but that had been accomplished more quickly than Jacob had thought possible. Already the running horses and the men clinging to their backs were disappearing into the wall of white. Jacob slid to a halt, jerked his rifle to his shoulder, and snapped off a shot at the hurtling figure of the lone rider.

Horses and men vanished into the turmoil of the storm.

Jacob followed cautiously along the deep tracks of the running horses. His shot had been hurried; still, he felt it had been close to its target. He badly needed the cayuse to haul out the catch of furs.

The horse stood beside the body of a man on the ground. It looked back the way it had come and caught sight of Jacob slinking forward. It nickered as it recognized its master.

“Well, it ‘pears you still belong to me,” Jacob said to the horse.

The Indian stirred and groaned. He weakly struggled to a sitting position and propped himself up with his hands. His eyes were full of pain.

The eyes hardened to black obsidian as they came to rest on Jacob, standing not three paces distant, so close that the white man could reach out with his rifle barrel and touch him.

The Arapaho saw the pitiless anger in Jacob. The battle was over and he had lost. There would be no mercy.

The wounded Arapaho sat more erect and placed his hands on his knees. He squared his fur-clad shoulders and raised his face up to the falling sleet. He began to chant in a clear tenor voice.

Jacob listened to the warrior's death song. Let him prepare himself for the journey into the world of the dead. Had Jacob been defeated, he would have appreciated that privilege from his victor.

With hooded eyes the Indian stared upward, seeming not to feel the stinging sleet pellets striking him. His voice was strong, with a fine, almost musical timbre.

Jacob drew his long-bladed knife and leapt forward. His hand lashed out as swiftly as the snapping end of a whip. The sharply honed steel blade sliced into the warrior's neck, cutting deeply, grating off the bony vertebrae of the spinal column. As the Indian fell backward, Jacob plunged the knife through his rib cage and into his heart.

If he had lost, Jacob would have wanted a quick death from the victor.

“The mountains are like whores,” Daniel said, his voice frail and far away.

Jacob did not reply. He leaned farther over his friend to protect his face from the falling sleet. Daniel was gravely wounded. Blood oozed steadily in a red stream from a gaping hole in his chest. He was dying, and there was nothing Jacob could do. His sorrow clutched at his throat until he could not speak.

Daniel struggled for words again. “The mountains draw us to their cold beauty. Every fall we climb up into one of their hidden, secret valleys, hoping it will be virgin and has never felt the intrusion of a man before. The mountains charge a heavy price for what they give. They take their pay in the precious years of our youth. Then they kill us in one of a thousand ways.

“Do you hear me, Jacob? The whorish mountains have killed me. Not the Indians but the mountains!” Daniel's voice rose in a lamenting pitch. “Do you hear me, Jacob?”

“Yes,” Jacob said, choking.

“Get down from the high country to the low river valleys or the plains and find yourself a woman. It's not too late for you to do that. Your beard is mostly white and there's a touch of white in your hair, but you're still strong and quick as any man I've ever seen. You'll live long enough to raise a family. Maybe you'll even die in bed. Take all my furs. You'll need the money.”

Jacob had long reflected on having a wife and children, and that at his death perhaps a grave would enclose him. But he had always thought it more likely that when he died, his body would rot and waste away in some wild and lonely place.

“I hear you, Daniel,” Jacob said.

Daniel's voice came as a gasping whisper. “Bury me deep, Jacob.”

* * *

Jacob buried his comrade in the unfrozen ground of the floor of the cabin. He finished and stood staring down at the grave.

He recalled Daniel's last words and recognized the truth in them. The solitary life in the mountains was missing something very valuable.

With a surging sense of urgency driving him, he hurriedly packed all the furs in bales. The fresh skins he bundled by themselves. They would still need to be fleshed and dried. The horses were brought up to the cabin door. Two packhorses were loaded with furs and one with camp gear, and his riding mount was saddled.

Jacob carried arm load after arm load of firewood into the cabin, all the fuel that had been cut for the winter, and piled it over the grave. Kindling, rich with pitch, was placed in the center of the mound. Taking a fiery brand from the fireplace, he ignited the wood. When the fire was burning strongly, he went outside.

The roaring fire touched the rafters. Red flames broke through the clapboard roof and dense smoke soared up to meet the falling sleet.

Jacob climbed astride his cayuse. He rode a few yards then halted, sitting his saddle and staring back at the burning cabin. He felt the hollow ache of his sadness. Life was without tang and very bitter.

Jacob reined his pony away into the lonely gloom of the storm.

* * *

At some unknowable hour of the gray day the rattle of the sleet pellets on the skeletal branches of pine died away. Fine, flinty snow began to fall, and the air became smoky, filled with the wind-swirled flakes.

Jacob turtled his head down more deeply between his shoulders and strained to peer through the icy mist. The string of packhorses, tied nose to tail with short lengths of rawhide, trailed behind, crunching a path through the deep snow crusted with two inches of brittle sleet.

On a large, twisting bend of Saruche Creek, he crossed the tracks of the stolen horses. The imprints were getting old, partially filled with new snow. Yet Jacob could tell that one Indian rode and one ran behind the cayuse. He would make no effort to overtake the Arapaho. However, if he should come upon them, they would die, for Jacob's anger at Daniel's death still seethed within him.

The cavalcade of horses was forced to cross the frozen creek at a place where the slick ice was exposed. The horses' hooves slipped and skittered. One animal fell, nearly pulling its adjoining mates down with it. The upright beasts patiently waited as the fallen horse carefully gathered its legs beneath itself and heaved erect.

The valley gradually widened, the flanks of the mountain drawing back a hundred yards or better. Long, narrow meadows began to appear, separated by stretches of fir and pine.

The evening dusk came swiftly. Jacob veered aside, leading his animals up a tightly curving tributary of Saruche Creek. When he had passed around two bends that would hide his fire from the main valley, he halted.

The horses gathered close about him, as if wanting to be near. Jacob became wreathed in swirls of steam from his own breath and that of the ponies. He brushed at the formless vapor to no avail. He gently slapped the horses away and stepped out to where he could observe his surroundings.

Jacob saw nothing except the steep sides of the mountain and the dense woods. Nearby up the creek lay a large, wind-fallen pine. He led his animals there and tied them to separate trees.