Grizzly Fury (14 page)

Fargo scanned the slopes above. He didn't expect to see the bears but he did. They were climbing side by side. As he watched, they stopped and rubbed against one another and then moved into a dense growth of firs.

“True love,” Fargo said, but he didn't laugh. Climbing down, he went through Rooster's pockets, then dragged the body into the shade and covered the old scout's remains with branches and rocks and dirt. He also salvaged what he could from Rooster's saddlebags. He tied Rooster's Sharps on the Ovaro with his bedroll.

A dry blood trail led him to the man who made the fire: another bear hunter. The man had lost an arm and a foot and half his head was gone. So was his brain.

The sun was on its westward incline when Fargo reined the Ovaro to the northwest. He wasn't going after the two grizzlies alone. One, yes, he could handle, but to tackle two was to ask for an early grave.

Twilight was spreading its colorless blanket over the wilds when Fargo reached the meadow. The others were already back.

Moose and Wendy were by the fire with Cecelia and the kids. The Blackfeet were at their own fire near the stream. He wearily climbed down. Without saying a word he knelt and helped himself to coffee and gulped half the cup.

Everyone stared. The Blackfeet came over and waited for him to say something.

It was Moose who glanced into the woods and said, “Where's Rooster? Did you leave the old goat behind?”

“He's dead,” Fargo said.

“I'm sorry,” Cecelia said. “I know him and you go a ways back.”

“Breaks Heads?” Bird Rattler asked.

Fargo nodded. “She and the male are together.”

“As if the one ain't problem enough,” Cecelia said.

Moose nodded. “They could stay together for days or weeks. It'll be that much harder for us.”

“Twice the challenge, eh, mates?” Wendy said with a happy grin.

Fargo was refilling his cup. “Rooster wouldn't think so.”

“What do we do?” Cecelia asked. “How do we kill two bears when we can't kill the one?”

All eyes fixed on Fargo again. “Could be they'll lay up for a while,” he guessed. “They have Rooster's horse to eat so they won't be in a hurry to go anywhere. We can go back there tomorrow and end this.”

“All of us?” Moose said, and shook his head. “I'm staying with Cecelia.”

“No,” she said.

“I won't leave you and the kids alone.”

“You don't take part, we're not entitled to any of the bounty.”

Fargo spoke up. “You each get your share whether he comes or not. It will be safer for you if he stays.”

“I won't be coddled,” Cecelia said.

“I'd be too worried,” Moose said.

“What can happen? The bears are miles from here.” Cecelia looked at Bird Rattler. “Are there any other of your people hereabouts?”

“No.”

“There you have it,” Cecelia said to Moose. “We'll be perfectly fine. You go off with these others and do what you have to.”

“But—” Moose began, and she held up a hand.

“I won't have a man who uses me as an excuse.”

“It's not—” Moose started again, but this time she covered his mouth with her palm.

“Prove to me you're worth a damn. Go off and help kill Brain Eater and that other one if you have to and get us the money we need.” She removed her hand. “You hear me?”

“Whatever you say,” Moose said.

“That's settled then.” Cecelia smiled sweetly. “It's getting late. I'd better start on supper.” She collected her kids and ushered them toward the lean-to.

“You know,” Wendy said, “I've hunted elephant and rhino. I've pitted myself against tigers and jaguars. But there's nothing on this earth half as formidable as a woman with her dander up.”

“Does that mean you'd be scared of her if you was me?” Moose asked.

“In a word, my good man, yes.”

Moose sighed. “I sure could use a drink right about now.”

“We all could,” Fargo said.

Buzzards covered the horse. They tore at the flesh with their beaks and swallowed the meat whole. A red fox sat on its haunches nearby. Twice it had approached but the vultures hissed and flapped their wings and the fox timidly retreated.

“I don't see no bears,” Moose said.

They were on the ridge Fargo had crossed the day before. Sunlight bathed the valley. Only the thickest of the timber was in shadow. A yellow finch was conspicuous. So was a jay high in a pine.

“Where did you see the fearsome blighters last?” Wendy asked.

Fargo pointed at the firs on the opposite slope. “Going into those trees.”

“They might still be there,” Moose said.

“You're the expert on bears,” Wendolyn said. “Do we wait for them to come out or do we go in after them?”

Bird Rattler and his friends had not uttered a word the entire ride. But now the venerable warrior cleared his throat and said, “Go in.”

“Catch them napping, as it were?” Wendy said. “I like the idea.”

Fargo didn't. Something was bothering him but he couldn't put his mental finger on the cause.

“Piikani go there,” Bird Rattler said, and pointed at the west end of the fir belt. “White-eyes go there,” and he pointed at the east end.

“Piikani?” Wendy said.

“It's what the Blackfeet call themselves,” Fargo explained. The names that whites called most tribes weren't their real names. The Apaches were the Shis-Inday. The Comanches called themselves the Numunu. The Crows were the Apsaalooke.

“It'll take us half the day to get up there,” Moose observed.

“Stay here if you want,” Wendy said. “Personally, I like going into the bush after dangerous game. It adds to the thrill.”

“I didn't say I wouldn't go.”

Wendy ran a hand over his elephant gun. “At last I can put my beauty to the test.”

They agreed that each group would start into the firs when the sun was at its zenith. Then they separated and began their climb. The terrain was rugged, their ascent arduous. Still, Fargo and his companions reached the fir belt half an hour before they were to move in. “We'll rest a bit,” he announced. Shucking the Sharps, he sat with his back to a boulder, plucked a blade of grass, and stuck it in his mouth. From where he sat he could see the buzzards and the fox.

Wendy breathed deep of the rarefied air, and smiled.

“I daresay I like this country of yours. These mountains stir the very soul.”

“They're just mountains,” Moose said.

“That's like saying the ocean is just water. Look about you.” The Brit gestured. “These noble crags and lofty heights are a testament to the grandeur of creation. They would inspire a poet to rapturous verse.”

“Raptu-what?”

“The hand of an artist is everywhere. Don't you feel it?”

“I don't know what in hell you're talking about,” Moose said.

The Britisher appealed to Fargo. “Surely you understand. Explain it to him, if you would.”

“I don't need him to,” Moose said. “I ain't dumb. You got your head in the clouds.”

“I doubt you comprehend at all,” Wendy said.

Moose bunched his fists. “Keep talking to me like that and so help me, I'll pound you.”

“Talk a little louder so the bloody bears will know we're here.”

“They already do.”

“Is that true?” Wendy asked Fargo.

“Odds are,” Fargo said.

“Then how do we sneak up on them?”

“We don't.”

“Is this like tiger hunting? Do we go in and make a lot of noise and drive them toward the Indians? Or do the Indians drive them toward us?”

“Drive a grizzly?” Moose said, and laughed.

“We go in and hope we get off a shot before they claw us to bits,” Fargo said.

“You make it sound as if we're depending entirely on luck.”

“Now the foreigner gets it,” Moose said.

Wendolyn muttered something about Yanks, shouldered his elephant gun, and walked away.

Moose chuckled. “I reckon I hurt his feelings.”

“Go easy on him. That elephant gun of his could come in handy.”

“That reminds me,” Moose said. “I'm been meaning to ask. What the blazes is an elephant, anyhow?”

Fargo had been keeping an eye on the sun, and now he stood. “I'll tell you later. It's time to start in.”

“Look out, Brain Eater,” Moose said. “Here we come.”

 

Firs grew high and straight and thin. They were so closely spaced that their trunks were in perpetual shadow. Fargo and the others had to thread through a maze of narrow gaps, often with limbs practically poking them in the face.

Of all the places the two grizzlies could pick to lie low, this was especially dangerous. The bears could charge out of anywhere at any time.

Fargo held the Sharps in his left hand with the stock on his leg and the barrel against his chest where it was less apt to be snared by limbs. Moose was thirty feet or so to this right, Wendy about the same distance to his left. So far they had penetrated over a hundred yards and the only sign of life had been a few birds and a chipmunk that chattered and scampered off.

Fargo probed the shadowed gloom. A mistake could cost them their lives. His nerves were on edge. When a finch took startled wing, he gave a slight start himself.

Skirting several tightly clustered boles, Fargo drew rein.

On the ground were droppings. That they were bear was obvious.

That they were left the day before would be easy to confirm but he didn't climb down and risk being pounced on. He clucked to the stallion.

The minutes crawled. It was half a mile to the middle of the stand. The heat and the quiet took a toll. Drowsiness nipped at him but he shook it off.

They spooked a rabbit. They sent a doe and two fawns bounding off. A cow elk snorted and plunged away through the undergrowth in a panic.

Fargo had not seen bear sign since the droppings but now he came on a tree with claw marks and another where the bark had been rubbed off and crinkly hairs stuck to it.

Wendy drew rein and extended an arm.

Fargo looked but didn't see anything. He thought it must be the Brit's imagination. Then a large shape detached from a mass of shadow. Snapping the Sharps up, he was about to shoot when the shape stepped into a sunbeam. “Another damn elk,” he said in disgust.

The firs seemed unending. With the sun screened by the tall trees, Fargo had to guess how much time had passed. About an hour, more or less, he reckoned, when the Ovaro pricked its ears.

Ahead, something moved.

Fargo brought the Sharps up again but snapped it down. He stopped and waited for the approaching rider to reach him. “Any sign?”

“No,” Bird Rattler said. “You see bears?”

Fargo shook his head.

“They not here,” the warrior stated the obvious, sounding as disappointed as Fargo felt.

Red Mink and Lazy Husband converged from either side. Moose and Wendy joined them, and the looks on all their faces said all there was to say.

Fargo reined down the mountain. It would take them until long past dark to reach the meadow. Were it not for Cecelia and her children, he'd make camp in this valley and head back to them in the morning.

The buzzards were gluttons. They had eaten down to the skeleton and half a dozen were up to their feathered bellies in intestines and organs. The stink was abominable.

Fargo gave them a wide berth. The feeling that had pricked at him all day came over him stronger than ever. He stopped and stared at the ungainly birds and racked his head for a reason.

“What's the matter?” Moose asked. “I want to get back to Cecelia quick as we can.”

“Something's not right,” Fargo said.

“About those beastly scavengers?” Wendy said, viewing the vultures with distaste. “They're ugly blokes, I'll grant you, but they serve a purpose. I've seen their like on every continent.”

“Not them,” Fargo said. “Something else.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I wish to hell I could.” Fargo watched a buzzard tug at a strip of flesh that was stuck to a leg bone.

“Let's keep going,” Moose urged. “It'll be dark soon and Cecelia and her little ones are alone.”

“You act like their father,” Wendy teased.

“Maybe I will be,” Moose said. “Cecelia is looking for a new husband. I might not be much of a catch but she says I can be trained.”

Wendy laughed. “Ah, yes. Don't you find it ironic that women marry a man and then want to change him into something he wasn't when they said ‘I do'?”

Moose shrugged. “I don't mind changing some if I get to be in the same bed with her every night.”

“Sex,” Wendy said. “The great equalizer.”

“God, you talk peculiar. And you better not be thinking of Cecelia when you say that word.”

“Perish forbid,” Wendy said.

Moose motioned impatiently at Fargo. “What are we waiting for? Those bears ain't anywhere near here.”

“No, they're not,” Fargo said, and the vague notion that had been troubling him was suddenly clear as crystal. “Son of a bitch,” he blurted.

“What's wrong?” Moose asked.

“Why didn't I see it sooner?”

“See what?”

“Brain Eater never came back to her kill.”

Moose looked as confused as a human being could be. “So she didn't come back? What difference does that make?”