Chapter One
Chapter Track: Bear Fight ~ Mark Mancina - Brother Bear
Summer, 1907
A thin mist blanketed the forest floor, weaving itself between the bracken and sequoias. Sunlight streamed through the branches and shrubbery, adding a golden glow to the mist. It began to break apart, whirling up, and hurrying out of the way as she moved through Tall Trees. The beauty all around Nila provided her a comfort that she needed to continue moving deeper into the woods.
Despite having lived in West Elizabeth for the last 5 years, she never got used to Tall Trees. There was something foreboding about the area. Maybe it was the dark shadows the sequoia trees cast over her, or the strange noises that came from here at night. Either way, she tried to stay away from here as much as possible. Now there was talk of a vicious gang living here called the Skinner Brothers. She didn't know anything about Skinners, but a name like that sent shivers down her spine.
Ginger and hummingbird sage grew here and she desperately needed it. If the young woman at Manzanita Post was correct, there was plenty of it at Bear Claw camp.
Reaching down the side of her saddle, Nila touched her bow. She should've brought a rifle, but they were too heavy and she didn't want to bring attention to herself if there were gangs in the area. She did have a revolver on her hip, though; a schofield that once belonged to her father. Although, she hadn't had much practice with it.
Her step-father didn't believe women should be allowed to carry weapons of any sort. In his eyes, it's a man's job to do the fighting and protecting. It went against the laws of nature to have a woman fill these roles. Many times, Nila wanted to point out that the Muscogee, while having gender roles, did not bind their people to them. Women could fight, hunt, and fish if they pleased, unlike the white man's society who expected their women to stay indoors and tend to the house. However, she didn't do this. She knew if she did, she'd face the brunt of his temper.
A shudder rippled through her at the thought. Michael Daniels may have died over the winter, but the memories remained fresh in her mind.
Telling herself she was safe now helped push the awful memories away. He was gone and couldn't hurt her anymore.
To her right, a fox screamed, startling her. Tafvgee felt her rider's anxiety spike and gave an irritated grunt then side-stepped away from the direction of the noise. With a few reassuring pats, the equine calmed and became manageable once more. Tafvgee didn't spook easy and only bucked her a few times in the past.
Not bad for a mustang.
"Maybe we should head closer to Beecher's Hope," she whispered.
When Nila was a child, she and her friend, Nastas, used to play in a small shack that once stood. Even after he was sent away to a boarding school in the east, Nila continued to play there until a few years ago. It was one of the few small connections she had to her old friend. She hoped wherever he was now, he was safe and happy.
Horse and rider galloped along the freshly placed fence post that outlined Beecher's Hope. From her angle, Nila saw a new house, which meant someone had finally bought the property. She was disappointed to see this, as Beecher's Hope was once her sanctuary.
As they made their way down the hill, she glanced back at the property one last and saw three men tending to their morning chores around the house. One of them, a tall and broad shouldered Indian, waved at her. She waved back and quickly looked away.
Seeing the road that would lead her to the Montana river, Nila reined the mare in that direction. She spurred Tafvgee's sides, urging her to go faster and the equine complied. As they made their way up river, she saw a small shack on Aurora Basin. She'd only been in this area a few times and each time that shack gave her the creeps. Just on the other side of the lake were three wickiups which equally creeped her out.
She wished her father or her older brother, Thlucco(or Joshua to the settlers in their hometown), were with her at that moment. Whenever she was with them, they made her feel safe. At the very least, she hoped her father's spirit was riding beside her now. She said a silent prayer for both the men she'd loved the most.
When she was little, Michael locked her in a closet believing it cured her of her nyctophobia. It didn't. Instead her fear worsened and a fight between Michael and Thlucco broke out. A fight ending with Michael gaining a broken nose and Thlucco tossed out. She never saw her big brother again. How many more men in her life was she going to lose? She shook her head. Her family had to be cursed; it was the only "reasonable" explanation.
I guess it doesn't really matter, does it?
Taking a path to the right, they trotted up a slope that led to Bear Claw Camp. She'd never been to the area before. All she knew was that something bad happened there long ago, and that was enough for her to stay away.
Over the weekend both her mother and little brother came down with a fever, leaving Nila to hold down the household while they recovered. By Monday her mother had felt better, but her brother, Geoff, wasn't fighting off the sickness fast enough. Her mother wanted to go into town to fetch the doctor, but Nila was against it. The people of Blackwater could not be trusted, not even the doctor. No, this was something they had to handle on their own. The doctor would be their last resort.
Seeing three destroyed structures, Nila slowed Tafvgee until she came to a stop. She hitched the mare to a bush before approaching the cabins. They weren't wrong that something bad had happened here. All three looked to have been burned, one of them barely there at all. Probably a gold miner's settlement, she thought.
At the first cabin, she saw something brown and red, withered like old leather. Dread crept into her being as she slowly moved toward the object. Upon closer inspection, she realized to her horror it was a dead body. Inspecting the body, she found three old arrows in its chest. Plucking out one of the arrows, she looked it over. Most likely the Native who'd once lived here had done this. The Tolowa if she remembered correctly, though she wasn't sure because along the Aurora Basin were a few Wickiups. She knew a band of Apaches once roamed the Great Plains and Hennigan's Stead, and in Big Valley the Miwok people had called that area home twenty years earlier. However, the West Elizabethan government had seen to it that nearly every Indian in the state had been rounded up, killed, or chased off all together.
She frowned at the thought and looked down at the dead man hanging out of the cabin. If the local Natives had killed him, he must've had it coming. Dropping the arrow, she turned away from him.
Scanning the area, she looked for the elusive ginger root. There was a cluster of hummingbird sage on the other side of the cabin.
She knelt down and picked the flowers, wrapping them in a bundle with a piece of flannel cloth. After placing them gently into her courier style bag, she got to her feet. She kept her eyes fixated on the ground, looking for the familiar red berries that sprouted atop the plant.
As she moved about the area, she spied tracks pressed into the earth. She didn't need to kneel down to know a bear had passed through the area. It was hard to tell just how long ago that was, though. There wasn't any scat to be found, no hair stuck to bushes or the fence, and no scratch marks on the trees. If a bear had been here, it was long gone.
To her luck, there was a patch of ginger nestled between the last cabin and a rotten fence post. She hurried over to it and began digging out. Once the root was carefully harvested she wrapped it up and placed it in her courier bag.
Time to leave. She couldn't stand to be here a moment longer.
She jogged back to Tafvgee and began to mount up when she noticed her mustang's demeanor had changed. Flat ears, eyes bugged, and the stomping of hooves. All signs of an agitated horse.
"What's got you spooked?" Nila wondered aloud.
She tried mounting up again, only for Tafvgee to rear up and gallop away from her. Nila muttered a string of swears, and marched over to her.
"Stop fooling around! If you panic, I'll panic."
But the mustang refused to cooperate. Nila grab the reins only to have Tafvgee jerk her head back and out of her grasp. The mare bolted again and let out a squeal of terror. Dread spiked in Nila's chest. Tafvgee rarely spooked. Not even a rattler in her path could deter her. Only once did the strong and proud mustang ever show this type of fear and that was the night they were stalked by a grizzly.
At the crunching of dried leaves and the snap of a branch, Nila whirled around. Her blood ran cold when she met the eyes of a young cougar. Her brain didn't have time to fully process the situation before the big cat lunged forward. Large paws slammed into her chest as she was knocked to the ground. Bright white teeth sink into her, and claws ripped at her shoulder. It shook and dragged her across the ground as Nila flailed. Nila wedged an arm between her and the cougar, hoping to push it off. With the other, she reached down to her belt and felt around for her knife. Grasping the cold steel, she removed the blade and plunged it into the cat's shoulder. She withdrew her knife and did this three more times before delivering the final blow into its neck. Blood spurted from the wound, staining her hand, the ground, and its beige fur.
It didn't take long for the cat's grip to weaken. With one big shove Nila managed to push it off of her. It skidded a few feet away from her, before rising to its paws. Its big round eyes we're now filled with pain and fear. Despite what it did to her, she pitied the poor creature. It teetered on its paws before collapsing to the ground, still alive and clawing at the dirt. As life slowly drained from its body, Nila rose to her knees, withdrew her revolver, and aimed for its head. In the next moment, it's suffering ended.
She let out a sigh of relief and fell back on her rear end. Her shoulder and arm burned, but she didn't dare to look at the wounds. The blood streaking down her arm was all the proof she needed to know it was bad.
Leaving the cougar's body behind would have been a waste. She needed a way to get it on Tafvgee's back, but with her arm the way it was she knew this wasn't going to be an easy task.
Speaking of which...
Where did that dumb horse go?
Clutching her shoulder she rose to her feet and made the slow walk to the last place she had seen her mustang. Tafvgee was nowhere in sight. Great, as if things couldn't get any worse.
Seeing a silver speck off in the distance munching grass, she felt a wave of relief wash over her, then was quickly replaced with irritation. Nila clasped a hand over her wounds and made the slow trek to her mare.
She passed a large boulder and another patch of hummingbird sage when the earth went out from under her. She dropped several feet, hitting her head hard enough that stars danced across her vision. She hissed in pain as she touched her head.
"If it's not one thing it's another! Shit!." Nila looked around for something to grab onto and spied a thick root sticking out. "There we go."
She jumped, missed, and tried again. This time she was successful. Swinging her leg up gave her a boost, and she pulled herself to the top, ignoring the pain in her arm. She was almost home free until three white men came into view. They were dressed in buckskin clothing and one wore a coonskin hat. The two standing before her looked malnourished and the other to her right looked to be an Indian, possibly a half-breed. The one who made her uneasy though was wearing the coonskin cap. He had a long greasy beard and there was something in his eyes that made him appear less human.
She didn't like the way they surrounded her, but maybe they were friendly? Maybe they were hunters and this pit was their trap?
"Um... hello? I need help. I've fallen in this hole and-"
A kick to the head sent her backward and back into the hole. She held her forehead and gasped at the pain. She wasn't bleeding, but it would leave a nasty bruise.
"Looks like we got us a squaw in the pit," one of the scrawny ones said. "Never had me one of them before."
With horror she realized these men were no hunters but were actually the Skinner Brothers.
"She's gonna taste good in more ways than one."
Anger and fear shook her to her core. She had her knife and her gun. Another lesson her brother had taught her was to never go down like a coward. In that moment, she knew it was fight or flight and she wasn't exactly in the position for the latter.
Nila narrowed her eyes at the men and moved for the Schofield at her hip. The bearded man caught on fast and drew his pistol before she could. He shot at the ground between her feet, making her yelp in surprise. Nila jumped back and smacked the wall behind her.
"Make her dance, boys!"
They opened fire at the ground, missing her by a hair. Dirt sprayed up into the air, before raining back down on Nila. She backed into a corner and covered her face. Her body screamed at her to grab her gun and try again, but she was frozen in place. She whimpered out a plea for them to stop, but it was drowned out by the gunfire. Not that it mattered anymore.
She begged the Creator or whoever was out there to save her, to make this stop. She thought of her mother and little brother and what would happen to them if she didn't make it back.
Tears trickled down her face thinking about it. This was going to be how she went out, cowering in a corner, crying and wishing for her papa to save her. What a pathetic way to go and she was too scared to stop it.
When she thought all hope was lost, she looked up and connected eyes with the scrawny one. He leveled his gun at her head, but he never got to pull the trigger. An arrow struck him in the throat. He grasped it and blindly pulled in a desperate attempt to remove it. Instead, he fell forward into the pit, barely missing Nila.
"What the hell was that?" the bearded one cried out.
Nila looked down at the corpse at her feet and felt sick. She'd only seen a dead man once in her life and that was her father. Memories she'd suppressed long ago tried bubbling to the surface. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed herself against the cold dirt wall. Above her, men screamed in pain as more arrows penetrated their bodies. Then bullets quickly replaced arrows in a crackling boom.
More bodies fell into the pit, making sickening thumping sounds. She peeked for only a split second but it was enough for her to grow sick at the sight of a man with half his skull blown off.
The fighting felt as if it were going on for hours, but later she'd learn it barely lasted two minutes.
"It's Marston and the redskin! They've come for the girl!" a Skinner cried.
"Let's get out of here, there's probably more of 'em!"
It was only when silence filled the forest did her body relax.
"Hey, you in the pit, are you hurt?"
Nila opened her eyes and looked up. The light was behind him, making it hard for her to see his features, but whoever he was, was a large individual.
"I don't think so! I mean... I am but..."
"Hold on," he called back.
He disappeared and seconds later a rope flopped into the pit. She tied it around her waist and grabbed on as he pulled her up. She made it to the top, grateful to be touching cool, green grass.
"You okay?" he asked, taking her by the hand and hauling her to her feet.
"I'm fine, thank you," Nila replied, dusting off her dress.
He was the man who waved to her at Beecher's Hope. Seeing him up close, he was much taller and broader than she thought. His long black hair draped over his shoulders and she noticed the two feathers tied into it. He was an Indian mixed with Black, that she could tell. Probably from a Southeastern tribe, as a lot of runaway slaves had joined the them decades ago. To her displeasure, lower bands from these tribes had owned slaves at one point. She wondered if he'd understand Mvskoke if that were the case.
His eyes drifted to her shoulder where spots of blood-stained her shirt. "That's a nasty wound." He touched it, moving the ripped material away from the dime-sized hole in her shoulder. His tone hardened and he added, "Did they do this?"
Shaking her head, she pointed to the cougar laying dead by the bushes.
"I see."
A cowboy on a white horse trotted up to them. His face was scarred and covered in stubble. He wore a denim vest over an off white shirt and dark pants with white pinstripes. Strands of dark hair hung in his face. She found him to be somewhat handsome, in rough and rugged kind of way. Not as good looking at the Native standing beside her, though.
Taking off his hat he wiped the sweat from his brow before placing it firmly back on his head.
"Caught up with a few and gunned them down. Some stragglers got away but I don't think they'll be comin' back around here anytime soon," he said. Looking at Nila, he asked, "You alright there, miss?"
She nodded.
"What were you doin' out here by yourself?" he chided. "Don't you know them Skinner brothers are crawlin' all over this area?"
Not liking his tone, she narrowed her eyes at him and lifted her chin. "I've heard the rumors, but I didn't have a choice! My brother's sick. He needs ginger root and hummingbird sage. If I didn't get it for him, no one else would!"
The two men exchanged glances.
"I understand," the Indian said. "I think I would have done the same if I was in your position."
"Come on then," the cowboy said. "You can't walk around with a hole in you. You can come back with us to our ranch and we'll patch you up."
She wasn't certain about traveling back to the Great Plains with two strange men. Yes, they saved her life but what if they expected some sort of payment in return? What if this was all a ruse to harm her? She didn't spend a lot of time on these thoughts, however. The thought of being all alone in Tall Trees right now was more terrifying than these two.
"Okay," she finally agreed. "But first I need to get my horse."
The cowboy nodded and reined his stallion in the direction of Tafvgee.
As they rode back, her mind was still trying to comprehend what just happened. Another thought going through her mind was: how was she going to explain all of this to her mother?
