She faced me and her expression grew severe. “Listen to me, Robert. Listen closely. They plan to kill us. Whether now or later, our end will be the same. We must fight or we will die.”
“I understand that,” I said rather testily. I did not like being treated as if I were a simpleton.
“Do you truly?” Blue Water Woman persisted. “Because you seem to think it is silly of us to fight for our lives when we have so little chance of beating them. Or am I mistaken?”
I opened my mouth to tell her she definitely was—then closed it again when I realized she definitely wasn’t.
“I thought so.” Blue Water Woman placed her hand—the hand holding the bloody knife—on my shoulder. “I cannot do this alone, Robert. We must work together.”
I answered her honestly. “I told you before I will do what I can.”
Blue Water Woman squeezed my shoulder. “Very well. We must be true to our natures. I want you to go now.”
“What?”
“I want you to go,” she repeated. “You can be of little help to me, and I do not want you to die.”
“I told you I would not desert you.”
“Please, Robert,” Blue Water Woman said. “I cannot devote attention to you when they come. You would be on your own.” She smiled, not a mocking smile but a smile of genuine affection that cut me to my core. “I believe the white expression is that you would not stand a prayer.”
“I am staying and that is final.”
“Oh, Robert.” Blue Water Woman frowned, but she did not press the issue. She stepped to the rim.
“Tell me what to do and I will do it,” I said.
“I already did.”
“I will do anything but abandon you. There must be something. I am not totally worthless.”
“There is nothing you—” Blue Water Woman said, and caught herself. She glanced at me, her brow knit. “Your talent for making what you see so lifelike on canvas and paper. Can you do the same without a brush or pencil?”
“I am not sure I follow you.”
Blue Water Woman tugged at my jacket, then pointed at the trees below the bluff and to the right. “If you do it so they think it is you, it will give us a slight edge.”
I caught on and started down. “I will do you proud.”
“Robert?”
I looked back.
“Stay down there. When the moment is right, yell.”
“How will I know when that is?”
“You will know.” Blue Water Woman rose onto the tips of her toes and gazed in the direction of the stream. “We have five minutes, Robert. Less, perhaps.”
I ran. I chose a spruce near the bluff. Removing my jacket, I roved in search of downed limbs. The first branch I found had been on the ground so long it fell apart when I picked it up. The next branch was too thin. The third was too short. The fourth did not have leaves or offshoots. At last I found one that was suitable.
There were problems. How was I to replicate my head, for instance? Or my legs? Stripping off my jacket, I draped it around the leafy half of the branch. Then I jabbed the jagged end into the ground. It penetrated, but not deep enough for the limb to stay upright on its own. I jabbed and poked some more, but the ground was too hard. My only recourse was to lean the branch against the tree. I contrived to place it so that one shoulder, part of the front, and a sleeve were visible. I tucked the end of the sleeve into a pocket and stepped back.
At a quick glance, it would pass for someone standing behind the spruce.
“I see them, Robert!”
Blue Water Woman had flattened. She motioned for me to seek cover and then slid back out of sight.
Darting behind a pine a few feet away, I dropped onto my stomach. Every nerve tingled. I was scared, terribly scared, yet at the same time I was excited. Silly, I know. But that was how I felt.
Only then did it occur to me that I did not have a weapon. I glanced around and saw a rock about the size of a small melon. I hefted it. It was heavy, but I could throw it if I had to.
A faint drumming heralded their approach.
I sucked in a deep breath and pressed against the earth. My heart pounded and there was a roaring in my ears. Then the roaring faded, and I could hear the horses clearly. They were coming on fast.
The irony did not escape me. Here I was, a man of peaceful pursuits, about to engage in violence.
How do things like this happen? How can it be that we go through life minding our own business, wanting only to live as we please without hindrance, yet find ourselves at risk through no fault of our own? I am no pastor or philosopher, but it seems to me that our Maker has a cruel sense of humor.
These were the musings that ran through my mind as the hoofbeats swelled in volume, until all of a sudden the undergrowth crackled, and into the clear space below the bluff trotted Jess and Jordy Hook and their vicious friend, Cutter. They promptly drew rein.
Jordy Hook was not wearing a shirt. Bandages consisting of strips of buckskin had been crudely wrapped around the lower half of his chest. They were stained red with dry blood. He held a rifle, which he wagged excitedly. “They can’t be far! One of us should circle around in front of them so we catch them between us.”
“We stick together,” Jess Hook said. He was staring at the top of the bluff, as if he suspected something.
None of them noticed the branch with my jacket on it poking from behind the spruce.
I was in a quandary. Blue Water Woman had said I would know when the time was right to distract them. But I did not know whether to do it then or wait. If I waited too long, they would ride off. What was I to do?
“Let’s keep going,” Jordy Hook urged. “I want them, brother. I want to break their bones and cut them. I want them to suffer until they scream.”
“We should rest the horses,” Cutter suggested. “We have pushed them hard and they are tuckered out.”
“To hell with the horses!” Jordy fumed. “That squaw stabbed me! I won’t rest until I have paid her back in kind.”
“Cutter has a point,” Jess said. “We can spare five minutes.”
I gnawed on my lower lip in worry. Any second, they were bound to spot the jacket.
“I am not waiting!” Jordy bellowed. “I will stop when we catch them and not before.”
“It is stupid to ride your animal into the ground,” Cutter said.
Jordy flushed with resentment. “Since when did you give a damn about our animals or anything else?”
“Be careful,” Cutter said.
“Or what? You will turn on me? You don’t scare me, Harold. I’ve killed as many as you.”
I peeked out at them. Did he just say Cutter’s real name was Harold?
“You are acting like a ten-year-old,” Cutter said. “But then, that is nothing new. Your brother was always more mature.”
Jess Hook reined his horse between them. “Enough! This bickering ends now. We’re partners, damn it. We must work together and cover each other’s backs.”
“Tell that to your brother,” Cutter said.
Their rancor was a welcome development. I half hoped Jordy would shoot Cutter to spite him.
“When I said enough, I meant it!” Jess Hook snapped. “This squabbling is senseless.”
“All right, all right,” Cutter responded.
Jess glanced at Jordy who was so mad he was fit to fly out of his saddle at Cutter. “And what about you? Forgive and forget?”
“When hell freezes over. He called me stupid and a ten-year-old. You heard him.”
“You’ve been called worse.” Jess tiredly ran a sleeve across his brow. “We must keep our wits about us, brother. It is not deer we hunt.”
“A squaw and a puny yack,” Jordy said. “They don’t stand a chance.”
“Tell that to the knife she stuck in you.”
“You can go to hell, too,” Jordy said.