Ignoring the icy water dripping from his deerskin leggings, Caiben joined his trapping companions as they watched the six horses, with Malone’s in the lead, wander solemnly back into the crude corral from which three of them had been abducted. Once within, they dispersed amiably and began to nibble at the greening grass.
No small man himself, Caiben got a crick in his neck looking up at Malone. “Well, you were right, Amos. Danged if you weren’t right. They come back.”
“Wonder what happened to the thieves,” Bridger murmured.
“Reckon they had enough.” Malone started toward the corral. His companions followed.
“What’s that thing on your animal’s head?” Caiben asked. “Looks like he got somethin’ stuck in it.”
“Just a growth,” Malone murmured. “’Tain’t hurtful. I’ll take care of it.”
They entered the corral. Each man saw to his own mount and then collectively to the three they’d apparently acquired. Malone patted the stallion on the neck. It snorted as if bored by the attention.
“Well, Worthless, they give you a hard time? Other way round, I reckon. Some folks are just dumber’n dirt, thinkin’ they could horsenap a unicorn.”
“A what?” Bridger had come up behind him and overheard. “I know what that is. A mythical creature. Somethin’ out of stories, that don’t exist.” The two mountain men regarded each other silently for a long moment. Then Bridger broke out into a wide smile. “Kind o’ like you, Malone.”
Malone smiled, too. Have to replace that restrainin’ patch quick, he mused. “I reckon so, Jim. Tell me: you ever had crawfish étouffée on saffron rice?”
“Huh-uh. Sounds like Frenchie food.”
“Sort of. With lemon chiffon cake for dessert.”
Bridger eyed him sideways. “Now, where you gonna git lemons up here, Amos? In late winter, no less.”
“Leave that to me, Jim.” Malone gestured with a nod. “Better get cleaned up. Looks to me like you might’ve had an accident.”
Bridger glanced around and down at his stained backside, thoroughly baffled. “Now, when’d I do that? I don’t recall…”
Malone put an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Let’s eat, Jim. Caiben, you ready for dinner?”
“Ain’t I always?” The third trapper joined his companions as they sloughed back toward the cabin.
Behind them Worthless shifted his phenomenally flexible anatomy and turned to thoughtfully eye the nearest mare.
Espying his intention, she gave a startled snort and bolted twelve feet.
The Purl of the Pacific
A lot of folks don’t know it, but part of the Old West just skipped over the Great Basin region and the West Coast to land full bore in the Sandwich Islands. Different natives (same treatment) and even cowboys. The cowboys, in fact, are still there, hanging around Makawao and Wailea, discussing weather and cattle and posing for the tourists.
But a different group of indigenous folks were there first, with a very different and equally rich culture. Not that it would make a difference to Amos Malone.
The man is, after all, all business. Just what kind of business is sometimes hard to figure.
“Shark!”
Amos Malone glanced back over his left shoulder. The men on the whaler Pernod, out of Nantucket, were running along the rail, shouting and gesticulating wildly. One native harpooner was actually hanging off the bowsprit as he did his level best to draw the mountain man’s attention to something in the water midway between himself and the ship.
Malone dropped his gaze and squinted. Sure enough, there it was: a dark, sickle-shaped fin cutting the water directly toward him. A couple of the whaler’s crewmen had rifles out and were frantically trying to load and aim. Malone hoped they’d take their time. They were as likely to hit him as the fish.
Tiger shark, by the look of it, Malone decided thoughtfully. Fourteen, maybe fifteen feet. It was still a ways off, uncertain what to make of this unprecedented intrusion into its home waters. In its piscine bafflement it had been preceded by company both common and illustrious, for Mad Amos Malone constituted something of an intrusion no matter where he went.
Leaning to his left, he peered into his mount’s eye. It rolled upward to regard him, its owner’s dyspeptic temperament much in evidence.
“Shark over there, Worthless.” He casually jabbed a thumb in the direction of the oncoming fin. “Just thought you’d like to know.”
Beneath him the enormous stocky steed of mightily confused parentage snorted once, whether by way of acknowledging the warning or indicating its contempt for their present mode of travel, one had no way of knowing. Transporting them both, the stallion was swimming easily for shore, Malone having decided not to wait for the first boat to be lowered. He was anxious to see this new cattle country, even if it was as hot as the Brazos Valley in July and twice as humid.
The water above the reef was refreshing, though, and the island lay close at hand. The bustling whaling town of Merciless Sun lay before him, cloud-swathed green mountains rising sharply behind it. A brilliant rainbow arched over the heavily eroded gullies that flayed the slopes, looking for all the world like a gigantic advertising sign raised by elves. Or in this instance, Malone reminded himself, Menehunes. Dozens of vessels, mostly whalers like the Pernod, swayed at anchor in the Lahaina roads behind him, their masts representing entire forests transported to the open sea.
They looked hot, too, Malone reflected. Everything hereabouts looked hot.
The Pernod’s captain had sympathized with his passenger’s desire to get ashore but was dead set against any attempt to do so without the use of a boat.
“Most of these ships stink of whale oil, Mr. Malone, sir, and the great-toothed fish that ply these waters are always ready for a handout in the most literal sense of the word. Furthermore, if you will not be insulted by my saying so, no matter how well your animal may have weathered the journey from San Francisco, it is no seal, sir, to easily swim this distance to shore. Especially with a rider so large as yourself seated astride its back.”
Malone had smiled down through his great, unfurled nimbus of a beard. “Now, don’t you go worryin’ about ol’ Worthless, Captain. He’s a right fine swimmer and takes to the water like a fish.”
In point of fact, Malone’s unclassifiable steed had once swum Lake Superior from the American side to the Canadian at the height of a ferocious autumn storm. The captain would not have believed that, either, unless he happened to be familiar with a unicorn’s extraordinary powers of endurance, which he was not. With his horn kept cut down and filed flat, Worthless’s true lineage remained a necessary mystery to all who encountered the exceptional, if ill-dispositioned, creature.
The shark was quite close now, not even bothering to circle. The men on the boat were frantic.
Worthless turned his head, located the shark, and kicked out all in one swift motion. A portion of the lagoon foamed. His left hoof caught the fish beneath its jaw and knocked it clean out of the water. It lay there belly up, floating and dazed. The frenzy aboard the ship was instantly transformed into stunned silence. A dozen or so sharp, pointed teeth, forcibly ejected from their intimidating loci, spiraled lazily down through the crystal-clear water and came to rest on the sandy bottom, but not before being thoroughly investigated by half a dozen spotted butterfly fish, a couple of Moorish idols, and one humuhumunukunukuapua’a (one humuhumunukunukuapua’a being more than enough).