FLAT NOSE EMORY YARNS A YARN
Chapter 7
Below on the Missouri, spring was in full bloom. Before they had abandoned the search for his daughter, Chandler had asked Fancy Bouchard to let him know when the snows had left the mountains so they could continue to look for Catherine. When Fancy arrived at the trading post, Charlie knew that the time had come to rescue his daughter, if it was still possible. He rounded up a troupe of green hands that were inexperienced in the ways of the mountains. Tom Gunther, who had remained through the winter, insisted on coming along, and Bouchard was to guide them to where he thought Vincent had his cabin. Flat Nose had been asked to go along but had declined, not trusting Fancy or respecting Tom Gunther; they weren’t square. He felt they were up to no good. Later he wished that he had accompanied them if only to prevent the tragedy from occurring. The old mountaineers were more resigned, thinking that Charlie’s daughter hadn’t survived the winter or was the property of some trapper or Indian. Most likely, if she was still alive, she wasn’t even in the area anymore. With what they knew about Vincent, they couldn’t credit Fancy’s tale of the leonine man stealing Charlie’s daughter. More than likely, Vincent had rescued her from him, and if she was with their leonine colleague, he would bring her home as soon as he could. Chandler in his fear and worry over the fate of his daughter never questioned Bouchard’s version of what had happened.
***
At last Catherine awoke one day to find flowers popping through the scant snow: Spring had finally come to the Judith Mountains. With their provisions being low, Vincent went hunting. Even a freshly killed rabbit would be better than the dried meat they had been eating for so long. Catherine had opened both windows and the door, letting the fresh scent of spring replace the stale winter odors.
Hearing the sound of voices other than Vincent’s, she cautiously looked out the window and saw her father step into the clearing followed by Tom Gunther, a bunch of strangers, and Fancy. Her stomach clenched as she recalled what he had tried to do to her. She wondered what he had told her father. Not the truth, that was for sure. "Father?" she called as she stepped from the cabin.
His eyes almost bulged from their sockets when he saw her advanced pregnancy. "What has he done to you?" he bellowed.
Before she could say a word, Fancy cut her off, saying, "See! I told you. I told you he would do unspeakable things to her."
"No," Catherine shouted. "Vincent did nothing that I didn’t want him to; I love him."
"Don’t pay no never mind to her. He’s put a spell on her." Fancy grabbed her arm, pulling her from the cabin doorway.
Kicking and scratching, Catherine fought like a tiger until her father intervened. "Leave her be, Bouchard. She’s my daughter; I’ll handle her." He held her shaking body to his breast. Worried and scared, she pleaded, "Please, Father, I love him; I want to stay with him."
With an irritated and disgruntled look, Bouchard backed away, mumbling imprecations to himself about the lionman.
At this moment, Vincent crashed from the surrounding forest with a cry of, "Catherine!"
Aiming quickly, Bouchard took a shot at the charging man. Other shots rang out a few short seconds later. Vincent dropped like a rock. Unable to breathe, unable to credit what she saw, Catherine stared at the spot where Vincent lay still as death. "Vincent," she whispered horrified then sagged in her father’s arms.
Nudging and poking each other, the greenhorns couldn’t seem to gather enough courage to see if Vincent was really dead. They had heard all the many tall tales about his rages and the destruction that his hands could bring to them. Even Fancy wouldn’t approach the body. "He won’t be able to hurt you no more," he crowed.
She looked at him as if he was mad. "But I love him." Those were the last words she said as she gazed at Vincent with a lost, lonely look and retreated into a world where there was no pain and no memories.
"What’d you do that for, Fancy? You didn’t need to kill him," Charles Chandler said, looking at his dazed and distraught child.
"He won’t steal her again," Fancy stated. "I’m puttin’ a claim on her."
"I don’t think so. She is in no condition to tell us what really happened. She stays with me until she returns to her senses." Picking up her unresisting body, he set her on a horse.
"As ef’n she ever will," one of the greenhorns said, giggling.
Chandler and Fancy led an unresponsive woman from the clearing, leaving the other men behind who promptly looted the cabin of all they could find. Staring straight ahead, she seemed to see or hear nothing. She answered no questions; it was as if the others weren’t even there. She ate only if it was put in her mouth. The one emotion she exhibited was her aversion to Fancy Bouchard. She would cringe and flinch whenever he approached. Charlie had to eventually order him to stay away from her. He was rapidly becoming suspicious of the dandy and wondered, fearfully, what he had done to his daughter.
***
After the search party had left, Flat Nose became increasingly uneasy and tracked the band of men to Vincent’s cabin. He feared what they would do, and when he arrived as the others were leaving to return to the valley, he knew his fears had been well grounded. From behind a copse of bushes, he watched them disappear into the trees. Charlie was leading a horse on which sat a dejected Catherine. To Flat Nose she looked like a whipped puppy. Entering the clearing, he found Vincent stretched out in the grass, for all intents and purposes, dead. But feeling for a pulse, Flat Nose discovered that surprisingly the large man was still alive; even though, he had been shot three times. Struggling mightily, the mountain man finally had Vincent in bed. Washing the wounds with water, he poured whiskey over the injuries to sterilize them. Then he applied a poultice of flour, meal, and herbs to draw out any poisons of the blood. The lionman slept for five days, and when he awoke, the wounds were almost healed.
"Wagh, ah shore am powerful glad ter see yu feelin’ some better," the trapper said, congratulating himself on his doctoring skills.
"Thank you, my friend! Do you know where Catherine is?" he asked the most important question to him as he struggled into a sitting position.
Flat Nose nodded. "Shore. Ah saw ‘em leavin’ ‘n’ ah’m purty shore they wuz headed fer Charlie’s. Fancy wuz guidin’ ‘em."
Vincent snarled at the name then asked, "What brought you this way?"
"Ah caint rightly say. Ah jest hed this queer feelin’ thet somethin’ wuz wrong ‘n’ follered ‘em. Shore glad ah did."
"I am too," Vincent said with heartfelt sincerity.
"Ah got some broth bilin’. Ah ‘magine yer a moite hungry."
"Yes, I am. I need to go to Catherine. She needs me. The broth will help with the healing."
After eating two mugs of broth, Vincent slept again. He kept to this routine for three more days, stronger each time he awoke. He would need all his strength to get his wife back. At last, when Vincent was fully healed, the two friends set out for Chandler’s Trading Post. Vincent was worried about Catherine. Whenever he tried to reach her through the bond, he found her feelings to be dull and flat. He had the horrible feeling that she was willing herself to die and the child with her. She must believe that he was dead.
***
Arriving back at the post, Charlie put his daughter to bed and got an old Crow Indian woman, Shadow Moon, to look after her. Nothing he tried seemed to work. She was so withdrawn that no joy, no sorrow or fear touched her. If he couldn’t rouse her fighting spirit, he would lose both her and his grandchild. He could only wonder at what had happened to her. His suspicions about Fancy gelled one night when his daughter began to scream. He rushed into her room to find Shadow Moon struggling with Fancy. Her old body was not strong enough to keep him from Catherine, and he was attempting to take her into his arms to do what was any man’s guess. It seemed that her pregnancy hadn’t dampened his thirst for her. Enraged, Charlie chased him from the store, waking up several of the trappers who wrestled the rifle away from him that he had grabbed to shot the man. Charlie ordered Fancy out of the trading post never to return on pain of death. That was the end of Fancy Bouchard in the Missouri River country. A body couldn’t survive without the necessities supplied by the store. When he left, Tom Gunther left with him. He wouldn’t tarnish his name with another man’s leavings. Charlie wasn’t sorry to see either of them depart.
***
Pushing their horses to the limit, Vincent and Flat Nose arrived two days after Charlie returned with his daughter. They had made a three-week trip in fifteen days and were understandably worn out. Vincent chose a secluded copse of trees next to a small, unnamed creek for their camp, hidden sufficiently that even the most well-seasoned mountain man would pass it by. After resting for a while, Flat Nose went to the trading post in the afternoon to learn what he could. While waiting for him to return, Vincent wrote a letter to his father explaining what had happened and what he planned to do. He thanked him for all his love and care and said that if he never heard from him again, not to worry as he planned to disappear into the mountains with Catherine and their child. If possible he would send word to him where he was at but not to count on it.
When Flat Nose returned to camp, he found an anxious lionman waiting for him, pacing the small clearing. He barely had time to sit down by the fire before Vincent barraged him with a volley of questions. The lanky trapper held up his hand. "Wal shore, ah caint answer all them questions at onct. Gimme time ter git a breath."
Vincent sputtered to a halt, impatiently waiting to begin his questioning again.
Pulling in a deep breath, Flat Nose puffed the air back out. "A’ rite, ast yer fust question."
"Is she all right?"
"Yea ‘n’ nay. Now jest wait a minite," he said as Vincent opened his mouth to speak. "Charlie’s got her in bed and she’s a’ rite in the body. But she don’t speak none, nor pay no mind ter all t’others aroun’ her."
"She must think I’m dead. Other than that she’s fine?"
"Ah wudn’t say so ef’n she wharn’t," Flat Nose snapped back.
"I know; forgive me. I’m worried about Catherine and the baby." Continuing his pacing, Vincent asked, "Is there a way I can get to her without the others knowing?"
"Why shore. Thar’s a winder ‘n’ her room’s in the back." Flat Nose grinned at the other man.
"A window. Wonderful. I’m going to get her tonight." Stopping in front of the other man, he smiled affectionately at him, grateful for his friendship and his assistance. "It would be better for you if you weren’t involved."
"Wal now, ‘pears ter me thet ah air involved already, as yu say. Ah kin keep a look-see fer ye."
Vincent nodded. There was no way he was going to talk the other man out of helping him. "Thank you." They shook hands and settled beside the fire, waiting for the dead of night to make their move.
Fortunately, the moon had set early in the evening, and it was as dark as any cave without a torch. After leaving his friend in a strategic lookout, Vincent stole quietly to the back of the trading post and through the open window of Catherine’s room. The old Indian woman started awake but sank back on her pallet when Vincent put his finger to his lips. She was not about to cross the favored of the Sun. Standing over the woman that he loved, he drank in her beauty, while noting the sunken cheeks and dark circles under her eyes. Lithely, he knelt beside her and whispered her name. "No - o - o," she moaned.
Brushing a lock of hair from her forehead with a tender finger, he called to her, "Catherine, wake up. It’s me, Vincent. Please, love, I’ve come to take you home."
Still asleep, she threw her arms around his neck. "I knew you’d come for me. Take me home to Heaven, take me where you are."
"Catherine," he shook her gently, "not heaven, to our cabin. I’m alive. Open your eyes, look at me."
As her eyes opened, they were immediately caught and held by his concerned blue gaze. "Vincent?" she whispered. "Is it really you?" The firm, warm body in her arms confirmed her wildest hope. "You’re not dead?"
"No, my love. No musket ball can keep me from you."
"I was so scared when I saw you fall. I thought they’d killed you. I couldn’t live without you; I didn’t want to."
"I know, but there is someone else to think about now," he gently chided her as he ran his hands over the bulge of her stomach.
Ashamed of her weakness, she bowed her head, "I know."
"Come. It’s time to go. We must be far away by sunup."
"Wait. I can’t leave my father without something to tell him I am going to be all right." Finding a piece of paper and quill, she wrote a short note to Charlie, and giving it to the old Crow woman, she said, "Thank you for taking care of me." The old woman nodded, never taking her eyes off Vincent’s tall form. "Give this note to my father." Catherine pressed the paper into the gnarled hands, squeezing them thankfully. The old woman nodded once again.
Vincent helped his love through the window, and then following her, he picked her up and raced to Flat Nose’s hiding place. Together the three hurried back to the secret camp. The horses were already saddled and packed. Mounting his horse, Vincent held Catherine in front of him; he couldn’t bear to be parted from her just yet. He needed the feel of her warm, soft body next to his to reassure him that they were together, at last. Leaning down, he took Flat Nose’s roughly calloused hand in a firm grip. "Thank you, my friend. I can never repay you."
"Shucks, twarn’t nuthin’. Yu’d do fer me."
Handing him the letter for his father, Vincent asked, "Would you see that this gets to my father?"
"Shore, be proud ter." He stuck the letter inside his buckskin shirt.
Catherine leaned over as far as she could and kissed him on the cheek. "Bless you," she said.
Thankful that she couldn’t see his hot face, he bashfully ducked his head and said gruffly, "Yu’d best be agoin’. Yu’ve got a long stretch in fron’ o’ yu."
"Take care," Vincent cried, and taking the lead ropes of the two pack horses from Flat Nose, he urged the horses into a ground-eating easy lope.