Damnation Valley Read online

  “You’re sure right about that,” Charlie Moss said.

  One of the canoes used by Carnahan and his men had drifted against a deadfall a hundred yards downstream. Moss retrieved the now-empty craft. To make their loads lighter and increase their speed, they rode two in each canoe—Breckinridge and Desdemona in one, Moss and Eugenia in the other.

  Desdemona picked up a paddle. Breckinridge said, “You don’t have to do that.”

  “We’re going against the current now,” she replied. “I know you’re a big, strong brute, Wallace, but I’m going to help you paddle, anyway.”

  Breckinridge grunted. He had been called plenty of things in the past. “Brute” was hardly the worst of them.

  “Fine. I’d be wastin’ my time if I tried to argue with you, anyway.”

  She managed a small smile over her shoulder at him.

  “I’m glad you’re starting to understand.”

  Breckinridge just grunted and dug his paddle into the water, propelling the canoe upstream toward the trading post. Desdemona began plying her paddle as well, and soon they were working together in a regular rhythm.

  Over in the other canoe, Eugenia lent a hand with the paddling, too, although she wasn’t as good at it as Desdemona was. Physical agility and coordination just didn’t come as naturally to her.

  As always when he was working on something, Breckinridge concentrated on the task at hand, and while his hatred of Jud Carnahan and his worry about Ophelia Garwood persisted in the back of his mind, he was mostly lost in the glories of this late spring day in the wilderness. The sun was warm on his bare torso. The river was a deep blue, and the bubbling and chuckling of its passage over the rocky bed was like music to Breck’s ears. The stream twisted through wooded hills and flowed past broad meadows where flowers were starting to bloom.

  At the other end of the canoe, Desdemona worked her paddle as smoothly and steadily as Breckinridge did. The sun had dried her red hair. It curled around her shoulders, plucked now and then by the wind of their passage upriver. The still-damp buckskin shirt clung to her, and he admired the easy play of muscles in her arms and shoulders. He admired most things about her, Breck realized, even the sharp tongue that lashed him from time to time.

  Then he pushed those thoughts away. This wasn’t the time or place for them. Not with Ophelia a captive and Jud Carnahan still free to unleash his evil ways on the world.

  * * *

  It was well past the middle of the day when they reached the trading post. Morgan must have posted someone in the trees along the river to watch for them, because almost everyone was there on the shore to greet them: Morgan, Richmond, George Donnelly, John Rocklin, and the seven Mandan Indians who had survived the battle. Ben Pentecost was the only white man missing, and Breckinridge knew he had been wounded in the fighting. He hoped Pentecost was just resting and hadn’t succumbed to his injuries.

  “Thank God you’re back,” Morgan said fervently as Breckinridge and Charlie Moss pulled the canoes onto the bank. Then he realized not everyone had returned and went on, “Where’s Ophelia?”

  “Carnahan got away and took her with him,” Breckinridge answered bluntly. “All the rest of his men are dead.”

  Morgan turned to Desdemona and Eugenia, who had climbed out of the canoes, and told them, “I’m so sorry. We’ll do everything we can to get her back, I swear it. Breck, how certain are you that she’s all right?”

  “Pretty sure she was when Carnahan lit out with her. I’ll tell you about it while I’m puttin’ together an outfit. I’m gonna get on Carnahan’s trail as quick as I can.”

  He began the explanation while they were walking to the trading post. All the fires were out now, with not even a wisp of smoke curling up from anywhere along the remains of the stockade or the rubble of the burned-down barn. Those things were a total loss, but they could be rebuilt. There were plenty of trees nearby to provide logs.

  The trading post itself was intact and unharmed, as were the goods inside it. The business could continue, if the sisters wanted it to. Breckinridge figured they would head back East as soon as possible, though, especially if he was successful at rescuing Ophelia and bringing her back here fairly quickly.

  “I’m headin’ back downriver this afternoon,” Breckinridge concluded. “I can paddle at night, and once the moon’s up, it won’t be hard to find that promontory where Carnahan ambushed us. I’ll stop there, get a little sleep, and then take up the trail as soon as it’s light enough in the morning.”

  “Carnahan will have almost a full day’s lead on you,” Morgan pointed out.

  “Can’t be helped. Anyway, I can make up a day. He won’t be able to move as fast as I will, since he’s got a prisoner with him.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Morgan and Desdemona said at the same time.

  “No, you ain’t,” Breckinridge declared flatly. “Neither of you. And I ain’t gonna argue about it. Takin’ either of you along would be just throwin’ away any advantage I’ve got.”

  He saw the hurt and anger in their eyes, and while he wished he hadn’t had to cause them that pain, his words were absolutely true. He intended to move fast, and either of them would slow him down. They seemed to know that, but the knowledge only added to their frustration.

  “Blast it, Breck—” Morgan began.

  “No, he’s right,” Desdemona said. “I don’t like it, but he’s right. I’ve taken to life out here better than I ever dreamed I would, but even so, this task is beyond me.”

  Eugenia laid a hand on Morgan’s arm and said, “It’s not your fault that you were . . . injured.”

  “That I have to stump around on this peg leg, you mean,” Morgan responded bitterly.

  “Life deals out all sorts of bad luck to people. We have to deal with it the best we can. Desdemona and I, we . . . we’ve lost our father. We’re truly orphans now.”

  “Where is he?” Desdemona asked. Her face and voice were grim. “He needs to be laid to rest properly.”

  “He is,” Morgan said. “We buried him up on the hill where Edward’s bones will be. I hated to do it while you girls weren’t here, but . . .”

  He spread his hands helplessly.

  “You didn’t have much choice,” Desdemona said, nodding. “You didn’t know when or even if we would be back.”

  “Were there at least . . . words spoken over him?” Eugenia asked.

  “Absolutely. I spoke about him as best I could and led a prayer, and then two of the Mandan women sang a . . . a . . .”

  “A death song for him,” Desdemona said. “Honestly, that makes me feel a little better.” She put her arm around her sister. “We’ll go up there, pay our respects, and say our farewells.”

  “Wish I could, too,” Breckinridge said, “but I got to get movin’.”

  He had pulled on a shirt, retrieved his own rifle, slung two powder horns and two shot pouches over his shoulder, and put together a bundle of supplies, including some jerky. He intended to live mostly off whatever game he could trap or shoot, but it never hurt to have some jerky along on a journey.

  He had also said hello to Ben Pentecost, who was stretched out on the bed that had belonged to Absalom Garwood. Bandages were wrapped around his wounded leg and shoulder. With rest and proper nursing, he would recover from his injuries.

  “Send Carnahan to hell for me, Breck,” Pentecost had said at the conclusion of the brief visit.

  “I got plenty of reasons to do that already,” Breckinridge said, “but I’d sure be glad to add yours to the list, Ben.”

  Now, with everything taken care of, Breckinridge embraced Morgan roughly and clapped a hand on his back.

  “Take care of yourself,” he told his old friend, “and these gals, too.”

  “I suspect they’ll do more taking care of me,” Morgan said. He seemed to be struggling to find the words to add something, and after a moment he went on, “Breck, I . . . I can see something now. I can’t just carry on as if I’m still whole.”

&
nbsp; “Blast it, you are in every way that counts.”

  Morgan shook his head. “No, not really. I’m not really cut out to be a trapper and a frontiersman and an adventurer anymore. But I can help run a trading post.” He summoned up a smile. “Running a business is in my blood, after all. That is . . .” He turned his head to look at Desdemona and Eugenia. “That is, if these ladies would be interested in having my help. This trading post belongs to them now, after all.”

  “I think I’d like that,” Eugenia said.

  “It’s a good idea,” Desdemona added with a nod. “To tell you the truth, with everything that’s happened I haven’t even given the future any thought, but we’ll need to talk about it. In a day or two, when things have settled down.” She looked at Breckinridge. “And we can’t make any final decisions until Breck has brought Ophelia back, of course.”

  Breckinridge couldn’t help but notice that she’d just referred to him as Breck, not Wallace.

  “No need for final decisions yet,” Morgan said. “There’ll be plenty of work around here to keep all of us busy for a good long time.”

  “You’ll have the Mandans to help you,” Breckinridge said. “And some of the other fellas might want to stay on for a spell, too.”

  “Not me,” Charlie Moss announced from the trading post’s doorway. “I’m going with you, Breck.”

  They turned to look and saw that he had an extra powder horn and shot pouch, too. Moss went on, “I won’t slow you down, and you know it. Chasin’ a devil like Carnahan, you’re liable to need a hand sooner or later.”

  “I reckon that’s true,” Breckinridge agreed. “I’m obliged to you, Charlie.”

  Eugenia gave him a hug. In his embrace, up against his massive body, she seemed almost as tiny as a child. So did Desdemona when she put her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest for a moment. Breckinridge wanted to raise his hand and stroke her hair, but he wasn’t sure where that impulse came from, so he suppressed it and settled for an awkward pat on her back instead.

  “So long,” he murmured.

  “Bring our sister back,” she said.

  “I will.” Maybe he shouldn’t be making a promise like that, he thought, but there was nothing else he could do.

  “And yourself, too,” Desdemona whispered. She tightened her arms around him again for a second, then let go and stepped back. Her green eyes peered up at him intently. He had to swallow and turn away.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Charlie Moss.

  A few minutes later, they were paddling down the Yellowstone toward the place where Jud Carnahan had disappeared, taking Ophelia with him.

  Chapter 19

  Ophelia Garwood didn’t know if she was more tired, scared, or hungry. She and Carnahan had been on the move all day and deep into the night. Every time she tried to slow down, he grabbed her arm and jerked her along roughly. When she stumbled and almost fell, he cuffed her and knocked her to her knees, then yanked her back up and pushed her ahead. He stopped every now and then to let her rest, but it was on his schedule, not hers.

  Her feet, shod in soft slippers, throbbed miserably. Every rock, every sharp plant she stepped on, just increased her agony. Her face and hands burned from being exposed to the sun all day. And yet he expected her to keep moving, growling threats at her whenever she slowed down more than was to his liking.

  “I have reasons to keep you alive, girl,” he told her, “but if you give me any trouble, maybe they aren’t good enough reasons.”

  “I . . . I’m doing the best I can . . .”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.”

  Late in the day he had spotted a rabbit and killed it by throwing his knife at it. Ophelia had thought that at least they would have something to eat, and she expected him to build a fire on which to cook the animal.

  Instead he ripped the rabbit’s hide off, hewed chunks of raw meat from its carcass, and tossed one of them to her.

  “I can’t eat this!” she had protested.

  “Then give it back to me. If you expect me to cook it, don’t waste your time. No fires. Not until we put more distance behind us.”

  More distance between him and Breckinridge Wallace, that was what he meant, she thought. He was afraid of Breck. The big frontiersman had bested him at every turn. Sooner or later, Breck would kill Carnahan. . . if Carnahan gave him the chance. Carnahan was determined not to let that happen.

  Ophelia’s stomach had been clenching painfully from hunger for quite a while. She tried to eat the raw rabbit haunch. The bloody meat was still warm. She managed to get it down, but her stomach spewed it right back up.

  “Better get used to it,” Carnahan had told her. “If you don’t, you’ll just go hungry.”

  Now it was dark. Carnahan took hold of her and forced her to the ground. Ophelia believed she knew what was coming. There was nothing she could do to stop him, no options except to lie there and hope that it would be over quickly.

  Instead, he lashed her ankles together, using the same rawhide bonds he had taken off her earlier so she could walk. Her wrists were still tied.

  “Now you won’t get any ideas about running off,” he told her as he straightened from the task. “And if you’re thinking about trying to get hold of my knife or one of the guns, you can forget about that.” He scattered dry, broken branches on the ground around her. “If you try to crawl very far, you’ll make enough noise to wake me up.”

  He thought of everything. She would never get away from him. Despair welled up inside her as she realized her only real hope of escape . . . was if he decided to kill her.

  Exhaustion claimed her, and she went to sleep with that bleak thought in her mind.

  * * *

  If anything, she was even more tired and hurt more when she woke up the next morning. But to her surprise, she smelled meat cooking and pushed herself up to see Carnahan hunkered next to a tiny fire.

  “Don’t expect me to take this much pity on you all the time,” he said as he turned the piece of rabbit he had impaled on a sharp stick, roasting it over the small, leaping flames. After a minute, he stood up and handed it to her, still on the stick. She took it without hesitation, waited a moment for the meat to cool, and then carefully tore off a strip of it with her teeth.

  The rabbit was only about half-cooked, but that was enough. She was able to eat it and keep it down while Carnahan kicked dirt over the fire to put it out. When she was done, she licked the last of the grease from her lips and said, “I could use some water.”

  “We’ll come to a stream soon enough,” he told her without looking at her. “You’ll have to do without until then. Both of us will.”

  That was true. He had no canteen or water skin, nor supplies of any kind other than powder and shot. And they were out here in the middle of a vast wilderness, Ophelia realized, a savage land that possessed myriad ways to kill any puny humans who ventured into it. She had been so afraid of Jud Carnahan that her fear had overwhelmed everything else, including a practical perspective on their situation.

  She knew now that she had plenty of other things to fear, too.

  Carnahan untied the bonds around her ankles so she could stand up. When she tried to, her legs were so unsteady that she almost fell down and had to lean against a small tree to hold herself up. She waited there for her muscles to settle down and support her.

  Carnahan waved toward a nearby clump of brush and told her, “You can go in there to take care of any business you need to take care of. But I’ll still be able to see your head, so don’t try to run off.”

  “I won’t run off,” she said. As terrible as he was, the thought of being alone out here was even worse. Now that she had gotten some sleep and eaten something, she was beginning to think more clearly. A monster he might be, but Jud Carnahan was still a man, too. And for years, she had always been able to find some way to get a man to do whatever she wanted. She had been barely more than a child when she discovered this power she possessed.

  It mi
ght take some time, and she might suffer considerably along the way, but sooner or later she would bend Carnahan to her will.

  The sun hadn’t been up long when they started moving again. They were headed south, Ophelia thought. She hadn’t had a great deal of education, but she knew that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and she could make a pretty good guess as to their direction based on its location.

  What was south of where they had been on the Yellowstone? She had no idea, but she was sure she would find out eventually if they kept moving.

  She had only thought she hurt the day before. This day was infinitely worse. Almost right away, it seemed, her slippers were torn and bloody, cut to ribbons by rocks and thorns and sharp branches. Of course, so were her feet. Clinging brush ripped her dress to shreds. The sun blistered her worse than ever. Every step, every breath, was painful. Beyond painful. She was suffering the torments of the damned.

  Not surprisingly, Carnahan just made things worse by cursing her and forcing her along. They climbed ridges. They clambered over rocks and deadfalls. They trudged along dusty draws. Ophelia’s thirst grew worse and worse, until it seemed like the inside of her mouth was coated with sand and her tongue was swollen to the point of choking her.

  When they came to a small creek with trees growing along its banks, Ophelia forgot about all the pain and rushed forward, drawn by the sight of the water. She thought she could even smell it.

  Behind her, Carnahan let out a harsh laugh.

  “I thought you hurt too bad to go on, girl!” he called.

  Ophelia ignored him. She reached the welcome shade underneath the trees and dropped to her knees on the bank. The creek was only a few feet wide, but it was flowing steadily. At that moment, Ophelia wouldn’t have cared if it was stagnant. She would have plunged her arms into it and scooped up handfuls of scummy, brackish water to gulp down her parched throat.

  Instead, the water was clear and cold and the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. She felt the urge to stick her whole head into the creek and drink and drink until she couldn’t anymore. She suppressed that impulse for a moment, then decided it didn’t matter. Leaning forward, she thrust her head into the stream and let its soothing coolness flow all around her.