Scarlet Plume, Second Edition by Frederick Manfred Read Free Book Online Page B

above them. Vikes said, “There was an arrow right through Henry’s heart. Slick and clean.”
    Arrow? That really did prove then it was Indians. But which Indians?
    Theodosia said, “Yes. Well, I will hurry and fetch Claude.”
    Judith said, “And I’ll hurry and find the children. God knows where they’ve gone playing by now.” With a shudder Judith recalled that the Indian lad Two Two had been chasing them in play earlier in the morning.
    Theodosia said briskly, “Billy, hurry and warn the other settlers.” Theodosia stuffed the wild swan in the cooler against the north wall of the cabin. “Tell them they must all come here. At once. This cabin is the strongest. Hurry.”
    “I’ll round ’em all up, ma’am. Don’t you worry.” Vikes set down his chin. “Poor Henry. Laying there scalped. My God, what’s this world coming to, anyway?” Vikes picked up one of the loose tugs and walloped his horse over the rear with it. The heavy horse slowly gathered itself into a lumbering gallop and was off. Vikes rode with elbows flopping, whites of the eyes wild and high.
    Theodosia hurried north across the swamp to get her husband. Despite stiff knees, Theodosia moved with surprising swiftness.
    Judith scurried south toward a deep grassy meadow. Judith remembered that the children on occasion went there to play.
    As Judith ran, the story of Abbie Gardner’s rape and captivity came vividly to mind once again. Was another Spirit Lake massacre about to take place? Was it now little Angela’s turn to be raped and tortured? Judith stumbled and almost fell at the thought of it.
    As Judith breasted the first rise, she heard screaming on her right. It came from Jed Crydenwise’s sod shanty at the edge of the woods next to a small field of barley. Crydenwise was a farmer in the summer and a trapper in the winter.
    Judith stopped, and stared. Lord in heaven. Crydenwise had caught a timber wolf and had trussed it up on a wooden frame. The timber wolf’s four legs were spread-eagled and Crydenwise was skinning it alive. Crydenwise was almost finished. The timber wolf’s thick gray fur, still attached at the tail, lay at Crydenwise’s feet in a pile of loose folds. Jaws wide, the timber wolf was yowling for all it was worth, its gleaming fangs and fierce eyes oddly out of place. The raw skinned wolf shivered in jerks, and humped up violently every few seconds, trying to free itself. Glistening bloody muscles worked in spasmodic clutches all along its lean carcass.
    Judith swayed. She touched her lips with her fingers. She had often seen her brothers skin out wild animals, and had often helped them with the fall butchering, but this—this was too much. “Mr. Crydenwise!” she cried. “What are you doing to that poor beast?”
    Crydenwise hardly looked at her. He twitched heavy shoulders at her as if at a biting fly. “The son of a bitch,” he growled. “I’ve been laying for him for months, and I finally caught him, ha!” Crydenwise’s brown pig eyes glittered in triumph. Crydenwise wore boots, a pair of black trousers, and a faded blue shirt open at the throat. “This’ll teach him to steal my fresh calves.”
    “But that’s inhuman! Cruel. An awful thing to do.”
    “What is?”
    “What you’re doing. Why, it’s bestiality itself.”
    “I know. I mean it to be.” Crydenwise stuck his bristly chin out at her. “How would you like it if you brought a favorite prize-winning cow all the way from Ohio, walking, and with her bred there before you left because you knew there was no bulls in the new land, and then a sneaking son of Satan comes along and gobbles up that bull seed, ha? All the more so when that bull seed was twins, ha?” Crydenwise spat so forcibly that his cud of tobacco fell out of his cheek. His sailing spittle almost hit Judith where she stood.
    Judith fell silent.
    Crydenwise continued the grim skinning. The bloody naked timber wolf shrieked even more shrilly.
    Judith covered her ears with