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“Good man,” Angus said as he put his hand on Mac’s shoulder. “I know this area, so give me a minute with the boys, then we’ll get out of here.”
Mac didn’t answer but raised his rifle, took careful aim and fired. In the distance there was a cry. Mac had shot one of them—but that made the bullets come at them faster.
Still crouching, Angus went through the bushes to where T.C. and Matt were hiding behind a rock. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” T.C. said as he fired a shot.
“No new injuries,” Matt said as he reloaded.
With the growing light, Angus could at last see Matthew Aldredge’s clean face. He was indeed a handsome young man, with blue eyes and a strong jaw. Angus could see the huge cut in his scalp and thought about how Matt had sewn it together by himself. He’s a much better man than Betsy Wellman deserves, he thought.
Angus looked at T.C. “Do you know what a cardinal sounds like?”
“Yes.”
“When I give the whistle, I want you two to come immediately. Do you understand me? Stop shooting and come to me.”
Both young men nodded, then Angus made his way back to where Naps lay on the ground, looking up at him. “I’m going to take you to a place that’s safer than here. Can you walk?”
“Sure,” Naps said, which made Angus frown. He recognized false bravery when he heard it. Naps might have several injuries but he’d rather die than let the others know he was badly wounded.
Angus looked down at him and saw a dark spot on his trousers. When he touched it, Naps gave a muffled cry of pain. It looked as though the boy had been shot in at least two places. “I’m going to carry you.”
“I can walk,” Naps said. “Just tell me where to go and I’ll get there.”
“Shut up,” Angus said, “and don’t give me any trouble.” Bending, he lifted Naps and slung him over his shoulder, then started walking north. It wasn’t easy to move quickly with the sturdy young man weighing him down, but Angus did it. He’d camped in that area a few times and knew that nearby was a small cave. It was up a steep hill and difficult to get to, but it had once sheltered him from a ferocious storm.
As Angus climbed, he tried to plan what he was going to do. If he could get all the men into the cave, they would be protected on three sides. Based on the number of gunshots he was hearing behind him, there were at least four gunmen. When he heard a sound to his left, he stopped and listened, but it was an animal, so he kept moving.
The struggle to get up the hill with Naps’s body across his shoulder gave Angus something to think about other than that he’d been an idiot. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that Captain Austin was behind the whole thing, but Angus still hadn’t taken the necessary precautions. He’d been so concerned that Austin would harm the McNalty family that Angus hadn’t looked after the men under his care. Austin might not know the countryside very well, but with the traders coming into the fort often, he’d had access to men who did. Several of the French traders were ruthless and still bitter that they’d lost the American territory to the English.
If the men who’d dressed as Indians and killed the soldiers on the pay wagon were trappers, then they knew the countryside even better than Angus did. Some of them had lived there most of their lives. They would know the trails that Angus would use to get to the McNalty cabin. And if they knew he was going there, that meant they knew that Aldredge wasn’t dead. It was Angus’s guess that when they’d all sat there, watching Matt sew his head back together, they’d been watched. Had it been soldiers in the woods around them, Angus would have heard them, but trappers? No. They were as good in the forests as Angus was.
By the time Angus reached the cave, he wondered if they’d ever get out alive. There was water trickling down the back of the cave wall, but they had no food and little ammunition, and, worse, they had a wounded man. How would they escape from men who could walk across dry leaves and not make a sound? How would they elude men whose clothes matched the forest? Many times, Angus had stood ten feet from Wellman’s soldiers and they’d not seen him, so he knew what true frontiersmen
could do.
When Angus reached the cave, he put Naps down gently, but the boy still groaned in pain. The right half of his body was covered in blood from the two wounds.
“I have to go get the others,” Angus said, wondering if he’d ever again see the young man alive. He well remembered that when he’d used the cave there was a stack of dry firewood in the corner. It was an unwritten rule of woodsmen that they replace what they’d used. At least they could have a fire.
“Damnation!” Angus muttered as he started down the hill. That no one shot at him let him know exactly what was going on. The men shooting at them knew one of them was wounded and they knew where Angus was taking him. But the cave was their only choice at the moment. With Welsch being wounded and with Connor, both of them hardly being able stay on a horse, it would be impossible to get them all out alive. No, what Angus had to do was get them all into the cave, then he’d have to leave them under Mac’s protection while he, Angus, went for help.
T.C., Matt, and Mac were where he’d left them, but the younger men were out of ammunition.
“They shoot like they have a keg of powder,” Mac grumbled.
“We need to get the men up that hill. There’s a cave up there, and I put Welsch in it.”
“How bad is he?”
“I don’t know, but if I were to guess, I’d say he’s losing too much blood to make it.”
Mac nodded toward T.C. and Matt. “Put those two on him. Sewing and plants. They’re good at those.”
Nodding in agreement, Angus turned toward the hill, Mac behind him. When he silently passed the young men, he gave the distinctive whistle of the red cardinal, and T.C. told Matt they had to go.
It took nearly an hour to get to the cave because they had to wait behind trees when the gunfire got too heavy. They watched Angus, waiting for him to tell them what to do. He’d stand and fire while Connor ran, then he’d reload and let Aldredge go. Mac was always last and always reluctant to leave Angus holding the gunmen off.
