Bear Claws

by Robert Lee Murphy

  BEAR CLAWS

  THE IRON HORSE CHRONICLES,

  BOOK TWO

  BEAR CLAWS

  ROBERT LEE MURPHY

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2015 by Robert Lee Murphy

  Map of trails and the Union Pacific Railroad © 2015 by Robert Lee Murphy

  Historical notes can be found at the back of the book.

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Murphy, Robert Lee.

  Bear claws / Robert Lee Murphy. — First edition.

  pages ; cm. — (The Iron Horse Chronicles ; Book 2)

  ISBN 978-1-4328-3048-9 (hardcover) — ISBN 1-4328-3048-1 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-4328-3044-1 (ebook) — ISBN 1-4328-3044-9 (ebook)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3044-1 eISBN-10: 1-4328-3044-9

  1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Union Pacific Railroad Company—Fiction. 3. West (U.S.)—History—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3613.U7543B43 2015

  813'.6—dc23 2015022034

  First Edition. First Printing: November 2015

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3044-1 ISBN-10: 1-4328-3044-9

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  Visit our website– http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at FiveStar@cengage.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 19 18 17 16 15

  BEAR CLAWS

  For Lauren Elizabeth Murphy and Shauna Anastasia Tiller

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I sincerely appreciate the constructive criticisms offered by fellow members of SCBWI Word Worms and Sun City Anthem Authors. The enthusiastic support from both critique groups kept me writing, and their suggestions for improvement and clarification resulted in a better story. I’m especially grateful to Word Worms’ member Phyllis Mignard for taking my rough sketches and turning them into publishable maps. Thanks again to the staff of the Henderson, Nevada, Public Library system for obtaining books through interlibrary loan that facilitated my research. Hazel Rumney, Editorial Evaluation and Developmental Coordinator at Five Star Publishing, provided her usual expert advice throughout the editorial process. Marcia LaBrenz provided the copyedit of the book. Thanks to Mary Ann Unger, current president of Anthem Authors, for taking the photo of me that is used on the dust jacket. The staff at the California State Railroad Museum answered my questions about cabooses—they were not in use by the Central Pacific during the time period covered by this book. Lastly, I thank my wife, Barbara, for granting me the freedom to leave her at home on various occasions while I explored the Central Pacific’s portion of the first transcontinental railroad between Sacramento, California, and Promontory Summit, Utah. Those journeys, coupled with an earlier trip she made with me over the Union Pacific’s route from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Promontory Summit, plus additional travel by myself across Wyoming, enabled me to place Will Braddock and the characters of Bear Claws in realistic settings. I walked the ground where they walk in the book.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Why hasn’t he come back?” Will Braddock held the flap of the tent open and peered out into the snow, which continued to fall into its seventh day. In his almost fifteen years, Will couldn’t remember such an extended period of nonstop snowing.

  The shadowy figures of their horses and Ruby the mule, sheltering beneath the overhanging cliff bank, were all that broke the whiteout expanse before him. Buck’s coal-black coat made the Morgan stand out more than the other animals.

  “Your Uncle Sean will get here as soon as he can.” Homer Garcon coughed harshly. The middle-aged Negro had recovered from the worst effects of the strange illness that’d struck the members of Sean Corcoran’s survey inspection team a week earlier, but his raspy voice indicated he was not completely well.

  “Homer, when he left, he said he’d be back in two days . . . three at the most. That was a week ago.”

  “We just has to give him more time. Now close the flap, Will. You’se letting out what heat we got in this flimsy tent.”

  Will dropped the flap and looked at Homer, who sat with his head in his hands near the back of the Army wall tent. The team members preferred to sleep under the stars—but they were fortunate their leader had insisted they carry the tent. The canvas walls gave some protection against the unseasonably late snowstorm that assailed them. Tall enough for a man to stand in the center, the tent’s sides rose only waist high. Its narrow interior provided enough sleeping space for the five team members.

  Otto Hirsch and Joe Quinn lay wrapped in their blankets along opposite sides of the tent. Normally, they were robust surveyors, with boundless energy, trekking across the wild country through which the transcontinental railroad was being built. Otto and Joe were the chainmen, moving ahead of his Uncle Sean’s transit to mark and measure the distance and elevation as the team surveyed a route. Homer served as the team’s cook and Will was officially his helper—with the added duty of hunting to provide fresh meat. Will had earned his spot on the team the year before because he’d proven to be a crack shot.

  Homer dragged himself outside twice a day, morning and evening, to brew a pot of coffee and prepare a meager meal under a fly attached to the side of the tent. Will would scrounge the only available firewood from scrawny bushes that grew in the vicinity of the small spring that emerged from the cliff face. He’d feed the smaller, leafless twigs to the animals and kindle a cook fire from the larger branches, using his flint and steel. But, now they were running out of food.

  “Homer, look at them.” Will gestured to the sick men, one on each side of the tent. “They’re not going to get well on what we have left to feed them. Even as good a cook as you can’t make decent soup out of jerky and hardtack. We need meat . . . and bone marrow.”

  Homer raised his head and stared at Will with vacant eyes. “Maybe we has to kill one of the horses . . . or Ruby.”

  “No!” Will shook his head. “We can’t do that. We’ll need all of the horses to get out of here when the storm lets up. And no way will I butcher your mule.”

  Only Will had recovered from the illness that’d floored everyone except his uncle. Whatever the ailment was, they’d probably contracted it from a sickly band of Ute Indians who’d wandered into their camp several days ago begging for food. Will had felt sorry for the women and children, their noses red and swollen, but the team didn’t have much food left and had sent them away with only scraps.

  After seeing the destitute Utes, Will had wondered if his mixed-blood friend Lone Eagle, and the band of Cheyenne to which he belon
ged, had managed to slaughter enough buffalo to feed themselves through the winter. Will had saved the son of old mountain man Bullfrog Charlie Munro from drowning in quicksand last summer and, in appreciation, Lone Eagle had given Will two eagle talons from his personal amulet. Later, one of those talons had deflected an arrow that could have ended Will’s life. He now bore a nasty scar in his left arm where the arrow had passed through the bicep. The wound ached in this bone-chilling weather.

  Will wore one of the talons on a horsehair thong around his neck. Whenever he felt it scratch against his chest he thought about Jenny McNabb, the feisty young lady who’d captured his fancy the year before. He’d given her one of the talons, in the hopes it would bring her luck. When her family’s wagon had been attacked by the Cheyenne, Lone Eagle had recognized the talon and spared her life.

  But where was Jenny now? When he’d ridden out of Fort Sanders on the Laramie River last fall, Will had promised her they’d meet again this spring. Did she still work at Wells Fargo’s Big Laramie Station?

  Will had spent the closing months of 1867 helping his uncle’s team perform surveys in western Wyoming, until cold weather had forced them to hole up at Fort Bridger. It’d been boring waiting through the winter in the small outpost near the Utah border. His uncle had been anxious to get his team back in the field and in early March 1868 he’d decided to start.

  Since then, the team had worked its way east, across central Wyoming, heading for Fort Sanders at the base of the Laramie Mountains, where they hoped to receive their next assignment from General Grenville Dodge, the Union Pacific’s chief engineer. But now, here they were snowbound at Rawlins Springs, a couple of miles east of the Continental Divide.

  Last fall, his uncle’s team, accompanied by General Dodge and General John Rawlins, had discovered this vital spring. Rawlins had pronounced the water so refreshing that he’d told Dodge if any spot were to bear his name, he’d want it to be this. Dodge obliged him and wrote Rawlins Springs on the map. When Rawlins returned to his duties as Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff in Washington, D.C., he’d given his horse, Bucephalus, to Will. Everyone called the big, black Morgan “Buck.”

  When the snowstorm hit, the team had been a few miles west of the eastern rim of the Continental Divide, which surprisingly occurs twice in central Wyoming. Parallel divides enclose the Red Desert, one hundred miles wide between its eastern ridge and its western one. From the eastern divide waters flow to the Atlantic Ocean. From the western one they flow to the Pacific. In between, the desert is devoid of trees and home to little wildlife. What water flows into the center of the Great Basin either evaporates or sinks into the earth.

  Then the illness struck. One by one the men complained of aches and fevers while they struggled through the snow. The horses could no longer wade through the deepening drifts bearing riders, and Otto, Joe, and Homer had trouble stumbling along on foot. They’d finally managed to reach the sheltering ledge at Rawlins Springs.

  His Uncle Sean was the only one who’d escaped the fevers and chills. He helped the team set up camp and left Will, the least sick, to tend the others. His uncle had ridden south to intersect the Overland Trail at Bridger’s Pass Station, fifteen miles away. There, he hoped to buy food, and perhaps medicine, at the Wells Fargo stage station.

  “Homer,” Will said. “We have to have food. Something’s happened to Uncle Sean. I just know it. He’s stuck out there in this storm and can’t get back. I have to get us an antelope . . . or maybe an elk.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Will. What’ll your uncle think if he shows up and you’se gone?”

  “That’s just it. If Uncle Sean shows up.” Will looked again at Otto and Joe. “I’m going out to hunt.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Now how’s you gonna know where you’re going in this snow?” Homer asked.

  “Following the survey stakes. They’ll lead me to the North Platte. The river’s only fifteen miles east of here.”

  “Why not go south to the Overland Trail, like your uncle done? Stagecoach comes through there regular like.”

  “No stagecoach is going to get through this storm. Besides, it’s barren country between here and Bridger’s Pass. There’s no water that direction. The North Platte is where I’ll find game. Antelope and elk need water. They’ll stay close to the river . . . especially in the winter. So that’s where I’m going.”

  Otto sat up and leaned against the side of the tent. His blanket slipped off his shoulders. “Will,” he croaked. He coughed hard to clear his throat. “If you’re set on going out in this storm, take these snowshoes.”

  He held out two strange-looking contraptions. Each slender, wooden bow curved tightly back upon itself in a large oblong arc with the ends lashed together in a tail. The lopsided circle formed by the wood was interlaced with a webbing of leather thongs.

  “I’ve never used them before,” Will said.

  “We used snowshoes in the old country all the time,” Otto said. “I’ve used them a few times out here. I’ve even seen the Indians use them.”

  “Why didn’t Uncle Sean take them?”

  “When he left, he could still ride a horse through the light snowfall. That’s not going to be possible now. Snowshoes are a little hard to walk in at first, but you’ll be able to travel pretty fast through the drifts once you get the hang of it.”

  “I’ll try them.” Will wanted all the speed he could muster to get to the river and return with his kill. The men’s lives might depend on it.

  Otto lay back and pulled his blanket up beneath his chin. His face looked flushed and he shivered constantly.

  “Homer,” Will said. “If it’s all right, I’ll take Ruby. She’s taller than any of the horses. Her longer legs will let her plow through the snow better . . . and she’s used to doing pack duty.”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Along the river, I’ll gather some brush to bring to the horses. They haven’t eaten much in days.”

  “That’d be good. And, if you find a willow bush, peel some bark off and bring it back for the fellows to chew on. Might help lower their fevers.”

  “Good idea.”

  Will checked the loads in the six chambers of his Colt revolver, reseated the percussion caps, returned the pistol to his holster, and snapped the flap closed. He raised the flaps on the two belt pouches he wore to be sure he had extra percussion caps and additional revolver bullets. He checked the magazine in the butt of his Spencer carbine and confirmed it was fully loaded with seven shells, but didn’t chamber a round. He rolled the carbine and a spare magazine in his blanket and tied the bundle with a cord.

  “Don’t you want to take more carbine ammo?” Homer asked.

  “I’ve got fourteen shots with the carbine. If I can’t hit something with fourteen, I’m not qualified to be the hunter for this team.”

  “What if you run into Injuns?”

  “There won’t be any Indians out in this weather.”

  Will turned the collar up on his heavy coat, buttoned it around his neck, and draped a pair of mittens secured with a leather thong around his shoulders. He pulled on his old, black slouch hat, which had once belonged to his father, and draped a bandana atop the hat’s crown, pulling it down over his ears and tying the cloth beneath his chin.

  He gathered up the blanket roll and the snowshoes, then paused. “I won’t be gone long, Homer. I expect to make the river by nightfall, bag an antelope or elk, and be back by sundown tomorrow.”

  He stepped through the flap entrance, dropped it back into place, and waded through the knee-deep snow to the horses and the mule. Here, where they’d pitched the tent and tied the animals beneath an overhanging cliff, the snow drifting had been minimal. The wind whistling off the top of the bank blew most of the snow straight overhead and beyond their camp.

  The black Morgan gelding whickered. Will rubbed the large white star blazed on the horse’s forehead. “No, Buck, you can’t come this trip.” The horse whinnied and sh
ook his head, dislodging snow from his mane.

  Will brushed the snow off Buck’s back and tightened the strap that held the saddle blanket in place. He kept a blanket on each of the animals to provide them some warmth and protection.

  “Ruby, you, on the other hand, are coming with me.” He shoved the snow off the big mule. “I’m not going to ride you. You’ll need to conserve your strength for later.”

  Hee-haw. Ruby brayed a protest.

  “Sorry. Homer gave his permission.”

  Will dropped the snowshoes and the blanket roll beside Ruby. He lifted the mule’s packsaddle onto her back. “No load to tote now.” He tightened the cinch. “But on the way back, I expect to have you heavily burdened.”

  Will lashed the blanket roll containing the carbine and extra magazine onto the packsaddle. He stepped into the center of one of the snowshoes, knelt, and fastened the straps around his boot. He fastened the other snowshoe, rose, and untied the mule from her picket pin.

  He gathered up Ruby’s halter rope, but when he turned to lead her away he stepped on the left snowshoe with the right one and fell facedown in the snow.

  Hee-haw. Ruby stood over Will and laughed.

  “Not funny, mule.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Will stepped on one snowshoe with the other a couple of times until he figured out he had to keep his feet farther apart. Otto was right. It was awkward and took some practice, but he could walk on the surface of the snow without sinking deep into the powder. Ruby, on the other hand, was almost up to her belly in the drifts. The mule snorted and blew, struggling to lift a leg and move it forward.

  Ruby wasn’t going to last much longer through the deep snow. The railroad survey stakes followed the course of Sugar Creek from Rawlins Springs for about five miles. When the creek took a turn to the north, the stakes continued due east along a ridgeline. The drifts weren’t as deep on this elevated ground as they’d been along the creek. Here Ruby only sank to her hocks.