The Whippoorwill Trilogy

by Sharon Sala

  “Hey, Parson, what was that pretty little woman’s name at the White Dove Saloon?”

  Parson frowned. “Lord have mercy, Henry, I told you then and I’m tellin’ you now, you’re too old for such foolin’ around.”

  Henry snorted. “A man is too old for foolin’ only after he’s been planted six feet under. Besides, I didn’t say I was gonna go see her. I was just tryin’ to remember her name.”

  Parson swatted at a stray spark from the fire that had come too close to his beard, then leaned against the tree at his back and looked up at the night sky.

  “As I recall, I believe her name was Leticia.”

  Henry shook his head. “No, that weren’t it.”

  Parson’s frown deepened. “Yes, it was. I remember because I had an aunt named Leticia. She always smelled like moth balls and licorice.” Then he added. “I’m speakin’ of my aunt… not the saloon girl. However, I may have heard that bartender call Letty.”

  Henry’s eyes widened. “That’s it! Letty! Everyone was calling her Letty.” He leaned over and pointed a finger in Parson’s face. “By golly, the only way you would have knowed that about her name is if you visited her, too.”

  “Personal matters are best left unspoken,” Parson said shortly.

  Henry slapped his leg and whooped so loud it spooked the horses tied nearby.

  “By golly, you old fart! You gave her a poke, too.”

  Parson’s mouth pursed angrily, but he refused to comment further. Instead, he emptied the contents of the coffee pot into his cup and sloshed it around for effect. It was useless. No amount of stirring would thin down Henry Wainwright’s coffee. It was dark and bitter, but in a pinch, was a fairly good substitute for antiseptic, should one be needed. He took a long swig of the black drink, coughing once before it slid on down his throat.

  Substantial. That’s what Henry’s coffee was. Substantial.

  Unexpectedly, Parson shuddered. The action came upon him without warning, like the time he’d sensed the blue norther of ’44 that froze the ears off his mule. Without thinking, he looked up from his cup and out into the darkness beyond Henry’s shoulder, as if he expected something—or someone—to materialize before them.

  At that moment, firelight reflected off of Parson’s eyes, giving them a strange and god-like appearance. Had flames suddenly shot out of Parson’s mouth, Henry would not have been surprised. Startled by the image, he flinched, and in doing so, forgot all about the whore at the White Dove Saloon and spilled what was left of his stew into his lap.

  “Shit!” he shouted, and began brushing at the hot stew he’d inadvertently dumped on his britches before it boiled his balls.

  Parson frowned. “Profanity is the curse of—”

  “Dammit, Parson. Just shut the hell up, all right? That stuff was hot, that’s all.”

  Parson grinned. He loved to get Henry’s dander up. It was Parson’s private opinion that it kept the blood flowing in the old bastard.

  “Better get some sleep soon,” Parson said, scraping what was left of the rabbit stew into the fire. “These Rockies are higher than they used to be.”

  Henry snorted.

  Before long, the two old men had fallen sound asleep, each lost in similar dreams of times gone by—of valleys where rivers flowed swift and sure, where game was rich, and the only sounds of humanity were the sounds of a man’s own voice.

  By daybreak they were gone.

  Just before nightfall on the seventh day into their trek, they entered a canyon they’d never traversed before, following it to the face of a mountain and then packing up through the gap Henry found in the rocks. It took the better part of a day to move through the pass and when they emerged, they found themselves several hundred yards from a towering precipice. Henry yanked his hat from his head and slapped it against his leg in disgust.

  “All this way and it warn’t nothin’ but a dead end.”

  Parson dismounted, relishing the opportunity to stretch his legs. “Maybe so, maybe not,” he said, and walked toward the edge of the cliff.

  The closer he got, the wider his eyes became. When he was standing on the edge, he took off his hat and held it against his breast in a gesture of respect for the wonder of God’s creation.

  “Praise the Lord,” he said softly, then started to grin. He jammed his hat back on his head and began frantically waving for Henry to come see. “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”

  Henry started to run. His reaction was less fervent, but he felt no less joy. A look of disbelief came and went as a gap-toothed smile broke the somberness of his face. In mutual silence, they gazed into the valley below.

  It was deep and wide—cut in two by a swiftly flowing river. To the north, a herd of elk were moving through a clearing. Overhead, a pair of eagles circled the sky, as if keeping watch over their domain. Off to the left of where the trappers were standing, the land began to slope downward in a perfect access into the valley.

  Parson looked at Henry.

  Henry looked at him.

  A wide grin broke across both their faces and they let loose a shout. Within moments they were mounted. They kicked their horses in the flanks and down through the trees they rode, ducking low branches and laughing and whooping as they went. Startled by the unaccustomed sounds, rabbits darted into thickets and birds took sudden flight.

  By the time they reined to a halt, the horses were winded and Henry’s hat was hanging beneath his chin like a bib. He straightened the leather string and slapped it back in place, then looked up at the way that they’d come. Even though he was stunned by the foolishness of their stunt, he would have done it all over again. He looked at his partner and grinned.

  “Hell of a ride, Parson.”

  “It was at that,” Parson said.

  They dismounted then, letting the reins trail to the ground as they quickly removed their packs and saddles. The horses began to graze, their heads almost out of sight in the knee-high grass.

  Henry shook his head. “This is it, ain’t it, Parson?”

  Elmer Sutter shoved his hat to the back of his head and squinted. There was green as far as the eye could see.

  And there was the quiet.

  He held his breath, for the moment, unwilling to sully the silence with sound. Finally, he exhaled slowly.

  “Yep, Henry, I reckon it is.”

  Henry’s fingers were already itching to get to his traps. “I reckon we could winter here.”

  Parson nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”

  Henry sighed with satisfaction and then picked up his rifle. “I’ll go see about fetchin’ us some supper.”

  “I’ll set up camp,” Parson offered.

  And so it began.

  They named the place Plenty Valley, because it was. There was plenty of everything, from fish in the river, to game on the ground. And the old trappers knew that when the seasons changed and the animals put on winter pelts, that trapping would be plentiful, too. One day moved into the next and then the next, until before either knew it, a month had passed.

  And then, as one might have expected, perfection slipped—but only a little. Not enough to ruin their vision of Eden—just enough to make them remember that they were still at the mercy of the Almighty and His whims.

  Rain poured off the leaves, onto the top of their lean-to, and down the back of Parson’s shirt. He sat beneath their makeshift shelter with his rifle across his lap, his gaze fixed on the gap between the place they had named Three Pines. By his estimation, more than four hours had passed since Henry had left to go hunting. In this downpour, anything worth eating would have long since taken to its own sort of shelter. Parson couldn’t quit thinking that Henry should be back. And then he would remind himself that Henry Wainwright didn’t need a keeper. He had been taking care of himself for the better part of fifty-five years. But when another hour had passed and the rain was still falling and the thunder still rolling, Elmer Sutter could not rid himself of a growing anxiety.

  A shaft of
lightning came out of the clouds, piercing a nearby peak. The crack of sound seemed to solidify some purpose that Elmer had been contemplating. Suddenly he was on his feet. Ignoring his stiffened joints and aching knees, he tossed his blanket aside and started toward the gap in Three Pines. He would at least go that far. After that, he’d see.

  Henry was in trouble. If only he’d paid more attention to the clouds than to that deer he’d been tracking. It wasn’t until he’d felt the wind shift in his face that he’d thought to look up—straight into the underside of a mixture of dark, boiling clouds. Now, thunder was rumbling overhead and while he watched, a shaft of lightning streaked across the sky. He shivered. He hated storms, and on a mountain, they were dangerous as hell. He remembered a cave about a mile or so back and turned, heading for it on the run. Halfway there, it started to rain. There was nothing subtle about it. It was an immediate downpour.

  Staggered by a sudden lack of visibility, he stopped to take stock of his location. The best he could figure he had another fifteen minutes before he got to the cave, but the raindrops were peppering his shoulders and hat like bullets. He pulled his hat low upon his forehead, leaned into the wind, and started to walk. Other than the fact that he was getting cold and wet, he thought nothing of it. He’d lived his entire adult life at the mercy of the elements. It wasn’t the first time he’d been rained on. It wouldn’t be the last.

  But in his haste to reach shelter, he took a wrong turn. On the mountains, in a storm, with visibility less than ten yards, it was understandable. It came close to being fatal.

  One minute Henry was on solid ground and running and the next thing he knew the ground had disappeared from beneath his feet. In the space of time it took to take a breath, he’d fallen off the mountain.

  He knew when he hit the first tree that the fall would be bad. Instinctively, he tightened his grip on his gun. Later it would occur to him that he should have let it go and grabbed at a tree, but now it was too late. Everything had been set in motion. Down, down, down, he fell, bouncing from bush, to tree, to rock, every jolt racking his body with pain.

  And then as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. The cessation of motion was almost as startling as the fall had been. He lay for a moment, shivering from shock and assessing his injuries. Rain hammered upon his head. He groaned and tried to move then passed out from the pain.

  Much later, it was the sound of rushing water that brought him to his senses. This time when he opened his eyes, the thought crossed his mind that, if he could have reached his rifle, he might have given some thought to shooting himself now to get it over with.

  The best that he could tell, he’d gone feet first into a dead fall, and was now wedged between it and some rocks, sort of like forcing a square peg into a round hole. One arm was folded up beneath him while the other was over his head and caught in the gap between two large rocks.

  The weight of his body and the momentum of the fall had driven him deep into the morass. One leg pained him terribly, the other he couldn’t feel or move at all. His rifle was underneath him and the water in the nearby creek was only a couple of yards from where he was trapped. And it was rising. By his reckoning, he had an hour, maybe two before he drowned.

  Henry hadn’t planned on dying today, but unless a miracle occurred, it was going to happen. He kept telling himself that he’d lived a full life and that if he had to die someplace, then Plenty Valley was the place it should be. He’d been happier here than anywhere he could remember. But he also hadn’t lived to be sixty-three years old by being a quitter. He began to struggle, yet no matter how hard he tried, could not pull himself free. It crossed his mind then how sad old Parson would be when he found his body.

  A shaft of lightning cracked nearby, followed by the scent of sulfur and something burning. The fire soon went out, but in spite of the rain, the scent stayed with Henry. He wondered if he would be sniffing sulfur and brimstone where he was going.

  An hour passed, maybe more, but it was hard for him to tell. All he knew was that his right ear was full of rainwater and it was getting on his nerves. And though the horror of the rising creek became more and more apparent, the continual downpour had offered Henry an opportunity that hadn’t been there before. The dead fall beneath him was shifting and getting looser by the minute—so loose that he’d been able to reach down to the point that he could feel the sight on his gun. With a little more effort, he moved his hand along the barrel until he had a good grip, then he pulled. At first, the gun wouldn’t budge. He pulled again, and to his joy he felt it give. He continued to pull, easing the barrel up out of the limbs until the trigger was beneath his fingers. While he didn’t know how this would help him, he felt better for it all the same.

  But the sense of satisfaction was short lived. When water began lapping at his moccasins, he started to curse. By God, he wasn’t ready to die after all. In a sudden fit of rage, he screamed Parson’s name.

  Parson hadn’t stopped at Three Pines. Even as he was telling himself that he’d never find Henry in all this rain, he was moving through the trees and up the trail he knew Henry favored. Within seconds, the rain became a blinding downpour—each raindrop splattering like a rifle shot on the canopy of leaves about his head before catapulting to the ground. The sound was deafening. Over and over, he called Henry’s name as he went, but the words were thrown back in his face. A verse from an old church song popped into his head—something about being lost and then found. He started to pray.

  “God, one of Yore sheep is lost. I’m a tryin’ as hard as I know how to bring him in, but I reckon I could use Yore help.”

  Less than a hundred yards in front of him, a shaft of lightning suddenly struck a tree, shattering it into thousands of pieces. Parson dropped to the ground on his knees, his eyes wide and filled with awe.

  “Oh Lord, oh Lord,” he moaned, trembling in every muscle of his body. “I heard you but I just ain’t sure what that meant.”

  The evidence of the splintered tree was impossible to ignore. Shaking in every muscle, he got to his feet. Maybe God was telling him not to go any further. Then he nodded his head. Yes, that made sense. He picked up his gun and started retracing his steps. He walked and walked until he’d lost all sense of direction, and still couldn’t bring himself to stop.

  Just when his hopes were all but gone, he heard a cry through the storm—like a ghostly wail coming up from the depths of hell. He yanked off his hat so that the splatter of raindrops upon the leather would not detract from what he heard. It could have been anything, but every instinct he had told him it was Henry. He stood without moving, straining to hear, praying it would come again.

  And it did.

  At that moment, hope sprung, bringing with it a new set of fears. Even though he could hear Henry’s voice, it was impossible to tell the direction in which it was coming from.

  He shouted with rage, shaking his fist at the elements that were tearing through the mountains. Rain plastered his long, graying hair to the shirt on his back and matting his beard to his chest like a tattered lace veil. His eyes glittered with anger as he fought back a sense of frustration. Somewhere out there his partner was hurting. That made Parson hurt, too.

  He turned in a circle, listening, listening, trying to get a fix on the direction, and in doing so, his rifle bumped against the trunk of a nearby tree. To him, it was like God giving him a quick thump on the shoulder to remind him it was there.

  He stared down at the rifle then started to grin. Without hesitation, he lifted it to the sky and fired off a round. Although the sound was muffled by the rain, he knew it would carry far better than his voice. A few moments later, he heard what sounded like an echo of his own shot off to his right.

  He started to run.

  It wasn’t until Henry heard the shot that he started to laugh. He shouted at the mountain, and the storm, and at fate.

  “By God, ain’t none of you gonna get old Henry yet!” He started to yell then, knowing that Elmer would follow the sound
of his voice. “Help! Help! I am here!”

  Water was up to his waist and rising and he knew now why the dead fall was so large. The curve in the creek was a natural snare for anything caught in a flood. Already a new batch of debris was being added to what was already here. But he needed to be found before his bones were added to the pile.

  Time passed and Henry had shouted until he was hoarse. Still he wouldn’t quit. Water was up to his chest now and licking at his chin like the cold, taunting tongue of a woman. He stifled his fear and turned it all into rage. With one last monumental surge, he let out a roar.

  “Noooo!”

  Water tugged at his legs, at his shirt, yanking and pulling with the force of the flow. An eddy of foam swirled into his line of vision and then up his nose. Startled by the sudden and uninvited intrusion, he gasped and then choked when a mouthful of water went down his throat.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he moaned, wildly eyeing the rising flood. It was going to be too late after all.

  And then he heard Parson shouting his name and he started to cry, his tears mingling with the rain as it fell.

  “Here!” he shouted, laughing and spitting as water lapped at his cheeks. “I’m here!”

  Moments later, Parson was above him, hacking at limbs with the hatchet he wore at his waist as he shouted Henry’s name.

  “It’s me, Henry, it’s me! You hold on now, old friend, you hold on.”

  Henry choked and spit and then did as Parson suggested. But it wasn’t faith that he was holding on to just then, it was life. Completely submerged now, he was holding his breath.

  Parson was shaking with rage. He hadn’t come all this way to be too late. He chopped and hacked like a man gone mad, tossing away limbs, digging through the submerged dead fall and praying as he’d never prayed before. Just when as he thought it was all over, he felt buckskin beneath his fingers. With a mighty grip, he braced his feet against the limbs on which he was standing and pulled.