by Tim Champlin
"What does Bundy think about the robberies? Has he got any ideas?"
"He didn't say much at first, but I've gotten to know him fairly well since we've been playing poker. He's finally loosened up and told me that he thinks it's the work of one very well organized gang of no more than six or eight men. And he believes they are spending the Winter in the Hills."
"Here in Deadwood?"
"Not necessarily, but he believes they're in the settlements, walking around among the citizens unrecognized."
"Hmmm. He must have some reasons for his theories."
"Could be just a hunch or a guess like everybody else's."
"I still think there's something fishy about that banker, Stoudt. That business of not getting his watch stolen on the stage to Cheyenne—that's the only real reason I have. But he still strikes me as suspicious. He actually acted as though he was waiting for someone to show up that day. He was even nervous before we started, as if he was afraid we were going to get a late start. And he never spoke a word to us until after the holdup. He just seemed to relax after that."
"That's no proof. Besides, he said there was a rattlesnake in that box—not treasure."
"That's what he contended. But I plied Bundy with a few drinks last week and was asking him about that. He laughed when I told him what Stoudt had said. He swore there was no snake in that express box. The box had very little gold, he told me. Said they sent out the real treasure that night by wagon under heavy guard. He suspects the only reason it eventually got through safely was that the wagon driver had to detour from his planned route due to a washed-out road. Bundy claims that even Stoudt thought the real treasure had been stolen."
"Really?"
I had finally piqued his curiosity, and he turned toward me. "Why would he claim there was a snake in the box, then?"
"Beats me. If he's the inside tip-off man for this gang, maybe he really thought his men had gotten the real gold in that holdup and 'just gave us that wild story to throw suspicion off himself. After all, I know he saw me looking at his watch after we got back into the coach."
"Interesting theory. I guess no one has seen the faces of any of the holdup men?"
"Not according to Bundy and the sheriff. They all wore hoods. No one has even recognized any of the horses they rode. They're apparently well-organized and very careful."
"Do you think Bundy or Sheriff Pierce could be in on it?"
"Bundy would sure be in the perfect position to have all the inside information, but he strikes me as an honest company man all the way. I think he's just out of his element here. Doesn't know how to cope with this. As for Pierce, I don't think he has either the brains or the ambition to plan or coordinate anything like this. He could be an intermediary, though—possibly give the posse wrong tips, or drag his feet just at the right time—things like that. Then he couldn't be accused of being anything but inept."
"Yeh. Things change so fast in these boom towns that Pierce might just be looking to make his pile any way he can and then get out, like most everyone else. But I guess it's not really any concern of ours. We haven't lost anything to those robbers."
"Nothing of any great value so far," I agreed, "but it sure as hell makes me mad that they got my gold watch. That Waltham was willed to me by my father, and it meant a lot to me. His name was engraved inside the back case."
"1 guess we'll have to be hauling our own gold out in the spring if they still haven't put a stop to the holdups."
"Looks like it's every man for himself. I keep forgetting we're on the edge of civilization. If it's not the Indians, it's our own kind trying to do us in."
I heard a thumping on the boardwalk outside, the door opened and K.J. bounced in surrounded by a swirl of snow and cold air. He was all bundled up in cast-off clothes that were too large for him, but his cheeks were rosy under the old wool cap and there was a grin on his face as if he had been out enjoying a summer day. He was carrying a bundle of newspapers under one arm.
"Paper! Paaaper!" he yelled.
"Here ya go, K.J." I flipped him a twenty-cent piece, which he caught deftly.
"I've already read most of this while it was being made up, but it's good to see the finished product."
"You wrote part of it?"
"Yeah."
Several of the men in the room stopped gambling long enough to greet the boy and buy papers from him.
"What's the latest, K.J.?" Curt asked. "How's Missus Hayes?"
"Oh, she's doin' fine, I guess," he answered, looking away, the smile disappearing from his round face.
"What do you mean, you guess? Haven't you been staying with her?"
"Yeh. I am. We are. I mean, she's doin' okay, but there's several of us up there, and a few just comin' and goin', and she's—we're—kinda short on food. And she doesn't have her fruits and vegetables and stuff to eat or sell this time o' year."
"No problem," Curt said. "We'll take up a collection and get her stocked up right now."
"Thanks, but I think she's got a little money." He shrugged. "Leastways, I give her what I make, and I think most of the others do, too."
"What's wrong, then?"
"She's not said so, but I think she's tryin' to make the food last. That's what I wanted to tell you. I just came from the mayor's office, selling my papers."
"Yeah?"
"He and some men're in a meeting, and I heard 'em talkin' about how fast the food's runnin' out in town. They were talkin' about how we won't last till Spring unless some men go out huntin' and get some meat. I think they're gonna ask who wants to go."
"Have to wait till the weather breaks," I commented, glancing out the window again. Everything was still a whirling white blur. I couldn't see the buildings across the street.
"Apparently, we're shorter of food than anyone thought," Curt said.
As if on cue, my stomach growled, and Curt laughed. "Just the thought of being short of grub's making you hungry."
"It's going to be tough, but there are some pretty good hunters in this camp, from what I've seen. If there are any elk or deer out there, they'll get 'em."
"I have half a mind to volunteer to go," Curt said. "I don't make any claims to being a hunter, but it beats sitting around here."
"Me, too. Besides, I don't feel right about eating off somebody else's efforts."
"Why? We do it all the time, but we reimburse them with money."
"I guess you're right. There's plenty of gold in this town, but everybody'd have a tough time digesting that if some fresh food isn't brought in."
"What do you say? Shall we go, too?"
"I hate cold weather, but I'm all for it. We'll have to get some warm gear, and you need a rifle."
"Hey, K.J." Curt motioned for the boy, who was conversing with Burnett at the bar. "Did the mayor say when they planned to go on this hunting party, or if they were going to ask for volunteers?"
"No. That was all I heard." He turned toward the door. "I gotta go and sell the rest of my papers. See ya."
We waved as he went out, slamming the door behind him. The bat-wing doors had been removed and replaced by a solid pine door for the winter.
"I don't know how any hunters could go out on horseback in this," I said to Curt.
"Probably won't use horses," he replied. "They'd just flounder. May have to go on snowshoes."
"Your cavalry unit used horses on that winter campaign last March on the Powder River."
"That's right, but there were some long distances involved and the snow wasn't as deep. And for the most part, we were on flatter land."
"My toes are getting cold just standing here near this door. Why don't we go down the street and see if we can get some good boots. I saw some sealskin overshoes last week at one of the dry-goods stores. Clerk told me they were tried out by the army and rejected as impractical for some reason."
CHAPTER 12
A rosy, frosty dawn was just breaking three days later as Curt and I and nine other men sat astride our mules in front of the
Grand Central Hotel, ready to start. Thin jets of steam issued from the nostrils of the reluctant mules and from the muffled heads of the riders around me. Nobody spoke. We were all waiting for a little more daylight to show before starting out.
As expected, the mayor had asked for volunteers, and had received many more than needed, so the group was narrowed down to our eleven, most of them weathered trappers, miners, and frontiersmen. Curt and I had to exaggerate our hunting abilities to persuade Deadwood officialdom to let us go. We also told them we were well aware of the hazards. We told them that I was from snowy Chicago and Curt from Philadelphia, and that we had years of experience on the plains and in the Rockies in winter weather. All of us had snowshoes strapped to our saddles, and our saddlebags were filled with fried bacon and biscuits, some pemmican and dried fruit, and several pounds of grain for our animals. Curt had bought a used Winchester, and we were garbed in heavy overcoats, two pairs of wool pants, and hats with earflaps. Two of the old hands wore underwear of perforated buckskin under double-breasted flannel shirts. One wore a coat of buffalo, and the other a coat of bearskin.
There was a small crowd of townspeople standing on the boardwalk to see us off as the leader of our group raised his arm and silently motioned us forward. We moved south up the snowy street toward the upper end of town.
After the storm had stopped two days before, the sky had cleared and the temperature had dropped well below zero. Then a strong wind had sprung up, swirling the powder snow about fifty feet in the air and creating a ground blizzard. Even though the sky was clear, the visibility, for the rest of the day was nil. Those who had to go outside fought their way from building to building, groping, their faces averted from the stinging blast. Most of us huddled around the potbellied stoves and talked of better days. But the result of all this wind was the scouring off of much of the snow that had fallen. It was redistributed. Buildings and tree lines became snow fences. Where snow had been two feet deep on the lee side of Main Street buildings, it was now twelve feet. But, on the other, hand, bare ground was visible in many places and the snow was only a few inches deep in others. Iron-hard ruts were even exposed on part of Main Street. As we cleared the edge of town, I looked up at the ridge on my left. Pines that I knew to be about thirty feet tall were showing only the top six to ten feet of their green branches above the drifts. The contours of the familiar landscape were completely changed. There was only a scattering of pink clouds above as the rising sun touched the glittering white ridges. I pressed a hand against my chest to be sure I felt the lump of my dark glasses in an inside pocket. Snow blindness could be fatal out here.
The wind had abated, and the old-timers in our party had predicted the temperature would rise into the twenties today. They also predicted that the big, foraging animals that had been confined by the storm, like the elk and deer, and possibly some buffalo, would be out pawing for the dry, brown grass in the areas that had-been swept almost clean of snow.
We had gone only about a half-mile beyond town when our leader held up and directed us to split up and start out in different directions. He sent us in groups of two and three, and Curt and I paired off.
"If you hear any shootin', come arunnin' toward the sound, and we'll all help dress 'em and cart the meat back to town," he told us through his thick beard. "Sound'll carry a long way on a day like this, so you shouldn't have any trouble hearin' the shots," he continued. "If you get outta earshot, or don't hear nothin', we'll all meet back here about dark."
He went into no further details, since all of our party were experienced hunters who used their own techniques. But, even as Curt and I rode away from the others, I almost wished we had teamed up with a third hunter.
We started off the road to our right, following a shallow canyon, but we soon found that the snow had drifted deep into this low land, so we guided our floundering mules off to the left and up the gradual slope through some widely spaced trees where the snow was not over a' foot deep. It was about a quarter mile to the top of the ridge, where we reined up to let our mules blow for a few minutes.
"That north wind must've scoured the snow off the ridge top here and dropped it in the valleys," Curt said, his voice muffled in the scarf that covered the lower half of his face. "Wind'll do some strange things." He swung his arm in an arc, and I saw the grass poking through here and there among the pine trunks.
We dismounted and led our mules—to stretch our legs and to get some circulation going in our cold toes. By silent agreement, we followed the path of least resistance along the top of the ridge, weaving in and out of the trees, ducking low-hanging limbs and detouring around those limbs that swept to the ground.
We walked about a mile or more before my fingers and toes felt warm enough to enable me to remount. Because of the effort required by walking in the heavy clothes and the need for caution, we spoke very little. But our eyes were constantly sweeping both sides of the ridge and the valleys on either side for any sign of wildlife. The only signs of life we saw were some fresh rabbit tracks that crossed our path two or three times.
After another hour we finally came to a point where we either had to retrace our steps or abandon our mules and don our snowshoes to cross an intervening valley of deep snow. The sun was high and blinding on the white world around us, and we both put on our tinted glasses. We sat down in the soft' snow to rest and discuss our next move.
"What time would you say it is?" I asked, digging into my saddlebags for something to eat.
"I'd guess between eleven and noon," Curt answered. He leaned on one elbow and gnawed off a big bite of the biscuit and bacon I handed him.
"You ever walked on snowshoes before?" I asked. "No. Have you?"
"Nope."
"I did ask one of those mountaineers for a few pointers when I found out we were going."
I tethered the mules to a small pine, scooped a few handfuls of grain from the saddlebags, dumped them into the nosebags, and slipped them over the mules' heads. Then I grabbed a biscuit and joined Curt on the soft snow in the relative warmth of the sun. We ate quietly, staring around at the beautiful white world, with the dazzling brightness of the ridges and valleys set off by the dark green spruce and pines marching up and down the blanketed hillsides. It was a picturesque, though totally silent, world. Even the birds who hadn't migrated south seemed to be in hiding. The munching of our mules sounded loud in the stillness. There was no wind, where we sat, but as I glanced around I noticed that the wind must be blowing high up, because some thin clouds were sliding up over the rim of the next ridge from the West and were spreading slowly over the blue dome above.
"Now I'm thirsty," Curt said, slipping his bare hand -back into his glove and pushing himself to his feet.
"We could build a fire and melt down some snow, or melt the ice in our canteens," I replied.
"Not now. Let's not waste the daylight. It's clear there's no game in sight. Shall we cut across here and take a look over the next ridge?"
"Might as well."
I took the empty nosebags off the mules and brought the snowshoes from our saddles.
When we strapped them on and took our first tentative steps, we nearly tripped ourselves. But with a little careful practice we finally got the knack of moving forward on the unwieldy webbed feet.
"I'll break trail for a while," Curt offered. "Then we'll switch."
We slung our canteens over our shoulders, our rifles across our backs, stuffed a couple more biscuits with bacon into our side pockets, and started.
After about a hundred yards, Curt halted and leaned down to tighten a rawhide lacing. We were both gasping, and we stood for a few minutes until our pounding hearts steadied down. Then I took the lead. Breaking trail involved lifting one leg, swinging the foot forward and down—where it sank several inches into the soft powder —then repeating the action with the other leg, all the while keeping the legs unnaturally wide apart to keep from stepping on one's own snowshoes.
After twenty steps my heart was poun
ding; after fifty steps, sweat was beginning to trickle from under my cap. After a few hundred steps, my mouth was dry and my thigh muscles were crying for mercy. I stopped and leaned on my knees in agony, sucking in the cold air, my breath whistling in and out.
"See what town living has done to us?" I gasped to Curt, who was breathing about as hard as I was. He nodded in silent agreement, and then moved around in front of me and started off again.
Alternating, we struggled across the valley and ascended part way up the other ridge before we stopped to take off the snowshoes and suck at our half-frozen canteens. Our clothes were wet inside with perspiration.
While we sat regaining our breath and our strength, I noticed it had gotten perceptibly darker, and I took off my tinted glasses. The clouds were pouring in heavier and lower, darkening the entire sky and blotting out the sun. I saw Curt noticing it, too, as he slipped his glasses into an inside pocket.
About five minutes later Curt motioned with his head and we got to our feet and finished climbing the ridge, slipping and sliding in knee-deep snow, sometimes pulling ourselves up the steepest parts by grabbing limbs. Just before we crested the timbered ridge, we crouched and slowed. Cautiously, we raised our heads, and instantly I caught a glimpse of movement. It was a small herd of six or seven buffalo pawing and nosing the snow away to graze at the base of a small bluff below us, about two hundred yards away.
Curt put out his arm to hold me back, but I wasn't going anywhere. We both got down on all fours and edged our way forward to the base of a big pine. The snow was clinging to the shaggy humps and heads of the great beasts in the protected area at the base of the bluff, as they scuffed the shallow snow away for the brown grass underneath. Now and then, one or another of them would lift its head and sniff the air or look around, but we stayed still, and they went back to their main business of securing food.