To the River's End

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  * * *

  Riding bareback, Lonnie led Luke a quarter of a mile to the north until reaching a sharp turn in the Green River. He rode to the outermost point in the river bend and into a stand of pine trees, then reined his horse to a stop. “Yonder it is,” he said and pointed toward a game trail that ended at the river. It was barely visible in the gathering darkness. “You follow that trail and it’ll take you right up to some foothills and a little valley with a pond in the middle of it.”

  “How far?” Luke asked.

  “’Bout fifteen or twenty miles, I ain’t sure.”

  “Are you sure this is the trail?” Luke asked. “Your life depends on it.”

  “I’m sure,” he answered. He knew Luke was serious. He sat there while Luke wheeled his horse and rode into the pine trees. Wishing he had a weapon at that moment, he folded his hand to pretend it was a gun and aimed his forefinger at Luke’s back, and softly uttered, “Pow.” He sincerely hoped that Bloodworth was waiting for Luke to come after him. “Doggone it, I plum forgot to tell him about that little deer shack, and why we liked it so much—how you can set up there high on that hill back of the pond and see the deer comin’ on that trail three or four hundred yards away. Then you just wait for ’em to get in range.” He pointed his imaginary gun at the now empty trail and shot another imaginary bullet after Luke.

  He had not been lying when he told Luke and Hiram that Bloodworth didn’t confide in him about any plan to kidnap the Indian woman. He was as surprised as anyone when Bloodworth decided he wanted to go deer hunting in the middle of the night. Now he allowed himself a little chuckle when he thought about Bloodworth snatching Luke Ransom’s sweet little Injun wife right out from under his nose. “He sure found a guaranteed way to get ol’ Ransom riled up, and he’ll be comin’ up that deer path, right where Bloodworth wants him.” Maybe I oughta go back and have a little talk with Mr. Hiram Jones, now that he ain’t got his bodyguard to protect him, he thought and turned his horse back toward the camp.

  * * *

  It was impossible not to think that Lonnie might have sent him off on a wild goose chase, but he had no choice other than to accept it as the truth. It was the only clue he had of Willow’s whereabouts. As he followed the narrow deer path out of the shadows of the pines and across stretches of open, moonlit, valley, he tried to concentrate on the trail, itself, and not what might be happening to Willow. He felt that he was to blame for her abduction, that he had failed to protect her. I should have slit that maniac’s throat when I had the chance, he told himself. Keep your mind on the trail you’re riding, he lectured himself. Just because Lonnie said it was twenty miles to that hut, it didn’t mean Bloodworth wouldn’t wait in ambush short of that.

  As much as he wanted to hurry, he had to hold Smoke to an easy lope, broken up by stretches of a fast walk, so as not to tire him out. The big bay seemed to sense what his master wanted and almost set the pace himself. It was a long ride to this place Lonnie had described and it was going to be late that night when he got there. It would be better to get there in the morning, when he could scout the whole area to determine his best approach to Bloodworth’s camp. But he could not delay another moment in his panic to reach Willow. He would stop when about halfway to make sure Smoke and Willow’s horse were rested. There were no thoughts of rest or food for himself. He didn’t bring anything to eat, even if he had an urge to eat it. He could think of nothing but the torment Willow might be suffering while he plodded along an empty deer trail.

  As the time dragged slowly past, and he rode farther and farther from the rendezvous camps, he just naturally became more cautious, telling himself he was of no value to her if he blundered into an ambush. Up ahead, he saw a line of trees that evidently lined the banks of a stream or creek, and the path continued straight toward it. His instincts told him it was a perfect spot for an ambush, even though he was still some distance from the foothills of the Wind River Range. He didn’t waste any more time to make a decision, turning Smoke off the game trail, and angling across the valley at a lope to intercept the creek about seventy-five yards to the south. When he reached the narrow creek, he drove his two horses into the border of fir trees, down into the water, and crossed to the other side. Then, counting on the darkness of the shadows to disguise his movements, he walked the horses slowly back toward the game trail.

  When he was about forty yards from the game trail, he tied Smoke and Willow’s horse in the trees and proceeded on foot, his rifle loaded and ready to fire. He had not walked twenty yards more when he suddenly dropped to one knee, stopped by the sound of movement among the bushes ahead. Horses, maybe, or someone moving from one spot to another, he couldn’t tell, but someone was there. In the darkness of the creekbank, he was afraid he would not be able to see where Willow was, and he couldn’t risk a shot until he knew. Anxious to confront the loathsome Bloodworth, he had to caution himself to remain calm as he slowly advanced toward the noises he had heard in the bushes. He took one firm step at a time, so that his moccasins would make no sound as his feet followed the contour of the creekbank. Although moving silently, he was suddenly startled by an explosion among the laurel bushes at the water’s edge when half a dozen deer sprang up and bolted from the thicket. His natural reaction almost caused him to shoot at one of them. Frustrated, he could only stand there thinking of the time he had wasted. A picture formed in his mind of Willow lying helpless, bound hand and foot, and he wanted to cry out to her to hang on. He would come for her, no matter what.

  * * *

  Approximately five miles from the creek crossing, Willow lay at the back of a roughly built, three-sided shelter, her hands and feet tied behind her back. Her face was swollen and bruised, the result of her captor’s means of getting her attention. It had been her misfortune to be a victim of this treatment once before when Bloody Hand’s Blackfoot raiders captured her. She had refused to cry then, and she refused to cry at the hands of this man now, which seemed to infuriate him. All she knew about her captor was that he held an intense hatred for Luke and that he was using her as bait to draw Luke into the ambush he had waiting for him. “If things happen the way I think they will,” Bloodworth told her, “your husband will come ridin’ up that trail I’m settin’ here lookin’ at. And I’m gonna knock him outta the saddle before he gets to the foot of this hill. Then, if I’m lucky, he ain’t gonna be dead, so I’ll have to kill him real slow.” He turned to leer at her. “Maybe he’d enjoy watchin’ me strap you on a time or two. I ain’t partial to rollin’ around with a damn Injun, but I’d do it to entertain your husband. Put a picture in his head to take to hell with him.”

  He continued to leer at her for a long moment. “You are a pretty little thing, though. Don’t you worry, me and you are gonna get it on, whether your husband comes after you or not. But I’ll promise you this. When I’m done with you, I’ll throw your ass in the same hole with what’s left of him. How’s that? That’ud work out, wouldn’t it? You and him can go to the Happy Huntin’ Ground together. He ain’t gonna be in no condition to do much huntin’, though.”

  She tried to turn a deaf ear to his endless boasting, but he droned on and on. Sitting on an upside-down bucket at the front of the shelter, he had his Kentucky long rifle beside him. The open front of his shelter was concealed behind a row of mountain laurel bushes. So he had to make a little hole through the bushes to keep a constant lookout on the trail leading up to the pond. He had had thoughts about some pleasure at the expense of his captive, but he could not risk interrupting his constant watch on the game trail. She had known in her heart that Luke would come for her and had prayed that he would hurry. But when they reached the hill, and she saw the setup Bloodworth had planned for Luke’s arrival, she prayed he would not come. For to come would certainly mean his death, and she could not bear the thought of that. She wiggled the ring finger of her left hand and came close to breaking her vow not to cry when she felt her ring move. She felt that she had come so close to a perfect marriage. Wh
y was it to be denied? She could not understand.

  Another thought entered Bloodworth’s mind then, so he questioned her. “Where was Ransom and Jug Sartain trappin’ last winter?” She didn’t answer, so he asked, “You want me to come over there and knock it outta ya?” She still did not answer. He started to get up, but thought better of it, afraid to lose his vigil of the game trail. “You’re probably the one who told ’em where the beaver were. That’s most likely the reason he married you, so you’d tell him where to trap. You tell me where the beaver are and I might let you live. Whaddaya say? Hell, I might even marry you.” That thought caused him to chuckle.

  The thought of it made Willow feel sick to her stomach. She spoke for the first time since her abduction. “I don’t know beaver. Luke have beaver before he find me.”

  “So you can talk white man talk,” he responded. “And you know that’s a damn lie. You know where they trapped those beaver, so you might as well tell me. Luke ain’t gonna be around to trap no beaver next year and neither is that little runt, Jug Sartain.” He turned to glare at her for a few seconds before one final threat. “I got ways to make you talk. We’ll just wait till I take care of Mr. Luke Ransom. Then I can give you all my attention. You be thinkin’ about that.”

  * * *

  “Well, Smoke, that’s gotta be it,” Luke spoke softly to the bay gelding as he gazed far up ahead of them at the first hill before the mountains. Had it been in broad daylight, he could have easily seen the pond that was supposed to be at the base of that hill. Staring at it now in the dark, he could tell that the trail he had been following went straight up the hill, just like Lonnie had said. What was obvious to him was the fact that anybody, anywhere on the slope of that hill should be able to see a rider coming up the path. There was no sign of a hut or anything else man-made. If he were to believe Lonnie Johnson, he would have expected to see the three-sided structure he described. I might as well just shoot myself in the head, instead of riding up that trail, he thought. He looked north and south, and picked south again, as he had when he circled around the deer. The southern slope of the hill was heavily forested, which suited his purposes, especially since the first light of the new day was beginning to filter down upon the path. He turned his horses off the path and began a wide circle that would take him to the south slope of the target hill. He figured he was almost back to the game trail when he got a glimpse of the pond through the trees ahead of him. He dismounted and tied the two horses there, having already decided his best chance was on foot. In line with that thinking, he decided for stealth and quickness, so he would fare better with his bow, with his pistol and knife for backup. The long rifle was not handy for close combat, and he just might find himself in that situation. As an afterthought, he decided his shorter barreled shotgun would have been the weapon of choice, but it did him no good to think about that now. Besides, he thought, the bow was silent, and it somehow seemed more fitting for Bloodworth to die as the result of an Indian arrow.

  Once he was satisfied that his horses were all right, he grabbed his bow and continued his scouting of the ambush he felt sure was awaiting him. As he carefully made his way through the forest of firs, he was aware of the wind in the boughs of the trees, the only sound in the deep silence that surrounded him. And then he heard it, a sound that didn’t belong, and he identified it as the crude guttural chuckling of Dan Bloodworth. He at once had to fight the urge to charge recklessly toward the sound, telling himself that the odds would be good that he would be shot down immediately. And what good would that do Willow? From the direction the sound of the chuckle had come, he figured he was a little uphill and still a couple of dozen yards away. He continued his path through the firs until he finally got a glimpse of the pond down the hill. He didn’t see the three-sided shelter at first, but when he took a few steps closer, he saw the crude structure wedged between two small trees. He figured he was about ten feet above it and he could now see why the hut wasn’t visible from the trail. There were several laurel bushes hiding it.

  The problem to be solved was the fact that he could not see Bloodworth, for the shelter was facing the other way. Bloodworth was no doubt sitting inside the shelter, watching the trail, waiting for him to appear. He could see no sign of Willow, so he had to believe she was inside the shelter, too. As the first light of morning began to penetrate the thick forest, he caught sight of Bloodworth’s horse, hobbled near the pond. There was just the one horse, which told Luke that Bloodworth had carried Willow all the way to this hill on his horse. Back to his problem then, he thought, I might have to wait for him to come out to answer nature’s call. Then he had to wonder if Bloodworth was so crude that he might not bother to leave the hut for that purpose.

  Inside the shelter, Willow tried to shift her position in hopes of easing the pain in her back and hips after lying tied hand and foot all night. She could now see bits of light through the cracks in the shelter, and the fact that Luke had not appeared was the one thing she could be thankful for. There was a part of her that she could not deny, however. She had hoped that he would come for her, even though he would have likely paid for it with his life. Then her thoughts returned to her fate and she once again hoped that he would make it quick, since his plan to torture Luke with acts of cruelty upon her might not materialize. Her thoughts were interrupted then when he complained.

  “What the hell are you doin’?” He barked and looked sharply at her. Stumped by the question, she didn’t respond and that only served to irritate him more. “Knock that off!” He barked again.

  “I do nothing,” she finally spoke.

  “The hell you ain’t,” he responded. “There you go again. I don’t know what kinda tricks you think you’re up to, but all it’s gonna get you is a good whuppin’.”

  She realized then what was bothering him. She had been so engrossed in her thoughts of what horrors lie in wait for her that she had paid no attention to the little sounds of limbs or cones falling on the roof of the shelter. Still, she couldn’t understand why it caused him to react so violently. Maybe he was losing his nerve, waiting for Luke. Then she heard what sounded like a large cone bouncing off the roof. He was glaring right at her when it hit and realized that she was not the source of the noises. Still irritated, however, he got off his bucket, stepped outside the shelter, and stood up to look at the roof. He went over backward when the shaft of the arrow drove through his neck, causing him to land on his back in the laurel bushes in front of the shelter. Luke notched a second arrow and walked around the shelter to find Bloodworth struggling to pull the arrow out of his neck. He drew the bowstring back and released the second arrow, this one driving into Bloodworth’s abdomen just below his rib cage. Then he rolled off the bushes and dropped to the ground in front of them. Luke hesitated for only a moment to make sure he was finished before he called out, “Willow!”

  “Luke!” She answered. “I’m here.”

  He looked in the rough shelter, saw her lying at the back of it and hurried to her. He took his knife and cut the ropes binding her feet and hands. As soon as her hands were free, she threw her arms around his neck. He carried her out of the little shelter, clinging to him like a small child, as he carried her in one arm, walking in a crouch due to the low roof. As he came out of the shelter, he encountered the monstrous hulk of Dan Bloodworth, the two arrows still embedded in his body. Like an enraged grizzly, Bloodworth clawed at the laurel bushes to pull himself up the hill. With Willow still clinging to him, Luke reached down and picked up the long rifle still lying beside the bucket and pulled the trigger. When the gun fired, it knocked Bloodworth back down the hill, this time for good.

  Chapter 24

  He carried her in his arms down to the small pond at the foot of the hill and sat her down beside the water. “I’m gonna leave you here for a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?” She asked at once, almost in panic.

  “I’m just gonna walk back up the hill a little ways to get the hors
es. Won’t take a minute. I’ve got a clean cloth in my saddlebags. I’ll clean up your face a little bit. Get some of that dried blood off. I’m sorry I didn’t bring any food to cook, but I didn’t wanna take the time to pack up a lotta stuff. Took me long enough to get here as it was.” She still looked worried, so he said, “I’ll be right back, then I’ll clean those cuts and we’ll head back to camp.”

  She grabbed his sleeve when he started to walk away and looked up into his eyes. “Luke, you not ask, but I wanna tell you. Marks on my face, only place he hurt me. He not hurt me no place else.” She looked at him as if begging him to believe her.

  He realized then what was worrying her. “Oh,” he reacted. “I’m real glad to know that, but it wouldn’t have made any difference in how I feel about you. You’re my wife, now and for always. All right?”

  “All right,” she said, but held onto his sleeve a moment longer. “I knew you would come for me.”

  “You can count on it,” he said and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  * * *

  After he cleaned the bruises and the broken skin on her face, using whiskey from a bottle he found in Bloodworth’s saddlebags to kill the germs, he went through the rest of the deceased man’s possessions to see if there was anything they could use. This was in spite of Willow’s protests that she didn’t want to keep anything that had any connection to the evil man. Luke figured Bloodworth’s horse and saddle might still belong to the American Fur Company. He hadn’t been with the company but a couple of years and Luke remembered that he was with the company for three years before Smoke and his saddle and rifle were deemed his personal property. So he saddled Bloodworth’s horse with the intention of turning it over to American Fur. He decided Bloodworth didn’t rate a hole dug in the ground by him. He would tell Lonnie Johnson where he could find the body, if he wanted to go bury him. For the time being, he thought Bloodworth could serve a useful purpose as buzzard feed. He had a notion to try to pull his arrows out of the body. But on second thought, he decided Bloodworth looked good with two Blackfoot arrows sticking in him.