The End of the Trail

by Brett Halliday

  “How did the lower road go out?” Sally asked. “Did they have two landslides at the same time?”

  “No,” Pat explained. “Seems like the old road followed a ledge right alongside the river canyon below the Flat, an’ the river had been eatin’ at the ledge an’ undermining it for a long time. It jest happened to give way at about the same time the landslide blocked the other end.”

  “And there isn’t any road over the mountains now?”

  “There’s a narrow gauge railroad up to the Flat from Pueblo,” Pat told her, “but no route from Denver straight across. The Pony Express thinks there oughtta be, so they’re sending Sam out to hunt for one; sort of explorin’ the mountains.”

  “I’ve been up through that South Park country south of Fairplay an’ I know where the ol’ road usta run,” Ezra put in. “There’s another pass south of there …”

  “Sam really ought to take Ezra along with him,” Sally put in. “You’ve always said he has a sort of instinct for smelling his way across the mountains.”

  “Sam an’ me thought of that,” Pat told his wife easily. “I figured maybe all three of us would fix up a couple of pack hawses an’ make a campin’ trip out of it. Ain’t much doin’ here on the ranches right now. We figured Kitty could stay here with you to keep you company while we’re gone.”

  “Of course,” Sally agreed instantly. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. I know you three are always dying to get off on a trip together, and I’m glad you’re old enough now so you don’t think it has to be a gun-slinging expedition to be interesting.”

  Pat was afraid to look at Sam or Kitty. He kept a grave face and asked Ezra, “How about it? You feel like makin’ a pack trip up through there with Sam an’ me?”

  “’Twon’t be no fun fer me.” Ezra shook his shaggy red head lugubriously. “Want me along tuh wrangle thuh hawses an’ do all thuh cookin’, thass all.”

  “Mighty good huntin’ up there,” Pat offered. “We’ll take our rifles along an’ maybe trail us down a mountain lion or a she-bear.”

  “With cubs, Dad?” Dock spoke up unexpectedly from his seat on the floor beside his mother’s chair.

  “Like as not,” Pat agreed. “Maybe we can tame one an’ bring him back for you a pet.”

  “Couldn’t I go along, Dad?” Dock’s eyes were shining. They were the same clear gray color as his father’s, and at twelve he was strongly built and tall enough to reach his father’s chin.

  “Not this trip, I reckon, Dock.” Pat shook his head.

  “I don’t see why he shouldn’t go,” Sally put in quickly. “You know how he loves camping out, Pat.”

  “Sure. I’d wrangle the hawses an’ do all the camp work, Dad. And Ezra could teach me to cook. Gee, Dad. Can’t I go?”

  “It’ll be a hard, dangerous trip,” Pat began, “and …”

  “Nonsense!” Sally spoke out strongly. “You’ve often bragged how Dock never tires on a trip. And you don’t want him to be a sissy and stay at home with two women.”

  “It ain’t but a little while till school starts,” Pat protested. “You don’t want him to miss out on his booklearnin’, do you?”

  “There are other things more important than school-books,” Sally said serenely. “It would be a wonderful experience for him, and for once you won’t be going into any gun-fights or anything like that so I won’t be worried about him going.”

  “I sure don’t know.” Pat threw an agonized look at Sam for assistance. “I reckon maybe the Pony Express wouldn’t like us takin’ a boy along … do you reckon, Sam?”

  “I shore dunno,” Sam mumbled.

  “I’d much rather have him here around the ranch,” Kitty Sloan put in quickly. “Think how it’ll be without any man at all,” she reminded Sally.

  “No.” Sally’s chin was strongly set and determined. “Dock deserves a vacation too. I don’t understand you, Pat. You’re always wanting to take him places that I think too dangerous, and you’re always arguing with me that he’s old enough to do such things. And now when I give up and actually want him to go, you refuse. Are you sure there isn’t some other reason for this trip than you’ve told me?”

  Pat managed to look quite surprised and he answered indignantly, “What makes you talk like that?”

  “If it’s just a camping expedition into the mountains, I should think you’d want him along.”

  “Shore we’ll take thuh little tyke,” Ezra put in loudly. “Like he says, he kin wrangle thuh hawses an’ firewood, an’ mebby wash a dish er two at night. Neither of you’all will turn a hand tuh he’p, an’ you both know it.”

  “I’ll ride Buster an’ take my twenty-two rifle,” Dock said excitedly. “An’ you kin teach me to catch rainbow trout an’ fry ’em while they’re still wriggling like you tell about, Ezra. And you can show me how to track a mountain lion, an’ … an’ … can I go, Mother?”

  “You’ll go if your father goes,” Sally Stevens promised him calmly. “It’s the only way I’ll be easy about him because I know he won’t do anything foolish and go traipsing off on some dangerous stunt of his own if you’re along.”

  “Doggone it, ol’ lady,” Pat began, but Sally compressed her lips and began talking to Kitty about something else and Pat knew he was licked. Well, he conceded wryly, that’s what he got for trying to fool Sally about the real purpose of the trip into the mountains. A man never did get very far trying to deceive his wife. Somehow, women always seemed to come out on top no matter how smart a man tried to out-figure them.

  7

  Dock Stevens was as excited and as eager as a young beaver during the next few days while arrangements for the pack trip into the mountains were being made. He was determined to be helpful and show his father he wouldn’t be in the way, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to help the expedition get started.

  The very next morning after Pat’s return from Denver, Sally drove into Dutch Springs and had a talk with Dock’s school-teacher. She came back with the reassuring news that the teacher said he was doing well in his studies and that he could study some to make up for the time he might lose from school.

  The partners decided to take three pack horses with them on the trip, and to be prepared to be out of touch with civilization for at least two months. They all knew the mountainous country well and realized it would be difficult to find a trail over the Divide into Sanctuary Flat; and after they reached their destination, they had no idea how long it might take them to discover who was trying to drive the syndicate out.

  For that was the way Pat and Sam had planned it in Denver, with Kitty’s enthusiastic approval. Instead of going up to the Flat openly by railroad and risk having the murderer guess their reason for being there, Pat and Sam had decided on the more difficult approach across the supposedly impassable mountains on the pretense of locating a new Pony Express route as Pat had explained to Sally.

  That way, if they did manage to make their way down into Sanctuary Flat, they would arrive unannounced and unseen, and would have a chance to look the ground over and do some quiet investigating before the killer was aware of their presence in the Flat. Even if they did run into someone immediately upon their arrival in the valley, they had a legitimate reason for their presence by pretending to be a Pony Express exploration party.

  Because Pat figured that was the fatal mistake the Burns detective and Nate Morris had both made. Going up by train to snoop around was a sure way to arouse instant suspicion. Since the railroad dead-ended there and there was no logical reason why casual visitors should come to Sanctuary Flat, it wasn’t surprising that an alert murderer had spotted both of them as spies for the syndicate at once—even if there wasn’t an inside slip-up as Pat more than half suspected.

  With two pack horses to carry their four bedrolls, and a third horse packed with camp equipment, they were prepared to exist in the high mountains as long as was necessary to accomplish their purpose. They didn’t have to take much food along because there would be fresh meat a
nd fish all along the way; only some flour and bacon and coffee, a handful of salt and a can of baking powder, and a good-sized sack of dried beans.

  Both Sally and Kitty were horrified by the meager stock of provisions they laid out to take along, and both the women were full of suggestions for added items they felt their men should have, but Pat and Sam vetoed every suggestion and took along only what they knew would be actually necessary.

  Their cooking utensils consisted of a Dutch oven and a big frying pan, an iron pot for cooking beans and stewing meat, and a huge smoke-blackened coffee pot that had seen service on many such trips in the past. With four deep tin plates, a knife, fork and spoon for each, four battered granite-ware coffee cups, a butcher knife, long-handled fork and a big cooking spoon, the trail-wise men were prepared to meet any emergency though the women didn’t see how they get along for more than a day or so with such limited equipment.

  Inside their canvas-wrapped bedrolls, each man stowed away extra socks and underwear, a towel, and a heavy wool jacket to wear in case of an unseasonable storm in the high mountain passes they would cross, and each man carried a saddle-gun, and a six-shooter belted about his waist.

  Keeping up the pretense that it was a peaceful exploring trip, Pat wore only one of his six-guns because he knew Sally would instantly suspect the truth if he tried to ride away with both of them buckled on. They had decided each to take along an extra saddle horse because they didn’t know how difficult the going might be, and it made up quite an imposing expedition early one morning a few days later when they were finally ready to start out from the Lazy Mare ranch.

  Riding his sorrel pony, Buster, Dock was in charge of the seven-horse remuda. The three pack horses plodded out patiently, old in the ways of such trips and instinctively choosing a gait that wouldn’t tire them on the long trip ahead, but the four extra saddle horses were frisky and playful and Dock had his work cut out for him to keep them moving ahead in a compact body with the pack horses.

  He got them started on the road first, turning in his saddle to wave a blithe farewell to his mother and the others who lingered behind by the corral, and then whooping and galloping on to get his small string straightened out and moving steadily on a route that would take them north of Pueblo where they planned to follow a winding canyon road up into the broad reaches of South Park to attack the problem of finding a new route over the Divide into Sanctuary Flat.

  Sally stood on tiptoe and waved to her young son until he disappeared from sight in front of a rolling cloud of dust. She was smiling bravely, but tears sparkled in her eyes when she turned back to the others. “I’m glad he’s going with you,” she said desperately. “I want him to go. I want him to grow up and have all the experiences a man needs. But he’s so young, Pat. He’s …”

  “Sure now. He’s past twelve,” Pat comforted her, putting his arm about her shoulders awkwardly. “It’s only for a couple of months.”

  “I know. But you will take care of him, won’t you? You won’t let anything happen to him?”

  Pat laughed reassuringly. “He’ll come back growed-up into a real man, Sally.” He tilted her face up and kissed her, and Ezra spat contemptuously and growled, “Whenever you two husban’s git done with yore lallygaggin’ we better start ridin’.”

  Pat released Sally with a pat on her shoulder. He turned to see Kitty and Sam clinging together in a long embrace while Ezra regarded them with disgust. He laughed and reminded Ezra, “They haven’t been married very long,” as he went toward his horse.

  “Long enuff, I sh’u’d think fer her tuh be glad tuh see him ridin’ off so’s she won’t have tuh look at his ugly face fer a time,” Ezra muttered sourly. He raised his voice to ask, “You ridin’ with us or stayin’ here huggin’ yore wife, Sam?”

  Sam Sloan took hold of Kitty’s arms and gently released them from around his neck. “Ever’thing’ll be awright, honey,” he told her gruffly. “We’ll be back ’fore you know it, an’ we won’t never leave Powder Valley again. I swear we won’t.” He turned aside to swing into the saddle, and spurred his horse away swiftly after the others without looking back.

  “That was a funny thing for him to say,” Sally commented wonderingly as the two women stood side by side and watched the three men ride away. “How can he promise to stay in Powder Valley when he doesn’t know where the Pony Express will send him next?”

  Kitty turned with tears streaming down her face. “He’s going to quit his job. As soon as this is over. We’re coming back here to live. Didn’t you know?”

  “He hasn’t any right to make you come back here to live.” Sally completely misinterpreted Kitty’s tears. “I’ll give him a good talking to when they come back. If he knows how you hate it here …”

  “But I don’t,” Kitty wailed. “I just want him back safe. That’s all.”

  “It’s foolish for you to worry about him on this trip,” Sally told her briskly. “Let’s go back to the house to see if Sammy’s awake yet.”

  By sundown, the four riders were a full forty miles away from the Lazy Mare ranch. They had swung diagonally across the long, sloping northern side of Powder Valley, climbing out of the lush pastureland into the rugged, broken reaches bordering the rich valley in that direction. The three men had taken the lead during the day, and Dock Stevens was manfully following them up on Buster, keeping the pack horses and extra saddle horses together in a compact group not too far behind the leaders.

  It was big, one-eyed Ezra who assumed leadership on a trip like this, and it was he who pulled up with a grunt just after sundown as they came to the head of a narrow coulee they had been following for miles.

  “Reckon this’ll do fer uh night-camp,” he muttered. “Be cut off from the wind sleepin’ down here, an’ there’s grass fer thuh hawses, an’ looks like uh spring feeding that crick we bin follerin’.”

  He swung out of the saddle and his companions followed suit. Pat turned to look back, and nodded approval when he saw Dock with the rest of the caravan not more than a quarter of a mile behind.

  “Sam an’ me’ll unsaddle and hobble out these hawses,” he told Ezra. “You pick out where you want the cook stuff unloaded an’ the best place to build yore fire.”

  “You don’t have tuh waste yore breath tellin’ me how tuh make camp,” Ezra grunted as he stalked off. “I’ve did it enuff times with you two settin’ around watching me.”

  Pat grinned at Sam as he loosened his latigo strap and pulled the heavy saddle off his sweaty mount. “You’d think Ezra hated makin’ camp to hear him talk.”

  “He’d cuss us both out quick if we tried tuh horn in an’ he’p,” Sam agreed. “You got any rope hobbles or must I cut some off?”

  “I brought a dozen of them along in my saddle-bags.” Pat knelt and unbuckled a strap, pulled out a dozen two-foot lengths of rope. He tossed one to Sam, then looped another length around the left fore fetlock of his own horse, gave it three twists, and tied the two ends about the other fetlock. With his forefeet thus hobbled, the horse could mince along at a snail-like gait or could lunge off by raising both forefeet at once, but found it difficult and tiresome to stray very far from camp during the night.

  They had the three horses unsaddled and hobbled when Dock rode up behind his remuda.

  “We’re making a night-camp here,” Pat called out to his son. He had his rope out and was spreading a loop for one of the extra saddle horses. “You help Ezra with the pack stuff while Sam an’ me hobble out these four.” He spun the loop out with a practiced hand and it settled easily about the neck of one of the horses.

  “Over this way, Dock,” Ezra shouted, emerging from behind a small clump of juniper. “There’s water an’ plenty of dry wood clost.”

  Dock cut the three patient pack horses out from the others and pushed them over to where Ezra waited. He leaped lithely out of the saddle and trotted forward to help loosen the diamond hitches that held the packs securely in place.

  There was a small sheltered area behind
the junipers at the triangular apex of the rocky walls of the canyon with a small stream of water trickling out of a crack in the rocks.

  By the time Sam and Pat strolled up from hobbling all eleven horses, Ezra had his supper food and cooking equipment neatly spread out on an old piece of tarpaulin and was coaxing a small fire into flame between three rocks carefully placed so the fire would get a steady draft.

  Dock was whistling happily and his young face shone with interested zeal as he followed Ezra’s instructions and broke dead firewood into even short lengths so the fire could be fed continuously without disturbing the bed of coals Ezra was getting built up.

  Pat winked at Sam and unstrapped his bedroll from the pack saddle on the ground. “We might’s well pick out the best places and get our beds spread out,” he suggested. “Ezra will be busy the next hour or two gettin’ hot biscuits made an’ fryin’ up some steak.”

  He dragged his bedroll over to a smooth spot near the clump of junipers and started to untie it while Sam followed suit.

  “Go right ahead an’ stretch out an’ make yoreselves plumb comfort’ble,” Ezra called out scathingly, squatted by the fire. “We’re eatin’ cold biscuits that I brung along from my place, with coffee an’ fried meat grease. Ef that don’t set good on yore delicate stummicks, you kin fire thuh cook an’ fix somethin’ fancy tuh soot yoreselves.”

  “My stummick is hankerin’ fer cold biscuits an’ fried meat grease,” Sam told him loudly. “An’ Pat’s awready droolin’ tuh set his teeth into that kinda chuck.”

  “Suits me right down to the ground,” Pat agreed, stretching out on his bedroll and sighing with contentment. “Me, I’ll take this here instead of a city hotel any day in the week.”

  The aroma of fat meat frying in Ezra’s skillet and the tantalizing smell of strong coffee bubbling in the blackened pot soon filled the protected little area at the head of the coulee; and a short time later the three old partners and the young boy were sitting crosslegged on the ground ravenously getting away with the simple fare that Ezra had apportioned in four plates.