On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

by Shelter Somerset

  Tory gazed toward his bedroom door. Somewhere out there in the wilds of America’s frontier, a real man needed love. Desperate to the point he’d taken out an advertisement.

  A strong man, a man who had already stolen Tory’s affections with one simple message.…

  Chapter 7

  THE pot boiled over onto the cast-iron stovetop, hissing with steam. Franklin Ausmus cursed up a storm.

  His mind was stuck on more than cooking his venison stew for lunch. He still worried over the silly personal advertisement he had placed in Matrimonial News three weeks ago. By now, the latest edition must’ve hit the kiosks across the country. Would anyone even bother to respond? He had been living in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory for nearly ten years, and the longing for companionship had begun to gnaw at him like a chigger bug. In a few more years women would most likely no longer find him a good catch—if they ever had.

  He hadn’t even set eyes on a decent woman in years. The ones he came across in Spiketrout were mostly “working women” catering to the men of the gold rush. Those who were God-fearing arrived in the Hills already married, usually to missionaries who wasted most of their time with the Indians, trying to civilize them. He only knew of one decent unmarried woman in town—a widow close to sixty. Spiketrout’s marshal had whispered to him a few years back that nine out of ten women in the Black Hills worked as prostitutes.

  He’d had his fill of those types. During the Civil War, commanding officers had brought prostitutes into the camps when the waiting for battle got so gruesomely tedious men in the same units were fighting each other to burn energy. Fearful of losing precious soldiers in careless duels, they paid “camp followers” in silver to entertain the troops. He didn’t care for women like that, but even he had had needs. An enlistee in the Union Army, like most of the boys back home in eastern Tennessee, he’d had difficulty resisting the temptation more often than not.

  And there was that crazy time in Richmond back in 1864. He was only sixteen at the time, with two years of fighting already under his belt. The city was crawling with soldiers, both Federal and Confederate. He had never witnessed so much carousing. As a country boy, the largest city he’d ever seen was Knoxville, nothing near as teeming as Richmond.

  Residents fumed over the drunken antics of the soldiers who furloughed in the city during the year-long siege of Petersburg—and over the prostitutes, male and female, hawking their trade wherever they were appreciated. One time, a male renter had enticed Franklin down a secluded alley. Franklin had understood what the spicy boy, no older than he, had intended. He didn’t dwell on it much at the time—nor did he now. War was a different animal. Comprised of different parts. Particular mores and ethics. No borders, no laws. Just war. Under the constant strain of fight or flight, soldiers searched for anything to alleviate the tension.

  On the planet War, his fondling of the renter seemed as natural as when he and his girl back in Tennessee had kissed for the first time by the creek behind the schoolhouse. The boy in Richmond had unleashed something primitive within him. He recalled how the boars on his family’s hog farm would sometimes mount the beta males in a show of dominance. Some boars seemed to prefer them over the females. Their troublesome antics worried the hog farmers, who often had to force copulation, a not-so-pleasant task. In that instant in the alley, Franklin had understood the power they might have felt, the drive for domination. The stress of battle had been released in a way he’d never imagined.

  His cheeks heated as he remembered his escapades in the South’s capital. He realized he was getting a little aroused thinking of how he had pushed against the renter’s backside, pressing him into the brick wall of the tavern in the alley. A beer in one hand, and in the other… well…. He had been drunk. From what he’d noticed, the boy had had an abundance to drink himself, and plenty of money stuffed in his pockets. Apparently Franklin hadn’t been his only client.

  “Why aren’t you fighting in the war?” Franklin had asked him afterward, while the renter counted his remuneration.

  “I am.” The boy had fanned his greenbacks before Franklin’s bleary eyes and grinned. “I’m helping, you can be sure of that.” And he’d raced down the alley, most likely straight back to work.

  Not too long after that, a lucky shot from a falling Confederate landed Franklin in an Army hospital in Maryland for a good month. He hadn’t even heard the gunshot blast. His comrades said the shot had come from the forest partition between rival camps. His unit had scouted out the woods and found a dead Confederate, his musket still smoking. Someone had blown off half of his head, they said. He had likely fired off a ball as a last hurrah, striking Franklin Ausmus in the process. A blistering exclamation point at the end of his farewell proclamation. Franklin had predicted nothing good would come from the grove of river birch and pignut hickories. But one good thing came from his injury: his foray as a soldier had ended.

  Yet war waged on for him on other fronts. When he returned home to Tennessee, he experienced the first pinch of rejection. Soldiers’ lives were in a constant forward march. So were the lives of those left behind. While he had fought for the Union, his girl had taken up with another man—a Confederate soldier with a far less gruesome injury than Franklin’s. Last he heard she had married the Confederate veteran, now a big gun hog dealer with stock in the railroads.

  Her rebuff forced him to demand something more from people. He would not give himself to anyone out of desperation. He longed for something deeper than a bride and a balloon-framed house. He’d rather live alone than cling to a frivolous marriage that exuded loneliness.

  But years of high expectations had alienated him from many. His only constant companion the past ten years was Wicasha, a Lakota Indian he’d met while working in the quartz mine north of Deadwood back in ’75. He lived beyond the hillocks in a camp in an area even Franklin had never ventured into. Besides Wicasha, nine years ago Franklin had befriended a yellow retriever he’d named Ash because she’d survived a small forest fire. A loyal companion for four years, she had died from tumors that had devoured her body. Franklin couldn’t withstand the anguish of losing a beloved hound again.

  The years had piled up, each one lonelier than the preceding. Finally, he’d come across that silly magazine at the mercantile in Spiketrout. His advertisement was a last-ditch effort at true companionship. Like a fish net tossed into a lake, perhaps it might catch something worthwhile. Still, lingering doubts circled him.

  The periodical listed no rules regarding who could answer. The editors merely forwarded the letters of those who bothered to write. What if some crazy woman replied? At least it would be nice to correspond with a woman of a gentler disposition than he’d become accustomed to in the Black Hills. A simple penmate might pass the lonelier hours, at least. He didn’t have to meet anyone eye to eye.

  He wondered if he should have come out clean straightaway about his deformity. Not too many women wanted a lame man like him. But there lay the glory of letter writing. He could keep the sides of himself he disliked concealed.

  He wasn’t a gambling man. Yet placing the advertisement was a game of chance. Risk-taking amused Franklin when the odds tilted in favor of the players. What were his chances of actually meeting a fine lady who might one day become his bride?

  Steam from the pot of stew irritated his face. The moisture clung to his whiskers, which he needed to shave. Perhaps he’d go into town after lunch for a bath and trim. Of course, he knew he was fooling himself. The real reason he wanted to go into town was to check with the postal office to see if he’d received any responses to his advertisement. He reckoned it might be too soon for anyone to have replied, but no harm to look.

  “Ausmus!”

  He jerked up. That wretched man was pestering him again. He recognized his irritating accent. He wiped his hand on his buckskin trousers and glanced out the window. Some men had no understanding of the word “vamoose.”

  He strapped on his holster, in case the man wanted mor
e trouble, and stepped outside his cabin. “What’re you doing back here? I told you last month to keep off my land.”

  “I was hoping you changed your mind about selling,” the man said in his French drawl.

  “Won’t happen, Bilodeaux. Been here near ten years, before all these deadbeats came barreling through the Black Hills looking for more and more gold. If you want gold, go find it, just not on my property.”

  “You have a natural creek pool.” From his mount atop his gray stallion, the French Canadian pointed his white-gloved finger toward a grove of ponderosa that concealed the creek running through Franklin’s land. “Everyone knows there are gold deposits that fill the pool. Lots of it. Everywhere else, the placer gold has dried up.”

  “It don’t make me no nevermind.”

  “You are a selfish man, Ausmus.”

  “Selfish for doing what I want with my own legal property?”

  “Only a fool could resist panning for such easy-gotten gold.”

  “Only a fool would, if you ask me.”

  “I will not give up on you, Ausmus.”

  “I keep telling you, I won’t change my stance.”

  “Every man has a price.”

  “You think you’re Napoleon, Bilodeaux?” In fact, Bilodeaux, short like Napoleon, carried airs the way the French general was said to have done during his charges throughout Europe. His eyes, sharp blue, intelligent, and penetrating, absorbed everything around him. His full lips were always puckered as if he wanted to spit. But Franklin harbored no fear of the man. Like the mosquitoes that attacked the Hills in midsummer, Bilodeaux was a mere pesky annoyance.

  Yet lately, Bilodeaux’s encroaching had increased, along with the fast depletion of the easily gotten placer gold. In the past, when gold had come easier, Bilodeaux and Franklin had butted heads over his land only once or twice a year, when they ran into each other in town. Already this spring, the bandit had trespassed on his property twice. The warming weather had made it easy. Were his incursions going to increase in frequency?

  Franklin had decided years ago, when he’d first settled on his homestead in 1876, not to pan for the gold. Not everyone understood. Sometimes even he didn’t. But he had made an unbreakable promise to himself. The gold would stay put. No one, not even cotton-picking Bilodeaux, could force him to change his mind.

  A sturdy gust came down off the mountains surrounding the homestead. Smoke from the chimney swept over the mounted Bilodeaux. His form wavered. Franklin resisted the urge to pull out his sidearm and shoot the bastard.

  “Listen, Bilodeaux,” he said between clenched teeth as the smoke cleared, “this is my land, legal by law and decree. I was here after the government kicked out the Indians. I got the deed to prove it. You have no rightful business coming around here. I’m tired of telling you.”

  Bilodeaux’s gaze from his high mount, menacing and persistent, cut through Franklin. “Laws never meant much in the Hills, Ausmus,” he said. “I am speaking not solely for myself, but on behalf of the entire community. The Black Hills are growing up around you. The frontier is officially closed. You cannot hold out the people much longer. Gold is in that creek pool that sits on your property. The people have a right to it and all the wealth it can bring them.”

  “The people have only one right, and that’s to mind their own businesses,” Franklin said, stepping forward to emphasize his point, his hand braced close to his sidearm. “And unless you’re interested in joining Napoleon in his grave, I suggest you mind your own business by removing yourself off my property, once and for good.”

  Bilodeaux drew in his heavy lips. He stared down hard at Franklin. “I am not finished with this, Ausmus. There are still matters that need settled. You will hear from me again. Be sure of it. À bientôt.” He turned his gray stallion and rode off down the trail leading into Spiketrout, leaving behind a plume of dust.

  Franklin stared after his adversary long after the hurried gallop of the horse’s hooves faded. He shivered from his latest encounter with him. But not due to fear. Disgust sent a cold spasm through Franklin’s limbs.

  Frustrated, he traipsed back inside the hot cabin.

  “What does that fool want this time?”

  Franklin stirred the pot of venison stew. His Lakota friend, Wicasha, had already served himself and was eating at the table.

  “Same thing he’s been after since the pacer gold started drying up,” Franklin murmured. He plated himself some stew and sat down across from the tall Lakota, who had been paying one of his welcomed visits. “No wonder three wives left him. That man is surlier than a badger cornered in a woodpile.”

  “He’s nasty, no doubt.”

  “I hate to say it,” Franklin said, shaking his head, “but I might have to place barbwire around my land to keep that ruffian out. Never foresaw I’d have to resort to it, but if that Bilodeaux don’t stop coming around here making threats, might have to get some.”

  “Barbwire won’t keep him out,” Wicasha said as he chewed the potatoes and venison.

  “At least I’ll be making myself clear.”

  “If you ask me, next time shoot him for trespassing.”

  “I only wish it was that easy, Wicasha.” Franklin spooned hot stew into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “He’s got a lot of the law on his side. If he dies, no telling who else might be hankering for the gold. More than just him think they have a right to my land and whatever they find on it. A lot of deadbeats in Spiketrout.”

  “Maybe we should pray he dies like Napoleon.”

  Steam from his stew washed over Franklin’s face. “Consumption would be too good for him. Let’s pray that he dies like Custer.”

  PINE mist sparkled in the rising sun like a million shards of diamonds. Deep-blue spruce and pines surrounded the gulch with their usual brilliance. The caterpillar-like buds of the aspens had begun to open, the unfolding leaves green and tender. Rays of sun warmed his face where he sat at a roughhewn plank table he’d crafted from the local pine. Refreshed from a restful sleep, Franklin, still in his union suit, ate his breakfast of scrambled eggs, jerky, and fried potatoes away from the heat of the cabin. With the magpies and canyon wrens yapping in the aspens on the slopes, he chewed slowly. No need to rush. Quiet and peace trickled down from the granite peaks. He relished life on his homestead, a paradise he called Moonlight Gulch.

  Gazing at the periwinkle sky, he concluded he had found Zion, with or without someone to share it. With the sun shifting higher over the peaks, he reckoned life could be a lot worse. He would never forget how he’d first come across his land. After he left the quartz mine in ’76, he’d set out on horseback to find a spot to call home. He’d wandered the Hills for weeks, camping, biding his time, waiting for a place to holler his name. One night, sitting by his campfire, the nickering of distant horses traveling among the thick aspens and pines grabbed his attention. Although the federal government had officially opened the Black Hills to white settlers by then, he still feared the Sioux or a rogue cavalryman. He’d dismantled his camp and followed an old Indian trail lit by the full moon deep into a gulch. Shortly, he came into a clearing. The moonlight slicing through the pines and aspens danced off what he thought was flat-lying granite. Closing in, he realized it was a slow-moving creek. Soon, he heard the lush valley call his name. He was home. And he hadn’t looked back since.

  The call of an osprey forced him back to the present. A full day loomed ahead. He carried his empty plate into the cabin and dressed. After slopping the hogs, milking his one dairy cow, feeding the horses, cow, and mule, he hitched his mare, Lulu, to the wagon. The morning warranted a trip into Spiketrout to run some errands—and to check the mail at the postal office. He hadn’t gotten around to it yesterday. Bilodeaux’s unexpected visit had set him on edge, and he had wanted to stay close to the homestead to keep an eye on things. Today, he was more relaxed. Wicasha, who had wandered back to the homestead from his camp with the sunrise, had said he’d watch things.

  Midmorning su
n hung from the sturdy aspen and spruce branches and warmed his back as he made his way along the nine-mile makeshift trail into Spiketrout. A steep rock face soared above him to his right, the meandering creek for about two miles to his left. The familiar cool draft from the five-foot waterfall greeted him before the trail veered sharply right. As he left behind the rock face and the rush of the waterfall, the gulch opened into a sun-splashed dell. Blue pasqueflowers bloomed in tall clusters in sunny spots. Golden butterflies, newly emerged from their cocoons, danced above the yellow buds of the larkspur. Alfalfa—the same patch from which Franklin gathered the propagation for his crop field—filled the dell with lavender sprouts.

  Lulu followed the trail onto a forested ridge. The trail, grooved from ten years of Franklin’s wagon wheels rolling over it, climbed the longest of about four inclines. The mare snorted as she pressed her ears into the upslope. Cries of hawks trickled down from the lush mountainside.

  The trail leveled off in a wide alder grove. For half a mile, Lulu followed a family of mule deer, before the mother and her two yearlings disappeared into the cluster of alders.

  Franklin wondered what type of woman would want to live in such rustic environs. Few women—the sort that he envisioned—sought a secluded, rustic lifestyle. Were the ones who read those matchmaker periodicals savvy enough to understand the type of men who advertised in them? The closer he came to Spiketrout, the more his mouth drained of spit.

  As much as his friendship with Wicasha had strengthened during the years, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell him about placing the advertisement with Matrimonial News. Late last night, after their usual good-natured bantering, Wicasha had hiked back to his camp without Franklin uttering a word about his plans. Wicasha harbored a keen inquisitive streak, one Franklin believed best left unstirred. He worried that James Carson, Spiketrout’s postmaster, might have questions. The last time Franklin had business at the postal office, he’d sent his advertisement to Matrimonial News. Postmaster Carson had barely glanced at the envelope before he’d stuffed it in the slot that read “U.P. West/San Fran.” Franklin prayed Jim retained his professionalism once Franklin started receiving mail from mysterious women—if he received any.