Luke's Gold

by Charles G. West

  As soon as the horse went down, both Bucky and Cade dived on the stallion’s neck, holding his head to the ground. Some of the other hands, who had come over to watch, rushed in to help. Between them, they managed to roll the horse enough to get the weight off Jack’s leg while Cade calmed the angry stallion down. Jack, his face blanched white with pain, made no sound until they were able to free his boot. Then he spoke just two words. “It’s broke,” he said, meaning the leg, not the horse.

  “It’s broke, all right,” Jim Big Tree said when he got Jack’s boot off. “Maybe two places.”

  Two of the men went to cut a couple of saplings to fashion a splint while some others carried Jack to the cabin where they laid him on his bedroll. The patient knew the agony that awaited him, and he bit his lip while shaking his head back and forth, silently scolding himself for trying to show he could still ride a bronc when he should have been at the rail watching. As was customary, someone produced a bottle of whiskey and began pouring it down the suffering man’s throat. A willing recipient, Jack gulped it down as best he could, knowing he was in for a lot of pain when the bone was set. He tried desperately to get drunk, but the alcohol failed to deliver him from the reality of the moment. That was accomplished a few minutes later, however, when Jim Big Tree grabbed his heel and pulled the bones back in line, the pain of which caused Jack to faint dead away.

  The following days did not go well for Jack Walker. The bone, although as nearly back to its original alignment as Jim Big Tree could get it, showed no signs of healing. The leg was swollen and painful, and the foreman was forced to remain on his back for most of the time. To make matters worse, his daughter was expecting him to come get her in less than two weeks’ time. Jack was anxious to see her safely in Deer Lodge before an early snow fell, but as the time to leave approached, he saw only minor improvement in his leg. He considered making the trip in spite of his condition, but knew he couldn’t ride without severe pain. He thought about sending Jim Big Tree to take his daughter, but laid up as he was, Jack needed Jim there to oversee the men. Finally, after much inner debate, he sent for Cade Hunter.

  At first, Cade didn’t understand. “You want me to ride up to Butte to tell your daughter you ain’t comin’?”

  “I want you to take that little mare to Butte. Then I want you to take my daughter to Mr. Kramer’s house at Deer Lodge.” He paused when the expression on Cade’s face told him that he wasn’t sure he wanted the job. “I know it ain’t what you signed on to do,” Jack continued, “but you can see I can’t do it myself.”

  In all honesty, Cade didn’t know what to think. Walker was right, Cade sure as hell hadn’t signed on to play nurse-maid to the foreman’s daughter. “Don’t you reckon one of the older men might be better to do that?”

  “I picked you because I figure you for a decent young man, handy with a rifle, and, as far as I’ve seen, trustworthy.” He shrugged. “Besides, if you did anything to harm my daughter, I’d track you down and kill you. But I don’t think I have to worry about that. She ain’t alone. She’s got old White Moon with her, and she’d put a knife in your gizzard if you laid a hand on Elizabeth.”

  Cade couldn’t help but smile. “It’s nice to know you trust me so much,” he said.

  Jack smiled in return. “I trust you, Cade. If I didn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t have picked you. Let me put it this way: I ain’t orderin’ you to go; I’m askin’ you. How ’bout it?”

  Cade shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “I reckon.”

  Chapter 10

  Jack Walker had built his cabin high up on the side of a mountain, five miles northwest of Butte, with the intent to isolate his wife and daughter from the rough mining town. His plan from the beginning was that it would be a temporary residence while he pushed Carlton Kramer’s cattle herds across the Montana plains. As often happens, a man’s plans are changed, and fate sometimes steps in to sidetrack ambitions even further. So it was with Jack. While his daughter was still a child, her mother was taken from them one long, cold winter. Faced with trying to take care of a little girl while driving a crew for Carlton Kramer, he turned to Jim Big Tree for help. With no family of her own except Jim, his mother, White Moon, was happy to take care of the child. It was an arrangement that worked out well for all parties. Elizabeth was fond of the old Shoshone woman, and Jack felt his child was reasonably safe with White Moon to protect her while he was away for months at a time. In time, however, Jack realized that his daughter had left childhood behind, and was now a young woman. He had expressed his concerns for Elizabeth to his employer, Carlton Kramer, and Kramer suggested that the young lady should come to live with them. When Kramer’s wife, Cornelia, was approached with the idea of taking in Jack Walker’s daughter, she enthusiastically agreed with her husband. It seemed the perfect solution to Jack. Elizabeth could enjoy the benefit of Cornelia’s feminine influence before young men discovered her and started to call. As it turned out, however, it was a little too late.

  Jack had built his cabin behind a large boulder that hid most of the house. A brace of fir trees stood at the back of the cabin, effectively hiding the back of the house from anyone approaching from below. A person standing at the kitchen window, however, could see someone approaching through the branches. On this day, late in the fall, White Moon stood looking out the kitchen window.

  “Someone comes,” White Moon stated without emotion.

  Busy sewing the hem in a skirt she had made, Elizabeth let her arms drop in her lap. “Who is it?” she asked, equally emotionless. The old Indian woman seemed unfamiliar with excitement of any kind. Someone was coming, but from the dry monotone of White Moon’s voice, it could be a stranger, her father, or the devil himself. So Elizabeth got up from the table to see for herself.

  “John Slater,” White Moon said, her face screwed up as if she had tasted something disagreeable.

  Elizabeth laughed. “Well, I wonder what he wants,” she replied coyly, saying it just to get White Moon’s goat. It was the second time in as many weeks that the owner of the Silver King Saloon had journeyed up the mountain to call on her.

  “Too old for you,” White Moon stated, turning to give a stern eye to her young charge.

  “He’s not that old,” Elizabeth replied, the impish look in her eye teasing her Indian governess. “Besides that, he’s very wealthy. He owns the Silver King, and I heard Mr. Potter at the general store say that John Slater is buying up land to go into the cattle business.”

  White Moon looked away in disgust, making no effort to disguise her dislike for the man. “Your father whip you if he see you wriggle your tail for that man.”

  “We should make a fresh pot of coffee,” Elizabeth suggested cheerfully. “Mr. Slater would probably appreciate a cup after his long ride up from Butte.” She couldn’t help but giggle in response to the sour expression on White Moon’s face. “I’ll go out on the porch to greet our guest.”

  “A good day to you, Miss Walker,” John Slater called out as he walked his horse up to the porch.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Slater,” Elizabeth returned politely. “What brings you up our way again?”

  He reached back and untied a cotton sack from behind his saddle. Holding it out toward her, he said, “I brought you some dried apples. They got a couple of barrels of ’em at Potter’s store, and I thought you might be tickled to get some, knowin’ you don’t get a chance to get into town that much.”

  “Why, that’s very sweet of you,” she replied, aware then that White Moon had come to stand in the doorway behind her. “But you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. Won’t you step down and have a cup of coffee?” She turned and pursed her lips trying not to smile at White Moon. “We were just going to have some.”

  “Why, yes, ma’am, that would sure be to my likin’,” he said, and dismounted at once.

  In the absence of porch furniture, they sat on the edge of the porch and drank coffee reluctantly served by White Moon. After she had served it, she settled herself
at the opposite end of the small platform where she could keep an eye on her charge, and sipped noisily from a large cup with a broken handle. Though he tried not to show it, the big Indian woman’s presence obviously annoyed John Slater. Elizabeth was aware of it, but she appreciated the fact that the stoic woman was an effective buffer that prevented Slater from confessing his true intentions.

  On other occasions, he had expressed his affections for her in his rough way, causing her some embarrassment. She was not immune to attention from an aspiring swain. It played upon her feminine instincts, but she did not truly want to encourage the man, even though it was exciting to be openly desired. In truth, she did not know many qualified bachelors, since she seldom visited the town, this in spite of the fact that the ratio of men to women in Butte and Helena made every female sought after by many. Although naturally coquettish, she realized that part of her charm could probably be attributed to the fact that Slater had few young women to choose from.

  Slater’s visit was not a long one, since the days were already getting shorter with the fall season. He mentioned several times that it would be getting dark before too long, hoping that he might be invited to stay the night. But Elizabeth merely responded by saying that he should not stay too long because the trail back down the mountain was treacherous in the dark. Before long, his impatience began to show through. He had made a considerable effort to appear gentlemanly, but as the hour aged, his coarse miner’s edges began to show through. Elizabeth could readily see the difficulty the man was having in his attempts to hide his rough past. Finally, he gave up. “Well, I guess I’ll get back to town then,” he announced a bit curtly, and went to his horse.

  Elizabeth thanked him again for the apples. “That man no good for you,” White Moon uttered as they watched Slater disappear beyond the boulder.

  Taking the sack from White Moon’s hand, Elizabeth looked inside and picked out some of the dried apple slices. Handing the sack back to the Indian woman, she said, “At least we got some dried apples. Try them, they’re delicious.” She grinned openly while White Moon helped herself. Watching her faithful guardian munching on the dried fruit, she felt a twinge of guilt for the concern she caused her. Elizabeth knew she should come right out and assure White Moon that she was in no way attracted to John Slater, but the somber Shoshone woman was so easily teased. And, the young woman had to admit, his attempts to woo her were extremely flattering. Still, she cautioned herself that she should probably put an end to his hopes. She could not help but be influenced by what her father had once said about John Slater. According to him, there was a lot of speculation around Butte about how Slater gained full ownership of the Silver King. Everyone knew that Slater had bought half ownership from Boyd Tyson. It was probably unfair, but to some folks around town, it seemed a mysterious circumstance that six months after Slater and Tyson went into partnership, Tyson fell victim to a road agent between Butte and Helena. True, Slater gained full ownership at that point, but to his credit, he saw to it that the widow Tyson was well taken care of. Even then, there were a few citizens of the town who thought she should have retained half ownership in the saloon. Most of the more genteel disagreed, arguing that Sally Tyson should in no way be associated with the running of a saloon. “Oh, well,” Elizabeth sighed, “we’ll be leaving here for Deer Lodge when Daddy gets back, so you won’t have to worry about John Slater.”

  Maybe Jack Walker was right when he had worried about the weather. Still early fall, it was a chilly day when Cade made his way through the bustling mining town of Butte. The sky was leaden, promising a chance of snow, and giving the town a colorless look. Cade considered stopping by a couple of saloons just on the chance that someone might have seen Lem Snider. The town itself served to remind him that he had permitted the man who murdered his friend to slip quietly into the back of his mind, and he felt the burden of guilt as a result.

  Passing the hotel, he saw that a couple of carpenters were in the process of adding a porch to the front, and he couldn’t help but think of Luke again. His mind drifted back to the sweetgrass prairie near Big Timber when he and Luke had settled back to relax with bellies filled with freshly killed antelope. He could still picture his late friend’s face when he talked about what he wanted to do with his share of the gold dust. Maybe this might have been the hotel Luke was dreaming about, Cade thought, sitting on this porch with his feet propped up. The thought caused him to shake his head sadly.

  As he guided Loco up the busy street, he glanced back at the mare, and was reminded of the trust that Jack Walker had placed in him. It was enough to make him nudge Loco with his heels and lope straight through town. I ain’t forgot, Luke, he thought. I’ll get around to it.

  Following Jack’s instructions, he rode out of Butte to the northwest, passing abandoned mining claims that had once held the hopes and dreams of men desperate for the strike that would mean the difference between a life of toil and one of leisure. Looking at the rough, unhealing scars left by their picks and shovels, Cade felt a sense of sadness for the earth. Anxious to leave the mining town behind, he held Loco and the mare to a steady lope until he had left the saloons and the mines behind him.

  Jack’s directions were easy to follow. He rode for about five miles up the valley before he came to the stream Jack had described. Looking as if it had split a huge boulder high up on the slope, the water flowed directly out of the rock and followed a ravine of lush grass that painted a wide slash of dark green down the gray mountainside. Knowing this had to be the stream he searched for, Cade guided Loco up the ravine. The bottom of the ravine was soft and spongy, a result of the grass-filled stream, with patches of moss here and there—in stark contrast to the dry hillsides.

  As Jack had predicted, Cade did not see the cabin beyond the huge boulder until he was practically in the small yard before it. Surprised, he reined Loco back and paused beside the boulder to look the situation over. The dwelling was small. There was a barn behind it with a small corral, and an outhouse on the opposite side of the stream with stepping stones leading across. There was no sign of anyone outside, but there was smoke coming from the chimney.

  “Hello the house,” he called out, thinking it a good idea to announce himself. Hearing no response, he was about to call out again when a slight movement on his left caused him to flinch. Startled, he turned to discover a double-barreled shotgun looking right at his head. “Whoa!” he blurted involuntarily, and backed Loco quickly away. The shotgun was in the hands of the biggest Indian woman he had ever seen, and she followed him step for step as he backed up, the shotgun still aimed at his head. The broad face was void of expression as she drilled him with eyes dark and menacing, her heavy arms never wavering under the weight of the shotgun. Remembering then, he asked, “White Moon?”

  The mention of her name caused only a slight lowering of the weapon as she continued to stare into the stranger’s face. Finally, she spoke. “I am White Moon. What do you want?”

  Cade began a hasty explanation. The woman looked like she wanted to shoot him. “My name’s Cade Hunter. I work for Mr. Walker. He sent me to take his daughter to Deer Lodge.” The explanation did not seem to satisfy the stoic Indian woman, so Cade went on. “I’ve got a letter here from Jack that says so.”

  “Let me see, White Moon.” The voice came from the cabin door. Moments later, a slender young girl stepped out onto the small porch. She walked up beside the Indian woman and took the letter from White Moon’s hand. After reading the brief message, she looked at Cade with an appraising eye. “My dad is hurt?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cade replied, “broke his leg.”

  She frowned as if feeling the pain herself, still eyeing Cade carefully. “Is it bad? It must have been if he couldn’t come himself.”

  “It’s a pretty bad break,” Cade answered, still keeping a cautious eye on the large Indian woman, who showed no sign of lowering the shotgun. “Horse rolled on him. Jim Big Tree thinks it’s broke in more’n one place. Anyway, he c
an’t ride, so he sent me to take you to Deer Lodge.” He noticed a slight rise of one eyebrow when he mentioned Jim’s name, but no other change in the Indian’s stone face, and he kept a firm grip on the reins to hold Loco steady. The big gray gelding was becoming impatient with the confrontation and anxious to move his feet.

  “Daddy says I can trust you,” Elizabeth said, gesturing toward the letter.

  “Well, yes’m, I reckon you can,” Cade replied. Like his horse, he was becoming impatient with the standoff.

  Suddenly, she smiled. “You can get down. Don’t shoot him, White Moon.”

  Cade threw a leg over and stood for a moment with one foot in the stirrup, watching White Moon until the somber Shoshone woman slowly lowered the barrel of the shotgun. “I’m obliged,” he said as he stepped down to the ground and turned to face the young lady.

  She extended her hand, smiling. “I’m Elizabeth Walker,” she said. “I apologize for the rude welcome.”

  He took her hand, then quickly released it as if afraid he might hurt her. “That’s all right,” he said, then asked, “Have you folks had some trouble up here?”

  “No. That’s just White Moon’s usual welcome for strange men. There are a lot of aimless drifters that pass through Butte. It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a while one of them finds his way up here.” She looked at White Moon and smiled fondly. “She’s been looking after me since I was a little girl.”