“That's more ‘n I need,” Blaine said. He started frantically looking for a fly to bait his hook, running along the bank and swatting at the prospects, but missing like a blindfolded child trying to hit a piñata.
Sammy finally got the hook loose and spied a Black Stone Fly on the grass just to the left of where he was kneeling. He pulled his hat slowly from his head and gave it the quick whip to the target. “You better hurry up. I'm fixin’ to bait my hook.”
Blaine stopped and looked with horror. “How'd you get that fly so fast? Only a pile of fresh shit could bring a fly that fast.”
Sammy chuckled. “Yeah, well this pile of shit is gonna be fishin’ in just a shake.”
Blaine hustled over to his saddlebags. “It's time to go backwater style,” he said as he pulled out some jerky and bit off a piece, then worked it onto his hook. Quickly, he moved down the bank to a spot where it cut sharply wider and the water slowed to a spiraling pool that was several feet deep. The overhang at the deepest part was where Blaine slowly worked himself into position.
He could see Sammy about thirty yards upstream, casting again at the same spot he'd caught his first one. “Let ‘em come up empty for just a minute, just a little bit,” Blaine said to himself. “That's all I need ‘cause I know there's a big one right under this bank … right under here.” He lowered the hook with the peanut-size piece of jerky on it down a foot into the dark water, where it drifted under the bank. Blaine glanced upstream at Sammy, then turned his attention back to the task at hand and moved the line slowly down the bank. “Come on now. Come on.” He eyed Sammy again and had a sinking feeling that he would hit any second. His gaze turned back to the dark waters just in time to see the silvery shadow darting toward his hook.
The force of the strike almost pulled the aspen branch from his hands. “Whoaa!” Blaine yelled as he quickly regained control of his pole and tugged upward. The fish was a four-pounder, and broke the water flailing and snapping, creating slack and then tremendous jerk on the line. Blaine quickly swung the big fish for the bank, but it whipped hard and suddenly came loose of the hook, falling like a ghost toward the water. It landed on the bank a foot from the edge and began flopping wildly toward the water. Blaine dove for the fish at the instant it flipped over the bank on the way to the freedom of its universe. His hands clamped onto the middle of the slippery fish as his body hit the edge of the bank, with more of him hanging over than on firm ground. He tumbled into the water, submerging completely with his arms outstretched, clutching the fish as though nothing else in the world mattered. The icy-cold enveloped him and rolled into his boots, searching out his toes as the last to be swallowed. With no arms to steady himself, Blaine squirmed and maneuvered to get his legs under him, then rose triumphantly with the fish fighting, but firmly in his grip.
He stood waist-deep in the water and stared at his prize for a moment before flinging it twenty feet up onto land. “See if you can flop your way back from there.”
Blaine sloshed his way over to his hat, which floated at the edge of the pool, about to make its way into the main current.
“You in there invitin’ ‘em to supper?” Sammy yelled.
“Hell yes!” Blaine yelled exuberantly. He hustled out of the stream and over to the fish, then held it over his head like a trophy. “This one wants to sit at the head of the table!”
Sammy's eye's widened. “Lord almighty! That monster came outta this stream?”
“He sure did. I had to bulldog ‘m outta the water, but I was gettin’ hot anyways.”
“Well, let's clean ‘em up and get ridin’. We've got us a feast now.”
Chapter 30
The long day's ride was better than fifty miles and ended at the southeast base of San Pedro Mountain, well beyond Twin T. territory and alive with surroundings new to both men. They made camp on a creek that fronted an open meadow and gave view to the north toward the canyon that would be the compass point for the following morning's ride.
Trout sizzled on the spit while the horses fed on lush meadow grass, their tails occasionally flicking at flies. Blaine smoked a cigarette and turned the spit, gauging the remaining cooking time. His stomach rumbled with hunger. He looked to the west, admiring the towering cotton-ball clouds with underbellies coated in the orange and red of an arrived sunset. It would be dark within the hour.
Sammy kneeled at the creek and washed the trail dust from his face and neck. The water felt refreshing, and it soothed in a way that made him aware of how tired he was. He walked back to the fire and squatted down to inspect the progress. “Man, that's smellin’ good.”
“If yer anywheres as near hungry as me, we might finish it all.” “
“It'll be close. Better eat it all or get shut of it or a bear might show up for a midnight feedin’.”
“Might show up no matter what, but I'll be nuzzled up with all my artillery.”
“Yeah, Dobe will stir if he catches scent of somethin’.”
“Seesaw too. Good thing, ‘cause I reckon I could sleep through a buffalo stampede tonight.”
“Yep, me too.”
Sammy and Blaine gorged themselves on fish and each ate a biscuit for good measure. They staked their horses in close and built the fire up, then rolled smokes as the last of the daylight faded like a receding gray shoreline. “Let's have us a bit of that whiskey against the night,” Sammy said.
“I'm for that.” Blaine reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the bottle wrapped in an extra shirt. “Here ya go,” he said, extending the bottle to Sammy.
“Oh no … that first pull is all yours … fair ‘n’ square.”
“Well, all right then.” Blaine pulled the cork and took a long pull. “Oooohhhhh. It ain't too smooth, but it's right for the night,” his raspy words rang. He handed the bottle to Sammy who took a long pull and then a deep breath.
“Yep, that'll bring the stars out.” He handed the bottle back to Blaine, who corked it, and both men lit their smokes. They sat quietly for a moment, watching the fire burning brightly in the dark, cool breeze.
“Ya know, I figured you'd a made this trip with one of the Taylor brothers or maybe Lundy,” Blaine said.
Sammy flicked his ash. “Each of ‘em offered … damn near insisted. Got mad about it when I said no. But I didn't care to be obliged. Just wasn't the way I wanted it to happen.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
Sammy took a drag and blew out a thin, slow line of smoke. “When you told me you were movin’ on and headin’ to Denver … well, that's a different deal.”
“Yeah, seems I get the itchin’ dust down my back every year or so. Only thing cures it is movin’ on. Two years at the T was a record, save when I was a kid. I'm sparked up about Denver. Might just hang on there fer a bit. Get to know some a them city gals,” Blaine smiled to himself. “Who knows … maybe open up a whorehouse ‘n’ reeetire to a different feather bed each night. Spend all my profits in my own business, ‘less I can make it a condition of employment for my fillies—one night a week each for the boss.”
“Your nuts would shrivel up and fall off before you were thirty.”
“Maybe … but what a way to go.”
“That's what they all say till they're on the way out.”
Sammy laid out his bedroll, then rolled himself another smoke and reclined with his head on his saddle. Blaine did likewise, and the two men lay out under the stars speckling the sky like a handful of white sand strewn over black marble. “How ‘bout one more taste of that whiskey?” Sammy suggested.
“You know it.” Blaine handed Sammy the bottle. He took a swig and handed it back to Blaine who hoisted it and knocked back a slug. Both of them lit their smokes and lay back looking up at the sky.
“Moon's a little late gettin’ up tonight. Havin’ trouble climbin’ over that ridge. The dark sure makes them stars jump out,” Blaine said.
“Yes, sir. There's a few of ‘em out there.”
“Ya know, it's just hard to figure th
ere ain't no end to it—or that there is an end to it. It just stupefies my pea brain. Blaine took a drag and gazed at the sky. “You believe in God?” Blaine asked.
“Yep. You?”
“I reckon I do. Hard to figure anything else that could account for all this. Some folks got different ideas. When I was over to Santa Fe those years back, I heard this dude … called hisself a doctor—not a medical doctor—a doctor of science or some such thing. He was street preachin’, but it weren't religion. Said man come from apes … and apes had slithered outta the muck … being one thing, and then another, and another … over a long time, until finally they was apes … and the apes finally becomin’ man. Said there isn't a God—just science and this deal called ‘evolution.’ He said when man can build a powerful enough spyglass, the secrets of the universe will be unlocked, and we'll know all there is to know. It made me kind of wonder, though. If we came from apes, how come there's still apes runnin’ around? Maybe they's just the slow ones. You ever heard of that kinda stuff before?”
“Yeah, people who don't believe in God are called ‘atheists.’ I don't follow that line of thinking, though. The way I see it, science is only the means of our existence—not the cause or the purpose of it.”
“Whadaya mean by the means?”
“Well, it's sort of like our horses being the means of us getting to Denver, but the cause of ‘em going there is us wantin’ to go there…. And the purpose of us wantin’ to go there is a whole different pot of beans. Science accounts for the makeup of every physical thing in this world, and all in the sky above and beyond, but that's it. The makeup and the maker are two different things. The maker makes the makeup. It's God's creation. I don't believe man has given any purpose or meaning to anything in science. That would be like saying the purpose of gravity is to keep us from floatin’ off into space … or the purpose of a volcano erupting is to let off pressure. That stuff's just action and reaction, or cause and effect, based on scientific laws. It don't include purpose. So science just is. It's just the means. And it ain't ever gonna be purpose or meaning. The way I see it, science must be subordinate to purpose.”
“What's that mean, ‘subordinate?’”
“It means ‘under’ or ‘beholdin’ to.’ It means it ain't the boss.”
“Yeah, but I think that dude in Santa Fe thought there wasn't no such a thing as purpose.”
“Well, it exists for man. Hell, the preamble of the United States Constitution is nothing but a statement of purpose. If you think about it, you can give purpose to the physical structure of man too—and other livin’ things for that matter. Like the purpose of your teeth is to chew. Or the purpose of your intestines and asshole is to get what you need from food and crap out the rest.”
“I might crap out something shaped like a fish tomorrow.”
Sammy laughed. “I know it.” He took the last drag off his cigarette and flicked it into the fire. “Yeah, man will learn more facts about science, but not purpose. Ain't no telescope gonna reveal God or His purpose unless that's His plan. Absolute knowledge ain't in the cards for man. That's where faith comes in. Absolute faith exists because absolute knowledge never will.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
“Me neither, I think. Must be the whiskey talkin’. But you know, it'd be a sorry ass deal without God. The deepest and darkest despair—the most vile and indescribable anguish of people would be without grace or mercy or hope … or redemption. Pointless … like science. Now that's evil. Somehow I don't see that as the upshot of science and evolution, ‘cause it ain't. Instead, it's part of God's creation, where the blackest of black is eclipsed by the brightest of light.”
Blaine took a final drag from his smoke and snubbed it out by his side. “I don't reckon I understood half of what you just said. But if you ever decide to give up on cowboyin’, I believe you could make a go of it at preachin’.”
“Yeah. Amen.”
A shooting star fired across the sky, and two miles upwind, a six-hundred pound black bear foraged in the night.
Chapter 31
The morning broke cold with a breeze that carried frigid mist and an occasional snowflake. Thunderheads to the southeast swelled ominously as they rolled northward, betraying spring and carrying forth the coming storm like the unsettled account of winter not yet vanquished. Sammy and Blaine quickly broke camp after a breakfast of hardtack and jerky, not bothering with a fire for coffee. They saddled up and rode hard to the north, knowing that time was against them.
“Looks like this one's gonna catch us before we get up that canyon,” Sammy shouted as they galloped toward the mouth of Coyote Canyon with the wind picking up and flakes beginning to swirl a bit more than minutes earlier.
In long coats with gloves on and hats pulled low and tight, they raced across the last of the open plain to the beginning of the canyon, their horses breathing hard. “We better be right about this canyon,” Blaine yelled into the ever-stiffening wind. “Ridin’ up a box canyon right now could be a bad deal if it storms like I got a bad feelin’ it might.”
“We're right. The compass heading looked good, and that sure as hell was the southeast corner of San Pedro Mountain where we camped last night. You see anything else around here that could be that canyon?”
“I reckon not. We best get on up it ‘fore we can't see anything.”
The canyon was about ten miles long with an easy ascent and width that varied from a quarter to half a mile. Granite ridges rimmed the top of each side, with the last hundred feet up being an impassable, steep, sheer face. Juniper, pinion, and ponderosa pine dotted the mild slopes, rising gently up and out from the terrain of the bottom, which was mostly rock and sand that became a river of runoff during severe thunderstorms.
They started up the canyon at a trot, riding along the open bottom. Within minutes, they faced a roaring headwind howling along the chute of the canyon floor like a cyclone through a straw. It carried tiny hail that pelted their faces with stinging ferocity. Both men ducked their heads while their horses flinched, turning from side to side as the blitz hit like icy sand being blown from every direction.
“Let's get to them trees upslope!” Blaine yelled.
“Yeah!” Sammy instantly shot back. They reined their horses uphill and quickly climbed their way up to a stand of pines.
Weaving their way into the middle, the assault subsided as quickly as it had beset them. “How'd that wind get in our face so fast, blowin’ that shit devil hail!?” Blaine yelled.
“She sure got in front of us in a hurry. Look on down there now…. That hail already gave up.”
“The wind didn't—and now it's snowin’ pretty good.”
“Let's stay up here and trail on through the trees. Slower goin,’ but not too steep.”
“I'm for that,” Blaine said, then he pulled his gloves off and fished out one of his cigarettes he'd rolled in camp the night before.
“That looks just right,” Sammy said admiringly. Blaine handed him the cigarette and retrieved another from inside his coat. “Let's see if we can get ‘em both on one match,” Sammy challenged, maneuvering Dobe next to Blaine and Seesaw as a wind block. Blaine struck the stick match and both cowboys got their smokes lit. They held their smokes between the thumb and forefinger, cupping it to the inside of their hands and taking drags as they rode on, meandering through the trees with the wind and snow blowing around them in directionless swirls. They rode on for several miles, the heavy, wet snow becoming thicker, with the wind blowing it by like a mask of white camouflage.
Blaine was watching to his left and caught the movement as he passed a slight break in the trees that afforded a view across the canyon. For a moment, he was unsure of what he'd seen. Then, in the lapse between the convulsions of blowing snow, he saw it again, moving on the other side of the canyon. Blaine reined Seesaw to a stop behind one of the pines and looked back at Sammy who was trailing just behind him to his right. As Sammy looked at him, Blaine nodded toward the canyon.
Sammy quickly reined up alongside Blaine. “What's doin?” Sammy asked.
“I think I seen Indians. Couldn't tell how many. Whoever it was, they're moving north too—on the other side of the canyon a little south of us. Maybe half a mile, I reckon.”
“You think they saw us?”
“Don't know. It was pure luck I spotted ‘em. Snow let up for a second and I seen ‘em. What in the hell would they be doin’ out in this mess anyways?”
“No telling. But we better figure out if they're stalking us.”
Sammy rode forward a few steps around the tree, where he thought he wouldn't be in view, but could get a look. He pulled the spyglass from his saddlebag and started scanning where Blaine had indicated. “Damn snow's blowin’ so hard that it's hard to see anything.” He kept looking, and then he saw them. He stared hard for several seconds. Then he knew. “They're comin’. Seven or eight maybe. Apaches, looks like. Must have been huntin’—deer or elk flanks lashed on with some of ‘em. Headed right for us now and makin’ tracks.”
“Well, this ain't no place to be sittin,” Blaine said anxiously.
“You got that right…. Let's get! C'mon Dobe! Heaww!” Sammy snapped his reins and put light heels to his horse. The appaloosa bolted into action, with Blaine and Seesaw right behind. The men rode through the trees at a gallop, weaving back and forth with hooves pounding and the wind blowing the snow to near blindness. Each man gave his horse free rein, trusting their instincts to avoid the trees. They hung on and rode low on the necks, hitting branches that sent snow flying in small explosions. On and on they rode, unable to hear any pursuit in the howling wind and having no idea how close the Indians might be.
The wind and snow suddenly became fiercer, and all visibility ended as a whiteout erased everything. The horses slowed and then stopped. Blaine could just make out Sammy, who was less than ten feet from him. He pulled up alongside him with snow blowing everywhere like some mad blizzard in a closet. He leaned in close to Sammy so they could hear each other. “We gotta keep movin’,” Blaine said. “Best to put as much distance between us and them while we can.”
Along The Fortune Trail Page 13