Along The Fortune Trail

by Harvey Goodman

  He was right next to her when she misstepped on the dark trail and began to stumble. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and they both knew the moment had unexpectedly arrived. They kissed deeply, the tension of desire suddenly unleashing in the heated meeting of their lips with their bodies pressed tightly together. They separated for a moment, then came together again in another sweltering kiss and embrace. After a long minute they came apart, continuing on till they reached the grounds of the Jupiter Sky. She took his hand and led him to her cabin. “You won't be signing the register tonight,” she said.

  The next morning, she heated water and drew a bath in the tub that snugly accommodated two, and they washed each other and wiled away the early hours in a blaze of passion.

  Sammy finally rode north at noon, after a hearty breakfast and a long goodbye.

  Chapter 49

  Raton Pass emptied out onto the plains with the long Rocky Mountain range pressed up against his left flank and running due north, like a guiding arrow. He rode by the settlement of Trinidad, but did not stop, preferring to make time and camp ahead another thirty miles or so. Dobe was ready for the work, and they kept a steady pace through the afternoon, stopping just once so the horse could drink and crop some of the good grass that was present.

  As the sun sank low in the sky over the western range and the sojourn of evening drew near, Sammy pulled up a mile west of the trail at the base of the foothills and made camp inside the edge of the trees near a creek. He cut some deadfall for a fire and began to fish in hopes of having something fresher than jerky and hardtack.

  The creek ran full and deep, and the water slowed in places where the bank cut away in pockets. Sammy worked the banks of the creek for half an hour without luck. Then as the sun set and shade sprinted east across the plains, the fourteen-inch rainbow hit his line. “Hot damn!” he exclaimed, as he reeled the silvery thrasher up and secured it safely onshore.

  He built a fire and rigged the fish on a spit, and then sat in the cool of daylight's last breath and smoked a cigarette while his prize sizzled. Jenny ran through his mind. And then he thought of Annie. He'd never met a woman like Annie before. She was assertive and tough and smart, and she had dealt with circumstances that demanded the rugged individual spirit of the west. And she was all woman. She had undone him like a tornado hitting a pile of hay. His mind ran back to Jenny with pangs of guilt that quickly faded in the cast of overwhelming events of the journey. He knew he loved her, but he also knew that the last six months of his life had changed him in ways he did not yet understand.

  Sammy ate his supper, then built the fire up and laid out his bedroll near it. It had been a good day's ride, even with the late start and nursing a hangover. Now he was tired. Night came with stars visible up through the treetops while he lay stretched out smoking a last cigarette. He took a final drag and exhaled slowly then snubbed it out and drifted into deep sleep.

  Somewhere in his dream he heard his horse whinny and snort, but even in the depth of his slumber he slowly realized the noise did not seem to fit. His mind untangled the oddity at a pace that spoke to how tired he was, how deeply he slept. His eyes opened before he realized he was awake. Then he heard the movement and his hand reached for the gun belt and rifle at his side. The firelight flickered against the black, dancing a pale yellow that lit the bottom canopy of close trees, but revealed nothing else. He listened hard. The sound of twigs crushing under foot cut the air, and Sammy pulled his pistol as he began to sit up. “You let go that pistol or I'll blow a hole in yer head!”

  “Shoot ‘m now Odie,” came another voice from behind Sammy. The rifle barrel pointing at Sammy's face emerged into the light as the man stepped close. He was bearded and wore a greasy canvas coat, homespun trousers, and lace-up boots, and he had on a beaver-tail cap.

  “You want me to shoot ‘m?” came the voice from behind Sammy.

  Sammy laid the pistol by his side and brought his hands to chest height. “I don't know why you're drawin’ down on me, but I haven't done anything and I'm not lookin’ for trouble.”

  A perverted cackle of a laugh came from behind. “You hear that, Odie? He ain't lookin’ fer trouble. You don't hafta look ‘cause it's here,” came the voice and stupid cackle again.

  Sammy saw the man who'd been behind him come into view from the side. He had a cocked pistol trained on Sammy. He moved in close and used his foot to scoot away the guns at Sammy's side.

  “Get up! Easy,” Odie said.

  Sammy stood up, carefully watching the two men holding guns on him.

  “Whadaya wanna do with him, Odie?”

  “Shut up and quit callin’ me by my name, ya dumb bastard. Get a rope and tie ‘m to that tree.”

  “Sorry, Odie.”

  “Move over there,” Odie said, directing Sammy toward the nearest tree with his rifle barrel. “Now get yer back up against it and hold still.”

  The other man looped the rope around Sammy's chest once and tied it at the back of the tree, then looped it around Sammy and the tree a dozen more times before tying it off.

  “Get his knife there and tie his wrists, Clip.”

  The other man looked over at Odie. “You just called me by my name.”

  “He knows mine. Might as well know yers, too. Yep, he's Clip and I'm Odie.”

  Clip finished tying Sammy and then stepped back to observe his work. “That'll hold ‘m.”

  Odie put his rifle down and looked at Sammy's gear. “Fancy saddle here. Bring his horse into the light. See what we got,” Odie said, then heaped more wood onto the fire that had little flame left, but a good bed of coals. It sprang to life, throwing more light around the campsite.

  “What do you boys want?” Sammy asked, his blood rising as Clip led Dobe into the firelight.

  “Yer horse … saddle … guns. And we'll see what else you got. Got some money?” Odie asked. Sammy didn't answer. “We'll know soon enough,” Odie declared.

  Clip cackled away at that. “Looky here at this horseflesh. He's a good one,” Clip said.

  Odie looked the horse over. “Yeah, he could fetch a price. Or maybe keep ‘m. Looks like a appaloosa.”

  Clip liked the idea of keeping him. “I'm the one ridin’ a old mule. If we keep him, I want ‘m.”

  “Heeaaaaw! Git Dobe!” Sammy screamed into the night, so loud and sudden that Odie and Clip jumped. The horse bolted, ripping the lead rope from Clip's hand. Clip drew his pistol and quickly pointed and fired as Dobe was disappearing into the dark. Sammy thought he saw Dobe's right hind-quarter flinch with the shot, but Dobe continued at a gallop off into the woods. “You son of a bitch!” Sammy yelled.

  Odie strode over and backhanded Sammy with all he had, then punched him in the gut, causing Sammy's head to jerk forward as the air left him. “That might of cost you yer life, mister,” Odie declared as Sammy sucked for air.

  Sammy got his breath and his head came up. He was bleeding from the mouth and nose as he looked at Odie. “Well, ain't you just one big ball of tough. Why don't you untie me from this tree and we'll see whose life gives up first.” Odie backhanded him again and Clip stepped in and threw a left hook to Sammy's ribs.

  Sammy groaned with the body shot and worked hard to get a breath. Then he glared at both of them with contempt. “Looks like neither one of you shitbags will be ridin’ my horse.”

  Clip drew his pistol and cocked it, pointing it at Sammy's face. “You just spoke yer last words,” he said.

  Sammy grimly smiled. “Here's a few more—fuck you, you gutless sack of shit.”

  Clip's eyes bulged as he shook with anger and backed up two steps. He pulled the trigger. The blast boomed and smoke shot forth and hung for a moment like a thick fog bank before it began to drift and break up in the light breeze.

  “You missed,” Sammy said.

  Odie and Clip stepped in close and stared in disbelief at the bullet hole inches above Sammy's head, bored into the tree with splinte
red bark around it. “God damn!” Odie said in amazement. “Ain't he the saltiest dude you ever seen.”

  Clip re-cocked the pistol. “No!” Odie said as he put his hand over Clip's hand and pushed the pistol down. “That's too easy for this one. I got a better idea. We'll leave ‘m tied to the tree. See how salty he is when the varmints start feedin’ on ‘m.”

  Clip broke into his cackle like he'd just heard the joke of his life. He squinted and looked at Sammy with delight. “Yeaahhh! Wait'll them coyotes and wolves come lookin’ and them crows come peckin’ on your eyeballs.” Clip cackled some more. Sammy was quiet.

  Odie reached for Sammy's pockets. “Let's see what he's got in here.” He fished out the silver and gold coins Sammy had in a front pocket and looked at them. “There's nigh unto a hundred dollars here! We cut dead center!” Clip danced a little jig while Odie went through the rest of Sammy's pockets and found chewing tobacco and cigarette tobacco and paper and matches. “I'll have me a smoke now … and a chaw too.”

  “Got some more good stuff in these saddlebags?” Clip asked as he sat down by the fire and began to go through one of them. He pulled out a Colt Navy 36 and two knives. “Looky here Odie—another pistol and more knives. He's got three pistols and this Henry rifle and three knives … and a lotta shells.”

  “You fixin’ on fightin a war, mister?” Odie asked. Sammy didn't answer.

  Clip pulled out two tie cheesecloths that contained jerky and hardtack. He opened them and began to eat as he casually went through the rest of the bag. “Looky here,” he said through a mouthful of jerky and cooked flour, “It's a little fishin’ kit with hooks and such. And he's got hisself a fishin’ pole rigged to this scabbard here … fancy one.”

  Odie sat down at the fire and put the money and other contents from Sammy's pockets on the ground in front of him. Then he grabbed the jerky and hardtack and began to eat.

  Clip pulled out a brown paper bag and peered in it before pulling out a bit of the contents and examining it closely. “This looks like candy,” he called out with the delight of a five-year-old. He put a piece in his mouth, right along with the unfinished jerky and hardtack.

  “Lemme see that,” Odie said, grabbing the bag. He dug out a few pieces, throwing them in with his mouthful and chewing contentedly, slurping and smacking.

  Clip grabbed the other saddlebag and started in on it. He pulled out Sammy's extra shirt, pants, socks, and skivvies and a pair of gloves. Then his eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! Here's a little some-thin’ for us!” Clip pulled out the half-full pint bottle with a cork stopper. “We got us some ‘shine!” He examined the label. “Looks like some homefire.”

  Odie was impatient. “Well, have a drink and pass it here.”

  Clip pulled the cork and smelled it. “It don't smell like corn or rye … or any other I smelled before. But it smells like alcohol. Say, what the hell is this?” Clip asked Sammy as he drew his pistol and aimed it at him, imagining he might get a fear-induced answer.

  Sammy spoke slowly and sincerely. “My grandmother makes her moonshine with prunes. Keeps her happy and regular.”

  Clip looked bewildered for a moment then holstered his gun and took a sip.

  “How is it?” Odie asked.

  “I can taste them prunes … I think. It ain't much fer flavor, but it sure is fermented. He tipped the bottle to his lips and slugged back several ounces, then coughed from it. “Hoooo!”

  “Give it here!” Odie demanded. Clip handed the bottle to Odie, who drank nearly all of it, but left the final ounce for Clip, and handed the bottle back. Odie took a deep breath as he felt the burn. “That is different ain't it? Kinda good—like pine tar liquor or somethin’.”

  Clip looked at the bottle again, then drank the rest and tossed it into the fire. Sammy watched closely as Odie rolled up several cigarettes then handed one to Clip. The two men lit up and began to smoke as they ate more jerky and candy and talked about their haul of booty.

  Odie reached for the coins and divided them up in a way he was sure favored him, then gave the rest to Clip. “There's yer half.” Clip didn't seem to notice any discrepancy and quickly pocketed his loot. “We might could find that horse in the morning. He'd bring a fast hundred,” Odie said.

  “If we find ‘m, I want ‘m,” Clip said, resolutely.

  “Then you gotta give something for ‘m. You don't just get ‘m.”

  “I'll give somethin’. We gotta find ‘m ‘fore I give it anyways.”

  “If you hit ‘m with that shot he might bleed out or be no good. You gotta pay then anyways.”

  “Not if we don't find ‘m. Then it's just like he run away and was gone … and that weren't my doin’.”

  “If yer shootin was anything like yer shootin at that feller, then that horse is just fine. So we oughta look for ‘m.”

  “I hit ‘m, I'm pretty sure.”

  “Maybe. But why'd you even shoot at ‘m?”

  “I didn't want ‘m getting’ away.” Clip quite suddenly had a peculiar look on his face. “I don't feel right. I can't feel my body,” he said slowly with a tapering slur. His expression became disoriented as his head began to roll around and his eyelids went to half-mast.

  “What's wrong with you?” Odie asked Clip, who was no longer able to speak. His body looked like it was melting. His arms flopped limply to his sides, and his head teetered about with gurgling sounds coming from his deformed mouth. Then he simply folded backwards into the dirt and did not move.

  “Clip! Clip!” Odie yelled. He looked over at Sammy. “What's wrong with him? What was in that bottle?” Sammy didn't answer. Odie felt the wave rush over him like an ocean of warm honey permeating every pore. A look of drugged panic beset his face and he tried to get to his feet, wobbling badly as he did so. As he reached a standing position, the intensity of the drug's grip soared by the second. He sensed his final moment had come. Odie stumbled a few steps, then lost consciousness and toppled face first into the campfire.

  Chapter 50

  After the massive overdose of laudanum had brought an end to Clip and Odie, Sammy spent the rest of the night shimmying and squirming to try and free himself of the ropes. The loops around his chest circled down over his arms to where his wrists were tied in front of him. It seemed the upper loops had not relented at all, and his efforts had only left him tired and rope burned all over. Still, he made a little progress with the loops that ran down over his thighs because Clip had run out of rope just before he got to Sammy's knees, and tied off above them. By tiny movements up and down, pushing off the balls of his feet while flexing his knees up and down, one after the other, the rope began to gradually inch upward on his legs. Shortly before dawn, he stopped from exhaustion, and his head hung forward and down as he slept.

  The gray of first light filtered through the trees, revealing the morbid scene in detail. Clip lay dead with his partially-open eyes fixed up toward the sky. Odie had hit the fire dead center with his chest and face. His jacket, shirt, and cap had burned completely, and his naked and charred upper torso lay smoldering, leaving the stench of burned flesh hanging heavy in the air. The horse and mule that Odie and Clip had arrived on stood tied to trees several hundred feet away.

  Sammy thought about the stark circumstances. Two dead men lay fifteen feet in front of him and he was roped to a tree with bound hands and no perceptible means of escape. He was not near any trail, and it was unlikely anybody would happen by and see him, being a hundred feet inside the tree line and facing upslope.

  Looking at Odie and Clip, Sammy wondered how they had managed to come upon him. Perhaps they had trailed him, seeing he was alone, and had planned to take him when he slept. He knew none of it mattered now.

  Imagining a way to get loose strained his thinking. There was nothing viable that came to mind beyond somebody untying him or working his own way free. He'd already worked at it enough to understand the unlikely prospect of it. He prayed and thanked God for seeing him through his encounter with Clip and Odie, but he cou
ldn't imagine that he had survived it to die tied to a tree. He wouldn't accept that, and he again began to shimmy and squirm and work his legs and twist his wrists.

  After a while, he rested and tried whistling for Dobe. His lips were cut and swollen from Odie striking him, and he was unable to generate much volume. He whistled his weak fluted shrill into the woods, then listened. He whistled again and yelled, wishing he were tied to the other side of tree so he could see through to the east and onto the plains and perhaps spot his horse or any travelers. He listened again. All he could hear was the creek faintly running in the distance. He worked his body and wrists again, trying to note any discernable progress other than the fractional movement upward of the rope over his legs. Time dragged on. For long intervals he would work at moving, and then rest, and whistle, and yell, and listen.

  The sun streamed high in the sky as morning gave way to the afternoon. Sammy kept up the routine of work and rest and calling out. His wrists bled from the rope cuts. His body was rubbed raw everywhere the rope looped around and where his back had rubbed on the tree. The more he worked at it, the worse the pain got. But the rope on his legs seemed to have come up several inches so that he could kick his feet out from the tree a foot or so. And he felt as if the rope on his torso had maybe loosened just a bit, but he wondered if it was just imagined. He urinated. His piss burned where it hit the ropes on his legs.

  Late in the afternoon, he saw several buzzards begin their slow circling overhead. He knew it wouldn't be long before they came down. Other scavengers would soon catch scent and come seeking their portion.

  With the twilight came the birds. Half a dozen landed one at a time, then walked cautiously around the campsite determining what was living and what was dead. Sammy grunted and barked demonically, kicking his feet at any bird that ventured his way. The birds settled on Clip and Odie, leaving Sammy alone, as if they knew his status at the tree meant a later opportunity.