by Caleb Rand
As Jule pulled back the hammer of his rifle, Linny reached out quickly and grabbed Will’s coat sleeve. ‘No!’ she cried, and tugged him off balance as her pa’s rifle crashed out.
The bullet whined across the snowscape, narrowly missing Will’s neck and the mule. He swore and reached down with his right hand to pull the cut-down carbine from its scabbard.
Jule fired again. But he was strung up and worried for fear of hitting Linny. Will’s bullet slammed high across his shoulder, knocked him hard against the wall of the cabin. He dropped to his knees and the rifle fell from his fingers. He was reaching for it with his left hand when Will fired again. But it was a shot for scaring, not killing. Will couldn’t bring himself to do that, not with Linny watching.
He stood and watched, uncertain what to do next. Linny, too, was in doubt, and also frightened. She went back on to the stoop and hurled her pa’s Winchester out into the snow.
‘Please go, Will. They’ll be here any minute. One of them is Madge’s uncle,’ she called out. Then she helped her injured pa back into the cabin.
The mule was stompy now, bothered by the gunshots and the squealing from the paint in the corral. It was a wild few seconds before Will could get a foot in the stirrup and swing to the saddle. He gave a sharp whistle for Rio and kicked the mule into its eccentric run.
‘I’ll be back, Jule, I’ll have me some final proof,’ he gave as loud notice to her father. ‘Linny, return that buggy to Polson, an’ stay there,’ he added.
Will headed west, toward Polson, but less than ten minutes later, when the mule swung up on a slight rise, the first gunshot cracked the cold air.
‘Goddamn it,’ he yelled. Jule was right. There were four horsemen between him and the ridge. He’d never make it that way. He pulled the mule around hard and headed north-east.
There was another gunshot as he headed for the rising ground at the head of Box Canyon. The mule was driving its legs through the snow. It was running all out, but Will didn’t know how much it could take. Behind him, Jule’s men were spanned heel to heel, riding wide of the cabin. Will galloped the mule for the timberline and Rio compassed them, enjoyed the adventure of soft snow around its legs.
It would be ill-fated for a bullet to find its mark at that range, but still, Will bent low at the occasional ranging shots from his pursuers. With the timber-covered slopes of the Missions looming and with the chill starting to gnaw at his body, he knew the riders had settled on outrunning him.
Among the first of the rocky outcrops, Will reined in the mule beside a jack pine. He drew the carbine and sent off a rapid shot at the nearest rider. Then he fired another, then another as fast as he could lever shells into the breech and pull the trigger. With the wild gunfire crashing around him, he remounted and set off again at a run. The live-stock trader in Whitefish had assured him the mule was steady on its feet, a rimrocker, and Will decided to find out how much of one.
Another fifteen minutes hard ride and Box Canyon suddenly gaped wide before him. It was a quarter-mile wide at its easterly maw, but the only trail he knew of narrowed into a rocky cleft at the tail end of the canyon. Hoping there might be a chance on the north side, he ran the mule up the canyon for nearly a mile before putting it up a jagged bumpy slope. The mule sagged at the knees and snorted with exertion as it climbed. Will swung from the saddle on to the narrow defile and, gripping the reins, he hauled the animal upward, slipping and scrambling towards the top.
Somewhere close behind him, a bullet exploded against the rising wall of the canyon and fragments of rock splintered the flanks of his mule. Rio barked once, then lunged forward to head the way over the rim.
Sliding his carbine from its scabbard, Will hunkered against a slab of wind-blown rock. He aimed carefully and triggered one shot into the four riders who were gathering on the canyon floor. A man shouted as he was hit, and Will sent another bullet down the narrow defile. A horse went down thrashing, and its rider scurried for cover. There was some return fire, but for the first time Will realized the shots were from revolvers; only one carried the distinctive crack of a rifle. He fired again, and knocked another rider from the saddle. The man fell, but his boot caught in the stirrup and the horse panicked and took off. It ran further up the canyon, dragging its rider, limp and insensible through the snow.
Will slowly got to his feet. True to his word he was taking them out one at a time. Larris Jule would be a jumpy, troubled man if he knew.
Despite the cold, Will was bathed in sweat and the mule was streaked with lather, and trembling. Will took the reins and walked slowly towards a stand of timber. He was in no immediate danger, the men below would be riding ahead for their stricken colleague. It would be another half-hour before they’d look for another way up. But they wouldn’t rush it. Man or horse, one of them was out of action, and with skinless hands and face, the dragged man would be in little mood to fight. Will gave a thin, humourless smile and wondered if the man could be Slender Madge’s uncle, if he could be the rifleman.
Will didn’t leave much of a trail as steadily he moved further east. He held the palm of his hand down for Rio to rub his nose against and get reassured. Between his strip of land and the Missions, the country was wild and relatively unknown to him. He remounted, and a half-hour later found a spring that ran down from the peaks. He refilled his canteen and watered the mule, rubbed him down with handfuls of snow and soft pine fronds.
To the north, the mountains towered high, and south, beyond Box Canyon, there were steep cliffs and deep gullies. Will’s route lay further east, where the Post and Bole Creeks spilled their way towards the Missouri River.
If Larris Jule had the stomach for it, he’d be waiting for Will to return. Linny Jule, if she felt anything for her pa, would be offering up an entreaty. A plea to return to Snowshoe, with herself as the compliant and dutiful daughter. But Will was hoping she wouldn’t. Being on the receiving end of a birch, wasn’t a ‘duty’ to his way of thinking.
He rode on, but the terrain was harsh and the wind got colder. Several times he worried deer, and one time when he broke from cover of the pine, he saw a grizzly. From a hundred yards it watched him, stood on its hind legs for a better view until he’d ridden by.
Eventually, long, early-evening shadows crept down from the mountains, and the swirling wind even got to him through the trees. He mulled over his predicament and the mule twitched a responsive ear to his words. He handed down a strip of pemmican to Rio, thought it might cheer him up, take his mind off any racoons in the vicinity.
When darkness fell he swung down from the saddle, but he didn’t stop. He walked steadily on, countering the mule’s indignant tug on the bridle. The moon started its nightly climb and the land glowed unearthly bright under the canopy of stars. From a narrow shoulder of the mountain, the canyon dropped away. Snowflakes spiralled downwards hundreds of feet to a silver ribbon of creek. For a moment Will thought about the men who’d be following, then he waved Rio forward, started looking for suitable shelter where he’d make night camp.
11
BREAKING FORCE
In a cleft of split rock, Will built his fire. The rock would reflect some heat, and he made a crude lean-to shelter of dead wood. He gathered snow to melt for coffee, preferring to keep what water he had in the canteen. With cold fingers he unwrapped the food packet that old Caddo had prepared for him, and then fed the mule with a little corn he’d carried behind the saddle. He gave Rio some meat, peas and a dried dumpling he’d saved from the supper he’d had in Polson.
He sat on his saddle in the bower and, munching on a biscuit, wondered if Larris Jule was still at the cabin. He wondered how much further he’d travel before getting back at his pursuers.
Throughout the night, the icy snow continued to fall. He drank another cup of coffee and pulled the saddle blanket over his head. Twice he crawled out shivering and stoked up the fire. Then it got so cold and so near to dawn he stayed on his feet, stamping them for feeling.
A fresh bla
nket of snow covered any tracks he’d made. Up to this point, if Jule’s men hadn’t seen his fire or its smoke, they’d have a hard job following him. Again, he wondered if he should wait and make a stand or go looking for them. They wouldn’t be expecting that. But he thought it best to keep moving until something happened.
When eventually day came he made more scalding coffee. Then he warmed the mule’s blanket over the remains of the fire and packed his traps.
He moved off into the white, soft world. The mule did have sound, reliable footing and Will rode what he estimated to be ten miles. They continued east, but were pushed further north by the terrain. He rode for hours through stands of spruce and aspen. Near midday Rio caught himself a pocket gopher, but Will and the mule made do with the contents of a can of peaches.
Late afternoon, Will rode down into a gully, then up to a shallow, sloping plateau. The land then fell away into rough, ridged territory that stretched dead north. He figured that if he carried on riding, it would eventually bring him to the headwaters of the Swan River; the land where he’d usually spend his winters, trapping wolves.
Along the ridges, the timber was old, first-growth pine. The air was blue-shadowed and very still. He held to the crests of the ridges as long as possible then dropped cautiously into snow-filled ravines, crossed and rose to the next ridge. Will knew that if he kept going north then bent west, he’d get near to Polson within a week. If he swung south, he’d be on his own land and challenging Jule again.
Near sunset, the night winds started to surge off the mountains. Will swore at the cold, started off into a brown study. He’d been riding with a memory of Linny Jule, and it got stronger as the darkness grew. She was standing outside of his cabin, her eyes fixed on him. Her pa needed her support but she was torn between them. Will had just about everything going for him, except the side of her nature that wouldn’t allow a killing.
Will was holding the reins lightly, walking the mule when without warning it flung up its head, dragging him from the saddle. He grasped the reins with his free hand, leaned out and went to ground.
‘It’s all right, it’s only a hole,’ he reassured the alarmed animal as he got to his feet. ‘A few hundred feet deep maybe, but only the width o’ your gut across. We can step it. Rio! he called out with a calm he didn’t feel. ‘You follow on. We’ll show you how it’s done.’
Will didn’t waste any time. He pulled on the mule’s bridle, inched it forward until its hoofs struck the ravine’s edge. The animal gave out a harsh blast from its nose and throat and Will let the pressure off for a moment. ‘Come on, stretch your neck. You’re already halfway across,’ he said. Then he pulled sharply on the reins again.
Suddenly one of the mule’s hind feet slipped. In panic it lunged forward, its momentum carrying it clear across the gaping hole. The movement caught Will off balance, but still clinging to the reins he pushed himself out and landed beside the mule. He was dragged off his feet again as the mule sought stable footing, got to his feet and put a hand on the animal’s trembling neck. ‘I wasn’t goin’ to jump. I just thought you’d like to know,’ he said, wryly.
Will’s face was sticky and when he took off his hat, sweat ran through his stubbly face, left salt on his lips. Cautiously, he led the mule downward, away from the ledge. ‘We ain’t goddamn lemmin’s,’ he greeted Rio as the hound went snuffling past them. ‘You’re supposed to be on the lookout for things likely to kill us.’
The trail he was on descended through icy shale to the brink of a creek far below. By the time they got there, the mule was dead beat and Will stopped at the water’s edge to unsaddle it and put on a loose hobble. He did without a fire, just rolled in his blanket again, with Rio close up for the comfort. Most parts of him ached, but sleep caught him before he felt the pain in his bones.
Some time after Will had made the jump, Lester Madge and a man called Goober York halted their horses. They’d cut the tracks of Will’s mule as it left the trail along the canyon floor.
‘We’ll wait here for the others,’ Madge said.
Two hours later, it was Larris Jule who arrived with Tom Moss, a hired gunman. York told them of the loss of two riders.
‘Stryker must think he’s on a goddamn buffler shoot,’ Jule snarled, rubbed at the pain high in his shoulder. When he’d simmered down, it was four men again who pushed uptrail. They followed Will’s clear prints until darkness caught them on the switchback.
York suggested they retreat to better ground for night camp. ‘We’ll over-ride the place, smudge up his tracks with ours, won’t see where he turns off,’ he reasoned.
Jule got down from his horse and led it forward up the switchback. ‘Where’s he supposed to turn off?’ he sneered and continued on towards the top of the ridge.
‘We’re tired, an’ so are the horses. Why don’t we make camp, have ourselves some grub,’ York complained.
Jule kneeled and lit a match a few inches off the ground. He took a close look, walked forward and stared into the darkness, then came back. ‘Stryker’s goin’ on. He’s pushin’ for the high ground,’ he told them.
‘Goober may be right. The feller could break trail anytime,’ Madge said.
‘Well if he does manage it, he’ll ride west for a time. He was serious about takin’ us one by one. So if he don’t, he’ll be wantin’ to get back to Polson. He could head for the ranch even, to finish it there. I would, if I were him.’
Jule led them forward, and every hundred yards or so he dismounted and flared up another match. It was late when they neared the rim of the canyon, where he eventually found Will’s prints. He dropped the match, stamped on it quickly.
‘Down there. He’s below us now. Let’s move,’ he directed his men excitedly.
‘I reckon not,’ York objected. ‘That’s a one-time Bole Mines track. They had burros to take ’em up an’ down to the cabins. We go now, get stuck halfway down, how’d we get back? That’s if we don’t fall to our deaths before.’
‘Stryker made it down, goddammit,’ Jule snapped.
‘That was by daylight, Larris. An’ besides, he’s got us on his tail,’ Madge put in.
The whites of Jule’s eyes smouldered eerily in the darkness and his voice got shrill. ‘I can almost sniff him. He ain’t more’n two hours ahead. We go.’
‘I know this land, you don’t,’ York continued his grumble. ‘There’s breaks in the trails, I’m tellin’ you. We’re still a spit out o’ Bole, so I ain’t for playin’ up like a bighorn.’
‘If Stryker’s still alive, he’ll still be there in the mornin’, Madge said coolly.
Jule stood thinking for a moment. Like most inherently fearful men he sensed some relief in holding over. ‘I already sent a man into Bole. But someone goes back downgrade to watch the creek. Stryker could make a trail through there, get back around us. You know the country, Goober. You go,’ he ordered.
12
COLD TRAIL
Will watched the first, bleak veins of light seep into the canyon. He sat up and shuddered inside his blanket, worked at the aches in his back and shoulders. He smoked a string of cigarettes and waited, got to thinking that if he’d left Linny Jule to freeze, up in the Snowshoe country, he wouldn’t be in such a dire position now.
Then he noticed the mule had strayed. He looked upstream, saw that the animal had moved against its hobble, had started to nose at some waterside vetch. He quickly got to his feet and ran forward to keep the mule and the vetch separated, looked beyond the mule to the dark, blocky shape of a miner’s cabin.
The place looked deserted but, drawing the Remington, he went forward tensely. Watching for movement, listening for the merest sound, he pushed a boot against the part-open door.
Inside the old, tar-boarded place, he saw very little, the vestige of a double bunk along one wall. ‘Fair fixins’,’ he muttered, thinking of his own poor night’s lodging, then went back to bring up the mule. With a weird survival instinct, he turned to look back along the creek bed. A hundre
d yards away, a man suddenly hunkered down. Goober York was sited on a big, oval boulder, and he brought a rifle sharply to his shoulder. He fired, and the bullet spat and whined off rocks less than a yard from where Will was standing.
The mule flung up its head at the sound and Will made a run for it with Rio, mocking the excitement with a bark. Will pulled the hobble loose, and ran the mule back towards the cabin. Another bullet chopped up the ground ahead of him and another shattered a plank of the cabin wall. Will slung the fetter rope around the mule’s neck, heaved it through the doorway. Then, with Rio close at heel, he made one more return dash to grab back his saddle and blanket.
The marksman was firing systematically as Will swung the saddle across the mule’s back. ‘They found us, all right,’ he called out to Rio, as more lead smashed up the cabin. ‘We’re goin’ to have to get the hell out o’ here.’
The excited hound leaped on to the remains of the top bunk, and Will drew the mule as far back as he could into a corner. He swore with gusto as he watched the black clapboards disintegrate, the floor inside the doorway erupt with grey, dusty puffs.
Then the firing ceased.
‘Hah, that’ll be his reload,’ Will said, ‘The bastard’ll probably move now.’
The day started to open, and the creek trail grew brighter. Will knew that a chance shot would soon reach him, cripple the mule or Rio.
He stepped to the small, side window and tried to see along the creek, but the angle of view was too narrow. He edged around to the door, pulled off his hat and peered along the creek. The rifleman was contemplating what to do next, had the barrel of his gun dipped. Will swore and ducked back quickly, wondered how many of them were out there.
‘What the hell we done to deserve this?’ he shouted, as he chugged the mule back out through the door.