Powder Keg

by Ed Gorman

  We ground-tied our horses and walked up to Chuck Gage’s place. Smoke in the chimney was the only sign that anybody was inside.

  Jen knocked.

  “He sleeps a lot. I think all those years in the mountains finally took their toll. You can only have so many run-ins with death before you just start to fold up. Mike and I have an uncle like that. He was an old man before he was thirty-five.”

  She glanced at the door, then knocked again.

  “I hope he worked up that map for us.”

  “Knock a little louder this time.”

  “Now who’s giving the orders?”

  “He might not hear us in this wind.”

  “For around here, this isn’t much of a wind at all.”

  This time, she knocked with her fist, clublike, instead of just her knuckles. The door swung inward.

  “Chuck? Chuck, are you in there?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  “I wonder if he’s all right,” she said, as she heaved the door inside.

  No moon, no lamp. She held the door open as I came in and we both let our eyes adjust to the gloom.

  Because the place was so small, it was easy to see what had happened in a single glance.

  Chuck lay face down on the floor. One of the rocking chairs had been knocked over and several magazines had been scattered from on top of a small pine stand.

  Jen was already kneeling next to him.

  “He’s alive.” Then: “Chuck, it’s Jen. We’re going to help you sit up. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  His only response was a muffled moan. I got on the other side of him. We lifted him as gently as we could to his feet. His knees gave out with the slightest pressure on them. I got my arm under his and around his back. Jen did the same. We half-dragged him to the daybed.

  We laid him on his back. She brought a jar of water and a white cloth over. We started looking for the spot on his head where he’d been hit. Easy enough to find, really. He’d been struck with something edged and hard—probably the handle of a handgun—just behind the ear. In his condition, it was easy enough to knock him out.

  Jen soaked the rag and started to clean the wound. His eyes were still closed. He moaned every few seconds. Once, I was pretty sure he started to speak words. But the words were never finished. He went back to moaning.

  I walked around the place. I could see melted snow tracked in by somebody’s boots. The visitor had been there quite recently.

  On the small table next to the two stacked orange crates he used as cupboards for his canned goods, I saw a paper where somebody—likely Chuck—had started to sketch out two maps.

  I held them up for inspection. They were basically the same drawing but he had so many lines and erasures on the pages that it was hard to tell exactly what the map showed. No words identified the various points.

  “What happened, Chuck?”

  When I turned around to look at him, he was sitting up. Jen was still daubing at his wound.

  “They just come in. Didn’t knock or nothing. Come in and one of ’em grabbed me around the neck and got at me so he could strangle me. They didn’t even say nothin’. They waited until I was choking before they even spoke to me.” He started coughing. It went on for some time. She patted him on the back the way she would a baby. He kept staring at me. When he quit coughing, he said, “That’s what I needed. A .44 like our friend has. I woulda cut ’em both down.”

  “Who were they, Chuck?”

  He tried to talk but the coughing had cut in.

  “Pepper and Connelly. They said they followed you here and wanted me to tell them what you and me talked about.” More coughing. “Damned lungs. I don’t think they quite healed up from the last time I had pneumonia. I just treated it myself. Maybe I shoulda gone to my doc.”

  “Your head still hurt, Chuck?”

  “Yeah, but I’ll get over it.”

  He looked at Jen. “You’re a saint, Jen, you know that?”

  “I’m not sure Mr. Ford there believes that.”

  “Aw, what’s he know?”

  Jen put her hands on his arms and began the slow process of laying him back down.

  “Guess my head does still hurt a good piece.”

  “Of course it does. Now you just relax and lie still there.”

  “I had the map all set out for you when they came in. Did you see it over there on the little table?”

  “It was gone. How long were you out, you think?” I asked.

  “I was in and out, Noah. I’d try and get up and then I’d just fall back to sleep. I was real shaky. I thought I was gonna die. It was like a nightmare. My heart would be racin’ and then my head would be poundin’ and I’d hear the wind—”

  Jen glanced at me and shook her head. No more questions for Chuck. And she was right. The assault had scared him. He was responding more to his fear of death than he was his actual pain. An old man, alone, a couple thugs like Connelly and Pepper knocking him out—death probably hadn’t been far away and the terror of it still lingered in his eyes and shaky voice.

  But there was one question I had to ask.

  “Chuck, you think you could give Jen a good idea of where Mike might be?”

  Given all his fear and pain, the smile was a surprise.

  “Probably won’t take long, Noah.” To Jen, he said: “You remember a place called ‘the dungeon’?”

  “Sure. We used to play in it all the time.” Now she smiled. “Sure. That would be the perfect place.” To me: “It’s a cave within a cave. Our folks forbid us to play in it but of course we did. It looks like just a small cave but if you wiggle your way through this opening in the back of it, there’s this other cave that’s probably a good twenty feet deep. Mike always said it reminded him of a dungeon. So that’s what we called it.”

  “He’s there. That’s what I figure, anyway. I would’ve said that they’d never have found him but now that they have the map, they won’t have any trouble except for the storm. But even then, that cave is only about a tenth of a mile off the main path up the mountain. If Mike has been outside and left any tracks—they could find him pretty easy.”

  The storm was the only thing I’d been worried about until we found Chuck. Now we had the storm and two killers to be concerned with. And it was hard to say which would prove more dangerous.

  For the next ten minutes, Jen played nurse. She got Chuck settled onto his bed. She took the remains of the coffee, poured it into a tin cup, and set it on top of the potbellied stove to get reheated fast.

  All I could think about was getting on that mountain path. I was sure they’d killed Daly and they’d damned near done in Chuck.

  But Jen was now a mother of sorts and any man who tries to stop a mother from tending to one of her own is in big trouble.

  “You ride into town and see the doc if your head gets any worse. You hear me, Chuck?”

  “I hear ya, Jen.”

  “And don’t go sampling any whiskey. You need to stay sober in case you do have to go see the doc.”

  He winked at me.

  “She’d make a nice warden, wouldn’t she?”

  “You men wouldn’t last a day without women to tell you what to do.”

  “Them mountain men seemed to do OK for themselves without women, Jen.”

  “That was only because they were part bear. I’m talking about normal men like you and Ford here. You just hate to admit that women know a lot more than you give them credit for.”

  “She also thinks women should get to vote, Noah.”

  “She sounds pretty radical to me, Chuck.” Actually, I’d been in and out of Washington long enough to know that women, sooner than later, would be getting the vote. Then, I said: “We need to move, Jen. They’ve got a good head start on us.”

  So we said our goodbyes and went outside.

  “You think he’ll be all right?” Jen asked.

  “It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s us. Connelly and Pepper have to know tha
t we’re not that far behind them. They’ll probably try and bushwhack us.”

  “You sure have some nice friends, Ford.”

  We mounted up and started out of the yard. The foothills were maybe a quarter mile away, the mountain base a mile or so. Visibility kept getting worse because of the swirling dark clouds that were an ominous predictor of what was to come.

  We were riding now for the last time. As soon as we reached the mountain upslope, we’d be walking our horses. The angle would be such that it was the only way to proceed safely.

  As we neared the foothills, the acid in my stomach started clawing at all the soft tissue in my gut, raising hell with it. I’d gone through the whole war like that. My stomach insisted on telling my brain what it didn’t want to hear. That soon there would be trouble. Maybe real bad trouble.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 18

  Didn’t take me long to realize that it was going to be a journey of fits and starts. Wind and snow would whoop up on the narrow mountain trail we were ascending and I’d have to argue with Jen to give our horses a rest from fighting the headwinds and blinding snow.

  Then we reached a natural cove made out of scrub pines. There wasn’t any use trying to talk in that wind, so I turned in the saddle and pointed to the covelike formation of pines.

  She didn’t like it. She’d argued against the first time I’d told her we needed to stop. I understood her reason for wanting to keep going. I probably would have been just as single-minded if my brother was in the danger hers was.

  She relented and we both dropped off our horses and led them to the area I’d pointed to. The temperature hadn’t frozen my extremities yet. The wool scarf I had wrapped around my face had kept my nose and cheeks from freezing. But as I had to remind myself, we weren’t even a fourth of the way toward reaching the mountain plateau where Chuck Gage had said Chaney was likely hiding.

  The animals were white with snow. We brushed them off, though realistically in a few minutes they’d be white again.

  “I’m not waiting more than fifteen minutes,” she barked at me when we huddled inside the windbreak of the pines.

  “I know you’re in a hurry but there’s something you’re forgetting.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Let’s make an agreement, all right? You don’t know one damned thing about these mountains. I grew up here. So let’s agree right now that you don’t give me any more of your so-called advice, all right?”

  “I may not know the mountains but I know horses.” The snowstorm had put me in as bad a mood as it had her. “And I’ll tell you one thing. One little piece of bad luck with our horses and then we’ll really be behind Connelly and Pepper. There’re a hundred places on this trail where our horses could stumble and hurt themselves. And then what? Then we’re on foot.”

  But she was relentless. Her cold red cheeks and the snow trapped in her eyelashes had given her a doll-like look. But the dark eyes were angrier than ever. She might look like a doll but she was a damned angry one. “You think I haven’t thought about the horses? But my brother’s life is at stake here, federal man. This is just a job to you. But to me it’s saving my own flesh and blood. So I’m going to push my horse as hard as I can. And if it breaks a leg and has to be shot, so be it. And if you don’t like the way I’m pushing my horse, you can always head back. You want revenge for your friend. But your friend’s already dead. My brother is still alive—at least hopefully. And I’m going after him right now whether you’re with me or not. Now do you understand me, you stupid bastard?”

  And with that, she stalked over to her horse and threw herself up on the saddle and headed back for the trail again.

  We didn’t speak for a good hour or more.

  The snow thinned, the wind backed down some. The sun came out for ten minutes. It had a hallucinatory quality. Middle of a snowstorm—even if it had abated to a degree, it was still a snowstorm—you don’t expect to see the sun. It put me in mind of all those desert stories where the man dying of thirst begins to imagine fountains and creeks. Was I imagining the sun?

  “Maybe we’re catching a break,” she said.

  I’d been expecting her to still be of the snarly persuasion. I didn’t know if she always had this fierce side or if her brother’s situation had created it. But now her voice was gentle, friendly.

  “Is that really the sun?”

  She laughed. “That’s what I was thinking. I know people imagine they see things when they get snow-blinded. But since we both see it maybe there’s a possibility that it’s really there.”

  I looked up to check on it again. A round golden ball throwing off waves of energy behind a screen of snow.

  “I want to say something, Noah.”

  “You don’t need to. I know you’re sorry you snapped at me back there.”

  And she snapped at me again. “I was going to say that I was serious about you going back. I can do this alone.”

  “Oh.”

  “You really thought I was going to apologize?”

  “Well, I thought it might at least be a possibility.”

  “Well, it isn’t.”

  That didn’t leave me with a whole hell of a lot to say.

  We plunged ahead.

  About half an hour later, the snow still thin but the sun long gone, I heard Jen shout—heard the sound but not the word.

  What I saw was Jen half-throwing herself off her horse. She landed on an icy patch just off the trail and skidded a couple feet before she was able to balance herself.

  “She may have hurt herself,” Jen said.

  The horse held its foreleg daintily off the ground. It snorted softly.

  I went over to it and brushed its face free of snow and then squatted down next to it. Jen was beside me within seconds.

  After checking the hoof, we both took turns gently examining the areas of the forearm, knee, fetlock joint, and the pastern. Those were the most likely places where injury would have been done.

  “We hit an icy patch that startled her and she sort of reared and when she came down on her weight, she limped a little. I got off her as soon as I could.”

  I kept touching parts of her lower leg. I couldn’t feel any broken bones or swollen patches. But then bruises or muscle pulls could be just as painful.

  Jen said: “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I always thought I did pretty well under pressure. But I’m finding out otherwise. I really am sorry.”

  “Like you say, he’s your brother. I don’t know that I’d be acting any better.”

  “Oh, sure. After all you’ve been through.”

  I stood up. Brushed my jeans off. “Before the war, this old sergeant told me that you never know who’ll do well in battle. And he was right. Some of the really tough men just folded right up. And some of the quiet little men, who didn’t look like very much, they kept calm and helped the other soldiers all through the war. And a situation like this is no better. You’re holding up very well.”

  She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then laughed. “Your cheek is like marble. Could you even feel my lips?”

  “Not much. Maybe if we ever get in a nicer spot, we’ll try that again.”

  She smiled and then looked down at her horse’s leg. The foot was on the ground now.

  “Think I should try and walk her?”

  “Worth a try. Just take it slow.”

  She nodded, picked up the reins.

  We both muttered curses when the animal took its first step. A decided limp.

  She halted the animal. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “Let’s see if she can walk it off. If it’s muscular, that’s at least a possibility.”

  A wave of sprayed snow covered a wide area, including us. It had the feel of somebody sprinkling salt on you.

  “All right,” she said. “Guess I should try one more time.”

  You always feel sorry for the horse in a moment like that, but being a selfish human being, your own needs are stronger than your
pity and so you watch with more objectivity than you should. The horse limped four more times when pressure was put on the damaged leg.

  “I just can’t put her through this anymore, Noah.”

  “Keep going.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Just keep going.”

  I’d been around enough military horses in enough military situations to know that sometimes the animals could surprise you—and probably themselves—if you kept pushing.

  And that was what she did, finally.

  Limp limp limp.

  And Jen frowning and cooing and making maternal sounds.

  And then—no limp.

  Three, four, five times, no limp.

  And this time, it wasn’t just a peck on the cheek I got.

  This time it was arms thrown around my neck and our lips lingering on each other for a good long time.

  Chapter 19

  Later in the afternoon, after the snow and wind had abated for nearly an hour, we picked up tracks their horses had left in a stretch of powdery snow. No wagon tracks, though. Anybody who lived in the foothills had probably stayed inside that day, fearing the snow.

  Because there was no ice on that stretch, we made good time on the snow, leading our horses up the first slope. We’d already made our decision about that night. Jen talked about the cabin we could stay in if luck got us there before full night. We could travel in the dark, with or without moonlight, but the biggest part of the trip would be the next day and we would need a night’s sleep for that.

  Luck didn’t hold.

  Snow began to swirl again as the long shadows of early dusk began to stretch across the valley below us. The temperature was holding so we didn’t have to worry about frostbite but the cabin she’d talked about sounded a lot better than a jury-rigged lean-to.

  My horse began to tire. I held up my hand for us to halt.

  I fed my horse, cleaned off the snow, and then led him into some pines so he could get out of the slowly increasing wind for a while.

  “How far you think this cabin of yours is?”

  She smiled. “You sound like you don’t believe me.”