Long Road to Cheyenne

by Charles G. West

  With no reason to believe they were being followed by anyone, Cam decided it was safe to leave the girls while he rode toward the mountains in hope of finding a deer. Mary argued against the insanity of a seriously wounded man insisting on trying to ignore his condition. “You’re just trying to kill yourself,” she charged.

  With a little show of impatience, he fired back, “We need meat, all of us. I need meat to build my blood up, and I’m the only one liable to get it. A man can’t build his blood up on salt pork.”

  “Go, then,” Mary said, still exasperated, “but, Cam, for goodness’ sake, be careful.” She could see that he was determined to go.

  Emma begged to go with him, and he tried to convince her that he would feel better if she remained in camp to look after her mother. She argued that Grace was the elder and would be better at taking care of Mary. “It might take us a while to find some game,” he told her, still hoping to discourage her. “We might not find anythin’ at all.” She said nothing, but continued to gaze up at him with pleading eyes. “You can’t talk when you’re tryin’ to get close to a deer,” he said. “You’d have to be quiet.”

  “Quiet as a mouse,” she promised, her steady gaze constant.

  He found that he couldn’t bring himself to disappoint her. “All right,” he finally surrendered, “just this one time, but you’ve got to promise me you’ll be quiet and do like I tell you.” He was rewarded with a gracious smile that reached from ear to ear. Cam looked at Mary and commented, “She shoulda been a boy.”

  “Don’t I know it?” Mary replied. She stood and watched the two of them ride away. A child and one who thinks like a child, she thought. I pray God they’ll be all right.

  • • •

  Cam grunted as he dismounted to examine some droppings that appeared to be fresh as he followed a game trail that led into the foothills. Not to be left out of anything, Emma scrambled down after him. “Is it deer doo-doo?” she asked in a whisper.

  “I reckon that’s one name for it,” Cam replied quietly. “Looks like this one has been eatin’ some berries, and I’d guess he left this for us this mornin’.” He looked down the trail toward what appeared to be a small valley, or maybe only a pass, that looked as though there might be a creek or stream. “From the looks of this trail, there might be a regular waterin’ hole down at the bottom of this hill,” he told her. The possibility seemed likely because it was a frequently used game trail by all indications. “We’ll leave the horse here and walk on down the hill.”

  His hunch proved to be accurate, for there was an abundance of deer sign as they made their way down the trail, with Emma trying her best to walk in his footsteps. He cursed under his breath when the wound in his shoulder began a constant throbbing, and he scolded himself once more for being careless. He had no choice, however. He had to find some game, if it was no more than a rabbit.

  Just before reaching the bottom, he saw the stream winding its way out of a pass that appeared to lead between the two mountains ahead of them. “We’ll wait here a bit,” he told Emma, and guided her to a stand of short pines from which he could watch the watering hole for a while. Nothing moved in the bushes lining the stream, so it appeared that the deer that had left the droppings on the trail behind them had long since passed through here. He continued to wait and watch for a while, already aware of the fidgeting of the impatient child close beside him. Suddenly there was movement in the leaves of the high laurel bushes on the other side of the stream. He looked down at Emma and whispered, “Don’t make a sound.” She nodded vigorously and clamped both hands over her mouth as if to prevent any sound from accidentally escaping. He grimaced with the pain caused when he raised his rifle and trained the front sight on the edge of the bushes. Don’t take too long, he thought, I can’t hold this rifle up much longer. In a moment he saw the muzzle of a young buck appear, so he rested his finger gently on the trigger and waited for the deer to push out of the bushes.

  As he was about to apply pressure to the trigger, he was suddenly startled by the blast of a shotgun from the other side of the stream. “What the . . .” he muttered, and dropped the barrel of his rifle while he tried to see the shooter. The buck bolted from the brush and jumped the stream, wounded, but apparently not enough to slow him down. Since it was now coming directly toward them, Cam quickly pulled his rifle up and dropped the wounded animal. Too late now to consider if it had been a wise decision to shoot, he ejected the spent cartridge, placing another in the chamber to be ready for whatever was to follow. All went silent in the pass, with no indication of another soul around. If it was an Indian hunting party, they were evidently not well armed if they were hunting deer with what sounded to be a light-gauge shotgun, and there were no arrows in the carcass that he could see from that distance. After what seemed to be a lengthy pause, he heard a voice.

  “Are you gonna eat that deer?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer, since it was beginning to appear that there was going to be a question as to who had first claim on the animal. So he said nothing for a moment, holding Emma back when she tried to inch forward to see what was going on. The voice sounded like a woman’s, and in another moment, she stepped out of the pines on the other side of the stream. Astonished, Cam eased the hammer back on his rifle, hardly able to believe his eyes. A short, solidly built woman, wearing a man’s shirt and trousers and boots that almost reached her knees, walked boldly out on the trail and stood there waiting for a reply. Cam got up from his kneeling position and walked out of the clump of bushes he had hidden in, Emma close behind him.

  “I was just fixin’ to squeeze the trigger when you fired that shotgun,” Cam said, and made his way down the path to the stream where she waited, shotgun propped by her side. “I reckon there’s plenty of deer in these mountains, judgin’ by the sign I’ve seen. Looks like you had first claim on this one. I just thought I’d stop him, since that shotgun wasn’t up to the job.” He could see her more closely now, a gnomelike woman, her face tanned and wrinkled by the sun, her yellowish gray hair rolled up in a bun behind her head, supporting the weathered flat-brim hat she wore. There seemed to be no malice in the face he saw, and no evidence of fear at all, only an expression of surprised curiosity to see a man obviously shot by the look of his shirt. Then, catching sight of Emma holding on to the back of Cam’s trouser leg, the face blossomed into a rosy smile.

  “Well, lookee what we got here,” she exclaimed delightedly. “Hey, darlin’, you helpin’ your daddy hunt?”

  Emma came out from behind Cam long enough to take a good look at the strange woman, and did not answer until she decided it was all right. “This is Cam,” she informed the woman. “He’s not my daddy. My daddy’s dead.”

  “Well, bless your heart. I declare, it’s been a heap of years since I saw a little one like you. I’d ask you for a hug, but I reckon you might be too shy right off.” She turned abruptly to Cam. “My name’s Ardella Swift. I reckon I wasted a shell tryin’ to kill that deer. This shotgun is all I’ve got to hunt with, and it’s all right for birds and squirrels and rabbits. But you have to get so close to a deer to kill it that you’d do just as well beatin’ him over the head with it. But I still can’t resist takin’ a shot at one when he ends up right in my lap. Lucky you and little missy here came along when you did. I’da had to walk all over these hills to try to see if he mighta been wounded enough to die. I ain’t et deer meat in quite a spell.”

  “Well, there ain’t no reason you can’t eat some now,” Cam said. “My name’s Cam Sutton, and I reckon that deer’s yours. You got the first shot in him.”

  “Well, that’s mighty sportin’ of you, Cam,” Ardella said. “But it was your kill.”

  “Why don’t we just split it down the middle?” Cam suggested, looking at the two-point buck. “Looks like plenty of meat for everybody.” He could tell by her expression that the suggestion pleased her. “How much family you gotta provide for?”
he asked.

  “Just me,” she replied. “Ain’t nobody but me.”

  Surprised, Cam asked, “You’re just huntin’ for yourself? You livin’ somewhere hereabouts alone?”

  His questions drew a chuckle from Ardella. “Huntin’ by myself, livin’ by myself, everythin’ by myself,” she answered. “I got a cabin ’bout two miles back up near that highest peak yonder.” Without turning around, she pointed back toward the west.

  “How’d you wind up here, alone in these mountains? You musta had some family, a husband, or somebody.”

  “Oh, I had a husband,” she replied with a nostalgic smile. “Long Sam Swift, he was a helluva trapper and a helluva man—had hands big enough to crush a coyote’s head.” Her smile broadened a bit. “You remind me of him.” She sighed. “Lord in heaven, I was lucky to have been married to that man.” Changing the subject abruptly, she gave Emma a smile. “What might your name be, missy?”

  “Emma,” the little girl replied, still gazing wide-eyed at the strange-talking woman.

  “Emma,” Ardella repeated. “Why, that’s a dandy name—suits you.”

  Still finding it hard to accept the fact that this elderly woman, though obviously tough as nails, could be living alone out in the rugged mountains of Wyoming, Cam had more questions. “How long ago did your husband pass away?”

  “Let’s see,” she said, thinking hard. “I make it eighteen years come spring.”

  “Eighteen years?” Cam responded, amazed.

  “Yep,” she confirmed with a single nod of her head. “He was kilt by a Pawnee war party on the South Platte. They jumped us on our way back from South Pass. He made me hide under the bank while he went to try to talk peace with ’em, but they jumped him. It took four of ’em to take him down, and only two of ’em got up again when it was over.” She paused to sigh again. “Damn, he was a man.”

  A woman alone in this wilderness for eighteen years was hard for him to believe, but she seemed bright enough and in command of her senses. “Didn’t you ever think about goin’ back to where other folks were?”

  “At first,” she admitted, “but I didn’t have no horse or nothin’. The damn Pawnee took the horse and Long Sam’s rifle. The only thing I did have was the cabin Long Sam built for us back up the mountain, so after a while, I just said I’d stay where I was. You see, back about that time, the Sioux and Cheyenne was causing a lot of trouble. I figured it best to stay where I was till things calmed down. Then, by the time they did, I’d been here so long without nobody botherin’ me, I decided to just stay till I forgot to wake up one mornin’.”

  He couldn’t help wondering, so he had to ask to satisfy his curiosity. “Livin’ alone up here all that time, how’d you come by those clothes? They don’t look like you’ve been wearin’ ’em eighteen years.”

  Ardella laughed. “I didn’t say I ain’t never been out of the mountains in all that time. Bein’ married to a trapper for thirty years, I learned somethin’ about takin’ pelts. After Long Sam was gone for about a year, I knew I had to do some tradin’ or start wearin’ hides like the Injuns. So about once or twice a year I’ll go out to John Sartain’s tradin’ post up on the South Platte.” She had to laugh again. “No, these duds ain’t eighteen years old. If they was, I couldn’t get in ’em. I was a lot skinnier then.” There was a long pause in the conversation at that point with Ardella still eyeing him intently. Finally she said what puzzled her most. “You know, I reckon that you’re walkin’ around with a hole in your shoulder. You ain’t said nothin’ about it. Don’t look like somethin’ that would slip a body’s mind. I sure hope it don’t have nothin’ to do with this little girl’s daddy bein’ dead.”

  “No,” Cam said, “nothin’ to do with that.”

  “How’d you get shot?” Ardella finally put it to him straight out, after deciding he was never going to explain.

  “This little girl’s mama and her sister are camped back at the river. We got jumped by a couple of outlaws last night. I killed one of ’em and wounded the other’n, but I got hit in the shoulder before he took off.”

  His story sounded believable, but Ardella was inclined to verify what he said. She reached down and patted Emma’s head. “You poor little darlin’, that musta been pretty scary when those men started shootin’ at you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Emma replied. “They tried to sneak up on us when we were asleep, but Cam made us hide before we went to bed, and they couldn’t shoot us.”

  Ardella nodded thoughtfully, satisfied that if there was another version to the story, the child would most likely have told it. She then turned her attention back to Cam. “Well, it don’t look like you’re takin’ care of that wound worth a toot. Let me take a look at it.”

  Cam hesitated but couldn’t think of a reason why he should mind her examination, so he shrugged his consent.

  “Unbutton your shirt so I can pull it back a little,” she instructed. She pulled it back, exposing the bandage over the wound and the wad of blood-soaked cloth stuffed against it. After a brief look, she told him, “Cam, that thing’s still bleedin’, and it looks like it wants to fester. You must be a helluva man to still be walkin’ around huntin’ deer and such, instead of lettin’ nature heal it. Nature needs quiet and rest to heal somethin’ properly. Did you try to get that bullet outta there?” He shook his head. “Well, sometimes a bullet just heals right over, but that wound looks like that bullet wants outta there. You keep workin’ that shoulder and it’s gonna fester for certain, and in a day or so, you ain’t gonna be able to get around without feelin’ sick.”

  “I was fixin’ to take care of it,” Cam claimed lamely, “but we needed fresh meat, so I had to take care of that first.”

  Ardella studied the young man’s face for a long moment, trying to make a decision. “How ’bout this other feller you shot? Is he still comin’ after you?”

  “Can’t say,” Cam answered. “I don’t know how bad he’s hurt.”

  “Where was you folks headin’, Fort Laramie?”

  “No, we thought it best to go around Fort Laramie. We’re headin’ for Cheyenne, and then on to Fort Collins, down in Colorado Territory.”

  She took another moment to consider that. “Sounds to me like you must be packin’ somethin’ that attracts outlaws.”

  “I reckon,” Cam replied, seeing no reason to tell her otherwise.

  “Well, I expect I need to take care of that wound for you,” she decided. “I can’t remember the number of rifle balls and arrowheads I’ve cut outta Long Sam, but it has been a while. I reckon I ain’t lost my touch, though. Why don’t we go on back to your camp and butcher this buck, and I’ll fix you up while I’m there?”

  It was a hard offer to pass up. He thought again of the last time Mary tried to doctor his leg wound, and the uncertain look on her face when she applied the dressing on his shoulder. Ardella talked a pretty confident talk, and he tended to believe she could do what she claimed. “I’d be obliged,” he told her, “and I’ll carry your half of the deer back to your place for you.”

  • • •

  “Mama,” Grace sang out, “they’re back, and they brought somebody with them.”

  Mary turned to look in the direction Grace pointed out, relieved to hear Cam was returning. She had not permitted herself to be separated from her rifle for much of the time since he and Emma had left. She placed her hand over her eyes to shade them from the sun while she stared in an effort to see if Grace had really seen someone else. Her daughter was right. Walking along beside Emma was a stubby character Mary assumed was a man. The two of them were walking beside Cam, who was on the horse, and there was a deer carcass riding across his horse’s withers.

  When they were closer, Emma ran ahead to announce the news. “Mama,” she exclaimed, “we shot a deer, and Ardella’s come to have dinner with us!”

  “Is that so?” Mary replied. She waited
, curious to learn how Cam happened upon someone in these rugged mountains, not realizing it was a woman until they were within a few yards.

  “My name’s Ardella Swift,” the stumpy woman announced enthusiastically, and strode forward to shake Mary’s hand. “Me and Cam was huntin’ the same buck, so we brung it back here to skin and butcher it.” She shifted her gaze to Grace, who was standing gaping next to her mother. “And this is Emma’s sister,” she announced. “Grace, ain’t it?” She extended her hand to Grace as well. Grace hesitated, but shook it after a moment. “Two fine-lookin’ little girls you have here.” With Mary hardly able to respond, Ardella turned away to help Cam dismount when she heard him grunt as he threw the buck’s carcass off the horse. “Cam here is startin’ to feel poorly. I think the poison from that bullet is startin’ to work on him.” She smiled then. “But we’ll take care of that, won’t we, Cam?”

  “I reckon,” Cam mumbled when his feet were planted firmly on the ground. “First, I’ll see about butcherin’ this deer, before we go to do any doctorin’.”

  “You go set down before you fall down,” Ardella ordered. “I’ll skin this deer and butcher him. Won’t be no time at all we’ll have fresh meat roastin’ over that fire.” Looking at Mary, she suggested, “If you’ll see about building your fire up a little bigger, I’ll handle the rest.”

  “Well, maybe I can help you with the deer,” Mary offered, feeling that she should do something to help this whirlwind who had seemingly taken over her camp.

  “Ain’t necessary at all,” Ardella assured her. “I’ve skinned and butchered so many deer, I don’t hardly think about it. It comes natural now, I reckon. Although it’s been a while, I’ve skinned elk, antelope, even buffalo. Course I don’t even count little critters like rabbits and squirrels and such. You’d just be gettin’ in my way.” She flashed a wide grin at Mary. “You could make us some coffee, if you got any.” Ardella’s boast was hardly an exaggeration, for she had the deer skinned and butchered in a short time. Soon there were strips of venison roasting over the fire.