Our way led along an easy slope into some trees beyond, then into a valley where there was a frozen marsh with trees trailing down to its edge. And there were four elk.
“How far do you make it?” I asked.
“Two hundred yards…maybe more. Over white snow, distance can be a tricky thing.”
“Do we chance it?”
We were in the open. At any moment they might see us. The wind was blowing across, and their heads were down, scratching at something at the edge of the marsh.
So we walked toward them. Five yards…ten. We had our rifles poised for a quick shot if their heads came up. We advanced another ten yards before the big bull brought his head up with a jerk, looking at us.
With the first stirring of muscle we had frozen in place, and now we held perfectly still. The others looked up, and one skittish youngster walked off a few feet. That seemed to start them. If they began to walk, they would soon be running.
My shot was high. The bull dropped in his tracks, but I knew my shot was too high. Ethan fired and the second elk jumped, bounded three times then fell all of a piece. We went in fast and were within twenty yards when my bull came off the ground with a lunge, one antler hanging.
He came up running and I fired my rifle like a pistol from one hand. The bullet hit him behind the left shoulder and he ran on for thirty yards before he dropped. I levered a fresh cartridge into the chamber and went on to where he lay.
My first bullet had hit the base of the antler, stunning the bull. My second was a heart shot and pure luck. I’d tried for the heart, of course, but with him running like that it was a chancy thing.
Cold as it was, we couldn’t waste time but took our skinning knives and went to work. From time to time I looked over to where Ethan was skinning out his elk. We’d been uncommonly lucky and should be back to town by nightfall with fresh meat.
We were just finishing skinning when I happened to look up, and out of the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of movement in the canyon beyond where Ethan was working.
My meat was skinned out, and I’d been sacking it up in the fresh hide when I caught that move. My rifle was at hand, and I wiped my hands clean in the snow, watching that spot without looking directly at it. Of a sudden, a bird flew up.
My hand dropped to my rifle, and as I turned I saw a man rise up with a rifle aimed right at Ethan. I was down on one knee and there was no time for aiming. I fired from where my rifle was, the stock under my arm.
The man with the rifle reared up on his toes and fell full length from the brush.
Ethan looked up at the shot and looked right toward me, and in a flash I knew that somebody was probably sneaking up on me, too. So as I spun around, I fired.
I was fifty feet higher than Ethan, a good hundred yards from him, and an easy two hundred yards from the man who had appeared behind me. My bullet hit the dirt about six feet short of him, but he ducked back out of sight.
The sound of the shots faded, and all was still. Ethan had disappeared. Suddenly there was another shot and my bundle of meat jerked. Evidently somebody had mistaken the meat for me.
As I lay still, my eyes searched for a target, but I could see nothing. Their attempt at surprise having failed, they had to make another try at it, but we were in a bad situation. Ethan was worse off than I was, for he was in the bottom near the marsh. There was good hiding down there but no way he could escape without crossing a hundred yards of white snow where he’d be as easy to see as a red shirt at a Quaker meeting.
My position wasn’t bad. I was right at the tapering off point of the pines that came down off the ridge toward the swamp. There was some scattered brush, snow-covered rocks, and a few deadfalls. Our trouble was we had no idea how many we were facing.
The man I’d shot seemed to be dead. He lay sprawled on the slope back of Ethan. His hat had rolled down the slope a little, and he was lying all sprawled out. It gave me a turn to see him there because I wanted no dead men on my back trail.
It was cold. We hadn’t waited more than a few minutes before I realized this could get sort of tiresome. My fingers on that rifle began to get stiff with cold, and I dearly wished to move.
We’d killed one, and there might only have been two. We might be close by their camp without knowing it, and if so we’d be surrounded in no time. It was time to move.
Picking a spot in the thicker stand of trees, I dug in my toes and took off with a lunge.
Nothing happened.
No shot, no movement that I could see. From my safer position I scanned the country around, watching trees, birds playing in the brush, and the like. After a minute I glanced over at the dead man.
His rifle was still gripped in his right hand, and I could see a lump on the back of his coat near the side that might be a pistol butt.
The others, if there had been others, were gone. Walking out, I took the rifle from his hand and stripped off his pistol belt and gun. The rifle was a new Henry .44, and they were a scarce thing. Cain and I, we had two of the first ones. Cain had worked in a plant in New Haven where they were made, only returning to Illinois when he started westward.
The pistol was an old cap-and-ball, much worn. His belt held thirty rounds of cartridges for the rifle.
Ethan came up to meet me, carrying his meat. I loaded up, and we led off into the trees, backtracking the man who shot at me. We found his horse tied to a tree with a blanket roll behind the saddle, two well-packed saddlebags, and a heavy coat. There were a couple of letters in the pocket addressed to Win Pollard, Fort Bridger, Dakota Territory.
“He was among them who attacked us at the town,” Ethan said. “I recognize that horse. Had one like him, one time.”
We loaded our meat on the horse and started back to our town. We stripped the saddle from the horse and hung it on a peg in the shed back of Cain’s place. The folks were glad to see the fresh meat.
Webb went out next day and killed a deer. He rode by our kill, and there were fresh bear tracks, so the old bear had evidently found enough to keep him through until spring.
Webb told us about it when he got back. “Seen that body,” he commented. “Didn’t you say you found some letters?”
I showed them to him, and he glanced at the signature. “Well, you got you some trouble, boy.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Win Pollard. You killed him. I figured I knew that face. Win’s got him a family. He’s got some brothers and a mighty mean lot they are. When word gets to them, they’ll come a-hunting.”
“He bought trouble,” Ethan said. “We were just cutting up meat when they came on us.”
“It’ll make them no mind,” Webb said. “Those Pollards are vengeful boys.”
For two weeks then we had a quiet time, with much hunting and some evenings of reading and talking. Taking the oxen so’s to rest the horses, I went out and snaked a couple of big deadfalls out of the woods, then took a wagon up to the edge of the trees and loaded it with firewood.
Neely Stuart was out and killed an antelope. He said he saw some horse tracks over on Pine Creek, west of us. Four riders, he said.
When I came back to Cain’s house for supper that day, Mae Stuart was there, helping Lorna get food on the table. She had her hair up and looked mighty pretty, swishing her skirts at me as she went by.
“We’re going to have a dance, Ben! We’re going to have a dance up at Mrs. Macken’s!”
“It’s true!” Lorna said. “Ruth Macken was down today talking to Cain and Helen about it. She said nobody had done anything but work since we arrived, and it was time we had a dance or a party.”
“When?”
“Next week. Friday night. We’re all going to make cake and cookies and whatever.”
It would be like Ruth Macken to think of that, and it was true that it was time we had some fun. We had hunted, built cabins, improved them, cut wood, and we had our difficulties. Yet I felt guilty.
That dance was less important to me than getting another b
ook from Ruth Macken. So much time seemed to be getting away from me, and in the east men of my years had gone to school eight to ten years and read besides.
Cain got out his accordion, and it turned out Ethan played a fiddle. Tom Croft did also, and Tom had his with him. Everybody was talking about the party except Webb and me. I was thinking of books when Webb came up to me.
“One of those men got away,” he said. “We’ve got to do something about them, Ben.”
“What can we do?”
“Go after them. If they can ambush, so can we.”
“I never laid out to shoot any man,” I said. “If they come for us, I’ll fight.”
“We’ve been lucky, mighty lucky. Suppose they come on us unexpected? Or when most of us are away?”
“What do you have it in mind to do?”
“There’s been no snow since. We could backtrack them, make it so hot they’ll pull out and leave.”
It made no sense. There were too few of us to risk, and they’d already come against us twice and had come off hurting. They might have learned a lesson. We had trouble enough without borrowing it. Yet I had to admit we’d been lucky. If I hadn’t caught that move out of the corner of my eye, Ethan and I would be dead, and if Webb hadn’t been quick on the shoot that first day we might have lost that fight.
“We can talk to Ethan,” I said, “and Cain.”
“No,” Cain said, when I mentioned it to him at supper. “We’ll not borrow trouble. We’ll just have to keep watch as best we can.”
That night I walked up the hill to Ruth Macken’s cabin. It was clear, and the stars were bright in the dark sky. I stood for a long time, just dreaming, wondering what the years would bring and filled with a nameless longing that I could not find a place for.
It was pleasant inside. Mrs. Macken had curtains at her windows and in front of her bunks, and she had a real candlestick. Two of them, in fact. I had heard Lorna and Helen talking of Mrs. Macken’s “things,” and longing was in their voices. I had learned long since that women set store by such fixings.
They were just up from supper, so while she did dishes I stood by, talking to her and Bud about the country, the way animals lived, and the plants. She dried her hands and went to the trunk again and took out another book. It was Walden, by Thoreau.
“He was a friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson,” Mrs. Macken said, “and a thinking man. I believe you will enjoy the book, Mr. Shafter, and you will enjoy meeting Mr. Thoreau.”
“He’s here?” I was surprised.
“In the book.” She smiled at me. “He’ll tell you about himself. Sometimes I think if it were not for books I could not live, I’d be so lonely. But I can take a book out of that trunk, and it is just like talking to an old friend, and I imagine them as they were, bent over their desks or tables, trying to put what they thought into words.
“In that trunk I have some of the greatest minds in the world, ready to talk to me or teach me whenever I am prepared to listen.”
“Is it enough?” I asked.
She turned her gray eyes on me and said quietly, “Yes, Mr. Shafter, it is enough. Some might find this hard to believe, but I never wanted but one man. We had a wonderful life together before he was killed, and now I have Bud to think of.
“No, my life has been fulfilled in many ways. I don’t want to marry again, although I would not have missed my marriage for anything. He was a good man, a strong man. We had love, and we had respect for each other, and that’s a lot.”
The truth of the matter was that I’d never heard of Emerson, but I said nothing of that. It seemed likely that I’d hear more about him before long. In the meanwhile there was Walden, and I carried it with me when I went up the mountain in the morning.
The weather had moderated. It was mild enough to work without a coat. The snow had melted in exposed places, but we all knew that was temporary. It was a fine day for woodcutting, and I went to work early.
Everybody was talking about the party, but I could hardly wait until lunch time to open the new book. It was a quiet place up there on the ridge, but I was no such fool as to sit in the open reading. I’d found a hiding place behind three towering pines that stood before a hollow in the rock.
It was not a cave, just a hollow that permitted nobody to approach me except from in front where my position was masked by the trees. I sat there and read, then put the book aside to think of our town, and of me.
Christmas was only a few weeks away, and spring would follow after. When grass was green would our people remain? Would others come? We wanted others to come, and expected them, but we were a little jealous, too, for now the town was ours, our creation.
What of me? What of this person I was? What of the man I might become? Most of all I needed what all men need, a destination. I wanted to become something, for in the last analysis it is not what people think of a man but what he thinks of himself.
It was there, in Thoreau. “Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is what determines, or rather indicates his fate.”
What I was to do in the world, this I did not know; yet for all my years there had been within me a vague yearning to be something, to hold a responsible place in the world.
Putting the book away where it would not become damp, I returned to my work and worked hard until almost sundown. Then it was that I saw the wagon.
It was a large wagon, drawn by six fine, big horses, and there were two outriders, both with rifles. Taking up my rifle, I walked down the hill. Webb was outside, gathering an armful of firewood, and when he saw my gesture he went inside, emerging with his rifle.
By the time I was standing before Cain’s house I knew that all our men were in place and waiting. The wagon was coming into what we called our street.
The first rider rode out ahead, a stocky, powerfully built man with cold gray-green eyes.
He held out his hand. “We come as friends,” he said, “to repay the help you offered our brethren. I am Porter Rockwell.”
We knew the name. Rockwell was said to be the leader of the Danites, Brigham’s Destroying Angels. It was whispered that these were the men who eliminated those troublesome to the church, and back in Missouri his name had been legend. In Illinois, too, for that matter.
“It was good work,” he told us, “and we are obliged. I am to speak to Mrs. Macken, in particular.”
Cain came from his house, Ruth Macken and Helen following. The wagon pulled up as they emerged, and the driver and the others, for there had been three armed men hidden in the wagon, began to unload.
There was flour, sugar, coffee, salt, a barrel of pickles, and much else. There were bales of blankets, robes, and clothing to repay Mrs. Macken for those she had so freely given.
“We’re beholden,” Rockwell said. “We have found less of kindness and more of abuse, and had you not gone to the aid of our brethren they would surely have perished.”
The other outrider was Truman Trask. He looked better than before. He was lean, hard, and in fine shape. He was also better dressed.
When they had unloaded a part of their cargo the rest was taken to Ruth Macken’s. Truman and I went up the slope to help with the unloading.
“The Prophet has told all his people to trade with you,” Porter Rockwell said, “if they are nearby and have need.”
Later, I stood beside Rockwell and watched the wagon begin its homeward journey. They had need to return at once, and no time was lost. Rockwell was watching Webb with narrow eyes. “That one. I seem to know him.”
“He came west with our train, as we all did,” I said. “He’s a good man with a gun.”
Rockwell turned and looked straight at me. “You will have need of him,” he said bluntly, “when spring comes.”
Porter Rockwell swung into the saddle. He had a magnificent horse, and was noted for the horses he owned and bred. He gathered the reins. “There will be more of our people over this road. Do you help them if there
is need.”
“Of course,” Cain said.
Trask emerged from Stuart’s house, and they rode off after the wagon. We watched them until they were out of sight.
“I never knew any Mormons before,” I said.
Cain shrugged. “They are people,” he said. Then he turned to me. “Have you given thought to Christmas, Bendigo? The younger children will be wanting toys.”
“I hadn’t done anything about it,” I confessed.
“I know.” There was a shade of wistfulness in his voice. “You’ve been reading Ruth Macken’s books. I always wanted more of an education, and you can learn much. Read as many as you can.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “I am expecting great things of you, Bendigo.”
I blushed. “Of me?” Then I said, “I will try, Cain. But I do not know what I wish to do.”
“Give it thought. There is time.” He hesitated a moment. “Ethan Sackett told me about the Indian you hit. He said you were very quick. He had never seen anyone so quick with a gun. It is a thing to value, but it wants care, Bendigo. When one acts quickly, sometimes one acts too quickly.”
“I will remember that.”
Neely and Tom had built a cabin together in order to build faster when snow began to fall, so now Tom Croft began to build his own. He was a good workman, and he worked swiftly and well. Twice he went to the forest with me and looked thoughtful when I told him how I cropped the trees.
“But there are plenty of them,” he objected. “The mountains are covered with forest.”
“They are now,” I agreed, “but more people come west with each season. Also, the mountains need their trees. Without them the water runs off, and there is no game.”
Ethan Sackett rode up the hill to us. “They’re gone,” he said, “pulled out, lock, stock, and barrel.”
“You found their camp?”
“It was east of here. Over on the Sweetwater, and there must have been thirty or forty, judging by the number of fires and what I could make of their sleeping places.”
“They’ll come back,” Croft said.
“They’ve gone off on a big raid, I think,” Ethan said.
Bendigo Shafter (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 7