I tucked my right hand under my coat to keep the fingers warm for my gun and started down off the bench toward the trail.
The black spot did not move. With my hand on the butt of my gun for a quick, smooth draw, I went closer.
It was a horse, head hanging, standing over a man who had apparently fallen from the saddle.
Squatting, my right hand on my gun, I slid my left under his coat and felt for his heart. I seemed to feel a faint beat, but there was something else. His shirt was stiff with dried blood. He was not only in a fair way to freezing to death but wounded as well.
Lifting him into the saddle I steadied him with one hand and spoke to the horse, who moved off quickly, eager for the lights of our town.
The horse had not been ground-hitched but had preferred to stay with the man. It must be quite a man who could command such loyalty from a dumb brute.
I went right to John Sampson’s house and carried the wounded man inside, stripped off his overcoat and covered him with a buffalo robe, all by firelight. Then I lit a candle and moved the hot water pot closer to the fire.
Looking down at the wounded man, I studied his face. He was no one I had ever seen. His was a narrow, aristocratic face, finely boned and handsome. He was, I guessed, about thirty-five, but might have been younger. His hair was the color of buckwheat honey, his mustache darker.
Lifting him carefully, I eased his arms out of his black broadcloth coat, then removed the vest, which was dark with the stain of blood. The gold watch he carried was expensive, the most beautiful I’d seen. His gunbelt was of hand-tooled leather, and the pistol was oiled and in fine working condition. It was the pistol of a man who knew guns and used them.
I removed his tie and his collar. He was going to need help, more help than I could give him. Help of that kind in our town meant John Sampson, better at treating wounds or sickness than any of us.
The buffalo robe and the fire would warm the chill from his body, and in the meantime I would care for his horse and get John Sampson.
It had grown colder. I led the horse to the stable, stripped off its gear, rubbed it dry with a little hay, and put some more hay in the manger. Due to the smallness of the stable and the presence of our own stock, it was warm.
At the Macken house the music had stopped and everybody was eating, laughing, and talking. Ruth came toward me with a plate but I shook my head, and catching John’s eye, motioned him to the door. Quietly, I told him of the wounded man, and putting down his plate he got his coat and followed me out. The youngsters did not notice, but Webb did, and so did Cain.
Leaving John to care for the stranger’s wounds I went back to the stable. A thought had occurred to me: What was a man doing so far from anywhere without even a blanket roll?
The saddlebags had been heavy. Lighting a lantern, I opened them up. One contained several clean white handkerchiefs, rare in this country, and a sack containing several paper-wrapped cylinders. Each cylinder contained forty gold eagles. There were twelve of them.
There was a thin volume in some foreign tongue, a folded newspaper with a San Francisco dateline, some odds and ends, a few small coins, and some letters. I caught the name.
DRAKE MORRELL
PALACE HOTEL
SAN FRANCISCO
It was a name I had heard. Curiously, I opened the newspaper. Two months old, but not much worn. I doubted he had had it long.
There was a headline over a column on an inside page:
MORRELL TO HANG
Morrell had killed a man, and not the first one, and he had been sentenced to hang on August the twenty-ninth. It was now only a few weeks to Christmas.
Refolding the newspaper to leave no indication it had been opened, I returned everything to the saddlebags. I took his rifle from its scabbard and went back into the house.
Morrell had been stripped to the waist and the blood washed away.
“The bullet went through,” Sampson said, “but he’s lost a lot of blood and he’s in bad shape.” He glanced at the saddlebags. “Is there a razor in there?”
Before I realized it, I said, “No…no razor.”
“There’s something wrong here,” Sampson said. “No bed on the horse, and this man shaved not later than yesterday. That means he must have camped somewhere within a day’s ride.”
Morrell stirred, the first movement I’d seen him make. He stirred and muttered something.
“I’ll make some soup,” John said, “and some coffee.”
He indicated the table. “I found that, too.”
It was a derringer, .44 caliber. A sleeve gun with a band to fasten it to the wrist. The draw from the sleeve was one of the fastest and was fancied by gambling men.
I hung my coat over a chair and when I turned back to the wounded man his eyes were open and he was looking at me.
“Better lie still. You’ve had a rough time of it.”
“Is this the new town?”
“Well, it is a new town. I don’t know whether it is the new town.”
“You have women here?”
“Yes.”
He seemed relieved, then tried to sit up. “I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Lie down,” Sampson said. “If you move you’ll start that wound bleeding, and you haven’t the blood to lose. If you start bleeding you may not last until morning.”
That sounded pretty drastic, but Morrell did lie down. “Who found me? Where was I?”
“Quarter of a mile down the valley. I found you.”
“I followed your wagon tracks. Look, you’ve got to leave right now. You have to backtrack me.”
It was a cold night and I had had enough of traveling in the cold. I said so.
“There’s two youngsters,” he said, “they’re in a cave about seven miles south of the Sweetwater, near Oregon Buttes.”
Now I knew nothing of that area, but it seemed likely to be further than he said, close to twenty miles from here. There was a chance it might be a trap.
“What are they doing there?”
“We holed up there because there was fuel at hand, but when I realized I had no chance to make it without help, I told them to sit tight. After all, they were warm there, and I might pass out along the trail and leave them in the cold.
“I knew about you people and hoped to reach you while I could still travel. I must have passed out just after I saw your lights.”
“How old are they?”
“The girl’s twelve and the boy’s a bit younger. Eight or nine, I’d say, and sick. He’s got a bad cough and a fever. That’s another reason I didn’t want them in the cold.”
There were a lot of questions unanswered, but Sampson was shaking his head to get me to stop talking. His story made a certain kind of sense, but I was wondering what a man sentenced to hang was doing out there, miles from nowhere, with two children obviously not his own.
“How do I find this place?”
He told me, and he was good, I’ll give him that. He knew how to pick landmarks and how to give directions. In the west that was quite a skill, for many a man traveled a thousand miles on directions given in a few minutes over a drink or traced in the sand with a stick. From the directions he gave I knew this man had covered a lot of country and knew what to notice.
“I’ll get my wife,” Sampson said. “She’ll be wondering what happened.”
When he had gone, I looked down at Morrell. “I am going after those kids,” I said, “and this had better not be a trap.”
“Why should it be?”
“We buried some renegades on the hill,” I said, “and they have friends.”
“I am not one of them,” he said ironically, “although I expect I am enough of a renegade. I travel alone. Or did until I ran into those youngsters.”
“What name are you using?”
He gave me a cold, intent look. “That’s a good question,” he said. “Did you have anything in mind?”
“A man’s name is his own affair,” I said, “and out he
re a man’s name is less than what he is. I looked in your saddlebags and saw a name there, but I’ll call you anything you like as long as you play your cards above the table.”
“Fair enough.” For a moment he closed his eyes. It was wasting his strength to keep him talking, but there were things I wanted to know. “My name is Drake Morrell. It has always been a good name, and I’ll use it.”
He closed his eyes again, and I shouldered into my coat, not relishing the long ride in the cold. The last thing before I left I placed his saddlebags where his hand could rest on them.
The horse I saddled was the buckskin taken from the renegades. My own horse had been hard-used these past weeks and needed rest. The buckskin looked tough, a mustang, and a horse used to living out in all sorts of weather. He wanted to go no more than I did, but we started, a bait of grub and a roll of blankets behind the saddle.
We headed south into a night bright with stars, the wind icy cold on my face.
Ethan had pointed out the Oregon Buttes direction one time, and with what Morrell had told me, I felt sure I’d find the cave.
The day dawned cold and gray. There was no sound but the hard pound of the buckskin’s hoofs on frozen snow or ground where the snow had blown away.
For the last few miles of my ride I had the Oregon Buttes to guide on, for they stood out well against the sky, towering above the country around. Closing in, I smelled smoke…at least, they still had a fire.
The tracks of Morrell’s horse led me into the draw where the cave was, only it was not exactly a cave but a walled up dugout with a hollow log for a chimney. A girl was outside picking up sticks. She straightened up, watching me with wide, dark eyes.
She was not afraid. She simply stood, waiting, to see what I was and what I wanted. She was a child, but a rarely beautiful child.
“I am Bendigo Shafter,” I said, “and Mr. Morrell sent me for you.”
“Is he all right?” She was anxious. “I was afraid for him.”
“He was all right when I left, although he’ll be needing a lot of rest.”
She opened the door with her free hand. “David is sick. Will you come in?”
Ducking my head, I followed her. It was warm inside. There were four bunks and a table, two benches, a washbasin, and a bucket.
On the lower bunk lay a child, shockingly thin, his eyes wide and feverish. His brow was hot under my hand, his breathing broken and unsteady.
There was a door across the room. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“A stable. There’s a little hay in there.”
There was an outside door that opened among some boulders, and I led the buckskin in. He ducked his head and walked right to the manger, so I had a hunch that buckskin had been here before.
I added some wood to the fire, then got out my grub sack and a pan I’d brought along. I threw pemmican into the pan, added some snow, and when it heated up I made her eat some of it. The boy refused at first, then swallowed a little, making a halfhearted effort to eat.
We had to get out of here, but the boy would never survive a twenty-mile ride in the cold.
“Is he your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Are you related to Drake Morrell?”
“Oh, no! Of course not. He knew my mother, and he helped us.”
Knew? I hesitated to ask the question but she looked at me with those great, dark eyes, holding her hands tightly clasped in her lap and said, “My mother died last week. He…Mr. Morrell…buried her. He was taking us to St. Louis so we could catch the steamer for New Orleans.”
“I see.”
“Only there was a man waiting for him at Fort Bridger. He put a rifle on Mr. Morrell and said he was going to kill him, but Mr. Morrell shot him. Then somebody else shot Mr. Morrell and we had to ride away.”
“We’ll go to my town,” I said. “There are women there, and some children. You’ll like it there. We even had a party last night with dancing and singing.”
“I can dance. And sing, too. And I can play the violin and banjo.”
Bad as it was to remain here with the fuel running out and a risk of outlaws returning, for I was sure this had been one of their places from the way the buckskin acted, I simply dared not start with the boy in the shape he was in. Yet, if I could get some strength in him from the hot stew, he might be in better shape by daylight. It was a sure thing he would not recover here.
There wasn’t fuel enough to last the night so I scouted along the riverbed. Here and there I found a broken limb from a tree, washed down from above, but in two trips I’d found everything within walking distance, and it wasn’t much.
Several times I tried to feed the sick boy, but he refused it. I wished John Sampson was with me, or Helen or Mrs. Macken.
All I could do was keep them warm and hope for the best. After a while the girl fell asleep, and I was alone with the sick child, trying to keep the place warm. Finally there was nothing for it but to burn the stable door, so I brought the horse in with us where his body heat would help and broke down the manger and burned it and then the door. Somehow I kept the fire alive through the long, weary, very cold night.
Sometime about daybreak I fell asleep myself and was awakened by a hand on my shoulder.
“Mr. Shafter?”
I sat up, ashamed of myself for sleeping. “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”
“It’s my brother, Mr. Shafter. He’s gone, I think.”
And so he was.
CHAPTER 10
* * *
DRAKE MORRELL TRIED to sit up when I walked into Sampson’s house. “Did you find them?”
“The boy didn’t make it.”
“I was afraid of that. How did she take it?”
“Like a soldier…so far.”
“Their mother was a fine girl, a very fine one.” He looked up at me. “I knew her before. Long ago. She was ill. In very bad shape. So was the boy. I knew they had people in New Orleans, and if I could get them to St. Louis they could catch the steamboat.”
He was silent for a while. He looked better but was far from well. He would be weak for a good long time.
“Where is she now?”
“At Ruth Macken’s. She’s a widow with one son, not much older than the girl. She had the most room, and she was the best person for a girl to be with at a time like this.”
He had that book on the table beside him and when I left he began reading again.
Webb was in Cain’s house when I entered. He looked at me. “Do you know who that man is? He’s a riverboat gambler and gunfighter. He’s killed a half dozen men.”
“So?”
“Figured you’d like to know.”
“He conducts himself as a gentleman should, and as long as he does I’ll find no fault in him.”
“We can always use a good man with a gun,” Webb agreed.
Two nights later when I was invited to Ruth Macken’s for supper, I saw again the girl I had brought back from the cold.
Mrs. Macken had contrived a dress for her from an old one of her own. She greeted me with a curtsy and led me to the table. She seemed somehow older than her twelve years, a grave, beautiful girl with large dark eyes.
This was also the night I was finally returning Walden, which I had read twice, so Mrs. Macken went to her trunk for another. This time it was Plutarch’s Lives, a book about ancient Greeks and Romans whose lives were somehow similar.
“More great men have read this book, Mr. Shafter, than any other unless it be the Bible. I think you will enjoy it.”
We ate by candle and firelight, no casual meal as in the other cabins, but a formal dinner, carefully done and carefully served.
When we were alone for a moment Ruth Macken said, “She’s very brave, but a strange child. She never mentions her brother, but at night I’ve heard her crying.”
“I shouldn’t wonder, losing her mother and brother so nearly together. Does she know anything of her relatives in New Orleans?”
“Only the
ir names. She saw them only once, when she was very young, and she remembers they lived in a very grand house and did not approve of her father. He was an actor and played in London and Paris as well as New York.”
“What happened to him?”
“She hasn’t said, and I haven’t asked.” Ruth Macken smiled at me, amusement in her eyes. “You have an admirer, Mr. Shafter. You are her hero now. You came out in the storm and rescued her, just like in the stories.”
I felt myself blushing. “I did nothing,” I said.
She changed the subject. “What do you know about Drake Morrell?”
“He is a gambler. He was sentenced to be hung in San Francisco, but we don’t know the circumstances. How he escaped I have no idea. I am sure he’s a man of good family, and with some education. He is reading a book now, in some foreign language. I believe it is Latin.
“Webb knows something about him. He said he had been a riverboat gambler. He has supposedly killed several men, but so have we.”
“Only a decent man would allow himself to be saddled with two youngsters while escaping from enemies. I think he will bear acquaintance, Mr. Shafter.”
The days that passed were days of work, and for me, days of planning. I spent many hours with Ethan, going over the Oregon Trail in our talk, talking of water holes, where grass might be found, and such things. Our celebration of Thanksgiving was quiet, a brief sermon by John Sampson and then we sang hymns, the old ones like “Rock of Ages” and “Come Ye That Love the Lord.”
Drake Morrell recovered slowly, but before he did he hired Tom Croft and me to build him a cabin. We took our pay in gold, a twenty dollar gold piece to each of us. I hoarded mine against the Oregon trip.
He bought needful things from Ruth Macken, and I was present when he made his purchases. When she answered the door he said, “Madam, I understand you have blankets and clothing to sell?”
She led the way to her storeroom, and he selected blankets and the usual kitchen utensils. He was polite, yet there was something about him that froze off any questions.
“Is there a post?” he asked. “I mean, can a letter be mailed from here?”
Bendigo Shafter (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 9