“Bland,” Tanner replied.
“Well, Mr. Bland, I ain’t got no idea why you was out to kill them two fellers, but if there was any two what looked like they had it coming, it was them.” He glanced at his partner before continuing. “What I was gonna say is there’s a bag of gold coins we found in that feller’s fancy saddle pack that would take a year’s pannin’ in this creek. We—me and Mutt—figured that was maybe what you was after.” He hastened to add, “Not that it’s any of our business, one way or the other.”
Tanner nodded and hesitated before commenting. He had all but forgotten the coins, having assumed weeks before that they were long gone. “That money belonged to my partner, Jeb Hawkins. The Leaches killed him for it.”
Charley glanced at Mutt again before saying, “We figured it was somethin’ like that. Reckon it rightfully belongs to you then.”
“Tell you what,” Tanner said. “Why don’t we split that money half and half?”
Both pairs of eyes lit up at that. “Why, that’s a mighty generous thing to do,” Mutt replied. He wanted to say that they couldn’t take payment for their help, but he couldn’t bring himself to refuse the offer.
“Done, then,” Tanner said. “And you might as well keep his horse, too.”
The two miners stood watching as Tanner, sitting a bit uneasy in the saddle, led his two extra horses across the creek and climbed up the other bank. It was a brief encounter with the mysterious stranger, but it had certainly added to their gain. In addition to the gold, there was also paper money that had been generously split. They acquired a fine horse and a fancy saddle, plus they were rid of their menacing neighbors. They were left with the rewarding feeling that being a Good Samaritan paid off in spades.
“I believe this calls for a drink,” Charley said as he watched Tanner disappear over the northern ridge.
“That’s exactly what I was thinkin’,” Mutt replied. “Let’s take a little ride to town.” They exchanged joyful grins, knowing that they could both go to the saloon without having to worry about the Leaches raiding their camp.
Chapter 15
Maybe I ain’t as strong as I thought, Tanner speculated as he leaned forward in the saddle, trying to find a position that would ease the stinging pain in his back. The gray had a smooth gait, but as Tanner made his way up through the hills toward Black Horse Creek, it seemed he could settle on no pace that could free him of discomfort. I reckon I’ll just have to get used to it, he thought, for the single force that drove him on was the knowledge that one remained. Of the four murderous brothers responsible for the massacre of an entire wagon train of innocent people, one was still free.
There were many small mining camps near Denver City. Ike Leach might have gone to any one of them. But Charley and Mutt told him of a sizable camp at a place called Black Horse Creek, so Tanner decided that was the first place to look for Ike. Tanner reasoned that Ike would more than likely gravitate to a place where there were more folks, for he felt pretty certain that the man wasn’t interested in panning for gold. Ike was more likely to acquire his gold with his pistol.
As the sun began its climb over the hills behind him, Tanner guided the gray toward a long valley to the west. Mutt had told him to follow that valley for four or five miles and he would eventually strike Black Horse Creek. Follow the creek north, he had said, and you’ll come across the mining settlement in a wide gulch, two or three miles from the valley.
He found the valley with no trouble, even though the pain in his back and shoulder seemed to be increasing with each mile. He kept telling himself to fight against a feeling of overwhelming weakness as he fixed his attention upon the rough valley floor before him. Soon a feeling of light-headedness descended upon him, accompanied by a spell of dizziness. Determined to outlast it, he commanded his brain to concentrate on the task he had set for himself.
He had no idea how long it had lasted. Suddenly, he was jolted awake when the gray was startled by a small rodent or possibly a snake. Damn! he thought and looked up at the sun, trying to determine how long he had been asleep. His head was reeling. Had he passed the creek he was looking for? As soon as he thought it, he dismissed it as not likely. His horses would probably have stopped to drink. He became aware then of the soggy bandage around his shoulder. The wound had started bleeding again. I should have listened to Charley, he thought, but the sneering, insolent face of Ike Leach flashed through his mind, driving him on. That was the last image he remembered.
Consciousness. A dim light penetrated the dark corridor that his conscious mind traveled to find its way to the light. With eyes only half open, he heard the soft murmur of voices. Puzzled, he blinked his eyes wide to discover a face staring down at him. It was a woman’s face. His mind still struggling to free itself of the confusion between dreams and reality, he whispered, “Ellie?” As his eyes focused, he could see the face more clearly, and saw the puzzled expression his question had caused. More awake now, he could see that the face was that of a young woman, an Indian, and she smiled down at him for a few moments before turning away to speak to someone.
“He has come back,” Willow Basket softly announced.
“I thought he was dead,” a male voice replied with a hint of disappointment.
“No, I knew he would not die,” Willow Basket said. “His wound was bad, but he is strong.” She turned back to gaze at the wounded white man.
Fully alert now, Tanner realized that he was inside an Indian lodge. He had heard the exchange between the man and woman, but they spoke in the Arapaho tongue, so he did not understand what was said. Knowing something major had to have happened to find himself in an Indian village, he attempted to get up. A sharp stab of pain instantly reminded him of his wound. The woman immediately caught his arm and gently pushed him back on the blanket. She spoke to him then in English.
“You must rest. You lose much blood.”
“How did I get here?” he asked, glancing from the woman to the man standing behind her.
She smiled. “Bear Paw found you on the ground beside your horses. He bring you here.”
“My horses,” Tanner asked, concerned. “Where are my horses?”
“No worry,” Willow Basket replied. “Horses are here, all good.” She glanced over at Bear Paw then and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged but said nothing. These Arapaho were friendly with the white miners, but he had found Tanner looking very much dead, with three fine horses. Had he remained dead, Bear Paw would have been a good deal wealthier.
“How long?” Tanner asked.
“Two days,” she answered. “You lose much blood.” She held up a lead slug for him to see. “Medicine man take out bullet. You get much better now, be strong again. Now you must eat, make blood strong.”
“Much obliged,” was all he could think to say at the moment as he examined the bandage that had been wrapped around his bare torso. “Where’s my shirt?” he wondered aloud.
Willow Basket laughed. His shirt had been ripped in the side, had a bullet hole in the back, and the entire garment had been soaked with blood, some fresh, some crusted and faded. “Shirt no good, throw him away. I make you new shirt.” Then something occurred to her. She pointed to his feet. “Cheyenne moccasins, Arapaho shirt.” Then she pointed to herself. “Arapaho.”
He smiled at her and nodded his head. “Arapaho,” he repeated.
The days that followed saw Tanner recover rapidly. The medicine man was evidently skilled at his trade, for the wound healed nicely, and Tanner was on his feet a day after first regaining consciousness in Bear Paw’s lodge. The Arapaho people made him feel welcome, and stopped to exchange pleasantries with him when he walked through the village.
During his days of recovery, he often spent hours with Bear Paw. At his request, his Arapaho host taught him to speak in sign language, a skill that Tanner figured might come in handy some day. Eager to learn, Tanner proved to be a good student, practicing each day’s lesson on members of the village, sometimes to their gleeful entertainme
nt whenever he used the wrong sign. Inadvertently, he picked up a few words of Arapaho as well. It was a gentle time for him, and for a short period he was able to push Ike Leach into the back of his mind. He knew that he stayed longer than he should have because of the peace he found there. He used as his excuse the fact that he had to wait until Willow Basket finished sewing a doeskin shirt for him. As he regained his strength, however, thoughts of his unfinished business began to find their way to the surface of his mind.
For what seemed like as long as he could remember, the one dominant thought that possessed him had been the vengeance demanded for the slayings of Jeb and the people who had befriended him. He reprimanded himself for lingering now in the peaceful environment of the Arapaho village. Who could say how long a man like Ike Leach might stay in the general area? By the very nature of the man, he robbed and killed, then moved on to the next place. Tanner knew it was time for him to move on. The decision was facilitated by the completion of his shirt.
“That’s a mighty fine-lookin’ shirt. I swear it is,” Tanner remarked as Willow Basket held it up to him. She beamed in response to his praise. He had gone without a shirt, like the Arapaho men, during the time he had remained there. Willow Basket explained that the shirt she had fashioned for him was worn by the men of her tribe only for special ceremonies, but white men seemed to need one all the time. “Why, a shirt like this is too fine not to wear,” Tanner told her, causing her to beam again.
“I’m proud of this shirt. I wanna wear it all the time.”
In payment for Willow Basket’s gift, as well as the generous hospitality he had received, he gave Bear Paw the paint Indian pony. He also left him a few of the gold coins with the instructions that they were worth a lot to the white man. “So you make sure you get plenty for them at the tradin’ post,” he said.
Ready to go, he stepped up in the saddle. Bear Paw handed him the lead rope for his packhorse and said, “You find this man, you kill him. Then you come back here.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Tanner said. “I thank you both.” He turned the gray’s head north. Looking back at the husband and wife, he gave a final wave of farewell.
Following the shallow stream up through the hills, he came to a split that formed a wide gulch with scraggy pine trees ringing the rim. Scattered along both sides, like toadstools popping up at random in a grassy meadow, were the tents of the fortune seekers. Tanner walked his horses slowly through the maze of canvas tents, ignored by the men he passed, as he searched each face for recognition. Near the center of the settlement, there were two tents, larger than those around them. One was a dry goods store, the other a saloon. He chose the latter to serve his purpose.
LUCKY DOLLAR, the sign scrawled in rough letters proclaimed. The board front of the tent still smelled of newly milled lumber, testimony to its recent establishment. Tanner stepped down from the saddle and tied his horses to the hitching rail. He stood at the door for a moment to look the customers over before entering. Failing to see the tall, gaunt figure he searched for, he pushed the door open and walked in.
“What’s your pleasure, mister?” the bartender greeted him while giving him a good looking over.
Tanner looked around him at the tiny barroom with its two tables almost touching in the back half of the tent before answering. “I could use a drink of whiskey if you’ve got somethin’ that won’t take the hair off your feet.”
“I don’t serve nothin’ but the finest,” the bartender replied and reached for a bottle on the shelf behind him. “Dust or cash?” The stranger didn’t look much like a miner, with his deerskin shirt and moccasins, so he held on to the glass until Tanner plunked the money on the bar.
Tanner tossed the shot back. “You’re right, that ain’t half bad. You can pour me another.” When the glass was refilled, he swirled the dark liquid around a few times before tossing it after the first. His thirst satisfied, he said, “I’m lookin’ for somebody.”
“Hell, who ain’t?” the bartender immediately rejoined.
Ignoring the curt reply, Tanner continued. “Name’s Ike Leach—tall, lanky feller. I thought you mighta seen him around here.”
The bartender’s eyes immediately narrowed. “He a friend of yours?” he asked.
“No, I’m just lookin’ for him.”
“You a lawman?” the bartender asked, although thinking it highly unlikely that a lawman would be in these parts.
“No, I ain’t a lawman,” Tanner responded impatiently. “Have you seen him or not?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him, all right. At least there was a feller around here for a couple of days that called hisself Ike. Never gave his last name, but he was tall and lean, and he knifed John Beasley in the side over a card game. Said he caught John cheatin’. It was a damn lie, and I told him so. He stuck a pistol in my face and woulda kilt me if I so much as blushed. Hell, I almost shit my britches. That’s the meanest-lookin’ man I’ve ever seen.”
“Is he still around?” Tanner asked.
“He’s long gone, and good riddance. If he’da stayed much longer, I expect we’da had to form a vigilante group. The only trouble is there ain’t enough men around here willin’ to stick their necks out to go after a man like that.”
“Any idea where he mighta been headin’?”
“Hell, who knows? Away from here is all folks around here cared about.”
Tanner nodded thoughtfully while he considered his chances of ever finding Ike Leach. “Well, I reckon I’ll be movin’ on,” he finally said with a sigh. “Much obliged.”
The weeks that followed offered little encouragement that he would ever find the man he searched for. He drifted from one mining camp to the next with no information on the whereabouts of Ike Leach, never getting more than directions to yet another camp. Midsummer turned into Indian summer with nothing gained, other than a more thorough knowledge of the country. Living by his wits, he hunted for his food—trading hides for coffee and salt whenever he found a store in one of the camps—hoarding his pouch of gold coins and cash against the day when he would need ammunition for his rifle. The Spencer took .52-caliber rimfire cartridges, and they were hard to find. He and Jeb had taken a generous supply of the cartridges from the field at Waynesboro, but the number was gradually dwindling. Cartridges for his revolver were much more common, but he couldn’t hunt deer, elk, or buffalo with a pistol. As the summer wore on toward autumn, he knew he would soon have to make a decision.
The stitch was a little loose, gathering puckers along the seams, but he figured it was strong enough to hold together. Finished, he held the robe up to admire his handiwork. Willow Basket would place a hand over her mouth and snicker if she could see it, but it would keep him warm when the first snows hit. The nights were already getting chilly in the Medicine Bow Mountains, where he had camped for the last two days while he hunted. Willow Basket had told him that she would make him some winter moccasins from buffalo hide, with the fur turned inside for warmth. The way things looked now, he doubted he would be back to get them, and he was not confident that he could make his own.
Laying the robe aside, he poured a cup of coffee from the pot resting on the coals. Taking a cautious sip from the cup, he sat back to think about what he was going to do. He had wasted two full days riding up in the mountains to find a camp that turned out to be long ago abandoned. And now he didn’t know in which direction to start out come morning. The senselessness of his mission was beginning to undermine his determination to complete his vow to settle with Ike Leach. He was in the middle of nowhere with winter coming on, and he had no desire to spend winter in the mountains. Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted.
“Hello the camp,” a voice called out from beyond the pines on the far side of the stream. Caught napping, Tanner immediately grabbed his rifle and rolled out of the firelight. In the fading light, he could not see anyone. Before he could answer, a call came again. “Ain’t nobody but me. I couldn’t help but smell that coffee boilin’.”
&nb
sp; “Come on, then,” Tanner called back, watching the dark stand of pines carefully.
A few moments later, a form materialized and separated itself from the darkness. One rider leading a packhorse walked his mount slowly through the stream and approached the camp. Tanner got up on one knee, still in the shadows, his rifle still ready to fire. He watched his visitor carefully.
“Howdy,” the stranger said when Tanner got to his feet to meet him. “My name’s Jack Flagg. I could shore use a cup of that coffee I smell.”
“Help yourself if you’ve got a cup,” Tanner said. “This is the only one I’ve got.” He stood back to let him get to the pot.
His visitor was a short man, no more than five feet tall, Tanner estimated. Scrawny as a monkey, he was well on in years, although it would be difficult to guess how old he was. His face was shiny and flushed, and framed with long bushy hair and beard, reminding Tanner of a wilted sunflower. Wasting no time, he pulled a tin cup from his saddlebag and helped himself to the steaming-hot liquid. With insides that must have been made of leather, he gulped the hot coffee down, emptying half the cup before he took a breath and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Dad-gum, that shore tastes good,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been outta coffee beans for a solid month.” He took another long swig from the cup, then brought it down to take a close look at his host. “I don’t recollect seein’ you in these parts before. Where you headed?”
“Hard to say,” Tanner answered, still marveling at the man’s indifference to scalding pain.
Jack cocked an eyebrow and grinned. “Are you lost?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Tanner answered with a grin. “I just ain’t sure where I am right now, and I don’t know which way I’m headin’ in the mornin’.” He went on then to explain that he was hunting a man who had murdered innocent folks and was on the run. He described Ike, and asked if Jack had run into him.
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