Double Mountain Crossing

by Chris Scott Wilson

  But Short-Lance felt sure, the day would undoubtedly come.

  The roan mustang stumbled beneath him and began to limp. He frowned and drew rein, sliding silently to the ground.

  “What’s the matter?” Swift-Foot asked, taking his eyes from the eagle and looking down at his friend.

  Short-Lance lifted the mustang’s right forefoot to examine it. He snorted and drew his knife. “He has a stone in his hoof.” He grunted as he dug out the splinter of rock and the roan danced sideways. “It will be sore for a while. I will have to lead him.” He straightened up and began to walk. Beside him, the tough pony painfully limped, head bobbing up and down as he kept pace with the boy. Short-Lance frowned, irritable at the delay. The journey had already taken long enough. It would soon be winter and he had no desire to be caught on the plains when the hail and snow began to fall. They would die.

  At least they had eaten well on the way back. Not having their leader’s natural reluctance to waste ammunition, they had used the old Remington to bring down game. A buffalo calf had provided them with fresh meat and pemmican and much needed soles for their moccasins. Each night they camped they staked out the hide, replete with curly wool and had rubbed buffalo brains into it, then left it to cure. If the bad weather caught them, they would have need of it. What they had now was little enough.

  “You make a scout ahead. You may be able to reach the canyon from here. A turkey would settle well in my stomach.”

  Swift-foot wheeled his pony and drew alongside to lean over and take possession of the Remington rifle that had been their leader’s. He laid the old single shot across the neck of the grey.

  Short-Lance grinned. “Make a good hunt.”

  Swift-Foot grinned back and put his heels to the grey.

  “I will!” he shouted.

  ***

  Morgan Clay made slow time as he rode for Redrock, winding down the trails of the high country. He was beginning to feel the chill in the air and had taken to wearing his old wolf skin coat in the evenings. He had made the coat when he had slept out at the picket line, protecting the horses from the thieving rebels, during the war. Each time a wolf had worried the horses he’d rolled out of his blankets and added the pelt to his growing collection. At first the soldiers, most of them green from the towns, had laughed when he skinned the wolves, but when the coat was complete and the nights had grown so cold the men couldn’t sleep on the frozen ground, they had soon begun bidding for the long grey coat. By then, he’d been the one laughing and he had refused every conceivable trade, finding protection for himself and his shotgun under the heavy pelts as the men stamped and flapped their arms, cursing the vile weather.

  He remembered that winter campaign with a smile as he turned the dun’s head onto a fresh trail that cut around the long hogback ridge ahead and led down to a pass, not far from the prairie. Behind him, the bay plodded wearily, sacks of gold ore heavy on its back. He’d transferred the camping outfit onto the dun so both horses now toted big loads, and they would get no relief until he reached Redrock.

  Turning in his creaking saddle, he glanced back at the twin peaks where he had discovered the gold. The Double Mountains. He hoped he had disguised his strike well enough to discourage strangers poking about. Not that he had seen any in the high country other than the three Kiowas, and they were long gone. But to be on the safe side he had covered up the site as best he knew how. If nobody found it before the first snow then his secret would be safe until the spring.

  The mother lode had run off the trail and down the hillside, and as he had excavated the rich vein he had filled the creek bed behind him with rocks, wood and soil so the trail leading to Sun Creek was now unbroken. He had walked the horses back and forth across the new ground to beat it down firm, then transplanted an evergreen bush so if a rider did chance along the trail he would not see the workings that were strung along the downward slope.

  After a month’s long and arduous work he had reached the end of the vein, the very nature of its tapered end showing him if he cut into the steep ground on the topside of the trail he would find it again, possibly even richer than the section already worked. What he had already got was enough of a load for the packhorse, and as he knew winter would rapidly close in up there in the mountains, he had made up his mind to hightail it before the first snowfall. When that occurred he wanted to be safely holed up in the hotel at Redrock. He would weigh in the ore at the bank and stash the money, keeping only enough to stake him for a few card games and a couple of women. Not that Redrock would be able to furnish one of those pretty, sweet smelling ones, but until the job was complete he would have to make do. When spring came he would resupply and make it back up to the Double Mountains and dig out the rest of the gold ore.

  In late afternoon Morgan rode out from the cedar brakes at the fringe of the timberline and onto the wide open plains, the mountains ranged behind him in a variety of multihued purples. The wind had picked up, bending the brim of his low crowned hat and rolling the tumbleweeds on the beginning of their endless journeys. He found a shallow draw on the edge of the prairie where a few twisted cottonwoods offered partial shelter from the biting wind and made camp. He unloaded the horses and hobbled them so they could forage while he dug at a water seep, cutting a small basin so the muddy water could collect. There were buffalo chips aplenty and they burnt well, but the coffee was practically all mesquite beans, weak and dissatisfying. As he hunched over the meagre warmth, wolf skinned back to the eye of the wind, he glanced over at the ore sacks and his weathered face cracked into the semblance of a smile.

  It would not be long now.

  Seven days at the outside and he would be in Redrock.

  ***

  Short-Lance squatted on the ground, using the shade made by the roan’s shadow as he examined the sore hoof. The strain of walking on three legs had tired the pony and it stood quietly, lazily flicking its tail. The boy grimaced. It had been worse than he thought. It would be another day before he could ride. He wondered if they should kill the pony and double on the grey, but immediately discounted the idea. They would make better time with two ponies even if they sacrificed a day. The mountain trip had already proved the grey wouldn’t last long carrying both. Miraculously, the tough pony had recovered some of its old energy and was faring well with the burden of only one rider.

  It would be better to be prudent, for there was still before them a trail of many sleeps before they would be back among their people.

  He lowered the roan’s hoof and the pony gingerly tested its weight, lifting it away from the earth quickly. Short-Lance sighed and turned to scan the horizon. Away to the southeast a huge black mass undulated slowly across the prairie grass. Buffalo, a herd of many hundreds. He did not bother trying to estimate, an impossible task. He knew that the sacred buffalo covered the grass of all the earth and that the huge beasts whose chin tufts dragged on the ground held in them all the power of the universe. Did not the Medicine men of the Pau-ewey, the Buffalo Society, say so? The Kiowa Nation was dependant on the buffalo for everything but their ponies; food, tools, clothing, shelter, and even the bowstrings for their weapons. Was it little wonder the Indians held the buffalo in such great esteem, and it should play such a great part in their religion? Wherever the mighty buffalo roamed, the Kiowas trod. Without the buffalo, there would be no Kiowas.

  A drumming of hooves stole his attention from the migrating herd. In the east there was a horseman pushing hard in a straight line towards where he sat on the grass. A long plume of dust trailed the galloping pony. It was Swift-Foot, running the grey into the ground.

  Suddenly astonished at himself, Short-Lance realized he was angry with Swift-Foot for wasting the pony’s energy, and it occurred to him that he had placed himself in the position of leader ever since the night on the Double Mountains. On reflection, perhaps it was well to be so, for he knew the day would come when he would be a war chief and lead his people. The feeling nestled deep inside, an overwhelming emotion of p
ride and confidence in his own ability. He knew beyond certainty the night on the Double Mountains had made him into a man. Nothing would be the same again.

  As he waited for Swift-Foot he scratched at the itching thigh that bore the scars from the peppering of buckshot, the north wind ruffling his deerskin shirt and tugging at his braids. He sniffed at the freshening breeze, his mouth a grim line.

  In a thunder of hooves, Swift-Foot hauled back on the rawhide hackamore and the little grey went down on its haunches to obey. It stood breathless, hooves stamping. With disgust, Short-Lance noted the foam at the pony’s mouth and the sweat lathered across its shoulders. There was no game on the saddle. Another hungry night.

  Impervious to his friend’s disapproving stare, Swift-Foot vaulted from the pony’s back, waving the ancient Remington in the air.

  “Our people! They are in the canyon! I cut sign of Littleman the scout. I’d know his pony tracks anywhere. The chestnut who always leads with his left forefoot…” The words gushed. “…The sign was fresh and I tracked him to the head of the canyon. He said a hunting party is camped at Tule Creek. They are making the last buffalo hunt before winter, then they will ride to join the main village camped in the timbers on the North Fork of the Red River.”

  Short-Lance came to his feet, his anger forgotten. The Great Spirit must have listened to his prayers. “They are here? Is Thunderhawk with them?”

  “I did not ask. I was in a hurry to return and tell you. Now we can reach the canyon before dark. Just think,” he slapped his friend’s back, “We will be back among our people again. I will be happy to see my friends. I was beginning to find this prairie a lonely place.”

  Short-Lance regarded his friend, recognising they were already beginning to grow apart. The boy did not understand. “When Thunderhawk hears our story he will carry the pipe among the braves and I, Short-Lance, shall smoke with them. He will lead us back to the mountains and he will take the white man’s life in exchange for that of his brother. When that grizzly old man sees Thunderhawk, his big killing gun will not do him any good. His grey hair will decorate Thunderhawk’s leggings.”

  “What do you mean when you say you will smoke the pipe?”

  Short-Lance’s steely eyes probed his friend’s face. Even now, the boy could not see what was in his heart. He felt sorry for Swift-Foot, he was only a boy wanting to return to the safety of his, people. He had learned nothing. “I am going back with the war party.”

  “But we have just escaped from there!”

  Short-Lance nodded and looked away to the mountains that were invisible in the distance. “You speak the truth, but you forget one thing. The white man made a target of me too.” He absently fingered the scars on his leg then looked away, the freshening wind plucking at his raven black hair. “Like a boy I ran.” He spat it out angrily.

  “But you are a boy,” Swift-Foot insisted.

  Short-Lance shook his head slowly, his eyes taking on an intensity Swift-Foot had never seen before. “Not any more, my brother. From this day forward I am a man. I swear it by all my relatives.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Redrock was a wide open frontier town.

  Overlooking the rough and ready settlement a tall rampart of red rock gave the town its name and sheltered the one street from the winter wind that howled in from the prairie. At the foot of the gigantic rock wall was a natural spring that welled up to fill a pool where passing Apaches and Comanches had watered their ponies until the coming of the white man. An enterprising stage line manager had utilised the spring, building a relay station. As often happened, a settler passing through, tired of travelling, looked long and hard at the land and decided to go no further. He built the trading store and ran a few head of beef and chickens to help make ends meet. After that, other travellers stopped and a town had blossomed. A saloon, a grain store, hardware store, a hotel, a barbershop. Each day someone new was hammering up a shingle to advertise their business.

  Morgan Clay rode into Redrock leading the loaded packhorse. He was hunched and tired as he walked the lineback dun along Main Street, hat pulled down low over his eyes, ears picking out all the different sounds of a bustling frontier town. Horses were tied in groups of two or three along the hitching rails, neighing and stamping restlessly, tails switching at bothersome flies. Wagon beds creaked as farmers set out back to their ranches, the high tinkling of a piano drifted from the saloon mixed with the rising gabble of chatter and the coarse laughs of the working girls as they touted for early afternoon business. The dun’s hooves plodded mechanically, ears occasionally twitching as the odour of a strange horse reached his nostrils.

  Morgan saw what he was looking for half way along the street; The Redrock Commercial Bank. Now it was flanked by two new buildings that had grown from the prairie during his four month absence. He marvelled at the way some towns seemed to spring up overnight into prosperous, bustling communities, and yet on a second visit could be a ghost town, roots pulled up, a lifetime’s belongings crammed into the bed of a Conestoga wagon at almost a moment’s notice. One town he’d ridden into had long been deserted, sagebrush growing in the main street, and yet in one of the houses there had been a table set for dinner, all the knives and forks neatly laid out, but the food on the plates long rotten. It was the way of the west: Sudden. He could only be glad it had not happened here. Not yet.

  His journey complete, wearily he reined in and dismounted.

  The bank teller was a fussy, middle-aged man dressed in a striped shirt and armbands with small wire framed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He looked up with interest when Morgan dumped two ore sacks on his polished counter. In his many years as a clerk he had come to recognise that look, confidence bolstered by whatever was presented for inspection. Sometimes it was iron pyrites, “Fool's Gold,” but more often than not, especially with older men, it was the real thing. One look at a handful of nuggets was enough to send him scurrying for the manager. With a hint of a smile, Morgan waited.

  “My name, sir, is Benjamin B. Coates. I should be pleased to do business with you.” The speaker was a barrel chested, prosperous looking man with ruddy cheeks and a ready smile, whose eyes were locked on the nuggets spilling from the ore sack onto the counter. “My clerk says there’s more.”

  “Outside, on my horse.”

  Coates’s eyes flashed quickly round the few waiting customers. “Well, I think we’d better bring them inside, then we can continue our discussion in my office.”

  Morgan nodded and led the clerk outside to help him unload the bay. Sacks in hand, they returned into the bank and crossed to the rear office where Coates had set up a pair of scales and weights on his desk. He smiled greedily at his new customer and stepped round him to close the door.

  Near the street door, a wiry young man with sharp eyes and a thin face had watched the whole performance. A sly grin plucked at the corner of his mouth, then he unhooked his thumbs from his gun belt and sauntered out into the street. He paused for a moment on the boardwalk, inspecting the lines of the dun gelding and the bay, then stepped down between the rails and walked over the street in an easy long legged gait to take a seat on the porch outside the restaurant. He tilted the old chair back against the wall and set his gaze on the front door of the Redrock Commercial Bank.

  The few men who called him friend called him Shuck, his real name Sherman Alison, but he had been called many things by many men. His pa used to say if the Good Lord made good men real good, then he also made bad men unholy bad. Shuck fell heavily into the second category.

  He had been born in a log cabin near the upper reaches of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina where his pa had farmed a few acres. Josh Alison had been a hardworking, God-fearing man who had taught his son all he could to set him straight for the day when he would go out into the world. An accident felling timber had killed him, and his wife, alone in a country where a woman without a providing husband wasn’t expected to last long, had remarried within the month. She had made a bad cho
ice.

  Joe Christian was nothing that the name implied. He was downright lazy, content to sit in the cabin swilling rotgut whisky and leering at his new wife’s ample buttocks rather than work out a sweat tending to the crops that would feed them throughout the next winter. When his demands on his wife weren’t entirely satisfied he leaned heavily on violence to chastise her.

  Like most mountain boys, Shuck had been using a squirrel rifle from the moment his hands had been big enough to grasp the stock. One evening when Joe Christian beat the hell out of his mother while in a drunken stupor, the fourteen year old Shuck had seen it just one time too many. It had been the simplest thing to point the rifle and pull the trigger, and all he’d felt had been a sense of relief when Joe Christian’s head splattered all over the wall. The law gunning for him, Shuck had stolen a neighbour’s thoroughbred and hightailed it for Tennessee as fast as the stallion’s hooves would make tracks.