Blood at Bear Lake

by Gary Franklin

  He tried to open his eyes, but they were pretty much glued shut. He managed to reach up, and with the fingers of his right hand—his left arm hurt too bad to move unless he really had to—pry one eye open.

  That was a mistake. The light was blindingly bright. It shot bolts of fresh pain through his skull . . . the jagged lightning of a monumental hangover.

  “Oh, shit,” Joe muttered aloud, squinting his eye nearly closed while he tried to calculate where he was and just how he got there.

  He remembered . . . he remembered damned little actually. The fight. Celebrating after. That was in Wilson’s. Was he still there? He didn’t know. If the truth be told, didn’t much care either. Or would not have, except that he had to take a piss. Bad. And real soon.

  It would have been easier to just open up and let it flow, right there in his britches, right there on the floor.

  That would have been damn-all embarrassing, though.

  He forced his eyes open, blinking and squinting against the pain, and managed to roll onto his belly, then lift himself onto his hands and knees.

  Cy was lying there curled up like a possum, his right hand heavily bandaged with a bar rag. One sniff told Joe that it was Cy who’d shit himself sometime during the night. He was going to for damn sure need a new pair of pants after this.

  Joe noticed with some surprise that his own left arm was covered with a rag. He had almost forgotten that Cy cut him during their fight. He peeked underneath the rag and saw that some helpful soul had taken needle and thread and sewn his wound closed. Joe figured he should find out who did that and thank the man. It was a right neighborly thing for him to do.

  Joe shook his head—a mistake—and blinked to clear his eyes, then with a lunge came partway onto his feet. He grabbed the seat of a chair for support and dragged himself erect. He felt ten feet tall. And wobbly.

  The motion made the acids in his belly start churning.

  He turned and stumbled out the back door and down the little path to the public outhouse behind Wilson’s Café.

  He made it there in time to avoid squirting a load into his britches the way Cy had, then turned around and puked until the only thing he would have had left to throw up was his teeth.

  Joe hurried back inside—or as close to hurrying as a man in his condition could manage—and propped himself up on the end of the bar.

  “Well, Moss. I see you’re alive,” a bartender he had never seen before said. “I would have thought that much whiskey would kill you.”

  “It came close. Gimme a beer, willya?”

  The barman drew one and set it in front of Joe, who felt suddenly dry and empty. The beer, cool from the keg, washed some of the fur off his tongue and most of the taste of puke out of his mouth.

  “Another?” the bartender asked when Joe set the empty mug down.

  Joe shook his head. “One is all I need o’ that.”

  “You aren’t going to have more whiskey, are you?”

  “Sonny, I may never drink whiskey again, way I feel now. It ain’t good. No, what I’m wanting now is some coffee.”

  “No shit. Coffee?”

  “This is a café, ain’t it?”

  “I’ll make you some coffee. Pick a table. You look like you’re going to fall down, the way you’re swaying back and forth and hanging on to the bar. I’ll bring your coffee to you. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. You got any liver you could fry up for me?”

  “Liver? Mister, you can’t be serious.”

  “Serious as serious gets, sonny. I need something with strength in it. Somethin’ to build up the blood. Liver’s good for that. Fry me some. An’ eggs. You got eggs around here?”

  “I can find some. It will take me a few minutes, though.”

  “Believe me, I ain’t going anywhere for a while. I’ll be . . .” Joe waved a hand limply in the direction of the jumble of tables and chairs where Cyrus and a good half-dozen others were passed out on the floor. “I’ll be over there.”

  He walked, weaving and wobbling, to the far side of the room, deliberately avoiding getting too close to Cy.

  It was not that he was angry with Cy for trying to kill him. That was the right thing for his old friend to do seeing that money had changed hands already.

  But, dammit, Cy stank from that load in his pants.

  37

  JOE GLANCED UP and smiled. “You look near about to bein’ human now. Feel better, do you?”

  Cy grunted.

  Joe motioned Cy closer, then held up a hand to tell the man to stop while Joe tipped his head back and very loudly sniffed the air before laughing and pointing to a chair across the table from his own. “You smell better, too.”

  “Well, I ought to. It cost me a dollar and a half for a bath and these britches.” Cy pulled the chair out and flopped into it.

  “Want some o’ this liver?” Joe pointed to a platter that he had not quite emptied. It held two slices of beef liver and a quantity of blood and grease to testify to those missing slabs already consumed.

  Cy looked like he was going to throw up. Again. He shook his head. “I don’t see how you can stand the thought o’ food when my gut feels so turrible, Moss. If you was any kind of a friend, you’d be sick with me.”

  “Have some coffee. You’ll feel better.”

  Cy made a face. “Coffee. Bah! You’re actin’ like a damned pork eater. But I’d take a whiskey if you was t’ buy one.”

  “Sure, I’ll buy your whiskey, you old fart. But listen, you ain’t broke, are you? You needin’ money? You know I’ll share if you spent all your brass.”

  “Oh, hell, no. I just want you t’ feel bad about my hand, that’s all.”

  “Huh! Better your fingers than my ass, Cyrus.”

  “You got a point there. You really ain’t mad?”

  “O’ course not. You took on the job. Had to do what you done afterward. I hold no hard feelin’s for it.”

  “You’re a friend, Moss. Makes me kinda glad I didn’t kill you an’ never mind those fingers. I’ll learn t’ make do.”

  The bartender came to the table, and Joe asked for more coffee and a bottle of whiskey. The barman went away shaking his head at these uncivilized old mountain men. He did not often see their kind in the city.

  “Thinkin’ about money reminds me,” Cy said. “The fella that hired me t’ lay for whoever it was that blew up the Peabody mine.”

  “What about him?”

  “He wasn’t satisfied with havin’ me wait here. He said he was going on over to Colorado an’ then up into Wyoming to hire some other fellas, not just me. Whichever one of us kil’t you was t’ get a bonus. Another thousand dollars.”

  “Damn,” Joe mumbled. “Any way you could know who these others are or where they’ll be?”

  Cy shook his head. “If I knew, I’d for damn sure tell you, but I don’t. I don’t think he knew himself. He was just gonna look around when he got to these different spots where he thought you might show up. That’s what he done here when he hired me.”

  “I’ve had better news, but I’ll handle things as I come to them. No need to borrow trouble. Here you go, Cy. Here’s that whiskey you wanted.” Joe dug into his pouch to pay for his meal and for Cy’s bottle.

  “How are ya feelin’ now, pard?” Joe asked solicitously. They were alone behind the livery stable where Joe’s big Shire was boarded. He had been buying Cy’s whiskey for more than an hour. Joe himself had had nothing but coffee.

  “I’m good. Yeah. I am.”

  The man didn’t look good. He looked about half-drunk again. But alert and able to talk. Just loosened up a little. Perfect.

  “You got to tell me more about this guy offering t’ pay for my killing, Cy.”

  “Course I’ll tell my ol’ pard. Whadaya wanna know?”

  “You was to wait for me and kill me, right?”

  “Tha’s right.” Cy nodded and belched. For a moment, Joe thought he had misjudged and Cyrus was going to puke and pass out, but the old mo
untain man only blinked and swayed back and forth a little.

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Jeez, Joe, ain’t killin’ enough for ye?”

  “I mean was there anybody else, Cy? Were you fellows supposed to look for anybody else, too?”

  “Oh, that. Well, yeah, but that don’t have nothing t’ do with you, does it?”

  “Maybe. Tell me about it.”

  “Well the thing is . . . I’m kinda emba . . . embar . . .”

  “Embarrassed, yeah. Go on.”

  “There was somethin’ about watching for some woman, too. Redheaded woman. An’ a kid. But that was separate, see, an’ not so much money promised for th . . . th . . . for them. Joe, lemme sit down over here for a minute, can I?”

  “Sure, Cy. Let me help you.” Joe put an arm over Cy’s shoulders and guided him to some discarded kegs, helped him to a secure seat on one of them.

  “Thanks.” Cy belched again. When he looked up, he said with a note of querulous surprise, “Joe, where you goin’, eh? We got more drinkin’ t’ do.”

  But Joe Moss either failed to hear his old friend, or simply ignored him. Joe was headed for the stall where his horse was.

  He seemed to be in a hurry.

  38

  AN OLD MAN with thinning gray hair and a pair of prissy spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose sat in a rocking chair in front of a dusty, ramshackle building. A sign pegged into the adobe over his head read: TRADING POST.

  One lone horse, its ribs showing and its mane tangled, stood hipshot and head down in a corral adjacent to the single-story building. An American flag hung limp atop a tall post in front of the corral.

  Joe stopped a few feet away from the scrawny old man. He grunted and said, “Gabe, you look like a damned old snapping turtle sunning hisself on a mossy rock. I woulda thought you’d’ve died years back.”

  “Hell, Moss, what I heard was that you’d went under afore me. Step down off that”—he cocked his head to one side and squinted—“whatever that big sumbich is . . . get down off it an’ come inside. We’ll have us a drink an’ talk about how it was when the beaver was plenty an’ the squaws cheap.” He dug a finger inside his beard and scratched, then shook his head. “First time I ever seen a mountain grow legs an’ move.”

  “Hell, Gabe, what this is is two horses. Brothers actually. Looked just alike. It’s just that I was trailing the one behind the other on a real short tether. The one in front seen something on the ground an’ spooked. Tried to back away. Same time, the one in back heard somethin’ and jumped forward. Jumped right up the other’n’s ass. Well the two of them was like enough that he disappeared inside an’ just stayed there. But all filled out, like. So what you see here is really the two o’ them animals stuffed t’gether inta one. I swear it t’ be true.”

  “An’ I believe you. Damn me if’n I don’t.” The smaller man, a head shorter than Joe but wiry and agile, grabbed Joe in a bear hug. Had Joe Moss been a weaker man, he might have cracked some ribs.

  The legendary mountain man Jim Bridger, Old Gabe to his friends, stepped back and squinted through his school-marm spectacles, looking Joe over from toe to head and back again. “You look good, boy. Y’ look fit. D’you be looking for a job? I heard o’ one that pays real good.”

  “I got no time for work right now, Gabe. My wife and me got separated. I got t’ find her. Even more, I got to find the sonuvabitch that’s offering a bounty on her head. Mine, too, but that don’t matter. I can take care o’ myself. It’s Fiona that I’m worried about.”

  “Shit!” Jim Bridger snarled.

  “Why’d you say that, Gabe? What’s the matter?”

  “You’re married, Joe? Got you a wife name of Fiona?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Redheaded girl, is she?”

  “Yeah, but how did you know that?”

  “Because the young fella that’s offering the bounty come through here. Shit, that’s the job of work I was thinkin’ to offer you.”

  “Gabe, you aren’t . . .”

  “Oh, hell, no, I ain’t shilling for him and I don’t got no stake in it m’self. He asked me did I know of anybody could do the job. I told him I prob’ly know half a hundred fellows what were capable of it, but right off hand I didn’t know of any that was looking for work nor where any of them was. You’re the first man t’ come along that I thought could handle that kind of work if he was of a mind to.” Bridger shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe the run of Bible-thumpers and just plain cowards that been coming through here, runnin’ toward Californy, ever since that war got started back East. They come an’ they gawk an’ they buy stuff from me just so they can say they met Old Jim Bridger an’ sat on his front porch. Well, I can tell you one thing. Ain’t one of them gets invited to set in my kitchen an’ have a drink or a plate o’ beans with me.” He cackled and added, “Joe Moss, c’mon into my place. We’ll go in back and set in the kitchen while my woman fixes us something to eat. Maybe some ribs t’ go with those beans.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’d be proud t’ do that, Gabe. But if you don’t mind, I’d like you t’ tell me whatever else you can about this fella that’s spreading the word about a bounty on me an’ my wife.”

  “Figure to go kill the son of a bitch, do ye, son?”

  “You know that I do, Gabe.”

  “Moss, had I knowed the way the stick floats, I’d’ve killed him for ye. An’ if he comes back this way, I damn sure will.”

  “You’re a friend, Gabe. Thanks. Just let me tend to my horse an’ mule, then we’ll tell some lies about how it was in the Shining Times.”

  “Shit, you can lie if you like, Moss, but everything I say is the truth, nothing but the purantee truth.” Jim Bridger winked and said, “Count on it.”

  39

  OLD HABITS DIE hard. That was the common expression. That was the truth.

  Moss kicked apart the tiny fire he had built to quickly cook his supper, then mounted the Shire and moved on another half mile before he stopped to make his camp for the night. Joe did not know of any specific danger hereabouts, but he had lived so much of his life in the presence of danger that he remained constantly on guard out of sheer habit.

  He removed his panniers from the mule’s packsaddle and set them down, one on either side of where he would bed, then pulled the pack frame from the animal and fitted hobbles to its feet before turning it loose to graze. Then he removed his saddle from the big black and gave it a rubdown before hobbling it and letting it graze.

  He spread his blankets between the panniers—in the event of attack in the night they would provide a barricade of sorts—and placed the saddle for use as his pillow. He needed no other comforts.

  The spot he chose to spend the night was well away from wood or water. There was nothing that should attract the attention of travelers in the vicinity, and that was how he liked it.

  Joe did permit himself a final pipe during the waning moments of a long day. He sat cross-legged at the foot of his blanket, savoring the taste of the smoke in his mouth. While he sat there, he thought back to what Jim Bridger told him.

  “This man that’s put the bounty on you an’ your missus, Joe. He’s a hard case. The real thing. He has the look of a man that’s lifted hair hisself. He don’t just hire it done by others. You know the look I mean.”

  “I do,” Joe had answered his old friend. “Those of us that survived the old days, we all got that look ourselves.”

  “Now I don’t say this fella went through the exact same things that we done. He didn’t. You and me would know him if he did. But he ain’t a stranger when it comes to hard living and dirty fighting. I’d say this man knows how to handle a knife or a gun, either one.

  “His name is Ransom Holt. Calls himself the chief of security for some fella name of Peabody, and he likes to show a badge. Just a flash of it, though, quick before a body has a chance to wonder if it’s an official badge or not. Fact is, it ain’t. Which he will admit once he knows he
ain’t gonna too easy pull the wool over your eyes.

  “This Holt is a big man, Moss. Half a head taller than you. And he’s built like a damn oak tree. Solid. Long arms. You don’t want him to get his hands on you, or you’re likely done. You don’t want to fight him with a knife either, not with arms like that. Big as he is, he moves pretty good. Not clumsy at all. If you run into him, Moss, stay back and use your rifle. And don’t stop shooting till you’ve tore him to pieces. I have it in mind that this Holt will be hard to kill.”

  “I’m not so easy t’ kill my own self, Gabe.”

  “I know that, Joe, but I don’t have so many friends that I want to see any more of them go under. You watch out for yourself when you come up against Holt.”

  “If I ever do.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Moss. You know an’ I know, too. You are going to keep after Holt for as long as he’s a threat to you and your wife. You won’t quit until one of you is laying dead on the ground.”

  Joe had only grunted and nodded. Bridger was right. Ransom Holt—and the Peabodys who backed him—threatened Fiona’s life and perhaps the life of Joe’s daughter, Jessica, as well. Joe could not permit that.

  He could put up with any threat on his own life. He could scarcely remember a time when he had not had to be wary of dangers that could easily and without warning put him under.

  But Fiona? And Jessica? They were precious beyond measure and there was no length he would not go to in order to protect them.

  He needed to find Fiona.

  No, he amended to himself as he puffed quietly on his pipe, he wanted to find Fiona.

  He needed to kill Ransom Holt. That was the only sure way he could think of to remove future threats to his beloved wife and daughter.

  According to Bridger, the head of security for the Peabody mines had been heading east with the intention of visiting some of the places where a man on the run might logically show up. A former mountain man.

  That would certainly include Fort Laramie on the emigrantwagon route. Probably the Bayou Salado and Fountain Creek down in Colorado. Taos and Santa Fe in Mexico. No, dammit, they were in the United States now. Sometimes he tended to forget that.