“I meant to ask you about that,” Smoke said. “Why are we cutting so far north? Wouldn’t it be easier going if we kept as far south as possible?”
“It’d be easier going until we reached the Rockies,” Wilson explained. “See this little X up here on the map?”
Smoke nodded.
“That’s a place Fleming named Yellow Head Pass. His journal isn’t too specific about the slopes on the way up to the pass, so it’ll be up to us to find out if they’re too steep for a locomotive to make the grade.”
“And if they are?” Smoke asked.
“Then we either go north to Smoky River Pass, or south and try Athabasca Pass, or Howse Pass, or even farther south to Kicking Horse Pass if we have to,” Wilson said.
“Why not try the southern ones first?” Smoke asked.
“Because all the southern ones have large mountains we’d have to go around to get to them. As you can see by this line here,” he said, moving his finger along the map, “the Athabasca River runs almost straight through to the Yellow Head Pass, and over the years it’s created a river valley that I hope will be easier going for a train than winding back and forth around five or six big mountains.”
Smoke shrugged and grinned. “Well, I can see you’ve thought all this out pretty well, Tom.”
Wilson shook his head. “I don’t know, Smoke. The whole idea of trying to build a railroad through this country is crazy, if you ask me.” He looked around at the wilderness surrounding them and the massive snow-covered peaks of the northern Rockies in the distance. “After all, who the hell is going to ride on it anyway?”
“You mean Van Horne hasn’t given you his dream speech yet?” Smoke asked.
“No, why?”
“It seems Van Horne and his partner and boss, James Hill, have this dream of bringing in thousands of Eastern tourists and visitors to see the wilderness without having to endure any hardships.”
“You’re not serious?” Wilson asked, his face a mask of disbelief.
“Well, they certainly are,” Smoke said. “They intend to build big hotels all along the railway routes to house these pilgrims, and make millions of dollars off the fools who decide to take these trips.”
“But what about the Stony Indians, and the highwaymen and robbers who infest these regions?” Wilson asked. “Do you think they’ll refund the pilgrims’ money if they end up getting scalped on their trips?”
Smoke laughed. “Who knows, Tom? Like I said, this is Bill Van Horne and James Hill’s dream, not mine. I’m like you, just the hired help who’s supposed to make it happen.”
Wilson shook his head and folded up his map. He got to his feet and moved toward his horse. “I guess you’re right, Smoke. They hired us to do a job for them, not to second-guess their plans.’
He climbed into the saddle. “Head ’em up, boys, and move ’em out,” he called, and jerked the head of his horse around and pointed it north toward Lake Winnipegosis.
27
Smoke soon discovered the way Wilson liked to work his crew, and he approved of its stark simplicity. While Wilson and the three men from the railroad he had with him, the two McCardell brothers and Frank McCabe, traveled right down the path outlined by Fleming in 1877, he would send out the other members of the team in oblique directions on either side of his middle path.
That way, if Wilson ran into an obstruction that he thought would be too big or severe for the railroad men laying the track to overcome, he would call the other teams back to join him, and would discuss with them what the terrain they’d been over was like. This saved him time, as he rarely had to backtrack if his way was blocked.
The only problem that Smoke could see was that the team’s members were separated for much of the day, each smaller team traveling on its own through admittedly hostile territory.
When they broke for lunch the first day, Smoke decided to bring his concerns up to Wilson. As they sat leaning back against pine trees with their plates of food on their laps, Smoke looked over at Tom, who was sitting next to him. “Tom, I’ve been meaning to ask you about the way we’re splitting up the crew during the day.”
Wilson returned his gaze and smiled. “You think it’d be safer if we all rode together, huh?” he asked, showing Smoke he’d thought about the dangers as well.
Smoke shrugged. “Tom, this is your country, so I’m not about to tell you how to run a crew, but the thought had crossed my mind that if we were to come under attack by hostiles, either Indians or highwaymen, it might be better to be traveling as a group.”
Wilson nodded as he chewed on some deer meat they’d killed the day before. “You’re right, of course,” Wilson said. “But with Van Horne pushing us so hard, staying just a handful of miles behind us, I’m under some pressure to move as fast as possible.”
He paused to drink some coffee and stare at the peaks of the mountains off to their left. “Now, I’m not going to let that make me put my men at risk, no, sir. But right now, we’re at least a few days away from Indian territory, at least according to everything I’ve read in the journals of the men who’ve traveled across this land before.”
Smoke grinned. “Well, I hope the Stony Indians have read those journals, Tom, so they’ll know where they’re supposed to be.”
Wilson laughed in return. “I know, Smoke, I’m taking a slight chance, but I promise you when we get past the Winnipegosis, I’ll bring the crew back together and make sure we all travel with our guns loose.”
Louis, who was sitting nearby and had listened in on the conversation, spoke up. “Of course, there’s one other way to look at it, Tom.”
Wilson turned to look at Louis. “Yes?”
“If we’re traveling all together and we run into an Indian ambush, we are in real trouble. But if we’re divided into three different teams and one of the teams stumbles across the Indians, the other two teams have the option of either running like hell or coming to the first team’s aid.”
Wilson laughed. “You’re right, Louis. In some aspects it would be better that way.”
Smoke grinned. “Course, it’d be a mite tough on the team that got jumped,” he said.
Louis put on his poker face, hiding his smile. “Well, the odds of being on that team are one in three. In poker, that’d be a good bet.”
“If you’re betting chips, that’s a good bet,” Wilson said. “If you’re betting your life, the odds are still too high.”
He got to his feet with a wry grin on his face. “Well, gentlemen, I’m glad we had this little chat,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve convinced me that no matter how I lead this expedition, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.”
“Hey,” Smoke said, smiling and shrugging, “no one ever said being in charge was easy.”
“You got that right, Smoke,” Wilson said, and chuckled as he went to wash his plate.
* * *
When they’d finished with their nooning, Wilson sent the four mountain men off to the right toward the edge of Lake Winnipegosis, ignoring Bear Tooth’s wide yawns hinting at the need of a nap, and he sent Smoke and his three men off to the left, while he and his men took the middle course.
“Remember,” he cautioned the men before they took off, “don’t get more’n a couple of miles off the course so we don’t get too far separated. Keep checking your compasses so you’ll stay on line with the other teams.”
The mountain men smirked at this advice, thinking anyone who needed to use a compass to find their way in the wilderness had no business being there in the first place.
* * *
About two hours later, while riding through some very heavy undergrowth near the edge of the lake, Bobcat told the others to hold on a minute while he took a squat and relieved himself of the lunch they’d eaten.
He pulled his horse over to the side out of sight of the others and got down off his mount, ignoring their taunts about being an old man who couldn’t control his bowels until dinnertime.
Bobcat threw his horse
’s reins over a tree limb and moved off into some bushes. He’d just lowered his trousers and was squatting down when he realized he’d moved into the middle of a wild berry bush.
While he squatted, he reached over and began to pick a few of the wild strawberries, popping them into his mouth and enjoying the bittersweet taste of the berries.
Just as he finished his business and wiped himself with a couple of leaves, he heard a thrashing off behind him in the brush.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered, knowing he was in trouble as soon as he heard the high-pitched grunting from a few feet to the side and a much lower-pitched growl from a bit farther off.
“Damn-nation,” he muttered, “it’s a baby grizzly or my name’s not Bobcat Bill.”
He knew he had to get out of there fast, for there’s nothing worse than getting mixed up with a grizzly momma when she’s got a cub nearby to guard.
As he began to run toward his horse, the cub scampered out of the bushes right in front of Bobcat, and he stumbled over the small animal, making it squeal in terror as they both rolled on the ground.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, knowing he was in for it now, his rifle still in its rifle boot on his horse twenty yards away.
Bobcat jumped to his feet and drew the wide-bladed skinning knife from his boot just as two thousand pounds of furious momma grizzly charged him from the side.
Bobcat crouched and whistled shrilly as loud as he could, both to try and scare the grizzly off and to call to his friends for help.
Seconds later, the grizzly was on him, swatting and batting at him with claws as long as his fingers. The first swipe sliced four furrows across his chest three inches deep and knocked him flat on his back, blood pouring from his wounds.
Bobcat held the knife out in front of him in his left hand while he clawed for his pistol with his right.
The grizzly roared and stood on her hind legs, shaking her muzzle and flinging saliva in all directions as she bellowed her anger.
Just as she pounced on him, Bobcat got his Walker Colt out and got off two shots into her chest, which had no more effect than a bee sting on the massive beast.
When she landed on top of him, wrapping her long arms around his chest and trying to get his head into her wide open mouth, Bobcat grunted in terror and pain and stuck his knife into her throat as hard as he could while ducking his chin into his chest and trying to protect his head from being crushed like a pecan.
Ignoring the knife wound, she chomped furiously at his head, her fangs slipping over the surface and taking half his scalp off with the first bite.
Bobcat fainted just before three shots rang out, blowing the back of the grizzly’s head off and dropping her on top of him.
* * *
Minutes later, his friends rolled the bear off Bobcat and knelt next to him, trying to stop the bleeding from his head and chest.
Bear Tooth applied pressure with his hands and yelled, “Red, cut some chunks of fat off that bitch and hand ’em to me, quick.”
While Red Bingham sliced open the skin of the bear and cut off thick chunks of fat to make a compress, Rattlesnake held his Henry up in the air and fired off several shots in quick succession.
Once that was done, he squatted next to Bear and helped him hold the pieces of fat tight against Bobcat’s wounds, slowing the flow of blood clown to a trickle.
Red moved over, grabbed the large flap of scalp hanging loose, and pushed it back against Bobcat’s head, as if hoping it would stick there.
“Goddamn, Red,” Bear growled as the bleeding slowed, “What the hell are you doin’?”
Rattlesnake grinned sourly. “Maybe he thinks that scalp’ll take root there and begin to grow again.”
“Won’t hurt to try,” Red said gamely, still holding the scalp pressed down tight. “At least, it’ll slow the bleedin’ a mite.”
By the time the other teams had come to help, Bobcat was conscious again. He lay propped up against a fallen log, his teeth clamped shut tight against the pain. Mountain men, like Indians, put great store in not showing pain at any time, but it was all Bobcat could do not to scream from the agony in his chest and head.
Wilson and his men arrived just minutes before Smoke and his friends galloped up to the attack site.
“Holy Jesus,” Thomas McCardell whispered, crossing himself in the Catholic manner.
Frank McCabe turned from the gruesome sight and bent over, his hands on his knees, doing his best not to vomit into the snow on the ground.
Smoke squatted down next to the mountain men, taking stock of what they’d done. By necessity, all mountain men became fairly good at emergency treatment of wounds, or they didn’t survive long in the outback.
“How’s the bleeding?” Smoke asked.
“Pretty nigh stopped now,” Bear said, though he kept a tight grip on the fat he had plastered to Bobcat’s chest.
“And his head?” Smoke asked.
“He’s lost some hair, but it don’t feel like the bones are crushed,” Red answered from where he was holding Bobcat’s scalp tight against his skull.
“Good,” Smoke said, smiling grimly, “then he won’t have no brains leaking out all over the ground.”
Bobcat’s pale lips turned up in a half grin. “Thank God fer that, otherwise I’d be as dumb as Bear here,” he said, his voice tight against the pain.
Louis leaned down and held out his brandy bottle. “How about some of this, Bobcat?” he asked. “It’ll help with the pain.”
Bobcat grinned weakly. “What pain?” he croaked, and passed out again.
“Try to get some of that down him,” Smoke told Louis, and he stood up and moved over next to Tom Wilson.
Wilson was digging in one of the boxes on the back of a packhorse as Smoke walked up. “He gonna make it?” Wilson asked as he pulled a long stick out with a funny-looking round tube on the end of it.
“Well, he’s lost a lot of blood, but the bleeding’s stopped right now. If we can get him to a doctor soon, he should pull through,” Smoke said. “The trouble is, I don’t think he can stand to be moved by horseback.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Wilson said. “I’m fixing to call for help.”
“How—” Smoke started to ask, until Wilson stepped off to the side, struck a lucifer on his pants leg, and held it to the two-inch fuse on the bottom of the tube. Then he quickly bent over, stuck the stick in the ground, and stepped back.
Seconds later, the fuse ignited the gunpowder in the tube and it flew into the air, bursting overhead into a bright red explosion of color high in the sky.
“The Chinese make these for us,” Wilson said. “Red is a signal for Van Horne to send help as fast as he can.”
“How will we know he saw the signal?” Smoke asked, just as a green explosion in the distance occurred high in the air.
Wilson smiled. “That means he got the message and help is on the way. He should be here in a couple of hours with a doctor and a wagon and some men with guns in case they’re needed.”
Smoke smiled. “I’m glad to see you and Van Horne thought of everything.”
Wilson pulled a heavy blanket out of another box on the packhorse. “Now, let’s see if we can keep Bobcat warm until the cavalry arrives,” he said.
As he moved to cover Bobcat with the blanket, he glanced over his shoulder at McCabe. “Frank, get us a fire going and heat some water for coffee. I think we could all use some.”
“Yes, sir, Tom,” Frank said. “I’ll cook up some beans and bacon too, just in case anyone’s hungry.”
28
Hammer Hammerick and his men were following Wilson’s blazed trail, going slow and being careful so they wouldn’t come upon the surveying party unawares, when suddenly, from not more than a couple of miles ahead, they heard a volley of shots ring out, shattering the stillness of the wilderness.
Hammer’s hand went to the butt of his pistol as his horse shied and crow-hopped at the sudden barking explosions up ahead.
“Damn,” Bull
said, holding his horse’s reins tight as it shied also. “You think they seen us, Boss?” he asked, looking around quickly to see where the shots were coming from.
After he’d gotten his horse under control, Hammer shook his head, his expression thoughtful. “No, Bull. Them shots are too far away to be aimed at us.”
Little Joe Calhoun rode up next to Hammer, his face pale in the frigid air, his Colt in his hand and his eyes wide. “You think maybe they ran into Injuns?”
Hammer held up his hand and waited a moment, listening for more shots. When there were no more guns being fired, he shook his head. “Not unless there were just a couple of ’em,” he answered. “If they was under Injun attack, there’d be a lot more firin’ than that.”
Suddenly, in the air above their heads, a bright red explosion occurred, sending flaming red shards arching across the sky to slowly fall to earth.
“Holy shit!” Bull exclaimed. “Would you look at that?” he asked, pointing at the bright display above their heads as it spread across the sky.
“What the hell’s that, Boss?” Juan Sanchez asked as he stared skyward.
“How the hell should I know?” Hammer answered, as bewildered as his men by the explosion.
“Hey, Boss, looky there!” Jimmy Breslin hollered from the rear of the column of men.
Hammer looked behind him and saw another explosion of green colors spread across the sky behind them.
“That looks like it’s comin’ from back where the tracks are bein’ laid,” Shorty Wallace said as he stared at the sky behind them.
Hammer thought for a moment, and then he snapped his fingers. “Hell, boys, it must be some kind’a signal from the surveying crew to Van Horne’s men behind us.”
“What kind’a signal?” Bull asked, as if Hammer would know what was going on.
Hammer shook his head. “Don’t know, but my guess is the boys up front run into some kind’a trouble and they’re asking for help from the men back behind us.”
Quest of the Mountain Man Page 19