Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Hunt

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Springtime in the Mountains

  Luke stands at the window sipping a hot cup of coffee looking out across the vast expanse of white. It is almost the end of March and the snows never seem to stop. One storm after another blows through apparently on a weekly timetable. He walks to the back door and notices Sam Junior entering the barn. Luke leaves the house and with some great difficulty, stomps through the deep snow to join him.

  Luke finally succeeds in the long walk from the house to the barn. “Sam, tell me something, how do you people manage to get around in this confounded snow? I had a hard time just making it from the house to the barn.”

  “We each have a pair of snowshoes,” Sam replies, never raising his head from his work. He has been upset at Luke too ever since he found out he was leaving the farm and going to Alabama.

  Luke is startled, snowshoes? He has never heard of such things. He begins to question Sam for details. At first Sam seems withdrawn and is hesitant to speak with Luke. After further prodding, “Sure we use them all the time, especially if Father and me go hunting.” Stopping for a second, “I-I-I meant when we used to go -”

  “Hunting huh, just you and your father? I wager y’all had a good time?”

  Sam stops pitching hay into the horse stall. A slight grin comes across his lips as he fondly remembers the days he enjoyed with his father out on the mountainside.

  “Tell me Sam, you have my curiosity up, what did you hunt?”

  Sam leans the pitchfork against the stall, sits down on a bale of hay and begins to talk.

  Since the death of his father and mother, Sam has withdrawn within himself – now speaking of hunting with Luke, and the fun he had with his father has somehow opened him up again. He talks of the mountains, the streams he and his father had crossed. He tells of the game they hunted, especially deer. The deer, which he said was the object of most of their hunting expeditions. He talks on and on about various trips he and his father had taken into the forests of the Cumberlands. He seems to relive those happy times as he talks to Luke.

  Luke does not interrupt; he sits listening attentively, venturing an occasional ‘hmm’, ‘I see’ or ‘that sounds great’. Finally Sam stops talking. He sits staring out at nothing; tears begin to form, and he starts to sob. It was a good thing; he was finally letting out the pain of his pent up feelings of the death of his parents.

  Luke lets him sit and get it out of his system. In a minute or two Luke asks, “Sam, I know I’m not a very good hunter, but what about just the two of us venturing into the woods on a good hunt? That is if you’ll teach me how to walk in those snowshoe things of yours, and maybe show me a trick or two about deer hunting. What do you say?” Luke, an accomplished hunter since he was big enough to carry a gun, could teach young Sam a thing or two about hunting prowess in the woods, but Luke wanted Sam to feel he was the ‘man’ on this hunting trip.

  This suggestion brought a smile to Sam’s face. “When? When do we go?”

  “Give me a lesson or two on those snowshoes this afternoon and we’ll leave out at first light in the morning. How does that sound? If we could bag us a couple of deer, we can have enough meat to last us all summer. We might even make some venison jerky to carry with us to Alabama.”

  “Sounds great Luke, I’ll get the snowshoes right now!”

  “Hold on for just a second Sam. There is something else I need to talk to you about.” Luke tells Sam the whole story of Old Bill. He explains how they met on the western side of the Cumberlands, came up the trail, spent Christmas together in a cave and finally how Old Bill was killed with a stick of dynamite. “Before Old Bill got himself killed he gave me a treasure map, saying if anything happened to him the treasure was mine.”

  The word ‘treasure map’ immediately draws Sam’s attention, “A treasure map? A treasure map of what?”

  “A gold strike! Old Bill had found the mother lode of gold here in your mountains. He never got a chance to put in an official claim for it nor did he ever get to dig any more gold out, but it’s still there. And by the map, I’m figuring it is on your land.”

  “Aw Luke, your jest pullin’ my leg to make me feel better, right?”

  Seeing Sam was not convinced Luke pulled from his pocket the large gold nugget and handed it to Sam. Sam’s eyes opened as big as saucers, “Dadburn, you are telling the truth.”

  “Another thing Sam, I have the map also.” Luke slides it out of his hat and hands it to Sam. “Catherine has already said she hates me for taking her to Alabama, and I’m sure you do too. Someday, especially when y’all are really homesick to come back here, show her the nugget and the map. Tell her when you both come back you can state out the claim and y’all will be rich! That should liven you both up. Until then, let’s just keep this between you and me. Nate already knows that I am giving you the map.”

  Sam slipped the nugget into his pocket and hid the map inside his hat. Luke was leaving the barn to return to the house when he faintly heard Sam yell, “Hot diggety!”

  It is still dark the next morning. Luke stands on the front porch sipping a steaming cup of coffee looking toward the east. The skies are dark and overcast, light snow is falling. He figures it will be daylight in another hour or so. The hot mug in his hand feels good since the temperature must be close to ten degrees.

  Stepping back into the warmth inside, he can hear Catherine rattling pans in the kitchen, and he can smell the bacon frying, she is preparing breakfast,. “Catherine, is Sam up yet?”

  “Up? He’s been up for the last hour – he’s out at the barn getting all the hunting stuff together. He’s already carried Father’s old Springfield musket out there. You don’t know how excited that boy is! Thanks, Luke, this is going to be good for Sam, he needs something to take Father and Mother’s death off his mind, even if for only a day or so. Tell Sam to take Kentuck, he’s the best of all the Walkers.”

  “Hold on a second Catherine, that snow is deeper than Kentuck is tall. We can’t carry him!”

  “Sure you can and these vittles I have fixed for you two also.”

  Catherine explains to Luke the snow melts on sunny days and at night a thin coating or crust of ice forms on the surface. The sun has shown, off and on, for the last couple of days she says, so the ice is strong enough for a Walker to get over, but it will not support the weight of a man. She tells Luke he possibly could get a horse through the snow, but it would be a troublesome undertaking. That’s where the snowshoes are important.

  In addition to the information just provided, Catherine offered another bit of caution – she tells Luke to be especially careful of bears. In the early spring, they emerge from their winter hibernation and are out scavenging the mountains seeking anything to eat. She says anything means anything, small animals such as rabbits, squirrels, ‘possums and high up on the food scale is man!

  She instructs Luke to travel in the opposite direction from any bear tracks they might find, and stay downwind to keep the ferocious creatures from getting a whiff of them. She reemphasized the threat bears present and again warns Luke to their danger. “Luke, in a short distance a bear can run faster than a horse, so you cannot outrun him, and they can climb a tree faster than you can too. If a bear gets scent of you, he is going to kill you! I’m still mad at you Luke Scarburg, but don’t you go off and get yourself killed! You hear?”

  The back door opens quickly, in steps Sam, stomping the snow from his boots. “Come on Luke, let’s get going. I got all our gear sittin’ in the hall of the barn, and Kentuck is anxious to get on the trail.”

  “Whoa! Slowdown Sam, it’s still an hour before sunup, and Catherine has prepared us a fine hunter’s breakfast. Sit down and eat, we’ll need all our strength to trek across your mountain.”

  THE HUNT

  Each step Luke takes, a crunching sound comes from the snowshoe against the frozen snow. When he first heard Sam talk of a method for walking on snow Luke thought this would be a simple task. It is simple all r
ight if you can walk with two tubs tied to your feet. No, it is not easy to get used to walking in such cumbersome footwear, but as the morning draws on it becomes manageable, not easy, but manageable.

  One thing was sure – Catherine was right, Kentuck easily manages to walk and even run on top of the snow. Only occasionally would one of his paws break through the surface and burrow into the snow below, but obviously this isn’t Kentuck’s first hunt in the snow. He would merely pull his leg out and continue on the scent. Luke thinks, ‘what a marvelous hunting dog. He can smell the scent of the trail buried nearly two feet underneath the snow and the two or three inches that fell last night.’

  It is around mid-afternoon, Kentuck has gotten onto a couple of warm scents, but nothing comes of them. Sam stops and waits for Luke to catch up. All day Sam stays at least a hundred yards ahead of Luke – Luke is getting better walking, but he has not graduated to anything resembling proficiency in his snowshoes yet.

  Catching up with Sam, he asks, “What’s up? Kentuck strike a new trail?”

  “No, nothing on the hunt, but there’s something down here I want you to see.”

  Sam walks off the slope down into a slight hollow. The hollow is filled with hardwood trees, the majority being American beech. Nearing one of the large beech trees, Sam turns to Luke and announces, “Here it is! This is the one!”

  “One what? Sam all I see is a tree.”

  “Come here Luke and see this particular beech tree.”

  Luke moves down to the tree, sees nothing and looks at Sam with a questioning stare.

  “Over on this side Luke.”

  Luke moves to the opposite side of the old tree, “Oh, my goodness,” states Luke, “is this what I think it is?”

  Sam nods his head, and Luke reads the message that had been carved on the tree many years earlier:

  D. BOON KILLED

  A BAR O

  THIS TRE

  1775

  Sam begins to tell the story of Daniel Boone and how he blazed the Wilderness Trail across the Cumberland Gap back in the day. He finishes by telling Luke how his father found this tree some years ago.

  “Thank you, Sam! Thank you very much. Seeing this tree was worth every bit of my silly effort trying to walk on these snowshoes.”

  Back upon the slope the sound of Kentucky Lead’s barking indicates he has found a fresh trail. Enough history for now, they need to get back to the task at hand – hunting to put fresh meat on the table.

  “Luke, Kentuck in on a hot trail, but by the looks of these tracks he’s after a bear. Jiminy, if that don’t beat all – we finally got ourselves a bear!”

  “No! Catherine said to high-tail it in the opposite direction if we ran upon bear tracks. She said in the early spring bears were quite aggressive and extremely ferocious.”

  “Aw, shucks Luke, don’t you know women by now. They are skeered of their own shadows. Whoopee! There’s a bear hereabouts. Me and Father always wanted to kill us one of them critters, but we never got a chance; by the direction of them tracks I’d say he is headin’ toward that old prospector’s cabin over on the other side of this ridge.”

  “I thought your father said y’all didn’t have any neighbors? It is only a few miles back to the farm; I’d say this backwoodsman is close enough to quality.”

  “Nah, he’s just a driftin’ prospector named Rufus – lives here and there, mostly there. We ain’t seen him in years; the story goes that about a year after the War started some of them Yankee four-legged manure spreaders showed up one day, and he put up a really good fight. They say he killed two of them Union Cavalry boys and, of course, during the shootout, the word is, they killed him too. His cabin has been empty ever since the big fight. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

  As Sam talks to Luke, they can hear Kentuck following the scent of the bear. His unusual bark is pushing the bear in the direction of the cabin.

  “All right Luke, you take that lever action rifle of yours and work yourself up and around this ridge. I’ll take my Springfield and go up the holler. We’ll then have that ole rascal between us. Bear meat can feed us for a long time.”

  “But Sam, what about Catherine and her danger warning about...” Sam is out of sight by now and did not hear a word Luke said.

  Shouldering his Spencer Luke walks back up the slope and begins to follow the bear tracks. He resembles a drunken mule wearing galoshes.

   

  THE CABIN

  Slipping up the creek bottom toward the prospector’s cabin, Sam knows the cabin lies just around the next bend. Off to his left and over the ridge, he can still hear old Kentuck barking his head off. Sam grins he knows his Walker is on the trail of that ole bear.

  The wind is blowing in his face, and his nose catches the slightest hint of smoke. Smoke? He knows that the smell is not the woods ablaze; that aroma is more like smoke from a wood-burning stove.

  He slows his hurried gait to a deliberate, easy step, something isn’t right, that cabin is supposed to be empty. Approaching the bend he slowly slips among the trees until he can get a clear view of the old cabin. The first thing he sees is the roof; indeed a small ribbon of blue smoke is curling out the stovepipe on the top. Someone is in there! He can see three horses. All tied at the rail. All with double hitched, roping saddles, with lariats hanging at the saddle’s sides. One is a beautiful pinto, white with tan. The other two appear to be western cow ponies. Obviously the owners of these broncos are not playing soldier with the Yankees.

  ‘Surely,’ he thinks, ‘it can’t be Rufus. Those Union soldiers have done killed him.’ He removes the snowshoes and steps slowly through the snow inching his way to the side of the shack. Nearing the cabin, he notices a burro loaded with prospector supplies tied to a tree out back. Slowly he positions himself near a hole in the planking and lifts his head barely enough to see through into the shack.

  He sees three people in the room. One fellow is tied to a chair, his head resting on his chest. His face is beaten almost beyond recognition. Blood is dripping from the corner of his mouth making a sizable puddle on the floor. His left eye is swollen shut. Although the temperature inside cannot be much warmer than the temperature outside, the fellow in the chair is sweating profusely. Sam examines the man carefully, wondering if that is Rufus? He quickly realizes he doesn’t know what Rufus looks like he has never seen him. Whoever this fellow is if this beating keeps up he and his Maker are about to come face to face, and soon. Sam continues to watch.

  Walking around the room are two other men. One is dressed entirely head to toe in black, wearing a flat-rimmed hat. The other one wears a brown ten-gallon Stetson cowboy hat. To Sam the black hat looks like a cross between a Stetson and a sombrero. The black hat has a hatband fashioned from silver Mexican pesos. Both men are dressed in long sleeve shirts, leather vests with six-shooters strapped to their hips. Their holsters are strapped low on their legs with narrow strips of rawhide.

  Gunslingers!

  The dude with the black hat is wearing a fancy pair of high-heel western style boots. Adorning each boot is hand-made Mexican silver spurs, which jingle and jangle as the rowels touch the floor with each step he takes. Sam has heard this rhythmic sound of the spur rowels before, but where? Yes, now he remembered: as he hid from the outlaws in the closet he could hear the man walking that shot his mother and father. The spurs the murderer wore made that same jingling sound. He must be the same man.

  The one with the black hat walks up to the man tied to the chair and demands, “I’m telling you for the last time where is that mine with the gold?” He then slaps the old prospector hard across the face. Sam has witnessed enough to see the man in black is clearly the gunslinger in charge.

  The fellow on the receiving end of all this abuse mumbles he doesn’t know what they are talking about. Black hat doesn’t like this answer and smacks him again.

  Brown hat says, “Give me another chance at him, I’ll make him talk.” He walks over to the stove and removes a
scalding pot of what must have been coffee at one time. Bringing it closer to the nearly unconscious man, he begins to pour the hot coffee over the poor man’s head. The scream from the man is horrendous. Sam must make them stop; he must. He drops his eyes from the view of the interior, pulls the hammer back on his Springfield, and is about to advance around the cabin and confront the two villains.

  Suddenly above his right ear his feels the touch of cold metal and the metallic click of a pistol being cocked. “What you lookin’ at boy? Somethin’ inside you dyin’ to see?” The man with the six-shooter says, emphasizing the word ‘dying.’ “Now git up! Git yerself around the side of this cabin and git inside. I’m gonna give you a close-up look.”

  The cabin door is thrown open. Sam is shoved inside. “Oh, what have we here?” Mister Black hat asks looking at the door.

  “A peeping Tom,” says man number three. “Caught him outside that hole,” pointing with the barrel of his .44, “watching yer fun!”

  The leader tells his partners to bind Sam to the remaining chair. Once Sam is securely lashed black hat asks, “So you want to save this here old gent, do you? How do you and him relate?” Sam answers that he does not know the other prisoner. He was out on a hunting trip and saw the smoke from the stovepipe and came to investigate.

  “Hmm,” says ‘Blackie,’ “a likely story, I believe you two is in cahoots with each other. You and him is working that gold mine together, ain’t I right?”

  “Sir, I have never seen this man in my life, but if you keep beating him you are going to kill him, and his death will be on your hands.”

  “Let me explain something to you young lad, I don’t know the number of men that I have already killed. One more ain’t gonna make any difference. I’ll kill him, and you too for that matter, like stepping on an ant, you two ain’t nothing, all I want to know - where is the gold mine?” As he finishes, he turns and slugs the old fellow again.

  “Wait mister, wait. Why do you think he knows where the gold mine is?”

  “You see Bert here,” pointing to Mr. Brown Hat. “He was up on the mountain with our gang when a friend of ours by the name of Old Bill stopped by their campsite. He told of finding a gold mine and said he give a map of it to his partner.

  “Well, afore you know it some low down, sneaking skunk pitched a stick of dynamite into the fire. Bert was the onliest one to run off. Now our friend with the gold mine was kilt along with the rest of the gang. Of course, being dead he never got a chance to tell Bert where the mine was or who he done give the map too.

  “I was waiting at the Gap fer the boys to ride back in, but Bert was the onliest one that got back. We knowed about this here cabin and this old prospector coot and figured he was Old Bill’s partner, but he ain’t talking. He’s prouder of that mine than he is of his life.” Looking at Sam, “Maybe you’re not?”

  “Look mister, this old man, well Rufus is his name, doesn’t know anything about a mine. He’s been prospecting all his life, you think if he had struck it rich he would still be livin’ up here in these mountains. No sir’ree, he’d be in Knoxville havin’ himself a big time.”

  “Makes sense boy, you mean,” winking at the others, “drinking whiskey, gambling and chasing wimmen and any money he had left he just wasted. Wait, maybe you and him haven’t had time to do much minin’ with all this snow and all – yeah that’s it, he’s trying to save it all for hisself.” Turning to Rufus, he draws back his fist to strikes him again.

  “Hold on there mister, you’re right,” Sam said trying to save the old prospector from further harm, “Rufus is my uncle. I lied, I thought I could work out a deal with you, but I see there is no use. Please stop beatin’ him to death, and I’ll talk.”

  “You mean you are related to this old coot, and he shared the mine with you?”

  “Well, I just happened to be out hunting that day and ran upon Rufus at the mine when he discovered a vein of gold.”

  “You’d just say that to save you and your uncle’s worthless hides.”

  “Nah, it’s real,” untie my hands and I can prove it to you. Blackie instructs that only one of Sam’s hands be loosened.

  With his free hand Sam reaches into his pocket and withdraws the large gold nugget and hands it to Blackie. The three outlaws gawk and eye the yellow hunk of metal. One says he has never seen such a large piece of gold. Another dreamily tells of the women and liquor he can buy, the other speaks of goin’ to Cal-i-forn-nee-a.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Blackie said holding up the gold nugget. “This is just one piece of gold. There must be lots more where this ’en come from. That old man ain’t gonna tell us nothin’, put him out of his misery, and then we’ll git the information from our new partner here. Right kid?”

  Bert pulls his Colt from its holster and walks over to Rufus. Rufus is unconscious or maybe already dead, but Sam is not going to let Bert shoot him, “Wait, wait don’t kill Rufus! If you swear not to harm us anymore, I will tell you where you can find the mine.”

  The three outlaws huddle together in the far corner of the room whispering. Bert says to ‘Blackie,’ “Yer not buyin’ that tall tale are you? Let’s just shoot them both and git out of here. They don’t know nothin’.”

  “Jest a minute there Bert. What if the kid is right, we might be passin’ up an excellent opportunity. You know he got that nugget sommers?”

  “We ain’t partnering up with them, are we?”

  “Nah, of course not. Let’s just play the hand out then we’ll kill ’em both.”

  “Okay kid,” said ‘Blackie,’ walking over to Sam. “We’ve decided, all you’ve got to do is tell us where the gold is, and we’re not going to kill you. In fact, we’re gonna let the two of you be on your way.”

  “Now,” said Sam, “you swear? You’re makin’ a double-dare promise?”

  “Oh, I swear it on my dear old mother’s grave.” One of the bandits looked at the other and winked, they knew Blackie’s mother was still alive.

  “All right then, look in the lining of my hat.”

  Blackie pulls Sam’s hat from his head, turns it inside out and finds a piece of paper. He pulls it out, it’s the map, he lays it on the table and begins to study all its details.

  Once he confirms to his satisfaction the map is real, he turns to his two compadres, “Kill ’em both!”

  “No wait!” says Sam. “You double-dared promised.”

  “There is no honor among thieves, you know that kid, I lied.” Looking at Bert and the other outlaw, “Git on with it! Kill ‘em both!”

  As the two remove their six-guns from their holsters and begin to cock the hammers, Bert is going to kill Sam, and the other buckaroo is going to shoot Rufus. They pull the hammers back on their pistols; touch their fingers to the triggers. Suddenly, the front door is kicked open. In charges Luke with the Spencer belching .56 caliber lead bullets as fast as he can fire them. Within seconds, the three outlaws lie dead on the floor.

  “Are they dead?” asks Sam.

  “Dunno,” Luke said pulling his pistol and firing one more .44 bullet into each body. “I’m pretty sure they are now.”

  Luke unties Sam, who has tears streaming down his face. Luke did not know if the tears are from happiness for being saved or from the nearness he came to death; regardless, Sam hugs Luke and runs to Rufus and begins to untie the ropes that bind him. Luke stops him, “Forget it Sam; he didn’t make it, he is dead!”

  Sam hurries across the room filled with gunpowder smoke; removes the gold map from Blackie’s clenched fist, then relieves him of the gold nugget from his vest pocket.

  “Why? Why Sam would you risk your life for this old prospector that you didn’t even know? And give away the map to your gold creek?”

  “I just had to do it Luke just had too. I couldn’t just watch them kill him, Rufus, I guess this is who he was. Let them kill him for a gold mine, who could do such a thing?”

  “Not you, that’s for sure,” said Luke. “Go through their pocket
s and pull out any papers that might identify who they were.

  “Come on Sam, that’s enough excitement for one day let’s get on back home,” Luke, said as he reloaded cartridges into his rifle and pistol. Sam picks up his Springfield and opens the cabin door to head home.

  Luke was wrong! Their day of excitement is about to continue, standing at the door growling is a mammoth seven hundred pound ravenous, black bear. He was at least seven or eight foot tall; smells like the back of an outhouse with teeth showing that were at least two inches long. He has a very famished look in his eyes, and doesn’t at all seem too friendly. ‘This must be the bear Catherine warned about – it is hungry, and he thinks he has found his dinner,’ thought Luke.

  “Run,” says Sam.

  “Run! You’ve got to be kidding. This eight-foot mountain of death is standing in the only way out of here.” Didn’t you notice there is only one door?” His massive body will not fit through the cabin’s entrance. The bear is so large he pushes the door from its hinges as he struggles to get into the room.

  Sam thought the cabin was small before, but now it seems no bigger than a matchbox. “Shoot it Luke, kill it. It’s coming in.”

  Luke fires one round; nothing happens, well, maybe something did – the bear gets madder. “Shoot it again Luke!” Sam yells. To make the bear even more vicious, Kentuck is outside raising cane, barking and biting at the bear’s hindquarters.

  “I’m trying Sam, but I have a shell jammed in this Spencer. It won’t fire.”

  The bear has now squeezed himself through the narrow door and is inside the room.

  Luke and Sam retreat to the farthest corner as Luke attempts to get his rifle to shoot. They are running out of time; the bear raises its head, which touches the ceiling. He is swinging his huge forearms, each tipped with razor sharp claws awaiting their chance to grab something to hold on to. Right now, odds are it appears it will be Luke and Sam. Luke cannot get his rifle unjammed and his pistol is worthless against such a brute.

  The bear is so close they get a whiff of its foul smell. It has a musky, pungent, urine smell. The beast opens his mouth wide and lets out a terrifying growl, which emits a rotten, meaty odor. “Shoot Luke! Shoot! We’re running out of time.”

  Luke yells back, “Sam we’re out of time. My Spencer won’t fire.”

  Running purely on adrenaline, Sam raises his musket, thrusts the barrel into the bear’s mouth just behind those fearsome teeth. His razor sharp claws are now just a mere few inches from tearing in to the flesh of Luke or Sam. He touches the trigger; the hammer falls on the primer cap, igniting the black powder with a loud ‘kaboom.’ The bear growls again, lumbers forward and falls. The bullet went straight through the top of the bear’s mouth directly into its brain – killing it instantly. As the bear collapses, Luke and Sam have to hug the wall to keep the enormous animal from falling on top of them.

  “Well,” said Luke stepping around the enormous mound of brown fur, “you wanted a bear now you’ve got you one. Only question now – what are we going to do with him?”

  MEAT APLENTY

  It is nearing nightfall on the fourth day since Luke and Sam left to go hunting. Catherine is worried; normally a two-day hunt is all the hunters can withstand out in the freezing sub-zero temperatures up on the mountain.

  Catherine hears three rifle shots from high up on the mountain side an hour or so before she sees two men walking through the snow on snowshoes, leading three horses and a burro. She can see one of the ponies is a Pinto, white with tan marking. In the snow, the Pinto is almost invisible. All the animals are heavy laden and are having a hard time walking through the knee-deep snow. She removes the shotgun from over the mantle and cautiously returns to the front door. These strangers are still too far away to recognize who they are, but, “Dang it,” that sure looks like Kentuck about fifty feet in front. No, it can’t be the boys, but again she looks, “That has to be Kentucky Lead, there has never been a dog in this country that looks like him! What’s he doing with these fellows?”

  She knows it cannot be Luke and Sam they had not taken any horses – if fact they only have three horses and one burro, and she knows they are still in the barn.

  About a quarter of a mile out she hears three more rifle shots fired quickly in succession. That’s not a musket that is a repeater. Luke had his Spencer, she knew it was a repeating rifle, but she had never heard it fired and did not know its sound. Whoever they were they have obviously done harm to Luke and Sam.

  Nate is now stomping through the snow from the barn heading toward the house, “Hurry Nate, hurry don’t let them catch you out in the open. Where’s your .44?”

  “Whoopee,” yells Nate trying to run through the deep snow. “Whoopee,” he hollers again.

  “Hush Nate, hush, do not let these strangers know anyone is home. Maybe they will just keep on going!”

  “Lands sake woman, we’s better hope they’s don’t keep on goin’!”

  “What are you talking about Nate? Have you gone crazy?”

  “Shore nuff Miss Catherine, crazy to see them two fellers comin’, why that’s Luke and Mr. Sam. Didn’t yous hear Luke’s Spencer gun shootin’. Theys done loaded down with fresh meat – I jest wonders whos them hosses and that burro belongs to. They both left here walking on them snowshoe thingys.”

  It took a while before Luke, Sam, the burro and the three horses walk up to the hitching rail. All the animals are packed with fresh meat.

  “Lands sake,” said Nate, what in the world – that shore nuff ain’t deer meat. If’en it is, y’alls has done kilt the world’s biggest buck!”

  Sam couldn’t wait, “Bear! We have killed us a bear! Whoopee,” he yelled, pitching the bearskin on the snow in front of Catherine and Nate.

  Catherine couldn’t wait either before she lit in to Luke. “Luke I told you before you left not to mess with a bear. I tried to be as plain as I could speak and said to leave the bears alone! Did I not? Didn’t I warn you they are dangerous? You’re lucky both of you are still alive.”

  “Amen to that! You sure did Catherine, but you forgot to tell us what we were supposed to do when the bear wouldn’t leave us alone.” Stepping from his saddle, he ties his horse’s reins to the hitching post. As he turns toward the house, Catherine jumps into his arms. “I was so worried about you... I-I-I mean you and Sam.” She said hugging Luke’s neck and at the same time laying a big kiss square upon his lips.

  “Whoa Catherine, hold on a minute girl, Sam and I are fine. In fact, Sam is the ‘bear killer’ of this hunting party.” Sitting Catherine back down on the snow, “Come on, let’s all go inside and warm up, Sam and I are almost frozen. Let us get by the fire and pour some hot coffee down, and we’ll tell you all about Rufus, the outlaws, the gold mine and the bear.”

  “What!” exclaimed Catherine, “Rufus, outlaws, gold mines and bears? You all get inside I’ve got to hear this. You all would make up any tall tale to get out of taking responsibility for goin’ bear huntin’”.