by Jake Logan
All he wanted was a path. That meant the larger rubble needed to be cleared and a suitable track made over the rest of the slide. He’d worked twelve feet around the bluff face to make a way when he found a mammoth boulder. Without a pole for a pry, he wondered how he’d ever budge it. Damn, the notion of backing the animals down over a mile was impractical.
He put his shoulder to the rock and it teetered a little, to his shock. On his knees, he began to clear all he could reach out from under it. The tips of his fingers bled and in several places, his hands had cuts that turned the rock dust to mud. When he had gotten out all he could, he put his shoulder again to the boulder. It moved, and he strained with his teeth gritted. It began to topple over like a great sawed-off tree, and hung on the edge for an instant, enough to make him afraid it wouldn’t go. Then he gave a huge charge forward and caught himself only at the last second when the great rock went roaring down the mountainside into the yawning depths.
He collapsed on his butt, and his lungs had knives in them. With the rock gone, the trail ahead looked all right, and above him he could see the sunset shining in the saddle of the pass.
“Bring him on easy over that stuff. Paint and the mules will come.” He scrambled to his feet and brushed his hands off. Leading the way, he glanced back as the sorrel took his time, finding a sound footing with each step before he moved ahead. When Slocum reached the wider trail, he could look downhill and see Paint leading the mules up behind the sorrel. At that point, Slocum’s pounding heart let up some.
Where Lilly finally reached the wider trail on the steep mountainside, he went back to stand beside her stirrup. She shook her head as if to dismiss the tension, then stepped down, and her knees threatened to buckle. He caught her in his arms. As if his arms could save her, she crushed herself to him.
“It’s fine. We’re over the worst,” he said.
“Oh, I never thought—” She buried her face in his shoulder.
“It was a tough trip.” He held and patted her. “We’ve made it.”
“I have to sit down here,” she said. “I am trembling all over.”
He agreed. “I’ll turn my head.”
“Yes,” she said, and swallowed.
He went several steps up the mountain and stood with his back to her as she relieved her bladder. Listening to the horses and mules shake off their tensions in a rattle of leather and snorts, he waited until she walked up before he turned back. It had been a close call on the trail.
“You don’t think—” She pressed her crooked forefinger to her mouth as if concerned about something. “That-that they went off there?”
“No way to know. We better get up and over this pass. Twilight won’t last much longer.”
“Certainly.”
“I’ll help you on your horse.”
She looked at him for a second, then agreed. “Thank you. You do have manners and—and plenty of guts. I couldn’t look up at that little tree. I thought it would break.”
“Not this time.” He boosted her on the sorrel and she straightened in the saddle and gathered her reins.
“I must say this was no trip for the faint of heart.”
“No, ma’am.” He swung in the saddle and headed Paint for the pass.
Before the last light drained off, he found a flat in some scrubby pines and began to make camp. He built a small fire and made some coffee from his canteen. They used it to wash down the dry cheese and jerky, seated with their bedding on their shoulders against the night wind and dropping temperatures.
“Where would they camp, do you think—” Her words were cut off by the nearby howl of a wolf. She hugged her arms and searched in the night for the animal.
“He’s not looking for us. Easier game tonight for him. As for your husband, I have no idea. We’ll start searching when we get to the cabin. Cutter and Roland know the area.”
‘You have a cabin—a ranch up here?”
“I am using a dead man’s cabin. He kidnapped an Indian girl and brought her up there. A grizzly killed him when he was going after water.”
She laughed aloud, then quickly covered her mouth. “Slocum, you get in all kinds of fixes, don’t you?”
“I can find ’em, that’s for sure.”
“No, I mean, today you saved me, and it sounds like you saved her.”
“I’ve only been doing my part.”
“Why do you use an alias?”
“A long time ago a rich man’s son got drunk in a card game, picked a fight, and got in the way of a bullet. His father keeps two Kansas deputies on my tail.”
“Self-defense?”
Slocum nodded.
“But the law—”
“That belongs to him too. It’s been too long ago. I live looking over my shoulder.”
“Reckon they followed you today?”
“No, but it’s only a matter of time until someone wires them where I am.”
She hugged the blankets to her and shuddered. “I see. It will be cold tonight.”
“You get too cold, get up and build up the fire.”
She looked at the fire. “Perhaps two would be warmer than one. I am not suggesting anything.”
“Your call.” He waited.
She shrugged. “I believe you are a gentleman. I’ll risk it.”
“Damn sure be warmer,” he said, and spread out his ground cloth.
She excused herself, and a few minutes later came back. They prepared the covers together and when they were ready to crawl under, she smiled at him in the firelight. “You’re the second man I ever crawled in bed with.”
He nodded and threw some more wood on the crackling fire. Just as long as he wasn’t the last. Under the covers, he lay on his side away from her, and she did the same, but shortly she was curled around him and their warmth grew beneath the thick shield of covers.
“You won’t ever tell Josh about this, will you?” she whispered.
“Not a word.” He hoped for her sake that he had the choice not to tell him. Lost men usually meant one thing—dead men.
Morning came on a soft purple glow. When she stirred, he put his hand on her hip telling her to stay. He crawled out, built up the fire with dry logs, and put on water to boil for coffee.
His coat buttoned, he squatted on the ground, letting the reflective heat wash his face and sore hands against the bitter cold draft that swept the top of the mountain. They had their coffee, and he cinched up the animals, not having unpacked them when he tied them up for the night. They’d find a better place later on, or be at the cabin by dark. There were two places he wanted to check for the missing men. One was a salt lick he knew about that made a great place to camp and watch for game coming in. The other was an old trapper’s cabin near Horn Lake.
They rode by that cabin at mid-morning. No sign of anyone camping there. They skirted the small blue lake with Slocum checking for old signs of mule prints since she’d told him the missing men had two pack mules. Mule prints would be different from the usual horse tracks. But there was nothing.
They rode a trail through lots of fallen-down lodgepole pines and reached a large meadow in mid-afternoon. He spotted high in a tree a rag flapping in the wind, and turned Paint in that direction to check on it. What he saw made him whirl the horse and ride back to tell Lilly to stay where she was.
Naked white bodies have a certain look even at a distance. He’d never forgotten the sight of them from the war, on battlefields, in ambushes, unburied.
“You need to stay here,” he insisted.
“What-what have you found?” She stood in the stirrups trying to see past him.
He held up his hand to settle her. “There’s some dead men over there. I want to go look them over.”
Her forefinger pressed to her mouth, she looked close to tears. “Who are they?”
“Who they are I don’t know, but it’ll be grisly. Trust me.”
“What happened?” She was still trying to see past him.
“I’d say it was Indi
an work.”
“Oh, Slocum, I can’t stay here.”
“Damnit…” He dropped his head, shook it in defeat, and turned Paint. He’d done all he could. His stomach curdled and a great stone weighed heavily in it as he approached the remains.
Wild animals had worked on them, he felt certain, and he dismounted fifty feet from them.
“Wait,” she said, and dismounted and hurried over to clutch his arm. “Can you see a face?” she asked, looking away and letting him guide her.
“Who had red hair?” he asked.
“Blake did. Oh, no—” He whirled and caught her when her knees buckled and she fainted.
The scene was not pretty. He stood holding her limp weight, gazing at the scalped patches on the men’s heads. This was not his first sight of Indian savagery. He’d been a scout with Custer in Kansas, seen plenty of atrocities, but he still wasn’t ready for such grisly sights.
Gently, he laid her on the grass and went for blankets. One for her and two to wrap the bodies in. Damn, he hated being forced to be an undertaker. That this might happen had gnawed at him since he’d left Cross Creek with her. Real men never were five days late returning unless they encountered some kind of serious trouble.
She was sitting up when he returned. Her wet eyes were staring into space. “It’s him? It’s him, isn’t it?”
“Lilly, I’m sure it is. When I get them wrapped in blankets, you can look at them. I don’t want you to see them till then.” He dropped on his knees before her to look in her sad face.
She slung off her hat and looked with pained eyes at him. “Why? Why did they kill them?”
“I can’t tell you. Renegades, I guess. They need no reason, their hatred of all whites is so great.”
“Who are they?”
“Boys that ran away from the reservation—” He shook his head, unable to alleviate her loss. He reached out and hugged her. “Lilly, I am so sorry I brought you up here. My conscience is eating me up right now. You should have kinfolks—some other woman—I’m not a preacher.” He closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair.
A shudder of cold revulsion made him shake all over. Why him? Lord. There was no escaping the senseless loss of good lives in this hard land. She clung to him, and he rocked her back and forth.
They separated and she clutched his forearms. “Slocum, I have to see him.”
From around his neck he whipped off his kerchief, and mopped her wet face as easy as he could. “Let me wrap them first.” He had no intention of having her look at the savages’ madness and the work of wild animals on the bodies.
Sobbing until her shoulders quaked, she took the kerchief, sitting up on her knees, and told him to go ahead.
He wrapped the remains in blankets, roped them tight, and left only their pale faces uncovered. Then he struggled to his feet and not knowing what to say, went back to her.
“You can come tell me if it’s them now.” He pulled her to her feet.
She clutched his arm. “He must of had thousands of dollars on his body. In a money belt from the herd’s sale in Montana. He never trusted banks.”
“They took everything.” He guided her to the two corpses. Death filled his nose and he remembered the whiskey he’d bought—it might be good. They might both need some.
One look, and she turned back and clutched him. “It’s him and Blake. Oh, dear God.”
“When you get ready, we’ll load them and go to the cabin. I have a pick and a shovel there. They really need to be buried.”
“I’m making you do so much for me.”
“No, Lilly, don’t worry about that.”
“But you saved my life on that mountain yesterday—now—you—must bury them.”
“There’ll be better days,” he said, and unhitched her horse. “You can ride double with me.”
She agreed, and he put the wrapped dead men over her saddle and roped them down. It would be near dark before they reached the cabin. He wanted to be there. Cutter and Roland could help him dig the graves.
He rode stiff-jawed. She cried and alternately hugged him as they rode double for several hours. Riding up the meadow, he kept smelling whiffs of smoke. He halted Paint, and she asked him what was wrong.
“You smell hides burning?”
She nodded. “What would be the source?”
“I’m not certain.”
When they topped the last ridge in the twilight, he saw the source of the smoke and reined up, not wanting to ride into a trap. The four walls of the collapsed cabin were a red rectangle of fire in the twilight down the valley below him.
“What—what’s wrong?”
“The cabin’s burning.”
“Oh—who did that?”
He stared hard at the stark sight. “Renegades or outlaws.”
“What outlaws would do that?”
“One called Red Dog.”
“What can we do?”
“Get out of here till daylight, and then I can scout it when I am sure whoever done it is gone.”
She fumbled with the saddlebag tie-down under her leg. “Here, I think we need another drink.”
Numb with dread, he took the whiskey from her and stared at the burning shape. Where was Easter? What had happened to Cutter and Roland? Damn, this was a dead man’s land. He uncorked the bottle and took a deep draught. He let it slide down his throat and recorked it. Better save some, he’d probably need it later.
8
Dog looked back over his shoulder expecting to see pursuit coming after them. He rode one of the dead men’s horses at the rear, driving the herd hard. Mia was riding swiftly out in front, with the only mare on a lead and the mules on her heels. The other horses followed them in a hard run for the far timberline.
This would be the most dangerous crossing, with over two miles of open country to get over and no cover on the grassy basin. What they’d do for supplies—he wasn’t sure about that. There was game to eat. His Indian ancestors had lived off the land before the white man came. No stores back then. Spurring his horse in close, he reached out and swung the quirt hard on the butt of a lagging bay horse. The pony sucked in his tail and shot forward. Run, you lazy bastard, run.
Another sneak look over his shoulder. He saw nothing. So no one had seen them and no one had trailed them from Cross Creek. There would be a posse this time. When they found that worthless Rube, who’d raped Dog’s woman, smoking his own dick, they would get worked up and try to catch him.
Dog needed to cover their tracks. There’d be no way to do that and escape. But he’d figure out a way to throw them off if the posse came this far into the Big Horns. Maybe he’d even lead them to the renegades. Let those green bucks get the blame. He should have scalped those three back there. That would have really pointed the finger at those boys. With hooves thundering and horses heaving in the thin air, Dog closed in on the lodgepole thicket ahead.
He began to believe they’d make it undetected—
“Look!” Mia pointed to the north.
He saw the war party swooping down from the direction of snowcapped Soldier’s Peak. Only one of the braves brandished a modern firearm. He carried a Yellow Boy and the brass shone in the mid-morning sun as he shook it over his head while charging wide open on his buffalo pony. The other two had bows. He knew he needed those two taken out first. The old rifle had little range and he doubted the boy’s accuracy.
With his free hand he waved her on for the timber. Then he reached under the fender and came up with a Spencer repeater. The rifle in his hand, he swung his mount toward the chargers. If he couldn’t defeat three boys, he deserved to die. He chambered a shell in on the move. He hoped the rifle had a full tube of bullets.
The war party was less than a quarter mile away, and they’d seen he’d turned out to fight them, so they’d turned more southerly to meet him head-on. When they cut that distance in half, he slid the horse on his heels to stop, dropped off, knelt, and took aim. His first shot took the screaming bow bearer on the right o
ff his horse. With gun smoke in Dog’s eyes, he whirled without a blink to take the left-hand one out. He put a bullet in the chest of his pony, and it skidded nose-down, piling the rider off. The rifleman, discovering he was the lone surviving warrior, reined up his horse in a hard skid with a strange look on his face. Before he could do anything, the horseless rider came running hard and in one bound was up behind him on the black piebald horse. They turned and fled.
Dog ran after them, firing the Spencer and calling them cowards. They never stopped until they were gone from his sight. Out of breath, he bent over and shook his head. Brave damn Sioux, those three. He went to shoot the one lying on the ground. Standing over him, he dropped the rifle, jerked out his knife, then knowing this one was still alive, grasped a fistful of his hair and cut a circle on top of his scalp. The buck began to scream as Dog jerked the scalp lock loose.
“Tell them Red Dog scalped you. Tell them in camp!” he shouted over the howls in the face of the youth, who was holding his bleeding head and kicking his moccasins in pain. “Tell all of them Red Dog did this to you. Come after me again, the next time I’ll scalp your crotch, balls and all.”
Out of breath, he bent over to recover, grasping the greasy scalp in his fingers, the bloody knife in the other hand. He wanted this one to go back and tell them in the lodge circles that Red Dog, the breed, had scalped him. No bragging about how he saw the spirit or how he talked to the White Buffalo Goddess—but on the field of battle against three Sioux warriors, Red Dog single-handedly defeated us and scalped me.
Dog sheathed his knife, picked up his rifle, and went to where the white man’s horse stood ground-tied. He jammed the rifle in the boot and swung into the saddle. Mia was already out of sight. Then, whistling “Gary Owen,” which Custer’s Band played at Fort Lincoln before they went to die at Sweet Grass, he rode for the timberline.