Snake Eyes (9781101552469)

by Sherman, Jory

“Ah, nor do many, but if you believe in that hidden force which is in all things, you will live a long and happy life. It is this force which makes a seed grow into grass or into a flower. It is this force which tells the bee to make honey and the mothers to make milk for their babies. It is a powerful force, and it is invisible. You cannot see this force, but it is everywhere, and it is in all things.”

  Mike wanted to kill all the cattlemen, but in that instant he heard again his father’s words. They came to him over the years and he knew, in the deepest part of him, that his father had much wisdom and that he was right. It did him no good to hate. That is what killed all these people. Hate.

  Only now, hate had a different name.

  That name was Schneck.

  The Snake.

  He and Joe laid the body of Leda in the wagon, and each said a silent prayer for her eternal soul. Thor carried the body of a small boy up to the wagon and laid him next to Leda.

  It went on that way as the sun fled the sky and streamed its rays into the aching blueness, showered a shimmering golden glow behind the snow-clad peaks and left the shadows to grow and thicken in the canyon, to darken the Poudre to a crystal mélange of subdued colors except for the foaming whitecaps that seemed impervious to darkness or shadow. They flocked the tumbling waters like small mantles of white lace.

  When the wagons were loaded, the men turned them and headed back up the canyon. Joe drove the supply wagon while Mike took the wagon of the dead, with their horses tethered behind each. Thor rode ahead. He felt as if he were in a funeral procession. The buzzards had disappeared from the sky, and along the river, there was a feeling of solitude and emptiness. He did not know any of the dead, but he saw the effect they had on the two men, and he could feel their grief, the deep sadness in their hearts.

  It was full dark when they reached camp, and he helped Joe and Mike lay a tarp over the wagon with the dead and tie it down.

  “We will take turns standing guard over our people,” Mike said.

  “I will take the first watch,” Joe said.

  “I will take a watch if you’ll let me,” Sorenson said. “I feel some obligation.”

  “You need not,” Mike said. “But you can relieve me in the morning. You have had a longer day than I.”

  “That is true,” Joe said. “You eat, Thor, and you get some sleep, eh?”

  “I could use some shut-eye, I reckon,” Sorenson said.

  They ate a solemn supper that Renata prepared for them, and Vivelda sat with them and picked at her food. She kept glancing over at the tarp-encased wagon with a disconsolate look on her face.

  “I wonder where Brad is now,” she said as they all listened to the thunderclaps in the distance, the rollicking rumble of a storm over the foothills and down on the plain. “I wonder if he has caught up with the Snake.”

  “I wonder, too,” Sorenson said. “But I know he won’t quit until he’s caught both Schneck and Wagner. He don’t have no quit in him, that man.”

  They were silent after that, and when Sorenson put down his bedroll in one of the empty cabins, he fell asleep with the sound of thunder rolling across the sky like empty barrels in an attic.

  The last thing he heard was the far-off bleating of a sheep, and it gave him a strange feeling of utter peace just before he dropped off into the bottomless abyss of sleep.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Schneck and Loomis rode into a light rainsquall that soon turned into a frog strangler. Then they felt the sting of the rain on their faces as the wind rose up like some avenging banshee and battered them with howling torrents that drenched their slickers and turned their hats into sodden rain gutters.

  “Looks like we done rode into a full-bore, .60-caliber howler,” Loomis said.

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “So, we’re goin’ to have a lot of wet cattle in the mornin’.”

  “They’ll dry out,” Schneck said.

  “You still got that detective in your craw, Otto?”

  “What if I do?”

  “It don’t make your disposition any better.”

  “My disposition is none of your business,” Schneck said.

  “Well, it could use a little sugar on it. You want to hole up and wait out this storm under a rock or somethin’?”

  “No, damn it. We’ll ride on, Loomis. It’ll be just as cold and wet under a rock ledge.”

  “Look, Otto, I’m real sorry about that stampedin’, but I did all I could, and it wasn’t my fault.”

  “I am not angry at you, Chet. Hell, I’ve had cattle stampede on me a couple of times.”

  “Then what’re you mad at, Otto? That jasper on your tail?”

  “Yeah, him and those damn sheepherders. If I hadn’t run out of rifle cartridges, that Sidewinder would be wolf meat.”

  “I ain’t packin’ a Winchester, and my rifle’s .40 caliber.”

  “I know.”

  “Maybe some of the hands can help you out when we meet up with them.”

  “That might be too late. I can feel that bastard breathing down my neck. I’d like to wring his neck.”

  Schneck thought back to his boyhood in Andernach, Germany, and the summers he spent on his uncle Gustav’s farm. He loved to wring the necks of the chickens when they wanted some for Sunday supper. He also liked to use a hammer and kill the rabbits when his aunt Helga made rabbit stew or ha-senpfeffer. Later, he trapped small birds in wooden boxes held up on a stick with a string attached to it. He put seeds under the box and, when a bird hopped in to get at the seeds, he pulled the string and caught the bird. He would hold a bird in his hand and squeeze its breast until it gasped for breath and died. Killing small animals gave him much pleasure, but he liked to make them suffer first. He would have liked to have done that with those Basque women and children, but he wanted to send a strong message to Garaboxosa. He hoped the bastard had gotten the message and would remember him when he buried all those dead people.

  Maybe, he thought, all those sheep would be out of the mountains by the time he drove his cattle herd up there in a day or two.

  “Well,” Loomis said as he wiped water from his mouth, “maybe this Sidewinder is holed up somewhere hisself, or has just give up.”

  “I have a feeling he’s not a man to give up, Chet.”

  “Then, get a bead on him when he shows up and blow out his candle.”

  “I had the bastard. I had him dead to rights, and I ran out of bullets. So did Jim.”

  “Too bad. But you can’t cry over spilt milk, Otto. What’s done is done and you can’t change it.”

  “No, but I’d like to have another chance at Sidewinder.”

  “Maybe you’ll get another chance by and by,” Loomis said.

  “I hope I do,” Schneck said and meant it.

  The rain whipped at them. The wind snarled and railed at them with increasing ferocity. The horses splashed in large puddles, and their hooves slipped off wet rocks and they staggered and stumbled, drooping their heads as if they were pulling plows.

  Loomis thought that it was not a fit night for man or beast. But both man and beast were in it, and he kept hoping Otto would relent and let him seek shelter for both of them.

  He knew damned well that the German was a hardhead and wouldn’t stop to rest or dry out, no matter what.

  It was going to be a long night.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Sorenson awoke to the sound of a shotgun blast, a high-pitched yelp, and angry men’s voices.

  He sat up in his bedroll and groped for his boots in the dark. He slipped his feet into them, picked up his gun belt next to his pillow, stood up, and strapped on his pistol. He strode outside and walked to the wagon where the dead lay under the tarp that glistened with dew. He smelled the acrid aroma of exploded gunpowder, and there was a ghostly wisp of smoke hanging in the air a few feet from the wagon.

  Moonlight glazed the back of a man who was bent over something on the ground a dozen yards away. The man stood up and looked toward Sorenson.

>   “Wolf,” Joe said.

  Sorenson walked over and saw the dead timber wolf lying stretched out. Joe held a sawed-off shotgun in his left hand that reeked of burned cordite.

  “It must be a good eight or nine feet long,” Sorenson said. Joe had stretched the tail full length and placed the head in a straight line with its body.

  “Big one,” Joe said.

  “Just one?” Sorenson asked. He grazed his fingers over his beard stubble, which felt like sandpaper.

  “Just this one. Sneaked up on me. I was sitting under the wagon when I saw him.”

  Sorenson looked up at the starry sky, the shining half-moon, the sparkling band of the Milky Way. Venus shone like a brilliant diamond, and he could see the faint orange glow of Mars winking in the black void beyond the moon.

  “Time for me to relieve you, Joe,” Sorenson said. “Get some sleep.”

  “Do you want the shotgun? In case you see another wolf?”

  “No. My six-gun will be enough.”

  “I will sleep, then. I am glad this one did not go for the sheep.”

  “Good night, Joe,” Sorenson said.

  “Good night, Thor.”

  Joe walked away toward one of the log cabins. He opened the door and disappeared inside. Sorenson walked back to the wagon and leaned against the bed. The tarp made a crackling sound when he put his weight against it. He could smell the decomposing bodies underneath the fabric. The wagon reeked of a faint, cloying, somewhat sweet smell that was sickening to him. He tried not to think of the stiff bodies stacked in the wagon bed like cordwood.

  Two hours later, the sky began to pale in the east. Light washed out the stars as it crept across the arc of the sky, and the moon became a pale shell, as faded as a late summer flower, its skeletal shape suspended in a sea of cerulean blue. Mike walked from his cabin to the wagon where Sorenson stood, gazing at the shadows crawling downward from the high country, revealing brilliant white peaks that seemed to glow from some inner fluorescence.

  “Good morning, Thor,” Mike said. “How’d you like to take a ride with me?”

  Sorenson turned and gave Mike his full attention.

  “Maybe. Where you going?”

  “To the upper valley where we drove most of the sheep yesterday. I need some diggers to help bury our dead. And some of the shepherds there have wives and children among the dead.”

  Sorenson thought about it for a moment.

  “Yes, Mike, I’ll ride up there with you, but then I’m going on to the other valley where Schneck is grazing his cattle.”

  “Are you going back there to work for Schneck?”

  “Not on your life, Mike. There’s someone I want to see up there.”

  Mike rubbed his chin as he thought about what Sorenson had told him.

  “The Mexican?” Mike said.

  “Yes. Jorge Verdugo. The man who came down here under false pretenses and worked for you, suppered with you, and then betrayed you.”

  “You know that to be true?”

  “Yes. Schneck sent him down here to spy on you. I think Schneck planned to come down here and murder the women and children, but after Verdugo told him they were all leaving, he changed his plans.”

  “What will you do with the Mexican?”

  “I’m going to bring him down here to help dig graves. And I want him to see the people he caused to die. The people who befriended him.”

  “Some of my men may not take kindly to your bringing the Mexican down here at such a solemn and holy time.”

  “Verdugo needs to know what his words to Schneck caused to happen.”

  “Just tell him,” Mike said.

  Sorenson snorted in derision.

  “Verdugo is not a very smart man. My telling him might just wash over him and seep away like water down a hole.”

  “I see,” Mike said. “Bring him down then, but I won’t be responsible for what happens if the men find out what he did.”

  “I won’t tell them if you won’t, Mike.”

  “I will not tell them. But I may put a rope around his neck and hang him from one of those big junipers.”

  “If you do, I’ll help you string him up,” Sorenson said.

  Less than an hour later, with sourdough biscuits, coffee, and mutton in their bellies, Mike and Thor rode across the valley and up the trail to the higher ground. The sun was high and drenched the grasses and the trees with warmth and golden sunshine, burning off the dew and making the green hues as radiant as emeralds.

  “Tell me about Minnesota,” Mike said when they were riding through the timber that gave them shade among the shimmering shafts of sunlight. “I have never been there. What is it like?”

  “It is a land of many lakes, although I guess some of them are no more than ponds. The lakes are teeming with fish. There are no mountains, like here. Just a lot of lakes and a legend about them.”

  “What is this legend?”

  “They say a giant created the land and lived there. They call him Paul Bunyan. They say that the lakes were made by his heavy footprints when he walked the land. They explain everything unusual there was caused by Paul Bunyan.”

  Mike laughed, and Sorenson joined him.

  “Perhaps it is so,” Mike said.

  “Minnesota has many Swedes and Norwegians and Germans living there, and I think the early settlers brought their fairy tales with them across the ocean. Many of them believe in little folks and ancient gods and strange creatures.”

  “And giants,” Mike said with a smile.

  “Just that one giant, Mike.”

  Sorenson left Mike in the upper valley and rode on to the cattle camp. He found Verdugo working in the stable and called him out.

  “What is it you want, Sorenson?” Verdugo asked.

  “Saddle up a horse and ride with me, Jorge,” Sorenson said. It was not a request, but a command.

  “Why? Where do we go?”

  “I’m going to show you something, and I have some work for you.”

  “Does Snake send you?”

  “No, Schneck didn’t send me. You get crackin’, Jorge, or I’ll take a quirt to your worthless Mexican hide.”

  Verdugo seemed to recall the beating he took at the hands of the Swede and nodded.

  “I will go with you,” he said.

  A half hour later the two were riding at a good clip through the timber. They descended into the lower valley to see men digging graves, wielding their shovels against buried rocks and hard, grassy dirt.

  “What is this?” Verdugo asked.

  “Get off your horse and I’ll find you a shovel, Jorge,” Sorenson said.

  “What are they digging?” Verdugo asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  Sorenson led Verdugo over to where Mike was standing. The wagon had been pulled up close to the graveyard. The tarp was still on it, and it stood in the shade of the pines.

  “Do you have a shovel for this man, Mike?” Sorenson asked. “He wants to do some digging.”

  “There’s an extra shovel on the ground next to that spruce tree,” Mike said.

  “Do you pay me for this?” Verdugo asked.

  “You’ll get something out of it, Jorge,” Sorenson said as he walked him to where the shovel lay.

  Joe put Verdugo to work. He told him where to dig and how deep. Verdugo sniffed the air as he drove the shovel into the ground and turned the soil.

  “What is that I smell?” he asked Sorenson.

  “That’s what you’re burying after you dig that hole, Jorge,” Sorenson said.

  “I do not understand.”

  Mike stood close by and nodded to Sorenson.

  “You want to see, Jorge?” Sorenson said. “Come with me, then.”

  Sorenson walked Jorge to the wagon and untied a couple of tie-down ropes. He shoved Jorge up to the tailgate and let him look at what was in the wagon.

  Verdugo recoiled at the sight of the dead people lying on the bed, stiff as heavy lumber, their faces drained of blood, their ey
es fixed and dull as dirty marbles. He recoiled as if he had been bitten by some unseen animal.

  “That is what you did, Jorge. When you told Schneck about these people going down the canyon. Schneck, Wagner, and two others murdered these people, and now they are going to be buried. You are digging one of the graves.”

  “Jesus, I did not know,” Verdugo said.

  “You knew, Jorge. You told Schneck, and you knew what he meant to do.”

  Verdugo buried his face in his hands.

  “I am so sorry,” he said. “So sorry.”

  “Get back to digging, Jorge,” Sorenson said and shoved him back toward the graveyard.

  Verdugo stumbled for a few feet and then walked to where he had been digging and picked up the shovel.

  Mike came over to talk to Sorenson.

  “What are you going to do with Verdugo when we are all finished here and we have said good-bye to our friends?” Mike asked.

  “I’m going to tie him up and wait for Brad to return. We’ll take Verdugo down to Denver, and we’ll watch him hang. He’s just as much a criminal as Schneck.”

  “We could hang him here,” Mike said.

  “It would be quicker, but if he hangs in Denver, some of those cowhands will see him die and maybe they’ll think twice before they try to run your sheep out of the mountains.”

  “I think you are a wise man, Thor. Let this Mexican be an example to many who would drive us away.”

  Sorenson nodded and dug a plug of tobacco from his shirt pocket. He cut off a chunk and stuck it in his mouth.

  Mike walked away and spelled one of the diggers.

  He said prayers over the dead at high noon. Verdugo sobbed as the shepherds lowered the bodies, which were wrapped in linen sheets, into the ground. Some of the men dangled their beads and wept with their hats off.

  Sheep bleated in the valley, and a swarm of buzzards wheeled in the sky as if they were pinned to an invisible merry-go-round, the tips of their wings like feathered fingers touching the cobalt sky.

  Small birds chirped as they hopped on the grass, and a chipmunk whistled from the talus slope, sounding as forlorn as a lost waif calling its pet dog.