Yellowstone

by H. V. Elkin

  “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

  Bill could see a weight had been lifted from Cutler’s shoulders. The trapper had suddenly become transformed back into the man Bill had met in Tensleep and who had given Bill a shooting lesson out on the Oklahoma plains.

  Later, after the mules had been loaded, Cutler examined the job Bill had done with Kate. He shook his head in mock disgust. “Now that’s a pretty piece of work.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Can’t you see Kate’s been takin’ advantage of you?”

  “Huh?”

  Cutler grabbed Kate’s pack and pulled it. The pack slid easily to the side.

  “Hey,” Bill said. “That pack was tight a minute ago.”

  “Don’t doubt it. But it ain’t now, is it?”

  “Well,” Bill said, “I’ll tighten it again.”

  “Don’t know why I should expect a farm boy to know about pack animals. Now, if I’d let you pack Emma, you wouldn’t have no trouble, because Emma ain’t like Kate. They may look alike, but they got different personalities, especially when it comes to strangers. Kate can act just like any a mountain pack horse when the devil’s in her. Do you know what I’m tellin’ you?”

  Bill got his dander up. “How’s a farm boy supposed to know?”

  “You mean to tell me you didn’t see her plant her legs like stanchions and blow out her sides when you tightened the cinch belt?”

  “No!”

  “Well, you’re leadin’ Kate on this trip, and she’s gonna give you nothin’ but trouble if she thinks she can get the better of you. You’ll have to retighten that cinch at every slope. Every stop, she’ll come up to you to get the pack righted. She gets away with that, and she might try scrapin’ it off under low branches.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Kick her in the head?”

  “Not my mule you don’t.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, just walk up to that cinch and pretend you know what you’re doin’.” Bill walked up to the cinch. “Now right the pack.” Bill did. “Now when you tighten the cinch, poke an elbow gentle like in her ribs.”

  It was just like old times again.

  Chapter Seven

  The ski tracks ran in a south-westerly direction. Two sets were marred by the mules’ hoof prints in the snow. The skies were gray and threatening; a cold, heavy mist lurked in the valleys beneath the mountain peaks.

  The party turned due south and passed Obsidian Cliff, a mass of black volcanic glass that loomed in sharp contrast to the whiteness of the ground.

  Not much talking was done on the trail. Each man was intent on the journey. The snow seemed to grow up from the ground and the only way to get from one place to another was by sliding one ski ahead of the other. For traction in going uphill, it was sometimes necessary to put burlap just behind the foot of the ski. It all took concentration.

  Many tracks other than those the hunting party made were seen. They were from deer, rabbits, squirrels, mice, pine martens, porcupines, ermine, otters, moose, even buffalos. Bill would have to learn how to identify them all someday. The only tracks the men were looking for were bear.

  At one point, a statuesque coyote stood some yards away, its head cocked in deep concentration, looking at the snow. Then, without the single warning of a muscle tensing, it jumped straight into the air, pounced with all four feet, buried its head a moment, and arched back holding a mouse in its jaws.

  But the men saw no bear tracks. Two of them wondered where the stage driver who called himself a savage was leading them, though Burgess didn’t wonder about it. Burgess trusted Klock, and Cutler trusted Burgess.

  They camped and made shelter the first night beneath alpine firs that bent under the snow. Bark and dead leaves were used to build a small fire. fire.

  “All right, Rutherford,” Cutler said. “Let’s have it.”

  “It’s the end of a long day, John, and we got to walk over chalk in the mornin’.”

  Cutler stared hard at the guide. “A man likes to know where he’s goin’.” he said.

  “You think I’m pluck on direction, I reckon.”

  “I think I want to know where we’re goin’, Rutherford, and how long it’s gonna take us to get there.”

  “You figure you can manage on your own hook?”

  “I figure the time’s come for some plain English out of you. We’re not a party of tourists out on a sightseein’ trip, and you’re not along to entertain us.”

  Rutherford looked at Cutler’s eyes and wondered who would be the best man in a fight. Then he lay back on his bedroll and looked up at the snow-laced branches.

  “My apologies, John. Man makes a life of car-tin’ dudes and he can get himself into a bad frame of mind. Starts figurin’ what he knows is worth tin, and he’d be better off not givin’ it out too free.”

  “An apology wasn’t what I was after.”

  “Okay. I’ve ciphered this grizzly, I figure. I mapped out where he’s been spotted, and I think I know where he’ll be when we get there.”

  “That ain’t good enough, and that’s why you’d best lay it out. I’m the one who’s paid to do the trappin’. And I’m tellin’ you, if you get us where the grizzly is, it’s not as good as gettin’ us where the grizzly’s gonna be.”

  “Another thing is, I don’t cotton to takin’ orders from another man,” said Rutherford.

  “Well, I’m plumb sorry about that,” said Cutler, “but that’s the way the land lays out. I ever want to drive a stage, I’ll come take lessons from you. But this trip, that ain’t the case.”

  Rutherford was silent. “Okay. Looks like I either go along with you or I make myself scarce.”

  “That’s just about it.”

  “Even though the situation might get in my craw and make me ornery later.”

  “You want to get ornery, Rutherford, I’ll see if I can’t oblige you. There’s ways of settlin’ this we can both understand. But meantime, I don’t have time for nothin’ but everything you think you know.’

  “I figure the pattern’s gonna start all over again. The bear’s put a year between his old tracks, and he’s gonna start retracin’ them. I figure that’s so, because I saw him at the garbage dump the other day.”

  Cutler was angry. “And you kept it to yourself?”

  “Sorry, but like I said, that’s the way I’ve been operatin’. Keepin’ things to myself.”

  “He could’ve killed somebody while you was bein’ secret! They might’ve caught him right then and there.”

  “Yes, they might’ve and they might not’ve, too. They haven’t been able to nab him so far, so chances are they wouldn’t this time.”

  Cutler wanted to hit the man right where he kept all his secrets. But the smart thing was to get the information, because a man like this might not live to take off his boots. His secrets could end up as fertilizer on Sepulcher Hill.

  Rutherford went on. “So if the bear was at the dump, the next place he’ll probably be is the Norris Station, then Riverside, Lower Geyser and Upper Geyser. If we don’t catch him at one of those places, we won’t catch him at all.”

  “So you were leadin’ us to Norris, were you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s wrong. How do these places lay out?”

  Rutherford raised himself from his bedroll and took a handful of snow from the branches above. He smoothed the snow on the ground, then took a twig from near the fire and drew a map. “We’re almost to Norris now, about here. Riverside’s over here at the west entrance to the Park. Lower Geyser’s down here, sort of in-between and south of Norris and Riverside. Makes a kind of triangle.

  Upper Geyser’s directly south of Lower Geyser.”

  “Okay,” Cutler said. “We’ll go on to Norris, because it’s on the way. If you’re right, the bear’ll be headed west to Riverside. But we won’t be. We’ll go on down to Lower Geyser and get there first.”

  “Yeah.” Rutherford blinked. “Gue
ss that’s the way to do it, after all. I should’ve thought of that. It’ll save us about thirty miles, too.”

  Burgess piped up from his bedroll, “And we’re gonna need that thirty-mile advantage if we’re gonna have a hoot in hell of gettin’ ahead of Big Spook.”

  They did just that. When they started out the next day, Rutherford skied a little closer to Cutler than he had the day before, as if he wanted to keep close to his secrets to protect them.

  A special stillness surrounded Norris when they got there. The only movement observed was smoke curling from the chimney. It could be seen there had been a lot of movement there recently. Ski marks from the patrol that had left that morning remained. Beyond their smooth lines, the snow formed a contrasting wild pattern. Where it had been violently disturbed, the white terrain was dotted with patches of blood, whose warmth was diluted as they became frozen in the snow.

  Red tensed. Cutler made a clucking sound with his tongue, and the dog sprang forward to where the fighting had been. Nose down, he was led in a mad circle by the quarry’s scent. Then off toward the west.

  “Red!” Cutler called. “Stay!”

  The dog stopped in its tracks and looked back, pulled toward the west but retaining its strong loyalty to Cutler. The men came near the dog and saw the long and indistinct tracks in the soft snow.

  Going back to the shack, they found the door was ajar. Inside, huddled near the stove was a young soldier, his left leg swathed in a reddened bandage. He became excitable when he saw them. “I know you! You’re the one’s come for the grizzly, aren’t you?”

  Burgess kneeled by the soldier tending to the wound. “That’s right, son. That’s John Cutler, his partner Bill Taylor, and Rutherford Klock. I’m Felix Burgess. We’re all after that animal. Hope you saved something for us to do.”

  “Plenty left.” The soldier managed a painful smile. “Think he broke my leg, or I’d be off after him myself.”

  “What happened?” Cutler asked.

  The soldier had trouble telling his story, not because he couldn’t remember it or was in pain, but because he was mortified about having come up short in the fight. “I’ll never hear the last of it,” he said. “First soldier to spot the grizzly in a year, and I let him get away.”

  “You must’ve done okay if you’re alive,” Cutler said. “Last soldier who saw him wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Right here, in this same place, too.” The soldier shook his head in disgust.

  “What happened?” Cutler repeated.

  “Oh, it wasn’t more than half an hour after the others had gone out on patrol. Like a damned fool, I had my carbine apart, figuring this was a good chance to clean it. What good’s a guard whose gun isn’t ready to shoot? Anyway, I had the rifle apart, when I thought I heard a noise outside. I took out my six-gun and opened the door. It was standin’ there on its hind legs, bigger than life, drooling at the mouth and roaring. I ...” He shook his head. “I dropped the damn gun.”

  “You’d’ve needed a bigger one,” Cutler said, “in order to do any good.”

  “Yeah, the one I was cleaning. After I dropped it, the bear took a swipe at me. I backed away to avoid it and fell ass over teakettle. My legs was where my head should’ve been, and that’s what the bear swiped at the second time. And that’s why I am the way you see me.”

  Rutherford asked. “How’d you keep from get-tin’ killed?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe better if I was. I was dizzy and in a corner, and the bear was on its haunches looking at me like he was gonna finish the job any moment. Then I guess he got wind of some meat we had in here, and he decided he wanted it more. Hell! He sat right here and chewed on it while he was staring at me. Then he took off to the west.”

  “You gonna be all right here until the patrol gets back?” Burgess asked.

  “My pride’s hurt worse than anything else. Don’t worry about me. Go after that bear. He’s got a couple hours start on you, so don’t waste any time.”

  The men looked at Cutler.

  “Don’t you worry none,” Cutler said. “We’ll get that bear, if it’s the last thing we do.”

  “You won’t have no trouble following the tracks in this snow.”

  “We won’t be followin’ the tracks.”

  “You won’t?” The soldier could not believe it. “Did I hear you right?”

  “I’m not in the business of followin’ tracks, soldier. I’m in the business of catchin’ rogue animals. So if you hobble out of here, which I don’t recommend, you’ll see our tracks goin’ south. You might decide we’re cowards, or you might decide that we got a plan for gettin’ the job done. That’s up to you.”

  “We ain’t gonna follow the bear,” Bill said. “We’re gonna get ahead of him and be waitin’ for him.”

  “But,” the soldier spluttered, “the bear’s heading west. I told you that. Maybe he’ll wind up killing the man at the Riverside Station. You can’t take a chance on that happening, even if you don’t catch the bear!”

  “Let’s go,” Cutler told the others.

  “What about that man at Riverside?” Rutherford asked.

  Cutler was already out the door. “Red!” he called to the dog who was still poised in the bear tracks and looking west. Red looked back. “Come!” Cutler commanded. The dog hesitated a moment, not understanding anymore than Rutherford or the soldier why they would not be heading west. It was a hard thing for the Airedale to leave the trail. Many times before Cutler had had to call the dog off the scent, and each time he did he took a chance on breaking the dog’s spirits. He could only hope he would be able to make up for it later again, as he always had in the past. He could never hope Red would come to understand his strategy. The dog returned obediently to its master.

  In a moment, the party was headed south.

  Rutherford couldn’t keep it to himself. “What do you figure that soldier’s thinkin’ right now? Us takin’ a chance on some other soldier bein’ killed. You know that bear’s headed for Riverside. Fact he’s been here to Norris after bein’ at the garbage dump, that proves I figured right.”

  Cutler might have ignored Rutherford, but he could see that Bill was listening hard.

  “You know the plan,” he said.

  “Sure,” Rutherford spat out, “I know the plan. But what’s that got to do with a man’s life?”

  “You said it yourself, Rutherford. If we don’t get that bear at one of the basins, we’ll never get him. He’s smart, and he’ll never repeat himself again. You know what that means? Means you might not be able to count how many get killed before somebody gets lucky enough to kill back.”

  “You think the man at Riverside’s gonna understand that reasonin’?”

  “He’s a soldier, isn’t he. Nobody’ll understand it better’n a soldier. Look, you want to get rid of rogue animals, you can’t go gettin’ sentimental. The animal ain’t one bit sentimental, and you can count on that. If you don’t fight the way he fights, he’ll win. If you ain’t got the grit for that, stick to stage drivin’. That’s the best business for a man who wants to be liked by everybody.”

  “Are you sayin’ . . .?”

  “You heard what I said. This business is full of chances, chances that risk lives, your own or somebody else’s. There was an old man in Sonora who knew this. He let himself be human bait so I could get a cougar. And that’s not the first time something like that happened. In our case, we got to get that bear, and we got to get it any way we can.”

  “You gonna ask one of us to be human bait?”

  “I would if I had to. Don’t think I’ll have to. You might want to figure out, though, what you’d do. Whether or not, if I ask you, you’d have it in you to do it.”

  “Don’t think I have to cipher that very long, John.”

  “Maybe not. Anyway, it don’t matter much to you what I’m gonna ask or do. That’s my concern. What matters to you is what you got inside you.”

  Burgess said, “We’re just country boys, John. Can’t
expect too much of us.”

  Cutler glanced at Bill. “I think I know what can be expected of a country boy,” he said.

  Bill thought about it. He wondered what he could expect of himself. He knew he was going to find out very soon.

  They passed through Norris Geyser Basin. No geysers spouted, but the results of thermal activity was all around them in pools of steaming water. At the bottom of one of them was the skeleton of a bird that had foolishly landed there. Ghostly skeletons of dead trees were everywhere. They had died while trying to survive in an area that, at this time of year, could alternate between an icy wind and a boiling hot spray from the inferno under the ground.

  “Want to see a geyser go off?” Rutherford asked Bill.

  “Not if we got to stop,” Bill said.

  It was clear from Cutler’s intent gaze dead ahead there would be no stopping until they reached their destination.

  Cutler knew Rutherford was troubled. He had become a man without an identity, a tourist entertainer who was of no use in this situation, and who did not know how to fit in. He was probably having doubts about what he had become. He was still going about his business of trying to be liked in the only way he knew, by offering to make a geyser spout for their entertainment. However, he had stopped using the slang he used when speaking to tourists. He was in the middle of trying to work things out.

  Just ahead they saw a herd of buffalo.

  Burgess spoke very quietly to the others. “When snow comes, they stay around the geyser area a lot. Snow’s never as deep there, and they can usually find some grass showin’. But now we got us a problem.”

  Cutler stopped. The others followed suit. “Don’t want to start a stampede,” he said, “but we still got to keep goin’.”

  “We could go around,” Burgess said. “If they start runnin’, they won’t stop before some of them get killed.”

  “We got to take the direct route,” Cutler said. “let’s just move steady like.”

  “A little thing like a leaf fallin’ off a tree could start them,” Burgess said. “What’ll they do when they see us comin’?”

  “We got to keep goin’,” Cutler insisted, “and we don’t have time to argue about it. The mules won’t start ‘em. A man walkin’ upright might. We’ll move behind the mules.”