by L. J. Martin
*
I’ve been at it hammer and tongs since before sunup, having made up my mind that six evil men will come to rue the day they met McBain.
“Stand still, you old fool,” I say to my buckskin, Dusty, as I suck up the latigo after he’s had a spell to get settled, and let out the belly full of air he sucked in to try and trick me with its tautness.
Dusty’s one of the finest mounts I’ve had the pleasure to work, and I’ve worked plenty. He’s surefooted and quick as a cougar, long winded as a bone-rattlin’ winter norther, and steady as an anvil when trouble comes our way. Actually, he’s not so old, still shy of ten, and tough as wang leather as he’d have to be to stay whole and healthy up here in the high country where I hunt and run a pair of trap lines to keep body and soul together.
Dusty was the third mount I was assigned by the U.S. Army, and I was able to buy him and the McClellan saddle he still carries for a pittance when the affair ended, as he too carries his share of scars. The mule, Jackson, tied next to him is a fine animal as well, if as hard headed as his namesake. He’s black as a-foot-up-a-bull’s-butt, except for the small white blaze on his roman nose.
So, no matter what comes, I’m atop good horseflesh and leading a pack animal up to any task. What few possessions I’ve collected—besides the traps and my weaponry—and I’ve never needed much, are still in the two-window one-door log cabin I’m leaving behind. My last act is the note tacked to the plank door.
*
To who some ever finds this note.
Help yourself, neighbor, as I’m not returning. Take some, leave some for the next pilgrim. Please leave the bible, as
it’s bound to be consolation
to the next wandering soul, and has long
been the heart of this humble abode.
*
Old Jackson the mule is packed with flour, salt, coffee, five pounds of dried beans, a satchel of dried red peppers, one fresh back-strap of elk, and the dried meat of a tender whitetail. A sheep gut holds a half-gallon of water, to which I’ve added two handfuls of beans and a pinch of peppers, so they’ll be soft enough to cook when I’m hankerin’ for something to both warm up and clean out my insides. There’s also a pound or more of last seasons dried berries—chokecherries and huckleberries—which is a luxury I allow myself upon occasion. I’m also fond of hard candy, but it has begun to pain my back chompers a mite, and I’ve had to stop stocking up on it on my bi-annual trips into town. The only item that might suffer from a fall on the trail is a quart of Old Diamondback whiskey, which I keep, of course, for snakebite treatment…and I surely think that a hard day on the trail is as serious as snakebite.
The only luxury I carry is a travel book, Innocents Abroad, by a new writer, Mr. Mark Twain, a bit of a humorist who has brought me to smile a time or two. I was able to pick up a used copy, only slightly dog-eared, the last time I visited the trading post. It will help pass the time and keep my mind busy so I don’t crazy myself with the thoughts of screaming children.
Most of the weight in the panniers is taken up by a pair of bear traps, only a little over forty pounds apiece, since I left the chain behind. What I might decide to trap on this trip probably won’t have to drag the weight, as it’ll take the worthless piker’s leg in half. And there’s my weaponry and accoutrements.
The 45-90 Sharps hasn’t been fired in over two years, only hauled out when I was bothered by an old griz who took umbrage at my taking up residence in the canyon he seemed to frequent. He blessed me with a fine silvertip coat, calf-length, which I brought along just in case this task takes me into the cold months, and it makes a fine sleeping pad none-the-less. There’s a triple handful of brass needing reloading, and I have the lead, powder, primers, and molds to do so. It’ll give me a way to wile away the nights while on my way south. In a pair of saddle holsters flanking my horn there’s two fine LeMat pistols, nicely converted from cap and ball to cartridge, which I took off a reb colonel at Gettysburg—a gentlemen who had no more need of them. The LeMat carries nine .30 caliber rounds in it’s spinner, and by rotating the firing pin on the hammer, fires a 63 caliber scattergun lower barrel which receives a 20 gauge shotgun shell nicely, a fine weapon for close work. My brass shot-shells are loaded with cut up square nails. In my saddle-sling is a shiny new Winchester 73, and on my hip is a 44 Colts Army Model also converted to cartridge, not so new as the Winchester, but a good deal more experienced. And packed in the bedroll behind my saddle is a two-shot 44 caliber belly gun fit for the most sneaky pleasure-house gambler.
I’m a squad of shootests on the hoof. In addition, and something I seldom carry but has an accompanying trimmed-to-length scabbard should the carrying become wishful, is a Boyle and Gamble saber-bayonet taken from a reb captain, originally with a 21” blade length but broken when I was attempting to pry a mount off’n my leg after it had been shot dead at Gettysburg and fell pinning me to the battlefield. I re-sharpened the blades remaining 12” of length and it now serves as a fine camp knife, long enough to chop kindling and sharp enough to shave with. It would, of course, serve to skewer a man, should it become necessary, and it’s hand guard makes a fine pair of brass knuckles, should close fighting call for such.
I’m carrying the firepower of a damn nigh a full company of single-shot-muzzle-loading rebs.
As I swing up into the saddle I grunt with the pain of my bum knee fittin’ to horse, and Ranger, my old dog, finally looks up from his snooze, gets to his feet, stretches his 140 pounds of half-Irish-Wolfhound, half-Great-Pyrenees, yawning prodi-giously at the same time.
“It’s gonna be a hard run, old dog. You might think about a’sittin’ this one out. There’s plenty of fat rabbits to hold you till some other old fool comes along and takes you to partner up with him.”
Ranger cocks his shaggy head to one side, eyes me, then gives me a grumble of a yelp and leaps down off the porch, as if to say he’s game for anywhere I’m man enough to lead him, and I have no doubt as he has been game for the four years since his old master died and he partnered up with me. He’s often proved to be the only friend a man needs up here in the high country, running more than one griz or pack of wolves away from where I lay my head for the night—you’d think his 140 pounds was all sour bile and fangs when he gets his back up. He don’t bark or growl much, and when he does you know there’s a passel of trouble on the way. He, too, has trouble getting the devil out once his back’s up. In that we’re a pair to draw to.
Old Sweeney Tucker, Ranger’s former master, rode into my camp slumped over the saddle and hot as a mink in mating season, with a load of furs and traps on the two mules he led. He proved to be sick as a poisoned pup, and I cared for him for most of a month afore his lungs filled and he gave up the ghost.
Ranger lay on his grave for most of a week without eating, growling whenever I came within a dozen steps, until I thought he’d starve there. It was only a haunch of venison that got him back on the trail, and ready to make friends with me.
Sweeney had two hundred forty dollars in gold in his poke, which, at his last request, along with the proceeds from the sale of his furs, mules, tack and folderol, I wired to the last known address of his family, after taking out a half dollar for a bottle of good Irish whiskey—at his suggestion—and a dollar for the cost of the telegraph. The old mountain man bequeathed me the dog, his horse…later et by a griz after being left in the corral while Ranger and I were out with Dusty running a trap line; Jackson, and Sweeney’s two mules, wisely having jumped the fence and running off for a while. Jackson returned alone, the two mules moved on to greener pastures. He also left me two dozen smaller traps, and the two prodigious bear traps that make up most of the load in Jackson’s panniers.
Well, I’ve thought on it long enough. It’s gonna be a long row to hoe before I get where I’m a’goin’, and then a hard row of stumps to uproot when I get there. I pray, for my sis’s sake that I’m up to the chore.
I gig the buckskin, leading the mule away from the c
abin without looking back. I’ve left my bible behind, and a good part of what it represents, tipping my hat at Sweeney’s grave as I pass. Ranger decides he knows the way better than I, and takes up the point. I wish I could train him to lead this hardheaded mule, but that’s a bit much to ask. Besides, once we get down into open country, well away from the lean-to shed he calls home, the mule won’t have to be led. He’ll take up our pace and stay along as if he was half dog himself.
So it’s goodbye to the Salmon River and the Selway, and hello to the sage covered desert country north of Nemesis, Nevada…after a week or more of hard butt-busting trail, some of which crosses lava flows that could pass for the hubs of hell, and if you make that, it’s the Snake that’ll try and suck you into her bowel and hold you till you’re as cold as she is afore she spits you up blue and pink and green with moss and good for nothin’ but fish food.
It’ll be blood and guts from there on out, and—if the good Lord is paying any attention after I abandoned his good book—a lot of hurt followed shortly by a trip to hell for the half-dozen no-accounts from the Lazy Snake ranch. And more than likely, myself.
Chapter Three
Colonel Mace Dillon leaned far back in his ladder-back chair on his wide ranch house veranda and yelled through the open window, “Chang, bring us another bourbon and branch water.”
“That’s mighty hospitable of you, Colonel,” the sheriff said, giving his host a smile, flashing a missing front tooth at him. The big barrel shaped man rose and walked to the railing—remarkably light on his feet for a man of such bulk—then spit a long stream of chaw over into the dirt below, backhanded the spittle from his full handlebar mustache, and returned to the bench where he’d taken up residence while reporting the results of the inquest to the wealthy ranch owner.
“It’s purely my pleasure, Tobias,” Colonel Dillon said. I appreciate you’re riding all the way out here to bring me the news…not that I was a bit worried about our position in this affair…not that we had any position or any thing to worry about. Even though we were the only ones who had an ax to grind with that hard-headed Jake MacIntosh.” The Colonel rose, unfolding long and lanky but standing with military baring, then he relaxed, spreading his arms wide and yawning. “Up with the sun, you know.”
“I’d best be going, Colonel,” Sheriff Wentworth said, thinking he was taking the colonel’s obvious hint, grabbing up his wide brimmed hat and holding it in front of himself, deferentially.
“Hogwash, Tobias. You’re staying for supper, then you can bunk with the boys.” The sheriff’s face fell, as if he expected to be invited to stay in the big house, but he kept the feeling to himself.
The Colonel placed a long boned hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “I’m pleased our name didn’t come up in this sad affair at the MacIntosh ranch, and I know that fact was partly your doing.” The colonel smoothed pork chop sideburns, only now beginning to go gray, then smiled again and offered, “Chang has a fine rib roast that’s been turning on the spit for an hour. I keep a few head corralled and corn feed them just for extra special guests like yourself. This roast will melt in your mouth.”
Tobias grinned widely as the Colonel greased his ego, and Dillon thought, what a damn fool, but continued, slapping the big sheriff on the back. “I want you to take a hindquarter back to town with you in the morning. We’ll loan you a pack horse and you just turn him out when you reach home. He’ll come back to his pards soon enough.”
“As you wish, Colonel,” the sheriff said, reaching into the open window for the drinks Dillon’s houseboy was offering. He handed one to his host. “That’s more than kind of you.” The sheriff paused a moment, then added, “I see you’ve already moved some stock up the canyon onto the Bar M.”
The older man’s eyes narrowed until his salt and pepper, bushy brows almost touched. “Well, Tobias, you know our boundary is not fenced. If a few Lazy Snake head have wandered over there….”
“It’s of little matter, Colonel. I suppose you’ll own the MacIntosh place soon enough.”
“Soon enough, Tobias, soon enough, sure as Sherman took Georgia.” The colonel laughed, then changed the subject as the less attention called to the fact he would be bidding—the only bidder if he had anything to say about it, and he did—at the sheriff’s sale of the Bar M. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, the MacIntosh’s had no relatives, and had died intestate. “Let’s retire to the drawing room until the table’s ready. How’s Judge Thorne?”
“He asked about you, Colonel, and sends his regards. Said he hopes you’re satisfied with the inquest and his ruling.”
“Fact is, you might take Felix a loin when you return. And tell him I appreciate his fine and fair jurisprudence.”
“My pleasure, sir,” the big sheriff said, but thought a loin for the judge, and I get the hindmost.
The sheriff followed the stockman into his drawing room, where the only snooker table in northern Nevada Territory resided, at least this side of Washoe Meadows.
Colonel Mace Dillon walked to the window and looked out over his spread, where a thousand steers were getting fat and a thousand yearling heifers were growing into fine breed stock—he’d again been blessed with a good grass year—and two thousand cows had bellies swelling with another batch for next year to grow his herd, and fortune, even more. And now he had room, and water, for two to three hundred more cows and calves.
And soon they’d be as fine a herd as there was in North America.
He’d gone east in the Spring and bought a fine Aberdeen Angus bull—General Napoleon he’d been named by his Scottish breeder Ian MacTavish, in a moment of whimsy. He was raised then sold in Pennsylvania. Colonel Dillon had paid over five thousand dollars for the bull, long of loin and broad in shoulder and hip, the finest of his breed. And he’d hired a man, a caretaker, to personally accompany the animal on a train, outfitted with a special stock car, that should be arriving within the month. Year after next, the northern Nevada desert should be dotted with fat long-loined heifers that would bring the highest price in Chicago.
Things were coming along just fine.
Just fine.
There was nothing to stand in the way of acquiring another several thousand acres of good grass and water on up the canyon, now that the MacIntosh bunch were out of his hair.
He had a couple more spreads to buy, or purloin, as he had the Bar M, and he’d own all the water in the valley, and have room for five thousand head. In northern Nevada every gallon of spring water was nearly worth it’s weight in gold to a stockman.
But one year, and one ranch at a time.
He’d buy them all out at a fair price if he could…if not, then devil take the hindmost.
And time was on his side.
*
We’d picked our way south for three days when we hit the hell-on-earth country not crossable by wagon, and barely by horseback. Nothing is harder on the feet of a hoofed animal than old lava flows—and it’s no less hard on those of us, Ranger and myself, with softer tissue. I normally wore moccasins, traded from a Snake squaw, but took to wearing my hard knee-highs, scarred with many a battle, when we came upon the lava.
It’s as if the devil his worthless self designed the country to kill man and horse—not only was the country knife edged, a million razor sharp stone edges, but it was virtually without grass for the animals and nary an animal lived in its nooks and crannies to feed a hungry hunter, man or dog. Just as you think the riding is easy along a highway of glassy lava, a smooth topped flow will suddenly be breeched by a four or five or more foot deep chasm, to wide to jump, with bottom peppered with jagged chunks of lava that would discourage a lizards crossing, much less a horse or mule. Only the buzzards circling above traveled with impunity, and even then there was not a tree to rest a weary flyer.
The black hubs-of-hell was a field of traps, holes waiting to snap the leg of man or beast, and jagged edges that would slice through canvas pants and peel flesh from bone in a careless heartbeat. By the time
we ended the first day of hunt-and-peck a foothold, and found a sandy bed under an outcropping so dog and I didn’t have to sleep on sharp shards, the horses and mules hocks were sliced and bleeding, and I had to wrap ranger’s soft feet with pieces torn from the tail of my extra Lindsey Woolsey shirt.
What I estimated to be about halfway across, we came face to face with a band of twenty or more Shoshone—commonly known in the east as Snakes—who rode up out of a deep cut in the lava, and reined up not a hundred paces from where I’d jerked rein. Had I heeded the neighing of Dusty, I’d have been forewarned and able to avoid the confrontation.
Three braves approached to within fifty yards as I filled my hands, each with a LeMat, even those sixteen shots of 30 caliber—I always keep the cylinders under the firing pin empty as I’ve seen more than one pilgrim meet his maker from dropping his own weapon—and two twenty gauge shotgun shells would not be enough for this large band even if each was a killing shot…not a likely result in a running battle, as that was what it would be should they start filling the dry air with lead. And the running, in this pile of razors, might be as damaging as flying lead.
As luck would have it, one of the three braves was Knows-No-Horse, with whom I’d once shared a roasted grouse when he’d stumbled into my high lonely camp, alone, afoot, and hungry. He recognized me, and called the others off with gibberish I didn’t understand, before a ruckus began—a ruckus that would surely steal me from finishing my task as it would be hard to do while staked out in the hot sun sans my fine head of hair, while the crows picked at my eyes.
They rode on with a peaceful wave, and I paused a moment to thank the God with whom I’ve had little conversation of late.
It took four days to cross lava hell, two more than I’d expected, and our goat guts of water were bone dry by the time we reached the towering edges of the Snake River gorge.