"The fact that I killed Boyd got back to Colorado. He'd been some shakes as a gunman, so they now had me pegged as one. Boyd, I kilt, but if they figured he was fast, they wasn't figuring right. In Deadwood I heard Ebberly was in town, making his brags what he would do if he ever come up to any of the Tremaynes.
"Bullet come nigh me just now. Better I tend to business for a mite."
Boone edged over a little and peered through the chinks in the rocks but could see only the dark line of the forest. The man he had kept under the rock shelf was off to his right now and it was not an easy shot...anyway, he had suffered enough.
His mouth felt dry and he rinsed it carefully with water from his canteen, then let the cool water trickle down his parched throat. It was his first drink in many hours. His face felt hot and there was a queer feeling around the wound in his side.
Bullets snarled and snapped, biting at the rocks, near him and further along. He held his fire, reluctant to give himself away. Boone found no malice in his heart for the officers of the law. This was their job, and not theirs to decide the right and wrong, but to bring him in. He moved, crawling back along the long undercut of the cave. There was a little more to write. Ten...maybe twenty minutes more. Then it could be over...he could finally let it be over.
"Ebberly, Son, he made his brags, but we kept away from him. Only we shouldn't have. He knowed we was in town and when we kept away he figured we was scared. Then he seen Burt and took a shot at him. Burt shot back. Both of them missed.
"Burt, he hunted him and lost him. It was me who run into Ebberly last. I come down the street afore noon, hunting a couple of copper rivets to use in fixing my saddle. He stepped down into the street and yells at me, "Boone Tremayne!'
"He yelled, and he shot. Yet my gun come up so fast the two shots sounded like one. Only he missed...I didn't. I stood there, looking around. "Folks,' I said, "I'm surely Boone Tremayne. But none of us, my brothers or me, ever stole a thing off any man. Nor we never shot at no man unless he hunted us down. We got us a bad name, but it ain't our doing. You seen this...he come at me with a drawn gun.'
""You all better ride,' a feller says. "This here Seth Bullock, our sheriff, he'd have to take you in.' So we rode out. Sam was kilt and Ma was dead and everywhere they was after us.
"We headed west, making for the Hole-in-the-Wall where men beyond the law would be let alone. We come down Beaver Crick out of the Black Hills and we rode up Cemetery Ridge and we drawed up there and rested our horses.
"After awhile Lisha, he tunes up his old gitar and starts to play a might, and then we saw a feller coming up the slope. He looked a mighty rough customer and when he heerd our music he slowed up and looked us over. Then he come on up clost.
""Howdy!' he says. "Goin' far?'
""To Sundance,' Burt says, "How fer is it?'
""Mebbe fifteen mile,' this gent says. "Luck!' An'he rides on.
""Didn't like the look o' that hombre,' Burt says, "we better ride out o' here, an' not for Sundance!' So we mounted up and took out south, holding east of Bald Mountain right along the Wyoming-South Dakota line.
"Sure enough, Son, that gent was no good. He headed hisself right for Sundance, warning folks at ranches as he rode. The Bloody Tremaynes was riding he said. We seen the first posse when we was heading to Lost Canyon, but there was no fight until they closed in on us from three directions at Stockade Beaver Crick. We fought her out there, kilt four of them and scratched up a few more, but we lost Burt. He had three bullets in him when he went down, kilt two men before he died. We buried Burt there on Stockade Beaver, and we made a marker for him, which you'll see if you ever ride thataway.
"We rode south and west with that there posse setting in the brush licking their wounds.
"We made the Hole-in-the-Wall and rode through and no posse would foller us. We'd no money, only the horses we rode. But we run into a short-handed cow outfit driving to the Buffalo Fork. They didn't know who we was and didn't give two boots in a rain barrel. We done our share like always, and we stuck to our ownselves. The hands, they was friendly cusses, and the boss he only asked from a man a day's work. We drove to the Buffalo Fork and then the boss, he come over to us. "I'll be payin' you off in the mornin'. You boys better buy what ca'tridges we got,' he says, quiet-like, "you won't find no place clost by to git 'em.'
""That's right friendly o' you, Boss,' Lisha says, "we take it kindly.'
"He stands there a mite, and then he says, "Never did b'lieve all I heerd, anyways,' he said, and then he smiled. "We'll sure miss that music you boys make. Would you strike us up some singin' afore you leave?'
"So we done it. Lisha, he sungGreensleeves, andBrennan on the Moor , an'On Top of Ol' Smoky and some of the other old songs from the hills back yonder, songs our folks fetched from Scotland and Ireland. We sang for an evening, and then loaded up with grub and bullets, and took off. Southwest across the Blackrock and camped at Lily Lake, and then on to the Gross Venture and into the Jackson Hole country.
"Son, your Pa's hands is mighty cold now. I guess this here letter's got to end up.
"Johnny, he wanted to see Ellie Winters, and Lisha, he wanted to eat fresh melons from the patch, and I wanted to see your Ma again. I never knowed she loved me. I never even guessed she cared or thought of me. I just figured I'd like to see her some.
"One night we was setting by the fire and Lisha he looked over at me and he says, "Boys, the melons'll be ripe in the bottom land now, an' the horses will be headin' up from the flats for the high meadows.' So then we knowed we was heading home.
"We rode down the Snake to the Grey and down the Grey to the Bear, and we followed her south to the border, staying clear of ranches and towns. Of a night we built our fires small and covered them well, and then at last we come riding down to the hills near Durango.
"Lisha, he chuckles and says to me, "You all sure been a-talkin' a lot in your sleep, boy. If'n you ever said those things to a girl awake she'd sure be bakin' your corn pone from here on out.'
"Me, I git all redded up. "Don't give me that,' I say, "I never talked none. Anyway, it wouldn't matter. What woman would care for me?'
"Both Lisha and Johnny looked up sharp. "You damn fool!' they says, "they'd never git a better man, nowheres. An' that Marge, she's been eatin' her heart out for years over you!'
"Me, I just stood there...I never figured nothing like that. I sure thought they was wrong, but both them boys, they knowed a sight more about women than ever I would.
"Lisha, he rides off to town, and he ain't gone an hour afore he comes back and then Ellie, she and Marge comes a-running, and with them is Betts Warner, Lisha's girl. Marge, she just stopped, took one look, and then run to me and went to crying in my arms.
"We made her a triple weddin' just two days later, but folks heerd about it, and one morning Lisha come to the door for his horse and Dick Watson, his brother and four-five friends, they shot him down. Shot him down with him only getting one shot off.
"Betts, she come a-running to warn us, thinking of us even when her heart was gone within her, her man laying dead back there full of Watson lead.
""Saddle up,' I says to Johnny, "I'll be coming back soon.' Me, I buckled on my guns.
""I'm goin' with you,' Johnny says, and I told him no. He'd have to git us packed and ready. Marge, she just looked at me strange and soft and proud. She says, "You go along, Boone, I'll saddle up for you, and I'll be a-waiting here when you get back.'
"Never a mite of complaining, never a word again it. She was a man's woman, that one, and she knowed my way was to ride for the man who fetched this trouble down upon us.
"It was bright noonday when I fetched up to town. I swung down from the saddle and I asked old Jake. "You go along,' I said, "and you tell that Dick Watson I'm here to put him down.'
"Standin' there, I wondered if it was I'd never have me a home, or see the light in my baby's eyes, or see the sunlight on the green corn growing, or smell the hay from my own meadows. Them things wa
s all I ever wanted, all I ever fixed to have, and now it seemed like all my life I toted a gun, shooting and being shot at.
"All I ever wanted in this here world was a bit of land and peace, the way man was meant to live. Not with no gun in his hand a-killing folks.
"I seen Dick Watson step from a door down the way, I seen him start, and I pulled down my hat and stepped out, stepped out and started walking to kill a man.
"Then Watson stopped and I looked across the forty paces at him and I made my voice strong in the street. "Dick Watson, you brung hell to my family. You was sore because that black mare beat your horse! You lied about us stealing! You made us into outlaws and caused my brothers to be kilt and some other men too. It'll be on your conscience whether you live or die.'
"He stood there staring at me like he'd looked right in the face of death, and then he slapped leather. His gun came up and I shot him, low down in the belly where they die slow and hard. God forgive me, but I done it with hate in my heart. And then...I should have knowed he'd framed it, a half dozen of his friends stepped out and opened up on me.
"Son, what come over me then I don't know. I guess I went sort of crazy. When I seen them all around me, I just tore loose and went to shooting. I went up on the porch after them, I followed one up the stairs and into his room. I chased another and shot him running, and then I loaded up and turned my back on both the dead and the living and I walked down that street to my horse. I was halfway home before I knowed I'd a bullet in me.
"When I was patched up some we rode on and Betts went back to her folks, a widow almost afore she was a wife. We fetched up, final, in the Blue Mountains of Utah, and there we built us a double cabin and we ketched wild horses and hunted desert honey, just the two boys of us left from the five we'd been. We lived there and for months we was happy.
"Your Ma was the finest ever, Son. I never knowed what it could be like to live with no woman, nor to have her there, always knowing how I felt inside when nobody had ever knowed before. We walked together and talked together and day by day the running and shooting seemed farther and farther away.
"Johnny was happy, too. Them days his mouth organ laughed and cried and sang sweet songs to the low moon and the high sun, and he played the corn out of the ground and the good sweet melons. We hunted some and we lived quiet-like and happy. How long? Three months, five months...and then Marge comes to me and says Ellie's got to go where she can have a doc. She's to have a baby and something, she's sure, ain't right about it.
"We knowed what it meant, but life must go on, Son, and you were to be born and I aimed to give you what start I could. The same for Johnny. So we gathered our horses and we rode out to Salt Lake with the girls. We sold our horses for cash money to some Mormons, and then we drifted north. The girls had to stay with the Doc awhile, so we got us a riding job each.
"One day a gent comes into a bar where we was with a star on him and he sees me setting by the window. Marge's time is coming nigh and we're all a-waiting like. This man with the star he comes over and drops into a chair near Johnny and me. "Mighty hot day!' he says. "Too hot to hunt outlaws, especially,' he says, "when they size up like good, God-fearin' folks.
""I got me a paper says them Tremaynes is hereabouts. I'm to hunt 'em up an' arrest 'em, what do you boys think about that?'
""We reckon,' Johnny says, very quiet, "them Tremaynes never bothered nobody if they was let alone.'
"He nods his head. "I heard that, too,' he says, "Leastways, if they've been in town they sure been mighty quiet an' well-behaved folks. Worst of it is,' he got up, wiping the sweat-band of his hat, "I took an oath to do my duty. Now, the way I figure that doesn't mean I have to go r'arin' out in the heat of the day. But come sundown,' he spoke slow and careful, "I'm gonna hunt them Tremaynes up.'
"That sheriff, Son, he looked up at Johnny and then over at me. "I got two sons,' he said quietly, "and if the Tremaynes left family in this town, they'd be protected as long as me and my sons lived.'
"We didn't take long about saying goodbye, although we never knowed it was our last. We never guessed we was riding out of town and right to our death.
"It was fifty miles east that we passed a gent on the trail. We never knowed him but he turned an' looked after us. And that done, he hightailed it to the nearest town and before day a posse was in the saddle.
"At noon, from a high ridge, we drawed up and looked back. We seen four separate dust clouds. Johnny, he looked at me and grinned. "I reckon we ain't in no hurry no more,' he said, "they got us again' the mountains.' He looked up at them twelve, and thirteen thousand foot peaks. "I wonder if any man ever went through up there?'
""We can give her a try,' I said quiet. "Not much else we can do.'
""Horses are shot, Boone,' he replies, "I ain't goin' to kill no good horse for those lousy coyotes back yonder.' So we got down and walked, our saddle-bags loose and rifles in our hands.
"Then we heard them on the trail behind and we drawed off and slipped our saddles from the horses and cached them in the brush. Cow Hollow, Son, and that's where we made our stand. We had a plenty of ammunition, and we weren't wasteful, making shots count. We hunkered down among the rocks and trees and stood them off.
"Morning left us and the noon, and the high hot sun bloomed in the sky, but it was late fall, and as the afternoon drew on, a cold wind began to blow.
"They come then, they come like Injuns through the woods after us, and we opened up, and then suddenly Johnny was on his feet, he's got that old Winchester at his hip and he shoots and then he jumps right into them clubbing with his rifle. He went down, and I went over the rocks, both guns going, and that bunch broke and ran.
"I fetched Johnny back, and he lay there looking up at me. "Good old Boone!' he said. "Get the girls and get away. Go to Mexico, go somewheres, but get away!'
"He died like that, and I sat right there and cried. Then I covered him over gentle and I slipped out of Cow Hollow and started up the trail toward the high peaks.
"It was cold, mighty cold. The sun came up and touched those white peaks and ridges ahead of me, then the clouds covered her over and it began to snow. I walked on, and the snow stopped but the wind blew colder and colder. We was getting high up, I passed the timberline here on Tokewanna and crawled into this here place.
"Son, I can't see to write no more, and there ain't no more to say. I guess I didn't say it well, but there she is. You can read her and make up your own mind. This here I've addressed to your mother, care of that sheriff down there. I even got a stamp to put on so's it will be U. S. mail and no one'll dare open her up.
"Be a good boy, Son, love your Ma and do like she tells you. And carry the name of Tremayne with pride. It was honest blood, no matter what you hear from anyone."
He was stiff from the cold, but he rolled over carefully and folded the letter and tucked it into an envelope. On it he placed his stamp, and then scrawled the name of his wife, in care of the sheriff. From his throat he took a black handkerchief and fastened it to a stick so its flapping would draw attention. Near it, held down by a rock, he left the letter.
Then he crawled out and using his rifle as a crutch, got to his feet. He still had ammunition. He had no food. He discarded the almost empty canteen. For a long time he looked down the cold flank of the mountain into the dark fringe of trees. Far away among those trees flickered the ghostlike fingers of fire, where men warmed themselves and talked, or slept.
Something blurred his eyes. His head throbbed. Pain gnawed at his side and his leg was stiff. How long he stood there he did not know; swaying gently, not quite delirious and yet not quite rational. Then he turned slowly and looked up, two thousand feet, to the cold and icy peak, silver and magnificent in its solemn grandeur.
He stared for a long time, and then he began to climb. It was very slow, it was very hard. He pulled his old hat down, put the scarf lower around his ears. To the left there was a ridge, and beyond the ridge there would be a valley.
He climbed and
then he slipped, lacerating his hands on the icy rocks. He got up, pushing himself on.
"Marge," he whispered, "Son..." He continued to move. Crawling...falling...standing...he felt the snow, felt his feet sink. He seemed to have enormously large feet, enormously heavy. "Never aimed to kill nobody," he said. He climbed on...wind stirred the icy bits of snow over the harsh flank of the mountain. He bowed his head, and when he turned his face from the wind he looked down and saw the fires below like tiny stars. How far he had come! How very far!
He turned, and looked up. There was the ridge, not far, not too far...and what was it he had thought just a moment ago? Beyond the ridge, there is always a valley.
-
The Moon of the Trees Broken by Snow
COLD BLEW THE winds along the canyon, moaning in the cedars, whining softly where the sagebrush grew. Their fire was small, and they huddled close, the firelight playing shadow games on the walls, the walls their grandfather's father built when he moved from the pit house atop the mesa to the great arch of the shallow cave.
"We must go," the boy said, "there is no more wood for burning, and the strength is gone from the earth. Our crops are thin, and when the snows have gone, the wild ones will come again, and they will kill us."
"It is so," his mother agreed. "One by one the others have left, and we are not enough to keep open the ditches that water our fields, nor defend against the wild ones."
"Where will we go?" Small Sister asked.
They avoided looking at each other, their eyes hollow with fear, for they knew not where to go. Drought lay heavy upon the land, and from north, south, east, and west others had come seeking, no place seeming better than another. Was it not better to die here, where they had lived?
The boy was gaunt for each day he hunted farther afield and each day found less to hunt. Small Sister and his mother gathered brush or looted timbers from abandoned dwellings to keep their fires alight.
from the Listening Hills (Ss) (2004) Page 10