Chance's Bluff

by Catherine McGreevy

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  © 2018 Catherine McGreevy

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, electronic, film, microfilm, tape recording, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4621-2880-8

  Published by Sweetwater, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., 2373 W. 700 S., Springville, UT 84663

  Distributed by Cedar Fort, Inc., www.cedarfort.com

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, incidents, places, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. The opinions and views expressed herein belong solely to the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or views of Cedar Fort, Inc. Permission for the use of sources, graphics, and photos is also solely the responsibility of the author.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: McGreevy, Catherine, 1962- author.

  Title: Chance’s bluff / Catherine McGreevy.

  Description: Springville, Utah : Sweetwater Books, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017039121 (print) | LCCN 2017042152 (ebook) | ISBN 9781462128808 (epub and Moby) | ISBN 97 81462121861 ([perfect] : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Pioneer children--United States--Fiction. | United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865--Veterans--Fiction. | Murder--United States--Fiction. | Man-woman relationships--Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels. | Historical fiction. | Romance fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.C49725 (ebook) | LCC PS3613.C49725 C47 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017039121

  Cover design by Katie Payne

  Cover design © 2018 by Cedar Fort, Inc.

  Edited and typeset by Justin Kelly, Erica Myers, Jessica Romrell, and Breanna Call Herbert

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Willy

  Cascade Mountains, Oregon

  Late Fall, 1860

  From the bluff above the trail, Willy Ratzel watched the canvas-covered wagon lumber into view and saw not an ordinary weathered prairie schooner but opportunity. Shaking tobacco into a square of brown paper, he twisted the cigarette and clamped it between his teeth. Maybe, he thought, this wagon brought an end to his long string of bad luck.

  His eyes focused with interest on the woman seated on the high buckboard, next to her husband. Her bonnet had fallen back, and his gaze lingered on her yellow hair before moving on to the barrels and bags lashed to the sides of the wagon. Might be a chest full of banknotes or gold coins inside, for all he knew.

  Willy sucked tobacco smoke into his lungs and blew it out in a long stream while his eyes flicked curiously back to the man driving the ox team. For the past three years, Willy had bent over a mining cradle in freezing mountain streams with nothing to show for it. It wasn’t fair that this newcomer, a mere farmer, should trundle along with such abundance.

  Something ought to be done to rectify the situation.

  Grinding the stub of the cigarette into the dirt, he held his knuckles over the fire to warm. After losing his store to debts, he’d left St. Joe because of tales about profitable mines opening up out west with easy pickings for anyone with a pickaxe and shovel. Now nearly forty years old, he was still searching for that lucky break. While moving from camp to camp, growing older and shabbier, he saw too many eager younger men like that bearded farmer, constantly coming west along the trail and succeeding where he’d failed.

  He studied the young farming couple in front of him again. Late twenties, maybe. In the prime of life, with a bright future spreading out ahead of them. Didn’t he deserve as much?

  Jealousy ate at his innards. It was time to take the future into his own hands, Willy thought. His gray-green eyes moved to the tempting chests and barrels, and lingered once more on the woman’s hair. Half-formed plans tumbled through his head like ore in a cast-iron dredger.

  The next morning, when the couple broke camp, he saddled his appaloosa and followed their wagon. The next two nights he tethered his horse at night in the foothills above the main trail and waited. Finally, he vowed, Willy Ratzel was about to get his due.

  Chapter Two

  Annabelle

  Cascade Mountains, Oregon

  Late Fall, 1860

  “Please, Papa? Just one peppermint stick.” Richard, age nine, stood on tiptoe in front of the candy counter at the rear of the small trading post at the eastern edge of the Cascade Mountains, ogling the brightly colored contents of fly-specked glass jars.

  Gustav Bergman smiled indulgently, and, standing on their father’s other side, Annabelle knew he was glad that her little brother, who had been so ill, was now behaving like normal. “So you have an appetite again, eh? Ja, of course you may have a piece of candy. And one for you, too, Annabelle.”

  Her father patted their heads, and Annabelle fought down a stab of annoyance. Although nearly thirteen, she was not much taller than Richard, so even her parents sometimes treated her as if she were still a child. On the other hand, she was not about to turn down such a tempting offer.

  “Thank you, Papa.” Annabelle stood up on tiptoe to kiss her father’s bearded cheek, while Richard was already scurrying behind the counter. Only the top of his fair head showed behind the row of jars.

  Their mother turned from inspecting a bolt of calico. “Gustav!”

  He flushed. “The little ones deserve it, after lying sick in the wagon so long.”

  Joining her brother behind the counter, Annabelle listened. She was too old to be tempted by lemon drops, horehound, and striped candy sticks, but it had been months since they had tasted anything but beans, sooty sourdough biscuits, and an occasional piece of meat from an antelope too old and slow to escape her father’s shotgun.

  Someone entered the trading post, but Annabelle paid no attention. She was deciding if it would last longer to unroll a licorice wheel bit by bit and nibble the end or suck on a lemon drop until it melted on her tongue.

  Her father switched to German. “Come, now, Caroline.” He used a wheedling voice. “The trip has been long, nichts? What harm to give the children a little pleasure? We are nearly to our destination, and a penny or two will make no difference.”

  Caroline sighed. “Just promise to be more practical after this, Gustav.”

  Her father turned in to the man behind the counter. “Please add two pieces of candy to our order,” he said in careful English, reaching into his coat pocket.

  The trader tossed the coins into the till, where they jingled musically. “It’s late in the year to be traveling the Free Emigrant Trail. You folks heading to the Willamette Valley, are you? Don’t see too many wagons traveling alone these days.”

  A line furrowed Gustav’s forehead. “We fell behind our wagon train because of sickness, and then our wheel broke. They promised to wait here.”

  “Fifteen wagons came through not long ago.” The trader slapped a bag of flour onto the counter and reached for another. “Stayed a night, then moved on. Said it was too late in the season to linger.”

  Caroline threw Gustav a worried look. The storekeeper caught her glance. “Don’t worry, ma’am, the road’s pretty good now they’ve cleared the trees and rocks out
of the pass. Ain’t like back in ’53, when they had to rescue a bunch of stranded folks. It don’t usually snow in October anyway.”

  “What if it does?”

  The trader shrugged. He disappeared into the storeroom, and the newcomer turned from a stack of Hudson Bay blankets by the door. Annabelle saw a flash of curly red beard and a pair of broad shoulders.

  “Couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, ma’am.” The stranger’s gravelly voice sounded as if it had not been used in a long time. “Sounds like you folks could use a shortcut.”

  Still hidden behind the counter, Annabelle wondered why people in the west behaved as if they all knew each other. It was so different from when her family lived in Philadelphia, where a person must have an introduction before speaking to a stranger. Peeking around the counter’s corner, she saw the stocky man wore a miner’s red flannel shirt faded to pink and shabby canvas trousers. His beard crinkled like thousands of tangled copper wires below a pair of broken-veined cheeks, while his broad nose was sunburned a different shade of red. Something about him instinctively repelled her—maybe the gaps between his yellow-brown teeth or the odor of sweat and cheap tobacco wafting across the room.

  Her father’s eyes grew hopeful. “A shortcut, you say? To the Willamette Valley?”

  “Sure. That’s where you’re heading, aren’t you? All that fertile land, ripe for growing crops, and big towns cropping up not too far away, like Salem and Portland.” The stranger scratched his beard. “This trail loops back, doubling the route. Most people don’t know there’s another pass that goes straight through to the other side. Bit steep in places, but it oughta peel a few days off your journey.”

  “There’s only one trail on our map.” Her father frowned.

  “’Cause no one uses the one I’m telling you ’bout except Injuns. Stumbled across it myself a week or two ago coming down from prospecting. No one would notice it ’less they knew where to look because it’s so golldarned hard to see, pardon my French, missus.”

  The trader popped out of the storeroom and dropped a final bag onto the unpainted oak counter in front of Gustav. “That’ll be ten dollars, mister.” He dropped the coins in the till and glanced at the red-bearded miner as he shoved the drawer shut with a little jingling sound. “Did I hear you telling these folks ’bout the old Nez Perce pass, mister?”

  “So you know of it too?” Gustav looked up eagerly.

  The storekeeper propped his elbows on the counter. “I been here twenty years and thought I was the only white man who did. Trail’s too narrow for a wagon, though. The trappers used to pack their things through.”

  Disappointment crossed Gustav’s face. “Our wagon carries everything we own.”

  “Then you’ll just have to stay on the main trail like everyone else.” The trader disappeared back into the storeroom.

  The red-bearded man sidled up to Annabelle’s father. “Don’t listen to that trickster. He’s got his own reasons for not wanting no one to use that pass.”

  Gustav surveyed him suspiciously. “Oh?”

  “If wagon trains were to start turning off the main trail before they got here, why, he’d never be able to sell ’em overpriced flour and moth-eaten blankets, now, would he?”

  Caroline frowned. “I can’t believe anyone would keep a perfectly good pass secret just to make a profit. Are you sure—?”

  The red-bearded man turned his gray-green gaze on her, and his eyes seemed to glow in an odd way. “Well now, that’s why it’s lucky you folks ran into me, isn’t it?”

  From her perch behind the candy counter, Annabelle recognized the look on her father’s face. The last time she’d seen him look that way, he’d sold everything they owned in Philadelphia and bought a wagon to move west. “What about the Indians?” he pressed the stranger. “Didn’t the trader say the pass was on Nez Perce land?”

  The man chuckled, a deep, raspy sound that came from his belly. “All the land around here is Injun land, if you go back a few years. Thanks to folks like you and me, it’ll all be civ’lized someday.” He rubbed his scarlet nose. “Been nigh on twenty years since the Whitman Mission was burned, and most of the troublemakers are safe on reservations.”

  “Most? What about the rest of them?” Caroline asked, eyes widening.

  “Well, the untamed Indians hunt all the way on the other side of the Bitterroot Mountains. Ain’t many of ’em anyway. I’d be a sight more concerned about the weather.”

  Gustav looked doubtful. “Are you sure the trail is wide enough for a wagon?”

  The red-bearded man scratched under his flannel collar as if searching for fleas. “Ain’t sayin’ it will be easy, but a man can get a wagon through if he knows how to handle a team.” The miner began to turn away. “None of my business, but you look like good Christian folk, so I figured I’d try to do you a favor.”

  Her father took a step forward. “On your word of honor, are you sure it’s passable?”

  The other man swung around. “Between you and me, mister, the real risk is taking the long way around.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Weather’s good today, but that could change. Then where would you and your pretty wife be?”

  Her father’s jaw set. He went outside with the red-haired man, and their voices floated inside, discussing wagon widths and wheel spans. The trader reappeared from the storeroom and asked which candy they wanted. By the time he fished a peppermint stick and a rather sticky lemon drop out of the jars and Annabelle and Richard went outside, sucking on them, the bearded man had vanished.

  Annabelle hoped her father wouldn’t listen to the man with the raspy voice. She’d heard stories about what happened when people got caught in the mountains, but the sky was cloudless, and there was something about the stranger that made cold creep down her spine. On the other hand, the fever had left her and Richard weak, and they had spent the last few days lying inside the wagon, jolting uncomfortably along the trail, unable to help their parents pitch camp or search for firewood. Maybe it would be worth arriving sooner at their destination, she thought. It would be a godsend for this long journey to finally be over.

  The old pass was hard to find. The family’s covered wagon jolted over familiar miles of scrubby turf with their milk cow, Millie, following behind. No break appeared in the mist-veiled peaks, however, and finally her father drew the team to a stop. “I suppose we’ll have to go back to the main trail.”

  Richard pointed to a huge jumble of rocks at the base of the mountain, not much further on. “Is that it, Papa?”

  It was. Behind the rocks, they found an opening just wide enough for the ox team, and the family’s spirits rose along with the narrow trail that led upward.

  An hour or two later it became clear why the route was so little used. Not only was the pass hidden from the main trail, but the path was even steeper than the trader had warned and littered with rocks and boulders. Soon Annabelle’s breath came in short gasps, and her legs felt like lead pistons as she tried to help push the wagon, although she knew her efforts made little difference.

  The oxen, tired as they were, grunted and strained their powerful shoulders until the canyon widened into a long, cool meadow, and the small family collapsed on the ground to rest. Coming this way was a mistake, Annabelle thought. It might be shorter than the main trail, but the trip was far more difficult. She suspected her father knew it too, but she did not want to make things worse by voicing her thoughts. At least their surroundings were beautiful, so much so that she almost thought it had been worth coming this way after all.

  The oxen began grazing the tall grass of the meadow that spread between the mountain walls, which soared upward like the ramparts of a giant fortress. Indian paintbrushes and Queen Anne’s Lace patterned the valley. A pair of crows cawed in the branches of a nearby aspen and a stream rushed over boulders with a sound like young girls’ laughter.

  “It’s lovely.” Her mother, who had caught her breath, looked around, eyes glowing. “Isn’t it peaceful he
re? The colors of the flowers remind me of the windows in a cathedral.”

  Gustav pushed back his hat and glanced at the angle of the sun above the peaks. “We’ve a long way to go before nightfall. Take a good, long drink from the spring, kinder, and come along.”

  The rugged mountain walls closed in again, and there was no more conversation. Their combined strength was needed to help push the wagon. The oxen’s hooves scrabbled on the steep trail, sending pebbles and rocks ricocheting down the slope. Instead of widening, the trail grew even narrower until it barely clung to the sides of the cliff.

  Annabelle tried not to look over the edge of the steep drop-off. She saw the worried expression on her father’s face as he urged the oxen forward. Then it happened. A wheel slipped on the edge. The wagon tilted dangerously. Her father slashed his whip, shouting. The team of oxen strained forward. Everyone pushed with their last reserve of strength until finally the wheel rolled back onto solid ground.

  Annabelle’s heart pounded, and her palms were sweaty. She tried not to think how close the entire family had been to being swept over the cliff.

  Her father stopped to let the oxen rest, his face crimson with anger and fear. There was no more pretending that they had taken a better route. Her mother sank onto a nearby boulder, fanning herself with her hand. Fair hair escaped from the knot at the base of her neck, and curls clung to her perspiring forehead. In front of them, the path widened just far enough to turn around, but farther on, it narrowed again, above steep bluffs that plunged to the river hundreds of feet below.

  “There must have been a mistake.” Her mother’s voice shook. “Surely the miner at the trading post wouldn’t have sent us this way had he known it was so dangerous.”

  In low, worried tones, Annabelle’s parents debated what to do. Her father suggested chipping away at the stone walls of the canyon with his axe to widen the trail. Her mother replied that would take too much time, and time was their enemy since winter could set in anytime. Perhaps they could abandon the wagon and carry the most important items on their backs. However, everyone knew there was no choice. Finally, her father directed Annabelle and Richard to climb back into the wagon. “The oxen will not need your help going downhill, and you’re still too weak from the fever to walk any farther,” he told them.