Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  He planned his route carefully, aiming for what seemed to be a fracture in the face of the rock, a possible way to the top without going far around the end. The crack, if that was what it was, could not be seen clearly from here; but once in the saddle he led off, weaving a precarious way through the obstacles on the mountainside.

  Twice he paused, letting Mat and the pack horses go ahead, remaining behind just long enough to tumble rocks over their path that would bar any horse from following. Brionne knew that anyone tracking them would have to waste time finding his trail again, and every minute thus wasted would be an advantage to him. Somewhere ahead they were going to stop, and they would need time to find the kind of position he wanted.

  Suddenly, the crack was before them. It was scarcely wide enough for a horse, and it meant a difficult scramble to the top. Brionne dismounted and led his horse, grunting and scrambling, up the steep way. He tied the horse, pausing only long enough to catch his breath, then he descended and brought Mat to the top. After that he brought up the pack horses.

  Looking around, he found the fallen trunk of a long-dead pine. Getting behind it, and using a broken limb for a lever, he worked the heavy log over until he could topple it into the crack, closing it off.

  They were now on a rugged plateau, which formed the top of the Uintah Range. It was a wide, uneven plateau, broken by canyons and ridges, and dotted with many lakes. There were forested slopes and open, grassy meadows. Within the space of a few minutes he saw tracks of the bighorn sheep, the mule deer, and wild horses.

  The blue spruce and aspen thinned out up here, and on the ridges ahead he could see alpine fir and another type of spruce that grew in this high altitude. Everywhere there were marks of glacial action. He pointed them out to Mat, keeping up a running commentary on the country, the trees, and the tracks. All around them were snow-covered peaks.

  “How high are we?” Mat asked.

  “I’d guess about eight, nine thousand feet—maybe closer to nine.”

  He stopped to let the horses take a breather. He had gained a little time, and the ridge ahead should offer a camp with some security.

  He had no idea who his enemies might be, if those who followed him were, indeed, enemies. Out here he was relatively unknown. It was unlikely that anyone else remembered, as the Ute warrior had, the young cavalry officer of a time before the War Between the States. But somehow, in some way, he must have impressed someone as being a danger, or perhaps possessing some coveted knowledge.

  Did they connect him with Miranda Loften? After all, they had ridden the same train west, and they had had some small association on that train. Could they guess that he had not known her until he left his son in her care when he went to fight the fire?

  His choice then had been simple. He had, on entering the car, mentally catalogued the occupants. Miranda Loften had impressed him at once with her quiet dignity, her air of gentility, and her natural sympathy. He had sensed that she liked children and would be warm and responsive to Mat. It had been as simple as that…but would everyone see it so?

  Yet he had interfered in her affairs. He had, without asking permission, or even mentioning the fact, deliberately begun to try to solve the problem of the silver mine.

  Why?

  James Brionne was a reasoning man, and he asked himself this question seriously for the first time. Why, indeed? Was it simply because he needed some direction to follow? Was it because all his life he had moved from one goal to another? Always with some destination in view, always with some purpose? Or was it because of her aloneness, and the fact that he was a Virginia gentleman?

  Or—and he hesitated even to frame the question—was it because she was so attractive? Because she was, in fact, a very lovely girl?

  “You’ve read too much of Sir Walter Scott,” he said aloud.

  “What was that, pa?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Nothing, son. I was just talking to myself. You’ll find it is a habit men acquire when they’re riding in the wilderness.”

  “Was this where Fremont was, pa?”

  There had been much talk of Fremont around their home, and Mat knew the stories of Fremont’s explorations in the West, and of Kit Carson.

  “Not far from here. Father Escalante traveled some of the trails we traveled a few days back. He came through here with a very small party in 1776. But I doubt if he was ever up this far into the mountains. If he was, there’s nothing in his journals about it.”

  Suddenly he drew rein. Not thirty feet from the way they were following was a small stump showing the marks of an axe. Leaving Mat with the pack animals, Brionne walked his horse over to the stump. Then he called, “Mat…come here.”

  When the boy rode up beside him, Brionne indicated the stump. It was scarcely four inches in diameter, and it had been cut off about a foot above the ground.

  “Wherever an axe has been used,” he said, “the mark of the cut shows white for quite a while. Now, whoever cut that either wanted a pole or he wanted firewood. I think he wanted firewood, because he even picked up the biggest chips.”

  He walked his horse in a widening circle, and it took him only a few minutes to find a small lean-to and the remains of a fire. The bits of charcoal lying there had been worn smooth by rain and wind…it was an old fire.

  “Maybe this means nothing,” he said to Mat, “but it might be important. I doubt if many men have come up this high, but I feel quite sure that Ed Shaw did. When we scout around a little we may find where he went.”

  Brionne rode around the camp in widening circles, but he found no tracks. He studied the distant ridge where the sun shone bright upon the sullen and silent rocks, and he started toward it. On this wide plateau there was no sound except the footfalls of their own mounts, and the sound of the wandering wind, a wind uncertain of itself, prowling among the trees as if looking for something lost.

  Again and again Brionne drew up to look about, to listen, and to watch the trail behind. For all its beauty, there was an eerie something about this plateau that made him wary. He somehow had the feeling of eyes watching him, eyes that might be looking along a rifle barrel.

  He changed course several times. He would veer suddenly to put a bush, a tree, or a rock behind him. He was trying to offer no target for a marksman, and his sudden changes were useful in making his trail difficult to follow. Instinctively, he chose the way that would leave the fewest marks behind. For he felt that even if he was not followed now, he would be soon.

  Quite suddenly, in front of them, lay a lake, its blue waters ruffled by the wind. He skirted the shore and, seeing the water was shallow, he and Mat rode in and walked their horses close to the shore for half a mile. They left the lake by a small stream that came down from the ridge toward which they had been traveling.

  They made camp in the gathering dusk in a corner of the ridge, gathering dry wood from old deadfalls that would make an almost smokeless fire.

  It was a good camp. The cove was higher than the land in front of it, offering a good view for perhaps a quarter of a mile. The camp itself lay in a slight hollow under fir trees that would help to spread any smoke there might be from their fire.

  “We will stay here for a couple of days, Mat,” Brionne said. “We need to rest the horses, and I expect you could use the rest, too. I know I could.”

  “I’m all right, pa,” Mat answered.

  After a good supper, they bedded down, the horses picketed behind them on the grass.

  Just before turning in, Brionne went to a hidden lookout, which was behind some rocks and under the branches of the trees. He lay there for some time, listening to the night, then he went back to the camp. The fire was already banked, only faint coals showing red.

  Seven miles away, hidden in a small grove of trees well back from the shores of a lake, Dutton Mowry squatted near the campfire. He looked across the fire at Miranda Loften. “You still game, ma’am? You begin to see what this here is like?”

  “I am game,” Miranda
answered, and she smiled at him. And then she added, “We are not far from the mine now.”

  He gave her a sharp glance. “How do you figure that? You seen some landmark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ll be forever damned.” He poked a stick into the fire, and when it blazed up, lit his cigarette. “You must’ve had mighty good directions, or else you’re mighty mistaken.”

  “I am not mistaken. We are close…another day—possibly two.”

  Mowry looked at her with respect. She had evidently picked up more than one landmark, and had been keeping them in sight. Earlier she had expressed a wish to pass close to the lake, and as it had been a likely course, he had taken the route she suggested.

  “Don’t forget that rifle,” he warned her now, and let his eyes sweep their campsite again. It was a good one, but he was not a trusting man, and he knew what the Allards were like. How had he ever let himself get trapped into a situation like this? With a woman to watch over, when they would have been enough by themselves?

  “You ever hear of Caleb Rhodes?” he asked her suddenly.

  She hesitated, letting a moment pass; then after obviously considering her reply, she said, “Yes.”

  “He had him a mine up here somewhere, too. Only his was gold.”

  “He had two mines,” she corrected. “One was lode, the other placer.”

  “Your Uncle Rody must’ve told you plenty,” he commented dryly.

  “Where do you suppose he is?” she asked suddenly.

  “Who?”

  She flushed slightly, and Mowry stifled a smile. “Major Brionne…I mean, who else is up here?”

  “Them Allards are, and Brionne doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know who is follerin’ him.” He finished his coffee, and dropped his cigarette into the coals. “I got a hunch we’ll see him, and soon,” he said.

  He looked at her, his eyes masking the twinkle with a solemn expression. “Why don’t you go ahead an’ marry him? I can just see you settin’ your cap for him.”

  “That is not true!” she said primly, but she could feel herself blushing. And it was not true; she had thought of no such thing…so why was she embarassed?

  “Makes a lot of sense,” he said, keeping his eyes serious. “You an’ him. He needs him a wife, and you shouldn’t be traipsin’ around out here with no man to care for you. It ain’t fittin’.”

  “I think it is time to go to sleep,” she said. “I am tired.”

  “He’d be kind of easy to catch right now, ma’am. He’s all unwary, like. He’s lonesome as all get out, you can see that. An’ that kid needs a woman’s hand. You could sort of ease up on his blind side, make up to the kid, and first thing you know you’d have him all wrapped up and hogtied.”

  “Good night, Mr. Mowry!”

  “Good night, ma’am.”

  After Dutton Mowry had rolled up in his blankets he lit a cigarette. Presently, looking up at the stars, he said earnestly, “He’s a mighty fine figure of a man, that Brionne. Him an army man, and all. Why, ma’am, they do say General Grant sets real store by him.”

  Miranda Loften prepared herself for sleep. It was a ridiculous idea that Mowry had voiced. She had talked with the man only two or three times. Where could Dutton Mowry have gotten such an idea?

  She heard a subdued chuckle from where Mowry lay in his blankets, and despite herself, she smiled.

  It was a ridiculous idea—of course it was. He had scarcely noticed her, and as for the boy—he was a darling child. So quiet, so well-mannered. He…

  She never knew when she fell asleep, nor did she hear the wind in the trees, nor smell the pines, nor glimpse the star that kept twinkling through the boughs of the tree under which she slept.

  The wind was cool off the snow-covered peaks. The lake water lapped softly against the shelving beach.

  Two miles to the east a huge grizzly stretched himself tall and dug his claws into the bark of the tree, drawing furrows in the bark, leaving his sign for all to see. He smelled bear, knew this was a bear tree, and had confidence in his own great size and strength. He would make his mark, a challenge for all.

  Had he come along a little earlier in the day he would have seen other claw marks, claw marks much deeper and eight inches higher up the trunk.

  The wind stirred, bringing him a faint man smell, and he growled inquisitively. The wind brought an intimation of danger, but of reward also. He remembered a time, two summers ago, when he had looted a camp. He remembered the side of bacon he had eaten, and the sugar; especially the sugar.

  For the moment he was not hungry, and he lumbered off up the trail toward a hollow under a fallen tree where he intended to sleep.

  He paused only once, warily, for he heard a faint stir of movement in the night. Something or somebody was coming…more than one.

  He smelled men again, and horses, and they were moving in the night.

  Chapter 9

  *

  DURING THE NIGHT the wind came roaring across the dark face of the mountain, roaring through the tree tops, whining in the crevices of the rocks, and stirring small pebbles and rock fragments to start them rolling.

  Mat crowded close to his father, and lay wide-eyed in the night, having never known such wind as this that moaned across the high lakes and among the peaks. He lay and trembled, but he was calmed by the stillness of his father beside him.

  Overhead the great trees bent before the wind, and against the sky the ragged peaks lost themselves in the tearing clouds; they broke the clouds apart and appeared again, but vanished once more amid the rising sea of darkness.

  “Pa?”

  His father was awake. “It’s all right, Mat. It is only a storm. The mountains do not mind the storms. There have been many storms upon these rocks.”

  Mat lay quiet, thinking of his father’s words, wishing he could be like him, so sure and quiet. And he said as much.

  “No one can be sure, Mat. But a man learns to appear that way, and after a while it is the same thing. Look to the hills, Mat. They are quiet. The storms sweep over them and are gone, and most of man’s troubles pass the same way. That is one reason I brought you here, just to learn that. Whenever you feel that things are getting too much for you, go to the mountains or the desert—it smooths out the wrinkles in your mind.”

  After a few moments Mat spoke again.

  “Pa? What happened to those men? The ones who…who burned our house?”

  “I don’t know. They’re probably still in the mountains…or in Missouri.”

  “Could they be out here, pa? Could it be some of them who shot at you?”

  Surprised, Brionne considered it. The idea had occurred to him, but only in a fleeting way. It was unlikely the Allards would leave their home mountains and their relatives. That they would come to this part of the country would be too much of a coincidence.

  Yet the thought nagged at him. Many of the lawless had followed the railroad west, and when the last spike was driven at Promontory they had spilled over into the country around.

  “There’s not much chance of it, Mat,” he said aloud. “But we’ll keep our eyes open.” Then after a pause he asked, “How many of them would you remember if you saw them again?”

  “Two, I think. Maybe three.”

  The unfortunate part was that Brionne did not know them by sight. Only one or two of the family had appeared at the trial, and they were the lesser ones, unwanted by the law.

  He said no more to Mat, and soon he heard the boy’s even breathing, and knew that he was asleep. He slipped from under the blankets, pulled on the moccasins he always carried, and checked the horses. The cove was sheltered from the worst of the wind, and the horses seemed content.

  Back in his blankets he slept, but before daybreak he was up, and made a quick breakfast. “Stay in the cove,” he told Mat after they had eaten. “I may scout around a mite, but I’ll be close by. We’re going to rest here.”

  There was grass for three or four days, at least. There was good
water, and their position could not be easily approached. They would simply wait. Brionne wanted to do some thinking.

  Mat had put into words a vague suspicion that had been lingering almost unnoticed in the back of Brionne’s mind. It had taken only the boy’s suggestion to bring the idea into focus. Could it be that the Allards were out here?

  At first thought it had seemed too much of a coincidence, but a bit of consideration changed that. There was only one railroad west, the Union Pacific. The last spike of that railroad had been driven only a short time ago. It had been driven, in fact, since the death of his wife and the burning of his home.

  Suppose the Allards had, after leaving their mountain country, elected to take the railroad west? They were being hunted throughout the mountains, they were being hunted in Missouri, where they had come from. If they had taken to the railroad, what more likely place for them to end up than in Promontory or Corinne?

  The man in the Southern Hotel might have been one of them who alerted the others; or they might even have come west, following him. But it was more likely that the man from the hotel, on his way west to join them, had recognized Brionne. The horses in the baggage car had been there only a short time. It left questions to be answered, but there was a possibility that something of the kind had happened.

  So the Allards might be here. If so, they now knew about him. Without doubt, they would not attribute his arrival here to coincidence; they would be sure he had somehow tracked them down. And they would try to kill him.

  Meanwhile there was the problem of Ed Shaw’s silver mine. There was a lot he did not know about Ed Shaw and about Rody Brennan. How had they come to die? Were they both actually dead? Everyone spoke of them as if they were dead, but he had no details.

  If Ed Shaw had read the message of the trail from the Indian writing on the walls of Nine Mile Canyon, then he had come in from the south. Such directions could not pinpoint such a thing as a mine, so there must be some other identifying marks.