by Sharon Sala
Henry leaned.
***
Within days, the episode had become a thing of the past. Henry’s ribs soon healed, their lives slipped back into the same old routine, and they began to fell trees in preparation for their winter cabin. They cut mountains of firewood, stacking it to cure. It was nothing they hadn’t done every year for as long as either man could remember, but in their joy, they became complacent. It was a luxury they couldn’t afford.
A PROMISE MADE IS A PROMISE KEPT
The moon was at twelve o’clock high and the two old trappers were snoring in their bedrolls when a sound came out of the forest that sent them scrambling to their feet and tossing wood on the dying embers of the fire in wild abandon. It was a sound to put the most experienced of woodsmen on the alert, and it set the horses into a frenzy. Their two geldings whinnied in fear, snorting and pawing at the ground as they tried to escape that which now stood at the edge of their fire.
Henry ran to steady the horses as a low huff, accompanied by a belly-deep grunt, drifted through the darkness. Something was disturbing the carpet of rotting leaves beneath the trees, sending the musty scent of decay and danger into the air along with a keening roar.
Bear!
Henry’s belly rolled with fear. “Oh shit,” he muttered, and tied the horses’ leads a little tighter as Parson began flinging all their kindling onto the fire at once. “Where the hell did he come from? I ain’t once seen bear sign this far down.”
“Tell that to the bear,” Parson grumbled, as he began searching his pack for extra ammunition. Henry quickly did the same.
They smelled him before they saw him. By the time he shuffled into the light of their fire, they had their guns in hand, at the ready and aiming toward the bear coming into their camp.
“Think we oughta make a run for it?” Henry asked.
Parson studied on the idea about a second too long. “I think we shoulda’ done that when we heard him, not after we saw the whites of his eyes.”
Henry cursed and spit. “Them damned eyes don’t look none too white to me. They’re burnin’ red as the devil, or I’m a son-of-a-gun.”
The bear rose on his hind legs, swaying back and forth like a drunken sailor unaccustomed to land, and at that moment, Henry spied a dark, patchy stain running down the big bear’s belly. “Looky there, Parson. He’s done been shot and ain’t figgered out how to die. No wonder he come in on us like that. Ain’t no tellin’ how long it’s been since he ate.”
Parson shivered. “Is there any of that stew left? Maybe we could pitch it over to him and change his plans a mite.”
Henry had a sudden urge to pee. “Hell no. There ain’t never any leftovers around here. You eat ever dang thing that ain’t bitin’ back, and you know it.”
Parson inhaled slowly and took aim. The bear went down on all fours and came at them at a lope.
“Henry, if we don’t get out of this one, it’s been a hell of a ride.”
“Same here, old pard. Aim for his head.”
Parson shifted the rifle onto his shoulder and squinted. “Remember your promise. Don’t plant me ’til the proper words have been said over my body.”
“Shut up you crazy preacher and take aim a’fore you talk the bear to death.”
Seconds later a single shot rang out. It was Henry’s gun that belched, then kicked. Smoke from the campfire blew across his face. The wind had changed. When his vision cleared, he had a momentary glimpse of Parson frantically pounding at his gun which seemed to have jammed, before the paw came out of nowhere and removed most of the hair he had left on his head.
It was as skillful a scalping as any Crow warrior could have done. But the deed was wasted motion. Parson’s neck had already snapped. It was just as well. Being disemboweled, which came next, would have hurt like hell.
“No! Oh no! Oh goddamn!”
Henry didn’t hear himself screaming. Adrenalin shot through him, swift and painful as a rattler’s strike. He took one look at his partner’s body and began to shiver with rage. Without thought for his safety, he grabbed a blazing stick from the edge of the fire and ran toward the mortally wounded bear which was now on all fours, trying to feed on Parson’s remains.
“No you don’t, you hairy bastard!”
His shriek tore through the night as he thrust the fire onto the animal’s pelt. It caught like dry grass on a flat plain.
The bear roared and then reared up on its back legs, pawing first at Henry, then at itself as the fire spread. As Henry watched, it fell to the ground; a burning pyre of pain-filled rage. After that, the horror of the night became a series of sensations Henry would take to his grave.
The scent of scorched and burning hair.
The vibration of the ground beneath his feet as the horses stomped nervously at his back.
The warmth of Parson’s blood as he tried, without success, to shove the loops of entrails back into his old friend’s belly. When the guts slid through his fingers for the tenth time in as many seconds, he leaned back on his heels, his voice thick with tears.
“Hell and damnation, Parson. You always were a slippery old cuss. I just didn’t know you was slick clear through.”
But there was no critical comment from Parson to chide Henry for the curse words, or the fact that he’d been unjustly maligned. Only the stench of burning animal hair and flesh, and the sounds of his own sobs tearing up his throat and out into the night.
Remember your promise.
It came to Henry as suddenly as the bear had come upon them. He bowed his head; his shoulders shaking with grief as he gave up trying to reassemble his friend.
“I remember, Elmer. And I swear to that God you was always a’talkin’ to that I will find you a true man of the cloth, or die tryin’.”
***
They’d been traveling with him for days, running parallel, yet never coming close enough for a rifle shot. They were big, gray shadows on long skinny legs—the yellow-eyed timber wolves with a mouthful of teeth and nothing to show for their trouble but ribs sadly lacking in flesh. It had been a hard year for man and beast out on the prairie. As best Henry could count, the pack ranged in count on a day-to-day basis from ten to thirteen.
It was getting dark and time to make camp again. The plains that seemed so flat in the daylight now started to take on shape and shadows—hiding things in the belly-high grass that could take a man’s breath and life away in nothing flat.
Henry swiveled in his saddle, looking beyond the horse and travois that was pulling Parson’s body. They were no closer. But they had also not given up. He sighed. He hadn’t expected them to.
Parson had been dead for five and a half days now and was riper than persimmons after a hard frost. And while Henry had done his best to put Parson back together, he knew that his best had not been good enough. There was no way he’d ever be able to unwrap Parson and bury him decent in a suit of clothes.
And yet it didn’t seem to matter. In fact, the old trapper would have laughed with glee knowing that Henry had been forced to use their best buffalo robe as a shroud just to keep from stringing what was left of his mortal self all over the mountains and out onto the great Kansas plains.
“Oowee, Parson. You smell like you ate your best friend and done forgot to swallow.”
And then his gut drew, but not from the smell. It was the entire situation that he hated.
A lone howl split the air, and a second followed. He drew his gun, aimed and fired. It did no good. They were out of range and seemed to know it. It pissed him off royally to know that dumb animals were smart enough to outwit him. It didn’t seem quite right—or fair.
“One more night, old friend, and we’ll be at the fort. There’s bound to be a preacher there. He’ll know the words to say that’ll give your heart ease.”
But it was Henry’s heart that was in pain, not Elmer Sutter’s. Pain was, for him, a thing of the past.
“Horseshoe Creek, dead ahead. Yore favorite camp site, remember?”
Henry didn’t think it strange that he was talking to Parson as if he still rode beside him instead of persistently rotting behind. Solitude was something each man had been familiar with, even comfortable with. Henry just hadn’t faced the fact that Parson was gone. That would come when the last shovel of dirt went on top of his grave and he was forced to ride out alone.
There was a deep overhang of rock and earth near the north side of the creek bank where the water ran cool and swift. It would be a good place to park Parson’s body. He could tether the horses close to him and build a ring of fires around them all. He’d been doing it now for three nights. A fourth couldn’t be that much more difficult. The main thing would be to put Parson downwind. It was nothing personal, just a matter of convenience.
By the time darkness came to the prairie, Henry was ready. Surrounded by a ring of fires with a pile of brush ready to add to them at a moment’s notice, he settled down to wait out the night with his rifle in his lap and his finger on the trigger.
“Cold camp tonight, old friend,” Henry muttered. “Cain’t cook and stand watch at the same time.”
He tore off a chew of jerky, sliding it to the side of his jaw to soften, like a plug of tobacco.
The horses neighed softly, one to the other, aware of the wolves’ presence as no man could ever be. Henry tilted his canteen, letting the fresh creek water slide down his dry, burning throat. Quietly—methodically—he began to chew and listen and watch.
They came—standing just outside the ring of fires like ghostly shadows. Only now and then did Henry catch a glimpse of yellow eyes. But the snarls and the yips, the growls and the howls were still there, then gone far too swiftly for him to do anything more than fire his rifle at the place they’d last been.
“You ain’t gettin’ nothin’ to eat here, you mangy sons-a-bitches. You cain’t eat me, I’m too damned tough. And you cain’t eat Parson cause there ain’t no one here to say the blessin’ a’fore you do.”
The laughter caught at the back of his throat. It felt like a sob. Henry snorted, a bit disgusted with himself at the constant emotion he couldn’t seem to lose. He pinched his nose through his thumb and forefinger and blew snot on the ground. This was no time to go all weak and sissy. If he didn’t pay attention, he’d wind up like old Parson, rotting in the sun and gathering flies.
Only twice did Henry succumb to bone-deep weariness and nod off to sleep. But each time he did, the nervous snorts of his horses were as good as a kick in the pants. Every so often he would fire off a shot in the darkness. It served no purpose other than to remind Henry he was still the one in charge. Once he heard a yelp of pain, but it was enough to send the wolves back into the shadows.
Hours later, when the breeze picked up and a flash of lightning on the far horizon lit up the sky, Henry prayed for daylight to beat the approaching storm. The last thing he needed was a rain to put out his fires before he could see what the hell was out there on the prairie.
***
Daylight and a gray pall of rain came within the same breath. Henry could have cared less. It was light enough to see, and wet enough to dampen the smell of Parson’s carcass. By noon he’d be at the fort.
The ordeal with the bear, and the years of abuse he’d put his old body through were telling on Henry. It was all he could do to mount up, but mount he did. Aiming his horse to the East, he wrapped the other horse’s lead around his saddle horn and then kicked him in the flanks. As the horse began to move, Henry settled easy in the saddle. It was, he hoped, his last night on the prairie.
The weight of the travois cut a trail through the wet grass. Water ran from the brim of Henry’s hat and down onto his knobby nose. Every now and then, a lightning bolt would hit the ground close enough that his horse would shy. At those times, he wished he was not the highest target in sight. Once he looked back, searching behind him for the latest location of the pack. For the first time in days, the wolves were nowhere in sight. He glanced back at the travois and grinned.
“Well I’ll be damned, Parson. The furry buggers lit a shuck. Guess they don’t like this lightnin’ any better than me.”
An hour later, he’d ridden out of the storm and into the tail winds that were sweeping over the prairie. By the time he topped the knoll overlooking the fort, he was nearly dry.
He started to tease Parson about the floozy at the cantina and ask him if he knew her name, too, when it dawned on him that Parson couldn’t hear.
“Well, hell.” He situated his hat a little tighter upon his head and ignored the lump in the back of his throat. “I don’t know as how I’m gonna adjust to this situation, old friend. I don’t rightly know at all.”
He kicked the horse in the flanks and started down the rolling hillside toward the gaping doors of the fort. It would be the last time Parson Sutter covered his back.
***
“Hey, Wainwright! Aren’t you a little early this year? Don’t look like you got many furs to trade. And they got wet to boot. What were you thinking?”
Henry ignored the smart-ass sentry at the gate and kept on riding. By the time he got to the adjutant’s office, it was obvious to anyone within fifteen feet that Henry was hauling something foul.
A sergeant Henry had known for years held his nose as he walked past.
“Damn, Wainwright, I thought you knew better than to bring green skins like that in to trade. The trader won’t give you shit for them.”
Henry glared as he dismounted and tied his horse to the hitch post. He didn’t take kindly to anyone maligning his friend, even if it was true, but he wasn’t ready to admit that it was Parson, and not a load of green skins, that was stinking up the fort.
“Dang smart-mouth,” he muttered, and yanked his pants up over his stomach as he started inside.
The commander met him coming out, and the smile on Jack Robie’s face withered to a gasp of disgust.
“My God, Wainwright! What on earth are you packing?”
“Elmer Sutter.”
It was enough to stop Robie’s next remark. He’d known the two old trappers for years and couldn’t remember ever seeing one without the other. No matter how bad the smell, Wainwright must be grieving the loss of his partner.
“What happened?” Robie asked. “And pardon me for asking, but why the hell are you hauling him around like that? Why don’t you do the decent thing and bury the poor man before he pops?”
“He ain’t gonna blow,” Henry muttered. “Bear done ripped out all the parts that tend toward that condition. Besides, I cain’t plant Parson until I find a preacher to say words over his body. I promised.”
The Robie rolled his eyes and tried not to gag. “I’d be glad to read the bible over your friend’s grave. But we need to cover him up first, I think.”
Henry shook his head. “Nope. Parson wanted a real preacher. I promised.” He ducked his head and then looked up. “No offense and all, Commander, but a promise is a promise. And I don’t suppose you’re a real man of the cloth?”
Robie shook his head, and then his expression lightened. “No. But I heard that a preacher is coming to Lizard Flats. Some banker is getting married and they’ve sent back East for the real thing. Maybe you could try there.”
Henry’s eyes widened. Lizard Flats was less than a two-day ride. And in a way, it seemed provident that they go back to the place where they’d last shared a woman to share their last moments together, as well.
“That’s real good news,” he said. “But I’ve got to get me some sleep afore I go anywhere.”
Jack Robie frowned as he gazed at the flies and the lump beneath the buffalo robe. “I guess it’s been rough losing your partner like this. As time passes, you will find it easier to sleep.”
Henry shrugged. “Oh hell, it wasn’t losin’ Parson that kept me outa my bed. It was a damned pack of wolves. They followed me nigh onto four days and nights, trying to eat old Elmer, there.” Henry lifted his hat to wipe sweat from his brow, relishing the faint wash of air that tunneled throug
h his sparse growth of hair. “It’s bad enough that the bear gutted him right a’fore my eyes. I wasn’t havin’ no damned four-legged furballs eat what was left, by God! Now I’m goin’ to get me some sleep. And when I come out, Parson better be right where I left him. Do I make myself clear?”
Jack Robie nodded his assent as the gaggle of soldiers around the building began to disperse. It made sense to them. They just didn’t want to be in on the downwind side of Elmer Sutter while it happened.
***
It was nearing sundown when Henry pulled two travel-weary horses to a halt just outside of Lizard Flats, surveying the town from the hilltop. As he’d predicted, it had taken him the better part of two days to get here, but from what he could see, it was time well spent. Someone was putting up some sort of shelter. The poles had already been planted into the ground and the workers were near to done with the lattice-work roof. Piles of brush and leafy limbs lay in bunches around the area, ready to be woven into the framework of the roof as a makeshift shade. And with the thought came the realization that this must be where the preacher would hold his sermons.
“By God, Parson. We did it. Before you know it, there’ll be a real preacher-man sayin’ sweet words over your stinkin’ hide.”
He could almost hear Parson saying, Cursing is the handiwork of the devil.
He sighed and kicked his horse forward, confident that Parson wasn’t far behind.
***
Letty was out on the balcony, enjoying her evening ritual when she saw the rider on the hill, but thought nothing of it. Once word had gotten around that a preacher was coming to Lizard Flats, it had brought all kind of newcomers into town for the event.
Even though the sun was almost gone, the heat of the day still lingered. She lifted the weight of her hair from her neck while wishing for a breeze or maybe a good rain. But it was August, and rain came rarely to the territory this time of year. A loud shout sounded from the hilltop where the brush arbor was going up. She turned and frowned, wishing she could tell them to be quiet. How was she to ever hear her whippoorwill call with all that noise?