“It is also said,” Tihi remarked, “that the mountains are home to many tribes who would regard us as enemies.”
“We have enemies here,” Dega reminded her. “Enemies who will hunt us down and exterminate us as they did the rest of our people. We must flee. We must go far, and quickly.”
Teni had an objection of her own. “We know nothing of these Rocky Mountains. The land, the animals, they will be new to us.”
“So? How different can they be?” Dega rejoined. “And do not forget. There is one aspect to the mountains that should please you. It should please you greatly.” It certainly pleased him.
“What is that, brother?” Teni asked skeptically.
“Few whites live in the Rocky Mountains, sister. Fewer whites than anywhere else.”
That was all Teni had to hear. “I say we go.”
Son and older daughter fixed their eyes on their mother.
Tihi did as she always had done; she appealed to her husband. “Waku? What do you say? We will abide by your decision.”
Wakumassee took a moment before speaking. When he did, it was in a listless tone devoid of vitality. “All is gone. All is flown. The mountains are as good as anywhere and better than here.”
Dega smiled. “Then it is settled. We will swing to the south to avoid our village and then push on west.”
“How long will the journey take?” Tihi wanted to know.
“I cannot say, exactly,” Dega answered. “But this I can promise you. By the time the leaves of the trees change colors and the north wind turns cold, we will have found a new home in the Rocky Mountains.”
“And we will kill any whites who try to take it from us,” Teni vowed.
Six
“It’s a nice day to blow up a pass,” Shakespeare McNair commented.
Nate King agreed.
The golden disc was near its zenith. Above them stretched more of the heavily timbered slopes they had been climbing since daybreak, slopes thick with spruce, pines and firs. They were high enough that they came to a belt of aspens, the thin boles like pale ivory, the leaves shimmering in the slight breeze. Mountain daisies grew in abundance. On their ascent they had also seen columbines and violets.
Ravens beat heavy rhythms in the rarefied air. Jays squawked from treetops. Magpies were common near the lake, but not so common higher up. Nutcrackers occasionally uttered their harsh cries. Brightly colored warblers, chickadees and sparrows flitted in the brush. Now and again Nate would spy a bluebird or a tanager.
Deer were abundant, the bucks as unwary as the does. Twice Nate spotted elk as they vanished into the vegetation, their yellowish-brown rumps in contrast to the prevailing green. It always amazed him how silently they could move, given their size. Some stood five feet at the shoulders. The females weighed up to six hundred pounds, the larger males close to a thousand. Yet they glided through the woodland like gigantic ghosts.
The valley was also home to pockets of mountain buffalo. Most people east of the Mississippi River were unaware there were two kinds of buffalo: the common prairie variety, which numbered in the many millions; and their shaggier, rarer cousins, the mountain buffalo, which preferred dense woods to open grassland. Many of the latter had been killed off by the early trappers.
So had many of the beaver. The trapping years had taken a fearsome toll on the beaver population. Recently, the beaver were reestablishing themselves over much of their former range. Here in the new valley, they were plentiful along the streams that fed the pristine lake.
Squirrels, of course, were as common as pinecones. Chipmunks chattered loudly. Rabbits thrived, enough to fill the King and McNair supper pots forever.
Now and then Nate came across a black bear sign. But never sign of a grizzly. There had been one, and only one, a huge silver-tip that claimed the valley as its exclusive territory. Nate had not wanted to kill it. He had done all in his power to try to get along with it, only to be forced into a slay-or-be-eaten nightmare he would not soon forget.
All in all, the valley was a natural paradise. Virtually untouched by the outside world, it was a thriving example of how the Rockies had been, not only before the coming of the whites, but before the coming of the red race, as well.
“A piece of quartz for your thoughts,” Shakespeare said.
Nate twisted in his saddle. McNair was astride his white mare, leading the pack horse. “The last of the big spenders,” he quipped. “Are you sure you don’t want to make it a lump of dirt?”
“My, my,” Shakespeare said to the mare. “Isn’t someone in a mood today? What happened, Horatio? Did you get up on the wrong side of your wife?”
Nate snickered, but could not sustain the levity. “I can’t stop thinking about our visitors. The last thing I want is another feud. It took me years to come to terms with the Utes.”
Shakespeare shifted and jabbed a finger at the keg strapped to the pack animal. “As soon as we set that off, you can breathe easy.”
“Provided there isn’t another way into our valley that we don’t know about,” Nate said.
“Do you know what I like most about you, my prince?”
“The fact I put up with you?”
“Your marvelous outlook on life. If you’re not fretting, you’re not happy.” Shakespeare made a show of breathing deeply of the mountain air. “You need to learn to relax, to take things in stride.”
“Like the death of Niwot?”
Shakespeare’s smile transformed into a scowl. “I declare. By thy favor, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face.”
“If you ever talk normally, it will be a miracle,” Nate shot back.
“His wits are not so blunt as, God help, I would desire they were,” Shakespeare quoted to the mare.
“You do realize you are talking to your horse?”
“What of it? She is as intelligent as most men I have met, and has a better gift for conversation.” Shakespeare chuckled. “I do so amuse myself at times.”
“Next you will be talking to trees,” Nate muttered.
“I heard that. And for your information, trees have a virtue to recommend them. They don’t wake up surly and nitpick sweet innocents like King John and myself.”
“John the Innocent? Wasn’t he the one who ordered a boy’s eyes to be burned out? If you’re an innocent, then innocence is dead.”
Laughing uproariously, Shakespeare slapped his thigh. “You’re learning, Horatio! You’re learning! A few more years of my company and you will not be a halfwit by half.”
“Thanks. I think.”
An overhead screech drew Nate’s gaze to an eagle sailing on outstretched pinions in search of prey. The bird was so high, it was a speck in the sky, yet its cry carried clearly in the thin air.
“Ever wanted to have wings?” Shakespeare asked out of the blue.
Nate snorted. “I’m perfectly content with arms.”
“But you can’t flap them and fly.” Shakespeare tilted his head back to better admire the eagle. “I should think it would improve a person’s perspective to view the world from up there.”
“People would look like ants,” Nate suggested. “Exactly. The human race could do with some humbling. In our ignorance we are arrogant. We think the world is ours to do with as we please.”
“It’s not?”
“Oh, Horatio. Surely you jest? Whatever man touches, we taint. Look at conditions back in the States. We strip the land of trees. We kill off all the animals. We dump our waste in the water so it’s not fit to drink. Why, in just the few short decades the white man has been in these mountains, we nearly wiped out the beaver and are close to wiping out the mountain buffalo.”
“And you say I woke up in a bad mood?” Nate asked, but was ignored.
“Don’t think I’m singling us out, either. The Indians say that once this land teemed with hairy elephants and other creatures long since butchered for the cooking pot. It is human nature to destroy, son. That is why so much blood is spilled. That’s why you and I are on
our way up to the pass to seal it.”
“I admit our natures have a dark side,” Nate conceded. “But we also have our good sides, as well. We care for one another. We can love. It’s not all blood-spilling.”
“You are the true innocent here,” Shakespeare said. “But yes. We are not entirely worthless. I only wish more were like you and less like our visitors, who saw fit to kill a boy for no other reason than he was different from them.”
“It could be they regard this valley as part of their territory, even if they don’t come here often.”
“Maybe we should stake out territory of our own, and serve warning to all and sundry.”
“How do you mean?”
“This valley is our new home, correct? Well, let’s make it ours and only ours. Remember how it was at your last homestead? People were dropping by every time you turned around.”
“We were close to the main trail up into the central Rockies,” Nate noted. “Folks could hardly miss spotting our cabin.”
“Quibble all you want,” Shakespeare said. “My point is that a lot of those people caused you trouble. It got so you might as well have hung out a sign that read ‘Lost souls and cutthroats welcome.’”
Shakespeare’s own cabin had seen its share of passing strangers. More than its share, in his estimation, which was part of the reason he had agreed to move to the new' valley. The other part was that he cared for Nate King as the son he’d never had, and relished the idea of spending his waning years in Nate’s company.
“You have a point,” Nate admitted. The location of their last cabin had become too well known. It was regarded as a stopping point, the same as Bent’s Fort. Then there had been the hostile tribes who knew where to find him, and were a constant threat to his loved ones. “All this is leading up to something.”
“I thought I was already at the summit,” Shakespeare bantered. “It’s simply this: If you are bound and determined to make this valley ours and our alone—”
“This is your idea, but go on,” Nate amended.
“—then we should take steps to safeguard our slice of heaven. How do we do that, you ask? By not letting anyone else settle here. Not white or red.”
“You are serious?”
“Why not?”
“Claiming a homestead is one thing.” Nate gestured at the broad valley floor that ran three miles from north to south. “But for us to lay claim to all this, why, it’s unheard of.”
“Sam Houston laid claim to all Texas and you didn’t hear anyone complain. Well, except Santa Anna and the rest of Mexico.”
“Have you brought a jug and not told me?”
“Bear with me. It will be easier than you think. We simply tell anyone else who shows up that they are to skedaddle.”
“And of course they will do it, just like that,” Nate said sarcastically, with a snap of his fingers.
“We can post signs if you want, telling folks to stay out or else.”
“And everyone will honor them, of course.” Nate glanced over his shoulder. “Weren’t you counting ducks last week?”
Shakespeare looked up, and blinked. “What?”
“When I came by your cabin. You were counting how many ducks were on the lake. Remember?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You were saying as how you had developed a new fondness for the noble duck,” Nate said. “Your exact words.”
“Again, what does that prove?”
“And remember that time you were blowing soap bubbles with Evelyn, and you told her some of the bubbles would be blown clear to Norway?”
“If there is a point to your babble, it eludes me.”
“No signs.”
“That’s your point?” Shakespeare asked, and when Nate nodded, he muttered, “You will make a wonderful nitpicking crone one day.”
Nate laughed.
“Thou disease of a friend,” Shakespeare quoted. “At what do you scoff? I still say we should claim the entire valley as ours.”
“Are you addlepated? To all this? It’s just not done.”
“Who says?”
“A homestead, yes. Half the Rockies, no.”
“Methinks you need spectacles,” Shakespeare said. “This valley is but a dust mote. Besides, there’s no government west of the Mississippi. No land offices. No procedures for filing claims. The land is ours to do with as we please, and if we please to have this valley as our manor and set ourselves up as squires, that is our privilege.”
“We will be laughed to scorn,” Nate predicted. While it was true the land was there for the taking, the general consensus among the few whites who had braved the frontier and built homesteads was that the land was there for everyone, white and red, and no man should take more than his fair amount.
“Who will do this cackling, Horatio?” Shakespeare demanded. “There are no other whites within a week’s ride.”
“It smacks of greed.”
“Oh. I see. Your princely nature balks at taking the entire pie because you are content with a slice. Well, I have no such qualms. Leave the signs to me, and you can bask in the rewards of my hard work.”
“No.”
“All I ask is that you consider it. For me, if for no other reason. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not as spry as I used to be. I’m too old to keep moving.”
“Not that silliness again,” Nate grumbled.
“I heard that. But these white hairs of mine aren’t a wig.” Shakespeare encompassed the valley with a sweep of his arm. “I like it here, son. I like it a lot. So does Blue Water Woman. So I will be damned if I will sit idly by while other homesteaders move in and crowd us out.”
“That won’t happen for another two hundred years.”
“Says the gent who left his last home after twenty years because he was feeling hemmed in.”
Nate fell silent. The problem with arguing with McNair was that nine times out of ten, McNair was right. It would be a shame to have to share the valley with others. If that sounded selfish, so be it. Nate did not want to move, either.
Frontiersmen liked open space. They liked their breathing room, as they referred to it, and the privacy the breathing room bestowed. Those elements, and an abundance of game, were essential.
It had never failed, though. The same pattern occurred again and again. It began along the eastern seaboard, when the first wave of hardy frontiersmen pushed west and built their homesteads at the fringe of civilization. Before long, settlers showed up, and settlements sprouted. Most of the game was killed off, and a man couldn’t turn around without bumping into a neighbor. The frontiersmen were forced to move west yet again, to the new fringe of civilization, to find their breathing room. And so it went, decade after decade, an endless cycle that opened up new vistas for settlement at the expense of those who blazed the paths into the wilderness.
As conditions currently stood, the leading edge of the westward tide had been temporarily stemmed at the Mississippi. But the tide would not stay contained for long. Signs of restlessness were everywhere. Tales of the Oregon Country had stirred many an emigrant, and California’s allure grew year by year. It would not be long before the westward expansion resumed in earnest, before hordes of hopefuls poured across the Mississippi and made of the plains and the mountains the same bustling beehive they had made of the East.
Nate dreaded that day.
“So what do you say, fair prince? Are you with me?” Shakespeare asked. “Have we a pact, and should we sign it in blood?”
“I was with you until the blood part.”
“Growing squeamish at your young age? Don’t worry. I won’t tell Winona. She likes her men manly.”
“Remind me to pick up the next rock I see and bean you with it.”
Chortling, Shakespeare happily exclaimed, “That’s the spirit! Woe to the miscreants who try to take any part of our valley from us. We’ll make them sorry they were born.” And McNair let out a lusty whoop.
They conducted the
rest of their climb in silence except for the creak of saddle leather and the plod of hooves. The sun dipped on its downward arc; the shadows lengthened.
Nate was constantly on the lookout for sign of the hostiles. He suspected they had left the valley, but he had learned the hard way never to take anything for granted. It was a surefire invite to an early grave, and he hankered to live a good many years yet.
Nate did not say anything to McNair, but secretly, he was having doubts about the wisdom of blowing up the pass. If there were another way over the range from the next valley, closing the pass would accomplish nothing other than to further anger the tribe that regarded them as intruders. He wished he had time to explore the rest of the range, but that could take years.
Deep in thought, Nate let his attention lapse. His mistake proved costly. He was skirting a talus slope when his bay nickered and pricked its ears. Glancing at the top of the slope, Nate was startled to behold three warriors, undoubtedly the same three who had slain Niwot. His shock did not last more than a few seconds. “Shakespeare!” he hollered, and brought up his Hawken.
The three warriors did not have weapons in their hands. They held rocks the size of watermelons. At Nate’s outcry, they hurled the rocks down the slope. A senseless act, on the face of it, except that talus was notoriously unstable, and at the three smashing impacts, the loose layer of stones and dirt shifted and moved and flowed down the slope with ever increasing speed.
Straight at Nate and Shakespeare.
“Ride, Horatio! Ride!”
Nate needed no urging. A slap of his powerful legs brought the bay to a gallop, and he raced for the far edge of the talus. Should they fail to make it, tons of crushing weight would sweep over them and bury them. He thought of Winona, and slapped his legs harder.
Shakespeare’s mare fairly flew. She was a sure-footed animal and swift over short spurts. He had every confidence she could bear him to safety, but his sorrel was much slower. He tugged on the lead rope to hurry it along, but he might as well be pulling on an anchor for all the good it did him. The pack horse could not go any faster.
The clatter and rumble of the talus rose to a roar as it gained momentum. Rocks leaped and bounced. The earth itself rippled like waves on the lake.
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