Blood at Bear Lake (15 page)

Joe stopped a few feet away from the scrawny old man. He grunted and said, “Gabe, you look like a damned old snapping turtle sunning hisself on a mossy rock. I woulda thought you'd've died years back.”

“Hell, Moss, what I heard was that you'd went under afore me. Step down off that”—he cocked his head to one side and squinted—“whatever that big sumbich is . . . get down off it an' come inside. We'll have us a drink an' talk about how it was when the beaver was plenty an' the squaws cheap.” He dug a finger inside his beard and scratched, then shook his head. “First time I ever seen a mountain grow legs an' move.”

“Hell, Gabe, what this is is two horses. Brothers actually. Looked just alike. It's just that I was trailing the one behind the other on a real short tether. The one in front seen something on the ground an' spooked. Tried to back away. Same time, the one in back heard somethin' and jumped forward. Jumped right up the other'n's ass. Well the two of them was like enough that he disappeared inside an' just stayed there. But all filled out, like. So what you see here is really the two o' them animals stuffed t'gether inta one. I swear it t' be true.”

“An' I believe you. Damn me if'n I don't.” The smaller man, a head shorter than Joe but wiry and agile, grabbed Joe in a bear hug. Had Joe Moss been a weaker man, he might have cracked some ribs.

The legendary mountain man Jim Bridger, Old Gabe to his friends, stepped back and squinted through his school-marm spectacles, looking Joe over from toe to head and back again. “You look good, boy. Y' look fit. D'you be looking for a job? I heard o' one that pays real good.”

“I got no time for work right now, Gabe. My wife and me got separated. I got t' find her. Even more, I got to find the sonuvabitch that's offering a bounty on her head. Mine, too, but that don't matter. I can take care o' myself. It's Fiona that I'm worried about.”

“Shit!” Jim Bridger snarled.

“Why'd you say that, Gabe? What's the matter?”

“You're married, Joe? Got you a wife name of Fiona?”

“That's right.”

“Redheaded girl, is she?”

“Yeah, but how did you know that?”

“Because the young fella that's offering the bounty come through here. Shit, that's the job of work I was thinkin' to offer you.”

“Gabe, you aren't . . .”

“Oh, hell, no, I ain't shilling for him and I don't got no stake in it m'self. He asked me did I know of anybody could do the job. I told him I prob'ly know half a hundred fellows what were capable of it, but right off hand I didn't know of any that was looking for work nor where any of them was. You're the first man t' come along that I thought could handle that kind of work if he was of a mind to.” Bridger shook his head. “You wouldn't believe the run of Bible-thumpers and just plain cowards that been coming through here, runnin' toward Californy, ever since that war got started back East. They come an' they gawk an' they buy stuff from me just so they can say they met Old Jim Bridger an' sat on his front porch. Well, I can tell you one thing. Ain't one of them gets invited to set in my kitchen an' have a drink or a plate o' beans with me.” He cackled and added, “Joe Moss, c'mon into my place. We'll go in back and set in the kitchen while my woman fixes us something to eat. Maybe some ribs t' go with those beans.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'd be proud t' do that, Gabe. But if you don't mind, I'd like you t' tell me whatever else you can about this fella that's spreading the word about a bounty on me an' my wife.”

“Figure to go kill the son of a bitch, do ye, son?”

“You know that I do, Gabe.”

“Moss, had I knowed the way the stick floats, I'd've killed him for ye. An' if he comes back this way, I damn sure will.”

“You're a friend, Gabe. Thanks. Just let me tend to my horse an' mule, then we'll tell some lies about how it was in the Shining Times.”

“Shit, you can lie if you like, Moss, but everything I say is the truth, nothing but the purantee truth.” Jim Bridger winked and said, “Count on it.”

39

OLD HABITS DIE hard. That was the common expression. That was the truth.

Moss kicked apart the tiny fire he had built to quickly cook his supper, then mounted the Shire and moved on another half mile before he stopped to make his camp for the night. Joe did not know of any specific danger hereabouts, but he had lived so much of his life in the presence of danger that he remained constantly on guard out of sheer habit.

He removed his panniers from the mule's packsaddle and set them down, one on either side of where he would bed, then pulled the pack frame from the animal and fitted hobbles to its feet before turning it loose to graze. Then he removed his saddle from the big black and gave it a rubdown before hobbling it and letting it graze.

He spread his blankets between the panniers—in the event of attack in the night they would provide a barricade of sorts—and placed the saddle for use as his pillow. He needed no other comforts.

The spot he chose to spend the night was well away from wood or water. There was nothing that should attract the attention of travelers in the vicinity, and that was how he liked it.

Joe did permit himself a final pipe during the waning moments of a long day. He sat cross-legged at the foot of his blanket, savoring the taste of the smoke in his mouth. While he sat there, he thought back to what Jim Bridger told him.

“This man that's put the bounty on you an' your missus, Joe. He's a hard case. The real thing. He has the look of a man that's lifted hair hisself. He don't just hire it done by others. You know the look I mean.”

“I do,” Joe had answered his old friend. “Those of us that survived the old days, we all got that look ourselves.”

“Now I don't say this fella went through the exact same things that we done. He didn't. You and me would know him if he did. But he ain't a stranger when it comes to hard living and dirty fighting. I'd say this man knows how to handle a knife or a gun, either one.

“His name is Ransom Holt. Calls himself the chief of security for some fella name of Peabody, and he likes to show a badge. Just a flash of it, though, quick before a body has a chance to wonder if it's an official badge or not. Fact is, it ain't. Which he will admit once he knows he ain't gonna too easy pull the wool over your eyes.

“This Holt is a big man, Moss. Half a head taller than you. And he's built like a damn oak tree. Solid. Long arms. You don't want him to get his hands on you, or you're likely done. You don't want to fight him with a knife either, not with arms like that. Big as he is, he moves pretty good. Not clumsy at all. If you run into him, Moss, stay back and use your rifle. And don't stop shooting till you've tore him to pieces. I have it in mind that this Holt will be hard to kill.”

“I'm not so easy t' kill my own self, Gabe.”

“I know that, Joe, but I don't have so many friends that I want to see any more of them go under. You watch out for yourself when you come up against Holt.”

“If I ever do.”

“Don't lie to me, Moss. You know an' I know, too. You are going to keep after Holt for as long as he's a threat to you and your wife. You won't quit until one of you is laying dead on the ground.”

Joe had only grunted and nodded. Bridger was right. Ransom Holt—and the Peabodys who backed him—threatened Fiona's life and perhaps the life of Joe's daughter, Jessica, as well. Joe could not permit that.

He could put up with any threat on his own life. He could scarcely remember a time when he had not had to be wary of dangers that could easily and without warning put him under.

But Fiona? And Jessica? They were precious beyond measure and there was no length he would not go to in order to protect them.

He needed to find Fiona.

No, he amended to himself as he puffed quietly on his pipe, he
wanted
to find Fiona.

He
needed
to kill Ransom Holt. That was the only sure way he could think of to remove future threats to his beloved wife and daughter.

According to Bridger, the head of security for the Peabody mines had been heading east with the intention of visiting some of the places where a man on the run might logically show up. A former mountain man.

That would certainly include Fort Laramie on the emigrantwagon route. Probably the Bayou Salado and Fountain Creek down in Colorado. Taos and Santa Fe in Mexico. No, dammit, they were in the United States now. Sometimes he tended to forget that.

When he thought about it, there was an awful lot of prime country he and the other boys used to roam back in the days when fur was king and they were the lords of the mountains.

Remembering those days, Joe permitted himself a small smile.

Then he sobered. Fiona. He had to think of Fiona and Jessica. He had to protect them from this Ransom Holt.

Grim and determined, Joe knocked the dottle from his pipe and dropped it back into his possibles pouch, then took one long, cautious look around, searching for the sight or the scent of an enemy, before lying down for the night.

40

FORT LARAMIE HAD not changed much since the last time Joe was there. It was perhaps busier thanks to increased traffic on the old Oregon Trail, but it was no grander. The few buildings were weathered, the logs warping and adobe brick melting.

But there were pens of livestock—oxen, mules, and heavy horses taken in on trade and allowed to recuperate here while their former owners traveled on to California and Oregon and Deseret—and sheds where goods were either stored or manufactured. There were a leatherworks and harness maker, a blacksmith, a low shed where bunks could be hired with or without a plump Shoshone girl to warm a man's blankets . . . and whatever.

There was the usual assortment of white and red inhabitants, almost enough to make a small town out of what was initially only a trading point for mountain men and the occasional emigrant. Now it seemed that the emigrant trains had become the majority. And a busy traffic they were providing. The place swarmed with wagons and draft stock and the curses of bullwhackers.

Joe stopped at one of the many corrals only long enough to put his horse and mule in and strip their gear. Then, his heart in his throat at the prospect of finding Fiona again, he hurried to the trading post where he had so many memories from the past.

The place was very much as he remembered it. Low, dim, smelling of whiskey and cured fur and tobacco. Goods were piled on shelves and stacked on the floor, and there must have been three dozen people crowded inside looking to buy or to trade for whatever they needed to go onward.

Joe wove his way through the crowd, sliding this way and that and becoming impatient at the pork-eating sons of bitches who were in his way now that he might at last find Fiona.

“Move, dammit!”

A pasty-faced man with stringy hair bristled at being so ordered. He spun around ready to fight, but one look at Joe Moss's face convinced him that would not be a good idea. The fellow wilted and scurried out of Joe's path.

Joe stepped up to the counter and eyed the middle-aged clerk who stood behind it.

“Where's Sol?” he demanded.

“Who?” the clerk said.

“Sol, dammit. Sol Pennington. He's your boss here, ain't he? So where is the old sonuvabitch?” Sol Pennington was an old and true friend, a former mountain man himself who had helped Joe recover from the bender he had gone on when he first lost Fiona some years back. Joe was looking forward to seeing Sol again.

“Oh, yes. Of course.” The clerk shook his head. “Pennington was gone before I got here.”

“Gone? Where the hell's he gone?”

“Gone like in dead, mister. Pennington got himself killed.”

The news hit Joe harder than he would have believed. He grounded the butt of his Henry rifle on the trading post floor and reached out to touch the counter. He needed to take hold of something solid in a suddenly dizzying world.

Sol had come through more Indian fights than most men had ever heard tales about. He had saved Joe's life many times over. And Joe had saved his in return. Now . . . dead?

“How?” Joe asked. “How'd old Sol go under?”

The clerk shrugged, not particularly interested in the topic. “He back-talked some customer, I think. The customer killed him.”

“Shot him?” Joe asked.

“Knife, I think.”

Joe frowned. Sol was a canny old wolf. He would not have been easy to take any way at all, but . . . a knife? Unless it was in the back, Joe would not have thought that possible.

“What about Sol? Did he get his licks in? Did he at least take the pilgrim with him?”

“Mister, I wouldn't know about that shit, and I don't have time to stand here jawing with you to no purpose. If you want to buy something, fine. Otherwise, please stand aside so's I can take care of these other folks.”

Joe wanted to ask about Fiona, too. But not of this snotty son of a bitch. Surely there would be others hanging on from the old days. He would question any of those that he came to. In the meantime, he would drift through the compound and see if he could spot Fiona or her pretty little sorrel.

He turned away from the counter, his eyes moving back and forth over the crowd, searching for a familiar face among all these strangers.

But old Sol. Dead. Joe could scarcely believe it.

Henri Valderama was noisily engaged in trying to barter a pair of poor-quality wolf skins to a family of Easterners whose three boys were wide-eyed at the yarn Valderama was spinning in an effort to get a good price for the skins. Likely the trading post had already refused them, so now he was trying to unload them on the pilgrims.