Luke's Gold (5 page)

Luke paused again, his eyes trying to blink away the effects he was beginning to feel from the alcohol. He cocked his head to give Cade a hard look, as if he wondered what his young friend was doing there. Remembering then, he said, “Well, they shipped me back east to the war, and I spent the rest of it trying to get them to transfer me back out to the territory.”

“Why didn't you go back after the war?” Cade asked.

“I don't know. One thing led to another, and I figured somebody had probably found that gold by then, so I drifted on out to Texas 'cause I couldn't think of anything better.” He gave Cade a big grin then. “But I started thinkin' 'bout that gold a lot after a few of these long cattle drives, and how much easier life would be if I had it. I'm already feelin' I ain't up to another one like the one we just finished. My bones are already creakin'. I'll tell you the truth, Cade. I've been workin' hard all my life, and nothin' I've ever tried made me enough money to have anything left over after buyin' grub and ammunition. When they first sent me back to Fort Lincoln, I couldn't think about nothin' but that gold just layin' there in a trout bed. It like to drove me crazy till I finally had to put it out of my mind. I was fixin' to desert the army, but they got us up in the middle of the night one night and marched us off to the war. I guess I still coulda slipped off somewhere along the line, but I don't know, I just didn't. After a while, the whole business with the gold just seemed like a dream, somethin' I figured wouldn't hardly happen to a nobody like me. After the war, a friend I served with talked me into goin' to Texas, said he had a cousin in the cattle business.” He paused while he recalled the time. “Well, like I said, that just turned out to be nothin' but hard work and long hours.” He stopped to gaze toward the distant horizon. “I'm tired, Cade, and I wanna die a wealthy man. I think I can find that trout bed under that rock, but I need a partner I can trust to go with me. That's why I'm tellin' you about it. Whaddaya say, Cade? You wanna help me find that gold?”

It was one helluva story and a lot to think about for Cade. He guessed it was a compliment that Luke picked him as a man he could trust with his secret. Cade couldn't help a fleeting question as to whether or not he could trust Luke. He decided at once that he could. “How come you don't go get it by yourself?” he asked. “Then you wouldn't have to split it with anyone.”

“Oh, don't think I ain't thought about that,” Luke responded. “But I ain't as young as I used to be, and I need a partner with a sharp eye and a steady hand with a rifle. There's Injuns roamin' that area around the Gallatin, and road agents and scoundrels of all kinds. I don't know to the dollar what that gold is worth, but it's more than one man needs—a man my age, anyway. I know that.” He seemed almost stone sober for a moment as he looked Cade in the eye. “I sometimes find the need to drink strong spirits, and sometimes it can get the best of me. I need a partner I can trust to get me home again.”

Looking at the nearly empty whiskey bottle, Cade had already figured that out for himself. Still, he didn't have to spend many additional minutes to make his decision. He sensed an honesty about the man, and there was bound to be a lot of prairie between saloons where they would be heading. Since he was of a mind to decline Mr. Becker's offer to return with him to Texas, there was no reason not to team up with Luke. “I'll tell you what,” he said, “you've had a helluva lot to drink this evening. If you still want me to go with you in the mornin', we'll shake on it then. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” Luke immediately responded, and started to get up from the table. “Damn!” he swore, and sat down again. “We're havin' an earthquake, or I've drunk enough whiskey to make the damn floor quiver.”

Cade laughed. “Come on. I'll give you a hand, and you can try it again.” He got Luke on his feet and steadied him as he walked him to the door. “I expect you'd best turn in early tonight,” he said.

Luke was willing to give it a try, but he took no more than twelve paces before he started listing to his left, and Cade could see that Luke wasn't likely to make it back to the holding pens. It was only a matter of seconds before his legs realized that his brain was already asleep. Cade hurried around in front of him and lowered his shoulder to accept the load. Luke stumbled into him and collapsed gently across Cade's shoulder, where he was carried back to the cottonwoods by the river. Cade laid him on the ground as gently as he could and covered him with a blanket. Then, figuring he might as well turn in, too, he spread his blanket a few yards away from the already-snoring Luke. He took off his gun belt and removed his Colt Peacemaker from the holster. Using his saddle for a pillow, he laid down on one half of the blanket and folded the other half over him, his pistol in easy reach by his leg, and drifted off to sleep to the rhythmic sawing of imaginary logs from his partner.

Sleep came easily. It was quiet in the grove of trees since almost everyone else was just getting started drinking up all the whiskey in town. The majority would not stumble back to their blankets before sunup. Some wouldn't make it back at all. The lucky ones might still have a little of their hard-earned wages in pocket.

 

It was still a few hours before dawn when Brady Waits made his move. Inflamed by the whiskey he had consumed, and backed into a corner by boasts he had made to his drinking partners, he was determined to extract his revenge for his loss of face at the hands of Cade Hunter.

His brain dulled somewhat by the evening of drinking—although he had not reached the level of impairment attained by Luke—Cade's normal sense of danger failed to alert him. Consequently, he was not aware of the threat to his life until he was awakened from a sound sleep with Brady Waits standing straddle-legged over him. When Cade's eyes flickered open, Brady reached down and grabbed him by his hair with one hand and pressed his long skinning knife against Cade's throat with the other. “Now, Mr. Big Shot,” he uttered in a drunken drawl, “I'm fixin' to slice you from ear to ear.”

Fully alert by then, Cade immediately raised his arm from under the blanket and jammed his Colt .45 hard up into the crotch of Brady's trousers. The big man grunted with the sudden shock. “Cut away, you son of a bitch,” Cade growled. “I'll turn you into a gelding before you get halfway across.”

Stunned, Brady staggered backward and, tripping over Cade's leg, sat down hard on the ground. Reaching for his pistol, he was stopped cold by a sharp rap against the back of his skull, leaving him momentarily senseless. “Hardheaded bastard,” Luke complained, “I hope he ain't bent my rifle barrel.” With his foot, he rolled Cade's would-be assailant over on his side. “You all right, partner?” he asked Cade before prodding Brady with his rifle.

“Yeah, I'm dandy,” Cade replied, getting to his feet, “but I've had about enough of Mr. Waits here, so I'm thinkin' I might as well shoot him and be done with it.”

“I expect that would be doin' the world a favor at that,” Luke replied. He wasn't certain whether or not Cade was japing the bully, but he played along anyway.

Still trying to clear his head, and gazing drunkenly at two guns pointed at him, Brady made an unashamed plea for mercy. “Ah, boys,” he begged, “there ain't no use in that. I wasn't really gonna cut you. I was just foolin' with you, that's all. You don't wanna go shootin' somebody over a joke, do ya?”

“I'd just as soon,” Luke said with a shrug.

“I don't like jokes,” Cade said, his tone suddenly deadly serious. Looking Brady straight in the eye, he said, “Get up from there and get outta my sight. I don't plan on seein' you after today, but if I do, I swear I'll kill you.” He stood back to give Brady room to get to his feet.

This was the third time the dull-witted brute had suffered humiliation at the hand of the soft-spoken man from Texas. It was a hard bite of gristle to swallow, and Cade could see that Brady was struggling with a decision—to yield or fight. Cade didn't care which way Brady decided. He just wanted to be done with the man.

Suddenly the air between the two men seemed to become still and vacant, like the dead atmosphere an instant before a lightning strike. Luke sensed it, and one glance into Cade's eyes told him that Brady Waits was a dead man. He decided he'd better step in before it was too late. “Brady, don't make the mistake that's gonna cost you your life,” he said. “Get on outta here before you do somethin' stupid. We'll just call it a draw and go our separate ways.” Without taking his eyes off the still-hesitating bully, he asked, “That's all right with you, ain't it, Cade?”

There was a long pause before Cade answered. “Yeah, I reckon.”

Realizing that Luke had probably just done him a favor, Brady got to his feet. “Yeah, we'll call it a draw,” he mumbled, picking up his hat and his knife. Then without looking either Luke or Cade in the eye, he walked away, feeling he had just stared death in the face.

They both waited until they were sure he was gone before lowering their weapons. “You always sleep with that Colt in your hand?” Luke asked.

“No,” Cade replied. “I just figured this would probably be the time Brady would make good on his promise to get even for what I did to his nose.”

“You had me goin' there for a minute,” Luke confessed. “I thought you was fixin' to shoot him.”

“I was,” Cade said.

Luke thought about that for a moment. “Oh. . . . Well, it's mornin' and I'm sober as hell now, so I'll ask you again. How about goin' to Virginia City with me?”

Cade didn't answer right away. His mind had wandered elsewhere for a few seconds, thinking about how close he had just come to killing a man. It was not an idle boast to Luke that he would have shot Brady, but Cade felt relieved that his hand had not been called. His thoughts flashed back to a small boy struggling up between the adobe walls of two buildings, straining to hold on to his father's heavy rifle. For years, the shocked faces of two defenseless men often returned to haunt his dreams before they faded into the back recesses of his mind.

Realizing then that Luke was waiting for an answer to his question, Cade replied, “All right, partner,” his face finally breaking into a smile, “let's go pick us a couple of Mr. Becker's horses, and get the hell away from here.”

“Hod-damn!” Luke exclaimed. “Let's head for the high country!”

 

Becker had used one of the holding pens to separate the stock he planned to drive back to Texas. The rest of the remuda was left to graze on the bunchgrass near the river. It was early still, so none of the other men were there. Some of them would be lucky to make it back before noon after a full night of drinking and carousing. Of the eight horses Cade had used most often during the drive, he saw that most of them were left to graze. Luke had his eye on a bay mare named Sleepy that he said fit his gait better than any horse he had ever ridden, so they went after her. She wasn't particularly interested, but Cade finally threw a rope on her after a couple of tries. The rest of the horses had stood and watched the two men until Cade was successful in roping Sleepy. Then as if on a signal, they moved quickly off about a hundred yards. “Don't look like none of 'em wants any part of us,” Luke joked as he slipped his bridle on Sleepy. Cade was about to agree when Luke spoke again. “Wait a minute. I believe we got us a volunteer,” he said, pointing behind Cade.

Cade turned to see Loco plodding deliberately toward him from a grassy gully near the river. He expected the skittish gray gelding to trot off to join the other horses, but it continued to approach him until, finally, it halted before Cade and Luke.

“Would you look at that,” Luke marveled. “It looks like he's pickin' you.” He chuckled, amused by the notion that a horse every cowboy in the crew tried to avoid because of its skittish and unpredictable nature had actually taken to Cade. “Well, I'll be gone to hell,” he exclaimed a moment later when the ornery gray horse took another step forward to nudge Cade in the chest with its muzzle. “That's the damnedest thing I've ever seen.”

Cade was equally amazed by the gelding's unexpected behavior, but having worked with horses since he was barely able to sit in a saddle, he didn't question it. He believed that a horse could sense the worth of a man, and was gifted with a lot more intuition than his two-legged masters. Cade was convinced that Loco knew he wouldn't mistreat him. He gently stroked the horse's neck for a few moments. “You wanna go with me, boy?” he said as he slipped the bridle on. In answer, the gray willingly took the bit. Cade looked at Luke, who was wearing a silly grin on his face. Luke shook his head, still astonished, and the new partners led their horses back to the trees to get their saddles.

A little after sunup, Becker arrived after having rewarded himself the luxury of spending the night in the hotel. He was to meet with an officer from nearby Fort Keogh who was coming to look over the horses Becker wanted to sell. Spotting Cade and Luke all saddled up and ready to depart, he rode over to talk. He seemed genuinely disappointed that Cade had decided not to go back to Texas with him, but understood the pull of the Montana country on a young man's sense of adventure. “What have you got in mind?” Becker asked.

“Nothin' in particular,” Luke was quick to answer for them. “We're just gonna see what's out there. Maybe do some huntin' in the mountains, prospect a little, whatever suits our fancy.”

Becker nodded as if he understood. “I see you picked your horses already. You're probably gonna need a packhorse as well.”

“I expect so,” Cade replied. “We were thinkin' about maybe buying one offa you.”