Passin' Through (1985) (23 page)

The spot chosen was perfect. The two trails that came up from different sides of Grindstone Creek met right below me, so no matter which way they came they would be riding in the open, within rifle range. Another trail which I guessed was the Little Bear Trail ran off to the west.

The cluster of Engelmann spruce in which I had taken shelter covered about two acres, quite thick at some points but trailing off in others. There were some lichen-covered rocks among them and some downed timber. My horses were out of sight from the trail they would be following.

If they wanted me, they would find me here. The slow anger that had been growing in me had settled into a bitter, sullen fury. All Fd ever asked was to be let alone.

My back against a tree now, I had a point where both trails were clearly in view and could rest easy and enjoy myself. The anger was there, but the utter beauty and peace of the country around changed part of it to simple irritation that people would want to bring their blood feuds here.

Down the slight slope before me the earth was scarlet with Indian paintbrush, scattered among it some alpine lilies. On a pile of rock about fifty feet away a yellow-bellied marmot had come out to sun himself. Whether he knew I was there I could not judge, but probably he did not.

They came into view when a good five hundred yards away and I watched them coming. They were expecting trouble, rifles in hand. Resting my Winchester in a fork of the tree before me, I watched them come.

That English lord, he I guided to his hunting, he would have liked this. He was a dry, lonely man who had left his heart somewhere in the Northwest Territories of India. He often spoke of his fighting the Afghans or some others, and of places and times like this. "Our enemies then," he said to me, "but damned fine fighting men. Bold rascals and hard to kill, men who fought for the love of it."

He used to recite Kipling to me, one of the few poets I'd ever read myself.

Those riders down there wanted me dead, but I doubt if they themselves thought of dying. In their dreams it is always the other man who is killed. Well, they would find this was no dream. They'd trailed me into my own country now and I had my back to the wall. Well, to a tree, anyway.

Looking along the rifle barrel, I put my sights on the chest of the nearest man when he was about four hundred yards off, and ever so gently I squeezed off my shot. The rifle jumped in my hands, the sound of the shot racketed against the hills, and the nearest man jerked sharply, then they scattered.

Only there was no place to go. They were out in the open, the nearest cover lying several hundred yards behind them. One man wheeled his horse and lifted his rifle. The trouble was there were several patches of spruce along that gentle slope and some even higher. He didn't know where my shot came from, and he froze, looking.

Taking a piece of cracker from my pack, I bit it off and began to chew. Then I put the rest of it in my mouth, and waited. That rider made a pretty picture, sitting his horse, rifle up, looking. He was some distance off and I just let him sit. My shot had not killed the man at whom I aimed, probably not a serious wound. At least, he had stuck to his saddle.

The sky was blue with scattered tufts of white cloud. The sun was pleasantly warm, the air unbelievably clear. The marmot was gone.

The nearest rider rode back to his companions, and it appeared they were treating or bandaging his wound. At the distance I could not be sure. Leaning back my head, I closed my eyes.

This might be the end of it. Approaching me across the open tundra was asking for a ticket to Boot Hill, but they were vengeful men and would not want to return home to admit failure. They were filled with hatred, obsessed by it.

Sitting up, I watched them. Two remained where they had been but the third started the wide open area toward the Little Bear Trail. When he reached it he drew up facing me. Puzzled, I watched, glancing from one to the other. Suddenly, as if upon signal, they began riding toward me.

It made no sense. My field of fire was wide open. There was no shelter. In a matter of minutes they would be within range, and they were so far away a concerted rush would be useless. Shifting the rifle, I started to rise.

It was the roan that warned me. The horse snorted suddenly and I looked quickly around.

Three riders had come down the hill behind me, walking their horses, and they were within fifty yards!

Yet, when the roan's snort warned me, they charged. Whipping around, I fired from the hip, saw a man fall, and taking aim I fired again, hearing a thunder of hoofs from behind me.

There was a burst of firing. Lead slashed the trees about me. Leaves fell, a bullet struck the trunk of a spruce and whined off across the grass. Something struck a wicked blow at my leg and it crumpled under me. My hand grasped at a branch and I kept myself from falling but my rifle fell. Shucking my six-shooter, I nailed the first man into the trees, then got off a quick shot at another. He winced but I did not believe Pd more than come close.

The firing ended. On my knees, I ejected two spent shells and reloaded the six-shooter. My rifle had struck a deadfall, bounced, and dropped out of reach beyond it, not more than eight feet away but beyond reach for the moment.

Sweat trickled down my brow and along my nose. My eyes smarted from it and I wiped a hand across my forehead and eyebrows. Gingerly, my fingers felt for the wound, and found it. Blood had already stained my jeans and left them wet. A bullet seemed to have gone through the back of my thigh but there did not seem to be a broken bone. Pine sap had often been used to stop bleeding, and I believed spruce sap might do as well. There was a deep scar on the side of a tree, and I got sap on my fingers and painted the bullet wounds with it.

Several spruce trees were behind me, their low-hanging boughs sweeping the earth. In the shade of them there was a small bank of dusty snow. Crawling back under the spruce boughs, I got close to the tree trunk. Unless someone parted the boughs I was invisible. Anyone who tried that would get a bullet where it mattered. Waiting, I listened.

In the clear mountain air, voices carried. "... Got him, I tell you! Seen him fall!"

"He's a tough one."

"Bah! He's down! He's done for! I know I hit him!"

"I saw him fall," another said, "but I'm not going in there after him. I'd as soon tackle a wounded grizzly."

"We don't have to go in after him. We just ride off an' wait. If he doesn't come out, we nailed him. It's simple as that."

"Take his horses, too. Don't leave nothin'."

"Not that roan! That's the Death Horse. Now it's been the death of him, too."

"We won't keep him, just lead him away from here. I don't want it, either."

Either their voices faded or I did, because I heard nothing more. Slowly, very carefully, I stretched out my wounded leg. Whatever I needed was on my packhorse and they were taking it away. It would be dark before long, and cold. It would be bitter cold as I was right at eleven thousand feet or better, and a fire would be an invitation for them to come back and finish me.^

With my hands I dug a hollow in the thick bed of needles fallen among the trees. With my knife I cut boughs from the spruce and then I lay back, pulling the thick spruce boughs over me. They would not help much but I needed all I could get. It was going to be a bad night, a very bad night.

Cold was the moon rising over Orphan Butte, still crested with last winter's snow, and cold the wind that whispered through the spruce and stirred the Indian paintbrush on the meadow. It was an empty world, and at night, nothing moved. Up here a slight wind could drop the chill factor by thirty degrees, and the Burrows outfit were not used to high country. No doubt they had been up this high, but not often. They had made their camp in a little draw below a peak this side of Grindstone Lake. Their fire could easily be seen.

If they'd been used to high country they would have known subalpine valleys were the coldest places, for as the thin air chills it flows down, leaving the tundra somewhat warmer.

Lying back in my little trough, I covered myself with debris from the trees around me and with the spruce boughs again. I was weak, I was hurting, and it was cold, icy, bitter cold.

Because of their presence I had to endure it, but that was also an advantage, for they did not have to endure. They could pick up and leave, and I knew they would.

Slow passed the moonlit night, slow came the dawn, and rising to an elbow I could see them stirring about their fire. They would be arguing the point now but I knew they were not up to a second night here. Light reflected from a glass. They were studying the island of spruce through a field glass. At the distance I could have killed him, but it would have started the fight all over again and I was in no shape for it.

Barely recovered from one gunshot wound I now had another, and staring up into the growing light I took stock and saw no light at the end of this tunnel. Even if they rode away now, what could I do? Any help I might get was miles away over rough country, and the chances of anybody else being up this high was remote.

After a bit I sat up again and when I looked toward their camp there was nothing there.

Nothing, because they were coming toward me. They were scattered out and they were coming. One of them, trailing behind, had a body over a saddle. So I'd gotten one of them, anyway.

They came on toward me and I rolled myself over, careful to stir nothing they could see, and I crawled to my rifle. Then I waited.

When they got within two hundred yards they pulled up, then slowly began to circle my hideout, studying the grass. They wanted to see if I'd moved during the night and left some sign. They found none. Then they drew up, looking toward me.

There had been six in all. One was dead, two wounded, although neither seriously.

Waiting, I rested my rifle in the notch of a tree and decided which was to die first. Their voices were inaudible. Finally they turned their horses and rode away, driving my stock ahead of them. When they disappeared from sight down the Bear Creek Trail, I lay back on the spruce needles and closed my eyes.

For a long time I just rested, thinking of nothing, content to be alone, not to have to worry about the next attack. At last my eyes opened and I looked up to the blue sky overhead and watched a cloud drift slowly across the blue. If I died here, they would have won and I should have failed in whatever I wanted to do or be. And it was not in me to quit. Oh, I could lose! Fd lost before this, but quit?

No.

Had they actually gone? For a little longer I waited, then I came out of the spruce island oh the uphill side and crawled away, keeping to low ground. There was no chance of concealing my movements in the growth, for the flowers and other tundra plants were all low, close to the ground. There were places where the flowers grew up to a foot or eighteen inches, but they were very scattered and sparse in that area. With about a quarter of a mile behind me, I got hold of some rocks and pulled myself erect. My leg hurt abominably when I tried to walk, but I hobbled a few steps. Rested, easing the pain, and then I struggled on a few steps further.

After a while, coming to some flat, lichen-covered rocks, I rested. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Often there were thunderstorms every afternoon in the mountains, and desperately I hoped this would not be one. Lightning is an ever- present danger at high altitudes, and I was carrying a rifle.

Rising from the rock where I rested, I hobbled on, using the rifle as a staff. That time I made fifty yards before I had to stop.

After a rest, I started on, feeling faint and sick. There was another stand of forest just before me and somehow I kept going, then I fell. With my last strength I dragged myself into the partial shade of some spruce. Reaching out to crawl a little further, I faded out.

A spatter of raindrops brought me to awareness, but it was already dark. With an effort I dragged myself and my rifle into the cover of the spruce trees, and then consciousness ebbed again. All I heard was distant thunder and the sound of rain.

Chapter
Twenty Two

Rolling over, I got my hands under me and began to crawl, reaching back for my rifle. It was slightly uphill, but I made it to the shelter of another spruce and lay under its protecting boughs, shivering and cold.

Wrapping my arms around myself, I simply lay and shuddered. There was nothing I could do, the spruce kept the rain off me, but nothing kept out the cold and I was wet and sick.

Long stretched the night, and cold and wet I longed for the dawn. My mouth was dry and I opened it to catch occasional drops. I had to get out of here. I had to get down where it was warmer, and at last the long night passed and my eyes saw a faint yellow in the sky, and then, exhausted beyond belief, I slept at last.

When I awakened it was full day, and for a time I simply lay still, only half- awake. Then I struggled and sat up, looking around. My hat lay on the needles near me and I put it on my head. My rifle lay beside me, and almost automatically and without thinking I took it up and wiped it dry with my bandanna. On an almost flat rock a few feet away there was a small pool of water, gathered from the rain. Crawling over, I sucked it up, then sat back and closed my eyes again.

For a long time I merely sat, enjoying the sun. It was warm and pleasant. Then awareness began to return. It was warm now, but in a few hours there would be piercing cold again. If I were going to get off the mountain, I must start.