Power in the Blood (80 page)

“No you ain’t; now do like I say.”

Some time later, the riders heard two shots from the direction of the cabin, then a third. Nate asked Torrence, “You got a partner working with you?”

“I don’t have any partner, and I’m not who you think I am, my friend.”

“Go on ahead,” Nate told Drew. “Scout things out and be careful you don’t get seen. Could be there’s more like this one around.”

Drew understood that the job had been given to him because Nate considered him an unreliable guard over Torrence. He went on up the trail another half mile and came in sight of the cabin. Far from finding Clarence and Lodi pinned down inside by Pinkertons, he saw them by the corral with a lantern apiece, inspecting the ground. Drew rode up and asked why the shots had been fired.

“Mountain lion,” said Clarence. “The horses started screaming, and I come out to see why. Seen him for just a moment, a big one. Take a look at these tracks here—you ever see a print the size of that?”

“Where’s Nate?” asked Lodi.

“Back a little ways. There’s a man with him Nate says is a Pinkerton.”

“Go get the both of them here now.”

Drew fetched Nate and Torrence. The supplies were unloaded and the horses quickly rubbed down by Drew while Clarence stood guard with a rifle.

“Lions, they can be tricky,” said Clarence. “Now he knows there’s a bunch of horses here, he’ll come back. That feller really a detective?”

“I don’t know. Nate thinks so.”

“They won’t let him out of that cabin breathing, you can bet on it.”

Drew dumped feed into the trough and began walking to the cabin with a sack of flour. Clarence said, “Come out and spell me soon, all right? It’s cold out here.”

Torrence was on the floor as Drew entered, Nate standing above him with a chunk of firewood in his hands. Lodi was smoking his pipe, a pistol on the table before him. Nate kicked Torrence in the ribs to stir him, but the downed man simply grunted in response.

“You hit him too hard,” Lodi admonished. “You won’t get a thing out of him like that.”

“It’s Torrence,” Nate said. “I know it. I told you about him when we were still up around Butte that time.”

“I recall it, but I never did set eyes on the man myself. Unless he breaks, it’s your word against his.”

“Oh, he’ll say what he needs to, never you mind. I ain’t about to let one of his kind lie his way out of here.”

“Did you go through his pockets yet?” Drew asked, setting down the flour. “He might have proof of who he is.”

“Pinkertons carry everything they need to fool you,” Lodi said, “so whatever’s in his pockets don’t mean a damn thing. Get the rest of the supplies in, then stay out and watch the corral.”

Drew sent Clarence inside and cradled the rifle, huddled in a corner of the stable. Torrence would die, probably after being severely beaten. It would have been a mercy to shoot him as Nate had told him to. Now the man would suffer before death came to release him. Nate would almost certainly insist that Drew be the one to finish him off with a bullet, if he did not die quickly enough when they were done with questioning him. Drew could saddle up a horse now and lead it away from the cabin while the other three were occupied with Torrence. The snow was coming down heavier than before, and would hide his tracks if he could just get far enough away before they discovered he was gone.

It might work, but it would not help Torrence. Drew found himself resenting the man for having blundered into the situation that was going to end only when he was dead. He had thought Pinkertons were smarter than that. He told himself it was not his fault. He knew he was not about to ride away; he had almost a thousand dollars inside the cabin, and Torrence would soon be a dead man in any case. Drew tried to ignore the weak scream that came to him across the wind-whipped corral. The horses munched their fresh oats, already unmindful of the lion. Drew wished he could be so placid, so uncaring.

When Nate came out to watch for the lion, Drew went inside.

Torrence was alive but unconscious. “Well,” said Lodi, “he’s a Pinkerton, all right. Talked up nice and loud when Nate got done persuading him. You should have done what Nate said, Bones, and spared the man some pain.”

“I was just thinking that myself.”

“Were you now. Then I guess that makes it all right with you if you’re the one that does what has to be done.”

“He looks like he’s pretty near dead already.”

“Nowhere near it. I’ve seen more dead men than you’ll ever see, and he’s got life in him yet, just a little busted up is all. He’ll be useful to us just like he is.”

“Useful?”

“There’s two problems we’ve got right now, Bones. One’s him, and the other’s that lion out there looking to rip open a horse or two. A man with brains, he’d take those two problems and put them together, and you know what, Bones? He doesn’t get a double problem, he gets both of them taken care of. You following me yet?”

“No.”

“Then I’ll keep it simple. Take him outside, not too far off, and stake him down, then wait for the lion. It’ll smell the blood that’s on him and come for fresh meat. When it does, you shoot it.”

“Bait?”

“That’s it, Bones. Get yourself set up in a tree perch is my advice, less chance the lion’ll smell you too.”

Drew looked over at Clarence, plaiting a rawhide quirt on his bunk. Clarence would not look up.

“Looks like you don’t approve,” said Lodi.

“I don’t.”

“Makes no difference. I tell you to do it, you do it. I’m not agreeable like Nate is when someone don’t do what I said. I always get my way, Bones, I’m lucky like that. Take him out now while there’s no fight left in him. Take rope for him so he don’t run off, and some for you to tie yourself onto a tree. Better go high, Bones. Lions can jump pretty good. Clarence, go help him get set up.”

After Torrence had been laid on the snow in a clearing some hundred yards from the cabin, Drew sent Clarence back for a chair and blanket to keep the unconscious man from freezing on the ground. When Clarence came back he said Lodi had laughed, but allowed the extra comforts anyway. They set Torrence on the chair and swathed him in the thick blanket.

“This ain’t my notion of a good idea,” Clarence said.

“Mine neither. I can’t climb a pine tree. You see anything around here but pines? That part won’t work.”

“Lodi said to climb a tree.”

“Not around here. I’ll just hide myself.”

“Lion might smell you out.”

“That he might.”

“Well, you do what you think is gonna work, but I won’t be the one that says to Lodi you wouldn’t get in a tree.”

“Then don’t. Let Lodi come outside and find out.”

“He won’t do that. He’s got Nate in the corral still. Lodi don’t like to be out where it’s cold.”

“Then he won’t ever know, will he? Go on back, Clarence.”

“It ain’t my kind of a good idea to put a man out for lion bait.”

“It won’t come. Lions are smart animals.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Clarence said, and turned to go back to the cabin.

Drew listened until the crunching of his footsteps had faded, then stationed himself beneath the low boughs of a nearby tree. He turned out his lamp and watched his own breath form clouds in front of his face. Similar clouds formed around Torrence’s slumped shoulders and were carried away on the wind, whisked to invisibility within seconds. The snow had stopped abruptly while Torrence was being roped onto the chair. Drew could see him clearly through a network of pine needles, a figure barely recognizable as human. Drew had seen the blood clotting in his hair as they took him from the cabin; Nate had struck Torrence’s head with force many times. In a way it was better that he remained unaware of his new circumstances.

Drew had no faith at all in Lodi’s plan, and suspected Lodi had no faith in it either. Torrence and Drew were both being punished, one for being a Pinkerton, the other for being weak. The worst that could happen was being obliged to spend the entire night outside, freezing his feet and trying to stay awake in case of the lion’s improbable return. Torrence would very likely freeze before dawn, inactive as he was, but there was little Drew felt he could do to avoid that, apart from providing the blanket. Freezing might prove a merciful release from whatever Lodi had in mind if the lion did not take the bait offered to it. Drew surmised death by freezing must be akin to falling asleep and never waking up, a civilized way to pass on, and one that Drew would have preferred himself over hanging, for instance.

He stamped his feet to keep the blood moving through his toes and to scare away the lion, should it be in the vicinity. Sometimes he asked Torrence if he was all right, but there was never any reply beyond the breath drifting from beneath his hat. Drew became miserable. He had chosen the wrong path, fallen in with bad company, and could see no practical way of escaping with his skin intact.

He had never seen a mountain lion, but had heard stories of their attacking children. Drew could not be sure the lion would prefer easy meat in a chair over something more to its natural taste, like horses. He would keep it away from Torrence if it came anywhere near. Of course, if the lion had no chance to kill the Pinkerton, Lodi would give the job to Drew. There was no escaping the dilemma. The best thing would be for Torrence to die of exposure, and yet Drew had gone and provided a blanket for him. It was becoming more difficult to think about. Cold was seeping beneath his skin, creeping through the flesh, invading his bones. He wanted to be anywhere but where he was, doing anything but watching over a man set up for lion bait. He felt sleepy despite his discomfort, less concerned for himself or Torrence, and he felt a warm flush of shame prickle his face and neck.

Drew stepped out from beneath the tree and approached the bound man on the chair. “Torrence? Hey, Torrence.” Breath still came from his mouth, but the wisps were less powerful than before, the pauses between them longer. Torrence was dying, succumbing to the cold, the best of all possible deaths, under the circumstances. Drew shook him several times without eliciting any response. He stood there, hating himself, helpless.

The scream came to his ears like a steam whistle, beginning low and rising in pitch to a crescendo that suddenly was cut off completely. Drew turned to face the direction it had come from. It was not the scream of a horse, so it had to have been the lion, and it was over toward the cabin. The scream returned, and this time he knew it was human. Drew began to run. Whoever was screaming had stopped, and the silence was replaced by a deep coughing that became a snarl. Drew stopped, then began running again. He heard shouting from the cabin and the corral, but the lion was closer than that, much closer, coughing and snarling again, and the nearer he came to it, the more Drew felt his scalp crawl.

The lion lay on top of someone half hidden in a snowbank, its back to Drew. It turned and sprang into a defensive stance as it heard him, and the lips pulled away from its teeth so fast the upper portion of its head appeared to gather itself in a series of creases back between its flattened ears. A hissing and rumbling came from its throat, and its long tail lashed snow from the body behind it. Drew raised his rifle, sighted and fired. The lion sprang straight up into the air, then fell across its victim, howling and thrashing. Drew levered another round into the chamber and fired again. The lion reared back and collapsed.

Voices were approaching from the cabin. Drew came closer to the lion and nudged it with the rifle barrel. He saw the man beneath its body was Clarence, and Clarence was still alive despite the blood spilled around him on the snow.

“Get him …?” he asked.

“I got him.”

“Come down hard on me … That’s a big cat.…”

A faint whisper of breath came from Clarence’s mouth, then stopped. His eyes remained open, but Drew knew he was dead. Nate and Lodi entered the clearing. Drew noticed for the first time the coffeepot and cup near Clarence; the man had died while bringing warmth to Drew. Lodi held his lamp near to Clarence.

“Gone,” he said.

“I told him not to come out with no damn coffee,” said Nate. “It had to go and get Clarence instead of the goddamn Pinkerton.… By God, that feller won’t live if Clarence ain’t.”

Nate headed in the direction of the chair and Torrence. Drew wondered if there was any way to stop him, and decided there was not.

Lodi was admiring the lion. “Damn, that’s a big one. Skinny, though—see the ribs on it? Looks like you got him clean through the chest, then again in the side, both good hits. Clarence never did listen to good advice.”

“Kids.”

“Say what?”

“He had kids, and a wife. Three wives.”

“Well, that’s the end of Clarence.”

Nate’s .45 boomed among the trees.

“And that’s the end of Torrence. Don’t look so down-in-the-mouth, Bones. You didn’t ask for no coffee. It just happened that way.”

Both stared at the dead man and the lion until Nate returned. “You fellers know how to skin a cat?” Nate asked.

“Not me,” said Lodi.

“They’re good eating if it’s done right. You know how, Bones?”

“No.”

“You don’t know how to kill a man as needs killing either, do you?”

“Any man I decide needs killing, I can kill.”

“You say.”

“I don’t want to hear argument,” Lodi told them. “Get packed up. I want to be gone from here before sunrise. If there’s one Pinkerton been sniffing around, there’ll be others.”

“What about Clarence?” Drew asked.

“We don’t have time for burying. The ground’s like rock anyway, clear through April.”

“And Torrence?”

“He’s comfy enough,” said Nate. “Got himself a chair.”

“They’ll both be taken care of by varmints. Get going.”

Riding away from the cabin by the light of dawn, Drew knew a part of himself had been left behind in the woods, a part he should have fought harder to hold on to. The thing left behind was just a sliver of a larger thing inside him, a reservoir of sorts, containing his elemental human soul, which Drew supposed had been created with a full measure of goodness inside it. This soul reservoir was probably of finite proportions, Drew reasoned, and he had lost a spoonful of it forever.