Sackett (1961) (13 page)

their hocks. The snow kept falling, covering the ice with a mantle, making the ice all the more dangerous. Suddenly the appaloosa's head came up sharply and his ears pricked.

I got out my Winchester. Nothing moved within the limited area I could see through the drifting snow. Listening, I could hear nothing.

Walking with extreme care, I went to the willows at the edge of the creek and cut several long slender lengths which I carried back to the cave and placed on the floor not too close to the fire.

Always, on the range, I carried with me a bundle of rawhide strips, most of them "piggin strings" for tying the legs of cattle when branding. Every cowhand carried some for emergencies on the range. And I was going to have a use for them now. 1 The horses showed no tendency to wander, but remained close to the cave. All through the morning and into the afternoon I kept busy reducing the rest of the quartz to gold I could pack out.

When the willow strips were pliable again, I took each of them and bent them into an oval and tied them, selecting the two best ovals to keep. Then with the rawhide strips tied across them, I made rough snowshoes.

Before nightfall I took the rifle, strapped on the snowshoes, and went out to give them a test run. They were not the first pair I had made, and they worked well. Trailing down the valley toward the chute, I saw it was rapidly choking with snow over the ice. Escape by that route was completely out of the question.

I circled around, and ventured toward the valley of Ange's cave. When almost to the bare shoulder where the bristle-cone pines grew, I turned back to reach my cave before dark. It was at that moment that I heard the shot.

Stunned with the shock, I stood stock-still listening to the echo of it racketing against the solemn hills.

The echo lost itself against the snow-clad hillsides and I remained still, shivering a little in the cold, alone in a vast world of sky and snow, scarcely willing to accept what my ears had heard.

A shot... here!

It had come from the canyon below. Someone was down there! Someone was at or near Ange's cave.

Here? In this place?

Chapter
XIII

A sudden crack of ice . . . the breaking of a tree laden with snow? . . . No. This had been a , clear, sharp, unmistakable.

said, you ain't... aren't... alone. Who knew of the cave below? Or of the valley? Ange, so far as I knew. Cap knew what I'd told him, but Cap couldn't have made it up there if I'd given exact directions, which I hadn't. His hold on life was still too weak.

-Ange . . . ? That was mighty foolish to consider. She had no reason for coming up. Whoever had been following me down below? Could they have found some way into that valley? that seemed the most likely.

If I started for the canyon now it would be full dark before I got there, and I'd see nothing anyway. The thing to do would be to go back to the mine and hole up there until daybreak. One thing was a copper-riveted cinch. If those were in the canyon they were snowed in like I was, and, unless I was much mistaken, they were a lot less able to cope with it.

We Sacketts had never had much to do with, and back in the mountains we learned to make out on mighty little, but we learned how to rustle. There wasn't one of us boys who hadn't traveled miles by himself and lived off the country before he was sixteen.

Since then I'd had very little but rough time, what with soldiering and all. A Montana-from-Texas cattle drive is not exactly a place for softening up, and it seemed like I'd spent half my life getting along on less than nothing.

Hardship was a way of life to me, and there were few times when I wasn't hungry, cold, or fighting rough country for a living. Being snowed in up here in these mountains wasn't a pleasant thing, but somehow I'd survive. But those others now ... ?

When I got back to camp the horses were close around the cave. I brought them inside and wiped them off. Mostly I fussed over them to keep their spirits up. They were smart enough to know we were in trouble, but being cared for made them confident that all was well.

I wished I could be so sure myself.

When I had my fire going I took off my sheepskin coat and shed my vest before putting the coat back on. I always try to have a little something extra to put on when out in cold weather. Main thing a man has to avoid is sweating. When he stops moving that sweat can freeze into an icy sheet inside the clothes.

I fixed myself some grub, and sat by the fire with Blackstone open. Time to time, I'd squint in the firelight to make something out.

These last few months, after I went to bed, sometimes I'd lie awake into the night, a-contem-plating things I'd read, or trying to say things, using the words taken from that book. By the time spring came I had hoped my talking would be better.

And, time to time, I had thought of Ange. . . . About the time I was doing for her and she was half-dead from starvation and exhaustion, when I thought maybe this was my woman. I spent a sight of time daydreaming around, just contemplating her, and all about her.

But there wasn't much left to think about She'd made that plain the other night in the store. Might have been better to let Batch shoot me. Only I didn't believe that. I've heard of men killing themselves over a woman -- most fool thing I ever heard

Women are practical. They get right down to bedrock about things, and no woman is going to waste much time remembering a man who was fool enough to kill himself. Thing to do is live for love,

Though most women-folks would a sight rather see a man dead than with another woman.

Only that evening alone, with the fire bright in .the cave, I got something all bunched up in my throaty Just a-wishing and a-dreaming over Ange and that red-gold hair.

After I'd eaten, I packed a bait of grub for morning, fixed over my snowshoes a mite, and settled down for the night, stowing the book away in my saddlebag.

A good hour before suntime I rolled out of my soogan and stowed it away. I fixed myself some breakfast and went down to the creek with the horses. Breaking a hole with my axe, I watered them there, I knocked some grass free of snow and ice, but it wasn't enough . . . the day wasn't long enough to get enough.

Strapping on the snowshoes and slinging a pack, I took a length of rope and my Winchester and started out. It was shy of daybreak when I reached the trail into the canyon.

The first thing I saw was a smear on the snow of the trail, almost halfway down. Something had fallen on the trail.

Carefully, using hand-holds on the rock wall where I could find them, I started down the trail, and when I got to the smear I could see a little snow had already blown over it. So it must have happened during the night. And whatever it was had fallen over the edge.

I edged close to the rim. Here and there the wind had piled the snow until it had built up a cornice. If a man should rest his weight on it, down he would go. Leaning over, I looked down.

It was Ange.

She was lying on a ledge maybe twenty feet down. Snow had blown over her. That red-gold hair lay like a flame on the snow, caught in the first light that filtered through the dawn clouds.

Putting my rifle down, I hunted around, till I found a mess of bristle-cone roots exposed by a slide. I knotted my rope to them and went over the side, landing beside her in a shower of snow. The ledge on which she lay was deep in snow and not over six or seven feet across, and maybe three times that long.

She was not dead.

I picked her up in my arms and held her close, trying to get her warm, and whispered all sorts of nonsense to her.

I tied a bowline around her body under her arms, snug enough so she couldn't slip through. Then, hand over hand, clambering for foot-holds in the rock, I pulled myself back up to the trail. When I had caught my breath, I hoisted her up.

By the time I had her on the trail it was day and there was plenty of light Unknotting the bowline, I coiled my rope, strapped on my snowshoes, and picked her up. She had a bad knot on her head, but the thickness of her hair and the snow had probably cushioned the blow, so I doubted if she was hurt much.

I hadn't taken two steps before I heard a shout, far below, and a rifle shot that must have been very low, because it came nowhere near me. I turned, and saw several black figures against the snow of the canyon, far below. Ange stirred, and opened her eyes. Quickly, pulling back as far as I could against the cliff wall, I put her down on her feet.

Tell? Tell, is it really you? I thought--"

"You all right?"

I fell... I thought I fell over the edge."

"You did." Rifle in one hand, and her hand in the Other, I eased along the trail, hugging the rocks. Another shot put a bullet close to me, and I could see men running for the trail's end. One of them fell, but the others did not stop.

"Who is it down there?"

It's Mr. Tuthill and those others. Ira Bigelow and Tom. That man named Boyd and two others I don't know. One of them they call Ben."

Ben obes?

"They made me bring them, Tell. They threatened me. Besides . . . you hadn't come back and I was afraid."

It was growing colder. The clouds were breaking and the wind was mounting. It was slow going because of the ice beneath the snow. At the top of the trail, I got out of the snowshoes and tied them on Ange.

I thought back to the men who by now were making their way up the trail. There were six men down there, and they wanted the gold; but most of all, they wanted to kill me. Under the circumstances, they must kill Ange, too.

"Who knows you came with them?"

"Nobody does. Mr. Tuthill heard us talking, and he must have known about the gold already. But from what I said to you, he could tell that I knew about it too. He came to my cabin and offered to become my partner and get all the gold for us. I refused.

"He went away, and then when it was dark he came back with those other men. He told me to get dressed, and to dress warmly. He said he would kill me if I didn't... and he meant it.

"I had no idea what he intended to do until we were outside. And then I found out what had happened. They tried to follow you, and you got away from them, so they came back after me.

The only way I knew was back the way we came out, and I was not very sure of that. When we got in the mountains it was turning colder and the rain was falling. We got to the cave, and by that time, they were half-frozen and arguing among themselves.

"Boyd stayed on watch, but he fell asleep and I slipped out. I knew you were up here somewhere."

We struggled through the snow, with her talking fast, nervous and scared. "Tell, they mean to kill you. I was wrong. Tell! I didn't understand what kind of men they were!"

The fire was down to the merest coals when we got to the cave. From my stacked fuel I built up the fire to warm the place, and put some snow on to melt for coffee water.

When I looked up from the fire, Ange was standing there looking at me. "Tell, I'm sorry. I didn't understand."

"What could you think? I just up and shot those men. Of course, they were hunting it. They figured to kill me. I'm sorry you had to see it."

* I walked to the opening and looked out. The

sky was bright, the air was sharp with cold, but

was no sign of Tuthill and the others. "Back east," I said, "folks still have duels now again, only they arrange them . . . everything out pretty and conducted like a ceremony, difference is that out here we don't bother fixing it up proper. Back where most everyone is known, it's different. Out here most of us are strangers and nobody knows if the man he has A difficulty with is a gentleman, or not. So he just ups and shoots."

"That's what Joe told me. I ... I wouldn't listen at first. It seemed so ... so brutal." "Yes, ma'am. It is brutal. Only I never could see sense in having folks look at your tombstone and say, "He was a man who didn't believe in violence. He's a good man... and dead.'"

I paused, peering at the trees opposite. "No, Ange, if the folks who believe in law, justice, and a decent life for folks are to be shot down by those who believe in violence, nothing makes much sense. I believe in justice, I believe in being tolerating of other folks, but I pack a big pistol, ma'am, and will use it when needed."

There was no sign of those men yet. Either they were having trouble on the trail, or they were In-juning up on me and would settle down to shooting most any time. The snow and ice had covered the piles of waste rock thrown out of the tunnel so it wasn't likely they would guess first off that this was where the mine was.

Ange saw my Blackstone and picked it up. "Are you studying this?" She looked up at me curiously.

"Yes, ma'am. It's books like that which make a man proud of being a man."

"Are you going to be a lawyer?"

"No ... my brother Orrin made himself into one, but Orrin always was a talker. He had the gift, the Welsh tongue. I don't have any gift, ma'am, I'm just a man tries to do the right thing as well as he knows. Only, the way I figure, no man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. If a man is going to vote, if he's going to take part in his country and its government, then it's up to him to understand.