The End of the Trail (14 page)

At this point Snowslide Canyon was nearly a mile wide, a great chasm flanked by steep impassable cliffs on either side, the only pathway leading up to the low gap known as Timberline Pass on the top of the Continental Divide.

A snow-fed stream careened frothily around smooth boulders down the center of the canyon, and the old stage road followed perilously along the right-hand side of the stream, climbing steeply along the water gradient toward the Pass far above.

They were in shadow from the afternoon sun a few minutes after they entered the mouth of the canyon, and the air became immediately chilly though the warm afternoon sun still lay on the broad reaches of South Park behind them.

The steep, weathered rock walls of the canyon pressed in closer and closer on both sides of them as they rode on, and the noise of the churning mountain torrent on their left reverberated between the walls until normal speech became impossible.

Slowly, the broad canyon narrowed until it became no more than a tiny slit leading upward, no more than two hundred feet wide in places and never widening to more than twice that distance, with the overhanging rock walls towering above them more than a thousand feet as they approached the point where the old road ended.

Pat's mind was lulled into a sort of lethargy by the roaring sound that incessantly battered his eardrums, and he saw Ezra pull up and point to the road ahead of them before he realized where they were.

“Thare's where the posse left their hawses an' turned back like thuh sheriff said,” Ezra shouted from only a few feet away. “Quarter mile more up to where the outlaws sprouted wings.”

“You'd better ride ahead an' see what you make of it,” Pat shouted back at him. “We'll follow behind you so's not to spoil the tracks.”

Ezra nodded and dismounted. He ground-tied his horse and made a careful survey of the rocky ground beyond where the posse had ridden, and returned after a time to shout his findings to Pat and Sam.

“This is it, awright. Five hawses went up here several days ago an' didn't come back. But
one
hawse was rode up here last night an' he
did
come back.” He picked up the trailing reins of his horse and walked forward, eyeing the ground carefully and stopping now and then to drop to his knees and examine some significant sign that he could read as clearly as another man might read a newspaper.

Following slowly behind him, Pat related to Sam the story Five-Fingers Martin had told him that morning. “Looks like Five-Fingers might be right about someone ridin' up to warn 'em about us … from that extra set of tracks Ezra says was made last night.”

Sam glanced up calculatingly at the thin slit of blue sky showing more than a thousand feet above them. “Be mighty easy tuh have a lookout on top up there if they know the secret of getting past the snow-block an' out of this canyon,” he yelled. “I'd shore hate tuh have him start throwin' rocks down on us.”

Pat nodded, glancing behind them at the remuda with Dock and Lily riding together behind the pack horses.

When he looked back in front, he saw that Ezra had stopped and was holding up his hand to warn them to stop also. Ahead of the big man, not more than two hundred yards at the most, the road ended abruptly against a solid wall of snow and debris that choked the narrow canyon solidly from wall to wall and rose precipitately several hundred feet in the air.

The mountain stream boiled out furiously from underneath the tons upon tons of solid snow, and from where they sat there didn't seem to be any other opening in the blocked canyon big enough to admit a prairie dog.

They slid off their horses and walked up to Ezra. He put his face close to theirs and said loudly, “The trail ends right here. Jest like thuh sheriff said. Right here in the middle of thuh canyon an' two hundred yards from where it's blocked.”

Pat stepped to the left and looked down doubtfully into the boulder-strewn stream-bed of the mountain torrent. “Could they ride their hawses into
that
to hide their tracks?”

“Not an' stay alive.” Ezra spoke with complete assurance. “Ain't a hawse alive that could keep his feet half a minut in that.”

The remuda of driven horses was nearing them from behind. Pat shouted at Ezra, “We'll make a night camp right here. Keep the hawses far enough back to give you room to smell out where they went. But if you do get it figured, don't let on you have while there's still daylight. May be a lookout up above watchin' us right now. We'll make camp like we're stuck an' going to stay the night no matter what you find out.”

Ezra nodded and turned back to the end of the trail. Pat went back to tell Dock and Lily briskly, “We'll make camp right here while Ezra's snoopin' around. Soon's we get the packs off an' the hawses hobbled, Dock, get out yore trout rod an' catch us some rainbows for supper.”

Dock's eyes bugged at the thundering, white-frothed stream beside them. “In there?” he gasped.

“That's where you'll find the big ones,” Pat assured him. “That's a real he-man Rocky Mountain trout stream. If you don't pull some three-pounders out of there I'll heat the back-side of yore pants for you.”

Lily slid out of the saddle eagerly. She swayed forward and moaned when her feet touched the ground, but straightened up and made a brave attempt to smile. “First time I've been on a horse in years,” she admitted. “What can I do to help make camp that doesn't require sitting down?”

“You can start gatherin' dry wood for a fire. That'll take some of the kinks out of you.”

With Sam's help, he and Dock quickly got the gear off the horses and hobbles on their front legs. Lily was moving about painfully getting together a supply of dead pinon wood. While Dock dug into one of the packs to get out his jointed fly-rod, the two men went back to where Ezra was nosing around at the point where the trail ended.

“There's only one way tuh figger this,” he told them. “It's the ol' Injun blanket trick of hidin' trail. Spread blankets out for thuh hawses tuh walk on,” he explained, “but you kin most gen'rally find some traces even on rocky ground. I cain't find none a-tall between here an' the snowslide.”

Pat glanced up at the blocked canyon with a frown. “Where would they go if they did use blankets between here and the slide? It looks mighty solid to me.”

Ezra grunted, “Le's have a look-see,” and led the way forward, examining the ground minutely as he went.

The three of them spread out to search the entire base of the slide from wall to wall to find a possible crevice or rift that might afford a passageway for horse or man, and when they met back at the center again each man shook his head and said with certainty, “They didn't go under this, nor over it, nor through it.”

“Unless,” groaned Sam, “they swam their hawses under it where that creek has cut out a channel.”

Ezra dismissed that suggestion with a snort. He led the way back to the point where the hoofprints inexplicably ended, and got down on hands and knees to make a complete circle of that point, starting on the side near the creek and swinging around laboriously through two hundred and seventy degrees.

Pat tilted his hat back and watched him with narrowed eyes. With his face close to the ground, covering every inch of it, it appeared that Ezra was sniffing out the trail instead of using his human senses. He'd watched Ezra at work like this before, and it always gave him an eerie feeling. It wasn't quite natural. It sort of frightened a man to watch him.

He tensed when Ezra suddenly rocked back on his heels with a grunt of satisfaction. “This here's what I've been lookin' fer.” He pointed to some tiny mark on the ground invisible to Sam and Pat.
“Here's
where they spread their blankets … headin' off to thuh side an'
bach
the way they come. Now, why in Sam Hill would they ride up this far an' then start
back
, usin' blankets to hide a trail?”

Pat stood beside him and carefully scrutinized the forbidding rock wall of the canyon behind them. He said slowly, “There's a bunch of scrub oak growing right up against the base of the canyon wall back there about three hundred feet. If there's a crevice there … or an old mine tunnel …”

“Why wouldn't they stop back there opposite it when they were right close if there's a passage back of them oaks?” Sam demanded. “Why ride up here an' then head back? Must be mighty slow goin' laying blankets down in front of the hawses.”

“Not so danged slow,” Ezra corrected him. “Not if they've got an extra blanket fer each hawse. You kin move right along thataway. You'd be s'prised how fast it goes. I've knowed Injuns tuh hide half a mile of trail like that.”

“That's the answer,” Pat said excitedly. “They're smart enough to ride
past
the place where they're goin' to turn off to fool the posse. Everybody naturally looks
ahead
from here. Nobody thinks of lookin' back behind. I'll bet plenty there's a way out of this canyon behind those oaks.”

“Le's go see.” Sam started to stride toward them, but Pat stopped him sharply.

“Not yet, Sam. Not till after dark. We don't even want to
look
toward those oaks as if we suspected anything. If there's a lookout watchin' us, let him see us makin' camp an' actin' plumb flabbergasted just like the posse. After dark will be time enough to go over there an' see what's what.”

Sam and Ezra agreed that this made a lot of sense. They turned back toward the hobbled horses and heard an exultant shout jerk out of Dock's mouth. The lad was braced on the very edge of the rushing stream, leaning back with arced rod and taut cord fighting against the furious rush of a hooked rainbow.

The magnificent fish broke water in a tremendous arching plunge as the men walked forward grinning at Dock's excitement. The boy backed away hastily, keeping his cord taut, and then had to trot along the bank of the stream as the two-foot rainbow lunged viciously toward a swirling whirlpool between two boulders.

“Hold him, Son!” Pat shouted anxiously. “If he ever reaches them rocks you'll lose him sure. That's right, slow him down.” He had started to run forward to help Dock, but now he stopped, shaking his head with a sheepish grin at his own enthusiasm. “Go ahead an' land him by yoreself,” he shouted. “That's the only way you'll make a fisherman. If he drags you in, choke him an' bring him out.”

Dock finally stopped that rush short of the rough-breaking water, and carefully played his victim back toward the edge of the stream. When the men reached his side he was panting exultantly and the biggest rainbow trout he had ever seen was gasping at his feet.

“Lookit, Dad! Ain't he a whopper?”

Pat nodded indulgently. “Go five or six pounds, I reckon. They grow big an' plenty tough here where they fight fast water twelve months out of the year.” He knelt and slipped his fingers into the fish's gills, deftly loosened the hook and tossed it back in the stream. “What'd you use on him, Son?”

“One of those flies you made for me last month. Remember? With the bit of rabbit fur and some long hairs from a moose's tail.”

Pat grinned and nodded. “Catch us two more like this for supper an' then knock off.” He turned back to Lily who was warming herself by a small fire she had built against the shelter of a huge boulder, and told her, “Get about three pounds of lard red-hot in Ezra's biggest biscuit pan. We got a fisherman in the crowd.”

12

Dusk lingered a long time there in the forbidding shadows of the narrow deep canyon, beginning long before the last traces of sunlight vanished from the tops of the high cliffs above.

While Dock excitedly whipped the tumbling stream for more big trout, Ezra got busy inducting Lily into the mysteries of outdoor camp cookery.

Using a butcher knife and long-handled spoon to cut out the frozen earth, he scooped a shallow hole beside the big fire she had built and raked it full of glowing coals. He then set the big Dutch oven on the coals, heaped dry wood over the top of it and built a new fire there.

He melted a handful of lard in a frying pan, poured a quantity of yellow cornmeal into a pot and mixed in salt and baking powder with his fingers, wet it down with cold water from the creek and poured in his, melted lard. It was the consistency of nice thick mud when he finished with it. He raked the fire off the lid of his Dutch oven and poured the batter inside the hot receptacle, replaced the lid and built up his fire on top of it again.

“All we gotta do now is keep a fire goin' on top of her an' leave her set an' cook,” he explained to Lily who was watching him carefully and trying to stay out of his way. “Nothin' like a hunk of hot cornbread tuh go with fresh-caught rainbows.”

He got out an iron pot of left-over beans and set them to heat on the edge of the big fire, filled the coffee pot with cold creek water and dumped in two big handfuls of coffee. With that set beside the iron pot to come to a slow boil, he spread the rest of the coals out evenly and placed a big rectangular biscuit pan on top of them, dumped in the three pounds of lard that Pat had mentioned for frying the fish, and settled back on his heels to roll a cigarette.

“An' there we are,” he announced proudly. “Soon's the grease is smokin' hot we drop in thuh trout whole … after Dock's gutted 'em, o' course. The heat'll be dyin' down under the pan by that time, an' the cold fish'll cool down the smokin' hot grease so they'll cook slow an' even without burnin'. Time they're done, the beans'll be hot an' the cawfee boilin' an' the cornbread baked. Then we'll eat.”

“It hasn't taken you more than fifteen minutes,” Lily marveled. “Most women would spend hours in a kitchen getting a meal like that ready.”

“Women!” Ezra snorted. “Never saw one yet that'd make a good camp cook. Too doggoned persnickety.”