Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0) Read online

  “You never saw Blazer again?”

  “No, but I saw Tobin Wacker and that man called Dick. I saw them in Rico.”

  They asked me a sight of questions, and I was itching to get away. It was time I started for Georgetown, but there was no way I could leave them.

  “Do you believe Blazer killed your father for his winnings?”

  “No, sir. I don’t believe he killed my father. I think he just saw all that money and got greedy.”

  “The last you saw of him was in the cabin? But you saw Wacker and Dick in Rico? And the cabin had been burned?”

  “Blazer’s missing,” the other officer said, “and we have to find him…or his body.”

  “My guess would be in the ruins of that burned-out cabin. When Wacker and Dick saw me in Rico, they were scared. That doesn’t make sense. Why should they be scared of me? And that Wacker, he wasn’t afraid of anything. Only I had seen them with Blazer on the mountain before that last snow.”

  “We will look around.” They got up. “Are you going to be around town?”

  “Not for a while. I am going east…Cherry Creek, and around that part of the country.”

  They exchanged a glance. “It would be better if you stayed here until this Blazer affair is straightened out.”

  For a moment I said nothing and then I replied. “I cannot. For business and personal reasons I have to go east, but I will come back here when I have done what needs to be done.”

  They just looked at me, and finally I said, “There’s a man hunting me, and Wacker and Dick have been helping him. I don’t know why he wants me killed, but if I go east I can find out. I figure if a man is gunning for me, I should know why.”

  Burns laughed. “Seems reasonable. All right, you go. Think you can be back here in thirty days?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Burns pushed back his chair. “That’s good enough for me. Meanwhile we’ll have a look at that cabin.”

  “Mr. Burns, you’d better pull back. Unless you know the country, that cabin isn’t easy to find.”

  With salt and pepper shakers and the cups, I showed him where the peaks and passes were. He needed no diagram. There’d been two thousand head of cattle driven over trails of as many miles with no more direction than I was giving these men.

  When they had gone, Laurie came over. “Kearney, what is it? Are you in trouble?”

  “No, ma’am. They’re just investigating. Judge Blazer hasn’t been seen and they’re looking into it. Why, I don’t know, but I suspect Blazer was up to something himself. When he wasn’t with Wacker and them over at Rico, I knew something was wrong. He would have come with them or back here. The way I see it, he never got off that mountain.”

  “When are you going?”

  It came to me of a sudden. I’d been thinking about daybreak, but the words were saying themselves before I had a chance to think. I said, “I’m going now. This minute.” I got up. “Laurie, I told them I’d try to be back in thirty days. That’s what I’m aiming for, but if something happens, I may have to go further east. If I do, and if I can, I’ll write.”

  The roan was ready. I mean that was a trail horse, never so contented as when going somewhere, and when I’d saddled up and strapped on my gear, I taken out of there. It was too late in the day and it was a lot else, but I taken out, and the next good stopping place was more than twenty-five miles away.

  The trail I followed around those mountains to Ouray would have scared a gopher to death.

  The trail was clear if narrow, and I was moving along at a good clip, yet I didn’t like it. The further I went the more uneasy I became, for the country was confining. Most of the time I was riding along trails cut into the walls of a canyon, and if a man should be trapped in such a place, he was a goner. There was simply no place to hide for long stretches.

  Then it started to rain. When thunder rumbles in those narrow, rocky gorges, you just naturally curl up. It pulls in all the edges, if you get what I mean. By the time I got to where I could see the lights of Ouray nestled in the valley below, it was pouring down rain, and every once in a while the sky would split wide open with a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning. They were all close by, hitting those 13,000-foot mountains all around the town.

  There was a dim light over the door of the livery stable, and when I rode in, an old man with handlebar mustaches stuck his head out of the office door. “Put up your hoss, boy! An’ come in for a cup of java!”

  First time I’d heard it called that since Texas, where they had names for everything.

  Stripping off my gear, I rubbed the roan dry and put a bait of oats in the bin. Then I went up the ladder to the loft and forked down some hay. By that time I was ready for coffee.

  Walking down the middle of the barn, I peered into all the stalls. No familiar horses, which did not necessarily mean anything. I’d learn more from the hostler.

  He was setting back in a swivel chair in front of a rolltop desk and he had him a dime novel he was reading. It was about some daredevil who kept rescuing fair maidens from Indians or whatever. What the fair maiden was doing where she was always puzzled me, and I was never so lucky. Most of the maidens I came upon were most unfair.

  “Wet out there,” I commented.

  “I can see that, an’ I can hear it. No night for man or beast. Come far?”

  “Silverton.”

  “How’s things yonder?”

  “Pretty good. They were runnin’ a raise up from the three-hundred level in one of those mines and struck some mighty pretty rock. Tons of it.”

  The coffee was hot and strong enough to stand by itself, without any cup. I drank it and liked it.

  “Keepin’ busy?” I suggested.

  “So-so.”

  “Much travel?”

  “Enough.”

  “Strangers in town?”

  He turned his head and looked right at me. “Always is, boy. Mostly folks who travel are strangers. Like you, now. You’re a stranger.”

  “My friend,” I said cheerfully, “I just look young because I’ve lived a peaceful life. I was here when that mountain over yonder was just a soft place in the valley. When I first come here I had to comb grizzlies out of my hair!”

  He looked at me out of those cool blue eyes and he said, “Youngster, I come from Arkansas-Missouri country. We seen a heap of windy penny-grabbers down there.”

  “That why you come west? Where there weren’t so many of you?”

  He took his pipe out of his mouth and reached for the pot. “Have another,” he said. “Who was you worried about seeing?”

  “Not worried,” I said, “just careful. And it isn’t the law.” I described Felix Yant and Tobin Wacker.

  “Know Wacker,” he commented. “Seen the other man around a time or two. I was wondering what he had on his mind. I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

  He leaned over with the pot and refilled my cup. “You ridin’ out?”

  Why I told him I did not know, only that I was very much alone and needed to put it all into words. He sat back and smoked, listening without comment. He knocked out his pipe when I was finished. “There’s money in it, boy. You an’ him are some kin, I’d say, and if you live he don’t get anything or maybe not as much. He wants you dead out here so he can go back and have it all to hisself. There may be more to it, but that there’s the way I see it. Them women now, I can’t figure them, least one of them is also in line for that money or whatever it is and wants you out of the way.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “Them’s the kind to watch most, boy. She may be a fine woman, and the good Lord put aplenty of them on earth, but you got to know what she wants, what she’s after. Maybe it was your pa,” he added.

  He tamped fresh tobacco in his pipe. “Son, I cotton to you. I like your style. Now I’ve got a black horse here—”

  “I don’t want to trade.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ trade. I’m talking loan. You got the roan and that’s
a mighty fine horse, but ridin’ the way you figure to do, you’ll wear him down to a nubbin’. So you keep your roan, but you take the black, too. You can switch so’s you won’t tire them too much.”

  He lighted his pipe. “You take my advice an’ cut across the hills to Lake City. Save you time an’ distance.”

  With daylight I was high in the mountains and keeping to Indian trails and the like. Prospectors had been all over this country, and here and there I could see signs of their work. This was high-up country, and without mountain-bred horses a man would get nowhere. It was high but it wasn’t lonely. Here and there I sighted men working claims, but I was traveling, not talking. My trail led along Mineral Creek, then climbed the divide up to around 13,000 feet. A body could judge his altitude pretty easy by what grew or did not grow, and vegetation was almighty scarce up that high.

  Reining in atop a ridge between two peaks three or four miles apart, I let my horse take a blow and sat my saddle looking over the country. Redcloud Gulch dropped off on my left, but my trail was to the right below Hurricane Basin. From where I sat a man could see a sight of magnificent country, great bald peaks with long talus slopes everywhere about. A big peak off to the southeast was an easy 14,000 feet if ever I saw it.

  The air was fresh and clear, and the sky was a vast vault of blue, flecked only here and there with clouds. The roan was eager to go, so we started down, dropping down at least a thousand feet in a mile or so.

  Stopping at some marshes where there was water, I let the horses drink, then took off down the canyon to where my trail cut into a trail along Henson Creek.

  The trail suddenly turned sharply northeast, and I pulled off under some spruce trees, stripped the gear from the roan, and let him roll a bit. When I saddled up, it was the black. The way I figured it, we had no more than fifteen or sixteen miles to Lake City. From where I rested, I could look back up the trail for about a mile. Then it was out of sight for a ways, and the ridge where I’d topped out was in plain view.

  I lay there, just relaxing, watching that ridge. Nothing showed up but a soaring eagle and a couple of whiskey-jacks, who hovered around me looking for something to eat. They were camp thieves and a nuisance, but I kind of favored them for their friendly way.

  When we’d rested about an hour, I mounted up, rode northeast until I sighted a couple of cabins, then hit the Henson Creek Trail that took me due east. There were no tracks fresher than a week.

  The way I saw it, I was ahead of them, but I daren’t take anything for granted. When I rested in Silverton, they might have gotten ahead of me.

  The town lay in a pretty little valley among the mountains, and she was booming. This had all been Ute country until 1874, just a short time back, and then the Utes ceded it and miners came in. They struck gold, yet for a time there were only a dozen log cabins or so. Then the boom hit and the town began to build.

  Riding down the main drag, I counted seven saloons and four eating places, several hotels and a couple of Chinese laundries and a billiard parlor or two.

  A few days later I rode into Georgetown and put up at the Hotel de Paris.

  Chapter 12

  *

  THE WOMAN WHO came to the desk was a small, pleasant-faced woman, and I knew her at once. “Aunt Sophie?” I said, and she looked up, startled.

  “Why! Why, it’s Kearney! Of all people!” She turned quickly and called into another room. “Louis! It’s Kearney come back! Kearney McRaven!”

  Louis Dupuy, sometimes called French Louie, came in from the kitchen. “Ah! Mon ami! But you have grown tall! You were a boy, and now you are a man! And your father, where is he?”

  “He was killed…murdered,” I said. “I do not know why. I have come to you, who were his friend, to see if he left papers with you.”

  “Come!” He took me by the arm. “It is a quiet morning. We will have coffee in the courtyard.” He turned. “Sophie?”

  “Of course, m’sieu. At once.”

  When we were seated in the courtyard, he said, “Tell me. All of it.”

  So concisely as possible I related the story of the events from my father’s death to the moment. He listened without comment until I was finished.

  “So…it is as he suspected. This Felix Yant. He knew what to expect of him, and he is, as you suspect, a very dangerous man. Your father spoke of him. He was a duelist, and he has killed several men, but he is not the worst of them. It is she.”

  “Which one?”

  “Ah, if we but knew that! This Felix Yant has a sister, an evil woman who loves wealth, power, and cruelty, and the last most of all.

  “Your great-grandfather, Kearney, was a ship’s captain, and on one of his forays into the West Indies he met a woman on Haiti, a woman of surpassing beauty. Her nationality? Who knows? Perhaps French, Spanish, or Portuguese, perhaps all three, but the other half of her was Carib…do you know them? They were a cannibal people who lived in the Indies before Columbus came, a wild, fierce, cruel people.

  “Where this woman was born no man knew, and if she knew she never told, nor what or who she was. Your great-grandfather brought her back to Charleston with him, a passenger on his vessel. Shortly after, his wife died…very suddenly, for she had always been in good health, and this woman married your great-grandfather. You are descended from the first wife, Felix Yant from the second.

  “As is often the case, the two branches of the family diverged sharply. Yours were planters, professional men, and soldiers. Those descended from Serena were wholly committed to evil, yet one and all they had intelligence beyond the average…much beyond.

  “Your grandfather was an astute businessman who became wealthy through shrewd investments, the acquisition of lands, and the West Indian trade. In the latter case he built upon old established relationships developed by your great-grandfather.

  “Unfortunately your cousins were less provident, and moreover there had been a complete break between the two sides of the family. Felix Yant killed your uncle in a deliberately provoked duel, an aunt of yours died from poison…nothing ever proved. Your father did all he could to avoid becoming involved, and was serving in the army when your grandfather died.

  “There is a plantation of some size. There is property in Charleston, and more of it in Savannah. There is a plantation in Jamaica. Apparently Felix, his sister, and others of his family believed that if your father died, they would inherit. They knew nothing of you.”

  My father left some papers with you?”

  “He did. He left some evidence he did not wish to use, evidence that would convict one of his cousins of murder, as well as his father’s will and deeds to various properties. Other information, I am informed, relates to other properties and the location of other documents you would need to establish ownership.”

  For a moment there was silence. Then Dupuy added, “As you may have heard, I permit no unmarried, unescorted women to stay in my hotel. I have but a few rooms and I let them to whomever I choose, but only when I choose. Two days ago a woman came here who wished to have a room. I refused her. She became quite furious with me.” He shrugged. “As you may know, such things I ignore. I have no time to be bothered with tantrums. But this woman…she was very beautiful, and very strong, and I think she is given with hatred of a very special kind. She left, but I do not think I have seen the last of her. What is important is that I am sure she is Felix Yant’s sister or aunt. So be warned.”

  “How could she know to come here?” I wondered.

  He shrugged. “My cooking is famous…but no, I do not think it is that. Perhaps when here, your father wrote…a letter, perhaps to a friend or relative. She might have guessed this was the place to come.”

  Yet she might have come simply from hearing of the place, for the Hotel de Paris was famous, already a legend, and our friend, whom the miners knew as French Louie, was one of the most renowned chefs of his time. Many noted travelers had gone far out of their way to reach this little mining town in the Rockies simply to enjoy one of h
is fantastic meals or the hospitality of his hotel.

  Lighted with gaslights purchased from Tiffany’s, with black walnut woodwork, books bound in leather in a library of three thousand volumes, and marble sinks in each room, the Hotel de Paris had an elegance peculiar to itself.

  The dining room had a yellow and white striped floor—alternating strips of maple and walnut—and the meals served had a Continental distinction. General Grenville Dodge, President Ulysses S. Grant, Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Baron Rothschild, the Prince de Joinville, and many another wealthy and famous man had dined at his table.

  There were but ten rooms, each with private bath, a thing scarcely heard of in that time and place. Georgetown was a booming mining camp, but not even Denver had food to compare with that produced by Louis Dupuy, for he was his own chef, with reason to be proud of his skill.

  “Louis, do you have a room for me?” I asked.

  “For you? I would put somebody out! Yes, I have a room.” He led the way upstairs and showed me to a pleasant, sunlit room. “Rest,” he suggested, “and then we must talk, you and I.”

  At the door he paused. “As you may know, I am a man of few friends. Your father was one, a man of true taste and of philosophical leanings. Did you know that he once taught philosophy? Not that that is any criterion. Many of the teachers know nothing. They are parrots of poorly comprehended ideas, but your father…he knew. Since leaving France I have met no one whose ideas were so challenging. We talked often…and he told me of his plans for you.”

  “He never told me,” I said sadly.

  “Ah, I know! You see, Kearney, he had nothing. Much was due him, but he dare not return to claim it. He was a man alone and only with such skills as lacked importance in the West. He was a thinker, and the West was a place where people must do. He did what he could with what he had.”

  “He left me well off at the end,” I said.

  “So? Then we must talk. You must hear his plans, even if he is gone and though you may not be interested. We will see. In the meantime, stay away from windows, rest, and I will come up later.”