Bendigo Shafter Page 2

  On the fourth day Ethan Sackett came down from the hill and took up an axe and worked beside me. He was a strong, lithe man, easy with his strength, and he handled an axe well. He worked with me an hour or more, then went down the hill and worked with John Sampson, who was the oldest among us.

  Twice during the week he brought in game. The first time it was two antelopes. “Not the best of eating,” he said, “but it is fresh meat.”

  The second time it was a deer that dressed out at nearly two hundred pounds. He cut it well and passed it around, leaving some meat at each fire.

  Tom Croft, who was a good worker when he put his back into it, stayed on the job better than Neely Stuart, who was forever finding something else that needed doing to keep him from work. He’d be going to the bucket for a drink, or talking to his wife.

  And then it began to snow.

  Chapter 2

  When the first flakes fell I was up on the ridge cutting poles for the roof, which was half-finished. I’d paused a moment to catch my wind, and when the first flake touched my cheek. I felt a chill of fear.

  By now the passes to the west were closed, and the way to the east was long. We were trapped in this lonely place, building our town. The winter would be cold, hard, and long, and we were ill-prepared to face it.

  Flakes sifted down by twos and threes, then faster and still faster. Bunching my poles I threw a half-hitch on one end and a timber hitch on the other and started the team back along the slope.

  From the ridge where I’d been cutting I could see the shape of our town. Cain and John Sampson had left off working each on his own and were roofing Cain’s house, with Ethan passing poles up to Sampson. Mrs. Sampson was hustling bedding from her wagon into the cabin.

  Ruth Macken’s cabin was a worrisome distance from the others but had the finest site.

  Smoke was lifting from Cain’s house, the first inside fire in town. I could see the women-folks and youngsters coming in from gathering sticks. Sampson was only a shadow through the snow, still working on the roof.

  When I got the poles to the cabin I climbed up on the roof, and Bud handed the poles up to me. One by one I laid the poles in place, forming the temporary roof that would keep the Mackens warm until spring came when we could add a solid plank roof. When the last pole was in place I came down, and we started pitching dirt on the roof to seal it tight.

  Ruth Macken went inside and started a fire, and when she returned to the door Ethan was there to help her move her bedding inside. She had brought her husband’s favorite chair, knocked down and packed flat, and a chest of drawers she said came from the old country.

  When I saw the books she carried I looked at them wishfully. I had never owned a book, nor had the chance to read but four or five, although I’d read those carefully and often.

  Of a sudden there was a pounding of hoofs, and Ethan turned sharply around, his gun half-drawn under his buckskin shirt.

  It was Neely Stuart. He leaned from his horse, trying to peer into the door. “Is Mae here? She went out with the little Shafter girl and Lenny Sampson.”

  “They were over in the creek bottom when I was cuttin’ poles atop the ridge. They should be back by now.”

  A gust whipped snow into our faces and there was a moan in the wind. For a moment the wind caught our breath and we could not speak.

  “Come on!” Neery said. “We’ll roust out everbody and hunt for them.”

  “You go out there with a lot of tenderfeet,” Ethan said, “and you’ll lose some of them.”

  “Who asked you?” Neely shouted. “That’s my sister out there!”

  Ethan was in no way put out by Neely’s anger. “How much experience have you had in blizzards, Stuart? A man can lose himself in fifty yards, and judging by the sound of the wind, this one will be pretty bad.”

  “Ethan’s right,” I admitted. “You can’t even see the other houses now.”

  “You coming or not?”

  “We’re coming,” Ethan said. He turned to Ruth Macken. “You’ll be all right, ma’am?”

  “Bud’s here, and we’ve some unpacking to do and a meal to get. When you come back, come to supper. I’ll have some hot soup waiting.”

  We rode down to town, unable to talk for the wind blowing our words down our throats, yet we thought of what was to come: not one of us was fixed for winter.

  It was amazing the way the snow piled up. In the few minutes it had been falling there were two to three inches on the level, and it was starting to drift against the north side of the cabins.

  Neely had reached Cain’s house ahead of us, and when we came through the door accompanied by a gust of blown snow he was talking. “... if that Sackett opens his mouth in here, I’ll ...”

  “Whatever it is you’ll do,” Ethan said mildly, “you’d better save it until later. We’ve got to find those youngsters before they freeze to death.”

  “You stay out of this!” Stuart shouted. He turned on the others. “Scatter out and hunt for them!”

  Ethan squatted on his heels against the wall. “You’d be wanderin blind in the snow. You start seven men out in a storm like this and some of them aren’t comin’ back. You’ve got women-folks will need you before spring comes.”

  Neely started to shout, but Cain stopped him with a gesture. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Bendigo here, he saw those young uns down along the creek, and if they were doin’ what I figure, they never saw that storm comin’.”

  He turned his eyes to Cain Shafter. “I should do the hunting because I know this country better than anybody here, and there ain’t anybody going to mind if I don’t come back. I’d like Bendigo if he’d care to come along.”

  “What about me?” Webb demanded. “I grew up in snow country. I seen a sight of it.”

  “You’re welcome. I spoke of Bendigo because he’s single and he’s steady. Doesn’t fly off the handle. A blizzard in this country is nothing to play around with.”

  “While you sit here talking those youngsters are freezing!” Neely’s voice shook with anger. “Don’t you try to tell me what to do! I’m ...”

  “All right. Where do you figure to look?”

  “Out there!” Neely flung a wide arm.

  “Big country.” Ethan got to his feet. “Better take it slow. You get warmed up and you start to sweat. The first time you slow down or stop to rest the sweat will freeze, and you’ll be wearing a thin coat of ice next your skin.”

  “You think they stayed with the creek?” Cain asked.

  “Sure. There’s hawthorn along the creek, and my guess is they found some late berries hanging. Sometimes they stay on until January, and the first day here I rode down there and saw the bushes heavy with them. Those young uns are hungry for sweet, and it’s there, so they probably just went on from bush to bush. When they realized it was snowing heavy they probably stayed right there, knowing we’d come for them.”

  Ordinarily that would be good thinking, but knowing how flighty Mae Stuart was, I couldn’t see her using that much judgment. Mae was sixteen and pretty, but mighty notional. She’d put up her hair about a year back, and she was flouncy, feeling her oats, like. She’d been making eyes at men-folks since she was shy of thirteen and was getting to where she wanted to do something about it.

  Ann Shafter, Cain’s oldest, was only ten. Lenny Sampson, although a bright youngster, was six.

  “Bendigo, Webb, an’ me will go over to where the brush thins out and work north from there.

  “Neely, if you’re bound and determined to go, you and Cain can cross to the upper creek and work back. We’d best search every clump of brush. They’ll not hear yelling in this wind.”

  He looked around. “The rest of you stay put, and don’t leave the house for any reason at all.” He was listening to the wind. “In this weather a man shouldn’t get fifty feet from shelter.”

  Ethan had shortened his distance from fifty yards to fifty feet, and when we stepped outside I could understand why. At
the door he paused to say one more thing.

  “If we don’t find those youngsters by the time we meet up, then we’d best all come in. Then Bendigo and me will go out.

  “It’s a long time until spring, and if anybody can be spared it’s us. There’s more to be considered than those youngsters out there.”

  We went afoot and it was cold. No use for horses in that kind of weather, not where we had to look, down in the brush where it was a tangle of deadfalls.

  A time or two I’d seen blizzards, but nothing like this. The wind came down off the mountain like there was nothing between us and the North Pole. The snow no longer fell in flakes but in frozen particles that stung the skin like blown needles.

  Even walking across the wind it was hard to catch a breath, but we tucked our chins behind our collars and breathed through the merest slit of a mouth.

  When we reached the stream at the foot of the cliff it was a relief. The trees were mountain alder, clumps of quaking aspen, willow, hawthorn, and an occasional spruce.

  Everything was buried deep in drifted snow, the smaller bushes looking like snow-covered hummocks of earth or rock. If we found those youngsters it would be a miracle.

  The cold was intense. Here or there the snow had heaped itself over a fallen tree or some rocks to form a hollow where an animal or child might have curled up, so we dared pass none of them. Once, slipping on an icy log hidden beneath the snow, I had a bad fall.

  When I got up I saw Ethan squatted on his heels, studying something.

  It was a rabbit snare, rigged at the opening of a run. The snow around the snare was disturbed and there were flecks of blood, most of them partly covered by snow. Ethan put a finger on the thickest spot of blood, and it smeared slightly under pressure. Almost frozen, but not quite.

  “Indians,” he said.

  We felt a chill beyond that of the cold. Within the hour, no doubt much less than that, an Indian had taken a rabbit from that snare and killed it. He must have been inspecting his snares at the same time that the children were along the creek.

  Webb was a hard man, but he had a child of his own, and he knew these children. “Injuns!” he said. “Injuns got them.”

  The tracks that might have told us more lay under the new fallen snow, and the storm was growing worse. It was only by chance that we had found the snare, for in a few minutes it would have been covered.

  We had thought to find the children before they could freeze, perhaps huddled somewhere out of the wind waiting for us.

  We were armed with pistols, but wary of freezing our hands, had carried no rifles.

  Yet we could not abandon the search. The Indians might not have known they were there, and hearing the Indians, the children might have hidden themselves well. So we continued to search every clump of bushes, around the roots of blow-downs, under the hanging, snow-laden branches of the spruce, but we no longer expected to find them.

  By the time the others came floundering toward us we had given up hope. Bunched together in the partial shelter of thick trees, stamping our feet and beating our hands against the cold, we listened to them, who had had no more luck than we.

  Neely Stuart complained, putting the blame on Ethan, but the scout ignored him. From the look on his face I knew he was considering the Indians. Given knowledge of the country and the ways of redskins, a man might guess how far they had gone and where they might be camped.

  Bad off as those youngsters might be, I almost wished my sister Lorna was with them instead of Mae. Lorna was pretty, too, prettier than Mae, but Lorna was like Cain in some ways, a cool-thinking girl. If anybody could have found a way out, Lorna could.

  There was nothing to do but go back home. There was a chance they had found their way back, but nobody would have bet on it. Ethan fell in beside me as we started back. He had faced directly away from that dump of trees, taken the wind at a certain angle on his face, and led off. It was the only guide in a storm like that, and although the wind might shift it wasn’t likely to shift that much at this stage of the storm.

  “Bendigo, are you game to take a chance? I’ve a notion where those Indians might be.”

  “Just the two of us?”

  “We’d not make it out and back tonight. Are you with me?”

  To my dying day I shall remember that blizzard. Ethan moved up to Cain, who had taken over breaking trail. “Hold across the wind,” he advised. “Let it take you on the left eye and nose, like. You’ll reach sight of the valley in a few minutes. Once over that low ridge, hold along the edge of the trees above Mrs. Macken’s and you’ll make it.”

  Cain stopped. He turned his broad back square to the wind and looked at Ethan. “What about you?”

  “Bendigo an’ me, we’ve an idea. If worst comes to worst well just dig a hole in the snow and sit it out. A man can wait out a storm if he doesn’t exhaust himself first.”

  We faced into the storm and plodded away, leaning against the wind. Darkness had come upon us, and the wind blew a full gale, cutting at our exposed brows like knives. It seemed an age before we climbed a knoll and stumbled into a thick stand of aspen where we stopped to catch our breath.

  “The day we fetched up to this place,” Ethan explained, “I spotted the sign of eight to ten Indians with their travois, lodges, and goods. Not wanting to frighten the women-folks I said nothing. Maybe they were passing through, but that snare was reset, so I figure they’re close by.”

  It was almost still inside the aspen grove. The slim trunks stood so close they formed a barrier against the wind.

  “The best place for those Indians to wait out a storm is in the hollow right below this hill, so we’re a-goin’ down there.”

  Cold or not, I loosened the buttons on my coat and laid a hand to that old pistol of mine. Never in my born days had I drawn against any man, and I had no mind to unless the need was great.

  “You keep that handy. An Indian respects strength but mighty little else.”

  We went down the hill through the deepening snow, smelling smoke on the wind, and sure enough, the lodges were there, three of them, covered with snow except around the smoke hole at the top where the warmth had melted the snow away.

  We listened outside each lodge until we heard Mae speak and some arguing among the Indians. Ethan lifted the flap and went in, with me right behind him.

  A small fire burned in the center of the tent, and the air was stifling hot and smoky after the cold outside. Right off I spotted Mae and the youngsters beside her. They seemed unhurt, only scared.

  There were five buck Indians in there. One young brave was on his feet arguing, and he was mad as all get-out.

  The others were older, and the one at whom the buck seemed to be pointing his words was oldest of all. Now that one might be old, but his eyes were clear, and it seemed to me I saw a gleam of malice in those eyes, like maybe he didn’t like that young buck too much.

  Talk broke off when we came in, and the young brave put a hand to his tomahawk. The next thing I knew he was looking into the business end of my six-shooter.

  Now he was no more surprised than I, for I’d no thought of drawing that gun. It just fetched out when the need came, and young as that warrior was, he knew what that gun meant, and he let go of his tomahawk like it was red hot. Ethan Sackett, he started talking to that old Indian in Shoshone. After a minute he stopped talking, and the old man spoke. Ethan interpreted for me out of the side of his mouth. “The young buck wants to keep Mae and kill the young uns, but the old man doesn’t like it. He says the Shoshone are friends to the white man. He’s right about that, but there’s more to this argument than a body can see at first glimpse. I think the old man wants to take that young buck down a peg. Gettin’ too big for his britches.”

  My eyes had never left that young warrior. He was mad as a trapped catamount and ready to pitch in and go to fighting.

  “Tell them we are friends, Ethan, and tell them to come when the snow leaves and trade with us. Tell them to bring their furs, hides,
or whatever. And thank them for saving the young ones from the snow. Tell them when they come in the spring we will have presents for them.” Sackett, he talked for a while, but before the old man could reply that young buck busted in with a furious harangue, gesturing now and again toward the other lodges, like he was about to go for help.

  “We’d best take the youngsters and light out,” I suggested. “This shapes up to trouble.”

  Ethan never turned his head. “Mae, get up and come over here and bring the young uns with you.”

  When that young buck saw what was happening he started to yell, and I belted him in the stomach with my fist. When he doubled over I sledged him across the skull with my gun barrel.

  Not one of the others so much as moved, but the old man said something I didn’t catch. They didn’t seem much upset by what had happened.

  Ethan took out his tobacco sack and passed it to the old man, with a gesture implying it was to be shared with the others. Me, I took out my Shafter-made axe, the best there is, and handed it to the old man.

  “Friend,” I said. Then indicating the axe I said, “It is a medicine axe, made from iron from the skies.”

  “The youngsters first,” Ethan said, “then you.”

  “I’m holding the gun. You go ahead of me.”

  We floundered through the snow, which was growing deeper by the moment, and made slow time until we got to the crest of the ridge. My heart was pumping heavily when we topped out, and far off, behind us, we heard shouts.

  Ethan led the way, but not toward home. With the youngsters to see to we were in no shape to tackle a trip home through the night and the storm. So Ethan took us into a hollow downwind of the Indians. It was a place gouged out by the fall of two pines whose roots had torn up great masses of earth that clung to a frozen spider web of roots.

  When Ethan waded into the hollow he was shoulder-deep, but he floundered around, tramping down the snow. When I saw what he was about, I helped. We tramped down an area five or six feet across, but with snow walls five feet high facing the triangle made by the roots, it was all of eight feet high.