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

  Nothing in sight, nothing at all. But I knew they were back there, and I knew they were coming.

  How much money I had I didn’t know, but it was aplenty and Blazer figured to have that money. He wouldn’t be coming alone. He’d have however many he figured he needed, no matter what reason he gave them. He was a judge, probably no more than a justice of the peace, I thought. Still, he knew more about the law than me and he might be able to get himself appointed my guardian. He could even appoint himself and make a good story of how I was a wild kid who needed taking care of. Meanwhile he’d have his use of, and the spending of, my money.

  When I saw, far ahead, the dark shadow of the cabin, it was already coming on to snow. I pulled up, although the roan wanted to go on in. I sat in my saddle taking a long look at my hole card, and it didn’t shape up to very much.

  How did I know nobody knew of that place but me? Wasn’t I taking a lot for granted? That gold money rested heavy in my saddlebags and so did the paper. The gold might be just too much weight, going off the mountain in the deep snow. Besides, if they got me I didn’t want them to profit by it.

  It was then I thought of the cache.

  Chapter 2

  *

  IT WAS A crack in the rock, that was all, hidden in a niche of the wall. It was a crack not over six inches wide and maybe two feet deep about ten feet off the ground. I’d found it a handy place to cache a bite of lunch, time to time, or some extra ammunition and coffee in case the cabin burned down whilst I was with the cattle.

  The cabin was still a good two miles off, although I could see a kind of black blotch where it stood. Swinging the bronc over to the niche, I stood up in my stirrups and put the gold away back in that crack and then the bills and replaced the rock that closed the crack.

  Three hundred dollars in paper money I kept. I hid five twenties under the sweatband of my hat, another five in a slit in my belt, and the last five I wadded into a tight ball in the bottom of my holster. That last made my gun ride a little high, but the thong would still slip over it, although a snug fit. I was figuring on using my waist gun if I had to use any.

  Then I headed for the cabin, circling a little to come up on the back side through the aspen. Back there about fifty yards from the cabin and down over a little aspen and sprucecovered knoll there was another cabin. This one was built mighty strong of square-cut logs and was warmer than the stable near the cabin. I led the roan into it and dished out some corn I kept there for cold spells.

  Then I started for the cabin. There was a side of bacon there, some beans, flour, salt, sugar, and coffee. There was also some dried apples and odds and ends of grub. I had me a feeling I was going to need it.

  This here was springtime, but in the high country it wasn’t a dependable thing. I’d seen the spring come with flowers and all, and then off the mountains come a storm and there’d be another ten to fifty days of winter.

  The high mountain pasture which we called the plateau was actually no such thing, but rather a series of high mountain valleys above timberline or right at it, where grew the richest of grass. Most winters they were free of snow, and warmer than some lower-down country due to what pa called a local weather pattern—winds off the desert, I guess.

  Pa had known about this place and he had gone to Dingleberry with the suggestion that he’d graze a few hundred head of Big D cattle in the high country and I’d see to them, for so much a head and wages for me.

  How pa found this place or heard of it I never did know. He had never been given to talk. I was just beginning to realize how little pa had told me about himself, his early life, or his family. I’d not paid it much mind because pa was always there to ask in case I wanted to know, but now he was gone. His death not only left me alone but it cut me off from whatever past there was, and whatever family we might have had somewhere.

  When I got to the cabin, all was quiet and I went in. It was ice-cold, so I taken the time to put a fire together. Then with the flames crackling, I went to putting grub into a burlap sack. I worked fast, all the time thinking maybe I should just spend the night where I was instead of heading out across that mountain country in the cold and the dark.

  I packed my sack of grub down and tied it behind the saddle, still thinking I should unsaddle and give us both a rest. The roan was tuckered and so was I, but I recalled the mean look in Blazer’s eye and I knowed he’d be comin’ after me, cold or no. Be a long time before he had a chance at that much cash money again.

  There was a small paper sack with some .44s in it lyin’ on the floor in the cabin, and I decided I’d better take them with me, so I walked back to the cabin and pushed open the door.

  Something loomed in front of me, big as a grizzly, it seemed, and my hand went for my gun, but then I remembered I’d hung the gun belt over the saddle horn and the spare gun with it whilst I was working around.

  What hit me was a fist, but it felt like the butt end of an axe. I staggered, and something fetched me a clout from behind, knocking me through the door into the lighted cabin. I sprawled on the floor, my head buzzing, but I wasn’t let lay. A big hand grabbed the scruff of my neck and flung me into a chair.

  “Where is it, kid? Where’s the money?”

  Dazed, I looked up at Judge Blazer. There were three other men in the cabin. The only one I knew by sight was Tobin Wacker, a teamster who drove freight wagons and was said to be the meanest man anywhere around. He was a brawler and a bully, outweighed me by fifty pounds, and he was three, four inches taller. I don’t know why they had the other two, because with Wacker they surely didn’t need anybody else.

  Blazer grabbed me by the shirtfront and half lifted me out of my chair. “Where is it? Where’d you hide that money you stole off me?”

  “It was took,” I lied. “I figured it was you.”

  “Took?” He stared at me.

  “Two fellers with guns. They taken the money and told me to get gone. That if they ever seen me around town they’d blow my head off. One of them had a shotgun.”

  “You expect me to swallow that?” Blazer had a mighty unpleasant look to him, and I was scared. All the same I had sense enough to know that once they had that money, I was dead. They’d never leave me alive to protest or make trouble for them.

  “I figured you sent ’em,” I said. “They taken everything. My guns, my horse…they cleaned me out.”

  “Kid,” and Blazer’s voice got real quiet, “you’re a liar, and I know you’re a liar. You can tell us where it is or we’ll beat it out of you.”

  “Look,” I said, “I don’t know—”

  He hit me in the mouth. I tasted blood and came off that chair, and that Wacker, he just grabbed me, grabbed my arms while Blazer went to work on me. He slugged me in the belly, then kneed me in the face when I bent over. He straightened me up and slapped me back and forth across the face until my head rung like a bell. Then he stepped back and kicked me in the groin, and they dropped me on the floor.

  They set down then, and one of them added fuel to the fire. “Gettin’ cold,” he commented.

  Wacker, he kicked me in the ribs. “Better tell us, boy,” he said. “We got all night.”

  “Maybe you got all spring,” I said, spluttering it out between split lips.

  Blazer stared at me. “We have. We got all spring. We can beat you until you tell us, so make it easier on yourself.”

  He surely didn’t take my meaning, and it didn’t look like he knew what could happen up this high. Down yonder at town it was warm in the daytime, the flowers were out, and the trees budded. I mean, it was sure enough springtime down yonder, but that didn’t hold up here in these hills.

  “Make some coffee,” he said to one of the others. He looked down at me. “Where’s the coffee?”

  “I taken it all down when I quit,” I said. “Wasn’t much left, anyway.”

  “I got some,” this gent said, and he opened the door to go out. A gust of wind and snow come in the door.

  “Would you look a
t that,” Blazer said. “Snow!”

  I was beginning to really hurt. Felt like I’d got myself a busted rib. I tried to sit up, but it hurt so I lay back down. My head was beginning to clear up, but my face was sore and my head ached. And now I was gettin’ mad. I was feelin’ almighty mean toward those men. I tried again to sit up, and Wacker, he just reached out and kicked me in the face. Lucky I jerked back and he missed my chin, but the rough sole of his boot taken the hide off my cheek.

  “You set still, boy. You tell us an’ we’ll leave you be. You don’t tell us an’ we just keep on beatin’. It’s gonna be a long night for you.”

  “The longest,” I muttered through split lips. “Maybe your longest.”

  The man at the fire turned halfway around and looked at me. “What’s that mean?”

  “Listen to the wind,” I said.

  Blazer glanced at me. “Wind? What about it?”

  “Snow,” I said, “lots of snow. I’ve seen it when these late snows come so’s a man couldn’t get out for six, eight weeks. I hope you boys brought plenty of grub or fat horses. You’ll need it.”

  The man at the fire looked at Blazer. “Is that right?”

  “He’s lyin’. This is springtime.” Nevertheless he looked uneasy. “This is April.”

  “I seen it so’s you couldn’t get in or out before June,” I said. “You boys say good-bye to your womenfolks?”

  He backhanded me across the mouth. “Shut your trap!” he said.

  After a minute I said, “Man a few years ago started across the mountains with some trappers. Come spring he showed up in mighty good shape. They backtracked him and found he’d killed an’ eaten all the others. They call that place Cannibal Plateau now.”

  The coffee was ready. “Heard about that,” Wacker said. “It sure enough happened.”

  “Lucky you boys have Blazer,” I said. “He’s good an’ fat. He’ll—”

  He kicked me. Then he got up on his feet and stomped on my fingers. He kicked me again in the belly, and I felt a stab of pain. He jerked me up by the shirtfront and punched me in the wind again. “Where’s that money?” he said.

  “Stole,” I muttered. “That money was stole. An’ it must’ve been you who murdered pa.”

  He dropped me like I was too hot to hold. Then he stepped back and kicked me in the ribs. I was turned half over, and he kicked me in the kidneys three, four times. I didn’t say anything.

  My face was against the floor, and the cold was coming up through the cracks, but all I could feel was pain. I hurt like I’d never hurt before.

  “I better put the horses up,” one of those men said. “That’s a cold-sounding wind.”

  “Get at it, then,” Blazer said irritably. “Come morning we’ll pull out.”

  I laughed. I didn’t feel much like laughing, but I done it.

  He went out and I lay there. They had two cups and they taken turns at the coffee. All of a sudden the door slammed open with a blast of cold air, and amid considerable cussing they got the door closed.

  “I got the horses in,” the man said. He was a sour-faced man with a scar on his jaw. “Judge? He may be tellin’ the truth. He don’t have no horse.”

  “They taken my horse, too,” I said.

  “Hell, he’s a-lyin’,” Wacker said irritably. “Come morning we’ll find the horse and the money, too.”

  “By morning,” I fumbled at the words with swollen, bloody lips, “you’ll be snowed in, the pass closed for maybe six, eight weeks. An’ don’t think about game. There’s none up this high, this time of year.”

  “And by morning,” Judge Blazer added, “we will either have the money or you will be hammered to a pulp. We’ve only begun, you know. If you wish to survive at all, you will tell us.”

  I looked down at my hands. My eyes were swollen almost shut, my head was thick with pain, and the hands I saw through the slits left to me were mangled beyond belief. Yet I would not talk. If I told them, I would die. As long as I did not tell them, I had a chance.

  Suddenly, without warning, Wacker kicked me in the kidney. Agony shot through me and I gasped. Blazer struck me again across the face.

  “And now you’ll die.” I formed the words, made the sounds, clumsy as they were. “The passes will be closed soon, and there will be no getting out.”

  “Suppose he’s right?” one of the other men said suddenly. “I don’t like it, Blazer. Those passes are almighty narrow, and the snow’s a-fallin’ fast out there.”

  Wacker walked to the window and peered out. For the first time he seemed uneasy. “Aw, that’s a lot of crap!” he said irritably. He walked back to the bunk and sat down. The wind moaned around the eaves, and suddenly he got up and went again to the window. He could see nothing, I knew. It was all dark and still.

  I had seen the flakes that had blown into the room. They were thick and white now, and that kind of snow would pile up fast. They wouldn’t get out, but neither would I. Except…except that I had an idea of another way out.

  Maybe. I’d never tried it. An old Indian had come up that way and told me about it over the meal I’d fixed for him.

  Could I find it in the dark and the snow? Could I find it even without them? He had not been very explicit, but Indians rarely were.

  Blazer got up and went to the door. He peered out, then shouldered into his coat and went outside. When he came back, his manner had changed. “Dick,” he said, glancing over at the man who’d made the coffee, “go saddle up. We’re riding out.”

  “What about him?” Wacker asked.

  “He’ll tell us before we go. We’re through fooling around.”

  Dick went out the door. Three of them left. I tried to grin with my bloody, broken lips. “He’ll lose them horses in the snow. You’ll die here.”

  He picked me up and I struck at him. My fist caught his cheekbone and it must have hurt because he kneed me in the groin, then began that ponderous slapping of my face, each blow jarring my skull. The man was strong. Very strong.

  He began hitting me, slowly, methodically, steadily. I made no effort to fight back. I had strength. I had some reserve, and I’d been waiting. My time would come.

  I took the blows. He smashed a fist into my belly, struck me on the ear, slapped me until my head rang.

  “Let me have him,” Wacker said. “I can make him talk.” Across the room my eyes caught a bloody image in the cracked mirror over the washbasin, a bloody caricature of something that had been human. That was me.

  “Do what you’re of a mind to,” Blazer said, arm-weary from beating on me. “Just keep him alive until he talks. He’s got that money.”

  “Suppose his story is straight?” the other man said. “He just might have been robbed. Somebody might have known where that money was. Sure it is that nigh ever’body knew his old man won it.”

  Blazer wouldn’t buy that. Without his belief that I had the money, he had nothing. He was wasting his time and he did not want that at all.

  I heard a crunch from the doorway. Dick was coming back. Blazer had dropped into a chair near the fire. Wacker pushed me off at arm’s length. He was a cruel man and much stronger than Blazer. He’d kill me. Dick fumbled with the latch, and suddenly I lunged.

  Only a quick step forward, my left palm came up under Wacker’s elbow, my right came down hard on his wrist. There was a snap of bone, and Wacker screamed. I shoved him hard into Blazer, and both of them tumbled toward the fire. Then I threw myself at the door.

  Dick was coming in, had just opened the door when my shoulder hit it, knocking him sprawling in the snow with me almost astride of him. I scrambled to get up, smashing my knee under his chin in the process, and then I was rolling over and over in the snow.

  I fought myself to my feet. Instinctively I went for the woods. Behind me I heard a shout, cries of pain, and cursing. I stumbled and fell, crawled madly toward the trees, sprawled again, and got hold of a tree and pushed myself and pulled myself up.

  For a moment, groggy and hurt, I
leaned against the tree, my breath coming in rasping gasps, each one like a knife grinding against bone.

  I tried to look around, but my eyes were swollen almost shut. I made it to another tree, then another. I fell, sliding down the tree into the snow. Yet I knew from a lessening of the wind that I was in the aspens. I struggled on.

  My horse! They had not found my horse. If I could only…

  I fell again and again. Now the snow was blowing in a howling blizzard. I did not think. I fell, striking my side and sending a spasm of pain through me. I had a broken rib, maybe more than one. From the feel of my nose, that was broken, too.

  Scooping up a handful of snow, I wiped it across my battered features. Then grasping the slim trunk of a tree, I pulled myself erect again.

  Somehow my sense of direction remained with me. The cabin was on my right rear now. The small shelter where I’d left the roan was ahead of me, lower down…twenty yards?

  Fighting to keep my feet, I worked my way across the slope from tree to tree. Suddenly it was there. Then I was inside, and the roan nickered a welcome.

  I fell flat, but managed to push the door shut. The room was cold, but secure…secure.

  For how long? They would search. They would find me. I had to get away. Could I find my way across the valley? Down its long length? How far? Two miles? Less.

  Once in the broken country beyond, there would be some shelter from the wind.

  I leaned against the horse and tightened the cinch. Then I opened the door and crawled into the saddle. Ducking my head low, I urged the roan out into the storm.

  He must have known I was in a bad way, for surprisingly he did not resist.

  Out into the storm, up into the aspens, out between the grove and the house. I could vaguely hear them shouting inside. I walked the horse past and pointed him down the valley, and the poor beast trusted me.

  Here where the wind blew, the snow could not drift. Here we could canter, and we did. Out across the empty land, toward a crack in the rock that I only hoped I could find, or he could.