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

  He walked forward, stepping like he was on eggs. He’d been a wild mustang in his time and no telling where he’d gone then, but I hoped it was nothing like this. We edged around the corner of the cliff, and the trail sloped steeply away ahead of us. I kept my eyes on the trail, trying to think that horse for every step, trying to hold him on there by sheer willpower. Only once did I glance aside, when some movement in the valley drew my eye.

  Maybe a dozen to twenty Indians had come out on the snow and were looking up at me. If I’d thought that trail was hairy before, I had no doubt of it now. Those redskins were out there to watch, and if it was that bad, it must be as mean as it could get. Indians take most any kind of a trail, but it looked like nobody took this one come snow-time.

  But that roan was steppin’ easy and light. Once in a while he’d blow through his nostrils, scared as I was, but he knew the only way was down and he went right along.

  All of a sudden the narrow part played out and the trail widened. I taken a long breath and I felt the roan do the same thing, then we trotted along the rest of the trail, took two or three switchbacks, and then we were cantering up to that Indian village.

  It wasn’t much, just three tepees up against some aspen, but smoke lifted from those tepees and I was glad to see them.

  For ten days I stayed with those Indians. Old Tom Beaver was one of them, and I’d fed him many a time up on that plateau. When I saddled up to leave, they were pulling down their tepees, too. “If anybody comes looking,” I said, “you don’t know anything.”

  Lying there in that Indian village, I had time to think back to pa and to wonder who had killed him.

  Blazer? Maybe…but why had pa always carried a gun?

  Of course, most men did. Certainly all of them did when traveling, because there could be a lot of occasions when a six-shooter was essential. Occasions that had nothing to do with outlaws, Indians, horse thieves, or whatever.

  And pa could shoot. I’d seen him shoot, and he was good, better than many a man who carried a reputation as a gunfighter.

  When I came down off the mountain, it was to a strange town. There was a church there, because I seen its steeple from afar, and there was a double row of storefronts and a scattering of houses.

  There were three two-story buildings, a store, the bank, and one with a sign that said Hotel.

  There was a plump, white-haired woman dusting when I came in. She went behind the counter and looked at me with a wary eye. I had on pa’s black hat, which fitted, my blanket poncho, and those run-down boots. I hadn’t shaved in several days and must have looked like the wrath of God.

  “Room will be two bits,” she said, “two bits each night, payable in advance. Four bits if you want a bath.”

  I grinned at her, and her face lit up. She smiled back, friendly-like. “I’ll want a room for two nights at least,” I said, “and definitely a bath. I been riding some rough country.”

  “You look it,” she said cheerfully.

  So I dug down and come up with a dollar, which I gave her. “Hungry?” she asked.

  “I could eat a wolf,” I said.

  “We’re fresh out of wolves,” she said, “but we got us a cougar.”

  “All right,” I said, “I never et cougar but I’m up to it.” I thought she was funnin’ me, but she wasn’t. Not a-tall.

  “My pappy was a mountain man,” she said, “and he had the pick of the finest meat in the West, just for the shooting. He always rated cougar meat the best there was. After that come beaver tail and buffalo tongue.”

  “Bring on your cougar,” I said. “Just be sure he’s declawed and defanged,’cause I’m a mite tuckered.”

  “Bath first?”

  I just looked at her. “All right, all right, you can eat first.” She indicated a door. “Right through that door, and don’t go to makin’ sheep’s eyes at the waitress. She’s my niece and she’s seen a sheep.”

  Chapter 4

  *

  A MAN SHOULD always bathe before he eats. I didn’t, and that choice got me into more trouble than you could shake a stick at.

  I mean had I gone upstairs and had a hot bath, that man wouldn’t have been in the restaurant when I went in there. He’d have been off down the country, gone clean out of there, and I’d never have met up with him.

  Sure, I was hungry, but it wasn’t the first time and I could have waited. They’d already shot their cougar and he wasn’t going anyplace. I mean the meat would have been there, and that pretty waitress would have been there, too. Only difference would have been in that man.

  I’d just left trouble behind, and I walked right through that door into twicet as much. It wasn’t only that the man was there, it was what I said and what he saw.

  I went through the door and he set there with his back to me. There was nobody else in the room but that girl, who was just coming through the door with a coffeepot in her hand. Had I seen her first, it might have changed everything, too, because she was right pert and pretty, but what I saw was that man’s back, a man in a black frock coat, and before I could think I said, “Pa?”

  He looked so much like pa that it just come out of me, without me thinking, but it turned that man sharp around, and sure enough, he had a cast of feature much like pa’s only he was younger by ten years, and there was something else about him. Pa had a touch of gentleness in his face, where this man had none. His features were cold, handsome, clean-cut, but you needed only to look at him once to know there was no mercy in him, none at all.

  “Pa?” he said. “I’m not your pa.” And then his eyes dropped to my gun.

  The blanket-coat was off and slung over my arm, and he could see that gun with its pearl handle and its red birds. I seen his face change. The expression, I mean. His scalp kind of drawed back, and when he looked up at me it was like a wolf ready to jump a rabbit.

  “What made you think I was your pa?”

  I laughed, kind of embarrassed. “I didn’t, really. Only when I come through the door, your back looked like—I mean, he’s got him a coat like that. I’m sorry, I just made a mistake.”

  I started across the room toward another table, but he spoke and his tone was quiet. “No need to eat alone, boy. Sit here with me.”

  If that wolf I mentioned could have talked, he would have said something just like that, but what was I to do? If I could have thought faster, I might have excused myself. Instead I turned around, pulled back a chair, and sat down, and if there’d ever been a chance to avoid trouble, I missed it right then.

  The girl brought me a cup and a plate with grub on it. There was meat, cougar meat from what they said, and there was some rice and beans. It looked good to me, and I set to, all the while wondering about that man at the table with me.

  “Travel far?” he asked.

  “Come down the mountain,” I said. “Been ridin’ herd on some cows up yonder.”

  “Looks like you quit at the right time.” He sipped his coffee. “This pa of yours…with the coat like mine? He herdin’ cattle, too?”

  “Not right now. Ain’t seen him in a while.”

  He kind of prodded at me with questions, but I wasn’t telling him anything. Least of all where I’d come from. By this time Judge Blazer may have had the word out to pick me up.

  As we sat there eating and sort of talking along, I began to get real bothered. This man had a gesture or two just like pa and a way of lifting an eyebrow like him when he was skeptical of something. Many a time I’d known kinfolk to have the same mannerisms and gestures—whether they inherited them or picked them up from seeing them used, I don’t know—and it began to come over me that this man did not only look like pa but that he might even be related to him.

  What I wanted to know was who he was and where he hailed from, and in western country you never just up and asked a man his business or where he come from. You just waited until he told you, if he was of a mind to. Yet I could try.

  “How’s things back east?” I asked.

 
“Times are hard,” he said. He studied me coolly, and I felt the thin edge of fear, and it angered me. I told myself I was foolish, that I was afraid of nothing. Besides, why should I fear him? Or anybody? Yet something about him haunted me, and it may have been his resemblance to pa.

  “You and your father,” he asked, “have you been here long?”

  “We move around,” I replied. “A man takes work where he can find it.”

  “Your pa now? He was from back east?”

  I chuckled. “Ain’t ever’body? Nobody come from this country but Indians, and from what they tell me they came from somewhere else, too.”

  He threw me a hard glance. He didn’t like me any better than I liked him, and as we talked back and forth he would come out with a question or, more often, just some leading comment. He was fishing for information, and I wasn’t giving him any. Truth to tell, I knew mighty little about pa. I’d never guessed how little until he was gone, and with him the chance of learning more.

  Now, maybe I’m only seventeen, but most of my years been spent working around over the mountains or desert and plains country, and I’d learned a thing or two. This man carried a six-shooter, that was plain to see, but he carried a sleeve gun, too, one of them gambler’s hideout guns, derringer type that fires two shots. Mighty good for close action across a card table. I noticed it because of the way he favored his right wrist when he put it down on the table and the way he held his arm. Only a mite different, but to somebody who knows it was plain enough.

  “Staying in town?” he asked, finally.

  “For a while. I been up in the hills so long I’m growin’ grass in my ears. I want to just set and look at the street for a while.”

  He didn’t like that, and I had an idea—I don’t really know why—that he wanted me away from there.

  “Too bad,” he said, casually, “I thought we might ride down the country together.”

  “Ain’t good weather for travelin’,” I said. “It’s too durned cold to suit me.”

  I was itching to get away from him, but I had an idea he might just pick up and follow me. Yet I was curious, too, and wanted to know more about him. If he was some kin of pa’s, I might learn something about pa from him, or about pa’s family.

  Yet every instinct I had told me this man was dangerous, and more than that, he was evil. He had the look about his eyes and mouth of a man who was short-tempered and cruel. And I trust my instincts.

  His manners were those of a gentleman, but fine manners do not make a fine man, and I was alert for any clue as to what he planned, where he was from, or where he planned to go. He was no miner—that much I could see—nor was he a cowhand. A gambler? Well…maybe.

  The girl with the freckles was watching me, and she seemed bothered by something. After a bit I finished my coffee and pushed back my chair.

  “I’m almighty tired,” I said. “Good night.”

  I arose abruptly and, without so much as a glance back, I left the room. I had moved quickly, hoping to catch him kind of off balance, and that was just what I done. It hadn’t seemed like I was fixing to move, but looked like I was going to set for a spell, which was how I’d wanted it to look. I wasted no time in the lobby but went right upstairs to my room. Once inside, I shut the door and put a chair under the knob so’s it couldn’t be opened.

  It was in my mind to open the window, get out, and leave, taking out of there just as fast as I could travel, but it was a miserable night and I was bone-tired.

  The thought that come to me was almost as good. He didn’t know what horse I’d been riding, because he’d been in town for some time before I arrived and had no reason to be curious about me until I walked into that eating room and spoke to him.

  I’d been cold before and could be again, so I opened my window wide and then got into bed.

  The wind blew through that window, icy cold, and I done some shivering. Must have been an hour later somebody tried the door, turning the knob real slow and careful. The door didn’t give because I had that chair under the knob, and after a minute or two the knob was released and all was quiet. About that time he seemed to get the message of that cold wind comin’ from under the door, because of a sudden I heard a kind of an exclamation and then quickly retreating footsteps. After a minute I heard the sound of a horse ridden rapidly down the street. Cheerfully, I closed the window and got back into bed.

  There were two ways I could have gone if I’d left town by the trail, and he’d have to check them both out. Meanwhile I’d get some sleep.

  Lying there in bed, I studied about it. This man, whoever he was, had tried my door—leastwise, I could think of nobody else who might try it. He had seemed suspicious of me, and he resembled pa. Now, what did all that amount to?

  Exactly nothing, except that man had apparently ridden out of town trying to overtake me, thinking I’d flown the coop.

  Why?

  Pa was dead, murdered by somebody. Somebody who was either Judge Blazer or one of his friends, or who was somebody else. If it was somebody else, he hadn’t murdered pa to rob him, because Blazer did that, or tried to.

  Suppose Blazer hadn’t murdered pa, but just found him murdered and took advantage of the chance? That sounded more like Blazer.

  Then that implied somebody else had done it, somebody who didn’t even know pa had all that money, and from his looks and the state of his clothes, figured he hadn’t anything worth taking.

  If that was the case, it had to be somebody who had known pa before, somebody from out of his past.

  “That’s storybook stuff,” I said aloud. “You got no reason to think anything of the kind.”

  Why would anybody from pa’s past want him dead? Pa hadn’t been east in years (if that was where he come from), and so far as I knew, he’d had no letters from yonder.

  All of which left me nowhere but asleep. When I opened my eyes with daybreak, the thought was still in my mind but had gotten nowhere.

  After washing up a mite and brushing my clothes as much as I could, I combed my hair slick and went down to the lobby. All was quiet and there was nobody around, so I stepped over to the desk and turned that register around and looked at it.

  There was my name, and above it—the only one who had checked in during the last three days—was the name Felix Yant. It was a name that meant nothing to me, and I had an idea it was a name the man had assumed. Yet what was his purpose?

  The restaurant was empty, but there was a rustle of sound from the kitchen and an occasional rattle of dishes. I pulled back a chair, rather noisily, and sat down. I wanted to eat and get out.

  The girl with the freckles looked in and then came quickly over. “You’re early. Not much is ready, but we can make you some flapjacks.”

  “Fine. How about some eggs?”

  “I’ll see.” She hesitated. “Did you know that man who sat with you?”

  “Never saw him before.” I looked up at her. “Do you know him?”

  “No, but he told my aunt he was looking for mining properties. He rides out a good deal.”

  “In this weather? Seems a bad time to look for a mine, when the ground’s covered with snow and you can’t even see how it lays or what the formations are.”

  “We thought so, too.”

  She brought coffee and, after a little while, a stack of hot-cakes and maple syrup. “We’ve got some eggs. My aunt says you can have them.” She hesitated again. “She likes you.”

  “Well, that’s a help. Maybe I should stick around.”

  “There isn’t much work.” She lingered. “This is mostly mining around here, and some lumbering. Over the mountain and to the south there’s cattle. Are you a cowboy?”

  “I’m whatever I need to be to get a job,” I said, “but I’ve put by a little.”

  She looked at me thoughtfully, for it was a rare man in those days who thought of tomorrow while punching cows. I didn’t feel it necessary to explain that it wasn’t my saving that had provided the money. Still, come to think of
it, it had been my capital. Thinking of that made me feel better, and for the first time it seemed maybe I was entitled to that money.

  “I’m Teresa,” she said. “Sometimes they call me Terry.”

  “My name’s McRaven. Kearney McRaven. And sometimes they call me just anything they can think of.” I grinned at her. “I ain’t seen such a pretty girl in a long time.”

  She flushed up a mite but she liked it, too. I was no hand at making talk with womenfolks, but pa, he’d always had a friendly way about him. “Say something nice to them,” he told me once, “and particularly waitresses and such people. You’ve got to remember they put in a long, hard day, and many people grumble a lot. It does no harm to speak a friendly word.”

  Well, I was willing. Fact is, I could have been more than friendly with that there Teresa if I knowed how to go about it.

  “He ever talk much?”

  She knew who I meant, all right. “No…scarcely at all. But he watches. Nothing that happens around him happens without his seeing it.” And just at that minute he came in.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully enough. “You rise early.”

  “On a cow ranch you’re up before the sun,” I said. “I was never no hand to lie abed, anyway.”

  Felix Yant was what his name was? Should that mean anything to me? I hadn’t heard the name before, so far as I could recall, and my recall was pretty good, yet the man worried me. I felt he knew more about me than he had any use for, and I didn’t like it. Gave me a feeling of being watched.

  He seemed friendly enough, and began to talk of the mountains, the trees, then got to comparing these mountains with those back east. I listened mighty sharp, wanting to pick up a clue.

  He had hands like a gambler. They were slender and white, beautiful hands, actually. I suspect he was what is called a gentleman, but I had a feeling if he was, it was more by birth than by instinct. Yet he was an interesting talker, and once started he could hold a body spellbound.