Bendigo Shafter (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 6

  We drove off, my wagon taking the lead, into the blowing snow. Within fifty yards we had lost sight of our town. Ahead of us was a cold drive that could bring death to the four of us.

  Tom Croft was riding with Webb.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  RUTH MACKEN’S HORSES were good stock and in better shape than most because of the grass on that bench where she had chosen to settle, which was almost as good as in the meadow below. Her horses grazed in the meadow with the other stock, then grazed on her bench when the meadow grass thinned out.

  We wanted horses because they were faster than oxen and more likely to find their way home if we became lost. None of us doubted the possibility.

  Webb had a good, strong team, and he had worked them a good deal, hauling water from the falls. We had used our wagons for little else since arriving at the town site. Ruth Macken had water at her door, and I was thinking on a way to actually bring it into the house; the rest of us hauled water in barrels.

  Actually, where we got the water wasn’t a fall. It was too small to be called that, just a place where the creek spilled over a rock ledge high enough to set barrels under for filling.

  We used to take a wagon loaded with four to six barrels and fill them to the brim. A good bit of water slopped over the side, turning that stretch of road into an icy pavement higher than the ground on either side by more than a foot.

  It was a little more than a mile to the falls, which were near the main trail. The road home from the falls was along the trail except a few yards at the beginning.

  When we had come down off the bench to make our start, Cain and Helen met us with several covered buckets. “Bendigo, this is soup,” Helen said. “Now there isn’t a lot here, so share it sparingly, but if you heat it when you get there it will give them warmth and strength for the ride.”

  It was cold. The wind was raw off the mountains, and the snow was thin and icy. We could feel the ruts under the wagons. Ethan had given us careful directions, and we held to a steady gait.

  It was two hours short of daybreak before we actually got started, and we checked time by Webb’s big silver watch. It was all of twelve miles to where the Mormon folk were camped, which meant three to four hours each way…if we were lucky.

  Bud walked up and down the wagon behind me, beating his arms about him in the “teamster’s warming” and stamping his feet to keep them from freezing. Both of us wore buffalo-hide coats and fur caps with ear laps. Mine had been given to me by Ruth Macken. It had been her husband’s cap, but it fitted snug and fine. By the time we had been an hour on the road nothing was warm anymore.

  When we stopped for the third time to give the horses a breather, Webb walked up to join us. “I don’t like it, Ben. We’ve got ruts to follow now, but if the snow keeps falling they’ll be buried too deep by the time we start back.”

  “We’ll make it,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. Much of the country we had to cross was a great, wide plain. To the south it stretched away for mile upon empty mile where the wind had a full sweep. If a man got off the trail he might never find it again.

  “Check the time it takes us,” I suggested, “and we’ll watch the time as we start back.”

  The sky turned gray, and I could see the lead horses again. All around us the ground was white, an unbroken expanse of snow.

  “Bendigo?” Bud said. “Can we walk for a while? I think my feet are freezing.”

  “Good idea.” I pulled up and got down. Webb came forward again, and he nodded when I said we were going to walk.

  His was a narrow, dark face but his eyes were cold and gray. With a stubble of beard showing where his handlebar mustache wasn’t, he looked both cold and cruel. I thought then, as often before, that he was a better man to have with you than against you.

  We knew nothing about him; only that he came from Missouri. He had a good outfit, but on the wagon train he made no friends, and his son made enemies quickly. Foss was large for his age with the instincts of a bully. Webb had none of that, so far as one could see. He minded his own affairs and worked hard, yet there was no friendliness in him.

  He glanced at Bud. “How you makin’ it, boy? My Foss was about to come. Backed out at the last minute.”

  “Maybe he was smarter than I was, Mr. Webb. I just didn’t know when I was well-off.”

  “You’re game,” Webb said. “I like that in a man.”

  We walked on. My face was stiff with cold, and ice gathered on the muffler near my mouth. I wished I had wolverine fur, which Ethan told me wouldn’t collect ice.

  We saw their smoke before we saw them. They were huddled together behind some canvas windbreaks they’d raised against the wind, their handcarts standing about.

  Never in my born days did I see a more woebegone, miserable-looking lot of folks. Shivering with cold, they stood up to greet us; you never saw people more ill-equipped to face such weather. I didn’t know whether to admire them for their faith and courage or to think them downright crazy.

  They stared at us, hollow-eyed and unbelieving. Bud and I got down and carried the soup over to them while Webb turned the wagons and Tom Croft rustled firewood to heat up the soup.

  “Do you come from Brigham?”

  Turning my head, I looked at the tall, gaunt man in a flimsy cloth coat. He had an odd lilt to his voice that I took to be some kind of an English accent.

  “No. We come from up the trail a piece. We haven’t much ourselves, but our friend told us of you and we’ve come to help.”

  “The man who brought the meat? May the Lord bless him. May the Lord bless you all.”

  “We can’t take your gear. Tell them to get what food you have and your clothes and guns. We’ll take you to our town and you can return for your gear later.”

  He hesitated. “But it is all we have!”

  “No, sir. You have your lives. You can always come back and get your goods.”

  Hungry and cold though they were, they were of no mind to leave their belongings, but there were twenty-nine of them, and we had but two wagons.

  While they ate soup Webb and I rinsed the buckets and heated water for the horses to drink, covering them with blankets while we waited.

  Their camp showed how little these people knew. None of them had reflectors for their fires, and they had brushed back the snow, exposing the frozen earth. The snow itself would have been a lot warmer, and reflectors built of sticks or earth would have thrown a lot of the heat back into their faces.

  They were a thin, scrawny lot, wearied to death from walking in the cold. Two of them left bloody tracks on the snow where they stepped.

  “Neely was right,” Webb said, “they’ll eat us out of house and home. Two or three days and we’ll be out of grub ourselves, feeding this lot. It was a fool notion.”

  “Sorry you came?”

  “No. I came because I wanted to.”

  “You’re a good man, Webb.”

  He was startled. “Don’t you never think it. I’m a pretty poor sort of man, and a mean one to boot.” He was serious, I could see that.

  Yet I was learning something about Webb. Hard, bitter, and irritable as he was, he was a man who rose to an emergency. He might not agree with a thing you said or planned to do, but if it demanded strength and courage he would not be left out.

  Nor was it a matter of pride, so far as I could see; it was simply that he was geared to trouble. There was no yield in him. He was a pusher, a man geared to last stands. He might have sneered at the patriots, derided the noble feelings, but he would have been at Valley Forge. He would have gone into the Alamo with old Ben Milam.

  There was one newborn baby among the Mormons, and there were several youngsters too small for walking. One man had his foot bandaged and used trail-made crutches.

  Their leader, Hammersmith, said he couldn’t leave the carts. “Maybe we could tie them behind the wagons.”

  “Mister,” I said impatiently, “if we get back home we’ll be
lucky. The wagons will be overloaded even if half of you folks walk. If you want to go with us, get in the wagon. Let Brigham worry about your goods.”

  My wagon led off again, and Webb was right. We would have trouble with the trail. No sooner were we out of the hollow than I pulled up and walked back to Webb. “How long did it take us to get here?”

  “Better than four hours. Closer to five.”

  “And we were empty then, and there was only about half the snow.” I studied it over. “You check your watch,” I said, “and when we’ve put in four hours we’d better do some considering.”

  “Take us twice the time, I’m thinking. We won’t be nowhere close in four hours.”

  We couldn’t see the sun, but his watch was clear enough. It was noon now, and it would be long after dark before we got back.

  The faint tracks of our coming still remained, and we followed them, but when another hour had gone by they had faded; once in a while in a sheltered place we would come upon some sign.

  Bud and I got down to walk.

  There was nothing to look at but snow. Mile after mile we plodded on. Most of the Mormon men were walking, and even a couple of the women. They had talked among themselves, had learned how far we had to go, and how heavy the going was. My hands and feet grew numb, and I had to stomp my feet and club my hands together to keep the blood circulating.

  At the top of a small hill where we stopped to give the horses a breathing space, Webb walked back to me. He had taken over the lead to spare my horses. His face was a mask, and there was ice on his mustache.

  He spoke in a low tone so nobody could hear. “We’re off the trail, Ben.”

  “How long d’you think?”

  “No idea.”

  It was like standing in a white cave, with snow falling around us and no way to see out.

  “If those folks get the idea we’re lost, they’ll be scared.”

  “They mustn’t know.”

  I was thinking back. We had not come far with the heavy pull for the horses and frequent stops. It had been desperately hard to keep to the trail, but I figured we were somewhere on the divide between Strawberry and Rock Creek. We might cross Strawberry without knowing it, but the chances were slight. Rock Creek was another proposition. Most of its banks were steep and if we didn’t see them in time we might have a bit of trouble.

  We figured to be heading north, but were we? The wind was, or had been, from the north. Now it was blowing against the right eye and ear. Had we altered course, or had the wind changed?

  We walked out in front and kicked away the snow. Grass. Stiff, brown, frozen grass. We kicked around in a circle, but all we found was grass.

  Which way to turn? We daren’t stop hunting the trail because we might not find our way back. Nor could we risk another night in the open with these people. At least two of them were in bad shape.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “You chancin’ it?”

  “If I recall, the country west of the trail slopes off a bit, so if the teams did any drifting it would likely be downhill. Not that there’s much difference.”

  So we started again, knowing we might be making the wrong move. We’d traversed several dips and hollows some time before and might have crossed a creek without being aware of it.

  We took it slow. Bud spelled me on the lines, and he was a fair hand. Twice we stopped and scraped down to grass…the snow was almost a foot deep now.

  “Are we lost, Bendigo?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Ma will be worried.”

  When we stopped for a breather there was no sound but the occasional rattle of trace chains. Suddenly I made the decision that had been nagging at me for some time. “You handle the team, Bud. I’m going out front.”

  Walking up to Webb, I said, “Hold up for a while. I’m going to scout around.”

  “You’ll get lost.”

  “I’ll walk left two hundred paces. My tracks won’t fill before I get back. Then I’ll do the same thing on the other side.”

  The wind was stirring again, and the snow was falling heavily. A man could see thirty or forty feet ahead of his team, but no more.

  I walked slowly, feeling the ground with my feet at each step. Swirling flakes were all about me, and my tracks filled faster than I had thought they would. By the time I got back the ones I’d made first were half-filled with blown or falling snow. There was no luck to the other side, either.

  We drove on for half an hour, the horses making hard work of it in the deepening snow and with their increasing load, as more and more of the walkers played out and had to be taken aboard. Yet I felt sure the horses were climbing as well as pulling, and if they were climbing there was a good chance we were going right.

  At our next halt both Webb and I walked out, one to either side. We feared now that we might drive right on by our turnoff and never see it. There was nothing west of us for more than a hundred miles.

  If we had to stop for camp there was no fuel here and we’d have to burn the wagons for warmth.

  “It’s rocky,” Webb said, “I think we’re going right.”

  “I think so, too, but so much of this country is rocky and rough.”

  The wind was rising. One of the horses slipped to its knees. We got the horse up and started on, but I slipped and fell. I fell hard, and cold as I was it was no fun. When I got up and brushed myself off I called to Webb. “There was ice beneath that snow.”

  He and Croft came back. We kicked the snow away. It was ice, all right. Thick ice and the tracks of wagons.

  “We’re all right,” I said, “we’ve found the water trail.”

  “The what?”

  “Where water spilled, hauling from the falls.”

  Beneath the snow the roadbed was built up from many spillings and sloppings until it stood six to eight inches above ground level. Once we got the horses up on the road it was easy to know when one of them stepped off into the deeper snow.

  We could see nothing. The wind was blowing a gale by now, whipping the wagon covers and blowing snow into our faces. Suddenly Bud yelled, “There’s a light!”

  The horses, sensing the barn was close, buckled down to pulling. I cracked the whip like a pistol shot above their heads and yelled.

  Slowly the cabins took shape through the blowing snow, and nothing ever looked so good as to swing up to Cain’s cabin and see them all come rushing out into the snow. It wasn’t until we got into the cabin that Webb showed me his watch. We had been eleven hours coming back.

  Cain, Sampson, Foss, and Stuart unharnessed the horses, rubbed them down, and fed them warmed up water and hay. They had put in a long, hard day in cold and snow.

  Those tired, exhausted Mormons were brought inside and fed, then bedded down. We hadn’t much, but we would share what we did have. The Widow Macken did most of it.

  She had clothing and blankets to sell in the spring, and she outfitted several of those who were worse off and provided blankets for sleeping.

  One of them, a lean, long boy of about my own age, thrust out a hand to me. “Thank you, sir. You’ve been our saving.”

  “You thank Webb, Bud, and Croft,” I told him. “They did as much as me.”

  I was beat. I was surely tired. When I’d eaten a bit of hot soup I crawled into the loft and stretched out flat, falling asleep without even pulling off my boots. Later, Lorna did it for me.

  When I fell asleep it was to the murmur of the voices down below, those people we’d saved, and I was glad, glad all through me that we’d done it. Yet there was an awful sinking in me, too, for they would eat, those folks, and we had nothing to spare. The winter months stretched long and frightening before us.

  Ethan and I, we’d have to go out and hunt. We’d have to go far afield and risk trouble with Indians to find game.

  If there was any.

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  OF THE MORMONS, who stayed with us five days, I came to know only one, the lean, tall young ma
n whose name was Truman Trask.

  On the fifth day the wagons came from Salt Lake, six big wagons with blankets, food, whatever was needed. Ethan saw them coming and rode out to meet them, who were fearful they would find only the frozen, starved bodies of their people.

  They left us sugar, flour, and tea, although not nearly as much as we’d used in helping, and we saw them away on the morning of the seventh day, all of us standing out in the weather to watch them go. Within the hour, with the storm blown out, Ethan and I were on our snowshoes hunting game.

  We went into the mountains, hoping to find some sheltered park where the game had holed up, but until night was almost on us we saw nary a track, and both of us were scared. We had hungry folks back home, folks wanting meat and trusting us to get it for them.

  We found a sheltered place, built a lean-to and a reflector, chewed on some jerky, and ate some cold flour mixed with warm water. There we sat, talking of many things until the night was late for lonely hunters.

  It was warmer next day and we found our way into a wide, deep canyon. The stream was frozen over, but there was snow melting on the south side of some pines. The air was bright and clear, and we began to see deer tracks, and of a sudden, the tracks of a bear.

  Bears hibernate in winter, but unless they fatten up real good they’re apt to come out when the weather warms up and try to find something to eat; then they’ll go back and hole up again.

  We found where he’d dug into the snow after roots and such. Given a chance bears will stick to a diet of bugs, grass, roots, and berries. They kill small animals occasionally, but with the exception of the grizzly they rarely kill for meat; even more rarely will they bother a man. This one was a grizzly. We knew that from the extra-long claws on the forefeet.

  We followed him up Twin Creek until he turned up a canyon along Deep Creek. “Let’s look for something else,” Ethan suggested, “this one’s poorly. If he was fat he wouldn’t be out.” And then he added, “I never much liked to kill bears, anyhow.”