Novel 1968 - Down The Long Hills (v5.0) Page 8

  After a little while he moved out from camp and sat down in the darkness to listen.

  This was Indian country, although not very many Indians were wandering now. At any time snow could close the country in, and any Indian in his right mind preferred the warmth of his lodge and a squaw to feed him and keep his fire going. The Utes, the Bannocks, the Cheyennes and the Blackfeet all rode through here. The Shoshone too, for that matter; and occasionally, in good weather, the Crows.

  The air was clear, and the night was cold. On such nights, and in such air, sound carried a long distance, so Scott sat out there alone and listened. What he feared was that if the children were alive they might be carried off by some wandering party of Indians. The Utes might take them far down into Colorado or Utah; the Cheyennes might go back north to the mountains.

  The stars were very bright. Once he heard a beaver tail slap the still waters of his pond, and a wolf howled. It was not a coyote…that was a wolf, a big one, a timber wolf.

  There was that to worry about, too. Many a wild animal that would not dare attack a man might attack a child.

  At daybreak he was back at camp; Darrow was putting together some breakfast. Around the campfire they worked out the events that had taken place.

  “Horse throwed him an’ got away,” Squires said. After a while he added, “Those youngsters got away, too. Seems like.”

  Scott looked at Squires. “You read it the way I do?” he asked.

  “Looks like your boy got some rough treatment, near’s a body can see. Thing is, they all got away. Now, if that horse was a mustang he’d trace that boy. I see a mustang foller a trail like a bloodhound.”

  “Red does all right. I’ve seen him follow the boy when he went hunting. Did you ever see a horse like to go hunting?”

  “Uh-huh. Had a pony one time who’d come up behind me an’ hang his head right over my shoulder when I was about to shoot.”

  “How long ago?” Scott queried, indicating the sign. “Two days?”

  “Looks like. No longer’n three. We gained on ’em some, I figure.”

  On the slope above the camp they lost all trace of the two children. Leaving one of the clumps of aspen, they had come out on a wide shelf of native rock swept free of soil by a long-ago landslide. The two children had gone across that rock like ghosts, and left no trail behind.

  “What do we do now?” Darrow asked.

  “Try to find the stallion. He’s pretty sure to be with the children.”

  “I’d like to come up to those men,” Collins said grimly.

  “I know one of ’em,” Darrow admitted suddenly. “I can’t place ’im, but I know ’im.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know myself, except that I was in a camp with one of those men sometime or other. I recognized the way things were around camp…you know, a man gets into habits.”

  “You can’t recall his name? It might help.”

  “I’ll think of it. It’ll come to me.”

  They rode on. Now the trail was more difficult to follow, for the two riders had spread out, trying to find the stallion’s hoofprints.

  “It’s familiar country,” Bill Squires commented. “We made rendezvous one time just south of Horse Creek near the Green. Near as I can recall it was July, 1837. That’s eleven years ago now, but it don’t seem so long a time.”

  He squinted his eyes at the mountains. “We better find those youngsters quick. She’s comin’ on to cold.”

  “We’ll find them. I can feel it now,” Collins said.

  It was a lovely land in the crisp autumn air, the sunlight dancing on the creek waters, and the golden aspen twinkling in its rustling movement. Here and there the red of other leaves was like a splash of blood across the flank of the mountain.

  Now the land grew rougher. Deep gorges opening out from the mountain sides were like raw wounds in the earth. Often they saw deer, and once a small herd of elk. There were wolf tracks and cougar tracks, and the marks of beaver teeth.

  “We nearly trapped ’em out in the spring of ’37 and the fall of ’36,” Squires said. “We had to keep an eye out for Blackfeet too. They were cruising this country, and there was no friendship amongst us in those days.

  “I was with Joe Meek, Osborne Russell, and them when we had the big fight. They nearly licked us, too. And nearly everybody in those times had ’im a brush with grizzlies. Russell and me come up a stream up Yellowstone way…I forget the year…and saw eight or nine grizzlies standin’ up on their hind legs jest a-eatin’ berries for all they was worth. They paid us no mind, just went on eatin’.”

  Scott Collins drew up. He could see the tracks of the children clearly enough, and superimposed on them the tracks of the stallion.

  “Red’s trailing them!” he called to Squires, who had ridden off a few feet to check the earth around a flat stone.

  “They rested a while here,” Squires said. “I figured when I saw that rock, ‘Now, if I was a boy, an’ tired, where would I set?’ An’ sure enough, there they’d been.”

  Scott leaned over and looked at the tracks when he drew alongside. He was a man very easy in his movements, but quick to move when the occasion demanded. He studied the ground while Squires offered a running commentary.

  “The little one, she’s tried. Draggin’ her feet more’n we’ve been seein’ her do. But look there now. The boy’s got himself some sort of pack. See where he put it down?”

  Squires chuckled. “You know what I’m thinkin’? That boy snuck back into their camp whilst they hunted ’im, an’ he made off with some of their grub. Leastways, that’s what I hope he done.”

  They followed along. Scott Collins took the lead now. He fought back the worry that rode him relentlessly, trying to keep an objective view so he would not be persuaded one way or the other. A man could read both too much and too little into a trail, and until now the children had been both fortunate in finding a little something to eat, and unfortunate in those they met, animal or man.

  He could hope, yet he dared not let himself hope too much. “I’ll find them,” he told himself. “I’ve got to find them.” He remembered to be proud of his son. The boy had learned his lessons well, and was recalling now things he needed to know.

  In midafternoon they lost the trail at a small stream. It was gone completely where a herd of elk had wandered across it and, perhaps frightened by something, had milled about a good deal. Then they had wandered on, leaving no sign behind that helped.

  The men searched across the grass of the meadow, cropped over and trodden by deer and elk, and apparently even by a few buffalo, rare in that region. They found nothing they could identify as a track of horse or man. Once, near a bush, they thought they found what might have been a moccasin print, one vague side of a footprint which they could not decide upon as human. Children, horse, and their pursuers had vanished as if caught up by the wind.

  Scattered out, the three men rode on. They had seen trails peter out before, and had found them again, so they were not too discouraged. There was still good grass, and the streams running off the mountain were clear and bright, but they found no place where a horse had fed, and no horse tracks along the streams where they searched.

  “I got to be pullin’ out soon.” Frank Darrow spoke reluctantly. A gruff, hard-bitten man, he held few illusions and only one loyalty…that was to his friends. “I got to think of my stock, with winter comin’ on.” He glanced at Scott. “Ain’t like I want to leave you in the lurch.”

  “I know it, Frank. You go along when you’re ready.”

  Their camp was somber that night, and there was no talk around the fire. All three were now feeling depressed by losing the trail and not finding it again as they had expected.

  “They turned off,” Darrow said. “I figure they turned off somewheres, the whole kit an’ kaboodle of ’em.”

  They discussed the possibilities, weighing each one. They had to put themselves in the minds of the children, had to imagine what they
would do.

  “I doubt they’d tackle the mountain,” Squires said. “It looks almighty hard.”

  “Hardy might,” Scott said after a moment. “He always liked to climb, and he might try to go where they’d not expect him to go. And he’d try his best to point toward Bridger.”

  None of them wanted to turn back now, but all of them felt they had come too far, and so at last they turned away from the camp. With every step Scott worried for fear they were abandoning his son and the child of his friend. He knew, as they all did, that the time for searching with any hope was almost at an end. It was time for the winter storms to sweep through the valley, to cloak the mountains with snow; and then no lightly clad child could be expected to live.

  There was no question of hurrying, for to hurry now meant losing the trail completely, a trail more difficult to find with every passing hour.

  Scott Collins knew this land, and loved it, but he knew every danger it offered. He knew, too, the ways to avoid trouble and the ways to survive. You could not war against the wilderness; to live in it one must become a part of it, make oneself one with the trees and the wind, the streams and the plants, the cold and the heat, yielding a little always, but never too much.

  Now, for the first time, he really appreciated the hard struggle he and Hardy had had to live at all. Nothing had been easy on the farm where Hardy had begun growing up. One survived only through work and because of work. At night when cold winter winds howled about their cabin, it had been warm and snug inside, but only because of the care with which he had built it. He had done nothing slip-shod, everything had been done with as meticulous care as possible.

  He had shaped each beam, notched each log, placed each stone of the fireplace with his own hands, and he had fitted them tightly, knowing the icy fingers of the cold would find every crack, every crevice.

  He had always been a careful workman, and he had tried to give Hardy the one thing that is needed above all, a sense of responsibility. He had sometimes wished that Hardy need not come to the forest with him when it was cold, or when it was too hot. He had wished the boy might have had it a bit easier, but now he was glad he had not.

  Hardy had learned in a hard school, where the tests are given by savage Indians, by bitter cold, by hunger. These were tests where the result was not just a bad mark if one failed. The result was a starved or frozen body somewhere, forgotten in the wilderness.

  THE MEN RODE into a basin where a large lake lay at the bottom of a depression north of the Sweetwater. Scott put a fire together, while Squires set about rustling some grub. Scott had killed a deer that morning, so they did not lack for meat.

  Frank Darrow rode out from camp. Two hours later, when the others had eaten, he rode in and swung down, stripping the gear from his horse.

  “Picked up some sign,” he said over a cup of coffee. “That red stallion had himself a drink t’other side of the lake.”

  “Any other sign?” Scott was almost afraid to ask. “Are the youngsters with him?”

  Frank Darrow took a big bite of frying pan bread, and chewed methodically, while Bill Squires’s eyes started to twinkle.

  “Uh-huh,” Darrow said, no longer able to repress a grin. “They’re with ’im. Somehow or t’other they found each other. It was yestiddy mornin’, near as a body could figure.”

  He gulped hot coffee. “We got to hurry,” he said. “Those others weren’t far behind ’em.” And after a minute he added, “The stallion’s got a saddle on him now, so the kid can get up on him when he’s of a mind to. So one o’ them others is ridin’ bareback…I seen the place where he mounted up again.”

  “Maybe tomorrow then,” Squires said. “I’m lookin’ forward to meetin’ up with those gents.”

  Chapter 9

  NOBODY WAS IN camp when Hardy Collins crawled up through the brush and studied the layout. He waited long enough to be sure it was not a trap; to wait longer might give them time to return. He did not ask himself if he was doing a wrong thing, for the men had talked of stealing Big Red and killing Betty Sue and himself. Moreover, the men had plenty of grub, and he did not intend that Betty Sue should go hungry when bad men had more than enough.

  He planned every move before he started from the brush, and once he emerged in the open he worked swiftly. A slab of bacon into a burlap sack, a pound of coffee, a pound or so of sugar, above five pounds of pilot bread, and maybe four pounds, as near as he could guess, of dried fruit. It made a heavy load, but when he got it to the brush he left it hidden there and returned to camp.

  Hastily, he rummaged through everything, but he could find nothing to shoot with. There was ammunition enough, but…Then he found it—a U.S. Army derringer, .41 caliber. He checked quickly to see if it was loaded, then he stuffed it down in his pocket.

  There was a movement in the brush, and he turned and fled, ducking into the opening in the brush almost without slowing down. Once inside, he took hold of the sack and dragged it after him. On the other side of the heavy growth he shouldered the sack and, keeping to low ground, he worked his way back to where Betty Sue waited. Together they trudged off.

  If Big Red was to find them—and he could find them much more easily than they could find him—they must leave a trail he could follow. To do that, they must, he decided, walk right straight across the valley. In that way the horse would come upon their trail. For Red had run away to the north—at least, he was heading north when last they saw him—so if he started back he must cross their trail.

  Having taken a sighting on a peak, Hardy started off, holding to as straight a course as possible. Betty Sue walked beside him.

  “Get something to eat?” Betty Sue asked, after a while.

  “Don’t you worry. We’ll eat tonight,” Hardy said, “and Big Red will find us. You can figure on it. Why, I can’t number the times he’s traipsed into the woods after me, and sometimes I’d hide out from him, but he’d find me, ever’ time.”

  They went down into the bed of a stream, but this time they did not follow through the water, although it was shallow enough for wading. Instead, they walked through the grass along the banks, and Hardy frequently wetted his feet in the water, hoping to make the scent more lasting.

  When they had gone no more than two miles, Hardy saw Betty Sue lagging. He was afraid to stop so soon, but he knew she could not go any farther. In a deep, wooded hollow near the stream he made a small fire and broiled some bacon over the coals. They ate this, and each of them ate a small piece of the pilot bread. Then they carefully put out the fire, and Hardy led Betty Sue to a thick grove of aspen on the slope above them. Between the aspen and a cluster of rocks they made a bed and lay down.

  The wind blew cold on the mountain, and the aspen leaves rustled. Betty Sue was soon asleep, but Hardy lay awake a long time, listening for Big Red.

  He had always taken responsibilities seriously, but now in the lonely night he was frightened, fearful of the strange sounds, of mysterious rustlings, of the movements of prowling creatures. In the night he thought of pa, and he remembered Mr. Andy and his slow, purposeful ways. Mr. Andy never seemed to hurry, but he was always busy, always getting something done, and he had many skills. As pa said, Mr. Andy was the kind of man the frontier needed.

  Pa himself was a driver. He moved more quickly, but just as surely. He was a man who knew what he wanted, and never stopped working to get it. If he failed along one line, he was always ready to proceed on another.

  Hardy realized that he had learned some good things from pa; one was to do one thing at a time; not to cross bridges until he came to them, but at the same time to try to imagine how he could cross them when the time came. Though he was scared now, he was scared less for himself than for Betty Sue, for it was always in his mind how helpless she would be if anything happened to him.

  He knew she trusted in him, and believed in him completely. And that made him remember something else pa had told him: that a body never knew how strong he could be until somebody expected it of him.<
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  He tried to figure how far they must be from Fort Bridger now. As well as he could figure, they were somewhere in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains, and Bridger was way beyond there. He knew he had to keep out of the mountains, because everybody talked about how awful it was to get snowed in…and snow could come almighty sudden. Tomorrow, when he made the slope of the mountains, he would have to turn and follow along them.

  Betty Sue didn’t talk much. She was so tired when they came to bed down at night that she fell asleep right off, and during the daytime they had to ride quiet most of the time…or walk quiet. He was glad they had not had much talk, for she was always so filled with questions, and he was in no position to answer her questions now. He could not even answer his own.

  But she must not know how frightened he was, or how little he actually could do. She must keep her complete trust in him, for without it she had nothing.

  Somewhere in these thoughts he fell asleep, and for four hours he slept well. When he woke up suddenly it was still dark. Two things had brought him out of his sound sleep. One was the light, feathery, cool touch of a snowflake on his cheek; the other was a sound, the faintest of sounds.

  He lay perfectly still. One hand felt for the pistol tucked in his pocket.

  Another snowflake touched his cheek, and then another, and another.

  He lay there listening. Again he heard a faint stir on the slope below them; something was moving down there, ever so carefully. Very quietly he sat up and tugged on his boots. Betty Sue slept on, shivering a little under his old coat.

  The night was velvety soft, but there were no stars. Nearby the aspens whispered to the gentle wind. Hardy waited, his heart pounding, listening for the surreptitious movements on the slope below them. At last, shivering with cold, he lay down again and cuddled close to Betty Sue.

  But he did not stay there long, for he thought of the snow falling, and of the tracks they would leave. They could not be very far from where Cal and Jud had camped. The thought gave him an idea, and he sat up again, listening.