Lost Trails Page 9

Nate shrugged. “I wouldn’t turn down either.”

  “Tie up your horse then, and I’ll get you somethin’.”

  Seated on a log with a tin plate balanced on his lap, Nate broke apart a biscuit and poured a dab of molasses on each half. “Well, what’s new?”

  “Not much with me. Heard about you, though.”

  “Oh, really? What was that?”

  “Heard they come callin’ for you one morning, while you were still in bed.”

  “That they did.”

  “Heard it was Canton and Elliott and two others.”

  “I knew Elliott for certain, and I’m pretty sure of the rest.”

  “Hah!” Ben poured coffee into a tin cup and then took a seat on the same log. “How about that fella that was bunkin’ with you?”

  “Gilbertson? He’s not much of a fighter. I threw what lead I could.”

  “You didn’t get anyone, though?”

  “I drew some blood on someone, but that’s all I know.”

  “These big cattlemen just don’t want you independents to have your own roundup, do they?”

  “If that was all it was. But there’s other bad blood, and it just got worse when they couldn’t get me.”

  “You mean Tisdale.”

  “He had an old grudge against Canton, from back in the Texas days. First thing I did, when I could see they weren’t comin’ after me again, was ride across country to his place. Soon as I got there, I told him, ‘There’s goin’ to be trouble.’ He was worried, I could tell, and there was his wife—she hadn’t had the baby yet—but he said, ‘By God, if we’ve got to fight, that’s what we do.’”

  “And he didn’t live to see Christmas.”

  “No, and sometimes I think it’s my fault.”

  “For goin’ to tell him?”

  “More than that. Not long after these fellas tried to jump me, John Tisdale and I run into Make Shonsey.”

  “That two-faced sonofabitch.”

  “The same. Well, I knew that Shonsey knew who took the shots at me, because I tracked ’em back to a camp right next to the NH, where he’s foreman. And he’d been by, all smiles, just the day before. So I knew he knew, and I made him say all four names in front of John Tisdale, in case something happened to me.”

  “So Shonsey talked?”

  “He had to.” Nate patted the grip of his six-gun. “But he hated to say it in front of John, who despised Canton already.”

  “Well, hell, then, it just gave Frank one more reason to shoot him in the back.”

  “Seems like it now, and no one doubts that Canton shot him. But you’ve got a man who salted his alibi every way he could, and eyewitnesses afraid to stick to their story.”

  “Should be an open-and-shut case.”

  Nate took a drink of coffee. “Not when you’ve got all the big mucky-mucks on your side. He walks free on the first warrant, and the governor won’t have him brought back from Illinois on the second one.”

  The older man took out a pipe and began scraping the bowl with his jackknife. “Maybe they think they’ve gone far enough.”

  “No tellin’.” Nate started on the second half of his biscuit. “How long you been trappin’ over this way?”

  “’Bout a month.”

  “Catchin’ mostly what?”

  “Coyotes.” Ben turned the pipe upside down and rapped it on the log.

  Nate decided to take a chance. “Seen anything of Spangler?”

  “He sold out to Irvine.”

  Nate stopped with the biscuit halfway to his mouth. “He did?”

  “Yep. Sold what he could and moved to Douglas.” The older man made a crackling sound as he blew air through the stem of his pipe. “His wife had a little one, you know. He moved ’em into a town.”

  “Not afraid of the trouble, I wouldn’t think. He’s careful to stay on good terms with everyone. When did he move?”

  “‘Long about a month ago.”

  “Huh.”

  Ben stuffed fresh tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. “You fellas still gonna go ahead with your independent roundup, eh?”

  Nate ran his tongue around to clean his teeth. “I suppose so. You can’t say you’re goin’ to do somethin’, and then not do it.”

  “That’s right. And you got Jack Flagg and all the Hat boys behind you.”

  “Sure. That’s all fine and good, if your friends are around. But even when they are, if it comes to the scratch, it’s what a man can do for himself. He’s got to. He just hopes he gets a chance, more than some did.”

  The older man lit his pipe and smoked in silence while Nate finished the second biscuit.

  “Want more coffee?”

  “No, thanks. I should probably move on.”

  Ben looked at the sky. “Don’t let me keep you. Be dark sooner’n you know.”

  “Hate to be in a hurry.”

  “Not at all. Make use of the daylight.”

  Nate stood up. “Well, I thank you for the grub.”

  “Wasn’t much.”

  “It was good all the same.” Nate shook the grounds out of his cup. “If you and Bill get over to the KC, don’t be shy. I’m stayin’ in the cabin there, and you fellas are always welcome.”

  “That’s not where they jumped you?”

  “Nah, that was out on the Bar C. This one’s not so out of the way, and it’s a little more comfortable. Don’t be afraid to stop in.”

  “We won’t.” The old man stood up and took a cheerful puff on his pipe.

  “So long, then.” Nate checked the cinch on his horse and swung aboard. He touched his hat in farewell, then put the buckskin into a trot.

  So Lou Ellen got moved to Douglas. There wasn’t much chance of seeing her again on Blue Horse Mesa, and there was no telling if he would see her elsewhere anytime soon. It always seemed like the real thing when he was with her, but after all she was married, and even if Nate didn’t care much for Spangler, he didn’t like the feeling of doing another man wrong. If he had gone this long without seeing her, maybe it was just as well if it stayed that way.

  On the other hand, he didn’t like to leave things unresolved. She’d had a baby. He needed at least to be able to ask her about that.

  Maybe later. This business with Canton and the others had him looking over his shoulder all the time. When he told John Tisdale there was going to be trouble, he didn’t know how much. He still didn’t.

  Lou Ellen stood at the window and watched the afternoon outside turn gray. One day seemed no different from the next, and she had felt numb, dead of feeling, ever since Chas had moved them to this town. She didn’t think it was the baby. Some women talked about a depressed feeling that set in after giving birth, but this felt like something else. It was as if something had died inside her, something that had kept her going.

  For the last year she had harbored the guilty feeling that came from knowing she could never love her husband as much as she had loved Nate Champion. But the guilt never outweighed the desire, never kept her from wanting to see him again.

  Sometimes he rode a sorrel, sometimes a white horse, most of the time a buckskin, but she always knew him from a distance. She knew his posture, his stocky build set off with a dark hat and a dark shirt. As he came closer, her heart raced. Even with his face shaded by his hat brim, she could make out his full mustache, dark eyebrows, and searching eyes. He reined his horse in and swung down, light as a cat, the white handle on his revolver swaying, the steely blue-gray eyes meeting hers. Then he held her in his arms with all the strength of a man of the earth. When she took him to her, the mingled smells of the felt hat, the wool shirt, and the leather chaps worked like an aphrodisiac.

  How many times? She had not counted, and he said he hadn’t either. It was all open and free, each time unto itself, with no thought of anything ever being different.

  Then she would have to leave. It was always her obligations that brought their meetings to an end. She stretched it, for one minute more, and then she had to hurry away, leav
ing him there on the mesa standing by his horse and holding the reins.

  Back at the ranch house, she would bide her time and count the days until the next visit. Sometimes the thought stole upon her that she might have seen him for the last time, and it chilled her heart. But when the appointed day came around, there he was again, sometimes waiting, sometimes riding across Blue Horse Mesa.

  It was always that way, the cycle of guilt and hope and fear and escape, one more time in his arms, until one day Chas told her he knew.

  She had broken the news about her carrying a child, and he told her he thought it might not be his.

  “You’re not going to see him again,” was the decree.

  “You speak as if you owned me.”

  “I don’t have to. But I’m telling you what you’re not going to do.”

  “And if I decide for myself?”

  “Things will happen otherwise. Believe me.”

  Now she was living in this dusty town, where even the snow was dirty. Chas delivered coal and drank two quarts of beer at home every night. The baby cried. Lou Ellen rinsed the diapers, hung them on the rack to dry, and stared out the window.

  She hadn’t gotten to see him that last time, not even to explain. She had left him waiting. Worse than anything, she did not have the certain feeling that she would see him again to make things right.

  Chas, meanwhile, acted as if nothing had happened. He spoke of Frank Canton, Major Wolcott, and Senator Carey as if they were all old friends. The only one she knew was Canton, who had stopped by the ranch in November. An oily man in a curved-brim hat and a long topcoat, he had a sliding pair of eyes that took in everything. Some friend. If she hadn’t begun to show already, he would have laid a hand on her when Chas went to the outhouse. That was the feeling he gave her. Now Chas said that Canton and Wolcott and some others were coming through on the train, and he hoped he got a chance to see them.

  A few thin snowflakes drifted past the window. She wondered where Nate was at this moment. Probably out on the range somewhere. A thousand times she had imagined him waiting for her the day she stood him up—pacing, fretting, stretching it out for a few more minutes, then swinging onto his buckskin horse and riding back to the Middle Fork. She doubted he had come back to Blue Horse Mesa many more times, but she had the conviction that he had done so at least once before she left the ranch.

  Nate looked out the cabin door and watched the snow come down slantwise. After ten years in this country, he knew storms in early April could be as bad as any. Time to stay by the fire, even if it got a little close with the present company. Nick Ray didn’t have much of an odor himself, but the trappers were like others Nate had known. They got so they couldn’t smell themselves. All the same, it was good to be able to offer them a place to roll out their blankets, and it gave him some comfort to have visitors. Not that company was any guarantee against getting attacked—he had learned that with Gilbertson—but it kept the mind from feeding on other things.

  The old man, Ben, had a fiddle. He would probably play it tonight, and they could sing songs about devil horses and blue-eyed girls.

  Snow was piling up on the tarpaulin that covered the trappers’ wagon. No chores needed to be done. They had a good stack of firewood inside, and the horses had hay. Still, Nate had a restless feeling, as if he should be doing something.

  He closed the door and turned to join the company. The old man sat at the table slicing spuds, and his younger pal, the cowhand Bill Walker, had his stockinged feet propped up on a crate to catch the warmth of the stove. Nick Ray was sewing up a hole on a cotton sack he used for a gear bag.

  “Still comin’ down?” he asked.

  “Kind of bitter,” Nate answered. “Good night to be inside.”

  “Good weather for sleepin’,” said the old man. “Bill here would like to be runnin’ off to town, but I tell him there’s time enough for that.”

  Bill swayed his head from side to side. “Tells me to keep a wrinkle in it, but that’s easier for him than it is for me.”

  “Time you sell your furs,” said Nick, “you’ll still have a while to rustle some petticoats before roundup begins.”

  “That’s my kind of rustlin’.” Bill stopped, then added in a quick breath, “If you’ll excuse my language.”

  “Hell, no,” said Nick. “Bein’ called a rustler in these parts is the next thing to a compliment. What it means is, you don’t kiss the Association’s ass. Call me a rustler, it means no one’s gonna mistake me for a friend of Fred Hesse or W. C. Irvine, much less Mike Shonsey or Frank Canton.”

  Both the trappers gave a little laugh. Nate couldn’t blame them for wanting to stay out of trouble. Come spring, they would want to hire on with an outfit, and chances were that they would work for some member of the Association. But on the hired man’s level, no matter which brand he rode for, a fellow knew that the Association didn’t run things fair and square.

  Anyone who wasn’t a member and owned cattle was presumed to be a rustler; he was blackballed from working for the big outfits. Members could brand mavericks and divvy them up, but a small operator wasn’t supposed to brand even his own strays if they got off his land. That was the thing that galled most—the Wyoming Stock Growers Association claimed the right to rule the open range. Everyone knew it was crooked, but it was nothing for a chuck wagon cook or a circle rider to try to buck against.

  Nate awoke in the cold gray of morning. The other men were still asleep. He could hear their breathing and snuffle-snoring. Someone needed to build up the fire in the stove, and he figured he might as well.

  He dressed in a minute, put on his hat to keep his head warm, and went about starting a fire. As soon as he opened the door on the stove, the old man sat up in bed, his thin hair wisping out. As the one who always had to get up at three in the morning during roundup, he probably thought he should have gotten up first this morning.

  “Go ahead and take it easy,” said Nate. “No hurry on anything until I get a fire.”

  The old man settled back into his bed.

  With splinters and kindling Nate got a blaze going, then fed on some thicker pieces. He broke the skim of ice on the water bucket and poured the last of the water into the coffeepot. The fire was crackling now as it took off. Nate left the door of the stove open and pulled a chair up next to it.

  The air in the room warmed up, and the other men came alive. The old man sat on the side of the bed and pulled his clothes on. Nick Ray yawned, then pulled the covers to his chin and lay with his eyes open. Bill called out for an order of ham and eggs.

  “You’ll get flapjacks if you’re lucky,” said Ben as he stood up and hunched into his coat. He put on his hat and crossed the room to warm his hands at the stove. “I suppose I should go get us a bucket of water.”

  “Sure.” Nate poked another length of firewood into the heart of the fire.

  The other two men got up and started milling around. Bill rolled a cigarette and smoked it, then tossed the butt into the stove.

  “I wonder what’s takin’ Ben so long,” he said.

  Nate shrugged. “Might be makin’ a deposit.”

  “Well, I’m gonna go take a look-see.” Bill, who was already wearing his coat, put on his hat and gloves and went out.

  “Let’s go ahead and start fixin’ breakfast,” Nate said. “If Ben wants to make hotcakes when he gets back, that’s fine, but we can fry up some spuds in the meanwhile.”

  He went to the dugout at the end of the cabin, selected a half-dozen potatoes, and carried them to the table. Nick was cutting slices off a slab of bacon.

  By the time the skillet had heated up and the bacon had started to sizzle, neither of the trappers had come back.

  “I wonder what’s keepin’ them two fellas,” said Nick.

  Nate frowned. “There might be someone out there holdin’ ’em.”

  Nick stood up and said, “I think I’ll go take a look.” He picked up his rifle and headed for the door.

  Nate had
an uneasy feeling, but as he was busy poking at the bacon, he said, “All right, but look out.”

  A minute later, he heard the crash of a rifle shot and a hoarse cry. He jumped for his gun belt where it hung looped on the bedpost, and he heard six or eight shots together. With his gun in hand, he ran to the door and peeked out.

  Nick was ten yards out from the cabin, on his hands and knees, crawling toward the door.

  A shot splintered the doorjamb, and Nate ducked inside. He figured the men were shooting from the stable, so he fired in that direction and sank back. He opened the door to see how Nick was doing, and two slugs knocked chips of wood in his face. He slammed the door, opened it again, and blazed three more shots at the stable.

  Nick, still crawling, had made it almost to the doorstep when a shot sounded and his back jerked, and he fell forward. Nate stuck his gun in his belt and leaned forward, and with bullets thudding into the lumber around him, he dragged Nick inside. The man was breathing and groaning, but he could not speak.

  “I’m sorry, Nick. We should’ve known when the other two didn’t come back.”

  A hail of bullets shattered the window and raised splinters on the back wall. Nate stayed low. He smelled smoke, and looking around, he saw where a bullet had punctured the stovepipe. Black smoke was curling up from the skillet as well. Ducking, he scurried to the stove, grabbed a rag from his chair, and pulled the skillet off the heat. He did the same with the coffeepot. He hadn’t even had time to put in the grounds.

  Another volley came in through the window, and he crouched to reload his pistol. Nick was still breathing in gasps.

  It looked like one man against a bunch, and the idea began to settle in that he might not live to tell about it. He felt in his shirt pocket for his notebook and a stub of pencil, and under the date of April 9th he wrote as much as he could in the time he thought he could spare. He told how the attack started, and then he ended his entry:

  “Nick is shot but not dead yet. He is awful sick. I must go and wait on him.”

  Bullets came in at the window again. Nate went to the doorway and emptied his six-shooter, drawing fire. He ducked back and reloaded, then crawled to the other side of the cabin, where his rifle stood against the wall. He stuck the pistol in his belt again and levered a shell into the Winchester.