Under the Sweetwater Rim (1971) (10 page)

The wounded man nodded. "I'm sorry. I-was "Forget it."

"Don't . . . waste time. I . . . I am dying."

"There's not much I can do for you, Corporal.

To try to move you would mean pain. You've been hit bad."

"I know."

Lieutenant Tenadore Brian stood up.

He had looked upon many men dying, and knew how little there was to do now, how foolish to try, under the circumstances. The man had only minutes remaining, that was all. "You're a good man, West.

I'll tell them that. I'll report that to Major Devereaux and the Colonel. I'll tell them you died trying to save the money." "Thanks." The word was a faint whisper.

"I'll be getting on, Corporal. And don't worry I'll come up with Dorsey."

He stepped into the saddle, saluted the dying man, and rode away. Corporal West lay still, looking up at the sky. The birds were fussing, and then they stopped and from somewhere across the meadow he heard a meadow lark, as he had heard them in the fields as a boy. He used to go out to bring in the cows, and the meadow larks would be there. Their song was a sound he loved to hear.

He heard it again . . . just over the way, there.

The wind blew cold from off the Sweetwater Needles; from the flanks of Atlantic Peak and Granite Peak it swept over the last winter's snow through the brush, and down across the flats. It stirred the aspens along the slopes, and brought the smell of pines to Tenadore Brian. His time was short, his pace hard. Dorsey was somewhere ahead of him, and the man would fight. He had stolen and he had committed murder, and he would know that now there was no turning back.

His horses must be just ahead. Their tracks were fresh, and Brian rode with his rifle in his hand, prepared for anything.

He wove among the pines, and rode along a grassy slope flecked with spring flowers. His horse's hoofs in their swift passing pressed down the grass and flowers, but when the horse had gone on, the grass would rise into place again, and the flowers would bloom as before.

A flicker of sunlight shone on a rifle barrel and he whipped the gray around in a tight circle, heard the whop of a rifle bullet that passed him, and then he was charging toward the boulders from which the shot had come. There was no cover where he had been, it was this or death, and he went up the short slope, reins free, the rifle ready. He heard another shot, but he was coming on fast and Dorsey was shooting too quick. He leaped the horse over the outer rim of rocks and fired twice. His first shot was a clean miss; the second hit the action of Dorsey's rifle and spun the man around.

Dorsey dropped the gun and jumped at Brian, grabbing his rifle by the barrel.

Kicking free of the stirrups, Brian left the saddle in a long dive and hit Dorsey, knocking him rolling. They both came up fast, and Dorsey had Brian's rifle.

Brian flipped the gun from his holster and fired, the bullet catching Dorsey in the chest. The man backed up and Brian walked in on him, slapping the rifle from his suddenly useless hands.

"You're a murderer, Dorsey. You killed a good man back there-a better man than you ever were."

Hatred blazed in Dorsey's eyes.

"You'll never get out of this, Brianl You're trapped!"

Dorsey sat down abruptly and the blood started to come from the hole in his chest, bubbling with a froth that told the bullet had gone through the lung. "They're all around you, Brianl The Kelsey boysl You'll die here with me." Ten Brian picked up the rifle and walked across to the gray. For a moment his eyes swept the area.

Dorsey's three horses stood in a hollow about twenty yards away. He noted the position of the reins and the lead rope. He ignored Dorsey. The man was finished. All he could do now was shout obscene oaths. His eyes sweeping the brush and trees, measuring the distances, Brian reloaded his rifle and pistol. Then he walked to where Dorsey's guns had fallen and picked them up.

The rifle he ignored, for it was damaged beyond repair.

He glanced at Dorsey. The man's shirt was thick with blood now, his breath was coming in great gasps, but he still was half reclining against a rock, his eyes ugly. Loading Dorsey's guns, Brian thrust them both into his own waistband Taking his own horse by the bridle, he led it down into the hollow. He gathered the reins of the others, tied them for leading, and then walked to the edge of the hollow.

He disliked leaving even an enemy to suffer as Dorsey would be suffering, but there was nothing he could do, and his duty was to Mary Devereaux and Belle Renick. When Dorsey chose to kill Corporal West he had invited death to himself. He had gambled and he had lost.

Ten Brian stood and looked out across the country to the north. He did not know that Kelsey and his men, or some of his men, were out there, but he had a feeling they were. Probably they were behind him, moving up even now. Yet they might be out there in front. That was a gamble he had to take. On foot, leading the horses and keeping himself between two of them, he went out of the hollow into the larger basin of the Little Popo Agie. He paused, seeming to look around him as though looking for a place to picket his horses. He went around a small hill, and quickly stepped into the saddle. He went out the other side at a trot, swung around a clump of trees, and broke into a run.

Behind him there was a shot . . . fired from too far away at a moving target, it did not even come close. He ran his horses for half a mile, then proceeded to weave an intricate trail through the trees. He doubled back, then followed a creek for a few hundred yards, and emerging, went scrambling up a small slide of rock and into the trees again. When he had ridden a little further he changed over to West's horse to give his own some needed rest.

They were behind him and they would keep coming. They might choose not to bother with a trail but to head directly for Sweetwater Gap . . . if they knew of it. The sun went down in a wilderness of color, brilliant at this high altitude. Then shadows came among these high peaks, and night came on. He pushed on until he had crossed the Roaring Fork once more. There he moved up under the trees, stripped the gear from the horses and picketed them on a small meadow far enough back from the stream so he could hear any approach.

He searched through the saddlebags and came on some jerky and hardtack. He ate, and then bringing the gray in closer to him, he slept. Daylight had not come when he awoke. He saddled the gray first, then the other horses. Dorsey's horse was bigger, and he put the packs on it. Mounting up then, he started off. Two hours later he saw them, saddled up and ready to move out. They had camped in another little area of pothole lakes.

Mary ran a few steps and stopped, waiting for him to come up. "Tent Oh, Ten, I was so afraidl"

"What happened?"

"I mean . . . for you."

The others came to him as he swung down. His face was haggard from the lack of sleep and the hard riding. "I caught up . . . Dorsey killed West and took the money. West wasn't quite dead when I found him . . . I came up to Dorsey a little later. He missed and I didn't."

"He shot at you?" Belle exclaimed.

"That was a lot of money he had. I guess he was already spending it." "There's coffee on," Mary said. "You must take some time."

He drank it, feeling the warmth steal through him.

He looked up at the mountains towering hundreds of feet on either side. They were almost at the mouth of the gap, and he could see where the mountains closed in. "We'd better walk," he said, "and save our horses for later." He turned toward Ironhide. "Did you go up and look around?"

"No. . . only I think there is snow."

Brian could almost taste it on the wind. And even when they were through the gap they would not be free, for Kelsey would be between them and the safety of Fort Bridger.

He felt the weight of the pistol on his hip as he looked at the gathering clouds. A storm at this altitude could be dangerous. He had witnessed some frightening electrical storms among mountain peaks before this. "They're coming up behind me, I think," he said, "but we can not overlook the possibility that they may be at the other side of the pass. It depends on how much they know of these mountains. All I know of these passes is hearsay."

He took his time with the coffee, chewed on a piece of jerky, and dipped some hardtack in the coffee to soften it.

"Ironhide," he said, looking up, "you take the pack horses and lead off. The girls will come behind you, then Schwartz. I'm going to finish my coffee, and then I'll catch up."

"Do you mind if I wait and ride with you?" Mary asked. "I'd like that," he said.

Before he moved out of camp he emptied the pot on the fire. He pulled the partly burned pieces of wood from the fire and crushed the charred ends to kill any possible sparks, then threw dirt over what remained. "You are careful," Mary said.

"I've seen what fire can do," he said.

"I've seen thousands of acres burned off for no good reason, and it takes years to replace--if it is ever replaced."

Mounting up, they started into the pass together. The air was cold and crisp. The clouds had moved in, shrouding the peaks with cottony gray. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

There was no sound in the pass but the sound of hoofs and the creak of saddles, and a slight stir of wind.

Here and there were patches of snow, some of them fairly deep.

They rode side by side without talking, but listening for any other sound that might come to them. The pass was something over three miles long; they caught up with the others where Ironhide had stopped to let the horses get their breath. They had been living at an altitude of slightly over four thousand feet, and the change to nearly ten thousand feet made them short of breath and unable to do hard traveling for extended periods. Ahead of them a slide had piled a great mass of snow across the pass.

Ironhide had walked upon the great drift, and found the surface was hard, probably hard enough to bear the weight of a horse: Leading their horses, they slipped and scrambled across, one at a time. A little way ahead they saw another snow slide, and a jumble of boulders. Brian was helping the last horse across the second slide when Schwartz came up to him.

He had climbed up the steep slide to get a good view back down the pass. "They're after us, sir," he said. "There's about a dozen of them."

"How far back?"

"I was using Miss Devereaux's glasses, sir. I could just make them out. I'd say they are about where we camped last night."

The pass had become narrower, and the wind was stronger, but the clouds were lower. The rumble of thunder sounded close by. But it would be safer right in the pass than out of it, for the lightning would almost certainly be drawn to the higher rocks.

They moved ahead, though slowly. There was no question of hurry. Neither horses nor men were up to it.

Brian and Ironhide felt it least. They were almost at the highest point of the pass now, when before them appeared a massive wall of tumbled boulders and a huge slide that blocked the pass completely.

Schwartz stared up at it, his face pale.

"We'll not get cross that one, sir. It's impossible."

Ten Brian studied the slide, and the mountain on both sides. Such slides as these were gradually wearing down the steep slopes and cliffs, and some time in the future the pass would be less difficult, but now there was no way of taking a horse up the steep walls of the pass. He walked over to the snow slide.

The wall of snow was at least thirty feet high, slopping steeply up. He reached back to his scabbard and brought out his bowie knife.

Tentatively, he cut into the snow. It was a more recent slide, and somewhat less icy than the others. It cut easily, and in a few moments he had cut out a fair-sized block.

Schwartz had come up to him, holding a shovel.

"When we left the ambulance, sir, I tied this on the pack horse. I figured we might need it."

"Good man. We'll try cutting some steps."

It was tiring work, and the three men took turns digging into the snow with the shovel or bowie knife, cutting steps easy enough for the horses. In some places the snow was softer, and would be difficult to cross over. Mary called to Brian, "The men who are coming will have it easier. They won't have to do all this digging"

"We'll see about that. Ironhide, take your horse and try it.,, The Cherokee led his horse forward. The animal balked, but urged on, it finally took a tentative step, them scrambled up and up.

Soon it disappeared from view.

"All right, Belle," Brian said.

They waited as she went, and her horse made it up without trouble.

"Schwartz, get them over and get my horse over," Brian said then. He had taken up his Henry rifle.

"You can't stop them. Not one man, sir."

"I don't plan to . . . but I will make them a bit more cautious." He climbed up on the slide behind them, settled down behind a log and lowered his rifle into a forked limb. He looked back. The men behind were perhaps a mile away, and coming on. As they drew nearer he took careful aim at one of the men and fired.

The shot reverberated down the pass in echoes. He could not see the bullet strike, but the man at whom he had fired jumped back and fell.