Double Mountain Crossing (14 page)

It was an old trick, but then, weren't they all?

Although bleak in the early morning light, the sight of the mountains was a welcome one. Morgan had camped in the same basin on the edge of the prairie he had used on his outward journey from the mountains. He'd dug out the water seep before he slept and by morning there had been enough to last the four horses until they reached the timbers. He stood at the rim of the basin where he had camped and gazed off to the dark peaks that thrust up to the sky, their caps lost in writhing mist. The cedar brakes on the first gentle slopes eased into a thick belt of black pines through which he must travel to reach the high pass that led to the
Double
Mountains
.

For a second he wondered if Alison was waiting up there then immediately discounted the idea. The only way the gunman could have found out his destination was by trailing him and he hadn't done that, the wait on the prairie had proved it. Twice during the journey since, it had rained hard, so if Alison had hung back there wouldn't be any tracks for him to follow. He decided he could forget all about Sharp Eyes.

Morgan shivered and took a last look at the purple mountains before he walked back down into the hollow. All that stretched ahead of him now was the final two days climbing up to Sun Creek then two or three months of hard work on the vein. When his packhorses were laden he would ride away into a new life. As he gulped the scalding black coffee he gave a second's thought to his bad dreams. They had ceased with his first night back on the trail and he could only surmise they had been the result of sleeping on an overstuffed bed. Nightmares, visions, what were they but just shadows? No man in his right mind would pay the slightest attention to them.
Indians, all with the same faces and the same rifles that would not die when they were shot?
Unbelievable.

Thinking of his bad dreams had left a sour taste in his mouth. Irritable, he swallowed the last of the coffee then threw the grounds onto the spluttering fire and began to pack his gear.

The feeling persisted throughout the day, and in the first hour after
noon
the clouds began to bank up into a solid black mass over the mountains. He had already cut through the first timbers and was nearing the pass. Ahead of him patches of snow had lingered after the thaw, sheltered from the direct rays of the sun, and it looked as though the pass might prove difficult. Even as he sat the lineback dun and considered the crossing, the sky burst and the raindrops began to pound the ground beneath the horses' hooves into mud.

He was soaked to the skin within a minute as he led his horses to the shelter of some stunted cedars, then still in the saddle he shrugged into his slicker and buttoned it up to his throat then jammed his hat on tight against the rising wind that threatened to whip it away. In a bid to escape the worst of the weather he dismounted and leant against a twisted tree trunk. The snowbound pass would be difficult in this storm. Heavy rain would mash up the snow and it would begin to slide. He had no intention of ending his days on the side of a waterlogged mountain trapped under a crippled horse. There was also the possibility of a flash flood, and he'd seen what powerful walls of water could do, pushing rocks down passes just like this one.

Uncomfortable and miserable, there was nothing to do but wait.

At dawn the weather broke. The sky was still heavily overcast but it seemed likely the rain would hold off for an hour, perhaps two. That was all Morgan needed, and he decided to take the chance. Teeth chattering, still soaked, he stepped stiffly back into the saddle and took up the lead reins. The horses moved up the canyon at a steady rate considering the footing and he soon found the snow blocking the pass had in reality been shallow, concealing a long slide of shale that had fallen from the mountainside at the end of the winter months. Water had found its way into the cracks in the rock wall then had frozen when the temperature dropped. As it froze it had expanded, cracking the rock, but had held it together while it remained ice. Only when it melted did the rock break away. This eroding action had been taking place for millions of years and would continue to do so for as long as the mountains stood. Each year the face of the peaks would change a little, unnoticeable to the naked eye, the erosion that subtle.

Leaving the packhorses, Morgan urged the dun to the foot of the slide. To his surprise the horse did not appear nervous and went ahead easily, hooves sinking about a foot into the shale. Provided none of the animals became obstinate, there should be no trouble. He collected the remaining horses and started back.

Half way up, the iron grey, roped in the centre, went down in a churning flurry of plunging hooves. Fortunately, both the bay and mule stood their ground while the grey struggled to find its feet. Morgan watched the horse trembling violently for a moment, then kicked the dun back up the shale, jerking the lead rope behind him.

He topped out, clearing the pass, then rode towards the timber, but not before a glance at the leaden sky told him the weather would break soon. He needed shelter and a fire. Another long night exposed to driving rain would give him pneumonia. He rode as fast as he could, scouting the pines until he found what he sought.

The clump of aspens was ideal.

He shook out his lariat and roped a good sized sapling. He looped a couple of turns round the saddle horn and the dun backed off, bending the young tree down to shoulder height. Morgan stepped down from the saddle and caught the stem of another, bending it over to meet the first. With a strip of rawhide he bound the two together,
then
began flexing other saplings to meet the join until he had a circular framework roughly seven feet in diameter. He began to thread thick brush through the aspens. Glancing at the sky from time to time, he had soon put together a passable shelter. When it was as weatherproof as time allowed, he unloaded the stores and stacked them inside, to one side of the doorway. The mule's load had been covered with a canvas sheet which he roped to the outside of the makeshift roof, square across the centre. He ranged around until he found a deadfall, digging through until he found some dry wood then toted it back to his camp. He kindled a fire from a handful of bark and pine needles. When the tinder caught he picketed the four horses near a thicket where they had both grazing and shelter.

Even before the horses were secure it began to rain again, not the sudden cloudburst of yesterday but a steady downpour that looked as though it had set in for the day.

Inside, the crude shelter was smoky and damp. Morgan tended to his shotgun, cleaning, oiling and reloading with fresh cartridges as he waited for the coffee-pot to boil then cooked his first hot meal for twenty-four hours. When he had eaten, drowsy with wood smoke, he decided to look around before he slept. He shucked back into his slicker and with the scattergun underneath to keep it dry he ventured back out onto the mountainside.

The rain hung in a solid sheet of grey streaks, an effective curtain between him and the world. He picked his way through the trees and found the horses close together, flanks to the wind as he had predicted. Already wet through, he turned back, but almost missed his shelter. From twenty feet away it was invisible to the casual eye, without even a sign of smoke hanging above.

Just the way he liked it. Inside, he fed the tiny fire and lay down, the ten gauge scattergun held loosely in his hands.

***

Shuck Alison wasn't nearly so comfortable. From the refuge of the timber he'd watched the prospector's progress across the first slopes,
then
when Morgan passed out of sight he had taken time out to eat before skirting the pines where he would pick up the trail. Throughout the day he patiently rode, casting an eye from time to time at the fresh sign on the grass then up at the falling sky above. With the realization of rain he began to close the gap, fretful he would lose the trail when the clouds broke.

He was fifteen minutes behind Morgan at the gateway to the pass when the sky opened. Squinting through the rapidly increasing deluge, he watched the old man turn off the trail and into the timber. He waited some minutes more, then with the rain growing heavier by the second he decided to find a place to spend the night. The most comfortable spot was a lightning felled tree whose twisted roots formed a shallow cavern. It was damp but better than nothing. His back against the rotten wood of the trunk he was at least out of the rain, but slow chewing on a strip of beef jerky made his jaws ache and his eyes soon closed.

He shook himself awake an hour later, scratching furiously at his clothes. His sudden movement caused his rifle to slip from his knees and he groped blindly. The flat of his hand touched the earth and he snatched it away.

The ground was alive.

The rain had flooded burrows in the soil and overflowed crevices in the tree trunk, causing the tiny occupants to flee their homes. Insects of all sizes milled helplessly around. Ants feathered across his fingers, angry at the huge intruder to their world. Thick lice ponderously marched, feelers testing the damp air ahead, and there was Lord knows what else. Hairy spiders three inches wide, fleshy slugs slithering, larvae from ruptured cocoons. The list was endless.

Alison tugged his hand free of the unwelcome embrace and jerked up onto his knees to evacuate his camp, but the rainfall was so intense he was driven back under cover. The thought of wandering aimlessly in the storm dispelled his revulsion and he sank back to his seat, resigned to sharing his shelter with what seemed to be the entire insect population of the mountains. The darkness only served to make the ordeal worse, the myriad insects of his imagination infinitely more evil than his actual companions in the hollow tree.

The remainder of the night was spent in snatches of fitful sleep. By the arrival of the grim dawn he was hollow eyed, exhausted, tongue thick and furry, throat raw, and body sore from the endless raking of his broken fingernails.

He staggered up, shrugging his shoulders in a half hearted attempt to dislodge his new admirers, then checked his rifle before pushing out into the grey light. The rain had ceased, but the branches were still heavy and the damp soon soaked through his boots as he stalked through the trees to gain a vantage point, restless to spy over the pass. A gap between two tall pines afforded him a view, and with a sudden surge of impatience and anger he caught a movement on the shale side at the heart of the pass. It was Morgan and his horses, almost at the crest. Even as he watched, the pack train topped out and disappeared over the other side.

Alison came to his feet and strode back to the big black. Dejected and hungry, the horse whinnied softly, but Alison merely grunted and spread the sodden saddle blanket before he heaved on the deadweight of his battered
Texas
saddle. He swore as his fingers fumbled with the double cinch, poking the black harshly in the ribs when it swelled out its chest. The horse exhaled and Alison tugged the cinches two notches tighter. The last place he wanted to fall off was half way up that shale. He had seen the old man's horses struggling up it and they were all tough mountain horses, not like this pampered varmint.

He had barely begun to head out when the clouds burst and a solid sheet of rainwater swept up the pass, drenching all in its path, and after a moment it seemed as if there had been no let up at all. Face streaked with rivers of water that ran unchecked down his throat and into his shirt collar, he scoured the clouds for any sign of a gap that could promise an end to the downpour. Not a sign.

Lightning stabbed a flickering tongue across the unbroken slate sky, followed by the volcanic rumbling of thunder. The big black shied and danced sideways, stepping daintily. Alison swore savagely and lashed the horse's neck with the trailing reins. The beating only managed to frighten the stallion more. Cursing, he cast about helplessly. Any other horse and he would have chanced his arm on the rock slide, but to try with this one would be worse than useless. Angry and frustrated he realized there was no place else to go, so he turned back into the timber and tied the black to a handy branch. Wearily, he stepped down from the saddle and trudged dejectedly back to his hollow tree where his many little friends eagerly awaited the return of his body to provide them with warmth and solace.

Those who hadn't already made him their
home, that
was.

***

Morgan woke at dawn. He had slept away the afternoon, woken briefly to eat and then slept again. Now, belly full of fatback and beans he was anxious to move on. He squinted thoughtfully into the wood smoke. There was no reason, he knew, why he should not wait out the storm here, but an inexplicable feeling urged him to reach the gold diggings as soon as possible. The notion of foreboding he had nurtured before the thunderheads broke still gnawed at him, and always he had the sensation he was not alone in the high country. He knew it was foolish, for a man is never totally alone anywhere, but no matter how hard he tried to shrug the feeling away, it lingered.

The coffee was strong.
Pejuta sapa
, the Sioux called it; black medicine. It was too. It drove away the doubts of yesterday and woke the mind and stomach to the problems of today. Fire-warm in his belly, Morgan rolled his blanket then ventured out into the dismal morning to fetch his horses. The mountainside was bleak. Lances of rain still shrouded the slopes in the early light, coupled with an eerie mist that clung to the trees and earth alike.