Novel 1968 - Down The Long Hills (v5.0) (12 page)

He led the horse deep inside, back of the fire. There were only two pieces of the pilot bread left, but he fed Red one piece, and patted him for a time. After that he went back to the fire and heaped wood upon it.

He dragged some sticks close up to the buffalo coat, where he could just reach out from under it and put them on the fire. It was very cold. He hung up their blanket-capes so that they would not get damp, and crawled under the coat, lying on part of it, with the other part wrapped over them. He felt of the back of Betty Sue’s neck. It was warm, and she was sleeping soundly.

He cuddled up, trying to stop shivering, knowing he would soon be warm. He looked out at the fire; and beyond it, in the darkness, something stirred. He reached out and put two big sticks on the fire, then pulled his hand back.

He was beginning to get warm. He knew he should put another stick on the fire, but he hated to reach out and let the cold air in. He wanted to stay just as he was, but finally he did put out his hand and add more fuel.

Then he snuggled a little deeper under the buffalo coat, warm at last. And then, not knowing just when it happened, he fell asleep.

Nearby the stallion moved restlessly, ears pricked. Slowly the wood burned down. Only ashes glowed. Beyond the fire the wolves had moved closer, just a little way out there. The big horse stamped and blew, but the boy did not stir.

A stick, propped against a stone, slid down and fell into the coals. A flame sprang up, burned brightly, then died away, and there was darkness. Only the coals glowed, and the eyes of the wolves.

Chapter 13

W
E SHOULD’VE KILLED that kid,” Cal muttered.

Jud hunched his shoulders against the wind. The night was bitterly cold, and in the snowfall they had lost the trail. “You forgettin’ that’s Scott Collins’ boy?”

“To hell with him!” Cal said.

They had been riding since before daybreak, and now it was long past midnight. Their horses were dead-beat and so were they. Cal, who rode bareback, had been cursing at the loss of his saddle, and neither man had seen anything remotely like the shelter they needed.

The two men had ridden out of Hangtown just ahead of a general clean-up, which had been engineered in part by Scott Collins, and in which he had taken the major role. They were just two of many who had scattered to avoid hanging, and they had ridden east with some vague idea of robbing wagon trains bound for California or Oregon.

When news of the gold strike reached the East—and it had just done so—travelers by the thousands would be coming over this road, and an organized gang could get rich quick and live off the fat of the land while doing so.

They had at first considered staying around Salt Lake, but the stories they heard of Porter Rockwell, Bill Hickman, and others of the Danites, had given them the impression it might become extremely unhealthy in that region. So their idea had been to hole up somewhere along the trail, and steal enough supplies to wait for the rush in the spring of ’49.

“Hold up, Cal!” Jud pulled in his horse and sat bolt upright in the saddle. “I smell smoke.”

They tested the wind, waited, and then Jud said, “Must’ve been mistook, but I’d have sworn—”

“I think you did,” Cal interrupted. “I caught a whiff of something.”

The night was still; a low wind moaned among the trees and stirred loose snow. They waited, listening, trying the wind. They smelled nothing more, and were about to go on when they heard a wolf howl.

“Ever get a close look at one of them brutes, Jud?” Cal stared off into the night. “I seen one must’ve weighed two hundred, if a pound. Rancher killed him over on the Green. You never seen such teeth.”

Cal started on, then held up at Jud’s motion “Hold on a minute,” he said. “I think that wolf’s found something. He don’t sound like he’s huntin’.”

“Aw, come on! Its cold and I want to…”

They both caught it then, the definite smell of woodsmoke. It came from the south, and the two renegades swung their horses and walked them slowly in that direction. From time to time they continued to catch the smell of smoke.

“Somebody’s got ’em a far,” Jud said. “Now, Cal, don’t you start nothin’ with these folks. Maybe we can get a night’s good sleep.”

The smell of smoke was elusive—now faint, now stronger, then dissipated by the slight wind until there was no smell of it at all. For almost an hour, never more than a few hundred yards from the source, they moved up and back, working about among the trees, and finally emerging on the top of the bluff.

There the scent was strong, for they were now directly above the overhang where Hardy and Betty Sue had taken shelter.

“Look!” Jud pointed. “There’s your wolves!”

At least five wolves were within sight, their dark bodies showing up clearly against the white snow. One or two moved restlessly, others just sat there, but one seemed to be creeping toward a spot right below them.

“They’ve spotted something down below,” Jud said. “I’ll lay you eight to five it’s them young uns.”

Skirting the cliff’s edge, they found a slide that would take them to the bottom. The bluff was no more than sixty feet high, but it was sheer along most of its length, and the slide itself was steep. The horses hesitated, but urged on by their riders, they slid down in a cascade of snow and gravel.

The riders had come up with the wind in their faces, unseen and undetected by the wolves, but the nearest wolf, creeping over the snow on his belly, was close enough to rush.

The horse was trapped against the rock wall. The wolf crept a little closer, and Big Red, eyes rolling, pulled back hard on the worn picket-rope. It snapped, the wolf charged, and Hardy awoke, all in one instant.

Hardy’s eyes flared opened to see the belly of the horse above him, the stallion rearing high, forefeet churning. Before his eyes the wolf suddenly charged and the horse struck hard, his hoofs missing the agile wolf by a hair as it sprang aside, but the horse was suddenly in the open, and the other wolves were charging in.

The nearest one leaped, and the stallion caught it in its powerful jaws. Red hurled the wolf to the snow, then the big horse spun, kicking and charging as the other wolves charged.

By now Hardy was up, his derringer in his hand, watching for the chance for a shot.

Then from out of the darkness came the riders. They charged in swiftly, and one of them chopped down with his six-gun. It spat fire and a wolf dropped, kicking in the bloody snow. The rider fired again, but at a fleeing target, for as suddenly as they had come, the wolves were gone.

Hardy knew the horses. Wheeling, he caught Betty Sue by the hand and darted into the darkest corner of the overhang. Running blindly, he brushed by the blanket-capes and had the presence of mind to grab them from the rock where they hung.

He had not yet explored the back of the overhang, and now he ran into a pile of stones, and scrambled over them, barking his shins and tearing his hands. Somehow he got Betty Sue over into the dark recess behind the stones, and there they crouched, shivering and terrified.

“Get a rope on that horse!” they heard Cal shout. “I can’t rope barebacked!”

“You see them young uns?”

“Damn ’em!
Git that horse!
”

Peering over the rocks, Hardy and Betty Sue saw Jud build his loop and make his cast, but as Hardy could have told him, Big Red was too canny. The horse ducked his head and ran, circled, and then came back, neck arched and head canted to one side, his teeth bared.

Jud gathered in his rope, but at that instant Red charged. He threw himself, screaming with rage, at Jud. The horse thief swung his own horse, but its hoofs skidded on the icy ground, and the horse fell hard.

Red kicked viciously, missed Jud, and then charged at Cal. Cal tried to throw his gun, but, hampered by his heavy coat, the gun did not come up fast enough. His horse reared to meet the stallion’s attack, and Cal went off, falling into the snow.

Big Red’s shoulder hit the smaller horse and it fell, then it sprang up and raced away into the night, the red stallion pursuing.

Cal got up, swearing and thoroughly scared. Jud was helping his own horse up. He had jumped free a split second before his pony fell, and now he was up and ready.

“Let’s get out o’ here!” he said. “I’ve had enough!”

“You can get out—I’ll have that damned stallion or know the—”

He stopped and looked around. “Where are the young uns?”

“Ain’t seen ’em. But they must be here.”

“Fire’s out,” Cal said. “That ain’t like that kid.” He stirred the ashes with a stick. “Still some coals, but not much. I can’t see that boy lettin’ his fire go out on a night like this.”

Cal’s head turned, and his eyes swept the place. His anger made him hasty, and he overlooked both the tumbled buffalo coat and the small sack of supplies, almost empty now, that lay toward the rear. There wasn’t much to see, certainly—just a few sticks of wood piled near the fire…

Cal looked around more carefully. “Jud, this ain’t the boy’s fire,” he said. “That there looks like an Injun fire. Maybe those young uns never did catch that horse again. He might be trailin’ ’em.”

Jud considered that. Then he shook his head. “I doubt that. Without that horse those kids would never have come this far in this short a time. No, they’ve been here.” He hesitated a moment, knowing the hair-trigger temper of his companion. “Cal, let’s forget ’em and get out of here. I don’t like this.”

“What don’t you like?” Cal almost snarled the words. “And how are we gettin’ out…on one horse?”

For an instant Jud was silent, suddenly aware of the dangers represented by one horse between them. Of course, he might catch Cal’s horse, or the horse might come back to its running mate. Otherwise they were left with one horse, and Jud had a fair idea of how long Cal would put up with that. For that matter, he had no taste for it himself.

Mentally, he stacked himself up against Cal and did not like the result. Cal was fast…one of the best men with a gun he knew, and quick to shoot. Also there was that heedless cruelty about Cal, that willingness, almost eagerness to kill, with no regard for the consequences.

Jud was a bad man, and he admitted it to himself, but he was a cautious bad man, with a wholesome respect for his hide, and he had a hankering to live to an evil old age. The more he considered his future with Cal, the less likely his chances began to seem. No man in his right mind went around crossing up people like Scott Collins or Bill Squires with any anticipation for much of a future.

Collins was a law-and-order man, a quiet, hardworking man, but one who did not hesitate to stand up and be counted. His voice had the ring of authority, and Holloway had demonstrated what happened when you challenged that voice.

“No use startin’ out in the dark,” he said casually. “We might as well stir up the far. Anyway, those young uns may be somewheres about, an’ if they are that stallion will come back.”

Cal simmered down slowly, complaining in his irritating nasal voice. Jud quietly ignored him, and went about getting wood without comment. Cal would settle down after a while, and he could be fairly easy to get along with when calm. The trouble was, a man had no idea when Cal would decide to come uncorked.

Then and there Jud made his resolution. He was going to get away from Cal, and at the first opportunity it seemed possible. If he ever encountered him again, he would have a plausible excuse…an excuse he hoped never to need.

The boy had rustled up wood and he had, as always, chosen a likely spot for his camp. Jud stirred the fire up, and after it was burning well he studied the ground for tracks. They were there, a profusion of them, but Jud’s own tracks and those of the stallion had all but obliterated them.

Neither man made any move to search the back of the cave for the simple reason that they took it for granted that the children had abandoned the place some time before. In fact, there did not appear to be anything to search. The overhang was there for all to see, and the tumbled pile of rocks, the remains of an ancient wall built by bygone Indians, seemed innocent enough. Such walls are to be found in many places throughout the Southwest.

Behind the rocks, Hardy and Betty Sue huddled together. There was no way to get out, and nowhere to go if they did. Here at least there was a little warmth, for the reflector, as well as the way the air circulated, brought some heat into their corner, though not enough to keep them really warm. They needed the buffalo coat for that, and Hardy found himself looking at it longingly.

When they had scrambled to get out of the way Hardy had dragged the coat into a heap near the wall before they got untangled from it, and it lay there in the darkness now, looking almost like another rock. If he could somehow…

He gave up the thought even as it came to him. There was no chance. He must lie still and wait. It would soon be light, and the men might go away.

Finally both men lay down to sleep. An hour passed, then another. The sky grew pale, and Jud got up to replenish the fire. He had turned around to lie down again when he saw the coat. For a moment he just stood looking at it as if it were some strange animal, then he went over to it, picked it up, and let it fall.

“Cal,” he said.

The other man’s eyes opened, instantly alert at the tone of Jud’s voice. “Cal,” Jud said again, “there’s somebody else in this. Here’s his coat.”

Cal sat up, staring at the buffalo coat. The coat presented a new problem, and Cal did not like problems. Moreover, ever since he first set eyes on that red stallion there had been more and more problems.

“Who’d be out this time o’ year?” he asked irritably.

“Somebody’s around,” Jud answered. “A man just don’t go off leavin’ a good coat behind.”

Cal stretched out again and composed himself for sleep, but the thought of the coat nagged him, and after a bit he sat up and tugged on his boots. Besides, the bacon Jud was slicing into their frying pan was beginning to sputter, and it smelled good.

“He’ll have a horse,” Cal commented, “and we need a horse—at least a saddle.”

“He’ll have a gun too,” Jud warned, “and by now he must know we’re here, else where is he?”

The two men ate in silence, and Hardy, crouching among the stones only a few feet away, looked down at Betty Sue and saw that she had gone to sleep again. He was frightened, for if she moved or made a sound in her sleep they would be discovered at once, and Hardy had no doubt what that would mean.

He lay there, clutching the derringer with its single bullet, and there was no doubt in his mind as to what he must do. No matter which one discovered them, it was Cal he must shoot. Cal was the meanest one, and it looked to Hardy as if even Jud was afraid of Cal.

But he really didn’t want to shoot anyone. All he wanted was to find pa, or some nice folks somewhere.

Only a few miles to the north, Ashawakie, leading his small band of six Cheyennes, started the ponies through the snow and headed south. They expected to be gone from their camp for only two suns, and to return with both ponies and the loot from two camps. Ashawakie had put in his claim for the red stallion beforehand.

In the meantime, in the cold of early dawn, Scott Collins gathered wood for their fire then climbed atop the highest ground and stood staring around. The clouds had disappeared, the air was clear, but it was intensely cold.

His eyes swept all the vast space, lying white and still, and he saw nothing, no movement anywhere, and he heard no sound.

He could not ask Darrow and Squires to stay out any longer. No youngsters could live through this weather, and if they fell in the snow it might be spring before their bodies could be found. But though he could not hold the others any longer, he had no thought of giving up himself. Hardy was his son, and Betty Sue was the daughter of his friend.