Spake As a Dragon (23 page)

It did make them feel better, and a
little while later they are sitting around the warm fire with most
resting their heads in their hands. More than one has sworn off
drinking for life. Luke looks to Kay and asks, “Kay you have just
come from the far side of the mountain can you give me any advice
after we get out of here what to expect?”

Sick, but Kay answers, “Luke if you
can get to the other side, about three-quarters of the way down
y’all will come to a farm. The Babb family lives there. The man who
owns the farm is originally from South Carolina and sides with the
South – his name is Samuel Babb and he will give y’all
help.”

“
Kay, how long before
reaching the Babb place?”

“
In good weather, about a
week or ten days. For now, we’ll just have to wait out this
blizzard.”

CAVE FEVER

For the better part of two weeks the
four men, Luke, Nate, Old Bill and the mail-rider Kay lived
together in the cave almost to the top of the Cumberland Plateau,
the snow finally stopped, the sun is shining and the temperature is
on the rise. However, the snow outside the cave’s entrance is
nearly two feet deep, much too deep to try to venture down the
narrow trail. They can do nothing but wait until some of the snow
melts. During their stay in the cave New Year’s Day came and went
without much excitement – their frivolity on Christmas was enough
to last them for a while.

Luke has heard of ‘cabin fever,’ but
he has never heard tell of ‘cave fever.’ He may not have heard the
name, but he sure enough recognizes the feeling, so did all the
others. They have to get outside. Being shut-up in this hole is
about to drive them crazy. It is nearing the end of week three when
Luke announces he is leaving. He is going to the other side of the
mountain!

Old Bill protests saying it is too
dangerous to try that trail with wet, melting snow. Luke argues he
doesn’t care he is going, and if they want they can come along. If
not, stay in the cave, he does not care.

“
I’m with Luke,” responds
Kay. “The mail must go through. Oh, by the way Luke, I’ll take care
of that letter of yours and make sure it gets posted once I get to
Lexington, don’t you worry.”

Luke begins saddling his horse. He is
about to throw the saddle over its back when Nate stands up and
says, “Oh what the blazes...we’s all got to die sometime or nuther.
Might as well be fallin’ off a cliff in someplace I ain’t never
heared of I suppose.”

“
Well, I’ll be dogged!”
Answers Old Bill, “you fellers ain’t leaving me behind, no
sir’ree.”

Standing just inside the caves
entrance Kay Mann says good-bye to his recently acquired friends.
All mount their horses and Kay turns Nellie to the left on the
snow-covered trail and heads down the western side of Cumberland
Mountain. The other three head uphill toward the eastern side. The
snow is still deep and the footing for the burro and horses is
uncertain. It is the middle of January 1864, a new year. Luke
thinks as they prod along the narrow trail –
what will this New
Year bring? Will Nate and I ever get home?
A more pressing
question –
will we survive this mountain?

VOICES!

They have spent almost a week reaching
the summit and are beginning the winding path down the far side
when they hear voices. It is men talking, and the muffled sounds
seem to be coming from below. Dismounting they slip close to the
edge of the cliff they happen to be traveling alongside. Luke can
see the trail ahead makes a large left-hand horseshoe curve going
down – these men are directly in their path and directly below
them. Whispering, “I count six men, how many do y’all
see?”

“
Luke, I counts six of’um
too. Do you suppose they be Yankees? They’s jest sitting around
that campfire having themselves a good ole time.”

Before Luke can reply Old Bill
answers, “Naw, them’s bandits. I didn’t want to let on before, but
I have been ridin’ with them cutthroats fer the last few months.
They’re aiming to take yer belongings, horses and money and then
they are gonna murder y’all.”

“
See, I told you Nate, I
told you he wasn’t a prospector! He’s one of them good-for-nothin’
outlaws!”

“
Naw! Naw you got it all
wrong. You see I am a prospector, leastways I wuz, but like I said
I’ve been working these mountains fer ages and never found as much
as a smidgen of gold, except one day I wuz working this here creek
bottom and I picked up the purteyest hunk of yeller gold that I
ever have seed.

“
I had found the mother
lode, but jest as I was fixin’ to start digging out more up rides
them there outlaws below. Their leader is Jesse something or other,
I jest ferget, tells me he’s gonna give me a choice: work for them
or die right where I stood. Well, now see here, where I were
standin’ was my mother lode, and no sir’ree, I wasn’t fixin’ to die
right there smack-dab in the middle of my fortune. Them outlaws had
no idee what was in that creek, and I knowed I could find it agin,
so here we is – my job is to lead travelers, such as yerselfs, to
them so as they can bushwack you.”

“
Old Bill, why are you
telling us this now?”

“
Fellers, since I met up
with you and Nate and that mail-rider I’ve done come to realize I
is wrong, gold or nought. Y’all have become my friends, I ain’t
never had no friends, and I ain’t gonna let them murder
you.”

The bandits are camped at the bottom
of the horseshoe curve in a small canyon. The bluff Luke, Nate and
Old Bill are currently sitting on is on one side and the
snow-covered mountain is to the outlaws back on the other side.
Luke questions Old Bill if there might be another way around the
outlaws. He shakes his head, “The onlyest way down this here
mountain is right down this trail if’en yer want to save yer skins.
You can cut across that yonder ridge and come upon Cumberland Gap,
but hit’s full of more cutthroats and Yankees. Luke I got y’all
into this fix and I’m aimin’ to git y’all out.”

DYNAMITE

He had noticed earlier that Nate had a
couple sticks of dynamite in his saddlebag. Old Bill says he
believes he can ride into their camp, get to taking and when they
aren’t watching toss the stick of dynamite into the fire. He
believes he will have enough time to get away from the ensuing
horrendous blast.

Luke tries to talk Old Bill out of
such a crazy scheme, telling him he is going to get himself killed.
“Once you throw that stick of dynamite into the fire it might
explode immediately Old Bill. You probably will not get two steps
before it goes off. I can’t let you do such a foolish
thing.”

“
I can’t say yer arguments
er wrong – do you still have any of that mail-rider’s paper
left?”

“
Yeah, and his ink and pen
too. I forgot to give them back to him – you remember we were
having a pretty big party that night! What do you want the paper
for Bill.”

Old Bill explains Luke is probably
right and he in all likelihood will not survive the explosion so he
wants to draw a map to his mother lode. He says if he gets blowed
to pieces the gold strike belongs to Luke. He draws the map and
hands it to Luke. “I want you to have this too, just to prove my
gold strike exists.” He hands Luke a gold nugget that must weigh at
least two or three ounces.

Again Luke and this time Nate both try
to dissuade Old Bill from the folly of blowing up the outlaws, but
he has his mind made up and isn’t going to change. Nate goes to his
horse, opens his saddlebag and withdraws a stick of dynamite and
hands it to Old Bill. Bill slips it inside his shirt and starts
walking down the trail towards the bandits, leaving Lucky and
Goldie with Luke and Nate.

Luke and Nate crawl to the edge of the
cliff and watch what is going on a few hundred feet below. At the
first sight of Old Bill the bandits spring to their feet and draw
their six-shooters; however, in a second or two as Bill approaches,
and is recognized, they holster their guns and all begin to talk,
slap Old Bill on the back and laugh. It appears that they also have
their own jug of ‘rattlesnake medicine’ and are taking turns with
the jug. In a while, the laughing and loud talk begins to quiet
down and they fall asleep. Old Bill sees his chance and tosses the
dynamite into the fire and starts to run back up the trail toward
Luke and Nate. A second passes then another.
Was the dynamite
faulty?
Thought Luke.

Suddenly they hear a hissing sound and
BA-BOOM
! The thunderous detonation reverberates off the
walls of the canyon. The resulting explosion kills all the outlaws
around the fire, except one. He is running as fast as his boots
will take him down the mountain, he cuts across the ridge heading
toward the Gap. What about Old Bill? Luke sees him limping along
the trail - he has not been killed in the blast. Injured maybe, but
Old Bill is still alive.

“
What is that noise Nate?”
Luke said cocking his head to one side, “Hear it? That rumbling
sound?” Both Luke and Nate realize the sound is coming from the
mountain above their heads and on the mountain behind the bandits.
The rumbling noise is snow – an avalanche of snow, trees and rocks
caused by the dynamite explosion is beginning to cascade down both
sides of the mountain into the narrow canyon with the dead outlaws
and Old Bill.

THE AVALANCHE

“
Run Bill run!” Luke tries
to yell above the noise of the avalanche.

Nate starts to run down the trail to
meet him, but it is too late the wall of snow, thousands and
thousands of tons of it, fill the canyon, burying the bandits and
sadly Old Bill too. Luke and Nate are covered with a coating of the
white, powdery flakes, but the main river of flowing snow spared
them.

It takes a few minutes before the snow
settles and Luke and Nate can once again begin to move down the
trail. Around the horseshoe bend, they meet the mountain of snow
that has buried Old Bill. “Luke, I sees no way ‘round this here
pile of snow. We can’t goes over and we can’t goes back. What’s yer
plan?”

“
To be honest Nate I don’t
have a plan – I’m afraid Old Bill and our stick of dynamite have
gotten us out of one fix into another mess. He solved the outlaw
problem all right, but he created another perplexing situation –
this mountain of snow.”

“
Reckon we’s can jest wait
‘til this here big pile of snow melts Luke?”

“
Sure, we can Nate in a
couple of months or more. Wait! Wait Nate you have another stick of
dynamite, right?”

“
Shore nuff Luke, I’ll
gets it outta my saddlebag.” Excitedly Nate exclaims, “Man oh man,
I can see you’s done got us a plan!”

Luke tells Nate to take the animals
back up the trail and get them out of harms way. He is going to put
that stick of dynamite into the mountain of snow and see if he can
blow a hole through it.

Running up the trail to Nate and the
animals Luke hollers, “Fire in the hole!” He has no sooner said the
words than the dynamite explodes with a resounding boom. Snow fills
the canyon again covering Luke and Nate with another fine coat of
powdered snow. Luke is afraid to look over the side of the cliff –
summing a little courage Luke creeps to the side and looks. “Oh my,
oh my,” is all he can say.

“
What happened Luke,
didn’t we do no good?”

Standing upon his feet Luke peered
into the canyon, “Do good? Do good you say? See for yourself
Nate.”

Nate walks to the edge and looks down
at the mountain of snow – what mountain of snow? The dynamite has
blown a hole through the pile of snow, clean through, from one side
to the other - the trail was open again. “My, my, Luke, it looks
like when Noah opened that ole Red Sea...”

“
Moses, Nate Moses,” Luke
said slapping Nate on the back, grinning.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

THE SAMUEL BABB
FARM

Luke and Nate spent the rest of the
day searching through the snow trying to find Old Bill. Not only
did they not find Old Bill’s body they did not even find anything
belonging to him – no shoes, clothes or hat... nothing.

About an hour before dark they got
back upon their horses and begin to lead Lucky and Goldie on
farther down the backside of the mountain. “Luke, what are we’s to
do now? We don’t have Old Bill to show us the way.”

Luke explains to Nate the conversation
he had earlier with the mail-rider Kay Mann. Mr. Mann tells Nate
that they must follow the trail down the mountain until they come
to a farm about three-fourths of the way to the bottom. The
mail-rider said a man by the name of Samuel Babb owns the farm.
Samuel is a Southern sympathizer and will provide them a safe place
to stop and rest.

Days later Luke and Nate trudge slowly
along the trail, and once again a blizzard has set in. Luke is
leading, head down trying to shield his face from the blinding,
wind-driven snow. Luke has tied a rope to his saddle, which leads
to Goldie, from Goldie to Lucky the burro and Nate bring up the
rear.

The bone chilling wind is whistling
through the pines, Luke knows they must find shelter and find it
fast – the temperature must be near zero. From the end of the rope
Nate yells, “Stop! Luke please dear Lord, we’ve gots to stop. I’m
nearly done froze to death. We gots to find shelter, please Luke!”
Luke could hear Nate yelling, but he couldn’t hear what he was
saying over the noise of the wind. He pulls back on his reins and
stops his horse, turns and walks it back to Nate. What he sees
horrifies him, Nate’s beard in a mass of ice around his mouth. His
old black face and slouch hat are white with ice and snow, he
struggles to breathe, “P-P-Please,” Nate says shivering, “Please
Luke, we gots to find a place to git outta this wind and snow, or
we’re done fer!”