Dead Reckoning (22 page)

Dan Feather pointed his barrel upward. “Deacon Dee go up the mountain today. Go see cross. He take money.”

“When did he leave?”

“Daylight.”

Carrol nodded. Maybe there was time.

When they walked into the clearing, Carrol took a moment to judge what was going on. The place crawled like an ant bed, and the walls of a building at the top of the slope already stood four logs high. “What is this place?” he said.

“‘Tigiwon,” Dan Feather replied.

“What's that mean?”

“Sacred place.”

A look of disbelief swept his face. This Dee Hassard sure had some line of gab to get these people here, building a town this high in the mountains. “Do me a favor, Dan Feather. Walk my horse a while. Rub him down. He's been used hard.”

“I take good care,” Dan promised and led the horse away on a level trail.

Carrol looked for someone who might be in charge, settling on a young man who was peeling logs with a good-looking woman. The pilgrims had begun to take notice of him by now, and some of them gravitated toward the log church to see what he wanted.

“Who are you?” James O'Rourke said, cordially, when the big man in black trudged up the slope to him.

He tipped his hat to the lady. “Name's Moncrief. Where's Hopewell? He hired me by correspondence to guide this party.”

“He went with Deacon Hassard and two others up the mountain.”

Carrol sighed. He was tired. “I need to borrow a horse or mule so I can catch 'em.”

O'Rourke's brow wrinkled. “You can't ride where they've gone. Too rough. They'll be back this evening, though.”

“I doubt it. Which way did they go?”

O'Rourke pointed. “What's the hurry all about?”

He studied their faces. The woman looked concerned. Maybe she had suspected something by now. But the youth beside her had been taken in.

“Dee Hassard is no more a deacon that this log is,” he said, kicking the felled timber. “He's a swindler and a murderer. He shot my brother to death not long ago in South Park, and I mean to bring him down for it.”

He watched carefully. The woman sank to the log and put her hands to her face, growing almost instantly pale. A body couldn't fake fear like that. The lad's face, on the other hand, remained blank for several long seconds, then grew angry, and finally turned to scowl at the woman.

“You're in it!” he said.

May gasped, thought quickly, realized how it must look to them. She glanced at the gathering crowd, saw their eyes piercing her.

“You joined the same time Hassard did!” O'Rourke said. “So did Clarence. You're all in it!”

“No!” May cried.

The pilgrims closed in on her.

“What about that man who came here yesterday? Supposed to be your husband? He was in it, too, and you three killed him to get a bigger cut, didn't you?”

“No!”

She stood up, and O'Rourke grabbed her by the arm as if she were trying to escape.

“Let her go!” Carrol ordered. “Get aholt of yourselves! This ain't no time to be makin' rash accusations. We'll sort this whole thing out after I get Hassard.” He pushed his way past several pilgrims, starting up the slope.

“I'm comin' with you,” May said. She was getting mad now. She had been first duped by Hassard, now wrongly accused by these pilgrims, and she was getting tired of it all. She might have taken it meekly before she met Clarence, but she was getting stronger for having known him.

“I'm goin' alone,” Moncrief answered, without looking back.

“You just try to stop me,” she insisted, her voice grating as even she had never heard. She knifed one of her accusers with a glare and hiked briskly in Moncrief's footsteps. “Clarence has a gun. He'll be in trouble if we don't hurry. We can follow the blaze marks on the trees.”

Moncrief slowed his pace, and the woman stormed past him. Lord, give me strength, he thought. He was tired—so tired. And now, to go up this mountain on foot. Maybe the woman would help. He didn't blame her for not wanting to stay with the pilgrims. Also, she knew what had been going on with Hassard, so maybe she could fill him in. Anyway, he had no time to argue.

“Moncrief!” the youth cried.

The reverend swiveled his tired eyes.

“Yesterday Hassard rode up the valley on a big red mule, but he came back on foot. He said he fell off and the mule got away.”

Carrol's eyes searched the young face and understood. Maybe Hassard had already established his escape route. Maybe it would be better to ride up the trail, find the mule, and wait for Hassard to come down to it. For some reason, he could only briefly consider it. Maybe it was because he was so tired of riding. The trail ahead was hot. Perhaps the cross was calling him up the mountain.

He took a few deep breaths and turned up the slope behind the woman. If this failed, Hassard was gone.

Twenty-eight

They had climbed above the timberline for almost an hour now, and still the crest seemed a mile above them. Clarence was carrying the saddlebag full of money in addition to his own secret holdings in his jacket. Even with the extra weight, he stayed on Hassard's heels, and could have passed him if he had wanted. But Clarence preferred not to turn his back on Deacon Dee.

They came to the brink of a cliff that dropped untold hundreds of feet below them in a succession of narrow ledges scarcely fit for mountain goats. Clarence stopped for a moment and let Hassard trudge on up the trackless slope of cold rock and slick alpine tundra.

The view from the cliff spanned reaches that would require weeks of travel to fetch, and the Vermonter could not imagine why he had ever worried about the west filling up with people before he could get here. Across the many high peaks and forested valleys around him, he could see not one mark of settlement. Not a road, nor a field, nor a streak of smoke across the sky.

Hopewell came to his side and looked down the cliff, trying to gather in the sheer expanse of air below him, knowing now how the lowly world looked to the eagle.

“Did you ever think you'd see anything like this?” Clarence asked.

Hopewell shook his head reverently. “Didn't know there was such as this on all of God's whole earth.”

“Let's throw a rock off,” Clarence suggested, grinning at the elder.

Hopewell smiled boyishly, found a stone the size of a hen's egg. Clarence picked a like one, and they hurled them together as Mary Whitepath passed silently behind them. The stones arched unimpressively away from the precipice, then began plummeting downward, finally vanishing like flies into the sunlight. If they made a sound against something, it never reached the ears of those who had thrown them.

“Hey!” Hassard shouted from above. “Let's get goin' down there!”

Clarence saw a ridge above and climbed steadily toward it, containing his excitement. When he reached it, he found only a higher ridge beyond it. He knew they had to be near the divide, but here he was such a tiny speck on this vast mountain that he couldn't be sure which ridge was the highest.

He looked down toward Tigiwon but couldn't be certain where it lay anymore. The valley of the Eagle River—a long, straight furrow from the banks of the stream—had become invisible from here. It had shrunk away to a series of low dark places. The sun shone from on high now, and Clarence found bearings difficult to maintain in his mind. He was practically lost, turned so far around that he couldn't have hit Vermont with a rifle shot. Rationally, however, he knew that he must only continue upward to arrive at his destination. And they had left a trail of blaze marks and piles of stones to guide them back down the mountain.

He followed Hassard's lead, winding among countless snowfields and fans of huge boulders where peaks had crumbled in ancient times. The wind wanted his hat here, and he curled the brim hard to keep it on his head. Cool air rushed in and out of his lungs, fueling him well even with its dearth of oxygen.

It seemed they were climbing to the top of the world, and Clarence looked up only occasionally now, between steps. Always the mountain loomed ahead of him, like a planet whose curve he could never traverse. But suddenly, rounding a small peak of huge stone rubble, he saw the entire sky open below and ahead of him where the mountain had lain before. Here the world fell away in every direction except for the ridge winding away to his right, which he suddenly knew was the summit of Notch Mountain. And here was its divide under his feet.

Hassard was standing ahead of him. Just standing, for the first time today, taking in some view. Clarence came further around the small peak, and then saw it. Like a faraway painting whose canvas trailed off into infinity. It seemed almost touchable, yet between its face and the Vermonter's eyes lay a void no cannon shot could span.

The paragon of mountain peaks rose high across a basin like a near-perfect pyramid of rock. Upon its face, in gossamer lines of pure white snow, the cross stabbed Clarence's eyes as a beautiful blaring trumpet might assault his ears. Its arms lifted upward like a conductor holding an orchestra at perpetual readiness. Far friendlier than any beams of square-hewn timber, the snowy lines of the cross reclined comfortably against the cold granite. And though they may have stood wide as a town square, from here the lines were mere brush strokes of snow driven into unbelievable crevices.

“That's God's own easel,” Hassard said.

The voice startled Clarence, and he realized that he had let the deacon circle behind him. He turned quickly to look, but found Hassard sitting harmlessly on a rock in the cold sunshine.

It was not as if the thought hadn't occurred to Dee Hassard, too. His pistol was easily reachable inside his coat. He had made sure of that. Neither Hopewell nor the Indian woman carried a weapon. It would have been a simple matter to put a bullet through the Vermonter's back, chase the elder and Mary Whitepath back down the mountain, and then angle southward to find his mule. Hell, he might have left all three of them dead on this mountain and let that cross of snow serve as their ridiculous headstone. He was already on the run for killing Frank Moncrief. What would another body or two matter?

But Dee Hassard had his pride. A killing to him was messy. It showed a lack of professionalism. He was more meticulous than that. Besides, he liked letting them live, letting them know how badly he had fooled them. That was part of the game. No, that
was
the game. Often he had wished he could be there when the realization struck—to see the looks of anger, shame, and panic meld suddenly on their faces. Murder was sometimes necessary—take Frank Moncrief and Charlie Holt. No way around either one of them.

But not here. This was too perfect. Look at their mouths hanging open. Look at them gawking across this basin at that crooked snow formation. It was laughable, and in days to come, Dee Hassard would laugh hard over it. There was still a chance that he could pull this thing off without killing Clarence. He hoped they would all live long to think about this one.

“It's just like the Weeping Virgin told me in my dreams. Let your burden down, Brother Clarence. It belongs to God now.” In a way, he actually meant it. Dee Hassard was his own god, and these mortals were sacrificing to him now and didn't even know it.

Clarence looked at Hopewell, but the elder's eyes were across the basin. To leave this money here was foolishness. But was it really his concern? They had allowed Hassard to leave this morning with the church coffers. They had prayed for him. It was their money—church money. The congregation had to decide what to do with it, ridiculous or not.

Oh well, he thought, letting the saddlebags slide off his broad shoulder, at least I won't have to carry it back down the mountain. He studied Hassard. The man was staring just as long and reverently at the Snowy Cross as Elder Hopewell or Mary Whitepath. Yet the Vermonter knew it was far from over. An unnamed tension stood between him and the deacon like a magnetic field: opposing poles pushing against each other. You must not turn your back on this man. He is not what he claims. He will return for this money, and then it will be your concern.

Mary Whitepath was on her knees, weeping silently, staring at the cross.

The others sat in silence for several long minutes, and Hassard paced through the logistics one more time. Tonight, after a couple of hours of sleep, he would sneak away from Tigiwon. Slipping past Clarence would be the hardest part, but he would have an excuse planned in case the Vermonter questioned him, and the dagger in his pocket in the event the excuse failed to satisfy. Back in the cities, he had learned how to stick a man so that he would not even cry out. He would only die.

Next he would climb back up here to retrieve his earnings, a half-moon to light his way. Had any man in his profession ever pulled off such a feat? By dawn he would be mounting his mule and riding up the valley, about the same time Carrol Moncrief arrived at Tigiwon. It would be grueling, but after Buena Vista, he could sleep in the stagecoach on his way to California.

He repeated each step in his mind until he began to feel the chill of his own sweat. “Well, let's get back to Tigiwon,” he said, springing to his feet.

Clarence let the surprise show on his face. “Already?”

Hassard shrugged. “It's a long walk. We'd better get back before dark. The others will be waiting to hear about this.” He started down the barren ridge without once looking back. “It's not as if we can't come back whenever we want to.”

Clarence looked at the leather pouches stuffed with gold and currency and nodded. Yes, he thought. And Dee Hassard will want to come back tonight.

*   *   *

The snowfields had become so numerous around them that there was no other way. Going around them would mean retracing hundreds of feet back down the mountain, and neither Petra nor Ramon cared to lose any altitude at this point. Their path lay upward.