Long Road to Cheyenne (8 page)

Checking behind him frequently to make sure his packs were riding all right, he guided Toby down the narrow trail that held closely to the stream. He would have preferred to ride around the camp where they had met Painter and Jones on the way up, but the only usable trail was the one they were on. When he entered the narrow gulch that ran close to their camp, he kept a sharp eye, but there was apparently no one about in the camp. He looked behind him at the girls on the bay and put a finger to his lips, signaling them to be quiet. They made no sound. Just below the camp, the gulch narrowed even more with high walls on each side. The rain let up a little at that point, now becoming more of a mistlike sprinkling, and then the silent morning was shattered by a burst of rifle fire.

Cam found himself in a hailstorm of bullets, the air filled with whining rifle slugs, ripping through the drizzle of rain to bury with a thud in the wall of the gulch. “Back up!” he yelled, and pulled Toby back to try to cover them. Mary responded at once, backing her horse to force the others to back as well. “Get down behind the horses!” he yelled again while trying to spot the location of the shooters. He knew for sure that it was the two miners who were out to murder them. And so far, he knew he and the girls were still alive because the two were frantically firing, cocking, and firing again, just as fast as they could instead of taking dead aim. He knew it was just a matter of time, however, because already there were a couple of holes in the yellow rain slicker he wore as the shots began to find their marks. In the next instant, he felt the impact of a slug on his leg. It was followed by a couple of shots he heard thudding against Toby’s side, and the horse faltered as it screamed with pain. It reared up on its hind legs and back on all fours again before stumbling toward the wall of the gulch. Realizing Toby was going down, Cam snatched his rifle from the scabbard and jumped from the saddle.

On the ground, he rolled over behind a fallen tree and searched the rim of the gulch above them. The firing stopped briefly. He figured they were reloading. “Mary! Are you all right?”

“Yes!” she answered. “We’re behind a rock!”

“Well, stay there. I think I see where they are. Just sit tight. They’ll be startin’ up again.”

Above them, at the edge of the gulch, Cecil and Everett fumbled frantically to reload, both men having emptied the magazines on their rifles. “I know we hit him a couple of times,” Cecil exclaimed. “We had to, but I couldn’t see what happened to him when he came off that horse. You reckon we killed him?”

“I don’t know,” Everett came back. “We throwed an awful lotta shots at him. We killed his horse. I know that.” Neither man said anything about the woman and her daughters, and whether or not they were hit. Mary and the girls were spared in the ambush primarily because neither man wanted to carry the deed on his conscience, each hoping the other would shoot at the females.

“Well, we need to find out what’s goin’ on down there,” Cecil said.

“Let’s not get in too big a hurry. He might not be dead yet. He might be settin’ down there waitin’ for one of us to stick our head up.” He was already sorry he and Cecil had decided to go through with the ambush. It had not been a simple squeeze-of-the-trigger-and-done that he had envisioned, and he feared that they had stirred a hornet’s nest.

Below them, Everett’s analogy was very close to being accurate, for Cam’s anger was increasing with each plaintive whimper of pain from Toby, as the wounded horse leaned against the wall of the gulch. Finally, after waiting for several long minutes, with nothing from the ambush above them, Cam felt his patience run out. “You stay behind that rock,” he ordered Mary, “and keep that pistol I gave you handy in case you need it.” He rose slowly to his feet, watching the rim of the gulch intently.

“What are you going to do?” Mary asked, afraid when she saw him get up from behind the tree. “Where are you going?”

“They shot my horse,” was all he offered as he pulled his rain slicker off, furious over the needless shooting of the only real friend he’d ever had. He ran through the stream to the other side of the gulch and began to climb up the twenty-foot side. Mary pleaded for him to come back, fearing he would be shot, but Cam’s ire had been raised to a level that demanded severe retaliation.

Like an angry panther, Cam scaled the steep slope. Not sure what he would find when he reached the top, he dived over the edge, rolling over and over to come to a position on his belly with his rifle aimed at the two assailants some thirty yards away. Only then aware that the roles had been reversed and they were now under attack, both men threw a wild shot in Cam’s direction, neither shot close. Taking deliberate care in his aim, Cam returned fire, his first shot catching Cecil in the shoulder and spinning him around to drop on the ground. Seeing his partner fall, Everett turned and ran. Cam got to his feet and started after him, but stopped after a few steps, took a solid stance, and aimed at the fleeing man. His shot, intentionally aimed low, hit Everett just below his hip, and caused him to collapse to the ground.

Still fuming over the loss of his horse, Cam strode toward Cecil, who was groaning in agony as he lay on the ground. Seeing Cam approaching, he tried to pull his rifle around but had to drop it when two quick shots from Cam’s rifle hit terrifyingly close to his arm. “Don’t kill me!” he pleaded pitifully as Cam walked up, picked up his rifle, and tossed it over the rim of the gulch.

“I ought to, you miserable son of a bitch,” Cam growled. As angry as he still remained, he did not, however, have it in him to coldly execute the defenseless man. “You just sit there and don’t move, or I’ll blow your cowardly ass to hell,” he threatened, then moved to deal with Everett, who was dragging himself along on the ground, still trying to escape. Cam walked up behind him and stopped his crawling with a foot in the middle of his back. He reached down and pulled the rifle out of his hand. Everett made no effort to resist.

“I’m bad hurt,” Everett begged.

“You’ll live,” Cam said. “But you ain’t got no right to. You two are the sorriest assassins I’ve ever seen. You shoulda stuck to pannin’ for gold, instead of killin’ for it.”

“I didn’t wanna do it,” Everett whined between teeth clenched against the pain. “It was Cecil’s idea.”

“Is that a fact?” Cam replied in disgust. “Get on your feet.”

“I can’t,” Everett complained. “I’m shot.”

“You still got one good leg. Get up.” He reached down and grabbed the collar of Everett’s shirt and lifted him halfway off the ground until he could get his good leg under him. “Hold on to this tree.” He left him standing there, supported by a young pine, while he went to get Cecil on his feet.

“I’m bleedin’ like hell,” Cecil complained when Cam told him to stand up.

“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with your legs. Stand up.”

When Cecil got to his feet, Cam prodded him in the back with his rifle to get him moving to where Everett stood. “Now we’re goin’ back down by the stream to your camp,” he told them. The slope by which they had come up was not as steep as the one where Cam had ascended, so he figured the two wounded men should be able to negotiate the descent. After yelling down to Mary that everything was okay and she should bring the horses along to the miners’ camp, he gave the would-be assassins instructions. “You’ve got two good legs, so you can help your partner down the hill.” Seeing their despairing expressions, he ejected all the cartridges from Everett’s rifle and handed it to him. “Here, you can use this as a walking stick. Lean on him. Now get goin’.” He prodded them with his rifle barrel and watched as the two hobbled down the hill; one limping cautiously on one leg, his arm across the shoulders of his partner, whose arm was dangling helplessly by his side. Both worried about what he intended to do with them.

When they got back down to their camp, Mary and the girls were waiting, staring wide-eyed at Cam marching his prisoners before him. He had only one word for her, a question. “Toby?”

Mary shook her head slowly.

A spark of anger flashed briefly in his eyes, and he turned to stare at the two remorseful bandits. “I’ve a good mind to shoot you down where you stand. The two of you together ain’t worth half of that horse.” Although the two men were afraid to make a sound, their eyes nevertheless screamed out their fear. Taking a coil of rope from the bay Grace and Emma rode, Cam tied his two prisoners to a tree. When Mary, who had been speechless to that point, asked why, he explained, “I’ve got things to do right now, and I don’t wanna have to keep my eye on them.” He went back upstream then to see about his horse.

It was only then that Mary noticed the hole in Cam’s trousers, right about the thigh. Glancing down at his boots then, she saw the bloodstains on the arch and heel. “You’ve been shot!” she exclaimed.

“Yeah, but it don’t seem too bad, just stiffenin’ up a little. I’ll take care of it when we get a chance to rest. Right now I’ve got to see about Toby. We can’t waste any more time waitin’ around here.”

Toby was down. Cam counted three wounds in the unfortunate buckskin. Two of them might not have been fatal, but the other had evidently been a lung shot, and the horse was fading away fast. It was evidently in a lot of pain, so Cam knew what he had to do, and the thought of it almost made him cry. “I’m sorry, ol’ partner,” he said. “You’re the best horse I’ll ever have.” He then took out his pistol and put Toby out of his misery. He couldn’t help thinking that the buckskin was working to make his job easier right up to the end, because it had collapsed against the side of the gulch and the girth was not trapped under its weight. He pulled his saddle free with a minimum of trouble.

Back at the camp, he took one glance at his prisoners to make sure they were still secured to the tree before he walked over to a makeshift corral to look at the two horses inside. After examining both horses, he slipped his bridle on the dun and led it out. Informing Cecil and Everett, he said, “You killed my horse. This piece of dung ain’t near the horse you shot, but it’s the best you’ve got, so I’m takin’ him.” After he saddled the dun, he told Mary and the girls to get ready to ride. Turning back to the captives, he said, “I’m takin’ your other horse down the trail a ways, and then I’ll let him go. I’ll untie you so you don’t starve to death. Then I’m done with you. If I see you again, I’ll finish the job I started today.” He started to turn away but paused to say one more thing. “If you’ve got a lick of sense, you’ll move up to Raymond’s camp. If there’s any gold left on this mountain, that’s where it is.”

He climbed aboard the dun and led his little party of females down the narrow trail. They followed silently along behind him, still hardly able to believe the incident they had just been a party to. Mary was aware for the first time that her guide and protector had a temper if properly provoked. She couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not, recalling the reckless determination he had displayed when he had charged up the side of the gulch after the men who had shot his horse. Luck had to be with him, for one of the men could easily have looked over the edge of the gulch and shot him. She knew one thing, however. When he was in a mood like this, it was best to keep your mouth shut and do what he told you to do.

He let Cecil and Everett’s other horse go after they had almost reached the foot of the mountain. There was a good chance that the horse would make its way back up to the camp. It didn’t make any difference to Cam if it did or not. He felt pretty sure that the two had no desire to come after him.

The encounter with the would-be assassins caused a delay that Cam hadn’t counted on, so he figured he’d better stop before long to allow the girls to have breakfast. He had planned to circle around Custer City, thinking it wise not to give anyone ideas about the heavy packs they carried, and then stop for breakfast somewhere beyond the town. When they arrived at the foot of the mountain, he wasn’t given the opportunity to suggest a place to stop. Mary pushed her horse up beside his and informed him that she was ready to stop right where they were so the girls could have some breakfast and she could take a look at the wound in his leg. He couldn’t help smiling, for she looked as though she was not going to argue the matter. “All right,” he said. “I reckon you are the boss, but you just take care of breakfast. I’ll take care of the doctorin’ on my leg.”

“I’m not sure you’ll do a decent job of cleaning it up,” she told him. “I want to see how bad that wound is. I notice you’re limping a little bit.”

“It ain’t that bad,” he insisted. “I can take care of it.”

She had no doubt that his reluctance to have her look at it was simply because the wound was in his upper thigh, and he didn’t want to take his pants off so she could see it. “You’re just being silly,” she said. “I was married for over eight years. I’ve seen a man with his pants down before.” She had to smile then. “Besides, you’re forgetting about when you were splashing about in that stream with nothing but a towel wrapped around you.” Her smile took a wicked twist then. “That towel didn’t hide as much as you thought.” When he blushed visibly in response, she said, “We’ll eat first. Then I’ll look at that wound. I’m hiring you to take me to Fort Collins, so I want to make sure you’re gonna be up to the task,” she chided playfully. “It’s the same as if one of the horses went lame.”

After they had finished eating, she gestured toward the stream and ordered, “Here,” and handed him the towel he had used before. “Sit down over there by the water and pull your pants down. You can cover yourself with this while I look at that leg.”

Figuring it useless to argue further, he took the towel and proceeded to the stream bank. It would be his first opportunity to see how bad he was wounded, and he was a little concerned, because it was beginning to cause him some pain. When he had unbuckled his trousers and pushed them down to his knees, he draped the towel over his vital area and called out to her that he was ready. While she searched in her packs for some clean cloth and the bottle of medicinal whiskey she had carried all the way from Fort Collins, he wet his hand in the stream and tried to clean streaks of dried blood from his leg. It didn’t appear that he had lost a great deal of blood, but there was enough that he could feel it in his boot. He was thinking that, had it been cooler weather, he would have been wearing his long underwear, and that would have helped soak up the blood before it got down in his boot.

“It looks a little puffy,” she said upon her first examination of the small blue hole in his thigh. There was no exit wound, so she knew the bullet was still in there. When she felt around the wound, a slow trickle of blood appeared, so she took her hand away, afraid she might start a steady flow of blood again. “There’s no telling how deep it is,” she said. “It might help to pour some whiskey on it to clean it out.”

Watching her studying the wound, he realized she had no idea what she should do. A bullet hole was a world’s difference from the cuts and scratches she doctored on her husband and daughters. He reached down to his belt and pulled his skinning knife from its case. “Here, take this over to the fire and stick it in the coals till the blade starts to get red. We wanna get all the deer off it.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked as she took the knife.

“I’m gonna see if I can get that bullet outta my leg,” he answered.

“That doesn’t seem like a good idea, to go digging around in there with that knife. You’ll just make it a bigger wound.”

“I can feel that bullet like it was a piece of rock in my leg, and I’d just as soon have it outta there, so go heat my knife please.” She looked at him, then back at the knife, hesitating. “Please,” he implored.

She shrugged and turned to do his bidding. “It’s your leg,” she said. After a few minutes, she returned. Holding the handle with just two fingers, she held it up before him and he took it, being careful not to touch the blade. He held it for a few minutes to let it cool down before he made his incision. Then he gently probed the wound, which resulted in a new flow of blood. “Ooh,” she muttered, “I don’t think I even want to watch this.” She took a step backward, almost knocking her daughters over as they peered out from behind her. One glance and Grace turned away, just as her mother had. Emma, the precocious one, moved in closer to get a better view of the surgery.

“Back up a little bit, Skeeter. Your head’s in the way. I can’t see what I’m doin’.” She gave him a step. “Here, you can hold this cloth.” She took it eagerly, excited to be a part of the operation. Clenching his teeth, he made a thrust with the point of the blade, hoping to feel something metallic, but he met with nothing but bloody pulp. Emma’s eyes got bigger and bigger and she moved in a little closer. He forced his knife in a little deeper, still with no resistance beyond that of the flesh and muscle. He wanted to yell out with the pain he felt, but he forced himself to remain silent in a show of bravery for the sake of impressing the little girl. Finally, when he felt he couldn’t stand any further self-torture, he felt the tip of his knife strike the lead slug he searched for. Ignoring the pain at that point, so close to success, he worked the tip back and forth until the slug loosened slightly. Desperate, he dug into his leg with his fingers, into the hole that was larger by three times than the original, and pinched the bullet out. He released a great sigh of relief and held the bloody slug up triumphantly. Emma clapped delightedly. Mary said nothing, but stepped forward and poured whiskey in the wound. “Shit!” Cam blurted out before he could stop himself. It was the only sound he had made throughout the whole procedure. His face red again, he complained, “Tip me off next time you’re fixin’ to do that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, unable to hide her smile. Both Grace and Emma giggled. “I’ll wrap a bandage around your leg. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t become infected. I hope you didn’t do more damage than the bullet did in the first place.”

“It’ll heal up fine and proper,” he assured her. “Won’t it, Skeeter?” Emma nodded excitedly. “You’re the only one who would stand and help me,” he told her.

•   •   •

As he had advised, they rode along the eastern edge of the valley, giving Custer City a wide berth. With plenty of venison as well as a supply of salt pork they already had before Cam killed the deer, there was nothing they needed in the town. Their first overnight camp was beside a creek near the south end of the valley. They were in good spirits, since the rest of that day had been without trouble. Even the rain had stopped before sundown, and for long periods of time he forgot that he was guarding a large quantity of gold. Every outlaw in the territory would be rawhiding his horse in an effort to find them if anyone found out about the fortune they were carrying. And Fort Collins in Colorado Territory was a long way away. He wasn’t sure how far exactly, but he knew that Custer City was about two hundred and sixty miles from Cheyenne. And he would guess that Fort Collins was maybe another forty miles below Cheyenne. Ordinarily he would figure on about eight days without pushing Toby too hard. But Toby was gone, and he wasn’t sure how the dun he was now riding would hold up. So far, the horse seemed stout enough. It didn’t matter, anyway, for he found that Mary and the girls weren’t up to riding forty miles or more a day when the trip of about eighty miles to Hat Creek took them two and a half days. So the total trip was most likely going to take them ten days, maybe more, for there was some rough going in parts of that country.

The first couple of days had been without a great deal of concern, for the most part because they had stayed clear of the stage road, choosing to parallel it. Running short of coffee and flour, they decided to stop at the Hat Creek Station to resupply. Mary wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to spend a night in the hotel there to get a good night’s sleep for a change, as well as a hot bath for her and the girls. Her concern, however, was the gold, and how to protect it, especially since they didn’t want anyone to know what they were carrying. Cam said he would sleep in the stable with their packs. The odds of getting held up in the station were not great, and as long as they didn’t appear to be overcautious, probably their packs wouldn’t attract attention. Mary decided to risk it. She had complete faith in Cam’s honesty and his ability to protect her interest, although she felt a little guilty to take the comfort of a hotel room while he slept in the stable with the horses. He was not bothered by the accommodations, however, feeling perfectly comfortable with the prospect of a bed in the hay.

Traveling with a fortune in gold created unique problems, as they had already learned. Someone, preferably Cam, had to watch the packs at all times. So Mary found herself apologizing again when the subject of supper came about. The odds were slim that someone would bother their packs if they all went to supper together, but the possibility was always present. “When the girls and I finish eating, I can come out here and stand guard while you go to get your supper,” Mary suggested, although she was not overly confident of her ability to protect the gold in the event of an attempted robbery.

Cam was equally leery, so he made a countersuggestion. “Why don’t you just have them make me up a plate and one of the girls can bring it out to me when you’re done eatin’?”

“I’ll bring it!” Emma immediately volunteered.

Cam smiled and said, “Maybe you and Grace could bring it.” He glanced up at Mary. “Is that all right with you, ma’am?”

“When are you going to stop ma’aming me?” she responded. “You make me feel like I’m eighty years old. I’m not
that
much older than you. My name is Mary, and that’s what I expect my friends to call me. And, yes, it’s all right with me if the girls bring you your supper.”

“Yes, ma’am, Mary,” he replied, somewhat astonished that she had somehow had a fit of temper over something he must have said.

With the issue of supper finished, they pulled up to the hotel, where Mary and the girls dismounted. Cam untied Mary’s two suitcases and set them down on the walkway. While they stood by the horses, he quickly carried the two bags inside and set them by the front desk. Outside again, he climbed aboard the dun and led the horses down the short street to the stables.

“Howdy,” Bill Freed greeted the young man astride the dun and leading four horses, two of them loaded fairly heavily. “You lookin’ to board them horses?”

“Yep,” Cam replied. “I’d like to unload ’em and turn ’em out in the corral, but I’d like to put ’em inside for the night. I’ll pay for a stall to keep my packs in, too, and I’ll sleep in there with ’em. Is that all right with you?”

Freed shrugged. “Well, sure, that’s all right with me, but there’s a fine hotel up the street, unless you’re worried about your belongin’s. But I ain’t never had no trouble with anythin’ gettin’ stole outta here, or the corral, either. I put ’em in the stalls at night, but I have left a couple of horses outside before, and there ain’t nobody bothered ’em.”

“We’ll put my horses in the stalls tonight,” Cam repeated. “And, like I said, I’ll sleep here tonight.”

“Suit yourself,” Freed said. “I padlock both doors when I leave to go to the house tonight, about nine o’clock.” He waited for a few moments and watched Cam as he led the horses down the center of the stable. “Want me to give you a hand pullin’ off them saddles?”

“No, thanks just the same,” Cam replied. “I ’preciate it, but I can take care of it.” He continued on, past the tack room, toward the back stalls.

Freed watched him with a curious eye.
He sure is particular about his stuff,
he thought. The small hole in Cam’s trousers would have been easy to miss, had it not been for the white bandage that showed through whenever the tall young man bent down to pick up a pack. It didn’t take any imagination to identify the hole as one having come from a bullet. Wary, but unable to control his curiosity, he walked back to the rear stall where Cam had stacked the packs. “Looks like you got more saddles than you had when you led them horses in.”

“I had ’em,” Cam replied. “One of ’em was covered up—that one.” He pointed to the saddle Rafer had used.

“That’s a real fancy one. Musta cost a little money.”

“Yeah, I reckon,” Cam said. “But it ain’t to my particular taste, too fancy to suit me.”

“You ever think about sellin’ it?”

“I don’t know,” Cam said, pausing as if considering the idea. “I might, if I was to get a fair price for it.”

“I don’t need a saddle myself,” Freed said, “but if you’re just lookin’ to get rid of it, I’d give you twenty-five dollars for it.”

Cam laughed. “I don’t figure I’ll give it away. I’ll just keep it before I do that.” He waited a few moments while Freed examined the hand-tooled saddle more closely. “Some fine handiwork on that saddle skirt, ain’t it?” When Freed agreed that it was delicately done, Cam nodded slowly, as if making up his mind. “I’ll tell you what, if you like that saddle, I’ll let you have it for forty dollars, and that ain’t even half what that saddle cost.” When he saw Freed’s eyes light up, he added, “Course, that’s along with the bill for boardin’ these horses overnight.”

“Done!” Freed said, and extended his hand to seal the deal. Both men were pleased. Freed got the fancy saddle for a third of what he figured it was worth. Cam got rid of an extra saddle he didn’t want. Now he could load their packs more efficiently with Rafer’s saddle out of the way, and he had an extra forty dollars in his pocket.

•   •   •

It was still early in the evening when Grace and Emma came in the front door of the stable, looking for him. “Back here,” he called out from his seat on a cushion of hay, his back against the wall of the stall. They hurried to him, Grace carrying a dinner pail filled with stew, and Emma holding a slab of corn bread wrapped in a checkered napkin. They sat down on either side of him while he ate.