Nothing Short of Dying (13 page)

When the sun had gone down, it had dragged the temperature with it. We could see our breath floating like smoke inside the nylon bubble that protected us from the elements.

“Hey, Barr?” Allie asked. She rolled over, facing me, her breath hot on my face.

“Yeah?”

“I don't think I can sleep.”

“Me neither. We should though, long day tomorrow.”

“But I don't really want to, not yet.”

“Yeah, why is that?”

“There might be bears. Or . . .”

“Or what?”

“When we were dancing, in Steamboat, did you think about kissing me?”

I moved closer to her. “Maybe.”

“Wanna kiss me now?”

“I do.”

“Then do it.”

So I did. I put a hand gently on her neck and pulled her to me, then kissed her lightly. She pushed me away.

“What was that, Barr? Are we in grade school?” She squirmed closer and grabbed my shoulders. “This is a kiss,” she said, and firmly planted her soft lips on mine. Then she proceeded to show me how it was really done.

Five minutes later, we caught our breath and stared at each other in the faint light. That stare was all it took. Clothes
were tugged off, pants jerkily pulled down—hard to do without standing or leaving the sleeping bag. Smooth, silky skin met hairy, scarred flesh. Cold lips touched, hot breath mingled, the long day and the night before were forgotten.

It all went so well that we decided to do it twice. Afterward, we lay back exhausted, holding each other like survivors on a life raft, our tent a floating refuge in a sea of violent madness. We found the sleeping bag, somehow, and snuggled deep into its warm nylon folds. Somehow, we also located the weapons and returned them to their previous places. That's when we heard the laughter.

It drifted on the cold air, like the night sounds of hyenas, becoming louder and louder, until we heard, “'Night, lovers!” After that there was the sound of boots on wooden planks and a door slammed shut.

I pulled Allie's warm naked body closer to mine and held the pistol in my hand as we reluctantly drifted to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I
woke in the predawn murkiness to the sound of Zeke leading a horse slowly past our tent. The sound of boots and hooves stopped, followed by a soft, “Barr, you up?”

“Yeah,” I replied softly, trying not to disturb the sleeping Allie.

“Then get your ass out here and help me saddle the goddamned horses.”

“Yeah, sunshine, give me a minute.”

I heard him grunt, then walk away mumbling something about being up for hours, with no sleep, people humping in the bushes, horses don't saddle themselves, and on and on until he was out of earshot. I found my clothes and quickly pulled them on, put the pistol in a holster, and strapped it to my belt. No need to hide it anymore.

Before I left the tent, I took a long, lingering look at Allie. Her face looked innocent in sleep, but her naked body belied such virtuousness. There were small puckered scars on her back, the results of hot embers or hot metal. On one forearm were multiple small horizontal scars that reminded me of the lines used to mark the years on prison walls. She must have needed to feel pain at some point, and cut herself to
prove she was living. There were other marks and tattoos I hadn't noticed before. Evidence of how little I knew about her; proof of how much alike we really were.

She stirred under my gaze, looked up, and smiled. “Morning,” she said, and pulled my head down for an affectionate kiss.

“We need to get going,” I reminded.

“I know. I'll only be a few.”

I began unzipping the tent door.

“Hey, Barr?”

“Yeah.”

“One thing. I don't know how to ride a horse.”

“Great,” I said. I threw my rifle over my shoulder and hunched out of the tent, heading toward Zeke in the crisp morning air.

He saw me approaching as he finished pulling the cinch tight on the last of the four horses standing tied to the hitching rail. He glanced at the pistol, then the rifle, saw the hole in the end of the rifle barrel big enough to stick a finger in. “What the hell, Barr, you expect to run into an elephant?”

“If I did, I'd have brought a bigger gun,” I said. “What kind of string did you fix us up with?” I asked, pointing to the horses.

Zeke finished tying the latigo, then hitched up his belt. I noticed the large revolver slung low on his hip. He wasn't hiding anything today, either. He patted the horse next to him on the neck. Thick puffs of dust rose off the hide into the now lightening sky. “This here is Nebulus. My horse. Stallion. Best of the Chimney line. Worth pert near fifteen K. Next to it”—he pointed at a paint mare—“is Sheila. That'll be your girlfriend's horse.”

“She gentle?” I asked.

“Who, the horse, or your girlfriend? The horse is. She packs kids around when I guide. She'll follow the others; Allie won't even have to ride, just hold on.” I shuddered, imagining Zeke around children. “The next one, that dappled gray mare, is Jess. We'll lead her, pack a few of our things on her; then when we grab Jen, she can ride her back.”

“That one mine, then?” I asked, pointing to the last of the line. The black horse shook his head and pawed at the ground, his back bowed up underneath the saddle, froth dripping off his lips.

“Yup. Name's Popcorn. Hope you remember how to ride.” Zeke chuckled and lit a cigar. “Your woman out of bed yet?” He was much friendlier this morning, but he still had that crazy edge to his voice and his hand never drifted far from his gun. I told him I'd go get her, pack up, and be ready to leave in half an hour. “Only bring your bedding and saddlebags,” Zeke commanded. “There's not much room and we travel light and fast.” I nodded and headed back over to the tent as the sun started its climb over the jagged eastern mountains.

Allie was dressed in jeans and a Western long-sleeve shirt, had already packed the bags, and was starting to take the tent down by the time I got back over to her. I helped her load all but the essentials into the Jeep; then we headed back over to the horses.

Zeke and I packed the bedding into the panniers on Jess, and then I tied the saddlebags onto the back of what would be my saddle. I double-checked my rifle, then slung it over my back so that both of my hands would be free. Zeke swung onto his horse and rode away from us, leading Jess. “Let's go, lovers,” he said.

Quickly I gave Allie a boiled-down riding lesson. Showed her how to mount: two hands on the horn, reins in one, swing
over. Demonstrated the basics: kick means go, pull reins and “Whoa” for stop. Press your ass into the seat by pushing down on the stirrups with your feet. Told her to keep her horse behind mine and she should be fine. Helped her onto Sheila, noting as I did her grace and athleticism.

Allie eeked like a little kid at first, terrified, until I led Sheila around in circles. Then she smiled, eventually beaming as she felt more comfortable. When I left her to get Popcorn, Sheila was playing tug-of-war with Allie, trying to pull the reins out of her hands so that she could nibble on the sweet grass.

Popcorn glared at me as I approached, then chuffed as I untied him. I led him in a couple of small circles, watching him walk stiff-legged, before I tried to get on. I pulled my hat down tight, put my boot in the stirrup, and swung on.

I didn't get a chance to put my other foot in the stirrup before Popcorn exploded in massive leaps and bounds, bucking, spinning, snorting, trying all of his tricks to dump me. I held tight to the horn, somehow managed to get my other foot in the stirrup, then pulled hard on the left rein, forcing him to buck in smaller circles. He slowed to mere crow hops, and I gave him his head and let him run. He sprang forward, running full tilt, then threw his head down and really started bucking. But I was ready and matched his leaps with the proper leans until he started to tire. Then I let him buck in circles for a little longer and was starting to enjoy the ride until I heard Allie scream behind me.

I turned to see her wide-eyed, gripping the horn with white knuckles, breasts bouncing. Sheila was following closely as my horse bucked along the fence, past the buildings, looping back around.

Looking back turned out to be a mistake, as it made me
off balance, and Popcorn saw his chance and jumped high, then twisted and landed stiff-legged. I flipped ass over elbows and landed hard on my back, the rifle digging into my kidneys and deflating my lungs like a whoopee cushion. I heard Allie squeaking, so I achingly managed to pull myself up in time to see Popcorn run past Zeke and out the gate he'd just opened.

“What the hell, Allie?” I asked, my voice barely a croak.

She was busy yelling, “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” and jerking on Sheila's reins. I hobbled over to Allie, who was still sitting astride Sheila, and asked again what the heck she was doing.

“You told me to follow, so I did,” she said.

I couldn't help but laugh, glad that she hadn't followed my running horse out of the gate.

“Don't laugh at me, dammit. It's not funny. I told you I didn't know how to ride.”

“It kind of is,” I said, smiling, and led her and Sheila over to Zeke. Allie fumed and glared at me.

“Screw you, Barr.”

It took an extra ten minutes for Zeke to run down Popcorn, corner him, and lead him back to us while I held Jess and Sheila. “Forgot how to ride?” Zeke asked as he handed me the reins to my reluctant horse. He looked disappointed I was still breathing.

“Nope,” I said. “I remembered how to fall.” I swung back onto Popcorn, spun him in a circle, and sat ready for another round of rodeo or whatever else Zeke had planned.

If he wanted to get rid of me, he'd have to try harder than that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

T
wo hours later, in the warm morning sun, we'd settled into a nice little convoy. The horses had all calmed down and were walking with quiet purpose in an orderly single-file line. We followed a narrow trail, barely wide enough for the horses' hooves, as it wove alongside the contours of the mountain. The tall trees whispered and sang in the breeze, accompanied by the songs of magpies and jays. The wind smelled of crisp snow, fresh pines, and sagebrush. I turned in my hard leather saddle and looked at Allie. “I'm sorry,” I said. She didn't answer, just looked away into the trees.

I turned back around. She'd gotten the hang of the riding thing in the last hour but was still a little sore that I'd laughed at her. She stayed mute, occasionally patting Sheila's neck, and stared adoringly at the scenery.

Ahead of me Zeke lit a cigar and turned in his seat to look back at us. “Comin' up is a fork. We stay to the left and follow the trail toward that compound. But to the right is a canyon that I work sometimes, looking for the yellow stuff. I swear, Barr, some of the roughest damned country on earth. Takes a man leading his horse hours just to work his way down into the bottom. Rough. Creeks with some of the whitest water
you ever seen, granite boulders fallin' off the steep sides the size of houses. No old mines, mind you, just placer stuff. Me and my pan in the creek. Spent a week in there last season, never made it to the lakes at the end of the canyon. They call it Quartermoon Canyon. Like I said, I never made it to the lakes, but I came back to the assayer in town with about a grand's worth of gold.”

Zeke turned back around, jerking his saddle hard left and right until it was centered perfectly on the back of his stallion. He gestured with his cigar, pointing to the vista of canyons and trees below us, smoke drifting up into the bright blue sky. “Yes, sir,” he said, turning back around. “This here is God's country. Gets even better. Another couple miles and we're in the wilderness. Government designated. No motorized vehicles allowed. Gotta walk or come in on horseback. We'll spend the whole day crossing it. Probably not see another person this time of year. Later on all them granola backpackers will come in, stink up the place. After that it's hunters and outfitters like me—not much better. Either way it's too many people wandering in my mountains. But I understand why they come. I tell ya, you're gonna see some of the best country God ever made.”

I had to laugh to myself. Zeke's mentioning God was a joke. No one sinned as well as he did. But he was right: it was some of the most breathtaking scenery I'd seen in a while. It felt good to suck in thin, clean mountain air, to be surrounded by trees and animals and rocks and rivers, and to be on horseback again, despite the considerable chaffing that was starting to wear on my inner thighs. A chipmunk shouted his high-pitched warning chirp to his neighbors as we passed beneath him. Below us a river churned and roared through the rocks, sending fine spray up toward the sky.

Zeke still talked. “. . . and after that we'll come up to a nice little pocket, nestled in a pretty gully, full of aspen and pines. We'll camp there tonight—a bare-bones camp but we'll have water. Fresh snowmelt water. Nothin' better but whiskey. It'll be damn cold though. Gets below freezing. We're up at about ten thousand five hundred feet now, but we'll be up to damn near eleven before we get to camp. We'll take a break here,” he said, stopping us in a small meadow. “Horses have bigger lungs than us, but up here, even they have a hard time breathing.”

I hadn't really noticed until he mentioned it, but we'd been climbing all morning. Now the trees were smaller, the air thinner, and the sun, despite the crisp air, seemed warmer. I put my jacket on when the wind started, the air coming off the snow chilling me to the bone.

“You okay?” I asked Allie as she gracelessly clambered off her horse. She glared, patted her rear, and said, “My ass is killing me.” I shrugged. I'd ridden plenty but had always preferred to walk, carrying my stuff on my back like one of those dirty granola types. But in this country you couldn't beat traveling by horseback.

Zeke dismounted gracefully, looking every bit like the John Wayne he imagined himself to be. He shifted his gun belt and said, “You get used to it, cutie.” He grabbed a sack full of jerky from his saddlebags. “You guys hungry yet?” I was starving, the mountain air amplifying my appetite, but waited for Zeke to eat a piece before accepting the bag. He noticed my hesitation, said, “What? You think I'm gonna poison one of my best friends? Or his good-looking girlfriend? Hell, Barr, who do you think I am? You're not still brooding on what happened last night, are you? I told you I was just messing around. Giving you hell, is all. Hadn't seen you for so long, thought you needed a little jabbin'. Forgive an old man?”

I nodded, took a piece, and handed the bag to Allie. It was hard, and I nearly broke a tooth trying to chew it, but it was tasty and I told Zeke so. He grinned. “Yep. Made it myself. Moose. There are still a bunch of those big guys around here. Gotta love 'em. Tasty, and enough meat to last a winter. Easy to hunt, too, if you're far enough away. With a rifle. 'Cause if you get too close, by God they're the meanest creatures on earth. Even the grizzlies stay away from 'em.”

Zeke hitched up his belt, dug into his vest, and pulled out yet another cigar. The man was a nonstop smoker—as I suppose I was when my willpower was at a low ebb. He lit the stogie and said, “Almost there, folks. Couple of hours up over this hump, then another couple to drop down into a bowl. We'll camp there. From there it's just a little hop, skip, and a jump over another hump to drop down to the compound.” He took a big drag, blew smoke toward his horse. “That compound, did I tell you? Used to be one of the biggest mines around here, back in the day. Late 1800s.”

He kept talking, but I didn't pay much attention. These weren't humps. They were the tallest peaks in Colorado. It would be a tough day tomorrow, with the travel and the raid and the rescue.
If
Jen was there. If not maybe I'd get some clues as to where I could find her.

Zeke was still rambling. Allie had wandered off into the trees, hopefully only to squat in the bushes. Zeke turned around, saw that it was just the two of us, and stopped talking. His smile vanished. “I said we were just fooling around last night,” he said, his voice cold and hard. “But you ever pull a gun on me again, you better pull the trigger.” He stared at me with dead eyes, the ones I'd seen in Mexico, the ones that sent ice through my veins and made me sick to my stomach. “And that is your last warning.”

I stood my ground, tried not to shake, tried to match his gaze, barely managed a maniacal smile, and was relieved when Allie came back and stood behind me. She didn't reach for my hand. Didn't put an arm around my waist. Only stood there, impatient, and said, “Ready?” Zeke put his smile back on immediately, as only a person who has guided before could, and said, “Mount up, folks. Long way to the campsite.”

Zeke knew the trail, and in what I could only guess were a couple of hours we reached the place he'd described. A nice little niche in between the peaks with a small creek and plenty of trees. We went to work setting up camp and in no time had everything unloaded and set up and the horses picketed in the only grass around.

I showed Allie where to put our sleeping bags, underneath the biggest living pine with the most foliage, so that we'd have a roof for the night. Zeke built a little fire and put his bedroll next to it, then went and filled a couple of jugs of water from the ice-cold creek.

“Whistle pig for dinner?” he asked as he set the jugs by the fire.

“Sure,” I said.

“What is that?” Allie asked as she appeared by the fire.

“Marmot. Little critter,” Zeke said. “Tastes like guinea pig.”

“Did you bring some?” she asked.

“No,” he answered, laughing. “We're gonna go and kill us some.”

“That compound, you think they'll hear the shots?” I asked.

“I hunt these slopes all the time; a few shots won't worry them any.”

“Okay. Pistols,” I said as I looked over at Zeke. “I'll go downstream, you go up. Thirty minutes. Come back here and see who has better luck.”

Zeke nodded and walked away quickly, his eyes already searching for the creatures hidden in the rocks. I told Allie to gather some more firewood, keep the fire going, and that I'd be back soon. She told me not to tell her what to do. I reminded her that I didn't trust Zeke, so she should keep the rifle handy, in case he doubled back and tried anything. She said she'd be fine.

I heard a shot upstream, then another farther away. He was working away from the camp, and I was already losing the competition. I headed down to find some dinner.