Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0) (13 page)

Pistol might know something, and so might Kate, if she was alive.

And those two dead men…maybe the folks in the town where they were killed had some record, from the stuff in their pockets or what gear they had.

It was something to go on, and it was time I got started.

Teresa, she looked at me. “What are you going to do? Are you going off again?”

“Might as well. Looks like you found yourself a man.”

She flushed. “He’s not my man. At least he knows how to treat a lady and he’s not running off around the country all the time.”

“You just see how long he stays once I’m gone,” I said.

“Oh, my!” She stared at me. “You really think yourself important, don’t you? He did not leave before, after you left!”

“Some others did,” I said, “and he didn’t figure he’d need to. This time I’m going east.”

“He won’t leave,” she insisted. “When the snow is off, he plans to start mining.”

“Good for him,” I said, “and good-bye!”

I taken out of there, and picking up my gear, I went to the stable. They could keep their old hotel. I’d sleep in the hay. The good Lord knows I’d slept in worse places.

Chapter 10

D
AYLIGHT WAS AN hour away when I fetched out of there, and I’d be lying if I said I’d slept well. Tired as I was, I surely didn’t sleep. I’d been building ideas in my mind about Teresa. Except for that other freckle-faced girl I’d seen when I first come off the mountain, I’d had no girl in my thoughts.

If a boy is going to think about girls and such, he has to have some particular girl in mind, and I hadn’t even
seen
one in eight or nine months. Teresa had seemed right friendly and I’d kind of warmed up to her in my mind, but Yant was a talker and I’d been gone awhile.

Me and that roan, we just taken out of there. The snow was off the passes now, and the trees were budding out in fine shape.

When I left town I was riding south, but I knew where I was going and a few miles out I took a dim mountain trail up Scotch Creek. That was high country and rough, but I held to the old Indian trail and went around a ridge and cut over to Hotel Draw.

If I was heading east I might need a sight of money, and although I’d spent mighty little going west, a body never knew when he might fetch up to needing. So I was heading back to my cache on the plateau, or what I called the place.

Sure enough, when I topped out, the snow was gone except on the peaks around. The wind was chill but the grass and flowers were coming up. On the sunny, south-facing slope the tree-cover was higher, mostly spruce so far as I could see, and the wild flowers would be blooming in no time. Up that high a flower can’t afford to waste time. They have to grow, blossom, and put out seed before the next frost comes, and it’s a hurry-up job for them.

The sun was warm and friendly, and when I looked across at the old cabin, it wasn’t there. Standing in my stirrups, when I topped a little rise I could see charred timbers.

Burned. I felt a twinge then, for I’d spent some good nights in that place. Burned by the judge and them, no doubt.

I stayed shy of it, heading for my cache. There was no time to waste around if I figured to get anywhere, and already I was thinking of that town where pa had been killed. It was fairly enough on my route, and even if it meant taking a chance, I was going on in.

A whiskey-jack made noises at me from a rock, hoping I’d go into camp. He followed along, keeping track of me. Jacob’s ladder was blooming, and I saw some wand lily and alumroot here and there.

When I found my cache, I taken a long look around and then reached up and fetched out my money. I’d never yet counted it and wasn’t about to do so now. I stashed it away in my saddlebags and taken out of there, heading out along a narrow trail through boulder piles and uplifted slabs. Frost, wind, and sun had worn the sharp edges off the rocks over the years, but here and there among the piles of boulders there was some dwarf columbine with a flower no bigger than my thumbnail.

Marmots whistled signals to each other as I wove a way through the rocks, but they didn’t pay me much mind. Usually they whistle and disappear in the rocks, but they must have remembered me putting crusts of bread out for them now and again, because they just whistled and sat there, watching me pass. Maybe it was their way of saying good-bye, because I never figured to see that place again.

Old Dingleberry was nowhere around when I passed the trail leading to his place, and it was after sundown when I rode into the town where pa had been killed. There were lights at the portals of some of the mines, and there were lights along the street, mostly in saloons or eating places.

The roan was tired and so was I, so I fetched around to the livery stable. Old Chalk was there, and he seen me ride up. He knew that horse as well as me or better, and he said, “Howdy, son. It’s been awhile.”

“Anybody around town lookin’ for me, Chalk?”

“Not so’s I heard, son. The judge, he cut up somethin’ fierce for a while, then he an’ some others taken out. I reckoned they was huntin’ you.”

He didn’t ask no questions and I didn’t offer any answers. A man learns to keep his own affairs to himself. “Give old roan here a bait of oats. He’s earned it.”

“All right, son.” Chalk watched me take my gear off the saddle, and if he noted those saddlebags were heavy, he didn’t speak of it.

“Chalk,” I said, “you knew my pa.”

“I did so. A finer man never walked, although he was no gambler. Not until that last night.”

“He was gamblin’ for me. Chalk. I never guessed until it was too late. He was trying to get me a stake so’s I could go to school and such. It was the only way he knew how.”

“He might have gone to minin’,” Chalk commented.

“Now, the way I see it,” I replied, “pa didn’t figure he had long, and there was a man on his trail…more than one of them.” That reminded me. “Chalk, did you ever see a man around here, tall man, black coat like pa’s, a man who favored pa some?”

“I seen him.”

“Can you tell me when?”

“He come in the day your pa was killed and he rode out that same night. Had him a mighty fine horse.”

“Thanks, Chalk.”

“He the one who did it?”

“Seems like. I think he was family. I met him over yonder,” I said, gesturing south. “He’ll likely be along again, might even inquire after me.”

“What should I tell him?”

“You haven’t seen me. We’ll meet up someday, and I figure on it, but there’s some things I got to get straight first.”

“Be careful, boy. He may be a pilgrim but he’s a hard, hard man. I seen it in him.”

“Chalk? Did pa ever talk to you? I mean, you know more about folks than anybody around, and I’ve got to find out where he came from.” I kicked a toe into the dirt. “Chalk, I don’t rightly know who I am. I don’t know why that man killed pa, or why he’s wishful to kill me.”

“Your pa was not a talking man, son, but he was a good man and he was a gentleman. Good family. I could tell that. He come from the South, too. I’d guess Caroliny, maybe Georgia. I could get it by his accent, although most of it was lost. He had the pride, too. Southern pride. I fit again them in the War, but they was good folks, mostly, wrong to want to split the Union, but good folks. Your pa was such a one.”

“Thanks, Chalk. I’ll have a bite and go to sleep.”

“Better get yourself a place first, because there’s a lot of strangers in town. Been some good ore showin’ up, and the boomers can smell it from a thousand miles off, the way they start comin’ in.”

“Chalk? Better have that horse ready. You hear any shootin’, you saddle him, you hear?”

“Will do.” Chalk hitched his belt and looked at me, then spat. “You take care of yourself, boy, and steer clear of grief.”

When I had booked a room and left my gear in it, I went to the restaurant, but that freckle-faced girl wasn’t there and the fat-bellied man with the rolled-up sleeves and hairy arms did nothing to brighten my evening but bring me grub. That was good, however, and a body can’t expect too much of life.

When I’d had something to eat, I walked out on Blair Street. In just two blocks of that street there were thirty-two places where a man might get what he wished in food, drink, or women. There was Big Mollie’s place, Diamond-Tooth Lil’s, the Sage Hen, the Mikado, the Bon Ton, and Lola’s. There was any kind of game you wanted, if it was gamblin’ you were hunting for.

Here I was, weighted down with money, more than anybody on the street, I guess, but I’d learned not to flash it about, and looking at me nobody would guess that I had anything, especially as I was just rubber-necking around.

Truth was I was lonely, just wishful of setting down with somebody to hear them talk. I was turning back toward the hotel when I saw that girl with the freckles. She was hurrying across the street with a couple of packages, and I spoke to her, but she hurried on, paying me no mind.

“Ma’am?” I said. “I’ll pack your groceries for you. We talked some awhile back in the restaurant.”

“Oh?” She hesitated, looking at me, and I taken off my hat. She recognized me then. “You’re the boy whose father was killed!”

“Yes, ma’am. You were the one warned me to be careful.”

“Yes, I did. I was afraid for you.” She stood looking at me. “Whatever happened to Judge Blazer?”

“Last I seen of him he was with Tobin Wacker and a man they called Dick.”

“I was afraid they had found you.”

“Here.” I took the packages from her arms and walked beside her. “You lead the way and I’ll pack these for you.”

“I liked your father,” she said. “He was a nice man.”

“He was. A better father than I knew I had.” I hesitated a mite. “Do you know where they buried him? I taken out so fast—”

“I’ll show you, if you are going to be around.”

“Well…I can’t. There’s things I have to do back east a ways, but I’ll come back. I want to put some flowers on his grave. Maybe a marker.”

“There’s a wooden cross with his name on it. We thought you knew.”

“Knew? Why? Knew what?”

“That there was to be a cross. That note you left.”

“I left no note.”

“There was one. It was in the post office, addressed
To Whom It May Concern,
and it left some money for a decent coffin, burial, and a marker. We thought you left it.”

Felix Yant.
It had to be him. Shoot a man and then…he had to be kin, to do a thing like that.

“I reckon I know who done…did it. Anyway, I want some flowers on his grave. He’d have liked that. He was forever talking about the dogwood and laurel back home…wherever that was.”

“It sounds like the South.”

We had fetched up to a cabin with a little picket fence around it and a light in the window. She hesitated. “I’d like you to meet my mother, but not right now. I don’t think—”

“Let me just set these things down inside,” I said, “and I’ll be on my way.”

She opened the door and I stepped in behind her. There was a fire burning in a coal stove and there was a coal-oil lamp sitting on a table. Near it a woman was sewing. She was a thin, attractive woman, but she was some surprised when she saw me.

She put her sewing down quick and said, “I—”

“Now, ma’am, I just carried the groceries in for your daughter. I’ll be leaving now.”

Something got knocked over in the next room, and then a big man, unshaven and not too clean, showed in the door. He had no shirt on, just his suspenders over his undershirt, and he looked bleary, whether from being waked up or booze I couldn’t tell.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, mighty rough.

“Kearney McRaven,” I said. “I just showed your daughter home with—”

“Get out!” he said. “By the Lord, I’ll not have any drunken saddle tramp coming around here! Get out!”

Putting the groceries down on the table, I said, very quiet, “Mister, I’m not drunk and I’m not a saddle tramp.”

“I don’t give a damn who you are! I said get out, and I mean out!”

Her mother stood up then. She stood up quickly and she did it with grace and dignity. “Henry, the young man is a guest. He just carried Laurie’s groceries in.”

He paid her no mind but walked into the room. “You get out,” he said, “or I’ll throw you out!”

“I am leaving,” I repeated, “but, mister, don’t you ever try throwing me out. I don’t want to make any trouble for this young lady, but you’ve no call to talk like you’ve been. Now you just back up an’ back off.”

He stopped, glaring at me. He’d expected me to get when he yelled, but there I stood. Laurie’s mother turned around quietly and said, “Mr. McRaven? Would you sit down? I was just about to make some coffee.”

“Now, see here!” he blustered. “I’ll be damned if—”

“Henry,” she said, turning on him, “you’ve said quite enough. We would like to have you join us. If you do not wish to, I am sure your friends down at the National will be waiting for you.”

He was angry enough to have hit her, but I was standing there and I guess he didn’t like my manner.