Treasure Mountain (1972) (23 page)

There was some factor in my setup here ...

I had a good field of fire down the ledge from where I'd chosen my hiding place.

There were a few dips and hollows, some fallen logs, some of them almost rotted through.

Getting the horses into as safe a spot as could be, I settled down and gave study to the situation. Over my shoulder I could see the almost bare flank of that ridge where the ghost trail led. Now if I could get over there ...

Nobody was coming. Evidently they were sure they had me and would let me worry a mite. I smelled smoke ... they were fixing some breakfast.

Well, why not me?

I gathered some sticks and put together a bit of a blaze and set some coffee to boiling. Then I got out my skillet and fried up some bacon. Meanwhile I kept an eye open for those gents who were hunting me.

If this was where they had cornered pa, where were his bones? And what became of his outfit? And the gold?

Pa was a canny man, and he'd not be wishful of them profiting by his death. If this was where it happened, then he would have made some show of hiding things ... Yet, how had it happened? True, pa only had a muzzle-loader, and, fast as he was, he'd not be able to fight off a bunch of them for long. But he had a pistol--or should have had.

Thing that disturbed me was the fact that Baston and them were so sure they had me. Now if I could just see what they were about ...

Suddenly a cold chill went through me, like they say happens when somebody steps on your grave. All of a sudden I knew why they were so sure of themselves.

They had a man atop that knoll who could shoot into this place where I was.

He was probably up there now, and, when the attack began and my attention was directed down along the ledge, he'd shoot me from the top of that hill.

Actually, it was a peak, standing higher than anything close by. Looking up at it, I could see where a man up there, if willing to expose himself a little, could fire at almost every corner of this ledge--almost every corner.

Well, cross that bridge when it came. Now for the bacon. I ate it there, liking the smell of it and the smell of the fire. What would I miss most, I wondered, if I should be killed here? The sight of those clouds gathering over the mountains yonder? The smell of woodsmoke and coffee and bacon? The feel of a good horse under me? Or the sunlight through the aspen leaves?

I hadn't a lot to remember, I guess. I'd been to none of the great places, nor walked among people of fame. I'd never eaten very fancy, nor been to many drama-shows. I'd set over many a campfire and slept out under the stars so much I knew all their shapes and formations from looking up at them time after time.

There'd been some good horses here and there, and some long trails and wide deserts I'd traveled. I had those memories, and I guess they stacked up to quite a lot when a fellow thought of it. But pa was away head of me when he settled down here to make his stand. He had a wife back home, and some boys growing, boys to carry on his name and carry on his living for him. I hadn't a son nor a daughter. If I went out now there'd be nobody to mourn me. My brothers, yes. But a man needs a woman to cry for him when he goes out.

Still, I'd want to be the last to go. I'd want to see her safely to bed before I cashed in my checks. Maybe it is easier for a man to be alone than a woman. I wouldn't know much about such things.

They are gettin' busy over yonder. Voices are closer. I reckon the fussin' and the feudin' are shapin' up to start. I reckon this is how some of those old Trojans felt when they put on their armor for the last fight, when the Greeks were closing in and they knew they weren't going to make it.

But I am going to make it. No man should go down the long way without leaving something behind him, and all I've got to leave will disappear when the dust settles.

A man can carve from stone, he can write fine words, or he can do something to hold himself in the hearts of people. I hadn't done any of those things, not yet.

Maybe I never would.

The wind was dying. Leaves hanging still. There was the coolness of the mountains around me. This here place must be close onto twelve thousand feet up.

A shade less, because there were trees around me. But the trees stopped not fifty yards off, and even here there weren't very many.

Looked like something moved atop that knoll. I'd like to burn him a mite, like to singe his scalp so's he'll know it ain't all going to be fun.

They were comin' now. Some movement down the ledge. I ate the last strip of bacon and refilled my cup with coffee. A bullet nudged at the rock over my head, spilling fragments into my coffee. I swore. Now they shouldn't ought to have done that. A body can take just so much, and I set store by a good cup of coffee.

If I stayed back close to the rocks nobody was going to get a real good shot at me, so I just set there. When shootin' time come, I'd do my share. No use to take the fun away from those anxious folks down there. A couple of more shots from down the ledge, but they done nobody any harm. I took another gulp of coffee and looked out yonder at the mountain peaks. Some of them were fifty, sixty miles off.

I wished I could see the one called the Sleeping Ute, but that mountain was hidden behind the rim yonder. When I leaned forward to take up the pot, that gent atop the knoll shot right into my fire. I slapped around, putting out sparks. He was going to get almighty annoying if he kept that up.

There were several more shots, but I finished my coffee before I took up my rifle.

Thing about fightin' with folks unused to fightin' is that a body should give them time. They get eager to get on with it and haven't the patience to set and wait. Me, I was in no hurry. I wasn't going no place.

First thing you know they were shootin'--scatterin' lead every which way--but I just set back in my corner enjoying my coffee and let them have at it.

They were wishful that I'd move out where I could shoot back so that gent atop the knoll could settle my hash. I'd no mind to let him do it.

Finally, I just got tired of the racket. The horses were in the best spot of all. They hadn't picked no fight. I had them in a place where bullets couldn't reach, and they had sense enough to stand there and switch flies off one another.

After a mite I decided that gent on the knoll might be gettin' eager enough to make a fool of himself, so I took my rifle and edged around to where I could peek up yonder without showing too much. Sure enough, I saw his rifle barrel.

Then I saw something against the sky--a shoulder in a blue shirt, maybe. It disappeared, but folks being what they are, I just waited, knowing he'd be apt to do the same thing again, and he did.

Me, I just up with that '73 and shot him, right in the whatever it was he was showin'. I heard a yelp, then a rifle fell loose on the grassy slope of that knoll, and I edged out to where I could see down the ledge.

I caught a glimpse of a plaid shirt down thataway. I triggered the '73, and whatever I'd shot at disappeared.

After that there was a kind of letup in the shootin'.

Those shots hadn't stopped them, just made them a mite more cautious. They knew now it wasn't going to be all downhill, but I'm tellin' the world I was a mighty lonesome man, a-settin' there, waitin' for them to come.

And only a few miles off I had family tough enough to whip an army. Looked to me like I had it to do all by myself. Well, that was the way I'd done most things my life long.

I fed a couple of cartridges into my rifle and took a look at the horses. They were standing, half-asleep, undisturbed by the doings of us humans. I went down among them and talked to 'em a little and then eased myself back up to where I'd been.

There was no easy way out of this, but one thing I knew: come nighttime I wasn't going to set waitin'. I was going out among 'em. And I was going shootin'.

Come hell or high water, I was going out yonder. If they wanted to land this fish, they were going to find out they had something on the hook.

Chapter
XXIV

It was a long day. From time to time a shot came into the hollow, but they made no frontal attack. The failure of the shots from the top of the knoll had apparently left them at a loss, and they hadn't figured out what to do.

Nobody ever won a fight by setting back and waiting, at least, not in my circumstances. In any case, my only way of fighting was to attack, and I believe in it, anyway. Attack, always attack.

They had me bottled up where I couldn't move by day, but night was something else, and I intended to move out and hunt them down. No doubt they planned to come and get me as soon as darkness fell.

Lying there I studied the possible routes out of my cul-de-sac, and getting out was no problem for a man on foot. In my saddlebags I carried my moccasins. I'd been a woodsman before I was ever a rider, and it come natural to me to move quiet.

Many a time as a boy I had either to ease up on game or not get a shot. A kill meant that I'd eat, and often it was only me and the family when pa was gone and the other boys still too young to hunt.

Judging by what Andre had said Pa had come here. Probably he had died here. And he must have had the gold when he reached this place.

What had become of it? Was it still hidden close by?

I set back and took a careful look around. Supposin' I had gold to hide, quite a bit of it. Where would I hide it where it would be unlikely to be found?

Supposin' I was here, figured I still had a fightin' chance, but knew I might have to slip out and travel light, just like I was going to do when darkness came?

Where would I hide the gold?

There was a level place of green grass, partly protected from rifle fire by a shoulder of the rock that walled the ledge. There was a sort of cove in the wall, scarcely more than enough to hide the two horses.

A tree that must have fallen five or six years ago lay close by, its trunk breaking up to pay its debt to the soil it came from. Lying near to it was the fallen tree with the brown needles still in place. It must have been broken off this past winter. Those trees hadn't been there when pa made his stand--if he did.

I had another thing to go by. Pa had known all the Indian ways of marking a trail, and he had taught them to us boys. One way was to place one rock atop another as a trail marker and a rock alongside the marker to show the direction of travel. Often when we were youngsters he'd lay out a trail for us to follow.

He'd gather a tuft of grass and tie it around with more grass, or he'd break a branch and stick it in the ground to show the way he'd gone.

Often the Indians would bend a living tree to mark the way. From time to time in wandering the woods one will wonder about a tree that grows parallel to the ground for a ways. Chances are it was some marker used by Indians in the long ago.

Pa taught us boys as best he could. He'd find a spot in the deep woods and he'd clear the ground of all leaves, branches, stones, and whatever. Then he'd smooth out the dust, leaving some food, both meat and seeds, in the center. We'd surround it with a circle of branches or stones, and we'd come back each morning to see who'd been there.

It wasn't long until we boys could tell the track of any animal or bird or reptile that crossed the smooth dust. Pa was forever pointing at some tracks or tree or bunch of rocks and asking us what we thought. Happened there, or what was happening. It's an amazing thing how much a boy can learn in a short time.

You found where animals had fought, mated, and died. You learned which animals moved about at night, which would come for meat, and which for seeds or other food.

We got so we just saw things without having to look for them. It was natural to us to know what was happening in the mountains and in the forest. Just as people differ one from another, so do the trees, even the trees of one species.

After a while I put my fire together again and fixed a little food, made fresh coffee, and took time to study the situation. Pa had been in this spot twenty years ago, and things would have looked very different. The older of the fallen trees would have been growing then, and several others within the range of my eyes would have been fair-sized trees. Others, larger and older, might now be gone.

The high winds, snows, and ice of the alpine heights are hard on trees. The bristlecone pine, which seems to survive anything, outlasts the others. This shelf where I had taken refuge would be deep under snow much of the year, and when pa was here some snow might have still been left. To understand his situation I had to bring back the shelf the way it must have been when he saw it.

Surely there'd have been snow where I sat, snow in this pocket and along the side where the shadows stayed almost all day long. He'd have made his notch somewhere here, but the tree might have fallen. It might be this very tree that was rotting away before me, or it might have been burned in campfires or fallen clear over the rim. There were scattered carcasses of trees along the steep slope below the cliff.

Pa respected his boys, respected our knowledge of things, and if he'd had the chance he'd have left us a clue, some hint as to where the gold was, and maybe as to what had become of him.

Had the journal ended with the loss of that daybook? Or had he some other means of writing? I'd better consider that.