Wyoming Wildfire (40 page)

“Only the storm kept me here. Can we leave tomorrow?” Ned looked at the clear sky and the cold but valiant sun.

“Not by wagon. We’ll never get through the drifts.”

“I know. I meant on horseback.” Ned looked hard at Sibyl, but her determination was clear; she would leave if she had to do it alone.

“We’d better leave early. It’ll be slow through the canyons and draws, but it’ll be better than to wait until everything starts to melt and the ground becomes a sea of mud.”

“You can see about sending my things as soon as it’s possible to get a wagon through. I’ll pack what I need on Dusty.”

“Anything more than your toothbrush might kill that useless nag.”

Sibyl smiled weakly. “How long before anybody comes in from the range?”

“Can’t say. Depends on the herd.”

“It doesn’t matter. You and Balaam can see to things around here, and Rachel knows the house as well as I do.”

“But she don’t cook like you do.”

“Sometimes I think the only reason you want me to stay is to fix your next meal.”

“There’s never been anyone like you with a pot, miss, but I guess telling you that ain’t going to change your mind.”

“No, but it’s nice to hear. I never said so, but I thought I’d never see you again after you delivered us to the ranch.”

“I did plan to take my money and head for the nearest town, but I’m glad I stayed. You’ve changed this place a lot, and you’re gonna to be missed.”

Thank you,” Sibyl said, turning quickly to the house so he couldn’t see the tears of sadness she couldn’t hold back any longer.

Chapter 26

The scream of the wind had been so incessant for the last six days that Burch was barely conscious of it as he lay in the warm comfort of his bed, putting off the shock of the icy floor to his bare feet. He knew what punishment awaited him outside the cabin door, and he was conscious of a desire to stay right where he was for the rest of the morning. With a rush, like diving into a cold lake, he erupted from the bed and began to put on the many layers of heavy clothing needed to protect him from the sub-zero blasts of arctic wind.

Outside, the wind whipped around the pitifully small trees next to the cabin with terrible force, driving the snow before it like millions of tiny swords. It struck Burch like a body block and sent him stumbling through the drifts toward Silver Birch, who was hobbled in the lee of a bluff with the protection of a thickly grown group of pines at his back. Burch wasted no time on his usual playful antics. He saddled the huge stallion quickly and moved steadily into the teeth of the storm along the floor of the little valley to where it widened out to meet the plain below.

Minutes later it was possible to discern a group of several hundred cows loosely gathered around three large haystacks. Most stood with their backs to the murderous wind, feeding on the hay that Burch had scattered on top of the snow, but two heifers ate directly from the haystack.

Burch dismounted and began to pitchfork the hay to the ground, wondering how long the blizzard would last. It was hard to keep the cows tightly gathered near the haystacks. Their instinct told them to head for the open range, where they would drift before the storm, sometimes for hundreds of miles, not stopping to eat until the storm blew out or they died on their feet. This year, with the range virtually stripped of grass, that would have meant certain death.

Finished with the hay, Burch next took the ax he carried in his saddle scabbard and cut through the thick ice of the small pond backed up behind one of the several dams on Elkhorn Creek. He’d have to check again in a few hours, because some mindless cow always stood in the water until it froze around her and she had to be cut out. But for now, he mounted up quickly and headed back to the cabin.

He warmed his stiff body before the stove, trying to decide what he wanted to eat, but thoughts of Sibyl ruined his concentration and he ate his dinner quickly and without satisfaction. Afterwards, when he tried to decide what to do for the herd, Sibyl kept interrupting his thoughts and he had nothing to show after thirty minutes of fruitless deliberations. In frustration he picked up a book, but his mind kept returning to Sibyl. When he at last turned out the light, he couldn’t remember half of what he had read. “This has got to stop,” he told himself as he pulled several blankets over him to keep out the numbing cold. “I’ll go crazy before I can get back to the ranch.” But Sibyl slipped in and out of his uneasy dreams, illusive and yet constantly present, and he woke feeling more tired than when he had gone to sleep.

Next morning the blizzard had eased, and a light snow floated to the ground like airy feathers in a soundless world. Burch decided the best way to keep the unwelcome thoughts and question at bay was to check on the other cabins.

At his first stop, Burch found one of the hands pulling a steer out of a drift.

“Damned fool won’t stay out of that ravine no matter what I do,” complained Buck Coker. This is the third time he’s wandered off. Next time I’m going to leave him and have him for dinner when he thaws out next spring.”

“Have you heard how anybody else is doing?” asked Burch, giving him a hand.

“About the same as me from what I hear. Damn fool cows acting stupid, but we can handle ’em. When I was cussing so last summer at having to stack all this hay, I never thought I’d be glad to have it,” he said, surveying his scattered herd as they ate. “If they don’t freeze, they’ll be all right come spring.”

“Have you seen Jesse?”

“I saw him go by here yesterday,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t think anybody was crazy enough to be out in this storm, but it was Jesse. No mistaking his pinto.”

“Which way was he going?”

“That’s something else perculiar. He was headed in the direction of Boulder Canyon. We don’t have any cows over that way, do we?”

“No. I wonder where he went?”

“Could be over to Blue Mesa. There’s more cows there than anywhere else.”

“Maybe.” Burch visited two more cabins before he reached Blue Mesa a couple of hours before nightfall.

“We ain’t seen Jesse since before Christmas,” said the two cowhands, struggling to keep nearly a thousand head from starvation. “Wish we had; we sure could use the help.” Burch had intended to go on to the next cabin, but by the time he had helped the boys finish up their work, it was too dark.

“Who’s in the next cabin?” Burch asked.

“Cody, and fit to be tied he ain’t in some snug hotel in Laramie. Don’t think you can depend on him staying after the weather breaks.”

“It won’t matter if he does then,” said Burch, preparing to turn in. Think I’ll head on up that way tomorrow.”

But he didn’t. The more he thought about Jesse and Boulder Canyon, the more certain he was that something didn’t fit. The snow picked up again, but instead of turning back, he headed Silver Birch toward the pine-covered ridges that loomed up in the west.

All morning long he climbed under the shelter of the pines. The wind’s bitter edge was blunted by their snow-covered boughs, but the falling temperature made the silence under the trees lonely and threatening. Shortly before noon he reached the mouth of the gorge that led into Boulder Canyon. Burch found a trail that was slowly drifting full of snow—a sure sign that a rider had passed through in the last two days. The weather suddenly started to get worse, and Burch hoped the old cabin at the head of the canyon was still standing. He should never have come here, especially not alone.

“What do I care if Jesse comes up here to hide,” he said aloud. But still he went on. The canyon narrowed between steep pine-covered walls, a still-flowing stream taking up nearly all of the opening. The signs of a recent traveler along the narrow trail at the stream’s edge were unmistakable now. As the canyon opened out abruptly, a familiar shape caught his attention just ahead.

“How the hell did that cow get up here!” he exclaimed, jerking Silver Birch to a halt. The cattle, for there were too many for Burch to count at a glance, were nearly buried by the drifting snow. Burch expected to find them all frozen where they stood, but the canyon walls had provided protection from some of the savagery of the storm and they stared fixedly at him from glazed eyes. It was their captivity that doomed them to certain death.

Cursing any man fool enough to leave his cattle penned and unattended, Burch leaned down and threw the fence rails aside. He drove Silver Birch through, shouting and waving his hat, but the nearly dead cows moved only just enough to crack the surface of the snow. Burch tossed his rope over the nearest horns and literally dragged the traumatized animal out of the drift. As he turned to go back for another, the crusted snow fell from the steer’s sides. It wore the Elkhorn brand. With a torrent of curses, Burch knocked the snow from a second steer. It wore the same brand! But who would bring rustled cattle here, risking a chance of discovery, instead of slaughtering them or selling them in Montana?

If he didn’t stop asking questions and get them out of the drift, they would soon the. It was already too late for some, he found, when he put his rope over the seventh animal, an old cow. Burch cursed more vehemently and after what seemed like hours of backbreaking work, barely two thirds of the herd—all that were left alive—were drifting down the canyon toward the shelter of the pines.

The cabin was completely bare, but someone had slept there recently and stabled a horse in the lee. Jesse’s name kept sounding in Burch’s mind, but what possible reason could he have for rustling steers or hiding them here? Burch couldn’t find anything to identify the mysterious occupant, so he left. He had to drive the cows to Blue Mesa before nightfall or they would perish; if the storm got much worse,
they
might
all
perish.

By the time Burch caught up with the herd, the snow was falling so thickly it was hard to see. The cows moved slowly, the stronger ones breaking a path for the others to follow, but they were all too weak to be driven hard. Burch was thankful for the shelter of the pines. For a few, movement warmed their blood and their bodies gave off a healthy steam in the frigid air. Several moved with lowered heads and lagging feet, and on many occasions Silver Birch had to support a wobbly cow with his shoulder. But Burch couldn’t abandon them. They were
his
cows and he’d already lost too many.

Burch harried and hurried the animals as the hours dragged by. When the light grew weaker and the cold more intense, he pushed them even harder. One cow stumbled, and Burch pushed her ruthlessly along. When she stumbled again, he put a rope around her neck and pulled her.

When they at last left the shelter of the pine-covered ridge, the blast of the storm’s fury surprised even Burch. The cows staggered dangerously. Some seemed to sense mat safety lay ahead, but others were too exhausted to want to do more than lie down and let the darkness sweep over them. On and on they struggled, Burch pushing, pulling, prodding the well-nigh dead animals, forcing them to go on living against their wills. The light was almost gone and still the cabin at Blue Mesa did not come into view. Burch lost precious minutes cleaning the ice balls out of Silver Birch’s hooves. His tired eyes probed the gathering darkness about him, but he could find no familiar landmarks in the swirling gloom. How much farther did they have to go? Could he have lost his way? He was going on instinct alone, hoping his sense of direction would not fail him now.

The cows wouldn’t hold up much longer. Even now he had two of them in tow, and the strain was beginning to tell on Silver Birch. That mighty stallion had carried him seventy-five miles over difficult terrain, and the ice that still collected in his hooves made each step unbearably painful.

At last Burch was forced to dismount. He tied the reins to his arm and stumbled through the snow, his gallant mount laboring to pull the unwilling cows behind them. Still there was no cabin. He would soon have to make a choice: to stumble on through the night toward certain death, or stop and hope to last until morning. He might be able to survive by killing the largest steer and climbing into the warm carcass, but that wouldn’t help Silver Birch or the rest of the herd. Before he had to decide upon one or the other of the grim choices, the faint light from the Blue Mesa cabin penetrated the dark. With his last strength he plowed on through the snow, stumbling at last against the door, too tired to open it.

“Jesus Christ, it’s the boss,” exclaimed Orvid, pulling Burch into the warmth of the cabin. “We never expected to see you back for days.”

“I found the rustled carde,” Burch panted, gratefully accepting a cup of steaming coffee.

Burch remained with the boys for two days until a break in the weather allowed some light through the leaden sky. He saddled up Silver Birch.

“You can’t mean to leave yet,” objected Orvid.

“I have to get back to my own cabin. My cows may have starved to death while I’ve been gone.”

The trip was extremely taxing. Once Burch nearly lost his way, but before the light disappeared, his own cabin came into view and he stumbled inside, grateful to have defied the elements once more. Immediately after starting the fire, he went back into the nearly inky blackness and fought his way to the herd. Two heifers had taught the rest of them how to tear hay from the stacks, but the lake was frozen solid. He used his last energy to chop enough holes in the ice for the cows to drink, then he staggered back to the cabin and fell on the bed, too tired to eat. He hung his hat on the bedpost, drew the blankets over him, and went to sleep with his boots on.