by Lou Bradshaw
He led me to a livery stable, where the hostler told me that the woman collected her horse and had him get her husband’s horse saddled and ready. “She said he’d be along soon, but that was over an hour ago.” He told me.
“She ride out on the same horse she came in on?” I asked.
He nodded, and I took that as a yes. I knew the tracks she had left all the way up from Creede, so there wouldn’t be any trouble picking up her trail in the morning. Right then, I had an errand to attend to before I headed back to the marshal’s office and supper.
I told him to unsaddle her husband’s horse.
Chapter 19
When I showed up at the Claybrook’s office the next morning, I had already been to the livery stable, and picked up Rita’s trail out of town. Then I loaded up on supplies for the road ahead. Only when all the necessary business was taken care of did I walk into the US Marshal’s office carrying that big sturdy hard sided traveling bag that I’d bought the night before.
“Howdy, Cain, I figured you’d be hitting the trail soon, but I never guessed you’d be traveling quite so formally. Somehow, I thought of you as a rucksack man, but I never figured you to be carrying a portmanteau.”
“You’d have figured right. I wouldn’t carry something like this unless I had to. And I wouldn’t carry it far. That’s why I’d like you to get this thing on the next stage to Creede, Colorado. Have them hold it there for Shad Cain. It’s packed with my dude suit… my city clothes along with my boots and hat…. I plan to take up courtin’ when I get back home.”
“If you get a message to Ben Blue, you can tell him that I took his advice and tell him that I looked real good too.”
He swore that he’d for sure get that traveling bag on the stage and that he get the message to Ben. He went on to tell me that he had sent wires this morning to both Stewart and Blue. I bid him farewell and told him that I’d let him know how it all worked out.
~~~~~ 0 ~~~~~
Before the dew was off the grass, I was on Rita’s trail… and damned happy to be out of that city. I’d never have believed there could be that many people in one place. I’m a fella who probably doesn’t see more than two people in a month, but in Denver you couldn’t have your eyes open without seeing at least fifty of them. I calculated crazy Rita was probably waiting behind some tree to ambush me, but at least it wasn’t crowded.
Her tracks were easy enough to follow, even though there was plenty of traffic on that road. About five miles out, I found where she had pulled off and waited for Frank to catch up. It looked like she’d spent the night, and when the sun came up, she had breakfast and took off up the road for somewhere. She took off in a hurry running that bronc hard.
Her ashes were still warm, so I figured she’d gotten back on the road about daybreak. I had Dog confirm that it was Rita who had spent the night there. So there wasn’t anything for me to do but to follow along and keep my eyes open.
When I got through Golden, there wasn’t much of anything but those mountains looking down on me and beckoning me to forget what I was doing and come on up for a spell. But this business of finishing what I’d started kept me on the trail. I got to thinking about how I come to be out here chasing a woman I’d never properly met, and practically the only time I saw her, she was shooting at me.
They never should have taken Ben and Patty Anne’s little boy. Me coming from the mountains of Tennessee, family feuds were common place. Since I don’t really have any family left that I know of, I just kinda adopted the Blues. They always treated me as such. So when those fools stole that little boy, they opened the dance. And the way those old blood feuds worked, was they kept on goin’ till one side didn’t have anybody left. That was pretty much the way it was. The fact that those Doolys were such a nasty bunch only made me that much more determined to see it finished.
I’m not one to sit and ponder what’s going on inside my own head. I just naturally do the things that seem to be the right thing, even if I can’t explain it to myself.
The road led almost due west into the mountains… and some mighty fine mountains they were. There was a scattering of ragtag little clusters of buildings and tents here and there. I figured those were mostly supply and drinking places for mine operations up in the hills. I couldn’t see any other reason for them being there.
On the fourth day out of Denver, that miserable road petered out and became a pretty miserable trail. There had been a wagon or two on it at one point or another, but mostly there were just horse tracks and some cow tracks. There didn’t seem to be many people beyond the point where the road ended and the trace began. The gold hunters were farther east or farther north. I saw signs of some cow and sheep outfits, but the grass in these narrow valleys would never support a lot of livestock. It sure was pretty though.
It was coming on to evening, when I came to the first thing I’d seen that even resembled a town in a couple of days. I figured to have a couple of drinks, a good supper and spread my blankets along the creek that ran through the mile wide valley. If the town had a name, I sure never heard it or saw anything calling it by name. Like many of those places it’s just called “Town”.
There wasn’t but about eight or nine structures in town, which would include stables barns and sheds. But the town did have a saloon, an eating house, and a general store, so that makes it a town.
There was only one horse tied to the hitch rail in front of the saloon, so I figured they were open for business. So I tied up and stepped up on the boardwalk. Dog came up behind me and immediately stuck his nose to the planks and went to sniffing. I went through the swinging doors and Dog followed right to the bar. He never took his nose off the planks. He had the scent of something. My first thought was that he’d picked up Rita’s trail, but it wasn’t likely in a saloon… the general store would have made more sense.
I asked for a rye and told the man to draw a beer in a bowl. I figured that would give old Dog something to take his mind off of whatever it was that was bothering him. And it did for a while. There weren’t but two other customers in the place. There was a fella sitting at one of the tables playing solitaire with a beat up deck of greasy cards. He looked like he had been up the river and washed back down. If I’d ever seen a man with few options left, he was him.
The other fella was leaning against the bar nursing a beer. He was a little bitty, scrawny looking gent. He was wearing black pants which were held up by shoulder straps and a gray wool shirt. It was a good thing he had those straps because those britches would have been around his ankles if it wasn’t for them. He had longish black shaggy hair, but he was toting a big boy pistol and had a Winchester laying on the bar.
Dog finished his beer and went back to sniffing the floorboards. The next thing I knew he was sniffing around that skinny fellas boots. Then without warning, he stuck his nose right into that old boy’s crotch. That little fella came off the floor with a yelp like he’d never been dog goosed before. He jumped around like he had a snake in his drawers. All the while he was spewing some of the toughest language I’d heard since Ike Felton stepped on a bear trap up in the Bitterroots.
When he had landed and was on solid footing again he turned and drilled a hole in the floor not an inch from Dog’s right forepaw. I had my Colt out, cocked, and practically pressed against the side of his head.
“Mister, you been real lucky so far… you missed…. The dog didn’t mean anything… he’s a dog for God’s sake. He does what dogs do… He was probably tryin’ to tell you it was time to change into your summer underwear… or that it was time for a bath…. I don’t know what he was tellin’ you… I don’t speak dog.”
“If you got a problem with my dog, you take it up with me… Now let me buy you another beer and we can all be friends. I’ll even apologize, if that’s what it takes.”
That fella jammed his pistol into his holster, grabbed his rifle and stomped out the door cussing like a galded cavalry trooper. He got his horse and took off up the road kickin
g up dust, dirt, and rocks. The barman and that end of the line card player both busted out laughing. I couldn’t help myself… I did too.
“Hand me that beer bowl.” The barman said. “This one’s on the house. I ain’t had such a good laugh in months.”
“I wonder how he’s survived this long. He ain’t big enough to be a fighter, and he can’t shoot worth a damn… but he sure could dance.” The card player said.
I pondered on the same thing. That fella just wasn’t big enough for much of any kind of physical work. He couldn’t have been more than five foot four, and I’ll bet he didn’t weigh a hundred and fifteen pounds. Although he could be a horse wrangler, a small fella could do that pretty well. The only thing I knew for sure was he had himself a mighty quick temper.
Dog and me walked on down to the eating house and I went in. I placed my order from the limited choices. I told the lady taking orders, that there’d be a big ugly dog at their back door, and I’d appreciate it if they’d toss him some scraps. She said, “Sure, it happens more than you’d think.”
It was almost dark when I finished eating and had my coffee. So I led the roan across the road and out into the meadow to a spot where the creek ran through and found a place to set up camp. There was plenty of grass and water, so the roan was happy. Dog had carried what looked like the better part of a beef joint away from that diner, so he was happy. And I sat there by the small fire whittling on a piece of wood, so I was pretty much content. From time to time, I’d think about Dog goosing that fella and giggle like a school girl.
The next morning, I saddled up and rode back to the only street in that no name town. My intent was to pick up Rita’s tracks and continue my hunt. It took me about a half a minute to get her trail and head west out of town.
The trail was clear and clean because of the sparse travel through there. It took me another half a minute to start scratching my head because I’d lost it again. I went up a little farther and then doubled back to see where I might have missed it. The tracks had turned off the trail just at the last building in the town… a livery barn. The handmade sign read, “Livery and Horse Traitor. I didn’t think that was right but I’m no expert on spelling.
I could see where the horse had stood at the rail and then was taken inside the corral. I hailed the only one there, who I figured him to be the owner.
“Howdy.” I said. “I’m looking for a woman.” I knew that didn’t sound good as soon as I’d said it, but that fella was too quick for me.
“Ain’t we all… but you come to the wrong town for that…ain’t but a few here and they’re all married to big old hairy legged boys who would kick the snot out of you just for thinkin’ about it.”
I laughed at my own poor choice of words and told him, “No sir, not that kind of woman… I’m lookin’ for a particular woman who might have swapped horses with you in the last day or two.”
“Waal,” he drawled, “you missed again. The only horse I did any swappin’ for this week was that blazed faced sorrel over there. I got that from a little bitty skinny gent with a bad haircut… looked like he’d chopped it off with a Bowie knife.”
Bells started going off in my head. Dog wasn’t wrong; I was just too blind to see past the disguise. “All right if I take a look at that horse?”
“Sure… but I gotta tell you that animal has been run mighty hard and needs a few more days to rest up… I can make you a good deal on it.”
I went over and looked at the animal’s hooves and the prints it was making. I felt like a fool for having Rita, with a gun to her head and then offering to buy her a beer. Turning back to the stable operator I asked, “What’d you swap her… I mean him for?”
“A mouse colored grulla mustang… got fifteen dollars to boot. I saw him tear out of town just before sunset like his tail as on fire.”
“Headin’ up the valley to the west?”
“Yep, an the way he was going, it looked like he was tryin’ to reach Calaforny before morning.”
I thanked him and beat it out of there. Luckily, I was able to pick up Rita’s trail by the way she was riding and the lack of other traffic. There was no need to hurry; her fresh horse wouldn’t be fresh for long at that pace. I steadily cussed myself for being all kinds of a fool for the next couple of miles, but I had to give Rita credit for pulling it off.
She was a woman alone in land that was tough on men and hell on women, but she was riding right into the heart of it. A few more days and she’d be in some pretty wild and beautiful country, where there weren’t but a few white men in any direction for a hundred miles. And there wouldn’t be any white women at all. She either had a lot of nerve, or she was just a more afraid of what was behind her than she was of what was ahead of her.
From what I’d seen and heard of Rita, I’d say she just didn’t think about it either way. She reacted to what was happening. Not being one of those who know about such things, my humble opinion was that the woman was past the point of being even a little bit sane.
Chapter 20
Whether she was crazy or sane didn’t matter. I’d made it my work to catch up with her and put her out of business one way or another. So I hung to her trail tighter than a Tennessee tic. For the most part, she stayed to the lower ground taking the easier route. But every now and then she would venture up into the higher country. She never got very high, but she got high enough to keep me honest. I couldn’t just sit back and wait for her to come back to the valleys. I never knew when she would just keep going over the top of a ridge and not come back down.
That grulla she had swapped for took to the high country like he was born to it. So she had made a good choice of animals. I had to admire a horse that could go up some of those slopes and not show signs of slipping or any missteps. She lost momentum and was slowing down. Her camps showed me that she was no more than half a day ahead of me.
I was gaining, but not enough to catch up before we got into Ute country, which could be anywhere they decided to claim as theirs at the moment. Some of the Utes had been pacified, and put on a reservation, but not enough to make riding around in those mountains a walk in the park. Having never walked in a park, I didn’t rightly know what that expression meant… if the truth be known, I wasn’t even sure what a park was.
We had been following Dead Horse Creek for several days. I could see Baxter Peak off to the north and Lookout Mountain off to the south. This was familiar country to me. I’d been through here several times coming and going from one place to another, and that didn’t let me ride easy. The Utes claimed everything on the other side of the Roaring Fork River as their ancestral home, and it didn’t matter one damned bit what the white men in Washington said.
Running fights with the Utes, was something I’d experienced a number of times. There was one fine battle, where both parties had dug in, and we called it a draw. I’d lost a couple friends, but the accounts were pretty much even up. Both sides fought well and gave as good as they got. I’d been in a few skirmishes where we were both on the same side, when some White Mountain Apaches raided north. All that wouldn’t make one speck of difference if I was caught out here, even by a hunting party. If they thought I was worth the effort… I’d be in trouble.
I was trying to stay under cover of the aspens and willows that grew along the creek. Farther up the pines ruled supreme. Where I was riding the bank was thirty to fifty feet above the rushing water. Even though it was late spring, there was still plenty of snow up on the higher peaks and most of the creeks and rivers were ripping along nicely. Dead Horse was no exception.
Rita had a tendency to like to ride along the bank. I reckoned that she liked the roar of the water or liked to watch it tumble along. That was all well and good, but it tended to make the rider a target. So I would have to ride out to the edge from time to time and make sure she hadn’t headed up into the high country. But for the most part I could stay within twenty or so feet of the edge and still be under cover.
About five miles from wher
e Dead Horse Creek joined the Roaring Fork River, I came across an area where it was wide open for about a hundred yards. Normally I would have moved to my left and gotten under cover, but where cover should have been was a fifty foot bluff. I scanned the top of that bluff and well ahead into where the aspens reappeared. Nothing. I loosened my rifle in the scabbard and moved out slowly. I kept watching the top of the bluff and the trees hoping to see any movement before that which was moving could draw a bead on me.
A light wind was blowing in from the southwest and channeling between the mountains on either side to send it on upstream. Out of nowhere Dog growled and started barking. He was looking off to the left at the top of the bluff.
I looked up to see a figure and a puff of smoke. The roan reared up, swung around, hit the ground, tried to rear again, but by that time we were all out of bank and in mid air. I was able to kick loose and get myself free. The last thing I wanted was to have that horse come down on me.
It seemed like I was just laying out there in mid-air with for a full minute, but it couldn’t have been more than a half second. As the roan turned in space, I could see blood streaming into the air from a nasty neck wound. I could see the droplets of blood suspended in the air like bright red insects… just sitting there.
I was falling, and I didn’t know what I was falling into other than raging water and rocks. I couldn’t see any boulders directly beneath me, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there just below the surface. Thirty feet isn’t terribly far to fall. It’s about like falling from a two story hotel roof. You can break a neck, a leg, or just dust yourself off and walk away sore. But in this case a person could drown.
Hitting the water I went under completely until I hit gravel and pushed off. But the force of the current was so great; I went farther downstream than I did up toward the surface. Breaking the surface, I gasped for air and was slammed into a boulder and swept under again. My whole life came down to reaching the surface each time I was pulled back under. Choking and gagging on water, I was being battered by boulders, until I didn’t know how much longer I could keep coming up.
