by Jon Sharpe
10
The meadow was a five-acre oval bordered on the north by a stream and to the west, south and east by a crescent of woodland, mostly spruce with a few oaks.
“Not bad,” Rooster declared after they had drawn rein in the center. “The griz will have to come into the open and we’ll have clear shots.”
“Exactly as you wanted,” Wendy said.
Fargo had to admit the spot was perfect. “We have a lot to get done before dark. Let’s get to it.”
Moose helped Cecelia down and she bustled about overseeing her brood and setting up the camp to her satisfaction.
Each of them stripped their own horse. Fargo took a picket pin from his saddlebag and pounded it into the ground. He preferred a pin over a hobble; in an emergency he could pull it out and ride like hell that much faster.
Abner, Thomas and Bethany collected firewood while Cecelia kindled a fire. She took a coffeepot to the stream and filled it. She also filled a pot for the stew she was making.
The aromas made Fargo’s stomach growl. The smell would also serve as a beacon and bring in any bear that caught a tantalizing whiff.
Over an hour of daylight was left, and Rooster and Moose had just sat down to rest, when Fargo proposed they build a lean-to.
“What in the world for?” Rooster demanded. “I don’t mind sleeping on the ground.”
“It’s not for us. It’s for them.” Fargo nodded at Cecelia and the children. She was stirring the stew, and glanced up.
“No need to go to all that trouble on our account.”
“It will give you someplace to run to if the bear comes. He won’t charge you if he can’t see you.”
Cecelia gazed at her offspring. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to have one, at that.”
They had brought an ax and Moose took it on himself to chop down saplings and cut the limbs they needed. A thicket provided the brush for the sides. When they were done it was eight feet long and four feet deep.
Although Rooster had complained, he walked around it and declared, “A damned fine job if I say so myself.”
The long day in the saddle had given them all an appetite.
There wasn’t a drop of stew left in the pot when they were done. Fargo had two helpings plus four cups of scalding hot coffee. Leaning back, he patted his belly and said contentedly, “You’re a good cook, Cecelia.”
“It’s not all I do good,” she said, and she looked at Moose and winked.
Moose blushed.
“Tomorrow we start on the blinds first thing,” Fargo announced. He wanted them in position and ready as early as possible.
“You’re not expecting the bear that soon, are you?” Wendy asked.
“There’s no telling.”
“It shows up, we’ll have it in a cross fire,” Rooster said. “It will be like shooting ducks in a barrel.”
“Except this duck fights back.”
About an hour after sunset Cecelia ushered her flock to the lean-to. She spread blankets and had them say their prayers, then kissed each on the cheek and came back to the fire. Sighing contentedly, she said, “This has been a fine day.”
“Doesn’t take much to please you, does it?” Rooster said.
“Any day that ends with a full belly and my kids healthy and happy is as fine a day as I can expect.”
They made small talk for a while. Cecelia rose and tiptoed over to the lean-to. When she returned, she was smiling. “They’re asleep, and I’ll whale the tar out of anyone who wakes them.”
“Does this mean we have to whisper?” Moose asked.
“No, just don’t do any shoutin’.” Cecelia clasped his hand. “Let’s you and me go for a stroll, shall we?”
“Now?”
“Why not?” Cecelia tugged but Moose stayed where he was.
“It’s night.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the dark?” Cecelia pulled harder and Moose reluctantly stood.
“I ain’t scared of nothing. I just don’t see no sense to it when we’ve ate and can relax.”
“There are ways and there are ways,” Cecelia said.
“You have plumb lost me.”
“Come along, infant.”
Rooster waited until they had ambled out of sight before he smirked at Fargo and said, “Walk, my ass.”
Wendy was sipping tea from a china cup. “Surely you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“She has a hankering to have her pump primed and Moose has the pump handle.”
“Here and now?” Wendy said in amazement. “There’s a time and a place for everything, old boy, and this certainly isn’t it.”
“You’d say no, I suppose?” Rooster scoffed.
“I daresay I would, yes,” Wendy said. “We English are more reserved than you Americans. We know when to keep our peckers in our pants.”
“Prim and proper, eh?”
“Exactly. You’re familiar with British manners, then, I take it?”
“I know bullshit when I hear it,” Rooster said. “Madame Basque told me you pay her gals a visit nearly every other night.”
“Yes, well,” Wendy said, and coughed. “Prim and proper is well and good but a man shouldn’t be a fanatic about it.”
He turned to Fargo. “How about you, sir? What’s your view? When should a man turn down an offer to have sex?”
“When he’s dead,” Fargo said.
They were up at the crack of day. In order to cover the meadow from end to end they decided that they should post themselves at the cardinal points of the compass. Fargo figured they should draw lots but Wendy wanted to be by the stream.
Moose chose the west end and Rooster immediately said his spot would be to the east. That left south. Each man got ready.
The opposite bank of the stream was higher than the near bank. Periodic high water had eroded away the bottom, leaving an overhang. Wendy waded across and settled into a pocket where he was effectively screened from the woods behind him and could see all of the meadow.
Moose ripped out brush and piled it in a semicircle around a tree with the open end toward the meadow. Seated with his back to the bole, he was invisible to any animal that approached through the woods. He, too, could see the entire meadow.
Rooster was more elaborate. He chopped several stout limbs, climbed halfway up an oak, and rigged a platform for him to sit on. From that high up he had an obstructed view.
Fargo didn’t go to all that trouble. He chose a small spruce at the meadow’s edge and crawled under it. From where he lay he could see everyone and everything.
Cecelia added green wood to the fire so it would give off more smoke and put a pot on. She encouraged her kids to play and make a lot of noise—so long as they stayed near the lean-to.
Fargo placed the Sharps in front of him, folded his arms, and rested his chin on his wrist. Now all they could do was wait and hope the smoke and the smell of the food and the sounds of the kids playing attracted the giant grizzly. It might work. It might not. The bear could be anywhere within fifty miles. But since all the attacks had taken place in that general area, the brute just might catch literal wind of their bait.
The minutes crawled into hours and then the sun was at its zenith. Cecelia and her children sat around the fire eating and talking and making more noise than they ordinarily would.
Fargo and the other men stayed where they were. They didn’t dare break cover, not when the grizzly might be close by without them knowing.
As the afternoon waxed, Fargo grew drowsy but shook it off.
He must stay alert. When the bear came, it would be sudden and silent, and he must be ready.
The sun dipped and the shadows multiplied. Twilight washed the browns and greens in gray. Soon it would be too dark to see much of anything.
Fargo crawled from under the spruce and moved into the open. The others followed his example. Their disappointment was as keen as his own.
“I should have known it wouldn’t be easy,” Moos
e said. “It could be days before he shows.”
“The bounty is worth the wait,” Cecelia said.
Fargo picked up the coffeepot and filled his tin cup. “We’ll take turns keeping watch tonight.”
“I take a turn, too,” Cecelia said. “This was my idea, remember?”
“No need for you to,” Moose said. “I’m the man. I should do it.”
“Listen here,” Cecelia said, poking him in the chest. “I’m not one of those gals who sits on her ass while her man does all the work. A wife should be a helpmate and no one will ever say I shirk my duty.”
Moose’s eyebrows tried to climb into his hair. “We’re married?”
Little Bethany giggled.
Cecelia told her to shush and bent over the pot to stir the stew. “No, we’re not. Not yet, anyway, but who knows? You might take enough of a shine to me that livin’ with me will appeal to you. Until then, there’s no harm in actin’ like we already said ‘I do.’ ”
“I do what?” Moose said.
“Ain’t you ever seen anyone hitched? That’s what folks say when the parson asks them if they will.”
“Will what?”
“Forget I brought it up.”
Night was falling and stars sparkled. From out of the primordial reaches of the wilds rose the howl of a wolf.
Somewhere closer a fox keened.
Rooster came over to Fargo. “I’ve been doing some thinking, pard.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Ain’t you funny?” Rooster said. “But if this bear is as smart as he seems to be, he won’t show himself during the day. He’ll wait until night when most of us are asleep and he can sneak in close.”
“That’s what I would do if I was him.”
“So when we’re keeping watch tonight, we’ll be in more danger than we were all day.”
“A lot more.”
“Well, damn,” Rooster said.
11
Fargo’s turn was the last two hours before daylight. He woke feeling sluggish when Moose poked him with a finger as thick as a spike.
“Time to get up, sleepyhead,” Moose joked, whispering so as not to wake the others.
The men had spread their blankets in front of the lean-to. Cecelia and the children slept under it. Anything that came at them had to get through Fargo and the others first.
“Did you see or hear anything?” Fargo asked as he stretched and shook his head to try and clear it.
“It’s been quiet as can be,” Moose said. He sank onto his blanket and lay on his back with his rifle against his side. “The only problem I had was staying awake.”
Fargo stiffly rose and stepped to the fire. The crackling flames cast a glow that lit the lean-to and the horses. All else was ink. The woods were a black wall. He could hear the gurgle of the stream but couldn’t see it.
Sitting cross-legged, Fargo placed the Sharps in his lap and poured himself a cup of coffee. He needed it badly. His muscles felt sore, which puzzled him since he hadn’t done anything strenuous. And his head was mush. It took two cups to bring him to where he felt halfway normal.
Occasionally a coyote or a wolf raised a lament to the heavens but otherwise the night was quiet.
Soon snoring came from the lean-to; Moose had fallen asleep.
Fargo refilled his cup and shook the pot. There wasn’t much left. He must make more before dawn.
Far to the west a mountain lion screamed. It woke several of the horses. They pricked their ears and one stamped a hoof but after a while they dozed.
Half an hour went by and Fargo was close to dozing, too. Again and again he shook himself. Once he slapped his cheek. It was so unlike him. He attributed it to his feeling awful, and began to wonder if he was coming down with something.
Then, in the woods to the south, a twig snapped.
Fargo was instantly alert. Twigs didn’t break on their own. Several of the horses had raised their heads and were listening, the Ovaro among them. He put both hands on the Sharps. Something was out there. But it didn’t have to be a meat-eater. It could be a deer, an elk, anything. He added wood to the fire. The flames rose and the light spread a little farther but not far enough to reach the forest.
No other sounds came out of the dark. Fargo relaxed and sat back. He was about to drain the last of the coffee when he noticed that the Ovaro was staring to the west. He saw only darkness. The stallion was slowly moving its head, as if whatever was out there was circling.
Fargo rose and went over. “What is it, boy?” he whispered. He peered hard but still saw nothing.
The Ovaro nickered, and at the limit of the light, eyes appeared. Large eyes, gleaming with shine from the fire, fixed on their camp.
Fargo couldn’t be sure they were a bear’s eyes. But he pressed the Sharps to his shoulder and curled his thumb around the hammer.
The eyes blinked, and moved. Not toward him but toward the stream.
An animal come to drink, Fargo guessed. The eyes blinked again and were gone. He heard the thud of what might be hooves and then a splash.
The Ovaro lowered its head.
Fargo took that as a sign all was well and returned to the fire. He still had over an hour to go. He finished the last of the coffee and set his cup down. His stomach grumbled and he was rising to go to his saddlebags for some pemmican when eyes appeared to the south. He stopped and brought up the Sharps. Whatever the thing was, it was just beyond the ring of firelight. The eyes stared at him without blinking. He was sure this time.
It was a bear.
He aimed between the eyes but didn’t shoot. It was a bear, yes, but was it the bear? Was it Brain Eater? He didn’t think so. The eyes weren’t high enough off the ground. It might be the other bear, the one that killed the Nesmith family. What was it the woman told him? The bear that attacked them was middling. The eyes staring at him were those of a bear that size.
The Ovaro nickered.
Fargo glanced at it, expecting to see it staring at the eyes to the southwest. But no. The stallion was staring to the northwest. He risked a quick look.
Another pair of eyes was fixed on him with baleful intensity. Larger eyes. Eyes that were much higher off the ground. Eyes that could only belong to one animal.
Brain Eater, Fargo thought, and a tingle ran down his spine. He had a bear to the right of him and a bear to the left. If they charged he couldn’t possibly drop both before they reached him. He swung the muzzle of the Sharps from one to the other. They went on staring, and it occurred to him that they weren’t staring at him; they were staring at each other.
Suddenly Brain Eater made a whuff sound and its eyes were gone. Brush crackled.
Fargo turned toward the smaller bear. It, too, had slipped away. He let out the breath he had been holding and stood rigid with expectation but nothing happened. The night stayed quiet. Both bears were apparently gone.
Fargo lowered the Sharps and expressed his bewilderment with, “What the hell?”
Everyone shared his bewilderment. They sat around the fire eating their breakfast of oatmeal that Cecelia made and drinking coffee sweetened with sugar.
“Two bears?” Moose said, and slurped as he took a sip. “That ain’t good.”
“I’ve done some research on these grizzlies of yours,” Wendy said, “and I was told they’re not very social. It’s unusual to have two bears roaming together—isn’t that right?”
“Unless it’s a mother and a cub,” Rooster said. “But this second bear seems a mite big to be a cub.”
“I’ve seen a dozen bears in a river at the same time after salmon,” Fargo mentioned. “They always give each other a lot of space. If one gets too close to another, a fight breaks out.”
“Why didn’t these two fight?” Moose wondered. “You’d think the big one wouldn’t want the little one anywhere around.”
“You men,” Cecelia said. “So what if there’s two? It’s the big one we’re after. It’s the big one the bounty is on. And now we know that it knows we’re here.�
� She beamed. “It’ll come back, and when it does, the money is ours.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, woman,” Rooster said. “We have to kill it first.”
“Do you other chaps think it will come back?” Wendy asked.
All eyes turned to Fargo. By unspoken consent he had become unofficial leader, in part because he had more experience than any of them in the wilds, and in part because he had an iron edge about him, a force to his personality that they respected.
“I think it will come back,” Fargo answered. “The question is, when? We can’t let down our guard.”
“What I don’t get,” Moose said, and slurped some more, “is why the critter didn’t attack us last night.”
“You and me, both,” Rooster said. “This thing has killed upwards of fifteen people. I figured it would attack us on sight.”
“A normal bear might but this bear isn’t normal,” Fargo said.
“So what do you propose we do?” Wendy asked. “Go to our blinds and wait?”
“What else can you do?” Cecelia said. “You sure can’t go traipsin’ off after it and leave me and mine to fend for ourselves.”
“I’d never leave you alone,” Moose assured her.
“But it wouldn’t hurt if one of us went,” Fargo proposed, “and since I’m the best tracker, it should be me. I’ll try to find where Brain Eater went, and if I get a shot, I’ll take it.”
“Just so you remember that no matters who kills it, we all get our share of the bounty,” Cecelia said.
“You and your bounty money,” Rooster told her.
Cecelia gestured at her three young ones, who were hungrily eating their oatmeal. “When you have kids, old man, then you can criticize.”
Moose stopped slurping to say, “You leave her be, Rooster—you hear me? You pick on her too much.”
“Thank you, handsome,” Cecelia said.
“Who are you talking to?” Moose asked.
“You,” Cecelia said.
“Oh. No one’s ever called me that before. Mostly folks say I’m sort of ugly.”
“Not to me,” Cecelia said. “To me you’re the handsomest man alive.”
“Gosh.”
Fargo had finished eating, and stood. “I’ll head right out. If I can’t pick up the trail I should be back by noon or so.”
