To the River's End

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  The powerful Blackfoot warrior, with his arm still locking Jug’s arms to his side, picked up the smaller man, much like a disobedient child. Carrying his rifle in the other hand, he stepped up from the sunken floor of the tipi effortlessly and went outside. “Where is your big friend, little man?”

  “I expect he’s gone to your village where he’s sleepin’ with your wife,” Jug retorted defiantly. It earned him a sharp blow to the side his face.

  “The only thing big about you is your mouth,” Standing Elk scoffed. “You are not worth powder and shot, so I am going to cut your guts out and let you hold them while you’re dying.”

  “I wouldn’t expect much else from a coward like you,” Jug declared, still defiant.

  “Little Big Mouth,” Standing Elk said in disgust. Seeing a coil of rope hanging on the side of the tipi, he reached up and took it, still holding Jug prisoner with one arm. Then he released him long enough to strike him with his rifle butt, hard enough to knock him down. And while Jug was struggling senselessly, he tied Jug’s hands behind his back, then tied them to his ankles. With his gun ready to fire, Standing Elk took a few minutes to look around the clearing to make sure Luke wasn’t around. With no sign of the big trapper, he decided it best to find a place of cover to wait for him to return to camp. He was sure Luke was looking for him somewhere. He would wait in ambush for him. That decided, he went back to the tipi to settle with Jug, who was still lying on his side, hands and feet tied. “On your knees!” Standing Elk ordered. He grabbed a handful of Jug’s hair and pulled him up on his knees. Then he took his scalping knife and cut the ties holding Jug’s coat closed. Next, he opened Jug’s shirt with a slash of his knife to expose his belly. “Now we will take a look at your guts, Little Big Mouth, and see how you like to wear them on the outside. First, I’ll take that gray scalp.” He reached over and grabbed Jug’s hair again. Jug’s reaction was to stare defiantly at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing him beg for mercy. He braced himself, waiting to feel the sting of the Indian’s knife as he ripped the scalp from his head. But Standing Elk grunted, his eyes opened wide in surprise and he released Jug’s hair and slowly turned around. When he did, Jug saw the arrow, the shaft buried halfway in his back. Then he saw Luke, some twenty yards behind, taking aim, his bow fully drawn. A fraction of a second later, Luke released the bowstring, sending a second arrow on its way to bury with a thud in Standing Elk’s chest.

  The fierce Blackfoot warrior took two steps toward Luke before he sank to one knee and stared down in shocked disbelief at the shaft protruding from his chest. Knowing the life was draining from his body, he looked as if he didn’t understand. Seeing no reason to let him suffer for long, Luke drew his knife and slit his throat, then pushed him over on the ground. With the execution over, he looked at Jug. “Are you all right?”

  Still somewhat in between fact and illusion, Jug shook his head in an effort to clear it. When he finally answered, he seemed to have regained his normal cockiness. “Yeah, I’m all right. I’m a little tied-up right now, though. Was there somethin’ you wanted?” He paused for a few seconds for Luke’s reaction before demanding, “Untie me, for Pete’s sake!”

  Greatly relieved to see his partner was, indeed, all right, Luke replied in kind. “I don’t know, I think I like you a little better that way.”

  “How come you used that bow, instead of just shootin’ that fool Injun?” Jug asked, as Luke was untying him.

  “I thought he deserved gettin’ killed Injun-style,” Luke said. “Maybe that’ll get him a bigger tipi when he gets to the happy huntin’ ground.”

  Jug cocked a doubting eye at him. “Nah, why did you use that bow?” He was thinking that it had been a hell of a time for Luke to be playing Indian.

  “Tell you the truth,” Luke said, “I used my bow because I knew I could get two shots off quicker with a bow than I could with my rifle. And at that close a distance, I knew I wasn’t gonna miss. If I shot him with my rifle and it didn’t stop him, he mighta shot me while I was reloadin’ my rifle. I didn’t have my other rifle with me, and I left my pistol with you. Bow’s quicker—first arrow on the way, second arrow already notched and ready to fly.”

  Jug considered that for a moment before commenting, “You know, I reckon you’re right at that. ’Cause he turned around after that first arrow drove in his back. You standin’ out there in the open with nothin’ to take cover behind, if you’da shot him with your rifle, you’da been tryin’ like hell to get it reloaded before he shot you.” He thought about it some more. “Hard to say, at that close range, your rifle mighta knocked him down. ’Course, I might coulda grabbed his rifle then before he got it.”

  “You were tied up, hand and foot,” Luke reminded him.

  “Yep, there’s that to consider,” Jug allowed. “How’d you know to come back here?” Luke told him about his tracking of the Indian and admitted that he had not been so smart in his attempts to hide their trail. “Well, don’t feel bad,” Jug said. “You ain’t been ridin’ these mountains as long as I have. There’s a whole lot more to learn.”

  Luke grinned and shook his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get old enough to know everything you know,” he said facetiously. “Maybe you’ve got a good idea where his camp is ’cause I need to find it. I feel pretty sure he’s got a packhorse there that might be tied up. I know he wasn’t carryin’ much on that gray he rides. I found that gray back yonder in the woods. That’s how I knew for sure he was in our camp. I’m gonna go back there and get him.” He took another look at Standing Elk’s body and said, “Then I reckon we’d best tidy up our camp a little bit.”

  Jug stood there and watched his partner as he strode back toward the forest. Danged if that ain’t another time he saved my gray old behind from getting killed by Injuns, he thought. Best decision I ever made was partnering-up with Luke Ransom.

  Chapter 9

  Finding himself with another body to dispose of, Luke thought about taking Standing Elk’s corpse back to the mountain where he had dumped the other three Indians’ bodies. This one had gone to a lot of trouble to bury the bodies of his three fellow tribesmen. It might mean a lot to the Indian’s spirit to go to the great beyond with his brothers. But it was only a thought. He didn’t feel compassionate enough to go to the trouble. That mountain was a couple of miles away, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to dig up that crevice to bury this one. So Standing Elk’s body was deposited in another rocky crevice on the backside of the mountain where their camp was located—approximately half a mile from the camp.

  “Did you get your arrows outta him?” Jug asked when Luke returned.

  “No,” Luke replied. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I’ve got plenty of arrows and I got to thinkin’. If some other Blackfoot hunters come across his body, they’ll think he was killed by a Blackfoot, and not a white trapper.”

  “That’s good thinkin’,” Jug responded, forming the picture of it in his head. “They might even start suspectin’ each other.”

  Back to a subject that he was compassionate about, Luke said, “I reckon the next thing I need to do is to see if I can find this fellow’s camp. He mighta left his other horse loose to graze and water, but I kinda doubt it. It’d be good if I could find him today. We’ve gotta set some traps tonight.” He paused to add, “At least, I do, since you ain’t got but one good arm. But this weather’s too cold to leave a horse tied to a tree all day and all night.”

  “I’ll go with you this time,” Jug said. “I don’t think we have to worry about leavin’ our camp today. We ain’t seen no sign of any more Injuns close around here.”

  Luke agreed. They left their extra horses free to graze close to the pond, thinking they would not likely wander. Their only real worry was the possibility of a bear plundering their tipi and destroying it. Their supply of meat was in bundles, hanging high up from the ground, too high for a bear to jump, and hanging from limbs on long ropes. It was even secure in the event of a mountain lion�
�s visit. So they mounted up again and set out for the spot where the whole business with Standing Elk started. It was their intention to try to find sign of his first entry into the little meadow where he shot Jug. It was Luke’s idea to take Standing Elk’s horse with them. He thought there might be a chance, if they got close to the Blackfoot’s camp, that the horse might naturally wander back to the camp.

  Jug was skeptical. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Might depend on how often the Injun moved his camp. He might notta stayed in one spot long enough for the horse to call it home.”

  “He might get wind of the Indian’s other horse before we did,” Luke argued.

  “Hell,” Jug snorted, “our horses will get wind of that horse before we do.”

  “I know it,” Luke said, getting impatient. “I just think it won’t hurt to have any help we can get. If we was to strike just the tiniest little sign near that meadow where the creek is, and turn that gray loose, he just might save us some time and go right back the way he had come before.”

  “And he might take off for parts unknown,” Jug replied, still skeptical. “Horses ain’t that smart, and then we’ll spend the rest of the day lookin’ for the dang horse.”

  “I’m beginnin’ to think I shoulda left you back at the camp,” Luke commented. “I believe I’m startin’ to see how it is to have a wife along to nag me.”

  “I had a wife once,” Jug said. “Did I ever tell you about her?”

  “No, but I’ll bet you’re goin’ to,” Luke answered as he tied a lead rope to the rope reins of the Blackfoot’s horse.

  “She was a big ol’ gal,” Jug went on, oblivious to his partner’s sarcastic remark, “met her in a saloon in St. Louis. I was young as you at the time. And when I say big, I mean she wasn’t just heavy, she was tall as a lodgepole pine.” In spite of himself, Luke found his mind making up a picture of Jug and this Amazon as Jug continued. She taught me a helluva lot that I didn’t know nothin’ about at that age and said we oughta get married. I weren’t doin’ nothin’ at the time, so I said, why not? They had a regular customer that was a preacher, and he hitched us up right there in the saloon. She said I reminded her of a pony. Said when she was a little girl, she always wanted a pony. But her folks didn’t have no money to buy her one. She said, ‘Now I got me a pony.’” He shook his head as he thought back. “I thought she’d quit workin’ the saloon after we was married. But she said, ‘And do what? Live off the money you’re makin’?’ Well, it was hard to argue that point, since I didn’t have no job.”

  “Here, let me saddle your horse for you,” Luke interrupted. “You can’t do much with that bad arm.”

  “Obliged,” Jug said, then picked up his story right where he was cut off. “So we just made do on what she could earn. And we got along pretty good for a while till this danged French trapper came down from Canada on a boatload of furs. He was damn-near as big as my Florina and he took a shine to her. Pretty soon, she told me she was puttin’ her pony out to pasture and she was headin’ back to Canada with that French trapper.” He finally paused there as he seemed to be back there in his mind. Luke felt kinda sorry for the little old man and was about to tell him so, but Jug stopped him. “This weren’t meant to be no sad story. Florina was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ till I met up with her. But after she kicked me out, I decided to go to Canada and trap for furs, myself. It took a while, but I finally made it to where I am now, an independent businessman and indentured to no man.”

  Luke was frankly surprised. “You started out in this business in Canada?”

  “I did,” Jug replied.

  “Up there in Hudson’s Bay territory, right?”

  “Yep,” Jug said. “I told you that already when we started trappin’ the Judith. I started out workin’ for Hudson’s Bay till I got to the place where you got to in your life. I didn’t wanna work for no big company no more.”

  “Well, when we were back at rendezvous, I don’t know if I’da partnered up with you if I’d known you were a Hudson’s Bay man,” Luke japed. “I mean, me bein’ an American Fur man for five years.” He watched Jug pull himself up into the saddle using his left arm. Then he stepped up on Smoke. “You know, if you’da told that Blackfoot you worked for Hudson’s Bay, he mighta let you go.”

  * * *

  They concentrated their search around the small meadow below the fork of the two streams they were trapping just before Standing Elk attacked. There were any number of game trails leading out of the forest and onto the grassy meadow. None showed any sign of a horse or man. The only real sign to follow was along the path of Standing Elk’s flight from the meadow after Luke shot at him. The sign was so carelessly left, with broken branches and disturbed logs, that they both figured it was purposely so. When they reached the ravine where Standing Elk had laid in wait for Luke, it was obvious where he had knelt, ready to take the shot. “Well, there ain’t no doubt he ran here when he thought you was chasin’ him,” Jug commented. “But that don’t tell us a helluva lot, does it? ’Cause we know where he went from here. He came after us.”

  Luke was thinking the same thing, but he was not convinced he was right. He thought back over the chain of events that led to Standing Elk’s finding their camp. He looked at Jug and asked, “He came right after us, but it took him a pretty good while before he found our camp. I’ve been thinkin’ it was because I covered our tracks so well, that it took him that long to find our trail. What if it didn’t take him that long to find our trail? What if he found it the first time he rode around those streams?”

  “I don’t know,” Jug answered, not sure what Luke was getting at. “What are you thinkin’?”

  “I’m thinkin’ that maybe we ain’t too far from his camp right now. I know I never figured it would be south of this valley. But what if it is, and the reason it took him so long to find our camp was because he went back to his camp first, for whatever reason?”

  Jug shrugged. “I don’t know, Luke, it’d be one helluva coincidence.”

  “Well, I’m gonna look around for some sign, anyway,” Luke said and started scouting the mouth of the ravine. “Right here is where he left his horse.” He walked over and untied the lead rope from the gray’s reins, then led the gelding over to the spot where the Blackfoot had tied him. Watching in fascinated wonder, thinking he was witnessing the progression of a man in the process of going crazy, Jug said nothing but smiled knowingly when the gray horse merely stood motionless in the spot Luke led him to. “Any time you’re ready, boy,” Luke encouraged the horse as he scouted around and around the spot where the horse stood, each circle a little bigger than the one before. Until, finally, he found what he was looking for, a solitary hoofprint. He paused and looked back at the horse, who appeared to be as confused as Jug. Luke looked in the direction the hoofprint was pointing and starting walking through the trees on that line. To Jug’s amazement, the horse suddenly started walking after Luke, but he was still convinced that didn’t prove anything. Luke stopped then and waited for the horse to catch up to him. The big gray horse plodded slowly along beside him until Luke gave it a swat on its croup. The horse jumped and started to lope, but then it slowed to an easy trot, and continued on the line Luke had started out in. Luke and Jug automatically broke into a trot behind the gray, with Jug still leading his and Luke’s horses.

  The ground rose slightly as they approached a low ridge. When the gray approached the ridge, they heard a nicker from a horse on the other side. It was answered by the gray and received a questioning whinny from the other horses. “Well, I’ll be dipped in . . .” Jug started but didn’t finished when Luke looked back at him and grinned triumphantly. They climbed over the ridge to find an anxious-looking buckskin shifting its feet nervously as the gray went up to say hello. It was as Luke had feared, the buckskin was tied to a tree with enough slack to reach a small stream, but there was nothing for it to graze. And in the event of another freezing night, there was very little shelter fr
om the lodgepole pine it was tied to. “I swear, partner,” Jug commented, “it looks like we’re gettin’ in the horse-raisin’ business. We’ve got a sizable herd started already.”