The Ardath Mayhar MEGAPACK®

by John Maclay

  Beside him, the interminable voice droned on and on. “And old Otto turned, quicker than a cat, and saw me coming. He slowed a little, and I slowed a little, and for a minute we just stared at each other, eye to eye. Then he went for his gun, and I went for mine. Turned out he had slowed just enough to let me beat him to it.

  “And that’s how I got to be the greatest gunfighter in the West.”

  Forty times, if once, he had heard that tale. He’d hear it a thousand times more, if the old coot lived that long.

  Mother had told him that everything has a price. That he’d pay, one way or another, for everything he ever got in all his life. Clive Keller sighed. He had something of what he had wanted, though not in the way he intended.

  But he was going to pay a hell of a price.

  POWDER RIVER HIDEOUT

  At heart, I think I may have a touch of the outlaw....

  Angus Tallfeather chased me out of Julesburg, Colorado, threatening to nail up my scalp on his front porch. It’s no sin to beat a man in a horse trade; he had no call to get so angry about it, but Tallfeather, for all his Indian ancestry, had the temper of his Scottish mother.

  I didn’t really think he’d scalp me—he’s civilized, after all, even if his grandfather was a Minneconjou Sioux. Still, I value my scalp as much as anybody, and I rode out in a hurry, making for Deadwood, where I have kin who will lie, cheat, or kill for family—even me.

  I rode up into the Black Hills at last, taking care not to leave any sign Tallfeather might follow. I went so far as to remove my mare’s shoes, so her tracks would look just like those of the unshod mounts of the Lakota bands that ranged there. Tallfeather’s mare, Maud, snorted and grumbled, but she carried me up and down those steep hills, following the courses of streams that made wrinkles between heights, until she stepped into a stump-hole and broke her leg. Sometimes I think I have the worst luck of anybody.

  I had to leave my saddle, of course, though I hid it in a rocky notch behind an upthrust of boulders. At that point, I knew I’d better leave the easy course I had followed and take to the high ground. They’d driven a road around the toes of the steeps into Deadwood, though in the beginning they’d winched down the cliffs all the materials and equipment needed for working the gold mines.

  Luckily, I’d hunted and trapped that country before it got so damn civilized, so I knew a route to take that would avoid any possibility of my being noticed. Not everybody is willing to lie to protect Will Henley, though I’ve done my share of favors for a lot of people. Cheating on horse deals isn’t the only thing I do. No, I’d best make it to Deadwood afoot and without being seen.

  It took days, sweating my way up heights that would boggle a bighorn sheep and down their other sides. I slithered like a lizard down a sheer cliff into Deadwood on a Tuesday night, knowing that would be a quiet time in town. Of course, this wasn’t one of the steeps over the middle of town, what there was of it, but the height above a knee of rock on which my cousin Lee had built his cabin. I damn near wore my fingers and toes down to the bone too, doing it by moonlight.

  It wasn’t easy. Those cliffs are sheer, and if I hadn’t clambered all over them when I was younger, I might’ve broke my neck. As it was, I tumbled down the last couple of yards, banged my elbows on Lee’s rear wall, and heaved a sigh of relief.

  When I rapped three, two, three on his back shutter, I heard someone move quickly to the peephole. “Who’s that?” came the question, though Lee should have known. That had been our signal when we were boys together back in Kansas.

  “It’s Will, you idiot! Open the door, when I get around to that side. I need to borrow a horse and get out before anybody’s around.”

  “Figures!” he grunted. “Got a sorrel gelding you can borrow. If you stay alive, you bring him back, you hear?” I could hear his woman fussing as he shuffled toward the front door. She, I realized, might not lie, cheat, or steal to promote my welfare.

  Lee might be grumpy and disapproving, but within an hour he had me supplied with a gelding, Mose, his second best saddle, more ammunition for my rifle, and enough food to take me a long way. He also provided a water skin that turned out to be more important than anything else.

  I led the horse quietly along the zigzag path from his cabin to the rough track below. Then I followed the winding track until we were well out of the range of the nearest cabin. It was slow going, up and down wooded heights, until we were clear of the hills, but once out on the prairie I rode fast, resting Mose only when he began to wheeze.

  It might seem strange, but I worked my way out of the Black Hills as fast as possible, leaving behind the relatively plentiful water supply there. Tallfeather wouldn’t expect anybody to head out into the dry lands, particularly if he found the remainders of Maud and thought I was afoot. But I’d been up and down the country, back and forth through high and low, wet and dry, and I understood just what I was doing.

  I was headed toward the Powder River country. There’s a maze of dry washes, arroyos, and canyons there that could hide ten armies, if you could supply them with food. You can ride for weeks without coming to the end of the place. With the river looping crazily back and forth, I knew I would never be far beyond the reach of water, and at this time in the summer there was always game: pronghorn or even jackrabbit, if you were willing to risk a shot.

  Now you may wonder why I was going to so much trouble to escape from a pretty far-fetched threat by Angus Tallfeather, and well you might. It wasn’t just that, of course. I’d used that as my excuse to Lee, but actually I’d also sold the army a batch of stolen horses that they were certain to identify. Some Cheyenne friends of mine had liberated them while they were being driven for branding and training to another army post in Wyoming.

  If Angus wasn’t after me, Sergeant Butler was, as sure as death and taxes. I’d rather see my scalp decorating Angus’s porch than my tail at the mercy of the sergeant. So I used every trick I ever learned from Crow and Kiowa, Arapaho and Sioux and Blackfoot.

  I took Mose down into a dry wash—not the first or the third, but one with a nice hard path worn by buffalo and antelope, so as to show no track of a horse. We followed it until it ran into a deep arroyo, and we went along that into a canyon lined with every kind of rock God ever decided to make.

  Every now and again I’d shoot a grouse or something and build a tiny fire back in some nook in the wall of whatever canyon I followed at the time. There was grass, it being early summer, and Mose managed pretty well, though he got a bit thirsty between visits to the river. Even a full water skin won’t supply a man and a horse for very long, if you let the horse drink his fill.

  From time to time I’d climb up whatever high spot was nearby and reconnoiter, lying on my belly and surveying the land. A good thing, too, for about a week after I went to earth I saw a column of dust way out among the swells and ridges.

  It was not Indians—the dust lay in a neat line, rising from a disciplined column of riders and blown away east on the wind. I could tell the difference between that and sign of a band of Indians with my eyes closed. So I’d been right, and it was Butler, come to take his pound of flesh. I had known better than to make that deal, and Broken Hand had told me it would probably get me hung, but I’d wanted to skin the Army for years. Stiff-necked bastards! It was a cavalry lieutenant who begot me on my mother, and she said he never so much as said thank you for the favor.

  Her kin should have done something about it—but maybe that’s why Lee and Uncle Jebediah and his brothers always came up to taw for me. They must have felt guilty, now that I think about it.

  Anyway, now I’d skinned the Army and it looked like the Army was all set to skin me in turn. I might have asked for it, but I didn’t intend to take it, if there was any way to help it. So I watched until I was sure the column was just quartering the territory, looking for tracks, and then I dropped back down into my canyon and led Mose away toward the river
for a long drink. If we had to hide for very long, he’d need it. That Butler and the scouts had noses like timber wolves.

  * * * *

  The Powder River is lined along much of its course with cottonwoods, which makes very good cover for somebody who wants to stay hidden. They also make good cover for a wounded man, which is what I found on about my third trip after water. He was unconscious, which was why he groaned. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been a whimper out of him. I knew that, for I knew the man.

  Corporal Treen was just about the only soldier I ever had any use for. He’d been a drinking buddy of mine, and I don’t drink with just anybody. What he was doing here I couldn’t imagine, even if he’d been with the column I had seen earlier. He might have been sent to scout out this direction; no way to know, but there was no mistaking the arrow wounds, though he’d broken off the shafts and I couldn’t see the feathers to identify what tribe he’d run afoul of.

  And now I was in a pickle sure enough. I had no way to treat him, except for cleaning the wounds with some of my water and dribbling as much into his slack lips as I could without choking him. He had a lot of fever and was talking some wild stuff that made no sense. He needed an army doctor who understood what to do, or he needed Broken Hand’s healer woman who would dose him with herbs and make him more comfortable, though he still might die.

  But Broken Hand’s summer hunting camp was a long way from the Powder River country, and Colonel Forrester’s troop was someplace near at hand, though how that that bastard Butler figured out where I was going was one for the books, unless, some way, Lee’s wife let the cat out of the bag. I had covered my trail mighty well, and I was sure Lee would never betray me.

  I lifted Treen onto Mose and led the horse away into the tangle of canyons until I found a spot with a big cottonwood tree for shade. There I stretched Treen out and loosened all his buttons, getting him as easy as I could. I even spared some water to wash his face, which seemed to cool him off a bit.

  Then I moved up the canyon to a spot where an upthrust of rock promised to give me a good view of the surrounding countryside. Sure enough, there was a line of dust over to the southwest.

  If I knew Butler, he was still hunting high and low, and he’d never let Lieutenant Dodds stop until they got me. I’d seen him make young officers think Butler’s plans were their own, over the years.

  Talk about being between a rock and a hard place! If I sent up a smoke to call the troop in, I needed to be a long way distant before they could get here. But Treen seemed to improve a bit, as I kept dribbling water into him and bathing his wounds. If I quit doing that, I was afraid he might go downhill fast.

  I slithered down the rocky bluff to the canyon where Treen was sheltered. Two rattlers buzzed irritably as I passed their dens, and a bunch of lizards took off in high dudgeon. I felt as nasty as they did, I thought. I stood to lose a friend or my freedom—and the friend might die, whatever I did.

  Still, there was no way I’d run off and leave Treen alone. He’d come to a couple of times, not much, just enough to swallow a gulp of water and to stare up at me as if I were his Mama. If he waked alone—I didn’t want to think about his brown eyes staring about, trying to find a friendly face and failing.

  I moved cautiously down the canyon, around a couple of elbow bends, and slipped beneath the low branches of the bushes by the cottonwood that shaded him from the sun. Treen’s eyes were open, and this time he recognized me.

  “Will?” he croaked. “Where’d you....”—He coughed—“...come from?”

  “Don’t you talk, Jimmy. You’re hurt bad, but there’s a patrol pretty close by. I’m going to build a signal fire and call ’em in.”

  He tried to shake his head, but he groaned instead. “Will, I was out looking for you. Butler’s got blood in his eye this time. You made him look like a fool, and because of that last deal the Colonel looked closely into other horse trades he’d made. Found he’d been taking kickbacks from horse dealers and reprimanded him. If he wasn’t so valuable to the regiment, they’d have busted him to corporal.”

  I almost laughed aloud. That was better than I’d hoped, but it meant that once I was in Butler’s hands I’d never live to face an inquiry. I wasn’t in the military; he’d have to follow protocol with one of their own, but a shifty civilian horse trader and sometime volunteer scout was another story. He could shoot me and get away with it.

  Yet Jimmy Treen was awake and aware, and I was damned if I’d run off and leave him to die. Without answering him, I began pushing together a pile of dead cottonwood branches. In ten minutes, I had a smolder going in the dead wood. Then I broke off some green branches and poked them into the blaze. The smoke darkened, rising out of the canyon in a thick column.

  Then I sat down on a melon-shaped rock beside Jimmy Treen and grinned at him. “I don’t have so many friends that I can spare any,” I told him. “We’ll handle Butler some way, when the time comes.”

  He grunted, and his eyes closed again. Then time passed very slowly. It was almost dark when I heard the click of a hoof on rock.

  They were coming, and Jimmy was asleep. Now was the time to get away, if I was going to. I set the water bag beside his hand and moved away down the canyon to the notch where Mose was munching dry grass. I led him away up the maze of arroyos, keeping to stony ground and erasing any track left in a patch of dust.

  We traveled long after dark, for there was half a moon to give some light. Only when we were miles away, the trail so confused that I couldn’t have found my way back myself, did I stop. Mose gave a long sigh and went to sleep standing beside me. I dropped onto the ground and was asleep at once.

  The next day I hightailed it out of there heading west. Not until I got well into the Bitterroots did I stop looking back, and that was weeks later. Ran into an old friend, Jeff Milner, near Missoula, and we decided to do a last bit of trapping for old times’ sake. We pooled our money, bought supplies, and went up into the high country.

  We had very little luck, except for little stuff. The beaver were trapped out, pure and simple. Still, there was plenty of game for eating, more water than anybody could ever use, and a stout cabin, after a while, to keep the winters off our hides.

  Jeff finally gave up and decided to go down and find him a woman. “A man gets cold in winter, when he gets older,” he told me. “If I can’t find a white woman, I’ll see if I can talk a Nez Perce lady into hitching up with me. I can’t take this batching no more, Will. You stay if you want, but I’m ready for some civilized livin’.”

  I’d told him about my little problem with the Army, so he didn’t take it hard that I stayed behind. We said goodbye and he led his mule down the mountain, and I thought that was the last I’d see of him.

  I was wrong. The next spring there come a whistle that had been our signal through the four years we trapped together. I was pretty damn glad to hear it, because talkin’ to nobody but Mose, pine squirrels, and jaybirds was getting to be mighty lonesome.

  When he came into sight, he waved both arms so hard he mighty near spooked his mule back down the trail. “Will!” he yelled. “Will, you old son-of-a-gun, you’re a damn hero, would you believe it?”

  I poked a finger in one ear and gave it a twist. I’d never thought I was getting deaf before, but I knew I couldn’t have heard what I heard.

  Then he was there, lifting me in that bear hug of his that made me feel like a boy beside his seven-foot bulk. “You little bastard, the Army’s been lookin’ for you for a long time. Wants to give you some sort of award for saving the life of that boy Treen.”

  “Jeff,” I said, “I’ve been alone so long I keep having dreams that seem real at the time. You give me a poke to make sure I’m awake. Then maybe I’ll believe you.”

  But it was true. Treen had lived, and once they had him back at the fort he told Colonel Forrester all about the way I took care of him and stayed right up to
the end, risking getting caught to make sure he was found safe. Sergeant Butler had blustered, but they’d found more bits and pieces of his thieving ways by then; even the army couldn’t stomach him any more, and they paid no mind to what he said.

  They had a letter of commendation signed by the commanding general. Forrester had added a cash reward out of his own pocket (or that of his rich wife, actually) that had been waiting for me while I cooled my heels up on the mountain.

  One thing about Will Henley. Seems as if when I fall into a privy, I come out holding a gold piece. Though this time I handed that reward to my cousin Lee, whose wife had took off with one of Butler’s men when they came to Deadwood looking for me.

  It’s a strange old world, but seems as if things even out, in the end. Now I can live among people, though I chose the remnant of my old friend Broken Hand’s band. Got me a wife too. Seems my luck has changed.

  TRAPLINE

  Here’s another mean one—never think that because I am a little old lady there is anything sweet about me.

  Herzog tore a strip of jerky off the wolf haunch hanging behind the door and chewed it savagely. No chance to run the traps today. None yesterday, either, for the blizzards had come, trapping him in the cabin, when his season should have been in full swing.

  Even before the snow had piled deep, the catch had been scanty, sometimes nonexistent. He had seen few tracks, as he made his rounds between snowstorms, and those had not been of the animals whose fur sold best.

  There should be something moving soon, if the weather cleared, but he hadn’t even heard a yowl or a screech, except for the wolves, for days. He needed wolverine, fox and lynx, mink and ermine to trade for cash and whiskey, when next he left the mountains.

  And, dammit, a man oughtn’t to have to eat wolf meat anyway. He hated the critters, alive or dead, and particularly he hated them jerked. He hankered for deer or bear or at least a good tender rabbit. The traps weren’t catching anything, and his sporadic hunts, when the snow lifted, had netted nothing.