“Blue, you’re a card,” Castle said.
“I’m old is what I am,” Blue replied. “And that gives a man certain privileges, and makes some things easier.”
“Harder, Blue, harder. You lose everything when you die.”
“No, Jack, you don’t lose a full life, well lived.”
Blue stretched the filleted trout in the pan, crowding them close. They sizzled and spat fat. “If you’ll watch over these, and turn them, I’ll see to the rest of it. Stir the potatoes. I’m not sure I have a plate for you, Jack, but you no doubt have some mess gear in that outfit of yours... that you seem to have inherited.”
“Inherited,” Castle said, amused. “Maybe I’ll inherit me some more.”
“Well, I was coming to that. Someone will need to look after these fine young people, and it may as well be you. They could have been yours. But you yourself made the choices. Here you are with another chance. Two fine children, bred strong and true, ready to be raised up to be a fine man and woman, long as the right father’s doing the raising.”
Blue’s gaze met Castle’s briefly. Blue returned to his cooking. He forked a potato and found it was still too hard, and moved the Dutch oven closer to the flame.
“Cut it out.”
“I’m sorry to offend. I was thinking, here’s your chance. Just the finest boy and girl a man could have. You could give them a home, comfort them, see that the twig is not bent, keep them in shoes and clothing and coats, put them through school, give them a trade, find a good husband for Sarah, set young Joey here with an inheritance of strength and courage, teach them your outdoor skills, teach them how to live in nature the way you do, show them what it is to be a man... Are you up to it, Jack?”
“That’s all, Blue. No more talk.”
Blue nodded, flipped the fillets and watched them sizzle in the skillet, and returned to his tasks. He fed sticks of kindling into the fire, watched the sun slide behind the northwestern ridges, suddenly casting shadow upon the old fishing hole, and kept an eye on Castle. “Sarah, Joey, you run down to the river now and wash up good. I don’t want a speck of dirt on your hands,” Blue said. He turned to Castle. “Wash up too?”
“I said don’t talk.”
“Well, I might obey and I might not. It’s bad manners not to offer you the hospitality of this table. This is my home, you know, this old hole. I’m more at home here than anywhere else. Now it’s my only home, my last home too, I imagine. But you take those children now; they’ll need a good home, and you’ll provide it, won’t you?”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? What the hell is the matter with you?”
Blue lifted a finger to his lips. “Watch your tongue, Jack. Little ears are funnels, and you might teach them ways of speaking you’d regret. I’m some guilty of that myself.”
“God damn you, Blue, what sort of game is this? Scairdy cat game, trying to talk me out of it?”
“Me? No, just wondering if you’re man enough to bring up the children right and proper, because if you aren’t, you won’t like yourself very much for what you’ll have to do to them... you up to it, Jack? You up to doing what any good father would do, raise ’em up right? Because if you aren’t, you’re wasting time. Are you up to the hard way, or you ready to do it easy, two pulls of the trigger?”
“Shut up. Shut your damned mouth.”
Blue shrugged. The trout looked about done. The children were returning, fearfully, holding their wet hands in front of them.
“You know, Jack, there’s a right way and a wrong way. You do it the right way, after we’re asleep, so you don’t frighten the little ones.”
“Shut up or I’ll shut you up.”
Blue began scraping the fillets out of the pan and settling them on tin plates. He stabbed potatoes from the Dutch oven and added those. He had butter, and dished some of that over the potatoes and fillets, and added a little salt and pepper too. Then he handed out his meal.
“Well, here we all are,” Blue said. “Joey, did your mother ever teach you to say grace?”
Chapter 32
Castle ate fast and hard, and when he set aside his mess plate his face had darkened.
“How do you feel? That’s what I came here for? How does it feel, Blue.”
“You know that.”
“You tell me. I want to hear it. How does it feel, wife gone, children gone, you waiting right there, six feet away, waiting, waiting?”
“How do you feel, Jack?”
“Don’t spar with me. Tell me how it feels. I want to hear it. Hear it from your lips, you sonofabitch. I want to see the yellow.”
Blue ignored him. He gazed at the band of blue over the mountains, knowing night was not far off. “It’s the future that counts, you see. Two fine grandchildren, Jack, right here, carrying on. I put much stock in them. They’ll do fine after I’m gone. Their mother raised them up fine.”
Castle glowered. “Maybe you’re mistaken.”
“No, I’m right, aren’t I?”
Castle laughed. “Who’s running this show? It’s not you, you yellow sonofabitch.”
Blue turned to Joey. “Time to rinse these plates and clean up. You too, Sarah. You take these plates and scrub them good. I don’t want bears around here messing with fish bones and getting into our packs.”
Sarah stared at Castle and rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t eaten. Joey rose fearfully. “You just get Jack Castle’s plate there, Joey, and rub it up in the river.”
It was all the boy could do to reach for the plate resting in the grass before Castle. The killer smirked. “Afraid of me, are you, kid?”
Joey leapt back. Blue reached across to pluck up the plate.
“Leave it alone. The kid’ll do it,” Castle snapped.
Joey glanced fearfully at Blue, who nodded, and then he edged forward and picked up the plate. Castle dashed it from the boy’s hand.
Joey yelped.
“Try again, kid. Afraid of me?”
Joey couldn’t manage it. “What kind of coward are you, kid? Some Smith you are! Worse than Absalom. Get that damned plate.”
Blue stood slowly, knowing the moment had come.
“Joey, you take Sarah to the tent. It’s bedtime.”
Joey was paralyzed. He glanced up at Blue, and at Castle.
“I said get that damned plate, kid.”
Blue pointed at the tent.
Joey slowly crept away, heeding Blue.
“I said get that plate, kid,” Castle snapped, and the revolver materialized in his hand.
“Go to bed, son,” Blue said gently.
Castle pulled the trigger. The revolver bucked, the shot violent in the hush of evening. The boy whimpered, untouched. “You take Sarah and go to the tent,” Blue said, “and you’ll be all right.”
The boy grabbed his sister and bolted.
“Damn you, Smith. Damn all of you.”
Blue knew he had won. It was such a simple, offhand thing, trouble over nothing of consequence, a plate, a child, a command. But it was the crucial moment, the thing Blue had waited for. Fearfully, Joey pulled Sarah with him toward the canvas tent, whose brown sides were no protection at all from Jack Castle, and yet would now be a fortress. The flap flew open and closed behind them.
Blue heard Sarah’s sobs. “You see?” Blue said.
“That doesn’t mean a thing. You’re a dead man.”
“All right. Go ahead.”
Castle tramped a circle, cursing, waving that revolver. Then swiftly he stepped toward Blue and jammed the revolver into Blue’s gut.
“I took it all away, didn’t I?”
“No, Jack. I’ve got some things you can’t have. Even now.”
“But not life.”
“Honor.”
“You took it all from me. I wasn’t good enough. You packed me off and now I got nothing.”
“A noose or a bullet, yes, and no honor.”
Castle spasmed, and Blue wondered whether the trigger finger would spasm too.<
br />
“I made some mistakes,” Blue said. “I’ve got that too, the bad mistakes. Absalom...”
“Yeah, he was a mistake all right.”
“No, Jack, he came out fine. The mistake was mine.”
Castle yanked his revolver away, stepped back, and grinned. Blue could see the grin even in the creeping blackness. “Make you dance,” he said. “Dance like a pilgrim.”
A shot shocked the night. Blue felt a bullet plough dirt at his feet. Another shot, violent on his ears, nicked his boot heel. Another seared through his pants. Blue didn’t move. Castle shot the hat off Blue’s head, blew Blue’s wicker creel into pieces, fired between Blue’s legs, and another seared Blue’s hip. Then the revolver clicked.
Castle jammed it into his holster. “Just you try me and see,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“You got me into this. You wrecked me. First you told me to be tough, be strong, don’t take guff from anyone, don’t be like Absalom. You didn’t say that in words, but you said it. So I’m what you made me.”
Blue nodded. There was a dark and sad truth in it. “Then I was king of the world. There wasn’t no one in Blankenship could do what I could do. And you didn’t mind when I came visiting Tammy, neither.”
Blue nodded. “You hardly never said no to me; when I run a little fast what did you do? You just smiled, like I was the real son. And then what? Next thing I knew, I wasn’t welcome. And you were warning Tammy off, so she gets upset around me. And you never told me why.”
Blue felt Castle’s accusations seep through him, stain him.
“So it’s maybe your fault too, only now I got no place to go. You did that to me.”
“No, you crossed the lines yourself, Jack.”
“What are you doing, arguing with me? You shut up.”
Blue nodded.
“You wrecked me, that’s what. You showed me how to be tougher than anyone. Then I wasn’t good enough for you. Jack Castle wasn’t up to the Smiths. And that’s when the trouble started.”
Blue forced himself to say nothing. His own contribution to Jack Castle’s ruin tormented him, but not entirely. Jack had always known the limits. Castle had made his own life. “I have to take you in, Jack.”
“For what? The noose?”
“More than likely.”
“Well I’m not going.”
“You’ll be tracked down. Carl Barlow’s a good man. He’s not going to miss a thing. There’s wires now connecting sheriffs and lawmen around the Territory, dodgers printed up. You can run, but you’ll come to the end sooner or later. May as well come with me, Jack.”
“Why are you talking like that? Me, with the gun, and you standing there.”
“I’m taking you in.”
“The hell you are. You’re crazy. I got one loaded gun left.”
“You’re under arrest, Jack. Drop that gun belt.”
“Are you mad or something? I’m riding out of here, and where I’m going you’ll never find me. You can search for me the rest of your life and never find me. You can ride a horse ten feet away and never know. You can find my horses and my gear and never see me again.”
“Is that a deal?”
“What do you mean, a deal?”
“I stop coming for you...because I don’t have to.”
Castle stared into the fire, his eyes red coals.
“You put me down as missing, you hear me? Missing. Jack Castle was never caught. Jack Castle will still be wanted, ten years, fifty years from now. You put me down as missing?”
“Missing,” Blue said.
“Well, goodbye then. I don’t know why I’m letting you off.”
“I guess you had to, Jack.”
“It’s your fault. You got me started. Now you put me in a bind and there’s no way out.”
Blue sighed. There had always been ways out. Castle hadn’t listened or heeded the lessons.
“Is it a deal?” Blue asked.
“Maybe.”
“Yes or no. Otherwise I’m coming for you.”
Castle’s eyes glowed red in the coals of the fire. “How much time have I got?”
“None.”
“I could just kill you. That’s what I should have done. End this.”
“Yes, you could.”
“I’m taking two days. You hear me, Blue? You don’t come after me, not now, not ever, and in two days you...won’t need to.”
“I’ll fish.”
“Fish!”
“We’ll be right here, catching cutthroats and camping.”
“Damn you, Blue, for messing me up.”
“I’m not proud of anything I’ve done to mess you up.”
Castle stared into the blackness. “All right. There’s no way out anyway. In two days you won’t have a reason to come after me.”
“Your word is your bond. That’s one of the good things in you. There are other good things.”
“Dammit, Blue, didn’t you know? How much I wanted....” There were tears in Castle’s voice. The darkness cloaked the rest of him.
Blue stood quietly while Jack Castle climbed aboard Absalom’s horse and rode into the night. For a while he could hear the fall of the hoofs, and then he heard nothing.
Chapter 33
It was raining. Long before daylight, Blue lay in his bedroll listening to the patter of water on canvas. The tent leaked a little, and water slid down the underside of the old cloth and dripped into a corner near Joey’s feet.
It was plenty cold, and he wished he had more blankets to shield the children from the weather. He hadn’t slept much. The children lay in their blankets, choked with fear, and Blue had spent much of the evening lying between them, his big arms drawing each child to his side. He was a man of few words, and could say only one thing: the man was gone and would not come back. Now it rained. He discerned, in time, a subtle change in the light, and knew another day was upon them. He threw off his blanket, opened the flap, and beheld a meadow wrapped in mist. The peaks had vanished behind white veils, the river lay black and somber, the trees had been darkened by wetness. A chill moist breeze confronted him. He closed the flap, preferring the gloom and tender warmth of the tent. Joey was staring at him. Blue smiled, clasped the boy’s hand, and held it. Sarah, still exhausted by terror, lay in a ball, her thumb in her mouth. The rain fit his mood. He didn’t really want to waken to an idyllic and golden day at the fishing hole. He thought of Jack Castle, bone cold and wet, hopeless and futureless and doomed, somewhere in the mountains preparing for his fate. Things had to end that way. It was a far better ending than any other. He wondered where Castle would go, how he would do what he had to do, and then Blue knew, intuitively. It was so simple. The thought awakened a bitterness, but Blue set it aside. What would be would be.
He lay in his bedroll until he no longer could, and then he pulled the tent flap aside and slid outside, feeling the shock of icy water pelt him. He might be a weather-hardened man, but this numbing rain was no picnic. He performed his ablutions hastily, eyed his rain-soaked pile of kindling, and knew they would have no fire soon. He studied the meadow, found the horses lost in mist yonder, and returned to the tent, shivering. Now Sarah was awake too.
“Is the man coming?” she asked.
“The man is gone and will never come back.”
“Not ever?”
“Not ever.”
The answer didn’t satisfy her, and she glanced fearfully at the flap.
“Let’s catch us a good breakfast,” Blue said. He hurried the reluctant children through their morning chores and hurried them to the riverbank. The drizzle was letting up, and soon they scarcely noticed it. The trout were jumping. Even Sarah, who had not much enjoyed fishing, was caught in the excitement as she pulled in silvery fish with her crude pole and line. Her hair was plastered to her head by rain, but she no longer noticed.
Then Joey pulled in a big flopping trout, and paused suddenly as he netted it.
“Silver, Silver,” he said, a sudden ache i
n his voice.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Blue examined the heaving fish. There on the jaw was a ragged place, torn by Joey’s hook days earlier.
“You’re right, Joey. It’s Silver,” Blue said. Joey swiftly unhooked his brown fly and slid the fish back into the cold water. He was grinning. “He let me catch him again.”
“Sometimes a creature wants to be caught,” Blue said, “and released.”
He stared at the ridges, visible now through the white veils. The great slopes rose black into the skies, as grand as ever, but lonely now. Blue felt a deep sadness steal through him. He wondered how he could pity Jack Castle, who had inflicted such grief upon Blue and his whole family.
By noon a late-July sun had burned off the white gauze of fog, and Blue built a hot fire, finding dry kindling in an aspen grove where a less experienced person might have discovered none. The children were famished, but none the worse for wear from their rain-bath and empty stomachs. He would raise them to be strong and enduring and able to think beyond the comforts they craved. He fed them well, biscuits raised in the Dutch oven, trout fillets sautéed in butter, some boiled beans with a little side pork for flavor. The grass dripped with dew. Puffball clouds moored themselves to the peaks. The horses stood steaming as the sun pummeled the wetness out of their backs.
That afternoon Carl Barlow himself rode in, bringing provisions from town, checking up on the sheriff.
The Deputy studied the fishing hole, and then stepped down.
“I guess you have no news,” he said. “Not much in town, either. “You all right?”
“Better than before,” Blue said.
“I guess whatever you had in mind didn’t take.”
“Oh, it took Carl, it took.”
The deputy stared.
Blue had no mind to tell him anything, but he knew he had to. A lawman can’t be hiding things from his trusted men. “He came and went last night,” Blue said.
Barlow was amazed. “You caught him and let him go?”
“No, he caught me and let me go.”
Cutthroat Gulch Page 18
