“Damn!” Red Blanket exclaimed when at last he could breathe again. “I musta been asleep.”
“Yeah, you musta been,” Cruz said with more than a hint of disgust. “Come on, let’s get outta here. We got a job to do.”
“I need a drink of likker,” Red Blanket complained as he got himself together and followed Cruz, who was already heading for the door. He stumbled after him, almost bumping into O’Grady’s cook, coming for something in the storeroom. They went out into the saloon, ignoring the thunderstorm of irate Chinese profanity behind them.
It was later in the morning when Seeger returned with Rawhide and Buster to find Cruz and a now sober Red Blanket waiting for them with supplies and ammunition on a packhorse. They left town immediately with Plummer’s final caution. “I know how much gold that old man has,” he lied, “so all of it better damn well be there when you come back with it.”
The party Bailey Cruz and his four partners sought was at that moment following a narrow canyon that divided two lofty mountains that stood like giant sentinels on either side of them. There was a wide stream that ran down the middle of the canyon, and Adam continued to follow it until he found a smaller stream that fed into it from a ravine that climbed higher up into the mountain. Thinking this was what he was looking for, he herded the women, the wounded Irishman, the mules, and the extra horses up the ravine, following the smaller stream a distance of about two hundred yards until he came to a waterfall. Beyond it, the slope leveled to form a shelf with a small glen of pine trees surrounded a clearing of grass. “This’ll do,” he announced, dismounted, and led his horse over to tie it to a pine limb.
“Well, thank goodness,” Bonnie said, weary of the saddle. “I thought you were gonna make us climb all the way to the top of the mountain. She slid off the horse and rubbed her sore bottom. “I ain’t used to spending this much time on a horse.”
“I ain’t, either,” Lacey echoed, and scrambled off the sorrel.
Adam ignored both complaining women while he looked around his choice for a campsite more closely. Anybody looking to find us will have to come up this stream the same as we did, he thought. And they’ll be easy to see until they get to the trees. It’s a ways to the edge of the tree line, so they ain’t likely to see us from above without coming out in the open. It might not be perfect, but it’ll do us just fine for a while. Satisfied, he went over to help Finn off his horse.
As soon as Finn was settled as comfortable as possible, Adam set about making a more permanent camp. Selecting a stand of younger pines, he picked four for the framework of his shelter and took his hatchet to the few standing in what would be the center. Once they were cleared, he bent the four remaining trees over together and bound their tops together. Using a slicker he had found rolled behind Billy Crabtree’s saddle, he covered part of the shelter with it, covering the slicker and the remaining roof with pine boughs. Once he was well along in his structure, Bonnie and Lacey saw what he had in mind, so they joined in to help fashion their temporary home. There was already a good start for a floor provided by a thick layer of pine needles upon which they spread what blankets they had.
Leaving Bonnie and Lacey to finish up and start a fire, Adam left on foot to scout out the mountain above their camp to make sure he knew about anything around them that might give an enemy advantage. He was pleased to find abundant sign of deer, some of it fresh, and he knelt by the stream where they had recently crossed. Studying the hoofprints carefully, as Mose Stebbins had taught him when he was a boy, he estimated that the deer were four in number and had crossed above his campsite no more than one or two hours before, judging by the amount of water that had seeped up in the tracks at the edge of the stream. Possibly they might have been frightened off by the approaching horses. Fresh meat. The thought came immediately to mind, but he paused to consider whether or not it would be wise to fire a shot, not sure if anyone might be close enough to hear his rifle. He decided to see if he could track the deer while he thought about it.
After following a trail through the thick belt of pine trees for over a half hour, he discovered a high meadow, just below the tree line. Grazing in the center of the meadow were three does and one young buck. Adam knelt in the trees to watch them while he made up his mind. How much of a risk would it be if he shot one of the deer? He had no notion if there was anyone around to hear the shot or not. Finn needs some fresh meat, he told himself. Hell, we all do. I’m gonna chance it. He raised his rifle and laid the sights on one of the does. The Henry bucked once and the deer dropped heavily to the ground, shot through the lung. Seeming like the sound of a cannon, the shot reverberated off the steep mountain slope. Adam shook his head and looked around him as if expecting someone to fall upon him at any minute. But all was quiet again, and he told himself that it was highly unlikely anyone had cut their trail this soon after following the stream up from the canyon. He paused a few moments to watch the remaining deer disappear in the trees above the clearing. Then he hurried out to claim his kill.
“It’s Adam!” Bonnie sang out when a figure appeared at the edge of the clearing. “Damn, look at that,” she said when the tall man walked out of the trees carrying the carcass of a deer across his shoulders. She put her Spencer carbine back where it was next to her blanket and stood up to meet him. “We heard a shot—didn’t know what to think, but we hoped it wasn’t someone come to call this soon.”
“You ever butcher a deer?” Adam asked.
“No,” she answered. “But if you can, I can.”
“I can show you how,” he said, and dumped the deer on the ground. “First we’ll have to skin it.” He set to work right away, knowing that everyone would be happy to have something other than salt pork for a change. Bonnie did not hesitate to jump right in beside him, with Lacey standing ready to help whenever either of them needed something. In no time at all there were strips of venison on hastily made spits over the fire, and soon the aroma of the roasting meat reached Finn where he lay on his saddle blanket over a mattress of pine straw. Convinced that he was about to enter death’s dark corridor a few minutes before, he decided he had enough life left in him to partake of the feast.
“Look at him wolf down that meat,” Bonnie remarked to Adam. “Before you came back, he had us about ready to start digging a grave.” Addressing Finn directly then, she teased, “Looks like we’re gonna have to wait a little longer before we get our hands on that gold.”
“Maybe so,” Finn replied, “and I’m thinkin’ that’s reason enough to postpone my departure.”
Adam stood by without joining in the playful banter between the two. It was good to see Finn’s spirits up. It would help him to heal faster. He feared that Finn might have been correct when he said he thought the shoulder was broken. He needed a doctor and the closest one was in Virginia City, which meant Finn was going to have to hang on for a while longer. So the little Irishman was on his own as far as healing was concerned. Adam intended to see him safely out of this lawless territory, if he possibly could. As he watched the two women tending the fire and seeing to the needs of the patient, he again asked himself how in hell he had come to be in such a fix. His simple mission to find Jake had mushroomed into a traveling circus. He sighed heavily and sat down by the fire to test the venison for himself. Lacey poured a cup of coffee and brought it to him. When he thanked her, she smiled shyly and seated herself beside him. “Finn’s going to be all right,” she said. “He has a lot to live for.”
“I reckon,” Adam said. He studied her face for a moment. “How ’bout you?” he asked. “Are you gonna make it all right?” She was such a contrast in nature to Bonnie, seemingly lost in the danger of their circumstances, and he wondered if she was strong enough to survive another attack if it occurred. Jake’s puppy, he thought as she gazed up at him with wide innocent eyes.
“I’ll make it,” she answered. Then after a brief pause, “As long as nothing happens to you.”
High above the little camp on the opposite side of the
canyon, an interested observer made his way down an old game trail to a position where he could see the camp near the top of the ravine. Though they were far below him, Black Otter could easily count the white people who had entered the mountains to make a hasty shelter. He counted one man and two women, but there appeared to be another—man or woman, he could not tell—who was sick or wounded. They had many horses and three mules that the white man often used to carry heavy burdens. This was not a welcome sight. The white men had not ventured into this part of his mountains before this, and he immediately worried that they would be followed by others, just as had happened west of there in the lower hills. There had been a handful of white men who had come seeking the yellow dirt that they thought so precious, but they had moved on when the yellow dirt was not there.
The day before, when he had been hunting, he had been startled by the sudden report of a rifle on the far side of the mountain. There was only that one shot, but it was enough to cause him concern, so he went in search of the source. The camp had not been easy to find, but he had been fortunate to catch the scent of roasting meat on the wind and followed it to the point where he now knelt, watching the intruders. The question on his mind now was what he should do about the situation. He was inclined to avoid them and hope that they did not intend to stay. Maybe, he thought, he should move his camp deeper into the mountains, but decided that he should keep a watch on them. It would be better to know what they were doing, and if they intended to build a permanent home here. That thought disturbed him. Unlike the others, they did not appear to be searching for the yellow dirt.
Black Otter and his wife were here in these rugged mountains to escape the soldiers who wanted them to live on the reservation at Fort Hall. His people, the Bannocks, had been pushed from their home west of these mountains, in the Idaho country, ravaged by the white man disease, smallpox, and driven by the increasing inroads made by the Siksika into their lands. He had found peace in this rugged fortress of sheer peaks and narrow valleys with plenty of game for his bow, as well as roots and plants to eat in the many streams. It was a good life, but now he wondered if he had discovered a threat to that existence. Gravely concerned, he got up and moved down through the trees to seek a point that would afford him a closer look.
Lying prone at the edge of a small cliff, he found that he could look right into the white man’s camp. The one man he had observed from higher up seemed to be the big medicine, for the others appeared to listen respectfully whenever he spoke. Black Otter could see now that the person lying on a blanket near the fire was a man, and judging by the bandaged shoulder, he was wounded. They are running, he thought at once, and considered the possibility that others might come seeking to find them. This is not good, he told himself. His attention was caught again by the leader of the party. He was a big man and carried himself well, like a warrior and hunter.
There is nothing I can do about this now, he thought as he slowly pulled himself away from the edge of the cliff. But I will come back to see what they are doing every day. Getting to his feet, he picked up his bow again and started back up the slope.
Chapter 10
After another night passed in their camp with no real sign of improvement in Finn’s wounded shoulder, Adam decided that it might be best to try to get the bullet out. He had hoped to wait until they could reach the doctor in the settlement that John Bozeman had staked out, but Finn continued to run a high fever. “All we can do is try,” he told Bonnie, “’cause he ain’t gettin’ any better, and we can’t stay here forever.”
“I think you’re right,” Bonnie said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“I reckon I’ll go tell him,” Adam said, and got up from his seat by the fire.
Bonnie caught his sleeve to detain him. “Wait a minute,” she said. “It might be best if I tried to probe for that bullet. Your hands are so damn big you might make a bigger mess of it. But you’d better not tell him I’m gonna do it. He might be afraid I’d put him under to get my hands on his gold.” She chuckled as if it was said in jest, but she was more than halfway serious.
Adam simply nodded in reply, then went to the shelter where Finn was trying to rest. “Well, Finn,” he started, “I reckon it’s time we dug into your packs to find that whiskey you said you had.”
Misunderstanding Adam’s intent, Finn muttered, “You’d best forget about the whiskey. You need to keep your wits about you.”
“It ain’t for me,” Adam said. “It’s for you. We’re gonna have to get that bullet outta your shoulder before you die of lead poisonin’. And I figure it’ll be a sight easier for you if you’re drunk as a lord.”
His statement brought a long moment of silence from the little Irishman, and his response served to surprise Adam. “I was wonderin’ if that was gonna have to be done. The bottle’s in my war bag in the second pack, the one that rides close behind my heart.” Adam started to go immediately to the packs, but Finn stopped him. “For mercy’s sake, though, let one of the women dig for the bullet. You’re liable to cut somethin’ outta me by mistake.”
To the party’s amazement, the little man had an unbelievable capacity for whiskey. As soon as he downed one cup of the fiery liquid, he called for another, claiming that he was still as sober as a judge. As the bottle neared empty, Adam began to worry that there was not enough whiskey to do the job. “I might have to knock you in the head to get you ready,” he threatened in jest. He was saved the trouble, however, when the level in the bottle got down to enough for maybe one more drink, and Finn simply closed his eyes in midsentence and passed out. “Get at it,” Adam told Bonnie, “before he wakes up and wants another drink.”
Bonnie worked fast and furious while showing a surprising dexterity with the skinning knife used for the surgery. Watching in undisguised awe, Lacey stood at hand with a bucket of clean water, which she used to rinse out the cloths that Bonnie continuously soaked with blood. She could not help recalling the stories that had been passed around that some folks suspected Bonnie of sending Jack Chatwick to his reward with a knife in the gut. She shook her head to rid it of such thoughts.
To those watching, it seemed longer, but in actuality Bonnie felt the solid tick of the lead slug with the tip of her blade in less than a quarter of an hour, which seemed an incredible accomplishment in the bloody mess of the wound. A few minutes later, she was able to get a grasp on the bullet and finally pulled it out, holding it up triumphantly for all to see. Adam smiled and gave her a nod of approval and Lacey cheered. “I’d best take a couple of stitches in that wound,” Bonnie said, for what was once a bullet hole was now a three-inch gash. “I’ve got a needle and thread in my bag.” Lacey went immediately to fetch the bag.
During the duration of the surgery, Finn responded with little more than a groan here and there, so embalmed with whiskey was he. But when the heated blade of the knife was applied to cauterize the wound, he sat straight up with a howl of pain, only to fall back unconscious. Bonnie deftly drew her needle through the flesh to loosely hold the sides of the slash together, tied the knot, then bit the thread in two. “There,” she said with a tired sigh, “all done.” She jammed the knife blade in the ground to clean it and said, “Hand me that bottle.” When Lacey passed the bottle over to her, she tilted her head back and drained the last few ounces. Throwing the empty bottle into the bushes, she commented, “Maybe we should have thrown him in the creek and washed him before we doctored him. I thought I was gonna pass out, too, when I bit that thread off.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” Lacey wondered as she gazed down at Finn, who was motionless on the saddle blanket.
“All I did was work on his shoulder,” Bonnie answered patiently. “I didn’t go near anything vital. Besides, have you ever heard a dead man snore like that?”
Lacey blushed, embarrassed by her naive question. Adam smiled and shook his head. “He’s gonna feel like hell when he wakes up. Then I reckon we’ll see if he’ll do any better with the bullet outta that shoulder.
”
At the edge of the cliff, high up on the opposite slope of the ravine, Black Otter paused to consider what he had just witnessed. Thinking at first that the man and the two women were going to kill the wounded man, he realized that they were actually intent upon removing a bullet. They are fortunate to have a medicine woman with them, he thought. Now maybe the wounded man will get better and they will go away. He withdrew slowly from the cliff and started back up through the pines. Tomorrow I must hunt, he thought. His surveillance of the white camp would have to wait until later in the afternoon.
Early splinters of light began to filter through the thick pine boughs as Adam descended carefully down through the thick belt of trees that skirted the lower two-thirds of the mountain. He was intent upon adding to their supply of venison, planning to smoke some of it to carry with them when Finn was well enough to ride again. His hunt on this morning was purposely farther away from the camp, in hopes that the sound of his rifle might be lost in the canyons on the other side of their mountain shelter.
Like the stream where he had killed the doe before, there was plenty of deer sign all along the slope he was now working his way down, but so far, there was no sighting of the animals. They’ve got to be here somewhere, he told himself. There’s too much sign for them not to be. When the game trail he followed took a turn around a thick stand of firs, he decided to cut straight through and catch it again below the firs. He was almost through the maze of trees when he stopped suddenly and dropped to one knee, for there they were, about fifty feet below him where the trail crossed a small mountain meadow. He counted eight deer grazing in the grassy opening in the trees, any one of them an easy shot at that distance.
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