The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five

by Louis L'Amour

  “You sure aren’t fixed well, friend. I looked your place over. Isn’t enough grub here to feed a rat. How could you expect to last out a storm, no more grub than you’ve got?” He glanced at the sack Jeff had brought in. “An’ you surely didn’t pack much, considerin’ you had a forty-mile ride.”

  Jeff was irritated, but he made no comment. What business was it of Stiber’s to come nosing around, butting into his business? If he was going without now and again, it was his business and nobody else’s. He got coffee on and mixed biscuits.

  “Shoulder of venison on the chair yonder,” Stiber suggested. “Better fix it. I killed me a deer night before last. Not much game around. Must be the drouth.” He glanced at Kurland. “Got your cattle, too, I’ll bet.”

  He eased forward to the edge of the bunk again. “Hey? You got any smokin’ in that bag? I run out of it up yonder in the peaks. I might have stuck it out if it hadn’t been for that.”

  Jeff reached into the sack and tossed Stiber a package of tobacco. “Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got another.”

  Stiber caught the sack and lowered it between his knees and got out some papers. “Thanks, amigo. Don’t you just figure I’d have taken it, anyway? I could have. I probably would have, too. I wouldn’t take both of them, though. A man can do without his grub, but his smokin’? No way.

  “Up yonder in the peaks I smoked dried leaves; ain’t done that since I was a youngster, shredded barl, just anything.” He lit up and smoked in silence for several minutes. Then he said, “Who’s the girl?”

  Kurland’s head came up sharply. He was as big as Stiber, but the hard months had made him lean. His eyes were bleak and dangerous. Stiber noticed it, and there was a flicker of humor in his eyes.

  “Where’s that picture? Did you take it?”

  “What would I want with your picture? No, I didn’t take it, an’ I’m meanin’ no disrespect. She’s a right pretty girl, though.”

  “She’s a fine girl and a decent girl.”

  “Did I say she wasn’t?” Stiber protested. “Sure, she’s a fine girl. I know her.”

  “You know her?” Jeff was startled.

  “Jill Bates? I should smile, I know her. Don’t look at me that way. Was a time when I wasn’t no outlaw, havin’ to hide out in the hills. I knew her when she was a youngster. Nine, ten years ago. I was a young cowpuncher then, drifted into this country after shootin’ a man down at Santa Rita. That was my first shootin’ and I was some upset. I wasn’t fixin’ to kill anybody. Then I met a girl up here. Blonde, she was. Cute as a bug’s ear. Name of Clara Dawson.”

  Jeff grinned. “You should see her now.”

  “I don’t aim to. Rather remember her as she was. Comes to that, I don’t look so fine my own self. It was different then. About that time I was cuttin’ a wide swath among the womenfolks.

  “You should have seen me then! Had me a silver-mounted saddle and bridle. Had a fine black horse, best one I ever owned. Comanches got him. I was lucky to get away with my hair.”

  “Come an’ get it,” Jeff put plates on the table. “You can put up that six-shooter, too. I don’t plan on bustin’ your skull until we’ve had something to eat.”

  Stiber chuckled. “Don’t try it, boy. That’s a right pretty little girl, and I’d hate to put tears in her eyes. Pour me some of that coffee, will you? Been two weeks since I’ve drunk coffee.”

  Stiber waited until the coffee was poured. He tucked the pistol in his waistband. “How come you haven’t got a gun? I seen the holster.”

  Jeff flushed. “I borrowed money on it. From Kurt Saveth.”

  “Tough.” Stiber was eating with obvious enjoyment. “You cook a mighty fine meal. You sure do.” He looked up. “You fixin’ to marry that Bates girl? If you are, you better go out and rob yourself a bank. You can’t bring the likes of her to a place like this.”

  Jeff slammed down his fork. “Listen! You bust in here an’ take a meal at gunpoint an’ you can do it. I’d begrudge no man a meal! But you keep your nose out of my private business or I’ll bust it all over your face!”

  Stiber chuckled, lifting a protesting hand. “No offense! I was just talkin’, that’s all. As for bustin’ my nose, even if I didn’t have a gun you couldn’t whip one side of me. Not that I’m aimin’ to give you the chance.

  “You fix a good meal, friend, but you make a wrong move and it will be the last one you ever fix. I’ve got five thousand in blood money restin’ on my head, and that’s a lot of money to a man in your fix.”

  Jeff ate in silence while the outlaw continued to talk. From time to time Jeff ’s thoughts returned to the subject of that reward. Five thousand dollars was a lot of money, and the man was wanted for a killing.

  What was in Stiber’s mind now? He scarcely dared try to leave the country, yet it was impossible to live among the peaks in this weather. It would be worse before it got better. Of course, if he had a good hideout—?

  It was then Jeff Kurland remembered the cave on Copper Mountain.

  Could that be where Stiber was hiding? Sheriff Tilson had said that Stiber did not know this country, yet if Stiber had been around here ten years ago, something Tilson obviously did not know, he might know of the cave on Copper Mountain.

  Where else could a man live in those mountains in such cold? But had Stiber ever come through a pogonip fog in this country? Did he know what it was like when the fog turned to ice and settled in a chill blanket over everything?

  If a man was caught in a cave, he’d better have plenty of food and be prepared to wait it out, because escape would be impossible. And unless Jeff Kurland was mistaken, the weather was shaping up for something like that now. Within the past few minutes he seemed to feel warmer, and not only because the room was heating up.

  The outlaw’s droning voice penetrated Jeff ’s thoughts.

  “That Jill Bates, she’s growed into a mighty handsome woman! Used to fetch her candy, I did, and maple sugar. That was when I was courtin’ Clara. Thought the world of that kid. Even let her ride my black horse one time.”

  He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Got to be goin’. You split that grub in half, and leave me the sack. Ain’t likely you’ll have callers but I can’t chance it.”

  “Listen,” Jeff protested, “that’s all the grub I’ve got! And I’ve no money!”

  Ross Stiber chuckled. “You ain’t sold your saddle yet, and I’ll just bet that Kurt Saveth would like to buy it off you!”

  “Sell my saddle? I’m not that broke! You know damned well that when a cowpuncher sells his saddle he’s through…finished!”

  “Then maybe you ain’t quite finished. Why don’t you go slaughter one of Cal Harter’s Pole Angus steers? I hear theirs is the best beef you can find.”

  When he was gone Jeff dropped into a chair, thoroughly discouraged. With the little grub he had brought in he might have made it. As it was, he didn’t have a chance.

  Half the little food he had was gone, and he had no money nor any chance to get any. Nor would anybody be hiring hands in this kind of weather. They had let go what extra hands they had for the winter season, keeping on just a few trusted standbys. It looked like the end of everything. His chance to have his own ranch, his chance to marry Jill, all gone down the drain.

  He had started his own outfit three years before, with three hundred head of cattle. It was a herd carefully built from strays or injured cattle. Here and there he bought a few head, mostly calves from cattle drives, where the calves were an impediment. He had driven his herd into these high green valleys and built his cabin.

  In the months that followed he had labored to build a small dam for a reservoir against the hot, dry months. Grass grew well along the bottoms, and he had worked from daylight until dark mowing hay with a scythe and stacking it against the long winter ahead. He had built shelters of poles and brush, knowing the snow would bank against it and add to the warmth. Nobody had held cattle up this high, but he believed he could do it. A few years back he
had come upon some wild cattle that had survived a winter in the high country.

  His first year had gone well. Although he lost a few head, the calves more than made up for it, and during the summer they increased and grew fat. Then had come a bitter winter that shut down early, locking the land in an icy grip that broke only in the late spring.

  When he took stock he found he had lost over a hundred head, and the others were gaunt and unfit for sale.

  The summer had been hot and dry, and as it grew hotter and dryer he had fought with all he had to keep his cattle in shape and get them through until fall. Late rains, on which he had depended, changed to snow, and now he was into the second of the awful winters. Bigger cattlemen than he were hard hit, but they had large herds and could stand some loss. Every one he lost hurt severely. With all his money gone, he had sold off his gear until all he had left was his Winchester .44 and his riding gear.

  Wearily, he got to his feet, banked the fire, and crawled into his bunk, too exhausted to even worry.

  He awakened to utter blackness and cold. Huddling in his blankets, he dreaded the thought of the icy floor and the shivering moments before he got the fire going.

  The instant his feet hit the floor he felt an icy chill, and knew at once what it was.

  The pogonip! The dreaded fog that even the Indians feared, an icy fog that put a blanket of death over every shrub, every tree, even every blade of grass. Bitterly cold, and the ground so slick it was inviting broken legs to even move, the air did strange things with sound so that voices far away could be distinctly heard.

  Kicking back the blanket, he pulled on his socks and raced across the floor to stir up the fire. Uncovering some coals, he threw kindling into the fireplace and then raced back to the warmth of his bed to wait until some of the chill had left the cabin.

  The kindling caught fire and the flames leaped up. After a while he got out of bed, added more fuel, and put coffee water on the fireplace stones. Then he dressed, and as he tugged on his boots he saw the cigarette ashes spilled on the floor from Stiber’s cigarette.

  Where was he now? Had he reached the cave on Copper Mountain? Or had he realized what a trap it might be? The cave was deep, and held a certain amount of warmth, but to have reached it Stiber would have had to travel half the night over rough and dangerous trails. Yet he might have done just that.

  On the third day of the pogonip snow fell, covering the ice with a few scant inches of snow. Taking his rifle and slipping on his snowshoes, he started his hunt. From now on life would be a grim struggle to stay alive. He cruised through the woods, seeking out likely places for deer. He had been out for more than two hours and was slowly working his way back toward his cabin when he saw a mule deer floundering in the deep snow. It was not until he killed it that he discovered its leg was already broken, evidently from a fall on the deadly ice.

  The following day it snowed again, snowed slowly, steadily. Cold closed its icy fist upon the mountains, and his thermometer dropped to ten below, then to twenty below zero. On the morning of the tenth day it was nearly fifty below; his fuel supply was more than adequate, but it kept him adding fuel every fifteen to twenty minutes.

  Long since, knowing the cold at this altitude, he had prepared for what was to come, stopping up all the chinks in the log walls, few though they were. He had squared off the logs with an adze when building the cabin, and they fit snugly. Only at the corners, carefully joined though they were, did some cold air get in. With newspapers he had papered the inside of the cabin, adding several layers of insulation.

  With careful rationing of his venison, he figured he could get through the cold spell if it did not last too long.

  Despite himself, he worried about the fugitive on Copper Mountain, if that was indeed where he was. Unless Stiber had been able to kill some game, he would by this time be in an even worse situation than himself. And in this kind of weather there would be no game in the high country.

  Awakening a few days later, Jeff Kurland lay in bed, hands clasped behind his head. The thought of Stiber alone on Copper Mountain would not leave him. Outlaw and killer he might be, but it was not Jeff ’s way to let even an animal suffer. If Ross Stiber had been in the cave on Copper Mountain he would surely have come out by now, and there was no other way out except right by this cabin.

  He made his decision suddenly, yet when he thought of it he knew the idea had been in his mind for days. He was going to scale Copper Mountain and find out just what had happened to Stiber. The man might have broken a leg and be starving in his cave.

  The air was crisp and still, colder than it seemed at first. Buckling on his snowshoes and slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Jeff Kurland hit the trail. Knowing the danger of perspiring in this cold, he kept his pace down, despite his anxiety. Sweat-soaked undergarments could quickly turn to a sheath of ice in such intense cold. After that, freezing to death was only a matter of time.

  The trail wound upward through a beautiful forest of lodge-pole pine which slowly gave way to scattered spruce as he climbed higher on the mountain. Despite the slow pace he made good time, and would reach the most difficult stretch shortly before noon. Deliberately, he refused to think about the return trip.

  Pausing once, on a flat stretch of trail, he looked up at the mountain. “Kurland,” he told himself, “you’re a fool.”

  What he was doing made no kind of good sense. Ross Stiber had chosen the outlaw trail, and if it ended in a cave on Copper Mountain instead of a noose it was only what he might have expected. It might even be what Stiber would prefer.

  Jeff knew the route, although he had visited the cave but twice before. After reaching the shelf there would be no good trail, and his snowshoes offered the only way of getting there at all.

  The air was death still, and the cold bit viciously at any exposed flesh. He plodded on, taking his time. Fortunately, on this day there was no wind. His breath crackled, freezing as he breathed. He walked with extreme care, knowing that beneath the snow there was ice, smooth, slick ice.

  When he reached the stretch of trail along the face of Red Cliff, he hesitated. The snow was very thin along that trail where the wind had blown, and beneath it was the slick ice of the pogonip. The slightest misstep and he would go shooting off into space, to fall on the ice-covered boulders four hundred feet below.

  On this day he was wearing knee-high moccasins with thick woollen socks inside. They were better for climbing, and worked better with the snowshoes.

  Removing the snowshoes, he slung them over his back and, keeping his eyes on the trail a few feet ahead, he began to work his way along the face of the cliff.

  Once fairly on his way there was no turning back, for turning around on the slick trail, while it could be done, was infinitely more dangerous than continuing on. It took an hour of painstaking effort to traverse the half mile of trail, but at last, panting and scared, he made it. Ahead of him towered the snow-covered bulk of what was locally called Copper Mountain.

  He scanned the snow before him. No tracks. Not even a rabbit had passed this way. If Ross Stiber was actually living on the mountain, he had not tried to come this way.

  Carefully, he worked his way up along the side of the mountain, keeping an eye out for Stiber. The man might see him, shoot, and ask questions later. If there were anything left alive to question.

  White and silent, the mountain towered above the trees, and Jeff paused from time to time to study it, warily, for fear of avalanches. Under much of that white beauty there was pogonip ice, huge masses of snow poised on a surface slicker than glass, ready to go at any instant. He put his snowshoes on once more and started, very carefully, along a shoulder of the mountain.

  Only a little way farther now. He paused, sniffing the air for smoke. There was none. Nor was there any sound.

  The mouth of the cave yawned suddenly, almost unexpectedly, for with snow covering the usual landmarks he had no longer been sure of its position. The snow outside the cave was unbroken. There were n
o tracks, no evidence of occupation.

  Had he come all this way for nothing?

  He ducked his head and stepped into the cave. Unfastening his snowshoes, he left them at the entrance and tiptoed back into the cave. Lighting a branch of fir for a torch, he held it high to get the most from its momentary light. It was then he saw Stiber.

  The outlaw lay upon a bed of boughs covered with some blankets and his coat. Nearby were the ashes of a fire, long grown cold. Here, away from the mouth, the cold was not severe, but, taking one glance at Stiber’s thin, emaciated face, Jeff Kurland dropped to his knees and began to kindle a fire.

  He got the fire lighted using half-burned twigs and bits of bark, then he hurried outside the cave for more fuel. All that in the cave had evidently been burned long since.

  As the flames leaped up and the cave lightened, Stiber’s eyes opened and he looked at Kurland. “You, is it? How did you get here?”

  “The same way you did. Over the trail from my place. I was worried.”

  “You’re a fool, if you worried about me. I ain’t worth it, and you’ve no call to worry.”

  “I was afraid you’d busted a leg.”

  “You guessed right,” Stiber said, bitterly. “My leg is busted. Right outside the cave, on the first morning of that ice fog. I dragged myself back in here and got some splints on it.”

  “How’s your grub?”

  “Grub? I run out seven days ago.”

  Jeff opened his pack and got out some black tea. He was a coffee man, himself, but he carried the tea for emergencies, and now he brewed it hot and strong.

  “Try this,” he said when it was ready, “and take it easy. The cup’s hot.”

  With water from his canteen and some dried venison he made a broth, thickening it a little with corn flour.

  Stiber put his cup down and eased himself to a sitting position. “Figured tea was a tenderfoot drink,” he said, “but it surely hits the spot.”