“Best thing in the world if you’re in shock or run-down. Wait until you get some of this broth.”
Later, a flush on his cheeks and warmed by the hot drinks and the fire, Ross Stiber looked over at Kurland with cold gray eyes. “Well, this is your show. You’re here, and the grub you brought won’t last more than two days. What d’ you figure to do?”
Kurland had been thinking of that. In fact, he had been thinking of it all the way up, and there was only one possible answer.
“Come daybreak I’m packing you out of here.”
“You’ve got to be crazy. You couldn’t pack a baby over that icy trail! And I’m a full-grown man.”
“Get some sleep,” Kurland said, “and shut up before I change my mind and leave you here.”
At daybreak he was up. Deliberately, he kept his thoughts away from the ordeal before him. It was something he had to do, no matter how much he feared it, no matter how much he disliked the injured man.
He helped Stiber into all the clothes he had, then wrapped him in a heavy blanket. “You will be heavy, but you’ll not be moving, and I don’t want you frozen. You will be just that much harder to carry.”
With a stick, Stiber hobbled to the cave mouth. The morning was utterly still and bitterly cold. “You’ll never make it. Go down alone and send them after me.”
“They wouldn’t come. Nobody but a damn fool would tackle that trail before spring, and I’m the damn fool.”
He studied the trail for a moment, calculating. It did no good to look. He already knew how tough it was, and what he had to do.
“Once I get you on my back,” he said, “don’t move. Don’t talk, don’t even wiggle a toe.”
When he had his snowshoes adjusted, he took the injured man on his back and started over the snow. The man was heavy, and there was no easy way to carry him. “You’ll have to hang on,” he said. “I’ll need my hands.”
Step by careful step, he worked his way over the snow toward the head of the eyebrow trail along the cliff face. At the near end of that trail he lowered the injured man to the snow.
Leaving Stiber on the snow he slung his snowshoes over his back and went out on the narrow thread of trail. The very thought of attempting to carry a man over that trail on his back sent cold prickles of fear along his spine. Yet there was no other way.
Now, scouting the trail with care, he tried to envision every step, just how he would put his feet down, where there was the greatest danger of slipping, where he could reach for a handhold.
Reaching the end of the trail, he left the snowshoes and rifle, then returned for Stiber. Resolutely, he refused to accept the obvious impossibility of what he intended to do. The man would die if he did not get him out. That he might die in the attempt was not only possible, it was likely. Yet he had spent years in the mountains, and he knew his strength and his skill. He had to depend on that. Was he good enough? That was the question.
When he returned he sat down beside Stiber. The outlaw looked at him quizzically. “I wasn’t really expectin’ you back.”
“You’re a liar. You knew damned well I’d be back. I’m just that kind of a damned fool.”
“What happens now?”
“I’m packing you, piggyback, over that trail.”
“Can’t be done. There’s no way it can be done. Man, I weigh two hundred and twenty pounds.”
“Maybe two weeks ago you weighed that. I’d lay fifty bucks that you don’t weigh over two hundred right now.”
Using a nearby tree Stiber pulled himself erect and Kurland backed up to him. Careful not to injure the broken leg Kurland took the man on his back. “Now, whatever you do, don’t even wiggle. You can throw me off balance on that trail. If you do, we’re both gone.”
He avoided looking at the trail now. He knew very well what faced him and that he must take the trip one step at a time. The slightest misstep and both would go over the brink. Under the snow was the ice of the pogonip.
Carefully, he put a foot out, testing for a solid foothold. Wearing moccasins, he could feel the unevenness, even grip a little with his toes. Little by little, he edged out on the trail. Icy wind plucked at his garments and took his breath. He did not look ahead, feeling for each new foothold before he put his weight down.
Sweat broke out on his face, trickled down beside his nose. Desperately, he wanted to wipe it away but there was no chance, for his arms were locked under Stiber’s knees.
How long a trail was it? A half mile? He could not remember. His muscles ached. Dearly, he wanted to let go just a little, to rest even for a moment. Once, just past the middle, his foot slipped on the icy trail, and for an instant their lives hung in the balance. Jeff felt himself going, but Stiber’s knees gripped him tighter.
“Get your feet under you, lad.” Stiber’s voice was calm. “I’ve got hold of a root.”
Darkness was falling when at last they came to the cabin. Over the last miles Kurland had dragged Stiber on a crude travois made of branches, holding the ends of two limbs in his hands while dragging Stiber over the snow, lying on his makeshift litter. When they reached the cabin, he picked the big man up and carried him inside, and dumped him on the bunk.
The cabin was icy inside, and hurriedly Jeff Kurland built his fire. Soon there was a good blaze going, and warmth began to fill the room. An hour later, Stiber looked at him over a bowl of hot soup.
“Now you can turn me in for that reeward,” he said, almost cheerfully.
Kurland’s head snapped up. He felt as though he had been slapped.
“Go to blazes! I didn’t risk my neck getting you down off that mountain just to see you hung. When you can walk, you get out of here, and stay out!”
“No need to get your back up. I wouldn’t blame you. I et up half your grub, and caused you no end of grief.”
Jeff Kurland did not reply. He knew only too well the long, difficult months that lay ahead, and that when spring came there would be hardly enough cattle left to pay off his debts, if there were any at all. He would have nothing with which to start over.
Moreover, if he did not report Ross Stiber, and if he was caught with the man in his cabin, he could be accused of harboring a criminal. The fact that the man had a broken leg would help him none at all.
At the same time, he knew he could not turn him in. One cannot save a man’s life without having a certain liking for him thereafter, nor can a man share food with another without developing a feeling of kinship, for better or worse.
He did not want Stiber in his cabin. He resented the man. His food was all too limited, and game was scarce. Nor did he like Stiber’s company, for the man talked too much. Yet he could not turn him in. He would wait until the leg was mended, when Stiber would have a running chance, at least.
The cold held the land in a relentless grip. More and more snow fell. Finally, desperate for food, he killed one of his steers. The fuel supply burned low, and Kurland fought his way through the snow to the edge of the timber, where he felled several trees and bucked them up for fuel. Stiber watched, with small gray eyes holding a flicker of ironic humor.
“You live through this winter an’ you’ll have a story to tell your grandchildren.”
Kurland glared. “What grandchildren? What chance would I have to marry Jill with a setup like this?” He waved a hand at the earthen floor and the shabby bunk. “I was hoping for some good years. I was planning to build a cabin up yonder, where there’s a view, close to the spring. It would have been a place for any woman.”
“You should have kept your gun. You could have stuck up the Charleston stage. She carries a sight of money sometimes.”
“I’m no thief! You tried it, and where did you wind up? Half frozen in a cave on Copper Mountain!”
“That’s no more than plain truth,” he admitted. “Well, each to his own way. I took mine because I killed a man. He wasn’t much account, either. I end up starvin’ in a cave, and you starve in this miserable cabin. Neither of us gets much of a break.”
“I’ll make my own breaks,” Kurland replied. “Just wait until spring. I’ll get me a riding job and save some money.”
Stiber’s tone was mocking. “At forty a month how much are you goin’ to save? You think that girl will wait? Maybe somebody else is shinin’ up to her? Somebody who doesn’t freeze and starve on hopes? You think she’ll wait? A time comes for marriage, and a woman marries, doin’ the best she can. You’re dreamin’, boy.”
Maybe he was. Jeff Kurland stared into the fire. He had been taking too much for granted. What made him think she loved him? Because he loved her? Because he wanted her love so much?
He had never so much as spoken of his dreams to her, just the simple facts of the case, yet how many times must she have heard that? Every cattleman, sheepman, and mining man had the same dream. And all the while there was Kurt Saveth, who had a small but charming home in town which he had inherited from his folks; he also had a successful store, and people around all the while, not a lonely cabin in the far-up mountains.
Footsteps crunching in the snow caused his head to lift. Ross Stiber’s grab for his pistol was just an instant slower than Jeff ’s. “Not today, Stiber! We will have no shooting here!”
There was a loud knock, and at his “Come in!” the door opened and Sheriff Tilson entered, followed by Kurt Saveth, looking handsome in a new mackinaw, and following him, Doc Bates, and, of all people, Jill!
His face flushed with shame. He had not wanted her to see how he lived until he had something better, something fit to show her. He saw her glance quickly around, but as her eyes came to him he looked quickly away.
“All right, Stiber, you’re under arrest.” He turned to Jeff. “What’s this mean, Kurland? You harborin’ this outlaw?”
“He has a broken leg,” Jeff spoke with dignity. “What could I do, carry him down on my back?”
“You could report it,” Tilson replied. “You’re in trouble, young man.”
“He found me dyin’ in the cave on Copper Mountain, Sheriff. He packed me over Red Cliff trail on his back.”
“You expect me to believe that? After that pogonip a rabbit couldn’t come down that trail, to say nothing of a man packin’ another man on his back.”
“He done it,” Stiber insisted. “I’d come down and taken grub away from him, but when he figured I was starving he came up and got me. I’m his prisoner. If there is any reward he should get it.”
Tilson laughed with humor. He glanced around at Saveth. “Hear that? They’d probably split it. Your guess that Stiber was hidin’ here was a good one, Kurt. He had to be here, because there’s no other place on the mountain where he could keep warm.”
Doc Bates looked around from examining Stiber’s leg. “This man does have a broken leg, Tilson.”
“That doesn’t make Kurland’s story true. No man in his right mind would risk that trail. Kurland will be lucky if we don’t prosecute him.”
Jeff Kurland felt nothing but disgust and despair. He did not care about the reward. He had never thought seriously of that, anyway, but he sensed that Saveth disliked him and wanted him out of the way. Well, this ended it. When the cold broke he’d sell whatever he had left and head south.
Then he felt a hand slip into his. Startled, he looked down to see Jill had moved close beside him.
She was looking at Ross Stiber. “I remember you. You’re Jack Ross, the rider from Cheyenne.”
“You’ve a good memory, ma’am. Look, don’t you believe what they’re saying. All they want is that reward money. You’ve got your hand on the best and squarest man I know. If you take your hand off his arm you’ll have lost the best of the breed.”
“We’ll fix a travois and haul him down to jail,” Tilson said, and he glanced at Jeff. “You’ll have a tough time provin’ you didn’t harbor a criminal.”
“Sheriff,” Doc Bates interrupted, “I know this man Stiber. He may be wanted as an outlaw, but I can put fifty men on the stand that will testify he’s no liar. Before he got into trouble Jack Ross, that’s how we knew him, was a respected man and a top hand. If he says Kurland brought him over the Red Cliff trail, I’ll believe him. So will those others.”
“And I’ll swear to it on the stand,” Stiber added. “He had me. I was his prisoner.”
“We’ll see about that,” Saveth said.
Tilson was irritated. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Doc? You comin’ with us?”
“I guess we all are,” Bates said. “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to our prisoner now, would we?”
Tilson went outside to put together a travois, and Stiber turned quickly to Jill. “Ma’am? You won’t be tellin’ Clara that I’m Jack Ross now, will you? I wouldn’t want her to see me in jail. Not that she meant much to me. Fact is, I was glad to get away. She struck me as one of those who’d get mean and cantankerous as she grew older.”
“You were right about that,” Jeff assured him. “She has a disposition like a sore-backed mule. Just ask Tilson.”
“Does he know her?”
“Know her? He married her!”
All the way to town Sheriff Tilson wondered if Ross Stiber wasn’t a little crazy. He kept chuckling and laughing, and what did a man with a broken leg, maybe headed for a hanging, what did he have to laugh about?
The Romance of Piute Bill
Tom Galway rode the sorrel out of the juniper and down the hillside toward the rock house on the creek. He was still two hundred yards off and cutting across a field bright with larkspur, paintbrush, and sego lily when he saw Piute Bill come to the door, a Winchester in his hands.
Galway rode up to the door and hooking one leg around the saddle horn he reached for the makings. “You’re going to need that rifle, Bill. That is, if you’re up to chasing some horse thieves.”
“What’s happened?” Piute Bill pushed his hat back on his head, then put the Winchester down beside the door. He accepted the tobacco sack Galway handed him. “You losin’ stock?”
“Those boys over yonder in the Rubies ran off twenty head of horses last night. I figure to go get ’em.”
“All right.” Bill touched his tongue to the paper. “Must be eight or nine of them up there. Who do you figure to take along?”
“You and me. No use to clutter things up. All I want is somebody to keep them off my back.”
“Sure enough. Wait until I saddle up.”
He came back from the corral leading a paint horse with one blue eye and one brown eye. Tom Galway was sitting on the porch waiting for him, with a gourd dipper in his hand.
“There’s a jug inside,” Piute Bill said. “My own make.”
Piute Bill threw his saddle on the paint. “Ain’t bad whiskey, at that. I’m beginning to think that alkali adds a little bite to her.”
“Could be.” Galway hefted the jug, then threw it over his bent arm and drank. “Could be,” he repeated. “You know, Bill, I’m beginning to think that what you need is a woman. Somebody to sort of cook things up and keep things revved up a mite. Then you could give more time to making whiskey and herding cattle.”
Piute Bill glanced at him sourly. “I’m doin’ all right. You ready?”
Galway put the jug down inside the door and pulled the door shut. Then he swung into the saddle, and they started off at a walk across the flower-blanketed meadow.
“Cassidy will be there,” Piute Bill said, “and Gorman, too.” He glanced sidewise at Galway. “You better watch Cassidy. He’s a fair hand.”
“No man’s goin’ to run off my stock. I rounded up those horses out on the range. Wild stock. I broke ’em myself and gentled them down. Cassidy’s got his business and I have mine. As long as he stays on the other side of the creek, I won’t bother him but when he runs off my stock he’d better hunt himself a hole.”
The trail led up a shallow gulch bordered by juniper and brush. “You know, Bill,” Galway said, “the more I think of you having a woman around, the better I like the idea.” He squinted against the sun
as they topped out on the rise and looked the country over with care. “Be a sort of a civilizing influence. You ain’t getting no younger, and you’ve been living alone in that shack for some time now. I figure a woman could sort of rev things up around and keep you washed behind the ears.”
“You mean,” Piute commented sourly, “you figure to drop over time to time for homecooked meals. I know you. I ain’t been ridin’ the range with you these past four or five years without cuttin’ your sign.”
“I’m only thinking of you,” Galway said, keeping his face straight. “You just think of that schoolmarm over to Summit,” Galway continued, ignoring the interruption. “That’s a right solid bit of woman, and I hear she’s a good cook.”
“You’d better be thinkin’ of Digger Cassidy. He’s no soft touch, and if he stole your horses he wanted them bad. He put lead into Dean Russell over to Battle Mountain, two or three months ago. If you recall, he was one of the roughest of that Charleston outfit.”
“Gorman’s just as good with a gun.”
“There’s a slick-ear kid, too. Named Robbins. He shot up a saloon over to Ten Mile last week.”
“Heard about him. He files notches on his gun.”
“One of them, huh? I never knowed of any real bad man who done that. He’s a tinhorn.”
The gulch down which they had been riding opened upon a wide, white salt flat and they cut across on an angle, walking their horses to raise no more of the white, smothering dust than necessary. The sky was clear and hot. Their lips became parched and white, their eyes smarted from sweat. Heat waves danced over the flats. They rode in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. The lurking devil in the paint’s blue eye went dull with the heat and the slogging pace.
It was two hours before they topped a small rise and left the desert behind them. The sagebrush smelled good after the parched stillness of the salt flats.
Cottonwoods showed some distance off and they pointed their horses, ignoring the trail of the stolen stock, knowing the men they pursued would also need water, and the tracks would begin again when they found it. The horses, smelling water, quickened their pace.
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five Page 26
