Luke's Gold

by Charles G. West

  “Whaddaya say, partner?” Luke asked again when Cade failed to respond right away.

  “You go ahead,” Cade finally replied. “I’ll stay here and watch the camp.”

  Luke immediately showed his disappointment. “Don’t you wanna get . . .” He hesitated as if he might offend the lady.

  “I’ll guarantee you a good time,” Belle offered in hopes of changing Cade’s mind. “Since you boys are just passing through, I might consider knocking a little off the price if both of you come along.”

  “Much obliged,” Cade said, “but if you just make sure Luke has a good time, that’ll do.”

  For the short time the two had been partners, Luke had already learned that his young friend was not easily swayed when he had made up his mind. And Luke picked up the note of finality in Cade’s tone. Well, he thought, it’s his loss. No reason I can’t have a little fun. Breaking out a wide grin for Belle, he said, “Come on, honey. I’ll throw a saddle on ol’ Sleepy, and we’ll go have a party.”

  Cade emptied the dregs of the coffeepot into his cup and stood watching while Luke hurriedly saddled his horse. He wasted no thoughts on judgment, although he could think of a good many better uses for the money Luke was bound to part with before the night was over. Their morning departure might be postponed for a day as a result, but Cade was in no particular hurry, anyway. Better that Luke get his itch scratched now that he had developed it, Cade supposed. But it’s gonna take more than that old whore to give me the itch. He continued to watch until the image of Luke faded into the evening shadows, following along behind Miss Belle’s buckboard. Then he threw the last few swallows of coffee on the ground and went down to the river to rinse the cup.

  It was sometime in the wee hours of the morning when Loco’s welcoming whinny awakened him. Alert at once, Cade rolled out of his blanket and picked up his rifle only to find it was just Luke coming back, and Loco’s welcome had been for Sleepy. He rose up on one elbow to watch his progress, and from the look of it, it was apparent that Luke was lucky just to have stayed on the horse. Sprawled forward in the saddle, he was holding on with both arms wrapped around the horse’s neck. The horse, with no direction from her master, walked up to the campfire and stopped.

  Cade got to his feet. “You all right?”

  “Cade?” Luke asked, not sure where he was. “I’m drunk as a cross-eyed hog.”

  “Damned if you ain’t,” Cade agreed. “Here, I’ll help you down. Let go.”

  “I can’t, Cade. Ever’ time I let go of her neck, the damn horse starts spinnin’ around.”

  Cade shook his head. “Well, she’s standin’ still right now,” he said. “Let’s get you offa there quick before she starts spinnin’ again.” Then without giving Luke time to think about it, Cade reached up and dragged him from the saddle, catching him on his shoulder like a sack of corn.

  “Oh, Lord,” Luke groaned. “Lemme down—my insides is comin’ out!”

  Not wanting to get Luke’s evening consumption of alcohol down his back, Cade immediately granted his request. Kneeling quickly, he rolled Luke off his shoulder onto the ground. Luke immediately struggled up on all fours only moments before the retching began. Once it started, it seemed there was no end to it. Cade could do little more than feel sorry for him as Luke heaved over and over again, crawling from one fresh spot to another, until there was nothing left to lose. Still his stomach convulsed until tears started streaming from his eyes. He was as sick as Cade had ever seen any man.

  When it was finally over, and the evil spirit was done with him, Luke flopped to the ground like a limp rag, totally spent. Cade let him lie where he dropped, covered him with his blanket, then unsaddled his horse. That done, he looked up at the sky where there was now a thin streak of light peeking over the horizon to the east. Might as well stay up, he thought. After taking another look at Luke, who was sleeping peacefully by then, he built up the fire before going down to the water’s edge to fill the coffeepot. He’s damn sure going to need some coffee when he wakes up—if he wakes up.

  It was a couple of hours past sunup when Cade came back from watering the horses and saw the body under Luke’s blanket stirring. He paused at Luke’s feet to watch the rebirth as Luke cautiously pulled the blanket from over his head and peeked timidly out at the daylight. “I reckon you’re the second man I ever heard of that was raised from the dead,” Cade commented. “What was that other fellow’s name? Lazarus or somethin’?”

  Cautiously aware of a head more fragile than a bird’s egg, Luke slowly rolled over and managed to sit up. “Damn,” he swore, “for a while there I thought I was gonna get sick last night.” Cade merely shook his head, amazed. “Is that coffee I smell?” Luke asked then. Cade poured him a cup and handed it to him. Luke, his hand shaking slightly, reached for it gratefully. “Boy, that’s what I needed,” he said, drinking the hot liquid in quick sips. Gradually, he began feeling as if he might live, and with the second cup he was ready to talk again. “Cade, boy, you shoulda gone with me. I ain’t never had such a good time in all my life—Belle and Lucille, and I don’t remember the other’n’s name—I mean, they was all fine. And whiskey! They had some of the smoothest whiskey you’ve ever drunk—and plenty of it. But that Belle, I’d marry her if she’d have me.” He sank back on his elbows as he let his mind relive an evening that he judged to be the best of his life. “Damn,” he uttered reverently, “you shoulda gone with me.”

  Cade could only shake his head. It was astonishing to him that a man staring at the gates of death such a short time before could look back on the adventure as a pleasant experience. That was Luke—his mind only retained the good times. “I expect you’d better eat somethin’,” he said. “I know for a fact there ain’t nothin’ in your stomach but a little bit of coffee. You can rest up a bit, and we’ll get movin’ again when you’re ready.”

  “Hell, I’m ready now,” Luke insisted. “We coulda set out at first light. I was ready.”

  “Yeah, I could tell,” Cade commented sarcastically.

  “You owe me for two bottles of whiskey on top of that fifty dollars,” Belle stated emphatically. “If you’da told me that man could drink that much whiskey and still damn near wear out the three of us, I’da charged you more.”

  “Our deal was for fifty dollars,” Lem Snider replied. “There wasn’t nothin’ said about no extra for whiskey.” He counted out the money, and she quickly took it from his hand. “So, what did you find out?” he pressed.

  “Two bottles of whiskey,” she insisted. “If we hadn’t got him drunk, we wouldn’t have got him talking.”

  “All right, dammit. I’ll pay for one of them bottles, but the other’n’s on you. Now tell me what he’s up to, or I might take my money back and whip your flabby ass for wastin’ my time.”

  “Well,” Belle smirked, “he asked me to marry him three or four times. And about the time Lucille said she couldn’t take any more—and that was not too long before daylight—he got to telling me about how he could take care of me in style. All he would say was he was on his way to do some business, and that he’d be a rich man when he came back.”

  “I knew it! That son of a bitch!” Lem exclaimed. “He’s got some of that gold shipment hid somewhere. That son of a bitch!” His mind already calculating the possible value of the gold one mule could carry, he pressed for more information. “Where did he say he was goin’?”

  Belle shrugged. “He wouldn’t say exactly where he was heading, just that it wasn’t that far from here. He did say one time that all the gold wasn’t in Virginia City or Bannack, either.”

  “I reckon not,” Snider remarked, a sly smile of gratification gracing his dark features. It can be found somewhere between here and Virginia City, somewhere close to the Gallatin River, I’m bettin’. The question of why Luke waited for so many years before coming back to claim the gold dust never entered his mind.

  Belle moved up close to him, and taking his arm in both her hands, affected her most coquettish ex
pression. She pressed her face against his shoulder and purred, “You ain’t gonna forget ol’ Belle if you make a big strike, are you, honey?”

  “Huh,” he snorted, “who said anythin’ about makin’ a big score?”

  “I know you, Lem Snider,” Belle insisted. “You’d play cards with the devil himself as long as you could deal. Hell, me and the girls would like to get outta this little town. I’m just sayin’ don’t forget them that helped you, that’s all.”

  Snider suddenly broke out a laugh. “Why, Belle, honey, how could I ever forget you?”

  Chapter 4

  Two days out from Coulson, near a bend in the river, Luke and Cade sighted a herd of antelope some five or six hundred yards distant. The bluffs along that stretch of the river were broken with a multitude of gullies, making it a convenient place for the animals to move down to the water’s edge.

  “I don’t know about you,” Luke commented, “but I’ve got a godawful hankerin’ for some fresh meat. That looks like a natural waterin’ hole at that bend. Whaddaya say we pull back to that gully we just passed and make camp? It’s gettin’ on toward evenin’, anyway. I ain’t real sure, but if my memory serves me, we can’t be more’n a half a day or so from Big Timber. We might not run up on another herd of antelope before we strike the Boulder River. Maybe we can slip on up there to their waterin’ hole in the mornin’ before they come back to drink.”

  The plan suited Cade. He, too, was a little tired of salt pork. Of course there was the possibility that the herd would not return to the same bend to drink, but pronghorns were like everybody else—they had their habits. Both men had hunted antelope enough to know that this was the only chance they’d have to get close enough for a shot at the swift animals. They were already lucky not to have been spotted by the herd before they backed their horses out of sight. The pronghorns’ eyesight was unmatched, and they could easily outrun the fastest horse without breaking a sweat.

  Since they determined they were downwind of the antelope, they decided there was little risk in building a small fire to boil some coffee. Every so often, Luke would walk up to the edge of the gully to check on the antelope. As the evening approached, the herd gradually moved farther and farther away, casually grazing until Luke commented, “They’re dang near out of sight.” He came back down to the fire and settled himself. “If we’ve got any luck at all, we’ll be eatin’ antelope tomorrow night for supper.”

  “I just hope they come back to the same spot to drink,” Cade said. He got up and emptied the last swallow of coffee from his cup. “I expect they’ve moved far enough now. Let’s move up closer and find us a spot to wait for ’em.”

  The bend in the river where the antelope had come down to drink was almost devoid of trees, except for a few willows close to the edge. Some berry bushes struggled to live on a sandy spit that jutted out from the river’s bank after a drop of about twelve feet. The many hoofprints down the gullies that ran from the bluffs bore evidence of the herd’s recent visit.

  “There sure ain’t much trees or brush to hide in,” Luke said, looking around him.

  A few yards from him, also looking around the bluffs, Cade said, “I expect we could leave the horses in that stand of cottonwoods up ahead before daylight, and we’ll have to hunker down in one of these gullies and wait.”

  “I reckon,” Luke replied, unable to think of any better plan. “Might as well go ahead and move ’em up, and we can just go ahead and settle in a gully for the night.” Cade agreed, so they moved their camp up to the bend and made themselves comfortable in a deep gully.

  Both men were up before sunrise, watching for the return of the herd of antelope. As the darkness began fading to gray with no sign of the swift animals, they were about to decide their gamble a poor bet. “Uh-oh,” Luke whispered. “There they are.”

  Gradually emerging in the fading darkness like slowly materializing ghosts, the antelope moved toward the water. Closest to the gully in which Cade and Luke had hidden, a buck corralled his harem of seven does, keeping a wary eye out for any challenges from other bucks. “Come on down for a drink,” Luke whispered, “and we’ll take a couple of them ladies offa your hands.” In a few moments, the buck did as Luke had requested, and led his does down from the bluffs.

  “Which one you thinkin’ about?” Cade asked, making sure they didn’t both shoot the same one.

  “That’un right behind him,” Luke answered.

  “All right, I’ll take the one behind her.” They had already decided to take two antelope so they could have fresh meat and dry the rest to take with them. Two shots rang out, almost at the same time, and the herd of antelope scattered, leaving the two does crumpled to the ground in their wake.

  “Hoo-boy!” Luke exclaimed. “I can already taste that fresh meat.” He scrambled up out of the gully after Cade, who was standing on the lip watching the fleeing herd. “I’ll build a fire, so we can cook up some of that meat while we’re butcherin’.”

  “What the hell was that shootin’?” Lem Snider demanded, running up to the top of a low ridge where Curly Jenkins was keeping watch.

  “I don’t know,” the confused man answered, trying to blink the sleep from his eyes. “I don’t see nothin’. Heard two shots, but I don’t see nothin’ over toward that gully where they camped. Them shots sounded like they came from somewhere upriver from there.”

  Snider knelt at the crest of the ridge, staring hard to see through the early-morning light. After a few minutes, he declared, “Hell, they’re not there anymore.” He turned then to Curly. “Gawdammit, Curly, you’re supposed to be watchin’ ’em.”

  “I’ve been watchin’ ’em,” Curly insisted.

  “Well, they’re gone. If you’ve lost ’em . . .” Snider started to threaten, but paused when he caught sight of the antelope scattering from the bluffs approximately a half mile beyond the gully where he had last seen the two men they tracked. The faint trace of a smile appeared on his face. “Hell, they’re huntin’. That’s what them shots were. They’ve moved their camp farther up the river.”

  “They musta moved out before daylight,” Curly said, “else I’da seen ’em.”

  “Hell, you were most likely asleep,” Snider snarled, no longer angry now that he knew the two had not given him the slip. “Let’s get movin’. I wanna get close enough to keep an eye on ’em.”

  Back at the base of the ridge, Bob Dawson was just in the process of freshening the fire in preparation for making some breakfast. He looked up in surprise when both of his partners came down the slope. He jerked his hand away just in time to keep from getting struck by Snider’s foot as Lem kicked dirt on his fresh flame. “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Dawson demanded.

  “We’re movin’,” Snider, ordered. “Let’s get saddled up.”

  “What was the shootin’?” Dawson wanted to know. Snider told him that he was pretty sure Tucker and his friend had just shot at some antelope. Dawson considered that for a moment. “Well then, they most likely ain’t goin’ nowhere for a while if they’re gonna be skinnin’ and butcherin’ an antelope. So what’s the hurry? I’m hungry, and I say let’s fix somethin’ to eat first.”

  One of these days I’m gonna have to settle with you, Snider thought. Of his two partners, Bob Dawson was the more contrary, and the one more likely to argue. A dark, humorless man, Dawson’s face was dry and leathery, etched with deep frown lines. Unlike Curly, Bob figured he had as much to say about things as Snider. Curly, on the other hand, was not very bright and he knew it, accepting Snider’s domination without question. He wore a battered Montana Peak hat to protect his shiny, hairless dome from the sun. His prominent feature in an otherwise blank face was an abundance of hair protruding from each nostril. The two men served a purpose for Snider, and as soon as their value to him diminished, he would be quick to discard them.

  “Dammit,” Snider said, “it don’t matter what you say, Bob, we’re movin’ up closer.” When Dawson looked like he was about to get his back
up, Snider softened his tone a bit. “We don’t know for sure that they killed any game. I’m just tellin’ you that’s what it looks like. Now, we need to get closer so we can see for sure what they’re up to. You can fix somethin’ to eat then.”

  Dawson fixed his partner with a wary eye, and was about to retort when Curly interrupted. “I wish we had some of that fresh antelope to eat. Why don’t we see if we can get a shot at one of them antelopes, Lem?”

  Both Dawson and Snider cast disparaging gazes at their bald companion. Dawson explained, “Think about it, dummy. If we shot at an antelope, they’d likely hear the shots.”

  Curly considered that for a moment before his face lit up with understanding. “Right. I didn’t think about that.” He nodded his head several times as he digested his enlightenment. Then another thought entered his head. “But, hell, we heard their shots.”

  Snider looked at Dawson and slowly shook his head, the near argument over authority between them temporarily forgotten. To Curly, he suggested, “Why don’t you think on that while you saddle your horse? We need to get ourselves up where we can see Tucker and that other feller.”

  Curly looked from one face to the other. “I said somethin’ dumb again, didn’t I?”

  “You sure as hell did,” Snider snorted. “Now get a saddle on that horse.”

  “You big damn dummy,” Bob Dawson remarked as he passed Curly to fetch his saddle.

  “How’d you like it if I slit your throat one night?” Curly threatened and drew the long skinning knife from his belt.

  Quick as a flash, Dawson whipped out his pistol and stuck the muzzle hard against Curly’s forehead. “How’d you like it if I blow your brains out?”

  “We’re wastin’ time,” Snider complained, impatient with the badgering that was common between the two. If he didn’t think he needed their guns, he’d have already shot both of them. As it was, however, he figured that after they killed Tucker and his partner, then he’d goad one of them into shooting the other, and he would finish whoever was left standing. If what he suspected was right, there should be plenty in those gold pouches for three men, but why split it when it was his idea to follow Tucker? He figured he had a right to the gold. He was there at the time it was lost, and had ridden in the detachment sent to retrieve the bodies. Ever since leaving the army, he had looked for that one big score. Feeling that this was finally it, there was no reason in his mind to share it with two no-accounts like Bob and Curly. He had killed men for a whole lot less.