No sooner had he uttered the words when they heard the horses snort and blow. Cade knew at once that they had company. His first reaction was to retrieve his weapons, but before he could take the first step toward his horse, the .44 rifle slug slammed into his chest, knocking him backward into the water. He never heard the shot that hit him, and remembered nothing of the next few minutes after he hit the water.
Caught completely by surprise, and with no chance to get to his weapons, Luke could do nothing but cry out with rage when he saw the three intruders leaving the cover of the trees. “You murderin’ sons of bitches!” he roared.
With his rifle leveled at Luke, Lem Snider sneered, “Now, Luke, that ain’t no way to talk to an old army buddy.” He moved to position himself between Luke and the horses. “I knew you were up to somethin’ when we talked a few days ago. You coulda cut me in on this deal. I got just as much right to that gold as you, and if you had, why, hell, we woulda gone partners on it. But you was too greedy to share with an old friend.”
“You can go to hell,” Luke growled, knowing that his life could now be measured in seconds. “You never was a friend of mine.”
Snider chuckled softly, amused by Luke’s attitude. With his rifle steadily trained on him, he spoke aside to Curly. “Take a look in the river to make sure that other one’s dead.” Back to Luke, he warned, “Uh-uh,” when Luke started to take a step toward the horses.
“What are you waitin’ for?” Luke demanded. “Why don’t you go ahead and finish your dirty business, you murderin’ thief? You weren’t worth the powder it’d take to blow you to hell back in the army, and it looks like you’re still the back-shootin’ son of a bitch you were then.”
A malicious grin slowly formed on Snider’s bushy face as he watched Luke’s defiant reaction. He paused a second to hear Curly report that Cade looked dead to him, his body floating downstream with the current. “Well, I reckon you’re itchin’ to join your partner,” he said to Luke. “I’ll take good care of the gold for you.” He squeezed the trigger, cutting Luke down with a slug in his gut. Taking his time, he ejected the spent shell and fired again, this time aiming a little higher, the bullet catching Luke in the neck. Luke dropped to the ground, dead.
Watching with childish excitement, Curly giggled nervously, and in a moment of uncontrolled fever, pumped two more slugs into the dead man. Bob Dawson, silently watching up to that moment, was less concerned with wasting ammunition by shooting a corpse. His interest focused upon the sixteen pouches lined up on the riverbank. “Look at that,” he murmured, talking to himself as he counted the sacks of gold. “That’s more gold than I’ve ever seen at one time.”
“Well, get you a good look,” Snider snarled, and swung his rifle around. The rifle bucked, sending a slug into Dawson’s back as he bent over the pouches. Staggering, trying to keep from falling, Dawson tried to bring his rifle around, only to be met with two more shots ripping into his chest. Snider immediately turned to confront a stunned Curly Jenkins. Too confused to react, Curly was struck dumb for a few seconds while waiting for his inferior brain to tell him what to do. Snider smiled at him and said, “We didn’t need that double-crossin’ snake, did we? That gold will be easier to split between the two of us. Right?”
It took a moment more, but Curly finally believed he understood what had just happened. He didn’t like Dawson, anyway, and it appeared to him now that Snider didn’t, either. Smiling, he slowly nodded his head and answered, “Right.” Things couldn’t be better, although he would have preferred to be the one to have sent Dawson to hell.
“Let’s have a look at them sacks,” Snider said. After untying each pouch to make sure there was gold dust in every one, he told Curly to load them on the packhorse. When that was done, he took inventory of the minor spoils he had acquired in the form of horses, guns, and supplies. “Untie them other horses and bring ’em over here,” he instructed Curly.
Excited as a child at Christmastime, Curly hurried to do his bidding, fairly giggling to himself at the thought of the immense riches he had come by. When he approached the two horses tied in the trees, they both stamped nervously and tried to back away. Curly untied Luke’s horse, but when he untied Loco, the mottled gray gelding jerked free of his grasp and bolted off through a dense stand of evergreens. “Come back here!” Curly yelled, but the horse would have no part of the clumsy man.
“Dammit, Curly!” Snider swore when he turned to see the horse galloping through the trees. Thinking the guns and the saddle more valuable than the scruffy-looking gelding, he raised his rifle and fired at the fleeing horse, his shot whistling harmlessly through the branches. “Too late,” he complained. “I couldn’t get a clear shot.” He lowered his rifle. “We can look for him later.” Then he remembered that he was now a wealthy man, and a smile crept across his face. “To hell with that damn horse. I got more guns than I need.”
“You reckon we oughta do anythin’ with these bodies?” Curly asked when he had finished stripping Dawson and Luke of anything he thought useful.
“What for?” Snider replied. “Hell, just let ’em lay. Put all that stuff on them other horses.” He stood and watched while Curly, uncomplaining, loaded up the weapons.
Finished, Curly grinned and said, “I reckon we can have us some of that antelope meat I been smellin’ for two days.” He turned to face his partner, his grin fading to a look of confusion when he saw the rifle leveled at him. His simple mind still failing to understand, he asked, “You want me to—” The question was never completed as Snider’s rifle bucked again, leaving a dark hole in Curly’s forehead.
Levi Crabtree knelt motionless as he watched from the screen provided by the lower boughs of a massive fir. The object that had captured his attention was bobbing gently against a small boulder in the middle of the river, and he could now confirm that it was a body. He had heard the shots fired a short distance upstream from where he now crouched, and his first impulse was to gather up his traps and seek the cover of the fir trees that stood by the bank of the river.
Watching what he now knew was a body bumping repeatedly against the boulder, he could not be sure if the victim was alive or dead. If he were to guess, he would say the man was dead. His instincts of self-preservation told him to remain still, and the river would carry the corpse away. The party responsible for the killing might show up at any minute looking for the body. His natural curiosity won the battle, however, and when the current finally swept the body around the boulder, Levi decided to take a closer look. Besides, he reasoned, there may be something of value on it.
Speculating that he had ample time to wade out to intercept the corpse before the current floated it past him, he scanned the riverbanks carefully before leaving his hiding place. He owed his longevity in the mountains to the fact that nobody knew he was there, and already he was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake to venture this far from the safety of the high peaks. With the body almost to him now, he pushed out into the water, being careful not to lose his footing on the slippery rocks of the riverbed. With one hand, he reached out and snagged the body by the collar, and quickly pulled it back to the bank and the cover of the firs.
He’s dead, all right, Levi thought at first glance. Young fellow, shot through the chest, blood still seeping through the hole in his shirt. The thought struck him as strange. He’s dead, but his heart’s still pumping. He dragged the man out of the water and up under the limbs of the fir. He looked at the face, drained of color except for a blue shading around the eyes and mouth.
A cursory glance at the body told Levi that there was nothing of value to be salvaged—no weapon or ammunition, not even a knife. He decided to leave the corpse under the limbs of the fir tree and start back up the mountain, but he hesitated, still intrigued by the continuous bleeding from the wound. As he stared at the young face, wondering what circumstances caused him to wind up floating down the river, he suddenly recoiled. Had the body just twitched, or was it his imagination? In the next moment,
the body stiffened in spasm, then relaxed, and river water gushed from its mouth.
Astonished, Levi didn’t know what to do, but he determined to do something. For lack of a better idea, he turned the body over on its stomach and began pounding on its back, hoping to force more water out.
Alive or dead, he wasn’t certain. He didn’t even know what had happened. Everything had suddenly gone black. When his mind began to function again, he had found himself facedown in the water, and he seemed to be drifting. He remembered that his first impulse was to hold his breath, and when he tried to turn his face out of the water, he couldn’t move. The only thing he could think to do was to continue to hold his breath. That was his last clear thought before blacking out again.
He awoke with a cough and with someone or something pounding his back. As water spewed from his mouth and nose, he realized that he was on solid ground. The pounding stopped and he was rolled over on his back. He stared up at a dark form hovering over him. His eyes slowly began to focus; the murky features gradually became more clearly defined, and he found himself gazing into the clear blue eyes of a stranger. The face that stared back at him was thin, almost gaunt, with a dark beard liberally streaked with gray.
Not a word was exchanged for a long moment while each man stared at the other with confused curiosity. Suddenly aware of the throbbing in his chest, Cade struggled to sit upright, but fell back when the movement caused a fiery stab of pain to shoot through his body. His mind shifted back to those last moments by the riverbank when he heard Loco warning him that someone was approaching. “Luke!” he uttered, not sure if his partner was nearby.
“Don’t know who Luke is, young feller,” Levi said. “I just fished you outta the river.” He was still amazed that the corpse he had pulled from the current was speaking to him.
“What happened? Where’s Luke?”
“Can’t help you there, friend,” Levi said, “but what happened is you’ve been shot.” He studied Cade for a few moments as if trying to make up his mind. “I reckon since you’ve come back to life, we oughta do somethin’ about that hole in your chest before you die again.” In his mind, Levi was damning his luck for deciding to venture down out of the mountains on this day. If he hadn’t been there, this fellow would have simply floated on down the river, and stayed dead like fate intended. On the other hand, his conscience worried him with the possibility that it was fate that sent him down from the mountains today. One thing that Levi felt certain about was that the young man was dead when he pulled him up on the bank. Dead as last week’s horse turds, he thought, unless he’s got gills, and I don’t see any. He had never had any dealings with somebody who came back from the dead, and he wasn’t sure if he was comfortable with the situation.
“Luke, my partner,” Cade forced weakly. “We musta got jumped by somebody.” He feared Luke had met with the same fate as he.
His decision made, Levi pulled a bandanna from around his neck and stuffed it inside Cade’s soggy shirt to control the bleeding. He’d do the best he could for the unfortunate soul, not knowing if he was helping an innocent victim or an outlaw. “My name’s Levi,” he said. “I don’t know nothin’ about your partner. I heard the shots, four or five of ’em, so I expect you’re right. You musta got jumped by somebody.”
Details came rushing back to Cade’s mind of the moments just before he was shot—the sixteen pouches on the bank, Loco’s warning that other horses were approaching. They had been attacked, all right, but by whom, and what had been Luke’s fate? “My name’s Cade Hunter,” he told Levi, “and I need to get back to my partner. If you can help me get on my feet, I’ve got to find out what happened to Luke.”
“You plan on walkin’?” Levi asked, more than a little skeptical. “I ain’t got no horse. I mean, I got one, but he ain’t between my legs right now.”
“If I have to, I’ll walk,” Cade insisted.
“I’ll help you if I can,” Levi said, “but you don’t look like you’ll get very far, and we’d best be on the lookout for whoever shot you. Them shots I heard sounded mighty close. How do we know they ain’t lookin’ for you?”
“Maybe they think I’m dead, like you did, else they’d most likely have already been down here lookin’ for me.”
“I expect you could be right,” Levi allowed. “Them shots sounded mighty close, though.” He reached down to give Cade a hand. “We’ll give ’er a try.”
After a painful struggle, Cade was able to get to his feet. He tried to walk with Levi’s help, but they both saw right away that he wasn’t going to be able to make it, even for a short distance. They finally ended up with Cade riding piggyback, but even that was too much for Levi with a rifle and traps to carry as well. After hiding his traps to be picked up later, Levi was able to carry Cade to the site of the assault, but only after stopping to rest twice. Each stop made it more difficult for Levi to load Cade up on his back again, and by the time he reached the clearing by the riverbank, he was staggering under his burden, and Cade was almost too weak to sit up.
“Glory be,” Levi murmured when he saw the scene left behind by Lem Snider. Not one, but three bodies lay on the grassy bank above the rock. “They’re all dead,” he said between gasps for air. He instinctively looked around him, fearful that the men responsible might even then be watching them.
The prospect that Luke was dead had already struck Cade, but he had held out hope that maybe there was a chance that, like him, Luke had somehow survived the attack. Now his first assumption after finding three bodies was that Luke had taken two of their assailants with him. When Levi had lowered Cade to the ground beside the first body, he recognized the man as one of the three that Luke had sought to avoid back in Coulson. He looked beyond to the body of Curly Jenkins. A short distance from the other two, Cade recognized Luke’s body. The one missing was Lem Snider. Cade remembered the name. He had heard Luke repeat it enough, and it was easy to speculate on what had taken place here. “Lem Snider”—he repeated the name to make sure he never forgot it. He could logically tell himself that there was nothing he could have done to prevent Luke’s death. But he could not escape a feeling that he had let Luke down. The best he could do now was to make a silent vow to his late partner that he would not rest until he found the man who murdered him. He turned to Levi then. “I can’t leave him out here like this.”
Levi frowned, not sure what this stranger expected of him. He had already carried him almost half a mile on his back. After a moment, he said, “Well, I ain’t got nothin’ to dig a grave with.” He paused, then, “Let alone three graves.” He gestured toward the bodies. “Hell, the buzzards will take care of ’em.”
“I don’t care about the other two,” Cade said. “I just don’t want the buzzards to get Luke’s body.” Luke was the only real friend he’d ever had. He couldn’t abandon him to be a banquet for carrion.
You’re wanting a helluva lot for a helpless man with a bullet in your chest, Levi thought. Still, he had to admit that, in his place, he would feel the same for a friend. To Cade, he said, “Tell you what, I’ll fetch some rocks from the river to keep the buzzards off of him. That’s about the best I can do.”
“I appreciate it,” Cade replied. “I’m sorry to put you out so much. I wouldn’t blame you if you’d just gone on about your business and left me to the buzzards, too.” Levi nodded thoughtfully, admitting to himself that he had given it some consideration.
Not really sure if he was going to live or die, Cade could only lie against a tree trunk and watch while Levi brought rocks up from the edge of the water and entombed Luke’s body. The pain in his chest was increasing as he lay there, and he was fighting a desire to close his eyes, but he was determined to see Luke properly protected. As he watched Levi laboring with the burial, he remembered Luke telling him that the prospect of finding the gold had taken hold of his mind, and he didn’t want to end up a poor man. The thought occurred to him that Luke had, in ironic fashion, had his wish fulfilled. He had died a rich man even
though his wealth had been brief.
Satisfied that the body was safe from predators, Levi pushed his hat back and scratched his head while he thought about a more serious problem. “The worrisome thing now is what to do with you. You can’t walk, and I sure as hell can’t carry you up in them mountains to my place. If somebody’d told me I was gonna have to tote a man up to my place, I’da rode my horse.” He looked at Cade, studying the problem in his head. “I reckon I could leave you here while I go get my horse. You think you’d be all right?” He knew if he was going to doctor the man properly, he would need the healing skills of his wife, a full-blood Blackfoot woman. This was one time when I wish I’d stayed the hell away from the river, he thought. No beaver, no muskrat—just a fellow with a hole in his chest, and me with no way to carry him home.
Though his Samaritan was trying not to show it, Cade sensed that Levi was regretting fishing him from the river. “Friend, you’ve already done a helluva lot for me. I don’t reckon I’ve got much choice but to stay here.” He could feel his voice growing weaker as he spoke. “If I’m still alive when you get back, then that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If I’m dead, no hard feelin’s.”
Levi started to reply when suddenly he was startled by a sound behind him. He immediately dropped to one knee and grabbed his rifle, fearful that the murderer had returned. “Well, I’ll be . . .” he began, then gaped in disbelief as a horse slowly approached from the trees, saddled with a rifle in the sling and a gun belt hung on the saddle horn.
Equally astonished, Cade rose up on his elbow to find that Loco had returned to find his master. “That’s my horse,” he rasped weakly.
Levi stepped aside, and watched dumbfounded as the piebald gelding walked slowly up to stand over the man lying on the ground, and nudged Cade’s belly with its muzzle. “Well, I reckon that takes care of our problem, don’t it?” He looked at Cade and grinned.
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