Iris

by Greenwood, Leigh

  Monty followed the hoof prints. They became clearer where Carlos's horse's hooves had knocked the frost off the grass. Monty didn't know whether Carlos was helping Joe, whether he was helping Iris, or whether he was in it entirely for himself. He didn't even know if Carlos knew where to find Iris. But this was his best chance to find Iris and he would take it.

  He would decide what to do about Carlos when he found him.

  * * * * *

  Iris had never been so cold in her life. She remembered snow in St. Louis, but she didn't remember being cold through to the bone. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably. She had worn a coat when she left for the Circle-7, but the day had been sunny. The coat wasn't heavy enough for the late fall nights in Wyoming.

  She hurried on, hoping that moving about would keep her from being so cold. She followed a faint trail along the base of the foothills to the Laramie Mountains. She didn't know where it led, but she felt certain if she followed it, she would come to some ranch. Besides, Monty was more likely to follow a trail then just head out across trackless hills. Wyoming wasn't nearly as flat as Kansas and Nebraska, but its wide open spaces seemed as limitless as Texas.

  A heart-stopping roar stopped Iris dead in her tracks. Ahead of her, a grizzly bear stood atop its kill, its fur smeared with blood, its long gleaming fangs bared in a bone-chilling snarl. It didn't seem the least bit happy Iris had interrupted its meal.

  Looking frantically around, Iris saw a small lodgepole pine less than five yards away. Its branches reached down to the ground. She ran to the tree, dived among the branches, and started climbing as quickly as she could. She had climbed about twelve feet when she heard the snarl directly beneath her. The bear had reared up against the tree, its fangs still bared in a vicious snarl.

  The lodgepole pine had grown up into the branches of a towering Douglas fir. Afterwards Iris was never able to explain how she had crossed from one tree to the next, but when she saw the bear begin to climb the pine, she knew it was her only escape. Hoisting herself onto the thick branch, Iris crawled along it until she reached the trunk of the fir. She quickly climbed higher.

  The bear apparently decided it was too hungry to pursue Iris just now. It left the smaller tree and went back to its meal. But every now and then it would stop eating, look up at Iris, and snarl, as though in warning she should not come down.

  It needn't have bothered. Iris had no intention of leaving her perch.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Joe cursed aloud as rode back to the cabin; he whipped his horse across the shoulders to wring every ounce of speed from the tired animal. Where the hell was Carlos? Why hadn't he been waiting for him at the ranch house? He had told Iris he wasn't going to the ranch tonight, but he had really expected Monty to bring the gold today. He had expected Carlos to be there waiting for him. Now, as he hurried back to the cabin, he thought about Carlos's change of heart. But he couldn't believe Carlos would side against him, not as long as Carlos knew Joe could send him back to New Mexico on a murder charge.

  But where was he? Carlos didn't know the location of the cabin. Maybe he had gone with the Randolphs to fetch the gold. If so, he should have left a message. It occurred to Joe as an unpleasant afterthought that if Carlos did get the gold, there was nothing to stop him from taking out with the whole amount. He had been ready to cheat Carlos. Why wouldn't Carlos be just as ready to cheat him?

  Cursing anew, Joe turned onto the path leading to the cabin. He hadn't gone fifty yards before he saw the cabin door standing open. Iris had escaped. Joe threw himself from his horse, but he already knew what he would find. The cabin was empty. Plunging back outside, Joe mounted up. She couldn't have gone very far on foot in the dark. He would find her and bring her back. Then he would figure out what to do about that stinking bastard Carlos.

  He headed off taking a well-marked trail that lead across the foothills several hundred yards below the faint game trail farther up.

  * * * * *

  Monty heard the bear from a long distance away. The animal sounded enraged. That's what started Monty thinking. A bear might be doing any number of things, even stalking its dinner, but it wouldn't be snarling like that unless it was threatened. He listened carefully. He didn't hear a second bear, just one. Nothing else could cause a bear to roar like that.

  Nothing except man.

  Monty looked down the trail. Carlos's tracks still led ahead, but somebody must be up there. From the way the bear was snarling, they might be in need of help.

  Monty listened, but he heard no further sounds. Whatever had disturbed the bear was gone. He started down the trail once more, but as he came closer to the part of the hill where he thought the sound came from, he became more and more curious. Maybe Carlos had changed trails somewhere ahead and doubled back. If Monty changed trails now, he could catch up with him sooner.

  Maybe the bear had been angered about something else and Carlos was still ahead on the lower trail. Monty decided to check out the upper trail. He could always come back to the first one. He hurried along until he found a place in the hillside that looked gradual enough for his horse to climb. Nightmare snorted his objection, but he went up the trail without any difficulty. By the time Monty reached the dim game trail, all was quiet.

  Monty pulled his rifle from its scabbard and started back along the trail, his eyes alert, searching the night for hidden danger.

  Almost immediately he came upon the remains of a mule deer. The bear was nowhere in sight. Apparently he had decided the carcass wasn't worth the chance of a further encounter with humans. Monty looked around to make certain he wasn't hiding in a thicket, but except for a lodgepole pine ahead, there was no growth at ground level capable of hiding a full-grown bear.

  Nightmare was restless but not snorting and dancing nervously like he would if he smelled a bear nearby. Monty dismounted, but close inspection of the trail showed no tracks except those of the bear. Carlos hadn't come this way.

  Monty climbed back into the saddle, turned Nightmare around.

  "Monty!"

  The sound riveted him in his tracks. Iris!

  "Monty!"

  Monty looked around, searching for Iris's hiding place, but he couldn't see anything. The sound seemed to come from the heavens, but he had to be imagining things. There was nothing angelic about that urgent cry for help. Maybe Madison was right. Maybe he was overly tired and in need of a good night's sleep.

  "I'm up here in this tree!"

  "Which tree?" Monty asked, looking around, certain he was becoming delirious.

  "The one with all the branches."

  They all seemed remarkably full of branches to Monty, and equally empty of Iris.

  "Here," she called.

  Monty worked his way toward the voice, staring up into the treetops all the while. A dead limb hit the ground a little way in front of him. Looking up he thought he saw a scrap of dark blue cloth. He rode close to the tree. "Where are you?" he called.

  "Up here."

  Monty craned his neck until he could look straight up the tree. Then he saw her, holding to the trunk of the Douglas fir about fifty feet above the ground.

  "How the hell did you get up there?"

  "The bear."

  "Where's your horse?"

  "Joe took it with him. I came on foot."

  Monty decided Iris was completely unsuited for life as a rancher's wife. Between her penchant for walking among longhorns and surprising grizzlies in the middle of their dinner, she would give him grey hair inside a year.

  He couldn't wait to get her down from that tree and kiss away all her fears.

  "You can come on down. The bear's gone."

  "I can't."

  "What do you mean, you can't?"

  "I'm scared to let go."

  Monty's instinctive response was to order Iris to come down immediately. Anyone who could climb up a tree could also climb down. But even as he opened his mouth to shout the order, it occurred to him Iris had been chased by a bear when she climbed
that tree. Driven by fear, she probably had no idea what she was doing until she stopped and found herself fifty feet in the air. She probably didn't know how to climb down because she didn't know how she had managed to climb up. Now she was petrified.

  Monty had never been fifty feet up a tree. He figured he might be scared, too. But unless he climbed up to get her, it looked like Iris was going to grow old holding onto that tree trunk.

  "How did you get up there?" Monty asked. "This tree doesn't have any lower branches."

  "I climbed the one next to it and crossed over."

  Monty whistled in awe. He wished Zac were here. Zac was the one who liked climbing trees. Monty didn't really feel comfortable on anything higher than a horse.

  Monty climbed the lower branches of the lodgepole. The tree didn't seem so sturdy to him. It was one thing for Iris, who weighed barely more than a hundred pounds, to climb this tree. It was quite different when he attempted it with his two hundred and twenty pounds of bone and muscle. By the time he reached the lowest branch of the Douglas fir, he didn't know if the tree would support him.

  Monty managed to cross over to the fir. He looked up. Iris seemed just as far above him as when he was on the ground. "Can't you come down any?"

  "No."

  Monty could understand. The higher he climbed, the more uncomfortable he became. But Iris was above him. He had to get her down.

  Iris looked down as Monty laboriously climbed toward her, and her heart overflowed with love for this man who would unhesitatingly climb a tree for her. She could tell he didn't like it a bit. He kept looking at the ground and then up at her like he couldn't believe they were each so far from where he was. Yet he kept climbing, keeping up a steady stream of encouragement.

  She wondered if she would ever be able to do the same thing for him. It seemed she could only cause trouble. That's all she'd ever been, from the day she fell in love with him at fourteen until this very minute. That's all she was now, sitting up in this tree like a fool, so afraid she couldn't move. Yet he had unhesitatingly climbed up the lodgepole pine even though she wondered at times if it could hold his weight.

  Monty didn't deserve a sniveling coward for a wife. She might be a foolish and useless female -- though she intended to change that -- but she wasn't going to be a coward. If she got up this tree by herself, and her present position was ample proof that she had, she could get down. Monty might think it was heroic to rescue her this time, but he wasn't the type to be forever pulling somebody out of the soup. One day he just might decide to leave her be.

  It took an act of faith for Iris to loosen her hold enough to allow her foot to slide down to the branch below. Nothing in her entire life had taken half as much courage as it took to dangle her foot in space until it finally came to rest on the branch below. Heaving a tremendous sigh of relief, Iris moved down the tree. Bark scraped her cheek, the smell of resin filled her nostrils, but she kept moving.

  "Stay where you are," Monty called. "I'm coming to get you."

  "I'm coming down," Iris called back. She kept moving. If she stopped, she doubted she would be able to start again.

  They met thirty-five feet above the ground.

  "Ouch!" Monty yelped when Iris put a foot down on his fingers. But Iris didn't slow down. Monty moved to the opposite side of the tree trunk, and Iris practically fell the rest of the way until she felt his arms close around her. It was the most awkward embrace of her life, each holding onto a limb, the trunk and branches between them, but Iris doubted any kiss would ever be more important to her than this one.

  "If George could see me now, he'd swear I had lost my mind," Monty said.

  Iris laughed, relief, joy, giddy happiness all mixed up in the sound. "We both are. There can't be two people in the whole world any more unsuited for each other."

  "And trying to kiss up a tree."

  Monty held her close with one arms and kissed her once more. "Now let's get down from here. I want to do this right."

  * * * * *

  Carlos and Joe spotted each other at the same time. Carlos spurred his horse forward; Joe pulled up.

  "Where have you taken Iris?"

  "What have you done with the gold?"

  "There is no gold. Madison said it was just a rumor they've been trying to kill for years. Now tell me what you've done with Iris. If I can get her back before dawn, you may come out of this with a whole skin."

  "How do I know you haven't made a deal of your own? How do I know you don't already have the gold?"

  "If I had the gold, do you think I'd be wasting my time riding about in the woods at night?"

  "You sure as hell would. If you took Randolph gold, they'd kill your hide if you didn't give them Iris."

  "I don't have any gold, and I haven't made any deal. Now show me where you hid Iris."

  "No."

  Carlos leveled a hard look at his friend. "I told you I'd share everything with you."

  "I don't trust you anymore. You've gotten soft. You've gotten scared. You don't have the guts to go for the big score anymore. You're willing to settle for a piece of some two-bit ranch that'll keep you working your ass off for the rest of your life."

  "I haven't gone yellow, Joe. I just don't want to live on the run anymore. You don't think anybody, much less the Randolphs, would give you a hundred thousand dollars and just forget about it, do you? You'd be a hunted man, Joe. With Hen Randolph on your trail, you'd be dead inside a month."

  "I'll take my chances."

  "It wouldn't be a chance. It would be a dead certainty. Come on, Joe, tell me where you took Iris. You know I won't forget what you did for me."

  "It's too late now. Those Randolphs aren't going to let me turn over Iris and go on living here like we're the best of friends."

  "You may have to go away for a while, but you can come back. I don't expect they'll stay here once they get that ranch going."

  "You don't understand, Carlos. I don't want to be chasing after cows for the rest of my life, not for you, not for me, not when I can get enough money to live easy. It won't matter if there ain't no gold. Those Randolphs got enough money to pay plenty."

  "I'm not going to let you do it, Joe. She's my sister." Carlos rode forward. He didn't know exactly what he was going to do, but he expected Joe would give in to a show of force. There was no point in going on. His only hope was to give up Iris and hope the Randolphs wouldn't hold a grudge for very long.

  Carlos couldn't believe it when Joe drew his gun. He couldn't believe it when he saw Joe point it at him. He still couldn't believe it when he felt the searing pain in his chest, felt himself falling from the saddle. The last thing he remembered was being face-down on a prickly carpet of needles as Joe took his horse and rode away.

  Then he believed it.

  * * * * *

  Monty had just reached the ground when a gunshot nearby shattered the night. He grabbed Nightmare's reins to keep the skittish animal from running away. It wouldn't do for both of them to be without a mount.

  "What was that?" Iris asked, as she fell out of the lodgepole pine into Monty's arms.

  "A gunshot," Monty said, setting her on her feet.

  "I mean, who could it have been?"

  "I don't know, but it must be Carlos or Joe. Carlos wasn't at the ranch when I got there. And Joe left you to go do something."

  "Do you suppose they met each other?"

  "I don't know, but we'd better find out."

  Monty put his hands around Iris's waist and lifted her into the saddle. She didn't know how he could do it so effortlessly. Her shoulders and arms ached from holding onto the tree; the rough bark had rubbed her hands raw. Monty acted as though he hadn't done anything.

  Monty vaulted into the saddle behind her. "Hang on. It's going to be a rough ride down the slope."

  It turned out to be easier than she expected. They didn't have far to travel before they came to the spot where Carlos had fallen.

  "Is he dead?" Iris asked.

  Monty jumpe
d down. He placed his hands on Carlos's neck. "He's still alive."

  "We've got to get him to a doctor," Iris said. "This is all my fault. He would never have been hurt if it hadn't tried to help me. Will he be all right?"

  "I can't say until I know how badly he's hurt." Monty turned him over. "He was shot in the chest. Do you see his horse? We've got to get him back to the ranch as soon as possible."

  Iris looked around. "It must have run off."

  "Or Reardon took it," Monty said. "Get down. You'll have to help me lift him into the saddle."

  It took both their efforts and they still nearly didn't manage it.

  "Now climb up behind him," Monty said. "You're going to have to hold him in the saddle while I lead Nightmare."

  Iris did as Monty said, but she was scared it was going to be a useless effort. Carlos was unconscious. It was all she could do to keep him from falling out of the saddle. She could feel the warm, sticky blood where it had soaked through Carlos's shirt. Ignoring the sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach, she put pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding.

  "This is going to be a long walk," Monty said. "I wish we could find his horse."

  They hadn't gone very far when they saw a horse on the trail in front of them.

  "There's Carlos's horse," Iris cried. "How fortunate his reins got caught in that bush."

  But even as Monty started forward he felt something was wrong. About twenty yards away he knew what it was. The horse's reins weren't caught in the bush. They were tied. Reardon had to be watching them this very minute.

  "Reardon's here somewhere," Monty hissed. "He probably has a rifle on us this very minute. Don't move unless I tell you."

  "How do you know?"

  "The reins. They're tied, not caught."

  Monty kept walking forward. He didn't know what Joe had in mind, but he needed that horse.

  "Where's the gold, Randolph?"