The Darkest Winter

by William W. Johnstone

  The biggest advantage Breckinridge had was his stamina. He fought tirelessly as the minutes stretched on. He wasn’t breathing hard, and he hadn’t lost any speed. The same wasn’t true of Ralston. His moves weren’t as swift and crisp as they had been when the combat began, and his chest began to heave a little as he fought harder for breath. Ralston had expected to kill him within a minute or so, Breck thought. The major had counted on his skill being enough to accomplish that deadly goal. Now, the longer it took, the more Ralston would begin to suffer.

  That was just fine with Breckinridge. He could keep this up all day.

  With his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace, Ralston attacked again. The way he slashed back and forth with the blade had a frenzied, desperate quality. Breckinridge blocked the blows again and again. Sparks leaped from the sabers as they clashed. Spittle flew from Ralston’s mouth as he cursed bitterly.

  Breckinridge felt that moisture strike his face and knew Ralston’s bloodlust had made him careless. He had finally come close enough. Breck’s left arm shot out. His hand closed on the front of Ralston’s jacket. The muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back bunched as he pivoted at the waist and heaved.

  Taken by surprise, Ralston left his feet and flew through the air. Shocked cries came from the onlookers.

  Ralston landed hard and rolled over a couple of times. The men on that side of the circle jumped back to give him room. Breckinridge was right after him, and as Ralston stopped and tried to lift himself from the ground, Breck’s right foot lashed out and the toe of his boot smashed into Ralston’s wrist. Ralston yelled in pain as the sword flew out of his grip.

  Breckinridge then put his foot on Ralston’s chest and pinned the major to the ground. The tip of his saber hovered over Ralston’s throat but didn’t drive downward in a killing stroke.

  Panting, Ralston stared up at Breckinridge. His single eye was wide and bulging. After a couple of tense heartbeats, he cried, “End it! Go ahead and end it, you son of a bitch!”

  Breckinridge shoved the sword down, but as he did, he turned the point so that the blade sunk into the ground less than an inch from the side of Ralston’s neck. He stepped back.

  The sound of a gun being cocked made him look over his shoulder. Jud Carnahan had lifted a pistol and aimed it at him.

  “You figure on shootin’ me?” Breckinridge asked.

  “I might have, if you’d killed Ralston,” Carnahan said. “Maybe you should have. You’d have had the satisfaction of seeing him die before you did.”

  “That don’t strike me as bein’ all that satisfyin’. You and all these fellas saw it, Carnahan. I beat him fair and square, usin’ his choice of weapons.”

  “I’m not sure how fair it was. There at the end it was more like wrestling instead of a sword fight.”

  “If you don’t want to get grabbed, don’t get close enough that the fella you’re fightin’ can grab you.”

  Carnahan let a second go by, then abruptly laughed. “Simple, yet profound,” he said as he eased his pistol’s hammer back down and lowered the weapon. “All right, Wallace. You acquitted yourself well. I’m still not certain exactly what happened here this morning, but whether you and Baxter stole that powder and shot or not, the matter is closed. The two of you get in your canoes and leave.”

  “You’re lettin’ ’em go?” Al Nusser asked.

  “That’s right.” Carnahan looked around at the others. “Anybody object to that?”

  No one did, not even Ralston, who had rolled onto his side and was lying there breathing heavily.

  “But I’m putting you on notice,” Carnahan went on to Breckinridge and Morgan. “Ralston’s going to bear a grudge against you, and if he sees you again, I probably won’t be able to stop him from indulging it. I’m not sure I’d even want to. I’m sure some of the other men don’t trust you, either, and aren’t that fond of you.”

  The hostile glares many of the trappers directed at them told Breckinridge and Morgan that Carnahan was right about that.

  “The frontier is a big place,” Carnahan went on. “Steer clear of us. If you don’t, there’ll be more trouble, and I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

  “I’ve always had a hard time with bein’ told what to do,” Breckinridge said.

  “For your own sake, learn to swallow it this time.”

  Breckinridge glanced at Morgan. If he had been on his own, Breck might have told Carnahan to go to hell. But he had a friend and partner to consider. Morgan’s life was every bit as much at risk here as his.

  “Maybe you’d best steer clear of us,” Breckinridge said.

  Carnahan laughed again. “Your balls are as big as the rest of you, Wallace. Call it what you want, just get the hell out of here.”

  “That sounds good to me,” Morgan muttered. He went to his canoe.

  Breckinridge backed away from Carnahan and the others. He didn’t trust the squat, bearded man, and he sure didn’t trust Ralston, who by now was sitting up on the ground. The former officer could put more hate in one eye than most could in two, and he proved that with the baleful gaze he directed at Breck.

  Morgan pushed the canoes out into the river while Breckinridge watched Carnahan and the others. Breck stepped into his canoe, sat down, and picked up the paddle in his left hand, one of the pistols in his right. He looped his thumb over the gun’s hammer, ready to cock and fire if need be. Using the paddle in his other hand, he pushed the canoe even farther offshore.

  “You head out,” he told Morgan. “Stop while you’re still in rifle range, and you can cover me whilst I join you.”

  Carnahan called from the bank, “No one’s going to harm you, Wallace. I already told you that you could leave safely.”

  “Bein’ careful’s a habit o’ mine,” Breckinridge said. “No offense.”

  Oddly enough, he actually meant that.

  Within a few minutes, both young men were out in the middle of the broad river, propelling their canoes upstream with short, swift strokes of their paddles. Back on the shore, the members of Carnahan’s expedition were moving around, busily getting ready to break camp.

  “We should have let those Sioux wipe them out,” Morgan called across to Breckinridge.

  “Aw, we couldn’t do that,” Breckinridge said. “Anyway, they prob’ly ain’t all so bad. Those fellas Bagley and Nusser seemed like decent sorts.”

  “And I guess Carnahan was fair enough, in his way.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Breckinridge said. He was still convinced that Carnahan had played him and Ralston against each other, at least to a certain extent. Carnahan hadn’t wanted Breck to kill the major, but he wouldn’t mind at all that Ralston had been defeated and taken down a notch. That would keep him from getting too ambitious in the future, at least for a while.

  Carnahan was cunning, all right, and Breck had seen enough of the man to believe that he was more dangerous than Ralston in the long run. Ralston’s pride and temper were likely to cause him to make mistakes. Carnahan, on the other hand, was calculating and cold-blooded.

  Sort of like a snake.

  “Are we really going to try to avoid them?” Morgan asked.

  “Don’t know about that. Like I told Carnahan, bein’ told what to do sort of rubs me the wrong way. But it’s true the frontier is a big place. I reckon we’ll have to wait and see where the beaver are.”

  “But if they decide to trap in an area where we already are . . . ?”

  “Then there’ll be trouble,” Breckinridge said.

  Chapter 10

  Breckinridge and Morgan pushed on, paddling upstream for an hour before stopping to boil some coffee and have a quick breakfast.

  By now the sun was well up in the sky, glowing brightly. Breckinridge kept the fire small so there wouldn’t be much smoke to attract attention. The trouble they’d had with Carnahan’s bunch didn’t mean they could forget about the continuing threat of the Sioux.

  They didn’t see any Indians, or any other white men, for
that matter, for the rest of that day. Other than deer, antelope, and birds, they saw no life at all.

  Breckinridge didn’t let that fool him. The vast landscape that surrounded them was teeming with life, both animal and human. He wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Sioux warriors had been keeping an eye on him and Morgan all day. But as long as the Indians chose not to attack, Breck didn’t see any reason not to keep going.

  That night they made a cold camp, and for the next three nights as well. By that time, Breckinridge judged that they were past the area where they had to worry the most about the Sioux jumping them.

  Such an attack still wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, but the odds were against it. They would be passing through Arikara and Mandan territory for a while, and those two tribes were peaceful for the most part, according to everything Breck had heard.

  There had still been no sign of Carnahan’s party behind them. Evidently the larger group wasn’t in any hurry, and Breckinridge and Morgan were setting a brisk pace.

  Being the first ones into a particular area was important to fur trappers, but since there were only two of them, Carnahan probably didn’t consider the two young men much of a threat to the number of pelts his group would take this season.

  Breckinridge didn’t mind putting a bigger gap between them, although the way things had been left rankled him a little. Unfinished business had a way of coming back to plague a fella.

  Late in the afternoon, they began searching for a good place to camp. The clouds had been thicker in the sky all day, and now the heavens were a solid gray, darkening almost to black in places.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” Morgan called across to Breckinridge as they paddled near the shore.

  “Yeah, I reckon a storm’s comin’, all right,” Breckinridge agreed. “Look up yonder on the left. See that sandstone bluff stickin’ up? That might give us some shelter from the weather.”

  They angled in and pulled the canoes up onto the bank. The bluff Breckinridge had pointed out rose twenty feet and ran out to form a point that extended a short distance into the river. The ground in front of it was relatively level and clear. A gusty wind had started to blow out of the northwest. The bluff would block most of it.

  As they got out of the canoes, Breckinridge sniffed the air for a moment, then said, “Smells like snow to me.”

  “Snow!” Morgan repeated. “It’s the middle of spring.”

  “Yeah, but we’re gettin’ pretty far north now. Sometimes there’ll be a snowstorm that blows through these parts even when it’s almost summer. I’ve heard old-timers talk about such things. If there’s any snow, it probably won’t last very long, but we could sure get some.”

  Morgan shivered. “All the more reason to get a fire going and some hot coffee inside us.”

  They unloaded the few supplies they would need for the night and began gathering broken branches from the brush to use for firewood. There were no trees growing close by, although Breckinridge could see some dark smudges in the distance that he thought might be small groves. In the rapidly fading light, it was hard to tell for sure.

  Even with the main threat from the Sioux behind them, Breckinridge thought it would be wise not to show a fire after dark. They brewed coffee and heated up salt pork, not worrying much about the smoke this time because it would be almost invisible against the leaden sky.

  Breckinridge built the fire up and let the flames leap high. He piled rocks around the fire, knowing they would capture some of the heat and release it slowly during the night. That would be better than nothing.

  The wind began to blow harder. Breckinridge saw something fly in front of his face and looked up to see more snowflakes whipping down.

  “Here it comes,” he said. “With the wind blowing like this, it’ll seem like a blizzard, no matter how much of the stuff actually comes down.”

  Morgan sighed and cradled his coffee cup in his hands. “I feel half-frozen already.”

  “It’ll be all right. We’ve got plenty of blankets.”

  “One of those buffalo robes like our friends the Ioway had would sure feel good right about now.”

  Breckinridge nodded. “The Injuns are mighty smart about a lot of things, and that’s one of ’em.”

  The wind increased to a howl that drove curtains of snow through the air. It was a mournful sound, Breckinridge thought. He and Morgan were out of the worst of it, with their camp up against the bluff.

  “Maybe we should have waited a couple more weeks before starting for the mountains,” Morgan said as he drew a blanket around his shoulders.

  “Aw, this is nothin’ to worry about,” Breckinridge assured him. “It’ll blow over by mornin’, I expect, and it won’t get anywhere near cold enough for the river to freeze. It’ll be a chilly night, but it won’t slow us down.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  They allowed the fire to burn down. The shrieking wind stole much of the heat from it. Thick darkness settled over the countryside.

  Breckinridge and Morgan wrapped multiple blankets around themselves and stretched out to make the best of this miserable situation. Under the circumstances, Breck didn’t believe it was necessary for either of them to stand guard. Any Indians nearby would be in their lodges or tipis, snug in buffalo robes like the one Morgan longed for.

  Breckinridge fell asleep quickly, but despite his slumber, something deep inside him remained aware and alert. Sometime during the night, an unknowable time after he’d dozed off, his eyes snapped open abruptly. He lay there motionless, all his senses keened to a high level, trying to figure out what had roused him.

  He heard a snatch of a voice, so faint and obscured by the wind that at first he thought he’d imagined it. Breckinridge knew he wasn’t given to imagining things, though. It came again, and this time Breck was able to isolate the sound. It was above them.

  Somebody was on top of the bluff that loomed over them.

  Guided by his instincts, Breckinridge flung his blankets aside, grabbed the tightly wrapped bundle that was the sleeping Morgan, and rolled hard against the face of the bluff.

  At that moment, spurts of orange flame split the darkness above them. Breck heard rifle balls thud into the ground where he and Morgan had been mere instants earlier.

  Startled by being grabbed like that, Morgan let out a yell. The wind, still blowing hard, caught the noise and whirled it away, just as it had the rifle reports. Breckinridge had been able to hear the balls striking the ground only because they were so close.

  He reached out blindly, unable to see much because of the darkness and the blowing snow, and tried to find the pistols he had left lying on the ground beside him when he went to sleep.

  His fingers brushed a gun barrel, slid along it, and closed around the grip. The pistol was loaded and primed, so all he had to do was pull back the hammer as he lifted it. As he squeezed the trigger, he hoped snow hadn’t gotten into the lock to foul it and cause a misfire.

  The pistol boomed and bucked in his hand as he pointed it at the top of the bluff. He couldn’t see what he was shooting at, of course, but he had a pretty good idea where those muzzle flashes he had seen were located. Mostly he wanted to spook whoever was up there and give him and Morgan a chance to retrieve the rest of their guns.

  Instead, a man screamed and an instant later came plummeting down out of the storm to land on the remains of the fire, scattering ashes and coals. He struck the ground with a decisive thump that told Breckinridge he probably wouldn’t be getting up again.

  By now Morgan had fought free of his blankets. Breckinridge took hold of his arm and dragged him to his feet. They both pressed their backs against the sandstone bluff.

  Breckinridge put his mouth close to his friend’s ear and said, “Edge along the bluff to your left. I’ll go right. They won’t be able to see us to shoot at us.”

  He hoped he was right about that.

  Even though the pistol was empty, he shoved it behind his belt. A ha
rd enough blow while holding a gun would stove in a man’s head. Breckinridge still wore the knife, so he slid it out of its sheath and gripped the handle tightly as he moved along the bluff.

  He knew there had to be at least one more bushwhacker up there. He had heard a man’s voice, and it was just too unlikely that the varmint would have been talking to himself.

  The bluff was about fifty yards long. When Morgan came to his end of it, he’d be at the river and couldn’t go any farther. Breckinridge, though, would be able to climb up onto it. That was what he did, feeling his way along in the darkness.

  The wind was harder and colder on top of the bluff. It felt like talons clawing at every exposed inch of Breckinridge’s skin. Breck was able to ignore the discomfort and concentrate on locating the other man—or men—who had tried to kill him and Morgan. He crouched low as he advanced toward the river.

  It was possible that whoever was up here had already fled, especially since Breckinridge’s wild shot had actually found a target. They might have lingered, though, hoping for another shot.

  Breckinridge intended to deny them that chance if he could.

  The heavy bump against his shoulder came with no warning. As soon as it happened, though, Breckinridge knew he had run right into his quarry. The other man knew it, too, and let out a wild, angry yell.

  Breckinridge ducked and lunged. A pistol went off practically in his face. Burning bits of powder stung his cheek. The explosion was so loud it pounded his ears like giant fists.

  None of that stopped him from crashing into the other man and driving him off his feet. Breckinridge could have stabbed him then, but he didn’t want to kill the varmint just yet. He would rather find out who the would-be murderers were and why they had come after him and Morgan.

  As they sprawled on top of the bluff, the man lifted a knee into Breckinridge’s belly. It was a vicious blow that left Breck gasping for breath, but it was a long way from incapacitating. He ignored the discomfort and felt for his opponent’s throat. If he could grab it, he could use his other hand to clout the man on the head with the brass ball at the end of his knife’s handle. That would knock him senseless.