The Hunted

by Ralph Compton

  Old Mose had agreed, and said that from his rheumatics, it was liable to keep up for a long spell to come. Heck, she could have told him that. It was winter in the mountains.

  “Wouldn’t be so bad, but that blasted Rafferty promised to have all our winter supplies here by now.”

  She turned to see who had sneaked up on her. It was Clayton Eldridge, self-appointed mayor.

  “Yeah, well,” she said, “tell me something that will surprise me. We are going to be in one big ol’ fix, you know. Ain’t a man in this little mine camp who can shoot game to save his ass. We’re about down to the bottom of the barrel all over town where flour and meal are concerned.” She turned to face Eldridge. “I honestly don’t know how we’re going to make it through until spring.”

  “Oh, have some faith in Samuel, Sheila. He’s bound to show up any time now with good news, telling us the freighters are on their way. And then won’t you feel bad for thinking dark thoughts about them all?”

  “No, I won’t, Clayton. I want to make a loaf of bread, and I bet between us all in this town there ain’t enough flour to make the countertop powdery.”

  “We can live without bread, Sheila. And as far as hunting goes, why, this town’s right full of men with guns who have all hunted before. I daresay we’ll get a deer soon.”

  Sheila wetted her fingertip and stuck it in the little pile of cornmeal, then licked it off. “A deer? A single deer? Clayton, last time I counted we had a whole pile of people in Gamble who are supposed to magically survive until spring, and keep digging up a fortune in gold at the same time. We are going to need more than one deer, Mr. Eldridge. More likely we’ll need one every couple of days. No less than that, though.”

  He opened the door, pulled his hat tight. “There’s always rabbit, Sheila.” He smiled at her and, wonder of wonders, she smiled back.

  Clayton stepped outside and clunked the door shut behind him. He wished he’d never stopped in to see her. Or any of them. Everybody was feeling the same way. And as unofficial mayor of Gamble, he’d felt it was his duty to visit each person after the first big storm of the coming winter season, see how everyone was doing.

  Now he wasn’t so sure it had been a good idea. They were all bitter, low on food and booze, and worst of all, they were becoming convinced that Samuel Proudhorn was dead. Several, including Fancy and Luther, believed that he never even made it to Monkton. Clayton had secretly wondered that too. Maybe the Indians had gotten to him. And that line of thinking had stirred up all sorts of worrisome thoughts and questions about Indians. As if Gamble needed any more to worry about.

  Chapter 28

  Jasper Rafferty left his wife, Edna, in charge of the store, half hoping she wouldn’t get to worrying about the children and forget to keep a hawk’s eye on the merchandise. He knew that if given half a chance, the rascally public would rob him blind.

  “How do you know that?” she always asked him.

  “Because it’s what I would do,” he’d say, with a wink. Edna always gave him such an odd look, as if she couldn’t believe he’d say such a thing. But it was that attitude that made him such a keen businessman.

  Why, last week he’d even opined on that very thought to Marshal Watt when they were going over their plans for Gamble, but the man had merely shaken his head as if Jasper had said something foolish. He’d show them all, business was business and nothing less than death at the hands of a wayward savage Indian would stop him from becoming a wealthy man. He’d trump that silly silver baron in Colorado. He’d have mansions built, one on each coast and one here, to oversee his empire. Nothing would stop him now.

  As Rafferty swung open the door to Skunk’s stable, his nose wrinkled at the cloying animal aromas that assaulted it. Why had Watt wanted to meet him here? What was wrong with the clean, warm environs of the marshal’s office?

  “Jasper? Good, I’ve been waiting for you. C’mon over here. Look at this horse. Pawnee Joe brought her in.” The marshal nodded toward the horse. “You recognize her?”

  Rafferty squinted at the horse in the half-darkened stall. The only thing he recognized was the need for him to get out of there soon, lest his clothes begin to harbor the stink of barns and the animals who dwelt in them.

  He fought down the urge to cover his mouth with a handkerchief. He’d seen a gentleman from St. Louis do so last year when walking Monkton’s dusty main street. Jasper had determined then, given the cut of the man’s clothes and finely made brogans, that he too would protect his delicate sinuses in such a manner, should the need arise. But somehow, here in front of his brother-in-law, Marshal Watt, it did not feel like the right time. “No, why should I?”

  “Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting that you spend your days tending bolts of cheesecloth and muslin, sorting beans, and weighing coffee. No time for livestock in your day, is there, Jasper?”

  “Mock me all you like, Marshal, but it’s due as much to my efforts as yours”—at this, Rafferty smirked enough to show Watt that he thought less of his efforts than his own—“that we are poised on the cusp of tremendous wealth.”

  The lawman leaned closer. “Why don’t you say it a little louder, Jasper? I don’t believe Skunk heard you.”

  “Well, never mind all that,” he hissed, looking around the stable’s interior. “What about this confounded horse is so vitally important that you drag me from my place of business to see it?”

  Marshal Watt sighed. “The horse belongs to Samuel Proudhorn. You remember him, don’t you? One of the most capable miners we put in place up in Gamble.”

  Rafferty looked again at the horse, then back to the marshal. “What are you saying? Is he here, in town?” Rafferty craned his neck, looking around him in the dim stable, as if the great-bearded man might be lurking in a nearby stall.

  “No, he’s not in Monkton, not as far as I can make out anyway.”

  “You sound so certain.”

  “I am pretty sure. As I said, Pawnee brought it in. Claims he found the horse more or less headed this way, looking tired, sore, bewildered. She threw a shoe somewhere along the way.”

  “I fail to see what this has to do with me.”

  “I figured you’d say that. Never change, do you, Jasper? And you never pay attention to anyone but yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Course you don’t, otherwise you’d know that Proudhorn would never ever, ever let this horse out of his sight. Unless something’s gone wrong.”

  “Like what?” Jasper could feel the color draining from his face.

  “I don’t know yet.” Marshal Watt beckoned Jasper closer, held the lantern nearer to the horse. “See here? And here?”

  Jasper nodded. The horse whickered, unsure of these strangers crowding her.

  “She’s been cut, intentionally.”

  “It looks like a . . . design, some sort of symbol?”

  “Yeah,” said Watt, “that’s what I wanted you to say. Helps verify it to me.” He nudged his hat back on his head and lowered his voice. “It’s a Shoshoni mark. I haven’t seen one in a few years, not since those troubles we had. You remember, back when those miners tangled with that rogue band?”

  Jasper nodded, a cold fist tightening in his gut. “What are you telling me, Marshal?”

  “I can’t be sure yet, but if it is Shoshoni, and they are up in those hills, and this”—he gestured at the horse’s scabbed cuts—“would leave me to believe it is, then Proudhorn was probably taken prisoner or, more likely, killed by them. And the only reasons he’d have to be out on his horse would be that he was out hunting or that he was on his way down here. Or it could mean that Gamble’s been raided and its occupants . . . dealt with by the Indians.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t quite think it’s come to that, since the Shoshoni are all pretty well dealt with. What I guess is that we’re dealing with ano
ther rogue band. That means it’ll be a small group, not many of them.”

  “But why would he . . . ?” The cold fist in Jasper’s gut grew colder. “Oh no, that means the freighters didn’t make it to Gamble?”

  “Not necessarily, Jasper. It might mean that he was on his way down to see about them, since you, okay, we, sent them north so late in the season. I doubt they got lost. It’s a well-cut trail up there.”

  “It should have only taken a week.”

  “Yeah, but we got snow, don’t forget.”

  “Okay, allow for a few more days. But they really should be there by now.” Rafferty spun in the stall, looking up at the rafters, wondering about the dark possibilities of losing all that freight to . . . Indians? It was unimaginable.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Jasper. Nothing’s been proven yet, but it does mean we have to get up there.”

  “We? No, no. Not ‘we,’ Watt. You. You and a . . . a posse. That’s it—form a posse. You’re the lawman, after all. Right?”

  “That really what you want, Jasper?” The marshal stared hard at Jasper. “Seems to me we’d want to still keep this quiet. Aside from the fact that as this town’s lawman, I have little interest in explaining a potential Indian attack that might not have happened. But then you toss Gamble into the stewpot, and we have a recipe for a lot of people snooping around into our business before we have a chance to prove up on it all come spring. You follow me?”

  Rafferty stared wide-eyed at the horse.

  “Jasper, hey. You understand what I said?”

  The merchant nodded, suddenly not feeling so well. “What do we do now?” he whispered.

  “First things first. I made Pawnee Joe a little business proposition in order to keep his mouth shut.”

  “What? Marshal Watt, what did you promise that foul-smelling trapper?”

  “Careful what you call your new junior partner, Jasper. Else he’s liable to blab all over town what he thinks might be in the works. Don’t forget he’s been throughout those hills. He’s even been to Gamble. A regular visitor up there, if I understand him correctly. He’s nobody’s fool, Jasper. But for a cut of the action, he’ll keep his yap shut tight.”

  Rafferty exhaled long and low. “How much?” he said weakly.

  “That’s yet to be determined. But he’s waiting for us at my office. I set him up there with a bottle. But that won’t last him long. Let’s go.”

  Chapter 29

  “Charlie, let me down. I can walk on my own now.”

  “You wait until we get back to a level spot in the trail. Bound to be one ahead.”

  “Charlie, we are in the mountains. There aren’t any level spots, unless you look at them from an angle.”

  “Huh? Delia, that don’t make no sense. Besides, you have to save your strength. I expect later in the afternoon I’ll be spent and you’ll have to carry me. That sound like a fair trade?” Charlie heard a sound he hadn’t heard before from her, hadn’t heard from anyone in what seemed like forever. It was laughter. A quick snort of it, to be sure, but still it was laughter. It brought a smile to his face. “Now, that’s more like it.” He shifted his head in an effort to look at her. “But I wasn’t kidding.”

  She laughed some more and he walked slowly on up the trail, carefully choosing where to place his big feet, smiling and recalling something his long-dead grandmother used to say, “Boy, get your little bit of happy where you can, when you can, ’cause it’s sure enough a world of misery.”

  Delia shifted on Charlie’s back and nudged the side of his head with an elbow.

  “Ow, hey, don’t you forget I am suffering a horrible head wound.”

  “Oh, stop your complaining. You know, for a big fella, you are one mighty childish sort sometimes. You forget, I took a knock to the head as well.”

  “No, ma’am, I did not forget. And for a little bit of a thing, you have a mighty big mouth. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  “Yes, Hester does. All the time.” She was silent a moment, then said, “Well, she did.”

  “Now, don’t go on like that. I said we was going to find her, and by gum, we will. I ain’t likely to go back on a promise, now, am I? Don’t you make a liar out of Big Charlie.”

  They trudged on in silence for a few moments more, slowing as the trail rose before them. Charlie continued to choose his footholds with care. He’d already slipped once, driving down hard onto one knee and striking a rock, despite the thick snow. He’d done his best to keep her from getting too jarred, but he could tell by the gasp she let out that it had hurt. He vowed to be more careful, even if it meant moving a little slower on the trail at times. He also vowed to make a travois so he’d be able to drag her. That should be more comfortable for both of them.

  They wouldn’t have to worry about that much longer today, as the shadows had been drawing out with every minute, and the air had taken on that peculiar late-afternoon chill. It would be dark in another hour or so, he reckoned.

  As they topped the rise, Delia saw the abandoned wagon first. She rapped Charlie on the head and pointed.

  “If you don’t quit that . . .” But the rest of his comment faded on his tongue. There sat one of the wagons. He paused. She started to speak and he raised a warning finger.

  “Hush a minute,” he whispered.

  They both looked left and right, saw no sign of anyone, no sounds but a far-off raven, its saw-blade squawk dying on an unfelt breeze. Charlie moved closer, approaching with a caution that he hoped wasn’t necessary. They’d abandoned the wagon, it seemed, once again before the latest snowfall. But this time he saw the soft indents of footsteps that had pocked the previous snowfall. Last night’s snowfall would carry those marks through, revealing them beneath, even as the snow piled up.

  “Look, Charlie, they left the oxen behind.”

  He recognized the excitement in her voice on seeing the oxen as a way to get on up the trail faster and easier. But he knew those animals wouldn’t be in any shape to do so.

  Ahead of the wagon, they saw what looked to be pulling animals. But their hunched forms told Charlie they were likely dead. Unless they were so exhausted they couldn’t stand, they wouldn’t be lying down. And the biggest sign of all, on this bitter cold day, he didn’t see any breath pluming skyward.

  “Let me down now, Charlie.”

  He lowered Delia to the ground, stomping a place in the snow first for her to stand. “Let me go on up there, check it over,” he said. “Maybe there will be something of use for us.”

  He was already giving thought to cooking beef over a fire.

  Despite the obvious pain the boor beasts had endured at the hands of Rollie Meecher—who else could it have been?—Charlie was relieved when Delia suggested they not let the creatures go to waste.

  “I’m pleased to hear that, but out here they wouldn’t go to waste—lots of critters would be mighty glad to tuck into such a toothsome treat.”

  Delia shuddered, drew her blankets tighter around herself.

  “You cold? I’ll have this fire blazing in a minute.”

  “It’s not that. It’s the thought of all those animals out here, living out here, and we can’t even see them.”

  Charlie nodded, decided not to dip the thing in honey—the girl had to know the dangers of being in the wilderness. “I won’t lie to you, Miss Delia. We are in their world.” He blew on the tiny flames, then looked up at her. “The animals, I mean.”

  “Are there really that many of them out there?” She looked around, and if the concern on her face hadn’t been writ so large, Charlie might be tempted to laugh.

  He leaned back, put his palms out toward the licking young flames. “Well, let’s see. There are wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, grizzlies—they’re all the biggest of them. Oh, lots of smaller critters out here with us too. Course, some of them are denned up for the cold months. Grizz’l
l be snoring away somewhere, I expect.”

  He looked at her, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Speaking of hungry critters, I’m going to carve off some choice chunks for supper. I’ll cook up some for walking food tomorrow too. I don’t have no wine, nor flowers, but I reckon it’ll be a tasty feed, just the same.” He smiled and handed her a long stick. “Do me a favor and prod that fire once in a while, keep the flames working. I’ll be back.”

  As he worked at the nearly frozen hide of the healthiest-looking ox, Charlie pondered about choosing a campsite anywhere near the dead beasts. He’d chosen a spot pretty far away, but now he wondered if maybe they should have camped even farther from the carcasses. He looked up-trail toward the camp, but only saw faint clouds of smoke from the campfire. No, late as it was and as dark as it would soon be, he decided they’d gone far enough beyond the oxen. He knew Delia was all but done in for the day. And he could barely keep his knife hand from shaking, he was so tuckered out.

  He didn’t doubt the bodies would attract wolves tonight, and was surprised they hadn’t before then. But it had snowed; maybe that had kept the scavengers away. Still, if anything tipped them off that there was fresh meat hereabouts, it would be the scent of the cut-open hides, and the meat roasting. He thought of the shotgun and figured with that, his knife, and a few well-placed campfires, they should make it through the night without bother.

  He made it back to the camp carrying hunks of meat nearly frozen through. They’d need thawing before they could cook properly, so he set them around the edges of the fire on a couple of rocks he’d managed to kick up.

  “Charlie, I’m sorry you’re stuck tending to me.”

  “Hey, now, don’t you go saying things like that. I’m—”