Raif led the horses back to the Cuchalainn and slept for four hours. In the morning, the three brothers headed out toward the Crossing. The sun was a faint yellow-orange glow on the horizon, giving light but no warmth. The air was crisp, and the horses’ breath hung in thick vapors as the men and beasts assumed the natural order and unfolded toward the southern mountain. All around them was the smell of winter fields folding into themselves, shutting down for the dark season. The start of the rise was four days’ south.
They rode hard and at the morning of the fourth day, they started their ascent. At a hundred feet the switchbacks appeared out of the mist as sharp angles chiseled into the wall of the southern slope. They tied the horses in a daisy chain and led them up. The horses were eerily docile and took easily to the narrow footing of the ledge. As they climbed, the ice patches deepened. On the fourth day, they rose above the cloud level, and ice covered the path from the edge of the cliff to where it fell off thousands of feet. The lead horse’s front hoof slipped on thick ice, and the jolt wakened it to the danger. It began to shimmy and neigh, and Raif eased the pace, giving the nag a chance to regain traction and its confidence. The slower pace forced them to camp that night in the midst of a switchback. They huddled together against the rocks, gripping each other for warmth underneath every blanket they carried. The wind howled and whipped, and the cold seeped through, making sleep possible only in short fits.
In the morning, they continued the climb. The lead horses crunched the ice, and a calming rhythm took them higher. The trail horses had it easier than the leads as the crushed ice improved the footing. Raif pushed the lead harder trying to gain the plateau by nightfall, the dread of another night exposed to the wind on the switchbacks driving him forward. The plateau would offer some open room where the horses could herd for the night and cut the wind. As dusk descended halfway up the last cutback, the lead horse became agitated as fatigue caused the animal to lose its nerve. The second lead remained steady and only seized up when the lead horse bucked. The rope between the two bounced slack and taut as the lead shimmied, creating an electric current of fear that echoed down the ropes.
Raif pulled on the harness, but the lead had had enough and wouldn’t budge. The animal’s eyes were rounded with fright. Raif took his rifle and cut the tether loose from the second horse and nudged the lead forward with the barrel of his rifle. It moved a few feet forward, then stopped and kicked back with unexpected speed that nearly sent Raif over the side. It flailed again with its back legs, but Raif was positioned now at a safe distance. Raif observed the second horse, and it remained steady, stomping only occasionally in defiance of the cold. He inched forward and put the muzzle of his long rifle a half inch below the horse’s left ear and pulled the trigger. The horse dropped like a sack onto the trail. The weight of the animal slowly skewed over, and like a sack filled with water, it rolled off the edge into the ravine, disappearing silently into the cloudy mists below. Raif grabbed the reins of the new lead and moved out again. The line followed the new leader, and they climbed.
They reached the plateau as darkness shrouded the mountain. The horses kicked at the snow to nuzzle at the vegetation, but there was none to be had; the ground was rock. The brothers broke out the bags of feed, reckoning that the going across and down on the far side would be easier and figuring there was no reason to save it. The horses neighed and stamped from cold the whole night through, and the brothers slept in turns with one awake rotating every hour until the morning light broke in the east.
Before dawn on the sixth day, they were passing between the soaring cliffs of the high peak to the right and the first of the Druids on the left. They had reached the Crossing. They reached the far side of the Crossing before nightfall. The path was narrower than expected, but it was shielded between the cliffs and the druids, and the wind slackened to almost nothing as a silence descended upon them. The ice on the trail was patchy, and the horses moved easily. On the seventh day, a crosswind cut their path. The boys marched with one hand gripping a horse’s stirrup and their heads lowered into the horse’s flank to shield the bone-crushing wind. The slightest movement of their hands in their worn leather gloves telegraphed bolts of pain through the fingers. Their lips chapped and broke into open sores. They blew their noses and rubbed the mucous in their faces to save pieces of it from falling off with frostbite. The wind whipped the powdered snow on the cliffs creating a whiteout, and they feared the snow blindness. They clenched the reins and kept their heads lowered trusting the horses to keep the trail.
At the end of the day, they moved down past the last of the Druids. The three slipped into a crevice between the last two stone monoliths to escape the wind.
Their breaths misted together as Jed said in shivering bursts, “We crossed the top, we crossed it. Lord, I never been this close to heaven. I believed that last crosswind was gonna git us, but we done crossed the top of this heap of shit; strange how there ain’t much snow here.”
Raif could feel pain as the blood flowed again into the flesh of his fingers once they were out of the wind. “I reckon the wind blows it clean. Anyhow, we ain’t beat it yet. Luther said there’s snow deep as a man on the short switchbacks down the other side. I reckon we got some digg’n to do before we make it down. The horses are tired. We gotta dig ’em a path down or they’ll quit on us. Whatever happens remember to keep digging. We’ll do it in relay. We got shovels, it won’t last forever, a few hundred feet of deep drift and we’ll break to the bottom and run hard to the fort.”
They passed the last Druid and crested, beginning the slow descent on the far side. The descent went easy until they hit the drifts. Raif cursed the snow, but felt relieved that Luther must have really done it in winter or else how could he have predicted everything they’d faced. For the first time, Raif had faith they could see his crazy gamble through. They took turns digging lead. The drifts ran four to five feet in places, but the snow was mountain light. They pushed on for the next ten hours, each brother digging until his arms ached and back burned. The going was endless, but they persisted downward. The grade lessened as they descended. The flatter trail meandered along the side of the mountain, which prolonged the digging. They stopped for the night, and on the next day, it started to snow and panic gripped them. They cut the horses’ tethers and had them follow in line as the boys all moved to the front, digging faster, believing their luck had run out. By midday, the snow was blinding and the trail pitched down more steeply, making their footing unsteady. The horses became unruly and started to stomp in protest at the pace. The snow became a thick blinding wave making it impossible to see more than a few feet forward. The lead bolted, and Raif’s frozen hands could not grab the reins as it raced forward into the snowdrift, nearly killing Jed. The rest of the mounts stampeded after the lead, and the brothers scrambled up the side of the trail barely escaping the hoofs. They watched powerlessly as the line of horses plunged down the switchback into the whiteness. As the last horse bolted past, they dropped to the ledge, gasping from the exertion. The burst of adrenaline that had sent them scurrying out of the path of the fleeing horses drained off, and the exhaustion from the hours of digging washed over them.
Raif was nearly broken, and he crouched on the trail, the sweat freezing on his back as he tried to stifle the wave of shivers racking his body.
Jed rose and moved down the trail following the horses.
Raif looked up, stared into the blinding whiteness, and said, “The colonel was right. I was a plain fool for getting us killed on this mountain. What a fool way to die.”
Abner’s eyes closed until he heard the crunch of Jed approaching from down the mountain. “Raif, I thought for sure you were gonna get us killed. I would’ve bet on it, ’cept I wouldn’t have been able to collect being dead and all. The horses smelt the river, it ain’t frozen fully over and they’s water’n. We done it. We’re at the bottom.”
Jed helped Raif and Abner to their feet, and they walked the last hundred feet down. As t
hey reached the bottom, the winds slackened, and they could see the wide plain. The horses were milling about, kick’n at the snow for sparse grass, and a few were drinking from ice holes in a stream. A single day’s hard ride, and they reached the fort with thirty-two horses. They tethered them to a long rail post.
A lieutenant and sergeant emerged from the stockade. The sergeant methodically went down the line of horses, eyeing them in all the right places. He lifted hooves and peered in mouths, snouts, and assholes. He grunted, “Looks like you rode ’em hard, the flats can be tough this time of year.”
Raif responded, “We came by way of the Crossing. We are in a bit of a rush, so can we get to it—them all North County from the Cuchalainn, Criss Cross, and Nottoway, out a week or so. Good stock, good breeding lines, all of ’em North County. They’ll outride any renegade pony. They need some feed and rest is all.”
The lieutenant paused between being impressed and a nagging notion that he was being put on. He said to Raif, “I hear the Crossing is beautiful this time of year.”
“Lieutenant, I need to know your offer, I need to sell and get back to North County. If the cavalry don’t need ’em I got to head straight for Tin City.”
The officer looked to his sergeant and said “McAlary.” The sergeant moved to the lieutenant’s horse, and the officer lowered his head to hear the sergeant’s whispering. Raif could catch out a few words—shoe’n . . . freeze burns . . . foreleg . . . good mounts.
The lieutenant looked up and said, “They’ve been through a tough ride and cold for extended days. Some horses never recover from that. But the cavalry is interested in a fair price. What’re you offering?”
“Three hundred a head.”
The lieutenant fired back “Deal,” and rode forward and shook Raif’s hand before Raif knew what happened. The officer instructed the sergeant to lead the horses and boys inside the fort to finalize the deal. The lieutenant turned to Raif. “The pay is in silver eagles, no gold, but I’m sure the eagles are acceptable. You can stay at the fort until the thaw. Crosby charges a reasonable rent and the board comes with it. I don’t recommend Tin City unless you have a taste for that sort of thing, but even though you didn’t ask for it, my advice is to avoid Tin City when you’re flush with silver eagles. You can run the flats after you rest up.”
“Sir, we need to be back to the North County to take care of some business. We’re riding back through the Crossing.”
The lieutenant stared for moment at Raif, reined his horse, and rode back through the gate shaking his head.
The sergeant eased over to them and put a hand on one of the sold horses. As he brushed its flank, he said, “Fellas, don’t take this the wrong way, riding the Crossing at Christmas is plumb crazy, but you boys got it done, and I don’t know how. But I been out here five years now and I know them renegades. They may have missed you coming over, that’s something short of a miracle itself. But now I’m thinking those crafty devils let you ride past the Druids thinking they’ll snare your asses on the way back when you’re full of silver eagles. I reckon they got a war party in the flats laying for you and they may even have left a few in the Crossing too, thinking if you were crazy enough to come that way in winter, you might be crazy enough to go back that way, but I reckon they don’t expect it. But fellas don’t go back up the Crossing, them rocks is powerful magic to them and you’ve hurt some pride to the extent them sons of bitches have any. Heck, wait a week, we’ll rest and feed these hooves, and you can ride with me. I’ll be taking a patrol over the flats as soon as theses mounts is fit, if the drifts ain’t bad, you’ll all be home in no time.”
The next morning, fingering his St. Jude medal, McAlary watched from the tower as the brothers galloped toward the mountain. The boys had traded in their ragged clothing for new wool coats, thick hats, and leather boots and gloves lined with rabbit fur. McAlary watched the flapping of their new riding coats as they rode hard for the Crossing. They rode in a flying wedge; snow and clods of earth churned and crushed under their thundering hooves.
The brothers rode their way up over the same path they had cut two days before. The trail had some new snow that had filled in the path but not enough that they had to dig. They rode as high as possible in the daylight and then tethered the three horses. The first night they slept in the nook of a switchback under a bright, three-quarter moon a bit shy of the crest. The night was cold, but no wind allowed the mist to roll off the cliffs to eat the moon’s light and shroud the brothers in darkness. On the next day, they stopped two hundred yards shy of the first Druid on the last switchback in the dark light before nightfall. The dying sun’s last light was flailing against the sides of the red cliffs. The next day they would pass the Druids and reach the far side of the Crossing. The night was clear, and a full moon blossomed. Abner was pissing downwind and looking up at the cliffs as his waste sizzled into the snow.
Jed reclined, his long frame propped up with one elbow, and twisted a toothpick in his mouth. In a voice dripping with false scorn he murmured, “Three hundred a head . . . three hundred a head . . . I told you to start with three-fifty.”
“What, when the hell did you say three-fifty?”
“I said it on the downslope when you was breaking and squealing like a momma sow being fed its baby’s balls. I distinctly said the horses done finished it, it’s three-fifty, maybe four a head, damned if I didn’t.”
Raif said, “I don’t recall that t’all.”
Jeb continued: “Speak’n of what you choose not to recall, you heard that sergeant . . . you don’t think they’s waiting up there do you? Looking for silver eagles and scalps, and now we got both.”
Raif removed the saddle from Buck and said, “It ain’t possible anyone can live up there this time a year, that high. We made good time from the fort, and if anyone was chasing us, I can’t believe that there’s a faster way from the fort to here. They couldn’t beat us riding them naggy ponies of theirs. No, we beat ’em. If anything, they’d be chasing us up this rise. I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Tomorrow before evening we should be across the top and past the Druids. We’ll hole up and get us a good vantage point; and, if anyone’s following us on the trail, we can ding ’em with the rifles. That’s it. We’ll stop tomorrow evening when we’re at the last Druid. We’ll have a good clear look across the pass from some high point, and we’ll ding anyone following.”
Jeb said, “Yeah, well, what if that crazy old bird Luther was right and they live up here, in caves or something, storing up food, hibernating like bears and waiting for fools with coin and fine hair like mine to come stomp’n along, what do we do then?”
“Luther told tales, and you know Papa said he was touched. No, we just gotta keep moving because they’re behind us. They can’t out-climb us, not on the good horses we got. We got ’em beat. Get some rest, ’cause we’re moving out first light and get ourselves down off this rock and give that son-of-a bitch Tickers his money. I’ll take first watch.”
Raif waited until Jed and Abner were asleep and then softly holstered the .45 pistol Gabriel had loaned him and slipped Jed’s pistol from its holster into his overcoat pocket. He retrieved his father’s short cavalry sword from his saddlebag and angled it under his belt buckle. He hooked the clasp to his belt loop and unsheathed it. The skies had cleared as it cooled in the night, and he could see the sharp edge glint in the moonlight. He tested the sharpness of its blade with the leather of his belt and the tough hide melted away as he ran the edge across it. He studied the weapon and thought it was more a long knife than a sword. He returned it to its sheath. He took his long rifle down from his saddle holster and slung it across his back. He wrapped the rifle’s sling snug across his left shoulder and down the length of his chest, the muzzle pointed at an angle to the ground.
Raif took a moment to look at his brothers sleeping and thought about Abner being thirteen. He shook his head and started on foot up the pass, moving steadily to the top of the last
switchback. The frozen rocks were coated with a thin flowering of snow, and he moved easily up the trail, raising his heels and toeing along in his new boots, using the crust of the mountain for traction. It was as easy as walking on the packed dirt of the sidewalk in town and the hard mantle under the thin sheet of fresh snow rendered his movements nearly silent. He paused beneath the lip of the ridge and peaked out over the side of the crest. The full moon had risen and its cold incandescence lit the landscape like a torch light. He knew that if he stayed on the path, he could be seen for hundreds of yards up the Crossing, so he stole east under the shadows of the first Druids and headed for the abyss.
He paused to catch his breath under the dwarf Druids and took in the immensity of the harvest moon. He climbed up the Druid and looked north up the Crossing. It was now that he evoked in his mind the chess match he had with Luther when he was nine years old. They were on the floor of his ranch house playing chess on the fur rugs that lay before the big fireplace on Christmas Eve. Luther had taken his rook and paused to hold the castle in his powerful hands. He rotated the heavy black piece crafted of some unknown dark stone in a rhythmic rocking and spoke slowly as if he were measuring out every word to stand alone. He stared not at Raif but into the fire as he spoke, as if what he spoke of gave him pain.
“Raphael, the south mountain is like a chessboard, did you know that?”
Back on the mountain, Raif remembered Luther’s gaze boring into the heart of the fire. The memory rolled out in his mind in vivid colors; he could see the flames from the logs dancing in Luther’s dark eyes. Luther spoke of the lay of the Druids, how each was part of the mountain but how every grouping stood alone and defiant with its own tribal purpose, like chess pieces. Luther spoke of the Crossing as if it were something built, designed by the hand and not of nature. Luther swept away the chess pieces from the board and took up the white pawns, placing them in a neat row down the side of the chessboard running from him to Raif. “The white pawns are the main trail that runs bright in the moon across the top, Raif.” He took the black pawns and lined them along the opposite side and described the footpath that snakes along the edge of the abyss. Luther said Raif needed to steer clear of the white side because it ran along the cliffs that held the caves.
Angels of North County Page 6
