Ute Peak Country

by Lauran Paine

  He shifted in his blankets. Well, thirty years back they were all more or less like that. He had been no saint himself, so he wasn’t condemning Jed. But whether Jed ever knew it or not, he did have a daughter, and now she was alone.

  Jackson Miggs was also alone.

  Odd. He’d had strong leanings toward a family once, long, long ago. A hundred battles and maybe three, four dozen summers past, and now, past fifty years of age, here he was, still alone, and she was here, too, alone.

  He blinked, gazed solemnly at those faraway stars. Odd how things worked out. Jedediah Shafter’s girl without a father and Jackson Miggs without a family—a daughter.

  That’s what that pain had been inside him. He could define it now. Part sadness for what might have been and was not, part wistfulness, part sorrow.

  “Frank?”

  “Hmmm. What?”

  “Oh. I didn’t know you were asleep.”

  Frank’s answer came back, muffled and indignant. “Well, now, just what in hell do you think I do when I roll up in my blankets and lie down?”

  “Goodnight.”

  “Humph!”

  Miggs moved restlessly. He was wide awake, wider awake this night than he’d been in years. But she wasn’t a child, he mused. A child offered no insurmountable problems; you gave them shiny things to please them. What did you give an eighteen or nineteen year old girl-woman?

  Now stark reality came to plague Miggs. He’d let wistfulness and sentimentality run away with him. She was a grown girl. He became uneasy. More than that, she was at a marrying age. She wouldn’t want to stay hidden under Ute Peak. More than likely she’d want to be around people more like herself, younger people.

  Panic began to stir to life in Miggs. She’d leave. She’d go back down to the cow towns. He knew enough of those places to understand what could happen down there. How, then, to prevent it?

  Maybe, if he and Frank worked at it hard enough, they could keep her happy and occupied at least during the summertime. Like going out crevice mining with them. Hunting, too, and they could take her to some secret lakes where trout were near as long as a man’s arm.

  That would please her and give Miggs time enough to ponder this other thing. He was thrilled with these ideas until it occurred to him that perhaps young girls didn’t care about hunting and fishing.

  He raised up suddenly, propped his shaggy head upon one thick hand, and gazed over where McCoy was effortlessly slumbering. Frank would know. After all, he’d known her since childhood.

  “Frank? Oh, Frank?”

  He got no reply at all this time. He dropped back down. He’d ask McCoy in the morning. He tried once more to sleep. It was no good. He had suddenly come upon something in these late years that entirely absorbed him, closing out everything else. It fastened itself upon him with a fierceness he’d never before felt for anything.

  Chapter Four

  They left the uplands with day’s first strong light and went angling downward toward the meadow country southeast of Ute Peak.

  When they were leaving the last rim before descending to what was known as Frenchman’s Flat, some six or seven miles from the log house in its own little green park, Jack halted, settled his rifle butt at his feet, and, while leaning upon the gun, jutted his chin westward toward the forested fringe of dark trees beyond the clearing of Frenchman’s Flat.

  “There’s that herd you saw a week back,” he said to Frank McCoy. “Coming out of the trees yonder.”

  McCoy squinted over where dark-hided cattle were mincing forward, testing the air and uncertainly shaking their wicked horns, and said: “Strangers to the country, those cattle. Wouldn’t be Hyatt Tolman’s, would they?”

  “No. All Durhams. Never saw them before.”

  “See any riders with ’em?”

  Miggs shook his head. He stood for a long time, watching the cattle push on out into the dewy grass. They were good cattle, had wintered well, and had a good start on picking up weight. Even the bulls looked good, which was not ordinarily the case with critters that had wintered in the lowlands where lice gaunted them up and sloughed off their hair in places.

  “No calves,” observed Frank. “Say, Jack, wonder whose cattle they are? He must be a pretty fair cowman. Probably one of those fellers who keeps the bulls out so’s the calves won’t drop before the feeds up strong.”

  Miggs said nothing. He’d never seen those animals before, and, while he agreed with what McCoy had just said, he wasn’t thinking so much of the cattle as he was of the fact that new herds in the Ute Peak country meant that somewhere in the lowlands another cowman had been crowded out.

  “Someday,” he ultimately said, taking up his rifle and cradling it in one arm, “there’ll be people thicker’n hair on a dog’s back in these mountains.”

  “Tolman won’t like it, when that day arrives.”

  Miggs looked around. “Tolman,” he said, and grunted. “Tolman’s as big a trespasser as this feller is, as far as I’m concerned. Well, come on.”

  They struck a familiar watershed, passed down it as silent as phantoms, stepped along to the thinning trees surrounding a grassy park where sunlight shone golden, and there saw what they’d been hoping to see—seven big elk.

  The tree Jackson Miggs kneeled beside for his rifle rest was scarred as tall as a man’s head from big animals rubbing their horns upon it. Frank also kneeled, but he made no move to lift his rifle. Instead, he quietly said: “That blue cow, Jack. She’s not with young, likely barren, and she’s the fattest.”

  Jack froze, squeezed his trigger, the blue cow elk went down as though poleaxed, and the rest of the band broke frantically for cover on across the glade.

  McCoy stood up, spat, hitched at his trousers, and started forward. As he passed Miggs, he said carelessly: “We should’ve brought a horse along. She’s almighty big for us to bone out and pack back.”

  Jack remained where he was out of habit until he’d reloaded, then he also stepped into the clearing. He hadn’t proceeded five feet before, on across the way, a big, bearded man jumped angrily into sight, threw up a saddle gun, and let off a shot over Frank McCoy’s head. This big stranger swore in a thundering voice.

  Frank fell like a stone, rolled frantically into a little depression, and looked out, his face showing purest astonishment. The thing had occurred so entirely unexpectedly that McCoy didn’t have time for anger; that would come later.

  But Miggs’ reaction was altogether different. He operated quite by instinct when that high shot exploded. He could have been thirty years younger with a Ute war party over there in the trees. He dropped to one knee, whipped up his rifle, and caught that furious, bearded man in his sights, tugged off a shot, jumped sideways, and began reloading. He scarcely waited to see whether he’d scored or not.

  He had. The big, angry man went sideways, striking one tree, caroming off that one to strike a second tree, then drop, threshing, into the grass, his bellowing as loud and wrathful as a bear’s bellowing would have been.

  Frank snaked his way back to Miggs, scuttled behind a tree, and slowly straightened up. Jack got back to him with his reloaded weapon and his ironhard expression. Together they watched that big man throw himself around, beating a retreat. They heard his sizzling epithets, too, and finally they heard horsemen charging recklessly down the yonder slope, calling to the bearded man.

  “Cowboys,” said McCoy. “Jack, we winged us a damned cowboy.”

  Frank was wrong. They had gotten themselves a cowman, not a cowboy. The owner of a herd, not a rider.

  “Hey, over there,” came a voice from back in the yonder trees. “What the hell you figure you’re doin’, shootin’ folks?”

  McCoy and Miggs exchanged a look. Neither answered that call, but both glided deeper into the easterly forest. That was too old a trick to catch Frank McCoy or Jackson Miggs, that calling out to hold someo
ne’s attention while others slipped around and came up behind them.

  It was riders. They heard them passing softly over beds of pine needles, rein chains and spur rowels jangling.

  Frank made a wry face. “Nowadays,” he murmured to Jack, “men just don’t use their heads at all, riding around here making all that noise.”

  Jack grunted, lifted a massive arm, and pointed to a shadowy place among the trees where three horsemen appeared, halted to scrutinize the way ahead, then eased out their animals again, coming on steadily with carbines athwart their saddle swells.

  That yelling man across the glade kept up his denunciation. He demanded to know who Miggs and McCoy were, what business had they in these mountains. He also called them some uncomplimentary names, all as a screen so that his friends on horseback could get close enough either to capture or shoot them.

  It didn’t work out that way, though. When those three cowboys halted again, sniffing pungent black powder stench at the site where Jack had fired, a long-legged, cadaverous wraith appeared upon their right, and, from behind, a massive, squat phantom appeared upon their left, long-barreled rifle up and ready.

  “Throw down those carbines,” said Jackson Miggs quietly. “Never mind looking around, just dump those guns.”

  The cowboys obeyed. They exchanged looks of helplessness. Neither the man who had spoken to them nor the other man they knew was with him were in sight.

  “Now those pistols.”

  The handguns also dropped onto spongy pine needles.

  Jackson Miggs stepped into full view. He went around until the cowboys could plainly see him, lowered his rifle to the crook of one arm, and considered those youthful, whiskery faces, saw none that he knew, and said: “How bad’s that feller hurt over there?”

  The riders did not forget McCoy. As one answered Miggs, another one craned his neck around for a sighting of the gun they knew perfectly well was covering them from behind. The third cowboy slowly raised a gloved hand, slowly rubbed his stubbled jaw, and gradually began to grin.

  “He’ll live,” said a dark-eyed, lean, and quick-looking man. “You cut through the meat atop his shoulder and knocked him down, but it ain’t a truly serious hurt.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Jack, gazing upon those young mounted men, his voice quiet and easy sounding. “It was kind of a quick shot, but I aimed to bust his gun arm.”

  “Mister,” said the dark, lean rider, “you killed his horse with that wild shot you took at that cow elk.”

  “I see. That’s what brought him out like that, cussing and shooting. Well, I’m sorry about the horse, young man, but you see I had no idea at all anyone was within five miles of me up in here.”

  “You could’ve sung out,” snapped another cowboy.

  Jack looked at this one. He didn’t seem to be over eighteen or nineteen years old. He had the hot intolerance of youth up in his eyes like a banner.

  “I could’ve,” assented Miggs, “but, sonny, I was after meat.”

  “Who are you an’ why don’t your pardner come out where we can see him? You fellers afraid we might be the law?”

  Jack kept studying that hotheaded younger man. The other two, in their late twenties, quiet now, were absorbed in studying Miggs’ moccasin-clad feet, his long-barreled old-time rifle, and the little swatch of coarse black hair that dangled from the bottom of his skinning knife sheath.

  Jack grounded his gun, leaned on it, and looked the younger man up and down before saying: “Sonny, I see someone forgot to teach you manners. I’ve got the gun, not you, so I’ll ask questions, and you … well … you just keep your mouth shut.”

  Jack waited, watching that youthful face fill with dark blood.

  But when the cowboy would have spoken back sharply, the stockier man on his right, half grinning, said carelessly: “Shut up, kid. Like the feller says … he’s got the gun.” This man’s gaze downward at Jackson Miggs showed steely and fearless. “He’s young,” this man said in that easy, warm way he had of carelessly speaking. “The feller you winged is Denver Holt. We ride for him. We brought the Holt cattle up here, because the boss had heard the feed had come on early and was strong.”

  “Where you from, mister?”

  “The Green River country.”

  “You’ve come a long way.”

  The cowboy shrugged. “Not really. We wintered this bunch on the Laramie plains. The home ranch is at Green River.”

  “Frank,” Miggs called quietly, and McCoy stepped out into view, lowered his rifle, and sauntered over to halt beside Jack, looking challengingly upward. Then Miggs said to that rider with the lopsided little grin: “A cowman from the Pagosa country usually ranges this country hereabouts in the summertime, mister. Hyatt Tolman. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

  “Nope. We’re strangers hereabouts, old-timer.”

  “Well, there’s a lot of good grass on westward. Just so’s Tolman’s herd and yours don’t get mixed up, it might be best if you drifted your stock westerly.”

  “Sure,” said the cowboy. “I’ll tell Mr. Holt. Mind if I ask a question, seein’ that you’ve still got the gun, an’ all?”

  Jack nodded his head.

  “Do you fellers live up here?”

  “About four miles south,” Jackson replied. “Where are you fellers camped?”

  The cowboy flagged westerly with one gloved hand, broadened his lopsided grin, and said with a hard twinkle: “These consarned trees all look alike to me. About all I can tell you is that our camp’s on the site of some old Indian ranchería in a big valley under that big peak yonder.”

  Jack nodded. “I know the place,” he murmured, then, in a stronger tone: “Tell Mr. Holt I didn’t know he was yonder in the trees or I wouldn’t have shot. If there’s anything I can do for him …”

  “He’s comin’ across the glade,” interrupted the hot-tempered youngest rider. “Tell him yourself, mister.”

  They all turned. There were two big men walking along out there in the bright morning light. One was a younger edition of the older, heavier man. Obviously they were father and son.

  Denver Holt had a bloody tear in his woolen shirt and had no spring in his step, but he seemed otherwise little the worse for his creased shoulder. He was a large, raw-looking, fierce man with a gray-reddish beard, testy small eyes, and a hard jaw. The big man walking with him, carrying a Winchester loosely in his gloved right fist, was big-boned, too, and there was that same fierce flash to his gaze. Anger came out of those two, as they crossed the last hundred feet to where Miggs and McCoy stood, as solid as granite.

  Miggs considered, muttered something to Frank, and, under the watching glance of these three unarmed cowboys, Frank faded back, glided around, and came down where the Holts entered the first tree fringe.

  “Drop that gun,” he ordered, cocked his own weapon to give solid weight to his words, and waited.

  Big Denver Holt stopped, peered for some sight of McCoy, saw the others farther back in shadow, could not locate Frank, and growled at his son. The Winchester fell into the grass.

  McCoy stepped forth, wagged the Holts onward, and fell in behind them. In this manner the entire crew of Denver Holt was reunited.

  Miggs, looking into those flinty, wrathful faces, put his dead-level gaze upon the eldest man and kept it there. He apologized for winging Holt, said he’d replace the shot horse, repeated what he’d earlier told Holt’s men about Hyatt Tolman ranging this particular part of the uplands, then stopped speaking and stood there leaning upon his rifle, waiting.

  The big cowman’s son, whose name was Bert, ran a scornful gaze over those three unarmed mounted men. “Fine bunch,” he snarled. “Three of you and you let these two old squaw men get the drop on you.”

  Miggs’ gaze whipped across to the younger Holt. That squaw man term pushed him to the edge of violence.

  Denver Holt sa
id: “I saw those elk, too. That’s what I was doing … slippin’ up on them … when you cut loose. Mister, after this, you’d better stay out of this part of the hills, because my boys and I’ll be up here. The next time you go huntin’ somewhere else.”

  The arrogance of this order stung Frank McCoy. “You’re the one that’s trespassing!” he exclaimed. “You and those Durhams of yours. Jack here give you some good advice about hunting another place to graze ’em … and make your cow camp. I wouldn’t be that nice. I’d just let Tolman find you in his stamping grounds.”

  “Would you now,” growled the big, grizzled old cowman at Frank. “This is open country and free range. First come, first served. Your Hyatt Tolman’ll have to find new range this year … not us.” Holt’s testy gaze whipped back to Jack. “As for you, feller, the next time you shoot at me, by God, you’d better aim straighter, because I’ll kill you. And I won’t holler out like I did this time.”

  Jack’s gaze turned smoky. He took up his rifle, laid it across one bent arm, jerked his head at Frank, and started off. McCoy, not as angry as Miggs was, and a lot craftier, retreated slowly, placing each foot down behind him with care, keeping his eyes and his gun barrel upon those five silent, wooden-faced men back there. He didn’t turn and go rushing downcountry after Miggs until he’d put a solid wall of trees between himself and Holt’s crew. Then he struck a loose trot and jogged along until he came up with Miggs, who was pausing at a little trailside spring to drink deeply of good cold water.

  “That’s a bunch for you,” McCoy said, also kneeling to drink. “First time up in here, and already they’re giving orders.”

  “He was mad all right,” replied Jack, rising up, flinging water off his chin. “That’s why I walked away. I was getting mad, too. It was his shoulder, I reckon, Frank. That, and being taken like they were. We’ll let him cool down a while. He’ll probably be all right after he gets over this meeting.”