Double Mountain Crossing

by Chris Scott Wilson

  He had drifted ever since. St. Louis, Fort Leavenworth, and on up the Oregon trail through Laramie and Cheyenne, then back South to cut the Spanish trail down through Colorado Territory to Santa Fe, then west again to the new boom town of Redrock. Since that first time he had used a gun on a man, the years had hardened him. His senses had been sharpened by incidents with Indians of all nations, and life in the lawless frontier towns had refined his prowess with a gun. He had soon learned the quickest way to fill his belly was by cutting himself a beef from somebody else’s herd, and the easiest way to fill his pockets was by doing somebody else’s dark deeds. As fast as he passed through settlements, Wanted Flyers bearing his name would appear on Sheriffs’ notice boards and his freedom diminished accordingly, leaving him only the newer towns where nobody knew his name. He had become the kind of man honest men avoid looking into the eyes of, his stance too recognisable, the tools of his trade too obvious. The mannerisms; the right hand hovering near the Colt, eyes constantly shifting to study his environment, back always against the wall so he could see the door. It was all there for the eyes of the observant.

  The name Shuck Alison had not yet come to rank along with those whose names were synonymous with speedy gunplay, but men who had seen him draw his Colt swore he was fast as chain lightning. Those that faced the cavern of his pistol barrel had never sworn anything. Ever again. He was that kind of man. Looking for easy pickings.

  As he sat on the porch of the restaurant in the late afternoon, he gazed speculatively at the doors of the bank across the street. He had the feeling he’d just caught scent of a juicy carcass, wide open for the first wise buzzard who could land the fastest. He reckoned with a little subtle planning, he would be just that buzzard to take the first big bite. Anne Marie would fix it. He’d seen her take a hundred old men like that prospector and get away with it, so why should this one be any different?

  ***

  Morgan Clay emerged from the bank and patted the dun’s neck as he scanned the street, missing nothing; the storekeeper collecting in goods that had been displayed outside his store, the trio of children rolling in the dirt, the pistolero sitting on the boardwalk in front of the restaurant, the ranchers talking cows as they stacked provisions into their wagons. Morgan slipped the reins of his two horses from the rail and led them down the dusty street to the livery stable.

  The old negro ostler poked a head from a cubby-hole to watch Morgan strip off the dun’s saddle and the bay’s pack rig. A man of habit, Morgan waved away the old man and instead rubbed down his horses himself, running over them with a currycomb before he forked down hay from the loft. He grained them, then drew his ten gauge from the saddle scabbard and threw his saddlebag over his shoulder before he sauntered to the ostler’s room at the rear of the barn. The white haired negro was stuffing wood into a pot bellied stove, coaxing the flames to heat a battered coffee-pot that stood on top.

  “Mind if I set a spell?”

  The negro looked over his shoulder in surprise. After all those years in the south he still hadn’t got used to the fact a white man might actually want to speak to him. “Sure, suh. Want some coffee?”

  “Obliged, friend.” Morgan took the chair while his host rustled among the cans and plates on the narrow shelf above the cot. “Your fire’s a welcome sight. She’s beginning to blow a bit out on the prairie.”

  “Yessuh, winter’s here. Here’s your coffee.”

  Morgan sipped. After the weakened brew he had grown used to, it was bitter and strong. He nodded in reply to the old man’s inquiring glance. “Fine, fine.”

  “Long stay, suh?”

  “Maybe till winter’s blew itself out,” Morgan admitted. “Been thinkin’. Might want to buy me a couple of horses. You got any for sale?”

  The ostler frowned. “You mean trade for that lineback and the bay?”

  Morgan shook his head. “Thinking of a long trip come spring. Need four horses all together.”

  “Yessuh? Maybe I can help you out. Won’t be as good as your’n. Pity you don’t want to trade. I’ve took a fancy to that dun.”

  Morgan grinned. “Wouldn’t trade him for five horses. He’s saved my life more than once.”

  “I can believe it.”

  Morgan swilled the rest of the coffee then passed a gold ten dollar piece to the negro and stood up. “Let me know when I owe you more. I’ll be at the hotel.”

  The ostler grinned appreciatively at the coin in the wrinkled palm of his hand. “Yessuh, I’ll surely do that.” He winked. “They’ll get the best grain I’ve got.”

  “Obliged,” Morgan answered with a lop-sided smile as he left.

  His hotel room overlooked the street and was sparsely furnished. A chair, a bed, a washstand and a place to hang his clothes. Morgan dumped his gear on the bare planking and stretched out on the mattress, the ten gauge near to hand. The bed was soft and he wondered whether he would be able to sleep after all the nights camped on hard ground with only the stars for a ceiling.

  He sighed. He was wealthy now. The ore had weighed in at a little under $3,000, enough to provide comfort for a long while if he went easy on it. But he knew he wouldn’t. Any man who had been alone in those mountains for four months with only horses to talk to and nothing stronger than weak coffee or water to drink would blow in a good few dollars. That was why he had deposited the majority of the money at the bank, keeping out only $200 for spending. If he needed more then it was there, and in the remote chance that he did spend every cent, then there was plenty more buried up on the Double Mountains. The $3,000 was just the starter.

  Smiling, Morgan’s eyelids fluttered closed and he slept, dreaming pleasant dreams of perfumed women and big bottles of the purest Irish whiskey. At one point he turned over on the soft mattress and the pattern of his dreams changed drastically. Suddenly he was back in the clearing and his horses were neighing and stamping. Flights of arrows pierced the sky, one after another until he was skewered to a pine tree by a forest of arrow shafts. Ten Kiowas stepped from the timber in slow motion, their war cries echoing murderously inside his head as they slowly raised their rifles, the huge caverns of the barrels yawing at his chest. Each brave bore the face of the one he had killed and they all carried Remington rifles, fingers tensed on triggers while he fumbled uselessly, trying to stuff fresh cartridges into the shotgun.

  The dream went on forever, forcing Morgan to face death time and time again, and when he finally awoke his body was filmed with sweat, cold and clammy. Frantically, he stared round in the dim light and was relieved to see the hotel walls.

  The Kiowas were coming back to haunt him.

  ***

  The Kiowa band welcomed the boys into the camp with open arms. Littleman the scout had ridden into the hunting village to carry the news of the boys’ arrival, then in Thunderhawk’s absence, Crowfoot admitted them to the fire, his wise eyes registering the condition of their hard ridden ponies and the hunger in their hollow cheeks. Short-Lance and Swift-Foot looked about in wonder. The hunting had been good. Meat lay on the grass to dry and cured buffalo robes were stacked high. Wild turkeys, freshly killed, hung on lodge poles, and there were gourds overflowing with nuts and late berries. At the creek, a large herd of ponies grazed peacefully. To the two exhausted boys, the camp was home after the depredations of the open prairie.

  When the braves began to question them, Crowfoot waved them to silence. “Thunderhawk will want to hear this story. He has waited long for news of his brother. We will wait until he returns.” The braves fell to silence as he signalled for meat to be brought and thrown into the coals of the fire. When the outer skin was charred the hunks were dug out. The two boys ate ravenously, the blood from the raw heart of the buffalo meat running down their chins onto their thin, bronzed bodies.

  Crowfoot watched them carefully.

  Thunderhawk topped the canyon rim at noon the following day, his small hunting party riding behind, haunches of buffalo and rich hump steaks across the necks of their ponies. T
he braves pumped their gun hands aloft so their rifles prodded the sky, voices raised in unison: “Yip! Yip! Yip!” At their head, the chief rode straight and proud, pausing for a moment to raise his war lance to the sky before he dipped onto the downward trail, trotting his pony to the central fire where the braves raised their weapons in salute, calling out a welcome.

  “You hunted well,” Crowfoot said, rising to greet his old friend.

  “Yah,” the war chief laughed. “When I hunt and the buffalo see me, they come running to present themselves for the honour of being slain.” He laughed at his own bravado, then the smile faded from his face as he looked more closely at Crowfoot’s sombre expression. His voice became businesslike. “What has happened?”

  Crowfoot avoided his eyes, looking down at the earth as he tapped the ashes from his pipe. “The explorers returned yesterday.”

  “My brother is back? Comes…”

  “Do not say his name!” Crowfoot sharply interrupted. “The boys rode in alone with only two ponies.”

  Thunderhawk’s face tightened, eyes narrowed to venomous slits. He still held his head proudly, befitting a warrior of his stature, but underneath the haughty exterior Crowfoot could almost share the pain that twisted in the chief’s heart. With an angry gesture Thunderhawk thrust the shaft of his lance into the earth so the scalps jerked fitfully in the breeze. He looked away to the canyon rim where Littleman sat his pony skylined against the horizon. There was something lonely about the sight, a lone brave and the harsh landscape of nature. After a long moment, Thunderhawk twisted savagely and stared at the uncomfortable Crowfoot. “Where are they?”

  Crowfoot looked up, thoughtful at the lack of emotion in the chief’s voice. It was the controlled language of revenge, when the hate shut out the grief. There would be time for that later. “They rest in my lodge. Their trail was long.” Crowfoot signalled for Coyote to fetch the boys. Thunderhawk hooked his leg over his pony’s neck and slid to the ground. As they waited, Crowfoot rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Come to the fire.”

  The band of warriors were already assembled, when the two boys emerged to squat with their elders. Hesitant, they approached the fire warily. Looking away, Thunderhawk gestured for them to sit. After a shuffle of moccasins he gazed across at them over the bristle of flames.

  “Tell me the story.”

  Swift-Foot gulped, squirming and glancing nervously at his friend. Short-Lance was still, then he inhaled a deep breath and rose to his feet. Crowfoot smiled slightly and nodded to the boy.

  “Tell it,” Thunderhawk said.

  Short-Lance told it, and in the telling he used all the guile he had acquired as a boy who had listened many times to the tales of the men, relating the saga of their adventures in graphic detail, his hands constantly making pictures in the air to convey the wildness of the scenery and the density of the forests. He told of their long journey from the Staked Plains to the mountains that bore huge caps of snow even in the heat of the summer moons, and of the fight with the white man who owned the big killing gun, and of their subsequent flight back across the plains. Thunderhawk listened in silence, but his gaze sharpened on Short-Lance at the part of the tale where his brother died in the attempt to draw fire away from Swift-Foot who was trying to steal the horses. He nodded in appreciation when he heard of their return to carry away their dead comrade and bury him in the manner of a warrior, his eyes flickering between Short-Lance and Swift-Foot, who listened as if he had not been part of the tale.

  When Short-Lance came to their sighting the canyon and cutting the trail of Littleman the scout, the end of the story, he lapsed into silence and stood quietly.

  Thunderhawk examined his face. “These mountains you speak of. They are in a range of many mountains?”

  “Yes. But these two are placed side by side. At first we thought it was one mountain that looked like two, like the Double Mountain on the White River, southeast of here. But there were two mountains.”

  “So, these Double Mountains. We will find them easily?”

  “It is a long and twisting trail.”

  “But I will find them.”

  Short-Lance cleared his throat. “Only with a good scout.”

  “Ha, little explorer. But how can I have a good scout when nobody has been there but you two boys?”

  “I will be your scout.”

  “Ha! You my scout?”

  “Yes. I will guide you there. I know all the trails. I know where there is game and sweet water.”

  Thunderhawk was angry with the boy’s impertinence. “You think I cannot find them myself? Am I not Thunderhawk, To-Yop-Ke, war chief of our band, whom the Texans and the Mexicans fear? Can I not find this white man?”

  Short-Lance hung his head, embarrassed he should have presumed on Thunderhawk’s indulgence.

  Crowfoot turned to his friend. “You cannot ride from here until the blizzards have blown themselves away and the snow melts. Then all the tracks will be washed from the land as though they had never been. Without the boy as scout it may take many sleeps to find these Double Mountains. Your brother once told me an old man taught him the land in the west has mountains pointing to the sky both far to the north and the southlands. He said the ridges go on for ever until they meet the stars. It will be an impossible task without the boy.”

  Thunderhawk’s anger cooled and he glanced appreciatively at the wise Indian. “As ever, Crowfoot, you speak straight my friend. Your eyes see for me when my heart is blind.” He turned and looked across the fire at the waiting boy. “You, Short-Lance, will smoke your first pipe of war with me. You will be my scout.” He paused and turned to the Buffalo Medicine Man. “To ride with the braves and fight as a man, he should have his man name. He has already ridden on a raid into Mexico and stolen ponies, and fought as a soldier against the white man who stole the life of my brother. Now he wishes to ride with me when I take my revenge. I think he has earned his name.”

  The Buffalo Man nodded at the sage remarks then thought for a while before he stood and began to shake his buffalo tail wand at Short-Lance, chanting an incantation in the language of the great beasts of the prairie. When his song was over he stared long and hard at the boy. “I shall give you your name for the deeds you have already done. From this day forward you shall be known as Eks-a-Pana, The Soldier.”

  Heads nodded around the fire as the braves showed their agreement on the choice of name. In front of them, the boy who had now become a man stood straight, chest swelled with pride. Swift-Foot looked up at his friend, soon to be admitted to the warrior society of the Kiowas, and his envy and resentment ran deep. His own name had not been mentioned once. Hadn’t he ridden the same hard trail and suffered the same hardships?

  As Eks-a-Pana, the Soldier walked away from the council fire, Swift-Foot turned away his face in shame.

  ***

  That year, winter came early to the mountains.

  The first flurries of snow scattered among the highest branches of the dark pines, then as the fall increased they began to break through to the ground beneath, leaving wet splotches on the bare faces of the haggard rocks. The temperature dropped and ice began to form on the slow creeks, weaving spiky patterns across the surface of the water, ridging and blossoming into intricate, crystalline ferns.

  On the mountains the carpet of snow began to join together until all was white, then as the fall grew deeper, the wind that sighed and groaned in the timber nudged and picked at the snow as if dissatisfied with its handiwork, driving it into deadfalls and hollows until there were drifts ten feet deep. It was a continuous process, like the shifting sands of the desert.

  Every living thing that stalked live prey or merely grazed off nature’s produce ran for cover and the mountains became a lonely place, spurned by animals and men alike, left to the subtle devices of winter’s shaping hands and the howling winds.

  At Sun Creek the snow drifted slowly, sheltered as it was from the direct force of the wind, but it ranged over the gold dig
gings to leave the face of the peak an undulating snowfield, garnished by the winter black trunks of the pines, and broken only by the gash of the creek, too swift as it teemed down the slope for the ice to probe tentative fingers into the current.

  Until spring, Morgan Clay’s secret was safe.

  CHAPTER 5

  The saloon was noisy with coarse laughter, clinking of bottles against glasses, jingling spurs, scraping chairs and the continual rattle of a badly tuned piano being mauled by a tone-deaf whore. But nobody noticed. The main attraction was the amber liquid that stood in the row of bottles that lined the rear of the bar. The contents were supposed to pass as whiskey, but if the customers ever had the misfortune to observe the saloon keeper as he brewed his fiery concoction, without doubt they would have stayed thirsty. The huge vats in the cellar were filled with spring water to which he added gunpowder and black pepper, plus a liberal dosing of rattlesnake heads just to add that extra bite to the flavor. After fermentation, the brew was strained and bottled, one measure of real whiskey added to each pint to authenticate the label. It was real “Bumble Bee” whiskey—the drink with a sting in it. But it sure spilled warmth into old bones when the north wind moaned around the wooden buildings of an evening. Even if a few citizens did go down with “Jake’s Leg,” a nervous disorder resulting from bad whiskey, nobody took much notice.

  When Morgan pushed his way through the batwing doors and stood blinking in the smoky lamplight, Shuck Alison looked up from his poker hand and tipped Anne Marie the wink. She nodded briefly and strolled over to the stranger. Alison had told her all he knew of Morgan, that he had brought in six sacks of gold nuggets which meant he must be worth a couple of thousand dollars. The thought of all that money enhanced the brilliance of her smile as she walked alluringly across the room towards him.