A Century of Great Western Stories

by A Century of Great Western Stories (retail) (epub)

  “These mules are already worn down from that clay,” Bruce said angrily. “I’m not taking them ten miles out of our way to climb over a peak when there’s a perfect pass through—”

  “Farrier sent me along to keep your hair on your head,” Garrit said thinly. There was no quirk left at the tip of his lips. “Any time you want to go on alone, just say so.”

  Bruce grew rigid in the saddle, his eyes drew almost shut. For a moment, there was no sound but the stertorous breathing of the animals, standing in a long line behind them. Finally Bruce settled into the saddle.

  “All right,” he said, sullenly. “What do we do?”

  “It’s getting late. I’ll scout ahead. I want to be sure what we’re going into. If I’m not back by the time you reach that river in the valley below us, make camp there.”

  Garrit heeled his horse down off the crest and into timber. As the men disappeared behind, the only sound that broke the immense stillness was the sardonic crackle of pine cones underfoot. He could not help his usual grin at the sound. There was something sly and chuckling about it, like the forest having its own private little joke on him. It always brought him close to the mountains, the solitude, and it made him realize what a contrast his present sense of freedom was to the restive confinement he had felt in the fort.

  But thought of Fort Union brought the picture of Enid back to him, and his exhilaration faded. Through all these years he had carried with him constantly the painful desire to return to her, to the life they had known. Seeing her at Fort Union had been a knife twisted in the wound. He still felt a great, hollow sickness when he thought of her being promised to Bruce. Could she be mistaken in her feelings? He had seen something in her eyes, something she had been afraid to put in words. If he cleared his name, so he could go back to her, would she realize—

  He shook his head, trying to blot out the thoughts. He realized he had climbed halfway up to the next ridge without looking for sign. A man was a fool to dream in this country. His head began to move from side to side in the old, wolfish way, eyes picking up every little infraction of the normal rule of things.

  It was near dusk when he found the sign. He was five or six miles beyond the pack train, emerging from a fringe of quaking aspen along a stream in the bottom of a canyon, and he caught sight of the early berry bush ahead. A few of the red-black berries were scattered on the ground, and half a dozen of the limbs had been sliced cleanly near the root. As he approached, a magpie began scolding far up the slope. It was another of the forest sounds that invariably turned the quirk at the tip of his lips to a grin. There was something irrepressibly clownish about the raucous chatter.

  Just keep talking, you joker, he thought. Long as you jabber I’m safe.

  He got down to study the moccasin tracks about the early berry bushes. They were only a few hours old, for the grass they had pressed down had not yet risen straight again. As he stood up, the magpie’s scolding broke off abruptly. It made his narrow head snap around. The weather seams deepened around his eyes, squinting them almost shut, as he searched the shadowy timber. Then he hitched his horse and headed for the trees. An animal look was in his face now and he ran with a wolfish economy of motion. He reached a dense mat of buckbrush and dropped into it and became completely motionless. He could still see his horse. It had begun to browse peacefully. The timber was utterly still.

  After a long space, he began to load his gun. He measured a double load of Du Pont into his charge cup and dumped it down the barrel of his Jake Hawkins. He slid aside the brass plate in the stock, revealing the cavity filled with bear grease. He wiped a linen patch across this, and stuck it to his half-ounce ball of Galena. He rammed the lead home, and then settled down to wait.

  FOR TEN MINUTES he was utterly motionless. His eyes had grown hooded, the quirk had left his lips. The fanwise sinews of his fingers gleamed through the darker flesh of his hands, as they lay so softly, almost caressingly, against the long gun.

  Then the man appeared, coming carefully down through the timber. He saw the horse and stopped. The brass pan of his Springfield glittered dully in the twilight. Garrit knew the conflict that was going on within him. But finally, as Garrit knew it would be, the temptation was too great, and the horse decoyed him out.

  He approached the animal, frowning at it. At last he began to unhitch it.

  “Don’t do that, Frenchie,” Garrit said.

  The burly Frenchman wheeled toward the sound of his voice. Surprise dug deep lines into his greasy jowls.

  “By gar,” he whispered. “You are an Indian.”

  Garrit’s voice was silken with speculation. “I thought you were the Indian.”

  “Ho-ho!” The man’s laugh boomed through the trees. “That is the joke. He thought I was Indian. And I find his horse and think the Indian take his scalp.”

  “Shut up,” Garrit said sharply. “Don’t you know better ’n to make that much noise out here? I found sign down by the creek. Some Blackfeet had cut early berry branches for arrows.”

  Frenchie sobered. “We better go then, hein? My horse she’s up on the ridge. Bruce he got worry about you and sent me to look.” Garrit unhitched his horse and began the climb beside the man. Frenchie sent him an oblique glance. “You really belong to the woods, don’t you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I was five feet from you and never see you. Like you was part tree or something.”

  “A man learns that or doesn’t stay alive.”

  “Is more than that. Some men belong, some don’t. Them that do will never be happy any place else.”

  It touched something in Garrit that he could not define. “Maybe so,” he shrugged.

  “For w’y you guide Bruce through like this? You hate him.”

  “It’s for Farrier,” Garrit said. “He’s been my only friend up here. He’ll go down with the company if they don’t get any pelts this year.”

  “And for Anne Corday?”

  Garrit glanced at him sharply. “What do you know about her?”

  Frenchie shook his head. “Nothing. Except this is the first trade goods to go through mountains this year. Is like honey to bear. Five thousand dollar worth of honey. You have been hunting three year for Anne Corday without the success. Wouldn’t it be nice if you were along when she show up to get these pack train?”

  Garrit was looking straight ahead, his dark face somber and withdrawn. He would not admit it to Frenchie, but the man had struck the truth. Part of his motive in taking the train through had been his debt to Farrier. But another part was his realization of what a strong lure this train would be to the men with Anne Corday. If he could catch them in the act, with John Bruce as witness …

  “It’s funny you should talk that way,” Garrit said. “Most men won’t admit Anne Corday exists.”

  “I only know the stories I hear. You were youngest man ever trusted with Yellowstone Fur’s trade goods for the rendezvous. Engaged to Enid Nelson in St. Looey. Big future ahead with the company.” He sent Garrit that oblique look. “How did it really happen? I hear different story every time.”

  Garrit’s eyes lost their focus, looking back through the years. “We had brought the trade goods by boat to the mouth of the Platte. Gervais Corday was camped there. He said he’d been a free trapper till Yellowstone Fur squeezed him out. He’d fought them and some Yellowstone man had shot him. They had to take his arm off. It made him bitter as hell toward the company.”

  “I would be bitter too,” Frenchie said softly.

  Garrit hardly heard him. “Anne Corday was his daughter. He’d married a Blackfoot squaw and kept Anne up there with the Indians. We were the first white men to see her. I guess no white man has ever really seen her since. It was raining. The Corday’s invited us into their shelter. There was whiskey. You don’t pay attention to how much you’re drinking, with a girl like that around. She danced with me, I remember that. She got us so drunk we didn’t know what was going on. And her pa and his men got away with our g
oods.”

  “But why were you accused of taking the furs?”

  “Cheyennes caught us before we got back to St. Looey. My crew was wiped out. I was the only one left alive. I had to get back the rest of the way on foot. It took me months. Nobody would believe my story. Too many traders had worked that dodge on Yellowstone, and had taken the trade goods themselves. If there had been witnesses, or someone had known of the Cordays, or had seen them, it would have been different. But I was completely without proof.”

  “And nobody has seen Anne Corday since,” Frenchie mused. “She mus’ have been very beautiful woman.”

  Garrit nodded slowly. “I can still see her—”

  He broke off, as he became aware of the expression on Frenchie’s face. The man tried to hide it. But Garrit had seen the sly curl of the lips. Hot anger wheeled Garrit into Frenchie, bunching his hand in the filthy pelt of the cinnamon bear coat and yanking the man off-balance.

  “Damn you. You don’t believe a word I’m saying. You were just leading me on—”

  For a moment they stood with their faces not an inch apart. Garrit’s lips were drawn thin, his high cheekbones gleamed against the taut flesh. Finally the Frenchman let his weight settle back against Garrit’s fist, chuckling deep in his chest.

  “Do not be mad with Frenchie for making the joke, M’sieu.”

  Garrit shoved him away with a disgusted sound, trying to read what lay in those sly, pouched eyes. “Don’t make another mistake like that,” he said thinly. “It’s no joke with me.”

  IT WAS FULL night when they got back to camp. The mules were out in timber on the picket line, grazing on the buffalo grass and cottonwood bark, indifferently guarded by a pair of buffalo-coated men. The pack saddles were lined up on one side of a roaring fire. Garrit came in at a trot, calling to the trader.

  “Bruce, don’t you know better ’n to build a fire like that in Indian country? Get those mules and saddle up. We can’t stay here now—”

  He broke off as the men about the fire parted. There was a horse near the blaze, with two willow poles hooked in a V over its back. From this travois the men had just lifted the woman, putting her on a buffalo pallet by the fire. Before they closed in around her again, Garrit caught a glimpse of the Indian sitting on the ground beside the pallet, head in his arms. Bruce pushed his way free, a flat keg of Monongahela in one hand.

  “We can’t move now, Garrit. The woman is sick. Our interpreter’s been talking with them. Game has been scarce this spring. She’s so weak she can hardly talk. The man had tied himself to the horse to stay on.”

  “That’s an old dodge,” Garrit said. “They’ve probably got a hundred red devils waiting, now, out in the trees, to jump you.”

  “Wouldn’t you have run into them on your way back?”

  Garrit shook his head darkly. “You just got to learn the hard way, don’t you? If she’s hungry, that whiskey won’t help.”

  “I was just giving the men a drink. I thought a shot might revive her.”

  “You were what?”

  “Giving the men some,” Bruce said irritably. “Now don’t tell me I can’t do that. Farrier said he gave his men a drink every other night.”

  “I suppose you had some too?”

  “I did. How else can a man keep his sanity out in this godforsaken country?”

  Garrit shook his head disgustedly, glancing at the laughing, joking, red-faced men. “From the looks of them they’ve had more than their share. If you want to get anywhere tomorrow, cork that keg up right now.”

  He turned to walk over to the group and push his way through, to stare down at the woman. She was in an elk hide dress with openwork sleeves, whitened by bleaching, a stripe of vermilion paint was in the part of her black hair, and more was blotched on her cheeks. She lay with her head thrown back, eyes closed, breathing shallowly.

  He felt the blood begin to pound in his temples. He felt shock spread its thin sickness through his belly. Suddenly, he found himself on his knees beside her, his hand grasping her arm, jerking at her.

  “Open your eyes; you’re no more starving than I am. Get up—”

  The Indian man raised his head from his arms, calling weakly to Garrit, “Kola, kola—“

  “Friend, hell,” Garrit said savagely. “Ma yan levi kuwa na—”

  Bruce shoved his way through, grabbing at him. “Garrit, what are you doing?”

  “I’m telling him to come over here,” Garrit said hotly. “He isn’t weak, and this isn’t any Indian. It’s Anne Corday.”

  “Let her go,” Bruce said roughly. “You’re crazy. You can’t treat a sick woman that way.”

  “She isn’t sick, damn you, she’s Anne Corday—”

  Bruce pulled him back so hard he sat down. He jumped to his feet like a cat, whirling on Bruce, so enraged he started to hit him. Then he became aware of the men, sitting down around the campfire. Only one was still standing, and he was rubbing at his eyes, a stupid look on his face. The others were dropping their heads onto their arms, or lying back in their buffalo robes. A couple were beginning to snore stertorously. Even Bruce’s eyes had a heavy-lidded look to them.

  “What’s the matter?” Garrit said.

  “Nothing.” Bruce shook his head. “Just sleepy.”

  “How much of that whiskey did you drink?”

  Bruce yawned heavily. “Maybe a little more ’n I should. But it wouldn’t do this. Just been a long day.”

  “Long day, hell.” Garrit spotted the keg of whiskey, walked savagely over to it. He picked it up, uncorked it, sniffed. “She did this,” he said, wheeling on Bruce. “That’s laudanum, she’s put laudanum in the whiskey—”

  Then he stopped. Bruce had sat down against one of the saddles, arms supported on his knees, and his heavy head had fallen onto those arms. Garrit’s eyes flashed back around the men. Frenchie was not among them. He realized he had been too intent on the whiskey. It was too late. Even as he started to wheel, with the heavy grunt in his ears, the blow struck his head.

  The Fight

  He regained consciousness to the sense of throbbing pain at the base of his skull. Someone was shaking him gently.

  More pain dug new seams about his eyes, as he opened them.

  “I thought you’d never come around,” John Bruce was telling him. “It’s lucky that Frenchman didn’t split your head open.”

  He helped Garrit sit up. It was dawn, with the timber drenched in a pearl-gray mist all about them. The men were gathered around him, grimacing, rubbing their eyes, staring stupidly at each other. One of them was feeding a spitting fire, another was at the edge of camp, retching.

  “We came out of it a couple of hours ago,” Bruce said. “Been trying ever since to revive you.”

  Garrit shook his head again, winced at the pain. “How could they have got that laudanum in the whiskey?”

  “When I gave her a drink, she tried to hold the keg,” Bruce said. “She dropped it, spilled some. The Indian picked it up. There was a little confusion for a minute, there, when they could have put it in. I never would have believed laudanum would do that.”

  “If you drink enough,” Garrit muttered. “Farrier used it at Fort Union once. The Indians got so drunk they were going to start a massacre. He spiked their whiskey with laudanum and it knocked them out.” He sent a dismal glance to where the pack saddles had stood, beyond the fire. “Did they get everything?”

  “Even the animals,” Bruce said. “We’re stranded.”

  “Did you send that Frenchman after me?”

  “No. He just disappeared.”

  “I guess he was trying to keep me from coming back,” Garrit mused. Then he looked up at Bruce, wide-eyed. “Now will you believe me?”

  The man shook his dark head. “I’ve thought Anne Corday was a myth for so long, it’s hard to accept it, even now. I might as well join you in the mountains. This will finish me with Yellowstone Fur.”

  “It will finish Yellowstone Fur, if we don’t get that pack train
back.”

  Bruce’s black brows rose in surprise. “What chance have we got? They have a night’s start on us, and they’re riding. We’ll be lucky to get back to Fort Union on foot, as it is.”

  “A crowd like this will never make it back through that Blackfoot country on foot,” Garrit told him. “Your best bet is to hole up while I go after our horses. If you can hold these men here till I get back you still might get a chance to stay with Yellowstone Fur.”

  Bruce protested, but Garrit finally convinced him it was their only chance. He drew a map in the earth. There was a creek in the next valley that ran ten miles northward into a canyon so narrow and tortuous it could not be reached by horses. Bruce was to do his hunting now, try to get enough meat to last the men several weeks, and then walk in the water of the creek to its head. This would leave ten miles of his backtrail covered, and in such an inaccessible place, he would be comparatively safe from Indians, if he did not move around.

  Bruce finally agreed, and Garrit made up a pack of smoked buffalo meat and dried corn, rolled it in one three-point blanket, and took up the trail.

  They had not bothered to hide their tracks. They led northwest from the Yellowstone, toward the heart of the Blackfoot country. It convinced him more than ever that he had not been mistaken. Only someone with connections in the tribe would have dared head so boldly into their land. And Anne Corday’s mother had been a Blackfoot.

  He left the mountains for a while, and hit the high plains, rolling endlessly away from him, so devoid of timber in most places that he could not travel much during the day for fear of being seen. On the third day he reached the Little Belts. After the endless plains, it was like coming home. He plunged gratefully into the shadowed timber on the first of the rolling slopes.

  Now it was the real running. It brought out all the animal attributes bred in him these last years. There was an intense wolfishness to his unremitting dog-trot, long body slack, head down and turning incessantly from side to side, eyes gleaming balefully in their shadowed sockets, not missing a sign. He ran on their trail till he could run no more and then crawled into a thicket and lay in stupefied sleep and then woke and ran again.