by Bart Paul
“I don’t know. Steep as that is, we tie ’em together and one of them pulls back or stumbles in the snow, we got ourselves one hell of a wreck.”
“You got a better idea?” he asked.
“I’m going to lead my horse down on foot. When I get to the bottom, you take these guys and turn ’em loose one at a time after me. I’ll catch ’em as they come down. That way they can keep their balance and go their own pace.”
I hung my bridle on the saddle horn and led my horse by the macate down the snowfield. I took it slow and let him pick his footing. He stopped once right on top of me when I slipped on my ass on an icy spot. It took me a few minutes to make it down. I led him over into some trees twenty feet off the trail and tied him tight, then signaled Lester to send the rest of them on down.
He led the string one at a time to the edge of the snowfield, starting with the black gelding. Lester slipped each leadline up through the hitches so they wouldn’t drag before he turned them loose. He knew his business. He had that string coming down in the order we would be leading them. I watched until all six of them were picking their way down at liberty, their heads low, balancing the big loads on their backs as they came, taking one slow step at a time through the snow, following the path of the one before. They made a big sweeping S curve as they switchbacked across the snowfield. It was about the prettiest thing I ever saw.
Chapter Thirteen
I caught them up one at a time, tying the first horse to a pine then stringing the lead of the next one through the ring on the britchen and tying it off. When I looked up, I saw Lester stopped about halfway down, watching. Then he led his horse the rest of the way. The wind was gusting now and thunder rumbled in the distance. Damned if I didn’t see snow closing in on the high peaks. He stepped aboard the mare, and I handed him his string.
“That was downright impressive,” he said.
“Too bad all we know how to do is pack.”
I bridled my horse, grabbed my string, and swung up. Lester led the way as we headed down further into the cirque leading three animals apiece. We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when I hollered for him to stop. I’d been watching the tail section on my lead horse, the big roan. I dismounted and checked the load. The tail flaps had been built to rotate on two little stubs of three-quarter inch steel tube about an inch long. The stubs were rusty now, and the whole set-up looked like it had been built in somebody’s garage. The underside stub had been rubbing on the roan’s rump, so I reset the thing best I could. By now the first big drops of rain hit, and I pulled my slicker from under the tarp of the roan before I mounted. After a few minutes of getting pelted, Lester untied his slicker from behind his cantle and pulled it on as he rode. It snapped around in the wind, and Harvey’s mare didn’t like it much.
We made steady time, letting the two lead pack horses set the pace. They didn’t see much sense dawdling so far from their home corral and pasture. The little mule was just in front of me at the end of Lester’s string and even she kept slack in her lead, not wanting to be left behind. When we got close to our trail-mending camp from the week before, Lester turned off into the rocks where the creek tumbled down and we let the stock get a good drink. I got off and reset the tail section again on the roan.
“Should’ve burned that with the other stuff,” he said.
“You’re dead right on that. He’s already wore some of the hair off.”
I stepped back up and Lester led the way down toward the forks in the rain. It was coming steady now, and visibility down-canyon was only a couple of miles. I looked back toward the site of the wreck, and it was already half-hidden in white snow flurries. We rode without talking, hunkered down under our hats and collars. The trail wound into scattered trees and big boulders with new grass on either side. I looked back at the roan again.
“Pull up, Lester.”
I got off and we tied up. I loosened the lashrope on the roan, and Lester helped me lift the tail section off him. The tailflap stub had worn a sore on his butt about the size of an Eisenhower dollar.
“Sonofabitch.” I looked over to a boulder as tall as a man about twenty feet off the trail. “Over here, bud.”
We carried that thing over and stashed it behind the rock. The tail stood four feet high, so a person couldn’t see it from the trail, but we didn’t try to hide it much. We retied the roan’s hitch with that wet lashrope then just stood there in the rain for a second looking at the rocks. Lester gave a what-the-hell shrug and we mounted up. The rain had eased off to just a drizzle.
We were just coming to the forks and were clopping along in sight of the snow cabin when I saw the blood on Lester’s back a second before I heard the shots. The red on his yellow slicker looked like catsup on mustard, all wet in the rain. He kept on riding, sitting up more rigid than usual. I hollered for him to pull up as I jumped off and ran around his string to get to him. Four more shots popped right in a row and I felt one zip just overhead.
“Jesus, Tommy,” was all Lester said. I dragged him out of his saddle and walked him toward the rocks. When we had some cover, I let him fall on his knees and I peeled back the slicker. It was hard to tell with his shirt on, but it looked like he’d been hit high in the back above the shoulder blade. A full automatic burst hit the top of the rocks, spraying us with granite chips.
“Oh shit shit shit,” Lester said, like it took all the energy he had left.
I shushed him and we listened. There wasn’t a sound. The two pack strings just stopped, eight animals in single file on the narrow trail. They would stand for about a minute glad for the rest, then head on down the road. Quicker if the shooting got close. I propped Lester with his back against a rock.
“Lean back and keep some pressure on it till I see what’s what.”
“You ain’t gonna leave me here?”
“Just to tie up the horses and fetch my rifle. You stay put.”
Through the branches you could see the little tower sticking up from the snow cabin from where we were hunkered down. It was just a plank box, about as big as an old-fashioned phone booth. It used to have a ladder in it to climb in and out of the cabin like an escape hatch when the snow was higher than the roof. I crouched and snuck to Lester’s horse and tied her to a tamarack, then tied off the black gelding to his saddle horn. I did the same with my string. That would hold them for a few more minutes unless they got spooked. I pulled the .270 from the scabbard and grabbed the fresh box of cartridges, the first-aid kit, and the Crown Royal from my saddle pockets. I stayed low between two big pack loads, watching and listening. They must not have had a good shot at me or they would have taken one then. Most likely the shooter was on the move, getting a closer spot. The drizzle dulled down any noise except the sound of the horses and mules shifting their weight, which was really no sound at all. I hustled back to where I’d left Lester and handed him the Crown Royal.
“My pard,” he said. He sounded weak.
“How you doing?”
He tried a grin, but his face was white.
“Okay,” he said. “Feels weird. I never been shot before.”
“You’ll be sore as hell in the morning.”
“I’m not gonna to die?”
“It’s a long way from your heart, bud. Well, not that long, actually. A long way from your mouth, anyway.”
He took a sip of the Crown Royal. “He knows where I am, don’t he,” he said. He was almost panting.
“We want him to. There’ll be two of ’em. This way I can find them easier.”
“You’re using me for bait?”
“Yeah. Just while I check out the neighborhood.”
I inspected the breech, uncapped the scope, and wiped the lens with the end of my neck rag. Then I went hunting. I stayed in the tamarack as I worked my way down-trail of the stock. When I got a ways below Lester, I took off my slicker and spread it over a bough of a white fir then kept moving on down. When I made it near the snow cabin I parked myself in some timber with a good view o
f the open country to the north where I figured the shot came from, but stayed hid from the cabin by a tree. At least one of these boys would be up there in the rocks, as it was an easy climb with a clear field of fire. I waited a long time, just listening for any sound over the steady rumble of the creek off behind me. Finally there was a clatter of rock up on the opposite slope, but it was far off and faint and I couldn’t see movement. I wanted to get back to Lester pretty quick before his patience wore out.
“Up here, asshole,” somebody shouted way up the slope. Even far off you could pick up the accent. I just waited. He shouted again like he wanted my attention up there, not anywhere else. I braced against the tree bark and swept that hillside with my scope, breaking it into quadrants until I found him, another Cuban from the look of him. He was focusing down at the pack string with binoculars, hiding in the rocks above a screen of trees waiting for one of us to show. He wouldn’t want to wait too long, but if he knew about his compañeros in the creek two nights before he’d be cautious and looking for tricks, maybe afraid to come too close. On the other hand he was a city boy outside in the rain. I looked over the top of the scope to memorize the patch of ground with just my eyes. Once I knew where to look, I could spot the guy easy without the scope. Then I turned sideways around that tree and squeezed off a round into the escape tower on the snow cabin. I felt better then. I was only about a hundred fifty feet off and could hear a thump and a clatter.
“Tommy?” It was Lester.
I hustled across the trail below the pack strings and climbed into the timber on the other side. A full automatic pop-pop-pop-pop rattled down from the Cuban in the rocks, and I could see the horses scamper, pulling back. The little mule dropped, and the big buckskin mule she was tied to started dancing in place in front of where she lay. The whole string was looking to stampede out of there. I heard Lester shout again but couldn’t make it out. Then it was quiet again. The guy in the rocks was out of his element and acting frustrated. He only shot at the animals to see something get hit. I gained altitude then settled into some rocks under the pines and fixed on the guy’s sniper nest before I put the scope on him. I waited for him to finally rise up and try to sneak down toward Lester. The closer he got, the more he hurried. He wasn’t wearing a hat, only a jacket and shorts. He carried a short little bullpup weapon with an interior barrel, probably a P90. They were half plastic and didn’t look any more dangerous than a staple-gun. I had him from the side, almost from behind. When he stopped to steady himself to fire, I shot him and he fell. I walked back down to the snow cabin, circling around to the down-trail side where the door faced. I stopped and watched it for a minute, not making a sound, just listening. The door wasn’t dangling open like it had for fifty years, but it was sprung so bad it wouldn’t close all the way. I walked up to the cabin as quiet as I could. I held the Remington on the door and pushed it to the side with my foot. Inside I could see a new lace-up boot dangling down and some sock and bare leg and traces of blood on the dirt.
Then the cabin wall exploded with splinters and chunks of wood and a blast of automatic fire and my face burned like crazy. Before I could think I’d taken a knee and fired twice up into the shooter’s hiding place in the escape tower. An AK-47 dropped on the dirt and I stopped shooting. More blood dripped down. I stepped partway inside the cabin. I could see a whole leg hanging down now, but that sucker was stuck up there pretty good. More blood had dripped all over my right boot and I stepped back. That stopped me till I figured the blood was mine. My cheek was stinging and wet. I felt around and pulled a sharp chunk of pine plank big enough to use for kindling from that fleshy spot just in front of my ear. If I hadn’t been wearing my hat and studying the ground the splinters from that blast would have ripped out my eyes. I peeked up into the escape tower just to be sure that bastard was dead then hustled back to Lester. By then the rain had stopped.
I grabbed my slicker from the fir on the way back. It had a bullet hole in the sleeve and the round had tore a yellow furrow in the tree bark. The edge that spreads behind the saddle over a horse’s butt was just tatters. When I got to the pack string, the little mule was down on her forelegs with her head sideways on the trail and her rump in the air wedged against a rock so she couldn’t fall over. I crouched down next to Lester and peeled back his slicker.
“Jesus, Tom.” He looked pretty scared when he saw my face.
“Just wood splinters. I got careless.”
“Did you kill the bastard?”
“Eventually.”
“I feel like I’m gonna puke,” he said.
“That’s okay. Might make you feel better. You’re in shock. Let’s lay you down.”
I looked for an exit hole but that small-bore round was still inside him somewhere, maybe behind a bone. I started field-dressing the wound.
“I heard the shooting,” he said. He rolled forward to make it easier for me. “I was scared shitless.”
“It’s over for now. Any blood in your spit?”
“No. How come?”
“Want to be sure the bullet didn’t nick a lung.” That made him look sicker. “But you got him, right?”
“There was two of them. The one who shot you from up there. The second one in the snow cabin. That’s the one almost got me.”
“But you got them,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“That one bastard shot Harvey’s new mule,” he said. “There go our summer wages.”
“Does that hurt?”
“Not so bad,” he said. “Are you sure that bastard shot me is dead?”
“He’s dead.”
“Did you check?”
“I don’t need to check.”
“Did you shoot him in the head?”
“What do you think?”
“Did you take his machine gun?”
“No. Lie still for chrissakes.”
“Why not? It’s got to be way more gun than your deer rifle.”
“That fact, although pertinent, did not do that sucker a hell of a lot of good.”
Lester just tried to laugh.
“Besides, we got to leave things as-is, submachine guns and all. Like a crime scene. Shooting Lester Wendover out of season has got to be plumb illegal. At least some sort of misdemeanor.”
“The second guy was in the snow cabin? The one that shot you.”
“He didn’t shoot me. He shot the door. I was in the way.”
“But he was in the cabin?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you know he’d be there?”
“Because he was a city boy and it was the only building in the damn Wilderness.”
“Did you see him either?” Lester asked.
“Just his feet. He’s stuck up in there like Santa Claus. He just wasn’t quite as dead as he might have been.” I tore the backing off a big butterfly bandage. “When you don’t see them through the scope, you never know for sure.” Lester always liked hearing the technical stuff, and I figured it would keep his mind off his hurt.
“How’d you know there was two of ’em?”
“Jesus, you’re chatty today.”
“Well, I want to know,” he said. “How did you figure there were two?”
“He wouldn’t send somebody this far into the back country alone.”
“GQ?”
“His jefe. Teófilo.”
“How do you know there ain’t no more?”
“There’s probably more waiting around the pack station. But sending two ATV’s up-canyon makes sense.”
“How do you know they rode ATVs?”
“Because they ain’t the kind to walk.”
“Motor vehicles up here are illegal,” he said.
“Then that’s why I shot ’em.” I pulled a wood sliver out of my neck rag that was scratching me under the chin. “Quit talking for chrissakes.”
“Would I know all this shit if I’d been in the army?”
“Probably not.”
I pulled Lester’s shirt up around his n
eck. I eased his slicker back over his shoulders and closed up the first-aid kit. It was designed for camp burns and cuts and such, but it would have to do for now.
“They’ll be waiting for us at the pack station then,” he said.
“So we won’t go to the pack station.”
“Aspen Pass to Boundary Lake, then down the old switchbacks to Henry Lake,” he said, “then out at the Summers Lake trailhead. They’re not local, so they won’t have a clue.”
“See. You’re smarter than you think you are. There’s lots of ways out if you know the country.”
“We know the country,” he said.
I left him and hurried over to the stock, taking my knife out as I went. The buckskin mule tied in front of the dead mule was pulling sideways trying to get free. He’d pulled the dead mule’s wet leadrope so tight I had to cut it. That quieted him down. I cut the lashrope to pull her tarp off and drag the slings off her. I unbuckled the slings around a gas tank, a door, Harvey’s chainsaw and the two airplane seats. When I jostled her I could see where the round smashed into her just behind her left eye. It was a high-penetration round made to pierce body armor. The heat was escaping her rained-on hide almost like steam, and she was already starting to stiffen up. She would have grown into a good little mule. She’d carried that crazy load with no complaints. I left the chainsaw on a rock and stashed the other stuff deep in the pines so there’d be no trace of the wreck left on the trail. Somebody might find that junk someday, but not till this whole mess was over.
I got Lester to his feet and took the Crown Royal bottle from him so he wouldn’t drop it when we walked back to the horses. I steadied him, but he was still buckaroo enough to get on his horse by himself, even with a hole in his back. We left his slicker on him to keep him warm. I dallied the black gelding’s lead once around Lester’s saddle horn and set his hand on it, then turned his mare around. I stowed the whisky and got aboard myself. Then I rode around to the front of the line and headed us back over to the crossing.
I left Lester mounted while I led the black horse right up next to the creek and unpacked him. There was a wide spot in the creekbed with a hole against the bank where the grass was high and the water deep and slow moving. After I stripped the tarp I muscled the bags up high enough to free the straps from the sawbucks then let the bags drop to the ground. I dumped the engine block and rolled it to the bank and pushed it into the creek. It sat there in four feet of water but with the reflection on the surface ripples, a person couldn’t see it unless they were standing right over it. I dragged the second bag with the pistons and the rest of the junk to the bank and dumped that in too.
