Bendigo Shafter

by Louis L'Amour

  He hesitated. “But it is all we have!”

  “No, sir. You have your lives. You can always come back and get your goods.”

  Hungry and cold though they were, they were of no mind to leave their belongings, but there were twenty-nine of them, and we had but two wagons.

  While they ate soup Webb and I rinsed the buckets and heated water for the horses to drink, covering them with blankets while we waited.

  Their camp showed how little these people knew. None of them had reflectors for their fires, and they had brushed back the snow, exposing the frozen earth. The snow itself would have been a lot warmer, and reflectors built of sticks or earth would have thrown a lot of the heat back into their faces.

  They were a thin, scrawny lot, wearied to death from walking in the cold. Two of them left bloody tracks on the snow where they stepped.

  “Neely was right,” Webb said, “they’ll eat us out of house and home. Two or three days and we’ll be out of grub ourselves, feeding this lot. It was a fool notion.”

  “Sorry you came?”

  “No. I came because I wanted to.”

  “You’re a good man, Webb.”

  He was startled. “Don’t you never think it. I’m a pretty poor sort of man, and a mean one to boot.” He was serious, I could see that.

  Yet I was learning something about Webb. Hard, bitter, and irritable as he was, he was a man who rose to emergency. He might not agree with a thing you said or planned to do, but if it demanded strength and courage he would not be left out.

  Nor was it a matter of pride, so far as I could see; it was simply that he was geared to trouble. There was no yield in him. He was a pusher, a man geared to last stands. He might have sneered at the patriots, derided the noble feelings, but he would have been at Valley Forge. He would have gone into the Alamo with old Ben Milam.

  There was one newborn baby among the Mormons, and there were several youngsters too small for walking. One man had his foot bandaged and used trail-made crutches.

  Their leader, Hammersmith, said he couldn’t leave the carts. “Maybe we could tie them behind the wagons.”

  “Mister,” I said impatiently, “if we get back home we’ll be lucky. The wagons will be overloaded even if half of you folks walk. If you want to go with us, get in the wagon. Let Brigham worry about your goods.”

  My wagon led off again, and Webb was right. We would have trouble with the trail. No sooner were we out of the hollow than I pulled up and walked back to Webb. “How long did it take us to get here?”

  “Better than four hours. Closer to five.”

  “And we were empty then, and there was only about half the snow.” I studied it over. “You check your watch,” I said, “and when we’ve put in four hours we’d better do some considering.”

  “Take us twice the time, I’m thinking. We won’t be nowhere close in four hours.”

  We couldn’t see the sun, but his watch was clear enough. It was noon now, and it would be long after dark before we got back.

  The faint tracks of our coming still remained, and we followed them, but when another hour had gone by they had faded, once in a while in a sheltered place we would come upon some sign. Bud and I got down to walk.

  There was nothing to look at but snow. Mile after mile we plodded on. Most of the Mormon men were walking, and even a couple of the women. They had talked among themselves, had learned how far we had to go, and how heavy the going was. My hands and feet grew numb, and I had to stomp my feet and club my hands together to keep the blood circulating.

  At the top of a small hill where we stopped to give the horses a breathing space, Webb walked back to me. He had taken over the lead to spare my horses. His face was a mask, and there was ice on his mustache.

  He spoke in a low tone so nobody could hear. “We’re off the trail, Ben.”

  “How long d’you think?”

  “No idea.”

  It was like standing in a white cave, with snow falling around us and no way to see out.

  “If those folks get the idea we’re lost, they’ll be scared.”

  “They mustn’t know.”

  I was thinking back. We had not come far with the heavy pull for the horses and frequent stops. It had been desperately hard to keep to the trail, but I figured we were somewhere on the divide between Strawberry and Rock Creek. We might cross Strawberry without knowing it, but the chances were slight. Rock Creek was another proposition. Most of its banks were steep and if we didn’t see them in time we might have a bit of trouble.

  We figured to be heading north, but were we? The wind was, or had been, from the north. Now it was blowing against the right eye and ear. Had we altered course, or had the wind changed?

  We walked out in front and kicked away the snow. Grass. Stiff, brown, frozen grass. We kicked around in a circle, but all we found was grass.

  Which way to turn? We daren’t stop hunting the trail because we might not find our way back. Nor could we risk another night in the open with these people. At least two of them were in bad shape.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  “You chancin’ it?”

  “If I recall, the country west of the trail slopes off a bit, so if the teams did any drifting it would likely be downhill. Not that there’s much difference.”

  So we started again, knowing we might be making the wrong move. We’d traversed several dips and hollows some time before and might have crossed a creek without being aware of it.

  We took it slow. Bud spelled me on the lines, and he was a fair hand. Twice we stopped and scraped down to grass ... the snow was almost a foot deep now.

  “Are we lost, Bendigo?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Ma will be worried.”

  When we stopped for a breather there was no sound but the occasional rattle of trace chains. Suddenly I made the decision that had been nagging at me for some time. “You handle the team, Bud. I’m going out front.”

  Walking up to Webb, I said, “Hold up for a while. I’m going to scout around.”

  “You’ll get lost.”

  “I’ll walk left two hundred paces. My tracks won’t fill before I get back. Then I’ll do the same thing on the other side.”

  The wind was stirring again, and the snow was falling heavily. A man could see thirty or forty feet ahead of his team, but no more. I walked slowly, feeling the ground with my feet at each step. Swirling flakes were all about me, and my tracks filled faster than I had thought they would. By the time I got back the ones I’d made first were half-filled with blown or falling snow. There was no luck to the other side, either.

  We drove on for half an hour, the horses making hard work of it in the deepening snow and with their increasing load, as more and -more of the walkers played out and had to be taken aboard. Yet I felt sure the horses were climbing as well as pulling, and if they were climbing there was a good chance we were going right.

  At our next halt both Webb and I walked out, one to either side. We feared now that we might drive right on by our turnoff and never see it. There was nothing west of us for more than a hundred miles.

  If we had to stop for camp there was no fuel here and we’d have to burn the wagons for warmth.

  “It’s rocky,” Webb said, “I think we’re going right.”

  “I think so, too, but so much of this country is rocky and rough.”

  The wind was rising. One of the horses slipped to its knees. We got the horse up and started on, but I slipped and fell. I fell hard, and cold as I was it was no fun. When I got up and brushed myself off I called to Webb. “There was ice beneath that snow.”

  He and Croft came back. We kicked the snow away. It was ice, all right. Thick ice and the tracks of wagons.

  “We’re all right,” I said, “we’ve found the water trail.”

  “The what?”

  “Where water spilled, hauling from the falls.”

  Beneath the snow the roadbed was built up from many spillings and sloppings until it sto
od six to eight inches above ground level. Once we got the horses up on the road it was easy to know when one of them stepped off into the deeper snow.

  We could see nothing. The wind was blowing a gale by now, whipping the wagon covers and blowing snow into our faces. Suddenly Bud yelled, “There’s a light!”

  The horses, sensing the barn was close, buckled down to pulling. I cracked the whip like a pistol shot above their heads and yelled.

  Slowly the cabins took shape through the blowing snow, and nothing ever looked so good as to swing up to Cain’s cabin and see them all come rushing out into the snow. It wasn’t until we got into the cabin that Webb showed me his watch. We had been eleven hours coming back.

  Cain, Sampson, Foss, and Stuart unharnessed the horses, rubbed them down, and fed them warmed up water and hay. They had put in a long, hard day in cold and snow.

  Those tired, exhausted Mormons were brought inside and fed, then bedded down. We hadn’t much, but we would share what we did have. The Widow Macken did most of it.

  She had clothing and blankets to sell in the spring, and she outfitted several of those who were worse off and provided blankets for sleeping.

  One of them, a lean, long boy of about my own age thrust out a hand to me. “Thank you, sir. You’ve been our saving.”

  “You thank Webb, Bud, and Croft,” I told him. “They did as much as me.”

  I was beat. I was surely tired. When I’d eaten a bit of hot soup I crawled into the loft and stretched out flat, falling asleep without even pulling off my boots. Later, Lorna did it for me.

  When I fell asleep it was to the murmur of the voices down below, those people we’d saved, and I was glad, glad all through me that we’d done it. Yet there was an awful sinking in me, too, for they would eat, those folks, and we had nothing to spare. The winter months stretched long and frightening before us.

  Ethan and I, we’d have to go out and hunt. We’d have to go far afield and risk trouble with Indians to find game.

  If there was any.

  Chapter 7

  Of the Mormons, who stayed with us five days, I came to know only one, the lean, tall young man whose name was Truman Trask. On the fifth day the wagons came from Salt Lake, six big wagons with blankets, food, whatever was needed. Ethan saw them coming and rode out to meet them, who were fearful they would find only the frozen, starved bodies of their people.

  They left us sugar, flour, and tea, although not nearly as much as we’d used in helping, and we saw them away on the morning of the seventh day, all of us standing out in the weather to watch them go. Within the hour, with the storm blown out, Ethan and I were on our snowshoes hunting game.

  We went into the mountains, hoping to find some sheltered park where the game had holed up, but until night was almost on us we saw nary a track, and both of us were scared. We had hungry folks back home, folks wanting meat and trusting us to get it for them. We found a sheltered place, built a lean-to and a reflector, chewed on some jerky, and ate some cold flour mixed with warm water. There we sat, talking of many things until the night was late for lonely hunters.

  It was warmer next day and we found our way into a wide, deep canyon. The stream was frozen over, but there was melting on the south side of some pines. The air was bright and clear, and we began to see deer tracks, and of a sudden, the tracks of a bear.

  Bears hibernate in winter, but unless they fatten up real good they’re apt to come out when the weather warms up and try to find something to eat, then they’ll go back and hole up again.

  We found where he’d dug into the snow after roots and such. Given a chance bears will stick to a diet of bugs, grass, roots, and berries. They kill small animals occasionally, but with the exception of the grizzly they rarely kill for meat, even more rarely will they bother a man. This one was a grizzly. We knew that from the extra long claws on the forefeet.

  We followed him up Twin Creek until he turned up a canyon along Deep Creek. “Let’s look for something else,” Ethan suggested, “this one’s poorly. If he was fat he wouldn’t be out.” And then he added, “I never much liked to killl bears, anyhow.”

  Our way led along an easy slope into some trees beyond, then into a valley where there was a frozen marsh with trees trailing down to its edge. And there were four elk.

  “How far do you make it?” I asked.

  “Two hundred yards ... maybe more. Over white snow, distance can be a tricky thing.”

  “Do we chance it?”

  We were in the open. At any moment they might see us. The wind was blowing across, and their heads were down, scratching at something at the edge of the marsh.

  So we walked toward them. Five yards ... ten. We had our rifles poised for a quick shot if their heads came up. We advanced another ten yards before the big bull brought his head up with a jerk, looking at us.

  With the first stirring of muscle we had frozen in place, and now we held perfectly still. The others looked up, and one skittish youngster walked off a few feet. That seemed to start them. If they began to walk, they would soon be running.

  My shot was high. The bull dropped in his tracks, but I knew my shot was too high. Ethan fired and the second elk jumped, bounded three times then fell all of a piece. We went in fast and were within twenty yards when my bull came off the ground with a lunge, one antler hanging.

  He came up running and I fired my rifle like a pistol from one hand. The bullet hit him behind the left shoulder and he ran on for thirty yards before he dropped. I levered a fresh cartridge into the chamber and went on to where he lay.

  My first bullet had hit the base of the antler, stunning the bull. My second was a heart shot and pure luck. I’d tried for the heart, of course, but with him running like that it was a chancy thing.

  Cold as it was, we couldn’t waste time but took our skinning knives and went to work. From time to time I looked over to where Ethan was skinning out his elk. We’d been uncommonly lucky and should be back to town by nightfall with fresh meat.

  We were just finishing skinning when I happened to look up, and out of the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of movement to the canyon beyond where Ethan was working.

  My meat was skinned out, and I’d been stacking it up in the fresh hide when I caught that move. My rifle was at hand, and I wiped my hands clean in the snow, watching that spot without looking directly at it. Of a sudden, a bird flew up.

  My hand dropped to my rifle, and as I turned I saw a man rise up with a rifle aimed right at Ethan. I was down on one knee and there was no time for aiming. I fired from where my rifle was, the stock under my arm.

  Tlie man with the rifle reared up on his toes and fell full length from the brush.

  Ethan looked up at the shot and looked right toward me, and in a flash I knew that somebody was probably sneaking up on me, too. So as I spun around, I fired.

  I was fifty feet higher than Ethan, a good hundred yards from him, and an easy two hundred yards from the man who had appeared behind me. My bullet hit the dirt about six feet short of him, but he ducked back out of sight.

  The sound of the shots faded, and all was still. Ethan had disappeared. Suddenly there was another shot and my bundle of meat jerked. Evidently somebody had mistaken the meat for me. Lying still, my eyes searched for a target, but I could see nothing. Their attempt at surprise having failed, they had to make another try at it, but we were in a bad situation. Ethan was worse off than I was, for he was in the bottom near the marsh. There was good hiding down there but no way he could escape without crossing a hundred yards of white snow where he’d be as easy to see as a red shirt at a Quaker meeting.

  My position wasn’t bad. I was right at the tapering off point of the pines that came down off the ridge toward the swamp. There was some scattered brush, snow-covered rocks, and a few deadfalls. Our trouble was we had no idea how many we were facing. The man I’d shot seemed to be dead. He lay sprawled on the slope back of Ethan. His hat had rolled down the slope a little, and he was lying all sprawled ou
t. It gave me a turn to see him there because I wanted no dead men on my back trail.

  It was cold. We hadn’t waited more than a few minutes before I realized this could get sort of tiresome. My fingers on that rifle began to get stiff with cold, and I dearly wished to move.

  We’d killed one, and there might only have been two. We might be close by their camp without knowing it, and if so we’d be surrounded in no time. It was time to move.

  Picking a spot in the thicker stand of trees, I dug in my toes and took off with a lunge.

  Nothing happened.

  No shot, no movement that I could see. From my safer position I scanned the country around, watching trees, birds playing in the brush, and the like. After a minute I glanced over at the dead man.

  His rifle was still gripped in his right hand, and I could see a lump on the back of his coat near the side that might be a pistol butt.

  The others, if there had been others, were gone. Walking out, I took the rifle from his hand and stripped off his pistol belt and gun. The rifle was a new Henry .44, and they were a scarce thing. Cain and I, we had two of the first ones. Cain had worked in a plant in New Haven where they were made, only returning to Illinois when he started westward.

  The pistol was an old cap-and-ball, much worn. His belt held thirty rounds of cartridges for the rifle.

  Ethan came up to meet me, carrying his meat. I loaded up, and we led off into the trees, backtracking the man who shot at me. We found his horse tied to a tree with a blanket roll behind the saddle, two well-packed saddlebags, and a heavy coat. There were a couple of letters in the pocket addressed to Win Pollard, Fort Bridger, Dakota Territory.

  “He was among them who attacked us at the town,” Ethan said. “I recognize that horse. Had one like him, one time.”

  We loaded our meat on the horse and started back to our town. We stripped the saddle from the horse and hung it on a peg in the shed back of Cain’s place. The folks were glad to see the fresh meat.

  Webb went out next day and killed a deer. He rode by our kill, and there were fresh bear tracks, so the old bear had evidently found enough to keep him through until spring.