by Arch Gallen
Chapter 8
Leaving Petra to puzzle over twigs, tracks and mud, Adam veered up the forested incline, feet bouncing off three boulders nearly buried before settling into a run over pine needles that muffled his passing. Heading northeast, returning toward Angela’s cave but above it, he kept a strong silent pace as dark took over the lower bowl where his pursuer sat. Dropping as the ground fell away, he swept along a hollow until it ended then used stony handholds to scale a short granite wall to the path above.
Breaking a slab of bark from a dead hemlock, Adam slid his knife from behind his back, whittled a hole through it then retrieved the long rope coil from the backpack. Slicing off a suitable length, he knotted it through the wood, tying the loose end to a piece of scrub so the bark stood upright before setting a candle under the rope, adjusting each to insure flames and cord met. Easing from his perch, he looked over the arrangement then struck a match, lit the wick and watched fire lick upward.
Protected well against dying winds, Pike felt confidence the scheme would work as planned, the candle biting at rope slowly but insistently. Nodding, he jumped higher to a game trail leading further off to the northwest, resuming his trot with only a pause to peek beneath a majestic spruce, scanning two likely sites below where Petra would camp and spotting a flicker at the second with the man’s shadowed bulk sitting close by. This mountain, like most wilderness, gave men unlimited choice for night sleeping but few serving well with water close to hand, natural protection on two or more sides and overhangs to keep weather away and Adam knew every one, having used them all.
Continuing on the rising path to near where the tree line surrendered to bare rock, Adam knelt over a ledge several feet below only sixty yards or less from the first candle which the curving mountain gave an impression of being much closer to Petra’s camp than it was. Able to see both places through thickening gloom, grinning slightly, he hacked a dense branch from a fir and tied rope to the stub. Easing to the shelf below, he set a second candle, barricaded it from view then lashed a lead across the wick. Lighting it, pausing to see it blaze up and begin eating the rope, he hoisted himself back up and headed to his final destination.
Dark was falling quickly, enveloping the wide canyon as Adam ran easily over smooth surfaces long familiar to him, wanting to set the last, most important candle before settling in for the night. Two times earlier, Pike used what he called ‘the candle trick’ to help effect arrests, once in southern Idaho and again on the edge of the Absaroka Range. Neither against men shrewd like Petra or who were, in their own minds, hunters not hunted, Adam hoped for different results here than there so was willing to make an effort to promote his goals.
In Idaho, a trio of stage robbers hunkered down in a cabin knew they were being chased and gave little show of desiring arrest, hanging certain to follow given two killings committed while stealing little more than a sack of mail, a few trinkets from passengers and ten dollars in cash carried by them. At a time when posses might have one man or twenty, they fled rapidly into forested lowlands, camping on a spit of land along the banks of Bear Lake, letting that huge expanse of water cover their back while a wide stream shielded one side. With only a rock ledge as a means to reach them without blundering through thick underbrush, Adam had studied for two days, deciding finally no arrest was possible until they chose to leave.
For an afternoon, he dragged and piled dead wood and brush in a dozen locations circling their hideout, arranging each so fire would cause more to drop and flare embers, leaving only one dark gap below the rocky trail. Using campfires rather than candles but following similar thinking, Pike lit each in order so through a moonless night the outlaws saw what they expected to see, a band of vengeful men pursuing them, blocking every way out. At sunrise, with Adam perched above their path, they emerged stealthily to find a US Marshal holding a shotgun behind them pleased to arrest and more pleased to watch them hang outside a courthouse in Boise a few weeks later.
Candles, he decided later, were preferable where wildfires could easily spread over miles of flat range, thinking spawned by a saloon owner in Montana where Pike sat working over plans to drive a murderous prospector from a narrow canyon retreat above a squalid town south of Bozeman. With the man’s hideaway under scrutiny through field glasses, Adam idled away most of week hoping the killer would descend for supply or escape, the stone cabin giving no safe approach and Pike unwilling to take a rifle shot that would execute the man without trial.
Sitting over steak and potatoes, he listened absent-mindedly as the talkative bartender told yarns of events across the region, perking up when talk shifted to tales of spirits said to inhabit nearby mountains. A band of Arapaho preparing to raid the town, he learned, was wiped out one night in the canyon by a rockslide having no obvious cause. As did most Indians, Arapaho believed warriors dying at night could never rest and their souls would wander endlessly, a notion local folks took serious when hearing drums echoing late at night from the hillside.
Intrigued, encouraging the conversation, Pike felt the seed of an idea sprout full grown when a local man told of a mining camp setting up operations in the same ravine, six families totaling twenty people including wives and children who simply disappeared after a week of panning. Two men riding a wagon of supplies to them as planned returned telling everything there looked proper, even clothes hanging on lines seeming usual except no one was found nor any trace of them having left. Swearing the account true, the fellow claimed himself to have seen candles glowing on still nights from windows of shacks built by the prospectors, more than a dozen of them by his account.
Encouraged, his killer being from the area certain to know the tales, Adam popped up from his chair, dropped a coin on the table and skipped to their town’s general store, his youthful exuberance at a keen idea on display. Buying up every candle in stock, a small can of lamp oil and several hundred feet of fuse cord, he slinked late that afternoon into the hills, spread the tapers in clusters with wicks amply soaked connected by line and as shadows descended, lit all in a succession of eerie shimmerings. Aiding the sensation by moving around while beating empty logs with a stick and chanting deep nonsensical phrases, he made the arrest at daybreak when his quarry bolted to escape the ghostly menace.
“Don’ care if ya’ hang me, Marshal, jes’ don’ let them haunts steal mah soul!” he’d demanded as Adam tied him over a mule in preparation for a trip to the gallows.
Arriving at a barren flat stretch opposite his first candle, Pike repeated his preparations, this last taper serving also to signal other brother Step in town below that he survived the day. Viewing lamps in windows across the distance, he knew the point was visible below and sat with high craggy peaks behind easily spotted even at night so the Sheriff, binoculars in hand, would be reassured all was well.
Bark barrier in place, Adam tied twine around the candle and tossed the roll over the side then shredded the supporting cord to quicken the burn before throwing his long run of rope over the side to a flat rock forty feet below sitting within dense brambles on all sides. Spotted while evading Hawkins men, his original use of the spot required an arduous trek around, no rope being handy then, but served well once reached, a wormhole carved through sharp, cutting branches letting him hide two days while nursing a bullet wound to the inner thigh that came inches from ending Hawkin’s problem permanently.
Donning gloves, Pike rappelled hand over hand, bracing his feet while descending with a pause to turn, pleased seeing two haloes of light for a moment then only one. Reaching the base, he secured the rope end under a rock to hold it taut and rested on his haunches until it separated above and fell to the ground at his feet. Knowing the third light glimmered in Petra’s mind as much as in his eyes, Adam wound and stored the coil then gathered dead twigs left during previous visits and built a small fire next to the tangled brush so no reflection off the cliff would be created.
With coffee boiling, Pike cut a tunnel almost through where thicket met cliff, withdrawin
g to gnaw on some jerky and enjoy a beverage while considering the day’s doings. Nothing done so far, Pike knew without doubt, would convince or even suggest the idea to Petra of ending the chase, even the candles likely accomplishing no more than to sow uncertainty. Adam’s ability to evade would add a level of complexity to the hunt but bring greater resolve rather than a weakened one while various apparent mistakes like rousing a deer and leaving broken twigs should serve to harden his confidence. Smirking grimly, knowing only the hardest surfaces shattered most completely, Pike prepared for the following day to be successful.
