Colter's Journey

by William W. Johnstone

  The man dropped the hackamore and started walking toward Tim, who instinctively took a step back and tumbled onto his buttocks. The man did not stop, but he did grin at Tim’s accident. He also shifted the hatchet.

  The hat topping the man’s long black hair came from a skunk. Tim knew that. The head was still on the animal, its mouth baring its teeth in a snarl that matched the look on the man with the hatchet. His buckskins were well-worn, the pants fringed from waist to feet, the shirt—of a darker color—fringed only along the sleeves. A weathered scarf of faded blue silk hung loosely around his neck, and a strange bronze ornament dangled below the bandanna, secured with a leather thong around the man’s neck. The bronze piece was maybe three inches in size, sort of like a cross made of four commas, or two S’s with the ends much wider than the middle.

  The man brought the hatchet up and rubbed a thumb over the blade.

  He whispered something in a language that Tim did not understand. It wasn’t French. It certainly was not English.

  Wetting his lips with his tongue, Tim reached behind his back and brought the big horse pistol forward. He thumbed back the hammer.

  That stopped the man.

  “Leave me alone,” Tim said.

  The man studied the big pistol. Tim tried not to look at the gun, which shook in his hand so much that he had to use both hands to steady it. He brought the gun up higher, aiming in the general direction of the man’s chest.

  Tim knew he had not primed the pan with powder. If he pulled the trigger, nothing would happen. The gun could not fire. Yet he hoped that the mountain man with the hatchet could not tell that the weapon was useless, hoped the man would back away, mount his horse, and ride off . . . leave Tim . . . alive.

  His mother would have paddled his fanny for gambling, but he did not see that he had much of a choice. He could not whip the man in a fight, certainly not when the wiry, dark-skinned, black-eyed man held a hatchet. Tim had also seen a long rifle in a fringed sheath leaning against a rock beside the grazing horse.

  “You . . .”

  Tim blinked, amazed. The man with the hatchet could speak English, though it certainly was not a language he used often. “You . . . shoot . . . pistola . . . kaboom! . . . in . . . esku.” He shook his free hand to let Tim know what he meant.

  Shoot the pistol, and it would blow up in Tim’s hand.

  “Maybe,” Tim said. If I had primed the pan, anyway.

  “Maybe not.”

  He wasn’t sure if the man understood, but he did get the general idea. With a sigh, the man lowered the hatchet to his side. He, too, wet his lips.

  They seemed to be at a stalemate. Tim wondered how long he could hold the pistol, which seemed to add pounds every few seconds, but he knew better than to lower it. Maybe the man was waiting for help. Tim couldn’t tell, and he dared not take his eyes off the swarthy fellow in front of him.

  Thunder boomed. The dark clouds began getting closer. Tim saw a flash of lightning, and, after several seconds, heard another distant rumble of thunder.

  The dark man spoke again. “Baillarger?”

  Tim squinted, not understanding.

  “Baillarger?” the man repeated. He pointed at himself, and using his free hand, lifted it above his head a good foot or two.

  “You?” Tim asked. “Your name is Baillarger?”

  “No.” The man shook his head emphatically. “Baillarger. He . . . no . . . asasinatu.” His head shook, trying to find a way to break the barrier caused by their different languages. “Keeel.” His head nodded. “Baillarger no keeeel . . . zu. You. No keeeeel you.” Again, he raised his free hand over his head, moved it around, indicating, maybe, a larger man.

  Baillarger. Tim thought he understood. Kill.

  “No, Baillarger did not kill me.” He sucked in a deep breath, and let it out. “I killed him.” He tried to repeat one of the words the man had said. Asasinatu. “I a-sasi-natu-ed Baillarger.” He even made himself smile when he said those words, even as he swallowed down the bile rising in his throat and felt his stomach turning over and over and over.

  The man laughed and pointed at Tim. “You?”

  “Me,” Tim said.

  The skin of the skunk atop the man’s head shook. The man laughed again and sighed, relaxing his shoulders. “Jackatars, no . . . sinetsi.” Another laugh. “Baillarger . . . mozolo.”

  “You better go now,” Tim told him, waving the heavy pistol slightly.

  The hatchet fell to the ground. The man studied Tim.

  “You don’t go now,” Tim said, trying to deepen his voice and narrow his eyes, “I’ll kill you.” He wet his lips again. “Sure as hell.” He could almost see his parents frowning on him for using such a nasty word, but he figured he was in nasty company and wanted the man to mount his horse and ride off. Leave him alone.

  The wind blew hard and Tim could smell rain off in the distance. “Go on!” he shouted. “Get out of here.”

  The dark man surprised him. He nodded. Even turned away and started for his horse, but he stopped after a few paces and looked back at Tim. He pointed to the hatchet he had dropped on the ground, tapped his forehead as if he were an imbecile, and stepped toward the weapon, kneeling to the ground, and reaching for the hatchet.

  Tim tried to swallow, but his throat had no moisture in it.

  The man’s dark hands went down. One hand brought up the hatchet. The other sent a fistful of sand into Tim’s eyes.

  Turning, Tim heard the hammer click on the pistol, although he didn’t remember pulling the trigger. He didn’t remember much after that, either, because something slammed across his forehead. Orange and red flashes exploded across his eyes, and he groaned. He fell back hard, his head striking the rocky path and sending more orange and red blossoming.

  Breath left his lungs. Something crushed his face. Something else smashed his nose, and he tasted blood as it poured from his nose and over his lips. The back of his head was bleeding, too. At least he didn’t taste that.

  Opening his eyes proved a struggle. He saw the dark man’s face, and vaguely understood that the man straddled his chest. He kept shouting something, but Tim’s ears rang, and his mind seemed all befuddled. Besides, the man spoke a language Tim had never heard, and little English.

  Slowly, the man came into a hazy focus and Tim seemed to understand that the dark man waved a pistol over his head. Tim’s pistol. Or, rather, the pistol he had taken but failed to prime from the man he had left dead by the river. Ballenger. No, Baillarger. Whatever the dark man had called him.

  The man seemed upset that Tim had fooled him with the pistol. He slapped Tim’s cheeks—hard blows that caused tears to well in his eyes. He saw the waving pistol, which the dark man tossed aside. He wrapped his left hand around Tim’s throat tight like a vise, and Tim struggled to breathe. The man leaned over, and through the tears and pain in his eyes, Tim saw the man lift the hatchet with his right hand.

  He spit in Tim’s face, but Tim didn’t care. He tried to fight, to shake the man off him, to free the grip that crushed his throat and blocked any air. Suddenly, he understood what was happening. He was about to die. He wouldn’t save Patricia or her mother or his sisters from the bandits. He had failed.

  He was a stupid kid. About to be a dead kid.

  The dark man grinned. He seemed to understand that Tim knew what would happen. The hatchet came up.

  Tim closed his eyes.

  He heard a deep voice, and the grip released his larynx. He could breathe, and did deeply, quickly. His eyes opened again. The dark man was staring to his right, over Tim’s head.

  The man wet his lips, said something. There was no reply. He was looking at someone Tim couldn’t see, still holding the hatchet.

  Slowly, the man stood up, still straddling Tim, but only for a second or two. He moved his left leg over Tim’s stomach and did a few side steps, still holding the hatchet, which he lowered, and backed away toward his horse.

  “No, Abaroa,” said the deep voice out of
Tim’s eyesight.

  The dark man grinned. He had raised his hands, said something, and brought his hands forward, moving them every which way as he spoke. Tim craned his neck, but could not see who the dark man spoke to with words, fingers, and hands.

  “That be your play, Abaroa,” the voice behind Tim said. “Mano-a-mano. Me and you. No guns.”

  “Bai.”

  “I drop my rifle. You drop the hatchet. We fight like that. Just like that time at Horse Creek in ’37.”

  Tim felt certain that the dark man did not understand all the words, but he grinned. The man Tim could not see must have also been speaking with his hand. No? Not if he held a gun.

  But the dark man again grinned, his head nodding, and he repeated the word bai. The hatchet slipped from his right hand and fell at his feet. He held his hands at his side.

  Something clunked on the ground, and the dark man started to reach behind his back, still grinning.

  Thunder sounded.

  Tim blinked, seeing the dark man drop to his knees and then fall to his hands that kept him from crashing to the ground. Blood poured from his mouth as his head lifted weakly, and he stared in the direction of the thunder and the man Tim did not see.

  Tim realized it had not been thunder, but a gunshot.

  The dark man dropped to the ground, heaved once, and then became still.

  Still.

  And dead.

  CHAPTER 21

  Tim rolled to push himself to his feet, but the world started spinning, and he fell back to the ground, squeezing his eyelids shut. He did, however, manage to wipe the blood off his face. When his eyes opened again, he saw the hideous monster leaning over him.

  He was a white man . . . or once had been. He had a beard and long hair flecked with silver, and a face covered with scars . . . and was missing an eye. A patch covered that, and he, too, wore a fur hat over his head. His massive left hand held a smoking horse pistol, which he laid on the ground beside Tim. The big hands unloosened a silk scarf fastened around his neck, fisted it into a ball, and pressed it against Tim’s nose. The other hand lifted Tim’s left arm and positioned his hand over the piece of filthy silk. “Hold it here till the bleeding’s done. Lie easy for a spell. Be back in a minute or two. Need to fetch the horses and mule.”

  For a big man, he moved gracefully and practically silently.

  Tim wanted to say something, but his brain still felt foggy, and he wasn’t altogether certain what had just happened. He managed to wet his lips, which still tasted of salty blood, and eventually rolled over, but he could not see the man anymore. Maybe it was an apparition. A ghost. Tim’s guardian angel.

  He would have laughed at that thought, if it would not have hurt so badly. That man was definitely no angel.

  * * *

  He blacked out or fell asleep, for when his eyes opened again, the clouds were black. Night? No. He could smell the rain in the air, and the wind was blowing harder. The storm was fast approaching.

  “Here.”

  It was the one-eyed giant, once again hovering over him. He dropped an animal on Tim’s legs.

  “Skin out of them duds. Put these on.”

  The angel . . . or demon from Hades . . . helped Tim sit up. His head spun around a few circuits, but stopped, and slowly he seemed to feel better. He touched the back of his head, and found a piece of cloth had been wrapped around it. His nose had stopped bleeding.

  Turning slightly, Tim looked at the animal. No. Skins. Buckskins. He sucked in a deep breath, which caused him to gasp in pain. These were the clothes the dark-skinned man had been wearing. Tim looked over, and saw the naked, bloodied corpse of the man.

  “I . . . I . . . won’t . . .”

  “You will,” the demon said. “Them duds you got on won’t last a day. Storm’s blowing in. Get up. Get dressed. We need to get moving.”

  “I . . . can’t . . .”

  “You will. Or I leave you here.”

  The monster walked away, back to the dark, naked man lying on his back on blood-drenched rocks. Tim fingered the greasy buckskins and touched something that caused his fingers to jerk back. Blood stained the tips of two fingers. Blood from the shirt of the dead, dark man. Blood from the bullet the demon had fired into the man’s stomach.

  Tim looked at the monster and sucked in a deep breath. He almost threw up as the demon put a knee in the small of the dark man’s back. The knife worked around the dark hair. The Cyclops jerked. A pop sounded like a gunshot. After wiping blood from the knife’s blade onto his buckskin leggings, the monster walked back, holding a bloody scalp in his right hand.

  “Get dressed. If you want to find your sisters.”

  * * *

  Rain fell in icy torrents, the wind howled like demons, and the sun had long ago vanished. With their backs to the wind, the three horses and a mule stood miserably in the rain, soaking wet.

  At least Tim Colter was dry.

  He sat underneath a shallow outcropping of rock, the fur of an animal over his shoulders to keep him warm, and worked with his fingers on the buckskin shirt, trying to scrub away the dark, dried blood over the hole that had killed the man earlier that day.

  The one-eyed monster sat with his back against the stone wall, a long rifle cradled over his thighs, gnawing on a piece of dried elk. Or so he had told Tim. The weapons had been stacked in a pile far from the rain, as had a few other pouches and sacks. Most remained on the ground, covered with hide, but that was the only protection.

  “I can patch that hole if that’s what’s troubling you.”

  Tim stopped with his fingers and looked over at the man. “The shirt’s too big,” he managed to say. “So are the pants.”

  “You might grow into them.” The man considered that for a second. “Might not, too.” He stuck the last bit of jerky into his mouth. “Warm enough?”

  Tim shivered but made himself nod his head.

  “Want me to patch the shirt?”

  “The hole doesn’t bother me,” Tim said, summoning up courage.

  The man waited.

  “It’s how it got there.” Tim stiffened, figuring the monster would kick him into the rain, let him freeze or drown out there.

  “Maybe you’d rather be dead back yonder,” the man pointed out.

  “You shot him down in cold blood. He dropped his hatchet.”

  The monster laughed and pointed a long, bent finger at the pile of weapons.

  “See that screw-barrel .45 by you?”

  Sure, enough, Tim spied a pistol he had never seen. It was close enough, so he reached and picked it up. It was small, the barrel just over two inches long. He read the engraving on the side plate above the trigger and below the hammer. London.

  “It was behind Abaroa’s back,” the monster said. “He figured when I put my Hawken down, he could kill me quick enough. He just didn’t think I had a pistol behind my back, too. Never been much for pistols. Bridger let me borrow it while he was fixing mine.”

  Tim swallowed.

  “If you carry a pistol, kid, remember to prime it.”

  “Oh.” It was all Tim could say.

  The man chuckled. “Reckon that’s an apology.”

  Thunder rumbled.

  “Name’s Jed Reno,” the one-eyed beast said.

  “Tim.” He did not recognize his own voice. With a busted nose, he sounded something like a frog or a cricket. Or a girl. “Tim Colter.”

  The man nodded. “Your sisters got took.”

  “And Patricia.” Tim looked at the hole in the buckskin shirt that reached to his crotch. He swallowed. “Patricia Scott. She’s . . .” He couldn’t finish.

  “They took your ma, too?”

  He had to brush away a tear, and his voice cracked as he shook his head. “No . . . Ma’s . . . they . . . they took . . . Patricia’s ma . . . Mine’s . . .”

  Lightning flashed, followed instantly by a crash of thunder.

  Reno was looking at the horses and mule, but after a moment, he seemed to rela
x and faced Tim again. His one blue eye seemed to soften. “I’m sorry, boy. You buried them. Good graves. But how did you get past Baillarger?”

  Tim felt uncomfortable suddenly, but not because of the memories the man kept bringing back. Or Patricia. Or the attack. Or his parents, Mr. Scott, and the graves. “You knew them,” he said, a challenge in his voice. “The man they left to kill me at the camp. The . . .” He looked at the hole in his shirt.

  “There ain’t a whole lot of folks who live in these mountains. White folks, I mean. Baillarger? Yeah, he showed up at Horse Creek near the Green in ’36. The Basque? He come the next year. Neither of them was worth spit. Don’t surprise me none that they joined up with the Métis breed.”

  Tim tried to take it all in, but his brain couldn’t comprehend much of anything. “Basque?”

  Reno nodded. “Abaroa.”

  “I don’t—” Tim tried to shake the fog away from his brain. “Abaroa? Basque?”

  “Name was Abaroa. He was a Basque. You recollect that funny cross he was wearin’?”

  Picturing the odd bronze ornament, Tim nodded slightly.

  “It’s a lauburu. Basque version of a cross.” Reno’s one eye winked. “Now, you’re thinking that I am a professor from some university, but I only know that because I saw Abaroa win it from another Basque by betting on a horse at the Rendezvous in ’37. Don’t ask me what a Basque is, though. Foreigners. That’s all I can tell you. But that’s what all of us is. Foreigners.”

  “Rendezvous?” Tim asked.

  The man laughed. “Don’t pepper me with too many questions. I ain’t one for gab, and I ain’t talked so much in a spell. Besides, you need some sleep.”

  Tim, however, did not feel sleepy. Questions began to flood his brain, too many to ask, or sort out. He found one.

  “How did you know?” And another. “How did you find me?”

  Reno laughed. “Finding you was easy. What made you set out after Jackatars?”

  “Jackatars?”

  “The hombre who led that butchery.”

  “Jackatars,” Tim repeated. Now he knew the name. He repeated it twice more so he would never forget it.