Uncompahgre

by Reid Lance Rosenthal

  Black Mare reached out a hand squeezing Rebecca’s arm, while Ouray looked at Rebecca and Reuben, nodding approval, his eyes shining. Many in the crowd moved toward the second fire from which wafted the enticing aroma of grilling elk. Reuben glanced for a moment out into the darkness in the direction of the faint sounds of galloping hooves, then over Rebecca’s head toward the food, but Ouray tapped him on the shoulder, shaking his head and pointing in the opposite direction toward the dark cone shape of the wedding tipi one hundred fifty yards away.

  Reuben turned to her. “I think,” he gulped, mouthing the word once before he could speak it, “wife…Ouray insists we go down to the tipi and investigate the puwa of that hot spring.” Reuben’s smile turned inviting and seductive. “If I remember correctly, milady Marx, you made certain promises that the wait for our wedding night would be worthwhile.”

  Rebecca felt the moist and languid warmth of desire begin to spread through her. Gazing up into his eyes, she ran her fingertips down his cheek, whispering in response, “And Rebecca Marx always keeps her promises, husband. Take your Eesha to our honeymoon cottage,” she smiled, “and you can decide which holds the most heat—the water from the spring, or your wife.” Reuben’s cheeks darkened. She saw a primal hunger steal into his stare and without a word, he turned, holding her hand, leading her toward the wedding lodge, the steam rising silver in the moonlight just beginning to spill over the eastern ridges.

  CHAPTER 43

  June 25, 1855

  UNCOMPAHGRE

  With a reproachful snort, Buck craned his neck back at Zeb as the mountain man gave the cinch a final angry tug.

  “Sorry, Buck,” Zeb said, patting the tobiano’s rump, “ain’t right to be taking it out on you.”

  The reins and lead rope to the mules in one hand, his other on the saddle horn, and one moccasin toe suspended in a stirrup, Zeb looked back over his shoulder at the glow of the fires and the milling throng. Must be over; most of the crowd is headin’ toward the food.

  Mounting, in one fluid movement, he wheeled Buck and dug his heels into the mustang’s side, the horse accelerating under him even as they turned. At a gallop, they raced northwest across the meadow into the darkness, the headwaters of the Rio Grande shining silver in the rising moon, the hum of the wedding and the sounds of the feast fading rapidly behind them. Zeb didn’t look back, concentrating instead on the memory of towering conifers, ledges, the rich rusty earth of Red Mountain and the cabin he called home. He thought of the warm glow of the cabin’s oil lamp shining dully on the interior logs, the solitude drawing him like a magnet. Gotta get back to the mountain. Be alone.

  Behind them, the mules wheezed in protest, not used to much more than a fast walk over the previous months. Leaning low over Buck’s front shoulders, Zeb looked back at the three dark shapes behind the mustang, giving a sharp tug to the lead rope in his left hand. “Stop your bellyachin’. We’ll slow down a mite in a couple of miles.”

  They galloped through the cattle, cows clumsily lurching from their path, moaning in low-throated objections. By the time they reached the tree line, the moon had cleared the eastern ridgeline, its silver debut transforming to a dull reddish-orange. Like her hair. Zeb’s jaw muscles tightened as he slowed Buck’s pace to a trot giving the tobiano his head through the trees. The mules, relieved at being out of a gallop, fell single file into a silent, grey line behind the mustang.

  June 27, 1855

  After two days of solid riding, the mules grazed contentedly, shifting their weight from one rear haunch to another and from shoulder to shoulder, resting their weary muscles.

  Four hundred feet lower and several miles out from them, three fires silhouetted the sunset-softened outline of Fort Uncompahgre. Zeb waited one hundred feet inside the tree line, studying the broad delta of the confluence of the Uncompahgre and Gunnison rivers. Buck stood slightly behind him. “Wish I had Mac’s spyglass,” he said in a low tone to the horse, the mental picture of the spyglass in Reuben’s coat evoking a pang of guilt, which Buck punctuated with a snort and a stiff, simultaneous push of his nose into the small of Zeb’s back.

  Zeb turned to the tobiano, running his hand twice down the mustang’s cheek. “What are you trying to tell me, Buck? I shouldn’t have left? I’d made it clear which trail to take. Johannes will find that note. They’re all trail wise, and Reuben’s got a head on his shoulders. They’ll know the way.”

  Buck cocked his head, rolling his eyes. One big brown eye stared directly into Zeb’s through the murk of dusk, one ear flicked forward. “You ain’t helping, horse. We’ll feel better when we get back home.” And not so unsettled.

  Leaning one shoulder against a tree, he gauged the last pale band of yellow-pink light where the sun had set. Buck nuzzled his head, knocking off the coonskin cap. “Hold your hooves, Buck. We ain’t going nowhere ’til it’s dark and we can’t be seen from the fort. We’ll skirt around this timberline and hope we beat the rise of that damn moon.” He nestled his shoulder against the tree again, reaching into his shirt, pulling out his tobacco and biting off a hunk.

  Chewing slowly, he watched the far distant fires brighten with the descent of the dark. He fought a feeling of unease mixed with loss, tinged with another pang of guilt. Gathering up the lead ropes of the mules, he joined the animals in a straight line behind the mustang, knotting the end of the lead rope to Buck’s saddle. Mounting the tobiano, he immediately leaned over, sliding the Sharps from its belly scabbard. He checked the load, placing the rifle across his thighs, and pulled both pistols from his belt, checking to make sure each of the Colt’s cylinders held a round, and then the ball and cap weapon, holding it close to his eye, critically examining the primer. He shoved both pistols back in his belt and then, sitting motionless, fixed his eyes on the remnants of the trading post miles out. They ought to be pushing them cows over this ridge four or five days from now.

  A nagging voice spoke from another corner of his mind, Go back. Settle things with the redhead once and for all. He looked west to the high, mostly flat silhouette that marked the edge of the Grand Mesa, the last trace of pink and crimson almost drowned by the steel grey indigo of the rapidly descending night. Ain’t good to be confused in this country. It’ll get you killed, he reprimanded the second voice in his brain.

  “It’s about time, Buck,” he said to the impatient mustang, an air of purposeful finality in his voice, “We’re going home.” Urging Buck gently forward with a squeeze of his knees and a soft “click, click” from his tongue, the tobiano began to ease through the trees, zig-zagging, leading the string of mules, Zeb checking every so often to make sure they were not skylined to eyes anywhere below.

  June 30, 1855

  Zeb looked around carefully, his eyes investigating every contour, small patch of brush or cluster of willows. Satisfied, he lifted his scan to the broken tree line a half-mile out in either direction. Towering, rugged faces and spines of rock rose above the conifers and aspen patches on the south and east sides of the valley. A wide break in the rugged contours directly across from them to the west marked Dallas Creek where the muddy waters of early summer tumbled out, mingling turbulently with the rushing, reddish flow of the Uncompahgre boiling toward its marriage with the Gunnison. Dang, can’t get that wedding off my mind. Then high overhead, a bald eagle screeched. Good omen. Guess I made the right decision.

  Sure that no one could be concealed within rifle shot range, Zeb reined in Buck, curled a lanky leg over the horse’s withers in front of the saddle horn and rolled a smoke, his eyes continuing to search the terrain. Lifting his face from time to time, he enjoyed the warmth of the midmorning sun, smiling at the looming jumble of peaks ten miles up valley where he knew the flanks of the mountains narrowed into a box canyon, marking the beginning of Red Mountain Pass. The red rocks and soils of La Montana Roja shimmered between dense, dark green lines of the conifer swaths that reached, like groping fingers, up toward the barren red alpine crags of the mountain and lingering snow cornices
.

  Dismissing another tug of conscience, he took a deep breath. “Almost home. Feels good, don’t it, Buck?” The tobiano shook his head, craning his neck back, then looked forward and blew. “If you ain’t pleased, I can’t help it.” Zeb raised the cigarette to his lips, wetting it, then lit the smoke with his flint, dragging deeply, his eyes shifting from the faint trail ahead weaving upriver past Uncompahgre Peak and toward the Red, El Diente, and Wetterhorn mountains at the head of the narrowing valley, then to the less rugged terrain that marked the sloping and meandering plain of Dallas Creek, which spilled in from the direction of the Snaefel. Wrestling with himself, he took another puff on the cigarette, then absently flicked it with his middle finger and thumb into a patch of soggy snow.

  The cigarette landed, its smoke quickly extinguished. Zeb shook his head. Wasn’t too smart, throwing away half a cigarette. Gotta get myself undistracted. Straightening his leg, he picked up the reins, then sighed, setting them down again, his hand on the saddle horn, his gaze shifting from Dallas Creek to upstream along the Uncompahgre. Buck bent his neck back at him again, then, hackamore jiggling, wagged his muzzle three times up toward Dallas Creek, and whinnied.

  Zeb sighed again. “Well, hell, Buck, you got a point. We got plenty of time to get to the cabin before dark. While we’re here, we could mosey up Dallas Creek and see if it looks like what I told Reuben. Imagine he’s thinking about it also. Want to make sure I told him right. Might be some beaver sign, too.”

  They wound their way slowly up alongside the creek, taking the southwest fork a bit more than a mile above the Uncompahgre, skirting wide where the willows thickened, detouring often to avoid deep, lingering snowdrifts in hollows or on the north side of swales, Zeb’s eyes roving the landscape. The paint’s head was high, ears pricked, a slight prance in his climbing step, alert but relaxed, seeming to be in better spirits than he had been for days.

  Jagged saw tooth peaks, shimmering white with snow yet to melt, cradled the valley, their power and protection like a grand hand, fingertips dusted in flour curled upright around the palm of the plateaus. Jagged pinnacles kissed the cloudless sky, the long imposing line of the Snaefel anchored by their highest point, Snaefel Mountain, rising abruptly four miles to the southwest, their grey faces and avalanche chutes guardians of the plateaus, lending power and ancient energy to the meadows.

  Zeb and Buck, mules trailing behind, broke out on a bench, its widest expanses a mile across. The gently rolling surface was lush with early grass; its slope ending to the west and north at the toe of a narrow, treed ridge. The creek disappeared over a short rise to yet another plateau above them to the southwest. Pockets of aspen trees, some interspersed with conifers, dotted every contour of the spiny ridge. Staggered willows, alders and aspens lined the creek as it snaked across the bench from above.

  The air was thick with the smells and sounds of early summer growth. The cries of hawks and shrill of birds serenaded the meadows. Colored patches of wildflowers popped from the green of the grass and the grey-blue of occasional sage. Yep. As pretty as I remembered it. He looked southeast toward the sharp tops of Wetterhorn, Uncompahgre, El Diente and Red Mountain Pass, and my cabin, then back at the Snaefel. “Well, hell, Buck. We’re here, and the sun ain’t hardly moved. Let’s gander up at that next little rise around this ridge and see that top meadow.”

  They made their way across the moist ground, squishy from recent melt under the four sets of hooves, the grass already shin high and deep green. The splashes of wildflowers quivered in the slight wind.

  Riding slowly up the shallow rise, they skirted the edge of the massive stand of mature aspens and young quakies that marked the southwest beginning of the ridge. The upper bench had slightly less grass, and a bit more lingering snow. Conifers dotted its upper reaches, jostling with aspens for position. Zeb reined, looking behind them at the green of the lower meadow dissected by the serpentine sliver of Dallas Creek squeezed between its phalanx of willows and alder.

  Lifting himself in the saddle, he twisted backward to the north, his eyes following the course of the Uncompahgre downriver, the current visible here and there through the low broken ridgeline below them, its rushing thread disappearing in the distance toward the delta. Wonder where they are now? Maybe two days from coming down on Fort Uncompahgre?

  Settling back down in the saddle, he took up the fixings to roll another smoke, studying the higher of the two bench meadows. Could grow a passel of hay here. And a direct shot for movin’ them cows up into that high country below them peaks each year when the snow clears. That ridge would break the west wind. His eyes slowly returned to the bench below them. The creek reflected brown-blue from this angle as it cut a crooked course across the rolling green. “Waddaya think, Buck? Back up there in them aspens where the slope falls off, they’ll be able to see the Snaefel behind them, and maybe upriver toward Red Mountain, the pass and them other mountains, too. Yep, it’s a fine spot for a ranch.”

  He picked out several likely building sites, his mind painting a picture—a modest, one and a half-story log home, hand-hewn, smoke curling from a rough stone chimney. He imagined jackleg fences, and a two-wheeled track of a road winding up from the Uncompahgre, past the house, to further down the meadow where a barn and loafing shed joined a series of square and rectangular corrals. He saw the shapes of mottled colored cows, so real he could almost hear them bawling, saw their great twisted horns glistening in the sun, dotting the meadow. His mind painted horses tied to the hitching post in front of the home, swishing their tails lazily at flies, the small forms of three children playing. Laundry fluttered in the breeze, hung over a rope strung between tall posts driven in the ground. He saw two women coming from the house, stepping from the covered veranda along its front, lifting their hands above their eyes to shield their view from the sun, their gaze seemingly fixed in his direction. One of the women was short and heavy, her features dark-skinned, the other petite, a red auburn sheen around her face where the sun reflected from her hair.

  Zeb took a pull on the cigarette, shaking his head to clear the unexpected vision. Must still have some of that sage tobacco in my blood. Taking a deep breath, he looked up toward the box canyon and the three peaks of the Red Mountain, where his main cabin sat, his mind’s eye recalling the comforting familiarity of the stock pen and the warm, welcome texture and whispers of the logs. He studied the half cigarette still remaining, grey smoke curling in spirals from its glowing end until caught by the wind. He sighed, “I guess I ain’t gonna finish this one neither.”

  Flicking the half-smoked butt into nearby snow, he straightened in the saddle, looking once at the scene of his vision, and once toward his home on Red Mountain.

  “Damn!” he shouted, digging his heels into Buck’s flanks. The startled mustang leapt forward in a gallop, saddlebags flapping on his haunches, mules braying in surprise behind them, the grass a blur beneath their pounding hooves.

  TO BE CONTINUED…

  Coming next, Book Four of the

  Threads West, An American Saga Series,

  Moccasin Tracks ©2014

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  Moccasin Tracks – Book 4

  THE HOMESTEAD

  Reuben reined in Lahn half way up the timbered ridge. To the southwest, the Snaefel poked its line of sharp white peaks into the brilliant, blue belly of the sky. Behind him he could hear the plaintive, muted bawl of the cattle, still a mile distant. Occasionally, a faint hoot and holler of the drivers echoed eerily between the smooth bark of the aspens.

  The subdued roar of a creek, guarded by willows and alders, rushed with the last of the melt through the broad meadow tucked under the ridge. Wild irises poked lavender blossoms above the emerald green expanse, while nearly hidden in the almost knee-high grass, the yellow, red and white blossoms of other early wildflowers unfurled. Further below him, the silver serpentine thread of the Uncompahgre River coursed its way north through an ever widening fertile valle
y framed on all sides by yet more rugged, jagged peaks of the San Juans and the Uncompahgre.

  To the south, the valley tapered to a narrow end at the toe of three stately peaks clearly red in color, their flanks embracing the steep faces of El Diente and the Wetterhorn, and another looming cone-shaped peak behind them.

  The leaves of the aspens around Reuben fluttered imperceptibly, stirred by a touch of wind, the whisper of their movement bending branches supple with new growth imparting a welcome. The palomino shook his head, whinnying, and Reuben leaned forward, patting the horse’s neck. “I feel it too, Lahn. We’re home.”

  CHOICE OF TRAILS

  SHE FELT THE WARM PRESS of his chest against her back, the perfect fit and pressure of his thigh draped over the flare of her hip. The smell of sage and sulfur, of tanned leather and soft smoke, mingled with the scent of their bodies, and of their loving.

  A foot scraped the grass just outside the flap of the lodge. Taking his hand from the gentle capture of her breast, he tensed, reaching for his pistol, then relaxed as someone cleared their throat outside the tipi, and a familiar voice filtered through the hide wall. “Don’t want to interrupt, but we need to talk. I have a note that was shoved in the flap of my saddle. You need to read it.”