Bendigo Shafter (1979) (11 page)

It was too soon to worry but not too soon to plan. I would not leave for another month, and in the meantime I must go over the trail with Ethan.

And tonight was our first party, the first entertainment in our town.

Tom played the fiddle, and John Sampson played the pipe, and we danced until the sun came up over the eastern hills. Cain played the accordion for a while, and I danced with Lorna and Mae, with Ruth Macken and Helen, and with Mary Croft and Neely Stuart's wife, who did not like me, I think.

It was a fine night, gay with laughter and singing. Few of us sang well but we all loved to sing, and the sound of our voices went out across the snow to the wintry hills beyond.

Yet we did not forget, in all our fun-making, that our lives were lived with danger, and every now and again one or the other of us would step out, walk away from the inner sounds to listen to the night.

Let it never be said that a man does not develop a sixth sense, a feeling for danger when there are no outward signs of it. Perhaps subconsciously he perceives things not registered on his conscious mind, but whatever the reason, I have myself been warned time and again of danger lurking, and so have many whom I know.

So listening was not only listening, it was sensing, registering the feel of the night.

The moon was clear and the eye carried far out across the snow, down the valley and along the towering cliffs, very white now in the moonlight. Nothing was seen.

Lorna came out and stood beside me. She was flushed and happy, her eyes bright with gaiety. It's grand, isn't it, Ben? I'm awfully glad we came.

You left friends behind.

I hated to leave them, too, but I will make new friends. I've seen so much and learned so much that I'd not have learned at home. You have too, Ben. You've changed.

Oh, yes! You're so much older, and wiser somehow. I think you've changed more than any of us. Even Cain has spoken of it.

A change in a man is never so evident to himself, but of course, I had experienced new things. The experiences of the long trek west, the Indian fights along that trail, the responsibilities, rustling food for the people of the town, working, watching, thinking. Even as a man shapes a timber for a house or a bridge, he is also shaping himself. He has in himself a material that can be shaped to anything he wishes it to be. The trouble is the shaping never ceases, and sometimes it has gone far along one tine before a man realizes it.

I can hardly wait for spring. I want to get out and walk upon the hills.

You be careful. There's Indians, you know. I paused. And I won't be here. I am going away after Christmas.

Oh, no!

So I told her our plans, and of my long ride to Oregon alone, and how it would need much of the year to make the homeward drive.

We had turned to start back inside, for the cold was reaching into us, but as I held the door open for Lorna I glanced back.

There was something on the trail, something that had not been there before.

Only a black dot, only a shadow of something, only something that would alter the shape of my own life, but I could not see that. I could see only that something was there that had not been before.

My pistol was in my waistband. To get my rifle might interrupt my people at their fun, so I told Lorna I would be right in, and then I closed the door and went to the edge of the bench to look again, and to look around also, to be sure it was not a trick, something to lure us out away from our buildings.

I tucked my right hand under my coat to keep the fingers warm for my gun and started down off the bench toward the trail.

The black spot did not move. With my hand on the butt of my gun for a quick, smooth draw, I went closer.

It was a horse, head hanging, standing over a man who had apparently fallen from the saddle.

Squatting, my right hand on my gun, I slid my left under his coat and felt for his heart. I seemed to feel a faint beat, but there was something else. His shirt was stiff with dried blood. He was not only in a fair way to freezing to death but wounded as well.

Lifting him into the saddle I steadied him with one hand and spoke to the horse, who moved off quickly, eager for the lights of our town.

The horse had not been ground-hitched but had preferred to stay with the man. It must be quite a man who could command such loyalty from a dumb brute.

I went right to John Sampson's house and carried the wounded man inside, stripped off his overcoat and covered him with a buffalo robe, all by firelight. Then I lit a candle and moved the hot water pot closer to the fire.

Looking down at the wounded man, I studied his face. He was no one I had ever seen. His was a narrow, aristocratic face, finely boned and handsome. He was, I guessed, about thirty-five, but might have been younger. His hair was the color of buckwheat honey, his mustache darker.

Lifting him carefully, I eased his arms out of his black broadcloth coat, then removed the vest, which was dark with the stain of blood. The gold watch he carried was expensive, the most beautiful I'd seen. His gunbelt was of hand-tooled leather, and the pistol was oiled and in fine working condition. It was the pistol of a man who knew guns and used them.

I removed his tie and his collar. He was going to need help, more help than I could give him. Help of that kind in our town meant John Sampson, better at treating wounds or sickness than any of us.

The buffalo robe and the fire would warm the chill from his body, and in the meantime I would care for his horse and get John Sampson.

It had grown colder. I led the horse to the stable, stripped off its gear, rubbed it dry with a little hay, and put some more hay in the manger. Due to the smallness of the stable and the presence of our own stock, it was warm.

At the Macken house the music had stopped and everybody was eating, laughing, and talking. Ruth came toward me with a plate but I shook my head, and catching John's eye, motioned him to the door. Quietly, I told him of the wounded man, and putting down his plate he got his coat and followed me out. The youngsters did not notice, but Webb did, and so did Cain.

Leaving John to care for the stranger's wounds I went back to the stable. A thought had occurred to me: What was a man doing so far from anywhere without even a blanket roll?

The saddlebags had been heavy. Lighting a lantern, I opened them up. One contained several clean white handkerchiefs, rare in this country, and a sack containing several paper-wrapped cylinders. Each cylinder contained forty gold eagles. There were twelve of them.

There was a thin volume in some foreign tongue, a folded newspaper with a San Francisco dateline, some odds and ends, a few small coins, and some letters. I caught the name.

DRAKE MORRELL, PALACE HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO

It was a name I had heard. Curiously, I opened the newspaper. Two months old, but not much worn. I doubted he had had it long.

There was a headline over a column on an inside page:

Morrell had killed a man, and not the first one, and he had been sentenced to hang on August the twenty-ninth. It was now only a few weeks to Christmas.

Refolding the newspaper to leave no indication it had been opened, I returned everything to the saddlebags. I took his rifle from its scabbard and went back into the house.

Morrell had been stripped to the waist and the blood washed away.

The bullet went through, Sampson said, but he's lost a lot of blood and he's in bad shape. He glanced at the saddlebags. Is there a razor in there?

Before I realized it, I said, No ... no razor.

There's something wrong here, Sampson said. No bed on the horse, and this man shaved not later than yesterday. That means he must have camped somewhere within a day's ride.

Morrell stirred, the first movement I'd seen him make. He stirred and muttered something.

I'll make some soup, John said, and some coffee.

He indicated the table. I found that, too.

It was a derringer, .44 caliber. A sleeve gun with a band to fasten it to the wrist. The draw from the sleeve was one of the fastest and was fancied by gambling men.

I hung my coat over a chair and when I turned back to the wounded man his eyes were open and he was looking at me.

Better lie still. You've had a rough time of it.

'Is this the new town?

Well, it is a new town. I don't know whether it is the new town.

You have women here?

Yes.

He seemed relieved, then tried to sit up. I've got to get out of here.

Lie down, Sampson said. If you move you'll start that wound bleeding, and you haven't the blood to lose. If you start bleeding you may not last until morning.

That sounded pretty drastic, but Morrell did back down. Who found me? Where was I?

Quarter of a mile down the valley. I found you.

I followed your wagon tracks. Look, you've got to leave right now. You have to backtrack me.

It was a cold night and I had had enough of traveling in the cold. I said so.

There's two youngsters, he said, they're in a cave about seven miles south of the Sweetwater, near Oregon Buttes.

Now I knew nothing of that area, but it seemed likely to be further than he said, close to twenty miles from here. There was a chance it might be a trap.

What are they doing there?

We holed up there because there was fuel at hand, but when I realized I had no chance to make it without help, I told them to sit tight. After all, they were warm there, and I might pass out along the trail and leave them in the cold.

I knew about you people and hoped to reach you while I could still travel. I must have passed out just after I saw your lights.

How old are they?

The girl's twelve and the boy's a bit younger. Eight or nine, I'd say, and sick. He's got a bad cough and a fever. That's another reason I didn't want them in the cold.

There were a lot of questions unanswered, but Sampson was shaking his head to get me to stop talking. His story made a certain kind of sense, but I was wondering what a man sentenced to hang was doing out there, miles from nowhere, with two children obviously not his own. How do I find this place?

He told me, and he was good, I'll give him that. He knew how to pick landmarks and how to give directions. In the west that was quite a skill, for many a man traveled a thousand miles on directions given in a few minutes over a drink or traced in the sand with a stick. From the directions he gave I knew this man had covered a lot of country and knew what to notice.

I'll get my wife, Sampson said. Shell be wondering what happened.

When he had gone, I looked down at Morrell. I am going after those kids, I said, and this had better not be a trap.

Why should it be?

We buried some renegades on the hill, I said, and they have friends.

I am not one of them, he said ironically, although I expect I am enough of a renegade. I travel alone. Or did until I ran into those youngsters.

What name are you using?

He gave me a cold, intent look. That's a good question, he said. Did you have anything in mind?

A man's name is his own affair, I said, and out here a man's name is less than what he is. I looked in your saddlebags and saw a name there, but I'll call you anything you like as long as you play your cards above the table.

Fair enough. For a moment he closed his eyes. It was wasting his strength to keep him talking, but there were things I wanted to know. My name is Drake Morrell. It has always been a good name, and I'll use it.

He closed his eyes again, and I shouldered into my coat, not relishing the long ride in the cold. The last thing before I left I placed his saddlebags where his hand could rest on them.

The horse I saddled was the buckskin taken from the renegades. My own horse had been hard-used these past weeks and needed rest. The buckskin looked tough, a mustang, and a horse used to living out in all sorts of weather. He wanted to go no more than I did, but we started, a bait of grub and a roll of blankets behind the saddle.

We headed south into a night bright with stars, the wind icy cold on my face.

Ethan had pointed out the Oregon Buttes direction one time, and with what Morrell had told me, I felt sure I'd find the cave.

The day dawned cold and gray. There was no sound but the hard pound of the buckskin's hoofs on frozen snow or ground where the snow had blown away.

For the last few miles of my ride I had the Oregon Buttes to guide on, for they stood out well against the sky, towering above the country around. Closing in, I smelted smoke ... at least, they still had a fire.

The tracks of Morrel's horse led me into the draw where the cave was, only it was not exactly a cave but a walled up dugout with a hollow log for a chimney. A girl was outside picking up sticks. She straightened up, watching me with wide, dark eyes.

She was not afraid. She simply stood, waiting, to see what I was and what I wanted. She was a child, but a rarely beautiful child.