Gather My Horses (23 page)

The galoot, as Adler called him, came forward with his fists up. He had his head lifted, and his front teeth showed in the sneering smile he wore. Fielding raised his own fists and came within five feet of his opponent. Each man began to circle to the left. Fielding had the impression that Foote was not as nimble in heeled riding boots as he would like, and he stumbled on a raised root from a pine tree.

Fielding leaned forward and put some spring in his step. He danced in, threw a jab that didn't land, and bounced out. He tried the move a second time, caught the man flat-footed, and came right back in with a punch that landed. Foote came around and squared off, then lunged forward with a left that grazed Fielding's cheekbone. Fielding skipped out of range, bounced to his right, came back to his left, sprang in with a jab, and stepped back out. Foote was taking slow, heavy steps as he followed.

Fielding continued to move back and forth, widening the arc. When he caught the man with one foot almost square in front of the other, he moved straight in and landed three fast punches in a row. As he backed out, Foote rushed him in a charge of fury. Fielding ducked and caught a glancing blow on the right side of the head, then came up and around and hooked a left into Foote's jaw. The big man stumbled, as he had been moving forward and the punch knocked him off course. He came
up and around, his weight back on his heels. Fielding rushed him, getting clobbered on the ear as he did, but he succeeded in knocking the man off balance as he stepped backward. Fielding hit him square in the mouth, and the man fell to the ground.

Foote came up to his hands and knees, as if he was trying to think of what to do next, and Fielding took advantage of the moment.

“You can get up if you want,” he said, “but you're not going to beat me. The best you'll do is land a few more good ones, but you'll get at least that much back. I don't think you've got it in you to settle it with a gun, but I'm takin' this, just in case.” He moved to the man's horse and pulled the .45 Colt from the holster. Then he spoke again. “You might think you could, and you might be able to squeeze off a shot before the whole thing came to you, but let me tell you something. This isn't your game. They took you on, but what they want is another Mahoney. Here's what he did. He picked a fight with my wrangler, Ed Bracken, and shot him down. Then he took some potshots at me, and he got some lead in return. He died of it—infection, blood poisoning, you tell me. But he died miserable and stupid because he wanted to be a hard man. If you want to do that, get yourself another gun and stay on with this outfit. See how far it gets you. But I don't think you want to kill anyone, much less get killed yourself. The best thing you can do is go back where you came from. There's nothin' wrong with it.”

Foote stood up. “I hate you. I want to pound you into the dirt.”

“That's all right, too. But you don't want to kill
me. These others folks would like you to, so you can be their dummy.” Fielding went to the buckskin and put the extra six-gun in his saddlebag. As he untied the horse, he said, “Don't follow me. Go back home. As for this, you didn't lose a fight today. You just didn't win.”

Foote had a glare in his eyes, but Fielding did not think the man would follow. What made him vain would also help him see that it wasn't worth it.

Fielding sat up late that night, wrapped in his blankets and holding his pistol in his lap. He did not have a fire. Sooner or later, Pence would come to harass him, he was sure of that. He doubted that Pence would take the chance of getting shot in the night, but he wasn't going to leave the door wide-open. Again he had tied all the horses after letting them graze for a while. He had not set up his sleeping tent because he did not want to shut out any sounds and he did not want to provide a white target. So he sat against a pine tree with his horses around him like a sentry line.

He dozed off and on, fell into longer stretches of sleep. He heard the horses move and snuffle, and the stamp of a hoof would bring him awake. Then he would drift again.

The chattering of a squirrel woke him to the gray sky of morning. He counted the dark shapes of horses. All there. He held still and listened. Then the sound came, the tramp of a deer. Three steps and a pause, four more steps. After another pause, the deer came into the clearing where the horses had grazed the night before. It was a good-sized blacktail with antlers in velvet, one side larger than
the other. The buck poked his head forward with each step as he crossed the clearing.

Fielding sat a few minutes more, then tossed the blankets aside and got started on the day. He watered the horses two at a time at the creek bed, where he saw the tracks of the deer pressed into the mud and light gravel. He grained the horses in their feed bags, and as daylight came to the canyon he put on the packsaddles and tied on the loads.

He was used to losing an hour when he had to pack up camp and get all the horses ready by himself, but on this day he wished he had gotten an earlier start. Today's stretch was going to take him up the side of the mountain, and it was going to be a long, hot haul.

Fielding knew where the narrow climb began. He rested the horses, checked all the packs and lashes, and started again. Before long they were going up the worn path of powdery dust and chipped rocks.

The buckskin was surefooted, and he watched the trail. The drop-off to the left did not seem to bother him, and he moved along at a steady pace. Fielding held the lead rope in his left hand and the reins in his right, a little awkward but a good precaution. He hoped he did not have to get down from the horse at any point, such as to roll a rock out of the way, and he hoped most of all not to come upon a snake or a washout.

In many places there was not room to step down and go around a horse. If the buckskin saw a snake and did not spook, Fielding would have to dismount, go as light-footed as possible, and try to get the snake with the shovel. Shooting was out of the question. Unless he had a big rock and a sure
target, it was not a good idea to try that method, either. All he would have would be a mad rattler on the side of the trail. If the buckskin saw a snake first and did spook—Fielding did not like to think of that.

In the case of a washout, where the trail ended with a gap too broad to cross, he would have a long ordeal in trying to back eight horses down a narrow trail. There were two ways out of this canyon—the way he had come, and the way he was going. In some places a man might climb up on the right, but Fielding could not see how far. He did know that when he climbed a steep mountain on foot, he could never see very far ahead, and when he thought he was nearing the top, he often learned he still had a long ways to go.

Fielding had plenty to think about, then, as he led the pack string up the side of the mountain. When he had a moment clear, he would turn in the saddle and count the seven shifting packs as the horses labored up the trail.

He thought he was nearing the top, because the ground sloped up and away on his right, and the gap in front was clear sky. If it was the top, he could pull the animals off the trail and let them rest.

The idea vanished when the buckskin jumped and took off in a scramble. The lead rope pulled from Fielding's hand, and he leaned forward to get his balance. He took hold of the reins with his left hand and got the horse stopped. The trail was wide enough, so he jumped down and looked back at this string. The horses were pushing and grunting, jostling the packs on the uphill side of the trail. Fielding heard something like a crashing sound from the
canyon below. He thought an elk might have crossed the trail in back of the horses, but then he counted his animals through the thin cloud of dust. A jolt came to the pit of his stomach when he saw that he had only five. The dark horse had gone over and taken the brown with it.

He could see the empty space at the end of the line where the horses should be. This was worse than a hell of a fix. He needed to get these other horses out of the way so he could go back and check on the two that were gone. The thought of edging past five restless animals on a ledge made him uneasy. Dropping the reins of the buckskin, he walked back to the first packhorse, the gray, and pulled the lead rope from where it lay dragging between the horse's feet.

Holding the rope at its knotted end, he led the string of five horses up the trail. He took the reins of the saddle horse in his right hand and kept walking. A quarter of a mile farther, he came out to an open area of rocks and low bushes with timber farther back. He ground-hitched the buckskin and tied the lead rope to a dead log. Then he went back to check on the other two.

The day was warm and still, about straight-up noon. It could take him hours to straighten up this mess, unless the worst had happened and the two horses were a total loss. He walked along the trail, passing the spot where he had gotten off his horse. The ground was plenty marked up from the spooked and crowded horses. Then he found the place where scuff marks went over the edge.

It was a steep drop-off here, and he knelt to look over. He found the packs first, white spots against
jagged gray boulders, a good two hundred feet below. The dark horse lay belly-up, and the brown horse was on its right side with its head downhill out of view. Both horses were motionless, and Fielding was trying to calculate whether it was worth the time and effort of going down the cliff to salvage the panniers and what was left of the Half Moon's camp grub.

He heard the crunch of footsteps and the jingle of spurs.

Pushing back from the verge, he stood up and turned to see the blocky form and tall hat of George Pence.

“What's got you stuck, packer?” Pence kept walking forward.

“What's it look like?”

Pence did not stop, but he slowed down. “Looks to me like you lost somethin'.”

“Not without help.”

“Maybe you'd like some help gettin' down there with 'em—Nah, nah. Don't touch that gun, or I'll have to go for mine. Make a lot of noise, put a hole through you.”

That was the plan, Fielding thought. To throw him over without putting a hole in him would make it look like an accident. It might look suspicious, but it wouldn't call for an investigation. Fielding moved from the middle of the trail toward the bank on the uphill side.

Pence came forward, his hand hovering over the butt of his gun.

Fielding held his right hand up and out, his left up and closer to his hat. He could see Pence's side whiskers in the shade of the hat brim, and he could
see the dull eyes keeping track of the raised right hand as he closed in.

Fielding's left thumb and first two fingers found the head of the needle in his hatband. His right hand stayed free as a decoy. As Pence raised his arms and moved in for the bear hug, Fielding pulled out the four-inch needle and plunged the blade into the center of Pence's abdomen, right below the spot where the ribs met. After a second, he pulled the needle back.

The eyes widened in the beefy face as Pence straightened up and drew back, his arms widening and falling away. Fielding hit him with everything he could put into a right punch. Dropping the needle, he followed with a left. Pence seemed to be dazed but stayed on his feet, moving back a few inches with each heel. Then he gasped a breath and lunged forward, mauling with his big fists until he caught Fielding on the left side of the head and knocked his hat off.

Fielding pulled back to avoid another punch. He ducked, moved, and came up. Pence seemed to be fighting on instinct, coming after his opponent with sheer power. Fielding went low, came in under the taller man's grasp, and drove his shoulder into Pence's midsection. The man let out a groan of pain and slammed a fist into Fielding's kidney area. Fielding lifted with his shoulder, pushed back, and sent the big man sprawling on the ground. The tall hat rolled aside, and Pence struggled onto his left elbow.

Fielding saw a small dark spot forming on the man's shirt, but he knew he couldn't wait and see
whether Pence was bleeding inside. He piled on as the man's right hand moved toward his pistol butt.

Pence reached up and grabbed Fielding's chin between his thumb and fingers. With his left hand he reached for Fielding's hair and closed his fingers.

Fielding smashed at the heavy face and pulled back, getting his head free. Then he pushed up and away, ready for Pence to rise.

He did not think Pence knew how close he was to the edge, for the man got his legs under him and took half a step back as he came up. He had nothing but a backdrop of empty air as Fielding planted a foot and feinted.

Pence raised his fists and stepped back, then clawed the air as he fell out of view.

Fielding stood away from the edge, pulling in deep breaths and trying to steady his hands by leaning over and placing them on his knees. In a couple of minutes he felt calmed down enough to look over.

Pence lay a ways uphill from the rest of the wreck. He was sprawled out facedown with his head turned to the side.

Fielding stepped back again, found Pence's high-crowned hat, and sailed it over the edge. After picking up his own hat, he looked for the needle until he found the shiny blade in the dirt. As he poked the instrument back into his hatband, he thought, it was just a little hole, and it didn't go all the way through.

Up on top again with his remaining horses, Fielding sat on a log to collect himself. He drank from his canteen and wished he could find a place to wash up. The horses nearest to him, the buckskin and the gray, showed no curiosity, but he knew he was dirty, bruised, scraped, and disheveled. When he had rested awhile, he stood up and brushed himself off with the flat of his hand. He tucked in his shirt and straightened his trouser legs, then rubbed his face downward with his hands. He had to get going again.

Of the many thoughts that crossed his mind as he rode along, one was that Pence had picked a good place for his sabotage. The drop-off was as steep as anywhere along the trail, and the rocks at the bottom would do what the initial fall didn't. If Fielding had wanted to go down in there, he would have had to descend from farther up or down the trail and then pick his way through a boulder field. From there he would have had to carry anything he wanted to salvage. He supposed at least one of the two crossbuck packsaddles had been smashed, and even if he were able to haul out some of his gear, he would have to leave it somewhere near the
trail until he came back this way. As for the cow camp supplies, he was sorry for that loss, and he did not know how much of it he could recover or would be willing to carry up out of the canyon.