Luke's Gold (11 page)

 

Levi Crabtree knelt motionless as he watched from the screen provided by the lower boughs of a massive fir. The object that had captured his attention was bobbing gently against a small boulder in the middle of the river, and he could now confirm that it was a body. He had heard the shots fired a short distance upstream from where he now crouched, and his first impulse was to gather up his traps and seek the cover of the fir trees that stood by the bank of the river.

Watching what he now knew was a body bumping repeatedly against the boulder, he could not be sure if the victim was alive or dead. If he were to guess, he would say the man was dead. His instincts of self-preservation told him to remain still, and the river would carry the corpse away. The party responsible for the killing might show up at any minute looking for the body. His natural curiosity won the battle, however, and when the current finally swept the body around the boulder, Levi decided to take a closer look. Besides, he reasoned, there may be something of value on it.

Speculating that he had ample time to wade out to intercept the corpse before the current floated it past him, he scanned the riverbanks carefully before leaving his hiding place. He owed his longevity in the mountains to the fact that nobody knew he was there, and already he was beginning to wonder if it had been a mistake to venture this far from the safety of the high peaks. With the body almost to him now, he pushed out into the water, being careful not to lose his footing on the slippery rocks of the riverbed. With one hand, he reached out and snagged the body by the collar, and quickly pulled it back to the bank and the cover of the firs.

He's dead, all right,
Levi thought at first glance.
Young fellow, shot through the chest, blood still seeping through the hole in his shirt. The thought struck him as strange. He's dead, but his heart's still pumping.
He dragged the man out of the water and up under the limbs of the fir. He looked at the face, drained of color except for a blue shading around the eyes and mouth.

A cursory glance at the body told Levi that there was nothing of value to be salvaged—no weapon or ammunition, not even a knife. He decided to leave the corpse under the limbs of the fir tree and start back up the mountain, but he hesitated, still intrigued by the continuous bleeding from the wound. As he stared at the young face, wondering what circumstances caused him to wind up floating down the river, he suddenly recoiled. Had the body just twitched, or was it his imagination? In the next moment, the body stiffened in spasm, then relaxed, and river water gushed from its mouth.

Astonished, Levi didn't know what to do, but he determined to do something. For lack of a better idea, he turned the body over on its stomach and began pounding on its back, hoping to force more water out.

 

Alive or dead, he wasn't certain. He didn't even know what had happened. Everything had suddenly gone black. When his mind began to function again, he had found himself facedown in the water, and he seemed to be drifting. He remembered that his first impulse was to hold his breath, and when he tried to turn his face out of the water, he couldn't move. The only thing he could think to do was to continue to hold his breath. That was his last clear thought before blacking out again.

He awoke with a cough and with someone or something pounding his back. As water spewed from his mouth and nose, he realized that he was on solid ground. The pounding stopped and he was rolled over on his back. He stared up at a dark form hovering over him. His eyes slowly began to focus; the murky features gradually became more clearly defined, and he found himself gazing into the clear blue eyes of a stranger. The face that stared back at him was thin, almost gaunt, with a dark beard liberally streaked with gray.

Not a word was exchanged for a long moment while each man stared at the other with confused curiosity. Suddenly aware of the throbbing in his chest, Cade struggled to sit upright, but fell back when the movement caused a fiery stab of pain to shoot through his body. His mind shifted back to those last moments by the riverbank when he heard Loco warning him that someone was approaching. “Luke!” he uttered, not sure if his partner was nearby.

“Don't know who Luke is, young feller,” Levi said. “I just fished you outta the river.” He was still amazed that the corpse he had pulled from the current was speaking to him.

“What happened? Where's Luke?”

“Can't help you there, friend,” Levi said, “but what happened is you've been shot.” He studied Cade for a few moments as if trying to make up his mind. “I reckon since you've come back to life, we oughta do somethin' about that hole in your chest before you die again.” In his mind, Levi was damning his luck for deciding to venture down out of the mountains on this day. If he hadn't been there, this fellow would have simply floated on down the river, and stayed dead like fate intended. On the other hand, his conscience worried him with the possibility that it was fate that sent him down from the mountains today. One thing that Levi felt certain about was that the young man was dead when he pulled him up on the bank.
Dead as last week's horse turds,
he thought,
unless he's got gills, and I don't see any.
He had never had any dealings with somebody who came back from the dead, and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with the situation.

“Luke, my partner,” Cade forced weakly. “We musta got jumped by somebody.” He feared Luke had met with the same fate as he.

His decision made, Levi pulled a bandanna from around his neck and stuffed it inside Cade's soggy shirt to control the bleeding. He'd do the best he could for the unfortunate soul, not knowing if he was helping an innocent victim or an outlaw. “My name's Levi,” he said. “I don't know nothin' about your partner. I heard the shots, four or five of 'em, so I expect you're right. You musta got jumped by somebody.”

Details came rushing back to Cade's mind of the moments just before he was shot—the sixteen pouches on the bank, Loco's warning that other horses were approaching. They had been attacked, all right, but by whom, and what had been Luke's fate? “My name's Cade Hunter,” he told Levi, “and I need to get back to my partner. If you can help me get on my feet, I've got to find out what happened to Luke.”

“You plan on walkin'?” Levi asked, more than a little skeptical. “I ain't got no horse. I mean, I got one, but he ain't between my legs right now.”

“If I have to, I'll walk,” Cade insisted.

“I'll help you if I can,” Levi said, “but you don't look like you'll get very far, and we'd best be on the lookout for whoever shot you. Them shots I heard sounded mighty close. How do we know they ain't lookin' for you?”

“Maybe they think I'm dead, like you did, else they'd most likely have already been down here lookin' for me.”

“I expect you could be right,” Levi allowed. “Them shots sounded mighty close, though.” He reached down to give Cade a hand. “We'll give 'er a try.”

After a painful struggle, Cade was able to get to his feet. He tried to walk with Levi's help, but they both saw right away that he wasn't going to be able to make it, even for a short distance. They finally ended up with Cade riding piggyback, but even that was too much for Levi with a rifle and traps to carry as well. After hiding his traps to be picked up later, Levi was able to carry Cade to the site of the assault, but only after stopping to rest twice. Each stop made it more difficult for Levi to load Cade up on his back again, and by the time he reached the clearing by the riverbank, he was staggering under his burden, and Cade was almost too weak to sit up.

“Glory be,” Levi murmured when he saw the scene left behind by Lem Snider. Not one, but three bodies lay on the grassy bank above the rock. “They're all dead,” he said between gasps for air. He instinctively looked around him, fearful that the men responsible might even then be watching them.

The prospect that Luke was dead had already struck Cade, but he had held out hope that maybe there was a chance that, like him, Luke had somehow survived the attack. Now his first assumption after finding three bodies was that Luke had taken two of their assailants with him. When Levi had lowered Cade to the ground beside the first body, he recognized the man as one of the three that Luke had sought to avoid back in Coulson. He looked beyond to the body of Curly Jenkins. A short distance from the other two, Cade recognized Luke's body. The one missing was Lem Snider. Cade remembered the name. He had heard Luke repeat it enough, and it was easy to speculate on what had taken place here. “Lem Snider”—he repeated the name to make sure he never forgot it. He could logically tell himself that there was nothing he could have done to prevent Luke's death. But he could not escape a feeling that he had let Luke down. The best he could do now was to make a silent vow to his late partner that he would not rest until he found the man who murdered him. He turned to Levi then. “I can't leave him out here like this.”

Levi frowned, not sure what this stranger expected of him. He had already carried him almost half a mile on his back. After a moment, he said, “Well, I ain't got nothin' to dig a grave with.” He paused, then, “Let alone three graves.” He gestured toward the bodies. “Hell, the buzzards will take care of 'em.”

“I don't care about the other two,” Cade said. “I just don't want the buzzards to get Luke's body.” Luke was the only real friend he'd ever had. He couldn't abandon him to be a banquet for carrion.

You're wanting a helluva lot for a helpless man with a bullet in your chest,
Levi thought. Still, he had to admit that, in his place, he would feel the same for a friend. To Cade, he said, “Tell you what, I'll fetch some rocks from the river to keep the buzzards off of him. That's about the best I can do.”

“I appreciate it,” Cade replied. “I'm sorry to put you out so much. I wouldn't blame you if you'd just gone on about your business and left me to the buzzards, too.” Levi nodded thoughtfully, admitting to himself that he had given it some consideration.

Not really sure if he was going to live or die, Cade could only lie against a tree trunk and watch while Levi brought rocks up from the edge of the water and entombed Luke's body. The pain in his chest was increasing as he lay there, and he was fighting a desire to close his eyes, but he was determined to see Luke properly protected. As he watched Levi laboring with the burial, he remembered Luke telling him that the prospect of finding the gold had taken hold of his mind, and he didn't want to end up a poor man. The thought occurred to him that Luke had, in ironic fashion, had his wish fulfilled. He had died a rich man even though his wealth had been brief.

Satisfied that the body was safe from predators, Levi pushed his hat back and scratched his head while he thought about a more serious problem. “The worrisome thing now is what to do with you. You can't walk, and I sure as hell can't carry you up in them mountains to my place. If somebody'd told me I was gonna have to tote a man up to my place, I'da rode my horse.” He looked at Cade, studying the problem in his head. “I reckon I could leave you here while I go get my horse. You think you'd be all right?” He knew if he was going to doctor the man properly, he would need the healing skills of his wife, a full-blood Blackfoot woman.
This was one time when I wish I'd stayed the hell away from the river,
he thought.
No beaver, no muskrat—just a fellow with a hole in his chest, and me with no way to carry him home.

Though his Samaritan was trying not to show it, Cade sensed that Levi was regretting fishing him from the river. “Friend, you've already done a helluva lot for me. I don't reckon I've got much choice but to stay here.” He could feel his voice growing weaker as he spoke. “If I'm still alive when you get back, then that's the way it's supposed to be. If I'm dead, no hard feelin's.”

Levi started to reply when suddenly he was startled by a sound behind him. He immediately dropped to one knee and grabbed his rifle, fearful that the murderer had returned. “Well, I'll be . . .” he began, then gaped in disbelief as a horse slowly approached from the trees, saddled with a rifle in the sling and a gun belt hung on the saddle horn.

Equally astonished, Cade rose up on his elbow to find that Loco had returned to find his master. “That's my horse,” he rasped weakly.

Levi stepped aside, and watched dumbfounded as the piebald gelding walked slowly up to stand over the man lying on the ground, and nudged Cade's belly with its muzzle. “Well, I reckon that takes care of our problem, don't it?” He looked at Cade and grinned.

With Levi's help, Cade managed to get up in the saddle, but got less than a hundred yards before realizing he couldn't make it. In actuality, it was Levi who decided when he saw fresh blood seeping through the crusted hole in Cade's shirt and him starting to list to one side. Levi caught him just before he fell off the horse. With a small hand ax that he carried on his belt, Levi was able to fashion a travois to carry the wounded man. It was a patchwork contraption held together with rope from Cade's saddle and some vines from the trees. Loco didn't like it at first, but with Cade's calming voice to settle him down, the horse finally accepted the strange attachment. “It'll be a heap longer goin' up than the way I came down this mornin',” Levi said. “With the horse and travois, we'll have to wind around a lot before we get to my place, but it's doable.”

The trip up the mountain seemed endless to the wounded man as the makeshift transport bumped along over roots and small stones, each jolt bringing a sharp pain shooting through his chest. The trail wound back and forth across the mountain with turns sometimes so steep that it was all Cade could do to keep from rolling off. Before he was halfway up, he began to wish that he had just told Levi to leave him to die by the river.