No Less Than the Journey (27 page)

CHAPTER 12

Old Charlie rode into Denver the next morning, missing seeing Aaron by less than an hour. The US Marshal had taken the train to Kansas City in order to attend a meeting there of Western marshals.

The news that the old mountain-man brought with him would ultimately have a considerable influence on Wes’s future – but this was not the reason he was uncertain of the reception he would receive from the man who had been his cross-country travelling companion. The truth was that Old Charlie still felt guilty about the manner of his parting from Wes.

His relief was evident when Wes showed delight at meeting his old friend again but the mountain-man’s expression changed when, aware that he would go to great lengths to avoid populated areas, Wes asked what had brought him to Denver.

‘I came because I have news of your uncle …’ When Wes showed delight, Old Charlie added, hurriedly, ‘… It’s not good news, Wes. In fact, it’s as bad as it could be … worse, even.’

Wes did not want to believe him. He had crossed the Atlantic specifically to join his uncle and travelled halfway across America to find him.

‘What is it, Charlie…? What have you heard?’

Old Charlie shook his head unhappily, ‘I’m afraid it’s not hearsay, boy. You see … I was with him when he died and was able to tell him you’d come out here to join him and that we’d both been looking for him. He said for me to tell you he always knew you’d make it to America – and he gave me this for you….’

He pulled a flat oilcloth pouch from inside his shirt. Travel-stained, it was incongruously tied with a length of bright scarlet ribbon.

Distressed by the news he had been given, Wes took the package from the old mountain-man and asked, ‘What is it, Charlie?’

‘It’s papers for a registered claim up in the Rockies. It’s a nice piece of land, Wes, right by a river. Your uncle was working it for gold with three partners but two of them are dead too.’

‘What did they die of, Charlie? Was it an accident? Sickness…? The weather?’ He put the last question because there had been talk of early snowfalls on the higher peaks of the mountains. Those who spoke of it recalled the men who had been trapped by snow and died in past years.

‘It was none of them, Wes,’ Charlie replied grimly, ‘They had a visit from a bunch of killers. I heard the shooting when I was up near their claim looking for a homestead site for me and a young Cheyenne squaw I’d bought from her father … that’s her ribbon around the pouch you’ve got in your hand. I went to find out what the shooting was all about. Lucky for me the Denton gang had rode off in the opposite direction, or I wouldn’t be here talking to you now.’

‘The Dentons…? Are you sure, Charlie?’

‘It wasn’t my say-so, it was your uncle’s. He was still alive when I got there. Two of his partners had been shot dead, the other one was lucky, he’d gone off to bank the gold they’d already found. He got back just as I’d finished burying the others and was carving your uncle’s name on a cross I’d made from some wood I found around the place. According to him, your uncle and the others must have been murdered for the sake of killing because there was nothing of value around the place. He’d taken all their gold to the bank and there was nothing else … at least, not much, but your uncle apologised to you in almost his last breath. He said he’d promised you the photograph of his wife and her sister – your mother – that he kept in the back of his watch. One of the Denton gang took that from him. I got the feeling he was more upset about that than what had happened to him.’

For a few moments Wes thought he would make a fool of himself in front of the old mountain-man but although his throat felt tight enough to choke him, he managed to tell Charlie that the stolen piece was a gold inscribed watch, presented to his uncle for rescuing six miners and leading them to safety after a roof fall at the three hundred fathom level in a Cornish mine. Wes added that he had valued the photo of his wife and sister even more than the watch. ‘It was a cruel thing to do to a dying man,’ he declared, adding, ‘Where do you think the Dentons were heading when they left the claim?’

‘Deeper into the Rockies,’ Charlie said, ‘but there’s no sense trying to go after ’em. They’ll show up again before long for sure. Prospectors up in the mountains live in constant fear of a visit from them, and managers of even some of the largest mines are just as scared they’ll one day come calling.’

‘How many are there in this gang?’ Wes asked.

‘I’ve heard it said there are more than twenty, but they mostly go around in groups of about half-a-dozen when they’re raiding a small prospecting camp, joining up only if they’re taking on something bigger, or when they intend raising hell in one of the mining towns.’

‘Are you going to tell Aaron about what happened up in the mountains, Charlie, and get him to go after them?’

Even as he was asking the question, Wes knew Aaron would never be able to raise a posse willing to go into the mountains to track the killers of three unknown prospectors … especially if they were told they were hunting the Denton gang. Besides, such killings were all too common out here in the Territories.

Old Charlie was talking again, ‘Any time you fancy going up into the Rockies to visit your Uncle’s grave I’ll be ready to take you – but don’t try to locate it on your own, you’d never be seen again.’

‘How will I be able to contact you?’ Wes asked.

‘You won’t,’ came the blunt reply, ‘but if you take the mine railroad up to Black Hawk and head west out of town, after a couple of hours you’ll see three peaks standing up over the ridge. Head for the right hand one and you’ll soon recognize some of the features shown on the map you’ve got with the papers on the claim. Just keep riding towards the claim and I’ll know you’re coming … no, don’t ask me how I’ll know, I just will.’

Making no attempt to question him about how he would know, Wes asked, ‘Will you be staying in Denver for a while now, Charlie?’

‘You know better than to ask me a question like that, boy. Me and towns don’t agree with each other. Besides, there’s a squaw waiting up there for me. She’s one of the most patient women I’ve ever come across but she won’t wait for ever.’

Later that evening, Old Charlie joined Wes, Anabelita and Lola for a meal in the Thespian Club’s eating-house, but he was not comfortable eating in company and said he intended returning to the mountains as soon as he had bought a few stores to help him and the Cheyenne girl he called ‘Usdi’ get through the winter months.

When Anabelita asked whether Usdi was happy living in such a remote spot, Old Charlie replied, ‘I haven’t asked her. Even if I did, I don’t think there are any Cheyenne left who are old enough to remember what happiness is. I’ll make sure she’s well-fed and clothed and has all she needs to run a home the way she wants. I’ll even take back a few gewgaws from town to please her. There’s not much more any Indian woman expects from life.’

CHAPTER 13

A few hours after Anabelita had gone to work in the Thespian Club, Old Charlie came to find Wes to tell him he was about ready to leave for the Mountains.

Wes had been thinking a great deal about what the old mountain-man had told him and, making a spur of the moment decision, he said, ‘Can you put off leaving for an hour, Charlie?’

‘I
could
… but only if you give me a good enough reason.’

‘If you wait until I’m ready, I’ll come with you. I’d like to look at my uncle’s grave and check on one or two things I’ve been thinking about. I just need to throw a few things into a saddle-bag and tell Anabelita where I’m going.’

Old Charlie was secretly delighted that Wes would be accompanying him to the mountains, but looking shrewdly at him, he asked, ‘These things you’ve been thinking about, would I be right in guessing that they have more to do with that card-dealing girl from the
Missouri Belle
than anything else?’

‘Maybe,’ Wes admitted, ‘Although it has to do with mining
too. I might decide to give something else a try … I don’t know yet.’

‘That’s the trouble with the women a man meets up with when he’s east of the Territories,’ Old Charlie said philosophically. ‘They can always find something about a man that needs changing. You should have let me find a squaw for you, boy, they accept a man for what he is and let him get on with his own life.’

About to spit out tobacco juice, Old Charlie remembered where he was. Walking to the open window he sent it into the street below before saying, ‘I suppose we all want different things from life. When you’re good and ready come and find me. I’ll be in the stable, with Nellie.’

‘Oh, before you go I want to give you this.’ Wes held out the oilcloth pouch that had belonged to his uncle.

Looking at it in puzzlement, Old Charlie asked, ‘You want me to look after it for you?’

‘No, Charlie, I want you to keep it. To have the claim. I’m not a prospector and I don’t want to become one. You once told me it was something you’ve always wanted to do, so now’s your chance. Do what you want with it, it’s yours.’

Trying to hide his delight, Old Charlie said, ‘Thank you, boy. I’ll speak to your late uncle’s partner and find out whether he means to stay up there working, with me to help him. Now, you go off and get yourself ready, but don’t be too long, I want to get clear of Denver as soon as I can. You’d better bring a couple of blankets with you too – and the warmest clothes you have. Make sure they’re good and thick. Winter’s coming close and it drops to below freezing up there come sundown.’

Wes did not doubt the old mountain-man. From Denver it was possible to see the snow that capped the tallest peaks of the Rockies and in recent days it had been gradually creeping lower.

Having decided to give the claim to Old Charlie and no longer having any obligation to return to mining, realization had come to Wes that he was now his own man. He could do whatever he wished with his life … for himself and for Anabelita. But first he wanted to pay his respects to the man who had been the brother of his late mother.

‘How long will it take to get to this claim, Charlie?’

‘If we set off real soon we can snatch a couple of hours sleep when we’re clear of Denver and be within striking distance of my cabin soon after nightfall tomorrow. That’s the time I want to arrive, so I need have no fear of having the Denton’s or any other good-for-nothings learning where I’m living.’

‘Is that a truthful estimate of how long it’s going to take, Charlie – or is it another “We’ll be in Denver in ten days” sort of story?’

Looking abashed, Old Charlie said, ‘We’ll be there when I’ve said … as long as we beat the snow.’

Anabelita was not happy with Wes’s news when he called in at the Thespian Club to tell her what he intended doing.

‘You be careful up in the mountains, Wes – and it’s not only the Denton’s you need to look out for. If your uncle hadn’t still been alive when Old Charlie found him the deaths would have been blamed on the bands of Indians who roam the Rockies. They have no reason to respect the lives of those who claim to have bought “rights” to lands where they and their people have lived for hundreds of years.’

‘I don’t think you need worry about that, Anabelita,’ Wes said, ‘I’ll be with Old Charlie. There’s little he doesn’t know about Indians.’

‘I still wish you weren’t going,’ Anabelita said unhappily, ‘but you must do what you need to do – just take care of yourself, that’s all.’

In truth, it was not only the dangers that Wes might encounter in the mountains that concerned her. She realized that up there he would probably be meeting miners … men who either earned a living, or were trying to make a living doing the work with which Wes was familiar and that he had come to the United States to continue. She was afraid that being with such men might persuade him to remain in the Rockies and not come back to her in Denver.

CHAPTER 14

Old Charlie had not lied to Wes about the time it would take to reach his cabin in the Rocky Mountains – but he had said nothing about the precarious route they would need to travel in order to get there.

Darkness was descending on the mountains when they were approaching the upper slopes and the hair on the back of Wes’s neck began to rise when the old man pointed out the track which could just be discerned clinging to the side of a sheer cliff rising thousands of feet above them.

It made it no easier when Old Charlie insisted they continue the journey after dark, declaring that a man was safer travelling in the mountains when it was impossible for any of those on the look-out for vulnerable travellers to see them.

As Old Charlie had earned the right to be called a ‘mountain-man’ and had managed to survive to a venerable, if not entirely respectable old age, Wes accepted his decision. Although never entirely at ease, he chose to be grateful that, although the moon and stars were a help to them as they picked their way along the precarious mountain-side tracks, the night cast shadows that made it impossible to see the
awesome depths of the canyon whose wall they were traversing. Some time after midnight, when they had left the narrow cliff-side track, Old Charlie led the way through a narrow defile in the mountains that would have been hard to locate even in daytime.

After pushing and pulling Old Charlie’s mule and Wes’s horse over numerous piles of fallen and broken rock, the two men came out into a narrow, uneven valley. Here, hidden among the pines was a small timber cabin that in daytime would show it was newly-built from trees felled from the pines and which had not yet had all the gaps between logs caulked with mud.

Pausing when still some paces from the door, Old Charlie emitted a number of shrill whistles. At the third signal, a female figure appeared at the doorway of the cabin and Wes could see that it was an Indian woman.

‘Let her take your horse,’ Old Charlie said, ‘She’ll turn it loose and it’ll find good grass up here and come to no harm. There’s only one way in and out and no horse is going to try to climb those rock falls. There’s no fear of wolves, either, they don’t come up this way. As for grizzlies … I’ve shot out all that were here.’

Handing his horse to the care of the silent Indian woman, Wes entered the cabin and was relieved to find a fire burning in the fireplace. His hands were so cold they had become numb and his ears were tingling painfully.

He was seated beside the fire on a pine log stool, with a steaming mug of coffee in his hands when Usdi returned from attending to the horses and immediately began to cook venison in a pan, at the same time making a hash of potatoes mixed with a vegetable he failed to recognize.

Usdi spoke no other language than Cheyenne, so the only way he could show appreciation for her cooking was to eat
every scrap and it proved to be no hardship.

She was older than Wes had imagined she would be. He guessed her to be in her early thirties but she still showed signs of the beauty she must have possessed as a younger woman.

Although she had been awakened in the middle of the night to cook for her man and someone who was a total stranger to her, she seemed not to resent it. In fact, at no time did Wes see her show any emotion whatsoever.

After the two men had eaten she made up a hay bed covered with blankets for Wes in a corner of the room. Then, after adding a number of logs to the fire, she and Old Charlie went to bed in a small, doorless room situated at the other end of the simple cabin.

The next morning, after a substantial breakfast, Wes set off from the frost-dusted valley with Old Charlie, heading for the claim where his uncle had died and was buried.

The place proved to be much closer to the cabin where he had spent the night than Wes had envisaged. Once they had made their way through the narrow defile and Old Charlie had reconnoitred the immediate vicinity to ensure no one was around to see them emerge, they rode for no more than forty minutes before arriving at the more accessible and smaller mountain hollow that was the last resting place of Cornishman Peter Rowse.

They were met by a cautious man who had obviously been panning in the stream which ran through the small valley. He had run into a small and ramshackle cabin when he heard their approach and now emerged pointing a shotgun menacingly in their direction.

Recognizing Old Charlie, his relief was apparent and he greeted the old mountain-man warmly, saying, ‘It’s good to see you again, Charlie. I haven’t spoken to a soul since I last
saw you, and when I heard you coming I was afraid it might be some of the Denton gang returning.’

‘If they were to come back now you couldn’t have anyone better than the young man I’ve brought to meet you, Daniel. This here’s Wesley Curnow. He shot and killed two of the Denton brothers in Lauraville, when they were trying to make the sheriff dance to the tune of a six-gun. He also happens to be the nephew of your late partner, Peter Rowse … Wes, meet Daniel Pike.’

Grasping Wes’s hand, the prospector said sorrowfully, ‘I’m sorry your uncle isn’t alive to greet you, Wesley, there was hardly a day passed when he didn’t wonder whether it was going to be the day you’d arrive from the Cornwall he hoped one day to return to as a rich man. He thought a whole lot of you.’

‘And I of him,’ Wes replied, ‘but … where is he buried?’

Pointing to where three primitive crosses stood sentinel over three small mounds of earth rising above the grass at the foot of a tall bluff, Pike said, ‘Charlie made your uncle’s cross, I did the same for the other two.’

Wes walked over to the three graves and was moved by the care Old Charlie had taken in carving his uncle’s name on the horizontal bar of the cross marking his grave.

Dropping to his knees beside it, he tried to remember the words of some of the prayers that had been said at funerals of his mother and father and victims of mine disasters, but could think of nothing that suited either the manner of his uncle’s death, or the place where he had been wounded and left to die. Eventually, he simply clasped his hands together and mumbled all the prayers he could remember them reciting together in the Wesleyan chapel on the edge of Bodmin Moor.

Rising to his feet when he had done, he saw Old Charlie and Daniel Pike poring over the papers he had given to the
mountain-man.

Throwing Wes a sympathetic glance, Pike said, ‘Do you feel easier in your mind now you’ve been able to visit Peter’s grave?’

‘I’d feel a whole lot better if I knew his killers were going to be caught,’ he replied.

‘There’s little chance of that,’ the prospector said, ‘You’d never learn which of the gang did it … Not that it makes any difference, they’re all as bad as one another. There’s not one of them that doesn’t have at least one murder to his name. I’d say you’ve already done enough to avenge Peter – but that reminds me, I’ve a few of his things here, though they’re mainly clothes, the Denton’s made off with anything of value.’

‘You keep any that you might be able to use,’ Wes said, ‘but are you going to stay up here after what’s happened?’

‘I had half a mind to move on,’ Pike said, ‘but Charlie says he’ll come and help me to work the claim, going back to his own place each night. I’ll get me a dog to keep me company at night and warn me if anyone comes around … but that reminds me, there’s money in the bank down at Central. A quarter of it was Peter’s, but it’s yours now. Do you have a bank I can put it in for you when I go down to Central and have the money belonging to the others sent on to their families?’

‘Not at the moment,’ Wes replied, ‘but next time you go there, draw out whatever you think was due to Uncle Peter and Charlie can bring it to Denver next time he comes there.’

‘Do you reckon you’ll be staying in Denver long enough for me to get it to you?’ Old Charlie asked.

‘I don’t plan moving on just yet, Charlie, so I guess the answer is “yes”.’

‘There’s no accounting for taste,’ Old Charlie said, sarcastically, ‘but Denver’s quieter than some of the mining
camps up this way.’

‘Talking of mining …’ Wes addressed Daniel Pike, ‘What are they taking out of the ground around here? I wouldn’t have thought there was enough gold to make it worth the expense of working a deep, hard-rock mine just for that.’

‘You’re probably right,’ Pike replied, ‘Just lately they’ve been making the most of whatever comes out of the ground but there seems to be far more silver than they realized was in the ground.’

‘I thought that might be so,’ Wes said, ‘I was looking at some of the waste taken out of your claim here. If you ever decide you’ve taken out all the gold there is to be had you might be able to interest one of the big companies in buying you out.’

‘That might be good news for the future,’ Old Charlie said, ‘but when we’ve taken out all the gold that’s here I hope Daniel will have enough money to do everything he wants and can go away and forget all about the claim. I’ve found a place that will keep me happy for the few years I’ve got left. I don’t want to share it with no clattering mine and a whole bunch of noisy, quarrelling miners. Remember that, Daniel, when the gold runs out.’