The End of the Trail (2 page)

He made a gesture and said, “My fellow passengers don't seem too happy to be here.”

She turned and went back to the kitchen abruptly, as though he hadn't spoken; or as though what he said had offended her.

Morris took a sip of coffee and frowned down at his cup. With the heavy outer door closed, it was very silent inside the cafe. Morris finished his coffee and rolled a cigarette. He lit it and went over to the stove and picked up his valise. As though this were a signal, the woman came out of the kitchen and around the end of the counter. She said, “This way,” and opened a side door leading to the rear.

Morris went toward her with his valise, saying, “I haven't paid for my coffee.”

She said, “You'll want supper,” holding the door open for him to precede her along a narrow hallway built along the side of the log house. Her voice was remote now, withdrawn, and her lashes were lowered so she didn't meet his eyes as he passed her.

It was quite dark in the windowless hallway. She left the door open behind them and enough light came from the dining room to outline the passageway. It made a sharp turn to the left after Morris had gone about twenty feet. The woman was close behind him, and as he hesitated at the turn, she said, “This is the vacant room,” reaching past him to open a door directly in front of him.

Dusk filtered through an uncurtained window at the opposite side of the small room. Morris stepped aside to let her enter in front of him, and she struck a match on the door facing as she went in. The air inside the room was cold and stale. She moved to a rude chest of drawers at one side and put flame to a short candle sitting in a saucer.

There was a small wood stove in one corner of the room, a straight chair and a narrow built-in bed. She went to the stove and crouched before it to strike another match on the bare floor, saying over her shoulder, “I keep a fire laid in the stove but I didn't know there'd be anyone here tonight.”

She touched fire to a twist of paper protruding from an open damper at the front of the stove. The flame was sucked in greedily, and pine kindling crackled hearteningly.

Nate Morris stepped inside the small room and set his valise at the head of the bed. The woman got up slowly from her crouching position in front of the stove. She seemed suddenly aged and weary, as though all the resilient strength had ebbed from her splendid body since he had first seen her in the dining room. The flickering yellow light from the candle cast shadows across her face, making it look drawn and haggard. She faced him for a moment without speaking, regarding him with somber intentness.

Heat from the small stove began to fill the room and the fire was a low, comforting roar behind her. Nate Morris tore his eyes away from her searching gaze and got cigarette papers and tobacco from his pocket. He said, “This will be fine.” And then, carefully forming a cigarette, “You haven't told me your name.”

“I'm Karen Larson.” She clasped her hands together in front of her. “Will you be in Sanctuary Flat long?”

He said, “That depends,” and lit his cigarette.

“On what?” There was a throbbing note of impatience in her voice.

Nate Morris blew out a cloud of smoke and smiled widely. It was an ingenuous, friendly sort of smile, but Karen Larson did not respond to it.

“A lot of things,” he said quietly. “Have you been here long?”

She said, “Yes,” unclasping her hands and making a nervous gesture. “I must get back to the kitchen.” She hurried past him and he turned his head to watch her.

She hesitated in the doorway and turned back. Her voice was strong and throaty again, though her eyes remained dolorous. “The room will be two dollars … in advance.”

He said, “It's well worth that,” and unbuttoned his mackinaw to reach into his hip pocket.

Karen said, “You can pay me when you have supper,” and turned and went down the passage.

He stood very still and listened to the firm tread of her retreating footsteps. He didn't move until he heard the door into the dining room close. Then he closed his own door and dropped a wooden bar into place. He hesitated and glanced across at the single window, then walked across to peer out. It was already quite dark outside. He could faintly see the dim outline of towering mountains rising from the floor of the valley not more than a mile away. There were no curtains at the window, no shade that could be drawn.

He went back to his valise and opened it, got out a folded woolen shirt and carried it back to the window. By unbuttoning the shirt and hooking it over a small protruding stub in one of the logs, he contrived to cover the opening so no one could see in from the outside.

The small room was becoming quite hot. He knelt and closed the damper in front of the stove, then went back to the bed, drawing a pair of silver-mounted pistols from canvas holsters cunningly sewed inside the slanting pockets of his mackinaw. His face was bleak as he laid the guns on the bed and shucked off the heavy coat.

He rummaged inside his valise and got out a leather harness which he slipped over his shoulders and buckled tightly around his chest. The leather harness carried two armpit holsters into which he fitted the silver-mounted weapons.

He got a short leather jacket from his valise and slipped into it, buttoning the two bottom buttons so the strap across his chest was hidden, but leaving the top of the jacket open to permit a fast shoulder draw with either hand.

He folded his mackinaw neatly and laid it across the foot of the bed, unbarred the door and opened it, then blew out the candle and went out to get acquainted with Sanctuary Flat.

2

Three kerosene lamps swinging from unhewed log rafters lighted the interior of the saloon next door to Karen Larson's cafe. Inside the conventional swinging doors was a small entry closed by a second solid door to keep out the cold.

Nate Morris pushed the second door open and walked in. A blast of foul, hot air struck him in the face. The saloon was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long. The bar, running the length of the room, consisted of a single huge log, split in the middle to give a flat surface more than two feet wide and supported by four short lengths of sawed logs ranged along the floor.

Two groups of men stood at the bar when Morris walked in. Three men were close together at the far end, leaning on the bar with whisky glasses in front of them. Ten feet separated them from the group of five at the near end.

The largest group consisted of Henderson and his two helpers from the railroad pens, and the two young punchers whom Morris had seen in the cafe. The three at the other end were strangers to him. The bartender was a thin little man, bald-headed, with a long hooked nose. He sat on a high stool at the end of the bar and surveyed the newcomer out of watery blue eyes as the door closed behind Morris.

Henderson turned to look at him and raised a big hand with a hearty smile of welcome. “Come on in, Norris. I'm settin' up the drinks.”

“The name's Morris,” Nate said. “Don't mind if I do.”

One of Henderson's hands, a tall, saturnine fellow with close-set eyes, moved aside to make room for him at the bar. The bartender slid off his stool to set a glass and a bottle of red whisky in front of him.

“Been gettin' fixed up with Mrs. Larson?” Henderson asked as Morris poured a drink.

Morris said, “She's letting me have a room for tonight.”

“Didn't need to do that,” Henderson reproved him genially. “Meant to tell you we could fix you up out to the ranch. Don't often have visitors on Sanctuary Flat from the outside.”

Morris said, “Thanks just the same.” He lifted his glass and nodded. “Mud in your eye.” He drank and set the empty glass down.

He looked down along the bar as he did so, and met three pair of eyes regarding him with smoldering but undisguised hostility. Two of the three men were heavily bearded, with black, untrimmed whiskers. They were big, hulking men, well over six feet in height, and looked like twins, dressed exactly alike to accentuate the impression. They wore long shaggy wolfskin coats reaching below their knees, and round, coonskin caps that came down low on their foreheads. The third man was younger and slighter, cleanly shaved except for a luxuriant black mustache. His head was bare, showing coarse, black hair as long as a woman's, pulled back smoothly from his face and tied in a knot at the back of his head with a buckskin thong. He wore a short goatskin jacket with the hair on the outside, and breeches with tight legs that appeared to be made out of beautifully tanned calfskin. A wide cartridge belt was slung over his right shoulder supporting a holstered .45 under his left arm. He was scowling venomously down the bar, and his eyes showed the same hatred as his two bearded companions.

Altogether, they were the queerest-looking trio Nate Morris had ever come up against. He stared at them for a moment, taking in their uncouth appearance, and then turned to look at Henderson with raised eyebrows that asked an unspoken question.

Henderson chuckled loudly and nudged him in the side. “I reckon you ain't acquainted with Hey, You and Slim.”

Morris shook his head dubiously. He muttered, “I'll buy one,” and shoved the bottle toward the boss of the TB ranch. Henderson filled both glasses. He explained in a loud voice that ignored the presence of the trio at the end of the bar: “They come out of their cave like the bears when it warms up in the spring. They're sort of teched in the head, but we don't mind 'em none. Leave us alone an' run their traplines up near timber-line where nobody else can't get in the winter.”

Morris turned to look back at the three men curiously. Their faces gave no hint that they realized they were under discussion. It gave him the sort of uneasy feeling that a normal man gets when in the presence of lunatics. “Don't they understand you?” he asked in a low undertone.

“I reckon they understand, all right,” Henderson said cheerfully, “but they don't never pay any heed to the rest of us at all. Act like they think they're too good to talk to me and my ranch-hands.”

“Who are they?” Morris asked interestedly. “Where do they come from and what do they do for a living?”

“Live in a cave at the upper end of the Flat,” Henderson told him with a shrug. Been here always, far as I know. Make a livin' trapping. Make their own clothes out of hides an' live on raw meat mostly, I reckon. Here's how.” He lifted his glass.

Morris drank and asked, “How long have you been here?”

“Three years now. Since the railroad came in. You heard 'bout the TB plumb up in Wyomin', huh?”

“Not exactly. I was making a buying trip for breeding stock and heard about your experiments in Pueblo. Thought I'd come up to see for myself.”

The thin little bartender was sitting on his stool hunched forward with his sharp chin resting in one palm. His eyes were lowered but Morris had the impression he was carefully listening to every word being said.

“Be glad to show you what we're doin' up here,” Henderson offered heartily. “But you won't find no breedin' stock for sale at the TB.”

“That so?” Morris looked disappointed.

“Nope. A Denver syndicate owns this whole outfit. Be years yet 'fore they're ready to turn anything loose on the market. Got to get the new strain set solid first here in the high country.”

“Sired by bulls like those I saw you unloading this afternoon?”

“That's right. Scientific breeding for heavier beef that'll dress out double from the ordinary range critter.”

Nate Morris said, “While I'm up here I'd like to have a look at the results you're getting.”

“You bet. Glad to show you some two-year-olds. I'll send a hawse in for you tomorrow if you're dead-set on spendin' the night at Mrs. Larson's.” There was a hint of a leer in Henderson's voice as he spoke the last words.

Morris said gravely, “She's already fixed the room for me.”

“Sure. An' she's a mighty purty woman on top of that.” Henderson winked knowingly and slapped him on the shoulder.

The old bartender looked searchingly at Morris. “Say yo're from up Wyomin'-way?”

“That's right.”

“Whereabouts?”

“North of Cheyenne a piece.”

“I reckon, then, you'd know ol' man Tinker thereabouts?” The bartender's voice was thin and rasping, with a challenging quality.

“Sure enough,” said Morris readily. “He runs the T-Cross spread about thirty miles out of Cheyenne on the Laramie road.”

The bartender nodded and sank his sharp chin back into the palm of his hand.

The three trappers at the end of the bar set their glasses down and filed out silently. A strange, earthly, animal odor came from them as they passed by. They wore moccasins and moved soundlessly across the wooden floor.

Nate Morris shuddered as the saloon door closed behind them. Henderson grinned understandingly and said, “Give you the creeps 'til you get used to 'em. Have another?”

Morris shook his head. “No thanks. I'm about ready to eat supper. You taking those bulls out tonight?” He was watching the bartender closely as he spoke. It seemed to him that the bald-headed man tensed slightly at his question.

Henderson said, “Not tonight. They'll be safer bedded down in the railroad pens. We'll drive 'em out in the morning and scatter 'em on the range where they'll do the most good.”

Morris said, “If you mean that about bringing in a horse for me …?”

“You bet I did. Always glad to have company out at the TB. We don't get to see many outsiders here.”

“I'll be ready in the morning,” Morris promised, and went out.

The engineer, fireman and brakeman were eating supper at the horseshoe counter when he re-entered the cafe next door. Morris went to the last stool nearest the kitchen and seated himself. Karen Larson came out of the kitchen bearing three wedges of apple pie on a tray. She passed him without a glance. Morris's gaze was speculative as it followed the easy, proud carriage of her body to the front of the counter. She was the sort of woman a man wouldn't forget easily.