Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Through the branches of the cottonwood above him, Caleb opened his eyes to see that the black night sky was lightening to a deep blue. The sun would soon be climbing above the mountains to the east, and he needed to get himself going. Devil’s Claw wouldn’t be coming to him.
He went down to the creek to clean up. The water was ice-cold, and as he stood in the shallows looking, a speckled trout that had to be two feet long wandered by to see what Caleb was doing. A friend joined him, and they moseyed on together up the creek, following the deeper channels.
No one needed to go hungry in this part of the world, he thought.
A man could live well here if he knew how to read the land and had sense enough not to take more than he needed.
When he came up to the cabin leading his buckskin, saddled and ready to go, Imala was already digging around in the big garden. She looked up, pushed a stray wisp of hair off her forehead, and pointed to a nearby stump. Caleb spied the pot of coffee, a cup, and a covered basket she’d put there.
He went over and poured himself some coffee. The basket held biscuits that were still warm.
“I’m obliged to you for your hospitality, ma’am,” he said, going to the edge of the garden. Most of it was still in the morning shadow, but sunlight would soon warm the turned earth.
“Thank you for looking for my husband.”
He said nothing and watched her work for a moment. “Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”
“No, I’ll get on well enough,” she told him, sinking the blade of the shovel into the soil and putting a foot up on the shoulder of the long-handled tool. “While Smith digs for silver, I spend most of my time alone here, anyway.”
“Between the garden and the hunting, you must eat fairly well, I’d guess. I saw some trout in that creek that could feed a half dozen people.”
“That’s true. And the grouse and pheasant and rabbits are plentiful here. We only go and hunt larger game when one of us fancies venison. When autumn comes, Smith likes geese the best.”
The way she said his name made Caleb look away for a moment. Quiet love had a sound to it, he supposed. Not loud. Not showy. Just there, woven into ordinary talk about food and seasons and what a man liked best.
“Well, I need to be going. Thank you again for the food.”
“Be careful as you search. These men are killers. Their hearts are cold. Watch out for the one called Dodger, especially.”
He hadn’t talked about the stagecoach robbery with her, but she was correct about them being murderers.
The driver and the guard that rode with him were dead—quite possibly the passenger was, as well.
Caleb didn’t want to say it, but he had little hope of bringing Smith back alive.
The miner would have been of little use to the outlaws once he fetched Doc for them.
“Do not worry, Marlowe,” she said, as if reading his thoughts. “I will survive if Smith is gone.”
He held her gaze. He wouldn’t share his doubts with Imala, but this was not a woman to be coddled or lied to.
“How’ll you make do?”
She drove the shovel deeper into the dirt. “Maybe I’ll carry things from my garden down into Elkhorn. Or catch fish to bring to the town. They could fetch a good price.”
“You’re right. Your fish and your produce would pay steadier than prospecting.”
But even as he said the words, his thoughts were already running to how Smith felt about her safety. A passel of decent folks lived in Elkhorn, Caleb supposed, but there was also plenty of lowlife scum.
“Before you start developing a market trade in town, will you wait to hear word of your husband?”
“Who will bring me word?”
“I’ll do it.”
Imala left her shovel and came out of the garden. “You worry.”
Damn right, he worried. Here on the frontier, it took a strong person to live alone.
He needed no one, but he knew other men who had been beaten down and broken by the solitary life.
It was a choice they made, mostly, and they were free to make it.
But he’d worry about any woman out here alone.
What if she got hurt or fell sick? What if some knothead decided he wanted an unworked claim with a comfortable cabin?
She’d be out here on her own, fighting for her life.
Caleb thought about his mother. She had him to protect her, and he still hadn’t been able to keep her from harm. He felt the old familiar ache. Some guilt never went away. What happened if he’d stayed at the house that day? How would life have been different if he came back in from the barn sooner?
That was the wound he never spoke of. The one no bullet had made and no doctor could stitch closed.
“I am Arapaho, Marlowe.”
Imala’s words yanked away the iron fist squeezing his windpipe.
“My connections with the earth and the sky are strong. Smith thinks he protects me—I let him think it—but it is not that way.” She pointed at the garden.
“I grow roots and vegetables and herbs that my people have gathered for all time. I take what the trees and bushes provide. I hunt for meat. I cook and feed him. Who takes care of who?”
Caleb nodded in respect. He knew every word she spoke was the truth.
There was power in her that had nothing to do with guns. A steadier sort, maybe. The kind that kept a home standing when the world tried to tear it down.
“I’ll be going, then.”
She walked to the cabin and picked up some things by the door. She handed him the larger bundle. It was buckskin tied with a leather thong.
“Food for your journey,” she said.
She held out a second bag, smaller and stitched together from buffalo hide.
“A medicine pouch. Do you know what it is?”
“I know what it is.” He didn’t need to open it. It contained items representing sacred animal spirits. It would bring him good luck, protection, and strength in battle.
“I will carry it with me.”
After securing her gifts in his saddlebags, Caleb led his horse down the trail toward the Denver road. She was still watching him as he made his way around a bend and out of sight of the cabin.
Before he reached the main road, he found signs of the visitors.
It had been about a week since they had rain here.
Now, in broad daylight, it was easy to see the tracks of the six who rode in and rode out together.
He found the single track of Smith’s horse going out from the cabin.
Eliminating all of those, he distinguished which hoofprints belonged to the road agents’ horses.
The shoes were badly worn from being ridden over rocky terrain, and one had a particularly distinctive gash on the right side of the front shoe.
Caleb mounted up and soon found the trail that would lead from the Denver road up toward Devil’s Claw and the land beyond.
He’d been riding for hours, and the sun was high and hot on his back as he made his way along a narrow trail that resembled the path of a monstrous snake.
He kept his eyes open for signs of riders coming through.
There were occasional prints, but none had the distinctive gash on the right horseshoe.
For the most part, the prints were of deer and elk as well as bear, cougar, and bobcat. These lands teemed with game.
As Caleb rode deeper into the mountains, fir-covered slopes rose on either side of him, with patches of loose, jagged rock and shale that protruded and hung menacingly over the trail.
The path wound steadily upward, and a deep, trackless chasm of a valley dropped away on the left.
In some places, one misstep by Pirate would send them both tumbling to certain death.
The gelding was as fine a mount as a man could want, though.
He could go all day and was always attentive and agreeable to what Caleb wanted.
Sure-footed as a mule, Pirate was also so quick and agile that cutting a rambunctious calf out of a herd was no chore.
Between that horse and his dog Bear, the hard work of muscling cattle was damn near enjoyable.
Caleb found himself thinking again of Bear back at the ranch with Gabriel. Of the cabin. Of the cattle. Of a valley where he had work enough to fill his hands without hunting men through the mountains.
The trail dropped steeply down into a ravine and forded a creek that ran through a rock-studded meadow bordered by thick forests of fir.
To his left, the running water fell away in a series of small waterfalls until it disappeared from view.
He stopped to let Pirate drink and rest for a few minutes.
The buckskin suddenly raised his head, his attention focused on the meadow above them, not far from where the creek emerged from a grove of cottonwoods.
From the line of trees, two bear cubs wandered out into the stretch of grass and rocks.
Young grizzlies no more than a few months old, from the size of them.
Their shaggy coats were dark brown, nearly black, and each of them had patches of white fur near the shoulders and neck.
They were upwind and heading toward the creek, unaware of the human and equine intruders watching them.
They were damn cute to look at, tumbling and wrestling as they moved along, but nothing panicked a horse quicker than a bear.
Pirate had good reason to be spooked. The mother bear lumbered out of the woods, and when her big head swung around toward her cubs, she stopped and rose up slightly onto her two hind legs. The grizzly was upwind, about a hundred and fifty paces away. Far too close.
“Never mind me,” he whispered.
Her nose sniffed the air. She couldn’t pick up his scent, but Caleb could smell her just fine. It was difficult to tell how big she was under that shaggy brown coat, but he judged she had to run close to four hundred pounds. Even so, he knew she could cover ground in a hurry.
In an open field, Pirate could outrun the bear easily, once he got going. But if the trail ahead looked like what he’d been following, it would be twisting and uneven. The gelding wouldn’t have much of a chance to show his speed.
Caleb slowly slid his Winchester from its scabbard. He didn’t want to kill the mother if he didn’t have to. This was her place, and those two cubs were still too young to survive on their own. But if she decided to charge, there’d be no help for it.
There had been too much killing already. If the mountains allowed him one mercy today, he’d take it.
She was still undecided. The low growl reached him. He cocked the hammer and raised the rifle to his shoulder. He sighted along the barrel, aiming for her lower jaw. If she came hard across the meadow, he’d at least hit her in the chest or shoulder. That would slow her down.
Suddenly, her great head swung away from him. Caleb followed her gaze. A lone coyote stood in the shadow of the pines at the far edge of the meadow. His tongue was hanging as he stared at the cubs.
That threat was the more imminent, and she bolted, moving with astonishing speed toward her offspring. Her feet thundered across the meadow, and she let out a roar as she ran. The two cubs had picked up the scent of the predator and were bawling loudly as they looked at the coyote.
In a moment, the grizzly was between the cubs and the coyote, on her back legs and roaring.
That was all the distraction Caleb needed. The confrontation between mother and predator could last some time, but unless the coyote had help, he wasn’t going to be eating any bear cubs today.
He nudged Pirate, and the gelding carried him up the trail and into the forest.
When they reached a wide bluff of bald rock, Caleb reined in and pulled a brandy bottle filled with water from his saddlebag. As he drank, he looked down at the mist rising above a frothing river that thrashed and battered its way past shimmering boulders and fallen timber.
To his right, ridgelines and depressions in the mountain terrain rose and fell, each one as deep and wide as the river valley that held his entire ranch.
But the land here was steep and rugged and filled with pine and fir that stood straight as sentinels.
And above it all, Devil’s Claw reached for the sky, an open hand of rock ready to pluck down and crush in its grasp any cloud foolish enough to stray too close.
On the westerly side of the river, Caleb spotted another trail winding in and out among the trees and rock.
There was more than one way through here, and miles ahead, beyond this narrow pass, Caleb knew that the land opened up into high mountain forests and meadows, rock canyons, and crystal-clear rivers and lakes.
But it was a hard, unforgiving place, unfit for the fainthearted.
Over the years, more prospectors and hunters went in there than returned.
And somewhere in that vastness were Doc Burnett, Smith, and the men who had taken them.
The shadows were growing long when he heard the sound of rifle fire ahead.
Twilight had gathered under the walls of rock and forest on the western face. Caleb dismounted and led his horse along the trail. Before he could get close enough to see who was going at it so fiercely, he realized he would not be able to pass by without getting caught in the crossfire.
After tying his mount in a protected grove off the trail, he slid his Winchester from its scabbard, unfastened the thongs from his twin Colts, and moved stealthily along the shadowy trail.