Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
“Everett owns the claim next to mine,” Zeke said to Caleb as he crouched beside his friend and helped him sit up.
Zeke was the two-legged version of a wild boar, if ever Caleb saw one.
Short and solid, he was as wide as he was tall.
Whiskers and eyebrows nearly obscured every bit of his round, scowling face.
He wore a gray wool coat over a gray wool jacket and gray wool waistcoat.
Only his scuffed, dirty boots and wide-brimmed hat altered the scheme.
They were black. Or, at least, they were at one time.
“How bad you hit, old man?” Zeke asked.
His friend Everett was sitting between two boulders, trying to pull himself together.
Caleb had noticed he was taller than the others when they stood and tried to make peace with their ambushers.
Even sitting, he appeared to be all arms and legs, and his recently shaved face was long and thin.
He didn’t seem to be very old, maybe thirty, but he was nearly bald on top of his head, and stringy, brown side hair hung almost to his shoulders.
The bullet had struck him near the shoulder, sending him spinning away. The right arm hung inert at his side. But the man was feeling around on his head, just behind the ear. He groaned slightly each time he touched a tender spot.
“I’ll live, I s’pose.”
Caleb looked around him, assessing the damage. Though it could have turned out worse for these two men, the bushwhackers had exacted a heavy toll for coming along that trail.
The would-be truce maker, who’d thought a white flag might make a difference, was lying on his back, his head pointed down the hill.
He was hatless now and had blond hair that was almost white.
His blue eyes were open, staring sightlessly into the last golden rays of the sun.
The other man—shot dead before Caleb arrived—lay sprawled out by the trail.
The lifeless sorrel blocked the trail, and there was no sign of any other horses.
Caleb tallied it up. Two dead down here. Another three up on the slope. One more, counting the fella over by the bluff. One horse. And one rattler.
One bloody evening.
And tomorrow promised no gentler mercy.
He helped Zeke sit his friend up against a rock.
Everett, the wounded miner, was watching Caleb’s face intently. “We’re much obliged to you, Mr. Marlowe.”
“That’s all right. Them fellas had the drop on you. I didn’t much like the odds.”
“I was sure we was goners.”
Zeke positioned himself on one knee beside his friend. “Let’s take a look at that shoulder.”
Caleb and Zeke eased Everett out of his brown coat. The sleeve had been cut by a bullet high up on the shoulder.
“I’m fine, boys,” he said. “It was the fall against that boulder there that did the most damage.”
He showed them a welt the size of an egg behind his ear.
The damage from the bullet did not appear too serious. The slug had carved a groove about two inches below the shoulder joint. Pulling a bandana out of his pocket, Everett slid it under his shirt until it covered the wound.
“There, you see,” he told them. “Good as new.”
He lifted the arm and flexed his hand, wincing as he did so. It was obvious that his use of the limb would be limited for some time.
“You were dang lucky them varmints didn’t take your arm clear off,” Zeke asserted. “Or worse.”
The wounded man nodded, feeling around the nob on his skull and frowning fiercely. “Could’ve ended up like them poor souls.”
Zeke went over and picked up the white handkerchief from the ground. He laid it over the face of the blond-haired man who’d dropped it.
“This young feller is…or was Olaf Olafson,” he said, sadness in his voice.
“Told me he come out here from Wisconsin cuz there was ten other fellas named Olaf Olafson in his one little town. Said he walked until he got to some place where there weren’t no other Olaf Olafsons.
That was Elkhorn. Said he woulda walked all the way to China if he had to.
Figured there weren’t no fellers with that name there. ”
“Was he a miner?” Caleb asked.
“Nope. Worked as a carpenter in town. Olaf didn’t want nothing to do with going under the ground. Said he’d be spending enough time there soon enough. Don’t think he figured it’d be this soon. Don’t think he was even twenty years old.”
He rubbed quickly at his eye and shook his head as he stalked to the other dead man. These were Zeke’s friends and partners. Out of respect for his loss, Caleb stayed close to him.
“This here was Smollett. Tobias Smollett. Claimed his great-grandpap was some famous Scotch book author. The limey sumbitch spent more time drinking and gambling in the Belle than he ever did digging silver. He was broke as a baby this month, and I talked him into coming out with us, dang it.”
Caleb said nothing. Zeke needed to talk out his regret. His words struck a sorrowful chord in Caleb. Losing a friend was a difficult thing. Feeling responsible for it was worse.
“Smollett always claimed he was the luckiest man this side of Frisco. I never seen it. He couldn’t win at cards, and I don’t know that his mine was worth spit either.”
Zeke stood grimly silent for a moment and then slapped his battered hat hard against his thigh.
“The sumbitch never knew what hit him. Lay there on the trail after we took cover, a-moaning and a-moaning. But we couldn’t do nothing. After a while, he just gave up the ghost.”
They stood for a while as the shadows grew deeper. Finally, Zeke walked over to the sorrel.
“This little lady was mine. Them bastards shot her out from under me.” He crouched down and stroked her neck. “She was a fine, fine horse, Marlowe.”
Caleb understood, as well as anyone, the connection a man developed with his horse. Over the years, he’d ridden a number of fine mounts, but the buckskin gelding he’d left tethered in the grove a short way back on the trail was one of the best. And he needed to get her before the darkness settled.
Zeke moved around the animal to unbuckle the saddle and the bridle. The miner’s old Yellow Boy was still in its scabbard. Caleb had figured right, when the ambush started, he’d obviously never even had the chance to grab for the rifle.
“What are you all doing out here?” Caleb asked as he helped him.
“Working for Judge Patterson. Every few weeks, he has a bunch of us fellas out looking for a band of outlaws that’ve been hitting the Wells Fargo coaches.
Started a couple of months ago, once the winter eased up.
Nice, steady wages.” He waved a hand in the direction of his two dead partners.
“Till today, it was a nice break from scratching away in that mine.”
Caleb recalled from his meeting with Patterson that he had his own men out searching for the outlaws.
He gestured up the slope from the trail. “Do you think them fellas were the ones you’ve been hunting?”
“Doubt it.” Everett piped up from where he was sitting.
“The gang we’re looking for don’t waste their time on low-down villainy like this.
They don’t rob no homesteader coming through, nor no carters hauling goods, nor anyone else.
If there ain’t no Wells Fargo strongbox involved, they ain’t interested. ”
Caleb considered that information. He looked up the slope where the attack had come from. “Maybe you fellas just got too close to them.”
Zeke shook his head. “I ain’t heard of even one ambush like this one. And like I said, we been dogging them off and on for a couple months now.”
Everett was trying to get to his feet, but his long legs were wobbling some. They went over to him.
“Also, when you run them mangy hounds off,” Zeke continued, “I believe I heard them horses heading south.” He pointed in the direction of the Denver road. “Our gang of road agents wouldn’t have no call to be going that way.”
“Why?”
“Far as folk can tell, they only come down from that wild country up beyond this Devil’s Claw pass when they’re bent on robbing Wells Fargo. And there ain’t no stagecoach coming through for the next few days.” Zeke paused and stuffed a plug of tobacco in his cheek. “What brings you to these parts?”
Caleb had tucked the tin star into his pocket last night before turning in, and he saw no reason to share with them that Patterson hired him as deputy to do the same thing they were doing. At least not yet.
“Doc Burnett’s gone missing. I’m searching for him.”
“You don’t say. When?”
“Early Wednesday morning. Today being Saturday, he’d have been back if there was no trouble.”
“Wednesday?” Zeke pondered that. “The gang hit the stage on Tuesday evening. They killed the driver and the guard. But it looked like a passenger got shot too, and they took him. Maybe there’s a connection.”
“That’s what I reckon.” Caleb nodded. “Did you all go out to the claim belonging to a fella named Smith a couple of days ago? He’s got a cabin not far from the Denver road.”
“Nope. Don’t know no miner named Smith out this way. Why do you ask?”
“The judge told me he sent some men out there. Smith was the one that fetched Doc. Nobody’s seen neither one since.”
Everett shrugged and then winced. “That weren’t us.”
Zeke lifted his broad, burly shoulders. “Well, that’s the way the judge works.
When he sets his mind to getting something, he has men going out every which way, all doing the same thing.
In the last month, we’ve been falling all over each other trying to find this outfit.
But he wants them found, and he’s as tough and persistent as a starving dog hunting a buried bone.
He ain’t an easy man, the judge, and he don’t accept no failure. ”
“But when he has a job that needs doing,” Everett added, “the money’s awful tempting.”
Meeting Patterson, Caleb had read him exactly the same way. A man didn’t reach a position of power like that unless they were tenacious and ruthless. And the judge was very persuasive when it came to getting someone to work for him.
“He’s paying you too,” Zeke asked. “Ain’t he?”
“What he’s paying ain’t as important to me as a private favor he’s promised to do,” Caleb said honestly. “He has connections.”
“There’s nobody in the state that can’t pull strings better, if that’s what you need.”
“And he’s good for his promises,” Everett added
Caleb had to take their word for it. For now. He gestured toward the wounded man’s arm. “When you fellas get back to town, who’ll see to that with Doc gone?”
Everett gently stretched his arm again. “That bullet just grazed me. But I’ll get one of the girls at the Belle to give me some loving attention.”
That easy talk of warmth and company struck Caleb harder than Everett likely intended. He could not remember the last time anyone fussed over him just because they cared whether he was hurting.
It was nearly dark, and Caleb knew they had tasks to accomplish, but Zeke had that talkativeness that sometimes comes with having just escaped death by a frog hair.
“Marlowe, you aiming to go out beyond the Devil’s Claw on your own?”
“That I am.”
“Well, if you want, you could come back to town with us or even wait around here for a spell. Everett and I can gather more men and supplies and meet you back here.”
“Much obliged for the offer.” Caleb gestured north, through the pass. “But maybe we can meet up on the other side.”
“Been out in that country afore?”
“Some.”
“Then you know there’s divides and valleys and gorges that lead nowheres.
There’s still a few working miners’ camps and cabins hidden away behind hills and in gulches where you won’t never see them.
And there’s outlaws out there that have nothing to do with the Wells Fargo gang.
But whether you’re looking for them or not, they’ll still kill you on sight. ”
“I know, Zeke.”
“And you still want to venture on alone?”
Caleb wasn’t about to share all he’d done in his life, where he’d gone with Jake and on his own afterward.
He had no doubt he could tell Zeke stories that would rob him of sleep for many a night.
Besides, it was better to make a man feel his worth rather than cut him down, especially when he was already feeling whipped.
“This is what we’ll do,” Caleb replied. “I’ll get a head start and take my time. Just scout around some. More than likely, I won’t hazard out too far beyond the pass. When you come back with help, we’ll join up.”
Zeke nodded and turned a sad eye on the dead men. “I’d surely like to get these fellas back to town. Wouldn’t feel right leaving them out here.”
Caleb agreed. “You’re going to need some horses to do that. Except for that sorrel, where are yours?”
Everett pointed up the trail. “They lit out quick, soon as we were off of them. They might be halfway to Canady by now.”
“Zeke, with the little light we got left,” Caleb suggested, “why don’t you take your rifle and try and find them? While you do that, I’ll go up to that ridge and see if they left anything behind. My guess is there are four more horses up there.”
As the miner turned and started along the trail, Caleb left his rifle with Everett and climbed the slope. When he reached the three men he’d shot, he gathered their weapons and gun belts and anything of value they had on them.
It wasn’t much, but there would be enough to pay for burying the two men in Zeke’s posse. These fellas up here would be lucky if Zeke and Everett conceded to piling some rocks on their miserable carcasses.
Following the path where the other two had skedaddled, Caleb soon reached another trail.
Sure enough, those sorry blackguards had left four half-decent horses to the mercy of the wolves.
Stringing them together, he led the mounts south until he reached the top of the bluff where he’d outmaneuvered both rogue and rattler.
As he climbed down from the lead horse, however, the hackles on his neck prickled and stood on end.
Drawing a revolver, he scanned the surroundings.
Dusk was quickly giving way to night. To the left of the trail, giant slabs of rock like the ones below formed jagged ledges and escarpments and rose steeply up the mountainside until they were lost in the gloom.
Not thirty paces from him, an abandoned mine yawned in the hillside.
And his instincts told him there was someone in there.
Caleb moved quietly to one side of the opening, listening. There was indeed someone in there. Man and horse, he judged.
If this was one or both of those bushwhackers, they’d made another mistake by not hightailing it out there. He wasn’t going to give them any more chances to run, though.
He drew his other Colt and cocked the hammer.
“Whoever you are in there, come out now. And your hands better be high and empty.”
Silence answered him.
“Last chance. I ain’t telling you again.”
“I’m coming out,” an old voice called out. “I’m coming. It’s just me…Preacher.”
“Then you come ahead,” Caleb snapped. “But if you got so much as a prayer book in your hand, Preacher, a legion of angels won’t be no help to you.”