Gunsmoke Serenade Page 4

  The mountains echoed the ominous howling of the wolves.

  FOUR

  He awoke to paradise.

  A small bluebird chirped merrily on a branch. High in the sky he tracked an eagle soaring on the wind and circling, its white feathered head catching the sun. He studied on the eagle’s path and, scooping up the extra holsters, he made his way along the trail still moving north. He had slept fitfully, one eye wary of any wolves that might sneak in on him. They certainly had his scent, but whether they would decide to hunt him down was a matter of speculation. Wolves could be unpredictable, and hunger was enough by itself to encourage a wolf pack to hunt and kill a man. They could do so quite easily.

  Down the long trail he heard voices and he knew his pursuers were up and after him. He moved along the treeline in a straight enough manner, careful where he stepped and keeping to the rocks. If they were good trackers they would be able to guess where he spent the night, but that process could take several hours. He wanted to put as much distance behind him when they arrived at their conclusion. His goal was for them to be uncertain what direction he had gone.

  The sun lit up the spruce and pine trees, casting green shadows over the pale boulders. It was going to be a hot day and he was already sweating. A hour later he stopped to rest and listen for any sound of his pursuers, but his backtrail was quiet. Still, those wolf howls the previous night had set him on edge. A hungry wolfpack was the last thing he needed to worry about, but experience had taught him there was no such thing as a leisurely walk in the Rocky Mountains.

  Climbing on to a boulder he looked down at the green valley where a small lake glimmered in the morning breeze. He estimated the lake was about ninety acres and ringed by tall pines. There were no signs of cabins, but that didn’t surprise him. The Rockies were dotted with secret lakes and unexplored valleys known but to few. This was a place seen by Indians and mountain men, trappers and fur traders. It was harsh country for an average man to handle, and only the stoutest of men might survive the brutal winters.

  Maxfield Knight never considered that the odds were against him. Even with a platoon of pursuers on his trail he was confident of staying alive. He had plenty of ammunition and he was secure in believing if things went bad for him that he could still escape and hide in these labyrinthine hills.

  He pondered the lake for some time and studied the surrounding area. There was some marsh land south of the lake that he would have to avoid. He didn’t want to get pinned down. But he thought he might use the landscape to his advantage.

  Voices drifted on the breeze. Looking down to his right and far south of the lake, he spotted men on foot and some on horseback. They were spread out in thirty foot increments as they searched for him. He counted twelve men. They were being meticulous and taking their time.

  Another sound caught his attention and, craning his head to the north-east, he counted eight additional men searching for him. That meant at least twenty men were spread out and hunting him down. He was a little surprised by that, but his analytical mind instead focused on keeping them at a distance rather than giving in to fear.

  He resumed his study of the lake. On the western and northern shore there were several small bays where the shoreline was covered in scrub brush and some fallen old birch trees.

  The nearby yapping of wolves behind him forced him to swing his Winchester around and scrutinize the timberline. A prickly sensation spread across his flesh as the wolves yapped again, this time much closer. If they came at him from above they would force him in the direction of the hunters. Even more disturbing was the fact that if Knight used his rifle to protect himself against the wolves it would reveal his location.

  With limited options he continued north along the faint trail that had dwindled to a thin line used only by deer or raccoons. Twenty minutes later he hadn’t heard the wolves yapping again but he felt something pinching his leg persistently. He stopped knowing what it was. Yanking off his boot he rolled up his trouser leg and found two fat ticks with their heads already imbedded in his swollen flesh. Knight cursed. Ticks were all too common in the woodlands but these two had burrowed deep. He would have to burn them out.

  Retrieving his wooden matchsticks from his vest, he struck one against his boot and held the flickering flame up to the first tick. It squirmed and backed up, wriggling free. Before the match burned low he repeated the process on the second tick. He didn’t care to waste his matchsticks on ticks. His skin was swollen where the ticks had burrowed in. A bubble of blood slipped off his purple wound and shattered on the dusty path. Knight cursed again. The wolves would smell even a small drop of blood. Slipping his boot back on he scraped the blood deeply into the dirt hoping to obliterate his scent.

  Paradise was a deceptive place, he thought. A man could get killed by the smallest mistake. Pushing himself along a trail bordered by sun-blasted rocks, Knight was careful of keeping well below the treeline. It wouldn’t do to be seen out in the open.

  Crossing a swell dappled with sunlight, he stopped when he saw the wolf thirty feet ahead of him. He knew the look a wolf gets in its eye before it attacks, and this wolf was no exception. Something moved high up on his left but he dared not take his eyes from the wolf. Baring its teeth, the wolf crouched and sprang forward. Knight had just brought his Winchester up and sighted down the barrel when an arrow took the wolf in the ribs, spinning it around. Only a few seconds passed before a second arrow cut into the wolf’s neck, jutting from the other side. The wolf flopped over, twitching, its breath coming in hard gasps before it twitched its last.

  Knight spun to his left expecting to see a Sioux brave, but the sight that greeted him was a surprise. The heavy man wearing a coonskin cap and buckskin shirt holding the bow, a quiver of arrows slung over one shoulder and an old flintlock rifle slung across the other shoulder, grinned at him from beneath a bushy black beard speckled with gray. His eyes shone mischievously.

  ‘Now don’t get your spurs all tangled up, mister. Just take it easy a moment and stay quiet.’

  The big man hefted himself off the boulder where he had been perched and climbed easily down the trail to stand over the dead wolf. Knight was impressed at how easily the big man moved. He was light on his feet, and very quick.

  ‘This is a good pelt. We’ll take it with us. Quick now, we don’t have much time.’

  Handing Knight his bow, the man produced a foot long rope from his quiver and swiftly tied the wolf’s front legs. When he was finished he scrutinized Knight, his eyes resting on the US marshal’s badge pinned to his vest.

  ‘A lawman. Well, you’ve brought a wagon full of trouble to these mountains. Seems like half the hired guns in the country are on your backtrail.’

  ‘I was in Cherrywood Crossing and …’

  The man held up his palm. ‘Later. Come on.’

  Pulling the wolf, he turned on his heels and made his way up the hill, where they found another trail that ran parallel with the one Knight had been following. Presently they edged up toward some high rocks that were invisible from below because of the scrub and pines that clustered about the boulders. The big man gestured at the rocks.

  ‘You see this?’ He retrieved a rope that hung from an opening twenty feet above them. ‘I use it because I’m fat. Time was I could use the hand holds and foot holds made by Indians in times past. Either way, we have to go up.’

  To Knight’s astonishment the big man placed one foot on a boulder and in seconds had hauled himself into the cave with the wolf dangling from the rope he now had clenched in his gleaming teeth. The man’s voice boomed down: ‘Haul your ass up here! Daylight’s burning!’

  Knight climbed swiftly but not with the same ease as this big mountain man, who greeted him again with a smile as he crawled into the cave.

  ‘Pull that rope in behind you. No sense in giving those boys any clues whatsoever, no sir! They’ll think you’ve flown into the sky!’ The big man chuckled.

  ‘I’m indebted to you,’ Knight said.

/>   The big man held out a meaty hand for Knight to shake. ‘Albert Lacroix, son of Charles Lacroix deceased these past twenty years. I’m the last surviving son of Charles Lacroix, a mountain man himself.’

  ‘I see.’ Knight paused. ‘I’m US Marshal Maxfield Knight. I sincerely appreciate your help out there.’

  ‘Glad to be of service, yes sir!’

  Knight looked around. The cave opening was small but fifteen feet inside and the cavern opened up so that a man could stand. It was too dark to see how far back the cavern stretched into the mountain. In the dim light at the entrance he saw some old stick figure paintings on the wall, and Lacroix had a large stack of skinned animal pelts stacked nearby. The pelts were worth a good sum down in the river towns.

  ‘This is a tidy place to hide.’

  ‘The Indians know I’m here,’ Lacroix said, ‘but they’re finished since Buffalo Bill killed Yellow Hand years back to send a message about Custer. We don’t have anything to worry about. We can even cook here because the smoke blows up a natural funnel and those high winds come in from the north and spread the smoke east. It’s impossible to find this place.’

  Knight noticed that further back there was a fire pit already stacked with fresh wood and a skinned rabbit on a stick braced over the pit.

  ‘You’ve got a regular hotel here.’

  ‘Oh, she’s a fine hotel!’ Lacroix chuckled again. His laughter was appealing, and while Knight had to admit the man was a bit eccentric, he accepted that eccentricity as part of a mountain man’s solitary life. ‘Now why don’t you tell me about the trouble that’s after you?’

  Knight had no choice but to tell Lacroix what had happened, so he started at the beginning after they hanged Cal Randal. When he was finished, Lacroix whistled between his teeth.

  ‘Damn, boy! That is something! I can say they moved in here about five days ago, way down in the valley where they camped in the prairie grass.’

  ‘Do you know how many men there are?’

  ‘Fifty at least, no more. They have extra horses and a wagon of supplies. They brought plenty of food. I could smell the beans cooking at night.’

  ‘But you don’t know who they are, or who their leader is?’

  ‘Nope, I haven’t got that close to them.’

  Knight nodded. ‘I’ll set out before sunrise. I’m sorry if I brought any trouble your way.’

  ‘Hold on now. Don’t be so hasty and go get yourself killed. I might be of some use to you. Let’s think on it tonight and talk in the morning. Meantime, you can help me skin this wolf.’

  Knight had to unravel the extra holsters he’d wrapped about his shoulders, and unbuckled his own holster and set his rifle with his gear near the cave’s opening. His bedroll had been strung on his back like a pack and when he was free of all that weight he felt himself relax somewhat.

  ‘I’ve got some matchsticks and extra cartridges I can spare,’ Knight offered.

  ‘That’s right kind of you but Old Betsy there uses powder and ball. I’ve got plenty and she still shoots true.’

  As Knight expected, Lacroix was adept at skinning the wolf. Making his initial cut with his Bowie knife, he had the skin peeled back from the flesh and stripped the animal in mere minutes. ‘I don’t much like wolf meat,’ he explained, ‘so I’m not saving the carcass. Later tonight I’ll take it down near the stream that flows into the lake and leave it for the bears. There’s no shortage of game we can eat. You can see that I have a nice rabbit for our supper.’

  He set the fur over a boulder near the entrance where the light was better and starting peeling the flesh off the underside with a large flint.

  ‘That’s a handy flint,’ Knight said. ‘Did you make it?’

  ‘That I did. I learned how to make arrowheads and skinning flints from my pappy, Charles Lacroix.’

  Knight nodded. The way Lacroix said his father’s name was touching. His voice was filled with pride and it was obvious he missed his old man.

  ‘You ever been married?’

  Lacroix laughed heartily. ‘That I was once, some years back. She was a half-breed Sioux women they called Tall Bird. She died in her sleep south of here one winter. This is no place for a woman, not even an Injun woman.’

  Lacroix took the skinned but otherwise complete carcass and left it near the cave entrance. ‘It’s gonna swell and stink by sunset but we can’t take a chance drawing attention to this area. Like I said, I’ll take it out tonight.’

  ‘Reckon I’ll go along if that’s not a bother to you. I’d like to look about.’

  ‘I thought you might. We’ll see what we can see and make some type of plan.’

  Lacroix cooked the rabbit over his fire and Knight looked around in the glow of the flames. The mountain man had pelts stacked away from the entrance and an ample supply of firewood already cut. Lacroix explained that he cut the firewood outside and hauled it up in a burlap sack. He liked to have two weeks of wood already cut, but in the winter he had a month’s supply in the cave and another month hidden down below. He was constantly cutting wood. Knight noted he had a short-handled axe and a long-handled axe, two flintlock rifles, an 1851 Navy Colt, a sack of gunpowder and a box of percussion caps and lead balls. Lacroix also had nearly fifty arrows already made. The man was prepared for anything, but Knight wondered if he was prepared for the trouble that had followed him into this mountain valley.

  ‘Fire and fresh water are the two life giving things here in the mountains. I can hunt deer, bear, elk, rabbits, and beaver and live off the meat. I know a place where wild onions grow. I can sell furs in town if I need something more. It’s a good life.’

  They ate the rabbit and Lacroix made coffee. Knight counted his blessings. Pure luck had brought him into contact with this mountain man and changed the way Knight would handle his pursuers.

  Knight sat at the cave entrance and looked out. His view was mostly obstructed by tall trees. Only someone stumbling up close to the cliff face would see the cave, but entering it would require strenuous climbing. Obviously defending the cave was easy. Still, Lacroix would want his home kept a secret.

  There was no sound from his pursuers as the sun set. They waited until the sky was lavender before tossing out the rope and climbing down. Knight wore only his Colt on his hip, leaving his Winchester and extra six-shooters with his bedroll. Lacroix carried the Navy Colt in a holster and had his bow and quiver slung over his shoulder. Their goal wasn’t to attack anyone, but simply to look around. Lacroix had tossed the wolf carcass out and hauled it by the rope cinched around the wolf’s paws. Flies buzzed around the carcass as they made their way down the trail.

  They moved silently and swiftly. Knight relied on Lacroix’s knowledge of the area and followed him without much concern. The big man moved with the grace of a lighter man. Knight estimated they had traveled three miles from the cave when he heard the sound of water rushing over the rocks of a mountain stream. Lacroix untied the wolf carcass and left the body under some scrub brush where the bears would find it easily.

  ‘Let’s skedaddle,’ Lacroix urged, ‘I saw some grizzly tracks down here not even two days ago.’

  The fading light had turned the sky red and yellow. A final burst of sunlight slashed through the trees and illuminated the trail before them. Once the sun dropped below the mountains the light would fade quickly and they would find themselves on a midnight trail where one mistake could get them killed. Knight, however, was only faintly concerned. He had faith in Lacroix. The man had survived dozens of midnight dangers, Indians, and brutal winters.

  Continuing slowly, Lacroix eventually gestured that they stop. He pointed down the sloping trail. Following his gaze, Knight saw the lake he had noticed earlier. They were very close. Leaning close to his ear, Lacroix said, ‘They have another small camp on the east shore. I reckon we can spook them tonight.’ Lacroix patted his bow affectionately.

  He followed Lacroix down to the lake’s shoreline. ‘There’s an island around the bay on the far sid
e. We can’t see if from here. I have a canoe down here that we can use if she still holds water.’

  The old bark canoe was secluded in brambles and branches and looked tight and worthy. Nearby a stream gurgled along and Lacroix mentioned the stream could be picked up in the hills. They pulled the canoe free and climbed in. Lacroix took the paddle and pushed them away from shore. He rowed silently and with great strength. The canoe sat low in the water because of their combined weight but Lacroix seemed unconcerned. They sliced through the dark blue water and the only sound was the whisper of the water and the paddle dipping below the surface. They would have been visible from shore, but again Lacroix seemed unconcerned.

  The shoreline was dark and the horizon was fading fast. When they reached a peninsula Lacroix said, ‘There’s another bay around the left that ends near the marsh. Those men are camped near the marsh, but we’re getting off here.’

  Knight realized that the other bay hadn’t been visible to him when he first spotted the lake because of an optical illusion. This peninsula jutting out from the eastern shore was only about forty feet across and seen from above the treeline had blended together to the naked eye. They beached the canoe and pushed into a strand of birch and spruce.

  ‘What are you planning now?’ Knight asked.

  Lacroix grinned and patted his bow affectionately. ‘Let’s give those boys a real Rocky Mountain welcome!’

  FIVE

  When darkness fell in the mountains it was as ominous as a grave.

  A lone owl hooted and the wolves yipped in the deep groves.

  The earth turned and the lavender sky gave up its stars. Down near the marsh and settled on a patch of mossy earth, a campfire burned like a beacon. Voices drifted up from the camp. Idle talk of loose women and epic poker games. There was talk of cattledrives and gunmen like Hank Benteen or Chance Sonnet, legends of the west whose stories helped pass the time in many a camp. Mostly they talked about money and how they planned on spending it.