The High Rocks Page 9

  “You grow your rabbits juicy up here,” I commented, once I’d recovered and was finishing off the meat.

  “It’s the pouch does that. I learned it from the Blackfeet. The buckskin holds in all them juices you’d lose if you staked it out over the fire in the regular way. If I had me some dried wild onion skins to crumble over it, I’d show you a real meal.”

  I grunted my understanding. After the events of the past few days, it didn’t even seem strange that I was sitting there surrounded by drying scalps at the top of a mountain listening to a recipe for cooking rabbit. It seemed to go with the territory. I flipped away the last of the bones and wiped my hands off on the front of my coat. “Why′d you kill Brainard?”

  He had been whetting his knife on his buckskin sleeve, stropping it back and forth like a razor. Now he paused. “What makes you think I done it?”

  “He was shot with the same rifle that was used to kill the Indians who were torturing him. And don’t tell me you didn’t kill them; those are their scalps drying on that thong.”

  “I done what I would for any white man in the same situation.” He resumed stropping. “Once I come across a white trapper after the injuns was finished with him. He was hanging from a tree, just like this Brainard, only this one was all red and slippery from head to foot like a skinned rabbit, on account of that’s just what they done to him. And he was still moving. I done for him too, but by that time he had went through so much that I don’t suppose it mattered to him. This time I got there early enough to make it worth something. I hope I can count on somebody doing the same thing for me when it comes my turn.”

  “You think it′ll come to that?”

  “Bound to. I’m slowing down now, else I wouldn’t of had to shoot none of them injuns more than once.” He waved his knife in the direction of the dangling scalps. “Sooner or later, some young buck is going to get in a lucky shot, and then I’ll be meat for Old Lop Ear.”

  “Why don’t you quit?”

  “A man does what he’s good at.” Rising, he returned the knife to its sheath and reached for his bearskin. “It’s almost light. Can you saddle up, or do you want me to do it for you?”

  “Where are we going?” I gathered my legs beneath me. Pain rocketed up my spine.

  “Devil’s Crack. I got a scalp waiting for me at the bottom, remember? By the time we get there, there ought to be enough light to risk the ride down.” He threw the bearskin on over his shoulders.

  “Thanks, but I’d just as soon stay here and wait for you.”

  He reached down and took hold of my left shoulder in one hand, crushing it. “Bet you won’t.”

  “Why not?” I grunted, through clenched teeth. He was cutting off my circulation.

  “You know as well as me that you ain’t getting out of these mountains till you finish the job Two Sisters sent you out to do. I’d heaps rather have you in front of me than at my back.”

  “What about afterwards”?

  “Afterwards is afterwards.” He squeezed harder. “Can I count on your company?”

  “Where’s my saddle?” The words came out in a gasp.

  The wind had unfurled a tarpaulin of dirty gray between mountains and sky, so low that when we led our horses out of the cave we found ourselves in the very midst of the haze. We descended five hundred feet before we came out of it. Beneath the ceiling, the panorama of the Bitterroot spread out dizzyingly before us, tents of white dotted with black stands of pine, with here and there a shallow depression to mark the frozen surface of a lake. It had just begun to snow again; I watched as the first wave of flakes emerged from the clouds and began its slow descent to the ground ten thousand feet below, like spent grapeshot falling through the trees. The wind shifted constantly, blowing clouds of white powder back and forth across our path. The air was so cold it seared my throat when I inhaled.

  Bear’s height, together with the size of the horse he was riding, made me feel like a dwarf astride the chestnut as we picked our way single-file down the side of the mountain, me in front. My escort rode with his Spencer across the pommel of his saddle, his buckskin-gloved hands crossed over it and holding the reins. In front of him, a gunny sack hung on either side of the dun from the saddle horn in the middle. One of them held his scalps. I hadn’t seen inside the second sack, but I had a pretty good idea of what it contained. I filed this hunch away in my memory for future reference.

  We approached the Crack from the northern end, where it leveled out after a steep climb of nearly two hundred feet from its lowest depth. For us, the climb would be twice as dangerous; we were going down, not up.

  Halfway down, the mare lost its footing, and I had to haul hard on the reins, pulling it back onto its haunches to keep both of us from tumbling all the way to the bottom. Behind me, Bear halted his mount and waited until I was in control again before continuing. I glanced at him once over my shoulder. Both his and the dun’s heads were enveloped in vapor, like gargoyles snorting steam out their nostrils.

  The snow at the bottom of the crevice was piled up to the horses’ breasts. It struck me that finding Rocking Wolf’s body beneath that muck was not going to be an easy task. Not that it mattered, of course; we had all the time in the world.

  Noon found us nearly a mile into Devil’s Crack, with the snow still falling softly around us. The horses were lathered and wheezing from struggling through the snow; I was about to suggest that we stop and rest when Bear grunted suddenly and thrust a finger the size of an ear of corn out ahead of him. I looked to see where he was pointing. A couple of yards ahead, a horse’s foreleg protruded stiffly straight up from the bank of white. Another few seconds and we’d have stumbled over it.

  We dismounted, and together we worked feverishly to claw the snow off our find. It was slow going, as the stuff was wet and heavy and we had no shovels to work with. After about twenty minutes we had cleared away enough of it to see that the leg belonged to Rocking Wolf′s stallion. It lay twisted half onto its back, its eyes still wide in its final spasm of terror and a froth of blood frozen on its lips. Its back was broken. Now there remained only one corpse to find.

  An hour later, we had cleared out a ragged circle ten feet in diameter around the dead horse down to the bare ground, and still there was no sign of Rocking Wolfs body. Bear and I stared at each other over the dead animal. His expression, bewildered at first, slowly grew thoughtful. He looked as if he was about to speak when a voice floated down to us from somewhere far above our heads.

  “One for you, white skin!” Carried on the wind, the voice had an unnatural quality, rendering it almost unrecognizable. “Now it becomes my turn.”

  Rocking Wolf’s words echoed along the walls of the crevice until they became part of the wind itself, and then it was impossible to tell where they left off and the gale began.

  8

  “What now?” I asked Bear, after the initial shock had worn off. I had to shout to make myself heard over the mounting wind.

  “Why ask me? It’s you he was talking to!”

  Even as he said it, I realized he was right. If Rocking Wolf had suspected I was leading him into a trap before, he was sure of it now.

  “Look for his rifle,” I said. “It must be here somewhere. If he still had it, we’d both be dead.” I began kicking holes in the banks of snow beyond the clearing.

  “No time.” The scalp-hunter’s tone was clipped. “If we’re going to be out of here by nightfall, we’d best be heading south, and that’s one climb I’m not going to risk after dark.”

  “Then what?”

  “You leave that to me.” He mounted the dun.

  I had to crane my neck to look up at him, he was that tall and the horse was that big. “I hope you’re not planning on heading east around the mountain. Church and his bunch are waiting to bushwack you on the other side. You and anyone riding with you.”

  “Figured that. Mount up.”

  The sun was a bloody gash between the overcast and the horizon when we vaulted out of
the Crack at its southern end. No sooner had we emerged than Bear turned his horse’s head east.

  “Why don’t you just shoot yourself in the head and save time?” I exclaimed.

  “There ain’t nothing west of here but more mountain and blizzards.” His beard bristled over his set jaw. “I’d heaps rather take my chances with men.”

  “You don’t know Church.”

  Travel at night was impossible with the moon obscured by clouds. We made camp at sundown on a shelf of windswept rock on what was now the lee side of the mountain, where firewood was nonexistent and we were forced to share a stiff piece of salt pork from my saddlebags, more of the rations I had bought in Staghorn. Staghorn. Right then, it seemed as far away as San Francisco.

  “Give me your hands,” said Bear, after we’d finished eating.

  “Why?”

  “Just give them here.” He spoke gruffly.

  I extended my hands. Something hard and cold snapped shut around each of my wrists. In that instant I realized that my handcuffs were no longer hanging on my belt. Before I could protest, he smacked me in the chest so hard with the flat of his hand that I lost my balance and toppled over onto my back. A leather thong was wound around both my ankles and pulled taut with a jerk that sent pain shooting straight up my legs. It was all over in the space of a few seconds.

  “It must be my honest face,” I said acidly.

  “I ain’t survived fifteen years in the high rocks by taking unnecessary chances,” he told me. “Keep that buckhide dry or it’ll tighten up on you and bust your feet. You got to relieve yourself, roll over to the edge of the shelf and do it. Try not to fall off.” He tossed me my blanket.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Sleep.” He sat down with his back against the mountain and gathered his bearskin around him, his rifle lying across his lap.

  “Good,” I said. “See if you can get some for me, too.”

  I did sleep, though fitfully. Several times I opened my eyes to see Bear’s bulk against the scarcely lighter background of the mountain, still awake and tossing an occasional rock at the wolves slinking back and forth beneath the shelf. When he struck one, it would yelp and leap to one side, then snarl up at us, its teeth forming a ghastly white semicircle against the black of its body. “Not tonight, you lop-eared son of a bitch,” the scalp-hunter muttered once. But all he got in reply was a rippling growl

  That long night bled almost imperceptibly into a bleak and snowy dawn. It had been snowing steadily for twenty-four hours, and now the entire range was a clean chalk sketch on a background of dirty linen. First light found us entering a narrow pass between the base of Spirit Peak and a rocky knoll to the south.

  “If I were planning to ambush anyone, this is where I’d do it,” I told my companion, rubbing my wrists where the handcuffs, now removed, had chafed them during the night.

  That had about as much effect on him as dropping a stone down a bottomless well and waiting for the splash, so I let it slide. Being unarmed in the midst of danger creates a strange feeling of detachment anyway; knowing that you can’t do anything to defend yourself no matter what the circumstances, you don’t care what happens. But the feeling wasn’t enough to prevent me from keeping an eye on the promontories that flanked our path. That detached I wasn’t.

  I saw the glint while we were riding abreast through a relatively flat section of pass, and was out of my saddle in the same instant. I struck Bear shoulder-first. I had the fleeting impression, as the pain of impact spread through me, that he wasn’t going to budge, but then, like a huge tree whose roots have rotted away, he toppled. We hit the ground in a heap.

  He made a growling noise and crooked a huge arm around my neck, catching my adam’s apple inside his elbow and crushing it. “A gun!” I managed to croak, before my voice was choked off. I pointed to the top of the cliff.

  It sank in on him belatedly. Slowly he released his grip. I inhaled in desperation.

  Far above us, feeble sunlight painted a pale strip along something long and metallic sticking out from the top of a line of rocks on the north side of the pass. Beyond that, the blur of what was unmistakably a human face showed light against the bare granite.

  “I thought you said he didn’t have no rifle,” said Bear quietly.

  “It could be Church.”

  “That’s dandy. Now all’s we got to do is figure out which one of them is going to kill us.”

  “I might be able to get up there if you’ll keep him busy down here,” I suggested.

  “Why don’t you keep him busy whilst I go on up?” His tone was suspicious.

  “What am I supposed to do, jump up and down and holler? You’ve got the only gun.”

  He repeated the growling noise. Twisting to look down at him, I thought I saw his eyes wander toward the gunny sacks tied to the dun’s saddle. For a moment it looked as if he might relent. Then he shook his head, as if he had just won a battle with himself. “Go on up,” he said. “Stick to the shadow.”

  “Give me your knife.”

  He glowered at me for a moment, then passed over the big bowie. “I expect that back afterwards.”

  “Stick around. Maybe you can take it off my body.”

  Using the horses for cover, I crept along the base of the knoll until I was in shadow, then took a deep breath and sprinted across to the opposite side of the pass. There, I flattened out against the mountain and waited for the shots. There were none. I looked up. From this angle, the rifle barrel was invisible, if indeed it was still there. I hoped it was. If there was any moving around to be done up there, I wanted to be the one who did it. I shuffled sideways until I came to a spot where some ancient avalanche had piled a makeshift staircase of stones at the base of the mountain and began to climb. After a while I took off my gloves and put them in my pocket to make the job easier.

  It grew steeper as I ascended, until I was crawling straight up a vertical wall with only a shallow foothold here and there and an occasional crag over which I could curl my numb fingers. Once my foot slipped and I had to smack the wall hard with the palm of my right hand to keep from plummeting fifty feet to the jagged pile of rocks at the bottom. The hand tingled as I felt around with my foot for support, but not until. I came to a ledge deep enough for me to support myself on my elbows did I notice that I had scraped most of the skin off the palm. I decided that if I ever got out of this alive, Judge Blackthorne was going to be slapped with a lot of medical bills.

  At length my head drew level with the line of rocks from which the rifle had thrust itself earlier. I cast wary glances to right and left and, finding no one in sight, pulled myself up and over the edge. Then I drew the knife from my boot—the leather-bound handle stung the raw surface of my hand—and crept forward with the remainder of the mountain at my right shoulder.

  I came upon him lying on his stomach with a boulder on either side of him and his cheek resting against the stock of a Remington rifle, the barrel protruding out past the rocks. Before he could move, I flung myself full-length on top of him, crooked my left arm around his throat the way Bear had done with me earlier, and placed the point of the bowie against the tender flesh beneath his chin.

  “Let go of the rifle!” I commanded.

  There was no response, not even a gasp. After a beat I twisted his head so that I could get a look at his face. It was Homer Strakey, Jr., and he was as dead as the stone ledge upon which he was lying.

  He was gun-barrel stiff and his flesh was like ice. I got up off him and turned him over with the toe of my boot; it was like rolling a log. His hands were locked tight around the Remington’s action. His eyes were wide open. The wound that had killed him—the one Bear had inflicted—was a gaping black hole in his abdomen just above the belt. There was no sign of bleeding on the ledge. He had been dead a long time and he hadn’t been alive when he was put there.

  I stepped to the edge of the shelf and waved my arm to get Bear’s attention. It worked, because a shot rang out the instant I
showed myself and a bullet whanged off the rock just below my left boot. I leaped back away from the edge.

  “Are you crazy?” I shouted, once my heart had resumed beating. “It’s me!”

  “Sorry!”

  I called to him to come on up. When his enormous face appeared above the rocks some thirty minutes later, I placed the muzzle of the Remington between his eyes.

  “Sorry isn’t enough,” I said.

  The hopelessness of his situation was borne in on him slowly. He had his Spencer slung over his left shoulder by its leather strap and both his hands were engaged in maintaining his grip on the slippery rocks. Even a skull as thick as his would have been blasted apart by a bullet from the Remington at that range.

  “You told me to keep him busy,” he grumbled at length. “How was I to know you’d be damn fool enough to show yourself like that?”

  “Why don’t you look before you shoot?” I demanded. “I’d be just as dead whether you meant it for me or not.”

  “If I was out to kill you, you’d be dead. I don’t miss no shot like that.”

  “Then you knew it was me, damn you!”

  “You planning to shoot that, or are you going to talk me to death?”

  “I can’t.” I lowered the rifle, reluctantly. “Firing pin’s broken.”

  “Figured that.” He swept the barrel with a huge hand and heaved himself up onto the shelf. Standing, he towered over me by nearly a head.

  “How?”

  “If it wasn’t, you’d of shot me the minute I showed. That’s the easiest way out of the mess you’re in, and if I remember right, you never was one to take the high road when you didn’t have to.” He spotted young Strakey’s body lying a few feet away beneath a film of freshly fallen snow. “You do that?”

  “Not me. You. He was dead when I got here.”

  He nodded. “That explains the busted firing pin. If this Church is the heller you told me about, he wouldn’t go off and leave no working gun with a dead man for anybody to pick up.”

  “He didn’t die here,” I said. “There’s no blood, and he wasn’t strong enough to climb up here without help. Question is, why’d they go to all this trouble?”