The Hunted Page 8

  The two sparring men flurried on at each other, their hard-earned breaths pluming into the chill night air. Rollie feinted toward the flames, then away. Everett countered and stepped backward, driving one of Norbert’s legs hard against the other. The prone man groaned loud and low.

  “I tell you what, boy—” Everett didn’t finish his thought, because Rollie landed a hard right fist on the old man’s knobby, stubbled jaw. Everett backed up a step, shook his head as a wet cur shakes off water, and like the surly little dog he was, he resumed his growling, lunging attack.

  His uppercut to Rollie’s jaw fell short of the mark, grazing the younger man’s cheek and ear. It must have stung, because Rollie clutched at his face, seething. He bent low, cradling his head, and Everett drove in close again.

  Charlie could take no more of the foolishness and struggled to his feet. He still felt chilled and unsteady—he couldn’t feel his feet yet—but something had to be done.

  He stepped between the two of them and clapped his big paws on each of their shoulders, forcing them to stay apart. “Enough!” he bellowed, his head dizzy with the effort. “One thing for you all to take out your worries on each other, but I got a problem with both of you when you start stepping on helpless folks.”

  Charlie nodded toward Norbert, who had drawn his legs up and lay on his side, red-faced and moaning.

  The sight of him made Charlie even angrier, and he pitched the two struggling men away from each other. They both stumbled to a stop and the entire camp, even the groaning man, fell silent. They all stared at Charlie. Then Bo started giggling, followed by Shiner and Rollie, all three pointing at Charlie. He looked down and saw he was naked as a newborn baby. He’d dropped his blankets when he stood.

  Even in the fire’s weak light, Charlie felt sure his face had reddened more than it ever had in his life. He glanced sideways toward where the two women sat, huddled together, wrapped in a blanket against a log on the far end of the fire. And of course, they were both watching him, smiles on their faces. If it had been any other sort of situation, it might be nice to see them really smile for the first time all day, but by gum, not at his expense.

  He made sure to keep his back to them as he eased himself as fast as he could back down on his blankets. He tugged the woolens over himself as best he could and wished he could pull them up over his face. He rarely ever went without clothes any time of year, save for the odd strip-down-and-scrub-up in a mountain stream in his beloved high country. Always in summer and always with a handful of river sand for soap. It about tore the skin off him, but he liked how it made him feel—tingly and alive all over. But this was not one of those times.

  Everett sat down stiffly near Charlie, put one hand out toward the fire. He sipped from his own cup and Charlie thought he detected the faint sweet tinge of whiskey on the air. Soon enough the old man reached in his coat and slipped out a small bottle. “Thank the Maker that fool nephew didn’t smash my bottle.”

  Charlie heard a tiny punk sound as the cork popped free. “You should take another nip, Big Charlie. Keep you from shivering.”

  “Another nip?”

  “Yeah, you had a few swallows earlier. Thought it might help with your shakes. That woman over there didn’t seem to think so, but hell, what does she know about men’s ailments?”

  Charlie shrugged and accepted the small bottle. He gurgled back a snort and choked on the fiery trail the whiskey had burned down his gullet. His eyes watered as he handed it back. “Thanks, Mr. Meecher.”

  “Yeah, call me Everett.”

  “Okay, then.” Charlie nodded.

  “Boy ain’t had no right to talk against my brother that way. Ellroy was a good man and a good brother to me. We started the freighting business way back before that viperous pup was whelped.” Everett swigged the bottle and cut his eyes toward the far cluster of men, talking among themselves and passing their bottle back and forth.

  “I thank you too for pulling me off him,” said Meecher. “I’d like to have killed him. We was that close to mixing it up in a big way and I ain’t never lost a scrap in my life yet.”

  “You know, Everett, I believe that. Somehow I believe that.” Charlie smiled at the fire, wondering what else this day might have to offer.

  “This is to be my last freighting trip, Charlie, boy. I been having a rum run of it these past few years, figure it’s time to call it a day. Taking on Rollie was a mistake. I had no choice, of course. I made his father a deathbed promise, but he’s been a trial, has that boy. Too much of his hussy mother in him.”

  He swigged again, licked his lips. “The whoring creature up and ran off when the kid was still wet, left Ellroy and me to care for him. But the boy’s an expensive keeper, he is. I ain’t been able to bring myself to turn my one and only family member loose. But I’m getting close. He’s blown through all our money, ruined my reputation as a freighter. I lost it all but this.”

  Meecher waved the bottle at the dark surrounding them. “I’m down to it, Charlie. The raw bone. But this time, he swore to me he’d keep it all tight and right. Ha. We get through this trip, I’ll have enough to last me, give him some so he can do whatever it is he plans on doing—it sure as hell ain’t freighting. He’s too lazy for that. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this anyway.”

  After a few minutes of silence between them, Charlie cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Meecher, I mean Everett, you mind if I ask you a question?”

  The old man looked at Charlie, one eye squinted. “Depends on what sort of answer you’re expecting.”

  Charlie didn’t quite know what that meant, so he did what he always did in life when something didn’t make sense, he plowed on ahead. “There’s heavy snow all but on top of us, and from what Marshal Watt told me, there’s also a rogue band of Shoshoni been spotted out here by some trapper friend of his.”

  “There a question in there somewhere, Charlie?”

  “Yes, sir, I mean, well . . . don’t you think Marshal Watt should have worked a little harder to keep us from taking this trip? I expect you know more than me how dangerous a run like this is, and at this time of year, and in this sort of country, to boot.”

  The old man closed his eyes and grinned. The whiskey must be taking hold, thought Charlie. He’s up and fallen asleep on me.

  Then Meecher spoke. “Ain’t no wonder in it at all, Charlie, boy. That Jasper Rafferty ain’t the only one who bankrolled this trip, nor, I would guess, the very mining town of Gamble.”

  Charlie’s eyebrows nearly met in the middle. What was Meecher getting at? And then it occurred to him. “The marshal? He’s—”

  Meecher leaned close. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, in a husky whisper. “Don’t go flapping your mouth about it. “Why else do you think he’d let us up and go on a fool’s errand like this? He wanted to see his share of the profits. You were nibbling close to it before, Charlie. So keep chewing and ask yourself this: If the marshal wasn’t invested himself in this venture, do you think a lawman worth his salt would have let us go on the trip, let alone send two women along?”

  “Profits from what? The supplies for the town?”

  “Good gravy, boy. Just how long did you spend living under that rock of your’n?” Meecher leaned even closer, almost resting his chin on Charlie’s blanketed arm. “Gold, fool,” he said in a whisper, cutting his eyes quickly to his nephew. “Gold up in Gamble. Rumor has it it’s a mighty big strike and Rafferty and the marshal are doing their best to keep a lid on it, least until spring. Promised me a decent spot at the diggin’s if I could get these supplies up yonder before the snows plugged this passage. It’s the only way in or out till spring.”

  Charlie rubbed his numb fingertips along his jaw. “Big strike, huh?”

  “That’s what I said.” Meecher nodded and sipped. “One of the biggest this or that side of the Rockies. Even them two women coming along wouldn’t have slowed do
wn the trip. You got any interest in it yourself?”

  Big Charlie nodded. “I reckon I do at that.” He looked at Meecher, concern lighting his eyes. “If there’s room, that is.”

  “Yeah, Charlie. I reckon.”

  They both sat musing in silence a moment, and then Charlie whispered, “Why do you think they’re trying to keep it hushed all winter?”

  Meecher shrugged. “Didn’t tell me that. But my guess is they’re looking to bust it wide open in a big way. And the only way small-money men can do that is to hire one of them big mining outfits back East. You know, the ones with more money than sense.”

  “How big are you talking?”

  “Put it this way, this here rutted trail would be a proper road and there’d be a half dozen mine camps between Monkton and Gamble. And Gamble’d be one of the biggest towns in the whole of Idaho Territory. Within months, mark my words. They’ll have smelters and more men and machinery than you can imagine.”

  “What about the mountains? This place?” Charlie nodded at the dark.

  “Mmm, I expect they’d hollow out the mountain till she collapsed in on herself. At least them warpath Shoshoni won’t be a bother. All these whites probably scare ’em up into Canada.” He giggled.

  “Did the marshal tell you any more about the Indians than what he told me?”

  “Naw,” said Meecher. “But I can tell you it’s a near-certain thing we’ll end up scalped, but then again, maybe not.” He wobbled his hand before him like a flopping fish. “We were desperate enough to need the work. . . .” He let the thought taper off.

  “Bad as all that?”

  “Well, Big Charlie. Other supply trains traveled this road a whole lot of times this summer, and only a couple of times did they see sign of Injun. Once or twice they was fired on, but for the most part, naw. I reckon if we keep our wits about us, keep our heads down and our hats covering our hair”—he winked—“we might make it through.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then what . . . what?”

  “Once we get to Gamble?”

  “Why, I don’t know about you, but I aim to take my earnings and set to digging. If the diggin’s are that rich up there, we’d be fools not to.”

  “How we getting paid anyway, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Course not. I’m carrying some—since I demanded some money up front, and there’s a man in Gamble going to pay us the rest, in dust, I expect, once we arrive. Rumor has it they’re sitting on bags and bags full of rich ore and dust. I’ll take dust as sure as currency. You?” Meecher cackled.

  Charlie only nodded, his mind already on the gold he could dig, the money he could make. Enough to buy his hidden mountain valley, someplace to hole up. Just him and Mabel-Mae, far away from crazy freighters and women who looked angry and stared back every time you looked at them.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning, Charlie felt surprisingly good, considering his dunking of the day before. He also recalled all that had happened afterward and wondered how much longer any of them could take being together, especially the Meechers. Uncle and nephew were so much alike and yet so different.

  He helped Everett load Norbert into Bo’s wagon. The rangy man in buckskins who almost drowned barely looked at Charlie—not that Charlie wanted thanks. He would have blushed had Norbert offered such, he felt sure. But at least, Charlie thought, Norbert was coherent and able to move his feet and hands. The woman was right: Any later in the season and they likely both would have died.

  The oxen and mules and horses all acted fidgety, a good sign that animals wanted to move, to stretch their muscles and put some miles beneath their hooves. A sentiment that was shared wholeheartedly by Everett Meecher. Having lost half a day’s travel yesterday, he was ready to make up as much lost time as he was able today.

  He hopped down from getting Norbert settled and said, “You ride until you get your pins back under you, Norbert. And don’t try to hobble down if you have to make water—lean over the side of the wagon, let her go.”

  “Since when did you become a nursemaid, old man?” Rollie shook his head, bloodshot eyes swimming wet and flinty in his stubbled, puffy face. Charlie had seen mean and hungover a few times in his day, but rarely did they show up so stark on one person as they did on Rollie’s angry face.

  “Shut your mouth, boy.” Everett climbed up onto his seat and tickled the lines over his team’s back. “And if you lay the lash on them mules today like you did yesterday, so help me I’ll take another round out of you, boy!”

  Rollie responded by shaking his head again and leaning back with a thin whip, he let loose. The long rawhide serpent unfurled fast and stung the air with a crack! just above the hip pins of those beasts. They jerked forward in anticipation of more of what they had received from the man the day before.

  Charlie closed his eyes and waited for Everett’s screeches to pass. He looked back to see Mabel-Mae traipsing along, followed by the two women, the older of them walking and the other aboard their horse. Charlie gave them a nod and touched his hat brim. He received a weak smile from the girl on the horse, and a nod with no hint of a smile from the older sister. She is a tough nut to crack, thought Charlie.

  Everett Meecher took the lead and they rolled on out, cutting upstream of where the waterlogging episode took place. If the day before hadn’t been so nearly tragic, the fact that Meecher chose a route that barely brought water up to the animals’ knees would have been laughable.

  Charlie was especially worried about the women, and wished he had made them ride across, but the bossy one was insistent and in the end he had begrudgingly given in to her stubbornness. She had mounted up behind her sister on that old roan and they crossed fine, trailing right behind Mabel-Mae. In truth, he had been more worried about their feeble-seeming horse. But the old mare stepped solidly, if slowly, picking her way across with the grace and delicacy that only long years on the trail can bring.

  As soon as Charlie’s team dug on up the opposite bank of the Salmon, Meecher continued on, not waiting a second longer than he had to. Charlie paused his team and waited for the women. Their horse looked tuckered, but he didn’t want to leave them there—thoughts of Indians, mountain lions, snakes, wolves, and grizzlies filled his head until he shouted, “Come on, now, this is no place to dawdle.”

  They drew abreast of him and the bigger woman said, “And that side of the river was?”

  Charlie set his mouth and shook his head. Would he never learn? As he got his team walking again, the younger, frail young woman said, “Thank you, Charlie.”

  Her voice surprised him. It was clear, but thin and delicate somehow, just like her.

  “For what?”

  “For waiting. It was kind of you. And my name is Delia.” The girl indicated behind her with a slight move of her head. “She is my sister, Hester.”

  He smiled and touched his hat brim. “You’re most welcome . . . Delia, ma’am.” He cut his eyes to the other sister and his smile slumped. He nudged the team forward and spent the next ten minutes feeling bad about being so petty to Hester. He hardly knew a thing about her anyway.

  He purposefully hadn’t let himself speculate on why they were headed to Gamble, though the obvious reason that he didn’t want to entertain was that they were sporting girls. And if what old man Meecher had said about Gamble’s prospects was half true, they’d be setting themselves up for a whole lot of business.

  The day stretched on, with the morning’s promise of sunlight pulled away like a wink from a pretty woman who disappears in a crowd. The stark hide of aspen and the green masses of pine muted to dark shafts of shadow. The air took on a bracing tang that hurt Charlie to take in through his nose. Storm, sure enough. He looked up for further confirmation. What had been blue sky stuck with far-off white streaks a few hours earlier now bore the purple-black of a spreading bruise. The coming night would be
cold, coldest yet, and he knew snow wouldn’t be far behind.

  Long past midday, Meecher’s reedy yelp called for a halt. The front of the wagon train had reached a stream, and the animals of each team would stop, in due course, for a drink. While he waited his team’s turn, Charlie stretched in his seat and worked his hands and feet again, flexing fingers and toes. He was sure grateful that had happened yesterday and not today, and it would have been a darn sight better if it had happened in July instead. Though these mountain waterways were cold any time of year.

  The old roan horse was laboring long and hard, step by step toward Mabel-Mae, who still didn’t seem perturbed by much of anything. Hester was walking again, leading the aged horse, had done so for most of the day, in fact.

  Charlie sighed. “You going to take me up on my offer yet?”

  They walked on up another ten feet, then halted and Hester said, “She’s fine. Thank you.”

  “Yeah, well, she don’t look fine to me.” Just then the team ahead of him, Shiner’s, rolled forward. Charlie clucked, danced the lines on the backs of the oxen, and they begrudgingly stepped into their load, the steel-rimmed wheels cutting grooves despite the stiffening mud. “Was my sister,” he said as they rolled forward, “I’d put her on something stronger than that old girl.”

  “Well, she’s my sister, not yours, so don’t you worry about it none.”

  Hester’s words were sharp-edged, and he heard Shiner cackle up ahead. Charlie reddened again, and he ground his molars, biting back a hard remark before it flew out of his mouth. It had been a long day so far, and the way Meecher was driving them, it was far from over. The last thing he needed was more of her guff.

  His jaw muscles bunched and relaxed, bunched and relaxed, and he worked hard to not look at the women. Soon enough his team had slurped their fill and Mabel-Mae too. He didn’t even look back when they crossed the stream and ground their way uphill. Within minutes of leaving the chill burble of the stream behind, the roadway narrowed at a hard spot and each wagon had to pause again while the one before it laid on the lash, snapping the air, each driver urging the team on with blue oaths.