Devil's Canyon (26 page)

“Well, Slade,” said Dog Face, “ain't you got your opinion?”

“Yeah,” Slade replied. “Too many
hombres
have a weakness, and they expect to find the same weakness in others. Underestimating his opponents can get a man killed. If them wagons need to cross the Colorado, they'll cross it.”

The insult was directed at Sangre and Hueso, and they were very much aware of it. Dog Face laughed, and the uneasy alliance continued.

The Colorado River. September 30, 1870
.

Slowly but surely, Felix Blackburn's interest in Mamie McCutcheon grew. When Blackburn was on watch, Mamie didn't sleep much.

“What do you want out of life, Mamie?” Felix asked one night.

“I don't feel I have the right to expect much,” said Mamie.

“Why not?”

“You mean you haven't heard how Odessa and me made fools of ourselves over a certain tinhorn gambler?” Mamie replied.

“Some of it,” said Felix frankly. “Why don't you tell me the rest?”

“You're sure you want to hear it?”

“Yes,” Felix said.

For most of an hour she talked while Blackburn listened. When she had finished, there was a long moment of silence. Mamie held her breath, fearing his response.

“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” said Felix.

“You quote scripture like a preacher,” Mamie said.

“I spent two years in a Louisiana prison,” said Felix. “I spent it reading the Bible. I figured I had some catching up to do. So, you see, somewhere along the way, we've all played the fool, doing things we can't be proud of.”

“It's kind of you to say that,” Mamie said. “I can't imagine you in prison. Do I have the right to ask what you did?”

“Yes,” said Felix. “I killed a man over a saloon whore. Her name was Mary Lou, and she wasn't quite seventeen. She promised that if she had the money, she'd straighten up and return to her family in Georgia. I gave her two hundred dollars and she quit the saloon. But a week later, I found her in a different saloon.
When she took a man upstairs, I followed. I kicked the door in, and the man she was with pulled a gun. I shot him and she bashed me in the head with a brass lamp. When I woke up, the law was there and the dead man didn't have a gun. Nothing I could say made any difference.”

“Framed,” Mamie said.

“Yes,” said Felix.

“But your intentions were good,” Mamie said. Felix laughed. “I heard the broad road to perdition is paved with them.”

“But you seem to be a better, stronger man,” said Mamie.

“Thanks,” Felix replied. “I like to think so. I've heard that no experience is all bad when you learn from it.”

Felix sat with his back to a wagon wheel, his rifle beside him. Wordlessly, Mamie moved over next to him, taking one of his hands in hers….

*   *   *

“There she is,” said Collins, “the Colorado.”

“Tarnation,” Dallas said. “That's some river.”

“Tomorrow,” said Faro, “we'll ride it in both directions. We'll find a place to cross if we have to build a bridge.”

“That'll take time, building a bridge,” Shanghai said.

“Perhaps not as long as going miles out of our way up or down the river,” said Collins.

Durham listened to their plans, and his devious mind began creating one of his own, for he had seen the saddlebags of stolen money in Faro Duval's lead wagon. Duval would most surely be one of the men
riding the river. Durham needed only a few short minutes, with a diversion of some kind….

*   *   *

“Collins will ride upstream while I ride downstream,” Faro told them after breakfast.

“Rest of you stay with the wagons and keep your rifles handy. We haven't had any Indian trouble for a while.”

Faro and Collins rode out, and less than an hour later, the Indians attacked from the south and the east. Unlike before, they didn't come to kill. Instead, they spooked all the mules, stampeding them north.

“Ride them down,” Dallas Weaver shouted.

It was an unnecessary command, as every one of them knew they dared not lose the mules. Madly they pursued the Utes along the north bank of the Colorado. While firing from horseback was difficult, they managed to kill two of the invaders. The others, fearful of being ridden down in a crossfire, forgot about the mules and rode for their lives.

“Let 'em go,” shouted Tarno.

Clearly they had to give up the chase, for they had saved their teams, while leaving their wagons undefended. Only Odessa McCutcheon was there, for her horse had not been saddled. It was the chance Hal Durham had waited for, and he ran to Faro Duval's lead wagon, seizing the saddlebags. He dropped off the wagon box, only to be confronted by Odessa.

“Get out of my way,” Durham snorted.

“No,” said Odessa.

But as she lifted her Winchester, Durham flung her back against the wagon, where her head struck an iron
rim. Before she could rise, Durham leaped on his horse and galloped west. Hiding in the brush, he avoided the men returning with the mules. Faro and Collins were last to return to the wagons.

“The Utes come after the mules,” Shanghai said. “We got only two of 'em, but we saved the mules. There was nobody hurt but Odessa.”

“Durham took that bank money and lit out,” said Odessa.

“About what we expected of him,” Levi Collins said.

Faro said nothing, but the looks he exchanged with Collins suggested that they might have planned for just such an event.

“Why the sudden interest in the mules?” Odessa wondered.

“Game's in short supply,” said Faro. “The Indians eat mules.”

“God,” Mamie said, “I can't imagine that.”

“Depends on how hard up you are for grub,” said Josh Snyder. “I've had mule a time or two.”

“You never told us about that,” Isaac Puckett said.

“I ain't exactly proud of it,” said Snyder. “Me and a couple more damn fools stayed too long in the north country. Got snowed in neck-deep, back in the Absarokas. Grub-wise, we was down to the soles of our boots and our pack mule. So decided to eat the mule. We had mule on Sunday, mule on Monday, and mule again on Tuesday.”

“Then what happened?” Mamie asked.

“We throwed up on Wednesday,” said Snyder. “There was a break in the weather and we shot us a
buck deer. Tough old critter, but compared to mule, he was prime.”

*   *   *

Hal Durham slowed his horse to a walk, knowing he must spare the animal. He just couldn't believe there was no pursuit. The enormity of what he had done shook him. He was alone in Ute country, and somewhere there was Slade and the pack of renegades he'd thrown in with. Somehow he must convince them he intended going on to California without them knowing of the money. So intently was he pondering the situation, he rode into the Indians. Nine of them had reined up their horses and waited, their Winchesters ready. They said nothing, backstepping their horses so that he could ride on. Three of them fell in behind, while three rode on either side of him. Durham swallowed hard, for he knew where they were going. When they reached the renegade camp, Durham reined up. The three renegades were the ugliest men Durham had ever seen. It was Slade who spoke.

“Get down. You got some talkin' to do.”

“I got nothin' to say,” Durham replied.

“You're alone in Ute country,” said Slade. “Why?”

“I got tired of the high-handed ways of the teamsters,” Durham replied. “I'm goin' to California.”

“Without grub, I reckon,” said Slade. “It's near seven hundred miles.”

“I was hopin' you could sell me some supplies,” Durham said.

Dog Face laughed. “You just left five wagon loads of supplies, and you're tryin' to buy from us. Why?”

“I can answer that,” Slade said. “He's done something
to get on the bad side of that bunch with the wagons, and they run him off.”

“That's a lie,” said Durham. “They're bound for a gold claim somewhere, and I couldn't figure a way to deal myself in, so I left. What was the use in me goin' on with them?”

“That part about the gold claim is true,” Slade said, “but why would you give up their protection from the Utes and ride off without grub?”

“I see what you're gettin' at,” said Dog Face. “Sangre, you and Hueso search him. Slade, check out his saddlebags.”

“No!” Durham shouted.

But Sangre held a Colt on him while Hueso made the search. Durham said no more, swallowing hard as Slade went for the saddlebags.

“Nothin' on him but a couple hunnert, a deck of cards, and a pistol,” said Hueso in disgust.

“Saddlebags, then,” Dog Face said.

“Everything in those saddlebags is mine,” said Durham.

“Hell,” Slade said. “There's nothin' here but wads of wrappin' paper from a store in Santa Fe.”

“That can't be,” said Durham. “There was twenty-five thousand…”

“You lie,” Sangre hissed, cocking the Colt.

“Hold it,” said Slade. “He's a tin horn that would raise a pair against a straight flush. He ain't sharp enough to come up with somethin' like this, if it wasn't the truth.”

“Slade's right,” Dog Face said.
“Hombre
, tell us about that twenty-five thousand you thought was in them saddlebags, and it had better be good.”

Durham had no choice, and they listened in rapt attention as he talked.

“Damn it,” Slade said. “They switched saddlebags on you. You should have expected that.”

Dog Face was laughing while Sangre and Hueso scowled. Hueso spoke.

“Why can't I shoot him? He ain't of no use to us.”

“He might be,” said Slade. “I ain't sure that bunch with the wagons won't take him in, if he's desperate enough.”

“No,” Durham said, “there's nothin' in it for me. They'd expect me to sell them out.”

“And you would, to save your hide,” said Dog Face.

“They'll shoot me,” Durham protested. “If they do take me in, what's in it for me?”

“You go on livin',” said Dog Face, “And if you don't sell us out, there'll be somthin' in it for you. Just don't say nothin' about bein' here. Now ride.”

Durham mounted and rode back the way he had come. But only until he was clear of the outlaws' camp. He then rode south for ten miles before again riding west. He would take his chances with the Utes.

*   *   *

“What do you think of our chances of crossing the Colorado?” Collins asked.

“Not good, from what I've seen of it,” said Faro. “But the Indian attack cut short our inspection. What do you think?”

“I think we could travel a hundred miles up or down stream without finding a place to cross these wagons,” Collins said.

“Then we'll have to cut some trees for stringers and
build a pole bridge. We have axes, hammers, and spikes,” said Faro.

“That makes sense,” Collins replied. “When we're ready to return to Santa Fe, we'll need it again.”

“It'll have to be plenty strong,” said Felix. “That ore will be heavier than what we're hauling now.”

They began by felling three firs with forty-foot trunks. Two of them were strung across the gorge, twelve feet apart, with the third one in between for support. Stakes were driven deep to anchor the stringers on both banks of the river.

“Now comes the hard part,” Faro said, as they began their second day of labor. “We'll need enough logs, fourteen feet long, to build a corduroy road.”

While some of them began felling and trimming the needed trees, others took their axes and flattened the logs at each end and in the middle, where they would be placed side by side and spiked to the stringers. By the end of the second day the bridge was finished.

“We'll cross at dawn,” said Faro.

“I'm impressed,” Levi Collins said during breakfast. “I always believed teamsters just drove wagons, fighting Indians and outlaws when they had to. This bridge is a touch of genius.”

“We're considerably more than just teamsters,” Dallas Weaver said. “It's the long shots that pay.”

“Yeah,” said Shanghai. “Here in the West, it's gettin' the job done that counts.”

“The hard part may still be ahead of us,” said Faro. “Mules are skittish. We'll have to blindfold and lead them across, keeping their heads up. Let them look down and they'll balk, for sure.”

“That's gospel,” Dallas said. “Never let a mule see anything except what he thinks is solid ground under his feet, and if it ain't solid ground, don't let him see nothin'.”

*   *   *

After breakfast, after the teams had been harnessed, Faro brought out a leather bag in which there were strips of thin embroidered leather.

“
Tapojos
, the Mexicans call them,” said Faro. “In Texas, they're called blinkers.”

With blinkers covering the eyes of the teams, the first wagon crossed the bridge without difficulty. The rest of the wagons quickly followed, and when all had crossed, Faro had a word with Collins.

“You've been this way before. Is there enough water ahead of us?”

“Yes,” Collins said. “As I recall, we should be able to veer south maybe half a dozen miles and we'll be following a river for a ways. When it forks, we can then follow the south fork to within a day's drive of our claim on the Sevier.”
^*

“I'll take over the lead wagon, then,” said Faro, “and we'll follow you. Don't get too far ahead. Those Utes that came after the mules may follow us.”

“I'll be on the lookout for them,” Collins replied.

But the danger of attack was far greater along the back trail, and with that in mind, Faro spoke to Withers and Kritzer.

“Saddle a pair of the horses and ride behind the last
wagon. If you see anything along our back trail, sound off. Those Utes may follow us.”