Ever Onward (22 page)

Both Eddy and Jess had their backs to
the gully where Snake lay dying. As they turned, they saw the heavy
.44 magnum already over the rocky lip. Snake’s head followed; face
twisted with pain, eyes wild with rage. Even as they swung around,
they heard the metallic click of the hammer being pulled
back.

Josh had faced that gun once before
and lived. This time however, he didn’t feel so lucky. Yet his son
stood close beside him, and he had to do something. Shoving Jessie
aside, Josh began to raise his 30-30.

The sound of three guns going off was
the last thing he heard.

Chapter 18
: ‘A LEOPARD’S
SPOTS’

Green Leaf Hut

The White Mountains

New HampshireJuly
3
^rd

Brad sat in a rocking chair on the
front porch of the hut reading a well thumbed Western. Something by
Max Brand called ‘Blood Red Spurs’. The gunslinger-hero had just
saved the beautiful and very well endowed dance hall queen from the
usual ‘fate worse than death’. Scarface Calhoon’s men had just
tried to pork her on the bar. Old Max had put it a little more
delicately than that but Brad had always liked to call a spade a
spade. Naturally our hero had saved the day. Old Max had thrown in
a well-used twist to the humdrum plot however; the hero had taken a
slug in the arm. Naturally the buxom beauty was nursing him back to
health.

Brad tossed the novel aside. Most
books rarely had fuck all to do with real life, even though ‘Blood
Red Spurs’ did have an odd kind of parallel to their own situation.
Getting up, he went inside to check on his cousin.

Josh’s head was wrapped in torn
sheets. Dried blood had stained his left temple again all the way
around to his ear. The face, usually so intense and tanned, now
looked pale and drawn. But he was still breathing, which was one
hell of a lot more than Brad expected three days ago.

Snake’s bullet had struck the side of
Josh’s head just a split second before his own exploded. Both Billy
and Tina had fired at the same time. It was impossible to say which
one had killed him. Maybe they both had.

Anyway, the bastard was
dead and Josh was alive and that was what
counted.

It had taken them till well past dark
to reach Greenleaf Hut. Carrying Josh’s unconscious, bleeding body
on a litter made from packs, they had struggled the rest of the way
up Mt. Lafayette and then the long mile down to the hut. Thank God
for flashlights! Josh had lain there for nearly three days now and
hadn’t woken yet.

Out of the corner of his eye Brad saw
the book, lying on the floor near some hiker’s boots whose owner
had shuffled off to that great trek in the sky. His mind turned
back to it, mentally ticking off the similarities between the
novel’s plot and their present plight. There were quite a
few.

Asshole Gulch, or wherever the story
had taken place, was a long, hard ride from the bunkhouse they now
found themselves in; yet, perched on a bare nob of rock some 4,000
plus feet above their vehicles at the Ranger’s Cabin, they were as
cut off from the rest of the world as you could get! (Not that
there was a hell of a lot of the world left to be ‘cut off’
from!)

Brad pushed THAT little tid-bit away
and went back to the book.

Asshole Gulch had a drunken piano
player. Out in the main room he could hear Billy plinking away on
an old guitar he’d found. One of the dead kitchen crew must have
been a music lover, though Billy swore the instrument wasn’t worth
shit.

Asshole Gulch had a dewy-eyed ‘perty
y’ung thang’ that slaved away cooking ten-pound steaks for the
hungry cowboys. Brad could smell flap-jacks cooking in the kitchen.
Jessie, Kenneth and the two dogs were eagerly waiting to gobble up
anything and everything Tina placed before them. Tina had spent two
summers working in these huts and was as much at home making bread
as carrying a fifty pound sack of flour up a trail.

Every Western also has its ‘nice guy’,
someone to hold things together while the hero was off doing
whatever it is heroes do when they’re not saving the day. ‘Blood
Red Spurs’ had been no different. Phinious T. Potter had run the
local newspaper. Brad, being the only business man in the bunch,
supposed he qualified for the role. Eddy seemed typecast for the
role of the hero’s sidekick; honest, brave and loyal.

But when it came to the dance hall
queen with the heart of gold beating beneath a magnificent chest,
they had a problem. Flame, though she did have a magnificent pair
of knockers, didn’t quite fit the bill.

She’d ridden with the bad guys. She’d
also been ridden by the bad guys! Brad thought that even old
Max-the-Brand himself would have one hell of a time with THAT
little plot twist!

Sitting there looking out at the
rugged moonscape of Mt. Lafayette, Brad let his mind continue to
drift. After the fight, Flame had been in a kind of trance. True,
two days of struggling up a mountain with no food and water and
then shooting your lover in the head, might tend to put anyone’s
mood off somewhat; yet right after Josh had been shot, she seemed
to snap out of it and want to help. She said she had some ‘first
hand knowledge of gunshot wounds’ and did a good job of stopping
the bleeding.

Later, between swigging water and
chewing on pepperoni, she’d gladly taken her turn with the litter.
Once they reached the hut, she’d help clean and dress his wounds
again. She had even sat up with Tina for the last two nights taking
turns watching over him.

Yesterday, when Brad had shooed them
all outside so he could give Josh a sponge bath and change his
sheets, Flame had raced the boys up to the top of Lafayette. And
won! Later he’d seen Jessie showing her how to use his bow.
Kenneth, Jessie and her had ‘gone hunting’ after that and damned if
they didn’t come back with a rabbit! Kenneth had hit it with his
.22 target pistol. The three of them had come whooping and
hollering back up the trail like a band of Indians, though even
Brad had to admit, in her cut-off jeans and sweat-stained t-shirt,
Flame looked like one sexy Pocahontas!

The implications of that last thought
shocked him. Bloody Hell! His cousin had been shot by a maniac, his
wife and daughter had been turned to ashes not two weeks ago, the
whole fucking world had gone to hell, and here he was ogling a
motorcycle whore who shot her lovers in the head!

He didn’t think of Tina that way, and
she was young and cute and ---

Cautiously he examined that thought a
little more, worrying over it like a sore tooth. Shock, he
reasoned. They were all still in a state of shock. Jesus H. Christ!
They’d just gone through the end of the world and topped that off
with a shoot-out with a psychopath and his gang! Little wonder he
looked around longingly for a little love and kindness. Flame’s
sexuality could be nothing more than his reaffirmation of life, a
way of convincing himself that he was still alive.

Christ! Now he sounded like a Doctor
Phil rerun! Yet the problem of Flame would not go away. Nor, he
noted wryly, was he the only male she was having an effect
on.

This morning he had been watching Eddy
and Billy target practicing. While the two of them had been
blasting away, Flame had wandered over. After a while Billy had let
her try. The young idiot had actually handed her his gun! Brad had
held his breath as she took the weapon. Slowly she had aimed and
fired, hitting four of the six cans the men had set up. Brad
hadonly started breathing again when she handed the large gun back
to a wide-eyed Billy. Next he’d watched dumbfounded as the young
fool dug her Smith & Wesson out of his pack, complete with
shoulder holster and all, and actually given it to her! Eddy had
looked uneasy about the decision, but Billy had
insisted.

Checking to see the gun was loaded,
she had fired twice, hitting the two remaining cans. Then she had
done something strange. She handed the smoking gun to Eddy and ran
off to set the cans up again. Billy had stood in open awe of both
her ability as well as the way she moved as she went to set up the
cans.

Even Tina seemed to accept her. Yet
why not? By shooting Blade, hadn’t Flame saved the girl’s life?
Only Eddy seemed unchanged by the amazing Amazon that had deigned
to wander amongst them. Eddy, Brad realized, didn’t trust her ---
That made Brad feel somewhat better, and somewhat
guilty.

He got up and trickled a little water
into his cousin’s mouth. He then wiped his chin, checked his
breathing, and went into the main room. The boys were at the table,
waiting for Tina to pronounce her muffins ready for consumption.
Billy was trying to tune a guitar with only five
strings.

“How’s Dad?”, Jessie asked.

“Still sleeping. He took some
water.”

Jessie got up and went silently into
his father.

Brad ruffled his own son’s hair.
“Where’s Eddy?”

“Outside somewhere,” Kenneth smiled,
then turned towards the kitchen. “Hey, Tina, those muffins ready
yet?”

Brad found Eddy on the steps running
an oily rag through the barrel of Josh’s Winchester. His own
Remington lay in pieces, the long scope carefully wrapped in a
clean Green Leaf t-shirt. Eddy’s eyes sought Brad’s. The question
didn’t need to be spoken.

“Still the same,” Brad sighed, sitting
down heavily. Only with Eddy could he show his fear. Only with
Eddy.

And Eddy didn’t trust her.

They sat there in silence for a time,
like two old friends soaking up the summer sun. Only with Eddy ---
and with Josh.

But Josh might die.

“No!” Brad hadn’t realized he’d spoken
out loud.

Eddy ignored it, working the overlarge
lever on Josh’s short, powerful rifle. “The Duke’s gun.” There was
more than a touch of reverence in his voice. “You know, I’ve seen
just about every movie John Wayne ever made. A few of them were
shit, but most of them were pure gold: Red River, Rio Grand, Fort
Apache. My favorite two were The Searchers and True Grit. I saw
that one a half dozen times. He was slowing down a bit near the
end, but he could still kick ass!”

Suddenly he stood and did a passable
impression of The Duke, then worked the lever with the famous
‘flip’. “Josh does it better.”

Both men smiled, then Brad asked where
Flame was. Eddy handed him the long rifle scope and nodded at the
rocky summit. Brad’s smile vanished as he scanned the bare, rocky
cone. The rugged peak leapt closer. A quarter of a mile from the
top he saw a figure coming down at a fast pace, red hair flowing
out behind. Setting the scope down, Brad met Eddy’s
gaze.

“What do we do about her?”

Eddy began assembling his Remington.
“I’ve already talked to Tina about her. She thinks we should accept
her. She says Flame’s not like the others, that she just fell in
with a bad crowd.”

“You buy that?”

Eddy shrugged. “Could be. I think she
likes excitement. The bikers gave her that. Now they’re gone and
we’re here.”

“What about when we meet a more
‘exciting’ group?”

Eddy shrugged again.

Jessie’s high-pitched yell made them
jump. “He’s awake! Dad’s awake!”

Two more days of rest,
limited exercise and Tina’s home cooking soon restored Josh’s
health. Except for a long scar on the left side of his head, he
seemed almost as good as new. Josh accepted Flame from the start,
listening to Brad’s doubts but pointing out that she had clearly
made her choice by shooting Blade and saving Tina. Reluctantly Brad
pushed his own doubts aside, along with his ‘other’
feelings.

The next day they began the three mile
trek down to the road. Due to Josh’s head wound they went slowly,
reaching the Ranger Station by mid afternoon. Billy and the boys
soon had the flats changed and early the next morning they were on
their way towards Mt. Washington. By 9:30 AM they were in a wooded
parking lot of the Cog Railway, at the base of the highest mountain
in the east. A small, turn-of-the-century train sat in the bright
sunlight, waiting patiently for the next load of tourists that
would never come.

“You sure you’re up to this?”, Brad
had asked his cousin. Josh had winked and shouldered his pack,
though both Eddy and Billy had already shared out his heavy gear.
Joshed carried his rain gear, a sweater and a canteen. Tina, in the
lead, kept the pace to an easy stroll.

Soon they were headed up the
Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail to Lakes of the Clouds Hut. Built on a
windswept plateau, with Mt. Washington’s6,288 foot peak towering
another thousand feet above it, the hut was the highest in the
entire system. Tina called it her favorite trail in all the White
Mountains. A bitter-sweet memory flooded back to Josh as he
remembered how much his wife had loved it as well.

Half way up they came to Jem Pool, a
crystal clear basin of greenish-blue water at the bottom of a long
series of falls and slides. All pulled out bathing suits and went
off searching for a private place to change. When they returned,
they found Flame and Og already in the pool. The water was crystal
clear. Like the pup, Flame wore only the suit she was born
in.