The End of the Trail (7 page)

Because Pat figured that was the fatal mistake the Burns detective and Nate Morris had both made. Going up by train to snoop around was a sure way to arouse instant suspicion. Since the railroad dead-ended there and there was no logical reason why casual visitors should come to Sanctuary Flat, it wasn't surprising that an alert murderer had spotted both of them as spies for the syndicate at once—even if there wasn't an inside slip-up as Pat more than half suspected.

With two pack horses to carry their four bedrolls, and a third horse packed with camp equipment, they were prepared to exist in the high mountains as long as was necessary to accomplish their purpose. They didn't have to take much food along because there would be fresh meat and fish all along the way; only some flour and bacon and coffee, a handful of salt and a can of baking powder, and a good-sized sack of dried beans.

Both Sally and Kitty were horrified by the meager stock of provisions they laid out to take along, and both the women were full of suggestions for added items they felt their men should have, but Pat and Sam vetoed every suggestion and took along only what they knew would be actually necessary.

Their cooking utensils consisted of a Dutch oven and a big frying pan, an iron pot for cooking beans and stewing meat, and a huge smoke-blackened coffee pot that had seen service on many such trips in the past. With four deep tin plates, a knife, fork and spoon for each, four battered granite-ware coffee cups, a butcher knife, long-handled fork and a big cooking spoon, the trail-wise men were prepared to meet any emergency though the women didn't see how they get along for more than a day or so with such limited equipment.

Inside their canvas-wrapped bedrolls, each man stowed away extra socks and underwear, a towel, and a heavy wool jacket to wear in case of an unseasonable storm in the high mountain passes they would cross, and each man carried a saddle-gun, and a six-shooter belted about his waist.

Keeping up the pretense that it was a peaceful exploring trip, Pat wore only one of his six-guns because he knew Sally would instantly suspect the truth if he tried to ride away with both of them buckled on. They had decided each to take along an extra saddle horse because they didn't know how difficult the going might be, and it made up quite an imposing expedition early one morning a few days later when they were finally ready to start out from the Lazy Mare ranch.

Riding his sorrel pony, Buster, Dock was in charge of the seven-horse remuda. The three pack horses plodded out patiently, old in the ways of such trips and instinctively choosing a gait that wouldn't tire them on the long trip ahead, but the four extra saddle horses were frisky and playful and Dock had his work cut out for him to keep them moving ahead in a compact body with the pack horses.

He got them started on the road first, turning in his saddle to wave a blithe farewell to his mother and the others who lingered behind by the corral, and then whooping and galloping on to get his small string straightened out and moving steadily on a route that would take them north of Pueblo where they planned to follow a winding canyon road up into the broad reaches of South Park to attack the problem of finding a new route over the Divide into Sanctuary Flat.

Sally stood on tiptoe and waved to her young son until he disappeared from sight in front of a rolling cloud of dust. She was smiling bravely, but tears sparkled in her eyes when she turned back to the others. “I'm glad he's going with you,” she said desperately. “I want him to go. I want him to grow up and have all the experiences a man needs. But he's so young, Pat. He's …”

“Sure now. He's past twelve,” Pat comforted her, putting his arm about her shoulders awkwardly. “It's only for a couple of months.”

“I know. But you will take care of him, won't you? You won't let anything happen to him?”

Pat laughed reassuringly. “He'll come back growed-up into a real man, Sally.” He tilted her face up and kissed her, and Ezra spat contemptuously and growled, “Whenever you two husban's git done with yore lallygaggin' we better start ridin'.”

Pat released Sally with a pat on her shoulder. He turned to see Kitty and Sam clinging together in a long embrace while Ezra regarded them with disgust. He laughed and reminded Ezra, “They haven't been married very long,” as he went toward his horse.

“Long enuff, I sh'u'd think fer her tuh be glad tuh see him ridin' off so's she won't have tuh look at his ugly face fer a time,” Ezra muttered sourly. He raised his voice to ask, “You ridin' with us or stayin' here huggin' yore wife, Sam?”

Sam Sloan took hold of Kitty's arms and gently released them from around his neck. “Ever'thing'll be awright, honey,” he told her gruffly. “We'll be back 'fore you know it, an' we won't never leave Powder Valley again. I swear we won't.” He turned aside to swing into the saddle, and spurred his horse away swiftly after the others without looking back.

“That was a funny thing for him to say,” Sally commented wonderingly as the two women stood side by side and watched the three men ride away. “How can he promise to stay in Powder Valley when he doesn't know where the Pony Express will send him next?”

Kitty turned with tears streaming down her face. “He's going to quit his job. As soon as this is over. We're coming back here to live. Didn't you know?”

“He hasn't any right to make you come back here to live.” Sally completely misinterpreted Kitty's tears. “I'll give him a good talking to when they come back. If he knows how you hate it here …”

“But I don't,” Kitty wailed. “I just want him back safe. That's all.”

“It's foolish for you to worry about him on this trip,” Sally told her briskly. “Let's go back to the house to see if Sammy's awake yet.”

By sundown, the four riders were a full forty miles away from the Lazy Mare ranch. They had swung diagonally across the long, sloping northern side of Powder Valley, climbing out of the lush pastureland into the rugged, broken reaches bordering the rich valley in that direction. The three men had taken the lead during the day, and Dock Stevens was manfully following them up on Buster, keeping the pack horses and extra saddle horses together in a compact group not too far behind the leaders.

It was big, one-eyed Ezra who assumed leadership on a trip like this, and it was he who pulled up with a grunt just after sundown as they came to the head of a narrow coulee they had been following for miles.

“Reckon this'll do fer uh night-camp,” he muttered. “Be cut off from the wind sleepin' down here, an' there's grass fer thuh hawses, an' looks like uh spring feeding that crick we bin follerin'.”

He swung out of the saddle and his companions followed suit. Pat turned to look back, and nodded approval when he saw Dock with the rest of the caravan not more than a quarter of a mile behind.

“Sam an' me'll unsaddle and hobble out these hawses,” he told Ezra. “You pick out where you want the cook stuff unloaded an' the best place to build yore fire.”

“You don't have tuh waste yore breath tellin' me how tuh make camp,” Ezra grunted as he stalked off. “I've did it enuff times with you two settin' around watching me.”

Pat grinned at Sam as he loosened his latigo strap and pulled the heavy saddle off his sweaty mount. “You'd think Ezra hated makin' camp to hear him talk.”

“He'd cuss us both out quick if we tried tuh horn in an' he'p,” Sam agreed. “You got any rope hobbles or must I cut some off?”

“I brought a dozen of them along in my saddle-bags.” Pat knelt and unbuckled a strap, pulled out a dozen two-foot lengths of rope. He tossed one to Sam, then looped another length around the left fore fetlock of his own horse, gave it three twists, and tied the two ends about the other fetlock. With his forefeet thus hobbled, the horse could mince along at a snail-like gait or could lunge off by raising both forefeet at once, but found it difficult and tiresome to stray very far from camp during the night.

They had the three horses unsaddled and hobbled when Dock rode up behind his remuda.

“We're making a night-camp here,” Pat called out to his son. He had his rope out and was spreading a loop for one of the extra saddle horses. “You help Ezra with the pack stuff while Sam an' me hobble out these four.” He spun the loop out with a practiced hand and it settled easily about the neck of one of the horses.

“Over this way, Dock,” Ezra shouted, emerging from behind a small clump of juniper. “There's water an' plenty of dry wood clost.”

Dock cut the three patient pack horses out from the others and pushed them over to where Ezra waited. He leaped lithely out of the saddle and trotted forward to help loosen the diamond hitches that held the packs securely in place.

There was a small sheltered area behind the junipers at the triangular apex of the rocky walls of the canyon with a small stream of water trickling out of a crack in the rocks.

By the time Sam and Pat strolled up from hobbling all eleven horses, Ezra had his supper food and cooking equipment neatly spread out on an old piece of tarpaulin and was coaxing a small fire into flame between three rocks carefully placed so the fire would get a steady draft.

Dock was whistling happily and his young face shone with interested zeal as he followed Ezra's instructions and broke dead firewood into even short lengths so the fire could be fed continuously without disturbing the bed of coals Ezra was getting built up.

Pat winked at Sam and unstrapped his bedroll from the pack saddle on the ground. “We might's well pick out the best places and get our beds spread out,” he suggested. “Ezra will be busy the next hour or two gettin' hot biscuits made an' fryin' up some steak.”

He dragged his bedroll over to a smooth spot near the clump of junipers and started to untie it while Sam followed suit.

“Go right ahead an' stretch out an' make yoreselves plumb comfort'ble,” Ezra called out scathingly, squatted by the fire. “We're eatin' cold biscuits that I brung along from my place, with coffee an' fried meat grease. Ef that don't set good on yore delicate stummicks, you kin fire thuh cook an' fix somethin' fancy tuh soot yoreselves.”

“My stummick is hankerin' fer cold biscuits an' fried meat grease,” Sam told him loudly. “An' Pat's awready droolin' tuh set his teeth into that kinda chuck.”

“Suits me right down to the ground,” Pat agreed, stretching out on his bedroll and sighing with contentment. “Me, I'll take this here instead of a city hotel any day in the week.”

The aroma of fat meat frying in Ezra's skillet and the tantalizing smell of strong coffee bubbling in the blackened pot soon filled the protected little area at the head of the coulee; and a short time later the three old partners and the young boy were sitting crosslegged on the ground ravenously getting away with the simple fare that Ezra had apportioned in four plates.

By the time full darkness had settled over the camp, Dock had efficiently cleaned up the dishes with boiling water from the iron pot that heated while they ate, and four bedrolls were stretched out companionably side by side.

“How long will it take us to get up into the real mountains, Dad?” Dock asked eagerly from his bed between Pat and Sam. “Where there'll be fish to catch an' maybe deer to shoot?”

“Two more days will put us into South Park. From there on the going will get tough.”

“Where there isn't any more road, huh?”

“That's right. This side of Fairplay where the landslide caught the stagecoach.”

“How do they know it caught it, Dad? If no one ever came back to tell about it.”

“Jest because no one ever did come back,” Sam muttered sleepily from the other side of him.

“But you said yourself the other end was blocked at the same time, too,” Dock persisted. “Suppose the coach got caught in that valley between the two places where the road went out?”

“There wasn't ever any trace of the coach or passengers found in the valley.”

“How many passengers were there, Dad?”

“Two. The way I recollect the newspaper story. That right, Sam?”

“Three, countin' the woman's baby. An' she was … you know what the newspaper said, Pat. She was figgerin' on havin' another one purty soon.”

“Another baby?” Ezra demanded from the other side of him.

“That's right.” Sam lifted himself on one elbow to light a cigarette. “That's why people made so much out of it. Her with one baby not much more'n a year old, an' another one on thuh way gettin' killed thataway. They do say her husban' went plumb crazy over it an' got hisself killed off tryin' to foller the old route over thuh mountains.”

“You reckon we'll run into bad trouble when we git down into Sanctuary Flat, Pat?” rumbled Ezra.

Pat hesitated. He and Sam had told Ezra the full truth about their expedition after that first night when Sally was present, but not a word about the true situation in the Flat had yet been told to Dock. Pat hadn't decided yet just
what
he was going to do about Dock. He had thought about leaving him behind at Fairplay, or at some ranch along the way to keep him out of danger, but he hadn't mentioned these plans to the others.

“What kind of trouble?” Dock now demanded excitedly. “What do you mean, Ezra?”

“I reckon that's fer yore Paw tuh say,” Ezra responded. “Ain't you tol' him about it, Pat?”

“Not a word,” Pat admitted defensively. “You know Sally had me caught like I was in a nutcracker.”

“Tell me now,” Dock pleaded. “What about Sanctuary Flat? What's likely to happen when we get there?”

“If we ever do,” Sam put in morosely. “We ain't over the Divide yet, an' don't you ferget it.”

“We'll wait until we get there,” Pat decided. “That'll be time enough to tell you about it, Dock. Go to sleep now. We'll be hitting the trail before sunup tomorrow.”