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took the gold from the best rock and put the silver ore to one side.
From his hillside he could look down upon much of the town and see it
scattered along the streets, if such they could be called. Snow turned white
the hills, and the Washoe zephyrs filled the air with it, moaning about the
eaves of the cabin and prying with ghostly fingers to find a way to the warmth
inside.
On a Monday night when the snow fell, Dane Clyde came up the hill and tapped
on the door. Trevallion opened for him with a gun tucked behind his belt,
andClyde went to the stove, slipping off his mittens and extending stiff
fingers to the heat.
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"I found where the blankets are kept, and all the rest too, aside from what
they've eaten."
Trevallion waited, and he said, "It's a cabin, not where we thought, but in a
canyon about a mile above Cedar. There's a trail. Do you know it?"
"I do."
"The cabin's about two hundred yards up. Nobody lives there, but there's a
corral and a shed. The cabin's mostly dug-out."
"Anybody there?"
"No. They come and go. Mostly it's empty."
"Good." He turned to the coffeepot. "Sit down. It's almighty cold out there."
He filled his cup. "Did they see you?"
He shrugged. "Maybe. I started the story that I was getting over an illness,
and the doctor had told me I must walk. I started walking each evening a
different direction, and finally, I think, they got used to me and paid no
attention."
"I hear you've been singing a bit down at Lyman's."
"I have. But elsewhere too. It's the old Irish songs they like best, but I've
a lot of amusing ones from the music halls. It's a living."
He was quiet for a moment. "You've not been down for a few days?"
"No."
"Sam Brown killed a man. Cut him with a bowie knife, ripped him wide open,
then shoved the body under a table and went to sleep on it, his hands still
bloody."
"That's the way he is."
"I could stand the murdering brute if he'd just take a bath sometimes. He's
about the foulest thing I've ever seen on two feet."
Clydesipped his coffee. "I've seen Hauser with Brown, and I've seen him with
several others."
"With a man named Waggoner?" Trevallion described him.
"No, there's no such man around now. If he was here, he must have gone out
with the crowd forCalifornia ."
For a while they were silent, sipping their coffee.Clyde glanced at the books
on the makeshift shelf. "Yours?"
"They came with the house. He picked them up, here and there, in abandoned
camps. Some of them he found in theForty-MileDesert , thrown out to lighten
the load."
"Read much?"
"Now and again. A man alone gets hungry for some kind of communication, even
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if he's not a reader. I knew one who was snowed in one year, and when he came
out with the spring thaw, he'd come so close to memorizing the Bible that he
became a preacher."
Trevallion got up. "If you want to you can wait here, but I'd guess the
bakery would be a better place."
Clyde looked up, startled. "You aren't going over therealone?"
"I think that's the best way. I can come in the back way. I won't ride
through town. With any luck I'll find what I'm looking for and get back here
before they know what happened."
"I'll come with you."
"Thanks, but no." He glanced atClyde . "Have you ever used a gun?"
"No, no, I haven't. I guess I could if it came to that."
"Better leave them alone, although it might pay you to learn how to handle
one. This is rough country, and a gun is handy in many ways."
He needed help to do what he wished to do, and the first man who came to mind
was Tapley.Clyde , despite his willingness, was not the man for what he had in
mind.
He found Tapley in his dug-out, nursing a cup of coffee. "You sure picked a
night," he commented. "What's up?"
Trevallion explained, then concluded, "We'll need about four pack mules, I
guess, and a lot of luck."
"None of that outfit likely to be out tonight," Tapley said. "Hauser was down
to Lyman's, and he was about half-drunk."
Icy wind slammed into their faces and bodies as they rode out, the mules
fighting to return to the reasonably warm barns. Trevallion led off, the wind
sucking the breath from his throat as he tried to hide his chin behind his
coat collar.
There were many lights visible from the town, and farther along, from Gold
Hill andSilverCity , but they could see no movement.
The cabin was whereClyde had said it would be, and Trevallion was in no mood
for waiting about. He rode right up to it, half expecting the door to burst
open and a man with a gun to appear. Yet when he reached the door it was
closed with a hasp and a lock.
It was a solid door, but the hasp itself did not look strong. On the third
kick the hasp tore free, and the door opened.
It was all there, everything but the mules. There were bales of blankets,
sacks of flour, sugar, and coffee. Wasting no time they loaded the mules,
overloaded them, actually. Some of the supplies listed as stolen were already
gone, either used by the thieves themselves or peddled here and there. Even so
it needed two trips to empty the cabin, and it was almost daylight when the
job was completed. All the goods were stored in Ledbetter's own storeroom.
Over coffee back in his cabin he looked over at Tapley. "The mules, we've got
to find those mules."
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"They'll be down along the river, more'n likely. Has to be a place where they
can be hidden and where there is water and feed feed means hay or else
browse."
"First, I move we catch some sleep," Trevallion said, "and then we hunt
mules."
"You reckon that stuff will be safe?"
"It's right in the middle of town. Cash money is scarce. I'll find two or
three tough miners to keep an eye on it."
Tapley rode beside him into the quiet morning, this the third morning of
their search and no mules yet. The blown snow was gone, except for threads of
white in the shadow of boulders or places where long dead streams had cut
banks and then abandoned them to wind and sun.
"You need a woman," Tapley said again, "it's no life for a man alone."
"You're alone."
"I have my daughter. It's a comfort to think of her and plan for her. Maybe
the plans will come to nothing, but it is something to think on, and she's
someone to love."
"Maybe, someday."
"You're young. When you're young there's always a tomorrow, or so the young
believe. There isn't, of course. As many of the young die as the old. In this
land it is an accomplishment to grow old, and mighty few will ever make it."
"Man back at the store said he saw some tracks up here, paid them no mind."
"We'll find them." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
