Outlaw Pass (9781101544785) (2 page)

In response to his father's comment, Adam turned to gaze at the big bay gelding in the corral. “I decided it'd be best to let Bucky rest for a few days,” he said. “He's tryin' to get a split hoof on his left front, and I'm hopin' it'll heal on its own, given a little time. Tell Mose and Doc not to work him till I get back.”

“I will,” Nathan responded. “Here,” he said, and handed Adam a roll of bills. “You might need some extra money in case you have to bail your brother out of jail or somethin'.” Then he gave him a small pouch. “There's three gold double eagles in here. That ain't but sixty dollars, but you might need it in case they won't take any paper money in that damn place.” Adam nodded, took the money, and put it away in his saddlebag. Nathan stepped back then while his son climbed up in the saddle. “You be careful, Adam.”

“I will, Pa,” Adam said, and slid his Henry rifle into the saddle scabbard. With no further words of parting than this, Adam wheeled the roan and set him on a southwest course toward the Yellowstone. His father spun on his heel and returned to the house, confident that Adam would find his brother. Passing the back corner of the corral, Adam saw Mose and Doc replacing a broken rail. He pulled up when he was hailed by Mose, who walked out to meet him.

“Boy,” Mose addressed him—he always called him boy. Adam figured the old man would always think of him and Jake as the two scrappy little fellows in their childhood. “You be damn careful, you hear? There's a lot of wild, godless outlaws preyin' on the hardworkin' folks around them diggin's. You mind your back.”

“I will, Mose. I'll find Jake and be back here before you know I'm gone.”

Mose remained there for several minutes, hands on hips, watching Adam until he turned Brownie toward the river. Of Nathan Blaine's two sons, he admitted to himself, Adam was his favorite. Maybe it was because Adam had always been interested in learning everything Mose offered to teach him, whether it was stalking and killing an elk or knowing a horse's mind. Unlike Jake, who openly flaunted his self-reliance, Adam seemed secure in a quiet confidence that he was prepared to handle whatever confronted him. In spite of their differences, Mose had to concede that the two brothers were close. He attributed that to Adam's maturity and the fact that he had more or less watched over his younger brother since their mother died. Mose's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Nathan Blaine calling for him from the house.
I don't know how long this place would survive without me to take care of everything,
he thought as he turned and started toward the back door of the house.

 

Adam arrived at the bank of the Madison River at the end of the second day's travel, his first day having been shortened considerably by his late departure from the Triple-B. He made his camp a hundred yards up a stream that emptied into the river where the light from his fire might not be noticed by anyone passing by. After an uneventful night, he was out of his blanket at first light and saddling the roan, preparing to ride for ten or twelve miles along the river before stopping to rest his horse and have his breakfast. Following an already well-traveled road, the roan maintained a steady pace, so much so that Adam decided to push on until Brownie showed signs of getting tired. Consequently, it was close to noon when he decided the horse had earned a good rest.

While he sat by his small fire, drinking a cup of coffee and gnawing on a strip of jerky, he idly watched the red roan as it nosed around in a patch of green lilies at the water's edge. There had never been any reason for him to travel to Alder Gulch, so all he knew about Virginia City, Nevada City, and the other towns along that gulch was what he had heard—that they were wide-open and lawless towns with thousands of new people streaming in every day. Based on these stories, he had halfway expected to meet other travelers on the road along the Madison, but so far, he was the only traffic. Back in the saddle, he continued his journey.

Leaving the river, he followed the road up into the hills for another nine or ten miles before sundown once again called for him to make camp. Virginia City couldn't be more than another half day's ride, he figured, and Bannack was supposed to be about sixty miles beyond Virginia City. And although Jake was supposed to be in Bannack, Adam planned to start looking for his brother in the saloons and bawdy houses in Alder Gulch and Daylight Gulch before moving on to Bannack. If he was lucky, he might find him holed up there, delayed by a run of luck at the poker table, or a
fancy lady
who happened to catch his eye. He shook his head and sighed, much like a harried parent thinking about a rambunctious child, as he guided the roan toward a stand of cottonwood trees that suggested the presence of some form of water. Sure enough, he found a small stream cutting a shallow gully between the trees. In short order, he had his horse taken care of and a fire glowing cheerfully. With his coffeepot bubbling on the edge of the fire, he broke out his frying pan and started to prepare some more of the jerky he had brought. It was then he noticed the ears perking up on the roan grazing nearby, followed a few seconds later by an inquisitive nicker. Knowing it could be anything out in the darkness that caused the horse to inquire, a mountain lion or a bear, he nevertheless casually rolled away from the firelight, drawing his rifle from the saddle behind him as he did. “Hello the camp,” a call came a few minutes later. “Saw your fire back there. Mind if we come in? There's just the two of us.”

Adam's first thought was that he hadn't hidden his camp very well, but there was nothing to remedy that now. “Come on in,” he called back while edging his way a little farther from the firelight until his back was against the trunk of a cottonwood.

In a few moments, two riders approached the fire, slow-walking their horses through the trees beside the stream and leading a packhorse. Pulling up in the small clearing, they looked right and left before sighting Adam sitting with his back to the tree. “Howdy,” one of the men said. “Don't blame you for bein' careful. There's a helluva lot of road agents ridin' these trails around here. We all have to be careful.”

“That's what I hear,” Adam replied, and got to his feet, his rifle still in hand. “You're welcome to some coffee. I don't have much food to offer but some jerky I was fixin' to fry when you rode up.”

“'Preciate it,” the rider said. “Me and Jim here would love some of that coffee, but we've got plenty of fresh-kilt deer meat that needs to be et before it starts to turn. Jim shot a young buck a few hours ago right when it was crossin' the river. So if you'll furnish the coffee, we'll furnish the meat.”

“That sounds like a fair deal to me,” Adam said, still watching his visitors with a cautious eye.

The two dismounted then. “My name's Rob Hawkins,” the one doing all the talking said. “My partner here is Jim Highsmith. We're headin' to Virginia City. Which way are you headin'?”

“Adam Blaine,” Adam said. “I'm goin' the same way you are.”

“You headin' to the diggin's to try your luck at prospectin'?” Highsmith asked, speaking for the first time.

“Nope,” Adam replied. “I'm lookin' for my brother. He's the prospector in the family. I don't know much about it, to tell you the truth.” He continued to watch the men carefully as they tied their horses near the stream, taking special note that they left their rifles in the saddle boots. In a show of equal trust, he walked back over to his saddle on the ground and slipped his rifle back in the sling.

The gesture did not go unnoticed by his guests. Rob smiled and unbuckled his gun belt. “Why don't we just hang our handguns on our saddles, so we don't have to keep an eye on each other, and cook up some of this meat?” His remark served to clear the tension from the air, and all three chuckled as Jim and Adam followed his example. “Matter of fact, I might pull off my boots and pants. They still ain't dry.” He went on to relate the encounter with the deer at the river. “If Jim had waited till the damn deer climbed up on the bank, I wouldn'ta had to go in the river after him. I swear, he shot him when he was right in the middle, and he was about to wash downstream with the current.”

Jim shrugged and replied in defense of his actions, “How was I to know if he was gonna come on across or turn and go to the other bank? You'da got your ass wet either way.”

“Oughta made you go in after him,” Rob groused. “You were the one that shot him.”

Adam recharged his coffeepot to accommodate the new arrivals while Rob carved off some of the fresh venison. There was no need to conserve. The meat wouldn't keep much longer with the weather as warm as it was, so everyone ate their fill. By the time a state of satisfaction was reached, the three men felt at ease with one another, and the talk turned to prospecting. Rob, sitting by the fire in his underwear, complained that he and Jim were too late in arriving at the diggings, but decided they had nothing better to do. “There's always some little spot that nobody found, and that might be the place we hit it big.”

“Maybe so,” Adam said. “You sound like my brother. The only difference is my brother ain't much for hard work. He'll likely look for some way to have somebody else do the diggin'.” He studied his two visitors without the sense of suspicion he had applied at first. They were an interesting pair. Rob was tall and lanky, and his face wore an expression of carefree indifference. His partner, Jim, was a study in contrast. He was short and stocky, his face reflecting a sense of constant worry. He walked with a slight limp, the result of having been born with one leg considerably shorter than the other, according to him. Before the evening was over, Adam invited them to unsaddle their horses and ride on in to Virginia City with him in the morning.

The conversation eventually got around to the many rumors of gangs of road agents that preyed upon the trails between the gold fields and Salt Lake City, and the lack of law enforcement to protect stagecoaches and freighters. “Bannack, Virginia City, and all the other little towns along those gulches are wide open for outlaws,” Rob said. “And since you say you ain't ever been to any of them places, you'd best beware of who you talk to, especially if you're carryin' any money on you.”

“Well, I reckon I don't have anythin' to worry about,” Adam lied, “'cause I'm dead broke. But I 'preciate the warnin'. Like I said, I'm just lookin' for my brother, and as soon as I find him, the outlaws are welcome to Alder Gulch and Daylight Gulch, too.”

“Still ain't a bad idea to sleep with your six-shooter handy, though,” Rob said, and that's what all three did when it was time to turn in.

 

The night passed without incident and Adam, long accustomed to short nights working with cattle, was out of his blanket and reviving the fire before his two visitors were awake. “Damn, Adam,” Rob commented upon awakening to the aroma of fresh coffee, “I might trade ol' Highsmith in for you.”

Sitting up then and scratching his head vigorously, Jim replied. “Hell, I'm the one that shot us a deer. You'd starve to death if I left the huntin' up to you.”

Adam had to laugh. They were a pair, all right. He was going to miss them. On his own, he would already have been in the saddle, but he waited for his new acquaintances, who were evidently not endowed with his workmanlike urgency to get started. Since it was no more than a half day's ride to Virginia City, however, that estimate confirmed by Rob and Jim the night before, he figured he could afford to dawdle a bit on the trail. Once they were on the way, he learned that they were as familiar with the territory as they had claimed, for they left the main road and led him on a less-traveled trail over the hills that shaved a good two miles off the trip.

“Well, there she is,” Rob announced when they topped a high hill after leaving the game trail where it again intercepted the road. Below them were the buildings of Virginia City, structures of all kinds: log stores, some with board facades, tents, brush wickiups. There were even some houses that had incorporated stone, evidently quarried from the hills surrounding the gulch. And there was new construction still going on, on every vacant piece of ground, which was in extremely short supply. The timber on the surrounding hills had all been clear-cut to provide lumber for the saloons, hotels, and bawdy houses. Adam was amazed. He had heard of the population explosion that had taken place along the approximate fifteen miles of the gulch, but nothing he had heard could have prepared him for the scene below him. The gulch was like an open anthill, with thousands of people working away at their claims. Some labored with picks and shovels, digging for bedrock, while others wheeled loads of dirt to sluice boxes. The narrow street was jammed with sixteen-, even twenty-horse bull trains, pulling as many as four wagons hitched together. They were competing with mule trains and packhorses to navigate the muddy streets.

The thought struck Adam that there couldn't possibly be enough gold in the gulch to accommodate all these people. Watching his reaction to the chaotic scene below them, Rob guessed what he might be thinking. “Ain't gonna be easy findin' your brother, is it?”

“Reckon not,” Adam replied thoughtfully. “I didn't figure it was gonna be.”

“Trouble is,” Jim interjected, “this here is just Virginia City. There's half a dozen or more places along Alder and Daylight gulches that's already big enough to have a name—Junction, Adobetown, Highland, Summit, and a few others.”

“You say he started out from Bannack?” Rob asked. When Adam nodded, Rob suggested that his brother might still be there.

“Maybe,” Adam said. “But if he did leave Bannack, he mighta stopped on the way, so I expect I'd best look around here before I move on to Bannack just to be sure.” The odds were against his ever finding Jake in the writhing mass of humanity below him, but he had no choice. He reached over to each side to shake hands with his new friends. They were not going into Virginia City, planning instead to join some friends farther up Daylight Gulch. “You two take care of yourselves,” he said in parting, “and good luck prospectin'.”