The Ferguson Rifle (11 page)

She looked like she had been struck. Her face was pale. “Then we can't find it?”

“One chance in a thousand,” Talley said, “but there must have been something else? Some other thing? A hint of some kind?”

“No.”

We walked back to the fire and sat down. Talley explained briefly. We all felt sorry, not for ourselves, because we had lost nothing, but for her, who had lost everything.

We had come west after fur, at least most of us had. Why I had come I did not yet know. To run away from something? From everything? To change myself? Or to return to a lost boyhood?

“The joke's on him,” Shanagan said, “that white-faced spalpeen from Mexico. After all, we did come after fur, and we can still get fur. He's got nothin' facin' him but a long ride back.”

“But he doesn't know that,” Ebitt replied gently. “He doesn't know, and he'd never believe it. He'd think we were lying. And you remember what he said … he'd kill us all … trying to make us tell what we don't know.”

We looked at each other across the fire. The hope of treasure was gone; the long march to the Mandan villages remained. Nothing was solved.

And somewhere on our back trail, Rafen Falvey was riding.

CHAPTER 14
______________

W
E SAT ABOUT our fire feeling very glum indeed, not for ourselves, for we had little to lose, but for Lucinda, for whom we'd all come to feel a great affection.

In a difficult and desperate situation, she had not complained. She had ridden with the best of us, she had calmly made do with what was available, she had said nothing about the food, nor had she asked any special privileges.

Suddenly angry, I looked over at Degory Kemble. “Damn it, Deg, we've got to do something! The stuff was hidden, and with information as poor as that, I doubt if anything has been found.”

“How far from that promontory back there?” Talley asked.

“A day's ride,” she said.

“And that might be anything from twelve to thirty miles, depending on their horses, their anxiety, and what they figured to do.”

“It would be nearer the lesser figure,” Cusbe Ebitt replied. “Think now … they had the treasure with them. Indians were already with them or closing in. We cannot be sure of just what the situation was after so long a time, yet they must have been pushed to let go of the treasure at all.

“Think of it now. They wanted to get away to the French colonies where they could return to Europe and live in style in Paris or London or Rome. They didn't
want
to bury that treasure.

“So they would have moved slowly, I think. They would have been looking for a place, something that offered a camp … a good reason for stopping … and something that offered some kind of a marker. Something more than we've been told.”

“But I've told you all I know!” Lucinda protested.

Solomon Talley nodded his head. “I think you have. That doesn't mean there was nothing more. It's likely there was something they reserved for themselves, some knowledge they held back.”

“My guess is that we're within five miles of it right now,” Isaac said.

Firelight flickered against the dark spruces and the white trunks of the aspen. They were some of the largest aspen I had seen, for the aspen grows in thick stands, grows tall and straight. It is a tree that likes the sun, needs the sun, and it is one of the first to grow across burns where fire has swept. It grows up, grows tall, and then under its cover the spruce begins to grow, sheltered and protected by the aspen. Yet as the spruce grow taller, the aspen tend to die out, until after many years the aspen are gone and a thick stand of spruce remains.

One of the most beautiful trees anywhere, it is not a good timber tree, for it rots from the heart out. Now with winter coming on, the aspen had already turned to gold. The earth where we were to sleep was inches deep with the golden leaves … treasure enough for me.

Rising from the fire, I gathered leaves and heaped them into a place for Lucinda to lie, then bunched leaves for myself. I was restless and wakeful. Deliberately we had allowed our fire to burn down to coals. We fed it some knots and chunks lying about, but such as would smoulder and burn but would make no bright flame.

Bob Sandy's leg was bothering him. We had treated it as best we could, and though it was but a flesh wound, it was painful and his leg was stiff. He was first to sleep, then Ebitt.

Heath was standing the first watch, and was already on the slope below us. Kemble and Talley both turned in, and then Jorge Ulibarri, after finding there was nothing he could do for Lucinda, went to sleep well back in the stand of aspen. Davy Shanagan lay under a spruce, out of sight from but within sight of the fire.

“Why do they call you Scholar?” she asked suddenly.

I shrugged. “It began as a joke, but I was a teacher briefly. A restless one, I'll admit. Research I liked, teaching I liked also, but I've done a bit of writing, and studied law somewhat. To be frank, I've not fallen into a settled pattern. You see, as a boy I lived much in the woods. The wilderness left its mark on me, and I would find myself longing for the dark paths among the trees again.”

“And now what?” she asked.

“Who knows? I doubt if I'll ever go back to what I was. Of course, there's much to be learned. I'm tempted to travel, to explore more of the ancient civilizations in Asia. Or here, for that matter. Too little is known about what happened here before the white man came.”

“You're not married?”

“My wife is dead. It was then I cast off my ties to all I'd been.” I got up. “You'd better rest. Tomorrow won't be easy.”

She went to her bed, but I did not go to mine. There was no sleep in me, and I knew not why. Something was disturbing me, and in my restlessness I went to where Heath stood guard.

“You, is it? There's nothing … yet. But I don't like the feel of the night.”

“Nor I.”

Our backs were to the stand of aspen. The leaves whispered gently around us. The moon was rising, throwing all about into stark relief. The white trunks of the trees were like Grecian pillars. I put my hand on one.

“They're self-pruning,” I said. “Their early branches fall away when they grow tall.”

“These are thick,” Heath said. “Most aspen are more slender.”

“These are a hundred years old or older,” I said, “and they rarely grow to two hundred … very rarely.”

He turned his face toward me. “Chantry, I was thinking of what you said earlier, that the aspen grows over old burns. And it was a burn she spoke of. Do you suppose it could be covered by aspen?”

“I'll be damned. Heath, you're probably right. By now that slope would be covered by spruce, with few aspen left, if any.”

“Or those left would be very old … like these.”

We stood silent, thinking the same thought, that we might even now be standing among those trees, with the blue black cliff beneath us and the rock with the streak of quartz opposite.

“It's too much to expect,” I said, “but Heath, do you keep watch. I'm going to see what the slope above us is like.”

“Do that.” He spat into the leaves. “I have a feeling about this place. Tonight when you talked of the aspen, I kept thinking of how it looked when we rode up here.”

Turning, I skirted the aspen and went up through the gloomy avenues of the spruce. In the moonlight the aspen were beyond belief, the still white trunks, the gently wavering golden leaves … they possessed a magic of their own and it was no wonder so many animals and birds loved them.

I climbed steadily, working my way along, carrying the Ferguson rifle in my right hand. The climb was often so steep I had to pull myself from tree to tree, using handholds on the branches. Suddenly I was there, out in the open above the aspen, above the spruce, above everything. For this was timberline.

Turning, I looked around me. Up here I could see the moon. The sky was impossibly clear, bathing the forest below in misty golden light. Not the mist of cloud or dampness, but of moonlight among the trees. Behind me bulked the vastness of the mountain, below the steep hillside, the shimmering pool of the aspen, and beyond, on the far side of the valley bottom an escarpment … an ancient fault at the edge of the rugged tableland that lay beyond.

Of the valley itself I could see nothing. All was deep in shadow down there. For a moment I stood, lost in the impossible beauty of the scene, and then I turned to look at the steep slope behind me.

It rose sharply up to a rim against the sky, and as I moved to its foot, rocks crunched under my feet. It was what we had been looking for … a steep slope of rocks broken and shattered by changing heat and cold. A moment longer I waited and then, as I started downward, my ears caught a faint sound.

Quickly I turned and looked along the base of the talus slope. I could see someone walking toward me, a tall man. Instinctively I stepped back to more level ground and better footing.

He came on along, walking easily and almost without sound. There was no question in my mind as to who he was, yet I waited, curious what the man would do, and aware of our camp, just below.

“Greetings, my friend! I had a feeling only one man would be up here at night. It takes a man with a bit of the poet in him to come to such a place when he could be sleeping. Well, I'm glad you came. It's time we had a talk away from those others.”

“They're my friends,” I said, somewhat stiffly.

He waved that away. “Of course. We all have friends. What they mean to us depends on how we use them. I think yours have ceased to have value.”

“My viewpoint is somewhat different.”

“Ah? Of course. You'd be a romantic sort or you'd not have come west. And a bit of a damned fool, if you don't mind my saying so. You've nothing to gain out here.

“The sea … now that's another thing. When this is over, I'm going to get the handsomest ship on the water, and I'll round up some of my old crew and we'll show the rascals what piracy really is.”

“If you ever hope to do that,” I suggested calmly, “it would be wise to start now.”

He laughed, turning his eyes to me. “Well now! Our Scholar threatens? Maybe there's something there, after all.”

He gestured toward a flat rock. “Sit down, man. We need to talk. You and I … we have brains. That lot down there smell of the hides they take and of the life they live. They're nothing. Now you and me, that's something else. The world is ready for those strong enough to take it … and I don't want all of it, just freedom to do what I damned well please with a piece of it. All would be too much trouble.”

He had seated himself on another rock. He leaned toward me. “I like you, Scholar. Let's go partners. If you want the girl … take her. I don't want any one woman. Attachments are a bloody bad business. Take them and be rid of them, and off to another port in the morning.

“You and me … we could have that treasure between us. Oh, it's there! I know it's there! And not far from where we sit, either. What do you say? Throw in with me. You take the girl and one-third. I take one-third and we use the remaining third for expenses … for a ship.

“There's a schooner in New Orleans that can shake off anything on the water. We can take a couple of prizes, then off for the Indian Ocean. It's the best place, believe me.

“Can you navigate? You can? Fine! That will take some burden off my shoulders. I'm a dead-reckoning man myself, and there're times when it's not good enough.”

He took a Cuban cheroot from his pocket and lighted it. “Look … I've twenty-odd men back there, and a tough lot they are. They can take that bunch of yours and chop them like mincemeat … but I happen to know there's a river that heads not far from here, deep enough to float a canoe. We'll leave the lot of them, take the loot, and float down to New Orleans.

“It's as simple as that. You know where the loot is. I have the canoe hidden. We can be two days gone before they realize and they'll waste themselves hunting for sign … the river leaves none.”

I chuckled. “And the one man alive when the canoe reaches New Orleans has it all? Am I right?”

He laughed. “There! I knew you were my kind of man. No, none of that. You spoke of friends awhile back. A man may not need friends but he needs companions, and the devil of it is a man doesn't find many men who have brains, not many who appreciate the arts, music, books, ideas … a man needs somebody to talk to.

“No, we'll go all the way together. No throat cutting in the night, no double cross. And after we get to sea, we'll go halves on everything.”

I got to my feet. “No, Mr. Falvey. I'll have nothing to do with it. My advice is for you to turn about and take your men out of here. I doubt if there's a treasure, and if there is, we don't know where it is. Nor does your niece.

“I'll admit we thought there was, but her directions turned out to be flimsy, indeed. Why, there're fifty places within a dozen miles of here that answer to her information! We leave as soon as our wounded man is able to travel.”

The smile had gone from his face. He shrugged. “Well, it was worth a try. I half expected you'd be a damned fool.” He held out his hand to me, smiling. “No hard feelings?”

Instinctively, my hand went out. He gripped mine hard. “All right, men,
take him
!”

I jerked hard on my hand, but Falvey had uncommon strength and he hung on. Instantly, hearing boots grate on the rocks, I threw myself into him. My move was unexpected and Falvey staggered, fought for his balance, but when I threw my weight down slope, he let go. I went flying, my left hand gripping my rifle, and rolled and tumbled down the slope into the darkness. Two shots rang out, then a third. At least one bullet clipped leaves near me.

Falvey, who had fallen to his knees, was getting up, swearing.

I started to move, a branch cracked under my hand, and a shot clipped an aspen trunk close to me and spat bark in my face.

Yet I lunged to my feet and ran into the aspen, weaving in and out among the trunks.

Another shot was fired, but there was small chance of hitting me among the aspen. I ran on, heedless of sound, yet actually making little on the damp leaves. On my left was a dark clump of spruce … the camp should be there.

I plunged into the open, looking quickly around. Nothing! Somehow I had lost my way among the trees, and—

But no.

The fire was there. The dark coals smoked slightly, and there was a tinge of red where one still glowed.

Gone … they were gone.

I was alone.