Falcon and Wolf 10

 

Chapter 10

 

Luke and Wolf went to bed early, and set to from an early hour, felling trees to build a footing against the sheer valley wall, a half-house like a claim-shanty, and with both of them working with a will, had the sides up and the frame of the roof by midday.

“Wolf leave now,” said Wolf. “I be back bye’n’bye.”

“Take care,” said Luke. He watched his friend go off down the valley, and started to build the framework for the roof. Bark tiles would make it secure, and strips off the rough shaping of them would jam into cracks between the logs of the walls. Mud smeared over the filled gaps inside and out would make the little house windproof. The valley floor had precious little soil; but there was enough to dig out grooves to fit the rounded backs of felled trees, split in half to make floorboards, and smoothed with Luke’s skilful use of the hatchet. He preferred it to an adze. He had cut a hole for the door, and split planks using a wedge, and the back of his axe as a hammer, to peg round the hole. Another for a window, and horn, purchased in town by Wolf made a pane to let in light, if precious little else.  Luke was used to sitting for hours in an asi, or winter house with Cherokee friends, and contemplated digging down into the rocky soil for warmth.  His own family dwor had copied the Cherokee fashion, in being partly underground, but with verandas around for summer coolness, rather than having two separate houses for summer and winter living as was the Cherokee way.

Luke made himself a meal of pork and beans, and moved his bedroll into the rough hut. The tent tied onto the structure as a roof for the time being, and the pine branches made a bed off the floor. Luke was tired enough to expect to fall asleep as soon as he had laid some logs against the door hole, and dowsed the fire, lit in what was a hole in the wall against a harder spur of rock. It needed a fourth wall of stones and mud, which would be a job for the morrow. A convenient slit in the valley wall which went on down made a latrine. He could build a rough lean-to around it. His mind continued to work on what had to be done.

Luke had no fear of solitude; but he had to admit that he missed Wolf. Even though they spent much of their time in companionable silence, his friend’s presence was noticeable in its absence.  Luke had set up his thread to a bell in the doorway, and dismissed any night fears of being disturbed, just because he was more used to the prairie or desert than the mountains. He lay for a while, working on relaxing, and pushing aside the unsettled feeling he could not fully analyse. But it was not long before he slept.

The creatures of the night which investigated the strange man-thing were few, and small, and kept their skittish distance; no man brought his curiosity into the valley, the moon kept her own council, and any fish in the tarn beneath the waterfall kept such cold and piscine thoughts they might have to themselves. Luke rose at dawn, and washed in the tarn’s icy waters with the sort of enthusiasm only a briskly fit young man can manage.  He potted a big jack-rabbit with his pistol, which pleased him mightily, though he pulled a face at the damage to what had been its head. It went in the pot, however, skinned and cleaned, and he continued to build the chimney with mud and stones, using the pluck of the rabbit as bait on a number of lines.

Apparently the trout around here were hardy enough to make the trip upriver to spawn, and that was supper sorted out. Luke cut off the tails and separated the head to the backbone to draw them, and baked them in mud in the embers. He could make flatbreads to go with them, baked on a big flat stone. He had onions for his stew, and carrots, and went foraging for other wild herbs and vegetables. One rabbit and three trout would feed him for several days if he was not too fussy about variety. If he had been planning to stay, he would have been setting up a smokehouse. But he was not. Being brought up the way he was, however, he was a believer in the aphorism, ‘If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.’

 

Any homesteader would have been justly proud of Luke’s small spot of home by the time his little house was completed.  And a smokehouse set up, just to provide trail rations, because it seemed a shame not to do so. This decision had been reached when Luke took down a deer. Hearing a squeal and a growl in the night, he had got up and opened the door, only to see a deer turn on and gore a young wolf. He had raised the gun and shot almost before he thought about it, and smiled ruefully that his instinct was to protect the wolf. He approached, warily, and the injured wolf growled.

Luke growled back, and the young wolf whimpered, and bared its throat to him. Luke took off the lower leg of the dead deer, and tossed to the young wolf, which whined, and then set to with hungry will. Luke butchered the deer, tossing the pluck to the young wolf.

He kept the brain; pegging out the skin and using the brain to cure it would occupy him once he had built a smokehouse in his own chimney. It was easy enough to do, taking out a stone and building a wooden structure around the chimney, raised on a platform on which he laid the meat, and a spare trout, to smoke. It was cool enough to dig a rough chamber under the board floor to store meat.  And he fed the young wolf, which had had its rear leg badly gored, until it was fit. The wild creature never let him touch it, but it deferred to him as an alpha. Luke hoped that the habit would hold when the nasty wound healed, and that the cub – for it was little more – would not decide to challenge him.

He could probably have tamed it if he had wanted to; but that never crossed Luke’s mind. The wolf was a free creature, as he was.

And one morning, it was gone.

Luke was happy that the wolf felt better, and laughed at himself for missing its company.

He took to digging into the side of the valley, to increase the amount of room he had indoors, using the tailings to add an outer layer to his walls.

 

Wolf had teased Luke about striking gold, which Luke never expected.  He did not expect to find anything with his efforts. However, the silvery-coloured nugget in the vein of quartz made him raise an eyebrow.

“Probably not silver,” said Luke, to himself. “But I suppose it won’t hurt to set aside what I find.”

His first caller was Jim Carstairs.

“Dang me, you know how to hide,” said the sheriff, who had knocked rather diffidently on the door, and was answered by Luke with a gun in his hand.

“I’m impressed that you found me.”

“I followed your trail the first day, and losing it at the waterfall, figured it was a good place to go. My horse managed it up the slope, but I’m not popular with him.”

“Poor old boy.  I built a lean-to barn, for Wolf’s horse, and gathered some hay.”

“I took the liberty of putting him in it. I’m sure I don’t recall this shanty; did you build it?”

“Wolf helped me get started, but yes. It’s not the scale I’d build to settle in, but it does me well enough.”

“Many people would be glad of something less solid,” said Carstairs, dryly. “And you’re digging out further; what, is that a heap of silver ore in the corner?”

“You tell me,” said Luke. “I’m no geologist, but it seemed a shame to just throw it away. It’s quite pretty, where it’s followed the veins of quartz, and I figured it might come in handy.”

“You appear to be one of those people followed by Lady Luck,” said Carstairs. “D’you want me to have it assayed for you?”

“Sure, why not?” said Luke. “I don’t really have time to do any serious mining – it’s not my idea of a fulfilling occupation – and I don’t know how to smelt it to purify it at all, but I might as well get a buck or two from it, as it’s here.”

“As you ain’t plannin’ on settlin’ permanent-like, I might be able to put you in way of a partner, who’d be mighty glad of a well-built house, room for a little garden, and some hunting, and a bit of mining to keep him occupied over the winter, so long as you ain’t lookin’ for him to hit it rich, and make it a serious commercial concern.”

“Suits me; anything I get out of it is a bonus. I built the house because I can’t bear not to do a job properly. It’s well-founded for the winter, though he might want some glass for the windows rather than shutter up. There’s a door into the barn, and you can go through it to the latrine, and I’ve channelled off a drain to it as well. Nothing fancy, but convenient for the bad weather. And it’ll be a bad one.”

“Joe will be glad to have a quiet one; he took an injury, mining, and where he was working is pretty much worked out, any road. So he went to live with his married daughter, and she yaps in his ear all day long, criticising this or that, so he escapes to the bar, and then she’ll have it that he’s an unregenerate lush.”

“He’s welcome to come out any time, and live in; so long as he’s aware we might be in and out any time.”

“You don’t mind smoking?”

“I smoke a pipe myself at times,” said Luke. “I ain’t one for cigars or these newfangled cigarettes or cigarillos.”

“Joe has a pipe,” said Carstairs. “What can I smell cooking?”

“Fish chowder,” said Luke. “I got tired of trout as trout, so  I mixed myself up a white sauce with a bit of spice to it, and I’m about to set some potato and vegetable cakes on the griddle to go with it. Fetch down the table folded up in the corner there, the plates are behind it on shelves.”

“And you still have tree stumps as chairs, with all that ingenuity elsewhere,” laughed Carstairs.

Luke shrugged.

“It suits me well enough,” he said. “It ain’t broke; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“You’ll want something with a back to sit on in the long evenings.”

“Or, I might sling a hammock and sit and swing.”

“I’m told they can be tricky.”

“Well, they probably can; I’ve never tried, to be honest. I’ll maybe make a rocking chair for the old man, if Wolf ain’t here soon.”

“Well, that would be civil. Say, this chowder is good – and the cakes. Potato and vegetable, you said?”

“Ma calls it ‘Bubble and squeak;’ she’s English. Potato mashed with any left-over vegetables, or made special.  It’s a fine breakfast with a couple of fried eggs over, but I’ve no eggs. Wolf forgot to get any.”

“I’ll remember that,” said Carstairs.

 

It was good to see someone; Wolf had been gone a week, but Luke expected him to take as long as it took. A week was nothing. And Wolf was quite likely to ride down the grade to the ambush, and track the gang from there, which would take time if he was being careful. And Wolf would be careful.

Luke cut some hickory saplings and soaked them, and pegged them, to start making the curved rockers and bent top of a rocking chair, and cut and soaked withies from the willow to weave as seat and back. It was gentle work compared to digging out a larger room, or building the house, and he enjoyed himself, knowing that he could turn his hand to almost anything. He promised himself that when he and Ida set up house, he would not trouble with boughten furniture, but would teach their children how to fend for themselves, and make anything they needed, the way he had been taught.

 

falcon and wolf 9 cliffie bonus

 Just a word from me, I will do my best today, but this morning our little cat, Polly, had a heart attack and died in our arms. She was 9, and had had a heart murmur as long as we have had her, and she was suffering shortness of breath in the heat.  It wasn't unexpected, but we are still grieving deeply for our girlie. The comedy of this chapter is a little bittersweet. But I hope you all enjoy it. I loved writing it.

 

Chapter 9

 

Luke stepped up to the supposed woman, and flung out his arms dramatically.

“Lucille!” he cried, dramatically. “You surely picked a fine time to leave me, with our babies left hungry, and a crop in the field!”

“I don’t know who you are,” said Angel-Face, coldly, and not a little startled.

“Are you denyin’ who you are, Lucille Stubbins, when I’ve a picture here of yuh with me on our weddin’ day?” demanded Luke, pulling out the photograph, and showing it around.

There were murmurs of ‘For shame!’ and ‘Scarlet woman!’

The man sat next to Angel-Face pulled a gun.

“Drop the idea, mister,” he said.

“Oh, Lucille! Couldn’t you pick a better man than a gunman, willing to gun down your lawfully wedded husband?” cried Luke. “Oh, Lucille! Have you forgotten calling me your own Bitsy-Pookums, my dear Sweet Angel?”

The gunman next to Lucille suddenly realised that there was a cold, steel circle on his neck.

“I’m a bounty hunter, and this here fellow your wife has gone off with is a wanted man,” said Wolf.

“Oh, y’all are lost entirely to shame, Lucille!” cried Luke. “And here we are, coming into the station; we’ll sort it all out, my darling, for I’ll forgive you, and take you back home, to little Lily, who cries for her Mommy, and Mark, and Harry, and Lizzie, who are too young to understand!”

“You’ll beat me!” tried Angel-Face, shrilly, in desperation.

“I never will, my darling,” said Luke, heaving her to her feet, grabbing ‘her’ hands amorously in one hand, to kiss the horrified Angel-Face passionately, to the hoots and cheers of the rest of the passengers, and his other hand adeptly searched clothing for the hidden six-shooter one side, and, changing grip, without releasing her lips, relieving the bandit of his six-shooter the other side. Wolf was fitting handcuffs on the other owlhoot, and Luke manhandled his ‘wife’ tenderly off the train, with the parting shot, “And if the child you bear is his, I’ll still be a daddy to him or her.”

Every aid was given to assist so uxorious a man, who might be an unlettered sod-buster, but was still plainly a good husband.

Once on the platform, Luke murmured in his ‘wife’s’ ear, “Now, Angel-Face, you just behave, or I’ll have the greatest pleasure, and the support of all the train, in whupping your ass. I have the drop on you, and you have no guns.”

Angel-Face managed to get a hand free and felt in his skirt pockets in some panic. Luke thrust him into the station building, and snapped handcuffs onto the young man’s hands, and draped the shawl he wore over them. There was no point having a scene on the way to the sheriff’s office.

By prior arrangement, the train was being held for them, and the sheriff waiting.

“I’ll be back to do the paperwork, but here’s Robert ‘Angel-Face’ Roberts, and, if I’m not mistaken, Benjamin ‘Flinty’ York,” said Luke.

He and Wolf hopped onto the caboose, where they changed, Luke into his regular clothes, Wolf into leathers, and helped Luke shave off the beard before they made their way forward. Here, they drifted one to each side of the carriage, to look out for a reception committee of bandits. It would give some idea where they might be operating, and therefore where to look for them.

 

The train thundered over a viaduct, crossing a deep valley, and started to go round a curve as the grade rose a little. Luke chuckled to himself at the thunderstruck faces of the reception committee of owlhoots on the small plateau the other side of the viaduct, plainly expecting the train to come to a halt as it started up the incline. He gave a fluting whistle, and Wolf joined him.

“Them wondering if Angel-Face or Flinty has betrayed them,” said Wolf.

“We need to find out where they get their provisions,” said Luke. “It’s going to involve a lot of riding around for you.”

“At least I have a horse because mine doesn’t try to wreck the caboose every time he’s in there more than two hours,” said Wolf.

“He only did it once,” said Luke. “He just gets bad tempered. Besides, he isn’t the sort of horse a fellow like ‘Baby-Face Bellamy’ would ride.”

“No, that’s true,” agreed Wolf. “Do you suppose Magree will read about the supposed exploits of other owlhoots?”

“Yes, they tend to keep abreast of what each other is up to,” said Luke. “And ‘Baby-Face’ will intrigue them. Wanted for smuggling whiskey to Indians in bottles hidden in holes cut in Bibles when dressed as a pastor; the same guise used to smuggle weapons into gaols, for good pay, a pick-pocket in the guise of a mild-mannered schoolmaster, or schoolma’am, never quite making it big.”

“And they’ll like go into town to see what they can hear on Angel-Face and Flinty,” said Wolf. “And hear about ‘Baby-Face,’ and wonder if it’s ‘Angel-Face’ moonlighting.”

“Until you bring me in, and I plainly am not,” said Luke. “My poor moustaches.”

“Moustaches… or a total of seventeen thousand dollars,” said Wolf.

“Well, when you put it that way…,” said Luke.

 

They got out at the next stop, and Wolf got his horse out of the caboose.  They made a stop at the sheriff’s office, and demanded maps.

“Maps, why do you want maps?” grumbled the sheriff.

“After Magree,” said Wolf. “Indian no hunt without sign. Bandits leave sign on map plenty clear.”

“I never heard of following sign on a map,” said the sheriff, suspiciously.

“Sheriff,” said Luke, “My friend is whimsical, but if you think about it, mapping where owlhoots have been can give an idea where they will go. We know where they waited fruitlessly for Angel-Face to give the sign, and Flinty to stop the train.”

“Well, I’m damned! How did that happen?”

“We took Flinty and Angel-Face in charge before they could do so,” said Luke. “Left them at the last stop down the line. Oh, the expression on Magree’s face as the train thundered past without so much as slowing, it was a lovely thing. Shock, melting into chagrin, horror, anger, and promise of retribution to whoever had caused this.”

“That’s us, when they find out,” said Wolf, cheerfully. “Meantime, it’s Angel and Flinty. Me no care, only care for seventeen thousand good dollars.”

“It’s a healthy enough attitude, I suppose,” said the Sheriff. “There’s the county map on the wall.”

“It’s mountainous all around here,” said Luke. “Wolf, I’m not a mountain man, how far could one reasonably ride in a day?”

“Is no just about distance,” said Wolf. “Um need to find right path. But me say, to get to train, wait, steal paychest, they no go more’n three-four miles.  Them camp there, have town as base maybe three-four miles from there,”

“I hear your words,” said Luke, fishing a piece of string out of his pocket to tie to a pencil.  “They won’t be limited by the side of the railroad where they waited, that’s just where the best ambush site was.”

He tied off a knot having measured three miles on the scale and stuck the pin in the ambush site to inscribe a circle, not bothering to cut into the valley crossed by the viaduct. Then he tied a second knot at six miles.

“Where was the last ambush?” he asked.

“This is the first one this side of the ravine,” said the sheriff. “And, indeed, the first I heard that they’d spread into my territory.”

“Well, then, you’ll have the kudos of being the sheriff who brings them down,” grinned Wolf.

“I can work with you, if you’re agreeable,” said the sheriff, cautiously.

“I’m always agreeable to work with the law,” said Luke. “I’ve been a deputy sheriff for half a year, and it’s damned hard work, without having some flashy bounty-hunter steal all the thunder. I’m interested in the money so I can retire before I’m thirty, and enjoy myself rearing horses.  You can have the glory. Now, from what I can see, there’s three major communities within that six mile line, and a couple of plausible ones that fall outside it. I’m going to go and set up a base in the mountains, away from where I suspect the gang of camping, whilst Wolf goes poking around incognito, so I can go in on the inside.  You’ll have had posters declaring me to be Baby-Face Bellamy and a list of false crimes – you can check my bona fides with Sam Douglas, the US Marshal; we’ve worked together before.”

“You ain’t gonna be tossing around Sam Douglas’s name if you ain’t on the level,” said the sheriff. “Name’s Jim Carstairs.”

“Good to know you, Jim,” said Luke. “I’m Luke; Wolf is Wolf.”

“Howdy,” said the sheriff. “Coffee?”

“Now, that’s right civil of you,” said Luke, who preferred tea, but would take coffee. “I can’t let you know our plans because they are loose at best right now.”

“Well, knowing that Baby-Face Bellamy is a sham is good enough for me right now,” said Carstairs. “This here town is only just outside the six mile limit, and they could ride up the railroad easier’n going through rough country.”

“It’s a good point,” said Luke. “I’d best get out of town soonest then.”

“I’ll provision up,” said Wolf.

“I’m heading out this way,” said Luke, pointing to the map.

Wolf glanced at it and nodded; and Luke removed his pin, smoothing the hole with his thumbnail, and rubbing off the pencil marks with an eraser he also kept in his pocket.

“Why are you rubbing that out?” asked Carstairs.

“Well, Jim, as you point out, this place is conceivably a base; and if they have friends here, who might drop in to report, oh, a lost watch, intending to see what you know about some bandits, they might be able to interpret my marks on the map,” said Luke.

“I understand, and concede the point,” said Carstairs. “Good luck with your endeavours; d’you want me to swing by where you camp out once a week or so and see how you are?”

Luke considered.

“I was going to refuse, but you know what? I don’t mind if you do.  I don’t mind being lonely, but a visitor from time to time to share a meal, a smoke, and a tale or two wouldn’t come amiss. Just in case anything happens to Wolf. But make sure you ain’t followed.”

“Maybe Baby-Face should get hisself up as a woman, and I let folks as are wonderin’ where I go, know that I’m courtin’ a woman.”

“Now that ain’t such a bad idea.”

“And can you cook trail meals?”

“Jim, I cook so well, that when I’m done up as a lady, you’ll want to marry me.”

The lawman laughed.

“That’s a lot to live up to.”

“I’m a lot of living.”

 

 

Luke started walking, whilst Wolf was still purchasing supplies.  The Cherokee overtook Luke two hours later, well out into the mountains, Luke having left blazes for him, as well as indicating his probable route on the map.

“You know how to shift on foot,” said Wolf.

“I carry Blackwind’s mobility in my heart,” said Luke.

“It takes Indian brother to understand that,” said Wolf. Luke nodded.

“I smell water; I think there’s a nice little blind valley up ahead where we can camp,” he said.  “Listen; rapid water.”

They came to a high point in the trail, down the other side of which a small river laughed and grumbled in turns, leaping from one level to the next.  It came gushing out of a raised valley floor in a fall as tall as a man, with a swirling pool below it.

“Not an obvious point to leave the trail,” said Luke, pleased. “Your horse might not like it.”

Wolf got off his horse, and unburdened it of packages, walked it back again, and remounted. Touching his heels to its sides he started to gallop, and with one bound, the horse topped the rise.

Wolf laconically dropped the end of a rope, and Luke attached the packages, to be pulled up the rise by the strength of the horse, guided past projections by Luke.  Luke followed after.

It was a bit of a scramble up rapids to the valley, but nothing Luke found difficult. The valley ran back another three or four hundred yards, to a pool fed by several small waterfalls from the mountain peaks above.

“Nice and cut off,” said Wolf, approvingly. “Waterfall make good fresh water. How long we stay?”

“As long as it takes,” said Luke. “I was considering building a cabin against the wall of the valley, and digging in as well.”

“Um.” Wolf grunted. “You want something to keep you occupied while Wolf goes looking.”

“Essentially, yes,” said Luke.

“Wolf help you with footings and chimney,” said Wolf. “Give Magree time to find things out.”

“May as well use the wall of the valley as one side of the chimney,” said Luke. “I’ll try not to get bored enough to tunnel clear through the mountain.”

“Let me know if you strike gold,” said Wolf.

“In your dreams,” said Luke.

“I can dream as well as any man,” said Wolf, cheerfully. 

They set up the tent for the night, and Luke shivered.

“Damned cold up here,” he said. “I wonder if there’s another bad winter coming.”

“Likely another few more,” said Wolf. “Bad things come in sevens.”

“Cheerful bugger,” said Luke.