The horses had disappeared, whether taken or driven off I didn't know. Andre and Swan had taken all the food but the little I had in my gear, and I'd little to do with.
Taking up the ends of the two poles, I started out. It was a slow business.
Pierre was hurting and the trail narrow. By nightfall I'd reached the spring near Windy Pass. I figured to hit the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan and follow the San Juan.
I am writing this beside the spring at Windy Pass. We have had a little to eat.
Pierre says Andre fears Philip, but shot Pierre not only because of hate, but because he wished to inherit. 'He will be fooled,' Pierre said. 'I left all to Philip.'
We are somewhat sheltered here, but the wind is cold. It has the feel of snow from the high peaks.
'Is it not late for snow?' Judas asked.
'Not in these mountains. He's nigh the end of May, but he's ten thousand feet up. I've seen bad snow storms in the Rockies later than that.'
'We get only a part,' the Tinker said. 'He does not say how bad it is. He has drawn that travois, with a heavy man and all they have, more than six miles in one day.'
Pa was never one for carryin' on about his hurts, but he had him a badly bruised hipbone, and haulin' the travois must have been a trial for a man of his years, even one as bull-strong as he was.
Just why pa chose the western route I wasn't sure--the first of it was easier, and also Andre and Swan had gone the other way and pa might have thought they'd be lyin' in wait to see if they were followed.
Right below the spring where pa stopped with Pierre, only about two miles away, was the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan, and a lovely valley it was.
I could picture them, Pierre lyin' there suffering in his pain, pa tired as all get-out what with pullin' a load at a high altitude and his hip bothering him and all. I'd had a few badly bruised bones, once from a bullet, another time when a bronc pitched me into some rocks, and the last time when a steer flung his head around and hit me with a horn.
The fire would be flickerin' on their faces, drawn and tired as they were, and right behind them the shadows of rocks and trees.
Orrin took up reading again. He had a better voice than me, and he made a better thing of it.
Pierre is at last asleep, which gives him relief. I have gathered wood for the night and the morning fire. My hip is bothering me, and I'm afraid it will stiffen during the night. I have been thinking much of ma and the boys, wondering if ever they will see these words, if ever they will know what has become of me. They are good boys, and will grow strong and tall. I wish I could be there to see them, but tonight I feel no confidence. A growing thing is in me, not a fear of Andre or of Utes, not even a fear of death, only a fear I shall not see them again.
I was awakened by muttering from Pierre. The man was delirious, and I worried. I looked at him in the fire's red light, and he looked wildly at me and muttered about Philip. I made hot broth and managed to get some of it into him, but he talked wildly of poison, of the death of his father, of some thin red line that ran through the Baston line, and a lot that made no sense to me.
June 2: Camp on the West Fork. Pierre in bad shape. His legs in splints, but nothing more I can do. They are in frightful shape. Several times he has thanked me for staying by him.
June 3: Same place. No more than 15 miles from where we started. Ute tracks, some unshod horses, nothing fresh. I must have fires to heat water. Hot water on his legs seems to ease him somewhat. The coffee is almost gone.
June 4: Pierre is dead! Went to the river for water and returning found him dead, stabbed three times in the heart. It was no Indian, for nothing was taken, not the coffee or the sugar, nor powder or lead.
Andre or Swan? I dare have no fire now. I shall bury Pierre, gather my few things, and take to the woods. I have just seen three of our horses grazing a little way downstream! I believe they will come to me for I always had something for them. I shall go now, and try.
That was the end of it. No more. Pa had gone to try for those horses.
'Nativity Pettigrew,' I said. 'He had the daybook. How did he come by it?'
'Maybe he was the one who murdered Pierre,' the Tinker suggested. 'Maybe when your pa went after the horses he came back, stole the book, and took off. You recall what your pa said? Pettigrew suspected him of writing things down? That daybook must have worried him.'
'We've got to find that camp. That may be the last lead we get.'
We sat around the fire talking it over, drinking coffee, keeping our ears in tune with the night. I was restless, ready to move on. A lot of men had looked for gold here and not found it, and I did not wish to become another of them.
Nor did Orrin.
In the morning we would take the route to Windy Pass.
At first Nell would have none of it, but we argued there was gold closer to where her pa was. I think we all turned in figuring that tomorrow would tell us the end of the story of pa's disappearance.
None of us wanted a fight with Andre and them. Well, I'll have to back up on that. Fact was, I'd not mind so much, only that it would profit nobody. I had an itch to tangle--especially with Swan. There's something gets up in my craw when I come up against a bully, and Hippo Swan was that.
There was nothing to be gained by fighting them, and I was ready to ride off and leave them be. Just the same, I felt one of the true pleasures of life would be to plant a fist in Hippo's face. But I was prepared to deny myself that pleasure.
Some things just don't shape up the way a man hopes for.
Come morning we packed our gear, and we helped Nell get straightened around, and then we headed for Windy Pass as our first stop on the way west to Shalako.
Looking back with regret, I saw that little mountain valley disappear behind us.
It was a place we'd stopped at for only a few days, but I'd come to love it--the beaver ponds, the distant sound of Silver Falls, the cold, sparkling waters of the East Fork.
There was an easier trail down the East Fork to the main valley, but we were wishful of scouting around the pass, so we went up the mountain. It was just a mite over two miles to Windy Pass.
We found signs of several old fires up yonder, but nothing more to tell us anything about pa. He'd been there, but so had others.
Orrin pulled up quick, just as we started out. 'I thought I heard a shot,' he said. I'd heard nothing, but Judas believed he had, too.
We rode out on the trail to the valley and turned south. To really appreciate the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan you've got to see it from north of where we were, up yonder where the Wolf Creek Pass trail takes a big swing and starts down the mountain. There's a place there that's a thousand feet above the valley floor. You can see right down the length of the valley and there isn't a prettier sight under heaven.
We turned into the trail and started along, moving at a good pace. We had Nell with us, and, like I've said, we weren't shaping up for no fight. None of us liked Andre. We figured him for a murdering so-and-so, but we weren't elected by the good Lord to put out his light ... not so far as we knew. I surely wasn't going to hunt him, but if he happened to come up in my sights, it would be a mighty temptation.
It was a beautiful morning, a morning to ride and feel, and we all felt the same about that. None of us were much given to talk, although Orrin could sing. He sang while we rode--'Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp-Ground,' 'Black, Black, Black,' and 'Barbry Alien.' I was wishful of joining him when he sang 'Brennan on the Moor,' but there was no use to wake the coyotes or disturb the peace of Jacob, the mule. Only time I sing is when I am alone on a sleepy horse. There's limits to everything.
Meanwhile, we rode wary for pa's camp. A lot of time had gone by, but there was a chance we could find something.
The way we figured it now, somebody had returned to murder Pierre and pa.
Andre and Swan? Or Pettigrew?
I couldn't get Nativity Pettigrew out of my mind. He was a sly man, a murderous man possibly, but he'd had the daybook, and the only way he could have gotten that daybook would have been to follow pa and Pierre.
Pettigrew had gold on his mind, and mayhap he had found it, and was wishful of keeping it. He would have to be mighty shy of how he brought it down off that mountain. A lot of people wish to find treasure, but few of them realize how hard it is to handle after you've got it.
