'Your brother was killed because he tried to bottom deal on me, and I told him he'd better not grab iron. He tried it. I didn't want to kill him.'
Tom Bigelow said nothing.
'Unloose your gun belt,' I said.
He unfastened the belt and let it fall.
'All right, I'm letting you go back. But before you go, you might tell me what you boys are going to do for something to eat. Your passes are closed. You can't take our grub, and if you could, there isn't enough to last out a week.'
'We can get back.'
'Ask Ben Hobes. Ask him about Al Packer.'
'Who's he?'
'He started across the mountains in the winter with a party. They ran out of grub. He ate all five of the others. These same mountains. Are you ready for that, Bigelow?'
'You're lyin'!'
'All right, go on back.'
One less gun they had, and maybe eighteen to twenty less ca'tridges. Come night time they would try and close in on me. Of course, on the white snow...
'Did they bring any pack horses?' I asked Ange.
'No,' she said, 'they planned to go right back.'
They would be short of grub then. Whatever they did, they must do at once.
Suddenly, as Bigelow disappeared into the trees, I levered three fast, searching shots over there, waited an instant, then fired again, holding the rifle a little lower.
Shivering, I added fuel to the fire. The hungry flames crept slowly along the branches, then finding a piece of pitch pine, blazed up. A shot struck the roof, ricocheted down, and scattered fire. I brushed the sparks from my clothing and the bed, and felt a sharp tug at my sleeve as a second bullet came, striking just beyond the fire.
Through the trees I could see their fire. Lying prone on the cold floor, and taking my time, I drew a careful bead on a dark spot at the edge. It might be a log or a stump. It might also be a man.
For a moment I relaxed. Then, taking a long breath, I gathered trigger-slack, let the breath out slowly, and squeezed off the shot.
The cry was hoarse, choking . . . followed by a horrible retching sound such as I had never heard from anything, animal or human.
There was a volley in reply. I fired four more shots that covered an area about four feet back from the fire, and then a final shot across the fire itself.
'Ange,' I said, 'you'll find some cold flour in my pack. Take it and some of that meat and cook them up together. When it gets dark, we're going to get out.'
'Can we?'
'We can try.'
Worried as I was about what Tuthill and the rest of them might do, I was more worried about the cold.
Somehow we had to escape. We had to try. We had to try while we had our strength.
Ange was in no condition to attempt a winter in the mountains. We lacked the food for it, lacked the proper clothing and equipment. Yet bad off as we were, those others must be suffering more by now. For his own sake, I hoped the man I shot was dead.
Frightened by the firing, the horses had drawn away from the cave mouth. Now they started back, but before they could reach us, two quick shots put them down. The pack horse first, then the appaloosa.
For the first time in months I swore. Pa was never strong on cussing, and Ma was dead set against it, so we boys kind of grew up without doing much of that, but I said some words this time. They were good horses, and they had done no harm to anyone. But I knew why they were killed. Those men over there, they were realizing how much they needed grub . . . and horse meat was still meat, and not bad eating at that.
Night came. Stars appeared, wind came flowing like icy water over the rim of the mountain. The moon was not visible to us yet, but shone white upon the mountain tops. Twice I dusted the woods with gunfire; and then Ange and me, we ate what we could. What was left of the jerked meat I stowed away in a pack, and made another pack of our blankets and the ammunition.
With a long pole I'd used a couple of times for fishing, I reached out and snagged Tom Bigelow's gun belt, then the pistol. I shucked the shells from the gun belt, and used them to fill empty loops in my own belt. Emptying the shells into my hand from the cylinder, I took my axe and smashed the firing pin.
Then I made a loop on my pack from which to hang the axe, and covered over the shovel and pick with rock waste from the floor of the tunnel. They would probably find them, but I had no intention of making anything easy.
Occasionally a shot hit the back wall or struck into the woodpile. Only at long intervals I returned their fire ... I wanted them to become accustomed to long waiting.
There was every chance they would try an attack under cover of darkness, although their dark figures would be visible on the snow for a time. However if they managed to cross far down the valley and worked toward us along the wall...
'Be ready to move,' I whispered to Ange. 'I think they will try something now, and after that we're pulling out.'
