“Where did you see the fearsome blighters last?” Wendy asked.
Fargo pointed at the firs on the opposite slope. “Going into those trees.”
“They might still be there,” Moose said.
“You’re the expert on bears,” Wendolyn said. “Do we wait for them to come out or do we go in after them?”
Bird Rattler and his friends had not uttered a word the entire ride. But now the venerable warrior cleared his throat and said, “Go in.”
“Catch them napping, as it were?” Wendy said. “I like the idea.”
Fargo didn’t. Something was bothering him but he couldn’t put his mental finger on the cause.
“Piikani go there,” Bird Rattler said, and pointed at the west end of the fir belt. “White-eyes go there,” and he pointed at the east end.
“Piikani?” Wendy said.
“It’s what the Blackfeet call themselves,” Fargo explained. The names that whites called most tribes weren’t their real names. The Apaches were the Shis-Inday. The Comanches called themselves the Numunu. The Crows were the Apsaalooke.
“It’ll take us half the day to get up there,” Moose observed.
“Stay here if you want,” Wendy said. “Personally, I like going into the bush after dangerous game. It adds to the thrill.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go.”
Wendy ran a hand over his elephant gun. “At last I can put my beauty to the test.”
They agreed that each group would start into the firs when the sun was at its zenith. Then they separated and began their climb. The terrain was rugged, their ascent arduous. Still, Fargo and his companions reached the fir belt half an hour before they were to move in. “We’ll rest a bit,” he announced. Shucking the Sharps, he sat with his back to a boulder, plucked a blade of grass, and stuck it in his mouth. From where he sat he could see the buzzards and the fox.
Wendy breathed deep of the rarefied air, and smiled.
“I daresay I like this country of yours. These mountains stir the very soul.”
“They’re just mountains,” Moose said.
“That’s like saying the ocean is just water. Look about you.” The Brit gestured. “These noble crags and lofty heights are a testament to the grandeur of creation. They would inspire a poet to rapturous verse.”
“Raptu-what?”
“The hand of an artist is everywhere. Don’t you feel it?”
“I don’t know what in hell you’re talking about,” Moose said.
The Britisher appealed to Fargo. “Surely you understand. Explain it to him, if you would.”
“I don’t need him to,” Moose said. “I ain’t dumb. You got your head in the clouds.”
“I doubt you comprehend at all,” Wendy said.
Moose bunched his fists. “Keep talking to me like that and so help me, I’ll pound you.”
“Talk a little louder so the bloody bears will know we’re here.”
“They already do.”
“Is that true?” Wendy asked Fargo.
“Odds are,” Fargo said.
“Then how do we sneak up on them?”
“We don’t.”
“Is this like tiger hunting? Do we go in and make a lot of noise and drive them toward the Indians? Or do the Indians drive them toward us?”
“Drive a grizzly?” Moose said, and laughed.
“We go in and hope we get off a shot before they claw us to bits,” Fargo said.
“You make it sound as if we’re depending entirely on luck.”
“Now the foreigner gets it,” Moose said.
Wendolyn muttered something about Yanks, shouldered his elephant gun, and walked away.
Moose chuckled. “I reckon I hurt his feelings.”
“Go easy on him. That elephant gun of his could come in handy.”
“That reminds me,” Moose said. “I’m been meaning to ask. What the blazes is an elephant, anyhow?”
Fargo had been keeping an eye on the sun, and now he stood. “I’ll tell you later. It’s time to start in.”
“Look out, Brain Eater,” Moose said. “Here we come.”
Firs grew high and straight and thin. They were so closely spaced that their trunks were in perpetual shadow. Fargo and the others had to thread through a maze of narrow gaps, often with limbs practically poking them in the face.
Of all the places the two grizzlies could pick to lie low, this was especially dangerous. The bears could charge out of anywhere at any time.
Fargo held the Sharps in his left hand with the stock on his leg and the barrel against his chest where it was less apt to be snared by limbs. Moose was thirty feet or so to this right, Wendy about the same distance to his left. So far they had penetrated over a hundred yards and the only sign of life had been a few birds and a chipmunk that chattered and scampered off.
Fargo probed the shadowed gloom. A mistake could cost them their lives. His nerves were on edge. When a finch took startled wing, he gave a slight start himself.
Skirting several tightly clustered boles, Fargo drew rein.
On the ground were droppings. That they were bear was obvious.
That they were left the day before would be easy to confirm but he didn’t climb down and risk being pounced on. He clucked to the stallion.
The minutes crawled. It was half a mile to the middle of the stand. The heat and the quiet took a toll. Drowsiness nipped at him but he shook it off.
They spooked a rabbit. They sent a doe and two fawns bounding off. A cow elk snorted and plunged away through the undergrowth in a panic.
Fargo had not seen bear sign since the droppings but now he came on a tree with claw marks and another where the bark had been rubbed off and crinkly hairs stuck to it.
Wendy drew rein and extended an arm.
Fargo looked but didn’t see anything. He thought it must be the Brit’s imagination. Then a large shape detached from a mass of shadow. Snapping the Sharps up, he was about to shoot when the shape stepped into a sunbeam. “Another damn elk,” he said in disgust.
The firs seemed unending. With the sun screened by the tall trees, Fargo had to guess how much time had passed. About an hour, more or less, he reckoned, when the Ovaro pricked its ears.
Ahead, something moved.
Fargo brought the Sharps up again but snapped it down. He stopped and waited for the approaching rider to reach him. “Any sign?”
“No,” Bird Rattler said. “You see bears?”
Fargo shook his head.
“They not here,” the warrior stated the obvious, sounding as disappointed as Fargo felt.
Red Mink and Lazy Husband converged from either side. Moose and Wendy joined them, and the looks on all their faces said all there was to say.
Fargo reined down the mountain. It would take them until long past dark to reach the meadow. Were it not for Cecelia and her children, he’d make camp in this valley and head back to them in the morning.
The buzzards were gluttons. They had eaten down to the skeleton and half a dozen were up to their feathered bellies in intestines and organs. The stink was abominable.
Fargo gave them a wide berth. The feeling that had pricked at him all day came over him stronger than ever. He stopped and stared at the ungainly birds and racked his head for a reason.
“What’s the matter?” Moose asked. “I want to get back to Cecelia quick as we can.”
“Something’s not right,” Fargo said.
