They all laughed so hard, Trace wondered if one or the other of ’em were near to collapsing. They settled down after a bit, but after yesterday and what Trace had seen, it felt good to laugh. Thinking of yesterday sobered him.
“What’s going on, Trace?” Utah broke the friendly silence.
Utah didn’t quite count as an old-timer, though he was the oldest of the three of them and the newest on Trace’s ranch. From working alongside him, Trace knew Utah was a man in his prime. But life out here put lines in a man’s face. If he owned a mirror—and where would he get one of those?—Trace would probably see a few lines in his own face.
Back in Sacramento, before they’d split up, he’d heard Utah mention growing a beard to keep the winter from freezing his face. He’d started it on the ride home, so he had about two weeks’ growth, and the beard was salted heavily with gray. That aged him, too.
There hadn’t been two minutes last night for them to talk. Now it was time. “They survived a wagon train massacre.”
“Paiutes? Never heard much trouble coming from them.” Adam had been with Trace the longest. Adam said he was on the run from a shrewish wife. Trace had needed help, and Adam said he’d stay for a while. That was four years ago.
Adam was short and stocky, solid muscle. No man carried fat out in this land. The work was too hard and the food too hard to come by. Adam was a Swede with white-blond hair and skin that burned in the sun rather than turn brown. He didn’t mind the heat in the summer nor the cold in the winter. He said the cold reminded him of his folks talking of home back in Sweden. The high-up mountains, too. Adam was born in Denver, and he’d been wandering for a time before he settled in with Trace’s HS Ranch.
HS . . . Trace still felt a sweep of pride when he thought of his High Sierra Ranch. He’d made his own branding iron, an HS inside a circle. He’d registered the brand a few years back, but long before he registered it, he’d been slapping the brand on cattle he rounded up that he’d found running wild in the mountains.
Both of these men had considerable cowhand skills—most of them equal to or better than Trace’s. The only thing that made Trace the boss was that he’d managed to claim a homestead the fifth year he’d been out here alone—they’d finally passed that law. That was the year he finally found a town, and Adam. He was still working out the homestead years, but while he did, he bought up more land every time he gathered enough money to do it. He’d bought land for pennies an acre that had high mountain valleys full of lush grass and year-round water. Once, he swapped three cows for three hundred acres, and the folks in the land office had laughed at him and called him a fool. He let them laugh just as he’d done the same several years running, cornering water rights and buying grassland no one knew was up here.
It was as close as he could get to making his pa’s dream of farming come true. No corn grew up here, but the tough, wild cattle were mountain born and bred, and they thrived through the harsh winters.
And Trace’s land, here where his cabin stood, wasn’t in the highest peaks. This was his homestead land, and it was lower, in a nice grassy valley.
The three of them—Trace, Adam, and Utah—had worked well together through the roundup and cattle drive. Trace respected each of them, and he thought they returned that respect.
“Nope, it was made to look like an Indian attack, a few arrows and such, and . . . and some . . .” Trace shook his head, sickened by it. “Some scalping . . . d-damage to the bodies before they were burned, but it was white men who done it. I could read the signs everywhere.”
Utah flinched just a bit, enough that Trace suspected Utah had seen such things before.
“And the ladies confirmed it.” Trace didn’t like that.
“They saw their attackers?” Utah looked sickened that the women had witnessed such a thing.
Trace hesitated over this. If the knowledge fell into the wrong hands, Deb would be in danger. “One of the ladies saw a man in the firelight after they started the wagons burning. I haven’t even asked her to describe him—we were on a fast march to get to shelter last night. She also heard a high-pitched man’s voice, not the man she saw. And they definitely spoke English. She says it wasn’t Indians.”
Both of his friends heaved a sigh of relief. Trace understood it. The Native folks in the area were a decent bunch, and any trouble blamed on them could bring big trouble. He was glad he’d seen enough to be sure it wasn’t Paiutes, but he wished like the dickens he hadn’t seen any of what he had, and he regretted to the marrow of his bones that Deb had walked through that burned-out circle of wagons with him.
“The women and children walked away from the train into some tall grass before sunup. They were well hidden when the gunfire and screaming started.” Trace stopped talking for a moment. He could well imagine their horror. When it happened to him, when Pa had died, he hadn’t heard a thing. He’d been off hunting meat before the sunrise and only knew what had happened when he rode back to the wagon train . . . and smelled the burning flesh.
“It’s a long ride to a town, and I’m not sure what two young women and two little’uns would do if they got taken there. Dismal is closest, but it’s not a fit place for women and children alone. Bodie’s no better. To get her . . .
