Twice I saw deer just too far off to risk a shot. The one buckskin I had was not enough to make a shot.
Living in such a way leaves no time for rest. Between the two slopes, the stream, and the narrow bottom of the canyon, I made out. Several times I caught fish, never large enough, and found clumps of sego lily and ate the bulbs. Gradually over that week the stiffness and soreness began to leave my muscles and my feet began to heal.
Yet I was facing the same thing that faced every hunting and food-gathering people. Soon a man has eaten all that’s available close by and the game grows wary. Until men learned to plant crops and herd animals for food they had of necessity to move on … and on.
Most of what I’d done to make myself comfortable must be left behind, and it worried me that I had no better weapons. My feet were better, but the skin was tender and I daren’t walk very far at any one time. I’d been sparing of the hazelnuts for they were the best of my food, but at last they gave out, too. On the ninth day I gathered my few possessions and started out.
Back up at the forks of the creek in Tennessee they don’t raise many foolish children, and the foolish ones don’t live long enough to get knee-high to a short sheep. This was Indian country, so I taken it easy. My weapons weren’t fit for fighting and my feet were too sore for running.
When I’d traveled about a half mile I sat down to study out the land. The canyon was widening out, and there was plenty of deer sign. Twice I saw tracks of a mountain lion, a big one.
By nightfall I’d covered four miles, resting often. The canyon had widened to a valley and the stream joined a larger river that flowed south. I could see the place where they flowed together, right up ahead. North of me the country seemed to flatten out, with towering snow-covered peaks just beyond. Those peaks must be the San Juans Tell Sackett had spoken of. I knew this country only by hear-tell, and when I’d been running ahead of those Jicarillas I’d not been paying much mind to landmarks.
Working my way over to the brush and trees that followed the canyon wall, I hunkered down to study out the land. And that was how I saw those Utes before they saw me.
They were coming up from the south and they had about twenty riderless horses with them, and a few of those horses looked almighty familiar. They passed nigh me, close enough to see they were a war party returning from some raid. They had bloody scalps, and it looked like they had run into those Jicarillas. Ambushing an Apache isn’t an easy thing to do but it surely looked like they’d done it.
Trying to steal a horse ran through my mind, but I made myself forget it. My feet were in no shape for travel and I couldn’t stand another chase. My best bet was to head east toward the Animas where I’d heard there were some prospectors.
Fact is, I was hungry most of the time. What I’d been finding was scarcely enough to keep soul and body together, and down on the flat it was harder to find what I needed. I found some Jimson weed and cut a few leaves to put in my moccasins. I’d used it for saddle sores and knew it eased the pain and seemed to help them to heal, but it was dangerous stuff to fool around with, and many Indians won’t touch it.
Studying out the ground I saw a field of blue flowers, a kind of phlox the Navajo used to make a tea that helped them sing loudly at the Squaw Dance, and was also a “medicine” used for the Navajo Wind Chant. But I found nothing to eat until night when I caught a fine big trout in an angle of the stream, spearing it with more luck than skill, and then as I was making camp I found some Indian potatoes. So I ate well, considering.
When the fish was eaten I huddled by my capful of fire and wished for a cabin, a girl, and a meal waiting, for I was a lonesome man with little enough before me and nothing behind but troubles. Soon a cricket began to sing near my fire, so I made care to leave him be. There’s a saying in the mountains that if you harm a cricket his friends will come and eat your socks. A hard time they would have with me, not having socks or anything else.
Galloway was no doubt eating his belly full in some fine restaurant or house, fining up on beef and frijoles whilst I starved in the woods. It is rare enough that I feel sorry for myself but that night I did, but what is the old saying the Irish have? The beginning of a ship is a board; of a kiln, a stone; and the beginning of health is sleep.
I slept.
Cold it was, and the dew heavy upon the grass and upon me as well, but I slept and the wind whispered in the aspen leaves, and in the darkness the taste of smoke came to my tongue, and the smell of it to my nose. Cold and dark it was when the smell of it awakened me, and I sat up, shivering with a chill that chattered my teeth. Listening into the night I heard nothing, but then my eye caught a faint gleam and I looked again and it was a dying fire, not fifty yards off.
Slowly and carefully I got to my feet. Indians. At least a dozen, and one of them awake and on guard. They must have made camp after I fell asleep, although it was late for Indians to be about, but come daylight they would surely find me. Easing my feet into my moccasins, I gathered what I had to carry and slipped away. When I was well away from their camp and in the bottom, I started to run.
The earth was soft underfoot, and the one thing I needed now was distance. They would find my camp in the morning and come after me. I ran and walked for what must have been a couple of hours, and then I went into the stream.
The moon was up and the whole country was bathed in such a white beauty a man could not believe, the aspens silvery bright, the pines dark and still. The cold water felt good to my feet but because the current was swift and the footing uncertain, I took my time. After awhile I came out on the bank and sat down, my muscles aching and weary, my feet sore. Carefully I dried them with handfuls of grass and clumps of soft sage.
Light was breaking when I started again. Within the hour they would be on my trail, and they would move much faster than I could. I did not know the Utes, but the stories I’d heard were mixed, and this was their country.
Now I moved from rock to rock, carrying a small flat rock in my hand to put down wherever I might leave a footprint. The rock left a mark but it was indefinite and might have been caused by any number of things. The Utes might find me, but I did not intend it should be easy, and I could drop the rock I carried and step from it to some other surface that would leave no mark.
Something rustled in the brush. Turning sharply I was only in time to see leaves moving where something had passed by. Crouching near a rock, I waited, but nothing came. Moving toward the brush, spear poised, I found only the faintest of tracks … the wolf.
He was with me still, a rare thing for a lone wolf to stalk a man for so long a time. Yet he was out there now, in the brush, stalking me for a kill. Still, there must be easier game.
Twice I made my way through thick groves of aspen, trying to leave no sign of my passing, yet always alert for a place to hide. By now they had found my fire, and were on my trail.
My feet were beginning to bleed again. I heard the cry of an eagle that was no eagle, and the cry came from where no eagle would be. One of them had found some sign I’d left and was calling the others.
They would find me now, for they could scatter out and pick up what sign I’d left. I was too slow, too tired, and the going was too rough for me not to make mistakes.