Most men would not have taken that ride to Cheyenne, but he had accepted the job offered in good faith, and only after he arrived in Deadwood did he discover that he had been hired for his gun rather than for his knowledge of cattle.
He had been hired to ramrod a tough cow outfit, which was all right, but it meant pushing the Sioux off their hunting grounds and killing any that objected.
He had been hired because of his reputation, and he wanted no part of it.
He said as much in Cheyenne. That was what he told Old Man Hunter when he told him what he could do with his job. And what he would do if Hunter sent any more killers after him.
A cold branch rattled its frozen fingers.
Snow whispered against the boughs of his shelter. He slept.
During the brief halt when they stopped the teams for :. breather at the top of a long hill, Tom Healy ran ahee G and rapped on the door of the women’s wagon.
Dodie opened the door and he scrambled in. His face was red with cold, but he was smiling.
Inside the wagon the air was warm and close.
Along one side were two bunks, narrow but sufficient. On the other side was one bunk and a table that was no more than a shelf. On it was a washbasin and a small cask filled with water. In the front of the wagon was a potbellied stove. Under the bunks were chests for the packing of clothing. At the end of each bunk was a small closet for hanging clothes. It was neat, compact, and well ordered.
The van in which the two men rode was built along the same lines, but with just two bunks and more storage space. In each van there were two lanterns, an ax, and a shovel. In each van there was stored a considerable supply of food, with the larger amount in the van where the men lived. On top of each van was a canvas-covered roll of old backdrops and scenes used in some of the various melodramas that were the troupe’s stock in trade. “Frosty out there,” Healy said.
“We’re making good time, aren’t we?” Janice asked. “Better than on wheels. The snow’s frozen over and we’re moving right along.” He did not add what was on his mind, that they had better make good time. As long as the surface was hard, they could keep going, and so far the horses had found grass enough, but the distance was beginning to eeem interminable. For the first time Healy was realizing what distance meant in the West. Four days now and they had seen nobody, and nothing but snow-covered hills and streams lined with trees and brush. And there were long levels where snow drifted endlessly like sand on the desert. And always the cold. Four days, and they had only begun. Yet they had made good time and that worried him. It seemed that Barker was pushing faster than necessary. Yet he hesitated to interfere.
Perhaps Barker only wanted to get them out of this open country before another blizzard struck.
Janice slipped into her coat, throwing her hair over the collar. “Tom, I want to walk a little.
Do you want to join me?” They sprang down, hand in hand, and stepped off to the side, starting on ahead.
Barker was sitting his horse, lighting a cigar as they drew abreast of him. He gave them a brief smile. “Cold for walking. Never liked it, myself.” “Do us good,” Janice said, and they walked on. All around was an immensity of snow-covered plains and low hills, here and there cut by the dark line of a ravine. There were many streams, their names singing a sort of wild saga, filled with poetry. Lance Creek, Little Lightning, Old Woman Creek farther back, and Twenty Mile close by.
“Worried, Tom?” The question startled him. “Is it that obvious?” “I thought you were.” They walked three or four steps. “Why?” He groped for easy words. “The distance, I guess. It’s this country.
It’s too big.” “How far do we have to go?” Healy side-stepped that question. He did not even like to think of it himself. They walked on, plowed through some snow, and stopped on a ridge. The wind had an edge when it touched the skin. He warmed his face against his hands.
“Tom!” Janice was pointing, and his eyes followed her finger to a row of tracks in the snow.
Walking on, they came to the tracks and stopped.
They were the tracks of a single horse, cutting across the route of the wagons and disappearing over the hills.
At their wild gesturing, Barker put his horse to a gallop and rode up to them.
“Indians!” Healy said, indicating the tracks.
Astride his horse, Barker seemed unusually big, indomitable. Yet his face grew cold as he looked at the line of tracks. They were those of a shod horse, going off across the country in a direction where nothing lay. No white man in his right mind would be riding away from any known shelter in the dead of winter.
“Shod horse,” he said briefly. “It wasn’t an Indian.” That Barker was disturbed was obvious. Healy watched him, curious as to why the tracks of a white man should upset him so.
Barker turned sharply to Janice. “Did that Mabry fellow say anything about catching up?” “No. Why should he?” Yet, remembering the way he had looked at her, Janice wondered, too, and blushed at the memory. But she should not think of such a man. He was a killer, probably completely vicious under that quiet exterior. The mark of the country was on him.
Seeing it now, getting the feel of it for the first time, Janice could understand it. He carried the mark of a wild land, a land that was itself aloof and poised. A land where you lost yourself, as they did now, in immeasurable distance. Day after day the wagons had plodded on, and day after day the snow-covered hills fell behind, the streams were crossed, the lonely camps abandoned to the wilderness. And day after day she seemed to dwindle, to grow less. The vans were tiny things, their bright-colored sides tawdry in the stillness and snow. All was immensity where they seemed to crawl at a snail’s pace into a va/s beyond belief.
They were alien here… or was it only she?
With a kind of resentment, she saw how easily Dodie fitted into the landscape, how easily she did the little things around the campfire. Even Healy had seemed to grow, to expand. He seemed bigger, somehow, more of a man. Yet the distance and the cold depressed her, the flat and endless sky made her eager to be back inside. The vans were coming along now. Barker had walked his horse back to them. Had his manner changed? Or was she imagining things? He was impatient with their questions, even irritable.
Steam rose from the flanks of the horses, and from their nostrils. Travel was easier because the hard snow crusted the ground, covering the unevenness and the stones.
The hills drew closer, lifting their snow-clad summits higher against the dull gray sky. The southern extremity, Barker had said, of the Big Horns.
After the fresh, clear air, the hot confines of the van seemed unbelievably close. Yet she was glad to be inside. Maggie was knitting. Dodie lay on her back, reading a copy of Harper’s Weekly.
“Nice walk?” Dodie looked past her magazine at them. “Wonderful! You should try it!” “She won’t,” Maggie said cuttingly. “Not unless she can see some men.” “I don’t want to see men.” Dodie preened herself ostentatiously.
“I want them to see me.” “With that walk,” Maggie said sarcastically, “they’ll see you!– “You’re just jealous.” “Jealous?” Maggie flounced. “When I was your age I not only got the men-I knew what to do with them!” Dodie arched her back luxuriously, like a sleek kitten. “I’ll learn,” she said complacently. “Somebody will teach me.” Tom Healy was amused. “Careful. You’ll get the last lesson first.” Dodie looked at him, wide-eyed with innocence. “But I always read the end of a book first!” THE WEATHER HELD and the trail was good. They made twenty miles that day and as much the day follow ing. The mountains loomed over them, snow-covered and aloof.
There was no rest. Each morning they started early, and the noon halts were short. Healy watched the trail and saw that Barker selected it with care.
The way might be the longest around, but invariably it was the best for traveling, and they made time.
The cold held, though the skies were usually clear. Sometimes he walked far ahead with Janice, watching the wagons come along after them, but it was only among hills that they could do this, for on comparatively level country the wagons moved at a good clip.