He shot once … twice … a third time. He fired as rapidly as he could squeeze off the shots.
Blinded by the flash of the gun, the bear lunged at him. It’s paw missed a swipe that would have torn his head off, but it knocked him down with the lunge of its body.
Cleve rolled over, but managed to cling to his pistol, and the bear brought up with a thud against the side of the wagon, then turned, snarling and fighting, tearing at the wounds in its chest. The bear sprang over him without seeing him and Cleve fired the pistol upward into its belly, then he scrambled to his feet and backed up hurriedly as the bear struggled to rear up again. Bringing the pistol level, he squeezed the trigger again and the gun clicked, missing fire. All over the camp he heard cries and shouted questions. He stood flat-footed, amazed that the bear did not charge.
He had no extra cylinders with him. They were all in the pockets of his coat or in his saddle pockets. Carefully, he backed away another step, straining his eyes toward the spot near the front wheel where the bear had been. “Cleve? Cleve? Are you all right?” It was Lilith. He waited, slowly lowering the pistol, fearful of making a sound that might provoke another charge.
Several armed men came running. “What’s happened? What was it?” they called. Cleve tossed fuel on the fire and some of the evergreen branches blazed up. The bear lay where it had fallen against the front wheel of the wagon, and the men approached it gingerly, their weapons ready.
Lilith and Agatha emerged from their wagon. Lilith ran to him, her eyes wide and frightened. “Cleve? Are you all right? Are you sure?” Gabe French caught hold of the bear by the paw and pulled it away from the wagon wheel. It lay there, an inert mass. Three slugs had torn into the bear’s chest, slightly left of center, and the three points of entry could have been covered by a man’s hand.
One of the men glanced at the holes, then up at Cleve. “Man, that’s shootin’!” It was the fourth and last shot that had saved his life, for it had gone into the bear’s stomach and had broken his spine. Despite the killing shots in the chest, the bear might finally have killed him had it not been for that He had been lucky … very lucky indeed.
Obviously, the bear had not been looking for trouble, but had merely been rummaging among the buckets and gear around the wagon, drawn by the smell of food. The flash of Clove’s gun had blinded it, and probably it had been as eager to get away as he would have been. It was that paralyzing final shot that had kept him from a bad mauling—or worse.
He heard scraps of talk … “nerve” and “tackled a bear, hand-to-hand” and “shootin’ like that … in the dark, too.” But he knew he had been no hero. He had been frightened, and he had done what had to be done. Had he attempted escape, the bear might easily have turned on him. When he found the bear that close he had no alternative but to shoot.
But the story was one that would be told and retold wherever any of these men gathered.
Lilith caught his arm. “Cleve? Oh, Cleve, you can’t leave now! What if that bear had come and you had not been here? What would we have done?” He looked down at her, his hands on her arms, and something inside him made unspoken answer: Why, you’d probably have taken that rifle of yours, drilled him dead-center, and then gone back to sleep. He said it to himself, but to her he said, “Yes, I’d better stay. I can’t leave you alone.” The truth of the matter was, he decided, that he didn’t want to go, anyway. He wanted to stay here, where Lilith was. After all, he had been gambling for years, and where had it gotten him? No use cashing in his chips when he was this close to seeing what the pot held.
He would stay on to the end. After all, a girl like this, with a gold claim?
What kind of a fool had he been to think of leaving?
Chapter 11
Rabbit’s Foot Gulch, known to all and sundry as “the Rabbit” or simply “Rabbit,” was a ragged gash where the mountain seemed to have been split apart by some gigantic earth-shudder. Cleft deep into the mountain, its sides rose sheer from the creek in the bottom to the rim more than a thousand feet above. Along the rapid, shallow creek where the canyon widened out were a few rock houses, split-log shacks, or mere dugouts where the gold-seekers huddled when not employed in panning, working their cradles, or cleaning sluice boxes. Here and there some miner had diverted a portion of the stream to wash off the sand and gravel shoveled into the sluice box and leave the gold behind, caught in the riffles in the bottom of the sluice box. The trail, if such it could be called, wound precariously around the huts, along the creek edge, up on the high bank, and back down to the bottom of the stream itself.
Cleve van Valen, with Lilith beside him, rode a cautious way among the laboring men. Several times one or the other was hailed by some former acquaintance, and at their appearance work ceased for the time. Women were few at any time, and such women as Lilith were scarce at all times. Men stopped their work to stare, shielding their eyes against the sun.
It was mid-morning. Most of the miners worked with shirt sleeves rolled up, exposing their red woolen undershirts. Most of them wore clumsy, flat-heeled boots, though here and there a man wore moccasins or riding boots, or worked in bare feet. To a man, they were bearded, unshaved, mostly unbathed, and armed. Those who did not wear a gun while working had one lying close at hand. They were a rough, tough, good-natured crowd of individualists, each one as independent as his physical strength or his gun could make him. Until a few days or weeks before, none of them had been known to any of the others, and a few weeks from now each would be off on some other creek, following the chance of gold.
One husky miner recognized Lilith. “Hey, Lil! Sing us a song!” She waved, remembering the man from St. Louis, where he had been especially wary of the law. “We’re in a hurry, boys! Next time!” “Come on, Lil!” the bearded, hairy-chested man from St Louis yelled cheerfully.
“Tune up! Sing us a song!”
She laughed at them. “What shall I sing for him, boys? ‘What Was Your Name in the States?’ “ All within hearing roared with laughter, and the bearded one made believe as if to duck a blow.
Cleve turned in the saddle. “If your claim peters out, you’ve still got a following. You might make more singing.”
The faint trail they followed turned up through the pines and away from the creek, which here filled the bottom of a canyon so narrow the sun could only strike the water at midday.
It was not much further. Cleve led the way, but he sat half turned in the saddle so as not to present his back completely to Lilith. “I’ll go to San Francisco,” she said, “and I’ll buy a home on Nob Hill, and I’ll have my own carriage and driver. I’ll have all the linen and silver and cut glass I’ve ever dreamed of, and I’ll never sing for a crowd of men again.” After a minute or two she added, “I’ll have a concert grand, and when I wish to sing I will sing for myself … or my friends.” “And will you sing for me, Lilith?”
“Yes, I’ll sing for you whenever you like, and I’ll wear fine clothes and give dinners for the people I like, and perhaps I’ll go to New York, even to Paris or Vienna. Have you been to Vienna, Cleve?”
“To Vienna, to Innsbruck, Bayreuth, Weimar, Monte Carlo … you will like them, Lil.”
The trail took a long bend, and far ahead of them they could see the widening of the canyon where lay the mining claim. They could ride abreast now, and they rode without talking. So much lay ahead of them, and soon there would be so much they could leave behind.
The trail dipped down, and they saw the scar of rubble where waste rock had been dumped from the mine tunnel.
Below, a rocker stood idle upon the bank of the creek, and a small stream poured into the creek from the sluice box. Against the mountain, under a few ragged trees, stood a flimsy lean-to; a bearded man sat on a stump near the door, smoking a pipe. A few feet away a squaw was grinding corn in a metate. As they drew near, neither of the two looked around or changed their position. The man, immobile as the rocks themselves, was staring at the sunlight on the waters of the creek.