He tossed him his tobacco sack. “He’p yourself. I came away with plenty.” “You say you were with Wyeth and them,” the man said. “You ever come up against a mountain man named Linus Rawlings?”
“Trapped fur and fought redskins with him. Fact is,” Jethro said, “his oldest boy married my daughter.”
“Now, don’t that beat all! Why, I met Linus Rawlings back on the Ohio. Say, his wife wouldn’t have been a Prescott, would she?” “Eve was her name. I ain’t sure about the last name.” “Eve! That was her! Well, now!” He turned to his children. “Remember I told you about them? And how that Eve surely set her cap for that mountain feller? I declare, she was a fine-looking girl! And that sister of hers, the singin’ one. She was something to see. But pert … mighty pert.” Jethro studied his back trail thoughtfully, then started on. It was unlikely any of the Harveys would have followed him—not unless they had something to tell him, which wasn’t likely. By the time he’d spent two days and nights at the cabin none of them had anything left to talk about. Brutus Harvey … if he ever came upon Zeb again he would ask him about the name. Doubtless he’d heard his father speak it. The rest of it he wouldn’t tell him—nobody liked bad news of his family. He’d never connected Zeke Rails with Rawlings until Harvey mentioned it. But everybody knew about Zeke … and he would be Zeb’s uncle. Zeb had spoken of him, although Zeb had never seen his uncle. He was the youngest of the family, and came west when Zeb’s mother and father met, and after he left the Ohio River country they never heard of him again. Harvey had met him two or three times, and had occasion to recall him. Jethro rode on, searching for the small stream he remembered. It had flowed through a valley in a northern direction, and he believed it to be a branch of the Yellowstone. A valley he remembered … that was where he was heading. He had always told himself he was coming back sometime, and he certainly wouldn’t do it if he waited much longer.
Not that he felt old at sixty-six. As far as he could tell by the feel, he hadn’t changed any in the last twenty years, and he could hear just as well and see as far. Maybe he didn’t seem to need as much sleep … but then he had always been a light sleeper.
As he rode he kept his eyes open for the sort of camp he wanted. He was getting too old to care for a camp without a fire, and the sense of being followed might be an old memory of the place and the Blackfeet. What he wanted was a camp protected on three sides from approach, and in this rocky, heavily timbered country it was not too much to expect. The horse he’d swapped for from Harvey was a mountain mustang, hence better than any watchdog. He found the place he wanted after the sun had disappeared and when there wasn’t much time left in which to look. It was under the overhang of the cliff, in a place which must have once been an old stream-bed, for the cliff was undercut. There was a good patch of grass, and water nearby, and to approach the place anyone must cross an open meadow and come into a notch partly protected by the rock wall. A safe enough place, and the undercut where he would make his bed would be in the darkness just away from the fire. He put water on for coffee and then sat back away from the fire with his Winchester to hand, chewing on jerky. It was no hardship to go without a hot meal, but his coffee he dearly loved. He fancied jerky—always had. Good for a man’s teeth, too. At sixty-six he had lost only two … that time at Brown’s Hole when he went to the grass with Hugh Glass over something. Good man, that Glass … grizzly nearly killed him. Their difference had been over nothing important. Maybe a squaw, or who had the best horse. Glass had taken two of his teeth out with a boot … only it was a moccasin, and that was lucky, or he might have lost a fistful. Glass whopped him, and good, too, but he was young then and had a lot to learn, and he’d never seen a mountain man fight before.
The night passed without event, although about midnight the wind rose and he had to get up and throw wood on the fire.
He did that from the shadows, carefully planning it that way. He’d toss the sticks on and then sit back and watch them burn. He had rigged a little lean-to near the fire and had propped it with sticks so every once in a while a stick would burn through and let another one fall on the fire. Anybody watching wouldn’t know for sure, at a distance, whether he was awake or not. When a stick fell, sometimes sparks would flare up, and after a bit the fire would burn brighter, too. It was a trick Jethro invented himself. At daybreak he was up and taking off down through the forest before it was light. He left his fire burning behind him, but with a trench dug around so it could not spread. Nobody but a fool took chances with a fire in the forest. He rode about fifteen miles through thick timber and emerged at last in the valley which he had been seeking. It was about seven or eight miles long, half as wide, and surrounded by high mountains, heavily timbered. A stream ran down the center in a northwestern direction, before disappearing down a tremendous canyon.
Within the valley itself the banks of the stream were low, and were skirted here and there with beautiful groves of cottonwood. Jethro crossed the stream and rode toward the point where they had camped those many years ago. At that time there had been a small party of Snake Indians living in the valley. Now as he rode he looked for sign, and found none.
Ten years or so back a lot of this country had been set aside to make a park—Yellowstone, they called it, after the river. Jethro was not sure if this valley was within the limits, but he suspected it was. He made camp, staked out his mount and the pack horses and then scouted around a little to get the lay of the land. He found it all came back to him as he looked around. The big old pine they had used for a landmark was only half there … lightning-struck, some time in the past; and there was a blaze down the side of the mountain caused by a landslide that had happened in the meantime. It pleased him to see there were beaver working, and he had made his camp with the beaver pond as protection on one side. It was a big pond, all of fifty yards across at this point, and quite a colony of beaver was working there. They were safe enough. He was through with trapping. Why had he come back, after all? Was it only because he remembered this as a place of beauty? He remembered how he and Russell had climbed the slope to look down upon it, taking in the hills around them … neither had ever seen anything quite so grand. Well, he had stopped. Maybe now he would find out who was following him. Lots of thieves and renegades around, Harvey had said, but it was unlikely there would be any this far back in the mountains. And Zeke Rails was somewhere off to the north. Whoever was out there, he didn’t want it to be Zeke. If they’d followed him, it wasn’t because they’d nothing else to do, whoever they were. Chances were they wanted his outfit. He went to his pack and got out a spare belt gun and cached it where he could put a hand on it without being suspected. Then he settled down to make camp. He was planning to stay. This place of all others he had remembered. Here he would build a cabin, and he would settle down.
Sunlight danced on the waters of the creek, the grass out there was knee-high, and there were some fine stands of timber. He could cut logs and build a cabin and corrals here, buy some cattle from Harvey and drive them in here … Or sheep. Sheep would be better in this country, and he could store up a sight of wool and pack it all out at once.
The sound of their horses came to him before he saw them, but his own horses had already warned him, for their heads had come up and they were watching closely. When they rode into view, he saw that there were four of them. He felt a tightness in his throat. Four was too many to watch. He was in trouble, in real trouble.