It grew lighter. Jethro’s throat was dry and his head ached. He ought to be resting and treating that wound. The Shoshones, now. They had some sort of herb … or was it the Pimas? He couldn’t remember.
He moved up to the camp, which was a shambles … looked like a hurricane had struck it.
Red was the first one he saw, his face torn half away by one great swipe of a taloned paw. Badly mauled, Red lay as he had fallen … must have died within minutes.
The Kid was dead, too. Jethro’s bullet had cut right through him—right through the heart by the look of it.
Jethro held himself close to a tree and looked around slowly. Two more … now, where were they? He strained his eyes into the darkness under the trees, but he could see nothing beyond the two bodies which lay where the dim light fell.
He told himself that he should care for his wound, then get on a horse and start back to Harvey’s place. Yet even as he thought it, he knew he did not want to go back. He had come here to stay, and stay he would. Slowly the light filtered through the trees. Birds were singing in the brush along the stream, and somewhere down the valley an elk bugled. There was no sign of the bear.
His packs had been tumbled down, and one had been ripped open. Then he saw his Winchester leaning against a tree and started forward. He had almost reached it when a voice said, “I thought that would do it.” Jethro still held the spare six-shooter in his right hand. It hung down beside his leg, and there was a chance Zeke had not seen it. For it was Zeke. “You take a horse,” Jethro said, “and ride out of here. You’ve got no reason to kill me.”
“You brought that bear down on us. You done it a-purpose.” Jethro said nothing. There was nothing that could be said, and he felt a curious lack of interest. He strained his eyes into the shadows, trying to locate Zeke Rails.
“Sure,” he said at last, wanting to make Zeke speak again, “I knew he was there.
But you were fixing to kill me.”
He cleared his throat. “You take a horse and ride out of here,” he said once more.
Why didn’t Zeke shoot, if he was going to? Jethro waited, but there was no further sound. The sun was showing above the mountaintop now, and the snow along the far ridge was bright, dazzling to the eyes. He sat down where he was, holding the pistol across his lap. Suddenly, a shot exploded, and instantly, Jethro fired. He fired, and fired again. Silence….
That shot had had an odd sound.
Jethro got to his feet by clinging to the tree trunk, and holding the gun ready, he walked across the small opening. Zeke was sitting against a fallen log, and he was dead. The shot had been fired into the ground, probably by the final contraction of his fingers.
The grizzly had done its work well. One leg was horribly lacerated and the ground was dark with blood. Zeke’s left arm was askew, obviously broken. Jethro’s two bullets had both scored, but he had shot into a dead man. He got a fire going and put on the coffee pot. He took his Winchester and placed it on the ground beside him, and he hung a blanket over his shoulders, for he felt chilled from the long night. He was going to have some coffee to set him up, and then he’d have a look at that wound. He’d get that bullet out of him and treat the wound.
He looked toward the stream. The horses had smelled the fire and were working up the slope toward him. Jethro listened to the water boiling and then he remembered to throw the coffee into the pot.
He put on more fuel. Then taking the coffee from the fire he dropped in a little cold water to settle the grounds. His hand was shaking when he filled the cup. He lifted it with both hands and tasted the coffee. Nothing ever tasted better. The sun was over the ridge now, but it didn’t seem to be warming him up much. He drank more of the coffee, and put the cup down carefully. He looked up, searching through the mist to find the horses. Mist? It was then he knew that he was going to die. Somehow the thought did not disturb him. After all, didn’t everybody, sooner or later? He chuckled suddenly. “All the way back here,” he said, “only to die.” He tried to fill the cup again, but his hand would not hold the pot and it fell on its side.
“Maybe that was why,” he said aloud. He felt the coldness in him then. He was dying; but was a man ever truly dead who left somebody behind? He was leaving Julie … yes, and Zeb Rawlings and their get. “Julie?” he said loudly. “Julie … ?” And then he was dead.
The old outlaw waited a few minutes longer, and then he came down out of the rocks and walked slowly up to the grove. He glanced around, picked up the coffee pot and started to fill the dead man’s cup, then dropped it and hunted around for his own.
He filled his cup and stood there drinking the coffee. Thoughtfully he looked down at Jethro.
“Worth the whole passel of them,” he said aloud. He put down the cup and went around gathering up the guns. Then very carefully he went through the pockets of each of them, touching nothing but the money. He pocketed this and made a bundle of the weapons and ammunition, and then he went down on the flat and caught the saddled horse.
He led the horse back to the edge of the grove and tied the bundle of weapons, all of which represented money, behind the saddle. He rousted through the supplies and made a couple of packs. Then, riding the horse, he went down by the stream and put a loop over a couple of pack horses. Returning, he loaded them up.
There was one other thing to do. With cinch rings from a saddle, heated red-hot, he burned the names into the side of a tree:
JETHRO STUART 1883
ZEKE RAILS 1883
RED HART 1883
KID 1883
Dropping the cinch rings, he stepped into the saddle. He had found a dim trail over the rocks near where he had been hiding, and he started out. It was noon when he stopped out on the first ridge, and he looked back. The valley lay quiet under the sun, the stream a strip of silver through the green. “I ain’t a-comin’ back,” he said.
Chapter 20
The station was two rooms. The railroad agent was in one of them with his telegraph key and his tickets. A window opened into the waiting room itself, which had benches along the walls and a pot-bellied stove. The waiting room was twelve by fourteen feet, and much too large for the business. Several giant cottonwood trees shaded the station and a patch of grass nearby. Their leaves rustled constantly, chafing their pale green surfaces together. Zeb Rawlings was used to the sound and he liked it. Julie had spread a checkered cloth on the grass and was laying out their lunch.
Zeb leaned against the trunk of the nearest cottonwood, half asleep. The children kept running out and looking up the railroad track in the direction from which the train would come. Eve, who was five, helped her mother. Linus, who was seven, and Prescott, nine years old, played Indians among the trees. “Have you ever seen the ranch?” Julie asked.
“No,” Zeb answered, “but I rode through that country once. Green grass right up to your stirrups, all over that valley. You’ll like it, Julie.” “I’d like it if there was no grass at all.”
Prescott yelled from the tree he had climbed. “Hey, pa, look!” Glancing around, they saw Linus hanging by one arm from a limb of the cottonwood, while with his other hand he gripped his throat, his tongue protruding to simulate a hanging man.
“Linus! You get down from there!” Julie ordered.
“He’s Billy the Kid and I hung him, pa,” Prescott said. “Billy wasn’t hung, Press,” Zeb corrected. “Pat Garrett shot him. Two years ago come July.”
“That’s the only hanging tree left in the Territory,” Julie said irritably. “I wish they’d cut it down.”
“They might need it,” Zeb commented.
“Zeb Rawlings, you know darned well that nobody ever gets lynched any more. Not even horse thieves.”
“It’s a beautiful tree, Julie, and it gives a lot of shade. And shade can be a mighty scarce item in this country.”
“The shade of killing.”
The children ran out to look up the track again, and Julie turned to Zeb. “Do you ever wonder about pa? Whatever became of him, I mean?” “Your pa,” Zeb said, “was a man who made mighty few mistakes. Whatever happened to him happened when he was doing the right thing. And whoever left those guns at the post office thought so, too.”