It was scarcely likely. They had seen nobody now for days, and the heavy rains must have washed out their tracks when first they moved away. Their wagon now was lighter by a good bit and did not leave the deeply cut tracks they would be hunting. He felt better, much better.
The mules moved out at a good gait, and Tom was singing in the back of the wagon. It was good to be alive. Beside him Susanna sat tall, looking toward the mountains.
Doc Shabbitt lit his cigar. “Santy Fee,” he said, “there’ll be good pickins at Santy Fee.”
“What about the gold strike at Cherry Creek?” Hyle demanded. “Folks say they struck it rich!”
“I’ll go anywheres,” Booster McCutcheon said. “If’n we can’t make out one way, we’ll do it another.”
“They got gold,” Ike Mantle insisted. “I know they had gold in that wagon!”
“Beats me,” Doc said, “what could have become of them. And that other gent, Huron, the one you had the fight with. What’s become of him?”
“Well, we lost that wagon,” Dobbs said, “looks like Red missed out on his woman.”
“We haven’t lost them,” Purdy said, “but I say we’re foolish to chase after a wagon-load of women’s fixins and cabin furniture.”
“What d’ you mean… we haven’t lost ’em?” Doc asked.
Purdy held up a tin boat made out of the top of a tin can, carefully bent into shape with a small stick for a thwart and another for a mast. “I found this down at the crick. Ain’t rusted even a mite. I’d say some youngster made it, lost it playin’ in the crick, an’ she just floated down stream.”
“Yeah,” Doc studied it. “Surely ain’t been in the water long. I’d say only a few miles.”
“If we was to angle for northwest,” Dobbs suggested, “we’d surely cut their sign.”
Red Hyle got to his feet and walked to his saddle. Without a word he began to saddle up.
“Maybe Purdy’s right,” Booster said, “what if they ain’t got nothin’?”
“The mules will be worth it at Cherry Creek. Where there’s mines there’s a market for mules.”
Yet the trail was older than they believed. They found it, west of the creek by some distance, and the Huron rode up and down, studying the lay of the grass.
“This ain’t the same,” Booster said, “look at the tracks. The wagon we’re lookin’ for made deep tracks. She really cut deep!”
“Same wagon,” the Huron said mildly. “Not so heavy now.”
“What’s that mean?” Shabbitt demanded.
“They have lightened their load,” Purdy Mantle said quietly, “so they could travel faster.”
“You mean they done buried the gold?” Ike said. “They wouldn’t do a fool thing like that! Not way the hell an’ gone out here!”
“I don’t know anything about gold. That’s just something we conjured up in our minds our own selves. I seen furniture all along the trail. They carry it a ways, then their stocks gets played out and they drop it. There’s never been any gold.”
“You say!” Ike sneered.
“Why go to the gold fields if you’ve already got gold? And why take gold to the gold fields?” Purdy asked.
“They got it,” Ike insisted. “Anyway, they’ve got horses and mules and a wagon load of stuff.”
“You seen many of those wagons, Ike?” Purdy asked gently. “Most of what they hold is important to nobody but them, except for tools, grub, and such. I never seen anything in a wagon yet that was worth the trouble to carry off.”
“They can’t be far,” Dobbs said, “and we’re goin’ that way. Anyway, Red wants his woman.”
“That’s just a notion,” Purdy said.
Red turned a little in the saddle. “It’s my notion,” Red said quietly, “and I like it.”
Their eyes held for an instant and then Purdy shrugged and smiled. “Have at it,” he said, “ever’-body’s entitled to a notion now and again.”
He was smiling, but his eyes were still and watchful. Red turned abruptly away. “Let’s get on,” he said harshly. “Time’s a-wastin’.”
When morning came again there was a cool fresh wind coming down through the spruce, the aspen, and the pine trees. The wind had the smell of pines on its breath, and the sound of the aspen leaves stirring, and cool water over stones.
A dim road led off the bench down through the aspens and the cottonwood and almost without thinking, Duncan turned the mules down the faint tracks and they braked the wagon into the river bottom. Free of the trees, with marmots disappearing on every hand, there was a long green meadow, an old corral in the distance, and a faint track, overgrown with grass.
They were sitting tall on the wagon-seats now, and Tom had left his post at the rear to look at what they were approaching.
On the left were the aspens, their white trunks like the columns of a mosque, their leaves restlessly moving, always moving. The corral they were drawing near to was empty, the bars down, the grass within grown tall. The road dipped away to their right and they saw sunlight gleam on rushing water.
The gray of stones, a small field of them over which water had run and would run again, and then the stream, only a few feet wide at this point, but clear and maybe a couple of feet deep. Beyond the stream there was more forest and then the mountain, rising boldly up, bald and green at its higher points, the lower slopes thick with forest.
“Pa… look!”
Duncan McKaskel drew up. Beond the stream, not more than fifty or sixty yards beyond, was a cabin. It was a log cabin, patched with some cut boards, and it was old, obviously abandoned.
“Duncan… ? I love it.”
“Let’s look around.”
He spoke to the mules and they moved ahead, ears pricked. “They like it too,” he told himself.
They bumped and rumbled, splashing through the stream, struggled a little at the opposite bank because in the years between the river had cut it away somewhat, and then they were there.
The grass was green around the old cabin, the trees had been cleared back, behind it there was, some distance back, an old beaver pond with much gray, fallen timber, the bare ribs of a small and vanished forest. As he looked a fish plopped in one of the ponds, and ripples spread out.
He tied the reins and got stiffly down, stretching his back after the long sitting. Then he put up a hand and helped Susanna down.
Tom was already on the ground and running toward the cabin. He leaned into the open door. “Ma! It’s got a floor!”
Susanna paused and looked all around. She listened to the gentle sound of the running water, the faint rustle of aspen leaves, the cloud shadows on the green dome of the mountain.
“Duncan? It is lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yes… yes, it is. There’s plenty of water, and there’s grass.”
The cabin was small, and it needed work, but it was the sound of running water and the aspen as well as the beaver ponds that made them like it.
“Duncan? Can we-?”
“We’ll give it a try, Susanna. We’ll stop for a few days while I look around.” In his own mind, he was sure. He wanted to look at the higher ground first though.
There was room enough for a kitchen garden, and perhaps a crop of corn and potatoes… some beans.
Duncan McKaskel walked back to the wagon and began to unhitch. There were things to be seen, he must look around, but in his own mind this was home.
Whoever had built the cabin had abandoned it long ago. Judging by the look of the logs and the weathering, he would guess ten years or more. Nor was there any sign of occupancy of even the casual sort. By leaving the known trails, the prescribed route, they had come to this place, come as if guided by fate.
Picketing the horses and mules on the rich green grass, after watering them, he began to gather firewood, and as in any forest, it was scattered everywhere. Much heavy stuff had been washed down by the stream, and there were deadfalls and many trees killed by beavers. There was wood enough to last a winter through.
“We will sleep in our camp tonight,” he suggested, “and tomorrow we’ll clean up the house and repair what is needed.”
Leaving Tom to gather more wood and Susanna to prepare supper, he took his rifle and walked up the dim game trail toward the bench above the river-bottom.
It was broad and green, sweeping away, several hundred acres of excellent pasture, toward the aspens at the foot of the mountain. He saw the tracks and droppings of both deer and elk, and the track of a bear.
He stood still, drinking in the quiet beauty of the place. Suddenly, among the aspens beyond the meadow he saw something move, and a moment later it moved forward just a little, pausing in a spot of sunlight.