When I woke up, who should be sitting by the fire but Con Judy.
“When you get shot up,” he said as I opened my eyes, “you take care to do it where you have a pretty nurse right close at hand.” Vashti blushed, but she was pleased, too. Especially as it was coming from Con, who had a way with him.
“It’s the only way to go,” I said, grinning at him.
“How’d you get up here?” “Lander sent word. He figured I’d be worried, and I was, you taking off like that.” Then he added, “Theallyre gone. They pulled their freight, all three of them.” “You went over there?” ‘Thought I might have a word with them. That was before I ran into Lander Owen-Lander and I have been friends for some time- But I’d already started tracing you down. I got a tip in Leadville that Heseltine had been making inquiries about that cabin, so I went up there.” “They might have killed you.” ‘Might have. But I might have done some shooting, too. Anyway, Heseltine would think twice before taking a shot at me. If he did that he wouldn’t be safe anywhere in Colorado.” He paused and refilled his cup; then he asked, “What are your plans?” “To get well, and get on their trail. I’m going to track them down no matter how long it takes.” I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but suddenly I knew that what I said was true.
They had robbed a boy and a wounded man. The wounded man was dead, but somewhere along the line something had happened to that boy.
They had tried to kill me, and I had put one of them down with lead, but they had almost gotten me this time.
Next time I would be shooting first.
Something else had happened, too. The cold eyes of Bob Heseltine no longer worried me. I’d been pushed around and shot at, but I was no longer afraid. Wary, yes, but not afraid, as I admitted to myself I had been.
“A man does what he has to do,” Lander said quietly.
‘allyou lived with Indians too long, Lander,” Con said.
‘I’d like Tucker to drop the whole thing. I’ve some contracts and I need a good young man to help me.” He looked over at me. “You could make a good bit more than working for wages. I need a man to help me ramrod a track-laying job.” ‘All right,” I said. at help, and when the job is finished, I’ll go after them. It might be a good thing to let them relax a little.”…It will be thirty days before we can get started,” Con said. “Lander will be working with me, too.” Thirty days? I’d be well long before then, and could do a little scouting.
The days passed slowly, but pleasantly enough.
Daytimes I’d talk with Vashti, and I’d help her get fuel in for the fire, breaking branches for kindling, as I could at t take a chance on swinging an axe, for fear it would open my wound.
It wasift until I began moving around that I found where that other bullet had struck.
My gun belt was a kind of fancy one, with loops for cartridges and silver plaques separating one set of twelve from another. One of those bullets had Mt one of those silver plates, glanced off, and gone about its business, but the wallop it gave me left a big bruise on my back and side. The second bullet must have hit me as I was turning from the first shot.
When I could get outside to sit in the sun I saw what a grand blace they’d picked for that cabin.
It was on a small knoll. Down in the trees there was a corral with several horses, and a long slope covered with aspens. The cabin stood in a grove of their slim pale tnuiks, and I loved the wkispering of their leaves.
There were squirrels comaround, and birds, and it was almighty pleasant just sitting in the sun “and watching things. Sometimes I’d walk out from the house and sit down on a stump left from the time they cut logs for the cabin. The squirrels would pay me no mind, just chasing one another through the trees and along the ground.
There’s a good deal of life goes on in an aspen grove.
Elk and beaver love the bitter inner bark, squirrels and chipmunks come looking for the berries and seeds among the brush that often grows along the ground; Rocky Mountain nuthatches, blue jays, and woodpeckers are always there, as well as a dozen other kinds of birds and animals.
Harebells, bluebells, cowslips, and pink roses often cover the ground.
When I was logggreater-than Idng and listening in the stillness like that it seemed I could almost feel the mountains changing, for no matter how changeless and timeless they may seem, they are never twice the same.
Lander Owen came up from where he’d been chopping wood. He squatted on his heels alongside the porch and nodded toward the mountains. “A man can always learn from them,” he said. ‘The Indians know a lot no wMte man will ever know, and they don’t tell what they know. They expect you to know it, too, and they don’t feel they have to tell what they know, the way a white man does.
“Maybe if theyd had a written language it would have been different, for the Indian has a great feeling for words, and the sounds of words.
Surely there would have been poets among them, as there were artists.” ‘That never knew much about them except that they like to right.” ‘They are a warlike people, generally speaking. Now and again some chief would see the wisdom of avoiding trouble, and his people would usually profit by it.
‘Vashti’s grandfather, Ma-ga-ska, The Swan, was a great warrior, but he was a shrewd ruler and a man of great natural ability. Denig used to say that his people were the most trustworthy of any Indians he knew, but they had been at war with the Crows as far back as anybody could remember. But as long as The Swan was alive they had no trouble with the white man.” Lander Owen was silent then for a while, but presently he said, “Son, you should have seen this country when I first came into it. There were mighty few white men, and not so many Indians as you’d think, and a man could ride for days and see nobody at all.
He could drink from any stream and find food in most places, and there were millions of wild horses running free on the Plains.
Now men are coming into the country and soon you’ll see cities growing up.” “Cities? Out here?” “Boy, a beaver builds dams because it’s his nature, and a man builds cities for the same reason, I suppose.
It’s likely men can’t help themselves any more than a beaver can … or the ant that builds an ant hill, or the bees a hive.
There are men who seem to have a compulsion to build-to build buildings, railroads, or bridges; to sink mines, to build fortunes.
It’s man’s nature. Some make it through luck, but the ones who last are those who put one foot ahead of the other, one stone on another.
If you build to last, you’ve got to build with work and with patience.” – What was I going to build, I wondered.
Anything at all? Or was I just going to find those two men and make them give up what was left of our money. I didn’t like to think of what I wasn’t doing, so I shook it off. I’d heard old men talk before, like pa.
But when I thought of him I remembered how right he had been about Reese and Sites, and how wrong I’d been. Well, that was one time. Now I knew better, and I was going to find those men. And I had several weeks before Con Judy got started with his kind of building.
Lander Owen went off now about his business and I still sat there in the sun, riding my mind down the possible trails those two might have gone. I wasn’t going to let up on them until I had them by the short hair.
It would have been easier, in some ways, if I’d never met Con Judy.
He was my friend, maybe the first real friend I ever had, but he had opened doors for me that maybe he’d better left closed. He had introduced me to men who were doing something in the world, men who had the respect of their communities. All of them were building things to last; and me, I was just hunting two men who had taken our money and tried to kill me.
Five clays later, on a horse I bought from Lander Owen, I took the trail.