CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There was snow lying in patches on the northwest side of the mountain. The shoulders of rock were scarred and barren except where earth had clung to sheltered places, nourishing moss and scraggly pines.
To the west the rugged land lay under their hands, pounded out by the dizzy height, going on across the miles until it met the sky. The branches of the distant trees, stripped bare by cold and wind, wove a feathery texture of browns and reds, deep violets interrupted by the dusky green of spruce and pine, tall enough, no doubt, to dwarf a man, but in the distance seeming no bigger than scraps of moss.
Red stood with his hands on his hips, his beard pointing toward the distant land, his face showing wonder and fear, as if God had taken him by the hand.
The woman was first to turn away. There was love in her face. “It was here I saw the last of Nate.”
Tim’s thought was so strong it almost said itself out loud. She knows he won’t come back.
The woman pointed in the direction they’d come. Just to the left of a slate-colored shadow on a hill far below they saw a curl of smoke. “Smoke from our cabin,” she said. “I left a fire on the hearth, remember?”
As they watched the smoke, snow began to fall. The flakes were small. They could almost be counted at first, little pinpoints of white. Then they filled the distance, and the hills and ridges all around were washed across with a milky haze. The flakes came faster. They were larger now, and one by one the landmarks were engulfed in a sea of white, leaving just the swirl of snow and silence everywhere.
The woman patted her sack of meal. “Time for food,” she said.
They found a sheltered place in an angle of rock and the men gathered bits of dead pine for a fire. The woman took off her mittens and worked with her swift, brown hands, slicing meat from a skin pouch that hung at her side and stirring cornmeal into the can.
When they finished eating, the woman scraped the can clean, rinsed it and heated more water. She sprinkled in tan-colored crystals of sugar to make a kind of cambric tea. “I’d lace it with liquor from your little flask but you’d best keep that for future needs.”
The snow was falling more slowly now. The woman motioned toward the west. “The hills we saw a while ago,” she said. “Nate told me some are jus’ as high as this one, though they don’t look so big from here. I reckon they’re jus’ as windy and jus’ as cold.”
As they packed up their things the snow stopped falling and the air was like crystal again. The sun burst free from the clouds and made the ground a burning white blanket.
The woman pointed west. “You see that distant pass? Knoxville’s through that way. Old Buck told Nate. Old Buck went there many a time. If I’d asked him, Buck would have showed you the way. That’s jus’ the trouble. Buck is old and kinda tired. He should keep himself warm in wintertime.”
The smoldering fire sent a thin signal into the air. The woman kicked at the sticks and smoke twisted lightly against the sky. The woman looked at the men with steady eyes, and when she saw that Red was about to speak she turned without a word, and walking slowly the way they had come, slanted down the hill with the sure step of a mountain creature. She turned back once and stood a few seconds against the whiteness. A gust of wind riffled her hair like the mane of a coal-black mare. She raised her hand and turned away and disappeared.
Tim was just about to reach for the compass to find the direction in case the snow closed in again when he heard the sound of horses’ hoofs against the shoulder of rock and voices raised.
Red brought out the Colt revolver and held it at his side. The jingle came clear, and grunting and talking—rough as grit—somewhere beyond the rock. One voice broke clear. “I think they’re jus’ behind that rock.”
A shot sang out from the other side of the ridge. Red moved fast and quiet around the rock, with Tim just behind. They heard a man say “God amighty!” An answering shot split the air.
Tim and Red rose slowly, so that they could see beyond the rock. Two men had dismounted. They were bending over a fallen third. A short grisled man, built like a gorilla, held a rifle at the ready, and the other—a young, dark-haired man—clutched a shotgun in his hand. Red took aim and caught the short man square in the head. The man’sbody slumped to the ground and two of the horses rose on their hind legs, whinnied and bolted in terror. As the third man grabbed at the bridle of his horse Red straightened up, holding the revolver. Suddenly he lost his footing on a slick of snow and sprawled on his face, the pistol spurting out from under him.
Tim reached the third man at a bound and knocked him flat with a blow that sent his shotgun spinning into the snow. Red gained his feet as the man rolled over. He leveled the pistol at the man’s head. The man went pale and raised his hands.
Tim said, “I’ll see to Missus Flint.”
Tim followed her footprints across the snow. She lay face down, a still, dark shape against the glare. As he walked a numbness moved along his legs and the pumping of his heart beat like thunder in his ears.
She was quiet as night and her pulse was still. He turned her over. Blood had soaked her doeskin jacket and stained the snow. With his thumb and middle finger he felt for her eyelids and gently closed her unseeing eyes.
He rose to his feet, a fist of anger burning in his chest, and walked slowly toward Red and the other man.
When the man saw Tim’s face he started to shake. Tim reached out his hand and took the revolver. He pointed it straight at the man’s heart. “Who killed the woman?”
“Not me,” the man breathed.
“You lie.”
The man sank to the ground, his knees skidding foolishly in the snow. “Oh no. Great God,” he screamed, swaying and gesturing toward the stocky man. “It was Billy, there. Sure enough it was. And even so, the woman shot first.”
Red said, “I believe he speaks the truth.”
The man stopped swaying. “I tolt the truth. Theyteased me cruel about my shootin’.” He jerked his head in the direction of the shotgun. “Else why would they have given me that crooked piece?” The man pointed to one of his eyes. “Look here at my wanderin’ eye....”
Red said, “Shut your face.”