CHAPTER 21
Finding a suitable place to camp wasn’t
easy. Bo led the way on foot now, with Scratch’s lasso tied around
his chest under his arms in case he fell. He made his way
carefully, sliding his feet along the ground through the snow. The
flakes stung his face, and he knew that he and the other men risked
frostbite on any exposed skin.
After an unknowable time, Bo bumped
into something hard and unyielding. He tipped his head back and saw
something dark looming over him. Resting his gloved hands on the
surface, he explored it until he was convinced it was a huge slab
of rock. If they could get on the side of the rock where it blocked
the wind, they might be able to build a fire and thaw out a
little.
Bo worked his way along the rock. For
all he knew, it was a cliff that ran for miles. But luck was with
him, and after only a few yards he felt the surface curving under
his hands. He followed it, and gradually the wind died down as the
rock blocked the icy gusts. Bo kept moving until he couldn’t feel
the wind at all. He tugged on the rope to signal Scratch that the
rest of the group should follow him.
Moments later, Scratch and the troopers
arrived. Bo was already feeling around, searching for something
that would burn. He found some brush and broke off a few of the
bare branches. Huddling next to the rock, he arranged the branches.
Scratch gave him a sheet of newspaper. The Texans always carried a
few old newspapers in their saddlebags to use for kindling. Bo tore
the sheet into strips, piled them under the branches, and struck a
match. Blocked by the rock, the wind didn’t blow out the flame. A
welcome glow rose, bringing with it a little heat, as the kindling
caught. After a moment the branches began to burn as
well.
Bo worked patiently with the fire until
he had a nice little blaze going. The men crowded around it and
held out half-frozen hands. The face of the rock slab leaned out a
little, which helped to trap and reflect the heat onto the
men.
“My teeth were chatterin’ so bad, I
thought they were gonna wear themselves down to little nubs,”
Scratch said. “Feel a mite better now.”
“We lost a lot of our supplies in that
avalanche,” Gustaffson said, “but I think we have some coffee and
jerky left.”
“Sounds good,” Bo said.
Half an hour later, after drinking some
hot coffee and gnawing on strips of jerky, the men felt
considerably better. They hunkered around the fire, which Bo kept
going by judiciously feeding branches into the flames.
Now that they weren’t in immediate
danger of falling off a cliff or freezing to death, Gustaffson
scowled and said, “I sure wish we could’ve made it back to Deadwood
in time to stop that robbery.”
“So do I,” Bo said, “but I’ve been
thinking. The Devils left the loot from their other robberies in
that cabin Scratch and I found. I heard their leader say that
they’re going back there to collect the rest of the gold before
they leave this part of the country. We’re between them and that
loot.”
“Son of a gun!” Scratch said. “You’re
right, Bo. Maybe we can ambush them for a change.”
“That’s what I was
thinking.”
Gustaffson nodded. “It’s a good idea.
By then they’ll think they’re free and clear. They won’t be
expecting us to be waiting for them. I say we do it.”
“We’ll have to wait for morning, so we
can see where we are. There’s no telling where we wandered during
that storm. We’ll need to find the canyon where the hideout
is.”
“Shouldn’t be too far off,” Scratch
said. “It seemed like we slogged a long way, but I don’t reckon we
really covered all that much ground.”
“That’s what I think, too,” Bo agreed.
“For now, we need to get some rest. Scratch, you and I will take
turns standing guard.”
Gustaffson said, “Some of us could do
that.”
Bo shook his head. He thought it was
highly unlikely any of the outlaws would be coming back this way
tonight, but it didn’t pay to take chances. Somebody had to keep
the fire going, too. He didn’t figure it was a good idea to trust
their safety to a bunch of young, inexperienced
cavalrymen.
“That’s all right, we’re used to it,”
Bo said. “You and your men get some sleep if you can,
Sergeant.”
He could tell that Gustaffson knew what
he was thinking. The non-com nodded and said, “All right, but if
you need somebody to lend a hand, wake me up. I don’t
mind.”
“I might do that,” Bo
said.
The troopers rolled up in their
blankets. So did Scratch, as Bo stood the first watch. As he knelt
next to the fire and fed branches and twigs into it, he was careful
not to look directly into the flames. That ruined a man’s night
vision quicker than anything. Instead he peered off into the snowy
night.
The leader of the Devils had mentioned
their boss, and Bo couldn’t help but wonder who that was. Lawrence
Nicholson? Reese Bardwell? Someone else he hadn’t even thought of?
Who else in Deadwood had a reason to strike at the mines using the
Devils?
Anybody who wanted to collect a fortune
in gold, of course. That was the simplest and most likely answer.
But something stirred in the back of Bo’s mind, something he had
seen or heard that might mean something, even though he couldn’t
figure out what it was.
After a while he put those thoughts out
of his mind without coming up with any answers. It was too cold to
think, he told himself with a faint smile. His brain just didn’t
want to work in this weather. Instead he concentrated on keeping
the fire going and listening for the sounds of anyone approaching
the camp. It was hard to hear with the wind blowing like that, of
course, but depending on what direction somebody was coming from,
it might also carry the sound of hoofbeats to him.
That didn’t happen. There was just the
wind and the snow and the cold, and as Bo hunkered there next to
the fire, he felt like he and his companions were the last living
souls in a vast, icy wasteland.
The wind died down sometime during the
night, and the snow stopped, too. The sky was still overcast the
next morning, but it lightened enough with dawn to reveal that the
storm had dumped about a foot of snow on the Black Hills. Certainly
not a great amount for this area, where the drifts could be twenty
feet deep at times, but it was early in the season for such a
snowfall.
There was something Bo had forgotten,
too, but Scratch reminded him of it. When Scratch nudged Bo’s
shoulder to wake him, he said, “Happy Thanksgivin’ .”
Bo sat up and yawned. “You’re right. It
is Thanksgiving, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, and I’d sure be givin’ thanks
right now if I was back in Deadwood gnawin’ on a drumstick from a
big ol’ turkey Sue Beth cooked.”
“Deadwood,” Bo muttered. The Devils
would be there by now. They might even be robbing the bank at this
very moment. It wouldn’t matter to them that the bank wasn’t open
on a holiday like this. They would kick down the door anyway and
probably blow the vault open with dynamite. The citizens of
Deadwood probably wouldn’t have much to be thankful for this
morning.
The men had a skimpy breakfast of
coffee and jerky, then Bo, Scratch, and Gustaffson held another
council of war. “We need to backtrack,” Gustaffson suggested. “That
ought to take us to the hideout.”
“That won’t be as easy as it sounds,”
Bo pointed out. “The wind blotted out all our tracks, and the
snow’s covered up some of the landmarks. We know the right general
direction, though, so we can head that way.”
“And at least we’ll be able to see well
enough we won’t have to worry about fallin’ off a cliff,” Scratch
added.
They gave the horses a little grain
from the supply carried by the troopers in their saddlebags and
melted some snow in the coffeepot so the animals could drink. Then
it was time to saddle up and see if they could find a good place to
ambush the gang when the Devils came back this way to retrieve the
rest of their loot.
If they hadn’t been facing a deadly
shootout with a gang of killers and thieves, it would have been
easier to appreciate the snow-covered beauty of the rugged terrain
around them. The dark, pine-covered hills provided a vivid contrast
to the sweeping vistas of snow. Growing up in Texas, Bo and Scratch
had seldom seen sights like this, and even though in their years of
wandering they had looked out over many snow-covered landscapes,
they were still impressed by the spectacular scenery.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Scratch said.
“I’d still rather be in Mexico or some other warm place right now,
but this ain’t bad, Bo.”
“No, it’s not,” Bo agreed. “You can see
why the Sioux believe these hills are a sacred place. It’s sort of
a shame folks ever found gold up here.”
“The hills will still be here when the
gold is gone,” Gustaffson put in. “They may even be here when all
the people are gone. We’ll never know.”
Scratch looked over at the sergeant.
“Sorta philosophical for an old three-striper, ain’t you,
Sarge?”
Gustaffson scowled. “You figure I never
think about anything except the army?”
“No offense meant,” Scratch said with a
grin. Bo interrupted the exchange by pointing and asking, “Do those
twin pines on that knob look familiar?”
“I think so,” Scratch replied. “Did we
see ’em when we were tryin’ to follow the gang
yesterday?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” Bo turned
slowly from side to side in the saddle, studying the countryside
around them. He pointed again, this time to the left. “I think the
canyon where the hideout is should be over that way.”
“Let’s take a look,” Scratch
suggested.
About a quarter of an hour later, Bo
spotted a thin tendril of smoke climbing into the sky ahead of
them. Scratch saw it at the same time and said, “I’ll bet that’s
comin’ from the chimney of that old cabin.”
“I won’t take that bet,” Bo said. “I
think you’re right. That gives us something to aim
for.”
The ten men headed for the smoke. As
they drew closer, Scratch said, “The fella they left behind to get
the gold ready to go probably found that dead hombre by
now.”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, when Lowell didn’t
show up from guard duty this morning, I’m sure the other man went
looking for him. So he knows by now that something’s
wrong.”
“It’d be a good idea to get our hands
on him so he can’t warn the rest of the bunch.”
“That’s just what I was thinking,” Bo
said.
Gustaffson asked, “How would it be if
we forted up in that cabin you told me about? We could hide the
horses and make it look like everything was normal, and the Devils
would come riding right up to it. They’ll want the rest of that
gold.”
Bo thought about it and nodded. “That’s
not a bad idea. We don’t want to put everybody inside the cabin,
though. Unless we got all of the outlaws on the first try, they
could bottle us up in there. It would be better if we had a couple
of men in the cabin and the rest up here on the ridge. There are
plenty of rocks to provide cover.”
“That sounds like it could work,”
Gustaffson said. “God rest the lieutenant’s soul, but I don’t
reckon he knew near as much about tactics as he thought he
did.”
Scratch said, “The only way you live
through as many fights as Bo and me have is to learn a few things
along the way. Either that, or be the luckiest hombres on the face
of the earth.”
“A little of both isn’t bad,” Bo added
with a smile.
They reined in and dismounted a hundred
yards from the edge of the canyon. The Texans and Gustaffson went
forward on foot while the rest of the troopers stayed with the
horses. The body of Lowell, the unlucky guard, was gone, indicating
that the other man left behind had found it, although it was
possible that wolves could have dragged it off. There was no sign
of that, however.
“The fella’s gonna know something’s
wrong,” Scratch said. “He’ll be ready for trouble. Might be keepin’
an eye on the trail through a chink in the wall right
now.”
“That’s why we’re not going down that
ledge,” Bo said. “You feel like climbing down a rope
again?”
Scratch grinned. “Sure. We’ll come up
behind the cabin?”
“That’s what I had in
mind.”
“What do you need me to do?” Gustaffson
asked.
“Wait for Scratch and me to give you
the all-clear,” Bo said. When Gustaffson scowled, Bo went on. “I
know you want to be in the middle of this, Olaf, but it’s a two-man
job, at most.”
“All right,” Gustaffson replied
grudgingly. “I suppose there’ll be plenty of fighting
later.”
“I think you can count on that,” Bo
said.
They fetched Scratch’s rope from his
horse and tied one end of it around the trunk of a scrub pine
growing fairly close to the edge of the canyon. When Scratch
dropped the rest of the lariat over the edge, it fell to within a
few feet of the canyon floor. He looked at Bo and asked, “You
ready?”
“Yeah. Who’s going first?”
In answer to that, Scratch grasped the
rope, sat down on the edge, and turned to lower himself over the
brink. He dropped out of sight as he went down the rope hand over
hand.
“Keep an eye on that lasso,” Bo told
Gustaffson. “We don’t want it starting to fray where it goes over
the edge.”
“I’ll watch it,” the non-com
promised.
Bo looked over the edge and watched
Scratch make the descent. As soon as the silver-haired Texan’s feet
were back on the ground, Bo swung himself over the brink and
started down. He had never been overly fond of heights and wondered
why in blazes he had to be climbing up and down rock walls and
ropes all of a sudden like some sort of ape. He didn’t like
heights, and he didn’t like boats, either. Solid ground, that was
what he wanted under his feet.
It didn’t take long to lower himself to
the canyon floor. Scratch waited behind a rock with both of his
Remingtons drawn. Bo pulled in a deep breath to steady his nerves
and drew his Colt from its holster.
“Let’s go,” he said
quietly.
They trotted across the snowy ground
toward the cabin. They were behind the old shack and there were no
windows on this side, but the outlaw inside might still catch a
glimpse of them through gaps between the logs.
Half a dozen horses were in the corral
next to the cabin. Two of them would belong to Lowell and the other
man, and the others were probably spare mounts. The Texans were
about twenty feet from the cabin when Bo noticed that one of the
horses was already saddled, and a couple of others had
heavy-looking packs slung over their backs. Instantly, Bo knew what
that meant.
Spooked by Lowell’s death, the outlaw
who’d been left behind was running out on the Devils, and he was
double-crossing them and taking as much of the loot as he could
carry, too.
That thought had just gone through Bo’s
mind when the man stepped around the front corner of the cabin,
staggering a little under the weight of the pack full of gold bars
he was carrying. He started toward the corral gate but stopped
short at the sight of the Texans.
“Hold it!” Bo shouted.
The outlaw ignored the command. Instead
he dropped the pack at his feet and sent his hand stabbing toward
the gun on his hip.