Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) (8 page)

They turned away from the camp, rode out on a rocky ledge, and switched around and rode right back along the ledge and into the water. Riding upstream for half a mile, they came out on another such ledge and rode through a thick stand of trees, where the floor of the forest was covered with leaves and where even at midday it was shadowed, as if it were twilight.

All day they switched back and forth. Once they stopped for a few minutes to let the horses catch their wind after a steep slope, and Brionne broke out some pemmican and gave a good-sized chunk to Mat to chew on as he rode. Not until late afternoon did he pause to let the horses graze.

There was no chance of watching the back trail now. Most of the travel was in forest, and even the character of the trees was changing. Now, as they climbed higher, the trees were mostly evergreen. Here, too, they ate pemmican. They drank cold water, then mounted up and rode on again.

Although their change of direction was often due to the character of the ground, they continued to ride uphill. It was long after dark before they made a cold camp behind a clump of aspen. Mat was very tired, and he was almost falling off his horse when Brionne reached for him.

Brionne prepared Mat’s bed, pulled off his boots and pants, and tucked him in. During all this time his eyes rarely left the horses, but they grazed contentedly, seemingly glad to stop. Not once did they look up or prick their ears.

Brionne always enjoyed a problem, and he had one now. Ed Shaw had been prowling around the back country for a good many years, and he had spent some time trying to interpret the picture writing, or whatever it was, in Nine Mile Canyon. Suppose there had been a map to the silver mine that had been used by the Indians?

Maps are of many kinds, and few primitive maps looked like those to which Europeans or Americans were accustomed. In the South Pacific they were sticks with shells tied on them to represent islands, the sticks indicating prevailing winds or ocean currents; but many ancient maps were done in pictures. There was a symbol for running water, there were symbols for peaks…suppose there was a symbol for silver?

The old man had known this country, and he might have found something. Somebody had been supplying him with cash, and that somebody had apparently been Rody Brennan. Therefore Brennan need not have gone into the mountains at all. Ed Shaw would have worked on Brennan’s grubstake; and he must have brought out some silver that he turned into cash. With Shaw dead, Rody Brennan became the legitimate owner of the mine—if there was one.

Little by little, James Brionne isolated the few facts he had obtained from the various conversations he had heard. Out of them had come Shaw’s apparent angle of approach to the mountains, and some hint of the time he had taken. Vague as these things were, it was interesting to speculate on the direction he might have followed, and the possible location of the mine.

After adding a little fuel to the fire, concealed in a small hollow and shielded by the aspen, Brionne took up his rifle and went to a rock that jutted from the side of the mountain. Earlier he had noticed that it would be simple enough to climb up there, and once there, he sat down to survey the country around.

Looking down, he could see the campfire and the small figure of his son. Looking outward, he could see only endless blackness of forest, the blue-black of the star-studded sky, and the great bulk of the mountain, rising behind him and on his left.

For a long time he studied the night—not the stars, but the forest blackness. When he caught the gleam, it was out of the corner of his right eye, miles away and much lower down.

Watching, he saw it again…and again. A campfire. His point of vantage could scarcely have been better. The air was clear, and he was high up. The fire might be ten miles away, but it was probably less.

Brionne considered the country between, trying to recall how much of a trail he had left behind. He was rising to leave the rock when he glimpsed another light, not quite so far off, and a little higher up the mountain.

He studied that light through his glasses, but they helped him not at all. The distance was too great, and they merely showed a somewhat larger light, unidentifiable even as a fire. Now who could that be?

Returning to camp, he arranged his blankets and lay down, clasping his hands behind his head. For a long time he considered his next move, then at last he fell asleep, remembering Anne, as he had seen her last…too long ago.

T
HE SECOND LIGHT Brionne had seen was the campfire of Dutton Mowry and Miranda Loften.

Knowing the way to go, they had moved faster than Brionne. They were not following anyone, and were not expecting anyone to be following them. Mowry was a good man on a trail, and he had chosen good stock for them. They were higher up the mountain than the Allards, and about three miles ahead of them.

The trail they had followed was an old game trail, used occasionally by Indians. Two days ago, their trail had been the same as that of the Allards, and Mowry had noticed the fresh sign, and had taken time to learn the track of each horse. Within a few minutes after coming upon the trail he knew one of the men was Cotton Allard.

Then the trail, as designated by Miranda, took them farther up the slope. He turned to her now and indicated the rifle she carried.

“Can you use that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t ever go anywhere without it. Not in this country. And if I say jump, you jump—don’t ask why. If you take time to ask, it may be too late.”

“All right.”

“How much farther is this mine of yours?”

“It’s up on top…among the lakes. Another three days, I think, if nothing stops us.”

He considered putting the fire out, but instead he banked it; then he left it and went to his blankets. “Get some sleep,” he said to Miranda. “We’ve got a rough day ahead. We’re going to try to cut three days to two, if we can.”

At her questioning glance he added, “We ain’t the only ones up here. Brionne is up ahead of us.”

Startled, she stared at him. “Looking for silver? He
can’t
be!”

Mowry shrugged. He looked at her, his eyes amused. “Why not?”

“I—I just don’t believe it.”

He chuckled. “I was only funnin’. That is, if he is huntin’ the silver, you must’ve told him more than you thought.”

She racked her brain. “No…no, I told him nothing. Nothing at all.”

“He ain’t the on’y one.” Mowry settled into his blankets. “The Allards that are huntin’ him, they’re out here, too.”

She sat up. “Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh…and so’s he. If the Allards are smart as they’re supposed to be they won’t foller him any further. They might catch up with him.”

Chapter 8

W
ITH THE FIRST gray light of morning, Brionne squatted beside the small fire, drinking coffee and studying the steepening slope before them.

There was no trail up it. Here and there were rocky outcroppings; there were clumps of brush, a maze of fallen logs, slides of broken rock and scattered aspen. It all ended at a wall of rock thirty feet high or more. An old fault line, it extended along the face of the mountain for at least half a mile.

He planned his route carefully, aiming for what seemed to be a fracture in the face of the rock, a possible way to the top without going far around the end. The crack, if that was what it was, could not be seen clearly from here; but once in the saddle he led off, weaving a precarious way through the obstacles on the mountainside.

Twice he paused, letting Mat and the pack horses go ahead, remaining behind just long enough to tumble rocks over their path that would bar any horse from following. Brionne knew that anyone tracking them would have to waste time finding his trail again, and every minute thus wasted would be an advantage to him. Somewhere ahead they were going to stop, and they would need time to find the kind of position he wanted.

Suddenly, the crack was before them. It was scarcely wide enough for a horse, and it meant a difficult scramble to the top. Brionne dismounted and led his horse, grunting and scrambling, up the steep way. He tied the horse, pausing only long enough to catch his breath, then he descended and brought Mat to the top. After that he brought up the pack horses.

Looking around, he found the fallen trunk of a long-dead pine. Getting behind it, and using a broken limb for a lever, he worked the heavy log over until he could topple it into the crack, closing it off.

They were now on a rugged plateau, which formed the top of the Uintah Range. It was a wide, uneven plateau, broken by canyons and ridges, and dotted with many lakes. There were forested slopes and open, grassy meadows. Within the space of a few minutes he saw tracks of the bighorn sheep, the mule deer, and wild horses.

The blue spruce and aspen thinned out up here, and on the ridges ahead he could see alpine fir and another type of spruce that grew in this high altitude. Everywhere there were marks of glacial action. He pointed them out to Mat, keeping up a running commentary on the country, the trees, and the tracks. All around them were snow-covered peaks.

“How high are we?” Mat asked.

“I’d guess about eight, nine thousand feet—maybe closer to nine.”

He stopped to let the horses take a breather. He had gained a little time, and the ridge ahead should offer a camp with some security.

He had no idea who his enemies might be, if those who followed him were, indeed, enemies. Out here he was relatively unknown. It was unlikely that anyone else remembered, as the Ute warrior had, the young cavalry officer of a time before the War Between the States. But somehow, in some way, he must have impressed someone as being a danger, or perhaps possessing some coveted knowledge.

Did they connect him with Miranda Loften? After all, they had ridden the same train west, and they had had some small association on that train. Could they guess that he had not known her until he left his son in her care when he went to fight the fire?

His choice then had been simple. He had, on entering the car, mentally catalogued the occupants. Miranda Loften had impressed him at once with her quiet dignity, her air of gentility, and her natural sympathy. He had sensed that she liked children and would be warm and responsive to Mat. It had been as simple as that…but would everyone see it so?

Yet he had interfered in her affairs. He had, without asking permission, or even mentioning the fact, deliberately begun to try to solve the problem of the silver mine.

Why?

James Brionne was a reasoning man, and he asked himself this question seriously for the first time. Why, indeed? Was it simply because he needed some direction to follow? Was it because all his life he had moved from one goal to another? Always with some destination in view, always with some purpose? Or was it because of her aloneness, and the fact that he was a Virginia gentleman?

Or—and he hesitated even to frame the question—was it because she was so attractive? Because she was, in fact, a very lovely girl?

“You’ve read too much of Sir Walter Scott,” he said aloud.

“What was that, pa?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Nothing, son. I was just talking to myself. You’ll find it is a habit men acquire when they’re riding in the wilderness.”

“Was this where Fremont was, pa?”

There had been much talk of Fremont around their home, and Mat knew the stories of Fremont’s explorations in the West, and of Kit Carson.

“Not far from here. Father Escalante traveled some of the trails we traveled a few days back. He came through here with a very small party in 1776. But I doubt if he was ever up this far into the mountains. If he was, there’s nothing in his journals about it.”

Suddenly he drew rein. Not thirty feet from the way they were following was a small stump showing the marks of an axe. Leaving Mat with the pack animals, Brionne walked his horse over to the stump. Then he called, “Mat…come here.”

When the boy rode up beside him, Brionne indicated the stump. It was scarcely four inches in diameter, and it had been cut off about a foot above the ground.

“Wherever an axe has been used,” he said, “the mark of the cut shows white for quite a while. Now, whoever cut that either wanted a pole or he wanted firewood. I think he wanted firewood, because he even picked up the biggest chips.”

He walked his horse in a widening circle, and it took him only a few minutes to find a small lean-to and the remains of a fire. The bits of charcoal lying there had been worn smooth by rain and wind…it was an old fire.

“Maybe this means nothing,” he said to Mat, “but it might be important. I doubt if many men have come up this high, but I feel quite sure that Ed Shaw did. When we scout around a little we may find where he went.”

Brionne rode around the camp in widening circles, but he found no tracks. He studied the distant ridge where the sun shone bright upon the sullen and silent rocks, and he started toward it. On this wide plateau there was no sound except the footfalls of their own mounts, and the sound of the wandering wind, a wind uncertain of itself, prowling among the trees as if looking for something lost.

Again and again Brionne drew up to look about, to listen, and to watch the trail behind. For all its beauty, there was an eerie something about this plateau that made him wary. He somehow had the feeling of eyes watching him, eyes that might be looking along a rifle barrel.

He changed course several times. He would veer suddenly to put a bush, a tree, or a rock behind him. He was trying to offer no target for a marksman, and his sudden changes were useful in making his trail difficult to follow. Instinctively, he chose the way that would leave the fewest marks behind. For he felt that even if he was not followed now, he would be soon.

Quite suddenly, in front of them, lay a lake, its blue waters ruffled by the wind. He skirted the shore and, seeing the water was shallow, he and Mat rode in and walked their horses close to the shore for half a mile. They left the lake by a small stream that came down from the ridge toward which they had been traveling.