How The West Was Won Part 14

"I've heard that," the man said skeptically. "But I don't believe it."

Gabe felt his anger mounting. Age had brought a quick impatience to Gabe French.

Heretofore he had been tolerant of fools; he was so no longer. "A man must pay his debts," the man continued stiffly. "van Valen always lived beyond his income."

"There was more'n a few years," Gabe replied testily, "when n.o.body could have lived beyond his income. Time was when one mine paid him upwards of eighty thousand a month. Eighty thousand. Never made that kind of money myself." "I don't imagine you did." The stranger glanced contemptuously at Gabe's shabby clothing.

Gabe French tried to stifle his irritation and failed. A man had few pleasures when he grew old, and Gabe allowed himself his irritation at petty things. He had never been known to fret at disaster, but in these later years he found pleasure in grumbling.

He looked at the man coldly. "Not to say," he said deliberately, "that I couldn't buy and sell many a man who owns a mansion on this hill. As for Cleve van Valen, there was never a better friend than him, or a more loyal one. Came a timea"that was years backa"glanders got into my horses and I had two freight contracts going, and all my stock dead or dying almost overnight. "Somebody told Cleve, and he came over Donner Pa.s.s driving a hundred head of horses for mea"and that in the late fall with snow falling. He made it through with the pa.s.s closing up behind him. Saved my bacon. "There was another time when the two of us got ambushed by Modocs up near Klamath Lake. Our horses were killed and I had a bullet in me; and Cleve, he stood them off throughout the day, and in the night got away, carrying me on his back."

The man looked startled. "Then youa"Why, you must be Gabe French!" "That's right," Gabe said quietly, and glancing up the street, then down, he stepped off the curb and walked across.

Cleve was dead, but Lilith was alive, and by the Lord Harry, if she needed money he knew where she could get it. The trouble was that Lilith was a mighty proud woman, mighty proud.

Half a dozen rigs were standing in the street and in the short driveway leading up to the house. Gabe walked past them and went inside, pus.h.i.+ng through a small knot of men talking by the door.

A crowd was gathered in the hall, and on the stairway stood the auctioneer. "Two thousand dollars? Is that the last bid? Ladies and gentlemen, this trophy is solid gold and fully inscribed." He indicated letters on the side of the gold figure. " *Mr. Cleve van Valen. President of the San Francisco-Kansas City Railroad.' It is a treasure he held dear to his heart." Gabe glanced around, his eyes searching for Lilith. When he saw her he was startled and momentarily dismayed. Somehow, he had never thought of Lilith as being old, yet come to think of it, she must be all of sixty now. She sat in a chair overlooking the hall, clad in a lovely silk gown, her hair faultlessly done. Next to her was a man Gabe recognized as her attorney. "Do I hear three thousand for this priceless possession?" She was just near enough for him to hear her say, "Priceless, my foot! We used it as a doorstop."

The auctioneer spoke again. "Why, the gold here alone is worth three thousanda"" "Twenty-five hundred!"

"Sold!"

Gabe edged to the back of the crowd. He was only a short distance from Lilith, but to reach her he had to find his way around through a small hall. He came up behind her quietly.

"A sad day, Lilith," her attorney was saying.

"Sad? We made and spent fortunes. What's sad about that? If Cleve had lived long enough we would have made and spent another."

A clerk edged up behind her. "I beg your pardon, Mrs. van Valen."

"What?"

"The chair. It's been sold."

"Take it." She got to her feet quickly, gracefully. "Quit apologizing and take it. Or should I say"a"she smiled sweetlya"" Take it and be d.a.m.ned'?" The clerk grinned. "Sorry, ma'am."

"Get out of here," she said testily, but accompanying the words with a smile. "If there had been any other way to pay off the debts, Lilith," the attorney said, "we would have found it."

"It doesn't matter. I have two things you can't take, my memories and my ranch in Arizona."

"I don't want to dash your hopes, but I am afraid that property is nearly worthless."

"It's there, isn't it?"

"Yes, but most of the cattle have been sold off or stolen." "I'll get cattle. If necessary,"a"she smileda""I might even rustle a few head myself. Cleve always told me most of the big ranches were built with a running iron and a fast horse."

"You will need someone to work it, someone to manage it for you."

"I have just the man."

"Who?" the attorney asked doubtfully.

"My nephew. He's a marshal down there somewhere."

"But at your age," he protested, "in that rough country!"

"Rough? My pa and maa"they were killed going down the Ohio just looking for land.

I guess I've got some Prescott blood in me after all."

Gabe Fernch moved up quietly. "Lil?"

"Gabe!" The genuine feeling in her voice brought tears to his eyes, which he hastily excused by faking a sneeze, a very poor imitation. "Gabe French! I might have known you would come. Let's go to the kitchen and have some coffee."

She turned on the lawyer. "You haven't sold my coffee pot, have you?" He flushed. "Lilith ... it was part of the set. We sold the silver, you know. A very good price, I might say."

"Oh, bother your silver! I mean the old black one." The attorney looked relieved. "Oh, of course! No, that's still there. I am afraid we haven't had an offer for it yet."

"What he means," Lilith said to Gabe, "is that n.o.body would want it. That's the pot Cleve and I made coffee in all the way across the plains, and many a time after that. In fact, your wifea"Agathaa"it was ours together." "Made good coffee," Gabe said. "I never drank better." Together they went down to the kitchen, and put the pot on the fire. Then Lilith sat down and looked across the table at Gabe.

"I was sorry about Agatha, and sorry we couldn't come to the funeral. Cleve always hated funerals, and I am almost as bad. Always liked to remember folks as they were, and as I didn't see Agatha buried, she's very much around ... You were lucky, Gabe. You got a great woman."

"Don't I know it? I fancied her all the while, there on the wagon train, but never thought she noticed me."

He looked down at his big, square-knuckled hands. "I heard you talking up there, about the Arizona ranch. Lil, if there's anything you want ... no matter how much, you just tell me. You know there wasn't a time Cleve wouldn't have bailed me out of trouble, and he did, many a time."

"And vice versa." Lilith put her hand over his. "Gabe, there's nothing I need. I will have enough when this is over to get to Arizona, and Zeb Rawlings is going to come down and manage the property for me. But thanks just the same."

"If I was a few years youngera""

"Forget it. Zeb can do all anybody can do. He's a marshal down there now, and he was in the Army. Civil War and Indian wars."

"I heard about him." He glanced at her thoughtfully. "Wasn't he the one who killed Floyd Gant?"

"Yesa"and a good job, too."

"I knew Gant. He gave us trouble on the freight lines a few times in Nevada. His brother Charlie was worse. Whatever became of Charlie?" "I don't know. I didn't know Floyd had a brother." For a while they sat silent. In the kitchen they were far from the voices above, for the kitchen was on a lower floor that opened upon another street. Just a few steps down the hill from that door and you was in Chinatown. "They were good times, Gabe," Lilith said suddenly, "the best times. n.o.body said much about it at the time, but we all had the feeling we were doing something great, that we were building something."

"I know. I was talking to a writing feller, man from Boston. He was asking me about crossing the plains and he commented on how many folksa"just ordinary folksa"had kept journals or diaries or something of the kind. They all seemed to have the notion they were living through something that might never happen again. He was looking around, trying to find those diaries before they were lost."

"I started a time or two. Cleve never kept one. But he believed what you're saying. I heard him say so."

She looked over at Gabe again. "I was never sorry, Gabe. I never regretted marrying Cleve. We had a good life together."

Gabe nodded without replying. He listened to the sound of the fire, and then when Lilith poured their coffee he crossed one leg carefully over the other. Certainly, he thought, n.o.body had ever enjoyed their money more. "We made it big on the Mother Lode," Lilith said, "and when that was gone Cleve went off to Nevada and got in on the ground floor at the Comstock. "I think we followed every boom there was, sometimes horseback, sometimes in a rig. I'll never forget that mine near Hamilton. Cleve took three million dollars' worth of silver out of a hole in the ground seventy by forty, by fifteen feet deep, and then a man came along and offered him another three million for the mine, and Cleve laughed at him." "I recall."

"There wasn't three pounds of silver left in the hole. Cleve had it all. He was offered three million dollars for a hole in the ground big enough for a cellar." Gabe s.h.i.+fted his position on the chair. These days if he sat too long in one position his back started bothering him.

"If I'd known about this," he said, "I'd have come sooner. You could have kept the house."

"I don't want it, Gabe. I must be practical. It's too big for me alone, and when it comes to that, I'd rattle around in it like a stone in a barrel. No, I'd rather be out there in Arizona trying to do something with that ranch. A woman in my position hasn't any business just sitting around. It won't do ... and I wouldn't like it, anyway. I've been busy all my life, and I'm too old to change now. Besides"a"she smiled at hima""I've never been in Arizona." He finished his coffee and got up. "When you're ready, I'll take you to the station. And if ever you need me, just send word. Old Gabe will always be standing by."

He held out his hand to her. "It's a long time since I carried Cleve across that muddy street in St. Louis so he could win a bet." She took his hand, then leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

"Thanks, Gabe. You're a real friend."

He hurried outside, afraid he would let her see his eyes watering. He was a sentimental old fool.

He glanced at the group around the other door. "Go ahead," he said aloud, "you aren't buying anything. She still has all she's ever needed." Lilith refilled her cup. It was quiet in the kitchen, with the cook and the maid no longer around, and in many ways it was the most pleasant room in the big house. The fire felt good, for the night had been cool and dampness lingered. From her reticule she took the photograph of Cleve that Huffman had made in Miles City, Montana, only four, or was it five, years ago. He had been a handsome man, no question about that. "I wish Eve could have known you, Cleve," she said to herself, "and Linus."

How far, how far she had come, and how much, how much she had left behind!

Part 5a"THE OUTLAWS.

Some of those who went West stayed restless. Not for them the towns, the stores, the plough, the round-up. They had lived foot-loose and they would go on living that way until rope or lead put them under the sod. Lean-jawed men with snakes' eyes and rough humor, they plundered where they could, had their brief day until the Law came to the West and put them down forever...

Chapter 19.

Jethro Stuart was too old in the mountains to ignore the feeling he now had, yet on the several occasions when he had drawn up in the thick timber to study his back trail, he had seen n.o.body.

But he was sure he was followed. He was followed by somebody who took great pains to keep from being seen, and it worried him. Jethro Stuart was sixty-six years old in this spring of 1883, and forty-eight of those years he had spent in the western mountains. The place toward which he was now heading he had last seen while traveling with Osborne Russell in 1838 or thereabouts.

They had left the Rocky Mountain Fur Company to become free trappers, and following up the Stinkingwater they had found the valley. They had been followed that time, too. Only then it was by Blackfeet, and the tribe had been pacified long since. So far as Jethro knew, there wasn't a warlike Indian in the entire country, let alone in these remote mountains near the head of the Yellowstone.

It had been a week ago today that he had seen his last human being. Unexpectedly he had come upon a Texas cabin built in a small valley. There had been corrals, a shed built of poles, and some two dozen very fine horses grazing in the meadow. He had swapped for one of those horses and was riding it now. He had come up to the place in the late afternoon and the man had waited in the door of the cabin, a rifle across his arm, until Jethro had stopped in the ranch yard.

"All right if I come up? I'm peaceful."

"If you ain't," the man replied coolly, "I've got the means to make you thataway. But come on up."

"Last time I was through here my party was the only bunch of white men closer than Fort Hall."

"Mountain men?"

"Was. I rode with Wyeth and them."

"Get down. Company's mighty scarce hereabouts, an' when you find it, it generally ain't of the best."

Jethro got down and stripped the saddle from his mount A tall boy come from the log cabin, rifle in the hollow of his arm. Obviously, he had been covered by more than one gun. Well, that was as it should be. It was good to know the old breed were still around. Be a sad day when a man didn't stand ready to receive company, good or bad.

"It's a far piece to be ridin' alone," the man commented. "And you're pointed into some mighty rough country."

"More than forty year in the mountains, an' more'n half that time alone. I lost my wife."

"Children?"

"Daughter ... she married. Living down Arizona way, but it's been a time since I seen her."

"My wife pa.s.sed on two year ago." The man looked at Jethro, a challenge in his eyes. "She was an Indian. A Shoshone."

"Good folks," Jethro replied calmly, and then to put the squaw man at his ease, he added, "I lived with the Nez Perce one time." There were four at table aside from himselfa"the man, two boys, and a girl. She was the youngest, and maybe fourteen. The boys were tall for their years, slim but with good shoulders. All of them were excited by his coming and were filled with questions.

The food was good, he had to allow that. Tipped back in his chair, he told them about the railroad that had been built through to the California lands. They had heard of it, but had never seen it.

"I've seen steam cars," the father said. "I'm a New York man, myself. Upper New York state. Migrated west with my family but we all went different ways, seemed like. Never did get together again."

He was a strong, powerfully built man with a strong jaw and steady eyes. The place was mighty nice, Jethro decided, mighty nice. No rawhide outfit, but kept up, and neat. There were good stacks of hay out yonder, and a field that had been planted to corn and garden truck.

Never one to miss anything he could see with his eyes, Jethro had seen nothing slipshod here. There was a dugout with a heavy door that was likely a place to store furs, and there was a grizzly hide nailed up on the barn that was the biggest he'd ever seen.

"There's bigger," the man said. "There's one old silver-tip grizzly up in these mountains I'm just a-honin' to get in my sights; but he's smart, too durned smart, and *less a man is careful, he'll get himself bear-killed. That bear will hunt a man who starts trailin' him."

"Heard of that," Jethro agreed.

"Follered him one time, then gave up and started back. Something made me look back, and from where I stood I could see where my trail would have led. And there, all hunkered down beside that trail and a-waitin' for me was that old silver-tip. If I'd gone twenty yards further that grizzly would have tackled me head-on."

Jethro tamped the tobacco in his pipe, and noticed the look in his host's eyes.

He tossed him his tobacco sack. "He'p yourself. I came away with plenty." "You say you were with Wyeth and them," the man said. "You ever come up against a mountain man named Linus Rawlings?"

"Trapped fur and fought redskins with him. Fact is," Jethro said, "his oldest boy married my daughter."

"Now, don't that beat all! Why, I met Linus Rawlings back on the Ohio. Say, his wife wouldn't have been a Prescott, would she?" "Eve was her name. I ain't sure about the last name." "Eve! That was her! Well, now!" He turned to his children. "Remember I told you about them? And how that Eve surely set her cap for that mountain feller? I declare, she was a fine-looking girl! And that sister of hers, the singin' one. She was something to see. But pert ... mighty pert." Jethro studied his back trail thoughtfully, then started on. It was unlikely any of the Harveys would have followed hima"not unless they had something to tell him, which wasn't likely. By the time he'd spent two days and nights at the cabin none of them had anything left to talk about. Brutus Harvey ... if he ever came upon Zeb again he would ask him about the name. Doubtless he'd heard his father speak it. The rest of it he wouldn't tell hima"n.o.body liked bad news of his family. He'd never connected Zeke Rails with Rawlings until Harvey mentioned it. But everybody knew about Zeke ... and he would be Zeb's uncle. Zeb had spoken of him, although Zeb had never seen his uncle. He was the youngest of the family, and came west when Zeb's mother and father met, and after he left the Ohio River country they never heard of him again. Harvey had met him two or three times, and had occasion to recall him. Jethro rode on, searching for the small stream he remembered. It had flowed through a valley in a northern direction, and he believed it to be a branch of the Yellowstone. A valley he remembered ... that was where he was heading. He had always told himself he was coming back sometime, and he certainly wouldn't do it if he waited much longer.

Not that he felt old at sixty-six. As far as he could tell by the feel, he hadn't changed any in the last twenty years, and he could hear just as well and see as far. Maybe he didn't seem to need as much sleep ... but then he had always been a light sleeper.

As he rode he kept his eyes open for the sort of camp he wanted. He was getting too old to care for a camp without a fire, and the sense of being followed might be an old memory of the place and the Blackfeet. What he wanted was a camp protected on three sides from approach, and in this rocky, heavily timbered country it was not too much to expect. The horse he'd swapped for from Harvey was a mountain mustang, hence better than any watchdog. He found the place he wanted after the sun had disappeared and when there wasn't much time left in which to look. It was under the overhang of the cliff, in a place which must have once been an old stream-bed, for the cliff was undercut. There was a good patch of gra.s.s, and water nearby, and to approach the place anyone must cross an open meadow and come into a notch partly protected by the rock wall. A safe enough place, and the undercut where he would make his bed would be in the darkness just away from the fire. He put water on for coffee and then sat back away from the fire with his Winchester to hand, chewing on jerky. It was no hards.h.i.+p to go without a hot meal, but his coffee he dearly loved. He fancied jerkya"always had. Good for a man's teeth, too. At sixty-six he had lost only two ... that time at Brown's Hole when he went to the gra.s.s with Hugh Gla.s.s over something. Good man, that Gla.s.s ... grizzly nearly killed him. Their difference had been over nothing important. Maybe a squaw, or who had the best horse. Gla.s.s had taken two of his teeth out with a boot ... only it was a moccasin, and that was lucky, or he might have lost a fistful. Gla.s.s whopped him, and good, too, but he was young then and had a lot to learn, and he'd never seen a mountain man fight before.

The night pa.s.sed without event, although about midnight the wind rose and he had to get up and throw wood on the fire.