Part 11 (1/2)

I wasn't that green. Now I never amounted to much of a tracker, but I could tell from the signs that at least two riders had destroyed much of our barbed wire fences, and another man was leading a horse-Midnight Beauty-while Tommy drove the wagon up the trail alongside the river, climbing higher into the mountains. Besides, Tommy and his pard had left a calling card at the line shack, the letter I'd written for Tommy to John Henry, stabbed with a butcher's knife in the front door. I'd found it, took it down, and tossed it in the fire.

Bitterroot spit. ”Did you know what he was planning?”

”No.”

I hadn't knowed. Didn't expect it, but maybe I should have.

”You know who helped him, don't you?”

The tracks led off the road, through a clearing to the cliff's edge. Tommy and John Henry were long gone, but the mules grazed nearby. I dismounted, handed my reins to Bitterroot, walked to the drop-off. Peering over the side, I found the wreckage of the wagon, reels of barbed wire and barrels of staples smashed against the boulders some two hundred and fifty feet below.

The wind blew cold.

Kissin-ey-oo-way'-o.

I might have said it out loud. I know I thought it. The wind felt bitter, hard, even with me dressed in that new heavy coat the MacDunns had bought for me. The wind blew cold. But that wasn't really why I stood there, s.h.i.+vering.

”The war ain't just coming, boy,” Bitterroot told me as we rode back down the trail, pulling the mules behind us. ”It's started. Your pard just fired the first shot.”

I didn't think so. The way I saw it, Major MacDunn pulled the trigger when he ordered miles and miles of Haish's barbed wire. Maybe he started it when he killed Mr. Gow's prize bull during the gra.s.sfire. 'Course, I knew better than to tell Bitterroot Abbott any of what went through my mind.

”It's going to be a b.l.o.o.d.y winter. So you need to decide before we get back to the ranch who you plan on siding with.” He reached over and grabbed my rein, stopping, staring at me.

”I'd hate to have to kill you, boy. Never wasted a bullet on a kid your age, but I will, if it comes to that.”

Without saying a word, I looked at him, waiting for him to release my rein, which he did, with a heavy sigh.

”I don't blame your friend much,” Bitterroot said. ”Tommy did what I would have done, likely, had my face been beaten all to h.e.l.l. And I don't blame Gow, either. He's just fighting to survive. Mostly, though, I don't blame Major MacDunn. He's got good reasons.”

We'd reached the end of the caon before he spoke again, following the rolling hills now, Castle Reef looming over our shoulders.

”Had me a wife once.” Bitterroot's words surprised me, and I looked over at him. He kept staring straight ahead, talking. It's funny sometimes. Folks you hardly know will tell you something deep in their gut. Guess it can be easier to tell a complete stranger something like that than it would be to tell your closest friend or loved one. I don't know why. It ain't the same with me, I guess. I never told anybody nothing, hardly, except Lainie. Told her everything. Most everything. And now, I'm telling you. Even what I never told your grandma.

”Oh,” Bitterroot said, ”I don't count that Cree squaw I had. Don't count that concubine I had in Bannack City, either. Her name was Karen. Green eyes. Full of soul. She was a full woman, all woman, kind of woman. . . . Well, you're too young to know of such things. I had her, though. Married her. And let some tinhorn from Saint Paul steal her from me.”

The horses snorted. I could see their breath. No sound for the next mile except the wind.

”Yes, you're d.a.m.ned right,” Bitterroot said when we neared the line shack. ”Major MacDunn's got mighty good reasons for fighting to keep what's rightfully his.”

Nothing left for us to do but ride back to the ranch, tell Major MacDunn what had happened. Gene Hardee had gathered up his bunch of wire stringers, and we all returned to the Bar DD, leaving behind a few worthless miles of wire fence.

'Course, me being so young, I wasn't privy to the conversation between Gene Hardee, Major MacDunn, and Bitterroot Abbott. Didn't really want to hear what was being said. Didn't really want to have to talk to Lainie, but she cornered me in the barn.

”Tommy quit.” That was the first thing she said to me. ”He just rode off in the middle of the night.”

I put my saddle on the peg, turned, saw she'd been crying. Probably crying since Tommy up and lit a shuck.

”Have you seen him?” she asked me.

”He write any letters?” Dumb thing to ask, and you wouldn't have heard any sympathy in my voice, but I had to know for sure.

”What?”

”Before he left. He write any letters? Other than the one I wrote for him.”

She blinked. ”Mother said he gave one to Frank Raleigh when Father sent him to Helena.”

Frank Raleigh was a quiet cowhand for the Bar DD. First fellow I ever saw wearing woolly chaps.

”Why?” she said. ”Why did you ask that?”

”No reason,” I lied. That settled things for me, though, truthfully. I already knew Tommy had told the railroad officials what the hackers were doing on the sly.

”Did you see him? Where would he have gone?”

I let out a deep breath, trying to think how to answer.

”He thinks he's a monster!” She started crying again.

”Tommy just. . . .” The words came hard for me. ”He just needs . . . to . . . sort things out. For himself.”

She shut off those tears, looked up at me. ”I guess I do, too,” she said.

I had things to sort out myself.

Weather turned colder, wind blew harder, skies turned grayer. Gene Hardee sent us out to cowboy, but he kept a lot of folks at the ranch headquarters. Bunkhouse filled up with all sorts of cowboys. Frank Raleigh. A man of color named Greene. Frenchy Hurault, the Metis. Busted-Tooth Melvin and Paul Scott. And a lot of guys whose names I can't remember. And me, of course, and Walter Butler, Ish Fishtorn, and Camdan Gow.

Bitterroot Abbott wasn't there, though. The major had sent him down to Helena the day after we rode back. It wasn't till later that I learned why he had gone.

It was just a bad time. Gloomy. I got to punch some cattle, check on water holes, work on the back of a horse-things I was good at, even gentle a few rangy bronc's. Only my heart wasn't in it. I felt sad, and lonely.

Seemed that everybody in the Bar DD bunkhouse felt the same way.

Waiting for a war.

Ish would clean that big Centennial rifle just about every night, and other hired men did the same, oiling their pistols-if they owned a revolver-or rifles, filling the empty loops in their sh.e.l.l belts.

Waiting for the war.