Part 12 (2/2)

Have every one of us fighting to hold on.

Fighting to stay alive.

Chapter Twenty.

In the early dusk, they cross the shallow waters at a bend in the Sun River, letting their horses pick their paths over smooth, slippery stones, then push through the brush toward the caon's high wall. It's here that Jim Hawkins and his grandson make camp, using driftwood on the river's edge to build a fire, warming themselves against spring's chill.

”It's near abouts,” Henry Lancaster hears his grandfather say. ”It's got to be around here. If I can find the place. . . .”

Without another word, Jim Hawkins pulls a lengthy piece of twisted wood from the fire and, using it as a torch, makes his way through the brush, holding the blaze close to the caon's limestone walls. Quietly Henry follows.

His grandfather looks intently at the wall, bringing the torch closer, then moving along, finally reaching an overhang, and ducking inside the natural shelter. His boots brush back weeds and stones, revealing nothing, and, sighing, he lifts the torch toward the ceiling.

”See those?” Jim Hawkins asks Henry.

”Yes, sir.”

Small hand prints dot the limestone wall, like wallpaper patterns, the color of dried blood. Some are smeared, others so clear, Henry can picture someone pressing his hand against the stone.

”Who made them?” the boy asks, then chances a guess. ”You?”

”No,” Jim Hawkins answers. ”Some Indians. Don't know how long ago. Before I got to Montana. Before I was even born. Maybe even before my pa was born. Who knows?”

Henry thinks he sees other drawings on the wall, figures of some kind, perhaps drawings of Indians holding s.h.i.+elds, maybe a spear. It's hard to tell in the fading light. He wonders what they mean.

For a few minutes, Jim Hawkins kicks around in the natural shelter, lowering the flame, searching the rubble, finding nothing.

”Ain't nothing here,” he says. ”h.e.l.l, there was nothing here then, neither.” He looks back at the hand prints. ”Except those.”

”When?” the boy asks. ”When?”

Jim Hawkins doesn't answer. He steps out, begins moving back to camp. The flame on the torch is dying.

Again his grandson follows.

When they reach camp, Hawkins tosses the stick in the center of the pit, squats by the fire, holds his gloved hands out to warm them. A coffee pot rests on a flat stone, the smell of the strong brew reminding Henry of how long it has been since he has eaten. The horses snort. The river ripples. An owl hoots. Henry Lancaster kneels beside his grandfather.

”I guess I owe you the rest of the story,” Jim Hawkins says. ”Ain't given you much lately, just some bits and pieces, way things I remember them. But you deserve an ending. And all of it. Lainie knows most of it, but not everything.”

The flames illuminate Jim Hawkins's weathered face. His eyes don't seem to blink. He wets his lips, lowers his hands, finally sits back.

Henry watches, waiting, unsure.

”Kissin-ey-oo-way'-o,” his grandfather begins in a whisper. ”The wind blows cold.”

Winter, 1886-87 Winter in Montana seldom begins before the First of January, and extreme cold scarcely ever lasts more than two or three days at a time. . . . Still, for Montana's flocks and herds, much depends on the coming winter.

-Great Falls Tribune, December 18, 1886

Chapter Twenty-One.

Iawoke in the bunkhouse, s.h.i.+vering underneath my blankets. Just the sound of the wind turned my blood cold. The bunkhouse seemed to be creaking, moaning. Felt like another gust would send the entire log building sailing all the way to eternity.

November 16, 1886.

First thing I saw was Old Man Woodruff x-ing off the date on the calendar tacked up next to a tintype of some girl-n.o.body remembered who she was or who stuck the picture on the wall-near the stove.

The door swung open, and the wind blasted us, as Old Man Woodruff directed some prime cuss words toward Ish Fishtorn. How hard was the wind whipping? Well, it took both Ish and Frank Raleigh to get that door shut.

”Is it snowing?” I asked sleepily.

”Too cold to snow,” Ish answered.

That brutal wind would cut you deep, freeze the marrow in your bones. Felt that way, anyhow. The temperature dropped to two degrees below zero, and gray clouds blocked out the sun. Most times, it might get cold in Montana, but if the sky remains clear, the sun feels warm. Twenty degrees didn't always feel so miserable when the sun showed itself. But two below zero, with the wind tearing across the hills at better than fifty miles an hour, well, there was no sun, no heat, just relentless cold.

Too cold to snow?

Not hardly.

The blizzard struck the next morning. November 17. Made me almost forget about the killing storm that struck Texas some ten months earlier.

Reluctantly I dragged myself from beneath the covers again to the smell of coffee and bacon, and the roaring, unrelenting wind. Once I found my boots, I realized it had to be well past dawn. Wasn't n.o.body in the bunkhouse except Busted-Tooth Melvin, a still-snoring Walter Butler, me, and an ice-covered cowhand who stood by the stove stamping snow off his boots. They'd let me and Walter sleep in, seemed like, and that riled me. I expected to do a day's work for a day's pay, like everybody else, had been doing that since I came to this country, and I didn't like being treated like some green pea. Oh, them boys meant well, still thinking of me and Walter as kids, but I'd show them. So would Walter. I hollered at him to get up, that daylight was fading.

Fading? It felt like the sun kept moving farther and farther away. Looked like early dawn or dusk, even at high noon, the next two days.

As I went to pour my first cup of coffee, I eyed the man who'd just come in from the storm. Slowly he revealed himself to me as he unwrapped a long woolen scarf that he had looped over his hat, pulling the brim down over his ears. His beard was crusted white, his nose red. Gene Hardee swore again while shedding his coat.

”Hope you got a gallon of coffee, Woody,” Hardee said. ”'Cause I aim to drink it all. It ain't frozen, is it, Jim?”

I filled his cup.

”How long has it been snowing?” I asked.

”Since September, feels like. Ain't like those dustings we've had. Ain't like anything you've ever seen.”

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