Do or Die

Chapter Ten

Eastern Colorado Territory

Charley Pickett was in heaven. For two whole days he had basked in Melissa Patterson’s company. He had eaten with her, slept near her. They had talked more than ever before, with her doing nearly all the talking. He had tried to say more but couldn’t stop his tongue from tying itself in knots.

The third morning dawned bright and crisp, the sky a cloudless azure crown. Which was quite a contrast from the day before, when, late in the afternoon, storm clouds had rolled in from the mountains and dumped inches of rain on their heads in less than half an hour.

“Let’s hope there’s not another gully washer today,” Charley commented. “That last one soaked me to the”—he was going to say “skin” but at the last instant thought it might not be appropriate to say to a woman, so he changed it to—“hide.”

Enos Howard guffawed. “That drizzle was nothin’, pup. Why, I’ve seen storms that turned the heavens blacker than the bottom of a well, with thunder that shatters your eardrums and so many lightnin’ bolts they fry the air you breathe.”

“Do you ever tire of your tall tales?” Tony Fabrizio asked. It was his turn to lead their two pack horses, and he was securing the last of their packs.

“Do you ever tire of breathin’?” Enos responded and bobbed his chin. “Tie that rope tighter, you citi fied dandy, or the first rattlesnake we come across, those packs are liable to go flyin’ hell-bent for everywhere.”

Charley had hoped that once they were out on the prairie, Tony and Enos would stop bickering. But the pair got along about as well as a dog and a cat; they were forever scratching and snapping. “When will we get to see some buffalo?” he asked to divert their anger.

“Maybe never,” Enos said. “Time was, this plain was choked with ’em. You couldn’t take a step without steppin’ in buffalo shit. But that was before we started killin’ ’em off in droves.”

Melissa, already on her horse, twisted in her saddle. “Do you ever feel guilty, Enos, about being a buffalo hunter?”

“How many times must I tell you, gal? I was a buffalo runner.”

“What’s the difference?” Melissa posed the question Charley was set to ask. “You shot buffalo.”

“It makes a difference to those of us who have done it for a livin’.” Enos forked his own mount, and they moved out. “We worked in crews. I was always the runner, or the shooter, as you’d call it, and had two to three skinners under me who took care of the butcherin’. And I mean to say, they had a hard time keepin’ up. No one dropped buffs like me.”

“Except Buffalo Billy Cody,” Tony said.

Charley anticipated an outburst, but Howard surprised him.

“Yeah, well, soon that will be forgotten. Along with that shootin’ match I lost to Jesse Comstock. When men talk about me from now on, they’ll do it with respect.”

Melissa responded. “So that’s why you changed your mind. To redeem yourself.”

“You have no notion of what it’s like to be a laugh ingstock, Missy. Of havin’ men point at you and whisper behind your back. It’s enough to make a fella crawl into a bottle and never come out.”

“So you’re hoping if we collect the bounty on the Hoodoos, it will restore your reputation.”

Enos took a plug of tobacco from his possibles bag and bit off a chaw. He chomped awhile before saying, “Whoever corrals the Hoodoos will be famous. Not just a little bit famous like that idiot who discovered Long’s Peak by mistake, but a lot famous, like Carson and Hickok and men like that.”

Charley had listened to their exchange with great interest. He marveled at Melissa’s ability to see right through Howard and divine his intentions. She was smart, that girl, a lot smarter than he was. Which was fine by him. His grandpa liked to joke that a man should marry a woman who was twice as bright, and that way they would come out even. But now that he gave it more thought, he saw how it could work against him. After all, what would an intelligent girl like Melissa ever see in a country bumpkin like him?

Charley wasn’t fooling himself. He wasn’t the catch of the century. He was big and strong and as loyal as the year was long, but that was basically all he had going for him. He would never be a bank president. He would never be up to his armpits in money. The best anyone who married him could hope for was that he would keep food on the table and clothes on their backs.

Tony was speaking. “I misjudged you, Howard. I thought the only reason you came was the money.”

“That too,” Enos said with a grin. “But it’s the chance to wipe my slate clean that counts more.” He spat tobacco juice and wiped his chin with his sleeve. “Just so long as I fight shy of Denver from here on out.”

“I knew it!” Charley declared. “That five hundred dollars was ill-gotten gains.”

“How did you get the money, Enos?” Melissa asked.

Howard chuckled. “Before I was a buffalo runner, girl, I tried my hand at a lot of things. Trappin’. Scoutin’. Guidin’. Even prospectin’. One time, down Durango way, I found what I thought was the richest gold strike since Hector was a pup. Turned out to be pyrite, though. Fool’s gold, folks call it. I have several pokes of the stuff.”

Tony yanked on the lead rope to keep the pack animals moving. “Why hang on to worthless ore?”

“Because not everyone knows it’s worthless. A greener can’t tell fool’s gold from the real article. So now and then I would sell nuggets to pilgrims fresh off the stage from back East.” Enos’s right cheek bulged as if he had an apple in his mouth. “Last night I made the rounds of a few saloons until I found me a tipsy fella willin’ to part with enough money to buy my claim in a genuine gold mine.”

“Land sakes!” Melissa declared, but she didn’t sound especially scandalized. “You swindled him.”

“That I did, Missy. For the paltry sum of five hundred dollars, a certain gent from Boston is now the proud owner of the west slope of Long’s Peak.”

Enos, Melissa, and Tony laughed. But not Charley. Cheating people was not something he took lightly. His parents had taught him that the only way to get ahead in the world was by working hard and doing right. “Swindlin’ isn’t anything to laugh at.”

“That it’s not, pup!” Enos said. “Swindlin’ should be held in the respect which it deserves.”

“Respect?” Charley scoffed.

“Sure. Swindlin’ is what our country is based on. We swindled it away from the Injuns, didn’t we? And we’ve been swindlin’ one another ever since.”

“That’s the silliest thing you’ve said yet.”

“Is it? Then answer me this, boy. What do you call it when the government takes land to build a railroad whether the people who own the land like it or not? A swindle. What do you call it when a bank can charge twenty-four percent interest on a loan? A swindle. Or when a merchant gets cigars for two cents and sells them for ten cents? Another swindle. Or how about when a man buys land for a dollar an acre and sells it for twenty an acre, as all those speculators did in Denver?”

“A swindle,” Charley conceded when Enos waited for him to answer.

“Exactly. Swindlin’ is what Americans do best. So don’t look down your nose at me for takin’ advantage of that Yankee. If God didn’t want people swindled, He wouldn’t have made them so stupid.”

Tony nodded. “For once he and I agree, my friend. It is why I feel no shame over selling trough water to those who took it for granted it was something else.”

Enos cackled. “There’s more to like about you than I figured, Fabrizio. Any man who will swindle another is all right in my book.”

Charley was hard-pressed to decide which upset him more: that they thought it was all right to cheat people, or that Melissa was grinning as if all this talking of swindling were great fun.

“Say! Lookee there!” Enos had risen in the stirrups and was staring to the southeast. “Just what I need.”

Charley looked. Off in the distance were some antelope. They had been seeing more and more of the elusive animals the farther they went. Usually the antelope bounded off before they came close. These were about five hundred yards away and so far were content to stay and graze.

Enos slid off his horse and handed the reins to Charley. “Hold on tight. Some of these nags might spook when Clarabelle goes off.”

“You named your rifle?” Melissa said.

“Why not? Lots of runners do. It was good enough for Davy Crockett, wasn’t it? He called his Old Betsy.” Enos caressed his Sharps. “Mine is named after a fallen dove I took a shine to in St. Louis. The greatest gal who ever lived. She could go all night and half the next day and still have enough steam in her engine for a wild night on the town.”

Charley coughed and nodded at Melissa to remind Howard yet again that there was a lady in their midst. But he’d have done better taking a sledgehammer to Howard’s thick skull.

“Yessir,” Enos said fondly, “Clarabelle was a real peach. I wanted to take her for my wife. I visited her every chance I got and asked her every time, but she kept tellin’ me I could do better. Damn her and her hard head anyhow.” He scowled.

“What happened?” Melissa inquired.

“She came down with consumption and died on me. I wanted to die too. Instead, I bedded every other gal in the boardin’ house in Clarabelle’s honor.”

“I’m sure she would have appreciated that,” Charley said and was disappointed no one seemed to realize he was poking fun.

Enos nodded. “That she would, boy. Clarabelle had a zest for life no woman has ever matched. She could see beauty in little things, like the flutter of a moth at the window or the warblin’ of a bird. Sunsets about put her in deliriums of joy.” His eyes were misting over. “She was one of a kind, a marvel of nature, and I miss her every hour I draw a breath.”

“How romantic!” Melissa gushed.

“In the Old Country we would say you were struck by the lightning bolt,” Tony remarked.

Enos glanced at him. “That’s exactly what it was. When I was with her, I felt tingles where I’d never felt tingles before. That gal could curl my toes with a look and a wink. It’s the only time I think I’ve ever truly been in love. Although there have been six or seven other times I’ve come close.”

“Do you make it a habit to visit boardin’ houses?” Charley’s parson back in Kentucky had regularly denounced harlots and those who visited them as lewd and sinful. Truth was though, he had thought about visiting a bawdy house himself but had never mus tered the nerve. One time he got as far as the walk leading up to a fancy house in Denver when a vision of loveliness in a second-floor window whistled at him and waved a little pink handkerchief. It scared him so, he went and sat on a bench near the creek until his blood stopped boiling in his veins.

“Sure,” Enos answered. “Doesn’t everyone? We’re human, ain’t we? We’ve got needs. When we’re hungry, we need to eat. When we’re thirsty, we need to drink. When we’re cravin’ companionship, we need to—”

“That will be quite enough,” Charley said.

Enos chuckled. “You’re sure a caution. I like you, pup, but you’ve got a heap of learnin’ to do. Life ain’t no fairy tale with ladies in castles waitin’ for their knights in shinin’ armor to come sweep ’em off their dainty feet. Life is sweat and misery and more sweat and joy, and anything else is dribblin’s from the pie.”

Much to Charley’s annoyance, Melissa was gazing at Howard as if he were a fount of worldly wisdom. “That’s your opinion. Folks are entitled to opinions of their own, last I heard.”

“No need to get all frothy on me. Sure, a man can have all the opinions he wants. But opinions are like buffalo chips. There are a million of ’em, and it doesn’t do to say one is any better than the other. They’re all made of the same manure.”

Melissa and Tony burst out laughing, but not Charley. He would never share the buffalo hunter’s sour outlook on things. There had to be more to life than Enos let on. There just had to. “Shouldn’t you take a shot at those antelope before they wander clear to Texas?”

“Is that your way of tellin’ me I’m afflicted with leaky mouth?” Enos grinned. “I reckon I am at that. But that’s why God gave the rest of you ears.”

Melissa raised a hand to shield her eyes. “That will be quite a shot.”

“Hardly, Missy. Not when they’re so close you can practically reach out and touch ’em. Any runner worth his salt could pick those critters off without half tryin’.” Turning to his horse, Howard opened a saddlebag, took out a spyglass, and handed it to Charley. “Do the honors. Let me know exactly where the slug hits.”

Charley extended the telescope to its full length and pressed it to his right eye. The eyepiece was adjustable, permitting him to focus on the pronghorns with perfect clarity. There were eight all told, each with the distinctive markings of their kind: reddish-brown on their upper bodies and along the outside of their legs, white across their lower sides, their chests, and their rumps. Something peculiar struck him. “I don’t see any males.”

Enos had taken a box of shells from a pocket in his buffalo coat and set it on the ground. “You won’t. This time of year, bucks and does keep to themselves. In the fall, when the males are in rut, they’ll get together again. Come wintertime, there are herds of a hundred or more.” He squinted toward the antelope. “I’ll pick a big doe. No sense in deprivin’ a young one of the few years of life it might have left.”

“How thoughtful of you, Enos,” Melissa said.

“The young ones don’t have much meat on ’em anyway.” Howard opened the box and removed a linen cartridge. “Most runners don’t mind buyin’ a rifle off a store rack, but not me. Clarabelle here is custom-made. I got tired of shootin’ buffs and not havin’ ’em drop. The calibers most rifles are made in just don’t have enough wallop. So I had Clarabelle made in .45-90.”

Charley had used a .36 caliber rifle to hunt deer, so he had a fair inkling of how powerful Clarabelle must be and said so.

“She gets the job done, that’s for sure. But if I had it to do over again, I’d have her made in .50-90 or more. There’s been a few times when she’s taken two shots to drop a buff, which is one too many.” Enos worked the trigger guard, which doubled as a lever, lowering the breechblock. He inserted the long cartridge and moved the trigger guard back in place.

“Why does your rifle have two triggers?” Tony asked. “It only has one barrel.”

Enos held out Clarabelle so they could all see. “After I thumb back the hammer, I squeeze the second trigger, which sets the first to what runners call a ‘hair trigger.’ The slightest squeeze and Clarabelle will go off. Makes it a lot easier to hit what I aim at.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Melissa said. “How does that help you be more accurate?”

“Most triggers, Missy, have a lot of pull to ’em. You have to squeeze sort of hard. That tends to make a gun jerk, and that’s the last thing you want in a huntin’ rifle.” Enos patted his Sharps. “With Clarabelle’s, there’s no jerkin’ when I squeeze the hair trigger. The barrel stays nice and steady.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Charley said. He hadn’t taken his eye off the antelope. Every twitch of an ear, every blink of an eye, was as plain as if he were standing next to them.

Enos tucked the Sharps to his shoulder and elevated the rear sights. “At this range I don’t hardly need to bother,” he bragged and sighted anyway. He stood rock-still. His breathing slowed. The hammer made a loud click when he pulled it back. He curled his forefinger around the rear trigger and squeezed, setting the first, then slid his finger to the first trigger but was careful not to touch it.

Charley was trying to watch Enos out of one eye and the pronghorns out of the other. “Which one are you fixin’ to shoot?”

“The one on the far right.”

It was a big doe. Charley could see her lips move when she dipped her head to nip grass. Raising it again, she stared in their direction. Standing side-on, she was as perfect a target as a man could ask for. He braced for the shot.

When it came, it was thunder unleashed. The loudest Charley had ever heard. At the boom, the pack animals whinnied, and one tried to rear, but Tony, thinking fast, gripped the lead rope with both hands and held on.

Charley had a problem of his own. His bay shied, and to maintain control he had to lower the telescope and tighten his hold on the reins. “There, there,” he soothed. “Take it easy.”

The blast rolled off across the prairie. Charley figured the rest of the pronghorns would be in full flight, but when he raised the spyglass, they were all right where they had been. Including the big doe, contentedly chewing grass. “I think you missed, Enos.”

Howard was squinting at the antelope in disbelief. “It’s been a spell. I must be more out of practice than I reckoned.” He went through the motions of loading and setting the hair trigger.

This time only one of the pack animals acted up.

Charley never took the telescope off the big doe. She was staring at them all the while, as calm as could be. “I think you missed again.”

Enos held Clarabelle at arm’s length and looked at her like she had betrayed him. “This just can’t be.” He examined the sights, then muttered and marched to the pack horses. From one he took a metal tripod, which he unfolded and set up. On the top was a notch or groove into which he slid Clarabelle’s barrel.

Melissa asked, “Does that help your aim much?”

“I’ve never missed when usin’ it.”

Charley glanced at Tony, who was as puzzled as he was, then out at the pronghorns. There had to be a logical explanation. For all his boasting, Enos’s reputation as a marksman was well established. Thousands of buffalo had fallen to his Sharps, to say nothing of the target matches he had won before that fateful day he lost to Jesse Comstock.

“Shootin’ is like anything else,” Enos was saying while reloading. “If’n a man doesn’t keep his hand in, he’s apt to become a mite rusty.” He squinted at the pronghorns. “Damned peculiar how they’re just standin’ there. But they’ll do that sometimes.”

Charley held his breath when Enos took aim, but he had to let it out again after a couple of minutes passed and no shot rang out. Enos was being absolutely certain. Under no conceivable circumstances could the next shot miss.

Yet it did.

Enos slowly lowered Clarabelle. He shut his eyes, took a step, and plunked down on his backside as if his legs had been knocked out from under him. “God, no. I thought it was all in my head, but it wasn’t!”

Charley didn’t like the sound of that. Dismounting, he hunkered beside the distraught frontiersman. “Thought what was all in your head?”

“The fuzziness.” Enos placed Clarabelle in his lap. “For the last six months or so, things at a distance tend to get fuzzy on me. I first noticed it when I couldn’t read the Rocky Mountain News sign from my shack like I always could.”

“Your eyes are going out on you?” Charley could have slugged him. “Why didn’t you mention it sooner?” Their whole manhunting scheme depended on Enos’s ability to drop the Hoodoos from a safe distance.

Enos shrugged. “I figured it was all that city air gettin’ to me. All that wood and coal smoke. Or maybe all the bug juice I was guzzlin’. Or both.” He gazed at the clear sky. “Out here I thought it would be different. I thought I would be my old self again.”

Tony climbed down but held on to the lead rope. “This changes everything,” he told Charley. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Let’s not be hasty.” This from Melissa, who joined them. “We’ve invested too much to turn back now.”

“What will we do when we catch up to the Hoodoos? Beat them with sticks?” Tony brushed his hand across the revolver at his waist, a Massachusetts Arms Company .31 caliber patterned after a British version. “I haven’t even shot this yet.”

Charley looked down at his own holster. He had chosen a nickel-plated Allen & Wheelock Army .44 revolver. It was big and cumbersome, but it could knock a man down at fifty feet. “All we need is a little practice.”

Melissa drew her pistol, a .31 caliber T. W. Cofer model. She had chosen it because it was “pretty”; it had walnut grips, and the barrel, cylinder, trigger, and hammer were nickel-plated, while the side plates, as well as the back strap and the top strap, were bronzed. “Now is as good a time as any to start. Charley, fetch some rocks.”

Charley hopped to obey. He gathered up four about the size of his fist and deposited them in a row twenty paces out. “Who wants to go first?”

“I will,” Melissa volunteered. Adopting a two-handed grip, she took aim, her left eye closed, the tip of her tongue sticking between her lips. Her trigger finger tightened, but the pistol didn’t go off.

“Remember,” Charley said. “It’s single-action. You have to cock the hammer before you can shoot.”

“I know that!” Her cheeks red, Melissa pulled the hammer back and set herself. When she fired, her arms jerked, and she turned her face away.

Five yards past the rocks, dirt spewed in a geyser.

“Permit me.” Tony drew his pistol. He kept both eyes open when he shot, but he fared no better.

Charley looked at Enos, hoping the hunter would share some tips on how to shoot, but Howard was mired in self-pity. Unlimbering the .44, Charley tried to twirl it as he had seen some do. It slipped from his finger and fell on his foot. Snatching it up, he smiled sheepishly at Melissa and extended his right arm. Only then did he realize the pistol lacked sights. It had no front bead, no rear sight, nothing. He had chosen one of the few models that didn’t have any. Looking down the barrel, he fired. His shot added another cloud of gunsmoke. It also left the rocks untouched.

“Not bad for our first try,” Melissa encouraged them. “It will be weeks before we find the Hoodoos. All the time in the world to hone our skill.”

“What skill?” Tony added some harsh words in Italian. “A ten-year-old with a slingshot could beat us.”

Charley hated to admit it, but his friend was right. It would take a miracle for them to hit anything smaller than the broad side of a stagecoach. And miracles were in short supply.