Into the Unknown

Chapter Seven

The next two days were an ordeal and then some. Zach pushed us and our animals to the point of exhaustion. It did not help that rather than stick to open areas where the going was easier, he deliberately chose the most difficult terrain—the thickest timber, the steepest slopes. And to make matters worse, we never went more than a mile or two in any one direction; we would ride north, then west, then south, then west again.

I understood why. He suspected we were still being followed, and he wanted to shake whoever was following us. But we had five horses now, and they left plenty of sign of our passing.

Along about late afternoon of the second day, I piped up with, “This is pointless. A ten-year-old could track us.”

“Not after tomorrow,” Zach said.

“Our horses are going to sprout wings and fly?”

“Would that they could,” Zach replied. “But we will do the next best thing.”

He did not elaborate.

We pushed on until dark and made a cold camp. I missed not having a fire and dearly yearned for a cup or three of piping hot coffee. But Zach said the fire would give us away.

“We could be doing all this for nothing,” I pointed out. “Whoever killed that man might not even be after us.”

“Better cautious than dead.”

I was tempted to say his paranoia had gotten the better of him, but then I remembered the blood on the sorrel.

The next day we worked our way up a mountain until we were above the timber line. The climb was arduous. Deadfalls were everywhere, and had to be skirted. Narrow ravines necessitated constant detours. I did not think much of his choice of routes. I thought even less when he led us toward a wide slope littered with small stones. We were right out in the open, leaving tracks as plain as could be.

Zach drew rein and bobbed his chin. “Talus,” he said, as if that should mean something.

“Is that good or bad?” I had never heard the term.

“Stay close. Have your horse step exactly where mine does.” Zach reined to the left and tugged on the lead rope.

His reasoning escaped me, but I did as he wanted. It took us over half an hour to reach the south side of the mountain. Here the slope was bare except for a sprinkling of scrub vegetation. I figured he would keep on going to the other side of the mountain, but he reined to the right and headed for the top.

“I hope you know what you are doing,” I remarked.

The pinnacle was a stark spine of solid rock, but we did not climb that high. A quarter of a mile below the summit, Zach unexpectedly stopped and said, “Wait here.” He handed me his lead rope.

I was at a loss. There seemed to be no purpose to his actions. I watched as he rode along the base of the spine until he was directly above the slope strewn with small stones. He dismounted near a cluster of boulders. For a while he stood contemplating the slope, then he stepped to a boulder as big as a washbasin. It was perched on the very lip of the incline. He put his shoulder to it, dug in his heels, and strained.

I had to marvel at his strength. I doubted I could move that boulder, but he did. Inch by begrudging inch it gave way, until, with a loud crash, it went tumbling down the stone-covered slope.

I was not prepared for what happened next.

In my ignorance I assumed the slope was solid earth. But it was no such thing. For as the boulder rolled, it dislodged not only those small stones, but the earth underneath as well. Rapidly gaining momentum and mass, the talus, as Zach had called it, cascaded down the mountain, a river of dirt and rock that would have crushed any living thing in its path.

A great rumble rose and echoed off nearby peaks. It reminded me of the buffalo stampede.

The talus crashed into the timber. Entire trees were uprooted, limbs were snapped like twigs. Scores of trees disappeared, buried in the twinkling of an eye.

I was in awe of the devastation.

Zach came riding back with a smile on his face. “Not bad, if I say so myself.”

“Congratulations,” I said dryly. “You have wiped out half the mountain.”

“And our tracks.”

Sometimes I wonder about the gray matter between my ears. “If anyone is following us, they will never find us now!” I exulted.

“A good tracker could pick up our trail again, but that will take some time.” Zach motioned at the tendrils of dust rising from the broad expanse of displaced terra firma.

I had to hand it to my young companion. He was resourceful in the extreme. Presently, as we wound down the other side the mountain, he resorted to another of the wily tricks he had up his buckskin sleeves.

A stream bisected our course, flowing out of the northwest and off to the southeast. As with many mountain waterways it was fast flowing but shallow. Zach promptly reined into the water and started upstream, riding in the very middle. He beckoned for me to imitate him.

Yet another stroke of brilliance. Most of our tracks were washed away by the strong current.

“You think of everything,” I complimented him.

“Repeat that when you meet my sister,” Zach said. “She says my head and a tree stump have a lot in common.”

The affection in his tone was undeniable. “I gather you love your family very much.”

He glanced sharply back at me. “Why wouldn’t I? Don’t you care for yours?”

If he only knew. My father ran a dry goods business. He had expected me to take it over once he was too old to work. My decision to become a naturalist appalled him. He could never understand my fascination with the outdoors, or how deeply I disliked doing account books and juggling figures in my head. He shocked me one day by giving me an ultimatum: either give up my silly interest in biology or be banished from home until I came to my senses.

We had not seen each other in seven years.

My mother, bless her, approved of my work, but she was too timid to stand up to my father and tell him that. Whatever he told her to do, she did, even if she was against doing it. Tears moistened her eyes the day I left. She hugged me and kissed me, then stepped back to my father’s side.

I have a brother, but he and I are as different as day and night. He, too, has no interest in dry goods. He would rather spend his days loafing and his nights in taverns and saloons. But my father did not banish Edward as he did me. Ed has always been his favorite. Sour grapes on my part, you might say, but you would be mistaken. I am simply mentioning the facts.

So, yes, while I did care for my family, there were limits to my caring. Unlike Zach King, my affection was tempered by their treatment of me. It is hard to give unconditional love to someone whose own love for you is conditioned by whether you do as they want you to do.

“You are a lucky man, Zach King,” I remarked.

He laughed bitterly. “To be born a halfbreed is hardly what I would call a stroke of luck.”

“You never stop thinking about that, do you?”

“When I was seven my father took me to a rendezvous. This was back in the days when the beaver trade was at its height. I was wandering around, looking at the goods and weapons and whatnot for sale, and I bumped into a trapper. He was swilling from a jug, and when I bumped him, he spilled some down his chin. I told him I was sorry.” Zach paused. “He said, ‘Watch where you are going, you breed gnat.’ And then he spat on me.”

“Oh my. What did you do?”

“What could I do? I was only a boy. I turned to go when suddenly Uncle Shakespeare was there. He had heard what the man said, and he walked right up and broke the man’s jaw with the butt of his rifle.”

“Uncle Shakespeare? You called him that before. Is McNair related to your father?”

“No. But we have always called him our uncle. He is part of our family, blood ties or not.”

“I look forward to meeting him.”

After a few miles Zach reined out of the stream. We pushed on, generally northwest, surrounded by the most glorious mountains imaginable. The roof of the continent, the Rockies have been called, and the title is apt. Near bottomless gorges, canyons whose walls were streaked with glistening quartz, phalanxes of firs and colorful stands of aspens. So much to drink in, a man could not absorb it all.

Then there were the animals. Black-tailed deer far larger than their white-tailed low-country cousins. Regal elk, each as big as a horse. Mountain sheep, white spots on the high cliffs. Black bears, which usually left people alone, and grizzly bears, which often didn’t.

The lesser animals were of no less interest to me.

Rabbits were not as plentiful as on the prairie, but those we saw were bigger. Squirrels scolded us from the safety of high branches. At one juncture, we were crossing a slope when I distinctly heard someone whistle. I cast about but saw no one. The whistle was repeated, so I asked Zach who the deuce was whistling at us. He laughed, and drew rein. In a bit he pointed up the mountain.

I spied a creature of the rodent variety, about two feet in length with brown fur, perched on its hind legs and staring down at us. It suddenly let out a piercing whistle and vanished from view.

“A marmot,” Zach explained. “That whistle is their danger signal. They live in burrows much like prairie dogs.”

Nor were they the only ones. Two days later, toward evening, we had stopped for the day and Zach was skinning a rabbit he had shot. I wandered off with my pad to sketch and spotted an earthen den of some sort higher up. I investigated. The hole was bigger than any I had yet seen, and I was curious as to the inhabitant. I did not stay curious long. For as I bent to peer into the hole, out of it rushed the irate tenant, snarling and bristling and snapping at my legs. I barely leaped back in time.

Zach heard the racket and came on the run, and had another good laugh at my expense. “A badger,” he confirmed my surmise. “I can shoot it if you want the hide.”

“Heavens, no.”

The badger hissed, its back to the mound of dirt, its dark eyes mirrors of ferocity. Thick bodied, with short legs, its mouth was rimmed with razor-sharp teeth. I particularly admired the white stripe that ran down its broad back, and the white markings on its face. “Do you suppose we could catch it so I can paint it?” I envisioned containing it in a cage. We could build one of tree limbs.

“I know a Shoshone who lost two fingers to a badger,” Zach mentioned. “Have you looked in its mouth?”

I frowned in disappointment. I could always paint by memory, of course, but having the animal before me was infinitely better for capturing the small details my memory might miss.

“There are badgers in our valley,” Zach said. “I will give it some thought, and when we get there, we will try.”

I had the impression he was growing more and more anxious to reach his home. Dunce that I am, I kept forgetting an important fact. “You miss your wife, don’t you?”

Zach had started to back away from the badger. “What brought that up?”

“Your mention of your valley,” I said, easing backward. I was not looking at the badger but at him. “It is nothing to be embarrassed about. If I had a wife, I would—”

“Look out!” Zach shouted.

A searing pain shot up my left leg and I was bowled over. The only thing I can compare it to is being tackled by my brother when we were younger and would roughhouse. The pain was terrible. I came down on my back and instinctively reached for my hurt leg. I almost lost fingers. A snap of the badger’s teeth missed my hand by a whisker. I sought to scramble back out of its reach, but with a swift lunge it was on me again, its teeth shearing into my right shin this time, ripping through cloth and skin. I am afraid I cried out.

Then Zach was there, looming with his Hawken to his shoulder, taking quick aim.

“Don’t kill it!” I yelled. The animal was only defending its den. The fault was mine; I had been careless.

Zach looked at me in disbelief.

The badger gave my leg a hard shake, and I gritted my teeth against the agony. I kicked at it with my other leg to try and drive him off me but my kick had no effect other than to make the badger madder than it already was.

Just then Zach reversed his hold on his rifle and raised it overhead to bring the hardwood stock smashing down.

“No! You might hurt it!”

Under different circumstances, Zach’s expression would have been comical. “Are you loco?” he re sponded in amazement.

The badger let go.

I flung myself backward, my elbows digging into the ground. I thought the badger would let me go, but I was wrong.

The creature pounced, moving incredibly fast for its bulk, and bit at my right wrist. Its teeth caught my sleeve, not my arm, and it shook its blunt triangular head from side to side in a frenzy.

I tried to push it away, but it weighed upward of thirty pounds. A savage snarl rose from its throat. I went to push to my knees, when without warning the badger slammed into my chest, knocking me flat.

Before I could collect my wits, I was on my back again and the badger was on top of me, its glistening teeth spreading wide to tear at my throat.