Gray old Uriah Tweedy came down from the Manzano Mountains astride a buckskin mustang leading a one-eyed Missouri pack mule. He turned in the saddle for a final look at the trail he’d taken.
“Sleep tight, ol’ Ephraim,” he yelled. “I’ll be back in the spring.”
Now that the bears were hibernating in their deep dens there would be no more hunting until they woke in spring sunshine and once again roamed the wild lands.
As the snow swirled around him and the wind sighed cold, Tweedy dreamed of a soft bed with sheets and blankets and a bright patchwork quilt to keep the winter gloom at bay. And eggs. Sunnyside up. Fried in butter with thick slices of sourdough bread on the side and more butter, sweet and yellow as corn silk.
But when he camped that night, Tweedy’s supper was as it had been for the past six months, bear meat and bacon so old the fat was sloughing off the lean, and little enough of that.
After he ate, Tweedy crouched over a hatful of fire and contented himself with coffee, his pipe, and fond memories of the slender, graceful Hopi woman he’d lived with for nigh on five years. He’d named her Kajika, which in Hopi meant Walks Without Sound. She was half bobcat, half cougar, and all woman, and she’d made his days comfortable and his nights memorable. The Mescaleros had stolen her and though Tweedy searched high and low, he never found her again.
He sighed and stirred the fire with a stick, sending up a shower of sparks that glowed bright scarlet and then died. It was a hell of a thing to lose a woman like that, a woman who walked without sound.
He heard a sound. A twig cracked in the snow-flecked darkness and Tweedy stood, his .44-40 Henry in his hands. “Is that you, ol’ Ephraim?” he called out. “You should be abed.”
Only the creak of the wind and the hush of the falling snow could be heard.
“Ephraim, have you come for me?” Tweedy said into the night. “Have you counted how many of your kin I’ve shot an’ skun and come for a reckoning?
“Drop the rifle, old man, or I’ll drill you square.”
“That ain’t Ephraim,” Tweedy said. “It’s a skunk.”
“Drop the rifle, I said.” The man’s voice was harsh and commanding, in no mood for conversation. “There’s two Winchesters on you and we don’t miss much.”
The men came at Tweedy from his right and left, their rifles at the ready.
Tweedy let go of the Henry and it dropped at his feet. “Surprised you didn’t gun me straight off. Ain’t that the way of trash like you?”
The man to his right spoke first. “Thought about it, but we need your fire and grub and we don’t much feel like dragging your carcass through the brush in the dark. That’ll keep until mornin’.”
“Considerate feller,” Tweedy said under his breath.
Two men stepped into the firelight. They wore ragged mackinaws and jeans and looked as though they were missing their last six meals. Both had the wary, watchful eyes of predators and the Winchesters in their hands were oiled and well cared for.
“Sit, pops,” the older of the two said. He wore a moth-eaten fur cap, the earflaps tied under his chin, and his feet were bound with rags, as were his companion’s.
Tweedy reckoned that a man who can’t afford boots was poor indeed. “What do you want from me?”
“Whatever’s your’n.”
“I ain’t got much.”
“Hoss, mule, rifle, shoes on your feet, clothes on your back, we’ll take it all,” the man said. “It’s a sight more’n we got.”
“Coffee in the pot, boys,” Tweedy said, playing the kindly old-timer. But the man who hunted black bear and grizzly for a living had learned to pay close attention to everything around him, and his pale blue eyes searched for an opening. With riffraff like those two, just a second of time was all he’d need. When Uriah Tweedy put his mind to it, he was a sudden, dangerous man and he’d planted more than a few who’d figured otherwise. He was seventy years old, tough as a trail drive steak, and as enduring as an Apache.
And he was salty. Too salty to allow a couple of yellow-bellied curs rob him of what was his.
“What you got in your poke, pops?” The older man nodded to the burlap sack resting against Tweedy’s saddle.
“Bear meat, sonny,” Tweedy said. “I had bacon, but that’s all gone. Was half rotten anyway.”
“Then pour us coffee and burn us a couple bear steaks.”
The younger man was anxious to get on with it. “Joe, I say we gun the old coot. He’s got eyes that have seen more’n their share o’ killing.”
“Hey, pops, you’re creeping the hell out of my cousin Link,” the man called Joe said. “Now what am I gonna do with you, huh?”
“No man wants to die,” Tweedy said.
“Yeah, but I reckon you’ve already lived your three-score-and-ten, old-timer, so you’re long overdue fer dying.” Joe looked at the younger man. “All right, Link, after he cooks for us, I’ll gun him. I never was much of a trail cook myself.” Joe smiled. “That set all right with you, pops?”
“Do I have, like, any choice in the matter?” Tweedy asked.
“Sure you do, pops. You kin get shot in the head or the belly.” Joe grinned. “Life’s just full of choices, ain’t it?”
“Well, I’m not partial to getting gut shot,” Tweedy told him.
“Then I’ll put a bullet in your head,” Joe said. “Unless you ruin them steaks, that is.”
“I’ve got salt in my possibles bag,” Tweedy offered. “You like salt?”
“Everybody likes salt, you crazy old bastard,” Link snarled. “Get it out and salt that bear meat.”
Tweedy knuckled his forehead. “Right away, sonny. Just don’t start shootin’ at ol’ Uriah.”
“Old man’s tetched,” Link said to Joe. “When you kill him, you’ll be doing him a favor.”
“Ain’t that the truth, cousin.”
Those were the last words he ever uttered.
Tweedy picked up the buckskin possibles bag and pretended to root around inside, continuing to play the part of a confused old-timer.
Then he moved. In one fluid, graceful motion he grabbed a Green River knife from the bottom of the bag and flung it at Joe. The five-inch blade slammed into the man’s throat to the hilt and Joe’s eyes popped wide; he knew he was a dead man.
Tweedy didn’t hesitate for a second. He threw himself at the Henry rifle Joe had tossed aside and rolled on his back, the gun coming up fast. Link stood paralyzed for an instant, his eyes on his cousin down on hands and knees, gagging blood and phlegm.
Tweedy needed no more time than that. He fired, cranked the rifle, and fired again, both bullets crashing into the center of Link’s chest. But the young man was game and managed to trigger a despairing shot at Tweedy. Hit high on his left shoulder, Tweedy rolled again and levered the Henry. But he had no need to shoot. Link was down and wasn’t moving.
With a mortally wounded man’s desperation, Joe tried to pull the knife from his throat, his bloody mouth wide in a silent scream.
Tweedy rose, stepped to the man’s side, and booted him onto his back. Joe’s unbelieving eyes stared at the older man. Joe was stunned by the manner and circumstance of his death.
“Mister,” Tweedy said, no sympathy in him, “I’m too old a cat to be played with by kittlins.”
Joe closed his terrified eyes and death took him.
His Henry up and ready, Tweedy stepped to Link. The boy, who looked to be no more than seventeen, was as dead as he was ever going to be.
Shaking his head, Tweedy surveyed the scene of carnage. It was a sorry thing to die for a mustang hoss and a one-eyed mule.
The pain from his bullet wound set in and he breathed through gritted teeth. The ball was deep, too deep to dig out by himself. He needed help badly.
He tilted back his head and yelled into the night, “Ephraim, you leave me alone now, you hear? Ol’ Uriah is hurtin’ and he don’t need no wintertime bear adding to his misery.”
It was not in Tweedy’s nature to ask the help of anyone, but getting shot changes a man’s attitude fast. With fat flakes of snow feathering around him, Tweedy remembered there was a big ranch somewhere to the northeast. Dromore, that was it. Maybe they were caring folks who would tend a wounded man. Snow or no snow, he’d ride through darkness for Dromore.
Maybe they’d put him in a bed with a patchwork quilt.