BY THE TIME THEY’D FINISHED their circuit of the lake, the rest of the company had bedded down for the night. All but Chino, who sat close to the fire, one of the mule harnesses spread across his lap and a stack of pinecones between his feet.
“What’re you doin’?” Jack asked him.
“There’s a hole in this strap. Figured I might patch it somehow.”
Jack looked at the harness, and at the puncture in question. “Why don’t you get Lu to help you?” he suggested.
Chino peered over at Lu, who’d begun spreading his blanket beside the fire. “You want to help me with the stock, niño?”
“I don’t know how to mend a harness,” Lu said. “Besides, I have to cook, and wash the dishes.”
“Sadie can do that,” Jack said. “Chino’s going to need help. Especially once we reach the Hell Mouth.”
Lu sighed and began refolding his blanket. He was sleepy, but knew it was useless to resist. Once Jack gave you a task you were stuck.
“Not tonight,” Chino said. “Sleep. Tomorrow you do man’s work.”
Sadie was less than thrilled to discover that she’d been assigned permanent kitchen duty. In fact, she threatened both Jack and Lu with food poisoning. She calmed down only after Henry invited both her and Lu to resume rifle practice, starting the following morning.
Breakfast consisted of reheated beans and cold jerky—Lu began to seriously regret relinquishing the role of cook—but at least the coffee was good. He had two cups before Chino called him away.
“Now, mule-skinnin’ ain’t a science,” Chino said, leading him toward where their equipment had been piled up the evening before. “Not an art neither. You just got to keep your eyes peeled and your mind on the stock, and it all comes out easy. Got it?”
They gathered the mules, harnessed them, and then Chino showed Lu how to string all six into a single-file line. After that, they lashed the uncooked foodstuffs to the harnesses, followed by the tools and other equipment. Personal items and ammunition went on last. “Have to spread the weight evenly, to make sure none of our mules is overloaded,” Chino warned. “We don’t want one coming up lame.”
When the last sack had been tied, the last coffee cup bagged and stowed, Lu and Chino saddled their horses. The rest of the party was already mounted up and waiting.
“You want me to lead them out?” Lu asked, as he finished saddling Crash.
“For now you just ride at the rear,” Chino said. “These mules’ll want to lollygag. Your job is to make sure they keep up. Cut a switch and don’t be afraid to use it.”
As they rode out of camp, Lu tore a dead branch from an old pine tree. But he never did swing it. There was no need. As soon as Crash understood that he was expected to walk at the very back of the train, behind even the mules, his disposition took a turn for the worse. He’d have galloped right back to the front if Lu would’ve let him. But Lu kept him reined in tight, which only served to further irritate Crash. Fortunately, he took out his anger on the mules. If they slowed down for even an instant, Crash gave the nearest mule a fiendish bite. That got their attention better than any switch. By sundown they’d covered more than thirty miles, the farthest they’d gone in a single day since crossing the Quapaw. Chino was thrilled.
After choosing a campsite, Lu and Chino began unloading the gear.
“This is the most important part of a skinner’s job,” Chino explained, as they released each animal, beginning at the rear of the string and moving forward. “We got to carefully inspect each mule.”
As they unbuckled and removed the harnesses, Chino gave each animal a thorough rub down, from hooves to ears. He paid particular attention to any spots that might’ve been worn raw by the leather straps. When he saw the numerous bite marks, especially on the rump of the rearmost mule, Chino shot Lu a curious look. But he offered no complaint. If anything, he seemed amused.
While Sadie boiled dinner, Lu and Chino inventoried the remaining supplies. Beans and buffalo jerky were both running low. They had a week’s supply of each, two if they stretched, after which they’d be stuck eating the pemmican. Jack promised the fat balls would keep them alive and healthy, but no one was anxious to test that theory. After everything had been mentally catalogued, Lu split the supplies into six piles of roughly even weight, ready to be tied onto the mules the following morning, thus beginning the whole process over from scratch.
By the time he’d finished his work, and eaten a few of the parboiled beans, Lu was ready for bed. Unfortunately, Henry had other ideas.
“We start practicing again tomorrow,” he said.
Lu stifled a yawn. “So?”
Henry handed Lu his rifle. “Before you turn in for the night, I expect you to give that weapon a good cleaning.”
The next few days raced by. The paths they followed were narrow, but easily navigated, and the terrain was more or less level. Lu did his work, morning and evening, and spent the whole of every afternoon half-asleep in the saddle, while Crash kept the mules in a state of nervous agitation. According to Jack, they were drawing nearer the Hell Mouth, but Lu had thus far seen no sign of the infamous gorge. He did observe a slight change in the rocks and soil, however. Where before it’d been almost exclusively granite and quartz, giving the path a cold grayish tint, now there was a decidedly reddish hue sprinkled generously throughout.
The trip over the high plateau did include one moment of real importance, however. At least, it was important to Lu.
It was just before dawn on their sixth day out of the Indian village and Lu was sound asleep, dreaming of a bowl of hot egg-drop soup, the kind his mother made on cold winter days. Lu was about to bring the steaming bowl to his lips when Henry gave his shoulder a firm shake and whispered at him to get up. Lu rolled over and opened his eyes. In addition to his rifle, Henry had slung a coil of heavy rope over one shoulder. It was one of the longer pieces, normally used to string together the mules.
“Ready?” Henry asked, handing Lu his boots.
“Just let me wake Sadie.”
“Not this time. Today’s lesson is just for you.”
Lu was both surprised and pleased. He’d gotten somewhat better at shooting over the last few days, and could usually be counted on to hit the closer targets, but Sadie was still much handier with a gun. Lu knew that if he were ever to catch up to her, he’d need a few extra sessions.
Silently as they could, Lu and Henry crept through the grove of stately ponderosas that formed their camp’s western border, and then crawled up a hill. Jack was waiting for them at the top.
“He still there?” Henry asked.
Jack pointed. A whitetail buck stood in a thicket, not thirty yards down the other side of the hill, nervously plucking the leaves from a huckleberry bush.
“Do you want to shoot him?” Henry asked, handing the rifle to Lu.
“Me?”
“Think you can hit him from here?”
“Any closer and he’ll get wind of you,” Jack warned.
“I can try,” Lu said.
“It’s already loaded,” Henry whispered, as Lu brought the rifle up to his shoulder.
Lu thumbed back the hammer. “What’ll I aim for?” he asked. His mouth was dry, making it hard to talk.
“Aim just behind the shoulder.”
The buck must have sensed something, because it raised its head to look around. Blood pounded in Lu’s ears as he squeezed the trigger, and the rifle gave its usual deafening roar. The deer blasted over backward, its body crashing through the thicket and then disappearing in the tall grass.
“You hit him,” Jack said.
“It was a good shot,” Henry said.
They hiked down to where the buck lay in a twisted heap, better than five feet from the bush on which it had lately been grazing. The slug from Henry’s rifle had torn clean through its upper body, sheering off one of its forelegs and vaporizing a good portion of its ribcage. Lu could barely stand to look at the wound, it was so big and dirty and red. At least the deer wasn’t suffering, he thought.
Henry drew his knife from the sheath on his belt and handed it to Lu.
“Not much left of the shoulders,” Jack said. “Make sure you get the hind-quarters at least.”
“You want me to butcher it?” Lu asked.
“If you’re man enough to shoot it, you’re man enough to dress it.” Lu must have looked a touch green because Jack gave him a pat on the back. “Don’t worry, Henry’ll show you how.”
“What about you?” Lu asked.
Jack turned and started back toward camp. “I’ll make sure Sadie saves you some breakfast.”
“You’re sure you want me to do this?” Lu asked, trying to hand the knife back to Henry. “I might mess it up.”
But Henry wouldn’t take the knife back. “Start here,” he said, pointing at the patch of white fur where the buck’s rear legs came together. “Nice and easy. That’s right. Cut right up the belly. We’ll take his skin off just as if it were a fur coat.” Henry watched as Lu made the first incision. “Careful,” he warned. “Intestines are likely to pile out on your shoe tops.”
For the next hour, Henry instructed Lu in the intricacies of butchery. It was thirsty work. By the time they’d finished, both men were bloody to the elbows and Lu had seen filth he never even knew existed. Once the deer had been skinned and gutted, they tied its rear legs together and hauled it up a tree. After that, Henry slit its throat and they stood back as the blood poured out. Flies came from miles around to feast on the stinking offal.
While they waited for the carcass to drain, Lu returned to camp. Chino had already finished his breakfast, so they got busy loading the mules. When that was done, Jack handed Lu a pair of burlap sacks. “Go get your meat,” he said.
“But I still haven’t had breakfast yet.”
Sadie handed him a plate of re-cooked beans, leftovers from the previous night’s supper. They weren’t even hot. Lu thought about complaining, but one look at Sadie changed his mind.
“There ain’t no more,” she spat. “And you can damn well wash that dish yourself.”
Chastised, Lu carried the beans back over the hill. After they’d polished off their meager breakfast, Henry helped Lu lower the carcass, and then showed him how to remove the deer’s hind quarters. There was a surprising amount of tugging and sawing necessary. When both legs had been shorn off, Lu wrapped them in the burlap sacks and he and Henry carried them back to camp. Chino lashed them to a waiting mule.
For the rest of that morning, and all that afternoon, Lu stared at those seeping burlap sacks. By evening, the smell of blood had turned his stomach. He didn’t throw up, but felt as though he might at any moment. Crash was equally put off by the stink. Instead of nipping the tails of the mules in front of him, he maintained a cautious distance. They kept the train in sight, but only just barely.
That night, MacLemore showed Lu how to spit the hindquarters and roast them over the fire. Apparently he’d done a fair bit of hunting, back when he’d first come to the Territories, and knew just how to pass a spit through a venison flank without striking bone or getting it stuck in gristle. Lu didn’t think he’d be able to eat any, but the rich smell soon won him over. It was sort of amazing. Slow-cooking it over a smoky wood-fire had turned the aroma of the meat from horrible to mouthwatering. They swallowed steaming venison by the fistfuls, carving chunks of meat straight off the bone. Chino ate the most, as was usual, but Lu wasn’t far behind. When every member of their party had eaten his or her fill, and maybe a few bites more, Chino cut up the remaining flesh and packed it away. Cooked, the deer would last them near a week, a fact that greatly lifted everyone’s spirits. Even Jack was in no hurry to eat pemmican.
After the utensils had been washed and put away, Jack offered cigarettes to any that wanted one. Only Henry and Chino refused, though for very different reasons. Henry wasn’t a smoker, and Chino preferred to chew, which he did, cutting a chaw off the plug he’d bought at Fort Jeb Stuart.
“Figured this was a good time to celebrate,” Jack said, lighting his cigarette with a burning twig from the fire.
“Indeed.” MacLemore held his cigarette aloft. “To Lu, our great Chinese hunter.”
“To Lu,” Henry echoed.
“And to the Hell Mouth,” Jack said.
The other members of their party stared.
“What do you mean?” MacLemore asked.
“Took us near two months,” Jack said, “but we’ve reached it at last.”
“Where?” Sadie turned back and forth as though she might spot it, winking at her from around one of the tree trunks.
Jack pointed. “Mile or so farther up the path.”
“Really?” Sadie looked at her father. “Can we go see it? It’s only a mile. We can walk.”
“Is it safe?” MacLemore asked.
Jack shrugged.
“I’ll go with you,” Lu offered.
“You still have a rifle to clean,” Henry reminded him. “And my knife could use a good sharpening as well.”
“Can’t I do it when I get back?” Lu asked.
“I’ll help him,” Sadie offered. “I can sharpen the knife while Lu cleans the gun.”
“Fine,” Henry relented. “But I don’t want to hear either of you complain about being tired in the morning.”
No one else was interested, so the two youngest members of the team set off alone. They were just barely out of earshot of the camp when Sadie slapped Lu on the elbow, hard enough to make his whole arm sing.
“So how was it?” she asked.
“How was what?” Lu groaned, still rubbing his stinging limb.
“Shooting that deer.”
“Oh … All right, I guess. Actually, it turned into a lot of work.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I wanted to, but Henry said to leave you be.”
Sadie mulled that over for a few minutes. “You reckon I could’ve hit it?” she asked finally.
“Can’t see why not. You’re a better shot than me.”
“Dang right. I wonder why they let you shoot it at all.”
“Well, if you’d have been there I probably would have let you take the shot.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know.” Lu shrugged. “Maybe that’s why Henry didn’t want me to wake you. I need the practice.”
“You’re right about that,” Sadie said. “So where’d you hit him?”
“In the shoulder. The bullet tore off one of its front legs.”
Sadie whistled. “That must’ve been somethin’ to see.”
“It was pretty gruesome, actually.”
“I’ll just bet it was.” She sounded positively delighted.
Sadie asked many more questions about the deer: how it had looked when it was skinned, how they’d skinned it, how much meat they’d left behind, and what they did with the guts. Lu answered all her questions, though he found the topic unpleasant. Fortunately, just as Sadie got to asking about the flies, they passed between a pair of spindly scrub pines and stopped.
Even in the dark, on a cloudy and moonless night, it was awe-inspiring. Lu leaned over the edge, but could only make out one single tiny bend of the Moreno River, winding its course along the bottom of the gorge, passing innumerable ashy terraces and monoliths of naked stone. In the dark, everything seemed to be painted in hazy shades of blue, purple and black. Just like most everyone in America, Lu had read dozens of descriptions of the Hell Mouth, but none had prepared him for the grandeur of the thing.
“Can you make out the other side?” Sadie asked.
“Sort of.” Lu squinted. “It’s dark, but … It looks—”
“Tall,” Sadie said. “Taller than this side anyhow. How far do you reckon that is?”
Lu shook his head. He couldn’t even hazard a guess. Truthfully, if someone had told him that the Hell Mouth was fifty miles wide, he’d have believed it. Even seventy-five. A hundred miles he’d have known was too far, but that was as much of his brain as he could wrap around the problem. And he was no better at guessing the canyon’s depth. It looked deeper than Stuart’s Peak was tall—a fact that, all by itself, was enough to set the mind reeling—but how much deeper? Who knew?
“Reckon I could hit that cliff with a rock?” Sadie asked, pointing at one of the numerous formations that stuck up throughout the length and breadth of the Hell Mouth.
Lu shrugged. In fact, he doubted very much whether anyone could pitch a stone that far. He’d already caught onto one of the great truths of the canyon—distances were nearly impossible to judge with any sort of accuracy, and nearly always appeared shorter than they actually were.
“Well, I’m going to try it.” Sadie picked up a stone and flung it with all her might. It sailed into the inky sky, losing only a little elevation at first, and then seemed to fall straight down and out of sight. She tried again and again, but never managed to throw a stone more than about half-way to her target.
“It’s a long way,” Lu offered. “I don’t think anybody could hit it.”
“I know what let’s do,” Sadie said. “Let’s roll something over the edge.”
They settled on a smallish boulder, perched just a few strides from the edge of the chasm. It was only knee high, but heavy. They had to work together to move it at all.
As soon as they had it positioned—balanced half-over the yawning maw—Sadie gave the boulder a good hard kick. And then both of them watched as it bounded downward, digging deep furrows through the few straggly plants that clung to the canyon’s upper slopes.
Lu held his breath as the boulder soared over the edge of the precipice and disappeared, followed a second or two later by the sound of an explosion, echoing up from the depths of the gorge.
“Did you hear that?” Sadie asked. “Loud as a gunshot. Imagine how deep it must be. I can’t wait to see it tomorrow.”
“I guess we ought to be getting back,” Lu said. “I still have to clean Henry’s rifle, and morning comes darn early.”
They stood a moment longer, staring at the rocky chasm, and then turned and retraced their steps toward camp.
“I’ll bet it’s pretty in the daylight,” Sadie said. “Don’t you?”
“And deep.”
The next morning, Lu was up and ready to move with the sun. He bolted his breakfast, shot at the targets Henry set for him without really looking at them, and tied their tools and supplies to the mules almost haphazardly. Sadie was just as excited. Seeing the canyon in the dark had only whetted their appetites. Even a meal of weak coffee and burnt venison couldn’t douse their enthusiasm.
When they finally rode between those last scraggily pines no one spoke. Even Sadie and Lu, who’d last stood on that very spot just a few hours previous, had no words to describe their feelings. With the morning sun pouring into it, the Hell Mouth was both larger and grander than it had appeared the night before. It was gigantic. Just gazing into it made Lu feel dizzy and afraid. And yet he couldn’t look away. The Hell Mouth was also beautiful. And colorful. And sublime. Yellow, red and burnt-orange stripes of sandstone, lime and shale were piled, one atop another, forming ripples and wrinkles, mounds and monoliths. The hazy purple shapes of the previous night were replaced by an almost unnatural complexity of forms. Any description would be a lie. All comparison was empty. Lu saw boulders as large as mountains, resembling both altars and armchairs. He saw stone waterfalls, and fins of rock that stuck up like enormous hands of cards. Far in the distance he saw what appeared to be a perfect natural bridge of blood-red stone, spanning the river at a dizzying height.
“I’ve heard folks call this the eighth wonder of the world,” Jack said, breaking the silence. “But I think that gives too much credit to the other seven.”
“We’re pretty close to the center,” Jack continued. “From here, the Hell Mouth runs about five hundred miles due north.”
“How far south?” MacLemore asked.
“Four hundred fifty, give or take a dozen miles.”
“How do we get down?” Sadie asked.
“We’ll have to cut north a shade,” Jack said. “Even then it’ll be steep.”
“South looks easier,” MacLemore suggested. “Not so many sheer walls.”
“It’s no good that way.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just no good.”
For the next hour, Jack led them north, skirting the edge of the abyss. It was a fine ride, offering excellent views. Plus, it was warm at the top of the canyon. Lu wondered what the temperature might be like once they got down amidst all those shadows.
They stopped at noon, so that Lu and Chino could make one final check of the mules. The harnesses were all snug, the supplies tight, and the lines untangled. Sadie cut a few hunks of roast venison for each of them, while Henry and Jack inspected the saddles. They chatted only in short bursts, never taking their eyes off the Hell Mouth. At last, Jack said it was time to move on.
“Over we go,” he said. “Everyone hold on tight.”
They spent the rest of that afternoon in the saddle. For the most part, the trail turned out to be surprisingly decent. It zigzagged back and forth along the tops of sheer cliffs, wound around boulders and monoliths, and cascaded down the steep sides of terraces, but always offered good footing for the stock, and by and large steered them away from the most blood-chilling precipices.
Eventually they came to the first of what would turn out to be innumerable forks in the road. The scarier of the two paths led over one of the sandstone fins Lu had seen earlier, though the alternative wasn’t much better—it was nothing more than a narrow ledge winding along the side of a cliff. To Lu’s relief, Jack chose the cliff. From then on, the trail was a muddle of splits, forks and divergences. Lu didn’t know how he did it—excepting that it had something to do with the magic smoke from Joseph’s pipe—but Jack seemed always to know exactly where he was going. He selected paths as confidently as one might choose the road to a corner store.
They camped that night on a wide shelf of granite, overlooking the river. According to Jack, they were a little more than halfway down. By the next night, assuming all went well, they ought to have forded the river and be camped on the western bank of the Moreno.
There was very little wood that deep into the canyon, so they had to make do without a fire. They still had most of a leg of roast venison, and plenty of water to drink, so no one complained. No fire meant no morning coffee, but Lu guessed they could do without for a day. Coffee was beginning to run short anyway.
After hobbling the horses and mules, they began to settle in for the night. As they did, a cold wind started whistling up the canyon from the south. Their thin blankets were no match for it, especially when coupled with the cold granite beds. Lu was soon chilled to the core, and he wasn’t the only one. He could hear someone’s teeth chattering. Fortunately, Lu was also bone-weary, or else he might not have gotten a wink of sleep all night.
He was still sleeping soundly when Jack shook him awake. “Get up,” the gunfighter said. “There’s work to be done.”
“What work?” Lu sat up and looked around. “What’s happening?”
“Help Chino with the animals.”
Lu squinted, but could only make out the gunslinger’s eyes and the ember of a burning cigarette perched between his lips. “It’s still dark,” he complained.
“And likely to stay that way.” Jack pointed. Thunderheads as dense and black as nuggets of coal had begun settling over the canyon. The worst of them were still far to the south, but spreading fast.
It took them just fifteen minutes to get packed, but already they’d run out of time. No sooner had they mounted up than Lu felt the first cold drops splash on the back of his neck. He glanced back at the storm clouds and shivered.
“Rain,” he called. But no one answered.
The downpour commenced soon after, and didn’t let up for the rest of the day. Jack did his best, and always managed to find the right path, but the process was slow and miserable.
Water streamed down the rock wall beside them, exploded against the narrow ledge along which they trailed, and then dove over the edge of the cliff and disappeared. Lu had never been so scared. His heart beat so that he thought it might burst through his ribs. Over and over, Lu imagined one of their horses slipping, its legs wrenched out from under it by the rushing water. It was so awful a thing to contemplate that he could hardly stand to keep his eyes open at all. And even worse was yet to come.
They’d been in the saddle for a little more than four hours, and were soaked clear through to the soul, when the first bolts of lightning began lancing their way into the canyon, thunder riding close on its heels. Crash had to bite the mules again and again to keep them moving. Like Lu, the mules were terrified. But stopping in the middle of a narrow ledge was no answer.
At last, after five hours of misery, even Jack Straw could take no more.
“Damn storm’s gettin’ worse!” he shouted.
“Any ideas?” Henry asked him.
“Just one.”
“Well?” MacLemore urged. “What is it?”
“There’s a cave. It’s out of our way, but—”
Jack was interrupted by an earsplitting boom. The whole earth shuddered. Stones that hadn’t moved one iota since before the time of the Pharaohs seemed suddenly ethereal. The air smelled hot and electric.
“We can’t take much more of this,” Chino shouted. “One of these mules is like to throw itself over the edge.”
Jack nodded. “Stay close,” he said. “It’s not far.”
At first, their decision seemed a good one. Lu imagined stripping off his wet clothes and spreading them on the cave floor to dry. They’d have no fire and no hot soup, but one couldn’t have everything. Even the mules must’ve sensed an end to their tribulations, because they followed Chino’s lead without complaint.
It was then, just as Lu was feeling most hopeful, that tragedy struck.
A bolt of lightning shot the whole length of the canyon, striking one of the mules and sending the rest hurtling over the edge of the cliff.
The animals wailed, a high-pitch whinny of agony and horror unlike any Lu had ever heard, or even thought possible. As they tumbled through the murky darkness, the mule that had been struck by the lightning somehow managed to catch the others on fire. Blue flames erupted from their manes and tails, casting a hideous glow over the rocks they passed in their awful plunge to the Moreno. Lu watched, mesmerized in spite of his fear, as the fires grew ever brighter, fanned by the winds as the falling mules gained speed, only to be doused when they struck the foaming waters of the river.
Shocked, speechless with terror, Lu looked for his friends. He was amazed to see that the lightning, in addition to what it had done to the mules, had also struck the stone path on which they had been perched. The damage to the rock was incredible.
Lu screamed as the greater portion of the ledge, nearly twenty feet of solid granite, suddenly gave way. Chunks of stone the size of churches collapsed into the abyss. The sound was very much like what they’d heard the night before, when he and Sadie rolled their “boulder” into the canyon, only amplified a thousand times. Lu put his hands over his eyes, unable to contemplate the destruction for even a moment longer.
“Hey, Lu,” Chino shouted, once the collapse was finally over. “You OK?”
Lu wiped his eyes. He could just barely see through all the steam and smoke. There was only one mule left, the one that had been closest to him. All the rest were gone. Swallowed by the Hell Mouth.
“Are you hurt?” Chino shouted again, waving to draw Lu’s attention.
Lu shook his head. “But the mules. …”
Chino held up his hand, the one with the missing finger. His palm was bloody. “Ripped ’em right out of my hand,” he said. “Lucky I didn’t have ’em tied to my saddle. You sure you’re all right?”
“What’ll I do now?” Lu gestured at the still-smoking chasm separating him from his friends.
“Stay there.”
Chino called to Jack, who dismounted and came back along the ledge to see what had happened. Henry, Sadie and MacLemore came with him. Their faces were ashen.
All were relieved to see Lu alive and well. But that relief proved short-lived, as the reality of the situation set in.
“How’ll I get across?” Lu asked.
Jack looked at Chino, who looked at Henry. No one had any ideas. The gap was much too large to jump, and the cliff face too sheer to climb. There was no way across. Worst of all, another bolt of lightning could strike at any moment. They had no time to study the problem fully.
“You’ll have to go back,” Jack said finally.
“Back? Back where?”
“Find Joseph. Tell him what happened. Then go home.”
“But, you need me to—”
“We’ll make do.”
“Don’t worry,” MacLemore said. “You’ve earned at least a buyout share of the gold. I’ll make sure you get it.”
Lu couldn’t see how he’d earned much of anything yet, but didn’t argue. Getting paid wasn’t even the smallest of his concerns at present. “But how’ll I find the way?” he asked.
“Your horse will know how to get home,” Jack said. “Just tell him where you want to go. Give him his head.”
“But I don’t want to go back.”
“There isn’t any other way.”
Lu hung his head. That was it, he’d been dismissed. Tears threatened to roll down his cheeks, but Lu quickly wiped them away. He hoped none of the others would notice.
“Good luck,” Sadie called.
“I’ll pray for you,” Henry added.
Chino didn’t say another word, though he looked more upset than any of the others.
Jack spoke to the remaining company—something Lu wasn’t meant to hear—and all five returned to their horses. Lu watched, tears coming to his eyes, as they mounted up. He didn’t guess he’d see any of them ever again.
Lu spent the next few minutes getting Crash and the remaining mule turned around. It wasn’t easy, especially as his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, but he managed. He tied the mule’s lead—a broken piece of leather harness was still attached to the end—to his saddle. It seemed foolish after what had just happened, but he could see no other way. He couldn’t possibly drag a mule all the way to the top of this canyon by hand.
It rapidly became apparent that the lion’s share of the storm was yet to come, and that Lu was marching directly into its teeth. Even seeing the trail ahead was all but impossible, to say nothing of landmarks. Lu was shivering cold, alone and scared half out of his mind. Left to his own devices, he might have given up. Fortunately, Crash seemed to know exactly where he was going. Twice they’d come to forks in the road, and he was able to sniff out the right path each time. But as the storm intensified, even Crash found the going difficult.
They needed to find shelter, and quick. Lu began to wonder if there might not be other caves in this canyon, places even Jack Straw knew nothing about. It was possible, he guessed. Jack didn’t know everything.
At the next fork in the road, Lu waited for Crash to choose a path, and then reined him in the opposite direction. Lu knew there were no caves on the trail they’d come down. If they were to find shelter, they’d have to go another way.
Crash whinnied in protest, but eventually assented. Lu just hoped he hadn’t made a fatal mistake.
Hour upon hour they searched, over ledges so narrow, beside cliffs so sheer, that Lu’s knees were scraped to bleeding on the canyon walls. More than once they came around a bend and, seeing the path ahead, Lu’s heart skipped a beat. It just didn’t seem possible for a horse to hug close enough to the wall to keep from falling. But somehow, Crash always did. At last, just as the storm was its nastiest, they came around a bend and saw a cave. It was only a shallow indent, but large enough for their purposes. Lu dismounted and led Crash and the mule inside.
“Well, at least it’s dry,” Lu muttered, standing between the steaming bodies of the animals. He took off his boots and dumped out the water that had collected inside.
They stayed there the rest of that day, watching as the rain beat against their stone doorstep.
After moping and cursing his fate for the first couple of hours, Lu began to feel hungry. A quick inspection of the mule showed that he’d managed to get away with some of the pemmican, a small sack of oats, two boxes of bullets for Henry’s rifle, one of the MacLemores’ valises, and a half-dozen of the extra water-skins Chino had taken from the Indian village. Lu was amazed at it all. He decided to name the mule “Lucky.”
After feeding Crash and Lucky some of the oats, Lu ate a bit of the pemmican. It didn’t taste so bad any more. Hunger had spiced it very nicely. Then, because he had nothing else to do, Lu unpacked the valise. Inside he found two bonnets, two pairs of men’s trousers, a cotton shirt, a union suit, and a set of surprisingly frilly ladies’ underclothes. He also found a gingham dress and a pair of rawhide gloves.
Lu was about to pack it all away again when he noticed something else. At the bottom of the bag, folded inside a navy blue handkerchief, was the smallest revolver Lu had ever seen. It was larger than the derringer that Chino carried in his jacket pocket, but not by much. It did have one thing to recommend it, however. Unlike his own brass pistol, this gun was loaded. Lu stuck it in his pocket.
By the time he got Sadie’s clothes folded and put away, darkness had begun to descend over the canyon. Lu wasn’t tired, but figured he may as well lie down. Normally he used his saddle for a pillow, but that night Lu rested his head on Sadie’s valise.
He must’ve been sleepier than he thought, because a moment later he was out. And he didn’t wake up ‘til morning.