Twenty-eight

They had climbed above the timberline for almost an hour now, and still the crest seemed a mile above them. Clarence was carrying the saddlebag full of money in addition to his own secret holdings in his jacket. Even with the extra weight, he stayed on Hassard’s heels, and could have passed him if he had wanted. But Clarence preferred not to turn his back on Deacon Dee.

They came to the brink of a cliff that dropped untold hundreds of feet below them in a succession of narrow ledges scarcely fit for mountain goats. Clarence stopped for a moment and let Hassard trudge on up the trackless slope of cold rock and slick alpine tundra.

The view from the cliff spanned reaches that would require weeks of travel to fetch, and the Vermonter could not imagine why he had ever worried about the west filling up with people before he could get here. Across the many high peaks and forested valleys around him, he could see not one mark of settlement. Not a road, nor a field, nor a streak of smoke across the sky.

Hopewell came to his side and looked down the cliff, trying to gather in the sheer expanse of air below him, knowing now how the lowly world looked to the eagle.

“Did you ever think you’d see anything like this?” Clarence asked.

Hopewell shook his head reverently. “Didn’t know there was such as this on all of God’s whole earth.”

“Let’s throw a rock off,” Clarence suggested, grinning at the elder.

Hopewell smiled boyishly, found a stone the size of a hen’s egg. Clarence picked a like one, and they hurled them together as Mary Whitepath passed silently behind them. The stones arched unimpressively away from the precipice, then began plummeting downward, finally vanishing like flies into the sunlight. If they made a sound against something, it never reached the ears of those who had thrown them.

“Hey!” Hassard shouted from above. “Let’s get goin’ down there!”

Clarence saw a ridge above and climbed steadily toward it, containing his excitement. When he reached it, he found only a higher ridge beyond it. He knew they had to be near the divide, but here he was such a tiny speck on this vast mountain that he couldn’t be sure which ridge was the highest.

He looked down toward Tigiwon but couldn’t be certain where it lay anymore. The valley of the Eagle River—a long, straight furrow from the banks of the stream—had become invisible from here. It had shrunk away to a series of low dark places. The sun shone from on high now, and Clarence found bearings difficult to maintain in his mind. He was practically lost, turned so far around that he couldn’t have hit Vermont with a rifle shot. Rationally, however, he knew that he must only continue upward to arrive at his destination. And they had left a trail of blaze marks and piles of stones to guide them back down the mountain.

He followed Hassard’s lead, winding among countless snowfields and fans of huge boulders where peaks had crumbled in ancient times. The wind wanted his hat here, and he curled the brim hard to keep it on his head. Cool air rushed in and out of his lungs, fueling him well even with its dearth of oxygen.

It seemed they were climbing to the top of the world, and Clarence looked up only occasionally now, between steps. Always the mountain loomed ahead of him, like a planet whose curve he could never traverse. But suddenly, rounding a small peak of huge stone rubble, he saw the entire sky open below and ahead of him where the mountain had lain before. Here the world fell away in every direction except for the ridge winding away to his right, which he suddenly knew was the summit of Notch Mountain. And here was its divide under his feet.

Hassard was standing ahead of him. Just standing, for the first time today, taking in some view. Clarence came further around the small peak, and then saw it. Like a faraway painting whose canvas trailed off into infinity. It seemed almost touchable, yet between its face and the Vermonter’s eyes lay a void no cannon shot could span.

The paragon of mountain peaks rose high across a basin like a near-perfect pyramid of rock. Upon its face, in gossamer lines of pure white snow, the cross stabbed Clarence’s eyes as a beautiful blaring trumpet might assault his ears. Its arms lifted upward like a conductor holding an orchestra at perpetual readiness. Far friendlier than any beams of square-hewn timber, the snowy lines of the cross reclined comfortably against the cold granite. And though they may have stood wide as a town square, from here the lines were mere brush strokes of snow driven into unbelievable crevices.

“That’s God’s own easel,” Hassard said.

The voice startled Clarence, and he realized that he had let the deacon circle behind him. He turned quickly to look, but found Hassard sitting harmlessly on a rock in the cold sunshine.

It was not as if the thought hadn’t occurred to Dee Hassard, too. His pistol was easily reachable inside his coat. He had made sure of that. Neither Hopewell nor the Indian woman carried a weapon. It would have been a simple matter to put a bullet through the Vermonter’s back, chase the elder and Mary Whitepath back down the mountain, and then angle southward to find his mule. Hell, he might have left all three of them dead on this mountain and let that cross of snow serve as their ridiculous headstone. He was already on the run for killing Frank Moncrief. What would another body or two matter?

But Dee Hassard had his pride. A killing to him was messy. It showed a lack of professionalism. He was more meticulous than that. Besides, he liked letting them live, letting them know how badly he had fooled them. That was part of the game. No, that was the game. Often he had wished he could be there when the realization struck—to see the looks of anger, shame, and panic meld suddenly on their faces. Murder was sometimes necessary—take Frank Moncrief and Charlie Holt. No way around either one of them.

But not here. This was too perfect. Look at their mouths hanging open. Look at them gawking across this basin at that crooked snow formation. It was laughable, and in days to come, Dee Hassard would laugh hard over it. There was still a chance that he could pull this thing off without killing Clarence. He hoped they would all live long to think about this one.

“It’s just like the Weeping Virgin told me in my dreams. Let your burden down, Brother Clarence. It belongs to God now.” In a way, he actually meant it. Dee Hassard was his own god, and these mortals were sacrificing to him now and didn’t even know it.

Clarence looked at Hopewell, but the elder’s eyes were across the basin. To leave this money here was foolishness. But was it really his concern? They had allowed Hassard to leave this morning with the church coffers. They had prayed for him. It was their money—church money. The congregation had to decide what to do with it, ridiculous or not.

Oh well, he thought, letting the saddlebags slide off his broad shoulder, at least I won’t have to carry it back down the mountain. He studied Hassard. The man was staring just as long and reverently at the Snowy Cross as Elder Hopewell or Mary Whitepath. Yet the Vermonter knew it was far from over. An unnamed tension stood between him and the deacon like a magnetic field: opposing poles pushing against each other. You must not turn your back on this man. He is not what he claims. He will return for this money, and then it will be your concern.

Mary Whitepath was on her knees, weeping silently, staring at the cross.

The others sat in silence for several long minutes, and Hassard paced through the logistics one more time. Tonight, after a couple of hours of sleep, he would sneak away from Tigiwon. Slipping past Clarence would be the hardest part, but he would have an excuse planned in case the Vermonter questioned him, and the dagger in his pocket in the event the excuse failed to satisfy. Back in the cities, he had learned how to stick a man so that he would not even cry out. He would only die.

Next he would climb back up here to retrieve his earnings, a half-moon to light his way. Had any man in his profession ever pulled off such a feat? By dawn he would be mounting his mule and riding up the valley, about the same time Carrol Moncrief arrived at Tigiwon. It would be grueling, but after Buena Vista, he could sleep in the stagecoach on his way to California.

He repeated each step in his mind until he began to feel the chill of his own sweat. “Well, let’s get back to Tigiwon,” he said, springing to his feet.

Clarence let the surprise show on his face. “Already?”

Hassard shrugged. “It’s a long walk. We’d better get back before dark. The others will be waiting to hear about this.” He started down the barren ridge without once looking back. “It’s not as if we can’t come back whenever we want to.”

Clarence looked at the leather pouches stuffed with gold and currency and nodded. Yes, he thought. And Dee Hassard will want to come back tonight.

*   *   *

The snowfields had become so numerous around them that there was no other way. Going around them would mean retracing hundreds of feet back down the mountain, and neither Petra nor Ramon cared to lose any altitude at this point. Their path lay upward.

They had crossed some narrow streaks of snow already, but the one now in their path stretched almost a hundred yards and covered an old rock slide. Petra went first, wading into the field of white, crunching through its dirty surface.

“Be sure to feel for every step,” Ramon warned. “You might fall into a hole or something.”

“Yes,” she said. “I will be careful.”

After several steps, they sank waist deep into the drift, and snow was falling into the tops of Ramon’s short boots, packing hard around his ankles. He said nothing of it, only wanting to reach the other side.

He paused to look around him. He had seen many new things on this journey, but this was something he had to remember. Here it seemed that some blight had lain waste to the whole warm world of trees and grass. Everything he saw was rock and snow, from the slick boulder under his heels to the distant ranges a hundred miles away. If there was still greenery below, he would never have known it from this vantage.

Coming finally out of the snowfield, Petra stomped the ice crystals from her legs and Ramon sat down to dump the packed snow from his boots. The nun happened to look at a chunk of ice Ramon cast aside and saw a crimson hue to it. “Are you bleeding?” she said.

The boy shrugged. “The snow packed in my boot and scraped me a little. It’s nothing.” He stood and looked up the slope. They seemed very near the top of the divide, but he had thought that many times today. “Let’s look over this ridge.”

He started slowly, letting Petra pull ahead of him. He almost dreaded peering over the crest. What if they found another, higher ridge a mile away? How long could they keep going? They could not get caught here by darkness. Soon they would have to go below.

What was he doing here, anyway? The reason was so old and far away that he almost couldn’t bring it to mind. The Snowy Cross—that was it. Why? To save Guajolote. How? How was any of this going to help? Does gold lie scattered atop this range in the thousands of dollars?

“Ramon?”

He looked up and saw Petra standing straight and rigid on the crest above eye level. A fresh wind was trailing her hair behind her, and she looked like some kind of conquering princess. She didn’t look down at him, but her hand waved for him to join her.

Already his heart was pounding, for he knew what he would find when he scrambled up the last of the incline. Then his heart stopped as the vision struck him. It was like brilliant light shining through a cross-carved door into a darkened room. He felt Petra’s arms around him, his own around her, as a power surged between them whose force was greater than the sum of anything they could have mustered apart. Then she sank to her knees, and Ramon was left alone.

For a long moment he stared at the Mount of the Snowy Cross, marveling at his arrival here. Then, suddenly, he thought of home. Guajolote, where warm adobe soaked in sunlight and spring water laughed from miniature cascades. And for a moment, he felt a glimmer of faith strong enough to cause him to look around—around his feet first, as if he would find gold coin stacked there waiting for him. His eyes pulled to the right, following the ridge that rose to the summit of Notch Mountain. There was rough rock and patches of coarse snow—and something that glowed with the luster of time-smoothed leather.

He blinked hard and looked again at the object standing not fifty yards away on the ridge. A pair of leather saddlebags perched on the crest as if some hand had just deposited them there. He thought about the American photographer, Señor Jackson, whom he and Petra had met in Del Norte. The photographic party must have left this thing behind.

He left Petra and climbed an easy slope to the saddlebags. Stooping, he lifted the bags, finding them heavier than he had imagined. He dropped them and heard a chink of metal. What he was thinking wasn’t possible, of course, but it made his stomach flutter nonetheless. He glanced at the Snowy Cross, looming across the high basin through a cloud-haze that was beginning to form. He looked at Petra, the quintessence of devotion there on her knees in this unlikely place. Was her faith alone sufficient?

He knelt and unfastened the buckle on one of the pouches. Slowly he lifted the flap and peered inside. For a splinter of a moment he knew what it felt like to have been brushed by the wake of angels passing nearby. He tried to call Petra’s name, but couldn’t speak. Ramon del Bosque was never again to know the careless indifference of boyhood.