BURIED PAST
The stunning blue of sky just below the pass contrasted sharply with the dark green of conifers and intermittent steep meadows on the north side of the narrowing valley. Heavy snow still packed the north face of the steep mountainsides and many of the tree branches on the lee side of the lodgepole, spruce and fir supported five or six freshly fallen inches disgorged by the thick clouds they had seen the afternoon before. North, on their right, was the river, swollen with melt and chunks of ice, but almost clear and a fraction of its size at the Narrows. They had ridden hard and the horses were sweating in the warm spring sun of mid-afternoon, which had softened the newer snow of the day before to a heavy wet layer over the pack of previous storms. Their horses moved slowly, stepping tentatively, their hooves breaking through the spring crust and sinking into the corn below. Black Feather’s careful scrutiny found no tracks. Must have filled with the wind before the sun set it up.
The twists and turns of the evermore narrow canyon above them were more defined. Rising several miles to the northeast were the abrupt faces of Nokhu Crags rocks, grey-brown and proud against the spring sky. Black Feather let the stallion pick its way, concentrating instead on a continual close survey of the intermittent avalanche chutes and areas of little timber on the north face.
He shifted his gaze to a movement deep in the trees by the river, his hand instinctively beginning to draw his Smoothbore. A riderless horse limped into view, dragging his left rear leg, struggling. Black Feather felt his jaw muscles tighten. Don’t look good.
Several hundred yards further, as the invisible trail began to steepen, he thought he saw a dark mass in the snow on the north side of the canyon above them. “Dot, follow me. Keep your eyes on me and do what I tell ya. Stay close.”
As they neared the dark aberration in the field of white, his initial fear was confirmed. A body, half-buried, only the shoulder and head visible, jutted up from the edge of a jumbled mass of giant snow wedges and balls of frozen ice extending far up the hillside. He reined in the stallion, his eyes traveling high above them, just below the northern ridgeline where avalanche chutes emptied into a meadow above scattered trees, some newly snapped in two. He spurred the stallion. The horse whinnied in protest, hunching his back, bucking and floundering through the deepening snow one jump at a time, moving its front legs forward, then catching up with a push from its rear haunches. Behind him Dot’s mustang also lurched through the heavy snow cover but she gave him his head, her small frame moving easily with him.
Reining in several hundred feet from the buried body, he turned to Dot. “Dismount here. You stay with the horses. If I yell, you don’t think; you don’t look. Leave the horses and just run as fast as you can for those trees.” He pointed to a particularly thick stand of trees slightly off the trail, south and behind them fifty yards away. “Get on the river side of them and hunker down.”
Dot nodded, her eyes very wide. “What’s that?” She held up one small finger poking partially through the sock he had fashioned into a glove for her, pointing at the dark object up ahead of them.
Black Feather compressed his lips. “Not sure,” he lied, “but stay here.”
He drew the Smoothbore from the scabbard and began to move carefully through the snow a few steps at a time, stopping, scanning the hillside above them. From this angle, he could now see the great jagged crack in the snow surface high in the chute where the new snow, and part of the old melted and refrozen snows, had separated in a slab.
By the angle of the twisted back, it was clear the rest of the man’s torso and legs were buried at a deep angle. Johnson! Black Feather knelt and reached out a hand to the man’s coat. There was a low groan from the form.
Damn, the sonofabitch is alive. Turning his head back toward Dot, he opened his mouth to yell but then stopped, looking at the slope above them. Instead, he extended his arm, waving his hand rapidly, motioning her to come. She started leading the horses and Black Feather gestured firmly to her to leave them. No horses.
She made better time than he did, her much lighter frame not sinking into the tightly compressed tailings of the slide. Black Feather concentrated on carefully digging out the buried shoulder. He put his hand on Johnson’s cheek. Very cold.
Johnson’s eyes fluttered open and he turned his head slightly, grimacing in pain through blued lips. At first, there was no recognition in his eyes and then they widened slightly, dully. “Boss, boss,” he said weakly, “avalanche.”
Black Feather nodded, focusing on moving snow away from Johnson’s back with both hands, which he had wrapped in bandannas. “Damn miracle you’re alive, Johnson. Where are the rest?”
Johnson’s words were slow and thick, punctuated by long pauses. “Yesterday afternoon. Told them to wait for that new snow to end and set up. Got talked into it,” he coughed. For the first time, Black Feather noticed the caked, frothy, pink spittle coating the blue of his lips. Ribs got crushed, must be one through a lung.
“Take it easy, Johnson. I’ll dig you out of here, get a fire going and get you warmed up. Give me a little help. I’m gonna lift on your shoulders so I can dig below you.” Black Feather began to lift on Johnson’s shoulders but his lieutenant screamed in pain. “Don’t move me. My back’s broke. Can’t feel nothin’ below my waist. Hurts something terrible above that.”
Dot was now standing beside them, her hand over her mouth, eyes twice their normal size, blinking rapidly, teary trails zig-zagging on her cheeks. Johnson had always been kind to her.
Black Feather turned back to the critically injured man. “The rest of the men?”
Johnson barely wagged his head, scrunching his eyes in pain. “All gone. Single file. I was drag. Was a roar like one of them tornadoes on the flats. Happened in an eyeblink. They’re all gone.” He coughed again, little flecks of blood turning the snow pink around his face. “This was the downside edge. My horse saved me. Tried to swim out of it.” He opened his eyes wide, suddenly remembering something. “Boss, seen my horse? Saved my life.”
“It’s okay Johnson. I know where your horse is. We’ll take care of him. Just relax.”
Breathing in shallow, rapid breaths, Johnson slowly lowered his head to the snow again, “Got any of that whiskey I lent you for the girl?”
Black Feather swallowed. “There’s some left.”
“Sure would…” he coughed and groaned, “…like to have me a sip.”
Motioning with his head to Dot, Black Feather spoke softly, “Go back to the horses. Careful, like I told you. Remember where you go if I yell.” She nodded vigorously, her eyes wide and filmed. “Look in that smaller saddlebag of mine, left rump of the stallion, right behind the big one. There’s a bandanna wrapped around that whiskey bottle. Pull the whole thing out, then walk slowly back here keeping your steps in the tracks that you made. Leave the horses there.”
Her head bobbed up and down, she took another long look at Johnson, then turned, hurrying back toward the horses.
“Johnson, gotta get you outta here or you’re gonna die. Just plum unbelievable luck you’re still alive.”
Johnson tried to chuckle but his face cracked in pain, more blood oozing from his mouth. “Boss, bottom half of me is broke. Top half of me so froze I can’t feel nothin’ but the hurt in my back.” Without moving his head, he rolled his eyeballs toward Black Feather. “You and I both know I’m done. I’d just like to have me a sip of whiskey and then ask you in return for all these years we rode together, to do what you got to do.”
Black Feather relaxed his legs, sitting back from his knees to his heels. “I’ll do that for you, Terry.”
Johnson’s eyes flickered open, “You ain’t called me by my first name in years, boss. You gettin’ sentimental?”
Black Feather half-smiled, watching Dot struggle back toward them through the snow. “Maybe I am and maybe I ain’t, but I’ll do what needs be done.”
“Thanks, boss.” Johnson’s shoulder seemed to relax under the wool fabric of his coat. Opening his eyes again, he slowly licked his lips, “Remember when you and I knocked off that wagon down there in the Yampa River country the other side of the Buffaloes some years back?”
Black Feather nodded. “I ain’t thought about that for years ’til the other day down by the Narrows. Almost forgot.”
“All last night, I was freezing. I was certain I was never gonna make it to morning.” He coughed and lowered his face to the snow, closing his eyes tightly. “Figure we done the right thing burying all that gold jewelry, dishes and the like we took from them pilgrims and never tellin’ the rest of the boys ‘bout it?”
“Yes, Johnson. That job was just you and me. The boys were fifty miles away. We was going the opposite direction. If you remember, there were some people after us.”
“What’d you figure that stuff was worth back then?”
“Mebbe five hundred to one thousand dollars. Might be more now.”
Johnson hacked up blood, then wheezed with pain. “The girl back?”
Black Feather raised his head. “Not yet, a minute or two.”
“Let me talk quick then. You give my half to that girl. You make damn sure she goes to school. I know you got a soft spot for her.” His eyeballs swiveled up to catch Black Feather’s stare. “I’m going to do the right thing going out and your past is buried up here. Use it to get her going.”
Black Feather realized he had unconsciously raised one sleeve of his tunic and wiped an eye.
“I sure as hell will do what you asked, Terry. Mebbe I’ll throw in my half too.”
“Good, boss. Good.”
Dot reached them. “Give me the bottle,” Black Feather said quietly, reaching out and taking the whiskey from her small, violently shaking hand.
“I’ll hold the bottle for you, Terry. You gonna have to turn your head just a bit or this rotgut will be in the snow.” His eyes squinting tightly, Johnson slowly turned his head toward the sky, his bloody lips open. Black Feather held the glass bottle close, tipping it carefully until a small trickle of amber liquid driveled into Johnson’s mouth. The doomed man’s lips closed, some of the whiskey spattering off his nose.
He swished the whiskey around in his mouth, then swallowed. “Damn, that’s good. Give me another, boss.” Johnson had three more sips, then coughed blood. Thicker this time.
“Send the girl back to the horses, boss,” he said weakly. “She don’t need to see this.”
Black Feather stood slowly, lifting the bottle to his lips. Tipping his head back, he drank the remainder of the whiskey in one gulp, then hurled the bottle into the snow above them. “Damn.”
Extending one hand, he gently touched Dot’s cheek, looking down at her, trying to smile. “Good job. Go on back and stay with the horses. Johnson needs some privacy.” His eyes shifted back to Johnson and then returned to hers. Nodding, she wiped her eyes and began the walk back to the waiting stallion and mustang.
Pivoting to make sure his body blocked her line of sight if she turned, Black Feather knelt and began to draw his pistol, then hesitated, looking up at the snow field above them.
Johnson’s eyes fluttered open. “Boss, you fool. Put that pistol way. She’ll know what’s going on sure as hell. Use your knife.”
Plus mebbe trigger another slide. Black Feather straightened up slightly from his hunched over position, shoving the half-drawn pistol back into his belt, then drew his knife, casting furtive glances behind him.
Johnson rolled his eyes sideways toward him and blinked. “Take my Colt. I don’t think it’s buried too deep. No sense leavin’ a good gun up on this mountain.” He coughed, groaned and then relaxed his head on the red-hued snow. “Just make sure it’s once to the heart,” he rasped, “Been good riding with you, Samuel.”
Black Feather almost dropped the knife in startled surprise. Johnson’s bloody lips cracked in a pained half-smile. “Never did tell you, sometimes you mutter in your sleep.” He closed his eyes. “I’m ready.”
Black Feather positioned the point of the blade over Johnson’s heart, its tip gently steadied in the wool over his chest. He raised one hand slowly, then slammed it down on the hilt of the knife driving the blade in fully. An involuntary spasm wracked Johnson’s body, he gasped, his lips quivering a glistening pink in the sunlight and then he was still.
Black Feather withdrew the knife, wiping it carefully on Johnson’s jacket until the steel was clean, then plunged his arm bicep deep into the snow covering Johnson’s torso where he supposed his belt might be, groping for the dead man’s pistol.
When he returned to the horses, Dot was standing quietly, one hand on the mustang’s shoulder, her eyes wide and teary. “Johnson?”
Black Feather looked at her for a long moment, and shook his head. “He was too bad hurt, Dot. He’s dead. He ain’t on this earth no more, but he was thankful you brought them sips of whiskey.”
Dot’s lips trembled. Black Feather stepped to her, putting his hands on either side of her shoulders. “Look up at me. All things die one day. It’ll be my turn someday, and sometime long, long from now, yours. It is the way of things. I need to take care of his horse. No need letting it suffer or starve. Then, let’s saddle up and work our way up real careful like. We’ll stick close to these trees. Anything happens, a loud sound, or if I yell, you don’t think twice. You just head down to the thickest trees and behind them as far as you can get and you’ll be fine.”
Dot looked fearfully above him toward where the avalanche had begun. Black Feather squeezed her shoulders. “I think we will be okay and this snow is set up enough, but no way of knowin’ this time of year. You got ground that’s warming, snow’s frozen and refroze into little ice balls and then new snow on top of that…” His voice trailed off.
She looked up at him, her expression stricken. “Where?”
For a moment, he didn’t understand and then he smiled. “Can’t believe I’m saying this. We’re gonna head down into that North Park country they was headed toward and then over another range, which is called the Buffaloes. Has two twin rocks towards the top—looks like the ears on a rabbit. On the other side, there’s some hot springs that make funny sounds. The Indians say it’s Spirit talking from the earth. White men swear they are like the chug of a steamboat. Maybe we’ll stop there for a day, then head down to a place we call the Yampa.” Black Feather looked to the west. “I got a promise to keep.”