Chapter Fourteen
Because of the encounter with Black Tom Mahone’s group, it took Breckinridge and Morgan longer to check the traplines than it normally would have. It was late in the afternoon before they started back to camp with four beaver carcasses. The animals were yoked together so that Breck could drag them behind him.
It was going to be dark before they reached camp. Along the way, they debated what to tell Akins and Fulbright about what had happened.
“They’re our partners,” Breckinridge said. “I don’t much like the idea of keepin’ secrets from ’em. Anyway, they’re bound to hear about that rendezvous in the next couple of days, if Mahone was right about a lot of other men headin’ for this valley.”
“I’m sure he was,” Morgan said. “News spreads surprisingly fast out here, considering how isolated and sparsely populated this part of the country is. But what harm will it do to keep the news to ourselves, just for the time being?”
“Are you thinkin’ about slippin’ off to the rendezvous first, so that you can get first choice on those gals?”
“Well, what would be the harm in that?” Morgan asked.
“It ain’t like any of ’em are what you’d call innocent,” Breckinridge pointed out.
“I suppose you’re right.” Morgan sighed. “And we’re already running the risk of Roscoe and Amos being offended because we didn’t say anything to them about Finch and his bunch. If we do that again, they’re liable to be really insulted.”
“So we go ahead and tell ’em about it?”
“I guess that would be the best thing to do.”
The whole thing turned out to be moot, however. As the two of them approached the camp a half hour or so after nightfall, they heard horses stamping and blowing and saw several figures moving against the glow of the flames from the fire pit.
“Somebody’s here,” Breckinridge said as his right hand tightened on the rifle he carried.
“Can’t be Blackfeet,” Morgan said worriedly. “We’d have heard shooting.”
“Unless they caught the fellas by surprise and took ’em prisoner . . . or already killed them.” Breckinridge’s voice was grim as he spoke.
“Maybe we’d better be careful and not walk right in,” Morgan suggested.
“Yeah, I was thinkin’ the same thing. Let’s circle around and come in from the other side.”
If they were going to be faced with a fight, Breckinridge didn’t want to be burdened with those beaver carcasses. He took the rope he had been using to pull them, tossed it over a tree branch, and hoisted them up high enough to be out of the reach of most predators. He could come back and get the beaver later if everything turned out all right.
With that done, he and Morgan slipped through the shadows as they skirted around the bluff where the camp was located.
Even though they weren’t experienced frontiersmen yet, they had been out here long enough to pick up the knack of moving through the brush without making much noise. Breckinridge was already pretty good at that from his time spent in the woods back home in Tennessee. He led the way with Morgan following close behind him, emulating his every move.
When they were close, Breckinridge stopped and motioned for both of them to get down on the ground. They crawled forward until they could hear men talking. Even before he could make out the words, Breck recognized the sound of Akins’s and Fulbright’s voices.
The two men were alive, at least, and neither of them sounded alarmed. It was beginning to seem like Breckinridge and Morgan had gotten spooked unnecessarily.
When Breckinridge was close enough, he came up on a knee and parted some brush to peer through the gap. From where he was he could see both Akins and Fulbright. The two trappers were sitting next to the fire, drinking coffee, and talking in friendly fashion to four men Breck had never seen before.
One of the strangers was dressed in buckskins, while the others wore wool trousers and rough, homespun shirts. They were all good-sized, competent-looking men with powder horns and shot pouches slung over their shoulders. Breckinridge spotted four rifles stacked not far from the fire pit, and the butts of flintlock pistols stuck up from the waistbands of a couple of the men.
Four saddled horses were picketed on the far side of the camp, grazing and shifting around. That was what Breckinridge had heard as he and Morgan approached the camp.
The strangers looked like trappers, and that made perfect sense. They had heard about the rendezvous and come to the valley to attend. They must have run into Akins and Fulbright, who had invited the men back here to share the fire.
Breckinridge eased the branches together again and backed off. He whispered to Morgan, “Nothin’ to worry about. Just some fellas who’ve come for the rendezvous. Let’s backtrack, pick up those carcasses, and go on in like nothin’ happened.”
He didn’t particularly want to admit that he’d been spooked by something so innocuous.
A few minutes later, making plenty of noise as they approached, Breckinridge and Morgan tramped up the bluff to the camp. The six men who had been sitting around the fire were on their feet now. Out here in the wilderness, it made sense to be wary any time someone was moving around at night.
Akins and Fulbright relaxed as Breckinridge sang out, “Hello, the camp!”
“That’s one of our partners,” Fulbright explained to the strangers. A moment later, Breckinridge and Morgan stepped into the glow cast by the flames in the fire pit.
“I see we’ve got company,” Breckinridge said. “Howdy, boys.”
“Howdy,” the man in buckskins said in return. “You’ve got some good-lookin’ animals there.”
Breckinridge nodded and said, “Thanks. We’ve had pretty good luck. You fellas trappers?”
“They’re here for a rendezvous,” Akins said. “You know anything about that, Breck?”
Breckinridge and Morgan glanced at each other. Breck said, “As a matter of fact, we heard somethin’ about it today. We ran into a bunch that’s bringin’ in wagonloads of whiskey . . . and some women.”
“Women!” Fulbright exclaimed as his eyes widened. “All the way out here in the middle o’ nowhere?”
“That’s right,” Morgan said. “Good-looking women, too.”
“Lord have mercy!” A big grin split Fulbright’s whiskery face. “Now I’m lookin’ forward to that rendezvous even more!”
“My name’s Sterling,” the buckskin-clad man said. “My pards are Hamilton, Wellman, and Price.”
Akins gestured at Breckinridge and said, “That big redheaded galoot is Breck Wallace, and the other fella is Morgan Baxter.”
Morgan said, “That’s all I’ll ever be as long as I’m hanging around you, Breck—the other fella.”
“Well, at least you’re a smaller target any time there’s trouble,” Breckinridge said with a grin. He shook hands with the four visitors, as did Morgan.
“There’s still some stew in the pot,” Akins said. “Why don’t you and Morgan help yourselves while Amos and me skin out them beaver?”
“That sounds good to me,” Breckinridge agreed.
“And while you’re at it,” Fulbright said, “tell us more about them women you saw!”
For the next half hour, the men talked and laughed while Breckinridge and Morgan had supper and Akins and Fulbright worked on the pelts. Breck felt a little uncomfortable telling about his adventure with the runaway wagon, so Morgan took over and spun that yarn.
“Actually, he looked a little like Hercules, standing there and holding that wagon up by himself,” Morgan said.
“You’re leavin’ out the part about how it started rollin’ and jerked me flat on my face,” Breckinridge put in.
“Yeah, but you kept things from being a lot worse. That woman Dulcy said as much while she was standing there feeling your big, manly arm.”
“Sounds like you’ve already made a conquest, Wallace,” one of the visitors said. Breckinridge couldn’t remember which one was which.
“All it takes to make a conquest with gals like that is a coin in your pocket,” one of the other men said, slapping his thigh in amusement at his own joke.
Unaccountably, that gibe got under Breckinridge’s skin a little. He knew perfectly well what sort of woman Dulcy was, but at the same time, he had sensed something different about her. He wasn’t sure what that difference was yet, but he knew he wouldn’t mind having the chance to find out.
Morgan saw his friend scowling and went on hurriedly with the story, concluding with, “So one of the women wound up with a broken arm, but it could have been a lot worse if Breck hadn’t slowed down that wagon.”
“That makes you a hero,” Sterling said. Breckinridge could remember him because he was the one in buckskins.
“I’m no hero,” Breckinridge insisted. “Just a fella who tried to help.”
“Sounds pretty gallant to me. Of course, you were tryin’ to help out a bunch of pretty girls, and what man in his right mind wouldn’t do that?”
They talked some more about the upcoming rendezvous. Breckinridge and Morgan didn’t say anything about meeting Nicodemus Finch and his group. With any luck, that wouldn’t even come up during the big gathering, at least not while Akins and Fulbright were around.
Finally the four visitors stood up and Sterling said, “I reckon we’d better be gettin’ back to our own camp north of here. We’ve already got everything set up, and we don’t want to intrude on you fellas.”
“Wouldn’t be any intrusion,” Akins said, “but I understand about wantin’ your own place. Just be careful on your way back. Haven’t seen any Indians prowlin’ around, but you never know.”
“That’s for sure.” Sterling lifted a hand in farewell. “So long, boys.”
They waved and said their good-byes, and the four men mounted up and rode off into the night. As the sound of hoofbeats faded, Akins said quietly, “We’d better keep a good lookout tonight.”
“Why do you say that?” Breckinridge asked.
“Because while those fellas seemed friendly enough, they might decide it’d be easier to slit our throats and take our pelts than to work at trappin’ their own.”
“They didn’t strike me as the sort to do that,” Morgan objected.
“Maybe not, but that could’ve been an act.”
“Roscoe’s right,” Breckinridge said. “It never hurts to be careful. Maybe we’ll get to know ’em better at the rendezvous.”
* * *
Several miles north of the camp on the bluff, the four men rode into another, larger camp, this one with a good-sized fire sheltered under an overhang of rock. Close to a dozen men and horses were gathered there.
The man who strode out to greet Sterling and the others was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a battered face and a thick black mustache. His voice displayed a trace of a British accent as he asked, “Well? Was that his bunch? Did you see him?”
Sterling swung down from the saddle and grinned.
“We did more than lay eyes on him, Sykes,” he said. “We talked to him. That’s the son of a bitch we’re supposed to kill, all right. That’s Breckinridge Wallace.”