On a morning in late December, Coldiron woke trembling with cold and with frost, white and thick on the hair of the buffalo robe where his breath had condensed. He poked his head outside. During the night a foot of new snow had fallen and the temperature had plummeted far below zero. Not a whisper of air stirred. Not one bird or animal was visible. The valley lay frozen, motionless in the dead of winter.
Luke climbed out, dug his camping gear out of the snow, packed it and headed for the stream to retrieve his traps before they became locked solid in the ice. His hands were stiff claws by the time he had dragged all his steel from the rapidly freezing water and started toward the cabin, He was glad when he saw strong smoke pouring from the hole he had left for that purpose between the top log and the roof of the cave. He smiled in anticipation of the warm lire.
Tarpenning, as if he had been watching for his partner, lifted the hide door and came outside. “Come in and warm yourself,” he greeted Luke. “I've been expecting you since early morning.”
“Thanks,” responded Luke. “I guess I'm here to sleep a few nights. This time I believe the cold will hang on for a while.”
“I think so, too. Stay as long as you like.”
They entered. Luke dropped the traps just inside the door and his sleeping robe on the closest bed, one that appeared to be unused.
The cave looked very much lived in. Several pounds of meat hung curing up near the smoke hole. Tarpenning had obviously been pouring lead balls for the rifles, for a pile of them lay near his mold and a small pot of molten gray metal sat in the fire. Bales of dried fur were stacked in the rear of the cave. Knowing his partner's penchant of putting ten pelts in each bale, Luke calculated quickly and arrived at a figure of two hundred beaver that had already been trapped. Thirty green skins were hanging and drying on the front wall. He was pleased with the catch so far.
Three beaver pelts had been stuffed with grass and lay near the fire as seats. Luke selected one and slumped down to extend his feet and hands to the flames. Slowly he began to thaw out.
Though the girl sat barely ten feet distant on the far side of the fire, Luke made no acknowledgement of her existence. From the corner of his eye, he noted she was sewing some type of buckskin garment.
Tarpenning flopped down beside her and looked at Luke. “How far from the cabin have you trapped to?” he asked.
“‘Bout a mile downstream,” answered Luke.
“Is there enough game other than beaver to make it worthwhile to continue trapping?”
“I think so. Tomorrow I'll take meat bait and make some sets.”
“I have a deer hanging in that first neck of woods up on top of the bluff. That should make good bait.”
“I'll go cut some chunks off it tomorrow.”
Tarpenning nodded and pointed. “There's grub. We've been keeping it warm for you, knowing you'd be coming.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” said Luke.
At Tarpenning's gesture toward the food, the girl got up hastily and brought Luke a tin plate and spoon. With eyes downcast, she handed them to him and retook her place beside Tarpenning.
While Luke ate, Tarpenning tried to make conversation, but it did not come off well and finally he fell silent, Luke knew why. The presence of the woman was a palpable, disturbing thing. The smooth-working relationship of the partnership was missing. He wished for the old days.
After satisfying his hunger, Luke found the half-finished snowshoes he had stopped work on that day long past. He labored or them and now and then held desultory conversation with Tarpenning.
The well-seasoned wood, light yet strong, took final form under the blade of his knife. A webbing of tough beaver gut was stretched across the frames, anchored in place by notches cut into the outside edge of the wood. Straps to bind the snowshoes to his feet were added and he laid the contrivances aside. They would be much needed during the next two months.
Tarpenning yawned, “Guess I'll turn in.”
“Me, too,” said Luke.
The fire had burned down to a low glow as the night grew late. In the distant light, Luke watched as Tarpenning joined the girl already bundled into a robe on one of the beds. He lay down on his own mattress of grass and pulled the skin covering up.
* * *
Luke was aroused from a deep sleep by the sounds of Tarpenning and the girl's lovemaking. He could not but listen to their excited, hurried breathing little more than a body length away.
He felt himself stirring and, with an oath, sprang from his bed, jerked on moccasins and coat and plunged through the door into the night. He ran through the sub-zero cold, with the rays of a full moon bathing the night in a weak silver light and the snow crackling and crunching beneath his heavy footsteps.
For a long distance he raced through the trees and over the snow-covered meadows, cooling his hot, lusting blood with strenuous action. Finally with his throat and lungs burning from the intake of the frigid air, he halted.
He stood in the stark, silent valley and let the last of his fiery passion drain away. Around him the dim shapes of the nearer objects, framed by the snow, could be seen. With distance, the snow and trees faded into an amorphous gray whiteness. Against the sky to the north, the tall mountain blocked out a hand's width of twinkling stars.
His frost-nipped ears began to ache, for he had left without his cap, and he cupped the aching organs in his hands. He turned and started the return journey to the shelter.
Much later he entered the cave. All was quiet. He found his bed and, closely wrapping his nearly frozen body in the heavy cover, shivered himself to sleep.
* * *
The arctic wind hurtled downward from the cold crown of the mountain. It drove into the hearts of the mules and horses, robbing their bodies of flesh and fat. The brutes stood pressed together in a tight clump as if trying to draw heat from each other. Even with their dense coats of heavy long hair, the animals' bony ribs showed painfully.
Coldiron left the smoky warmth of the cave shelter and went outside. More snow had fallen during the night and was now more than crotch deep, smothering the valley and hiding the grass and low-growing shrubs. He donned his snowshoes and with ax over his shoulder, mushed to the grove of cottonwoods near his starving beasts.
He began to swing his ax to girdle a broad-trunked cottonwood just above snow line. Finishing, he pried the thick bark away from the wooden inner bole of the tree for a few inches. Later he would return and fell the tree so the animals could get at all of it.
Hearing the sound of the ax upon the tree and dredging up memories of previous snowy winters and how he had been fed, Luke's pony pulled away from its mates and waded through the white drifts toward the man. As Luke moved to a second cottonwood to repeat his procedure to provide feed, the horse came up to the first tree and sniffed at the projecting strips of bark.
The starving animal had tried unsuccessfully several times to break the bark on the round trunk of a tree. Now that task had been accomplished for him. With the odor of the sweet cottonwood strong and tantalizing in his nose, the horse clamped his big teeth on a strip of bark, swung his muscular neck mightily and ripped a length fully five feet up the tree before the woody covering broke off.
The pony chewed, gradually drawing the quarter-inch-thick strip of the skin of the tree in between his broad, ridged molars. Luke glanced at his mount and grinned at the half-closed eyes, the contented munching.
The mules arrived next with the remainder of the horses close behind. They ringed the cottonwood, tearing and hauling away at the bark of the ancient tree, taking its life to preserve their own.
* * *
Only the swish of Sidlow's snowshoes betrayed his passage through the silent woods. He came up to the edge of the bluff and looked down into the valley where the strange trappers had been discovered. He found a well-screened vantage point and stopped to scan the white-mantled land spread below him. He located the log wall of the shelter and the figure of a man, a tiny black spot moving against the snow near a patch of trees.
A narrow finger of pine stretched from a point just below Sidlow to far out onto the valley bottom. He slid down the steep slope and skulked through the trees. As he neared the creek, the sound of ax strokes came to him and he peered out to see Luke chopping in the grove of cotton- woods. Recognizing at once what the man's intention was, Sidlow counted the animals as they came in to feed, for their number might tell him how many hunters were in the camp.
A tall man left the cave, went to a large pile of wood and began to fill his arms. In some surprise, Sidlow saw yet a third person appear in the doorway. He locked his sight on the last figure, tracking the small skirted figure as it moved up beside the man and took a load of the fuel.
“A woman, by God,” whispered Sidlow to himself.
For several minutes the three people worked at their chores. Sidlow observed first one person and then another, but most of his time was spent eying the woman, contemplating what her presence meant to him and his cohorts.
He had come across the snowy mountainside to check on those trappers who were unknowingly gathering furs for him. He did not want them to leave without his knowledge. Now the existence of the woman put a new ingredient, a strong spice, into the game.
How could he win two objectives, taking the woman from the men and at the same time keeping them trapping furs? However he accomplished the first goal, the men had to remain alive.
* * *
With the animals chomping noisily on the tough but nutritious cottonwood bark, Coldiron returned to the shelter. Tarpenning and the woman finished carrying wood for the fire and also came inside.
In the thicket of pine on the far side of the creek, Sidlow stole slyly away. Soon he was out of the valley and hurrying westward through the deep forest. He chuckled low and savage. It was a luck-filled day for him and his partners.
The winter day was fast fading when Sidlow came down into the valley and reached his bivouac. He unstrapped his snowshoes and jabbed them to stand erect in the snow near the entrance. Stooping low, he entered the round shelter, a circle of tall willow poles leaning inward to meet at an apex and covered with tanned deer hides.
Half a ham of a deer was roasting over a fire, the juice dripping and spluttering in the flames. His two comrades slept on pallets of fur. They drowsily raised their heads when the wave of cold air came in with Sidlow.
“Axe they still trappin'?” asked Lacy.
“‘Yep, and better than that,” responded Sidlow. He lifted the piece of venison from the fire and sliced off a thick slab. The deer haunch was still raw deep inside so he replaced it on its support to continue cooking. He blew on his chunk of meat to cool it, took a large bite and began to chew.
“What do you mean, better than that?” impatiently questioned Lacy.
“They've got a woman,” said Sidlow with a full mouth. “From what I could see, an Injun woman.”
Lacy sat bolt upright. Stauber looked at Sidlow and laughed gleefully. “Nov what more could a man want when it's midwinter, the snow is ass deep and he's just laying around getting fat?” He laughed even louder.
“I thought you fellows might like the news,” said Sidlow grinning widely. “But do I need to remind you she's with two other men and we don't know how mean and tough they could be.”
Lacy shook his head in a deprecating manner. “I've never met any man I was afeared of,” he said.
“Why worry about them?” asked Stauber. “We can simply shoot them from ambush. They won't know what hit them. They'll just suddenly be dead.”
Sidlow shook his head in the negative. “Now don't get too fast. They can't trap beaver if they've dead. Why don't we take a bunch of skins over there and buy her?”
Lacy and Stauber looked at Sidlow with disbelief that he should propose such a plan.
Before they could speak, Sidlow continued. “Now think it through. What do we plan to do about all the fur they have in the spring? Take it away from them, right? Well, whatever we give we'll get back. And we'll have the woman in the meantime.”
“That's a good thought,” acknowledged Lacy.
“I'm for it, too,” said Stauber. “How many pelts should we take?”
“Let's be generous,” Sidlow smiled crookedly. “Forty skins should buy her with little doubt. We'll pack up and go over there in the morning.”
“The calendar stick says tomorrow is Christmas,” said Stauber, pointing to a foot-long length of wood with a series of notches cut in it that was hanging on a sinew from the ridge pole of the shelter. “I've been keeping good count of the days. What say we take fifty skins for her because it'll be the day for gift giving.” He chortled and tugged happily at his beard.
The other two men laughed heartily.
* * *
Luke sat eating breakfast. Soon as it grew light, he would leave to run his trap line. Because of the extreme cold, the catch of upland fur had been small. Still he had nothing better to do and George and the girl needed their privacy.
Tarpenning came up beside him and found a seat. Luke stopped eating, expecting his partner to begin talking. But the man fiddled with the ties of his moccasins and said nothing.
“Something bothering you?” asked Luke.
Tarpenning's eyes wandered about the shelter as he started to speak in a low but firm voice. “Luke, I've been trapping beaver and riding and walking over the mountains for some fifteen years. I've made every trapper's rendezvous they've had except last year when you and I went to Independence.”
Luke remained quiet, looking at George.
Tarpenning resumed speaking. “I've had many women, Indian, Mexican and white. Drank gallons of whiskey and killed my share of men. It's time I settled down and raised a family.” He cast a finger at the young woman sitting nearby sewing a blouse for herself. “I don't remember telling you her name. It's Morning Mist.”
Coldiron nodded his understanding. There was more to this conversation than the woman's name.
“She's with young and I have decided to keep her and the child when it is born. What do you say to that, partner?”
Coldiron controlled his surprise at George's disclosure of the woman's condition and his plans to deal with it. He hesitated, mulling over the ramifications. How could he answer his friend?
“I wish you the best of luck,” said Luke, deciding to stay clear of voicing any evaluation of the proposal.
Tarpenning looked inquisitively at Coldiron, expecting him to go on. Then he realized the question put to his comrade was unfair. This was a very personal decision. He dropped his head and poked at the fire with a stick. “Well, I wanted you to know. We'll talk more about it after you have a chance to think on it.”
He stood up without further discussion and stalked around the fire to find a seat near the girl.
Luke closely observed the expression on the woman's countenance. The beautiful dark features gave no hint as to what thoughts crossed her mind. She continued to methodically punch holes in the joining seam of two pieces of buckskin, push a narrow strip of binding hide through and pull it tight.
Luke believed she knew he was watching her; however, she gave no indication of it. Did she understand Tarpenning's intended plan for her? Would she resist it?
Coldiron put his food down without finishing it and left the cave.
* * *
Coldiron traveled up the western rim of the valley, stopping at each of his traps. He halted instantly when he saw the three sets of snowshoe tracks crossing in front of him and going down into the bottom. He hesitated only a moment to glance left to see where the trail came out of the woods and then right to sight along it. The presence of anyone at this time of year meant danger and he had to warn George. Dropping the pelts of two gray foxes he had caught, he raced along the stretch of disturbed snow, moving as swiftly as the clumsy snowshoes allowed.
He passed a spot where the three men had stopped to spy on the cabin. Now he knew without doubt they were enemies and he increased his pace to the maximum, plunging recklessly ahead. He crossed the ice-locked creek and climbed the bank. He charged past the horses. Startled, they threw up their heads and trotted aside, floundering in the deep snow.
When within fifty feet of the shelter entrance, Luke halted, removed the snowshoes and slipped forward silently. He lifted aside the door flap and peered in, his rifle cocked.
Tarpenning and the Indian woman sat on the far side of the fire, facing the entrance. Three large men, their backs to Luke, rested on bales of beaver skins, skins it appeared they had brought with them. The men were eating.
Their rifles leaned against the wall near the door.
“Luke, come in,” called Tarpenning, spotting Coldiron in the doorway. “I want you to meet some gents who are trapping on the first creek to the west.”
Coldiron thought he detected relief in George's voice, but it was well concealed. He crossed to casually place his rifle on the packs in the rear of the cave. Then he came to stand beside Tarpenning.
“Sidlow, Lacy and Stauber,” said George, swinging his hand to point out the men as he called their names. “This is my partner, Coldiron. Luke, I've invited them to have something to eat.”
The strangers grinned with full mouths and bobbed their heads in greeting. Their eyes did not match their smiles, as they measured Coldiron with cold stares.
“Howdy,” said Coldiron, returning the hard looks. He judged them brutal men who would not hesitate to kill for something they wanted. He noted each of them was armed with pistol and knife. George had only a knife on him. That was bad. Luke unbuttoned his coat to expose his own weapons ready to his hand.
As they ate, the strangers let their eyes slip to the other side of the fire to rove over the girl, examining her in long, intimate detail.
The woman smelled the raunchy odors of the trappers. Their eyes were like fingers probing her. She cast a stealthy glance at them and saw their ears moving and wobbling in time with their chewing jaws, like so many animals. They were disgusting and she was afraid.
The men finished eating and wiped their beards clean on the sleeves of their buckskin shirts.
Sidlow openly allowed his sight to rest on the woman. “Right pretty Injun girl you got there.”
Tarpenning shrugged his shoulders but said nothing.
Sidlow smiled shallowly. “Me and the boys here haven't seen a woman for months now and we could stand some lovin'.”
“Probably could find some Ute woman not more than a hundred miles east of here,” said Tarpenning.
“Never could get there and back this winter with all this snow,” said Sidlow.
“Man's got to plan ahead,” said Tarpenning.
“That's the best way all right. But right now I got a better idea. We'd like to buy the woman here for the rest of the winter. Forty good beaver pelts for her. What do you say to that?”
“She's not for sale,” answered Tarpenning in a flinty voice.
Luke recognized the dangerous tone and glanced at his partner. Tarpenning's eyes were hot, full of warning, if the men could only read them.
“Now don't be hasty,” said Sidlow in a mollifying voice. “Forty pelts is far more than an Injun is worth. But just to show we want to be fair, we'll give ten more pelts, fifty in all for her.”
“No!” Tarpenning's eyes were furious, his voice strained and intense as he snapped the word out.
Luke felt the hair move on the back of his neck. He knew the wild, fierce nature of George. And the fact they were outnumbered three to two would mean nothing. But it would be worse than madness to fight with knives and pistols in the small, confined space of the cave. All of them could b« killed.
The strange trappers stood up as if on a signal. Sidlow spoke through stiff lips. “Then just let us borrow her for a week or so and then you can have her back.”
“No!” repeated Tarpenning and he put his hand on the butt of his knife.