So that was the Wind River Range of the Rocky Mountains. Slowing Clyde to a walk, Spence studied the majestic, snow-covered peaks towering in the northwest with unabashed awe. He’d thought when he went through the Laramie Plains, the mountains to the south were pretty impressive, but each successive spine of the Rockies he’d seen was grander than the last. These seemed to rise like giant, jagged shark’s teeth above gray foothills, cutting across the high plains, a welcome change of scene after ten days spent crossing through a basin so dry that grease-wood and salt sage seemed to be the only things growing there.
Claiming he’d trapped all the way from Lodgepole Creek in the south of the new Idaho Territory to the Powder and Yellowstone rivers in the north, from the North Platte to the Green, Salt, and Snake rivers in the west, an old sutler back at Laramie had pointed out the Overland Route on an army map of the territory, saying Spence was going to miss the best places by taking it. He’d told tales of peaks high enough to touch heaven, of bottomless canyons, of cliff walls descending into deep, sky blue lakes, of hot springs spewing steam and boiling water a hundred feet into the air. A man needed to spend years out here to see all of those things, the fellow said.
Right now, Spence didn’t have weeks, let alone years to spare. Reaching behind him, he pulled out the map and unrolled it to study it. It was still one hell of a long way to California, and time was running out on him.
“From the middle of October on, you can start expecting bad weather,” the sutler had said. “If you ain’t got to the Mormon settlements before then, you’d better expect to stay there, ‘cause there’s not much chance you can get to the Sierras, let alone over ‘em, before winter sets in. And you still got a big desert to cross before you run into the Sierras, anyway. I know the Mormons call it Deseret, which I guess is supposed to be the Promised Land to ‘em, but I’ll be damned if I saw anything but rattlesnakes and buzzards alive between the Salt Lake and Carson City. Everything else was just bones left from things that died of thirst. When you do find water, half the time it’s got too much salt and soda in it to drink.”
At the rate he was going, Spence wouldn’t make it to the Mormons by then. He hadn’t had anybody yet tell him he could get through to California now, he realized grimly. But he had to. He wanted his son, and there was no way to get him without going out there. And he’d be damned before he’d spend the winter as an outsider among an unfriendly religious sect he didn’t understand. Lydia had been one wife too many for him.
No, if he waited until spring, Ross might move on, and his trail could be too cold to follow, even for the Pinkertons, Spence reasoned. And there was a good chance that Ross didn’t want Josh, anyway. With Lydia dead, he’d probably already offered the kid to anybody who’d take him.
Or there was the other possibility, the one Spence didn’t want to think about, the one that woke him up in a cold sweat at night. Maybe Ross and Josh hadn’t made it to California. They’d both had plenty of exposure to cholera before Lydia and her Auntie Fan died. The damned stuff took the young, the old, and just about everything in between, and not too many managed to survive it. Some, but not many.
Looking skyward, he saw several huge, redheaded black birds circling overhead—turkey buzzards waiting for something to die. His hand went to his gun; then he caught himself. No, he didn’t want to fire any shot he didn’t have to. While he couldn’t tell a Crow from a Cheyenne or a Sioux, he could go a lifetime without meeting any more of them. He’d already had two narrow escapes, and he sure didn’t want to push his luck again.
“Come on, Clyde,” he murmured. “We’re getting nowhere sitting here.” As he jerked on the little jenny’s rope, the pack animal resisted, then fell in behind the horse.
By late afternoon the going was rougher, and the squat brush that had dotted the land for miles and miles now mingled with a sparse sprinkling pine on uneven, rock-littered ground. Nearly a month ago, the last wagons of settlers had passed this way, and now the route was pretty much deserted. He hadn’t seen another soul since the two railroad surveyors, and they d been less than fifty miles out of Fort Laramie. By now, they’d have already gone back.
The road was ascending into the foothills as they formed an uneven pass to the south of the Wind River. The vast emptiness, the red rock bluffs, buttes, and mesas dotting the landscape between mountains and canyons emphasized the insignificance of one man. It was beautiful and eerie at the same time.
The faint smell of distant smoke was in the air, he realized suddenly. Somebody had a campfire somewhere, and it wasn’t likely he was a white man, so he had to be doubly careful. He couldn’t afford to make a fire of his own tonight.
It was nearly dark before he stopped to make his camp. And once he’d fed and hobbled Clyde and Sally, he fixed himself a cold supper of hardtack, jerky, and water before putting down his bedroll in the shelter of a rock ledge. Rolling up in his blankets, he lay for a time, staring at the riffs of clouds drifting across the stars, feeling more alone now than at any other time in his life.
Somewhere out there in that wide expanse of night, a pack of wolves hunted, yipping and howling as they cornered something; then the world went almost silent, leaving only the sound of sagebrush rolling over rock. As he finally drifted off to sleep, Spence’s last thought was how early he needed to get on the trail in the morning.
He awoke in pitch-black darkness, shivering from the cold of a strong north wind, and he realized a heavy bank of clouds had rolled in, obscuring the moon and stars. Adding another blanket, he turned on his side and pulled the covers closer, hoping to get back to sleep. As he crossed into that netherworld again, Lydia and Ross taunted him, and he promised himself revenge.
A cold rain ran down the overhanging ledge, spattering the rocky ground below, waking him again. This time, the dark had faded into a gray, dismal dawn. Groping for his saddlebag, he found his watch. It was almost seven, and the sky was pouring. For a moment, he lay there, thinking God had to be punishing him for some terrible, unremembered sin. Looking out across the scrub-dotted land, he noticed everything glistened. Ice. Nearby, the little jenny was huddled against Clyde, and the manes of both animals dripped icicles. A norther had blown in during the night, and he was facing a very different sort of nightmare.
He had to go on, he told himself. The stuff would melt in a few hours. Reluctantly rolling out of the blankets, he found the bundle of Jesse’s clothes, and added two shirts to the one he already wore before he pulled on his coat. A rolled pair of socks crinkled as he pulled it apart, and several banknotes fell out.
Chagrined, he realized it was the fifty dollars he’d given Laura Taylor in what now seemed like an age ago, and he knew she’d outwitted him. The woman was just too damned stubborn for her own good, he muttered to himself as he tugged Jesse’s socks over his own. Calling her everything from an idiot to a fool, he managed to get his boots on. Bundled in an oiled canvas overcoat, he rerolled his bedding and gathered his belongings, then quickly stuffed them under the tarp-covered packs on the jenny’s back. Retrieving a rock-hard biscuit from his saddlebag, he tried to eat it while he tightened the saddle girth under Clyde’s belly.
He broke camp cursing the miserable weather, then headed up the road again, hoping the storm wouldn’t amount to much. It was still too early for snow to last, he reassured himself. By noon, the rain would have the last vestiges of ice washed away.
But as he rode hunched over the saddle horn, the wind whipped his face raw and cut through the canvas coat like a knife through butter. His hands hurt, then grew numb, as the north wind howled louder, pelting him with ice, and he knew it was folly to try to go on today. He’d have to wait it out.
He found a hollow place on the south side of a hill and made camp there, sheltering himself and the animals by tying a blanket to scrub pines growing out of crevices in the rocks above. Using a knife, he stripped small, scraggly boughs from the trunks and piled them up behind the blanket to keep himself off the cold ground. Spreading his bedroll over them, he wrapped himself in it and tried to get warm without a fire.
Shortly after noon, the sleet turned to snow as he watched in disbelief. He hadn’t expected it to snow for at least another two or three weeks at the earliest. The flakes were big, wet, and heavy, and as soon as the wind shifted or died down, it would melt fast.
By three o’clock, the air was so white he couldn’t even see the road through it, and the temperature was going down instead of up. The storm was turning into a blizzard before his eyes. To save the water in his canteen, he ate snow with his hands, then made another meal of jerky, while he faced his dwindling choices.
He was beginning to feel cursed, that everything conspired against him to keep him from reaching California this year. If he tried to go on, he risked getting lost as the storm worsened. If he turned back, it was a long way to Laramie now. And if he stayed put, the wind was apt to bury him in the drifting snow. But he had to go on, he argued. He had a son somewhere in San Francisco.
The conflict within slowly succumbed to reason. If it was already snowing here, there was no telling how bad it’d be farther west, and the passes in the Sierras would be worse by then. If he failed to get through them, he’d probably perish, and there’d be nobody left to search for Josh—nobody left to punish Ross. He’d been a damned stubborn fool for even thinking he could do it this late, he realized bitterly.
Staring into that snow-white sky, he fought an impotent anger. The comfortable life he’d expected medicine to give him had disintegrated, leaving him nothing but the ashes of dreams he’d once thought he and Liddy shared. Four years of war, her betrayal with the shallowest man of his acquaintance, and the loss of his son had left him with next to nothing, with no purpose except revenge. He wanted to shake his fist at the Almighty, demanding to know what terrible sin he had committed to warrant such punishment.
Thad Bingham had always preached that God had some grand plan for every creature in the world, and Spence had wanted to believe that, but he couldn’t anymore. A God who could let Jesse Taylor die, leaving a destitute wife heavy with child, who could take everything Spence cared about from him, then keep him from finding the only flesh and blood he had left, wasn’t the loving God Bingham had believed in. There could be no good reason to let him get this far, then force him to go back empty-handed. But right now, it looked like he’d be spending the winter at either Laramie or McPherson, whether he wanted to or not.