“That’s all right.Them fellas had the drop on you.I didn’t much like the odds.”
“I was sure we was goners.”
Zeke positioned himself on one knee beside his friend.“Let’s take a look at that shoulder.”
Caleb and Zeke eased Everett out of his brown coat.The sleeve had been cut by a bullet high up on the shoulder.
“I’m fine, boys,” he said.“It was the fall against that boulder there that did the most damage.”
He showed them a welt the size of an egg behind his ear.
The damage from the bullet did not appear too serious.The slug had carved a groove about two inches below the shoulder joint.Pulling a bandana out of his pocket, Everett slid it under his shirt until it covered the wound.
“There, you see,” he told them.“Good as new.”
He lifted the arm and flexed his hand, wincing as he did so.It was obvious that his use of the limb would be limited for some time.
“You were dang lucky them varmints didn’t take your arm clear off,” Zeke asserted.“Or worse.”
The wounded man nodded, feeling around the nob on his skull and frowning fiercely.“Could’ve ended up like them poor souls.”
Zeke went over and picked up the white handkerchief from the ground.He laid it over the face of the blond-haired man who’d dropped it.
“This young feller is…or was Olaf Olafson,” he said, sadness in his voice.“Told me he come out here from Wisconsin cuz there was ten other fellas named Olaf Olafson in his one little town.Said he walked until he got to some place where there weren’t no other Olaf Olafsons.That was Elkhorn.Said he woulda walked all the way to China if he had to.Figured there weren’t no fellers with that name there.”
“Was he a miner?”Caleb asked.
“Nope.Worked as a carpenter in town.Olaf didn’t want nothing to do with going under the ground.Said he’d be spending enough time there soon enough.Don’t think he figured it’d be this soon.Don’t think he was even twenty years old.”
He rubbed quickly at his eye and shook his head as he stalked to the other dead man.These were Zeke’s friends and partners.Out of respect for his loss, Caleb stayed close to him.
“This here was Smollett.Tobias Smollett.Claimed his great-grandpap was some famous Scotch book author.The limey sumbitch spent more time drinking and gambling in the Belle than he ever did digging silver.He was broke as a baby this month, and I talked him into coming out with us, dang it.”
Caleb said nothing.Zeke needed to talk out his regret.His words struck a sorrowful chord in Caleb.Losing a friend was a difficult thing.Feeling responsible for it was worse.
“Smollett always claimed he was the luckiest man this side of Frisco.I never seen it.He couldn’t win at cards, and I don’t know that his mine was worth spit either.”
Zeke stood grimly silent for a moment and then slapped his battered hat hard against his thigh.
“The sumbitch never knew what hit him.Lay there on the trail after we took cover, a-moaning and a-moaning.But we couldn’t do nothing.After a while, he just gave up the ghost.”
They stood for a while as the shadows grew deeper.Finally, Zeke walked over to the sorrel.
“This little lady was mine.Them bastards shot her out from under me.”He crouched down and stroked her neck.“She was a fine, fine horse, Marlowe.”
Caleb understood, as well as anyone, the connection a man developed with his horse.Over the years, he’d ridden a number of fine mounts, but the buckskin gelding he’d left tethered in the grove a short way back on the trail was one of the best.And he needed to get her before the darkness settled.
Zeke moved around the animal to unbuckle the saddle and the bridle.The miner’s old Yellow Boy was still in its scabbard.Caleb had figured right, when the ambush started, he’d obviously never even had the chance to grab for the rifle.
“What are you all doing out here?”Caleb asked as he helped him.
“Working for Judge Patterson.Every few weeks, he has a bunch of us fellas out looking for a band of outlaws that’ve been hitting the Wells Fargo coaches.Started a couple of months ago, once the winter eased up.Nice, steady wages.”He waved a hand in the direction of his two dead partners.“Till today, it was a nice break from scratching away in that mine.”
Caleb recalled from his meeting with Patterson that he had his own men out searching for the outlaws.
He gestured up the slope from the trail.“Do you think them fellas were the ones you’ve been hunting?”
“Doubt it.”Everett piped up from where he was sitting.“The gang we’re looking for don’t waste their time on low-down villainy like this.They don’t rob no homesteader coming through, nor no carters hauling goods, nor anyone else.If there ain’t no Wells Fargo strongbox involved, they ain’t interested.”
