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“Jasper isn’t any less dead today than he was yesterday,” Watchman said, but then he had to think about that. He hadn’t been raised to believe in eye-for-an-eye retribution; that was a white man’s concept. Indian law didn’t lean hard on revenge and punishment; it emphasized compensation of the victim instead. But you couldn’t compensate Jasper Simalie. The question had run through his mind at odd intervals in the past two days and although he had never developed much of an introspective habit he was begi
He looked across the horse’s withers while he was snugging the cinch and saw Vickers by the fire, shouldering into his heavy coat. It didn’t strike Watchman until a moment later that ten minutes ago he hadn’t been able to see that far through the driving snow. Now the camp was quite clearly visible. Snow was falling at a slant, not too heavily, and the wind was breaking up into gusts, with intervals of near-silence. He turned, hung onto his hatbrim and threw his head back to look up. The cliff receded into a mottled gray haze of drifting snow but he could make out the rim a hundred feet-above him and the bellies of fast-moving clouds.
Vickers tramped over to him, boots kicking up little powder flurries. The snow was settling quickly onto the exposed flats, which it had not done before; until now it had blown across the open ground and collected in high drifts against windbreaks.
“We’ll all go,” Vickers said.
“Them too?” Watchman was astonished.
Vickers shook his head. “I didn’t mean that. We’ve only got three horses. They’ll be on foot—they wouldn’t get far in all this snow. I told them we’d come back for them within twenty-four hours. I think I impressed it on Walker that his best chance is to stay here and wait. If he doesn’t he’ll be run down and caught eventually. He’s not as important as the other four right now.”
“All right,” Watchman said, not displeased that Vickers was using his head for a change. “We’ll leave some of the provisions here.”
“I’ve taken care of that. Are we ready to go?”
“As soon as you saddle your horse.”
Vickers’ expression changed a little—a pinching of mouth corners. Evidently he had expected somebody to saddle up for him. Watchman didn’t take the hint. He was nobody’s hired wrangler.
Getting to be a pretty proud I
He said impulsively, “My name’s Sam Watchman. Sam.”
“All right. Thanks, Sam.”
Keith Walker said, “Remember what I said about the Major and Baraclough.”
“I will. Listen, if we’re not back here by daybreak tomorrow you’d better start down the mountain. And watch your footing in the drifts.”
Mrs. Lansford said, “You’ll be back.”
“They may have headed down the back of the mountain by now. Don’t wait past morning. All right?”
“All right, Sam.”
Walker only nodded bleakly and Watchman walked to his horse.
5
It wouldn’t have taken half an hour to reach the ranger cabin if it hadn’t been for the drifts. A good part of the way the horses were up to their bellies in snow. Twice Watchman had to double back and find another way around.
At the summit the wind was still brisk but nothing like the previous day’s gale. Ramps of snow lay against two sides of the cabin all the way to the peaked roof line. The spindle tracery of the wooden watchtower loomed above the cabin in silhouette against the clouds. Watchman signaled a halt at the side of a twenty-foot boulder and took a good long time to look the place over. He didn’t see any smoke at the chimney but that didn’t need to mean anything. The blowing snow had almost erased a line of indentations in the crust that emerged from the cabin door and made an abrupt right turn and disappeared down over the far crest. It could mean they had moved on; it could mean they had laid tracks to invite their pursuers into an ambush. Watchman dismounted and dragged his rifle out of the saddle boot. Without the need of instructions Buck Stevens got down with his rifle and braced his aiming arm against the abrasive side of the boulder, training the rifle on the cabin door. Watchman nodded to him and struck off on foot to make a wide circle and come in at the cabin from its blind side. When he looked back he saw Vickers coming after him.
The scatter of boulders made it possible to keep cover until he had come up within twenty feet of the cabin. When he stopped Vickers bumped into his back and muttered, “Sorry.”
“Keep a little distance,” Watchman said, and swept the summit with a careful inspection. Nothing stirred except the wind and snow. He looked across the little flat and made a hand signal to Buck Stevens, and Stevens’ hat lifted and fell in acknowledgment. Watchman stripped off his right glove and put it in his pocket; fitted his hand into the rifle’s trigger guard and sprinted for the side wall of the cabin.
He was ready to drop and slide but his run drew no fire. Against the cabin he spent a good while listening. Heard nothing and glanced back. Vickers was still in the rocks, training his rifle on the cabin. Watchman nodded to him and Vickers made his run, skidding to a stop beside him.
Watchman went along to the front corner of the log shack and poked his head out. Stevens had the door covered but that didn’t keep anyone in the farther rocks from having it covered too.
The snow right in front of the door had been churned up and was brown with mud, thinly covered with a fresh white fall that had coated it since the tracks had been made. Watchman tried to judge how long that might be but it was hard to estimate—ten minutes, maybe two hours; the cabin roof overhung it and a lot would depend on the changes in the wind during the past hour or two.
A few blunt icicles hung from the edges of the roof. Watchman eased around the butts of the corner logs and moved along to the door, and stood there studying it and studying the rocks beyond. Vickers’ head appeared at the corner, an inquiring lift of eyebrows, and Watchman held up a palm to keep him where he was.
There was a padlock hasp, badly bent; no lock. What held the door shut was a wooden throw bar, a dowel handle of which protruded through a slot in the face of the heavy plank door. You had to slide the dowel about eight inches to the right. Watchman thought about that for a while, not touching the door, and after he had considered the temptations he went back to the corner and said, “Wait here. Don’t touch the door.” And looked both ways and jogged over to Buck Stevens’ post in the rocks.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing, I hope. Hand me that coil of rope, will you? Thanks.”
“Want me to stay put?”
“Yes. Make noise if anything moves.”
Watchman carried the lariat back to the cabin door and dropped it on the ground. Vickers was scowling at him. Watchman said, “Be a good idea if you went over to those rocks for a minute.”
“Why?”
“Just prudent,” Watchman said. He picked up the noose end of the rope and pulled it down tight into a small loop. Then he made sure the coil of rope lay properly on the ground, and gently hung the little loop on the dowel handle of the door bar. He did this very gingerly. Finally he reached down for the free end of the rope and began to pull it slowly. The rope began to uncoil, not disturbing the latch.