The Ferguson Rifle

Lucinda came out beside me, and we sat there, screened and shadowed by spruce, studying the terrain before us. After a moment, she indicated a shoulder of rock some ten miles off across country to the east and south. "That's a place I was to look for.

We're very close." "What is it we're to look for? How will we know?" She waited several minutes to reply, and I could understand. Without doubt, it had been drilled into her to tell no one. That she had been told at all was simply the only kind of insurance her father could offer... in the event something happened to him, and to Conway.

Solomon Talley had come up beside her, but she hesitated no longer. "There's a great slope burned bare above a blue black cliff about twenty feet high. Above the burned area there's a slope of reddish yellow broken rock." "Is that all?" I stared at her. I simply could not believe it, nor could Solomon. "Was there nothing more?" "Across the creek bed there was a rocky face with a jagged white streak... like lightning... upon the face of the rock." Neither of us said a thing. We just stared off across the darkening hills, not knowing whether to laugh or simply throw up our hands. They were just such landmarks as a tenderfoot might choose... and utterly useless.

She looked from Solomon to me. "What's wrong?" He poked at the ground with a stick, and I said, "Lucinda, in these mountains, and in any lot of mountains, you'll find a thousand such places. And as for that bare slope... there's hardly a chance that it's still bare." "You mean... you mean it isn't any good?

We can't find it?" "I didn't say that. We do know it's near here. But you see, that Spanish officer expected to return. He knew the place. The landmarks he chose were no doubt taken quickly, with little time.

He noticed the most obvious things.

"Such slopes are quite common high in the mountains, and as for the white streak, it was undoubtedly quartz and that's a familiar sight, too. It's evident this description originated from the Spanish officer. Any Indian with him would have observed differently." She looked like she had been struck. Her face was pale. "Then we can't find it?" "One chance in a thousand," Talley said, "but there must have been something else? Some other thing? A hint of some kind?" "No." We walked back to the fire and sat down.

Talley explained briefly. We all felt sorry, not for ourselves, because we had lost nothing, but for her, who had lost everything.

We had come west after fur, at least most of us had. Why I had come I did not yet know.

To run away from something? From everything? To change myself? Or to return to a lost boyhood?

"The joke's on him," Shanagan said, "that white-faced spalpeen from Mexico. After all, we did come after fur, and we can still get fur.

He's got nothin' facin' him but a long ride back." "But he doesn't know that," Ebitt replied gently. "He doesn't know, and he'd never believe it. He'd think we were lying. And you remember what he said... he'd kill us all ... trying to make us tell what we don't know." We looked at each other across the fire. The hope of treasure was gone; the long march to the Mandan villages remained. Nothing was solved.

And somewhere on our back trail, Rafen Falvey was riding.

CHAPTER 14

We sat about our fire feeling very glum indeed, not for ourselves, for we had little to lose, but for Lucinda, for whom we'd all come to feel a great affection.

In a difficult and desperate situation, she had not complained. She had ridden with the best of us, she had calmly made do with what was available, she had said nothing about the food, nor had she asked any special privileges.

Suddenly angry, I looked over at Degory Kemble. "Damn it, Deg, we've got to do something! The stuff was hidden, and with information as poor as that, I doubt if anything has been found." "How far from that promontory back there?" Talley asked.

"A day's ride," she said.

"And that might be anything from twelve to thirty miles, depending on their horses, their anxiety, and what they figured to do." "It would be nearer the lesser figure," Cusbe Ebitt replied. "Think now... they had the treasure with them. Indians were already with them or closing in. We ca

"Think of it now. They wanted to get away to the French colonies where they could return to Europe and live in style in Paris or London or Rome. They didn't want to bury that treasure.

"So they would have moved slowly, I think. They would have been looking for a place, something that offered a camp... a good reason for stopping... and something that offered some kind of a marker. Something more than we've been told." "But I've told you all I know!" Lucinda protested.

Solomon Talley nodded his head. "I think you have. That doesn't mean there was nothing more. It's likely there was something they reserved for themselves, some knowledge they held back." "My guess is that we're within five miles of it right now," Isaac said.

Firelight flickered against the dark spruces and the white trunks of the aspen. They were some of the largest aspen I had seen, for the aspen grows in thick stands, grows tall and straight. It is a tree that likes the sun, needs the sun, and it is one of the first to grow across burns where fire has swept. It grows up, grows tall, and then under its cover the spruce begins to grow, sheltered and protected by the aspen. Yet as the spruce grow taller, the aspen tend to die out, until after many years the aspen are gone and a thick stand of spruce remains.

One of the most beautiful trees anywhere, it is not a good timber tree, for it rots from the heart out. Now with winter coming on, the aspen had already turned to gold. The earth where we were to sleep was inches deep with the golden leaves... treasure enough for me.

Rising from the fire, I gathered leaves and heaped them into a place for Lucinda to lie, then bunched leaves for myself. I was restless and wakeful. Deliberately we had allowed our fire to burn down to coals. We fed it some knots and chunks lying about, but such as would smoulder and burn but would make no bright flame.

Bob Sandy's leg was bothering him. We had treated it as best we could, and though it was but a flesh wound, it was painful and his leg was stiff.

He was first to sleep, then Ebitt.

Heath was standing the first watch, and was already on the slope below us. Kemble and Talley both turned in, and then Jorge Ulibarri, after finding there was nothing he could do for Lucinda, went to sleep well back in the stand of aspen. Davy Shanagan lay under a spruce, out of sight from but within sight of the fire.

"Why do they call you Scholar?" she asked suddenly.

I shrugged. "It began as a joke, but I was a teacher briefly. A restless one, I'll admit. Research I liked, teaching I liked also, but I've done a bit of writing, and studied law somewhat. To be frank, I've not fallen into a settled pattern. You see, as a boy I lived much in the woods. The wilderness left its mark on me, and I would find myself longing for the dark paths among the trees again." "And now what?" she asked.

"Who knows? I doubt if I'll ever go back to what I was. Of course, there's much to be learned. I'm tempted to travel, to explore more of the ancient civilizations in Asia. Or here, for that matter. Too little is known about what happened here before the white man came." "You're not married?" "My wife is dead. It was then I cast off my ties to all I'd been." I got up.