The High Country
Chapter One
A Debt Paid
November 1875
Montana Territory
The big man crept silently, for his bulk, up the remaining few feet to the top of the rock strewn ridgeline, cursing the sharp scree that was cutting into his huge palms. Just before he reached the crest he removed the dark gray, sweat stained, weather worn Hardee-hat that covered his bald head, set it aside and squinted toward the north. It wasn't that this part of the country was Indian territory, but it didn't hurt to be careful. Besides, it wasn't just the Indians a man needed to watch out for. There were more than enough rogue Civil War veterans quite willing to relieve a careless man of his life, for his horse and kit and for this man the danger was greater. He'd just spent the last several months making his fair share of enemies three hundred miles south while riding for a posse that caught up to and wiped out the leader of a violent gang of rustlers and thieves. That man, Angelo Rivas, had men loyal to him; men who promised revenge and the big drifter figured it was wise to head north to his Montana property for the winter and lay low. His half Mexican blood would hate the cold but there was nothing for it. He took a quick look over his left shoulder and noted that his big, ground reined Missouri Fox Trotter; Percheron mix horse was well within reach should he need to retreat. As he expected the roan colored gelding still stood, right where he'd left him snorting at the barren ground in search of a bit of grass.
The need to lay low was why he was in this stretch of country, although the long trip to his homestead was now temporarily on hold. If the man he he'd been tracking was who he seemed to be, the big drifter owed him his life. His gut feeling told him that the rider slumped over the neck of the ambling horse was indeed none other than Elliot Salem, and Rios trusted his gut. Besides, if he was correct there was absolutely no way that the kid would be foolish enough to expose himself the way he'd been doing unless he was damn near unconscious, or damn near dead.
Tyson Rios, formerly a captain in the Union Army out of New York, had picked up the strange meandering tracks nearly two days ago. The hoof prints showed the horse to be big, very big, but more curiously they also showed the animal to be idly plodding along without guidance; simply picking its way along the easiest route, but heading nowhere; often stopping and stomping restlessly in place.
After finally getting a quick look at his target that morning Rios changed his tact, and instead of simply tailing the mysterious rider he'd sped up a bit, passed, then paralleled the man's course, if you labeled it as such, from just below the ridgeline above strange rider. Now he lay waiting, some hundred and fifty yards ahead of the man's path, to try and sight him in his scope.
Just as the rider came into view, Rios slid the old brass navigator's scope open and raised it to his dark right eye. The target squirreled into focus as he adjusted the device, and the big man sighed. Damp blood soaked the back of the man's shirt from his left shoulder down, as well as the horse's right, white haunch, possibly seeping from a second wound on the boy's right hip. Even after three years, he still wore the same battered Union forage cap Rios recalled him irreverently wearing backwards. He noted too that the man was now, oddly enough, bare footed. Rios figured he must be freezing. According to his thermometer the nights had been dropping into the teens for weeks now.
"Damn it boy, what the hell'd you get your fool ass tangled up with this time?"
He watched the horse with his slumped rider plod along, taking note of more details. The horse was what first drew his attention that morning. He'd caught just a flash of color through the fall bare, Birch glade just after sunrise as he followed warily from about two miles out. The color combined with the size of the hoof prints had set off a tingle of recognition. It was that recognition which got him to where he was now. If not for the color clue, he'd planned to abort his stalking, turn around and continue northwest toward Eureka. Some stranger, obviously toting trouble, was of no concern to Rios. In this country a man tended to his own safety first and for most. It was a harsh code, but one that men, lone wolves as they were, lived by.
The horse was a huge pure black and snow white paint. All four white socked legs ended in feet that swished with thick black feathering. He went an easy seventeen hands and the five foot, ten inch tall, narrow hipped kid looked near ridiculous riding the big boned stallion. Rios recalled the young man's prideful claim that the animal was half North American Spotted Draft, whatever the hell that was and half Friesian. Which he also bragged, was one of the Draft breeds Medieval knights rode into battle. Breed didn't matter; the stallion was big, mean and fiercely loyal to his owner. Rios had witnessed the big animal standing guard, with a vicious salvo of flashing hooves and teeth after a Mexican rustler's bullet tore through his shoulder knocking him from the saddle. It took an Argentinian gaucho and his bolas to subdue the horse long enough to get Salem clear so they could treat him. Even then the big animal screamed for hours until the kid finally came around and was able to go to him.
Salem had made the strange claims about his horse's lineage during their first encounter, seven years ago in the winter 1869. The encounter consequently led to many years of companionable traveling riding as guns for hire for posses all over the west from the Mexican border to Montana and the Canadian border. Rios grinned at the memory. He'd foolishly found himself caught in heavy weather up in Absarokas Mountain high country, above Clarks Fork Bottom. When he found, what he'd thought was a safe refuge to weather the storm, a small, dilapidated trapper's cabin he thanked his lucky fortune. Unfortunately though for the freezing, hungry, twenty-nine year old drifter, Elliot Salem had staked a claim on the little cabin two weeks earlier and the wary twenty-one year old did not wish to share either his supplies or shelter. Finally, despite the kid trying to run the big ex-captain off for nearly two days and nights with sporadic sniper fire, the duo declared a tentative truce and shared a small shack for eight weeks, safely riding out the deadly blizzard.
Now, three years after going their separate ways in San Francisco in '73, fate had once again played her strange hand, and despite the wild vastness of that part of the country she'd allowed Tyson Rios to stumble across the boy again. Or was it something more than that? Salem knew about Rios' Montana property, which raised the possibility that it had been his destination when he'd run into trouble. Or had running into trouble driven him north on a desperate survival bid to hide out and heal? Although their parting had not been exactly civil, Rios had made it clear, to the stubborn young drifter, that his 2000 plus acre homestead, about thirty-five miles out from Eureka,Montana was there should the younger man ever need to dig in.
Since Rios couldn't see the rider's face, the second point of interest that the ex-Union Captain was looking for was the boy's long gun. No, he corrected himself, long guns. The boy was a roving armory, and that was more along the lines what he was checking for. Most men carried a hand gun and a rifle, but this kid toted at least thirty pounds of long guns, not counting his ammo. Then, as Rios watched, the big paint horse slowed and skittered a bit, rotating to his left after possibly catching a whiff of Rios' big roan in the light, brisk breeze. He smiled when he saw the expected weapons. Not one carefully cased long gun, but two tucked away beneath the injured rider's left leg in a specially designed boot, and jutting from a standard rifle boot beneath the rider's right leg a smaller rifle, which he recognized as Salem's immaculateSpencer repeater. Just as there was no mistaking the horse, there was no mistaking the rifle. The smaller man had destroyed the Spencer's stock smashing in the skulls of several renegade Apaches in Arizona during a hand to hand skirmish back in '70. Not one to part with a weapon, the boy had expertly fitted it neatly back together with brass plates and pins. The detail stood out clearly in Rios' scope.
The weapons on the man's left were a pair of odd birds as well, so to speak. A trait they shared with their young owner. The first, wrapped in a waterproof leather case and tucked beneath the man's left leg, was a forty-nine inch long, muzzle loading, .45 caliberWhitworth rifle. The weapon was accurate to 1000 yards and he'd witnessed the boy taking down an Elk, straight through the heart, from 750 with ease. It had been a beautiful, clean kill.
The third long gun of the trio, also carefully cased, Rios knew to be an equally long, nine pound, single shot, .45 caliber, breech loading Martini-Henry MK I Infantry Rifle; accurate to an amazing 1000 plus yards. Rios had witnessed the Martini's prowess back in '73 when the boy killed a man from 950 yards while they were riding for a Texas Ranger Captain, named Leander H. McNelly, during the Sutton-Taylor feud down in Texas. Accuracy aside, the weapon being single shot proved pointless to the young man. Rios had witnessed him cranking off accurate shots at thirteen rounds per minute.
To round out his arsenal the younger man carried, in a well-worn, tied down leather holster brimming with rounds; a Tula made, 1853 Russian Navy Colt copy. He'd sawed off the weapon's barrel to a near snub like length, and the powerful little pistol could also be fitted with an odd detachable shoulder stock. It would win no quick draw contest, but it had stopping power, was easily concealable and with the shoulder stock proved uniquely accurate for an altered hand gun. Where the man acquired such odd guns was a mystery to Tyson Rios. What was perfectly clear though, was the frightening skill and near conscienceless regularity with which he used them.
Convinced of the rider's identification Rios closed the scope, and after checking the surroundings began to slide and skitter back down the nearly vertical slope. Once down he carefully returned the little brass tool to its case, and nestled that case securely in his left side saddle bag. Then, with striking agility he swung into the saddle. The big roan sidled a bit to the right to adjust to Rios' weight, steadied, and then stepped off at the slightest nudge of his knees. Rios clicked the horse into a canter, and began planning on exactly how to approach the ailing man. Unless the big horse, called Jacopo, remembered either his roan or himself, Rios feared that he'd not be able to get near enough to tend to its rider. Furthermore, if the animal began to buck he'd throw Salem possibly injuring him further.
With that in mind and certain that no one tailed them, Rios nudged the roan into a trot and after a few hundred yards came to a spot where they could safely angle up the slope and back down to reach the level where Salem was riding. That done Rios again waited for the wandering pair to catch up. As they passed him he edged the roan forward and began to follow at an angle just off their right side. Jacopo stopped; stutter stepped and spun round when Rios got to within fifteen feet. The big paint flared his nostrils, rolled his eyes, laid back his ears and stomped his feathered feet angrily.
"Whoa, big boy, ho there Jacopo." Rios crooned softly.
The big horse began to back away shaking its lowered head. Rios still couldn't get a glimpse of the horse's rider's face. He stood a bit in his stirrups and surveyed the surrounding landscape. Their back trail seemed clear but Rios wanted to get into the Birch wood off to their south west as quickly as possible so they'd have some cover.
He legged the roan forward and Jacopo bared his teeth and whinnied angrily. Rios sighed. Then he recalled Salem whistling at the paint to calm him. He licked his cracked his lips and tried to mimic the sound. Jacopo swung his head up and shook it side to side seeming confused.
"Easy Jacopo, easy boy; you carried him this far old boy don't shake him off now."
Again he edged his mount slightly closer this time moving so they were head to head. Jacopo side stepped away and Rios pressed his right knee into the roan to follow as he reach very slowly reach for the drooping reigns. Jacopo snorted screamed at him and Rios barely pulled back in time to escape the flashing white teeth.
"Jacopo, easy boy."
He whistled again and Jacopo stilled. Rios studied the frightened animal and reached for his rifle. He checked to see if it was loaded then very carefully extended it toward the big horse. As Jacopo backed away from the weapon Rios snagged the reigns and slung them towards himself. He grasped them firmly and held tight should Jacopo try and dodge away. He slipped the rifle back into its boot and slowly slid his right leg over the saddle never taking his eyes from Jacopo. Once down, he tugged gently on the tether until pulling it taught, and steeped toward the horse.
"Easy, ho there Jacopo, whoa now, I'm a friend. Let me see your master, big boy. Good boy Jacopo, good boy."
Finally he had the huge horse's bridle firmly in his right hand and with his left he offered him a small sweet apple. The horse refused the treat with a sharp yank on his bridle and a snort. Rios stood firm and moved more directly in front of him. He reached up slowly and scratched the white moon shaped blaze between his eyes as he'd seen Salem do.
"Easy there boy, easy Jacopo."
Finally, after several minutes of soothing chatter and stroking, Jacopo blew and relaxed. Rios knew they'd come to an agreement. The big animal shuddered a bit beginning to give in to his own exhaustion. Rios felt for the animal. The pair were un-naturally close, and carrying his unresponsive rider so far must have stressed Jacopo to the point of panic.
"Good Jacopo. Now I'm gonna see to your master. Easy big boy."
Without releasing the reigns Rios moved along Jacopo's left side and carefully reached up. Salem was slumped against the horse's thick neck his face buried in the black and white peppered mane. He parted the thick hair, and pressed his fingers against the side of the boy's filthy neck. The pulse was there but far too weak. Rios groaned he didn't have either time or any very viable options. He brushed away more of Jacopo's mane, and got a look at Salem's face. It was bruised and bloody. Someone had done a damn fine job beating him. Seemingly sensing Rios' concern Jacopo whinnied softly, and turned as far as his neck allowed as if trying to see what was occurring.
"Easy Jacopo, I'll get him taken care of."
Rios sighed, and tried to assess the man's other injuries, but due to Jacopo's size he'd need to take him down. He tried to sit him up a bit, but upon seeing that his light blue shirt, crusted with dried blood at the wound site prevented further bleeding, he stopped. No point in tearing at the injury.
"Easy Jacopo, I need to go round you boy, easy does it."
Rios moved past Jacopo's hung head to his right flank, and checked on the lower wound. Again the cloth sealed it.
"Salem." He called up to the man, "Yo Elliot."
Nothing, no response at all the younger man was unconscious. There was nothing for it. To make any kind of time Rios need to mount Jacopo and hold Salem in the saddle. The only reasons he was still there were his skills and Jacopo's intimate knowledge of his rider. Aside from smelling Salem's blood, the big horse had simply plodded along as if his owner was merely asleep in the saddle.
Without releasing Jacopo's reigns he returned to the horse's left, removed Salem's bare foot from the stirrup, and after grasping the saddle horn slowly started to mount, pausing midway to allow Jacopo to register his added weight. Content that the paint wouldn't throw them he swung his right leg the rest of the way over, and settled in behind Salem. Finally, he removed his heavy coat, wrapped it around the boy's shoulders, and gently settled him back against his broad chest securely in his strong arms. His mount would follow along. Along was fine, but Rios needed to decide along to where. Eureka was still sixty plus miles out, and his place thirty-five. His concern that Jacopo might, despite their little truce revolt, determined his decision. His place was closer. He'd get Salem there, stabilize his wounds, and ride like hell for Eureka and a doctor. He clucked, kneed Jacopo forward into a quick walk and called for his horse.
"Come on Roan, step it up, and keep up you sorry, old bastard."