The following morning, the four men headed back to the trailhead pointed out by the sheriff. It was a steep uphill grade initially, but the trail itself was fairly wide – plenty wide for the horses as long as they rode single file. After about an hour on the trail, it flattened out a bit. The path also became narrower and was a shelf road that carried them along the edge of a sheer cliff. The drop straight down was at least 500 ft.
Vin went first, followed by Ezra, Josiah, and Chris. The horses slipped on the loose rocks, and the narrowness of the trail left no room for error. The view, though, was beautiful. Vin was the only one who had spent extended periods of time in the Rocky Mountains, and Ezra, Josiah, and Chris were awed by the sights. The sky was a bright blue, and they were surrounded by snow-capped peaks.
As they approached 10,000 ft. in elevation, the temperatures grew much colder. There were patches of snow in shady areas, and the men wished they had brought their heavier coats.
As the four travelers encountered a bend in the trail, Josiah's horse stepped on yet another slippery area of rock. The horse didn't fall, but it went down to one knee. That was enough of a quick change to cause its rider to lose his seat. Josiah hit the ground with a resounding thump and proceeded to roll directly over the edge of the cliff.
"Wonder how the hunt for the Storm gang is going?" Buck asked as he ambled into the jail, where JD was getting ready to head out on patrol.
"Buck," JD said, surprised to see the taller man out of bed. JD was feeling fine now after his bout with a late spring cold, but his moustached-friend was still working to fight off the bug. JD felt especially bad because he knew he had been the one to infect Wilmington. "How are you feelin?" JD asked. "You still don't look too good."
"Now, I thought we covered that already...the fact that it is damn near impossible for me to look bad," Buck coughed then smiled. JD was right though; Buck was still pale and there were dark circles under the ladies' man's blue eyes.
"It was just gettin' too damn lonely in that room of mine," Buck continued. "Nathan said no visits from Blossom, so I figured if I leave and go to her room - I'm technically not breakin' Nathan's rule."
"Buck," JD chastized, "are you sure you're feelin' up to THAT?"
"Hell, son, I'm always ready for THAT," Buck grinned and followed JD out the door. Blossom was just on her way to Mrs. Potter's store, when she saw her handsome friend.
"Buck," she ran towards him and engulfed him in a bear hug, "oh, I've missed you so. How are you? Mr. Jackson said you were ill...in fact you still look kind of peaked. I think you should go to my room and lie down. I'll get us some breakfast, and I'll be right up."
Buck coughed on cue, and said, "why thank you darlin'. It's been a rough few days, but I definitely think breakfast with you is just what the doctor ordered."
Blossom headed over to the store, and Buck looked at JD and winked. He then headed towards Blossom's room.
Nathan walked down the steps of the clinic and over to JD. "Was that just Buck I saw go in the boardin' house?"
JD didn't want to tattle on his friend, so he just shrugged his shoulders.
"His lungs were still awful congested last night," Nathan glared at the hazel-eyed youth. "If I find out that fool is runnin' around town, I swear I'm gonna tie him to his bed."
JD tried not to make eye contact with the healer, mounted his horse, and said, "sorry Nate, I got patrol. I'll see ya later."
Larabee yelled, "Josiah!" and immediately jumped off his mount with his heart about to pound out of his chest. He almost cried when he looked over the edge and saw Josiah hanging onto the branch of a tiny little shrub about a foot down the cliff wall. Chris dropped to his stomach and reached over and grabbed Josiah's left wrist just as the shrub let go - roots and all.
Once the bush came loose, Chris had all of Josiah's weight, and that pulled both of them down another 3 or 4 inches. Chris dug the toes of his boots into the ground as hard as he possibly could. "Vin! Ezra!" screamed Chris, as he tried his hardest to pull Josiah up the slope. His efforts only managed to make them both slide another couple of inches, and he knocked some fairly large rocks off the edge and right onto Josiah's face. One of them hit hard on the big man's temple and caused a good-sized cut to form and bleed.
Josiah, too, was hoping help arrived soon. Sanchez knew he was too heavy for Chris to pull back up by himself, and he was afraid he was going to drag them both to their deaths if Vin and Ezra didn't show up in the next couple of minutes.
"Hang on boys," shouted Vin. He and Ezra heard Chris scream and immediately looked back and noticed Josiah was missing. "Go help Chris, Ez. I'll get a rope," instructed Vin.
The gambler's arms were not as long as Larabee's, so he was unable to reach Josiah's other hand. Therefore, he figured that the best way he could be of help right now was to add some weight to Larabee to keep Josiah from pulling them further over the edge. So, Ezra sat down on Chris' back. That stopped Chris from sliding any further, but Larabee wasn't expecting it and felt all of the air rush out of his lungs when Ezra plopped down.
Ezra then called out, "Fear not, Mr. Sanchez. Our resourceful tracker is bringing some rope, and we will have you back on solid ground momentarily."
As promised, within a minute, Vin showed up with the rope. He had tied one end to a solid tree on the other side of the trail. He then tied the other end underneath of Josiah's arms.
"Hop up here Ez and help me pull," Vin said as he leaned all of his weight back on the rope. Ezra grabbed on, behind Vin, and both men began to pull as hard as they could. Once they got Josiah close to the top, Chris was able to get to his knees and help hoist him the rest of the way. The four men collapsed to the ground, out of breath and sweating despite the cold temperatures.
"You ok, Josiah?" asked Chris, as he crawled over to get a better look at the older man lying on the ground. Josiah sat up, smiled one of his huge smiles, and said, "I'm just fine, brother, thanks to you boys."
Vin got up to grab the mini-medical kit that Nathan packed, and he and Ezra went to work cleaning and bandaging the cuts and scrapes on Josiah's face, arms and legs.
Chris remained seated on the ground for another few minutes, while he waited for his heart to return to a normal rhythm. Josiah had been looking up at him the entire time, but he had been looking down. It was an extremely long and rocky drop, and there would have been no way that Josiah would have survived if he had fallen.
Within the hour they were back on the trail, but the men decided to walk their horses for the next few miles. By that time, they met back up with the original, larger trail and were able to mount up and ride more safely on up higher into the mountains.
The trail was covered with fresh snow, which meant no tracks for Vin to follow. He could see some broken tree branches along the path and other signs that suggested riders passed through here not too long ago. Vin believed that they were on the correct path, but he was surprised at how high up these fellows had chosen to camp.
It was starting to get dark, and the four men came upon a relatively flat, forested area. There was enough grass for the horses, so it looked like as good of a place as any to camp tonight. Vin went out alone on foot while the other three prepared the camp and dinner. Tanner found fresh boot tracks about a mile from where he left the boys, and peeking over the ridge he could see and smell smoke from a campfire. They had found them. It was fully dark now, so Vin simply returned to camp. He would scout again in the morning to see how many gang members there were and determine the best way to capture them.
The lanky tracker shared the news with the other three men when he arrived at their campsite. Chris was waiting for Vin's report to decide whether it was safe to make a campfire. Vin's opinion was that it was not a good idea since Storm's men were less than a mile away. Ezra groaned audibly. The temperatures were already below freezing, and they would likely continue to drop until sunrise the next day. The wind howled, and Ezra knew he was really going to miss the warmth of his feather bed tonight.
"Why did we bother coming up here to arrest Storm's men?" Ezra questioned to no one in particular. "Simply leave them out in this weather for a week or two, and they'll all freeze to death anyway."