Uncertain Justice

Chapter 37

Miles sighed and trudged down to the little hollow where the deer had been grazing. He would need the bolt for future hunts. Slipping in a patch of dew-dampened grass didn't improve his mood. In his mind, Miles could hear the buck laughing as Miles' posterior smacked onto the wet ground.

He used his knife to carve the arrow from the trunk of an aspen fifty yards beyond where he'd seen the deer. The sharp point of the bolt had penetrated more than three inches into the wood, making the extraction a laborious task. He had to work slowly and carefully in order not to damage the point. The bolts and precious steel points couldn't be replaced out here. With the breeze striking him full in the face, he set off to find another herd of big Rocky Mountain deer.

§

He dumped water on the last of the fires he'd used to smoke the deer meat. Hidden close against the dark rock of the cliff, the fires had smoldered for days under tall trees whose branches and leaves dispersed the rising smoke. It had taken a little more than two weeks to get everything done.

After getting the feel for the crossbow, he'd killed two deer, careful to not take both from the same herd. He did as much as possible to see the entire carcass got used in some way. Even the brains had been used, mixed with ashes as described in his survival handbook, to cure the hides--tanning them for future use. The unusable bones, hooves, and skull had been buried deep to avoid attracting the wolves and mountain lions he hadn't seen much of yet. There were tracks though. He assumed the predators were always around.

He figured he had fifty pounds or more of smoked venison and jerky in the pack waiting under the tall tree. The hides were lashed to the outside of the pack. He didn't know yet what he would use them for, but the skins were too good to throw away.

Miles hoisted the backpack to his right knee. Holding the pack steady with his left hand, he thrust his right arm through the shoulder strap. With the weight supported entirely on his right shoulder, he wrestled his left arm behind him and through the left strap and hoisted the pack into place. He spent the next few minutes adjusting straps and equipment for the most comfortable fit. It was good to be breaking camp; he'd been in one place for too long and he was getting restless.

New to his outfit since he'd begun his trek was the rawhide holster for his pistol. He'd fashioned the holster from the hide of his first kill, working the leather, soaking it, and forming it to the weapon until he was satisfied with the fit. The holster he'd brought with him hadn't been designed for wear with a backpack--in fact, it was damn near impossible to wear with the pack--but he'd long since decided carrying the g*n was an absolute necessity.

The newly constructed one had an extra large belt loop that fit over the inside of the hip belt with two extra layers of buckskin on the inner surface for padding against Miles' belly. The hip belt hid most of the weapon, but it was still easily accessible with a cross-belly draw. He kept his old holster and belt to wear when he wasn't carrying the pack.

Miles laughed to himself as he practiced his "fast draw" on an owl he spied roosting on a branch nearby. Wild Bill Hickok, he was not. But then, he didn't need to be.

Jesse James wasn't even in the neighborhood.

The chuckle surprised a ground squirrel an owl had been eyeing hungrily from his perch. Scampering to safety, the squirrel chattered at Miles as the fugitive walked away. The man picked up a game trail heading vaguely south.

The owl blinked his eyes in disgust and kept his head on a swivel as he searched for another creature suitable for a meal.

§

He was as lost as anyone ever had been. That was fine; being lost was part of the plan. The fugitive hadn't seen another human being in weeks, but he didn't miss social contact all that much. He'd always been a loner, comfortable within himself and accustomed to a solitary existence.

Though often alone in his adult life, he was rarely lonely.

Miles sat on a large rock, letting the stone support most of the weight of the heavy backpack while he debated whether to take off the instrument of t*****e or not. He stuffed a handful of berries in his mouth and chewed appreciatively. He'd picked them as he walked. IThere was good variety here and not many competitors for them.

When he reached around to the back of the pack for his canteen, it threw his balance off and he had to struggle to keep from tumbling backwards off the boulder. That settled it.

He unbuckled everything and let the shoulder straps fall away. He eased the pack off. It felt fantastic.

"Dumb a*s!" he counseled himself. "Next time, just do it and get it over with." He bent to free the canteen from its lashings on the side of the pack and took a long swallow. He squatted beside the pack, leaning against the rock while he wiped sweat from his forehead. Still cool--sometimes cold--at night, the season had advanced enough that the days were getting very warm.

Everything was green and growing.

Idly he compared that to the brown, almost burnt, appearance that much of the plant life would soon be assuming in the south Texas summer to come. For the most part, he liked the refreshing breezes and cool green shadows in the mountains much better. On the other hand, he thought loyally, there was no other place in the world quite like Texas. It was the only state in the union to have been an independent nation.

It had been a true republic ... huge too ... larger, in fact, than many a country in the world today and it had been even larger when the Spanish had still held title. He wondered if this hill had once been part of Texas before sections had been shaved off when the rest of the states were allowed to join Texas in union. He laughed.

He closed his eyes as he tried to recall a map from a high school history class; he decided, totally without any evidence either way, that it was probable he was still in that territory marked on the map as the original Texas. It seemed to Miles this mountain region all the way west to what eventually became Utah had once been included in the Spanish territory. He relaxed and settled against the boulder, dozing in the warmth of the midday sun.

He dreamed of small companies of conquistadors and priests as they toiled their way through the mountains, exploring the region and claiming it for God and Spain. There were other Indians--some of them allies, some conquered by Spaniards and others who fought off the strangely armed and armored soldiers.

Miles felt the heft of the long sword in his grip as he yanked it from its scabbard when the savages attacked, seemingly, from the very ground beneath the hooves of the exploration party's horses.

Miles sensed the tension in the bowstring as he prepared to loose an arrow at one of the invaders mounted on the backs of the strange animals. He saw tribes who watched from a distance but took no part in the drama. As he watched, they all faded until they were no longer.

In his dream, Miles was troubled. Waking from his short nap, he struggled to throw off the lethargy brought on by the too short rest. Lifting the canteen to his lips, he looked around for animal or human who might have come close while he slept.

Across the valley to the east, he caught sight of a dark line zigzagging its way along the low ridge. It rose to the crest in easy stages and disappeared over the summit. The line was a trail ... perhaps nothing more than a track ground into the earth by generations of deer or mountain sheep ... or it could be a path used by Indians in ancient times.

Spanish missionaries and soldiers may have walked it, hunting for the mysterious city of gold they heard of from neighboring tribes. Whatever its history, he was drawn to it.

Besides, he didn't have any better direction to travel.

§

When he reached the ridge Miles hunted for the trail he'd seen from a distance. It took a while to realize the trail he was looking revealed itself only as a series of long, bare patches where the earth had been pounded into concrete hardness and where grass still could not take root. He walked south along the ridge, shading his eyes and looking into the distance to find the next segment. He needed all his concentration just to stay on course.

The trace led through a low saddle between two hills and changed direction until he was hiking more east than south. Then a tall cliff forced a detour all the way back around to the west to avoid steep inclines

Game trail or Indian byway, it followed the easiest contours of the terrain as it wound through the hills and brush covered ravines, climbing high only to descend again. He hadn't seen any of the tiny brooks that usually crisscrossed the mountain slopes and the lack of water began to concern him.

At the foot of a tall, mesa, the trail dropped into a canyon that quickly narrowed until he was walking between sheer walls only three or four yards apart. Rushing water eons ago had carved the soft rock into strange, intricate patterns as high as he could see on both walls. He walked in deep shadows that provided a welcome break from the sun.

In a hidden alcove a few steps down a side canyon, he found faded pictographs whose significance he couldn't begin to understand. Wonderingly, he swept his hand a few inches away from the rock along the ancient symbols. Long dead men had worked to leave a message for those who followed. He wondered what the message had been and why it had been left in such a remote place.

§

By mid-afternoon, the sun was bearing down hard. The pale colored rock walls of the canyon trapped the sunlight and reflected palpable waves of heat back and forth between them. The trail began to climb the right wall. Sometimes it rose sharply, but in most places the incline was slight. A strengthening breeze began to touch him but the oven-like heat quickly overcame its cooling effect. He trudged on, gulping water whenever he could take a break on the irregular surface.

The bottom of the cut gradually fell away until the trail clung high on the wall in the bright sun. The opposite side of the gorge was more than a hundred yards now. Half a mile later, the rock shelf was almost level--gentle up slopes were countered by declines. He'd seen no sign of water since early this morning. Pebbles, loosened by the expansion of the rock in the heat rattled down the steep walls at intervals. Once he had been forced to huddle against the canyon wall as a larger stone rebounded off a change bulge in the rock face to fall past him.