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"The White Savages of Bad Medicine Mountain"
9/13/1878
I.
"Johnny Packard, just where do you think you are going?" demanded the white-haired scarecrow of a woman.
Reining in his black horse Terror on the muddy main street of Just-Plain-Awful, the Brimstone Kid felt his heart sink. He feared neither man nor beast nor act of nature. Old women, though, were a problem since he had been brought up to respect and defer to them. He saw Bedelia Thorpe standing on the porch of the town's general store, bony hands clutching her broom as if wanting to strangle it, and something truculent in her pose alarmed him.
"I'm takin' Terror out to stretch his legs," the young cowboy replied. Even outside, he lifted his black Stetson to the lady when first addressing her. "Him and me been cooped up two days on account of the rain."
Her basilisk stare finally wore him down and he reined up alongside the porch and asked, "What is it you want, Miz Bedelia?"
The old woman give him a scornful snort, and put her hands onto her bony hips and sniffed at him as if he had stepped in one of the numerous horse piles left in the street.
"I want you should go git my brother Reuben and bring him home," she said at last. "He's off on one of his idiotic prospectin' sprees again. He snuck out before daylight with the mare and a pack mule. You bring him back if you have to lasso him and tie him to his saddle. Old fool! Off huntin' treasure when they's work to be done stocking shelves and fixing the back door hinges. You git goin'."
"Ain't my place to go chasin' him all over Bad Medicine Mountain," Johnny Packard protested. "Gramps is no kin of mine. Get together a posse."
But Bedelia would have nothing of that. As she explained her grievances, her voice getting louder and shriller all the time until dogs started howling in pain. She was still ranting as Johnny rode up the trail toward Bad Medicine Mountain Gap, and he seemed to hear echoes long after he couldn't see her any more. She had quite a shrillness. Birds flew off in fear when she raised her voice.
Once they were out of town, the stallion Terror obviously wanted to gallop so badly that Johnny let him. They had been too long in one spot, the Kid reflected. Townsfolk of Just-Plain-Awful had become used to him and treated him like any other cowboy. Even those who had witnessed the horrifying transformation into the true Brimstone Kid somehow had come to accept it. Johnny was making decent money working at the Schoeber ranch but he definitely knew it was time to move on.
Long hours later, Johnny was riding up the long rise that led up to the Gap, looking and listening. A sharp crack sounded up ahead and his hat flew off his head. The Kid reacted with an alacrity born of too many shootouts. He quickly reined Terror behind a chest-high clump of brush, and leaped down to lie flat in the dirt with one of his Peacemakers in his right hand. He glared up toward the Gap, and spotted the unlovely rear of a mule sticking from behind a cluster of boulders.
"You quit that shootin' at me, Gramps!" Johnny yelled at the top of his lungs. Inwardly, he was relieved that it was not a serious ambush. There were far too many men riding the West with deadly grudges against him.
"Stay right whar you be," an older voice called back. "I figger Bedelia sent you after me, but I ain't goin' home. I'm onto somethin' big at last!"
"What could you mean?" the Kid demanded.
"Keep back or I'll ventilate you," he promised. "I'm goin' for the Dago Silver Mine."
"Aw, you been huntin' that thing for thirty years," Johnny scoffed. "You might as well run toward a rainbow fer the pot of gold."
"This time it's a sure bet," Gramps said. "I bought a map off'n a drunk Mexican over in Three Corners. One of his ancestors was a Injun which helped pile up the rocks to hide the mouth of the cave where it is."
"Why didn't he go find it his own self and git the gold?" Johnny asked.
"He said he's skeered of ghosts," said Gramps. "I personally think it's just too much work to suit him. They's a fortune in the Dago Silver Mine. Now will you go on back peaceable like, or will you throw in with me? I might need you, in case of bandits or renegade Comanche."
"I'll come with you," Johnny said, not at all eager to return to town and face Miz Bedelia. "Maybe you have got somethin', at that. Put up yore Winchester. I'm coming soon as I fetch my hat." The Kid scowled at the ragged hole in the crown of his black Stetson but he reassured himself that the cursed Gremthom coin in the band had not been damaged.
Gramps emerged from his rocks, a skinny leathery old cuss, and he said: "What about Bedelia? If you don't come back with me, she'll foller us out here herself. She's that strong-minded. And this is rough territory for a lady to traverse."
"I'll leave a note for her," the Kid said. "Joe Blodgett always comes down through the Gap once a week on his way to town. He's due through here today. I'll stick the note on a tree, where he'll see it and take it to her."
Johnny had a pencil-stub in his saddle-bag, so he tore a piece of wrapping paper from a can of tomatoes Gramps had in his pack, and carefully wrote:
'Dear Miz Bedelia
'I am takin Gramps way up in the mountains. Don't send anyone to follow us, it wouldn't be healthy. You'll hear from us. Respectfully, Johnny.'
He folded the scrap and wrote on the outside:
'Dear Joe: please take this here note to Miz Bedelia Thorpe back in town.'
Johnny Packard was as proud of knowing his letters and how to do arithmetic as he was of any other skill. In every town he passed through, he made a point to read the local newspaper and he often picked up a dime novel when he could.
Then Johnny and Gramps set out for the higher ranges, and he started reciting all about the Dago Mine again, like he'd already done many times before. The tale told of an Italian prospector named Vito Spinelli who had stumbled onto a cave almost thirty years earlier. The walls had veins of gleaming silver thick as ropes. But the Indians jumped him and run him out and he got lost and nearly starved in the desert, and went crazy. When he come to a settlement and finally regained his mind, he tried to lead a party back to it, but never could find it. Gramps said the Indians had used rocks and brush to conceal the mouth of the cave so nobody could tell it was there.
Johnny reasonably asked how he knew the Indians had done that, and Gramps said it was common knowledge. Any fool oughta know that's just what they done.
"This-here mine," says Doc Valentine, "is located in a hidden valley which lies away up amongst the high ranges. I ain't never seen it, and I thought I'd explored these mountains plenty. Ain't nobody more familiar with 'em than me except Noah Chadwick. But it stands to reason that the cave is awful hard to find, or somebody'd already found it. Accordin' to this here map, that lost valley must lie just beyond Dead-End Canyon. Ain't many white men knows whar that even is. We're headin' there."
We had left the Gap far behind us, and was moving along the slanting side of a sharp-angled crag whilst he was talking. As we passed it, we seen two shadowy figures with horses emerge from the other side, heading in the same direction we was, so our trails converged. Gramps glared and reached for his Winchester.
"Who's that?" he snarled.
"The big un's Sheb Hartline," Johnny said. "I never seen the other one."
"And nobody else has, outside of a traveling sideshow, " growled Gramps.
( the rest of the story )
9/13/1878
I.
"Johnny Packard, just where do you think you are going?" demanded the white-haired scarecrow of a woman.
Reining in his black horse Terror on the muddy main street of Just-Plain-Awful, the Brimstone Kid felt his heart sink. He feared neither man nor beast nor act of nature. Old women, though, were a problem since he had been brought up to respect and defer to them. He saw Bedelia Thorpe standing on the porch of the town's general store, bony hands clutching her broom as if wanting to strangle it, and something truculent in her pose alarmed him.
"I'm takin' Terror out to stretch his legs," the young cowboy replied. Even outside, he lifted his black Stetson to the lady when first addressing her. "Him and me been cooped up two days on account of the rain."
Her basilisk stare finally wore him down and he reined up alongside the porch and asked, "What is it you want, Miz Bedelia?"
The old woman give him a scornful snort, and put her hands onto her bony hips and sniffed at him as if he had stepped in one of the numerous horse piles left in the street.
"I want you should go git my brother Reuben and bring him home," she said at last. "He's off on one of his idiotic prospectin' sprees again. He snuck out before daylight with the mare and a pack mule. You bring him back if you have to lasso him and tie him to his saddle. Old fool! Off huntin' treasure when they's work to be done stocking shelves and fixing the back door hinges. You git goin'."
"Ain't my place to go chasin' him all over Bad Medicine Mountain," Johnny Packard protested. "Gramps is no kin of mine. Get together a posse."
But Bedelia would have nothing of that. As she explained her grievances, her voice getting louder and shriller all the time until dogs started howling in pain. She was still ranting as Johnny rode up the trail toward Bad Medicine Mountain Gap, and he seemed to hear echoes long after he couldn't see her any more. She had quite a shrillness. Birds flew off in fear when she raised her voice.
Once they were out of town, the stallion Terror obviously wanted to gallop so badly that Johnny let him. They had been too long in one spot, the Kid reflected. Townsfolk of Just-Plain-Awful had become used to him and treated him like any other cowboy. Even those who had witnessed the horrifying transformation into the true Brimstone Kid somehow had come to accept it. Johnny was making decent money working at the Schoeber ranch but he definitely knew it was time to move on.
Long hours later, Johnny was riding up the long rise that led up to the Gap, looking and listening. A sharp crack sounded up ahead and his hat flew off his head. The Kid reacted with an alacrity born of too many shootouts. He quickly reined Terror behind a chest-high clump of brush, and leaped down to lie flat in the dirt with one of his Peacemakers in his right hand. He glared up toward the Gap, and spotted the unlovely rear of a mule sticking from behind a cluster of boulders.
"You quit that shootin' at me, Gramps!" Johnny yelled at the top of his lungs. Inwardly, he was relieved that it was not a serious ambush. There were far too many men riding the West with deadly grudges against him.
"Stay right whar you be," an older voice called back. "I figger Bedelia sent you after me, but I ain't goin' home. I'm onto somethin' big at last!"
"What could you mean?" the Kid demanded.
"Keep back or I'll ventilate you," he promised. "I'm goin' for the Dago Silver Mine."
"Aw, you been huntin' that thing for thirty years," Johnny scoffed. "You might as well run toward a rainbow fer the pot of gold."
"This time it's a sure bet," Gramps said. "I bought a map off'n a drunk Mexican over in Three Corners. One of his ancestors was a Injun which helped pile up the rocks to hide the mouth of the cave where it is."
"Why didn't he go find it his own self and git the gold?" Johnny asked.
"He said he's skeered of ghosts," said Gramps. "I personally think it's just too much work to suit him. They's a fortune in the Dago Silver Mine. Now will you go on back peaceable like, or will you throw in with me? I might need you, in case of bandits or renegade Comanche."
"I'll come with you," Johnny said, not at all eager to return to town and face Miz Bedelia. "Maybe you have got somethin', at that. Put up yore Winchester. I'm coming soon as I fetch my hat." The Kid scowled at the ragged hole in the crown of his black Stetson but he reassured himself that the cursed Gremthom coin in the band had not been damaged.
Gramps emerged from his rocks, a skinny leathery old cuss, and he said: "What about Bedelia? If you don't come back with me, she'll foller us out here herself. She's that strong-minded. And this is rough territory for a lady to traverse."
"I'll leave a note for her," the Kid said. "Joe Blodgett always comes down through the Gap once a week on his way to town. He's due through here today. I'll stick the note on a tree, where he'll see it and take it to her."
Johnny had a pencil-stub in his saddle-bag, so he tore a piece of wrapping paper from a can of tomatoes Gramps had in his pack, and carefully wrote:
'Dear Miz Bedelia
'I am takin Gramps way up in the mountains. Don't send anyone to follow us, it wouldn't be healthy. You'll hear from us. Respectfully, Johnny.'
He folded the scrap and wrote on the outside:
'Dear Joe: please take this here note to Miz Bedelia Thorpe back in town.'
Johnny Packard was as proud of knowing his letters and how to do arithmetic as he was of any other skill. In every town he passed through, he made a point to read the local newspaper and he often picked up a dime novel when he could.
Then Johnny and Gramps set out for the higher ranges, and he started reciting all about the Dago Mine again, like he'd already done many times before. The tale told of an Italian prospector named Vito Spinelli who had stumbled onto a cave almost thirty years earlier. The walls had veins of gleaming silver thick as ropes. But the Indians jumped him and run him out and he got lost and nearly starved in the desert, and went crazy. When he come to a settlement and finally regained his mind, he tried to lead a party back to it, but never could find it. Gramps said the Indians had used rocks and brush to conceal the mouth of the cave so nobody could tell it was there.
Johnny reasonably asked how he knew the Indians had done that, and Gramps said it was common knowledge. Any fool oughta know that's just what they done.
"This-here mine," says Doc Valentine, "is located in a hidden valley which lies away up amongst the high ranges. I ain't never seen it, and I thought I'd explored these mountains plenty. Ain't nobody more familiar with 'em than me except Noah Chadwick. But it stands to reason that the cave is awful hard to find, or somebody'd already found it. Accordin' to this here map, that lost valley must lie just beyond Dead-End Canyon. Ain't many white men knows whar that even is. We're headin' there."
We had left the Gap far behind us, and was moving along the slanting side of a sharp-angled crag whilst he was talking. As we passed it, we seen two shadowy figures with horses emerge from the other side, heading in the same direction we was, so our trails converged. Gramps glared and reached for his Winchester.
"Who's that?" he snarled.
"The big un's Sheb Hartline," Johnny said. "I never seen the other one."
"And nobody else has, outside of a traveling sideshow, " growled Gramps.
( the rest of the story )
