Chapter 9

That night we talked to the Monahans. They’d worked hard, all but Murdock, and lucked out. They found a little vein that was about eight feet long and three deep before it petered out to nothing. After that what the netted a day wasn’t worth the effort and time they put in to it. Still they’d found about two thousand dollars worth. Many a ranch had been bought for a lot less.

“We’ll be headin’ out day after tomorrow. Our claim has played out and it ain’t worth stayin’ the winter for. We’re going on to the valley we claimed, hole up there, and start work on the ranch as soon as the weather breaks. My advice to you is to do the same before the weather gets bad. Go on down, bank your gold, and try to find work for the winter. When spring comes take a look around, find you some land with good water and places sheltered from the weather. Build a nice ranch. After that if you still got gold fever come back.”

Miss Elsa and her father thought it was an excellent idea. They didn’t have the provisions necessary for the winter to come. We’d drop them off game from time to time, a deer once, half a bighorn sheep, even part of a bear that had come out of hibernation during a warm spell. I’m pretty sure it was the only times they got meat.

We’d already had some snows that mostly melted in a few days but we all knew there would come a time when that wouldn’t happen. One of her brothers was undecided, but Murphy and Munford were determined to stay. In the end they agreed to split, leaving the ones staying most of the supplies and a fourth of the gold. Munford bitched, saying they deserved more but Elsa shut them down pretty fast, telling them they were lucky they were getting that for the work they had done.

“I was hunting!,” Munford protested.

“That you were, the key word being hunting. You almost never shot anything and rabbits won’t keep you alive during the winter.”

Elsa ended up breaking her engagement to Munford calling him a lazy, undisciplined person who was scared to death of work. “I need a man who’ll step up and do what needs to be done to provide for his family and that ain’t you.”

We didn’t hear any of this until later when they stopped by to say goodbye. We shook and Elsa hugged us both, asking us to keep an eye on her brother. She told us about the falling out they had and how she no longer trusted her ex. “I want you to watch out for my brother and watch Willie. He’s become a bit more untrustworty lately.”

It was good advice. The day before we left I did some hunting, coming on to a herd of deer wintering in a draw. I got three, field dressed them, fixed a travois, and hauled them to their camp. “You hang these, smoke ‘em a little. The cold should keep them, and you’ll have meat for a good while.”

I helped Murphy hang them high enough to keep predators from getting them, shook his hand and left. We were gone before dawn the next morning

We took our time and wandered around for a little to confuse any trackers until we came up on our little trail. After we passed we hitched all the mules to the blue spruce and drug it until it blocked the trail. They’d have to do the same to unblock it and it bought us a little time. It was snowing a little and we figured it would wipe out our tracks and any earth we had disturbed.

There was a blanket of snow permanently now, but it wasn’t deep. A lot of the valley was sheltered which explained why the horse herd was still here. So were three of our cows. We cast around for the fourth but found no sign. When the thaw hit we found her and it looked like a cougar had gotten her.

We put our stock in the big cave, putting a rope across the front so they would get used to staying there. We’d let them out the next day but keep our horses close just in case. We worked on the little cave, putting a door in just far enough back that at a glance it would look empty. It was pretty deep and branched a couple of times. I followed one branch and stopped. I could hear our horses stomping around. That wall had to be mighty thin and when I told Zeke he agreed, so over the next few days we worked on it until we broke through.

It made us feel a whole lot better, even a rabbit won’t go into a hole that only has one way in and out. There was also a chimney at the very back just wide enough to wriggle through that popped you out on the ridge. We put in a really sturdy door in the stable, then we mixed up mortar and mud, plastering the door to the point it couldn’t be seen. It was thin enough to break through if the need was there but thick enough to fool anyone looking for a door.