Abandon

TWENTY-NINE

T

he cabin of Russell and Emma Ilg stood a hundred yards north of the Curtice homestead and was unprotected by trees, so the snow had drifted to the roof on the windward side. Ezekiel followed the snow tunnel up to the front porch and pounded on the door.

When it opened, a man with disheveled sandy-blond hair and thick spectacles grinned at them. He wore a brown sack coat and matching trousers, and his enormous mustache was freshly combed and waxed. The scent of soap emanated from him, the sour spice of whiskey on his breath.

Over Russell’s shoulder, Ezekiel saw Mrs. Ilg carrying a pot from her cook-stove to a candlelit dinner table already sagging under its load of steaming graniteware.

A fire blazed in the hearth and balled-up pages of newspaper lay around the base of the spruce tree; their gifts—mostly homemade crafts—were lined up on the makeshift log mantel.

“Merry Christmas, Zeke. Stephen.”

“Tell me you ain’t fixin to eat, Doc.”

“Yeah, in about five minutes. Something wrong?”

“I really hate to do this to you—”

“What?”

“You ain’t roostered, are you?”

“Had a nip of whiskey in my coffee a bit ago.”

“A nip.”

“I ain’t drunk, Zeke. What’s the problem?”

Mrs. Ilg walked over, her silvering hair pinned up, purple evening gown flowing across the dirt floor in her wake.

“I’d rather say in private.”

“Merry Christmas, gentlemen,” Mrs.Ilg said.

Ezekiel and Stephen tipped their hats.

“Ma’am.”

“Ma’am.”

“Well, do we have time to eat first?” Russell asked.

“ ’Fraid not.”

“What’s going on here, Zeke?”

“We’re having to borrow your husband. I apologize for the poor timing. It can’t be—”

“I’ve been cooking all morning. Can’t it wait just an—”

“Honey, if they need me now, they need me now.”

“Doc, we’ll be waitin for you at the stables. Best bring your possibles and your rifle. Don’t dawdle. We gotta light a shuck on this.”

The livery had been erected a quarter mile north of town to save the residents from the per sis tent stench, but the wind, when it blew, tended to sweep in from the north, so it carried the odor of shit and trail-worn animals right up Main. In the boom years, the stink was eye-watering, even on the south end of town. But on Christmas Day in 1893, you couldn’t smell the stables until you saw them.

Ezekiel struck out with the preacher and the doctor, the sheriff astride a moon-eyed bay gelding he’d purchased in Silverton that fall. They rode through Abandon and up-canyon toward the Godsend, the horses sinking to their knees, the riders’ heads bowed, hat brims shielding them from the heavy slanting snow.

At the turnoff to Emerald Lake, they picked up the only tracks they’d seen—a ten-burro head-and-tail string led by two horses.

“Can you think of a reason somebody’d be quick-freightin up to the Godsend on Christmas when the mine’s shut down?” Russell asked.

“Sure can’t. And from the look of it, these poor animals are carryin some load. Probably sinkin past their stomachs.”

They rode on, the sides of the canyon closing in, the blizzard diminishing their world until they could see only the tracks they followed. Another mile through deepening powder and Packer’s twenty-stamp operation appeared in the distance, a multilevel mill built into the back of the canyon, flanked by the mine office, lower boarding house, and a blacksmith shop.

“Strange not to hear those stamps,” Stephen said.

They stopped twenty yards from the mill, Ezekiel, already cold, beginning to shiver. “That’s a concern,” he said, pointing to where the tracks continued on, not toward the mine, as he’d anticipated, but up the south slope of the canyon.

“You don’t reckon Oatha and Billy were foolish enough to drive that pack train up to the Sawblade?” Russell said.

“Well, unfortunately it looks that way, don’t it?”

“That’s desperate behavior. I don’t like taking the dugway to the Sawblade in July, when the snow’s gone.”

“The hell they got to lose? They murdered five people last night.”

“I’m fair tired of this snow, and I don’t relish the chore it’ll be getting our horses up there.”

“Well, Doc, I don’t, either. I’d rather be back with Glori at the cabin, sittin by the fire, sippin whiskey, but that don’t appear to be in my immediate future.” A great wedge of snow slid off the mill’s sloped roof. The horses startled.

The preacher said, “Y’all think that slope could slide on us?”

“Yeah,” Russell said. “I think it’s entirely possible.”

The three riders followed the tracks away from the mill. At the canyon’s end, they paused, gazed up the smooth white slope, Ezekiel counting five switchbacks before the burro trail vanished into the roiling snow-swollen clouds.

“Two thousand feet up. Madness, Zeke. Pure madness.”

“I know it, Doc, and you’re slick-heeled. Hope that cremello a yours is clear-footed.”

“Don’t worry. She may be light in the timber, but she’s lady-broke and she’s got bottom.”

Ezekiel spurred his horse on and the riders began to climb.