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The Killing Trail
Dally Press Gazette
Desert Destinations
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Sharply off to his right, he could see a broad, snow-capped peak in the distance, the upper third of which had snagged some passing white clouds and was now holding them hostage. Hard Willy knew that the mountain had been named recently after one of the United States presidents, but he couldn't remember which one and didn't give much of a damn in any event. He had never voted in his life and could care less about the politicians who were running the country back east. He knew well the essential law of the West: that a well-placed bullet from a fine Sharps carbine or Winchester rifle would fell a politician as easily as it would a prospector or a merchant, a preacher or a mountain man, and that was knowledge enough to have.
There was no doubt in Hard Willy's mind why presidents lived in big white houses and wore fancy suits and tall black hats; it was a mere matter of survival - of returning to places of security and comfort. Hard Willy wouldn't be caught dead in a suit or even in a fancy white house, unless - of course, there were sporting women inside. But Hard Willy Smith was at home in the forests of Central Oregon. Off to the southeast, he could see the dramatic rise of the North Sister peak, with the smaller, darker cone of Black Butte - a defunct cinder volcano - and another peak, called Black Crater, looming in the foreground. The game trail, he knew, carried along the south edge of Black Butte and then ran due east through Sisters and beyond another thirty miles or more into the bustling town of Bend. He had followed the same trail the day before, in fact, to secure himself in the rocks and to wait. Off to his immediate left, a small cirque of murky turquoise water, the resulting runoff of heavy winter snows, dropped suddenly like a giant fish bowl; it was surrounded by sharp-angled sheets of loose pumice that fell from the sheer face of the mountain at his back. From time to time, he could hear a rock break free from the flaky walls behind him and tumble down the flanks of the peak - sometimes adding to the long lines of scree that spread out below him, sometimes clattering deeper down the slope and then splashing into the cirque. Some of the rocks were small and skidded and skipped off the walls of the mountain as they fell. Others were larger and exploded down the peak's sheer face before striking or splattering into other mountain debris - often with a crack or a thump that sounded like a rifle bullet striking a ripe melon. Hard Willy could hear one of the rocks break free above him now and then free-fall in a long arc that ended no more than twenty feet from where he had positioned himself. The rock shattered upon impact, with sharp shards shooting out in all directions. One of them, as large as his thumb, struck Hard Willy in the forearm; he cursed under his breath and looked at the spot: A thin line of blood was running into his gloved hand, and he cursed softly again. He picked up the shard and threw it in an awkward, side-armed, sweeping motion; it skipped twice off the scree and finally bounced into the cirque below him. As hot as it was, Hard Willy half expected to see the water start boiling where the shard broke the water's surface.
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Even so, he thought about lunging down the sides of the cirque and plunging directly into the water, which he knew from long experience was frigid despite the intense heat. He stared down at the water for an instant, his unblinking eyes scanning and shifting and sorting as small ripples spread across the flat surface where the shard had splashed. Then he looked far beyond the cirque to still another sharply pointed, snow-covered mountain that bore the name of still another long-dead president that Hard Willy again couldn't be bothered to bring to mind.
The damn thing looks just like an arrow head from this angle, he thought as he looked out at the peak.
Someone had told him once that the Indians had held the mountain sacred because it was an arrow's point - a great weapon - directed as a warning toward the gods of the sky. But he didn't know whether this was true, and whatever Indians had lived in the area had long since been killed or run out.
All he knew for sure was that he wanted to kill Muley Johnson and that he didn't want to think about the blazing sun and the searing heat for a single second after Muley was dead.
But he did think of the heat again as he peeled off one of his gloves and shook the sweat and the sheeting water from his lean body off his hand and then off his arm.
He thought about how nice it would be to roll in the snow on the glacier-covered side of that far-off mountain with the sharp point; that would certainly take some of the fire out of the day, if only briefly.
But he knew that he couldn't leave his position for more than a minute; the risk of missing his chance to center Muley Johnson in the sights of his new Sharps carbine was too great. And so he continued to wait, slightly shifting his position from time to time but never taking his eyes off the trail below for more than a few seconds; and he tugged on his glove and then flexed his fingers again and again to get the fit just right.
"I'll be here 'til the sun goes down, Muley," Hard Willy murmured to himself. "Don't matter how hot it gets. It's jest you and me now. It's jest between the two of us."
He pulled a piece of jerky out of his back pants pocket and bit off a chunk. He chewed noisily for a time and then took another long drink of water, swishing it around before swallowing, and then shoved another hunk of the jerky into his mouth.
He saw a sudden movement down on the trail and quickly focused on the spot as his carbine automatically shifted into place: the heavy butt firmly placed on his shoulder, his eyes instantly lining up along the top of the barrel, the trigger guard immediately surrounded by the taunt index finger of his right hand, his mouth continually working on the jerky.
But as quickly as he was ready to fire, he saw that the movement wasn't from a man at all but from a single deer that was ambling along the path.
"Might as well be you, Muley, for all the good it'll do you when the time comes," Hard Willy muttered.
The faint trace of a cruel smile crossed his face for the briefest of instants, and he took the time to sight in the deer, using the adjustable mechanism on top of the Sharps. Hard Willy sensed the swirl of the wind off the face of the mountain and calculated the distance that the bullet would travel and how much it would drop from gravity's pull in its explosive flight. He breathed in deeply - once, twice - and then held his breath and moved his finger away from the trigger guard, placing it instead on the trigger itself.
Pull, don't squeeze, he thought to himself, his finger slowly tensing against the rich blue-steeled trigger of the Sharps.
But the moment passed, the deer wandered off into some brush away from the patchy trail, another rock clattered down the face of the mountain, and Hard Willy Smith relaxed once more, drew in another deep breath, and slowly uncoiled his finger from the trigger.
Can't risk a shot for sport, he said to himself. There's jest too much noise. Leave the deer to the big mountain cat.
Besides, a rifle shot now would spook ol' Muley - damn him to hell anyways, but where is he?
"Where the hell are you anyhow, Muley?" he said aloud this time, his voice immediately trailing off in the thin mountain air.
All content is (c) William Florence, 2004. All rights reserved.
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