Four Live Rounds

He counted three riders moving up the trail and was debating whether to hail them or just let them pass, none the wiser of his presence, when a voice called out, “Got breakfast ready, Oatha?”

Now Nathan was coming toward him through the trees astride an apron-faced gelding.

“Hello there, boys.” Oatha mustering more enthusiasm than he felt, something unnerving about being in proximity to Nathan Curtice in the middle of nowhere that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

Nathan, Dan, and McClurg rode up, and Nathan dismounted, walked over to Oatha, glancing at his bedroll, his horse, as if he’d caught him stepping out.

“Got yourself that new horse,” Nathan said.

Oatha nodded.

“You know you’ve hurt Rusty’s feelings.”

“Who?”

McClurg snorted.

“Oh, the mule. Came looking for you boys yesterday,” Oatha lied, “see if you wanted to start out a day early.” The way Nathan stared into his eyes bothered Oatha, like the man was looking through his head, reading the scrawl on the back of his skull.

“You not think we’d make fit traveling companions?” Nathan asked.

“Course not.”

“What then?”

“Just started out early is all.”

Nathan gave a nod, though it didn’t appear to be one of understanding. He glanced back at Dan, as if to say something, but stopped himself.

“You care to ride on with us?” Nathan asked.

“I’ll probably just catch a few more winks and then—”

“How about you saddle your horse right now, come along with us like you said you was goin to.”

Oatha rode between McClurg and Dan in the early morning cold, the trail winding up a long drainage through a dense stand of spruce. By midday, a thick cloud deck had darkened the sky, and when the men stopped to lunch at timberline, tiny flakes of snow stood out on the wool of Oatha’s coat. They were making a leisurely go of it, no chance of reaching Abandon by nightfall at this pace, but Oatha held his tongue, even as they lounged for two hours, smoking and nipping from Nathan’s jar of whiskey, the men fair drunk by the time they finally decamped.

It was cold riding, and Oatha’s glow soon faded.

They climbed out of the trees, the snow blowing sideways over this exposed, open terrain. The Teats, those twin promontories Oatha had been using as a guide since yesterday, had vanished in the storm.

They camped miserable, cold, and wet just below timberline in a grove of dead spruce, got a sheet of canvas strung up between the trees, a fire going underneath, but even the whiskey jar making the rounds couldn’t lift Oatha’s spirits. He sat leaning against a spruce, watching the snow pour down and the light recede, thinking he should be in Abandon by now.

“How much you figure they keep on hand?” McClurg asked.

“Few thousand. Ten if we’re lucky,” Nathan said.

“Enough to make it worth our trouble,” Dan said.

Oatha cut his eyes at the three men, and McClurg noticed, said, “What?”

“Nothing.”

Nathan smiled. “Nobody told him he felled in with road agents.”

The men laughed.

“What do you do for a livin?” Nathan asked.

Oatha’s mouth had run dry. “Been prospecting, bar mining, picking up work in the mines where I can—”

“Like honest work, do you?” Dan said.

“I guess.”

“But the question,” McClurg said, “is how you feel about dishonest work?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well think on it, get back to us.”

The men laughed again and Nathan swiped the jar from Dan, tilted it back. McClurg hoisted a log onto the fire, a spray of ashes engulfing Oatha. He rummaged through his satchel, located the loaf of sourdough he’d bought before leaving Silverton.

“Break me off a hunk a that,” Nathan said, and Oatha tore off a piece.

“Got a round a cheese in here, too.”

“Don’t be stingy.”

They cut cheese onto the bread, set the slices on hot stones in the fire’s vicinity to let it melt.

The storm brought a premature night, and in the firelight, Oatha watched the snow fall without respite. They played cards until the fire ran out of wood, won the last of Oatha’s money, drank up his quart of whiskey, smoked all of his tobacco.

As the other men snored, Oatha lay awake. If it hadn’t been snowing so hard, he’d have attempted to sneak out of camp, resaddle his horse, and get the hell away from Nathan and the boys. He didn’t want to look it in the eye, but the truth of the matter was that he’d backed himself into a bind, and if he didn’t slip away from them tomorrow, he’d probably never reach Abandon.

Oatha’s eyes opened. As he sat up, his vision sharpened into focus and he saw the gray-white madness of the blizzard, the canvas sheet sagging to the ground at one end, the snow piled up three feet around the boundary of their little shelter.

He held his hands toward the low fire, his head throbbing again, a whiskey hangover that wouldn’t die until noon at the earliest.

Nathan looked at him, shook his head.

“My horse and yours are dead. We’ve caught a bad piece a luck here.”