Chapter 11

            They stood together on a god-forsaken, wind-swept hillside, bare of brush or vegetation except the scraggliest, most tenacious sagebrush.  Patches of snow lingered in the shade of ledges and outcroppings.  The slope, already too steep for their mounts, became sheer cliff face a few yards farther up, vast slabs of rock propped askew upon one another.  Three of these formed a low lintel framing a mouth of black shadow, the entrance to a cave that was dark even in the full sun of a spring afternoon.

            “What do you think, Tom?” said Cash.

            “It’s a god damned hole in the side of a hill, just like the last three we looked at,” Tom said. 

            “No it ain’t,” Cash said.  “At least it’s big enough for the door.”

            The search for a suitable place to install the iron door had turned out to be longer and more exacting than any of them anticipated when they set out.  Dove Ed led them on a circuitous route, casting about for the canyons and draws he remembered from his childhood.  He promised that the hills were riddled with any number of caves that would serve the purpose, caves that only he knew about and to which he could take them, blindfolded, but once in the badlands north of Malad City his certitude failed him.  Caves were not where he remembered them.  Those he was able to locate proved unsuitable for any number of reasons: too small, too well-known, too difficult to reach. 

“I guess it’s a good thing we left the blindfold off,” said Cash.

After four days of unsuccessful hunting, tempers were running high, especially Tom’s.  He resented being pulled away from the enticements of Malad City while he still had cash to spend.  He took out his displeasure on his companions, Dove Ed first and foremost.

            “What the hell did you bring us here for?” he said, after Dove Ed showed them the latest cave, which was little more than a niche between two boulders, hardly big enough for one man to crouch in.  “I swear, Dove Ed, use your brains a little, or do I have to do the thinking for both of us?”

            Dove Ed flushed and muttered an apology.  “I thought it was bigger,” he said and rode on.

            Not content to let it go, Tom said, “Oh, yeah?  When you saw it last, was you an infant?  Though you ain’t grown much since, I’ll say that.”

            “It was back when I was a kid,” Dove Ed said.

            “When you was a kid?  You mean, like last week?”  Tom laughed, playing it up as though he were about to fall from his saddle.  “You hear that, Cash?  When he was a kid, that dent in the rocks looked bigger.  But now he’s all growed up, it’s got smaller.”

            Cash grinned in spite of himself.  Tom had that way about him, a half-joking, half-hectoring tone that made a man smile to hear it.  He opened his mouth to join in the raillery.  Then Cash noticed Dove Ed’s fists clenched around his reins, the angry set of his barely-whiskered jaw, and he knew what the boy must be feeling: shame, embarrassment, fury.  Tom was funny, all right, until you were the one in his sights.

            “He’s right, Dove Ed,” he said.  “If we’re to have a cave, it should be at least five feet around, so’s we can build a stout frame in it for the door.  After all, it needs to be at least big enough to hold Tom’s mouth.”

            At this, it seemed as though the expressions on the faces of his companions swapped places instantaneously.  Dove Ed lit up with a laugh, and Tom’s smile went out like a candle in a gust of wind.  His face darkened and hardened into a scowl.  Cash expected some rebuttal from Tom, but the venom in the big fellow’s voice surprised him.  “And after I lay you out, Cash, we can use you to measure the length of the cave.  What do you say to that?”

            “Just a joke, Tom.”

            “You watch your mouth.  That’s all.”  Tom legged his horse into a fast trot past the others and didn’t look back. 

            Dove Ed said, “Who put a burr under his saddle?”

            Cash put one gloved finger to his lips.  “Leave be.  He’ll settle down soon.”

            Tom did not settle down soon but remained touchy, though he left off his remarks at Dove Ed’s expense.  At the next cave he could not resist a snort of derision, and Cash couldn’t blame him much; the entrance sat high in a canyon wall, with only the narrowest of ledges providing access to it.  Even if they could get the door up to the cave, there was nowhere to stand while installing it.  Dove Ed did not waste his breath trying to convince them, or even apologizing.  With daylight failing they made camp, and after supper Cash asked if there were any other caves to choose from.

Dove Ed said, “There is one near here, but most everyone in town knows about it. I figure to skip that one.”

            “Hallelujah,” Tom said.

            “Is there nothing else, Dove Ed?”

            “The others are all down Samaria way, closer to my father’s house.” 

“How far?”

“Maybe thirty miles.” 

They had spent their days around Elkhorn Peak, north of Malad City.  On the eastern ridge of Elkhorn lay Malad Summit, where the road north came through the hills. Tom had pointed it out and said, “This is our spot.”  Here the stagecoaches would be moving slowly, much easier to stop than one barreling downslope, and they had hoped to find a hideout not far away.

Now Tom sat shaking his head in disgust, swigging from a whiskey flask he kept in his coat pocket.  “Boy, you are as dumb as a box of hammers, you know that?” he said.

“Shut up, Tom,” said Dove Ed.

“We ride four days, and at the end of it you tell us we got to ride thirty more miles.  For what?  A cave that ain’t even there, probably.”

“It’s there.”

“At least I managed to bring some whiskey along,” Tom said and tilted the flask up again.  He lowered it and dragged his sleeve across his mouth.  “Dragged us away from hot food, soft beds and willing women, to go sightseeing!”

Anger thickened Dove Ed’s voice, making his accent more distinctive.  “Yes, dragged ye away, whilst there was money still to spend on supplies.  And that includes yer filthy liquor, ye sot!”

Cash poured a cup of coffee, dark and strong.  On this point he agreed with Dove Ed in principle: if it hadn’t been for the boy insisting they buy provisions and get going, he had no doubt they would have blown their entire stake on gambling, booze, and women.  As it was, after two days of revelry they had a mere forty dollars to spend in Vanderwood’s store and a paltry three dollars and forty-two cents after that.

Bottle still in hand, Tom pointed across the fire at Dove Ed.  He said, “You swore you knew of a dozen caves a day’s ride from Malad Summit.  Take us right to ‘em, you said.  That was four days and five caves ago, and either way you look at it, you’re a liar.”

“Easy, Tom,” said Cash, blowing on the hot coffee.

“Easy, hell!  I thought the plan was to steal it and stash it: hold up the stage and hide the take behind the door until the heat blows over.  That means a hideout near Malad Summit.  But now what have we got?  Laden with full strongboxes from a stage, with the law behind us no doubt, we have to ride thirty, maybe forty miles over broken country in order to stash our take?”

Cash had his coffee cup to his lips and so had no chance to forestall Dove Ed’s retort.  “You need not ride thirty miles, Tom,” he said.  “Only ride away from here, and be damned to you!”

“Mouthy little bastard,” Tom said.  “I’ve a mind to tan your hide.”

Dove Ed scoffed.  “Let me know when, and I’ll give you a moment to stand up before I lick you, you with your fat gut lapping over your belt.”

Tom flung his whiskey flask to the ground and sprang across the small fire at Dove Ed, who rose to meet him.  They grappled wildly, hurling punches, kicks and curses at one another.  It happened so suddenly that Cash recoiled, then began hollering curses of his own, because he had spilled the hot contents of his cup all down his front.  He swore, wiping at his chest and lap, which felt like they were on fire.  As the pain died away, he directed his curses at the two men scuffling in the dirt beside him.

“God damn it, I barely got the first sip of that coffee!”

Tom and Dove Ed paid him no heed.  They had fallen to the ground, a tangle of arms and legs rolling over and back.  Cash believed they would finish soon; already they had stopped throwing punches in favor of clinging to one another, and stopped shouting in favor of breathing.  Nobody seemed inclined to draw a weapon, so Cash left them to their business and retrieved his cup, to pour himself a fresh coffee.  Gradually the scuffling noises died away, leaving only the panting of the two men trying to catch their breath.

“Y’all settled your differences now?” Cash said, without looking back at them.

The two returned to their places by the fire.  Blood oozed from Tom’s nose and over his lip, and he pulled out a bandanna to dab at it.  His clothes and hair were rumpled, his gunbelt askew on his hips.  Surprised, Cash looked over at Dove Ed, who showed similar signs of ill use.  In place of a nosebleed, the boy wore a hectic red patch on his cheek which Cash expected would shape up into a beauty of a shiner overnight.  Dove Ed kept touching it gingerly and wincing.

“Leave it be,” Cash said.

They sat in uneasy silence for a time, neither Tom nor Dove Ed meeting the other’s eye.

            Cash hoped the fight would clear the air, but as they rode south the next day the two remained silent, keeping Cash between them as much as possible.  Cash ignored them, paying attention instead to the country they rode through, taking note of rocky ground, marshy flats, stands of aspen or pine trees, and any streams or creeks they crossed.  At the valley floor they came upon a river flooded with spring meltwater that Dove Ed said was the Little Malad.  They spent half a day looking for a fording place, settling on one where the water reached almost saddle deep.  The icy current rushed around them, soaked their legs and poured into their boots; their feet went numb almost instantly.  Toward the center of the river the horses had to swim a short distance, and Cash feared he would have to dismount midstream.  But he lay low over his horse’s neck and the animal soon found its footing once more.  In that time, the swift water had carried them several hundred feet downstream.

            “I’d hate to see the Big Malad,” Cash said as they pulled themselves shivering from the far side.  It was a feeble joke and they all knew it, but Tom and Dove Ed smiled through their chattering teeth.

            “Tell you what,” said Tom, “Water like that would make a posse think twice about following.”

            Cash nodded.  “Might come in handy.”

            Cold and tired, they made an early camp that night and Dove Ed pointed out Samaria Mountain, still to the south and west of them.  “Cave’s on the north slope, near the peak,” he said.  “We won’t reach it till midafternoon tomorrow.”

Now Cash pointed back down the hill toward the horses and the dry wash they had clambered up a few minutes before.  “Anyone coming up here has to climb single file, the way we did, and leave their horses down below.  And that’s if they even spy it at all.”

“Unless they already know it’s here,” Tom said.  “Dove Ed does; maybe somebody else does too.”

They looked at Dove Ed, who shook his head.  “No one knows it’s here,” he said, and shouldered past them to the very mouth of the cave.  He disappeared inside, barely ducking his head to do so.  Cash followed, noting with approval the height and width of the opening, which would easily fit the door and whatever frame they could build for it. 

After the full sun of the afternoon, it took some time for Cash’s eyes to adjust to the gloom inside the cave, but even before then he could tell that a large space stretched away in front of him.  The noise of his footfalls and his breathing echoed and magnified in the emptiness, much bigger than the opening had led him to believe.  And yet they were not hollow and distant; the cave did not go on forever.  He smelled damp earth, and a mustiness that suggested animals had once lived here, but the air did not feel close or stale.  Somewhere below and ahead of Cash, Dove Ed spoke.  “Watch your step.”

With his vision accustomed to the dim light by the entrance, Cash could see what the boy meant.  The cave floor consisted of tumbled stone and boulders, and the footing was treacherous.  Moreover, four feet from the cave mouth it sloped sharply downhill to the large chamber he had heard.  He picked his way over the rocks, testing his foothold with each step and wondering if snakes might lurk in the cracks and crevices.  At the bottom he could just make out the pale, elongated oval of Dove Ed’s face and made his way toward it.  Something underfoot crunched in a way unlike sand or gravel.  Cash crouched and felt around, and his fingertips came back stained with soot: the remains of an old campfire.

“There’s a good draw to the air in here,” Dove Ed said.  “You’d think the smoke would choke you, but it rises to the top and escapes somehow.”

Shadows stirring in the light from the cave mouth, and the echo of muttered curses, announced Tom’s entry.  “Watch your step,” they called to him in unison, then looked at each other and grinned.  Cash resumed his inspection of the cave, but Dove Ed sat and waited, arms folded, his back against the rock wall, to hear their verdict.

The irregular shape of the cave made it hard to guess the dimensions, but Cash estimated it to be about thirty feet long and maybe half as wide.  Dove Ed sat on the only spot that could properly be called a floor, a gently sloping flat slab about eight feet around, at the edges of which the boulders piled up gradually in a series of small, uneven ledges and niches until they met and then became the ceiling.  The largest of these niches, to the left of the entryway, reminded Cash of the bombproof shelters he had dug in the trenches around Vicksburg: long as a man, and as wide, but only tall enough to crouch in.  He hated getting into them.  It always made him wonder if a burial crypt felt like that.

A clatter of tiny stones behind him told Cash that Tom, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, had scrambled down into the main cave.  He turned to watch as Tom inspected the same pile of long-dead ashes.

“Thought you said no one knew of this place,” Tom said to Dove Ed.

“I made that fire.”  Dove Ed pointed to an untidy jumble of branches and sticks that Cash had taken for animal leavings.  “Even gathered a woodpile.”

“Anybody could have left that.”

“Not these.”  The boy gestured at a low shelf of rock beside him, on which lay several small chips of stone.  “Shoshone arrowheads I found.  I left them just like that, last time I was here.”

“When was that?”

“Maybe a week after my pa passed.  Two years ago.”

Tom grunted and looked about.  Cash watched him, knowing what he would find and what he would think, but unsure what he would say.  He suspected Tom would rather lie naked on a fire ant nest than admit he was wrong.  He spoke up first.

“Not bad,” he said.  “Shame we can’t use it.”

The others looked at him, Tom frowning and puzzled, Dove Ed angry and taken aback.  “What?  Why not?”

Cash began ticking off a list on his fingers.  “First, it’s awful far from Malad Summit.  You already noticed that, Tom.  Second, ain’t no water close by.  We’d have to get casks up that little draw, not to mention the door.  Meantime, we’re leaving tracks in the snow a blind man could follow.  What good’s the door if we lead the law right to it?  Sorry, Dove Ed,” he said, and held up his hands in a placating gesture.  “It’s a fine place to camp and all, but it’s no good to us.”

“That is so many different kinds of stupid I can’t even begin to count,” said Tom.  He had his hands on his hips, shaking his head and looking everywhere but at Cash, even glancing at Dove Ed to share his disbelief.    “Leaving tracks in the snow?  In a week the snow’s going to melt, you ignorant cracker.  Any sign we leave, meltwater and rain will wash away.  And besides, you said yourself it’s better to put some distance between the summit and our hideout.”

“We can bring supplies and water up in the wagon as close as the bottom of the draw,” Dove Ed said.  “Then carry it the rest of the way.  Same with the door.”

“Yeah, but…”

“No buts.  Christ almighty, Cash, this was your idea!  Don’t go yellow on us now.”

“I ain’t yellow.”

“Quit your bellyaching then.  Come on,” Tom said.  “Let’s see to the horses, then fix some supper.”  He started up the short climb to the cave mouth with Dove Ed not far behind him.  Cash shook his head, smiling to himself and moved to follow them.

He stopped and squinted at the rock ledge where Dove Ed’s arrowheads rested.  Among the chips of stone were some old wildflowers, brown and shriveled and brittle with age.  The ledge itself bore spatters and stains and lumps of melted wax, as though a candle or maybe several had burned there, melting down to the very stump.  And beside it, where Dove Ed had sat with his back to the wall was a smudged inscription of small black letters, like the ones Cash had seen in various places around the cave.  This one read:

In Memry of Huw + Gwendalin Williams  1868

Good By

Yr Son Duv Ed