Free Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

can.”
    At her questioning glance he added, “We ain’t the only ones up here. Brionne is up ahead of us.”
    Startled, she stared at him. “Looking for silver? He
can’t
be!”
    Mowry shrugged. He looked at her, his eyes amused. “Why not?”
    “I—I just don’t believe it.”
    He chuckled. “I was only funnin’. That is, if he is huntin’ the silver, you must’ve told him more than you thought.”
    She racked her brain. “No…no, I told him nothing. Nothing at all.”
    “He ain’t the on’y one.” Mowry settled into his blankets. “The Allards that are huntin’ him, they’re out here, too.”
    She sat up. “Are you sure?”
    “Uh-huh…and so’s he. If the Allards are smart as they’re supposed to be they won’t foller him any further. They might catch up with him.”
    Chapter 8
    W ITH THE FIRST gray light of morning, Brionne squatted beside the small fire, drinking coffee and studying the steepening slope before them.
    There was no trail up it. Here and there were rocky outcroppings; there were clumps of brush, a maze of fallen logs, slides of broken rock and scattered aspen. It all ended at a wall of rock thirty feet high or more. An old fault line, it extended along the face of the mountain for at least half a mile.
    He planned his route carefully, aiming for what seemed to be a fracture in the face of the rock, a possible way to the top without going far around the end. The crack, if that was what it was, could not be seen clearly from here; but once in the saddle he led off, weaving a precarious way through the obstacles on the mountainside.
    Twice he paused, letting Mat and the pack horses go ahead, remaining behind just long enough to tumble rocks over their path that would bar any horse from following. Brionne knew that anyone tracking them would have to waste time finding his trail again, and every minute thus wasted would be an advantage to him. Somewhere ahead they were going to stop, and they would need time to find the kind of position he wanted.
    Suddenly, the crack was before them. It was scarcely wide enough for a horse, and it meant a difficult scramble to the top. Brionne dismounted and led his horse, grunting and scrambling, up the steep way. He tied the horse, pausing only long enough to catch his breath, then he descended and brought Mat to the top. After that he brought up the pack horses.
    Looking around, he found the fallen trunk of a long-dead pine. Getting behind it, and using a broken limb for a lever, he worked the heavy log over until he could topple it into the crack, closing it off.
    They were now on a rugged plateau, which formed the top of the Uintah Range. It was a wide, uneven plateau, broken by canyons and ridges, and dotted with many lakes. There were forested slopes and open, grassy meadows. Within the space of a few minutes he saw tracks of the bighorn sheep, the mule deer, and wild horses.
    The blue spruce and aspen thinned out up here, and on the ridges ahead he could see alpine fir and another type of spruce that grew in this high altitude. Everywhere there were marks of glacial action. He pointed them out to Mat, keeping up a running commentary on the country, the trees, and the tracks. All around them were snow-covered peaks.
    “How high are we?” Mat asked.
    “I’d guess about eight, nine thousand feet—maybe closer to nine.”
    He stopped to let the horses take a breather. He had gained a little time, and the ridge ahead should offer a camp with some security.
    He had no idea who his enemies might be, if those who followed him were, indeed, enemies. Out here he was relatively unknown. It was unlikely that anyone else remembered, as the Ute warrior had, the young cavalry officer of a time before the War Between the States. But somehow, in some way, he must have impressed someone as being a danger, or perhaps possessing some coveted knowledge.
    Did they connect him with Miranda Loften? After all, they had ridden the same train west, and they had had