He turned the collar of his sheepskin jacket up to ward off that northwesterly blast of Arctic air that still came down in the mornings. His hair hung well down over the collar, no barbershop out here. He'd whacked at it with a pair of dull scissors in the cabin a couple of weeks ago when the growth had gotten to the point he couldn't take it anymore. He shuddered feeling the bite of the wind again. Those icy blasts didn't care much if the June bugs were out hopping and the mountain flowers were starting to bloom on those patches of meadow where the ice had begun to melt. He sniffed the clear mountain air, seeing if anything unusual was in the wind but knowing iffen it was, his dog Jack would warn him well before his own nose did.

Indians, that was his main worry up here alone along the tree line although he tried to live by the motto, "Iffen you don't mess with me, I won't mess with yourn."

Of course the Indians in this area knew he was up here and they knew about the cattle about to be driven up here as soon as the snow melted. Colonel Jackson at the fort had told Mr. Jacobs that there was an element of Indians refusing to abide by the latest treaty and causing problems up and down the main trail. Some five settlers had been burned out between the mountain he was on and the West Bank of the Snake. Mr. Jacobs owned the Bar J Ranch and was the boss Slim worked for as line rider.

He headed up the southern slope trying to ease himself between the Indian he had seen a half-hour ago above him and the face of the mountain that was impossible to pass. If there were more of them than the one, and he was almost certain that was the case, they would herd him just like the cowboys herded the cattle up here to a point where he could not continue. Facing a sheer drop off of over a thousand feet or turning back didn't leave a line rider much choice.

Slim was also almost certain that the trail he had ridden to this point was already covered by at least three or four young bucks who had followed him from the cabin this morning. The only thing really concerning him was what they were really after. If they were on a scalp hunting party they could have ridden up to the line shack any time they wanted and smoked him out and made his hairpiece the newest adornment on their lodge poles. No, something else was up and this uncertainty unhinged his thinking a lot more than if he knew they planned on attacking him.

He slowed the sorrel gelding he broke seven months ago and he'd named Matt and pulled out some fixings. Matt was the name of his brother who had been killed fighting Indians with the Seventh Calvary somewhere in the Idaho territories along the Oregon Trail. Man, they should have court-martialed that arrogant S.O.B. long before he led them boys to their slaughter, Slim thought. He slipped the thin paper out of the package and ran his tongue along the edge. Holding Matt's reins up high along his chest he reached in the inner pocket of his sheepskin jacket and pulled out his tobacco pouch, unzipping it carefully while shushing Matt to be still. He worried about running out of tobacco before the boys got up here in another two weeks with the herd. He tried to cut down on the smoking but this damn lonely life induced one to smoke a lot more than was good for him. Slim remembered the time he had been married and how much his wife had nagged him about his excessive smoking, the nicotine stains on his left index and middle fingers so dark it looked like he done dipped them in a honeypot.

Jack growled low and deep in his throat and Slim whispered down to the brown mixed breed, "Quiet Jack, I know them Injuns are up there, you think I'se stupid or somepin. Just you keep quiet liken you know you should, hear?"

Jack had kept him company nigh on six, no seven years now. He'd found him outside of town one day when he had taken the wagon in for Mrs. Jacobs to buy staples. Saw him huddled alongside the road, been whupped half dead and what hain't been whupped was all tore up from the damned town dogs or coyotes jumping him. On ear was half tore off and he picked him up, ignoring all the dog's growling and the snapping and laid him in the wagon and covered him with an extra saddle blanked that was a laying back there. Got him back home and Mr. Jacobs had given him one look and said, "Don't give a righteous shit iffen you keep him but any feeding comes off your plate, not mine or the missus."

But the rest of the buckaroos took to the two-year-old cur and fed him off their own plates as often as not. Slim had to warn them off of feeding the mutt when his belly began to get round like a spring fattened sow. Jack was now almost ten years old he reckoned although in Slim's life, age was really relative. When he'd been married, his missus had reckoned he was about thirty-four or thirty-five years old considering what she could fathom from Slim's mother right before she died. Slim didn't count no birthdays any more, he knew by the kinks in his joints that he was close to fifty, which was ancient for a good line rider.

Mr. Jacobs knew he could get a younger man but he also knew he'd have to pay him double what he paid Slim. And if Mr. Jacobs was nothing else, he was darned sure thrifty with the dollar. Slim thought briefly of the wife he had once had and shook his head, wondering what ever happened to the woman. He'd loved her deeply but things sometimes just don't turn out the way you want them. Life's always a surprise, be it a sunrise over the Rockies or a summer storm coming across the Divide, God and nature never let on what they had planned.

It'd been a shame when they had to give up his little ranch and garden to move into the city. His missus just got too lonely out there on the prairie. The first winter went fairly well but by the second snowstorm the next year; cabin fever had done set in. When spring came she gave Slim two choices, keep the ranch and lose her or move into the city. Slim had tried, he really had. Got a job at the stables shooing and breaking horses and doing odd jobs but he always felt like the walls of that little house on the outskirts of town were closing in on him.

One night in the spring time feeling too cooped up he left the comfort of the front porch to let his missus sit and listen to the katydids and went into town for a drink or two. He gotten into a game of five card Monte with a shifty dude from back east and Slim had caught him double-dealing. Words were said and when the city dude cussed Slim and slid that there derringer out of the cuff of his stuffed shirt, Slim was a might sight quicker with his forty-five. Everyone said it was a fair fight but one cowhand had whispered that the dude's brother-in-law was sheriff and it probably wouldn't be a good idea to hang around town. ......(cont)