This story, “Bandit of the Elk Trail,” appeared in the June 1936 issue of Outdoor Life. This true account of a strikingly unusual elk hunt was written by a widely known Easterner. For reasons that will be apparent on reading this, he prefered to remain anonymous, and gave fictional names to all of the characters and places.
Slapping my horse across the neck with the reins, I drew up even with Ross on the rocky trail. Joe, the guide, was plodding on ahead toward the frowning Tetons, and Scotty, our cook and wrangler, followed with the weary pack animals.
“Kid yourself, if you wish, Ross,” I said, “but that half baked guide you picked never saw this country before in his life.”
Ross answered without raising eyes from his horse’s bobbing ears: “The trip is jinxed. Two days rounding up the horses that fool wrangler let get away. Then four days more looking for Gulch Creek. And we haven’t found it yet. We may as well quit.”
As he spoke, Joe topped out on a narrow ridge. Outlined against the threatening, gray sky, in ten-gallon hat, chaps, and silver-studded vest, he looked a part of the rugged country. But we were to learn before the strange end of this trip that things were seldom what they seemed. As we rode up, Joe was scanning the country.
“Stop playing make-believe, Joe,” said Ross. “You know damned well we’re lost.”
Joe rubbed his scraggly chin. “I ain’t exactly lost,” he said. “I just can’t seem to place this country. If I-“
“You won’t be able to place anything much longer,” I interrupted. “It will be dark in twenty minutes. Get a camp pitched.”
In his bungling way. Joe unlashed the packs, and set up our tent. Scotty had got a fire going, and was rummaging through the food packs. Leaving them, he shuffled over to Ross.
“Nothing but beans left,” he said.
“Damn your beans!” exploded Ross. But, then, remembering we’d begun to run low on food the fourth day out, he recanted.
“All right. But give us plenty of strong coffee to wash the taste out of our mouths.”
“Do the best I can,” promised Scotty. “But I only got a couple of spoonfuls left.”
So, under the starless October sky, we huddled around the fire somewhere in the Wyoming elk country, ate beans, drank anaemic coffee, and cursed the luck that was making such a mess of our elk hunt. We had no inkling then that incredible events were still to befall us
Leaving Weston, we had been bent solely on enjoying ourselves. Ross, with whom I had hunted deer in Pennsylvania and quail in Massachusetts, had wired me in Boston to join him on an elk hunt. It was the glamour of the West, I think, as much as the appeal of such a noble quarry that made me accept. I was sure, of course, that scalp-hungry Indians were no longer prowling around, and that cattle rustlers and quick draw bad men had gone completely out of fashion, yet it gave me a curious thrill, when stepped off the train at Weston, to realize I was in the very country where such reckless, desperate characters had once flourished.
Ross had assembled the outfit before I arrived. Joe he had chosen because a friend had recommended him, and Joe had hired Scotty. So, instead of hard-riding, fast shooting men of the open ranges, whom I had half longed to encounter, I found our party ministered to by a pair of wild Westerners who got lost in their own backyard. How thoroughly we were lost I didn’t at first realize, nor had I as yet any disturbing thought of Blackie Collins.
“Do you think,” Ross was saying to Joe, “that you can get us back to Weston?”
“I reckon I can,” said Joe slowly, “if I can pick up a trail. Might take a few days.”
“Few days!” echoed Ross. “Why, you idiot, we haven’t got enough grub to see us through tomorrow.”
“I reckon not,” admitted Joe.
“What about you, Scotty?” I asked.
“Not me. I’m from Montana.”
Next morning, we drank hot water, faintly stained by coffee grounds, and ate three of our six remaining cans of beans. Either we’d live on the country from then on, or not live at all.
“I’m going to look for a ranch,” I said to Ross. “Maybe we can buy some food.”
Together we rode down to lower country. A jack rabbit bounded across our path, and I took a shot at it with my Colt automatic. But our food problem wasn’t solved; I missed. Presently, as we rode up along a boulder-dotted creek, I saw a ranch. Spurring our horses, we soon reached the ramshackle buildings. Two ragged children, who were playing in the yard as we rode in, scurried into the mud-chinked, evil looking cabin like frightened cottontails. Behind the cabin was some kind of outbuilding, just as slattern as the cabin, and more crooked. A little farther off was a corral, holding two fine horses, a pinto and a rangy sorrel. Whatever the occupant of the cabin might not be able to afford, he could at least own good horses.
“Looks like a cattle rustler’s hang out to me,” remarked Ross sourly.
As he spoke, the cabin door was thrown open, and a bulging woman, with a greasy apron tied around her middle, waddled out into the sunlight. She held a shotgun at the ready.
“What do you want here?” she demanded.
“We’d like to buy a little food,” I said.
“Who are you? Where you from?”
“We’re hunters,” I said, “or thought we were. We’re lost, and out of food.”
“Oh,” said the woman, lowering her shotgun, and turning away. Then in apparent relief she called, “Nobody special, Blackie.” At this, Blackie slouched out from behind the cabin, and the woman waddled indoors.
“Looking for food, strangers?” drawled Blackie, closing one eye to squint at us. Tall, and wiry, he wore riding boots, and a wide hat, and had the leathery skin of a man who had always lived in the open. His black hair and drooping mustache were just beginning to gray.
“We’re offering to buy some,” I said.
“Running pretty low ourselves,” said Blackie. “Long way to pack grub out here from town. Thirty miles from here to Rangeville.” He rubbed an ear reflectively. “But I guess we could let you have some, if we can hit on a price.”
We finally got ten pounds of flour, two pounds of coffee, a slab of salt pork, and some miscellaneous canned goods. The price we “hit on” was about four times what we would have paid in Weston. Blackie, I thought, might have done better as a highwayman than as a rancher. That little guess, a few days later, didn’t seem so amusing. With our money in his pocket, however, Blackie showed his yellow teeth in a crooked smile.
“Good hunting?” he inquired affably, handing us the gunny sack into which he had stuffed our food.
“Haven’t seen a solitary elk,” said Ross.
“Funny. I scare up a half dozen every time I ride into town.”
“You do what?” I asked. Glancing at Ross, I could see he was as much stirred by this unexpected encouragement as I.
“Scare up elk,” repeated Blackie. “Country’s lousy with them.”
“Do any guiding?” I asked.
“Off and on, if anybody offers me enough.”
“You’re hired,” I exclaimed. “What about Joe?” objected Ross.
“Fire him, and let him guide himself back to Weston.” I turned to Blackie. “Can you put us up here at the cabin?”
“We’re pretty crowded, me, and the old woman, and the two kids.” He paused. “But I guess we can do it, if we can hit on a price.”
When, back at camp, we explained the situation to Joe, he took it with mysterious calm. “As long as I’m paid,” he said, “I don’t care what you do. But, if I wanted to get home with a whole skin, I’d stay just about ninety miles from that ranch.”
“Not afraid Blackie might let us get trampled by elk, are you?” I suggested. “You made the bargain,” replied Joe, cryptically.
The next day, after Joe, and Scotty had departed with our pack train, Ross called me a fool. “This Blackie looks like a bad egg to me,” he complained. “And we’re completely at his mercy. It’s thirty miles to Rangeville, and that’s the nearest town.”
I couldn’t share Ross’s pessimism, but I had to admit that we were dependent solely upon Blackie to get us our elk. And Blackie, while he was interested enough when it came to setting a price of $4 a day each for boarding us, another $4 for his services, and $10 each for a pack horse to take out the two elk we still hoped to get, lost heart when it came to getting out in the morning.
“No use hurrying,” he said. “Elk will wait for you when you know where to look for them, like I do.”
But the elk didn’t wait. We put in four days of hard riding, up towering ridges, down tortuous draws. We saw sign in abundance, but never an elk. To make matters worse, the food Blackie’s fat helpmeet served us was abominable, and the mattress on our bed must have been stuffed with crushed stone. The woman continued to regard us with ill-concealed hostility, though the children soon lost their earlier fear of us.
“When we first got here,” I said to Blackie one night, “the kids must have thought we were train robbers or bank breakers.”
“I’d a damn sight rather have them meet up with outlaws,” said Blackie, “than with some of the rangers and game wardens around these parts.”
“Nice playmate we picked out,” said Ross as we turned in. “Better put that pistol of yours under your pillow. I’m going to keep my dough under mine.”
“Just elk-country hospitality,” I laughed.
“It’s no laughing matter,” said Ross gloomily. “This whole district was settled by outlaws. This Blackie is a throw-back. I’m glad I’m leaving in the morning.”
“Without an elk?”
“I’ve got to get back to work. You’re not going to stay alone, are you?”
“Your imagination’s got the best of you,” I said. “I’m staying till I get an elk.” But that night, though I had once scoffed at my own thoughts of Western desperadoes, I slept on my Colt.
The next morning, when I saw Ross ride off alone on the well-marked trail that led to Rangeville, I was, for a fleeting instant, tempted to saddle my horse, and follow. But I did want an elk. So, without making a move, I watched Ross drop down out of sight into a ravine. Without Ross’s deep-seated pessimism to color my outlook, I reflected hopefully, things might look better.
Blackie was strangely elated at Ross’s departure. But this was not the most disturbing change in him. If he had been listless before, he was downright lazy now. He had a thousand and one things to do that were more important than hunting. And some of these things convinced me I had got myself into a ticklish, if not actually dangerous, situation. I came in from rinsing my hands and face one morning to find Blackie in my room, fondling my automatic. Instead of appearing embarrassed or apologetic, he tossed the gun on the bed, and forced a laugh.
“Right smart gun you got there, mister.” With that he strode out. After that I never left the automatic out of my sight except when I placed it under my pillow at night. I had no way of telling exactly what Blackie was up to, but I was beginning to have suspicions.
Every morning we’d start out, ride all day, and come back without seeing hide or hair of elk. At night, I’d listen to Blackie’s lurid tales of the early West, and try to outstare the phlegmatic woman. Then, when I had turned in, I’d hear muttered conversation, and one night, cautious footsteps approached my door. As I reached under my pillow for the pistol, the footsteps retreated.
On the third day, Blackie stalled a longer time than usual, but before noon we started for a ridge to the north. We saw nothing until well into the afternoon. Then, descending about 1,000 feet, crossing the creek, and climbing laboriously up through a ravine, we came to the knife edged ridge. Half-heartedly I searched the country with my glasses. On a sharp rise about 250 yards away, I saw, for the first time on this long and fruitless trip, a magnificent bull. My fingers trembled with eagerness while I slipped a 220-grain soft-nosed cartridge into my .30/06. As I dropped to a sitting position, the bull moved a few feet toward a stand of pine. My front sight made loops on the beast’s shoulder, but after a minute it steadied, and I eased off the trigger. The bull reared on his hind legs, fell, and rolled a hundred feet down the ridge. At last I had my elk. Scrambling down after him, I found a prize. The six-point antlers were even, and beautifully formed.
In a shower of loose stones, Blackie came down to join me. Again he showed his yellow teeth in a queer smirk. It seemed odd that a man, to whom hunting was so much labor, could get a kick out of a dead elk, but there was no mistaking Blackie’s delight.
“Well, now,” he said, “you got a trophy to pack out.” He gave a throaty laugh.
“What’s so funny about packing out a trophy?”
Blackie didn’t answer. Together we dressed out the cape, and, taking the liver, started back to the ranch. This, since I had my trophy, would be my last night in the sinister place. I went straight to my room to pack. After a time I smelled liver frying, and, stepping out into the main room of the cabin, I found Blackie and the greasy woman whispering in a corner. Blackie was ramming cartridges into a Smith & Wesson Army Model .45. At the sound of my steps, the woman uttered a low “Shhh,” and Blackie, unabashed, turned.
“Best man stopper I ever had,” he said. “Caught a feller fooling around the corral one night. Put a hole in him with this here gun you could have stuck your foot through.”
“Blackie don’t know how to miss, either,” added the woman, getting up, and waddling over to the stove. I sat down on the creaking wooden chair she had left.
“I’m pulling out in the morning, Blackie,” I said. “I want to get our accounts straight.” I reached for my wallet. Blackie’s narrow eyes followed my hand as if it fascinated him.
“It’s $48, isn’t it?” I said. “Seven days’ board, four half days of guiding, and three full days.”
“Well,” drawled Blackie, “I kinda thought so, but the old woman and me got to talking it over, and we figured board’s kinda hard to get in these parts. The old woman ain’t used to waiting on strangers. Hard on her, feeling poorly the way she is. So we figured $100 would be about right.”
“I don’t feel like joking, Blackie. I suppose you’ll want $20 instead of $10 for a pack horse tomorrow.”
Blackie laughed throatily.
“If I don’t get the hundred,” he answered, “it don’t look like I’ll be able to spare a horse.”
At last I could understand his laugh when I had shot my elk. He knew I’d never leave without that elk head. I wanted to drive the toe of my boot into his leering face, but something in the way he fingered that .45 enabled me to control my anger, and play for time. A desperate plan was already forming in my mind.
“All right, Blackie,” I agreed. “I’ll pay you the $100 — tomorrow morning.”
“No you don’t,” said Blackie. “You pay right now.”
“Tell him to leave his pistol, too,” called the woman from the stove. “I kinda like that gun.”
I got up. “If this is a hold-up —”
“Easy, stranger,” admonished Blackie, laying the .45 on the table, “Easy. I got to have that money.”
“Not a cent more than you bargained for.”
Again came that taunting, throaty laugh.
“Suit yourself, stranger,” said Blackie. Then thrusting the .45 into his breeches pocket he added, “But I got an idea you’ll change your mind.”
No one spoke while we ate the greasy liver and fried potatoes the woman put on the table, and drank the silty coffee. The meal over, I went to my room. When I came back I carried my rifle and automatic. Taking a chair beside the stove, I began to clean and load them ostentatiously.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blackie and the woman exchange glances. Blackie cleared his throat.
“Fixing to do some shooting?”
“If I have to,” I answered.
I could see Blackie’s gnarled hand caress the .45 in his pocket.
“Don’t do it, stranger, unless you’re powerful quick on the draw.”
The loading finished, I got up, and walked to my room. The eyes of Blackie and the woman never left me. Shutting the door behind me, I jammed the back of a chair under the latch. Then I sat down on the bed and waited. Counting out exactly $58, I laid the money on the blanket, and scribbled a note. The extra $10, I explained, was for the hire of a pack horse. The shadows began to deepen ominously. Outside my door, I could hear Blackie stamping across the bare floor, and the shuffling steps or the woman. Once I thought I heard a noise outside my windows, but my nerves were getting too jumpy for me to be sure. Then, after what seemed like hours, I heard my door creak, as if someone were trying to push it in. The chair groaned but held. I imagined I heard Blackie’s voice mutter “Damn!” Footsteps crossed the outer room. All was still.
Scarcely daring to breathe, I tiptoed to the window. Could I make it? After a moment, I opened the window, took my rifle, thrust my pistol under my belt, and began slowly and noiselessly to climb out. My boot grated on the gravel of the yard, and my heart skipped a beat. My imagination magnified the noise till it sounded like a rock crusher. Stooping there in the moonless dark, I paused to make sure no one else had heard. On tiptoe, I went to the outbuilding where we had left my trophy, and, with this, crossed to the corral, stopping every step or two to make sure I hadn’t aroused my host. At the corral, I hesitated breathlessly. If one of the horses should whinny, I’d be lost.
Opening the gate, I entered, and, propping my rifle against the fence, saddled Blackie’s sorrel, and feverishly lashed on the elk head. Again I listened. But no sound was issued from the cabin, no light showed. I saddled my own horse, grabbed my rifle, and swung into the saddle. Could I get away fast enough?
Holding the reins of the sorrel, I put my spur into the ribs of my own horse. In the stillness, the sound of the iron shoes on the gravel was loud enough to wake the dead. But I was out of the corral now, out of the yard, and down the broad trail toward Rangeville. I turned in my saddle for one last look at Blackie’s stronghold.
A light flashed on at the windows, and the door was flung open. Framed in the yellow oblong of light, was Blackie, a rifle raised. There was a spurt of fire, and a report. With my nerves at the breaking point, I could have sworn the bullet whistled past my ear. But I was well down the trail now. I was free.
It was long past midnight when I reached Rangeville, exhausted, and saddle sore. The only light in town was in the window of a bake shop. My knock at the door was answered by the perspiring baker in undershirt and apron.
“I want to leave a horse here,” I explained. “I’ve been hunting up the country, and borrowed it to bring my trophy in.”
Though plainly puzzled, the baker called a flour-stained youth from the ovens.
“Put up the horse for the gentleman,” he ordered. Then he turned to me. I told my story. “And,” I finished, “if you’ll get someone to take the sorrel back, I’ll pay —”
“Listen, mister,” said the baker. “You couldn’t get a man in this town within ten miles of Blackie Collins. He used to belong to one of the most dangerous gangs of outlaws in the state. Whew! And you lived for seven days with a man like that!”
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