Paradise Valley 6, Celebration by sagetoad

Paradise Valley 6, Celebration“Are we ready?” Nancy asked in excitement. Her guests were looking around at the wonderful morning developing around them. It was cool by the river. A mist crept through the woods on the hill, glittering in the morning sunlight. A ring appeared on the surface of the water where a fish pulled a fly down for it’s breakfast. Nancy pulled her dress up to her knees and waded into the water. She created waves which expanded in the calm water near the shore, until merging with the moderate current at the center of the river. Nancy noticed for the first time, as she looked up in excitement, that her family had grown dramatically. She smiled at each member of her new family, as she pulled her fish trap up and looked at two long flapping perch trapped inside.

“My god,” Nancy cried, running for the bank with her treasure.

“Oh, good catch,” Willow Bud clapped. “It’s so easy to feed yourself here. I don’t know why my people chose the dessert.”

“Every people do best in their own area,” Tall Elk said, examining the perch.

The perch were as long as a grown man’s forearm and even thicker. Silver Quail wadded out to get her trap and found a catfish and one silver trout stuffed against the bars of the trap. The catfish weighed at least 20 pounds. It was a great black and silver monster, glaring at her through the willow bars.

“The crayfish,” Nancy clapped in excitement. She ran back into the river, dropping her dress into the water in her excitement, as she waded out and pulled the stick. She caught up the crayfish trap as it floated to the surface. It was literally crawling with 50 to 100 crayfish. They made a dark, moving mass inside the trap. “Oh god, you take it,” she squealed, thrusting the trap at Rusty. She shivered and shook her hands in disgust. He took the trap with a chuckle. He pulled the willow cap off the short end and upended the mass of crawling crayfish into a basket.

Tall Elk and Silver Quail were pulling the struggling fish from the traps. The trout was simple, it was smaller. The monstrous catfish must have squeezed in after the trout. Silver Quail reset the fish traps in the reeds.

“We have nothing to put in this trap,” Nancy took the empty crayfish trap in disappointment.

“We will in a second,” White Fawn said, pulling her knife and scaling the fish. It took only a few minutes to dress the fish out and drop the filleted meat into a basket. The heads and guts went into the crayfish trap and Willow Bud staked it out in the water farther upstream.

“My god,” Nancy said in excitement. “Have you ever seen so much free food in your life?”

“We didn’t even have to pack it in,” Tall Elk agreed. “You realize, Nancy, that every day won’t be as profitable as this one. It’s easy the first time. There will be less fish from now on. Rusty and I will go out hunting later. A little venison will taste good right now.”

Silver Quail’s eyes went to her husband. Something about the tone of his voice alerted her. She studied his face for a second, then picked up a basket.

“Maybe I should go along,” she said in a quiet voice, “men are terrible at dressing out meat.”

“No, two will be enough,” he gave her a stony gaze which spoke volumes.

“I’m so glad Rusty brought in that milk cow. I love fresh milk and butter,” Nancy said. “I haven’t had milk since I was a little girl.”

“You know, Willow Bud and I found gooseberries yesterday. That means the first of the blackberries will be ripe too,” White Fawn said. “With butter we can make pie crust. We should look up in the hills for berries, in the sunny areas,” she looked toward the great stony hills at the south end of the valley.

“Look to the north,” Tall Elk said.

“Did you see some?” White Fawn asked.

“No, but it would be best to stay away from the southern portion of the valley for a few days,” his eyes went to his wife and he gave her another significant look.

“Exactly what I was going to suggest,” Silver Quail grabbed her daughter’s shoulder. “Look back here behind the farm,” she pointed to the north. “There’s such a beautiful mix of bushes and trees.”

“Oh, look,” Willow Bud gasped in excitement, pointing at the grass, “a small milk snake.”

“Are they good to eat?” White Fawn moved closer as Willow Bud picked it up and gently coiled it around her forearm.

“No, el pequeño,” Willow Bud whispered, “but I promise to show you what it is good for,” she giggled.

Tall Elk and Silver Quail exchanged amused glances. They had seen women in their tribe with pet snakes. Both the snake and the women were reported to be very happy with the arrangement.

Silver Quail combined Indian potatoes, wild asparagus, wild onions, mushrooms, rice, beans, and the pealed crayfish into a wonderful boiled stew. White Fawn gutted and filleted the perch, then salted them and hung them up to dry. The catfish and trout were baked for an incredible feast. Biscuits and sugar cookies were added, made from the recent supplies purchased in Ft. Kearney. It had been a unanimous decision to continue drinking chicory, rather than wasting precious money on expensive coffee. There was a difference, of course, but they liked the difference. Besides, there were several hundred free chicory plants displaying their purple blossoms on the hill behind the ranch.

At noon they moved the kitchen table out to the front porch and began loading it down with food. They ate until they nearly burst, then sat around telling stories. It was a happy day, a day of celebrations. Since the men had returned, there was more than enough food with what they had brought back with the first packhorses. By common standards they were rich. There was some discussion about making another run for more cattle, but Tall Elk and Rusty exchanged guilty looks. Silver Quail saw that look and knew immediately that their lives were about to change. The carefree life they had led would be exchanged for war paint.

“You may need a bow and arrows,” she said in a low voice.

“Can you make the arrows?” he asked. She nodded. “Nancy, we are having chicken tomorrow,” she said, taking up the axe.

“Whaaa? Chicken? Why?”

“I need the feathers.”

The rider appeared at the south end of the valley. He stopped and studied the ranch, before kicking his horse into a walk. He approached the happy people and stopped, ten feet from the front porch. His eyes went over the women in a familiar manner which had Rusty gritting his teeth. His eyes finally fell on Rusty and studied him closely, before moving on to Tall Elk.

“I’m the deputy United States Marshall out of Lincoln. I’m here to arrest you two,” he said, his snakelike eyes switching from one to the other.

“Then you’ve wasted your time,” Rusty said, sitting is metal cup and plate on the porch.

“I don’t think so. Didn’t you two murder Raul Perez?”

“No, we killed Raul Perez, if that’s his name, when he tried to kill us,” Rusty said, squinting at the deputy.

“I found his body. He was unarmed.”

“His knife was stuck in the wall where my friend was sleeping,” Rusty nodded toward Tall Elk. “You obviously spoke to the woman, or you wouldn’t have known where to find us. Since you did, you also know we are innocent. Since you came here anyway, it means you have been bought. Go back to your REAL boss and tell him it didn’t work.”

“Why doesn’t he speak for himself?” the deputy nodded toward Tall Elk, who simply sat glaring.

“He only speaks Spanish.”

The deputy started to reach for his pistol, but Rusty’s came out in a blur. The deputy paused, then snarled and pulled his pistol. Rusty’s shot cartwheeled him from the saddle. He was dead when he hit the ground. The horse started to turn and run, but Tall Elk leaped and caught up his reins, holding them until he settled down.

“Now what?” Nancy asked, looking from one man to the other.

“Dig a large hole, shoot the horse and drop them in,” Tall Elk said.

“What?” Rusty gasped. “Why the horse?”

“Because they can trace the horse back to us,” Nancy said in sudden understanding, stepping off the porch and petting the frightened chestnut. “Dishonest or not, it’s a crime to kill a deputy. Even if they believed you it would take a month of explanations and trials. Tall Elk’s right, dig a large hole back in the woods with the one-man scoop, shoot the horse and drop everything belonging to this man in the hole.”

“I’ve never shot a horse in my life,” Rusty shook his head. They chose a clearing in a grove of spruce trees at the north end of the valley. A one-man scoop is brutal to the man operating the scoop. At the first sign of clay, roots, or rocks, it pitches the operator over the handles and far, far away. Rusty was the only qualified operator. Tall Elk controlled the horse, while Rusty manned the handles on the dumpable scoop. He dug the scoop deep by lifting the handles and pushing the front edge into the dirt, and once the scoop was full he leveled it off and the horse pulled the scoop off to one side, where Rusty lifted the handles and dumped the scoop. At first glance the yellow sand was ideal for digging, but digging in the clearing revealed hundreds of large roots radiating out from the spruce in the grove. Tall Elk laughed the first time Rusty was thrown over the handles. But as Rusty’s face hit the dirt and grass, he jumped up with a look of rage in his eyes and his hand on the butt of his pistol. Tall Elk kept his laughter to himself. He even took his turn on the handles, and in the dirt. By afternoon they had a 20 foot deep hole big enough to act as the basement of a house. Tall Elk led the chestnut, with the deputy draped over the saddle, to the bottom of the hole and shot it. The echoes sounded abnormally loud in the quiet grove. They rolled boulders into the grave from the stone boat, then used the scoop to refill the hole. The stone boat smoothed over the sand when they were through. They threw the scoop on the stone boat and started for the ranch.

“Hold up,” Tall Elk stopped Rusty before they left the secluded clearing. “My hackles are rising again. Somebody is nearby.”