“I’ll Pay You Back When I Grow Up,” Girl Told Mountain Man — 15 Years Later, He Remembered
Chapter 3
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
"I'll pay you back," she said. Her voice wasn't shaking anymore; it was hard. It was a vow made by someone who had just learned how brutal the world could be. "When I grow up, I'll pay you back."Gideon looked down at her. He saw the fierce, stubborn set of her jaw. He almost smiled, but his face wasn't used to the motion."Keep your boots dry, Clara. That's payment enough."He pulled the reins and rode back toward the tree line, leaving the muddy town and the girl behind. He didn't look back. In his experience, looking back only got you killed.Time in the mountains didn't move in days or weeks; it moved in seasons: the thaw, the rot, the freeze. But as the years bled into a decade, and then a decade and a half, the rhythm of the West began to stutter and change.Gideon Hayes felt the change in his bones first: the sharp ache in his knees when the barometric pressure dropped, the stiffness in his knuckles that made setting a trap take twice as long. He was 39 now. By mountain standards, he was an old man.The mountains themselves were changing. The deafening silence of the wilderness was now frequently shattered by the distant, heavy thud of dynamite. The timber companies had arrived. They chewed through the lower valleys like iron locusts, leaving stumps and muddy wastelands in their wake. The rail lines crept closer, bringing with them a flood of desperate men looking for wages. The beaver were mostly gone. The demand for fur had dried up, replaced by the relentless hunger for timber and ore.Gideon adapted because he had to. He stopped trapping and started guiding surveyors for a while, but he despised their arrogance. He retreated higher up the ridge, building a new cabin near the snow line, where the air was thin and the pines were still thick. He wanted to be left alone.The world had other plans.The Blackwood Timber Consortium claimed the deed to the entire western slope, including the land beneath Gideon's cabin. They sent men in suits; Gideon ran them off with a shotgun. They sent men with badges; Gideon shot the dirt at their feet. Finally, they sent men with rifles.It was a Tuesday in late autumn when three company thugs ambushed him by the creek. Gideon killed two of them, but the third put a .44-caliber slug through Gideon's right shoulder before fleeing. Gideon dragged himself back to his cabin, leaving a trail of dark blood on the frost-covered rocks.He dug the bullet out himself with a sterilized hunting knife, pouring cheap whiskey into the ragged hole. He wrapped it tight, barred the heavy oak door, and waited for the fever to take him. He knew what was coming: gangrene, sepsis, the slow, burning death. He sat in his armchair, a loaded Winchester across his lap, staring at the embers in the hearth.