Things He Found

A Western Mystery

A blistering hot day it was in Idaho, just across the Tetons from Wyoming, when he uncovered the cowboy up in the rockfall.

He'd been tending the tiny dam most of his years: pulling limbs and such from the trash screen, never fixing any real problems but reporting them. It drove a small generator that had given a leg of power to the little town below since Spanish-American war days. He lived with his wife in a shiny, Company-supplied manufactured home, with a Company pick-up and an ATV. They were way up a dirt road through potato fields and into the foothills. Up on a corner of the old Whistler ranch.

He'd had his eye on a rockfall over on the Whistler place for decades, only 1/4 mile up from the dam in a tiny valley where he always kicked up Elk. A goodly chunk of granite had calved off a rock face onto the valley floor long ago, leaving a spray of perfect little boulders. The ones his Wife thought would make good borders for her gardens and their drive. The ones he'd towed a small wagon up into the valley for with the ATV.

He reckoned it would take a few trips. The wagon had its first load aboard, and he sat in shade and drank iced tea. He could envision a dozen trips before it was done, so he started staging the next one, picking the good sizes out of the spill to set aside. The stones were rounded or shattered by many frigid Winters and scorching Summers, and his boot heels slipped among them, trying to throw him down. "Careful, old man. Help's a long way away!" He went to one knee, then caught himself with his right hand. Looking down at his hand, he saw the old hat peeking up between the stones.

It was a felt hat, smashed flat against the ground, of the type called a slouch hat. It wanted to crumble in his hands, but he got it laid aside in one piece, and moved back into the pile, now with a pinch bar, shifting the covering rocks away. Next was the shattered skull and twisted spine, then a mess of shattered shoulder, rib and arm bones all mixed in with a horse's skull and neck, a skeletal fist still wrapped with disintegrating reins.

The sun was dipping as he finished up his clearance. He thought of what he had found. A rider, carrying percussion weapons had been crushed beneath a rockfall. He'd left the bones lay, but picked up everything else: the hat, belt remains with a buckle, a brass-framed revolver in a few tatters of a holster, a Spencer carbine frozen solid, fully loaded and a military style saddle and bags. Bit, bridle scraps, and a cavalry saber, brass-hilted. A goodly sized Bowie knife.

He'd dumped the stones, and carefully settled all the items in the wagon. He set off down the trail to the house. It was the first thing interesting he'd ever come across. The old Lady was gonna shit straight up.

To be resolved...

(c) 2018 Riley