Wyoming Winterkill by Jon Sharpe

country and get out again as quickly as practical.
    The third morning after they entered the Wind River Range, Fargo brought the Ovaro up alongside the trapper’s plodding bay. “How much farther?”
    â€œMiles or days?”
    â€œBoth,” Fargo said.
    The old trapper squinted ahead at jagged white peaks that thrust at the clouds. “As the crow flies, I’d guess not more than fifty miles. On horseback, with all this snow, eight to ten days, I reckon.”
    â€œDamn,” Fargo said.
    â€œThey’re up a ways. That Jacob Coarse got it into his head there’s a pass over the Tetons.”
    â€œHow do you know that?”
    â€œHe told me.”
    Fargo almost drew rein. “You talked to him? When?”
    â€œWhen I first came on them stranded in that meadow. Didn’t I mention it? They begged me to go for help.”
    â€œWhy didn’t they send one of their own down sooner?”
    â€œI asked them that,” Jules said. “Hell, it’s not that hard to find Fort Laramie.”
    â€œAnd?” Fargo prompted when the old trapper didn’t go on.
    â€œJacob Coarse wouldn’t let anyone leave. He said they had to stick together no matter what.”
    â€œThe damned fool.”
    â€œTo tell the truth, they didn’t impress me much. Farmers, mostly, and a few city folk. They were bound to get lost.”
    â€œSo they stay stranded when they don’t have to be.”
    â€œPart of it is they refuse to leave their wagons. Everything those people own is on their Conestogas. They’re fearful it will get taken if they leave it untended.”
    â€œWhat’s more important?” Fargo grumbled. “Their china and grandfather clocks or their lives?”
    â€œYou know how some folks are,” Jules said with a sigh. “They’re more attached to things than they are to breathing.”
    â€œSo much for talking them into leaving their wagons up there until spring.”
    Jules laughed. “Not likely. They’d as soon chop off an arm and a leg.”
    Fargo gazed at the swirling clouds. “What we need is a warm spell.”
    â€œWhat we have is winter.”
    As if to bring that point home, large flakes began to fall. Only a few but it portended worse to come.
    â€œWonderful,” Fargo said.
    They hadn’t gone much farther when they came on fresh tracks.
    â€œWhat do you make of those?” Jules asked.
    Fargo drew rein and bent from the saddle. A pair of riders—on shod horses—had come from the southeast and gone off toward the northwest. Judging by the little amount of snow that had filled the tracks, it couldn’t have been more than half an hour ago. He related as much.
    â€œWho in hell would be heading up into the high country in weather like this?”
    â€œIn the same direction as the stranded wagon train,” Fargo had noticed.
    â€œCould be a couple of them tried to make it to the fort and turned back.”
    â€œCould be,” Fargo said, although his gut instinct told him that wasn’t the case.
    â€œIf they stop we might run into them,” Jules mentioned. “Then we’ll know.”
    They climbed, and the snow thickened.
    Fargo marveled that the pilgrims had made it so far. Lacking a trail, they’d had to choose the easiest route by sight, avoiding steep grades and the thickest timber and deadfalls. They must have pushed their teams to try to make it over the mountains before the first snow. Little did they know that other than South Pass and another pass nearly a hundred miles to the north, there was no way over the Divide. Not for wagons, anyhow.
    The snow had turned the greens and browns to stark white. White peaks, white slopes, white trees, white ground. It was picturesque but treacherous. The snow hid obstacles that would otherwise be avoided. And it made even the slightest of slopes slippery for beast and man.
    The normally dry air wasn’t. Thick with