In the last part, Ben resolved a labor dispute and has moved on, following God's call.

Demone Lovelace first became aware of who he much, much later learned to be Ben Persons in St Louis. It was some years past, but as clear as yesterday. Demone was in St Louis looking for a grubstake, not the kind a prospector sought, one who would finance a search for gold in exchange for a share. Demone needed money to get himself out of town. The law had its eye on him. It was time to find another town. Working alone, his options were limited.

Burgling or mugging would get him food and shelter for a day, or two. But he needed more to clear St Louis.

Watching banks was out. It worked twice, but now it appeared that he was a suspect, watched and followed whenever near a bank. He’d figured out how to determine who was going in to make a deposit, and who had just exited after a withdrawal. His guess had paid off twice, but he saw prison in the third.

Demone recalled having walked past a private college. Who would enter the administrative offices of a private college before fall classes began. And be carrying a purse full of money?

Demone hadn’t settled into his perch five minutes when he saw a young man several years his younger walking up with purpose. Demone was drawn to money as a bee to a bloom. He rose and began his approach, looking off to a side, but his take down move planned to a science – an elbow to the kidneys as in passing, a kicking trip followed by a chop to his throat. Grab the purse and be off through the wood in seconds.

Never before had Demone felt such a sensation. Just as he cocked his arm for the thrust, it was as if he was in a thundercloud and lightning was about to strike. Every hair on his body quivered. His arm and elbow refused his command. He turned to look at the youth’s back. An aura surrounded the young man. Demone ran, turning into the wood unrewarded.

Demone made it out of St Louis, but not at Ben Persons’ expense.

Some years later, Demone walked his spent horse into Creede, Colorado where he saw a young man on a red gelding, the horse striking him as if soon to be his own, but for a matter of a bullet and a shallow grave. The young man, Ben Persons, seemed completely unaware. Ben Persons gazed left and right, a certain situational awareness part of his nature. Though the connection to the eyes of a man walking his horse flashingly brief, Demone froze as if shot.

Demone flashed back to a time when he’d briefly been a part of a gang that attempted to hold up a stage. His kill shot at this same man fell on an empty chamber.

Then the ridiculous scene at the railroad where he was interrupted.

Demone sensed that his fate was in the palm of this man’s hand.

+++

Red was ready, stabled long enough with an attendant stingy with hay. He pawed the ground, reared his head and bared his teeth in excitement as Ben approached. After a stop at the general store for hard tack and salt pork, he had headed for the Lake City livery, determined to get at least halfway to Cinnamon Pass before nightfall, or at least as far as he had the last time, before coming upon Slim, the injured man. Over the pass, south at Animas Forks, and on to Silverton, if he was quick, he could beat the snow. Thinking over his previous evening, he decided to take along a sack of oats, trusting Red was up to the load.

Whether overgrown chipmunks, or undersize groundhogs, he’d never seen anything like them – the friendliest rodent-varmints he’d ever beheld. A stretch just before the American Basin had at least one on nearly every rock he skirted. An added surprise was their temerity, their cheekiness. Most of them stared straight ahead as he ventured closer. After passing, their heads turned to follow his progress as would an owl. As much as he might, Ben couldn’t force himself to kill and eat one, as pet-like as they appeared.

Tempted to let Red graze and rest for the night in the Basin before the climb up the pass, he thought better of it after spotting a hunting party in what appeared to be a fairly permanent encampment. They were well into a drunken revelry. He’d do Red a favor and pass the opportunity by figuring they’d stop at the first acceptable place clear of earshot. It wasn’t to be. Dusk lasting mere minutes as the sun broke over the peaks of the San Juans to the west, Ben turned back, deciding to camp below the Basin. With a very small fire, they might well escape notice of the partiers. At least they’d be on their way before the rowdy bunch awakened in the morning.

By morning, several inches of snow had fallen. Ben looked skyward and up the slope of Cinnamon Pass, the trail completely obscured, wondering about the validity of this particular part of his calling. By the look of the sky, there’d be no melting. “Nothing to it, but to do it,” he thought. After a cup of oats for Red and no cup of coffee for himself, he retraced the trail as far as he was certain from the previous evening.

“Okay, Red. Here’s where you earn your oats. I’ll walk the first time you ask. Hyup. Let’s go.” He nudged Red with his spurless heels. Hitting a patch of shale rock, Red began slipping, failing to catch anything to give him stability. Ben leaped off to the uphill side, sliding in the snow only a short distance. Red went to his knees, nearly toppling to his left, the downhill side.

“Lord, please spare Red’s legs,” Ben prayed aloud. “I’ll walk the mountain, but please keep Red’s legs whole.” Red immediately steadied himself.

“Well, guess we’re to fellowship with those boys after all. C’mon, Red. Up you go.  Atta boy.” Ben urged Red to stand facing uphill, getting him righted before cautiously leading him down. Fortunately, Red had already slid beyond the shale.

“Hello, the camp,” Ben announced as soon as he thought proper. “Hello, the camp.”

No one stirred.

Once Red was loosed to forage as best he was able through the snow, the Basin creating a pasture, Ben tended the hunting party’s unbanked fire, finally getting an ember to take hold and begin to burn. His small tin sufficient for only one person, he felt it best not to touch the hunters' gear, even to make them coffee. The sun fully risen; he began to be less careful about making noise.

“Who’re you?” demanded the first out of the bunkhouse tent.

“Name’s Ben Persons. Camped below last night. My horse fell trying the pass this morning. Thought it best to rest him.” Ben gestured with both hands, one downstream where he’d camped and the other toward the Basin Lake where Red found graze.

The camper held his head with both hands after attempting to follow Ben’s pointing.

“Try again this afternoon. Or tomorrow. I called to the camp,” Ben added.

“Yeah, well, none of us don’t feel so good this mornin’.”

Ben nodded.

“I’m Camp, Tom Camp. Last name’s too long for America, Camp’ll do.” With that, he stepped a pace around the corner of the tent to relieve himself. “Others hear this, they’ll rouse. If you’d build up a white man’s fire and fill that pot over there from the lake, I’ll get the coffee.”

Ben set to it.

Returning to the camp, yellow snow ringed the tent.

No one else introduced themselves, though Ben had. Camp was the only one who’d uttered anything intelligible. The others were content to let him ramble as they plowed through their breakfast of beans and biscuits, the biscuits unevenly cooked in a too deep Dutch oven.

Finally, one spoke, not pointedly to Ben, but obviously for his benefit. ”Look, honest work here. Feedin’ miners. Up here … everybody’s got a past. What’s past. Man can decide up here, to go honest.”

It was an odd speech, tweaking heads and eyes in bewilderment, but Ben understood. He’d recognized the man as the one rifling through pockets at the stage hold up. The speaker had recognized Ben, as well.

“Take out all the folks got second chances, wouldn’t be much left of the Good Book,” Ben replied with a friendly smile, his eyes finding the ex-outlaw’s.

The man, Thomas Coleman, nodded gratitude. He gestured toward the horses, silently suggesting they separate from the others. “They know me as James Coley around here.”

Ben nodded acceptance.

“It was you turned me,” James said. “No offense, but when you looked at me, back there at the stage, I saw my Mama starin’ at me. An’ she didn’t like what she saw. Then I felt your Henry on my back all the while I was high-tailin’ it outta there. Why didn’t you shoot?”

Ben answered, “Wouldn’t’ve suited my calling.”

James turned to look Ben more squarely, nodding understanding.

“This is my calling. You. Here and now,” Ben said.

James looked skyward, and then scanned the mountain ridges, anywhere but into Ben’s eyes. After a few sniffles, a back-handed swipe at his eyes, and a choked beginning, his voice steadied after the first few words. “Yer doin’ it again. My Mama. She was a preacher’s daughter.” He chanced a glance at Ben. “She made no bones about prayin’ for me. Every time I cut up. Her on her knees prayin’ to God for me to find him, quotin’ Bible in her prayers.

“I used to laugh it up.  God’s lost and needs me to find him.”

Ben kept still.

“Tell you. Her on her knees hurt worsen’ any whippin’ my pa ever gave me.” James paused. “Don’t know why I fell in with those boys. My horse broke his leg. I couldn’t afford another. Stealin’ one seemed the only way. Then … well, I was a horse thief, right?”

“Then that day, with your sights locked on the back of my heart. Well, I veered my horse away from those boys an’ never looked back.”

“You ready to find God now?” Ben asked.

Falling to his knees, James began to pray as had his mother, as if talking to a dear friend. Gently, Ben touched James’ head, praying with him.

Rising, James announced his plan. “Goin’ to California. Right now. I feel it.”

Ben understood. “Here take this. I don’t need it. You do.” From a pocket he withdrew two Double Eagles. “Find a church.”

“I will, Friend, one can teach me to preach. I feel it.”

Ben nodded. “A calling.”

“Get out there, look me up,” he said as if California was a little town.

“Afraid it might be in the by-an’-by we meet again.”

James understood.

+++

“We would’ve taken the game over to Animas Forks yesterday, but Ivan the Terrible in there.” Tom Camp pointed to the tent as Ben returned.

Another man picked up the story. “Took a Ute arrow. We tried to doctor him. Doubt we could get over the hump as drunk as we all got tryin’ to drunk him enough to get it out. Shoulda left it in an gone on, I guess. Name’s Smith.” He held out his hand to shake, the only one to do so.

Smith pointed to one of their party. “Jim Beam there couldn’t stand for Ivan to drink alone.” As it turned out, Jim Beam wasn’t his real name, but a nickname for the man from Kentucky who Ben instantly perceived to be an alcoholic. “The rest of us, well, I guess we just wanted our share,” he said sullenly.

“Ivan?” Ben asked, nodding toward the tent.

“Leg has fever. You know doctorin’?” he asked.

“Studied some,” Ben answered. The college offered a term of first aid, as well as another of common diseases for those among them who might be called to a mission field or pioneering ministry.

“Had to cut him up pretty bad,” Smith said apologetically. Smith had taken Ben into the tent to see the injured man.

The wound was a hideous mess. “Everybody put a hand to it once Ivan finally passed out. I think somebody mistook a bone for the arrowhead. It’s still in there somewhere.”

The arrow had entered a few inches above his knee from behind.

“Way it went in made it real hard to work on. Him not wanting to stay on his stomach, and us tryin’ to get him liquored up.”

Ben nodded as he studied the bright red, swollen, meaty flesh. “My guess is that a doctor’s going to take the leg off. Soon. Today.”

Smith nodded.

Smith’s announcement to the party was a repeat of what they’d overheard already. No one volunteered, everyone avoiding eye contact with either Smith, or Ben.

“What really happened here?” Ben asked, his spirit speaking to him. “He didn’t get attacked by an Indian, and you all have a drinking party with no notion of defense, or guarding the camp.” His eyes travelled the hunters, seeking truth.

No one moved as Ben refilled his coffee. His eyes continued to search their faces. Smith beat another by only a fraction.

“He rode in dragging that elk.” He pointed at a carcass, disdain in his voice. “Dragging it, for crying out loud.” The others’ expressions demonstrated their disgust at such treatment of game.

“Had the arrow in his leg, braggin’ about it like it was a trophy. Like he was a war hero. Heck, he bought his way out of the war. His family paid a farmer three hundred dollars to take his place. Up in Indiana.” He turned his glare to the fire. “Said he shot the elk and before he could dress it, a Ute brave plinked him. Said he fought the Indian off, and well … Here he rode in.”

Ben sensed the lie of it, as did all the others.

“Was two holes. One in the shoulder could’ve been an arrow,” Smith added, pointing to the elk.

Ben nodded.

As they built a travois, a sled-like gurney to be pulled by Ivan’s horse, Ben told them that he would take the man down to Lake City, learning that neither Animas Forks nor Eureka had a doctor. Silent sighs of relief filled the camp.

Unsaid, Ben knew what he would do: pull the man to where he might have the best chance of meeting the Ute’s who no doubt had been watching all the while. At the risk of further hurt for the delayed care, Ben knew that the sacrifice of time was absolutely required: his calling.

At the first valley to the south, Ben urged Red off the Lake City trail. Drifting snow laid bare a path that might as well have been shoveled, as clear as it was of snow. An hour further was a small knob, clear of brush or trees but for a single, small, lightning-struck tree – perfect for a blazing white man’s fire.

As Ben tossed on the last limb, he saw that he was surrounded by four Utes. None spoke.

Casually, Ben strode to Ivan, stripping him of his coverings. The Indians followed. Exposing the wound on the man that they recognized, Ben motioned that the leg would be cut off.

After bowing to each of the four men, two middle aged and two younger than Ben, Ben turned back to one of the younger men. “It was your elk,” he said. Pointing to Ivan, who was then conscious, but obviously feverish and in pain. Ben continued, “We all hope he is sorry. We are sorry for him.”

The Utes gave no indication that they understood. Their solemn expressions hadn’t changed since their first appearance.

“He has no honor among his brothers. I will take him to get his leg cut off. He will ride the train to the east, off the mountain, where no elk will ever go.” Ben made gestures unknown and unbidden as he spoke. Finished, the Ute he’d addressed as the one who’d shot both the elk and Ivan, extended his hand in white man manner to shake Ben’s. They all nodded, their smiles speaking friendship and acceptance as they left as quietly as they’d appeared.