by Galloway
"Yes, sir. I've heard the name."
"Sackett," Rossiter said, "I want you to stay on until you're strong again. When
you're ready to go I'll outfit you. We don't have much, but we'll share what we
have."
He pointed toward the closet. "There's a six-shooter in there if you should need
it. It is an old gun but a good one and I trust you'll use it with judgment."
After he'd gone I lay there awhile, just a-thinking. Seems we Sacketts were
never going to be shut of trouble. We had started for this wild, new country to
build us a home, and it was country like nobody ever saw before. It was mountain
country, which suited us, but the mountains were giants compared to what we'd
been used to. Clingman's Dome was a mighty beautiful peak, but would be lost in
the shadow of most of those around me.
Running water, lakes, aspen, pines, spruce, and so much fish and game the stuff
fairly jumped at a man ... there was hay in the meadows, flowers on the slopes,
and timber for the cutting. It was our kind of country, and here we Sacketts
would stay.
I eased myself out of bed and started to stand up, but felt giddy of a sudden
and sat down, my head all aswim. I'd have to take it easy. I'd have to wait it
out. There was no place in this country for a man who couldn't walk tall down
the trails or sit a saddle where the long wind blows.
The pistol was one of those made in Texas during the War Between the States. It
was a Dance & Park percussion pistol, .44 calibre, that had been worked over to
handle Colt cartridges. Somebody had worked on that gun who knew what he was
doing. It had balance and felt right to a man's hand. The pistol was loaded and
the loops in the belt were filled. I taken it down and hung it by the bed.
A good gun is a thing to have, and a body never knows when he'll need it.
There's a saying that when guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns.
Chapter VII
It was a mark of my weakness that I was almighty glad to get back into bed, and
I dozed off after awhile and only awakened when Meg Rossiter came into my room
with a tray to put on the bedside table.
Now this was a new thing for me. I'd never been waited on much. Not since Ma
died. Or when I paid for it in some roadside eating place.
This here was something, to set up in bed with pillows propped behind, and good
food there for you. "Ma'am, you could plumb spoil a man, doin' for him like
this."
"You're sick," she said, and I figured there was a mite of edge to her tone. She
didn't set so much store by me since I'd told what happened on the trail. But
I'd no idea she was sweet on this Curly fellow ... and it was too bad. Any man
who would do to me what he'd done had something rotten inside.
All right. He had no cause to help me, but he'd no cause to come back and knock
me down, either. The first time might have been an accident, although I was no
longer sure of that. The second time was not.
"I know you don't think much of me, ma'am, and as soon as I'm able I'll ride out
of here. You'll be shut of me."
"But not what you said! You'll leave that behind! You'll leave it with Pa!"
"I only told the truth, ma'am, and when I spoke I had no idea you was sweet on
him."
"I'm not! I'm not what you said! You probably think if Curly were out of the way
I'd look at you!"
"No, ma'am," I said honestly, "I think nothing of the kind. I know I'm a homely
man, ma'am, just a long tall mountain boy. Now Galloway ... he's my brother ...
womenfolk pay him mind, but none of them ever looked twice at me, and I've come
not to expect it."
She looked at me suddenly, as if seeing me for the first time. "You're not
homely," she said. "Maybe you aren't handsome, but you're not homely, either."
"Thank you, ma'am. I reckon I decided long ago that I'd have to run in single
harness. I like the high, lonesome country, so maybe it fits. Nobody ever wanted
a home more than me, and nobody ever had one less, least it was Galloway. Gals
like the high-spirited, high-headed kind, I've noticed. If they can break them
to harness they aren't at all what the gal wanted in the beginning, and if she
can't break them they usually break her. But that's the way of it."
She went back into the other room, wherever it was, and I ate my soup. It was
good soup, and I thought how I'd lied in my voice if not in my heart. I did so
think about her. When a big, homely man like me has a woman do for him it
softens him up, and me being lonely like so much of the time, it was just
natural I'd think of how fine it would be, but there's no harm in thinking, and
I knew all the time it was impossible. Still, I wished it was somebody else than
that Curly.
I wished it was anybody else than Curly.
After I'd eaten, I slept. What awakened me I don't know, but it must have been
the sound of horses' hoofs in the ranch yard. Rising up on one elbow, I listened
and heard voices.
Reaching over to that holster I drew out that Dance & Park pistol and brought it
back into bed with me, taking it under the covers and alongside my right leg.
With a man like Curly Dunn you have no idea, and after what he'd done I had a
hunch that had he met me out on the trail alone he would have killed me ... just
for the hell of it.
With his friend along I guess he just didn't want to be that ornery. Nobody
looks on cold-blooded killing with favor, not even those liable to do it
themselves ... a body never knows when he'll be the victim with a man like that.
Anyway, it gave me a right comforting feeling to have that old six-shooter under
my hand.
There was talk in the other rooms that I could hear vaguely, talk and laughter
and some singing. Meg was playing a banjo and singing soft and low, so I could
not hear the words. It would have been a good sound to go to sleep by, only I
daren't. Soon or late she was going to tell him about the man she found
alongside the trail, and he would come to look.
Suddenly I heard footsteps and then the door opened. Curly stood there, looking
across the room at me. I was setting up.
"They were fools to take you in," he said. "They've no idea who you are."
"Neither do you," I said. "But they're good folks, who'd help a man who was hurt
... not ride him down."
He chuckled, but it was a mean kind of humor. "You looked funny," he said,
"topplin' over thataway. Like a rag doll."
He started toward me, dropping his hand to his gun. "You're the kind who might
commit suicide," he said thoughtfully, "a man as bad off as you are. It wouldn't
surprise anybody."
"It would surprise my brother Galloway," I said, "and the rest of the Sacketts.
But don't you worry none. I'm not figurin' on it."
"But with a little help?"
He meant it, too. There was a cruel streak in the man, a mean, cruel streak. He
taken another step toward me and then almost by accident his eyes fell on the
empty holster hanging to the bedpost.
It stopped him.
That and my right hand under the covers. Did I have the gun? He didn't know, but
I could see him begin to sweat. The beads just stepped out on hi
s forehead like
water had been thrown at him.
He looked at me, and toward the blanket where my right hand was hidden, and I
could just see him wondering if I'd draw that gun from under the covers in time,
so I said, "Now no man in his right mind draws a gun from under blankets when he
can shoot right through them."
He looked at me, his eyes all hot and bright, the sweat still on him, his fear
fighting with his greed to kill or maim. "You've got a gun?"
"Have I?" I grinned at him. "It's a good question, isn't it? I didn't have one
out on the trail, bein' stark naked as I was, but Mr. Rossiter might have given
me one."
"He wouldn't be such a fool. You might murder them all."
"Maybe he thinks they're in less danger from me than from you."
That hit him. He liked being what he was but he did not like having it known, or
guessed.
"What's the matter?" I asked. "Was it Rocker's name that got to you? You
probably decided you could kill more men than he could ... only Rocker generally
shoots them standing up. Or so I've heard."
He kind of drew back. He had decided he did not like the odds. He might have
tried it, at that, and then tried to convince the Rossiters it had been suicide.
Such men often believe the impossible because it suits them to believe, or
because they have big ideas of themselves.
Just then we heard the click of heels and then Meg was in the room, her pa right
behind her. "Oh! Here you are! I went to put fudge on the dish and start some
coffee and when I got back you were gone."
"He came back to pay his respects, ma'am," I said dryly. "It was the only polite
thing to do."
She shot him a quick glance, then looked hard at me. Curly Dunn looked as bland
and innocent as a newborn baby, but I expect that was how he always looked. Only
when he glanced at me his eyes took on that greasy look.
When they had gone Rossiter remained behind. "What happened?" he demanded.
I shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
Rossiter's eyes went to the empty holster, then to my right hand under the
covers. "You're a careful man," he said.
"My grandpa," I said, "lived to be ninety-four. It was a caution to us all."
We talked the evening away, mostly of cows and ranching, Indians and the like,
and all the while I was learning about this country, the prettiest I'd ever
seen.
"In the country north of Shalako," he said, "there's high mountain parks the
like of which you've never seen. Running streams everywhere, waterfalls, lost
canyons, and good feed for stock. I've seen outcrops of coal, and there are
stories that the old Spanish men mined for gold up there."
"I'll be riding out," I said, "but I'll be coming back ... with Galloway."
He glanced at me. "Curly says he's met your brother. That Galloway Sackett
backed down from him."
"Galloway," I told him, "hasn't any back-up in him. He probably didn't figure it
was the custom of the country to kill somebody that isn't dry behind the ears
yet."
He left me finally, and I eased down into the bed and stretched out. It felt
good, real good. I was warm, I had eaten, and I could rest. Yet I did not let
myself fall asleep until I heard Curly Dunn ride off.
Rossiter had a small operation going for him, a herd of no more than three
hundred head, mostly breeding stock, but he was a prosperous man and had come
into the country with money. He had no need to sell stock, and could hold off
and let the natural increase build his herd. Although I expect he had the notion
of picking up a few head when buying was possible. A man with ready cash can
often make some good buys of folks who just can't cut the mustard.
He had built a strong five-room house of logs with three good fireplaces, one of
them big enough to warm two rooms and which could be fed from both. He had a
weather-tight stable and some pole corrals, and he had a dozen head of good
horses and two cowhands. In the house he had a Mexican woman for a cook who
looked strong enough to handle both of the cowhands in a rough-and-tumble fight.
But she could really throw the grub together.
She brought me breakfast in the morning, and then she brought me some clothes.
The pants were a might short in the leg as I am two niches above six feet, and
the shirt was short in the arm, but it felt good to have civilized clothes on
again. They hadn't no spare boots but they did have hide, so I set to work and
made myself a pair of moccasins.
Meg stopped by to watch. She set down on the porch beside me whilst I cut them
out and shaped them to my feet. "You have done that before?"
"Often. I can make a fair pair of boots, too, given the time."
"Have you?"
"In the Sackett family if a boy wanted boots he made 'em himself. That is, if he
was over twelve. Before that we mostly went barefooted. I was sixteen year old
before I had me a pair of store-bought shoes. I saved 'em for dancin'."
She hugged her knees and looked at the line of trees beyond the ranchyard. "What
were the dances like?"
"Well, most often they were at the schoolhouse. Sometimes they'd be in
somebody's yard. The word would go out and folks would tell each other, and each
would fix up a basket and go. Other times it would just be sort of on the spur,
and they'd come from all over.
"Most of the boys weren't so much for dancin' but if they couldn't dance they
could hold the girl whilst she did. There'd be a fiddle, sometimes some other
instrument, but a fiddle was all anybody expected or needed.
"A lot of courtin' was done at those dances, and a lot of fightin'. Mostly the
boys came for the fightin'. Galloway always had some girl who'd set her cap for
him, but he paid them no mind. Not serious, anyway.
"Sometimes there'd not be enough for dancin' so we'd set about an' sing. I liked
that because I just plain like to sing."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Hunt us a piece of land and go to ranching. I reckon right now the thing to do
is head for Shalako and team up with Galloway."
"You'd better be careful. The Dunns will think you're crowding them."
"It's open range, and there's enough for all."
"That isn't what they think, Mr. Sackett. There are six of the Dunn boys, and
there's their pa, and they've a dozen or more men who ride for them."
"Well, there's two of us Sacketts. That should make it work out about right. Of
course, if need be there's a lot of us scattered around and we set store by our
kinfolk."
I completed the moccasins and tried them on. They felt good on my feet, which
had healed over, although the skin was still tender.
I looked down at the girl. "Ma'am, you're a right pretty girl, and the man that
gets you will be lucky, but don't you go wasting yourself on Curly Dunn. He's as
poisonous mean as a rattler."
She sprang to her feet, her face stiff with anger. "Nobody can be nice to you!
The first time I try to talk to you you end up by criticizing Curly!"
"If I hadn't been armed last night, he'd have killed me."
"What kind of talk is that? You mean he'd have tried to kill you right in my own
house, w
ith Pa and me close by? That's ridiculous!"
"Maybe. He said it would look like suicide. Ma'am, you may hate me for this, but
I'd be less than a man if I hadn't told you. That Curly is sick. He's sick in
the head. You'd better understand that while there's still time."
Scornfully, she turned from me. "Go away. And I don't care if I ever see you
again! Just go away!"
"Yes, ma'am. That's why I told you. Because I am going away and I don't figure
to see you again too much, and you and your pa have been almighty kind. I've
warned you just like I'd warn folks if there was a hydrophoby wolf in the
neighborhood."
I limped to the corral and roped the grulla mustang Rossiter had agreed to loan
me. I saddled up with the borrowed gear, then went to the house.
Rossiter met me at the door. "Sorry to see you go, boy. If you come back this
way, drop in."
"I'll return the outfit soon as I can rustle one. Galloway has a little money. I
lost all mine back yonder."
"No hurry." Rossiter stepped down off the porch and lowered his tone. "Sackett,
you be careful, riding out of here. I think you have made an enemy."
"If he stays out of my way, I'll stay shut of him. I'm not one to hunt trouble.
An' Mr. Rossiter, if you ever need help, you just put your call on a Sackett.
You'll get all the help you need, an' quick. You help one of us and you've
helped us all. That's the way we figure it."
The grulla was a good horse, mountain-bred and tough. He was a mite feisty there
at first but as soon as he found that I intended to stay in the saddle and take
no nonsense he headed off down the trail happily enough. He just wanted to
settle as to who was boss.
Shalako wasn't far down the road. I kept to the trees, avoiding the trail, and
at noontime I watered in the La Plata River a few miles below the town. When the
grulla was watered I taken it back under the trees and found a place there with
sunshine and shadow, with grass around, and a place for me to rest, and I rested
while the grulla cropped grass.
Fact is, I wasn't up to much, and what lay beyond I did not know. There might be
folks at the town that I wanted to see, and some I'd rather fight shy of.
Somehow the thought was in my mind that I was coming home ... this country felt
right to me, and I even liked the name of that town.
Shalako ... some Indian name, it sounded like.
