by Galloway
Then, for awhile, listening to the cropping of grass and the running water, I
slept.
Chapter VIII
The town lay off the road with the most beautiful backdrop of mountains you ever
did see, and the La Plata was down off the bench and under the trees, hidden
from the town, but close by.
Now when I say "town" I mean it western style. In this country we folks call
anything a town where people stop. First off there's a stage stop or a store or
maybe only a saloon. Out California way there was a town started because a man's
wagon broke down and he just started selling whiskey off the tailgate.
Generally towns in this country, like in the old country, began at river
crossings or places where the trails crossed. Folks like to stop at rivers, but
the smart ones always cross the river first, and then camp. The river might rise
up during the night and hold them for days.
London, folks tells me, began at the only good crossing of the river in many
miles. At that place there was a gravel bottom. The same thing folks tell me was
true of other cities about the world, but how Shalako came to be, I had no idea.
It was mid-afternoon when my mustang ambled up the one street of the town. With
the mountains reared up against the sky in the background there were three
buildings, two on one side of the street, one on the other. I swung down in
front of the saloon and tied my horse, sizing up the place.
Across the street was a general store and as soon as I could round up some cash
I figured to go over there and buy myself an outfit, including boots. Meanwhile
I'd tackle the saloon.
Now a western saloon wasn't just a place to belt a few. It was a clubroom for
the men, a clearing house for information, and often as not more business was
done at the bar than anywhere else around. A man could go into a saloon and find
out how the trails were, whether the Indians were on the warpath, or just about
anything he needed to know. And I needed to know plenty. Mostly where I could
find Galloway.
So I pushed past the swinging doors and went in. It was cool and quiet inside.
The bar ran across about two-thirds of the end of the room, and by the end of
the bar there was a door. That bar was polished and in mighty fine shape. There
were a dozen tables, a beat-up music box, and a man leaning over the bar.
"Howdy," I said, "I'm Flagan Sackett. I'm hunting a brother of mine and somebody
who'll stake me to a bait of grub."
"Your brother Galloway Sackett?"
"That's the one."
"He and his partner rode off up country. They said to give you whatever you
needed, so the grub will be ready. You want a drink?"
"Thanks. I don't shape up to be much of a drinking man, but I'll have it."
Now I didn't shape up to be much of anything right then. Like I said, those
clothes I had on fit me a mite too soon. The pants ended above my ankles and the
shirt sleeves only came down below my elbows. The shirt was tight across the
chest and back, and of course, thin like I was from lack of eating, I looked
like the skeleton had come out of the cupboard.
Just then the doors swung open and two men came in—cowhands from somebody's
outfit. They wore chaps and they bellied up to the bar and then one of them saw
me.
"Look, what the cat dragged in," he said. "Mister, next time you swipe
somebody's pants you better make sure they fit."
"That would be hard to do," I said, "judging by what I see around. I don't think
there's a man-sized pair of pants in the outfit, letting alone the bartender."
One of those gents was a stocky, redheaded gent with square shoulders and
freckled hands ... fists right now. He taken a step toward me and said, "Let's
see who fills the biggest pants around here."
"Mister Red," I said, "I'm in no shape for a fight. I've come off the mountain
after a most difficult time with Indians and such. You just hold that head of
steam for a week or so and I'll take you out and punch your head into shape."
"I think you're yella," he said.
"No," I said, "although I can understand your viewpoint. But I don't aim to give
myself none the worst of it and I'm in no shape to fight. Right at this moment I
couldn't whip a sick kitten."
The bartender came through the door from the kitchen pushing a tray loaded with
grub ahead of him. "Here you go, Sackett," he said. "This'll put meat on your
ribs."
That redhead stared at me. "Is your name Sackett? You related to Tyrel?"
"Cousins," I said, "although the only time we ever met was down in the Tonto
Basin awhile back. Do you know Tyrel?"
"I know him. He's hell-on-wheels with a gun."
"Runs in the family," I said. "We all take to shooting like we do to girling or
eating. Comes natural. I cut my teeth on the butt of a six-gun."
"We had trouble, Tyrel an' me."
"Must not have amounted to much," I said, "that trouble you speak of."
"Why?"
"You're still alive, ain't you? The way I heard it Tyrel don't waste around.
When he has a job to do he does it. If I were you I'd forget all about that
trouble. And whatever you had in mind here, too. I don't want nothing to take my
mind off this grub."
So saying I straddled a chair and cut into that meat. Hungry as I was it could
have been an old saddle and I'd have eaten it, stirrups and all.
Red brought his beer over and sat down opposite me. "Truth to tell," he said,
"Tyrel could have pinned my ears back, and he didn't. I was tied in with a rough
crowd and I was feeling my weight. I never did get nowhere bucking Sacketts."
"Then it's about time you either stayed out of the fights or got in on the right
side."
"Which side is yours?"
"One not hunting trouble. We came into this country hunting land. We figure to
settle down and raise cows and families. You got anything against that?"
"No ... but the Dunns might."
Well, I didn't want to talk about it. Seemed to me there'd been too much talk
already. What I wanted was some shuteye, now that I was stowing away this grub.
I wanted a rest and then an outfit. I'd need blankets, a poncho, saddlebags, a
rifle, and some grub. It was a lot to ask, but no more than I could pay for,
given time.
The saloonkeeper left his bar and crossed over to my table with a beer. "Mind if
I join you? Name's Berglund."
He was a big, tough-looking man with yellow hair, a wide, battle-scarred face,
and massive shoulders, arms and fists. "Glad to have company," I said. "You been
here long?"
"Nobody has. I was driftin' through the country, headed west. I suppose I was
huntin' gold, and did make a pass at it now and again, but then I came up on
this bench and I decided this was there I wanted to stay. The fishing was great
and the hunting was even better, so I bought an axe and an adze and built myself
a saloon. I figured that was the easiest way to find company.
"In the good months I fish and hunt, and in the winter I sit by the fire and
read or talk. I'm a talkative man, Sackett. I like people, and enjoy their
company. Nothing like a warm fire when the weather's turning bad to get folks to
>
sit up and talk."
"It's a risk meeting folks," I said. "You never know which one is a danger to
you. It's like coming to a crossroads where you pull up and look both ways and
your whole life may change if you take the wrong direction. One thing you can be
sure of ... your life wouldn't be the same."
"I don't know," Berglund argued, "I think a man takes trouble with him."
"Well," I said, "I surely didn't want trouble when Curly Dunn first came up on
me. He brought it to me. And I'd no idea I'd ever see him again, but when Meg
Rossiter taken me home she taken me right into the middle of the target."
When I finished that meal I just sat there for a moment, enjoying the contented
feeling that was settling me down. I sorely needed an outfit, but right now I'd
no desire to get my feet under me and walk over there. Nor was there pleasure in
the thought of pushing my sore feet down into new boots.
"There's folks a-coming in," Berglund said, "most of them prospectors, but
there's a few farmers and cattlemen coming, too. This here's a growing land."
"The Dunns come in often?"
"Nearly every day. They spend money, but I don't care for them. And the worst of
them isn't Curly, either. He's small calibre compared to Ollie Hammer or Tin-Cup
Hone. Tin-Cup got his name from the mining camp they call Tin-Cup. They had a
way of running marshals out of town or killing them, and Tin was one of the
worst of the lot. Then he ran into Ollie and they teamed up and came down here
and signed on to punch cows for Old Man Dunn and his boys. That's a mean lot."
Getting to my feet I thanked him and walked outside. The sun was still bright on
the mountains although it would soon be hidden behind them. I walked across the
street, limping some, and went into the store.
Galloway had been there before me and told them I might show up, so I outfitted
myself with new pants, shirts, underwear, and socks. I looked at the guns but
decided to hang onto the old Dance & Park six-shooter. That gun felt lucky to my
hand.
When I walked back to the saloon I was toting a full outfit, right down to a
brand spanking new Winchester. And you know something? That was the first new
gun I'd ever owned. Always before it was some hand-me-down, owned by a
half-dozen before me.
Berglund had him a back room and I changed there and got into my new outfit, all
but the boots. I set them aside for a time when my feet would be well enough.
Then I taken that Winchester and loaded her to the guards. She was a '73, and
carried seventeen bullets in the magazine and chamber.
When I came back into the saloon Berglund looked at me and said, "You're all
slicked up to go courtin'. Who'll it be? Meg Rossiter?"
"She'd never look twice at me," I said. "But I'll tell you what I want to do. I
want to write a letter. You got the makin's?"
So Bergland fixed me up with paper and pen, and then went to stirring up a fire.
Fine as it was in the daytime a body could always sleep under a blanket there at
Shalako, which suited me.
The letter I wrote was to Parmalee. He was a flat-land Sackett, folks of which
we'd heard tell but had never met up with until that trouble down in the Tonto
Basin when Tyrel and Parmalee Sackett showed up.
He was an educated man. Those flatland Sacketts had money. They were well-off,
and Parmalee had been to school and all. It never affected his shooting, though,
so I reckon school is a thing to be wished for. Wishing never done me any good.
Parmalee had cattle, and this here was fine grazing land, and Parmalee had
something else he'd need. He had nerve. When I'd finished the letter to
Parmalee, telling him of the range, I suddenly had a thought. We were shaping up
for trouble with the Dunns, and that was excuse enough to write to Logan.
Now Logan was a Clinch Mountain Sackett, and those boys from Clinch Mountain are
rougher than a cob. There were those who called Logan an outlaw, but he was
family, and he was handy with a shooting iron.
I wrote to him, too.
Trouble was, the shooting was likely to be over and done with before any of
those boys ever got here, unless it was Parmalee, who was down in New Mexico,
not far south of the line.
He might make it in time. And of a sudden I had a hunch we'd need him.
This country was shaping up for war.
Chapter IX
Leaving my gear at Berglund's place, I mounted that grulla and rode down off the
bench into the river bottom of the La Plata. It was very still. There was grass,
and everywhere a body looked there were the tall white trunks of the aspen.
Stopping at the river I let the mustang drink from the cold water that ran down
froin the melting snows on the mountains.
Across the stream I went up through the trees beyond. There was a plateau over
there with good grass, a few clumps of oak brush here and there, but a fresh,
green country lying at the foot of the mountains.
There were pines along the mountain slopes with thick-standing clumps of aspens
of a lighter green. The aspen was usually the first tree to grow up after a
burn, and the aspen groves provided a lot of food for wildlife.
Riding slowly along the edge of the mountain and up under the trees along the
slope, I knew this was my country, this was where I wanted to be. This was the
land I'd been looking for and no amount of Dunns would keep me off of it.
I headed back to Shalako.
The first person I saw when I walked into the saloon was old Galloway, and I
never laid eyes on anybody that looked better.
"You look kind of peaked," he said, grinning at me. "I declare, the first time I
leave you alone you make out to get yourself killed, or nigh onto it.
"Flagan, this here's Nick Shadow ... a good friend."
"Howdy."
"My pleasure."
We all sat down together at a table and went over what had taken place, and we
came to agreement on Curly Dunn. Galloway looked me over mighty curious when I
talked about Meg Rossiter, and I felt myself flushing. More because he was
looking at me than anything else. It was no use him thinking there was ought
between us, nor me thinking it either.
The only thing she wanted from me was distance, and I had no ache to a shoot-out
with Curly Dunn over a girl that couldn't see me for dust. What I had to tell
them then was about the land I'd seen, and they agreed.
I taken to Shadow. Galloway and me, we see things about the same, and anybody I
liked he liked and the other way around. Nick Shadow was a tall, handsome man
but one who had judgment as well as education, and the two don't always
accompany one another. I've seen some men who were mighty bright in their books
who couldn't tell daylight from dark when it came to judging men or the
condition of things.
Now I hold by the Good Book, but in some ways I am closer to the Old Testament
than the New. I believe in forgiving one's enemies, but keep your hand on your
gun while you do it, mentally, at least. Because while you are forgiving him he
may be studying ways to get at you.
I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old
Nick
in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any king of wrongdoing or
mischief. I wanted no trouble with the Dunns, and would avoid giving them cause,
but at the same time I had common sense enough to realize they might not feel
the same way. A man who starts imagining that others think good because he does
is simply out of his mind. I've helped bury a few who did think that way ...
nice, peaceful men who wanted no trouble and made none. When feeding time comes
around there's nothing a hawk likes better than a nice, fat, peaceful dove.
"We can lay claim to land," I said, "but we'll have to have cattle on it. I've
written to Parmalee."
"I've got a few head," Shadow said. "We might include them in the drive."
We spent the evening talking about the ranch we wanted, the cattle drive to
come, and the future of the country. There was or had been a fort over on the
Animas, and Berglund told us there was a house over there if you wanted to call
it that. So we were not alone in the country. There was an Irishman named Tun
McCluer who had moved into the country and he was getting along with the Utes
... which showed that it could be done.
McCluer told Berglund that the Utes and the Jicarillas usually got along, so the
bunch who had been hunting me were likely to have been renegades, prepared to
plunder anyone who crossed their trail. The Indians had men like that as well as
the whites.
We stabled our horses in the livery barn and camped in the loft. Falling asleep
that night I dreamed of my own outfit, and slept with the smell of fresh hay in
my nostrils.
We moved over west of the town, and west of the La Plata, and we made camp there
in a grove of aspen, a splendid country spread out before us. We decided we'd
all spend some days working on the beginnings of a spread, and after that Nick
Shadow would take off for the south to meet Parmalee and to round up his own
cattle to join the herd.
"I don't need to tell you boys," he said, "but keep the Dunns in mind. They're a
tough, lawless outfit and they won't take lightly to our being here. Especially
after both of you have had words with Curly."
First off, we built a corral, and then a lean-to. We built them back into the
woods with a screen of trees between us and the open flat. Then we went back
into the trees and cut some limbs here and there, and a whole tree yonder to
