by Galloway
had it to do. His first punch missed but the second caught me a rap alongside of
the face and I staggered. He came on in, swinging with both hands and hit me
again. We clinched and I threw him with a rolling hip-lock, and stepped back.
I was just learning how much that time in the woods had taken out of me, for I'd
no staying power at all. He came at me, swinging. Again I made him miss one but
caught the other one on the chin, and it hurt. So I bowed my neck and went to
punching with both hands. I missed a few but some of them landed, and when they
landed he gave ground.
We fought up and down in the dust for maybe three or four minutes, and then he
remembered about my feet, and he stomped on my toes with his boot heel.
It hurt. It hurt me so bad I thought I'd go down, but I stayed up and seeing it
had hurt, he came at me again. This time when he tried to stomp I hooked my toe
under his ankle and kicked it up and around and he fell into the dust. When he
did that I ran in and grabbed him by the collar and the belt, whirled him around
and let go, and he hit the water trough all spraddled out.
He got up though, his face bloody and him shaken. Me, I was all in. I had to get
him now or never, so I walked in and swang on him. I threw it from the hips and
it caught him in the mouth and pulverized his lips. My next one split his ear
and then I threw one to his belly. He pawed at me, but I had it to do now or
never, and I brushed it aside and hit him with an uppercut in the belly.
His knees buckled and I went in on him, got my forearm under his chin and forced
his head back, and then I swung on his belly.
Somebody grabbed me from behind and then Berglund yelled, "Lay off, Hammer! Back
up now, or I'll drop you!"
He was up there on the porch with my old Dance & Park in his fist and they taken
him serious.
Well, I stepped back and let Curly fall into the dust, and he just lay there,
his shirt all tore up and his face bloody, as much as I could see of it.
I staggered some, and almost fell into the water trough, but splashed water on
my face and chest. When I turned around nobody in that crowd looked friendly. I
could see by their faces looking like Curly that two or three of them were
Dunns. "He asked for it," I said. "Now take him home."
A powerful big older man sitting a bay horse spoke up. He had a shock of hair on
a big square head and he looked like he'd been carved from granite, "Boy," he
said, "I'm Bull Dunn, and that's my boy. You get out of this country as fast as
you can ride and maybe you'll get away. If you stay on here, I'll kill you."
"Mister Dunn," I said, "I'm staying, and you've got it to do."
He turned his eyes on me and for a moment our eyes held. I was in almighty bad
shape and not wishing for any trouble with him right now. My fists were sore
from the fight and I wasn't sure if I could use a gun if I had one, and I was
afraid I was going to have to try.
It was Red who walked out of the saloon and leaned against a post. "Mister
Dunn," he said, "you'd better give it some thought. I was with an outfit one
time that tried to buck these Sackett boys and we came out at the small end of
the horn."
Bull Dunn did not even seem to notice him. He merely repeated, "Get out while
you can ride." Then he turned his horse and the others followed. Right there at
the end Ollie Hammer turned and grinned at me, but it was not a pleasant grin.
And they rode on out of town.
The storekeeper he came out on the boardwalk. "You'd better get another hundred
rounds," he said. "It does look like war."
Well, sir, I went on inside the saloon and dropped into a chair, and I was in
bad shape. That fight had used me up. I was getting my strength back but I was a
long way short of being the man I had been.
Berglund, he brought me a drink, and it did me good. Then he brought some coffee
and he began to work on my face, patching up a couple of cuts. He had handed me
back my gun when I came inside and I kept flexing my fingers, trying to get the
stiffness out of them.
"You watch yourself, Sackett," he said. "They've dry-gulched more than one man."
After a long while I began to feel better, and the fresh, hot coffee helped.
They had probably been watching us, and they were sure that Nick Shadow was
gone. Probably they had not guessed why he was going, but they certainly knew
they had but two men to contend with, and to them that must seem like nothing at
all.
Right now Galloway was up there alone, and they might choose this time to cut
the odds in half. Only my brother was no pilgrim, and coming up on him
unexpected was not an easy thing to do.
"I've got to get back to camp."
"You need rest," Berglund protested.
He was right, of course, but his rightness did not help. Galloway was up there
alone, and while he might choose to withdraw up the mountain or up Deadwood
Gulch, it was more likely that he would refuse to be pushed.
Loading supplies on a borrowed packhorse, I prepared to start back. My body was
stiff and sore, and I wanted nothing so much as sleep, yet I had to get back.
Even now they might be preparing an attack on Galloway, and they were a tough,
mean, bitter lot.
It would be days, perhaps weeks before the others arrived, and until then we
must somehow defend our position, or at least keep it open for the arrival of
Parmalee Sackett and the return of Nick Shadow.
Mounting the grulla I rode into the bottom of the La Plata, then cautiously
worked my way upstream. Several times I came upon the hoofprints of horses. They
had been here then, no doubt studying what they must do. The tracks were several
days old.
Galloway was nowhere in sight when I rode up the last few hundred yards to the
corral, but he came out of the woods, Winchester over his arm. He glanced at my
face.
"That must be quite a town," he commented, affably. "Seems to me they hold out a
welcome."
"You should try it some time. I ain't what you'd call mincy about towns but this
here one is about to try my patience."
"Who was it?"
"Curly ... and but for that saloonkeeper in yonder they might have salted me
away."
"You whup him?"
"I ain't sure. I feel like it was me got whupped, only when it was over he lay
stretched out. I bruised him. I reckon I did."
Well, I got down and like to fell off my horse. Galloway, he taken my horse back
in the woods whilst I set by the fire, my head hanging. It was aching something
awful and my mouth was cut inside, and my face sore.
"I didn't think he had the sand," Galloway commented.
"He didn't. It was those fool friends of his, urgin' him on. I think he wanted
to quit but he was scared of what would be said, and I was scared he wouldn't
quit before I had to fall, I was that all in."
Galloway was making soup. He got that from Ma. Anytime anybody had anything
happen, birth, death, fight or wedding, Ma made soup.
Suddenly I saw something at the edge of the woods. There for a moment it looked
like a wolf. He was looking back the way I had come, so I turned my head to look
&nbs
p; also.
A rider was coming up the draw. He was right out in the open but he was coming
right on, walking his horse. He had a rifle in his hands.
Chapter XI
Even before the old man came close enough for us to make him out, I could see he
was an Indian by the way he sat his horse. He came on slowly and when he drew up
facing us he sat looking upon us thoughtfully.
He was the shadow of a man who had been great. I mean in a physical way. The
bones were there, and the old muscles showed how once they had stretched the
skin with power, and the look was there yet, in his eyes and in his carriage. He
was a proud man.
"We're fixing to have some soup," I said. "Will you set up to the fire?"
He looked at me for a long minute, and then said, "Are you Sak-ut?"
The name came out short and blunt.
"We both are," I said. "We're brothers. In thinking as well as in blood. Will
you get down?"
He put the rifle away and swung down. Maybe he was a mite stiff, but not enough
to bother. He dropped his reins and walked to our fire with dignity. I held out
my hand to him as he came up. "I am Flagan Sackett. This here is Galloway."
"Howdy," Galloway said.
He wasn't missing a thing, his eyes going from my moccasins to my face. When he
turned toward me again I saw there was a scar on the left side of his face from
what seemed to be a powder burn.
After we had eaten, Galloway dug out the tobacco sack. Neither Galloway nor me
ever taken to smoking but most Indians did and it was handy for trade. After he
had puffed away for awhile he looked up and said, "I am Powder Face. I am
Jicarilla."
He let that set with us for a few minutes and then be said, looking right at me,
"You are warrior. I am warrior. We can talk together."
"I have heard of Powder Face," I said, "and to talk to him is an honor."
His eyes glinted, but after a few puffs at his pipe he said, "You escape from my
people. You are good runner."
"I am a good fighter, too," I said, "but your folks left me without much to do
with."
"You are like Indian," he said, "like Jicarilla."
Well, that was all right with me. What all this was leading up to, I didn't
know, but I was willing to set and listen. Raised around the Cherokee like I
was, I have some savvy for Indians and their ways, and all things considered
they make out to be pretty fine folks. Their ways are different than ours, but
the country was different, then.
"I come to you because you think like Indian. You fight like Indian. Maybe you
will talk to Indian."
"I'll talk," I said, "and I'll listen."
"I am called renegade," he said. "My tribe is small. Some are Jicarillas, some
are Tabeguache Ute. We fight, we do not surrender. Finally there are few of us,
and we hide in high mountains."
He paused for a long time, but finally he said, "Our people are few. There are
many Indians south or north, but we wish to fight no more. We have watched from
the peaks as the white men come. A long time ago I rode far to the east, and I
have seen the towns of the white man. In the north I have seen the wagon that
smokes. The white man has strong medicine.
"We are twenty people. We are six warriors, seven women, and seven children.
Soon there will be two more. The winter will come, and the game will come down
from the peaks and we will starve.
"We do not wish to go with the Jicarillas. We do not wish to go with the Utes.
There may again be war and we do not want to fight." He looked up suddenly and
mighty proud. "We have been great warriors. For our lives we will fight, but we
cannot leave our young ones to starve in the cold.
"You are white man. You are warrior. You are strong against pain and you know
the Indian way. I come to you as to an elder brother. You will tell us what we
should do."
Well, now. He was an older and no doubt a wiser man than me and he had come to
me for advice. One thing I had he did not have ... at least, not quite so much.
I had knowledge of the white man. And all of what I knew wasn't good, but that
was true of his people, too. We all had our good and our bad. The white man had
broken treaties and the Indian had killed innocent people, and without warning.
The white man had done his share of that, too.
There was no need to talk to Galloway. We two understood each other as if we
were of the same mind. I didn't know what Nick Shadow might think but that we'd
have to work out as best we could. I just knew what I was going to do.
"We are going to ranch here." I swept a wide gesture at the hills. "We are going
to raise cattle and horses. We are going to need help. Can your young men ride?"
"Our old men can ride, too," he said proudly.
"Suppose you bring your folks down and camp over yonder." I indicated an area
back against the mountain. "Your people can live here and your young men can
ride for us.
"There's one more thing: your people must stay close to here at first. There are
some men around who will not like it that you are here. Stay close to the ranch
or in the mountains until they get used to the idea."
The old man bedded down not far from us that night, and in the morning he was
gone. Galloway he looked over at me and chuckled. "You sure bought trouble," he
said. "I never seen the like."
"What would you have done?"
He grinned at me. "The same thing. Only I'd not have asked him if his young men
could ride. That was like askin' if a fish can swim."
"I was really asking them if they would ride," I said. "That there is what is
called a rhetorical question. At least that's what Nick Shadow would call it."
"What'll he think about this?"
"He'll buy it. Nick will buy anything that's contrary to the prejudices of
people around him. He's just like that. He's just naturally contrary, and he
don't give a damn whether school keeps or not."
There was plenty to do before the cattle came. We scouted the range we figured
to use, and we gathered wood. Usually we would just throw a loop around a log
and drag it to where we could use it come snow tune. There were a lot of
deadfalls around, and we gathered a good many knowing a long winter was ahead
and there wouldn't always be time for hunting firewood. Then we set to notching
the logs for a cabin, and we built a stoneboat for hauling stones for the
fireplace. In between times one or the other of us would ride out afar from home
to get an elk or a deer for meat. There were a good many beaver along the
branches but we didn't figure to worry them. The pools they make back of their
beaver dams help to control floodwaters and keep the water where it's needed,
right on the land.
All the time we kept an eye open for that Dunn outfit, but none of them showed.
Galloway he rode down to Shalako after some extra grub and when he came back he
said, "The Dunns are bringing in a boy that Berglund was telling about. He's a
youngster, about twenty-one or twenty-two, and he's hell on wheels with a rifle.
"Seems that Red was in and dropped us the word, to be passed on by Berglund.
This youngster is a dead shot and he's the kind tha
t lays up in the country and
watches for a good shot. He says the Dunns came into this country from a real
mean fight, and this kid done half their killing for them. His name is Vern
Huddy."
Now there's no safe way when a sharpshooter is coming against you. He's only got
to find himself a place and wait until he gets his shot and he usually needs
only one. First off, all you can do is try to keep him from getting that one
shot. Don't set yourself up for him, don't skyline yourself or stand still out
in the open, and when you ride, keep your eyes open and watch your horse. He'll
usually know before you do if anybody is around. Always keep a good background
for yourself, something that swallows you up, sort of.
However, we taken to scouting the country. We'd been doing that, but now we were
even more careful. We skirted our area about a hundred yards around, checking
for tracks, then a circle about three hundred yards out, and then out to a
quarter of a mile.
And then I saw the wolf.
I had killed a deer and cut it up to take back to camp, when I saw that wolf, so
I taken a piece of the fresh meat and tossed it to him. He disappeared, but a
moment later when I glanced back the meat was gone.
There was something peculiar about that wolf. Why had he left the others and
taken to following me? Did I have the smell of death on me?
When I was almost back to camp I happened to turn in my saddle and caught just a
glimpse of the wolf as he dodged into the brush, so I fished another chunk of
meat from the hide where I carried it and dropped it into the road. Why I did so
I've no idea. Maybe I figured it was better deer meat than me meat.
Galloway had moved our camp about a hundred yards back into the brush. He was
making sourdough bread when I came in and he had a pot of beans setting in the
outer coals. "I don't like it, Flagan. Our boys should be showing up by now. I
don't like it at all."
"Come daylight I'll cut across the hills. I'll study the trail."
"You ride wary. Trouble's shaping up. I can feel it in my bones."
The sun wasn't up when I mounted the grulla and taken to the hills. The old
Dance & Park six-shooter was shoved down in its scabbard, but I carried my
Winchester in my hands. It was not yet light, so I rode right back into the
trees, riding up through the timber until I struck an old bear walk.
