by Galloway
and this was the best country he had found. Right here he would stay.
The Sacketts' herd moved north and then turned east. In the mountains, their
horses grazing nearby, the Dunns played cards, slept, or talked in a desultory
fashion as they waited.
Galloway Sackett saddled a horse to ride into Shalako. With a trail herd coming
there'd be more hands to be fed, and they would need more grub.
Far to the east, at a stage stop not far from Pagosa Springs, a big man on a
sorrel horse rode up to the hitch rail and dismounted. The hostler, his team
ready for the incoming stage, glanced at the horse.
"That's a mighty fine animal, but you're riding it hard."
"I got a ways to go." The big man with the shaggy hair had a bullet hole through
his flat-brimmed hat, and he wore a low-slung gun, tied down. "You got a horse
you want to swap? I'd want as good a horse as I'm trading."
"Only one around is a strawberry roan over in the stable. I don't know if the
owner would swap or not. But he might sell. He's in a poker game and he's losing
ground fast."
The big stranger walked across the hard-packed yard. He wore a beat-up sheepskin
coat and striped pants. His boot heels were run down. He walked into the stable,
glanced at the horse, then untied the knot and took it outside where he walked
it around a good bit. When he retied the horse he walked back. He took the stub
of a cigar from his pocket and put it between his teeth. He lighted up, then
squinted over it at the hostler. "That man in there? He's surely losin'?"
"He was unless it's changed in the last five minutes. Mister, you'd not go wrong
on that horse. It can run and it can stay."
"I figured it. Wffl you hold mine for me? I'll be comin' back through in a few
days. I got me a little business to tidy up ... family business."
The big stranger walked into the stage station. In one corner of the room near
the ticket window three people were sitting, concerned with their own affairs,
luggage on the floor beside them. At the other end of the room was a bar and
there were several tables. A poker game was going on at one of them.
The big man walked to the bar and ordered a beer, and taking it in his hand,
strolled over to where the game was being played. The owner of the horse was
immediately obvious.
His brow was beaded with sweat and he was peering at the cards he held close to
his chest. Two of the players had dropped out of the hand, and the two remaining
were obviously card sharps. The big man knew both of them by sight but it was
none of his affair. A man who played poker should not play unless he could pay,
and if he played with a pair of card mechanics it was his tough luck.
The man with the diamond scarf pin tossed two chips into the pot. "Up twenty,"
he said. The other card sharp did likewise.
"Now wait just a minute," the loser said. "I'll raise the money. I'll—"
"I'll let you have twenty for your horse," the gambler with the scarf pin
suggested.
"And I'll give him thirty-five," the big stranger said. "Cash on the
barrelhead."
The gambler looked up his eyes level. "You were not invited into this
discussion," he said pointedly. "Mr. Liggitt and I were discussing a business
deal."
"And I put in my bid," the stranger said, and he was not smiling.
"Look here!" Liggitt objected. "That's a fine horse! That horse is worth a lot
of money!"
"He's worth what I say he is worth," the gambler replied harshly. "And you've
got just two minutes. Put up, or shut up."
"My offer at thirty-five stands," the big stranger said.
The gambler's gaze was deadly. "I am getting a bit tired of you," he said. "Just
a little tired."
"Wait a minute!" Liggitt said. "I'll take that bid! Thirty-five it is."
The gambler's eyes remained on the big man's. "I told you," he said evenly,
"that I was—"
The gambler was not really a gambler. He was a man who played with marked cards
and loaded dice, and when he used a gun he did not gamble either. Suddenly a
little warning bell was ringing in his ears. This big man was too confident, too
ready ... and he wasn't worried. Not the least bit.
"Give him the thirty-five," the gambler said, "and let's get on with the game."
The big man thrust his hand into his pocket and the gambler went for his gun. By
ordinary standards he made a good try. The only visible gun on the big man was
in a holster on his leg, his right hand was in his pocket.
The stranger drew and fired ... drew a gun from his waistband with his left hand
and shot the gambler through the third button of his vest
There was a moment of silence and the acrid smell of gunsmoke. Liggitt slowly
pulled back from the table, his face a sickly white. "I'll be goin'," he said.
"I guess I'll be goin'."
"Wait." The big man put thirty-five dollars on the table. "A bill of sale for
one strawberry roan with a white stocking and a Rafter Open A brand."
"The game's over. There's no need for me to sell."
"You agreed. You taken my offer." The big man looked around. "I leave it to you
all. He taken my offer, didn't he?"
It was unanimous. Liggitt looked around, sweating. Reluctantly he made out the
bill of sale and picked up the thirty-five dollars.
"That horse is worth a lot more," he protested.
"That he is," the big man agreed, "so I suggest that as long as the game is
over, and nobody knows how it would have turned out, you take half of what's on
the table."
The other gambler recovered his voice. "Like hell!" he said. "I won this fair
and square! I—"
The big man's smile was not pleasant. "My friend," he said, "my advice is to let
well enough alone. If you get half of this it will give you a roadstake, and
that's more than you're entitled to. Now don't make me start reading from the
Book. You ain't even very good at what you've been doin', so let it ride."
The gambler sat back carefully. "All right," he said to Liggitt, "fifty-fifty."
The hostler had come in and was standing near the door. "I put your saddle on
the roan. I'll hold your horse for you until you come back."
"Thanks."
The big man watched while Liggitt and the other gambler split what was on the
table, then he turned and went out, his spurs tinkling softly as he walked.
There was a silence when he left, then the gambler sighed. He looked over at the
hostler. "Did you know that man?"
"No, sir, but I seen him before. I seen him a couple of times. That was Logan
Sackett."
The gambler looked at his hands, they were trembling. Then he glanced at the
body of his partner. "You damned fool!" he said softly. "You poor damned fool!"
The sound of hoofs pounded away into silence, and the bartender came around from
behind the bar. "Jim," he said to the hostler, "you take his heels."
Chapter XIII
The weather turned off hot, and riding to the windward of that herd was plain
murder with the heat coming off their bodies in a wave. Nobody wanted it much or
long, and me no more than the others.
Me or Shadow held to the point a good part of the time for we alone knew the
trail. It was work. The cattle had turned ornery with the heat and just plain
didn't wish to travel, nor to be guided when they did travel.
They seen the mountains yonder and wanted to hole up in some of those shady
canyons close upon a running stream, and I felt as they did, but necessity
demanded we march along.
The Indians who had followed us along the Mesa Verde cliffs disappeared. Maybe
they'd come to a place where it was no longer possible, and maybe they had
something else in mind. I hoped they weren't figuring on a scrap. It was too
blamed hot.
The way ahead was narrowing down some and beyond there it widened out with a lot
of broken country to north and south, and the Mancos River ahead. Pulling up I
let the herd roll by and waited for Parmalee to come up.
First time I ever saw him look dusty. But only a mite. He reined in and we let
them go by, and he said, "We'll water this side of the Mancos? Didn't you say
there was a creek?"
"If there's water in it."
"If not, then the Mancos."
Parmalee had his rifle in his hand, and he pointed with it. There were Indians
coming, right down the slope from Mesa Verde, but this was no raiding party.
There were only seven ... no, eight of them.
It was Powder Face.
"Hold it," I said to Parmalee, "these are the Indians I hired."
Powder Face stopped and the others gathered around him. Two of them were mere
boys, not over fourteen. "We come work if you see proper."
I started to welcome them and then had a hunch. "Powder Face," I said, "you can
do us more good if you hold off until night.
"I think," I added, "somebody is going to try to stampede our cattle, and steal
them. Once everybody is in camp, three men will be on guard, then when the night
is half gone they will sleep, and three more will ride. I want you to hide out,
then move in at night and help guard the herd.
"This herd," I added, "is your winter meat as well as ours, and it is meat for
many seasons. If the cattle are driven off, I cannot feed you."
"We watch," he said. "You ride."
Like smoke they were gone, leaving nothing but a scattering of tracks. To
anybody who watched it would have seemed they had tried to beg beef and we had
turned them away.
We bedded the herd down on a little branch about five miles west of the Mancos,
with good grass all around. They grazed for awhile, then lay down. Parmalee,
Munson, and the two Tyler boys taken the first night-herd, with me, Nick Shadow
and Charlie Farnum, a breed, taking the second.
It was one of those still, beautiful nights when a body could hear a stick break
a half-mile away. I didn't hear anything. I was dog-tired and wanting a bath and
so hungry I couldn't finish my grub. I just went and crawled under my soogan and
was asleep in no time.
Parmalee woke me up at one o'clock. "We stood it another hour," he said, "as it
was quiet. The wind's coming up, so be careful."
Tugging on my boots I said, "See anything of those Injuns?"
"We won't, will we?"
"Prob'ly not. They're probably off in the.woods fast asleep." But I was joking
and Parm knew it. Those Indians were out there, and they were hearing and seeing
everything.
Squatting by the fire I tried to blink the sleep from my eyes while pouring a
cup of coffee. It was hot, and black as the hinges of hell, but it tasted good.
I picked up a chunk of sourdough bread and some jerky and chewed on it while
waiting for Shadow.
He was a sullen man on being awakened in the night and wanted to talk to nobody.
In the night I always felt good and took to awakening at any hour with no
problems. I also could do a fair job of sleeping at any hour, given the chance,
which was rare.
Charlie Farnurn never talked much at any time so he and Nick were suited. And I
had sense enough to keep my trap shut. We all sat around the fire staring at it
with blank faces like so many bumps on a log, slowly letting the coffee take the
kinks out of us. After a while I got up and went out to throw my kak on a little
buckskin I was using for a night horse.
It could move like a cat and see like one, and was a horse I trusted for night
work, and she seemed to take to me. It nuzzled at me and I fed it a chunk of
carrot I had swiped from the chuckbox.
In the western lands a man had best be good friends with his horse or he may
never have another friend or need of one. A man afoot in wild country is a man
who may not live out the day ... which is why horse-stealing was the major sin.
In many cases if you stole a man's horse you condemned him to death, a much less
pleasant death than if you'd just up and shot him.
The buckskin humped its back a couple of times to show me it was in good shape
and ready for work and also that it would take no nonsense from its rider. That
horse wanted to know I was wide awake, and after those bumps she gave me, I was.
Shadow and Farnum followed and we rode out, checking in with the riders we
relieved and saw them drift off to the fire. They'd probably have coffee, chew
the fat a little and then hit the sack, for they were a tired lot. Cattle drives
don't leave a man much in the spirit of playing the night owl. There's nothing
like a long cattle drive for making a good Christian out of a man ... for at
least as long as the drive lasts.
That little buckskin taken out, moving around the herd. Things look different at
night, so on the first couple of trips around I was mostly locating landmarks
and spotting the known troublemakers among the steers. This being a mixed herd
it was more apt to stampede than had it been one or the other, but we had a
couple of steers and one cow that were plumb flighty, ready to jump at the
slightest noise.
We sang to 'em. Then they hear your voice coming and aren't startled by you.
Ride up quick on a steer and he's liable to jump right off the ground and run
clean out of the county. My voice isn't much, but I often used to tell folks I
was a singer, and that I'd sung for crowds of up to three thousand. I didn't
tell them I was talking of cows, but they had heard my voice and probably
guessed. Galloway might have made 'em believe it, he was that much of a singer.
Shadow stopped to talk when we met the second time around. "The breed was
telling me he thinks its too quiet. Nothing stirring out in the brush, and there
should be."
"Well, let's play it that way," I said. "Let's stay on our toes."
"What do you think about it?"
"Look," I said, "if something starts them running we got to keep them off the
boys so they won't get tramped. Let's make it so each time we pass the camp we
slow up so there's somebody in position most of the time. Then if the cattle
start to run, try to keep them headed east and out of the canyons. If they get
into those canyons and up into the breaks we'll never get them out before snow
flies, and that means we'll never get them out."
It was still over an hour before daylight when all of a sudden somebody stepped
out of the trees and stood there. Rifle ready, I rode up, although waiting for
me like that he wasn't apt t
o be an enemy. It was an Indian.
"Powder Face say tell you man come ... maybe ten, twelve man."
"Thanks," I said, but the Indian did not fade into the brush.
"Powder Face say he thinks they try Indian trick. Use mountain-lion skin."
And that time he did disappear, but it was a comfort to know they were close by.
Nick Shadow closed in. "Was that you talking?"
So I told him. He knew the trick as well as me. The Indians used to do it with a
fresh puma hide. They'd get in close and wave the skin and the cattle would get
that smell of cat, and then one of the Indians would imitate the scream and
those cattle would be gone.
We started on and I was almost to the camp when I heard that scream, and those
cattle came off the ground with a lunge. They made a break toward the camp and I
jerked out my pistol and let go with a shot into the air and a wild, Comanche
yell. Some of them veered, but some of the others I couldn't reach and they went
through camp just a hellin'. Pots and pans went every which way. I heard a
pistol shot and then another and then a scream, and all of a sudden that herd
was gone.
All that was left was dust and the sound of thundering hoofs.
They were headed for the Mancos River and that was one of the reasons I'd
stopped where I had. If they had a run of several miles and then reached the
river they might stop to drink. This bunch was pretty fat anyway, and they
weren't like a bunch of wild longhorns all hungry for water who might run for
hours.
Wheeling around I rode into camp. It was a shambles. First off I saw a man on
the ground or what had been a man. It was one of the Tyler boys. The only, way I
could tell was by the silver conchas he wore on bis belt.
Even as I swung up, Parmalee came down out of a tree. The cook came out of the
rocks, and the other two had taken shelter behind the wagon. My pistol shot had
come just in time to give them a split second.
"Tyler," I said, "you and Cookie take care of him." I indicated the dead man.
"Farn, you'd best go help with your cattle."
"What about you?" he asked.
'Tm going to ride up the canyon. I want to read some sign."
"I'll go with you."
"No. I'll take Charlie Farnum. Unless I'm mistaken you'll find your herd at the
river and my Indians will be there too."
Nick Shadow had gone down after the cattle, but I'd heard Farnum's horse slow
