Sacketts 14 - Galloway

by Galloway

  to kill me.

  Vern Huddy had the taste of blood upon bis lips, and was a-thirst for more, and

  I lay with my body torn by his bullet, shuddering with every bream, my coat gone

  and night a-coming on, waiting for him to make his move.

  Only thing good about it was that he didn't know exactly where I was. His bullet

  got me most of an hour before as I dove for shelter, but I'd wormed and

  scrambled and crawled some little distance since then.

  I gouged snow from the almost frozen remains that had backed up against a rock

  near me. I let a handful melt in my mouth and felt the delicious coolness of it

  going down my throat, through my body.

  Moving stones from under me I piled them around, digging myself deeper against

  the cold and Huddy's bullets. The weakening was upon me, and for two hours

  before the bullet hit I'd been driven and outflanked at every turn by a man who

  was a past master at his trade, and who knew now that I was somewhere along

  timberline with nowhere else to go. In his heart he was sure he was going to get

  me.

  This was my last stop. Whatever happened must happen here. I told myself that

  and I believed it. I could not go back because it was a wide-open space and even

  in the night there would be enough light to see me against that gray-white

  expanse.

  The hole made by the bullet I had plugged with moss, and now I was waiting for

  him to come in for the finish. If he came before I passed out I might get him,

  and if not he would surely get me.

  It was growing dark. Down in the valleys below it was already dark and people

  were sitting down to their tables to eat warm suppers in pleasant surroundings.

  Meg Rossiter was down there preparing supper for her pa, or helping, and around

  the campfire my brother and the others would be wondering where I was.

  Easing my long body to a better position, I waited. He did not know where I was

  and I did not know where he was, and each needed to know. Squirming deeper into

  the gravel, I shivered against the cold. It was growing late in the year and at

  this, nearly twelve thousand feet of altitude, it could become icy by night.

  This was a different peak from the night before, unknown to both of us. They

  called it Parrott or Madden ... the two were side by side and I was not sure

  which we were on. I didn't know the country that well.

  Digging a fragment of jerky from my pack, I began chewing on it. That pack of

  mine was almost flat, just a place to carry a few pieces of bread and meat to

  sort of tide a man over.

  I'd lost a good bit of blood and the shock of the bullet had been great. It

  seemed to have struck the top of my hipbone, knocking me down and numbing my

  leg, but then it had glanced into the flesh and had gouged a deep hole.

  Even if Huddy did not get me I'd be lucky to last the night. The blood drained

  from me and the icy cold would take care of that. Suddenly something moved, and

  leaving my rifle alone I drew my pistol ... how could he have come so close!

  There was a low whine ... that damned wolf!

  How could he have followed me up here? But why not? He seemed to be haunting me.

  Now I've known wild animals to do some strange things. I heard of a panther one

  time who followed a boy two miles through a dark forest only a few feet behind

  him, the boy talking to it all the while thinking it was his dog. Then he called

  out to the house and when they opened the door they all saw the panther ... it

  ducked off into the brush.

  I taken a small bit of the jerky from my pack and said quietly, "Here, boy!" And

  tossed it out there.

  Eager jaws took it, and I could hear the chewing. I began talking to it in low

  whispers, and calling it to me. After a long while it did come, crawling over

  the bank on its belly as if it knew enough to keep down, and then waiting while

  I talked to it. Suddenly it crawled closer.

  Seen up close, even in the almost dark, it looked like a wolf and yet not quite

  like one. In fact, it might have been half dog. My hand reached out to it. The

  wolf growled a little, but warningly rather than threateningly, then it sniffed

  of my fingers, seemed reassured and crept closer. I put a hand on it, then

  listened, but heard nothing. My hand brushed the thick ruff and started to

  scratch.

  "My God!"

  The expression was startled from me, for around the neck of the wolf was a

  collar, a collar so tight the poor animal was almost strangled!

  "Why, you poor devil!" I reached for my knife and talking to it all the while,

  slipped the knife under the collar. The wolf began to gag and choke, but he

  seemed to know I was trying to help, and then that razor-sharp blade cut through

  the collar and it came loose.

  The effort taken a good bit from me, but I lay there, whispering to that wolf

  that he'd be all right now. The poor thing had been follerin' me around for all

  this time, figuring I could help it. Must be that some man had at one time had

  it for a pet, had put the collar on when it was small, and the wolf had gone

  back to the woods or maybe the man had died. Then the wolf had grown and grown

  until the collar was choking it. No wonder it was so hungry for the small

  fragments I threw out. It could swallow them.

  I kept my hand on the ruff and kept talking to it, and oddly enough, the wolf

  showed no idea of leaving. He crept closer, and even licked my hand. And the

  first thing I knew I'd fallen to sleep.

  It must have been the warmth of the big animal lying close thataway, and part of

  it was that my attention had been torn from the main issue and I forgot about

  staying awake. Anyway, I slept.

  And then I heard a low, ugly growling alongside of me and suddenly I was awake.

  Just the glimpse of the stars showed it was past midnight.

  "Quiet, boy!" I whispered, putting a hand on the wolf, and it quieted down, but

  its ears were pricked and it was looking right straight ahead.

  Me, I eased my pistol out and rolled away from the wolf so if I drew fire it

  would not get hit. He was coming in. I heard a foot grate against gravel and

  then he was there, black against the sky.

  The wolf suddenly sprang away and his gun came up and I said, "Don't shoot. It

  was just a wolf."

  "A what?"

  "A timber wolf," I said. "He's a friend of mine."

  "You're crazy," he said. "Out of your head."

  "You going to kill me now?" I asked, conversationally.

  "And enjoy it," he said, "and then I'm going down to see Meg. Nobody will ever

  find you up here. I'll just leave you for that wolf or whatever it is."

  My pistol was in my hand but he hadn't seen it. He was standing about a dozen

  feet away and he had a rifle and he was holding it in one hand pointing it at

  me. It began to look like a Mexican stand-off, with both of us dying up here.

  "Ever see a wolf come to a man before, Huddle?" I said. "If you'll stop and

  think, that there's impossible. Up in the mountains of Tennessee we know all

  about wolves and such, like ha'nts and werewolves."

  He was suddenly still, like he almost stopped breathing. "That's fool talk," he

  said. "I'm going to kill you, Sackett."

  "If you do," I said, "you'll n
ever get off the mountain. That there's what the

  Indians call a medicine wolf. He'll get you sure. Tear you to bits ... unless

  you got a silver bullet."

  "You're lying!"

  There was a low growl from the bushes to his right, and as he spun slightly

  toward the sound I lifted my gun and shot him.

  His rifle went off and spat sand into my face. His movement must have deflected

  it just by a hair, just enough to save my bacon. He was down, but I could see

  the glint of the rifle barrel as he moved it toward me. I shot him again.

  The rifle fell from his hands as he rolled over on his side. I stood up. "No!

  No!" he whispered. "Oh, no, no!"

  "You gave it to a good many, Huddy," I said. "You shot that poor Indian who

  worked for me, shot him when he didn't even know, and when no enemies were

  around. He never had a chance to lift a hand. Now you know how it feels."

  "No ... not me." He was whimpering like a child. "Not me!" And I had it in me to

  feel sorry for him. Somehow his kind never figure it will be them. They always

  kill; they are never killed. That's the way they see it.

  Taking up his rifle I backed off a little, still wary of him because he was

  packing a six-shooter, but I needn't have been because he was dead.

  The wolf moved out there in the dark and I said to him, "Come on, boy, we're

  going home now."

  Picking up his collar because I wished to see it by daylight, I started down the

  mountain in the first gray of dawn, and the wolf—or dog-wolf which he seemed to

  be—fell in behind me. Not too close, not too far.

  Looked like he'd been lonesome for a man to belong to, and when he saw me and I

  tossed him that meat back yonder he figured I might be the one to help him out

  of the trap that was sure to kill him sooner or later.

  We started down the mountain, but we stopped down there where Starvation Creek

  flows out of the rock, and I hunted around for that gold and found it. Taken me

  only a few minutes and I had to rest, anyway, with my wound and all.

  I was in bad shape again, but this time I was going home and I had a friend with

  me. The gold was heavy so I only taken one sack of the stuff, just to throw on

  the table in front of Nick Shadow, and say "This what you were lookin' for?"

  The sky was all red, great streaks of it, when I walked across the meadow toward

  the fire. Soon as I felt better, I was going over to see that Meg girl. She'd

  want to hear about my wolf.

  The boys came out and stood there staring at me. "It's Flagan," Galloway said.

  "I knew he'd be coming in this morning."

  "Boys," I said, "you got to meet my wolf. Take good care of him, I—"

  Well, I just folded my cards together and fell, laid right down, dead beat and

  hurt. But it was worth it because when I opened my eyes, Meg was there.

  About the Author

  Louis L'Amour, born Louis Dearborn L'Amour, is of French-Irish descent. Although

  Mr. L'Amour claims his writing began as a "spur-of-the-moment thing" prompted by

  friends who relished his verbal tales of the West, he comes by his talent

  honestly. A frontiersman by heritage (his grandfather was scalped by the Sioux),

  and a universal man by experience, Louis L'Amour lives the life of his fictional

  heroes. Since leaving his native Jamestown, North Dakota, at the age of fifteen,

  he's been a longshoreman, lumberjack, elephant handler, hay shocker, flume

  builder, fruit picker, and an officer on tank destroyers during World War II.

  And he's written four hundred short stories and over fifty books (including a

  volume of poetry).

  Mr. L'Amour has lectured widely, traveled the West thoroughly, studied

  archaeology, compiled biographies of over one thousand Western gunfighters, and

  read prodigiously (his library holds more than two thousand volumes). And he's

  watched thirty-one of his westerns as movies. He's circled the world on a

  freighter, mined in the West, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, been shipwrecked in

  the West Indies, stranded in the Mojave Desert. He's won fifty-one of fifty-nine

  fights as a professional boxer and pinchhit for Dorothy Kilgallen when she was

  on vacation from her column. Since 1816, thirty-three members of his family have

  been writers. And, he says, "I could sit in the middle of Sunset Boulevard and

  write with my typewriter on my knees; temperamental I am not."

  Mr. L'Amour is re-creating an 1865 Western town, christened Shalako, where the

  borders of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. Historically authentic

  from whistle to well, it will be a live, operating town, as well as a movie

  location and tourist attraction.

  Mr. L'Amour now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Kathy, who helps with the

  enormous amount of research he does for his books. Soon, Mr. L'Amour hopes, the

  children (Beau and Angelique) will be helping too.

  [11 May 2002] Scanned by pandor

  [05 Jun 2002] (v1.0) proofed and formatted by NickL