the Sky-Liners (1967)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 13

  The thing that stuck in my mind was that Tirey Fetchen had stirred about in these parts before any of us came west, and with the Reynolds gang. Now, there was something about that ... I couldn't recall what it was, but something I'd heard about that Reynolds outfit.

  They had been a gang of outlaws who passed it off that they were robbing to get money for the Confederacy, or that was the tale I'd heard. They had been caught up with, and some of them had been tied to a tree and shot. I had nothing to say about that part of it to anybody, because I wanted to recall what it was about the Reynolds gang that made me remember them ... some item I'd forgotten.

  We went into the hills, climbing high up by an old Ute trail that Sharp told us of, and we skirted about to reach the valley where Costello's outfit lay.

  No horse tracks showed on the trail we rode. No sound came from anywhere near. There were, of course, birds talking it up in the bushes, and a slow wind that stirred the trees as we rode along. Nothing else but once in a while the rattle of a spur or the creak of a saddle as a horse took strain in climbing, or a rider shifted weight in the saddle. Sunlight dappled the trail with leaf shadows.

  We did not talk. We listened as we rode, and from time to time we paused to listen more carefully.

  Cap, who was riding point, drew up suddenly, and we closed in around him. Before us was an opening among the branches of the trees lining the trail. Several miles away we could see a green valley, perhaps five hundred feet lower down, and from it sunlight reflected from a window.

  "That will be it," Cap commented. "The way Sharp told it, we will be ridin' Costello range at almost any minute."

  We pushed on, circling the smaller valleys that made a chain through the hills. Now, from time to time, cattle tracks showed among those of deer and elk.

  The ranch, when we came upon it, lay cupped in the hills, a small but comfortable house set back on a green meadow where a stream curled through. There was slow smoke rising from the chimney, and a good lot of horses in the corrals. Sitting on the stoop in front of the house was a man with a rifle across his knees. We saw no other folks around.

  In the meadow a dozen or so head of horses were grazing, the sun gleaming from their smooth flanks. It made a handsome sight, but the man on the stoop looked mighty like a guard.

  Galloway sat his horse, giving study to the place, and I did likewise. "Looks too easy," Galloway said after a bit. "I don't like it."

  "It's a nice morning," Cap commented. "They might just be idling about."

  "Or hid out, waiting for us," I said.

  We waited, but Judith was impatient. "Flagan, I want to go down there. I want to see Pa."

  "You hold off," I said. "You'll see him soon enough ... when we know it's safe."

  "But he may be in danger!" she protested. "They killed my grandfather, you told me so yourself."

  "Yes, but it won't ease your pa's mind to have you in their hands, too. You just wait"

  The valley where the ranch lay opened into another, wider valley that we could see as we moved along. There were a few cattle in the first one, and we could see more beyond. The grass was green and rich, and running down the streams there was all the snow water that any rancher could want for his stock. Costcllo had found a good place.

  "They're hid out," Galloway said finally. "I have it in mind they're expecting us. No ranch is quiet like that, this time of day. Not with so many men somewhere about."

  We had moved along to a lower bench among the trees, a place not forty feet from where the mountain dropped off into the valley. We saw a man come from the ranch house, saw the screen door shut behind him. From where we were, we could hear it slam.

  This man, after a few minutes of talk, seated himself on the steps, while the first man went inside, apparently relieved from guard duty.

  "Your pa," Cap surmised, "must be in the house. Certain sure, there's something or somebody down there to be watched over."

  Nobody was saying what we had been thinking, that it would make little sense to keep Costello alive ... unless they were worried for fear some neighbor might insist on seeing him. By this time the Fetchens would know about Tom Sharp, a man not likely to be put off, nor one to trifle with. Yet time would be running out.

  They might hold Costello as they had planned to hold Judith, one to be used in controlling the other. If Black Fetchen could get hold of Judith, marry her, and so establish legal claim to the Costello ranch, then Costello might be made to disappear, leaving them in control. It was a likely thing, but there was much that was puzzling about the whole affair, and about their possible connection with the Reynolds gang.

  We waited under the trees, moving as little as possible, and keeping wary for fear we would be discovered. The whole thing was growing irksome, and Judith had my sympathy. Her pa was down there, and it was natural she should want to see him. Only we needed to know a few more things before we could act against them. We needed to know if Costello was alive, and how they were holding him, and we needed to know what they were after.

  By now we were all pretty sure that the cattle had been incidental. They had the Half-Box H herd, and they would try to hold it, but I felt certain there was more to it than the herd, or even the ranch.

  We had to wait them out. I knew they were not patient men and would soon tire of lying around in the brush, doing nothing.

  "We've got to know more about this setup," I said. "Cap, do you know the story of the Reynolds outfit?"

  "No more than everybody hereabouts knows. They gave it out that they were Confederate sympathizers, and began robbin' some gold trains and the like, letting it be known they were gettin' the gold to hold for the South. But most folks thought they had no such idea - not after the gold started pilin' up. They figured they planned to use it for themselves."

  "What happened to the gold?"

  "I can't say as I ever heard, although no doubt folks who lived round here could tell you."

  "Sharp would know," Galloway suggested.

  In the fading afternoon the Costello ranch looked mighty pretty. Shadows were stretching out, but down there the light was mellow and lovely. I could see why a man, even a mover like Costello, would like to settle in such a place. And there was good grazing in the hills around.

  But we saw nothing of Costello, nor of anyone else at all.

  The stars came out and the wind grew cool. Restlessly, I walked out to a place where the valley could be seen in more detail. There were lights in the ranch house, and shadows moved before some of the windows. Suddenly the door opened and someone went in. It was open long enough to admit two or three men.

  Judith came up beside me. "Do you think Pa is down there, Flagan?"

  "Uh-huh."

  She said nothing more for some time, and then wondered out loud, "Why did this happen to us?"

  "I reckon folks have wondered that always, Judith. In this case it's no accident, I'm thinking. Your pa or your grandpa knew something somebody else wanted to know, or else for some reason they need this ranch."

  "Flagan, I've been thinking about what you wanted to know ... you know, if Pa had been, in Missouri in seventy-one. I am sure he was, because I've just remembered something."

  "What?"

  "Pa had an uncle who wasn't much good. He'd gone off and left us after he got into some trouble with the family, and he went out west. Nobody would talk about him much, but he got into more trouble ... in Denver, I think it was."

  "And so?"

  "He came back one night. I remember I woke up and heard talking in a low voice, in Pa's side of the tent. I heard another man's voice, a man who sounded odd ... as if he was sick or something."

  That was all she remembered right then, but it was enough to start me thinking.

  Maybe what the Costellos knew was nothing they picked up in trade. Maybe it was something that renegade told them that night in Missouri.

  That renegade had been in or around Denver. So had Tirey Fletchen. And so had the Reynolds gang.

  Ch
apter 11

  We rode away down the mountain to a hollow in the hills, sheltered by overhanging cliffs and a wall of pines, and made camp there where we could have a fire.

  "I figure if we go down to the ranch we'll get so shot full of holes our hides wouldn't be worth tanning," Galloway said. "That outfit's all laid out for an ambush, so let's leave 'em wait."

  "Seems to me a likely time to be thinkin' of them cattle," Cap suggested.

  "Now, there's a good thought. Let's dab a loop on some and check out the brand."

  So we settled down over coffee and bacon to consider. It stood to reason that if most of their crowd were waiting for us to show up, there would be only a few watching the cattle, if any at all. In these mountain valleys, with plenty of grass and water, cattle needed no watching.

  The upshot of it was that when the sky lightened with another day coming, we saddled up and went off. The only one who was upset by our decision was Judith.

  "This isn't taking me any closer to Pa!" she objected. "I wish I could find a man like Ivanhoe or the Black Knight! He would ride right down there and bring Pa back!"

  "You know," I said, "I don't carry any banners for the Fetchen boys, but if the Black Knight was to ride down amongst them in his tin suit he'd have a sieve for an overcoat. Those Fetchens may run short on morals, but morals don't win no turkey-shoots! I know those boys, and they could part your hair with the first bullet and trim around your ears with the next two.

  "If you want to choose up heroes to help you, you'd be a sight better off to pick on Robin Hood or Rob Roy. My pa always said you should never walk into a man when he's set for punching. Better to go around him and work him out of balance."

  "Well, while they're waiting for us to come down on 'em, we'll simply round up and drive off a few head of cattle. Then we might sort of scout around down to Sharp's place at Buzzard Roost. I'll lay a bet Fetchen has somebody staked out down there to bring him word."

  By the time the sun was high we were at Buzzard Roost and sitting alongside the stove eating crackers and sardines, and I mentioned the Reynolds outfit I'd scarcely said the name before Sharp was giving us the story.

  The Reynolds gang had buried a treasure, some said, somewhere near the Spanish Peaks. They were right over there to the south of us, only a few miles away.

  Contrary to what some folks said, they hadn't been a very bloody outfit. Fact was, it was claimed they'd killed nobody in their robberies. Reynolds had some reputation as an outlaw before the war began, and then supposedly he was recruited by the South to loot Colorado of its gold and silver shipments. "There's been a lot of talk about how much he stole," Sharp said, "and how much they buried when the law caught up with them; but no matter what anybody says there's small chance they had over seventy thousand dollars."

  "That's a lot," Galloway said, kind of dryly. "That's more money than I'm likely to see in this lifetime."

  "Do you think it's there?" Cap asked.

  Sharp shrugged. "It's certain they hadn't anything on 'em when they were caught, and they hadn't much time to hide it unless they hid it very soon after taking it - which could be."

  Judith wasn't talking, she was just sitting there looking solemn and kind of scared too, yet knowing her I had a feeling she was scared less for herself than for her Pa. It came to me that I should try, by some trick, to get him away from the ranch.

  That was easy said, but the little valley was bounded by pretty high mountains, and getting in and out of such a guarded place would be next to impossible.

  Cap drifted off somewhere, and Galloway did, too, while I sat with Judith. I said to her, "Don't you worry. He's all right, and we'll have him out of there in no time."

  "Flagan, I just couldn't imagine he would be like this - James Fetchen, I mean."

  For a minute I couldn't place James Fetchen, we were so used to calling him Black. Then I said, "How could you know? All you'd seen of him was a tall, fine-looking man riding by on a horse. Believe me, you can't always tell a coyote by his holler. But that Fetchen outfit was known all over the mountains by the trouble they caused, by the shootings and cuttings they'd been in."

  Judith left me, to talk with Sharp's wife, and I walked out on the stoop, looking about for Galloway and Cap, but I saw neither one of them. I don't know what made me do it, but I reached my fingers back and slipped the rawhide loop off my six-gun, freeing it for quick use, if need be.

  There's times when nothing is more companionable than a six-shooter, and I had an uneasy feeling, almost as if somebody was walking on my grave, or maybe digging one for me.

  The sunlight was bright on Buzzard Roost, and on the mountains all around. A dog trotted lazily across the dusty road, and far up the valley I could see cattle feeding on the grass on the lower slopes of Little Sheep. Everything looked peaceful enough.

  There seemed no particular reason why I should feel this way just now. Black Fetchen and his kin had reason for wanting to stake out my hide, but it seemed to me they were in no hurry. That outfit was sure of itself. They'd been in shooting scrapes before and they had come out on top, and they figured they would again. Winning can make folks confident ... or it can make them cautious.

  Here and there I'd come out ahead a few times, but it only made me careful. There's too much that can happen - the twig that deflects your bullet just enough, the time you don't quite get the right grasp on the gun butt, the dust that blows in your eyes ... Anyway, there's things can happen to the fastest of men and to the best shots. So I was cautious.

  And then there's the gun itself. No man in his right mind will play with a gun. I've seen show-offs doing fancy spins and all that. No real gun-fighter ever did. With a hair-trigger, he'd be likely to blow a hole in his belly. The gun-fighter knows enough of guns to be wary of them. He treats them with respect. A pistol was never made for anything except killing, and a gun-fighter never draws a gun unless to shoot, and he shoots to kill. And he doesn't go around trying to gun up a score. That's only done by tin-horns. Nor does he ever notch his gun, another tin-horn trick.

  All the while these thoughts were sort of in the back of my mind, I had my eyes searching for a lookout, if there was one. It seemed likely that the Fetchens would have somebody around who could keep a watch on Buzzard Roost, for anybody coming or going in that country just naturally rode by there, or stopped off.

  I gave thought to where I'd hole up if I was to keep a watch on the place. It would be best to find a place on a hillside, or somewhere a man could keep out of sight while seeing all who came and went. That naturally cut down on the possibilities.

  I began to feel that somebody was watching me - I could feel it somehow in my bones. Judith, she came out and walked up to me. "Flagan - " she began, but I cut her off.

  "Go back inside," I said. "Take your time, but you get inside and stay there till I come."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Judith! Damn it, get inside!"

  "Flagan Sackett, you can't talk to me like that! Who do you think - "

  Sunlight made a slanting light on a gun barrel in the brush not a hundred and fifty feet away. It was a far shot for a six-gun, but I'd hit targets at a greater distance than that.

  With my left hand I swept Judith back toward the door, and my right went down for my gun just as the other gun muzzle stabbed flame. It was the movement to push Judith out of the way that saved my bacon, for that bullet whipped by my ear, stinging me as it went.

  My six-gun was up and hammering shots. I was holding high because of the distance, and I let three bullets go in one roll of sound, as fast and slick as I could thumb back the hammer and let it drop.

  Then I ran forward three steps, and took one to the side and fired again, holding a mite higher because he might be up and running. I was firing at the place I'd seen the flare of the gun muzzle, but was scattering my shots to have a better chance of scoring a hit.

  The battering explosion of the shots died away, leaving a sudden silence, a silence in which the ears cried out fo
r sound. I stood there, gun poised, aware that it was empty, but hesitating to betray the fact to my enemy, whoever he was.

  Slowly I lowered the gun muzzle, and as unobtrusively as possible I opened the loading-gate with my thumb and worked the ejector, pushing the empty shell from the cylinder. Instantly, I fed a cartridge into place, then ejected another, and repeated this until the gun was reloaded. In all that time there was no sound, nor was there any movement in the brush.

  Unwilling to take my eyes from the brush, I wondered where Cap and Galloway might be.

  And had Judith been hit? I felt quite sure she had not, but a body never knew, when there was shooting taking place.

  Warily, I took a step toward the brush, but nothing happened.

  Off on my right Galloway suddenly spoke. "I think you got him, boy."

  Walking slowly toward the brush, I had to make several climbing steps as I got close to it. There was an outcropping of rock, with thick, thorny brush growing around and over it, and several low trees nearby. The whole clump was no more than thirty or forty yards across, and just about as deep.

  First thing I saw was the rifle. It was a Henry .44 and there was a fresh groove down the stock, cut by a bullet. There was blood on the leaves, but nothing else.

  Gun in hand, I eased into the brush and stood still, listening. It was so quiet I seemed to be hearing my own heart beat Somewhere off across country a crow cawed; otherwise there was silence. Then the door of the trading post opened and I heard boot heels on the boards.

  My eyes scanned the brush, but I could see no sign of anyone there. Parting the branches with my left hand, I stepped past another bush. On a leaf there was a bright crimson spot ... fresh blood. Just beyond it was a barely visible track of a boot heel in the soft earth. I was expecting a shot at any moment. It was one of those places where a man figures he's being watched by somebody he can't see.

  Then I saw a slight reddish smear on the bark of a tree where the wounded man had leaned. He was hit pretty good, it looked like, although a man can sometimes bleed a good bit from a mighty inconsiderable wound.