Mustang Man (1966)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 15

  “What’s your idea?”

  “Gold, that’s what. Gold, and lots of it. You think they’d come looking for range land, them folks? Not on your bottom dollar. Whatever they’re huntin’ is something they can carry away, and I think the answer to it is in that wagon.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Now that’s an odd thing. They never did let me see, and I tried. Maybe that’s why they figured to kill me.”

  “Where were they headed?”

  Steve Hooker was silent, probably deciding how much he should tell and how much he should hold back. Meanwhile, I started eating the bacon and fried bread right out of the frying pan. I was hungry enough to eat pan and all, but had to settle for about a dozen slices of thick bacon and the half-loaf of bread fried in bacon grease. And I drank most of Hooker’s coffee.

  “You better tell me,” I went on, refilling my cup for the last time, “I ain’t made up my mind whether to take you back to them, or let you waste away right here. You talk fast an’ right and maybe you’ll get a chance.”

  “What kind of talk is that? There’s a good thing in this … for both of us.”

  Well, now. I felt a sight better. I set back against the bank and watched my horse pulling at the green grass, feeling almighty pleased with the world.

  Still, I had this man tied up and I was of no mind to trust him untied, especially as I was sleepy.

  “What questions did they ask you?”

  “Oh, they knew something, all right. I think they had read something or heard something, but they had special knowledge too. I mean they knew where they wanted to go.”

  He gave it to me, a little at a time. He had followed them when they went from Fort Worth to Fort Griffin by stage. Actually, he had ridden the stage with them, keeping his mouth shut and listening to the questions they asked. The girl had been very good at getting a couple of western men to talking; above all, she seemed interested in place names … thought they were so colorful, she said.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Cross Timbers … the Llano Estacado … Boggy Depot… the Rabbit Ears.”

  Hooker hitched himself around a little, but I paid him no mind. He was hinting that I should loosen him up a little, which I wasn’t about to do. “She got them to talk about those places.”

  “Ask any questions?”

  “Full of ‘em. She asked questions half the night. Her brother finally went to sleep, but not her. She kept prying away at what those men knew, but what she kept coming back to was the Rabbit Ears.”

  I went to the edge of the willows and broke up some sticks and twisted some dead limbs off a fallen cottonwood. When I came back I started feeding the fire again and made another pot of coffee. I knew a thing or two about the Rabbit Ears country, and I’d heard some stories. More than likely, bunkhouse talk being what it was, Steve Hooker had heard the same tales. And like he said, there was no good reason for anybody like those folks to want to go into such country.

  “You sure took them far off the route,” I commented dryly, “where they’d meet nobody who could tell them different.”

  “When we got to Griffin,” Hooker said, “I approached her, told her as how I’d heard she wanted a wagon man, and I was a man who knew the country to the west.

  Upshot of it was, she bought the horses and wagon, outfitted us complete.”

  He looked around at me. “She had me spooked, that girl did. And he was almost as bad. I don’t know what it was, nothing they did or said, but she kept a-watching me and it kind of got me.

  “Then one night I heard them talking. They thought I’d taken the stock off to water, and so I had, but I snuck back to listen. First thing I heard her say was ‘Of course. Why waste our money on him? When we get to the Rabbit Ears we’ll know our way back, so we’ll kill him.’ Thing that got me was she was so matter of fact about it, like she’d ask the time of day.

  “Next morning I began to pull off south. I figured to get them lost so they’d never find their way back by themselves, and would need me. Then I got to thinkin’.”

  “I know,” I said, “you got to thinking about that outfit. You got to figuring what it would bring you at Cherry Creek, or even Santa Fe. Six head of fine horses, a brand new wagon, and whatever they had inside.”

  “Well, what of it? They were fixin’ to kill me.”

  “How’d you manage? Weren’t they suspicious?”

  “You’re darn tootin’ they were! They watched me all the time. On’y I told them we would make camp half a mile from water … too many mosquitoes.”

  “Then you came on to this place?”

  “Sure. Them tenderfeet would never find it. I on’y had to wait. Just set still an’ wait.”

  “What about Rabbit Ears?”

  “Who knows anything? She worried around that subject, but nobody had anything to offer except me, and I kept my mouth shut, on’y just saying enough to make ‘em ready to talk to me when the time came.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That Rabbit Ears was named for an old Injun chief. That was every bit I said.”

  There was no logical reason for anybody to come out from the East just to visit Rabbit Ears Mountain. As mountains went, it was nothing very much. Not too far west there were real mountains covered with timber, and much of the year with snow. Rabbit Ears Mountain lay just off the Santa Fe Trail, and was no more striking than many another hill or mountain. Of course, her questions might have masked some other interest in the country nearby.

  After a bit Hooker interrupted my thoughts. “What do you figure to do?”

  “I’m taking their horses back. After that, it’s up to them.”

  “What about me?”

  “You get out of here the best way you can. You’re no pilgrim. You got yourself into this.”

  “You’d set me afoot out here?”

  “No.” I grinned at him. “You can go back to work for them, if you’re of a mind to. When a man starts out on something like you started he takes his own chances.”

  The firelight danced weirdly against the dark, fragile arms of the willows.

  Walking over to my saddle, I got my blanket and poncho and brought it back to a place near the fire, but in the shadows. I added fuel to the fire, pulled off my boots, and prepared to settle down for the night. From my pack I took a pair of moccasins and pulled them on … in the night I might have to make a quick move, with no chance to get my boots on.

  Then I went over and released Hooker and let him move around a little before I tied him for the night. He was a wily one, and I stood back away from him and kept my rifle in hand.

  After he was tied up again and covered with his blanket, I went back and rolled up to sleep. When I fell asleep I was still giving thought to the Rabbit Ears, and what those folks might want out there. Oddly enough, I’d never even heard the name those folks used … and it might make a difference.

  Although in the West we set no store on names.

  At daybreak I walked Hooker out on the cap rock with a canteen, a pack of grub, and his guns. His gun belts I took with me and rode off maybe three hundred yards, where I dropped them for him to pick up. Then I gathered the horses and started back.

  Now, I was in no way anxious to be riding back to that outfit. In a way I had no blame for Hooker, although I’d leave no woman out there a prey to Indians, nor did I aim to give them a chance at me.

  In my time I’d known a few killers, but I’d never known anybody quite as anxious to kill as these folks. Even when it was of no particular use to them. Whatever it was they were after, they didn’t want anybody interfering with them, or even knowing what they were about.

  Well, I wasn’t going to play nurse to them. I liked my sleep too well. They would have the team, and if they got out of there they would do it under their own power and by their own skill.

  The girl came out to meet me. She was bait, I had no doubt, and believe me, that Sylvie was tasty bait for any man’s trap, and she knew it. She wal
ked out when she saw me coming, skirting the clumps of prickly pear or the prairie-dog holes.

  And then she stopped until I rode up to her.

  Only my rifle was laid across my saddle bows, just sort of casual-like, but the muzzle kind of followed her when she moved. But she brought her hands into the open where I could see them, and kept them there.

  “Here’s your horses,” I told her, “and the rest is up to you. You take my advice and you’ll turn back to Fort Griffin. You don’t fit into this country.”

  She smiled at me. “Why, Mr. Sackett! I thought you liked me?”

  “You’re a mighty pretty girl, Sylvie, and just about a safe as a nest of rattlers. But you take it from me and cut out of this country. Go east, where you belong.”

  She came closer, looking up at me with those big, dark eyes. “Come with us.

  Please do. We need you, Mr. Sackett, we’re all alone out here, and neither of the boys has ever driven a team.” She reached up and touched my hand with her fingers. “Mr. Sackett, come with us. Believe me, you’d never be sorry … and I’d be very grateful.”

  Well, now. She wasn’t promising me anything, but in a way she was promising me everything, and she was quite a woman, that one. Only I wasn’t having any.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Maybe if you were alone; but I’d trust none of you. You’ve got the horses. Hitch up and pull out right away, and follow my tracks. You’ll come to water, and you’d better fill your barrels. They should help you over the dry stretch, and after that there’s water most of the way north. Only you’re going to run into the Palo Duro Canyon … maybe a thousand feet deep in places.”

  “Are there no ranchers? No towns?

  “Lady, this here is Indian country. You won’t even find any buffalo hunters until you get farther north. There’s said to be some folks at Borregos Plaza on the south bank of the Canadian. They’re good folks, Mexicans from Mora or Taos, and they run sheep. If you act right, they’ll sell you a little food and tell you how to get on to the north.

  “I say they’re good people, and they are, but there’s one hombre from Santa Fe named Sostenes l’Archeveque … he’d kill you as soon as look at you. He idles around there from time to time … leave him alone.”

  All the time I’d been talking to her I’d been holding her right hand. A time or two she gave it a tug to get free, but I decided it was safer that way and, holding her right hand, I kept my eyes watching the other two. Finally I dropped her hand.

  “Adios!” I said suddenly, and wheeled and rode off.

  I gave my horse about three jumps north before I turned him sharply east, then west. Glancing back, I caught the gleam of light on a rifle barrel, but by that time I was another hundred yards off and a poor risk for a shot at the distance, and moving the way I was. So I rode away, and was glad to be gone.

  Chapter 3

  About that time I began to give thought to myself. Here I was, riding away from trouble, no more than eight or nine dollars in my pocket, and nothing more in sight. For a man with the name of outlaw, I was doing mighty poor at it. When it came to that, I never did see any rich outlaws. All I ever saw were living on the dodge, out on the plains, in the mountains, or in outlaw hideouts, ragged, dirty, and miserable.

  Buffalo hunting was about over. In no time at all the hunters would have wiped out the buffalo in this country, and would pull out. What I should do was to get myself a few head of cattle and start myself a ranch right here in the Panhandle of Texas. It would be no time at all until cattle were streaming into this country. The buffalo hunters would be telling of the good grass and the water holes, and no cattleman would ask for more.

  I had the name of being a rough man, and that came of the troubles I’d seen, and the fact that I’d come out of them winning instead of losing. This was a time of bitter war and struggle, for the Indian gave up his hunting grounds reluctantly, and even those of us in sympathy with him were compelled to fight, because they could not always distinguish between friends and enemies. Of course, it wasn’t only the white man fighting the Indian, for the Indians were constantly at war with each other.

  Now I drifted north, holding to the high ridges, where I rode just below the crest, out of sight yet high enough to ride easy and keep a wide view of the country. When I saw dust, I drew up and got down and waited until it had gone out of sight, for though it might be white men raising the dust, I’d no reason to think they would be friendly.

  All the time, my mind was being busy trying to remember all I’d heard of the Rabbit Ears, and the one thing I kept coming back to was a story I’d heard trailside down on the Neuces seven or eight years back.

  The story was already old, and the man who told it to me was a Mexican from across the Rio Grande. He had hailed my camp from out of the night, and I told him to come in. That was brush country, and rougher than a cob; every other man an outlaw or a renegade hiding out from the Davis police.

  John Wesley Hardin was on the dodge then, and Bill Longley, just to name two. Up in northeast Texas Cullen Baker was dead, or at least they said they had killed him, and he never showed up around after that. All these men were refugees from the Davis police.

  I had stepped back in the shadows to let that Mex come in, and he came politely, with his hands up. He was an oldish man, but dapper and mighty elegant still.

  His boots were dusty, and although he had tried to brush himself off there was traildust on him. “Senor?”

  Well, I stepped out of the brush. By and large I’d found Mexicans the salt of the earth, and many a time when on the dodge the only thing that kept me alive was a bait of frijoles and tortillas at some Mexican sheep camp.

  “Come in and set,” I said. “There’s coffee ready and beans in the pot.”

  So we ate, and then he rolled him a smoke and we yarned the night away. He was afoot … he didn’t say how or why, and in those days a body didn’t ask questions. It happened I had an extra horse, a paint pony, pretty as a picture.

  A few days before that pony had been ridden by a mighty handsome young Comanche with bad judgment. He was riding loose, hunting for some action, and when he saw me he exercised that bad judgment … he decided I was easy pickings and fell in on my trail. Only I was keeping an eye on my back trail and when I saw I was followed I circled arround and hunched down close to the trail to see who it was.

  When I saw it was a Comanche with two fresh scalps, I stepped out and spoke to him. He turned as if he was shot and started to lift his rifle, which was his second case of bad judgment, for I only figured to set him afoot so he couldn’t follow me any longer.

  He put hand to that rifle and I shot him through the brisket, emptying the paint pony’s saddle like there’d never been anything there. The Comanche was game; he came up fighting, so I let him have another one, caught up the pony, and left out of the country.

  “You need a horse,” I said to the Mexican, “you take that one. The Comanche who owned him won’t be hunting him.”

  “Gracias, senor.” He spoke simply, yet with feeling, and he had a right. In that country at that time the only folks he was apt to meet would more than likely finish him off for his guns or whatever else he might have.

  We drank more coffee and talked, and then at the last he said, “Amigo, I have no money. I cannot pay for the horse.”

  “He is yours, think nothing of it.”

  “My grandfather,” he said, “used to drive mules on the Santa Fe Trail.”

  Well, now. That was an interesting bit of information if I’d been interested in his grandfather, which I wasn’t, or in the Santa Fe Trail, which I’d seen my ownself.

  “It was there he nearly lost his life. He was of a pack train for Nathan Hume.”

  It all came back to me now, and I recalled as if it had been last night, us sitting by the fire and him telling me about that pack train. They had come from Santa Fe, and were crossing the plains, bound for Independence, Missouri, or some such place, and they had been making good time until they wer
e hit by a war party of Kiowas.

  They were strung out too far, and they didn’t have much chance. A few of them gathering around Nathan Hume himself, among them my Mexican friend’s grandfather, bunched up and made a retreating fight of it back to the Rabbit Ears Mountain, where they dug in for a stand.

  They were wiped out … all but that Mexican, who found a hole and crawled into it. The Kiowas scalped and mutilated the bodies after robbing them of everything worth having, and then rode off a-running. After a bit that Mex came out and hoofed it back to Santa Fe.

  When he got back he was warned to lie low, that the governor had sent a detachment of soldiers after Hume, and that if he were found he would be arrested. Nathan Hume had been smuggling gold secretly mined in the San Juans.

  So this Mexican smuggled himself out of town on a borrowed mule and then joined a train headed for Mexico City. He had friends there, and he planned to get some help and return, for he was sure he knew where the gold was … and was sure the Indians had not found it.

  The trouble was, shortly after arriving in Mexico he was thrown from a horse.

  His back was broken and he never walked again. He knew where three hundred pounds of gold was hidden, and he couldn’t do a thing about it.

  This was the story that was told to me by the Mex to whom I’d given a horse.

  “Did you ever give thought to hunting that gold?” I’d asked him.

  “Of course, senor, but”—he shrugged—“I had a difficulty in Taos … a matter of a senorita … and I was followed to Las Vegas. I killed a man, senor, a man with many brothers and cousins and uncles.”

  He put his cigarette in the fire and smiled. “I like life, senor, and I am a man who is content with a little now and another time. If I went north I might find the gold. I might also find a grave, and the odds for the latter are best. If you want the gold it is yours, senor.”

  “Any idea where it is?”

  “There’s a box canyon back of Rabbit Ears. It was there they made their stand … the bones of the mules might be there still.