Mustang Man (1966)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 15

  In less than ten minutes I was riding along that trail, looking for possible hiding places. If I wanted to dump a heavy load, to be easily picked up again, where would I leave it?

  It was still light, but the sun was down and it would soon be dark. My horse made no sound in the soft dust of the trail. But look as I would, I could find no place such as I sought.

  Then at the last moment, with darkness closing around, I saw a patch of grass pressed down and almost yellow, some scattered pine neddles and cones upon the grass. Drawing up, I studied the place. Something had been on that spot, something that was there no longer.

  The mark, I saw, had clearly been made by a fallen pine tree, a tree no more than ten feet high that had been blown down or broken off and had rested there.

  The tree was there, but it was now a few feet over to one side, still fastened to the stump by a strip of wood and bark. Somebody had picked up the top end of the tree and pulled it to one side, leaving uncovered the place where it had originally fallen and where it had been lying for at least several weeks.

  Leading the black off the trail, I left it tied, and went over to the tree. When I had pulled it aside I found the pack saddles, fully loaded and not more than a few feet off the trail the freighters would take. Each saddle held a hundred and fifty pounds of gold.

  Reaching down, I caught hold of a loaded saddle with each hand and straightened my knees. I walked off about fifty feet and paused, resting the saddles, and then after a moment went on. Twenty minutes or so later I returned and rode my horse all around the area, trampling out all the tracks. Then I rode back into town and tied my horse to the hitch rail in front of a store, now closed for the night.

  Carrying those three hundred pounds had been no trick for me, for I’d grown up swinging a double-bitted axe, wrestling with a crowd of brothers and cousins, and then going on to handling freight on a river boat. After that I’d wrestled mean broncs—and thousand-pound longhorn steers. I guess I’d been born strong, and anything I could pick up I could carry away … and often had.

  But moving that gold would only help me for a matter of hours. By daylight there’d be other folks hunting it. However, if a freighter was pulling out with a train of wagons, I figured to be along. I’d driven a team a good many times, and handled a jerk-line outfit as well.

  Standing in the darkness alongside my horse, I checked my gun and my knives, for if ever a man was bucking for a fistful of trouble it was me. If there were freighters about I figured they’d be in Baca’s saloon, and it was there I went.

  Chapter 16

  The place was already half full of soldiers from the Fort, mingling with Baca’s dancehall girls, and he had him a plenty of them. Here and there some tough-looking Mexicans stood around, and they were Baca men, not to be taken lightly.

  Baca’s eyes found me as soon as I came in, and they watched me as I worked my way through the crowd. When I stopped near him I ordered a drink. “Gracias, Baca,” I said. “I found her.”

  He shrugged. “Bueno. Annie tells me you are a good man.”

  “One thing, Baca. If any trouble starts around here, I want none with you. I’ve no argument with you, and want no trouble.”

  “Si, it is understood.” He motioned for a glass and poured me a drink. “To you, senor, and good fortune.” We drank, and then he placed his glass carefully on the bar. “Noble Bishop is in town. He was asking for you.”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything, Baca. If he wants me he’s got to come asking.”

  “Is it about the senorita?”

  Better for him to think that than to start wondering. “She’s a pretty girl,” I said, “and a lady.”

  “So I am told.”

  “Frankly,” I said, “I’m hunting a job. Something to sort of keep me out of sight for a while. Riding or driving a freight team. But not a stage … nobody sees a freighter, but everybody sees a stage driver.”

  “There is a man in town—his name is Ollie Shaddock. He is taking some wagons out tonight, picking up more at Las Vegas.”

  I moved to a table near the wall, where I sat down and waited for Shaddock to come in. Most times I was a patient man, but now I was impatient, for gold makes a heavy weight on a man’s thinking. It worried me that I had not seen Bishop, or Sylvie or any of that lot.

  When Shaddock came in he was motioned to my table by Baca. I’ve no doubt Baca wanted to get shut of me.

  Ollie Shaddock was a broad, cheerful man whose blond hair was turning gray. He thrust out a hand. “Anybody by the name of Sackett is a friend of mine. I’m from Tennessee, too.”

  “You know Tyrel and them?”

  “I brought their ma and younger brothers west. I’m from the Cumberland.”

  “Me, I’m from Clinch Mountain.”

  “Good folks over there. I’ve some kin there. What can I do for you?”

  “I want to hire on as a driver, or I’ll drive for free. Only I want to be driving the last wagon when you pull out tonight.”

  His face sobered. “You tied up with that girl?”

  “Sort of. I’ll load what she thinks she’s going to load. She’ll get her share at Santa Fe … only I want to be sure I get mine.”

  “You’re a Sackett. That’s enough for me.” He motioned for a bottle. “Nolan, I was the one who started Orrin in politics. In fact, it was because I was sheriffin’ back in Tennessee that the boys come west.

  “Tyrel, he wound up their feud with the Higginses by killin’ Long Higgins. It was up to me to arrest him, and he went west to avoid trouble … me bein’ a friend of the family, and all.”

  “Well, can you leave me a space for a couple of loaded pack saddles in the middle of the wagon?”

  “Sure enough.” Shaddock filled his glass. “You know Tyrel and them?”

  “No. Heard tell of them.”

  By now the place was going full blast and I wanted to get out; besides, I wanted to see if Penelope was all right. That girl worried me. I couldn’t figure whether she was a-fixin’ to get me killed or not. Maybe she’d been out in that kitchen pourin’ coffee … but she might have been signaling Loomis.

  Ollie Shaddock got up after a while and left, telling me where to meet them. It was sheer luck that he had turned out to be a friend of the family, and a man from the Tennessee hills. I’d heard of him before this, but only as being a man who operated several strings of freight wagons in New Mexico and Arizona.

  After a few minutes I got up, paid what was asked, and eased out of a side door.

  Baca watched me go, no doubt glad to see me leaving. Not that fights were unusual in Loma Parda, for the town had been the scene of many a bloody battle, with many kinds of weapons.

  The night was cool and still. Stars hung large in the dark sky, the cottonwoods rustled their leaves gently. I stood there, hearing the voices from inside and the tinpanny sound of the music from the music box. There was a smell of woodsmoke in the air.

  I moved to the side of the door, where I waited, breathing easy of the night air and letting my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. The last thing I wanted now was trouble. I had the gold hidden, I had a way of getting out of town, and in a matter of less than an hour we would be leaving.

  When I moved, it was along the wall toward the street, and when I reached it I paused in the darkness looking both ways. Down the street I could see a light in Slanting Annie’s window, and I wanted to go that way. Annie would be at work by now, but Penelope would be there, waiting as I was.

  She wouldn’t be caring about seeing me, I knew, for I was no likely man to attract a girl’s eye. Lifting my hands, I looked at them. Fit for handling guns or tools, fit for the hardest kind of work, for lifting the heaviest loads, but they’d found no call to gentleness, nor were they likely to. A girl as pretty as Penelope …

  No use thinking about that. She had gone off and left me, leaving no sign. She might have murdered Harry Mims, and set a trap for me. Maybe it was like she said, that after he was killed she was afraid to b
e alone, but I couldn’t trust her. The trouble was she looked so warm and friendly, so soft and lovely, that every once in a while my good sense went a-glimmering.

  Somewhere around there was Sylvie and that brother of hers, and I’d given too little thought to Sylvie. But she’d probably given a lot of thought to me, and the chances were that she’d been working on Noble Bishop.

  I stepped out on the street, which was partly lit by the light from the windows around, and walked toward the place where I’d left my horse.

  The black nickered a mite and snuffed at my hand with delicate nostrils. I’d picked up a lump of brown sugar, and I fed it to him. Then I untied him and led him away into the darkness.

  Well, it would soon be over. In a matter of minutes I’d be sitting up on the seat of a freight wagon, rolling out of town. Then I’d pick up the gold, put it aboard, cover it well, and we’d be rolling on toward Las Vegas and Santa Fe.

  What would Penelope do when she found the gold gone? Would she come along, or would she stay behind and try to find it? With these thoughts in mind, I mounted up and circled the town, working around to where the wagons were. Penelope should be there soon.

  The wind was cool off the Sangre de Cristos, cool and fresh to the lungs, carrying the scent of pines and the memory of snows. Alongside the church I drew up and looked along the street. A wild Texas yell came to me from one of the saloons, then a shot … some celebrating soldier or cowhand. On the hills back of the town a coyote talked to the stars, complaining of something, by the sound of him.

  When I reached the wagon I drew up alongside the last one and tied my horse to the tailgate. I took my Winchester from the saddle boot and placed it behind the seat, but within easy grasp of my hand.

  A man came down the line of wagons. “Sackett?” he said.

  “Here.”

  He moved over beside me, his cigar glowing redly. “You set store by that girl?”

  “Some.”

  “She ain’t showed, and it’s getting nigh to time. You think she’ll back out?”

  “Not likely.” I considered. Was this another trap? She had told me she was going tonight. Was I now supposed to go looking for her? Or had Sylvie and Ralph finally caught up with her?

  “How soon you want to go?” I asked.

  “Fifteen minutes. I’m waiting for another wagon, loading over yonder.”

  “I’ll go get her.”

  Ollie Shaddock said, “You better wait here. She wants to come, she will.”

  “I’ll see.”

  “Sackett, I’ve heard talk around town. You better walk careful. Somebody has been hiring guns. You know how Loma is … you can get anything here you can pay for, and some things come cheap, like killings.”

  “Who’s hiring?”

  “No idea.”

  The wind off the mountains felt good on my face. It was no time for a man to die. Oddly enough, I was thinking less of that gold I would be picking up than of the wind in my face, or the girl. I had no meeting ground with gold. When it came to me I spent it and had little enough left to remember.

  “Are you in love with that girl?” Ollie asked.

  Was I? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t even sure I knew what love was, and I’d always guarded myself against any deep feeling for a girl. After all, who would want to live me? I was a big tough man with two hard hands and a gun … that was me.

  If it had been someone else I’d have answered with some scoffing thing; but it was Ollie, and he knew people of my blood, and he was from Tennessee. “Ollie, I just don’t know,” I said. “I don’t altogether trust her. The other one, that dark-eyed Sylvie, she’s pure poison. Her I know. But Penelope? Well, I can’t make up my mind.”

  “You step light, boy. Step light.” He meant it one way, but I decided to take it two ways, and I walked back to my horse and switched my boots for mocassins.

  “Ollie, I’ll be back. You just hold tight.” It wasn’t more than a hundred and fifty yards to Annie’s house, and I walked along under the edge of the cottonwoods. My mouth felt dry and my heart was beating heavy—I wasn’t sure whether it was because I expected trouble or because of that girl. I told myself I’d no business feeling like that about any girl, but all the telling did no good, none at all.

  I could hear music at Baca’s; there men were singing and drinking and laughing, men playing cards and looking at girls and chinking coins or chips in their fingers. I could see the horses standing three-legged at the hitch rail, and I saw a man come from the walk in the darkness and cross toward Baca’s, a man wearing a big sombrero, spurs jingling.

  In the shadows under a big old tree I stood and looked at Slanting Annie’s house. Lights in the windows, all cheerful and bright. Yet bright as they were, I felt an emptiness in me, a sudden longing for lighted windows or my own, and a coming home to them, opening the door to warmth and comfort and a woman waiting.

  Well, no use thinking of that, an unlikely thing for Nolan Sackett.

  My mocassins made no slightest sound as I moved along under the trees. Long ago I’d learned to move like a wild animal in the wilderness. Boots would have made sound, but with the moccasins I could feel the branches under my feet before stepping down hard, and so shifted my step.

  When I got to within fifty feet or so of the house I stopped again, holding myself close to the trunk of a cottonwood. There was no sound from within the house, and I moved closer and edged up to a window.

  Penelope sat at the table, pouring coffee, and across the table from her sat Sylvie Karnes. Shoulder to shoulder with Sylvie was Noble Bishop. Ralph Karnes was coming in from the kitchen with a plate of cakes. Just as he put them down I heard Penelope say something about the time. All their heads turned toward the clock.

  Penelope finished pouring coffee and sat back, taking up her own cup. There they sat, who were supposed to be enemies, talking together like at a tea party. I never saw the like. Maybe, after all, I was the only fool in the lot.

  Then Penelope put down her cup, said something to Sylvie about the dishes, and went over and took up her bonnet. She turned and spoke to them all, obviously saying good-bye.

  Like a ghost, I faded back into the trees and walked back quickly to the wagons.

  Ollie was waiting impatiently.

  “She’ll be along,” I said.

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “No, but she’s coming.”

  “She’ll be in the wagon right ahead of you, since both of you wanted to stop.”

  “Who’s driving hers?”

  “A good man … Reinhardt. He’s been with me a couple of years.” Ollie looked around at me suddenly. “Never thought to tell you. Orrin Sackett is a partner in this outfit. He owns a third of it.”

  “He’s done well, I guess.”

  “Yes, he has. I’d say he was one of the strongest political figures in the Territory.”

  Leaning against the wagon, waiting for Penelope to come, I reflected bitterly that Orrin had no more start than me when he came west. They had educated themselves, Tyrel and him, and both of them were big people in this country, while all I had behind me were a lot of dusty trails, barroom brawls, and lonely hideouts in the hills.

  The fact that I was about to pick up enough gold to make a man wealthy for life meant little when a body figured on it. What mattered was what a man made with his own hands, his own brains. Whatever I got out of this was from sheer chance and a fast gun. And right at this moment I didn’t even have the gold.

  She came walking up out of the darkness. “Oh, Mr. Shaddock, I’m sorry to be so late, but some friends dropped in and I just had to talk for a few minutes. Are you ready to leave?”

  “Yes, ma’am. If you’ll get up in your wagon, ma’am. This here is Oscar Reinhardt. He’ll be your driver.”

  “Thank you.” I could see her eyes straining toward me, a figure she could only dimly make out.

  Ollie turned and gestured toward me. “Nolan Sackett will be driving the last wagon.”

  Ol
lie walked away toward the front of the train, and Penelope came back to me.

  “You’re here then? I’m glad.” She hesitated. “I’ll have to admit that I’m glad to be leaving.” Then she went on quickly. “I want to get away from this … this killing.” She looked up at me. I could see the pale oval of her face in the darkness. “Poor Mr. Loomis was shot. He’s not dead, but he was badly hurt. I can’t imagine how it happened.”

  “This here is a dangerous country,” I said. “Somebody might have seen him wandering around in the dark and figured he was hunting for them. I heard about the shooting. There were two shots fired, weren’t there?”

  “I don’t know.” She turned away from me and walked up to her wagon, where Reinhardt helped her in. After a few minutes I heard the first wagons moving out. As with all such freight outfits, they wouldn’t really be moving as a unit until they were on the trail. Some of the wagons were standing off the side of the road, and they would be falling into place one by one. The movement would be a lot of stop-and-go until they finally got lined out. The stopping of a wagon would attract no attention for many of them would be stopped briefly while other wagons pulled in ahead of them.

  Reinhardt’s wagon moved out, and I let them get a start. I was driving a team of big Missouri mules, eight of them, and they handled nice. I’d always liked handling the straps on a good team.

  We moved slowly while getting lined out, slower than a man could walk. I was watching for the marks I’d chosen and it was not many minutes after the wagons pulled out that I drew up. The wagon ahead was rolling on. I listened for a while, but there was no sound.

  My hands wound the reins around the brake and I got down carefully, as quietly as possible. Penelope might be in with Sylvie and them, but if she wasn’t they would certainly be watching the wagon train move out. They would know that she had the gold, and that she must pick it up somewhere along the line. Would they be watching me too?