In fact it was a maze of trails, obvious and hidden, and along those trails ranchers or homesteaders were friendly to drifting men, asking no questions, and providing no information to strangers.
Originally most of the trails had been scouted by Indians or mountain men, and here and there they had located hideouts away from prying eyes. A drifting man might ride from the Mexican border to Canada and be assured of meals and shelter or an exchange of horses anywhere along the route.
Those who rode the outlaw trail were not all wanted men; some were tough cowhands or drifters who traveled with the seasons and had friends among the wild bunch. A few were occasional outlaws, rustling a few cows when the occasion offered, playing it straight the rest of the time.
Milo Talon was known along the Trail. As there was constant movement up and back, it seemed the best way to get in touch with him was just to ride to the Hole and pass the word.
Morning came with me a-horseback. By daylight I’d put the Empty far behind and was snaking along a trail up through the pines and skirting the aspen groves. It was a fine, clear morning with the air washed clean by rain and drops hanging silver on every leaf. Even the wild things a body saw didn’t seem to mind him much, so pleased they were with the morning.
My horse and me were of a mind. We taken our time, just breathing the good air, keeping an eye out for trouble, but just enjoying it. Far off and below I seen a dot that had to be buffalo. Most of them had been killed off, but here and there small herds had taken to the mountain valleys. Maybe two hundred in the lot I saw.
Of a sudden I rode out on a grassy slope that dropped steeply off into a valley far, far below. Ahead of me and a mite higher was a thick stand of aspen, and turning my horse I skirted the edge of that grove until I came on a likely spot. Putting my horse on a picket rope, I bunched a few sticks and with some shredded bark and twigs built myself a coffee-making fire.
I’d backed up against that grove on purpose. Looked at from down below no smoke would show against the white of the tree trunks and the gray-green of the leaves. From alongside the aspen a little branch trickled down over the rocks, twisting and turning to find itself a way down the mountain. It was so narrow in places the grass almost covered it from view. Dipping up a pot of water I set her on the fire, dumped in some coffee, and waited for it to boil. With that, some jerky and a chunk of homemade bread I figured to make do.
There’s no prettier place than a stand of aspen. The elk and beaver like the bitter inner bark, and you’ll nearly always find them where there’s aspen. There’s no thing that provides more grub for wildlife than the aspen grove.
There’s usually wood around. The aspen is self-pruning, and as it grows taller it sheds its lower branches, just naturally reaching for the sun. Those branches dry out quickly and make excellent kindling.
Much as I wished to be back at the ranch for the safety of the womenfolks, I didn’t figure to lose my hair in the process. Stopping to make coffee was giving my horse a rest, giving me food to start a long day, but it was also giving me time to watch my back trail a little.
I was pretty sure I’d come away from the Empty without being seen, but a man can get killed taking things for granted. If anybody was on my trail I wanted to look him - or her - over before they came up to me.
Meanwhile, setting there in the morning sun and watching my water get hot was a pleasure I could take to heart. I never was one for rushing through a country. I like to take my time, breathe the air, get the feel of it … I like to smell it, taste it, get it located in my brain.
The thing to remember when traveling is that the trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.
When my coffee was boiled good and black I poured myself a cup. It was strong - take the hide off a bull, that stuff would. Fellow I punched cows with down Sonora way said my coffee was dehorning fluid … one drop and a bull’s horns would melt right off.
It ain’t true, but it does measure up. A cup of it will open a man’s eyes.
Chewing some jerky, I tasted that coffee now and again, and kept an ear out for sound and one eye on my horse. That horse was wild and a wild horse has all the senses of a deer and a good deal more savvy.
Pretty soon the roan lifted his head, pricked up his ears, and spread his nostrils. I forked my Winchester around and slipped the thong of the butt of my pistol. I wasn’t one to hunt trouble, although I’ve buried a few who did.
There were two of them, studying the trail as they rode, and they had not seen me. Holding the Winchester in my hands, I stood up slowly. At that instant my horse whinnied and their heads turned sharply as if on one neck.
“Lookin’ for something, boys?” My Winchester was easy in my hands. I never sight a gun of any kind; I just look where I’m shooting.
They didn’t like it very much. They were tough-looking characters, and both of them rode Eight-Ladder-Eight brands on their horses. Their horses were Morgans, fine stock, and the brands were a rewrite job if I ever saw one.
“Eight-Ladder-Eight,” I commented sarcastically, “an’ Morgan horses. Ain’t many Morgans in this part of the country, boys, but a good man with a cinch ring and a hot fire could change a Six-Four-Six into an Eight-Ladder-Eight without half trying.”
“You saying we stole these horses?”
“You did or somebody did,” I said, “But if I were you boys I’d get shut of them, an’ quick.”
“Why?” one of them said.
“You ever heard of Dutch Brannenburg?”
“Wasn’t he the one who chased those hombres from Montana to Texas?”
“Uh-huh. That’s the one.” I grinned at them. “You boys maybe don’t know it, but he’s registered a Six-Four-Six brand. You’re sittin’ right up in the middle of two of his horses.”
Seemed to me their faces turned a shade gray under the tan. “You’re funnin’,” one of them said. “Why, we - !”
“Shut up, you damn’ fool!” The older man was as sore as he was scared. “I tol’ you it looked too damn’ easy!”
“He’s probably right behind you now,” I told them, “and from what I hear of Dutch he wastes no time. You boys better learn to pray while you’re ridin’. Dutch takes pride in his horses.”
They headed off down the trail, rattling their hocks out of there. Me, I finished my coffee, tightened my cinch, and was just about to step into the leather when I heard them coming.
Dutch was a tough man. He was maybe fifty years old and nearly as wide as he was tall, and every ounce of him was rawhide and iron. There were nine in the party and they swept up there just as I turned. My Winchester was still in my hands.
They taken a quick look at me and at my horse. “You there!” Dutch shouted. “Did you see a couple of men ride through here?”
“I wasn’t looking very close,” I said.
He pushed his horse at me. He was square-jawed and mean. I’d heard a lot about Dutch and liked none of it. He ranched, but he ranched like he was bull of the woods. You crossed him and you died … I’d heard he’d set fire to a couple of rustlers he’d caught.
“You’d have been a lot smarter if you’d given me a straight answer. I think you’re one of them.”
“You’re a damned liar,” I said. “You don’t think any such thing.”
He started to grab iron but that Winchester had him covered right where he lived.
“You boys sit tight,” I told the others. “If one of you makes a wrong move I’m going to kill your boss.”
“You ain’t got the guts,” he said, his tone ugly. “Kill him, boys.”
“Boss,” a slim, wiry man was talking, “that’s Logan Sackett.”
A bad reputation can get a man in a lot of trouble, but once in a while it can be a help. Dutch Brannenburg sort of eased back in his saddle and I saw his tongue touch his lips. Dry, I reckon.
“You know the tracks of your own horses,” I said, “and you can read sign. So don’t try to swing too wi
de a loop. Your hide punctures the same as any man’s.”
He reined his horse around. “You watch yourself, Sackett,” he said. “I don’t like you.”
‘I’ll watch,” I said, “and when you come after my hide, you’d better hide behind more men.”
He swung his horse around and swore, muttering in a low, vicious tone. “I don’t need any men, Sackett. I can take you myself … any time.”
‘I’m here,” I said.
“Boss?” That slim man’s voice was pleading. “Those thieves are gettin’ away, boss.”
He swung his horse back to the trail. “So they are,” he said sharply, and led off down the trail.
That was a mean man, I told myself, and a man to watch. I’d crossed him, backed him down, made him look less than he liked to look in front of his men.
“Logan,” I said, “you’ve made you an enemy.” Well, here and yonder I had a few. Maybe I could stand one more.
Nevertheless, I made myself a resolution to get nowhere near Dutch Brannenburg. Then or ever.
He had come west like many another pioneer and had taken up land where it meant a fight to hold it. Trouble was, after he’d used force a few times to hold his own against enemies it became a way of life to him. He liked being known as a hard, ruthless man. He liked being known as a driver. He had earned his land and earned his way, but now he was pushing, walking hard-shouldered against the world. He had begun in the right, but he had come to believe that because he did it, whatever he did, it was right to do. He made his own decisions as to who was criminal and who was not, and along with the horse and cow thieves he had wiped out a few innocent nesters and at least one drifting cowhand.
I’d been on the way and in the way, and only my own alertness had kept me alive. Now I’d made him stand back and he would not forgive.
The trail I’d followed had lost whatever appeal it had, so I mounted up and rode up the mountain, skirting the aspen and weaving my way through the scattered spruce that lay beyond. Somewhere up ahead was an old Indian trail that followed along the acres of the mountains above timberline. I was gambling Brannenburg did not know it.
His place was down in the flat land, and I had an idea he wasn’t the type to ride the mountains unless it was demanded of him or unless he was hunting somebody. The trail was there, a mere thread winding its way through a soggy green meadow scattered with fifty varieties of wild flowers, red, yellow, and blue.
Twice I saw deer … a dozen of them in one bunch, and on a far-off slope, several elk. There were marmots around all the while and a big eagle who kept me company for half the morning. I never did decide whether he was hoping I’d kill something he could share or if he was just lonely.
The peaks around me were ragged and gray, bare rock clean of snow except for a patch here and there in a shady place. Nor was there sound but that from the hoofs of my horse on the soft earth or occasionally glancing off a bit of rock.
It was the kind of trail I had ridden many times, and as on other times I rode with caution. A lonely trail it was, abandoned long since by the Indians who made it, but no doubt their ghosts were still walking along these mountainsides, through these same grasses.
Once I saw a silver-tip grizzly in the brush at the edge of the timber. He stood up to get a better view of me, a huge beast, probably weighing half a ton or more, but he was a hundred yards off and unafraid. My horse snorted and shied a bit, but continued on.
There were lion tracks in the trail. They always take the easiest way, even here where there are few obstructions. I’d not get a sight of the lion - they know the man smell and edge away from it.
It was midafternoon before I stopped again. I found a stream of snow water running off the ridge and an abandoned log cabin built by some prospector. There was a tunnel on the mountainside, and a pack rat had been in the cabin, but nobody else had been there for a long time.
I drank from the stream and left the cabin alone, not caring to be trapped inside a building, the first place anyone would look. I went back in a little cluster of pines and built my fire where the smoke would be dissipated by the evergreen branches above.
The coffee tasted good. I ate some more of the bread and chewed some jerky while drinking it, and I watched the trail below and the valley opening into the mountains, smoky with distance.
Two days later I rode into Brown’s Hole from the east.
The Hole is maybe thirty-three or four miles long by five to six miles wide, watered by the Green River and a few creeks that tumble down off Diamond Mountain or one of the others to end up in the Green. It is sagebrush country, with some timber on the mountains and cedar along the ridges.
The man I was looking for was Isom Dart … at least that was the name he was using. His real name had been Huddleston … Ned, I think. He was a black man, and he had ridden with Tip Gault’s outfit until riders from the Hat put them out of business.
I planned to stop at Mexican Joe Herrara’s cabin on Vermilion Creek. Riding into the Hole I had come on a man driving some cows. When I asked about Dart, he looked me over careful-like and then said I might find him at Herrara’s cabin, but to be careful. If Mexican Joe got mad at me and started sharpening his knife, I would be in trouble.
I was hunting trouble, but as for Joe, I’d heard about him before and I didn’t much care whether he got mad or not.
There didn’t seem to be anyone about when I got to the cabin. I pulled up and stepped down.
Chapter 6
As I tied my horse to the corral with a slipknot, I kept an eye on the cabin. Men of that stamp would surely have heard me come up, and right now they were undoubtedly sizing me up.
In those days no law ever rode into the Hole. Most law around the country didn’t even know where it was or just how to get in, and they’d find little to welcome them, although a few honest cattlemen like the Hoy outfit were already there.
Hitching my gun belt into a comfortable position, I walked up to the door.
As I came up on the rock slab that passed for a stoop the door opened suddenly and a Mexican was standing there. He wasn’t Herrara, not big enough or mean enough.
“Buenos dias, amigo,” I said, “is the coffee on?”
He looked at me a moment, then stepped aside. There were three men in the cabin when I stepped in. I spotted Herrara at once, a tall, fierce-looking Mexican, not too dark. Sitting at the table with him was a white man who had obviously been drinking too much. He looked soft, not like a rider. There was another Mexican squatting on his heels in the corner.
“Passin’ through,” I commented, “figured you might have coffee.”
Nobody spoke for a minute; Herrara just stared at me, his black eyes unblinking. Finally, the Anglo said, “There’s coffee, and some beans, if you’d like. May I help you?”
He went to the stove in the corner and picked up the pot, filling a cup for me. Pulling back a chair, I sat down. The big white man brought me the coffee and a dish of beef and beans.
“Has Dutch Brannenburg been through?”
Herrara stared at me. “You ride for Dutch?”
I laughed. “Him an’ me don’t see eye to eye. I met him yonder and we had words. He’s headed this way, hunting two horse thieves … Anglos,” I added, “but he hangs whoever he finds.”
“He did not hang you,” Herrara said, still staring.
“I didn’t favor the idea. The situation being what it was, he figured he could wait.”
“The situation?” the Anglo asked.
“My Winchester was sort of headed his way. His motion was overruled, as they’d say in a court of law.”
“He is coming this way?”
“There’s nine of them,” I said, “and they size up like fighters.”
For a minute or two nobody said anything, and then around a mouthful of beans and beef, I said, “They’ll come in from the north, I’m thinking. I didn’t find any tracks in the Limestone Ridge country.”
They all looked at me. “You came that way
?”
I shrugged. “Joe,” I said, “I’d been in this Hole two, three times before you left South Pass City.”
He didn’t like that very much. Mexican Joe had killed a man or two over that way and they’d made it hot for him, so he’d pulled his stakes.
I’d come in there first as a long-geared apple-knocking youngster. I’d been swinging a hammer on the U.P. tracks and got into a shooting at the End of Track. The men I killed had friends and I had none but a few Irish track-workers who weren’t gunfighters, so I pulled my freight.
“Are you on the dodge?” It was the Anglo who asked the question.
“Well,” I said, “there’s a posse from Nebraska that’s probably started back home by now. I came thisaway because I figured I’d see Isom Dart … I wanted to sort of pass word down the trail.”
“What word?” Herrara’s tone was belligerent.
The Mexican had been drinking wine, as had the others. He was in an ugly mood and I was a stranger who did not seem impressed by him. There had been some other Mexicans down in Sonora and Chihuahua who weren’t impressed, either, and that was why he was up here.
“Milo Talon,” I said, “is a friend of mine, and I want to pass the word along that he’s needed on the Empty, over east of here, and that he’s to come careful.”
‘I’ll tell Dart,” the American said.
Herrara never took his eyes off me. He was mean, I knew that, and he’d cut up several men with his knife. He had a way of taking it out and honing it until sharp, then with a yell he’d jump you and start cutting. But the honing act was to get a man scared before he jumped him. It was a good stunt, and usually it worked.
He got out his whetstone, but before he could draw his knife I drew mine. “Say, just what I need.” Before he knew what I was going to do I had reached over and taken the stone. Then I began whetting my own blade.
Ride the Dark Trail (1972) Page 5
