“We haven’t got it,” Dorian said. “Two of your crowd have it.”
“You’re lyin’!”
“Where’s Elmer?” Dorian said. “And where is that big fellow, Sardust?”
Oats was staring at Dorian. “You’ve got too much lip.”
Dorian smiled. “You’re supposed to be some kind of a fighter,” he said. “Why don’t you see what you can do about it?”
“Dorian!” I said.
“This is something I have to do, Echo,” he said. “It won’t take long.”
Timothy Oats took off his coat and laid it on a stump. He put his rifle across it.
“You,” I told Hans, “stay out of it.”
“Why not? Tim will make mincemeat of him.”
I was afraid of that myself, but the way they were looking at each other, like two prize bulls in a pen, I knew nothing I could say would make any difference. Dorian had shucked his coat, too.
He was a shade lighter than Oats, but just as broad in the shoulder. “You won’t find him so pretty when I get through with him,” Oats said.
“You take care of yourself, mister. Pretty is as pretty does.”
Oats tried a left, drawing Dorian out, or trying to. Dorian ignored the left, moved to the left. He feinted a left, and when Oats moved to counter, hit him with a solid right that shook Oats to his heels. It surprised him, too. He had not expected that, and I could see his expression change. Now he knew he was in for a fight.
Oats was the wilier, ducking, slipping away from punches, hitting hard in return. Twice he landed hard to the body and I winced for Dorian, but he seemed to pay it no mind.
Then they were at it, hammer and tongs, both of them slugging, toe to toe and neither backing up a bit. Oats was hitting Dorian, but Dorian was taking them standing, and suddenly he feinted a left, and Oats, too eager, stepped in and took a right on the chin. It staggered him, and Dorian followed up, swinging both fists to the body.
Oats backed up, tried to get set, but Dorian gave him no chance. The less experienced of the two, he was younger, in better shape, and just a little quicker. Oats rushed, tried to butt, and Dorian hit him with an uppercut, and when the head came down again, he grabbed Oats by the hair and jerked him forward, kicking his feet from under him. Oats came down hard, landing on his face.
At that moment Hans lunged forward, and I put a bullet through his ear. The shock and the pain stopped him, and his hand went to his bloody ear. I had the pistol in my hand.
“The next one kills,” I said. “Just back off.”
“You missed,” Hans said.
“I didn’t want to kill you. I wanted an ear and I got it. You now have one ear. Do you want to try for none?”
The blood was covering the side of his face and his shoulder. He backed off warily.
Oats was getting up, and Dorian was letting him. Suddenly Oats dived at him, grappling for Dorian’s knees. He got one of them, right in the face. He staggered and went to a knee. Maybe that boy could fight after all, I thought. This wasn’t party games.
Hans had backed off, trying to stop the bleeding. “I’ll kill you for that!” he said.
“You haven’t done very well so far,” I replied. “You just better look at your hole card. You aren’t holding very much.”
Dorian was bloody himself. He had a cut on his cheekbone and his lip was puffy, but he seemed happy. He was standing, ready for Oats to get up.
“You’re a smarter fighter than I am, Mr. Oats,” he said, “but you’ve had too many beers.”
“Dorian? We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve got trouble coming.”
He picked up his coat and put it on, then got his rifle. Oats had reached his coat and was standing over it, about to pick up the rifle he had laid down.
“Go ahead,” I told him, “if you feel lucky.”
“Horst will be coming. He will have heard that shot.”
Dorian made no reply, nor did I. We backed off, watching them as we left. Oats was wiping his bloody face.
“Have you got their trail?” Dorian asked.
“They will have heard that shot too,” I said.
“But they won’t know who shot, or why. They may travel a little faster.”
Elmer and Patton Sardust. I wondered how long Elmer would last. He was just a big gawky boy, and Sardust was a mean man, a hard man, a man who had been through it. They must be near the river by now.
We did not talk, being wishful to make no sound. The tracks were easy to follow, as nobody was trying not to leave a trail. They were headed down the steep slope toward the river. If we could get that carpetbag back, we could just keep going. The direction was right.
There was no need to track them now, as they were on a trail down to the river. I squinted away toward the river. I did not know rightly where I was, and that might be the Powell or it could be the Clinch. We’d been switching back and forth in the mountains, and all I knew was my general directions.
During a pause to catch our breath, I reloaded my rifle-gun. This was mostly new country for me. There was a path along the river that had been followed by both men and game, and their tracks were there.
Elmer clutched the carpetbag, switching it from his right to his left hand. He wished they’d never found it. He knew the big man walking with him intended to kill him, he knew Sardust wanted it all. For a moment Elmer was inclined to turn and simply hand it to him, but there was a deep stubbornness in him that refused. Anyway, it might not suffice. Sardust might kill him anyway. Tree shadows fell along the path. He wished he could be walking here alone, without Sardust. He liked the sound of the river.
He stopped suddenly, and Sardust stopped. “What’s the matter?” The big man was irritable but watchful.
“I thought I heard something.”
“The wind, maybe. Or the river.”
“Something else, somebody moving.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Patton, we should give this back. To that girl, I mean. We should give this carpetbag to Echo Sackett. It’s hers.”
“Youare crazy! There’s money in there, boy. Money for both of us. Give it back? Why?”
“It’s hers. It will mean a lot to her. I know, I was all for stealin’ it myself. I didn’t like her one bit, but she’s got nerve. And she needs this. Ever since I got down in this country, I been wonderin’ about all this. I figure we’re doin’ wrong.”
Patton spat into the dust. “Well, of all the weak, mollycoddlin’ … !”
“I mean it, Mr. Sardust. I don’t feel the same no more. Men have been hurt over this. Three men down and hurt, an’ everybody is for just leavin’ them. I don’t feel right about it.”
“You just give it to me. I’ll take the blame. You can run off an’ do what you like. I’ll just let you off the hook. Give it to me.”
“No, Mr. Sardust, I may be a damn fool but I’m takin’ it back to that girl. Maybe it’s this country, maybe it’s her, maybe it’s those men back there, dyin’ maybe. I don’t feel right about it no more.”
“You give it to me. I’ll shoulder the blame. You run off an’ have a good cry. You an’ your conscience.” Patton Sardust spat contemptuously. “You’re nothin’ but a damn mollycoddle!”
“No, Mr. Sardust. I am takin’ it back to her.”
“Shut up! Just give me that bag!”
“I think he’s right, Mr. Sardust.” The voice came from the trees near the trail. “I think he’s right. I think you better leave him go, Mr. Sardust.”
A man stepped into the open trail, a very tall, very lean man with a rifle.
Patton Sardust turned slowly. Whatever Elmer did was of no immediate concern. He had never seen this stranger before, but his every instinct told him he was in trouble, deep, serious trouble.
His heart was pounding slowly, heavily. His rifle was by his side, held in the trail position. His hand was almost in the right place. If he could only get his finger on the trigger …
“Who the devil are you?”
>
“Not the devil, Mr. Sardust, but like him, I can open the gates to hell. I’m Mordecai Sackett. You ready to go?”
Chapter 22
Elmer walked back up the path toward the clifftop. He walked easier, and he felt better. He stopped at one point and looked down through the trees at the river. He just stood there, light and shadow falling over him, and no sound but the trees. He had never known such quiet, never such peace.
From behind him and below there was a shot, closely followed by another.
So that was the end of that, and it might have been the end of him, too. He had looked into that stranger’s face and he had no doubt about who killed whom.
He was dipping down again now, as the track he was following returned briefly to the river before starting up again. He stopped once more, putting the carpetbag down.
He would not know how to get along in country like this, but he could come back to visit. He could walk this trail again, but with no worries. She came along the trail toward him and he picked up the bag and held it out to her. “This is yours,” he said.
“Thank you, Elmer. You are a nice man.”
He blushed. “Well, it’s yours. I just thought …”
“Thanks.”
Dorian came down the trail behind me. “We heard a shot.”
“Yes, sir. It was him, I believe. I think he killed Patton Sardust.”
“Killed him? Who did?”
“He came out of the woods like a ghost. He looked like a ghost. He said his name was Mordecai Sackett.”
“Mordecai!”
Dorian glanced at her. “Is he related to you?”
“He’s a Clinch Mountain Sackett. A cousin, sort of.”
“There were two shots. I’ll go see if he’s been hurt.” Dorian hesitated. “You’ll be all right.”
When he had gone, I just stood there staring after Elmer, who was walking away up the trail. Whatever had come over him? What would he do now? Could he go back to working with James White? Or would he want to go back?
Now I could go home. Now I had money again, and what I could do would brighten all their lives. I picked up the carpetbag, and Felix Horst was standing there. His pistol was in his hand and he indicated a dim trail toward the river.
“Walk that way. If you call out and he comes, he’ll never know what hit him.”
“He’s not alone down there.”
“Get along! Don’t try any tricks on me. Just move!”
“Mordecai Sackett’s with him. He killed Patton Sardust.”
“Get along. Right down the path. You walk easy, and maybe you’ll be alive tomorrow.”
I walked along, carrying the bag. I had left my rifle on the ground where they would find it. Horst had seemed to pay no attention. Maybe if I had tried to pick it up, he would have shot me. Dorian would be coming back. He would find it right there at the path down which Horst was taking me.
It led to the river. There was a clearing there, cut off from the water by a stand of black willow, partly shaded by sycamores. Drawn up in the reeds I could see the bow of a skiff. Had he known it was there?
“You’re making a mistake,” I said quietly. “Mordecai is here. You will never get out of the hills.”
He laughed without humor. “Don’t be silly! Just drop that bag and back off.”
“Look! Please! My blue dress is in there! Let me have that, at least! It’s the only pretty dress I ever had!”
“All right, get it out and be damned. But hurry! I haven’t time for any more nonsense!”
I opened the bag and thrust my hand in, pulling out the blue dress and bonnet with my left hand, and the Doune pistol with my right. I was going to shoot right through the dress but couldn’t stand the thought of ruining that beautiful gown.
I threw the dress aside, revealing the Doune pistol.
There was a moment of frozen silence; Horst’s own pistol was in his hand, but lowered. There was shock in his eyes. He stared at me with awful realization. Then I shot him.
He stood for just an instant, trying to lift his pistol, but the gun slipped from his fingers into the dust and he fell, knees first, buckling slowly, and then sprawled in the dust and leaves. After a moment one of his legs straightened, the toe digging into the earth.
I walked over to a big sycamore and sat down abruptly, leaning my head back against the tree. I was sitting like that when they came down the trail to the river, Mordecai Sackett and Dorian Chantry.
Dorian came to me and helped me to my feet and put his arms around me. “It’s all right,” he said. “Everything is all right.”
“I want to go home.”
“All right.” He folded the blue dress and bonnet and returned them to the bag. Then he picked it up. Together we started away, but Mordecai stopped us.
“Foolish to walk when that skiffs handy. You might as well float down.”
“Thank you, Mordecai, for coming.”
“Trulove an’ Macon, they come too. They’re up yonder cleanin’ up what’s left. We come when needed, cousin. We come when needed.” Mordecai glanced at Dorian Chantry and said, “I found a black man in the woods.”
“Was he hurt?”
“He’d been shot. Grazed his skull, knocked him out, I guess. When I saw him, there was a dog lyin’ beside him, sort of watchin’ over him. He’s on his feet now, an’ will be comin’ along directly.”
Mordecai glanced again at Dorian, then at Echo. “You sparkin’ him?”
I glanced at Dorian, but he blushed. “You might say that,” I said. “You might just say that.”
“I hope she is,” Dorian said. “I’d hate to go back to Uncle Finian and tell him I lost out.”
Regal and Ma were settin’ on the porch of an evenin when we came up the trail from the Cove. They were settin’ together and Regal stood tall to shake hands and greet Dorian and give me a little squeeze with an arm about my shoulders.
“We missed you, honey. Have a nice trip?”
“Took me longer than expected,” I said.
“Come mornin’, I’d have been comin’ after you. A man stopped by who said he saw you on a steamboat and you seemed to be in some kind of trouble. His name was Ginery Wooster. He said he had passed the word to Mordecai on his way across the mountains.”
“We saw Mordecai.”
“That’s more than I ever did. Come on inside.” We paused a moment on the step, looking off toward Cligman’s Dome. The clouds were gathering there. A nighthawk swooped by and Dorian and I turned toward the house.
“See? I told you it was a log cabin!”
Author’s Note
There should be, within the next few years, at least ten more novels involving members of the Sackett family. These upcoming books will not only close the gap between the novels of the early Sackett generations (Sackett’s Land, To The Far Blue Mountains, andThe Warrior’s Path ) and the novels of the later generations beginning withThe Daybreakers , but will extend the Sackett’s story in several new directions. The present novel,Ride The River , helps to bridge that gap since Echo Sackett is the aunt of the Sackett brothers William Tell, Orrin, and Tyrel whom we first meet inThe Daybreakers andSackett .
The next Sackett novel will beThe Saga Of Jubal Sackett dealing with the area west of the Mississippi, the Great Plains and the Rockies in the years after 1630. At that time this area was the great unknown. Coronado and other Spanish explorers had touched upon it, but their limited explorations were not known to the rest of the world. Even the Indians, who were only beginning to acquire horses, knew little of that vast land in the interior. The distance between streams and known waterholes had restricted their travel until horses were available.
Into this world, teeming with game of every variety, Jubal Sackett travels with one Indian companion seeing it all when it was fresh and new. They hunt buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bear, and other animals, some of which were believed to have been extinct, all at a time when every step they took was into unknown land.
Later, ther
e will be another story of William Tell Sackett, going back to his earlier years when he first left the Tennessee Mountains to fight in the Civil War. This story will also relate the great romance of his life, or at least the first chapter in it, a romance about which he has told no one, not even his brothers.
About the Author
“I think of myself in the oral tradition - of a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way I’d like to be remembered - as a storyteller. A good storyteller.”
It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world recreated in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L’Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family’s frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, assessment miner, and officer on tank destroyers during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.
Mr. L’Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L’Amour published his first full-length novel,Hondo , in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 100 books is in print; there are nearly 230 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.
Ride the River (1983) Page 16
