the Sacket Brand (1965)

by L'amour, Louis - Sackett's 12

  There was open ground to my left, and it was there I went, edging along, for I had to go slow, and needed to for the quietness my going called for.

  There were no big boulders here, no gullies or cracks, and no brush at all. There was just rugged desert ground with a few places here and there, only inches deep, and scattered rocks no bigger than your head. Tufts of bunch grass grew among the yucca, but nothing larger.

  First I rubbed my rifle barrel all over with dust to take the shine from it. My clothes, so stained with dust and sweat, were almost of the ground's own color, mingled with blood-stains and the tears where my sun-browned skin showed through.

  Flat on my belly I went. Inch by inch I wormed along, through a space where a few cedars grew. I came to a fairly shallow place and went into it, and there I lay still for a bit. Then on I went, working along, moving so slightly that it scarcely seemed like movement at all.

  Apaches had done it ... I'd known of a case where a man grazed his horse with it tied to a rope and the rope's end in his hand ... and an Apache slipped up in the bright afternoon sunlight and cut the rope and eased off with the horse. He swung astride him and was gone, leaving the man holding the rope and looking foolish.

  My mouth was dry as dust, dry from fear of being seen, and dry from having no drink in many hours.

  My heart pounded heavily and my head ached from the hunger and tiredness that was in me. But my rifle was in my hand, and when the moment came, if I could only find a rest for it, I'd take a good lot with me down the road to death.

  A long, slow hour passed. Once a boot crunched within a few feet above me as I lay still. Another time I heard men talking of a fight there'd been, of men killed with violence, and guns flaring and thundering in O'Leary's place ... and then I heard the name of Nolan Sackett.

  Nolan! He had come, then. Nolan was an outlaw Sackett, a wild and desperate man, and one who had pulled me from a bad hole in California not too far back.

  Me they might kill, but now I could be sure they'd know the Sackett men before the summer was gone.

  There was no doubt in me that I would die, for there was no way out that I could see. For minutes, long minutes, I lay perfectly still, right in the open with those hunting men about me, knowing my only safety lay in their searching minds, for it was up on the higher ground they looked now, and not right there below them.

  Suddenly I heard the beat of hoofs on the trail. Riders coming! Then a harsh voice sounded and something within me jolted and my heart seemed to miss a beat, and within me a terrible hatred came up, for I knew that must be the voice.

  "We've got him, Mr. Allen," somebody was answering. "He's right up there in those rocks.

  We've got men along the rim above him, and there's not a chance he can get away."

  "All right. Go get him." That voice again ... how far from me?

  They started at once ... there must have been a dozen men down there, as well as those on the cliffso above. I heard them start, and I reached back and slipped the thong from my six-shooter.

  "Put lead on that rock behind him," somebody said. "That will flush him out!"

  A half-dozen Winchesters began feeding lead against the hillside, trying to do what the Army had done to the Apaches in the Salt River cave, not more than a whistle and a yell from here. Glancing bullets whined and whipped through the air, and had I been back there I'd have been a lucky man to escape death.

  "He's dead, or gone," a man called out.

  "There's no sign of him."

  Ahead of me I heard voices. "No, stay here," Allen was saying. "We've got a better view of the mountain from here. If he escapes them, we've got him."

  "Boss," another voice spoke up quickly, "there's somebody coming down the trail!"

  "Some of the boys, Macon. I told them all to close in."

  "They don't look familiar." Macon's voice was doubting.

  "I can see our boys up on the hill above him." This voice had a Spanish accent, ever so slight ... would that be Romero, the Mexican gunfighter? "Which one wears a black coat?"

  I lay perfectly still, but my mind felt queer. Somehow I couldn't bring my thoughts to focus, and there was a terrible weakness upon me. I daren't move my head, for I felt sure I was within view of them all, and any movement would be seen. Yet it was now or never.

  My left hand pushed the rifle forward, holding it clear of the rocks to make no sound. I turned my head so I could look straight ahead, and I saw a clump of bear grass there, and to my left another.

  Suddenly a shout went up behind me. "He's gone! Damn it, he's gone!"

  And then another voice called down, and it was a voice I knew.

  "All of you down there ... back up and drop your guns or we'll cut you to doll rags!"

  That was Orrin ... Orrin here?

  Allen was standing in his stirrups ... for the first time I saw my enemy. "What the hell?" he called. "Who's that?"

  Now I had it to do, so I came up off the ground, rifle in my left hand, my right waiting for the feel of my Colt.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see a row of men along that hill where I'd been lying, just above there where the bullets had gone. They were all moving slowly down the slope.

  Orrin was there, all right, and Tyrel. And there were some others that I did not know.

  The three men in front of me were staring up the hill. I was somewhat to their left. Close to where I had stood up, there was an ocotillo with its many spines in a stiff clump, flaring out from its base, and just beyond that a yucca. I had stood up so soundlessly that it was a moment before they saw me.

  The riders on the road were drawing close.

  Then I heard Nolan Sackett's voice.

  "You boys wanted a fight, now you got it."

  Sonora Macon, Rafe Romero, and Van Allen ... all three were looking at me. I lowered the butt of my Winchester to the ground to steady myself. I doubted if I could hold the rifle steady enough without a rest, but I wasn't worried about a six-shooter. I could shoot one of those if I could still breathe.

  Allen had been standing in his stirrups, now he lowered himself gently into the saddle. I thought he looked a little gray under the dark stubble of his beard.

  "You been huntin' me, Allen. And I been huntin' you."

  He looked at me, staring hard. I do not know if he wanted to see the look of the man he'd wronged and tried to kill, or if he was only looking at a man he expected to kill, but I knew deep down within me that no matter what came to me, Van Allen was staring down the black muzzle of death.

  "Who are those men?" he demanded.

  "Sacketts, mostly," I said. "They're of the Sackett family of Tennessee, or those who stand close to them. I don't know all of them myself."

  Cap Rountree was there, and a strange-looking man with gold rings in his ears, the like of which I never did see, but I was a mountain man and had heard tell of the Tinker.

  Suddenly a tall man with iron gray at his temples and a coat with a handsome cut was standing beside me. He was a Sackett, all right, although one I'd never seen. "I'm Falcon Sackett, Tell. My son is here also."

  "There's going to be shootin'," I said.

  "I'll stand with you, William Tell, and a better man I never stood beside."

  Overhead the sun was hot, somewhere a horse blew dust from his nostrils and stomped his feet.

  Allen's gunmen were holding ready for the ^w, only Allen wasn't giving it. He was looking at me.

  Maybe it was the heat waves dancing, maybe it was a blur in my vision. Everything seemed vague and whirly there before me, kind of shimmering, with the shadows of men beyond it.

  "She never had much, Mr. Allen," I said.

  "I'll never forget the first time we met, high up in the Colorado mountains. She said, "I'm Ange Kerry, and I'm most glad you found me."' It was a heart-tearing thing, the way she spoke, and the llness and loneliness of her.

  "I hoped to make it up to her. I hoped to bring her happiness in this fine new land where the pines stood tall and t
he water ran cold over the rocks. I wanted to build her a house of her own, and fix it proper, and we'd have our children there.

  That's what I wanted, Mr. Allen, and you murdered her. You found her alone and you broke the flesh of her throat in your hands. You took the life out of her, Mr. Allen."

  Macon shifted his feet. "I didn't know he done that."

  "He did it."

  "I didn't mean to. I thought ... well, I figured she was some mover's woman."

  "No matter ... she was a woman. As for movers, you're a mover yourself, Mr. Allen.

  Where did you move from? And why? Is there blood behind you?"

  My knees felt funny and I didn't quite know what I was saying. I could see him up there on his horse, peering at me.

  "By God," he shouted suddenly, "I paid you to kill him. Now kill him!"

  Some fool must have moved ... and all at once the day was thundering guns and the wicked stab of flame.

  I could feel my own gun bucking in my grip, and I was stumbling forward toward that man on the horse. I saw his gun up and firing, saw his face twisted in an awful wrench of agony, and saw blood start from his chest. My next bullet ripped the side of his face away, and he fell down, but he came up and threw both hands in front of his face and began to scream. I shot through his hands until my gun was empty, and I was down on my knees and no longer wanted to shoot anybody or anything.

  Orrin had me by the shoulders. "Easy, man!

  Easy, now. It's all over."

  When I shook off his hands and staggered up, I saw Macon was down and Romero had fallen off to one side. All around men were standing with their hands up, and nobody wanted to fight any more.

  Tyrel walked over to me. It was the first time I had seen him wearing a gun. "Are you all right, Tell?"

  Me, I nodded.

  "Let's go home," he said.

  Behind me I heard Parmalee saying, "Flagan, you and Galloway would please me if you'd stay and help me round up these cattle."

  We stopped in Globe and the lot of us lined up in O'Leary's place, all of us together, more Sacketts than I'd ever seen before ... or anybody else, I guess.

  Me, standing there amongst them, I looked around and I knew I was not alone, and I'd never be alone again.