The Sacket Brand (1965) s-12

by Louis L'Amour

  The Sacket Brand (1965)

  ( Sacketts - 12 )

  Louis L'amour

  The Sackett Brand

  Louis L'amour

  *

  Somebody Wanted Me Dead.

  A Boot Toe Kicked Me Awake. I Looked Up Into Three Rifle muzzles aimed at my head, and three hard men standing over me, no mercy in their eyes. They had their orders.

  Find Tell Sackett.

  And when you find him, kill him.

  And when you kill him, bury him deep.

  Someone wanted me dead. Wanted it bad enough to hire a whole passel of gunmen to do the job.

  There was only one thing he didn't know about me---

  It takes a heap of killing to finish off a Sackett!

  *

  Forty gunslingers from the Lazy A have got Tell Sackett cornered under the Mogollon Rim. They're fixing to hang him if they can capture him alive, fill him extra full of lead if they can't. But the Sacketts don't cotton to that kind of treatment. Hunt one Sackett and you hunt 'em all. So they're riding in from all over--mountain Sacketts, outlaws, cattlemen, bankers and the rest.

  They'll fight with Tell on this one--.. If they can get there before Tell kills all forty hardcases himself.

  *

  The Sacketts They are the unforgettable pioneer family created by master storyteller Louis L'Amour to bring to vivid life the spirit and adventure of the American frontier. The Sacketts, men and women who challenged the untamed wilderness with their dreams and their courage. From generation to generation they pushed ever westward with a restless, wandering urge, a kinship with the free, wild places and a fierce independence. The Sacketts always stood tall and, true to their strong family pride, they would unite to take on any and all challenges, no matter how overwhelming the odds. Each Sackett novel is a complete, exciting historical adventure, and read as a group, Louis L'Amour's The Sacketts form an epic story of the building of our mighty nation, a saga cherished by millions of readers around the world for more than a quarter century.

  *

  THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE SACKETT NOVELS

  SACKETT'S LAND circa 1600

  TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS circa 1600-1620

  THE WARRIOR'S PATH circa 1620's JUBAL SACKETT circa 1620's RIDE THE RIVER circa 1840's-1850's (bbf Civil War)

  THE DAYBREAKERS circa 1870-1872

  SACKETT circa 1874-1875

  LANDO circa 1873-1875

  MOJAVE CROSSING circa 1875-1879

  MUSTANG MAN circa 1875-1879

  THE LONELY MEN circa 1875-1879

  GALLOWAY circa 1875-1879

  TREASURE MOUNTAIN circa 1875-1879

  LONELY ON THE MOUNTAIN circa 1875-1879

  RIDE THE DARK TRAIL circa 1875-1879

  THE SACKETT BRAND circa 1875-1879

  THE SKY-LINERS circa 1875-1879

  Chapter one.

  Nobody could rightly say any of us Sacketts were what you'd call superstitious.

  Nonetheless, if I had tied a knot in a towel or left a shovel in the fire nothing might have happened.

  The trouble was, when I walked out on that point my mind went a-rambling like wild geese down a western sky.

  What I looked upon was a sight of lovely country. Right at my feet was the river, a-churning and a-thrashing at least six hundred feet below me, with here and there a deep blue pool. Across the river, and clean to the horizon to the north and east of me, was the finest stand of pine timber this side of the Smokies.

  Knobs of craggy rock thrust up, with occasional ridges showing bare spines to the westward where the timber thinned out and the country finally became desert. In front of me, but miles away, a gigantic wall reared up. That wall was at least a thousand feet higher than where I now stood, though this was high ground.

  Down around Globe I'd heard talk of that wall. On the maps I'd seen it was written Mogollon, but folks in the country around called it the Muggy-own.

  This was the place we had been seeking, and now I was scouting a route for my wagon and stock.

  As I stood there on that high point I thought I saw a likely route, and I started to turn away. It was a move I never completed, for something struck me an awful wallop alongside the skull, and next thing I knew I was falling.

  Falling? With a six-hundred-foot drop below me? Fear clawed at my throat, and I heard a wild, ugly cry ... my own cry.

  Then my shoulder smashed into an outcropping of crumbly rock that went to pieces under the impact, and again I was falling; I struck again, fell again, and struck again, this time feet first, facing a gravelly slope that threw me off into the air once more. This time I landed sliding on a sheer rock face that rounded inward and let me fall again, feet first.

  Brush growing out from the side of the mountain caught me for just a moment, but I ripped through it, clawing for a grip; then I fell clear into a deep pool.

  Down I went, and when I thought to strike out and swim, something snagged my pants leg and started me kicking wildly to shake loose. Then something gave way down there under water, and I shot to the surface right at the spillway of the pool.

  My mouth gasped for air, and a wave hit me full in the mouth and almost strangled me, while the force of the water swept me between the rocks and over a six-foot fall. The current rushed me on, and I went through another spillway before I managed to get my feet under me in shallow water.

  Even then, stepping on a slippery rock, I fell once more, and this time the current dropped me to a still lower pool, almost covered by arching trees.

  Flailing with arms and legs, I managed to lay hand to a root and tug myself out of the water. There was a dark hole under the roots of a huge old sycamore that leaned over the water, and it was instinct more than good sense that made me crawl into it before I collapsed.

  And then for a long time I felt nothing, heard nothing.

  It was the cold that woke me. Shivering, shaking, I struggled back to something like consciousness. At first I sensed only the cold ... and then I realized that somebody was talking nearby.

  "What's the boss so wrought up about? He was just a driftin' cowpoke."

  "You ain't paid to question the boss, Dancer. He said we were to find him and kill him, and he said we were to hunt for a week if necessary, but he wants the body found and he wants it buried deep. If it ain't dead, we kill it."

  "You funnin' me? Why, that poor benighted heathen fell six hundred feet! And you can just bet he was dead before he even started to fall.

  Macon couldn't miss a shot at that distance, with his target standing still, like that."

  "That doesn't matter. We hunt until we find him."

  The sound of their walking horses faded out, and I lay still on the wet ground, shaking with chill, knowing I'd got to get warm or die. When I tried to move my arm it flopped out like a dead thing, it was that numb.

  My fingers laid hold of a rock that was frozen into the ground and I hauled myself deeper into the hole. The earth beneath me was frozen mud, but it was shelter of a kind, so I curled up like a new-born baby and tried to think.

  Who was I? Where was I? Who wanted me dead, and why?

  My thoughts were all fuzzy, and I couldn't sort out anything that made sense. My skull throbbed with a dull, heavy beat, and I squinted my eyes against the pain. One leg was so stiff it would scarcely move, and when I got a look at my hands I didn't want to look at them again.

  When I'd hit the face of the cliff I'd torn nearly all the skin off grabbing for a hold. One fingernail was gone.

  Somebody named Macon had shot at me, but so far as I could recall I had never known anybody by that name. But that sudden blow on the head when I started to turn away from the cliff edge must have been it, and that turn had probably save
d my life. I put my fingers up and drew them away quickly. There was a raw furrow in my scalp just above the ear.

  The cold had awakened me; the voices had started me thinking. The two together had given me a chance to live. Yet why should I try? I had only to lie still and I would die soon enough. All the struggle, all the pain would be over.

  And then it struck me.

  Ange ... Ange Kerry, the girl who had become my wife. Where was she?

  When I thought of her I rolled over and started to get up. Ange was back up there on the mountain with the wagon and the cattle, and she was alone. She was back there waiting for me, worrying. And she was alone.

  It was growing dark, and whatever search for me was being carried on would end with darkness, for that day, at least. If I was to make a move, I had to start now.

  Using my elbow and hand, I worked my way out of the hole and pulled myself up by clinging to the sycamore. At the same time I kept my body close to it for concealment.

  The forest along the stream was open, almost empty of underbrush, but the huge old sycamores made almost a solid roof overhead, so that where I stood it was already twilight.

  My teeth rattled with cold, for my shirt was torn to shreds, my pants torn, my boots gone. My gun belt had been ripped loose in the fall and my gun was gone, andwith it my bowie knife.

  There was no snow, but the cold was icy. Pounding my arm against my body, I tried to get the blood to flowing, to get some warmth into me. One leg I simply could not use, but from the feel of it I was sure it was not broken.

  Shelter ... I must find shelter and warmth.

  If I could get to the wagon, I could get clothing, blankets, and a gun. Most of all, I could see Ange, could be sure she was all right.

  But first I must think. Only by thought had man prevailed, or so I'd heard somewhere. Panic was the enemy now, more to be feared than the cold, or even that nameless enemy who had struck at me, and now was searching for me with many men.

  Who could it be? And why?

  This was wild country--actually it was Apache country, and there were few white men around, and nobody who knew me.

  So far as I knew, nobody was even aware that we were in this part of the country. ... Yes, there was somebody--the storekeeper in Globe of whom we'd made inquiries. No doubt others had seen us around Globe, but I had no enemies there, nor had I talked to anyone else, nor done anything to offend anyone.

  Now, step by careful step, I eased away from the river and into the deeper forest. The sun was setting, and gave me my direction.

  Movement awakened pain. A million tiny prickles came into my numbed leg, but I kept on, as careful as I could be under the conditions, wanting to leave no trail that could be followed.

  As I crawled up a bank, my hand closed over a rounded rock with an edge. It was a crude, prehistoric hand-axe.

  I remembered that Leo Prager, a Boston college man who had spent some time on Tyrel's ranch near Mora, had told me about such things. He had spent all his time hunting for signs of the ancient people who lived in that country before the Indians came--or at any rate, the kind of Indians we knew.

  For several weeks I'd guided him around, camped with him, and helped him look, so naturally I learned a good bit about those long-ago people and their ways. When it came to chipping arrowheads, I was the one who could show him how it was done, for I'd grown up around Cherokee boys back in the Tennessee mountains.

  What I had found just now was an oval stone about as big as my fist, chipped to an edge along one side, so I had me a weapon. Clinging to it, I crawled over the bank and got to my feet.

  I could not be sure how far downstream the river had carried me, but it was likely no more than half a mile. And I knew that after I left Ange and my outfit I had ridden five or six miles before reaching that point where I'd been shot.

  So I made a start. Under ordinary conditions I might have walked the distance in two to three hours, but the conditions were not exactly ordinary.

  I was in bad shape, with a game leg and more hurts than I cared to think on. Andwith every step I had to be wary of discovery. Moreover, it was rough country, over rocks and through trees and brush, and I'd have to climb some to make up the ground I'd lost in the fall.

  How many times I fell down I'll never know, or how many times I crawled on the ground or pulled myself up by a tree or rock. Yet each time I did get up, and somehow I kept pushing along. Finally, unable to go any further, I found a shallow, wind-hollowed cave almost concealed behind a bush, a cave scarcely large enough to take my body, and I crawled in, and there I slept.

  Hours later, awakened by the cold, I turned over and worked myself in a little further, and then I slept again. When at last the long, miserable night was past, I awoke in the gray-yellow dawn to face the stark realization that I was a hunted man.

  My feet, which had been torn and lacerated by the fall and the night's walking over rocks and frozen ground, seemed themselves almost frozen. My socks were gone, and probably the shreds of them marked my trail.

  Numb and cold as I was, I fought to corral my thoughts and point them toward a solution. I knew that what lay before me was no easy thing.

  By now Ange would know that I was in serious trouble, for I'd never spent the night away from her side; and it could be that my horse had returned to the wagon. My riderless horse could only mean something awfully wrong.

  From the trunk of a big old sycamore, I hacked out two rectangles of bark. Then with rawhide strips cut from my belt with my stone axe and my teeth, I tied those pieces of bark under my feet to protect the soles.

  Next, I dug into the ground with the hand-axe and worked until I found a long, limber root, to make a loop large enough to go over my head. Then I broke evergreen boughs from the trees and hung them by their forks or tied them to the loop, making myself a sort of a cape of boughs. It wasn't much, but it cut the force of the wind and kept some of the warmth of my body close to me.

  With more time, I could have done better, but I felt I hadn't time to spare. My right leg was badly swollen, but nothing could be done for it now.

  By the time I finished my crude cape my hands were bleeding. Using a dead branch for a staff, I started off, keeping under cover as best I could.

  If I had covered one mile the night before, I was lucky, and there were several miles to go. But I was sure that at first they would be hunting a body along the river--until they found some sign.

  By the time the sun was high I was working my way up a canyon where cypresses grew. On my right was the wall of Buckhead Mesa, and I'd left Ange and the wagon on the north side of that mesa. I thought of the rifle and the spare pistol in that wagon ... if I could get to it.

  Then, far behind me, I heard a loud halloo.

  That stopped me, and I stood for a moment, catching my breath and listening. It must be that somebody had found some sign, and had called the others. At least, I had to read it that way. From now on, they would know they were hunting a living man.

  If they knew of the wagon--and I had to take it they did--they had little to worry about. How many were hunting me I had no idea, but they had only to string out and make a sweep of the country, pushing in toward the wall of the mesa. Using the river as a base line, they could sweep the country, and then climb the mesa and move in on the wagon. It left me very little chance for escape.

  My mind shied from thinking of my condition after that fall. I knew I was in bad shape, but I was scared to know how bad, because until I reached Ange and the wagon there was just nothing I could do about it. Right then I wanted a gun in my hand more than I wanted medicine or even a doctor. I wanted a gun and a chance at the man who had ambushed me.

  Using the stick, I could sort of hitch along in spite of my bad leg. It didn't seem to be broken, but it had swollen until the pants seam was likely to bust; if it kept on swelling I'd have to split the seam somehow. My hands were in awful shape, and the cut on my skull was a nasty one. I had a stitch in my side, as if maybe I had cracked some ri
bs. But I wasn't complaining--"rights I should have been dead.

  When I was shot I had been standing on a point on Black Mesa, which tied to Buckhead Mesa on the southeast. The canyon where the cypress grew seemed to reach back toward the west side of Buckhead, and from where I was now standing it seemed to offer a chance to follow it back up to the top of Buckhead. So I started out.

  You never saw so much brush, so many trees, so many rock falls crammed into one canyon.

  Fire had swept along the canyon a time or two, leaving some charred logs, but the trees had had time to grow tall again, and the brush had grown thicker than ever, as it always does after a fire.

  One thing I had in my favor. Nobody was likely to try taking a horse up that canyon, and if I knew cowpunchers they weren't going to get down from the saddle and scramble on foot up the canyon unless all hell was a-driving them.

  A cowhand is a damned fool who will work twenty-five hours out of every day if he can do it from a saddle. But put him on his feet, and you've got yourself a man who is likely to sit down and build himself a smoke so's he can think about it.

  And after he thinks it over, he'll get back in the saddle and ride off.

  It was still cold ... bitter cold. I tried not to think of that, but just kept inching along. Sometimes I pulled myself along by grasping branches or clutching at cracks in the rock. Cold as it was, I started to sweat, and that scared me. If that sweat froze, the heat in my body would be used up fighting its cold and I'd die.

  Once I broke a hole in the ice and drank, but most of the time I just kept moving because I'd never learned how to quit. I was just a big raw-boned cowboy with big shoulders and big hands who was never much account except for hard work and fighting. Back in the Tennessee hills they used to say my feet were too big for dancing and I hadn't any ear for music; but along about fighting time I'd be there--fist, gun, or bowie knife. All of us Sacketts were pretty much on the shoot.

  By noontime I was breasting the rise at the head of the canyon. Only a few yards away the rock of the mesa broke off sharply and dipped into another canyon, while the great flat surface of Buckhead lay on my right. It was several miles in area and thickly forested.