Mojave Crossing s-11 Page 10

  Hell of a thing, for a woman to be broke."

  He swung around in his chair. "You're too damned sentimental, Sackett. It'll get you nowhere. Still, if you're hunting a job you can have one here. I'll give you a working share."

  "No."

  "You turn down a million dollars awful easy, boy. This ranch will be worth it. You'll live to see it. Is it so easy to turn down a lot of money?"

  I just looked at him, and buttoned up that pocket that held twenty mules. "Mister," I said roughly, "I could have had it last night, up there on the mountain. I could have rolled you off that cliff and come back and turned in ... nobody would have known the difference."

  "Thought of it, did you?"

  "No ... but look at it yourself."

  "But you brought me back." He looked up at me, those hard old eyes appraising me. "That's why I need you here. I need an honest man."

  "What about Roderigo?"

  He snorted. "He's honest enough, I think, and he'd try. But he's weak ... he's a gentleman. He would try to fight clean, and he'd lose. You'd fight them the way they'd fight you, and you'd win."

  "Good-bye, Ben Mandrin," I answered him.

  I walked to the door and stood there a moment, looking back at him. He had that blanket over his knees and he kept one hand under the blanket, and I wasn't going to turn my back on a man like that.

  "I hope you got all you wanted last night," I said. "Nolan Sackett or somebody in that crowd could track a squirrel across a flat rock."

  "So can you," he said. "So can you."

  I stepped out of that door backwards ... after one quick look to be sure the yard was empty.

  Chapter Eight.

  She was standing near the corral when I walked out there, a rarely beautiful woman, with her black eyes and red lips, and that way she had of moving and looking at a man.

  She was wearing a dark red dress that really stood out against that old pole corral, and it looked to me like she had fixed herself up kind of special. So right away I began to wonder what it was she was after.

  "No one else could have done it," she said. "It had to be you." She put her hand on my sleeve.

  "Thank you for helping him."

  That was sort of a leading statement, so I just said, "Ma'am, I've got to saddle my horse.

  They're rounding up some mules for me."

  "You're a rare man, Tell Sackett. I wish I had known you long ago."

  "You think it would have made a difference? We'd have both gone the same ways we have gone."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Arizona ... I'm headed back for the mines."

  "Across that awful desert?" She shuddered. "I hope I shall never see another desert."

  "It's the way I've got to go. If there's anything I want, it's back there."

  "Is there a girl?"

  Well, now, how could I answer that when I didn't know myself? There had been a girl. And then she had gone back east to visit some folks of hers, and when she was due to come back she just didn't come. Nor was there any letter that I ever got. ...

  Ange ... Ange Kerry.

  "No, ma'am," I said, "I don't think there's a girl. Looks to me like I'm a lonesome man riding a lonesome country, and I don't see no end to it."

  "There could be, Tell."

  Well, sir, I looked down into ^th big black eyes and saw those moist lips, and thinks I, if this here's a trap, they surely picked the right kind of bait.

  "Ma'am," I said, "you're a lot of woman on the outside."

  She stiffened up like I'd slapped her. "What do you mean by that?"

  "Well, I sure don't cut no figure as a man knowing women, but it seems to me what you wear is a lot of feeling where it shows.

  I don't think there's very much down inside. I'd be like that old man in there ... I'd as soon make love to you, ma'am, but I'd want to keep both your hands in sight. I'd never know which one held the knife."

  Oh, she was mad! She started as if to slap me, her lips tightening up and her face kind of flattening out with anger. But she held herself in.

  She was keeping a tight rein on her feelings, and she waited for a moment or two before she replied.

  "You're wrong, you know. It's just that I've not found the right man ... I've had to hold myself in, I've had to be careful. For you I could change. I could be different."

  "All right," I said suddenly, "suppose we give it a try. I'll saddle a horse for you, and you can ride back to Arizona with me. If you still feel the same way by the time we get to Prescott--was She caught my arm again, stepping up so close I could really fill my nostrils with that sweet-smelling stuff she wore. "Oh, Tell, just take me with you! I mean it! I'll do anything! I'll love you like you've never been loved! I'll even go into the desert with you. I'll ride all the way to Dallas if you suggest it."

  Then Roderigo rode back in with two vaqueros and they had my mules. I'll give him this--he had gone along to be sure they were the best, and they were. Every mule of them was good ...

  I'd go a long way to find their equal. These were not the little Spanish mules, but big ones from Missouri, valuable animals on the frontier.

  "If you like, we will hold them, se@nor, then they will be no expense until you are prepared to load them and go."

  "I'd be obliged."

  He stood there, fidgeting around while I saddled up the stallion and made ready to start for town.

  "Be careful," he said, "in riding across La Nopalera. Men have been killed from ambush there."

  "Gracias." One last thing he had to tell me before I rode out. He came up to me as I gathered the reins and reached for the saddle horn.

  "The man who was here--the slight one with the black eyes?"

  "Yes."

  "He was a partner ... a friend. That one was on the desert also, and he is the one who knows of your gold, amigo. I have it from them." He jerked his head to indicate the vaqueros. "There are few secrets, se@nor, if one listens well."

  "Do you know his name?"

  "Dyer ... Sandeman Dyer."

  I knew that name ... from long ago. It stirred memories that brought with them a smell of gunsmoke and wet leather. ...

  Why is it that smells are so strongly associated with memories? But it is usually the smell that inspires the recall of the memory, and not the other way, as happened to me now.

  "Do you know him?" Roderigo asked.

  "Maybe ... I'm not sure."

  "Be careful, se@nor. It is said that he is a very dangerous man ... and he has many friends.

  He rode in from the north some weeks ago, and twenty men rode with him. There have been raids and robberies since--notobody knows for sure, but it is believed that he is the one who leads them.

  "He is a gunman, se@nor, very dangerous.

  He has killed a man in Virginia City, and another in Pioche of whom we know."

  So I swung into the saddle and looked down at my big hands resting on the pommel, work-hardened hands, used to pick handle, shovel, axe, and rope. And to guns also.

  "It does not matter, amigo. If he has the gold that is mine, and that also which belongs to my friends, I shall ask him for it."

  "You wish to die?"

  "Nobody wishes to die."

  So I turned the stallion and rode away from the ranch, and toward the pueblo.

  All that remained now was to get my gold, and the man to see was Sandeman Dyer. Or ... was I too suspicious? Was this a trap? Had the information been planted, in hopes that it would reach me?

  It was dark when I came again to the pueblo of Los Angeles, and there were lights in many homes and other buildings. I came into town by the old brea pits road, and left my horse at the town's best livery stable. And so I returned to the Pico House, and my room there.

  A man with a flat-brimmed white hat sat in the lobby reading the Star. He looked at me over the edge of the paper, only his eyes showing between paper and hat brim.

  My few things were in my room, to which I added my rifle and the gear recovered with my
horses.

  Only the gold was gone now.

  I was tired ... bone-weary. I felt as if I had been drugged. Tonight I should search out Sandeman Dyer, but I was too tired. Tonight I would rest, at last, in a bed.

  I peeled off my shirt, and filled the basin with water and washed, then combed my hair. Standing before the mirror I looked at myself, seeing the old scars, marks of old wounds from gun battles and from the war, and here or there the finer, thinner scars of knife wounds. Those scars showed me how lucky I had been.

  It was not in me to believe myself fated to die at any given time. Deep within me I knew, having seen many men die, that no man is immune to death at any time at all. During every moment, walking or sleeping, we are vulnerable ... I could die tonight ... tomorrow.

  Young men do not like to believe that. Each has within him that little something that says: Others may die, but not me, not me. I shall live.

  Despite all those who die around him, this is what he believes. But I did not believe it, and I had never believed it from the first moment I saw a good man die, when the evil lived. I could believe in no special providence for any man. Tomorrow, when I went hunting my gold, a bullet or a knife might kill me.

  But it was not in me to refrain from going. Nor could I call this bravery. My determination held none of that. It was simply because it was in me to go.

  I had never learned how to hang back from what it was up to me to do.

  Sitting down on the bed, I reached for a dusty boot. One hand upon the toe, the other on the heel, I waited, just a moment longer. Weariness made me sag inwardly, made me cringe at the sound of footsteps in the hall outside my door.

  After a moment there was a light tap on the door and, stepping across to the door's side, my hand on my gun, I asked, "Who is it?"

  "A letter for you, sir. It arrived yesterday, but I expected to see you at the desk."

  "Slip it under the door."

  There was a moment's hesitation, and then the letter appeared. It was addressed in a flowing masculine hand, one I had never seen before.

  Ripping open the brown envelope, I found a sealed letter within, and with it a short note. I read the note first.

  Mr. Sackett, Dear Sir:

  When the mail from the stage you saw wrecked in the canyon was brought to us it was found to contain this letter to you, addressed in care of me. As it may be of importance, I am sending it forward.

  Hardy.

  Then I opened the letter, and when I unfolded the closely written pages, I saw that it was from Ange.

  Dropping upon the bed, I read it through, which I could do with a bit of work, for I'd little enough time at school in my boyhood, and read but slowly.

  She had been ill. ... She was well. ...

  Did I wish her to come back? And then almost in the next sentence ... she was coming back. She would take the first stage. She would meet me in Prescott.

  I folded up the letter and thrust it into my pants pocket. Then I pulled the pants off and got into bed. Drawing the blankets up, I stretched out carefully, for the bed was made for a shorter sleeper than I, and slowly I let my long body relax against the comfort of the mattress.

  Ange ... my own Ange ... Ange was coming west. She would meet me in Prescott.

  Then I sat bolt upright.

  Ange would meet me in Prescott, where I would be arriving with another woman!

  Presently I lay back on the bed and tried to relax once more, but no matter how I tried ...

  Suddenly, I was wide awake. Somehow I had fallen asleep, but something, some faint noise, had awakened me in spite of my exhaustion. Starting to move, I caught myself in time. Somebody was in the room.

  The door was closed. The window was open the merest crack, yet somebody was inside the room.

  A faint creak told me that whoever it was stood right beside the bed. Through the slit of a scarcely opened eye I saw the loom of a dark figure, the faint gleam of light on a knife blade, and I threw myself against him, knocking him back to the floor.

  Choking with fear and fury, I rolled on top of him and grabbed at his knife wrist, bending it sharply back toward the floor. I grabbed him by the belt with the other hand and heaved myself up, lifting him with me, and swung him bodily at the window.

  With a tremendous crash of glass he went through it and I heard a wild, despairing yell, then the thud as he struck in the street below.

  The door, I then noticed, was ever so slightly ajar. Pushing it shut, I shot the bolt and went back to bed. Cold night air blew through the broken window. Vaguely I heard excited talk in the street below ... but I decided I wasn't interested.

  Presently heavy boots rushed up the hall and there was a frenzied knocking at my door.

  Lifting my head, I said, "Damn it, go away! Can't a man sleep around here?"

  Somebody started to reply, and I added, "If I have to get out of bed again, somebody else goes into the street. Now you goin' to leave me be?"

  There was a subdued murmur, then quiet footsteps going off down the hall. I pulled the blankets around me, and in a few minutes I was asleep.

  It was broad daylight when I woke up.

  Sunlight was streaming in through the broken window, and I got out of bed. Still a mite foggy from the heavy sleep, I went to the basin, washed, and dressed.

  When I had pulled on my shirt I looked out of the window, but there was nothing in the street to show where anybody had fallen.

  Now one thought and one only was in my mind. Today I was going to see Sandeman Dyer.

  When I came down the steps it looked like everybody was waiting for me. The manager of the hotel--leastways I figured it to be him-- came up and told me I'd have to pay for breaking the window.

  "Breaking the window? Mister, I broke no window. I didn't even touch it. If you want to get paid, you find the man who went through it. You collect from him."

  He started to argue, and I said, "Look, mister, I don't like to get mad. Last night was once, and far's I can see, that's enough. Maybe I should point out that you got bigger windows down here."

  Well, he kind of drew back, but I stepped right after him. "Also, you might spend some of the time you seem to have to waste after me and find out how that thief had a key ... and he had one. You in the habit of givin' keys to thieves?"

  I'd spoken loud, and several of the folks standing about moved closer to listen. That man began to worry.

  "Ssh!" he said. He was all of a flutter to get shut of me now. "Forget it. I am afraid I was mistaken." And he hurried off.

  I turned then to look at those people around me and I said, "Anybody here know where I can find a man named Dyer? Sandeman Dyer?"

  Nobody seemed to know a thing. You never saw such vague folks in your born days. Everybody had been interested up to that point, and then nobody was. In less than two minutes after I spoke that name the lobby was empty.

  I went outside, where sunlight lay on the dusty street and upon the walks. Pausing on the corner, I looked across the Plaza in the direction of Sonora town ... an unlikely place to look for Dyer.

  Closer to me was the Calle de los Negros, better known as Nigger Alley, and Tao's gambling house.

  Taking my time, I strolled here and there about the town, looking into store windows and watching the horse cars. Most of them seemed to be going out Spring Street to a place called Washington Gardens.

  On the streets the folks themselves were a sight to behold, and when it came to the Californios themselves, you never saw such a dressed-up lot of folks. Many wore short jackets of silk, figured calico, or beaded buckskin, white linen shirts open at the neck, black silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely around the neck, and pants of velveteen or broadcloth, or sometimes of beautifully tanned white buckskin, and nearly every one wore a silk sash, usually bright red. The serapes ranged from Indian blankets to fine broadcloth.

  The handsome outfits these men had, made me look a poor mountain boy, even in my new twelve-dollar suit. Why, I fancy it must have taken a thousand dollar
s or more to get some of them dressed. And their saddles and bridles! You never saw so much silver. And two-thirds of them, I was sure, with dirt floors in their houses.

  Here and there you still saw men with long hair, and some of them with it not just to their shoulders. In some cases it was braided. The younger ones had taken to trimming their hair, Anglo fashion, but not all of them.

  Everywhere a body looked there were black-eyed se@noritas, flirting with you with quick, teasing glances that made the red climb right up a man's neck. Me, I already had two women on my hands, when I wasn't fairly used to one, and more trouble shaping up than you could shake a stick at.

  As I went about the town, everybody I asked about Sandeman Dyer was warning me about him. But I was more fearful of what would happen when I rode into Prescott with that black-eyed witch girl and found Ange a-waiting for me than I was of what was ahead of me right now. Ange was a red-haired girl, and she was one with a mind of her own, and she'd had will enough to survive in the high-up mountains of Colorado before I found her there.

  [Sackett, Bantam Books, 1961.]

  Suddenly a rider turned into Main Street from Spring, and I saw it was that black-eyed gunman who had been at Old Ben's ranch. He rode past, not noticing me, heading for the Calle de los Negros. He would be going to Dyer, I could lay a bet on it.

  But just as I turned to follow, a voice spoke behind me. "You take my advice and you'll leave Dyer alone."

  It was Nolan Sackett.

  We stood there facing each other in the street, two mighty big men, both of us armed, and both carrying the scars we'd picked up since we left Tennessee, and a few from before that.

  "If he's a friend of yours, you just tell him to hand over my gold. I got no quarrel with him."

  Nolan didn't even smile. "Don't be a fool, man! You came out of that alive, and you're damned lucky. Now let well enough alone."

  "I'm going after my gold."

  He looked disgusted and mad all to once.

  "Look," he said irritably, "you're kin of mine, or I'd let you go your way and get killed. Dyer has forty men around him, and he himself is one of the most dangerous men alive."

  "So he sends a man to knife me in the dark?"

  Nolan had an odd look in his eyes.