Mojave Crossing s-11 Read online

  Maybe ... anyway, it was a place I'd heard tell of, and a place to start. Meanwhile, I had pondering to do. And it just might be this gent with me could point out some trail sign I'd missed.

  Leastways, he knew the town, and I did not.

  It came over me that he was probably shaping truth when he declared that black-eyed girl was not to be trusted. But she had been running scared ... of what?

  Thinking back, I recalled something Hardy had said that night when I bought the horses from him before crossing the river. When he learned my name was Sackett he advised me not to tell Dorinda.

  Why was that? What had my name to do with it?

  At a table in Buffum's we ordered beer and sat back to watch. The place was crowded with a mixed lot of Spanish men and frontiersmen, businessmen and farmers.

  "I was born here," my friend commented suddenly.

  "My name is Roderigo Enriquez. I love this place, but it is changing, changing too much for my people."

  As he spoke I saw across the room a man who looked like one of those I had seen that last night in Hardyville. He stood at the bar in conversation with another man whom I could not see because of those between us.

  "My people are not thrifty," my companion went on, "and life in California has been too easy. They have not had to think about money, and there has always been enough to eat; so they are not able to compete in business with the Yankees. The lucky families are those into whom Yankees have married, yet even that is not always enough. As in our own case."

  About that time I wasn't paying attention the way politeness demands, for I had my eyes on that man across the room. I was feeling the pistol on my hip, and was ready to move to follow him if he started to leave.

  "The Yankee who married into my family was a pirate."

  "I've heard of him. Joseph Chapman."

  "No, this is another man. Se@nor Chapman is a good man, and he is a good citizen. My grandfather, Ben Mandrin, is like him in some respects. Only my grandfather was very much a pirate, and a very hard man ... except to his family."

  The man across the room finished his drink and he was not ordering another.

  Shifting in my chair, I made ready to rise, but Roderigo seemed not to notice.

  "My people lived too easy for too many years, and now that they must compete they lack the capacity.

  We will lose much."

  "Sit tight. Just hang on."

  "No, it is not enough. The drouth we have had for two years now ... it has placed us in debt.

  And my grandfather signed a note for a friend, the bank failed, and the note will soon be due. We cannot expect an extension."

  Me, I was scarcely listening. My attention was all centered on the man I figured to follow, once he started to leave.

  "It was Dorinda Robiseau who got him to sign the note."

  That stopped me. All Roderigo had been saying had seemed small talk, had seemed like something far away from me, for I had no California land, nor did I know anybody who had any. Now it suddenly seemed to tie in somehow.

  "You mean she done it a-purpose?"

  "One cannot always prove what one knows, but I believe there was agreement between the directors of the bank and the man with whom Dorinda Robiseau is working. I believe that she got my grandfather to sign the note for his friend when plans had been made to allow the bank to fail."

  It made a kind of sense, what he said. The bank was already in a bad way, due to drouth and the resulting loss of cattle and crops. With the bank in serious trouble, if a man showed up offering a chunk of gold money and a chance to get out from under the crash--whichyou, those bankers would be apt to accept ... if they had larceny in them.

  Yes, this made a crooked sort of sense.

  All the banker had to do was go to his friend Ben Mandrin and get him to sign a note ... with Dorinda to help.

  Those old-time California folks were mighty free-handed with money ... one man used to keep a big kettle full of it in his patio, and anybody who needed any just dipped in and helped themselves. They were pleasant, easy-going folks and living was no problem. Those around them were much as they were, so it worked out all right ... until the gold rush and the boom that followed brought another type of man into the country.

  The miners and the settlers came first, and most of them were as free-handed, when they had it, as the Californios. After them came the gamblers, the confidence men, the business swindlers.

  "How much land is at stake?" I asked Roderigo.

  "Over one hundred thousand acres."

  It taken my breath away. In the mountains we farmed a hundred and sixty acres, and had as much around that was brush and timber, too steep to farm.

  Out of that quarter section that we farmed we made a bare living, for there was thin soil and poor crops.

  But this was rich land, if irrigated.

  It was no wonder they were prepared to do murder to win their game, and they could not afford to have me about stirring up trouble.

  "That girl, now. What was her part in all this?"

  "Old Ben is no different from the rest of us.

  He likes young, pretty women, and when Turner -comhe was the banker--came to see him he brought his "niece" along with him."

  The man at the bar turned suddenly and walked from the room, so I got up. "You save the rest of that," I said. "I've got business to attend to."

  He had gone off down the street, and when I stepped out and got to the corner I saw him standing in front of what used to be the Bella Union Hotel. They'd changed the name of it to the St.

  Charles, but it was a place I knew. Ten, fifteen years before there'd been a big gun battle there where Bob Carlisle shot it out with the King brothers.

  Anyway, that man was standing there and I started for him, figuring to get just as close as I'd need to be before he saw me. He was a little distance off, but I have long legs and I stepped fast but easy, not to scare him off.

  Then he saw me and, turning, he ducked into an alley, and I went in after him ... too fast.

  As I wheeled around the corner, he was standing maybe forty feet off, and he ups with his six-shooter and let drive at me. It was point-blank range, and he should have nailed me, but he'd been running, then just skidded to a stand and fired, so he must have been a mite unsteady.

  Something hit me a wallop on the head and I went down to my knees, then fell over, face down on the ground.

  From somewhere I heard running feet coming up behind me, and then in the other direction, plain as a body could wish, I heard a door slam.

  Chapter Five.

  When I hit ground it seemed to me I was only there about a second when folks were all around me filling the breathing air with foolish questions.

  Lurching to my feet, I fell against the side of the building and leaned there with blood running into my eyes, trying to bring my brain into focus. All I could remember was the sound of a door slamming somewhere down the alley ahead of me.

  Folks kept nagging at my attention with questions as to what happened and who shot me, but their words reached me without registering any effect. What little awareness I had was concentrated on just one idea: finding the man who shot me.

  Roderigo was there trying to help, but I brushed him away. I got my two feet under me and pointed myself down that alley.

  There was only one door in sight. When I got to it I leaned against the wall for an instant, sort of gathering myself for whatever was to come, and then I grasped the latch and opened the door.

  The hallway down which I looked was maybe forty feet long, with two doors on the right and one on the left. The first door on the right opened into an empty store building with lumber piled on the floor, as if for building work. There was nobody in the room.

  Closing the door as softly as I could, I went on to the next door on my right, which led into a clothing store. The place was empty but for the clerk and one customer.

  "Did anybody come through here?" I asked.

  They both looked at me
, then shook their heads. "Nobody ... ain't been a soul around," said the clerk.

  The door on the left remained, and I turned to it. Opening it suddenly, I stepped inside.

  Behind a desk sat the man I had seen with Dorinda Robiseau, the big young man who had guided her away from me.

  "You wished to see me?"

  "I wish to see the man who came in here from the alley," I said.

  "I am very sorry. Nobody has come here.

  Is that all?"

  With my left hand I wiped blood from my face. My skull was throbbing with an enormous and awful ache, hurting so that I squinted when I looked around.

  There was just this big rolltop desk, two chairs, and a table. But there was another door.

  "Who's in there?" I asked.

  "Nobody."

  He didn't like me, not even a mite. He started to say more, but I pointed at the door.

  "You open it up," I said.

  He leaned back in his chair. "Don't be a damned fool. I shall do nothing of the kind. Now you get out of here or I'll have you jailed ... and I can do it."

  Stepping over to his desk, I leaned across it, and I am a tall man. "Mister," I spoke mighty gentle, "you do what you're told."

  He got mad then, and he started to get up.

  Oh, he was a man used to having his own way; it was written all over him. He was a big man and strong, and he was mad. So he started to get up, and when he was off the chair with both his hands on the arms, I caught him by the front of his shirt and vest and jerked him toward me to get him off balance, and then I shoved him back, hard.

  He hit that chair and both of them went over on the floor, and I stepped quick to that door and jerked it open. Two bullets came through, their reports one right behind the other, but I was well over to one side and both missed.

  That man inside the room, he had just shot into the opening door, taking no aim at all, nor seeing anything to shoot at.

  "Next time," I said, "I'm going to shoot back. You going to drop that gun, or are you going to die?"

  He didn't seem to like the choice much. I heard him shift his feet, and I said, "You got you two bullets. You might nail me, but I've got five and I'm not about to miss."

  "I've nothing of yours," he said, and with my gun up I took a long chance and stepped into the door with my gun in my hand.

  He had a notion to shoot, but when he saw that big six in my hand he had another notion that beat that first one all hollow. He taken a long look at that gun and he stepped back and dropped his pistol.

  "I ain't about to pick it up," I said, "and you go ahead, if you're of a mind to."

  Behind me I heard a stirring on the floor, and I moved so I could keep half an eye on that big man on the floor, too.

  "Mister," I said, "my outfit has been taken. My horses and gold are gone. Now, I aim to have them all back. You boys can start talking or start shooting, and I ain't of a mind to care which."

  The big man got up off the floor, but carefully, holding himself with knowledge that I might have a touchy finger on a hair-trigger. With my gun muzzle for a pointer I moved the second man over alongside the first.

  "We know nothing about it," the big man said.

  "I have no idea what you are talking about."

  "I think you're a liar," I said, "and if it proves out I'm wrong, I'll apologize and welcome. But this gent who taken some shots at me, he was there. He was in the desert."

  "You've got me all wrong!"

  "I sure have. And being in the desert, you know I ain't a-fooling when I hold this gun. I want my outfit, and I'm going to have it."

  "You're a fool," the big man said contemptuously. "You have that gun on us, but when you leave the law will be on you, and if you shoot us, you'll hang."

  "Before I hang," I said, "I'll do some talking."

  They didn't like that. They didn't like it even a little. Suddenly I had a feeling that if they hadn't already marked me down for killing, I had just moved myself to the head of the list.

  "Watch him, Dayton," the smaller man said, "he's good with that gun."

  Dayton smiled, and it was not a nice smile.

  "My advice to you, my friend, is to get out of town, and get fast."

  "Why, I might do that ... given my outfit."

  Dayton glanced at the other man. "What about it, Oliphant? Do you know anything about it?"

  Oliphant touched his lips with his tongue.

  "We figured him for dead. Of course we brought his horses in."

  "And thirty pounds of gold," I said.

  Oliphant shifted his feet. "I don't know--was "That's quite a lot, Oliphant," Dayton suggested coolly. "I'd rather like to know about that myself."

  "I don't know anything about the gold,"

  Oliphant said. "I--was Well, I just eared back the hammer on that gun of mine. "You just jog your memory, friend,"

  I said. "You just jog it a mite. If you don't, I'll be asking questions of somebody else."

  Oh, he was sweating, all right! He was right-down scared, and not only of me. Apparently he, and maybe some of those others, had just kept still about that gold. But there was still fight in him.

  "You'll not talk so loud," he said, "if you brace Sackett."

  "Who?"

  "Nolan Sackett. And if you don't know that name, you don't know anything. Nolan Sackett, the gunfighter."

  He mistook my manner for fear, because I was some startled to hear the name of Sackett. And then suddenly the familiarity of that big-built man returned to me. Not that I knew any Nolan Sackett, nor had I ever heard the name, but the build was so like my own ... or my brother Orrin's, for that matter, although he was heavier.

  There was no Nolan Sackett I'd ever heard tell of, certainly not among the Smoky Mountain or Cumberland Sacketts.

  "Clinch Mountain!"

  "What's that?" They both stared at me, not guessing what I meant. And knowing no Sackett history, they could not know. But the only kind of Sackett likely to wind up in such a deal was a Clinch Mountain Sackett. They were the outlaw branch, but fighters ... I'll give them that.

  "Mister," I said, "you start talking. Where are my horses and my gold?"

  "You'll have to brace Sackett if you want them." He was still thinking the name had scared me. "You ain't about to do that."

  "I'll send you to do it," I said, "but if need be, Sackett can face Sackett."

  They didn't get it. They just looked at me, so I told them. "Why, Sackett is my name, too. William Tell Sackett, although most call me Tell, and I'm from the mountains of Tennessee, although a different set of mountains from him. And we Sacketts don't take kindly to anyone of our name mixing in with disgraceful conduct. I'll just have to meet this here Nolan Sackett and read him from the Book."

  "Your horses are at Greek George's place," Oliphant said, "out beyond Cahuenga Pass. The gold is there, too, if you can get it."

  "I'll get it."

  Backing to the door, I looked over at Dayton. "You stay out of my way," I said.

  "I don't like anything about you."

  He smiled, but I knew now it was not a nice smile. There was murder in it. "You'll not live to cross the mountains," he said. "I shall see to that."

  "You're too busy," I said, "trying to steal an old man's ranch."

  That hit him. It was like he'd been slapped across the mouth, and he came up out of his chair, white around the lips, but I just stepped outside and pulled the door to behind me.

  Roderigo was waiting for me at the end of the street, and he was worried.

  "I was afraid for you," he said. "I did not know what to do."

  "First things first. Do you know Greek George's place?"

  "Who does not? It is there they captured the outlaw, Tiburcio Vasquez."

  "Is it far?"

  "Ten miles ... only that. At the foot of the mountains."

  "My horses are there. My gold also."

  He glanced at me. "And you will go for them? Do you know what you do, se@nor? It is the place of the
outlaws. And there are outlaws in the canyons all along the Santa Monica Range. You must have the sheriff, se@nor, and a posse."

  "I carry my own posse." I slapped my holster. "And as for a sheriff--whichyou, we Sacketts always figured to skin our own skunks, and ask no help of any man."

  "I would ride with you, se@nor."

  Well, I looked at him and figured to myself that this one was pretty much of a man. "You do that if you feel the urge for it," I said; "only come prepared for shooting, if need be."

  We went for our horses, and I had an idea we'd be late if we did not hurry, for Oliphant would be sending someone, or riding himself, to warn them.

  "There's a man out there name of Nolan Sackett," I said. "If anybody shoots him, it will be me."

  His face paled a mite. "I did not know he was there, amigo," he said. "It is said that he has killed twenty-two men."

  "To have killed men is not a thing of which one can be proud," I said. "A man uses a gun when necessary, and not too often, or carelessly."

  We mounted up and rode up Fort Street and out of town, heading west and north along the foot of the mountains, with the land sloping off west and south away from us. We rode past irrigation ditches and orchards, and it gave me excitement to see oranges growing, for I'd never seen more than a half-dozen of them in my lifetime.

  The railroad had come to Los Angeles with its steam cars, and looking back I could see a train standing at the depot. Main Street led from the depot through part of Sonora town where some of the poorer Mexican and Californios lived, mostly in white-washed adobe houses. The Plaza was set with cypresses; this side of it was the Pico House and the Baker Block, two of the show places of the town. Most of the streets where folks lived were lined with pepper trees, but when we got away from the irrigation ditches it was almighty dry. Because of the bad drouth the last two years, things were in poor shape. The grass was sparse, and there was little else but prickly pear.

  With Roderigo leading, we cut over to the brea pits road through La Nopalera--the Cactus Patch [the area now known as Hollywood]--to a small tavern kept by a Mexican. Roderigo swung down and went inside, whilst I sat my horse outside and looked the country over.

  Only the faintest breeze was stirring, and the air was warm and pleasant ... it was a lazy, easy-going sort of day when a man felt called upon to laze around and do not much of anything. Only we had something to do.