The Sacket Brand (1965) s-12 Read online

  Crawling around a slight curve, I suddenly found myself facing a full-grown mountain lion that had been coming my way. We stood there, not over ten feet apart, looking each other right in the eye.

  He laid his ears back and snarled, but you don't find any bigger coward anywhere than a mountain lion. All the same, if he gets hurt he goes crazy mad. His brain is just one white-hot drive to kill, so what I had to do was bluff that cat, because if I hurt him that would be the end for me right there.

  So we stood there a-staring at each other, hating each other, and trying to outprove each other. My rifle was hung by its sling, and the thong was slipped over my .45, so the best I could get at in a hurry was my bowie knife. That old bowie was honed down to shave with, and I could lop off that cat's head with a swipe of it ... if he didn't get me first.

  "Beat it, cat," I said. "I want no truck with you."

  He snarled at me, turning his head and avoiding my eyes, and I had no choice but to wait him out. He might go back, but there was no going back for me. At last he did back off and turn, but I didn't move after him. I was perfectly willing to let that lion go.

  Then I smelled smoke.

  Crouching down on the ledge to make myself small, I gave study to the country below me and around. Away up ahead of me, several miles off, was a projecting point, and if my figuring was right, somewhere between that point and me was the Tonto Trail. And down below in the pines was a campfire--a thin trail of smoke came up from the trees down there.

  The face of the rim was less steep where I now was. An agile man could work his way up or down, and there was plenty of cover. So I decided to make them trouble.

  I unslung my Winchester and studied that smoke. Men would be gathered around it, and it was likely they were the men hunting me. Only I didn't know that for sure, and any man who shoots at a sound or at any target he cannot see clearly is taking a big chance.

  As I squatted there on the ledge I realized that what I needed most of all was some grub and a horse, my own horse if I could find him. The grub I had in my pack, and I dug into the grub sack for a chunk of frying-pan bread and some jerked meat. I ate it, longing for a drink of anything to wash it down. The closest place I could think of to get it was right down there where that smoke was. I put the back of my hand across my mouth to get any stray crumbs, and then I went down the cliff through the trees.

  By the time I reached the bottom of the cliff, I was only a hundred yards or so away from the camp. It was in the cool of morning. Dew sparkled on the grass, and the leaves of the low brush dripped with it. Birds were singing and fussing around in the brush, and in one place I saw the tracks of a big cougar ... maybe the one I'd seen on the trail above. I worked my way along, Injun-like, making a sort of rough half-circle around the camp to see how the land lay.

  First off, I located the horses, mine among them. Then I went on, getting closer and closer, and all the while studying how I could get away if the going got rough.

  I saw that most of the men were gathered close around the fire. I got within fifty feet of their circle when one of them stood up to fill his cup from the coffeepot and, looking across the circle, saw me. For an instant he just stood there, and then he dropped his cup and grabbed for his gun. I broke his arm with a bullet from my Winchester.

  Now, I won't say I was trying for his arm.

  As a matter of fact, I had that rifle dead-center on his shirt button about two inches above his belt buckle, but his quick move turned him so he wound up with a busted wing, and you never saw such a quiet bunch of men.

  "No need for anybody to get theirselves killed," I said conversationally, "although I'm in no way particular."

  Nine of them were there, but the man with the broken arm was in no mind to cause further trouble.

  "Saw your smoke," I said, "and figured I'd drop in for breakfast. Now just to make sure I'm welcome, you boys sort of unbuckle. I'm not going to give any warnings.

  If any of you feel like taking a chance, you'll never find a better time to die. It's a right pretty morning."

  You never saw so many delicate fingers. Those boys unbuckled so carefully you'd have figured they were picking lint off a polecat's tail.

  "You"--I poked one with my rifle muzzle--

  "move over to the other side."

  When he had moved over I told him to rinse out a cup and fill it with coffee. Then I proceeded to eat a chunk of frying-pan bread and most of a frying pan of bacon, and to drink about half a gallon of coffee.

  Meanwhile I'd looked this crowd over and had noticed a few things. This was no ordinary bunch of cowhands. They were mounted too well, their saddles were too good, and they were armed too well.

  I'd seen too many paid warriors in my time not to recognize these for what they were.

  "You boys taken the wrong job," I said. "My advice is to light out. You ain't gonna like it here."

  "Have your fun," one man said. "You ain't got long."

  "None of us have. Only thing a body knows about life is that you're never going to get out of it alive. Only you boys don't want to wait for your time to come, you're asking me to bring it to you.

  "Up to now I've been on the dodge. Now I'm going to start pot-hunting. I mean I'm going after scalps. Here and yonder I'm going to lay up and wait for you, and I'm going to shoot you when I see you. This here is all the warning you get."

  Well, I backed off a mite and had one of them make a gather of pistol belts and rifles.

  It was likely some of them had hide-out guns, but I wasn't too worried about that. Then I had one of them saddle up my horse and pack my pack horse.

  When I was up in the leather I sat there with my rifle over my saddle-bows and looked at them.

  "You ain't much," I said. "Why, when us Sacketts fought them Higginses back in the mountains we whopped them good ... and any one of them would run you boys clean out of the county.

  "Case you ain't been told the truth, your boss, or one of your bosses, murdered my wife when I left her alone in our wagon.

  Then he buried her body and burned my outfit.

  I figure some of you boys are complete coyote, and some are not. I'll know which is which by the ones who cut out and leave. No decent man would ride for a skunk like that."

  "Who did it?" one of them asked.

  "That I've got to find out. She scratched him up some when he fought her, but those scratches are likely healed by now. They are healed on the outside, but you can bet they scratched so deep he feels them yet, and somebody saw him while they were still raw."

  "You've got the wrong idea," the man said.

  "The men who own the Lazy A are decent.

  You'd never find a better pair than Swandle and Allen."

  "Maybe ... but one of that pair is scared enough to pay you boys fighting wages to be rid of me.

  You figure that out for yourself."

  "Why, you damn' fool! You ain't got a chance!"

  "Maybe, but how many will I take along when I go? You ask yourselves that." I tapped my Winchester. "I can cut the buttons off your coat with this."

  Then I reined my horse around and just rode on out of there, and nobody moved to stop me.

  All those men back there were tough men. They had used guns and knew what a gun could do. They weren't taking any more chances than need be. None of them was hunting reputation, and they fought to win.

  They could sit quiet and listen to me because they felt their time would be coming, and there was no use risking death just to prove how brave they were.

  Well, when I rode out of there I didn't waste any time. I headed south and moved right along, and when night fell I camped in Bearhide Canyon about a mile above the spring.

  Truth of the matter was, they'd kept me so busy taking care of my hide that I'd had no chance to hunt around to find the man responsible for Ange's death, but every time I tracked Lazy A cattle or riders, they seemed to come from a place over on Cherry Creek.

  Could be I was wrong, but as I went along those tr
acks became many when I worked over in that direction. So, taking my time, I went on, working along the ridges under cover of the trees, easing myself in closer and closer, and all the while I saw more of the cattle wearing that brand.

  There was the taste of anger in my mouth, the taste of a deep, abiding hate within me. I didn't like the feeling, but it was there, and these were days when the land where I rode had no law beyond what each man could deliver with his own hand.

  Somewhere ahead of me a man waited, a man shaken by a terrible fear, a fear that sweated him at night and knotted his belly. It was not so much fear of me, as fear of what I might say. Already some would be looking askance at him, but not so many would have seen his clawed face ... what had he done about that?

  As long as I lived I would be a threat to him, as long as I lived he would not know when I might not suddenly appear to destroy all that he was or might have been. The man who molests a woman in the West is despised by all, and is hung as fast as ever they can get a rope on him. That man knew it. And all the time he knew deep in his gnawing guts that I was coming for him.

  As I rode, I kept thinking of the man who had turned to look at Ange as he rode past us, leaving Globe. That might be the man.

  So I rode my horse through the pines, hearing only the soft hoof-falls on the needles that cushioned the trail. Like a shadow we moved along the high ridges with the clouds close above.

  I rode him through the chill of morning and the damp of gathered fog. I carried my Winchester across my saddle, and the lead in its bullets were meant to find a place in his flesh, in his heart, at the source of his life's blood.

  In the cool of a morning I came at last to Apache Ridge, and saw smoke rising from the valley beyond, so I rode down into Salt Lick Canyon and followed down the Tonto, and up through the breaks to Diamond Butte. Hunkered down on top of the butte, I studied what lay below, and within me my heart began to pound.

  There were canvas-topped wagons there, and some tents, and a layout like an army camp, and there was a herd of horses watched by two riders.

  Slow smoke was rising, and there was the distant clatter of pots, and the friendly movement and sounds of a cattle outfit on the move. Only this one had stopped, andwiththe fine grass they had found I did not wonder at it. This was a cattleman's heaven, but the man who had brought that herd here had, in one brief moment, turned his life into a hell.

  Nobody had to tell me that this was a well-run outfit. A body could see it plain enough. The stock was in good shape, and so was all the gear I could lay eyes on. I studied that place, studied it and every move that was made down there.

  There was a cook and his helper, there was a horse wrangler, and there was a man who sat with a rifle over his knees near the biggest of the three tents.

  He sat some distance away from a smaller tent, but facing it, and it was to that tent that I gave my attention. And all the time my mind was full of its dreadful thoughts.

  Swandle and Allen ... that was the name one of the men back there had said. These were the men who owned the Lazy A brand, and one of them anyway was the man I sought ... the man who had killed my Ange, who had destroyed all that life meant to me.

  We had come to this western country with hopes of our own place, a place where we could build, raise a family, and have the kind of home we'd never had. She had never had a real home at all, and I'd not had one since I was a youngster, and it was little enough I'd seen of my folks. There were Sacketts scattered all over the country, but I'd seen none of them until I came down to Mora to see Ma and the boys. It had been a long spell ... since before the war.

  There was not one chance in a thousand that I would live beyond the death of the man I meant to kill. Not one chance that I could escape after the job was done, and at the moment I did not care.

  Swandle and Allen ... Swandle or Allen?

  I had to know which was the guilty man, and I had no idea how to find out, except that I had the feeling that when I found him I would know him.

  I thought it was a wonder they had not posted a man up on this butte, for from here a body could watch the entire layout and see every move that was made. I hunkered down to wait, and I kept my rifle down so it would reflect no sunlight, nor was I wearing anything that would.

  Of course, not many cowhands wore such truck on the range. Some of them had town outfits they wore to dances and the like. Most of them wore the best they could afford. I even had a broadcloth suit one time, myself.

  The next thing they measured me for would probably be a wooden overcoat. But before they did that, I was going to get me a man.

  Waiting up there on the butte, I got to thinking further on this thing that filled my mind.

  Up to now I'd been supposing whoever had done it had just happened on Ange there alone, but supposing it was that man we saw down in Globe, and he followed us?

  Supposing, even, this wasn't the first woman he'd left dead behind him?

  Chapter eleven.

  About mid-morning four riders rode in from the west and dismounted. They stripped their gear from their horses and, leaving them to the wrangler, strolled over to the chuck wagon. One of the four was a man I recognized from Montana, where he had been riding for a cow outfit.

  Also Zabrisky was a gunman, a warrior with a gun for hire. He was the sort of man a cow outfit hired when trouble was expected from jayhawkers, homesteaders, or herd-cutters, and he was good at his job.

  He was tall, slightly stooped, and sour-looking. Sober, he was a shrewd and calculating enemy, but when drinking he was apt to go completely berserk. At such times he was mean, and a trouble-hunter. The other men were all strangers to me, but they were of much the same sort, the way I figured.

  After a bit the wrangler returned with four fresh horses, all saddled up and ready for riding.

  Just then the flap of the guarded tent was thrown back and that square-jawed man whom I'd talked to in O'Leary's saloon in Globe came out.

  He ignored Zabrisky and the others, but crossed over to where the man sat with the rifle across his knees. The guard stood up and they talked together.

  All of a sudden, I began to feel uneasy.

  The two men looked all around, the guard pointed toward the far-off rim, but never once did they look toward Diamond Butte ... and in another instant, I was moving.

  When the notion took me I was squatting on my heels. I did not straighten up, but just turned on the balls of my feet and scooted into the brush behind me. Once hidden, I hesitated, taking time to listen, but there was no sound. Skirting the top of the butte, I came to the trail I'd made coming up. There I crouched among the rocks and waited.

  It just didn't stand to reason that two men could look all around and ignore the biggest thing there was nearby. They had been discussing terrain, and if they ignored that butte it was because they had a reason for it. The only reason that came to mind was that they knew I was up there and they were fixing to surround me.

  My horse was down below there, and they had found it. Flat out on my belly, I eased up behind a rock, then inched my head over to where I could look past it without outlining myself against the sky.

  From where I lay I could see both my horses, but even as I located them a magpie swooped in for a landing in some brush near them. The magpie darted down, then suddenly swung sharply away. Somebody was hiding in that brush.

  All right, so they knew where I was. My brain started to figure it out, and I knew they would have the butte surrounded. It was not so large but that a bunch of men could stake out every inch of it. So they had me.

  But did they? What about the side where the camp was? It was dollars to doughnuts they never figured I would try that, and the chances were it was unguarded. There were men down there. There were horses, too, and saddles.

  So I crawled around, looked the camp over for a minute or two, and then went over the edge.

  At that point the butte was not so steep, and there was cover here and there. I went down fast, running in short, quick spur
ts, keeping under cover when possible, crossing gaps as quickly as possible.

  At the bottom of the slope I hunkered down behind a clump of brush and gave study to the lay-out before me. The four riders, including Zabrisky, had ridden off. The guard remained at his post, the wrangler was standing alongside the chuck wagon drinking coffee and talking to the cooks. The square-jawed man I'd seen in Globe had gone back into the tent. I now figured him for either Swandle or Allen.

  Moving off to the right where my approach was covered by a tent, I came out of the brush, my rifle hung to my hand and easy to use. I crossed behind the big tent and edged up behind the small one.

  Inside I could hear somebody scratching away with a pen.

  Well, I taken a long chance. I wanted that man in there, and I wanted him bad. So I slung my Winchester to my shoulder and snaked out my Colt. I held the Colt in my right hand, andwith my left I out with my bowie knife. Now, that big knife was honed like a razor--I'd shaved with it many a time--and I was counting on surprise. The last thing that man figured would be me right in the middle of his camp, so I stuck my knife into the back of the tent and slashed it wide with one quick sweep, and my Colt had that sitting man as its target. It had him, and it held him right like he was pinned.

  "You could call out," I said, "but you don't size up like a man who'd want his last ^ws to be yellin' for help."

  He just sat there. At first, he just couldn't believe his eyes, but if he doubted them, he had no doubt at all about either that pistol or my intentions.

  "I am not the man you want," he said.

  "Maybe," I said. "If you are, I'll take you apart. Right now we're going to settle a little business.

  "Some of your boys," I went on, "have my horse and pack outfit staked out over that'other side of the butte. I just naturally was of no mind to go fetch it, so I'll need a saddled horse, and a pack horse with four days' grub on it.

  "You call that guard over here," I said, "and you tell him to have a horse saddled and a pack made up. Tell him to do it fast.