Treasure Mountain s-17 Page 9

  Esteban came up from the town walking with an old man--looked like a Mexican.

  "You must sit down, amigo," he said to me. "This man is very old, and he is much shorter than you."

  There was a bench under an old tree and I sat down beside the old man. "Viejo,"

  Esteban said, "this is the man I told you about, Tell Sackett."

  "Sackett," he mumbled crossly, "of course there was a Sackett! A good man--good man. Strong--very strong! He had been to the mountains for fur but now he was going back for gold."

  "Did he say that, viejo?"

  "Of course he did not! But I do not need to know what he say. He speaks of the mountains, of Wolf Creek Pass, and I tell him not to go. He is wasting his time.

  Others have looked and found nothing."

  "Were they here long?"

  "Two, three days. They wanted horses, and Huerta sent to the mountains for them.

  They were impatient to be off, and of course ... well, two of them did not want to go. I did not think Sackett wanted to go. I think he did not like these people. Neither did the other man ... Petgrew."

  Now I just sat quiet. Petgrew? Was it a new name? Or had I heard it before and not remembered? There had been another man, but what happened to him, anyway?

  Was Petgrew the name of the man Philip Baston had told us about? More than likely. I remembered finally. It was Pettigrew.

  "It is cold in the mountains when the snow falls," I said. "They would not be able to last through the winter."

  "They were not there after the snow fell. They came out in time. At least, three of them did. The big young man whom I did not like--he came out. So did the handsome one, who was cruel."

  "And the other?"

  His thoughts had wandered off. "Cold, yes it is cold. Men have lived. If they know how to live sometimes they can, but food ... most of them starve.

  "It is not only the cold. We were worried for them and thought of going out for them. Twenty years ago--I was a young man then--scarcely sixty years I had. And until I was seventy I could ride as well as any man in the valley ... better.

  Better.

  "Two of them came down, and I was over near the pass then and saw them coming.

  "I hid. I do not know why--I was not afraid of them, but I hid. They rode right past me. One of their horses caught my scent. Oh, he smelled me, all right! But they were stupid. They do not live with horses so they do not know.

  "They rode past, but they did not stop in San Luis. They went to Fort Garland."

  "You followed them?"

  "No, I did not follow. Later, I heard of it. This is not a big country for people. What one does here is heard of, you know? Somebody sees. It is something to tell when we have so little to tell.

  "No, I did not follow. I went up the mountain. I was curious, you see. Like the bear or the wolf I am curious.

  "Only two track--two horses. No more. I find elk tracks. Ah! That is something!

  We need meat, so I trailed the elk and killed it, and when I had the meat it was late, and it was cold, and my horse, it was frighten--very frighten.

  "To go down the mountain? The wind was rising. It is colder when the wind blows, and home lay far out across the plains ... those plains can be terrible, terrible when the wind blows.

  "High up the mountain there was a cave. Several times I had sheltered there. So had we all. I mean, men from this village and the Fort. We knew of the cave.

  "So I went higher up the mountain in the snow, and I reached the trail up there.

  It was a mistake--or it was the good God speaking to me. On the trail were the tracks of three horses ... three? Yes.

  "Now I had to take cover and build a fire to warm me. It was very cold. I rode down the trail to the cave and I took my horse inside. I put him behind me. And then I went with my axe to cut a tree. One must be very careful to cut a tree when it is frozen. It is easy to cut a leg. I was careful.

  "There was a good tree close by and some dead branches. I pull them in, and I tug on another, and I hear something.

  "There was a sound, a small sound. Not the sound of a tree, not a branch breaking ... an animal sound. I pull the branch again, and then I see it, lying over the bank ... a branch of the tree is there, too, but it is a horse."

  "A horse?"

  "With a saddle. The horse try to get up. He cannot get up because he lies with his legs uphill. If his legs were downhill he could get up, I think.

  "So I get his bridle. It is frozen stiff. I take the bridle and pull him over, pull his head over and hope he will keep it there. I get a rope on him, go back for my horse, and with my horse I get him up.

  "When he is on his feet I look around. Where the horse was is a hollow in the snow. He must have struggled and worked himself down into the snow. He would have frozen there. But a horse, amigo? A horse with a saddle? I explain to myself that a horse with a saddle and no rider is not reasonable, you see?

  "I look. Further down in the snow, I see him. A man lying there almost covered with snow. Near him are some tracks.

  "It seems to me somebody has made the horse jump. He is frighten, this horse.

  And when he jumps he falls, and the man is thrown and hurt, you see? Then I think somebody walks down to where he lies and hits him again, then leaves him in the cold.

  "It will look an accident, you see? A man thrown, frozen to death. I think they did not want to trust to shooting ... people wonder, you know."

  The old man's voice was slowing, and he was growing tired. I sat there in the darkness thinking back. A man must have returned with Baston and Swan, and for some reason they had decided to kill him. A man left unconscious in the snow at such a time would have small chance of survival, yet the human creature is amazing. Nobody knew that better than me. I had seen men survive from impossible wounds, seen them walk out of the desert or mountains. I'd had a few bad times myself.

  "You saved him?"

  "It was cold. It was starting to snow, and the man was not big, but heavy, very heavy, senor. I could not get him up the slope. It was steep ... steep, Many trees and rocks.

  "The man was cold--he was freeze, I think. I could not carry him up the slope."

  I waited, knowing he had to tell it in his own way, in his own time, yet I could see him there at the body of the unconscious man. Up above was a cave, shelter for the horses and himself, a good place for a fire, and fuel for it. And down below there an old man standing in the falling snow.

  A time or two I'd had to carry unconscious men. It was far from easy. Up a slope like that? Not many men could manage it. Probably not one in a hundred.

  What to do? The wind was rising, snow was falling, and with the rising wind the cold would grow more penetrating. Maybe the man would die, anyway. Perhaps he was almost dead. Why risk his life to save a stranger who was dying, anyway?

  "To climb alone would be all. I left the man, and I climbed up. It was only a little way--a hundred feet, I think, perhaps a little more, you know?

  "I got my blanket roll and I slid back down. Then into the snow I dug a hole. I built high the walls of snow around us, and I gathered sticks and laid some down and built upon them a fire.

  "I rolled the man upon my bed, and the night long I kept the fire going, and I was alone so I talked to him. I talked to this man. I told him he was a lot of trouble to me. I told him there was a nice warm cave above and because of him I had to sit in the cold. I told him the only decent thing to do was to live.

  "It was very cold ... mucho brio, senor. I shivered, swung my arms, danced in the snow, but most of the time I collected wood. There were fallen trees on that slope. And just a little way from there was a tangle of branches.

  "I tried to climb up again, but it was too slippery from other climbs, so I went into the tangle and pulled myself up from tree to tree. Then I made a fire in the cave. I must think of my horses, senor. They were good horses, mine and the hurt man's horse, and it was not their fault they were in this cold place. I built a fire up there, and
then I climbed down, and my fire down below was almost gone. Again I put fuel on the coals, and it burned up.

  "I looked at the man. I felt his arms and his legs. I moved them. Nothing seemed broken, so only the head was hurt. I knew the man's face."

  "Who was he, viejo? Who was the man?"

  "It was Petgrew. And he did not die. He did not waste my time. He lived, senor.

  By morning he was a little rojo. His face, senor, was flushed, and his breath was better."

  "You saved him, then?"

  "Ah? It was the good Lord who saved him, senor. I sat by him and kept the fire warm. I kept the fire for the horses, too. Up and down, up and down ... it was the longest night, the coldest night, and I was afraid all would die. The man, the horses, me.

  "We were high up, senor. Perhaps ten thousand feet. You know what it is ... the cold."

  "And the man? Where is he?" I paused. "What became of him, viejo?"

  He put a trembling hand on my sleeve. "He did not leave us. He is here."

  Chapter XIII

  Morning lay bright upon the town when we rode out of the streets of San Luis.

  The sky was a magnificent San Juan mountain blue, with puffs of white cloud scattered about.

  Sunlight touched the snow upon the distant peaksv and as we rode there were no sounds but the beat of our horses' hooves and the creak of saddle leather. We four rode out with Esteban, rode west to the little ranch on the Rio Grande del Norte.

  It was an adobe house with projecting roof beams--a comfortable house of several spacious rooms, a long barn, corrals, and a few fruit trees.

  As we rode into the yard a man limped to the door, using a cane. He wore a six-shooter rigged for a cross-draw. He was a stocky man with a round, pleasant face, red cheeks, and a tuft of gray hair sticking up from the crown of his head. His eyes went to Esteban and he waved. "Buenos dias, amigo!" he said cheerfully. " 'Light an' set!"

  There was a measure of caution in the glance he gave us, and I thought his eyes lingered on Orrin's face, then mine.

  It was cool inside the house. "Set," he said. "I am Nativity Pettigrew, Connecticut born, Missouri bred. Who might you be?"

  "I am Orrin Sackett," Orrin said, "and this here is my brother, William T.

  Sackett." He introduced the Tinker and Judas, then sat down.

  "Mr. Pettigrew, you were with my father in the mountains?"

  Pettigrew got out his pipe and loaded it with tobacco. He turned his head toward an inner door, "Juana? Bring us some coffee, will you?"

  He glanced around apologetically. "Don't like to be waited on, but with this game leg I don't get around so well no more." He tamped the tobacco firmly. "So you're Sackett's boys, are you? I heard tell of you a time or two, figured soon or late we'd come to meet."

  A pretty Mexican woman entered with a tray of cups and a coffeepot. "This here's Juana. We been married nigh onto nineteen year."

  We all arose hurriedly, acknowledging the introduction. She smiled--a soft, pretty woman, and very shy.

  "We're tryin' to find out what become of pa," I explained. "Ma's gettin' on in years, and she's wishful to know."

  He smoked in silence for a moment. "It ain't as easy as you think. I took a rap on the skull up yonder and my memory gets kind of hazy. I do remember that Baston, though, and Swan. Must've been one of them hit me.

  "My horse spooked. Maybe they hit him, burned him, I don't know what. Anyway, he was always a nervous one and he just jumped right out there an' fell. Last thing I recalled, until several days later when I come to in the snow with that old Mexican--he's Juana's grandpa--a-settin' by the fire, tendin' me like.

  "Good man. Saved my life, so I just figured I'd never find better folks than these, an' I settled down right here. Bought this place off kinfolk of hers."

  "You had some money, then?"

  Pettigrew smiled. It was a careful smile, and he looked down at his pipe, puffed a couple of times, and said, "I had a mite. They knowed nothing of it or they'd surely have taken it."

  "What was the last you saw of pa?"

  Pettigrew shifted a little in his hide-bottomed chair. "He took us there, right up Wolf Creek Pass to the mountain, but there was trouble making up. Your pa, he was a quiet man, minded his own affairs, but he didn't miss much. He got along fine with Pierre Bontemps. The Frenchman was a fine man, a flighty one, but strong, always ready to carry his share and more. Trouble didn't develop until we got up in the mountains along Wolf Creek.

  "Bontemps had a map, but you know the wild country--unless a map's laid out with care she ain't worth the match to burn it with.

  "Whoever made that map made it quick, and either he made it with no ken of how things are in the mountains or he was figuring on coming right back.

  "We located some of the landmarks. One tree, all important to locating the gold, was gone. One rock wasn't shaped like it was supposed to be. Sackett found the other half of it down in a canyon where it had weathered and fallen off. Upshot of it was, we never found no gold.

  "I had trouble with Baston, an' I up an' quit. I took off down the mountain. A couple of days later, Swan an' Baston caught up with me. They said they'd quit, too."

  Orrin sat staring into the fire, listening. Finally he put down his cup. "And you know nothing of what happened to pa?"

  "No, sir. I don't."

  I didn't believe him. He was telling the truth up to a point, but he was holding back on quite a lot. So I figured to shake him up a little. "It's ma we want to know for," I said. "She's an old woman, close on to her deathtime, an' we are wishful that she rest easy, content that pa's gone on ahead of her to blaze the trail.

  "We can't let it lay, and we ain't about to. We're goin' to worry at this until we find out what happened."

  "After so long a time you won't find anything," he muttered. He stared into his empty cup. "Nothing lasts much, on them mountains."

  "Can't tell about that. I once found a wolf carcass in a cave that must have been there years an' years. My brother an' me, we're readers of sign. We'll find the answer.

  "Fact is, I spent some time a few years ago over on the Vallecitos. I still have some claims over there."

  He looked up, surprised. "Are you that Sackett? I heard of some shooting over there."

  "I done my share. I came in first, and I was the last to go."

  He seemed restless, and I had a feeling he wanted us to go. A couple of times I heard rustling around in the kitchen and I wondered how much Juana knew of all this.

  Finally, I got up. Orrin followed suit, and Judas and the Tinker wandered over to the door. "One thing, Mr. Petrigrew," I said, "if you had trouble with Baston and Swan, you'd best keep a gun handy."

  He looked up sharply. "Why's that?"

  "Because they're comin' along right behind us. I don't know why they want to come back, but they do. They may figure they missed something up yonder, and they'll be asking questions around."

  "What?" he got up, struggling to his feet, weaving a little, and if ever I saw fear in a man's eyes, it was in his.

  "They're coming here?"

  "Not more than two days behind us, probably less. Yes, they are coming, and if I were you I'd get myself out of sight, and your wife, too. Better not leave anything they can get hold of."

  We started back to San Luis where we scouted the town for Andre Baston and Swan, but there was nothing to be seen of them. I was coming out of the cantina, however, when I saw a man down by the corral. He turned sharp away when I glimpsed him, so I took notice. He looked an almighty lot like one of the hands who had ridden with Charley McCaire.

  That set me to pondering. McCaire was a hard-as-nails man, used to riding roughshod over anything got in his way. He'd lost the game with us, but would he take it?

  I wasn't worried about him tangling with Tyrel. Nobody worried about Tyrel.

  Tyrel wasn't the kind you expected would be taken advantage of. He was a fair man, and not a trouble-hunting man, but I never knew anybody as ready to take up t
rouble if it came his way.

  If Charley McCaire hunted trouble with Tyrel he just had my sympathy ... him or his boys. As for Tyrel's vaqueros, they liked him, and if he told them to they'd damp down the fires of hell.

  Of course, that puncher, if it was him I saw, he might just have quit and drifted.

  Still, I was going to keep my eyes open and give thought to my back trail.

  We would be pulling out with daybreak, riding west into the mountains, and everyone turned in early against the riding to come.

  One more time I went out to the corral to take a look around. All was quiet. The house was dark, the horses nickered a little when I came close because I was always packing little odds and ends of grub for them. This time I had a carrot for each, and I stood there by the rail listening to them crunch, when I heard a faint drum of hooves.

  Now I was wearing a shootin' iron. So I just sort of faded back against the corral bars and scrunched down by one of the poles to get sight of whoever it was before they saw me.

  The rider slowed down, walked the horse into the yard, hesitated, then slid down and trailed the reins. It was a woman.

  I stood up and said, "Ma'am?"

  She turned sharp, but stood her ground. "Who is it?"

  I knew the voice, and it was Juana Pettigrew. "Tell Sackett, ma'am. I was just checking my horses."

  "Here." She came at me and thrust something into my hand. "Take that, and say nothing." She looked up at me. "You are good people, you Sacketts. Tina has told me of you, and my cousin once worked for your brother at Mora. I want to help, and it is wrong for my husband not to give you this." Then she was in the saddle once more and headed back. It was a long, hard ride she had ahead of her.

  Inside the house I squatted by the light from the fire. In my hand was a large brown envelope like I'd seen them use for deeds and the like. It was fastened with a twist of string, and I opened it.

  What I saw stopped me cold. It was pa's handwriting.

  For a moment there I just held those papers in my hand, my heart beating heavy.

  Pa's handwriting ... and pa had been dead for twenty years ... or had he?