had escaped … and who, he was sure, was now on one of the river boats on the
Rio Grande.
“If they could not immediately find the gold, they would fix it so nobody else
would, and they tried to murder old Duval. That brought your father into the
fight, and his first run-in with the Kurbishaws. I don’t know the circumstances,
but when they tried to kill Duval, Falcon Sackett put a bullet into one of them,
and then Duval told Falcon his story.”
Bit by bit the story emerged, and bit by bit our own plans came into being.
After that hot night in Jonas cabin none of them ever gave up going back, and
after my father disappeared, the Tinker hunted for him, and Jonas, too. Neither
had any luck until Will Caffrey began to spend Pa’s gold, and Tinker followed
the trail of that Spanish gold from Charleston to the mountains. The Kurbishaws
also traced the gold, and decided to kill me for fear I might go after it.
“Cortina has controlled that area off and on for years,” Jonas said, “and many
of his subordinates have been thieves or worse; however, nobody wants to see
that much gold slipping through their fingers.
“After that talk in the cabin of my steamboat,” he continued, “we waited until
the time was right, and then slipped down there to look.
“The water in many places was shallow, there were many sand bars, and their
location changed with each heavy blow. Twice we went aground, several times we
were fired upon. Then the war ended and we had no further excuse to be in the
vicinity; and the local authorities, knowing something was hidden there,
suspected everybody.
“You father actually found the wreck and got away with some of the gold—got
away, I might add, because he was uncommonly agile and gifted with nerve. And he
tried to find us.”
The Tinker glanced at me. “Had it been me I doubt I should have tried to find
anybody, but it was Falcon Sackett, and he is a different man in every way.”
Out of our talking a plan emerged. Jonas Locklear must, in any event, go to the
ranch he owned on the Gulf coast. We would go with him, and then we would go to
Mexico to buy cattle for a drive to Kansas, and to restock the ranch. This might
call for several trips.
In this cattle-buying I should have to take first place, for either Jonas or the
Tinker might be recognized, and to stay over a few hours south of the border
would invite disaster.
Arrangements could be made by letter for me to pick up the herd, and then I
would start north, holding them near the coast. Jonas and the Tinker would join
me as cowhands, riding with other cowhands. When we had the herd close by where
the treasure was believed to be, we would camp … and find our gold.
It was simple as that. Nobody, we believed, would suspect a cattleman of hunting
for gold. It was a good cover, and we could find no flaws in it. There was water
for cattle in brackish pools, there was good grass, so the route was logical.
“Are you sure,” the Tinker asked me, “that your father left nothing to guide you
to the ship? No map? No directions?”
“He gave me nothing when he left, and if there was a map he may have wanted it
himself.”
Jonas rose. “My brother-in-law may question you. You have hired to work on my
ranch, that is all.”
“It is settled then?” the Tinker asked. “To Mexico?”
“How about it, Sackett?”
“Well,” I said, “I never saw much gold, and always allowed as how I’d like to.
This seems to be a likely chance.” I shook hands with them.
“I only hope,” I added, “that I’m half the man my father must have been.”
Chapter Four
We fetched up to the ranch house shy of sundown. We’d been riding quite a spell
of days, and while never much on riding, I had been doing a fair country job of
it by the time we hauled rein in front of that soddy.
For that was what it was, a sod house and no more. Jonas Locklear had cut
himself a cave out of a hillside and shored it up with squared timbers. Then he
had built a sod house right up against it, built in some bunks, and there it
was. Only Locklear had been gone for some time, and when we fetched up in front
of that soddy the door opened and a man came out.
He was no taller than me, but black-jawed and sour-looking. He wore a tied-down
gun, and some folks would have decided from that he was a gunman. Me, I’d seen a
few gunfighters, and they wore their guns every which way.
“I’m Locklear. I own this place. Who are you?”
The man just looked at him, and then as a second man emerged, the first one
said, “Says he owns this place. Shall we tell it to him quick?”
“Might’s well.”
“All right.” His eyes went from Locklear to the Tinker, and he said, “You don’t
own this place no more, Mr. Locklear. We do. We found it abandoned, we moved in.
It’s ours, we’re givin’ you until full dark to get off the place. The ranch
stretches for ten miles thataway, so you’d best make a fast start.”
Before Jonas could make reply, I broke in. Something about this man got in my
craw and stuck there, and so I said, “You heard Jonas Locklear speak. This here
ranch is deeded and proper, and not open to squatters. You gave us until full
dark. Well, we ain’t givin’ you that much time. You got just two minutes to make
a start.”
His gun showed up. I declare, he got that thing out before I could so much as
have it in mind. “You draw fast,” I said, “but you still got to shoot it, and
before you kill me dead, I’ll have lead in you. I’ll shoot some holes in you,
believe me. Now you take Cullen. When he was teaching me, he said—”
“Who? Who did you say?”
“Cullen”—I kept my face bland—”Cullen Baker. Now, when he was teaching me to
draw, he said to—”
“Cullen Baker taught you to draw?” He looked around warily. “He ridin’ with
you?”
“He camps with us,” I said. “What he does meanwhile I’ve no idea. Him an’
Longley an’ Lee, they traipse around the country a good deal. Davis police,
they’ve been hustling Cullen some, so he said to me, ‘South, that’s the place.
We’ll go south.’ ”
This black-jawed man looked from me to the Tinker, and then he sort of backed up
and said, “I’d no idea you was with Cullen Baker. I want no trouble with him, or
any outfit he trails with.”
“You’ve got a choice,” I said, “Brownsville or Corpus Christi. When the rest of
them get here, I figure to have coffee on. Cullen sets store by fresh black
coffee.”
They lit out, and after they had gone, the Tinker looked over at Jonas. “Did you
ever see the like? Looks right down a gun barrel and talks them out of it.”
“Cullen did camp with us,” I said, “and there’s no question that he liked our
coffee.”
Took us until midnight to clean that place out, but we did it. And then we
turned in to sleep. Sunup found us scouting around the range. Seemed like there
was grass everywhere but no cattle, and then we did come on some cows and bulls
in a draw, maybe twenty-five or thirty of them lazing in the morning sun. These
were wild cattle. Owned cattle, mind you, but they’d run wild all their lives
and were of no mind to be trifled with.
A longhorn is like nothing else you ever saw. If a man thinks he knows cattle,
he should look over a longhorn first of all. The longhorn developed from cattle
turned loose on the plains of Texas, growing up wild and caring for themselves;
and for the country they were in, no finer or fiercer creature ever lived. There
were some tough old mossy-horns in that outfit that would weigh sixteen hundred
pounds or better, and when they held their heads up they were taller than our
horses. They were mean as all get out, and ready to take after you if they
caught you afoot. Believe me, a man needed a six-shooter and needed to get it
into action fast if one of those big steers came for him.
Times had changed in Texas. When the Tinker and Locklear had been here before,
cattle were worth about two dollars a head, and no takers, but now they were
driving herds up the Shawnee Trail to the Kansas railheads and paying five and