Besides, I hadn’t shot that Henry .44 at anything. Nor the Walch Navy, as far as
that went. We lay by the trail for three, four hours. We rubbed our horses down
good, we led them to water, we let them eat that good grass. And afterwards we
saddled again, and mounted up.
The steers were against it. They’d had enough for the day, and were showing no
sign of wanting to go further. We cut this one and that one a slap with our
riatas, and finally they lined out for Texas.
You don’t take a herd nowhere in a hurry. Not unless they take a notion to
stampede. Maybe eight to ten miles is a good day, with a few running longer than
that. We’d been dusting along since four o’clock in the morning and it was past
four in the evening now. When they first started, they fed along the way, so
we’d made slow time. All I wanted was a little more distance. If we could get
where I wanted to hold up, we’d be about twenty-five miles or so from the
border.
If a difficulty developed, I figured I could run that far afoot with enough
folks a-shooting after me. Anyway, I’d be ready to give it a try. I kept in mind
that I’d no particular want to see the inside of one of Mr. Herrara’s jail
cells.
I was a lover, not a fighter. That’s what I said to myself, though I’d no call
to claim either. I was only judging where my interests lay.
My thoughts went to Gin Locklear—what a woman! I’d blame no man setting his cap
for her, although the way I figured, it would take some stand-up sort of man to
lay a rope on her.
That Marsha now … she was only a youngster, and a snippy one, but if she went
on the way she’d started she might take after Gin … and I could think of
nothing in woman’s clothes it would be better for a girl to take after.
Shy of midnight we held up near salt water, with high brush growing around, and
not more than four miles or so off was the tiny village of Guadalupe. Right
close was a long arm of the Gulf. “We will camp here,” I said. “There is fresh
water from a spring near the knoll over there.”
Miguel looked at me strangely. “How does it happen that you know this?” he
asked. “Senor Locklear said you had never been to Mexico.”
“I—” I started to answer him, to say I know not what, perhaps to deny that I had
been here or knew anything about it. Yet I did know.
Or did I? Supposing there was no spring there? How much had Locklear said?
The spring was there, and Locklear had said nothing about it. I knew that when I
looked at the spring, for there, in a huge old timber that was down, there were
initials carved. And carved in a way I’d seen only once before, that being in
the mountains of Tennessee.
FSct
Just like that … carved there plain as day, like Pa had carved them on that
old pine near the house. He had been here, all right. Miguel did not notice the
initials, or if he did he paid them no mind. I doubt if he would have connected
them with Falcon Sackett, and I was not sure how much had been told him.
Something, of course … but not all.
Believe me, those steers were ready to bed down. We bunched them close for easy
holding, and they scarcely took time to crop a bait of grass before they tucked
their legs under them and went to chewing cud and sleeping.
Miguel wasn’t much behind them. “Turn in,” I said, “and catch yourself some
shut-eye. I’ll stand watch.”
It wasn’t in him to argue, he was that wornout. Me, I was perked up, and I knew
why. Pa had told me of this place, and I’d forgotten. Yet it had been lying back
there in memory, and probably I’d been driving right for this place without
giving it thought.
Now the necessary thing was to recollect just what it was Pa had told me. He
surely wouldn’t tell me the part of it without he told me all. When had he told
me? Well, that went back a mite. Had to be before I was ten, the way I figured.
He rode off when I was eleven and Ma had been sick for some time before that,
and he was doing mighty little talking to me aside from what was right up
necessary.
It wasn’t as if he’d told me one or two stories. He was forever yarning to me,
and probably when he told me this one he’d stressed detail, he’d told it over
and over again to make me remember. Somehow I was sure of that now.
Maybe I’d been plain tired out by the story. Maybe it hadn’t seemed to have much
point, but the fact was that he must have told me where the treasure was, and
all I had to do was let my memory take me there.
Thing was, suppose it didn’t come to me right off? I’d have to stay, and I’d
need explanation for that. The fast drive we’d made would help. I could let on I
didn’t know much about cattle; and if anybody who talked cows to me did so more
than a few minutes, they’d know I didn’t know anything about them.
So I’d let on like I’d driven the legs off the cattle, to say nothing of our
horses, and we were laying up alongside this water to recuperate. That much
decided, the next thing was to get my memory to operating. But the difficulty
with a memory is that it doesn’t always operate the way a body wants. Seems
contrary as all get out, and when you want to remember a particular thing, that
idea is shunted off to one side.
Rousting around, I got some sticks, some dead brush, and a few pieces of
driftwood left from storms, and I made a fire. Then I put water on for coffee.
All of a sudden I felt my skin prickle, and I looked over at the dun. Tired as
he was, he had his head up and his ears pricked. His nostrils were spreading and
narrowing as he tried the air to see what it was out there.
That old Walch Navy was right there in my belt, and I eased it out a mite so’s
it was ready to hand.
Something was out there.
Me, I never was one to believe in ha’nts. Not very much, that is. Fact is, I
never believed in them at all, only passing a graveyard like—well, I always
walked pretty fast and felt like something was closing in on me.
No, I don’t believe in ha’nts, but this here was a coast where dead men lay.
Why, the crew of the gold ship must have been forty, fifty men, and all of them
dead and gone. Something was sure enough out there. That lineback dun knew it
and I knew it. Trouble was, he had the best idea of what it was, and he wasn’t
talking. He was just scenting the air and trying to figure out for sure.
Whatever it was, he didn’t like it—I could tell that much. And I didn’t either.
I felt like reaching over and shaking Miguel awake, only he’d think I was
spooked. And you know something? I was.
This here was country where folks didn’t come of a night, if at any time. It was
a wild, lonely place, and there was nothing to call them. I taken out that Walch
Navy and, gripping it solid, I held it right there in my lap with the firelight
shining on it. And you can just bet I felt better.
Out there beyond the fire I suddenly heard the sand scrooch. You know how sand
goes under foot sometimes. Kind of a crunch, yet not quite that. Heard it plain
as day, and I lifted that .36 and waited.
Quite a spell passed by, and all of a sudden the dun, who’d gone back to
feeding, upped with his head again. Only this time he was looking off toward the
trail from the north, and he was all perked up like something interesting was
coming. Not like before.
He had his ears up and all of a sudden he whinnied—and sure enough, from out of
the darkness there came another whinny. And then I heard the sound of a horse
coming, and Miguel, he sat up.
We both stayed there listening and, like fools, neither of us had sense enough
to get back out of the firelight—like the Tinker had done that night when Baker,
Lee, and Longley paid us the visit … and a few dozen other times along the