There must have been forty men working around over there, with buildings going up, but I could see no sign of Cap. Somehow the set-up didn’t look right to me.
I helped Ange down from the horse. “Well rest,” I said. “Come dark, we’ll go to our camp. That bunch over there look like trouble.” I’d no idea of facing up to a difficulty with a sick girl on my hands.
Dark came on slowly. Finally, thinking of Cap, it wasn’t in me to wait longer. I helped Ange back into the saddle, and took my Winchester from the scabbard.
It was a short walk across a meadow and into the willows. Nothing stirred except the nighthawks which dipped and swung in the air above us. Somewhere a wolf howled. The sun was down, but it was not yet dark.
We turned south. Wearing my moccasins, I made little sound in the grass, and the appaloosa not much more. There was a smell of smoke in the air, and a gentle drift of wind off the high peaks.
All I could think of was Cap Rountree. If that crowd at the town site were the wrong bunch—and I had a feeling they were—then Cap was bad hurt or killed. And if he was killed I was going up to that town and read them from the Book. I was going to give that bunch gospel.
The first of the three men who came out of the brush ahead of me was Kitch.
“We been waiting for you, Sackett,” he said, and he lifted his gun. He thought sure enough he had me.
Trouble was, he hadn’t seen that Winchester alongside my leg. I just tilted it with my right hand, grabbed the barrel with my left, and shot from the hip. While he was swinging that gun up, nonchalant and easy, I shot him through the belly. Without moving from my tracks I fired at the second man, and saw him go spinning.
The third one stood there, white-faced and big-eyed, and I told him, “Mister, you unloose that gun belt. If you want to, you just grab that pistol . . . I’m hoping you do.”
He dropped his gun belt and backed off a step.
“Now we’re going to talk,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Ab Warren … I didn’t mean no harm.” He hesitated. “Mister, Kitch ain’t dead … can I do for him?”
“He’ll get another bullet ‘less he lies still,” I replied. “You want to help him, you talk. Where’s my partner?”
The man shifted his feet. “You better high-tail it. The others’ll be down here to see.”
“Let ’em come. You going to talk?”
“No, I ain’t. By—”
By that time I’d moved in close and I backhanded him across the mouth. It was a fairly careless blow but, like I said, my hands are big and I’ve worked hard all my life.
He went down, and I reached over and took him by the front of his shirt and lifted him upright.
“You talk or I’ll take you apart. I’ll jump down your throat and jollop your guts out.”
“They ambushed him, but he ain’t dead. That ol coot Injuned-away in the brush and downed two before they pulled off. He’s back at your camp, but I don’t think he’s doing so good.”
“Is he alone?
“No … Joe Rugger’s there with him.” Warren paused. “Rugger took up for him.”
Kitch was moaning. I walked over to him. I didn’t run, did I, Kitch?” I turned on Warren. “If he lives, and I ever see him carrying a gun, here, in Texas or Nebraska, I’m going to kill him on sight. That goes for you, too. If you want to stay around, stay. But if you wear a gun, I’ll kill you.”
Taking up the bridle, I added, “You go back up there and tell that outfit that all those who didn’t make a deal with Cap for their lots can move, or be moved by me. We staked and claimed that town site and we cut lumber for the buildings.”
“There’s forty men up there!” Warren said.
“And there’s one of me. But you tell them. I hope they are gone before I have to come read them from the Book.”
Scooping up his guns and the others, I started off.
It was full dark by the time we got to the camp, and I heard a challenge. The voice sounded familiar, but it wasn’t Cap.
“Sackett here,” I said, “and I got a lady for company. I’m coming in.”
Falling back beside her, I said, “Ma’am, I’m sure sorry about back yonder. Folks never reckoned me a quarrelsome man, but I’d trouble with these men before.”
She did not reply and suddenly scared, I said, “Look—you ain’t hurt, are you?”
“No… I’m not hurt”
Her voice sounded different, somehow, but I didn’t think much of it until I reached up and helped her down. She felt stiff in my hands, and she wouldn’t look at me.
A man stepped up beside us. “Sackett? I’m Joe Rugger. Remember? I spoke of coming back to see you. I’ve been trying to keep them off Cap.”
Rugger was the square-set man who had ridden with Kitch. Brushing past him, I went to the lean-to. Cap was lying there on his blankets, and he was so pale it scared me.
“Most times we haven’t dared have a light,” Rugger said. “They’ve been pot-shooting around here at night.”
“Put the light out.”
For a few minutes I sat there, scared to death. That old man looked bad off, mighty bad off. We hadn’t been together long, but I’d come to be fond of him. He was a solid, true-blue old man.
“They ambushed him … four, five of them. They shot him out of his saddle and then went hunting him like an animal. Only Cap was clear conscious and he let them come in close where he couldn’t miss. He killed two and the rest took off like scared pole-cats.”
“Where’s he hit?”
“Missed the lung, I think. Took him high, but he lost a lot of blood before he got here. I didn’t know of it until the next morning. Then I came right up.
“When they came to finish him off, I stopped them before they could get to the trees. Cap, he came out of it and managed to get off a shot . . . they think he’s in better shape than he is.”
I walked outside and stood under the trees. If that old man died I’d hunt every man-jack of them down and gut-shoot them.
By now they had seen Kitch and they knew I was back. If I knew that crowd over there, tonight they would argue, they would threaten, and they would make wartalk, but unless I was completely wrong, they wouldn’t come down here in the dark. Not after what happened to Kitch. Tomorrow I could expect trouble.
However I would be ready, and if they wanted it tonight instead of tomorrow, they could have it.
Last thing I’d wanted was trouble, but they’d called the turn, and now they would get a bellyful of it. If they wanted to start the town with a line of graves in boot hill, it would be that way.
Joe Rugger came up behind me. “You want I should ride south for Orrin and Tyrel?”
“No, sir. No, I don’t. This here is myself, and I don’t think there’s going to be enough of it to go around.”
They could have forty-eight hours. Then I was riding down.
Morning broke with an overcast sky and a hint of rain, and rain worried me because down here rain could mean snow in the mountains where the gold was.
First off, I walked out to the edge of the timber that surrounded our camp and looked toward the town site. There were several tents, one building already up, and a couple more on the way.
Nobody seemed to be pulling out.
Joe Rugger was squatting over the fire with a long fork, working on some venison steaks. Ange was helping him, but when she looked at me her eyes were bleak and frightened.
Not that I could blame her. It must have come as a shock to come out of the peace of those hills and run into a gunfight . . . and my way of doing things must have been a shock. Folks who live sheltered or quiet lives, away from violent men, have no idea how they have to be dealt with. And I never was one to stand around and talk mean … if there’s fighting to be done the best thing is have at it and get it over with.
Those men at the town site had had their warning, and I gave them time to think about it. In any such number of men a few of them with nerve will stand up to trouble; they will be tough, resolute men. A few will be talkers willing to ride along with the crowd; a few will be camp-followers ready to pick up the leavings of stronger men. And of course, there is always the kind who is himself a tough man, if given leadership.