My horse was down below there, and they had found it. Hat 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 spurts, 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, and with 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 words 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 t’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.
“Now, I know there’s signals you could give that man, and I could be took … taken, I mean. I could be taken right here and now. But when they take me, they would take me with you dead at my feet. If you’re the man I want, you know you’ll die anyway, but if you ain’t, you’d be an awful fool to die for what somebody else did.”
“You’re a fool, Sackett. Why don’t you take the horse and ride out of the country? You haven’t a chance.”
“You order that horse. The only chance I want is to kill a man, the man who killed my Ange.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“Order the horse.”
Well, he got up, very carefully, and he went to the tent flap. “Dancer? Saddle up that dun gelding, will you? Put Al’s spare saddle on it. And a pack horse with a week’s grub. I want it right away.”
He came back and sat down. “You won’t be likely to make it, but you’ll get your chance. Take my advice and ride out of here.”
“You don’t look like a man who would murder a lone woman.”
His face went white, and then he colored up. He was mad, clean through. “I know nothing about it … if it ever happened.”
“It happened.” Gesturing toward the tent flap, I said, “Your man Dancer was within a mighty close distance when it happened. He was among those who hunted me after Macon shot me off the cliff.”
“You seem to be well informed.”
“I overheard talk. They came mighty near me.”
We stayed quiet a minute or two, but my ears were busy. The camp was going along just the way it had. No use my trying to watch outside, for I’d have to take my eyes off him. I would have to chance it, and mighty slim chance it was.
I shifted my Colt to my left hand and unslung my Winchester. Covering him with that, I thrust my Colt into my waistband. There was another gun lying there on the cot, so I picked it up.
“Whilst you’re idle,” I said, “you write out a bill of sale for that outfit I’m taking. Even swap for mine.”
“You don’t miss much, do you?” He wrote it out “How can a man as shrewd as you buck such a stacked deck?”
“Mister, that girl of mine was all I had, all I ever had. She was murdered. I don’t much care what happens to me as long as I get the man who did it. And I have an idea if a body did some hunting, he might find other dead women on that man’s back trail.”
His head swung around, his blue eyes hard. “What makes you say that?”
“I’ve read his sign, and it reads pure lobo. The man’s a killer. At first I figured he went panicky, but now I ain’t so sure. Maybe he was following a pattern he’d made up long since. There’s folks missing out in this country, folks nobody will ever account for.
“This man is no youngster, that’s how I read him. A man like that either knows better, or he’s laid out his path long before.”
We’d kept our voices low, and when the sound of the horses approaching became clear I held up a hand and he was still. The hoof-falls stopped outside the tent, and Dancer spoke.
“You ready, Mr. Swandle? I got the horses.”
“Tell him to come in,” I said.
“Come in, Dancer.”
He came in, a solid, deep-chested cowpuncher with a shock of black hair and a broad, cheerful face. He looked at me, then at his boss. “Well, now. I was wonderin’ why the pack hoss. You want I should try him?”
“No, Dancer. As you’ve probably guessed, this is Sackett.”
Me, I put in my words. “Dancer, I’ve nothing against you. All I want is the name of the man who ordered you to hunt for me.”
Dancer grinned right back at me. “Now you don’t figure I’d tell you? You try to beat it out of me, and I’ll whop you, big as you are. And ever’body for miles would know what was happenin’. Was I you, I’d give up right now.”
“And have your boss hang me? He wants to do that, Dancer, and he wants you boys to help him. He wants his skirts clean on this.”
“I want him to get out of this tent, Dancer,” Swandle said. “I’ll not lose a good man when I’m not sure what the stake is.”
Me, I stood up, and had to bow my head to do it. “Dancer, I figure you’re clear. I figure Swandle here is. I don’t see fingernail marks on his face, and there weren’t any when I saw him several weeks back. I saw Ange’s nails before I buried her. She put up a fight … she was a little thing, but she fought, and she had hide and flesh under her nails.”
A moment there I paused, listening. It sounded as if somebody was coming. “Dancer, you look like a man to ride the river with,” I said, “so don’t go to shooting for no man that would murder a lone woman.”