“You were in Mesilla when he found you. The way I heard it, your pa was killed by “Paches. I reckon your ma was dead before that, or why else wouldn’t she be with you, young as you were?” “I’ve wondered about that,” Mike said quietly.
“I suppose she had died before.” He paused.
“I guess a man is always curious. Pa, I mean Ben, he never speaks of it.” They had reached their horses, grazing on a meadow among the aspen. Roundy spoke. “You’d better be thinkin” of the future, not the past. You’d best be thinkin’ of what you’re goin’ to tell Ben when he tells you you’re ridin’ out with the boys.” Roundy stared after Mike as he walked toward the horses. He had never had a son, none that he knew of, anyway. Yet for years he had worked with Mike Bastian, leading him, training him, talking to him. He had spent more time with him than most fathers did with their sons, and not only because it was his job.
Now he was scared. He admitted it, he was scared. He was scared for more reasons than one, because Ben Curry had made a mistake., Roundy only heard of it after the fact. Usually he sat in on the planning, keeping well back in a corner and rarely putting in a comment, but in this case he had been out in the hills with Mike and had not heard until later. When they were alone, he faced Ben with it. “Moral You’ve got to be crazy)” Ben Curry pulled up in his walking across the room. “What’s that? Why?” Roundy had never spoken to him like that, and Ben was startled. He stared at the old man. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You said Mora. You sent the boys into Mora.
That’s Tyre) Sackett’s town.” “Who?” “Ben, you’ve been back in the hills too long.
You don’t listen anymore. Tyre) Sackett is that gunfighter who was in the land-grant fight.
He’s hell on wheels.” “I never heard of him. Anyway,” he. added, “he was in Santa Fe. I made sure of that.” “And when he comes home?” “The boys will be long gone and far away.” “Ben, you don’t know him. He won’t stand for it, Ben. He’ll never quit until he knows who, how, and why. I know him.” Ben shrugged. “Too late now. Anyway, there’s no tracks. Rain washed everything out, and the boys never even raised a whisper. Sixty thousand on that one. Most of the town’s savings in one swoop.” Roundy said no more, but in the weeks that followed he grew increasingly worried. Mike would be going out soon, and the country was tightening up. That was bad enough without incurring the anger of a man like Tyrel Sackett, a man who was a master at tracking and trailing. A few months later, Ben had commented on it. “What did I tell you? Nothing came of that Mora business.” Roundy, squatted on his heels at the fireplace, nursing a cup of coffee, had glanced up. “It hasn’t been a year yet. You can bet Sackett hasn’t forgotten.” Approximately four hundred miles to the east a train was stopping even as he spoke, stopping at a small, sandblasted town in eastern Colorado, a town with only a freight car for a depot.
One man stepped down from the train, a tall young man in a black suit. He stood there, watching the train pull away.
Glancing out the window, Borden Chantry had seen the train slow, then come to a stop, and as it rarely stopped, he waited, watching. He had been doing his accounts, never a job he liked, but the taxpayers demanded to know where every dollar went, and as town marshal he had to account for every fine, every cent spent feeding those in jail. He saw the lone man swing down, and he got up. “Ma?” He spoke to his wife, Bess. “Set another place. We’re goin’ to have comp’ny. Tyrel Sackett just got off the train.” When the dishes were put away and the table wiped clean, Borden Chantry refilled their coffee cups. He swung a chair around with its back to the table and straddled it, leaning his thick forearms on the back. “This is a long way from Mora,” he suggested.
“Things are quiet over there, and I’ve got a good deputy. Thought I’d ride the cars over and have a little talk.” Borden sipped his coffee, and waited.
“Ever hear of Dave Cook?” “Officer up Denver way, ain’t he?” Borden paused. “My wife says I shouldn’t say “ain’t’ but I keep forgettin’.” “That’s right. Denver. He’s got an idea of organizing all the officers so we all’ work together.
You know how it’s been-you keep the peace in your town and I in mine. If somebody kills a man here, why should I care if he keeps out of trouble in Mora? Well, Dave thinks we should all work together.” “I’m for it.” “About a year ago we had a holdup in Mora.
Store holdup, but a store that banked money for folks. Had quite a lot of money, sixty thousand dollars, in the store safe. I was out of town,” he added.
“Handy,” Chantry commented.
“I thought so. Just too handy. Sixty thousand in the safe and the sheriff out of town. Makes for easy pickin’s, “specially when the note that got me down to Santa Fe was a fake.” “Forged?” “No, and that’s another interesting part. It was a note from my brother Orrin and it simply said, Need you. When a Sackett gets that kind of word he just naturally comes a-running. The trouble was that note was one Orrin wrote to his former wife a couple of years ago.
“Now the question is, how did somebody get hold of that note and where’s it been all that time?
“Orrin wrote that note. He remembered it well because it was a troublesome time, but he never saw it again.” Tyrel paused. “Seems to me somebody was mighty farsighted. They come on that note somehow, some way, and they just kept it against a needful time.” “It doesn’t seem reasonable. How would anybody know they might need such a note years in advance?” “Think of it, Bord. That note doesn’t explain anything and there’s no date, so somebody saw it might be useful and filed it away, and that somebody had to be a crook. his “They robbed your bank.” “Exactly. That says that somebody two years ago thought that note might be useful, somebody who was probably a thief at the time.” Sackett put down his cup. “Let me lay it out for you. At noontime folks are home eating. The streets are empty, only one man in the store, and then of a sudden there are three other men. The storekeeper was bound and gagged, money taken from the safe, as it was rarely locked in the daytime, and the shade drawn on the front door window. The three men leave by the back door. “Nigh onto two hours later a fellow comes to the store, finds it locked, and goes away. Sometime later another comes, only he don’t go away but walks around to the back door.
He’s out of tobacco and he’ll be damned if he’s goin” to go without.
“The back door is closed. He knocks and it opens under his fist and he hears thumpin’ inside. He goes in and finds the teller all tied up an’ the money gone.” “Any descriptions?” “Three youngish, middle-sized men, one of them wearin’ a polka-dot shirt. The teller says they moved fast, knew right where the money was, and weren’t in the store more than five minutes, probably not more than three. Nobody said a word amongst them, just to the teller to keep his mouth shut if he wanted to live.” “Nobody saw them cumin’ or goin’?” “Yes, a youngster playing in his yard. He saw a man settin’ a horse an’ holding the reins on three others. He saw three men come out of an alley and mount up and then another man rode in from the street and they all trotted off down the lane.
“That youngster was nine years old, but canny. He noticed one of the horses. It was a black with three white feet and a white splash on the rump.” Borden Chantry put his cup down carefully.
Then he looked across the table at Tyrel Sackett. “What are you sayin’?” “I described a horse,” “I know you did, and I have a horse like that.” Sackett nodded. “I know you have. I saw him when I was down here right after Joe was killed. A mighty fine horse, too. was Borden Chantry took up his cup. His coffee was lukewarm, so he went to the stove for the coffeepot. He filled Sackett’s cup, then his own. Returning the pot to the stovetop, he sat down, straddling his chair.