“No, you don’t,” I said. “Not me. I’m not being saddled with no pilgrims. Not crossing that country.”
“It was a thought.”
“You better give it another think. I’m a fast-travelin’ man in Injun country. I want it so’s I can run or hide, and you’d play hell hidin’ a buckboard or its tracks. It’s a far stretch from here to wherever they’re headed, and I’ve got business up country.”
“She is a pretty girl. The Comanches …”
“Too bad.”
Pio was silent. Maybe he knew more about me than I wanted to admit to myself, but he just sat there and waited, and like a damned fool I looked over at that girl setting there with her pa, if that was what he was, and that breed.
She was so fresh and young and pretty that I had to look away fast or soon I’d be doing just what Pio wanted, and making a fool of myself. Yet a body couldn’t see her setting there looking so young and lovely without thinking what would happen to her if the Comanches got her.
Now, back east where the Indians are tame and mighty few, a lot of folks have started talking about the poor red man, but believe me, when you saw an Indian out on the plains settin’ up on a pony with a Winchester in his hand or a lance, there was nothing poor about him. He was a fighting man from way back, and he was a savage … a stranger was an enemy, and an enemy was to be killed or, if captured, tortured to see how brave he was.
In my time I’d had my share of troubles with Comanches, Kiowas, Arapahos, Utes, Cheyennes, Sioux, and about every land of redskin there was. With some I got alone fine; but when he’s fighting no Indian needs take a back seat for any man. They’d been called, by one of Europe’s greatest generals, “the finest light cavalry under the sun.”
When a man traveled in Indian country he sort of sifted through, gentle-like and taking up no more room than need be. He kept out of sight, and slept without a fire at night unless he could hide it well. And on top of that he prayed, if he was a praying man, and the deeper you got into Indian country the more of a praying man you got to be. You just couldn’t afford to miss any bets.
Pio talked about the sheep. He talked about cattle. It would be no time at all, he was saying, until the Texas cattlemen started bringing their herds into the Panhandle. The buffalo was going, the Indian would be driven out, and the cattle would come.
“And then the farmers,” I said, with disgust. My own folks had farmed, if you could call it that, on the thin soil of the Clinch Mountain slopes, but I wanted no farmers cutting up this country.
“No, this country is no good for farm,” Pio said. “We try it. The wind blows too much. Only the grass ties it down.”
“I know,” I agreed, finishing off the last of the food on my plate “That last dust storm we had, I could taste some Kansas dust in it. I knew a man one time in the Brazos country who could tell what county he was in by the taste of the dust.”
Well, right then I made a big mistake. I looked over at that girl again. Of course, you’ve got to realize that I hadn’t seen a white woman for a good long time, and this one was kind of special.
“All right, Pio,” I said, “pick up the chips. You go tell them I’ll try to get them through to Romero, anyway.”
“Bueno!” Pio smiled at me. “I knew this was what you would do. I tell them so. I tell them just to wait, that you’re a good man.”
Me? It was the first time in a long while anybody had said that about Nolan Sackett. Oh, they say ‘He’s a good man with a gun,’ or ‘He’s a fair hand with a rope,’ or ‘He can ride anything wears hair,’ but nobody just out and said I was a good man.
A man had to avoid that sort of thing. First thing a man knows he’s tryin’ to live up to it. And then what kind of an outlaw is he?
So I glanced over there again and the girl smiled at me. Well, that was all right. And as for the breed, I always got along with breeds all right. Only that old man had too stiff a neck to suit me. He would be bull-headed as an old mossy-horn range cow.
Anyway, I was in for it. Least I could do was have another cup of coffee.
5
Sitting at the table, I could look out the open door and into the street. The sun was bright on the street, but the doorway of the cantina was shadowed by huge old trees that stood nearby. Across the street were the cottonwoods and willows beyond which I had slept the night before.
It was pleasant, sitting there and looking out on that sunlit street, and I wished I had such a place of my own, a little cantina somewhere along a trail where folks would stop off from time to time. You never saw anything more peaceful.
On the other side of the street and down a bit, just where I could see just one window and a corner of a building, stood an adobe that was partly fallen to ruin. It was small, and was likely among the first houses built here.
Pio came back to my table with those three people, and they all sat down around the table, leaving me only a partial view out of the door.
“Senor Nolan Sackett.” Pio said, “I wish you to meet Senor Jacob Loomis and Senorita Penelope Hume, and this here is Flinch.”
Now, when I heard that name Hume I kept a straight face. My muscles never even twitched, me being a poker player of some experience. It seemed to me, all of a sudden, that the Llano Estacado was being invaded by folks all with the same idea.
“Howdy,” I said, and just let it lay there. From now on until I got the lay of the land they could do the talking.
The man called Loomis spoke. “We understand you are riding toward Romero, and that you might guide us there. We would pay, of course.”
Nobody had said anything about paying me until now, but for a man with no more money in his jeans than I was packing that was welcome news.
“It’s risky,” I said, knowing that committed me to nothing at all. “It’s almighty risky. The Comanches and Kiowas are riding, and they’re upset by the buffalo hunters coming south. You’d be better off to stay right where you are.”
“In the middle of nowhere?” Loomis responded in a tone of disgust. “Young man, we’ll give you fifty dollars to guide us, and to fight for us if there’s trouble.”
“For fifty dollars,” I said, honestly enough, “I’d fight the whole Comanche tribe.”
A flicker of shadow caught my eye, something in the background. Looking past Loomis, I could see nothing but the sunlight on the road and a lone hen pecking at something in the dust.
“Were you figuring on stopping in Romero?”
Now, I needn’t have asked that question, because nobody stopped in Romero except the Mexicans who lived there. Romero was a nice, pleasant little place at the end of several trials, none of them traveled very much.
“We will decide about that when the time comes,” he replied, and his voice was testy, as if he didn’t care much for questions.
“All right,” I said, “you be ready to pull out come daybreak … and I mean first light, not a mite later.”
“I will decide about that.” Loomis was brusque. “You will get your orders from me.”
“No,” I said, “not if I am to take you through. If you want me for a guide, you’ll go when I say, stop when I say, and make as little noise as ever you can.” I got up. That shadow movement I’d seen was itching at me. “You make up your mind, Mr. Loomis. I am leaving out of here when there’s a streak of gray in the sky. You want to go along, you all be ready, because that’s when I’m going.”
Oh, he didn’t like it. He wasn’t even one bit happy with me, and I didn’t care. Fifty dollars was a lot of money, but a whole hide counted pretty high with me. Besides, I had a few dollars when I rode in, and I’d have most of it riding out.
Now, I hadn’t missed the girl’s name … Hume. And the man who supposedly hid that treasure in the Rabbit Ears was Nathan Hume. Some folks might consider that was just a coincidence, but not me.