“You’d have been a lot smarter if you’d given me a straight answer. I think you’re one of them.”
“You’re a damned liar,” I said. “You don’t think any such thing.”
He started to grab iron but that Winchester had him covered right where he lived.
“You boys sit tight,” I told the others. “If one of you makes a wrong move I’m going to kill your boss.”
“You ain’t got the guts,” he said, his tone ugly. “Kill him, boys.”
“Boss,” a slim, wiry man was talking, “that’s Logan Sackett.”
A bad reputation can get a man in a lot of trouble, but once in a while it can be a help. Dutch Brannenburg sort of eased back in his saddle and I saw his tongue touch his lips. Dry, I reckon.
“You know the tracks of your own horses,” I said, “and you can read sign. So don’t try to swing too wide a loop. Your hide punctures the same as any man’s.”
He reined his horse around. “You watch yourself, Sackett,” he said. “I don’t like you.”
“I’ll watch,” I said, “and when you come after my hide, you’d better hide behind more men.” He swung his horse around and swore, muttering in a low, vicious tone. “I don’t need any men, Sackett. I can take you myself … any time.”
“I’m here,” I said.
“Boss?” That slim man’s voice was pleading. “Those thieves are gettin’ away, boss.”
He swung his horse back to the trail. “So they are,” he said sharply, and led off down the trail.
That was a mean man, I told myself, and a man to watch. I’d crossed him, backed him down, made him look less than he liked to look in front of his men.
“Logan,” I said, “you’ve made you an enemy.” Well, here and yonder I had a few. Maybe I could stand one more.
Nevertheless, I made myself a resolution to get nowhere near Dutch Brannenburg. Then or ever.
He had come west like many another pioneer and had taken up land where it meant a fight to hold it. Trouble was, after he’d used force a few times to hold his own against enemies it became a way of life to him. He liked being known as a hard, ruthless man. He liked being known as a driver. He had earned his land and earned his way, but now he was pushing, walking hard-shouldered against the world. He had begun in the right, but he had come to believe that because he did it, whatever he did, it was right to do. He made his own decisions as to who was criminal and who was not, and along with the horse and cow thieves he had wiped out a few innocent nesters and at least one drifting cowhand.
I’d been on the way and in the way, and only my own alterness had kept me alive. Now I’d made him stand back and he would not forgive.
The trail I’d followed had lost whatever appeal it had, and I mounted up and rode up the mountain, skirting the aspen and weaving my way through the scattered spruce that lay beyond. Somewhere up ahead was an old Indian trail that followed along the acres of the mountains above timberline. I was gambling Brannenburg did not know it. His place was down in the flat land, and I had an idea he wasn’t the type to ride the mountains unless it was demanded of him or unless he was hunting somebody.
The trail was there, a mere thread winding its way through a soggy green meadow scattered with fifty varieties of wild flowers, red, yellow, and blue.
Twice I saw deer … a dozen of them in one bunch, and on a far-off slope, several elk. There were marmots around all the while and a big eagle who kept me company for half the morning. I never did decide whether he was hoping I’d kill something he could share or if he was just lonely.
The peaks around me were ragged and gray, bare rock clean of snow except for a patch here and there in a shady place. Nor was there sound but that from the hoofs of my horse on the soft earth or occasionally glancing off a bit of rock.
It was the kind of trail I had ridden many tunes, and as on other times I rode with caution. A lonely trail it was, abandoned long since by the Indians who made it, but no doubt their ghosts were still walking along these mountainsides, through these same grasses.
Once I saw a silver-tip grizzly in the brush at the edge of the timber. He stood up to get a better view of me, a huge beast, probably weighing half a ton or more, but he was a hundred yards off and unafraid. My horse snorted and shied a bit, but continued on.
There were lion tracks in the trail. They always take the easiest way, even here where there are few obstructions. I’d not get a sight of the lion—they know the man smell and edge away from it.
It was mid-afternoon before I stopped again. I found a stream of snow water running off the ridge and an abandoned log cabin built by some prospector. There was a tunnel on the mountainside, and a pack rat had been in the cabin, but nobody else had been there for a long time.
I drank from the stream and left the cabin alone, not caring to be trapped inside a building, the first place anyone would look. I went back in a little cluster of pines and built my fire where the smoke would be dissipated by the evergreen branches above.
The coffee tasted good. I ate some more of the bread and chewed some jerky while drinking it, and I watched the trail below and the valley opening into the mountains, smoky with distance.
Two days later I rode into Brown’s Hole from the east.
The Hole is maybe thirty-three or four miles long by five to six miles wide, watered by the Green River and a few creeks that tumble down off Diamond Mountain or one of the others to end up in the Green. It is sagebrush country, with some timber on the mountains and cedar along the ridges.
The man I was looking for was Isom Dart … at least that was the name he was using. His real name had been Huddleston … Ned, I think. He was a black man, and he had ridden with Tip Gault’s outfit until riders from the Hat put them out of business.
I planned to stop at Mexican Joe Herrara’s cabin on Vermilion Creek. Riding into the Hole I had come on a man driving some cows. When I asked about Dart, he looked me over careful-like and then said I might find him at Herrara’s cabin, but to be careful. If Mexican Joe got mad at me and started sharpening his knife, I would be in trouble.
I was hunting trouble, but as for Joe, I’d heard about him before and I didn’t much care whether he got mad or not.
There didn’t seem to be anyone about when I got to the cabin. I pulled up and stepped down.
6
As I tied my horse to the corral with a slipknot, I kept an eye on the cabin. Men of that stamp would surely have heard me come up, and right now they were undoubtedly sizing me up.
In those days no law ever rode into the Hole. Most law around the country didn’t even know where it was or just how to get in, and they’d find little to welcome them, although a few honest cattlemen like the Hoy outfit were already there.
Hitching my gun belt into a comfortable position, I walked up to the door.
As I came up on the rock slab that passed for a stoop the door opened suddenly and a Mexican was standing there. He wasn’t Herrara, not big enough or mean enough.
“Buenos dias, amigo,” I said, “is the coffee on?”
He looked at me a moment, then stepped aside. There were three men in the cabin when I stepped in. I spotted Herrara at once, a tall, fierce-looking Mexican, not too dark. Sitting at the table with him was a white man who had obviously been drinking too much. He looked soft, not like a rider. There was another Mexican squatting on his heels in the corner.
“Passin’ through,” I commented, “figured you might have coffee.”
Nobody spoke for a minute; Herrara just stared at me, his black eyes unblinking. Finally, the Anglo said, “There’s coffee, and some beans, if you’d like. May I help you?”
He went to the stove in the corner and picked up the pot, filling a cup for me. Pulling back a chair, I sat down. The big white man brought me the coffee and a dish of beef and beans.