“Milo was always a hand. He was quick to shoot.”
“Yes, ma’am, or I’d be dead. He seen ’em sneakin’ up on us before I did an’ he cut loose. Yes, ma’am, Milo Talon could shoot. He had said his brother was better than him.”
“Barnabas? At targets, maybe, or with a rifle, but Barnabas was never up to Milo when it came to hoedown-an’-scrabble shootin’.”
There was silence in the room. “Ma’am? There’s coffee settin’ yonder. Mightn’t we have some?”
She got up, placing the pistol in a worn holster slung from her hips. “What ever am I thinkin’ of? Been so long since I had a guest I don’t recall how to act. Of course, there’s coffee.”
She started toward the door, then paused. “Young man, would you mind taking a look out yonder? If you see anybody creepin’ up … shoot him or her as the case might be.”
She lighted the other lamp in the kitchen and then carried the lamp from the big front room back to join it.
“Nobody coming, ma’am. Looks like they’re holed up against the rain.”
“Fools! They might have had me. I fallen asleep in yonder. Heard the floor creak as you stepped into the kitchen or somewhere. They’re a lazy lot. Gunslingers aren’t what they used to be. Was a time you could hire fighters, but this lot that Planner has are a mighty sorry bunch.”
She turned, a tall old woman in a faded gray dress and a worn maroon sweater. She looked at me, then sniffed. “I might of knowed it. Clinch Mountain, ain’t you?”
“What was that, ma’am?” I was startled.
“I said you’re a Clinch Mountain Sackett, ain’t you? I’d read your sign anywhere, boy. You’re probably one of those no-account sons of Tarbil Sackett, ain’t you?”
“Grandson, ma’am.”
“I thought so. Knowed your folks, every durn last one of them, and a sorry lot they were, good for nothing but fightin’ an’ makin’ moonshine whiskey.”
“Are you from Tennessee, ma’am?”
“Tennessee? You’re durned tootin’, I am! I’m a Clinch Mountain Sackett myself! Married Talon an’ came west an’ we set up here. Fact is, a cousin of mine helped put this place together, and he was a Sackett. He went off somewhere in the mountains and never come back.
“Traipsin’ just like you, he was, traipsin’ after some fool story of gold. Left some boys back in Tennessee, and a wife that was too good for him.
“Come in an’ set, son, you’re among home folks!”
3
It was comfortable in that old kitchen, and old as it was the place was neat as a man could wish. The floor was scrubbed and the copper pots shone brightly with light reflected by that coal-oil lamp.
The coffee smelled right good. Even though I’d had a cup at the Bon Ton down in town, this here was better, better by a whole lot.
“They said down in town you had you some hands,” I told her.
She chuckled. “I aimed for them to think so. I been alone for nearly a year now. Bill Brock, he picked up some lead last time we had us a fight with those folks, and he died. I buried him out yonder.” She nodded toward the area behind the house. “Figured to move him to a proper grave when the time came.”
She taken a cup of coffee after she’d poured for us and then she came and set down. Her face was lined and old enough to have worn out two or three bodies but her eyes held fire. “You be Logan Sackett. Well, I d’clare! You a puncher?”
“I’m whatever it takes to get the coon,” I said. “I guess I ain’t much, Aunt Em. I’m too driven to driftin’ an’ gun play. Why, even that horse I’m ridin’ yonder ain’t mine. Come time to leave back yonder down the country I hadn’t no time to buy a horse nor the money to do it with. This one was handy so I taken to his saddle and lit a shuck out of there.”
She nodded. “I’ve seen it a time or two. Come daylight you go yonder to the barn an’ turn that horse loose. He’ll take time but he’ll fetch up back home sooner or later. We’ve horses aplenty here on the Empty.”
“I wasn’t figurin’ on—”
“Don’t you worry none. There’s enough rooms in this here house for the whole of Grant’s army, and then there’s the bunkhouse. We ain’t short of grub, although we could do with some fresh meat now and again. No reason you can’t hole up here until the weather clears.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Only I was sort of figurin’ on Californy. I been there a time or two and when winter comes I just naturally get chillblains. I thought maybe I’d head for Los Angeles, or maybe Frisco.”
“I can pay,” Aunt Em said. “You needn’t worry none about that.”
“I wouldn’t take money from kinfolk. It’s just that I—”
“Logan Sackett, you be still! You’re not movin’ a step until the weather shapes up. If you’re worried about those folks out there, you just forget it I can handle them, one at a time or all to once.”
“It ain’t that, it’s just that—”
“All right then, it’s settled. I’ll get you some blankets.”
Looked to me like I wasn’t going to see Californy for some time yet. That old lady just wasn’t easy to talk to. She had her own mind and it was well made up ahead of time. Anyway, I was kind of curious to see what that outfit out front looked like.
“If I’m going to stay,” I said, “I’ll keep watch. You two go yonder and sleep.”
When they had gone I got me a mattress off a bed in one of the rooms and laid it out on the floor, then I fetched blankets and settled in for the night.
Outside the rain beat down on the roof and walls of the old house, and the lightning flashed and flared, giving a man a good view of what was happening at the gate and beyond. And that was just nothing.
The lamp was in the kitchen and I left it there, wanting no light behind me when I looked out. After watching for a while, I decided nobody was likely to make a move for a time, so I went back and stoked up the fire in the kitchen range and added a mite of water to the coffee so’s there’d be a-plenty.
Off the living room there was a door opened into what must have been old Reed Talon’s office. There were more books in there than I’d ever seen at one time in my life, and there were some sketches like of buildings and bridges, all with figures showing measurements written in. I couldn’t make much of some of them, although others were plain enough. Studying those sketches made me wonder how a man would feel who built something like a bridge or a boat or a church or the like. It would be something to just stand back and look up at it and think he’d done it. Made a sight more sense than wandering around the country settin’ up in the middle of a horse.
Time to time I catnapped. Sometimes I’d prowl a mite, and a couple of times I put on that slicker and went outside.
There was a wide porch on the house, roofed over, but with a good long parapet or wall that was four feet high. Talon had put loopholes in that wall a man could shoot from, and he’d built wisely and well.
When I came in I sat down with coffee, and then I heard those old shoes a-scufflin’ and here come Em Talon.
“Well, Logan, it’s good to see a Sackett again. It’s been a good many years.”
“I hear tell some of them have moved up around Shalako, out in western Colorado,” I suggested. “Fact is, I know there’s several out there. Cumberland Sacketts,” I added, “good folks, too.”
“The man who helped pa had some boys back in Tennessee. I often wonder what became of him.” She filled her cup. “His oldest boy was named for William Tell.”
“Met him. He’s a good man, and he’s sure enough hell on wheels with a six-shooter. No back-up to him.”
“Never was back-up in no Sackett I can call to mind. I reckon there were some who lacked sand, but there’s a rotten apple in every barrel.”
She was a canny old woman, and we set there over coffee, with once in a while a look out to see if anybody was coming in on us. We talked of the Clinch Mountains, the Cumberland Gap country, and folks who’d moved west to hunt for land.
“Talon was a good man,” she said. “I married well, if I do say it. When he first rode up to my gate I knowed he was the man for me, or none.