A man riding wild country keeps his eyes open for camping places. He may not
need one at that spot on the way out, but it might be just what the doctor
ordered on the way back. Camps, fuel, defensive positions, water, landmarks,
travel-sign … a man never stops looking.
We’d traveled steady, if not fast, and we’d lost time here and there trying to
leave nothing an Indian would care to follow, yet I was uneasy. Too many
attempts had been made to do away with us, and it wasn’t likely we’d gotten off
scot-free.
Leaving camp, I wandered off upstream toward where the creek came down from
under the cap rock. It was good sweet water and there wasn’t much of that
hereabouts, for most of the streams were carrying gypsum, or salts, or something
of the kind.
Andre Baston had evidently been with the parry when it reached here, so he would
know of this water and would come to it. How many he would have with him I
wouldn’t be able to guess, but he would pick up some hard cases along the way
and he’d be prepared for trouble.
The feel of the country isn’t right, and something inside tells me, warns me.
What is it? Instinct? But what is instinct? Is it the accumulation of everything
I’ve ever seen or smelled tickling a little place in my memory?
This is the kind of place I like. It is one of those lonely, lovely places you
have to go through hell to reach. Many a man’s home is just that, I expect.
Thin water running over sand-water so clear the whole bottom is revealed to you,
and even a track left an hour ago may still be there … like that one.
The track of a horse, and beyond it another. I waded the stream, following them.
A slight smudge of a hoof on the grassy bank, tracks going away toward the
cliffs. I was careful not to let my eyes look that way, but turned and strolled
casually along the stream bank for thirty or forty yards, and then I walked back
to camp.
I stopped twice on the way back. Once to pick up some sticks for fuel, another
time to look at a place where a rabbit had been sleeping. At camp I dropped the
fuel.
Orrin had gone off downstream, and I had to get him back.
“Tracks,” I told them. “Get your rifles and keep a careful eye open all around.
That was a shod horse, so they’re here—or somebody is.”
“How old was that track?” the Tinker wondered.
“Hour—maybe more. That water’s not running so fast. It isn’t carrying much silt,
so it’s hard to say. A track like that will lose its shape pretty fast, so I’d
surmise not over an hour, and we’ve been here about half that time—maybe more.
“My guess would be they’ve seen us coming and they figured we wouldn’t pass up a
good camp spot like this. I think they are out there now … waiting.”
I took my Winchester, and I shoved two handfuls of shells into my pockets. I was
already wearing a cartridge belt, every loop loaded.
“Take nothing for granted. They may wait until night and they may come just any
time.” Thinking about it, I said, “Make out to be collecting fuel, but sort of
pick up around. Get everything packed except grub and the frying pan. We may
move suddenlike.”
The brush was thicker downstream, and there were more cottonwoods and willows. A
few paths ran away through the brush—deer, buffalo, and whatnot. Moving out, I
hung my Winchester over my shoulder by its sling, just hanging muzzle down from
my left shoulder, my left hand holding the barrel. A lift of the left hand, the
muzzle goes up, the butt comes down, and the right hand grabs the trigger guard.
With practice, a man can get a rifle into action as quickly as a six-gun.
Thick blackberry brush, some willows, and some really big cottonwoods. Orrin’s
tracks were there, and then Orrin.
He turned when he saw me coming. “Whatever happened, must have happened there—in
the mountains, I mean, or on the way back.”
“You think they found the gold?”
“Found it, or sign of it,” he said. “Maybe it was late in the season before they
located anything, and all of a sudden Andre or Pierre or somebody suddenly got
the idea they should have it all.”
“Andre got back, and Hippo Swan. They must have been the youngsters of the
group.”
Quietly then, I told him of the horse tracks and my feeling about them. We
started back toward camp, taking our time and returning by a somewhat different
route. We were only a few hundred yards downstream, but I’d caught no pattern to
Andre’s thinking, so I’d no way of knowing how he might choose to attack.
He was a fighting man, that much I knew, and I gathered that he’d not step back
from murder. He didn’t strike me as a man of honor, and from what I’d heard of
his dueling and of his approach to LaCroix, I figured him to be a man to take
any advantage.
“Orrin, there’s no use in setting by an’ lettin’ him choose his time. Besides,
we’re lookin’ to find what happened to pa, not to have a shootout with Andre
Baston.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“That come nightfall we Injun out of here, back south for the Red, follow it
right up the canyon as far as we can go, then take off across the Staked Plains
for Tucumcari or somewhere yonder.”
We left our fire burning where the grass wouldn’t catch, and we Injuned out of
there, holding to the brush until it was fairly dark, then heading off to the
south. For four mounted men with packhorses we moved fast and light and made
mighty little sound.
By sunup we were twenty miles off, following along the route McClellan had taken
in 1852. We camped, rested an hour or two, then turned west across the plains
toward the canyon of the Red.
Finally the sandy bottom of the stream played out and the water was sweet where
it ran over rock. The last tributaries must have been bringing the gypsum into
the water.
We found a trail where a steep climb and a scramble would get us out of the
canyon and we took off across country. I knew about where Tucumcari Mountain
lay, a good landmark for old Fort Bascom. Twice we made dry camp, and once we
found a spring. We stopped again when we met a sheepman who provided us with
tortillas and frijoles. Our horses were taking a beating, so when we spotted a
herd of horses and some smoke, we came down off the mesa and cut across the
desert toward them.
Orrin eased his horse closer to mine. “I don’t like the look of it,” he said.
“That’s no ordinary bunch of stock.”
We slowed down to come up to the herd at a walk. We saw four men: three
hard-looking white men and a Mexican with twin bandolier loaded with rifle
cartridges. They were set up as if for a fight.
“Howdy!” I said affably. “You got any water?”
The sandy-haired white man jerked his head toward some brush. “There’s a seep.”
He was looking at our horses. Hard-ridden as they were, they still showed their
quality. “Want to swap horses?”
“No,” Orrin said, “just a drink and we’ll drift.” As we rode by I glanced at the
brands, something any stockman will do as naturally as clearing his throat. At
the seep I swung my horse, facing them. “Orrin, you an’ the Tinker drink. I
don’t like this outfit.”
“See those brands?” he said. “That’s all full-grown stock, but there isn’t a
healed brand in the lot.”
“They’ve just worked them over,” I agreed. “They’ll hold them here until they’re
healed, then drift them out of the country.”
“There’s some good stock there,” the Tinker said. “Some of the best.”
When Orrin and the Tinker were in the saddle, I stepped down with Judas Priest.
He drank, and then me, and as I got up from the water, Orrin said, “Watch it,
boy,” to me.
They were coming toward us.
I waited for them. They didn’t know who we were, but they had an eye for our
horses, all fine stock although ganted down from hard riding over rough country.
“Where you from?” asked the sandy-haired man.
“Passin’ through,” I replied mildly, “just passin’ through.”
“We’d like to swap horses,” he said. “You’ve good stock. We’ll swap two for
one.”
“With a bill of sale?” I suggested.
He turned sharp on me. He had a long neck, and when he turned like that he
reminded me of a turkey buzzard. “What’s that mean?”
“Nothin’,” I replied mildly. “On’y my brother here, he’s a lawyer. Likes to see