man said.
“Thank you. Anything less would not fit the surroundings.”
“You are a stranger here?”
“I have been here more than once. But this is the first opportunity I have had
to relax in a long while.” Orrin watched the waiter open his wine, tasted it,
then said to the old man, “I am interested in some mining claims in the San Juan
Mountains in Colorado. I have heard rumors to the effect that people from New
Orleans located mines in that area.”
The old man smiled, “I doubt that, sir. There was much talk of gold, of course,
and stories of discoveries in the Far West, but nothing came of it, nothing at
all.”
“Men did go out there, however?”
“A few. Adventurers or fools. Oh, yes! I believe the French government did send
a military detachment to the West at one time, but that was very long ago.”
“Did you know any of those who went west?”
“No … no, I think not. We were planting sugar then and were much too busy to
think of such things. And I believe very few did go.”
“What of Pierre?” His wife suggested.
“Pierre?” he frowned. “Oh, yes! But that was later. He never came back, so we
never did know what he went after, exactly. Some wild-goose chase, I expect. The
Bastons were a mixed lot. Not very steady, you know. Chopping about from one
thing to another. They still are, for that matter.”
“Charles!”
“Well, it’s true, and you know it. That Andre, for example, he is nothing but
a—”
Suddenly a man was standing by the table. “You were saying, LaCroix?”
Orrin glanced up. The man was tall and broad, strongly built with a face that
might have been carved from granite. The eyes were cold and blue, the face
clean-shaven but for a waxed mustache.
“You were speaking of me, LaCroix?”
Orrin was shocked when he glanced at the old man, for his face had gone white
and stiff. He was frightened, but even as Orrin looked, the man’s pride asserted
itself and he started to rise.
Instantly, Orrin was on his feet. “I am afraid you have the advantage of me,
sir. We were talking of my old neighbors, Andy and Bert Masters. Do you know
them, then?”
“Who?”
Andre Baston faced sharply around.
“If you know them,” Orrin said, smiling, “you’ll understand. Andy, he was a
moonshiner. Came from Tennessee and settled down here in the bayous and took to
makin’ whiskey—by the way, what did you say your name was? Mine is Sackett.
Orrin Sackett.”
“I’m Andre Baston. I do not understand you, sir.” Andre’s tone was cold. “I
understood this man to say—”
“Sure you did. The Masters were a no-good lot. I never did figure that was even
their name. Even the ‘shine they made wasn’t much, but one thing I’ll give ol’
Andy. He had him a couple of the best coon-hounds—”
“I am afraid there is some mistake,” Andre said coldly. He stared into Orrin’s
eyes. “You, sir, I do not like.”
Orrin chuckled. “Now, isn’t that a coincidence? I was just about to say the same
thing. I don’t like you, either, but while we’re on the subject, what did happen
to Pierre?”
Andre’s face went pale with shock, then reddened. Before he could speak, Orrin
said, “Not that I care, but folks ask questions when a man disappears.
Especially a man like Pierre. He wasn’t alone, was he? Man should never go into
wild country alone. Of course, that always raises the question of what happened
to those who were with him? Did any of them get back?”
Orrin thrust out his hand. “Nice talking to you, Mr. Baston, maybe we can sit
down for a real confidential talk one of these times.”
Abruptly, Orrin sat down, and Andre Baston walked away.
The old man was sunken in his chair, his face gray. His wife looked across at
Orrin. “Thank you, oh, thank you! You saved his life, you know. They have never
liked us, and Andre Baston is a duelist.”
“He is?” Orrin glanced at Andre. He was seating himself at the adjoining table.
“Was he with Pierre on that trip west?”
For a moment there was no reply, and then the woman spoke softly. “We must go
now, monsieur. It is late and my husband is tired.”
LaCroix got to his feet slowly. For a moment Orrin thought he was about to fall,
but he stiffened his shoulders. Then he looked down at Orrin. “I am not sure. I
believe he was.”
Orrin got to his feet. “I have enjoyed the conversation. If I can be of any
assistance—”
“Thank you.”
He sat down again, watching them walk slowly away, two fine, proud people.
Suddenly, a voice spoke. “Mr. Sackett? I am Fanny Baston, and my uncle is very
sorry for the way he acted. He believed it was his name he heard.”
Orrin Sackett looked up into the eyes of one of the most beautiful girls he had
ever seen. Quickly, he got to his feet. “It was a natural mistake,” he said.
“We must make amends. We would not wish you to leave New Orleans thinking us
inhospitable.” She put her hand on his. “Mr. Sackett, would you come to dinner
at our home? Thursday night?”
“Of course,” he said. “I’d be glad to come.” When she seated herself at her own
table, she looked at her brother and uncle. “There!” she said. “Now it is up to
you! What did we come here for, anyway?”
CHAPTER II
We Sacketts been going down to New Orleans ever since there was a town yonder.
This time I wasn’t going to see the lights or dance the fandango, but to help
Orrin work out a trail. The trail along which we had to read sign was twenty
years cold, and it was the trail of our own father.
Pa was what you’d call a wandering man, a mountain man in his later years, who
understood the trapping of fur and how to get along with the red man.
He had been to the shining mountains a time or two, but the last time he never
come home. That wasn’t so unusual as to raise sweat on a man, for those were
perilous times, and many a man went west and nobody saw anything of him after
that but maybe his hair at some Indian’s belt.
We boys knew the country ways, and we figured pa was thrown from his horse
somewhere on the high plains, got caught without water, or run short of powder
and lead with the Indians closing in. There was a sight of things could happen
to a body in western lands, and betwixt us we’d come up against most of them.
The trouble was with ma.
She was growing old now, and with the passing of years her memories turned more
and more to pa, and to wondering what had become of him. She was fearful he
might be stove up and helpless somewhere back in the hills, or maybe held
hostage by some Indians. Of a night ma didn’t sleep very well, and she’d set up
in her old rocker and worry about pa.
Now pa was a knowing kind of a man. He could make do with mighty little, and,
given time, he could edge himself out of any kind of a fix. We boys figured that
if pa was alive he’d come home, one way or t’other.
We were living in New Mexico now. Tyrel was trying to sell his holdings near
Mora, figuring on moving west to the new town of Shalako. Orrin was busy with
his law practice, but he said he could take some time, and I guess I was
actually free to roam. Anyway, no woman, except ma, would worry for me.
“I’ll go to New Orleans, Tell,” Orrin told me, “and I’ll check what records I
can find. When you come along down I’ll try to have a starting place.”
The three of us set down with ma to talk over pa’s last days at home to find
some clue to just where he was going. The Rockies are a wide and wonderful bunch
of mountains, but they aren’t just one range. There are hundreds of them, so
where in the high-up hills do you begin to hunt for a man?
Do you start hunting sign in the Black Hills or the Big Belts? The Absarokas,
Sawatch, or Sangre de Cristos? Do you search the Greenhorns, the Big Horns, Wind
Rivers, San Juans, La Platas, the Needles, Mogollons, Lintas, Crazy Mountains,
or Salish? The Abajos, Henrys, Peloncillos, the Chiricahuas, or the Snake Range?
Do you cross the Black Rock Desert or the Painted? Do you search down in Hell’s
Canyon? On the Green or the Popo Agie?
Where do you hunt for one man where armies might be lost?
New Orleans was a far piece from the fur-trapped streams where the beaver build,