see him there at the body of the unconscious man. Up above was a cave, shelter
for the horses and himself, a good place for a fire, and fuel for it. And down
below there an old man standing in the falling snow.
A time or two I’d had to carry unconscious men. It was far from easy. Up a slope
like that? Not many men could manage it. Probably not one in a hundred.
What to do? The wind was rising, snow was falling, and with the rising wind the
cold would grow more penetrating. Maybe the man would die, anyway. Perhaps he
was almost dead. Why risk his life to save a stranger who was dying, anyway?
“To climb alone would be all. I left the man, and I climbed up. It was only a
little way—a hundred feet, I think, perhaps a little more, you know?
“I got my blanket roll and I slid back down. Then into the snow I dug a hole. I
built high the walls of snow around us, and I gathered sticks and laid some down
and built upon them a fire.
“I rolled the man upon my bed, and the night long I kept the fire going, and I
was alone so I talked to him. I talked to this man. I told him he was a lot of
trouble to me. I told him there was a nice warm cave above and because of him I
had to sit in the cold. I told him the only decent thing to do was to live.
“It was very cold … mucho brio, senor. I shivered, swung my arms, danced in
the snow, but most of the time I collected wood. There were fallen trees on that
slope. And just a little way from there was a tangle of branches.
“I tried to climb up again, but it was too slippery from other climbs, so I went
into the tangle and pulled myself up from tree to tree. Then I made a fire in
the cave. I must think of my horses, senor. They were good horses, mine and the
hurt man’s horse, and it was not their fault they were in this cold place. I
built a fire up there, and then I climbed down, and my fire down below was
almost gone. Again I put fuel on the coals, and it burned up.
“I looked at the man. I felt his arms and his legs. I moved them. Nothing seemed
broken, so only the head was hurt. I knew the man’s face.”
“Who was he, viejo? Who was the man?”
“It was Petgrew. And he did not die. He did not waste my time. He lived, senor.
By morning he was a little rojo. His face, senor, was flushed, and his breath
was better.”
“You saved him, then?”
“Ah? It was the good Lord who saved him, senor. I sat by him and kept the fire
warm. I kept the fire for the horses, too. Up and down, up and down … it was
the longest night, the coldest night, and I was afraid all would die. The man,
the horses, me.
“We were high up, senor. Perhaps ten thousand feet. You know what it is … the
cold.”
“And the man? Where is he?” I paused. “What became of him, viejo?”
He put a trembling hand on my sleeve. “He did not leave us. He is here.”
CHAPTER XIII
Morning lay bright upon the town when we rode out of the streets of San Luis.
The sky was a magnificent San Juan mountain blue, with puffs of white cloud
scattered about.
Sunlight touched the snow upon the distant peaksv and as we rode there were no
sounds but the beat of our horses’ hooves and the creak of saddle leather. We
four rode out with Esteban, rode west to the little ranch on the Rio Grande del
Norte.
It was an adobe house with projecting roof beams—a comfortable house of several
spacious rooms, a long barn, corrals, and a few fruit trees.
As we rode into the yard a man limped to the door, using a cane. He wore a
six-shooter rigged for a cross-draw. He was a stocky man with a round, pleasant
face, red cheeks, and a tuft of gray hair sticking up from the crown of his
head. His eyes went to Esteban and he waved. “Buenos dias, amigo!” he said
cheerfully. ” ‘Light an’ set!”
There was a measure of caution in the glance he gave us, and I thought his eyes
lingered on Orrin’s face, then mine.
It was cool inside the house. “Set,” he said. “I am Nativity Pettigrew,
Connecticut born, Missouri bred. Who might you be?”
“I am Orrin Sackett,” Orrin said, “and this here is my brother, William T.
Sackett.” He introduced the Tinker and Judas, then sat down.
“Mr. Pettigrew, you were with my father in the mountains?”
Pettigrew got out his pipe and loaded it with tobacco. He turned his head toward
an inner door, “Juana? Bring us some coffee, will you?”
He glanced around apologetically. “Don’t like to be waited on, but with this
game leg I don’t get around so well no more.” He tamped the tobacco firmly. “So
you’re Sackett’s boys, are you? I heard tell of you a time or two, figured soon
or late we’d come to meet.”
A pretty Mexican woman entered with a tray of cups and a coffeepot. “This here’s
Juana. We been married nigh onto nineteen year.”
We all arose hurriedly, acknowledging the introduction. She smiled—a soft,
pretty woman, and very shy.
“We’re tryin’ to find out what become of pa,” I explained. “Ma’s gettin’ on in
years, and she’s wishful to know.”
He smoked in silence for a moment. “It ain’t as easy as you think. I took a rap
on the skull up yonder and my memory gets kind of hazy. I do remember that
Baston, though, and Swan. Must’ve been one of them hit me.
“My horse spooked. Maybe they hit him, burned him, I don’t know what. Anyway, he
was always a nervous one and he just jumped right out there an’ fell. Last thing
I recalled, until several days later when I come to in the snow with that old
Mexican—he’s Juana’s grandpa—a-settin’ by the fire, tendin’ me like.
“Good man. Saved my life, so I just figured I’d never find better folks than
these, an’ I settled down right here. Bought this place off kinfolk of hers.”
“You had some money, then?”
Pettigrew smiled. It was a careful smile, and he looked down at his pipe, puffed
a couple of times, and said, “I had a mite. They knowed nothing of it or they’d
surely have taken it.”
“What was the last you saw of pa?”
Pettigrew shifted a little in his hide-bottomed chair. “He took us there, right
up Wolf Creek Pass to the mountain, but there was trouble making up. Your pa, he
was a quiet man, minded his own affairs, but he didn’t miss much. He got along
fine with Pierre Bontemps. The Frenchman was a fine man, a flighty one, but
strong, always ready to carry his share and more. Trouble didn’t develop until
we got up in the mountains along Wolf Creek.
“Bontemps had a map, but you know the wild country—unless a map’s laid out with
care she ain’t worth the match to burn it with.
“Whoever made that map made it quick, and either he made it with no ken of how
things are in the mountains or he was figuring on coming right back.
“We located some of the landmarks. One tree, all important to locating the gold,
was gone. One rock wasn’t shaped like it was supposed to be. Sackett found the
other half of it down in a canyon where it had weathered and fallen off. Upshot
of it was, we never found no gold.
“I had trouble with Baston, an’ I up an’ quit. I took off down the mountain. A
couple of days later, Swan an’ Baston caught up with me. They said they’d quit,
too.”
Orrin sat staring into the fire, listening. Finally he put down his cup. “And
you know nothing of what happened to pa?”
“No, sir. I don’t.”
I didn’t believe him. He was telling the truth up to a point, but he was holding
back on quite a lot. So I figured to shake him up a little. “It’s ma we want to
know for,” I said. “She’s an old woman, close on to her deathtime, an’ we are
wishful that she rest easy, content that pa’s gone on ahead of her to blaze the
trail.
“We can’t let it lay, and we ain’t about to. We’re goin’ to worry at this until
we find out what happened.”
“After so long a time you won’t find anything,” he muttered. He stared into his
empty cup. “Nothing lasts much, on them mountains.”