“Can’t tell about that. I once found a wolf carcass in a cave that must have
been there years an’ years. My brother an’ me, we’re readers of sign. We’ll find
the answer.
“Fact is, I spent some time a few years ago over on the Vallecitos. I still have
some claims over there.”
He looked up, surprised. “Are you that Sackett? I heard of some shooting over
there.”
“I done my share. I came in first, and I was the last to go.”
He seemed restless, and I had a feeling he wanted us to go. A couple of times I
heard rustling around in the kitchen and I wondered how much Juana knew of all
this.
Finally, I got up. Orrin followed suit, and Judas and the Tinker wandered over
to the door. “One thing, Mr. Petrigrew,” I said, “if you had trouble with Baston
and Swan, you’d best keep a gun handy.”
He looked up sharply. “Why’s that?”
“Because they’re comin’ along right behind us. I don’t know why they want to
come back, but they do. They may figure they missed something up yonder, and
they’ll be asking questions around.”
“What?” he got up, struggling to his feet, weaving a little, and if ever I saw
fear in a man’s eyes, it was in his.
“They’re coming here?”
“Not more than two days behind us, probably less. Yes, they are coming, and if I
were you I’d get myself out of sight, and your wife, too. Better not leave
anything they can get hold of.”
We started back to San Luis where we scouted the town for Andre Baston and Swan,
but there was nothing to be seen of them. I was coming out of the cantina,
however, when I saw a man down by the corral. He turned sharp away when I
glimpsed him, so I took notice. He looked an almighty lot like one of the hands
who had ridden with Charley McCaire.
That set me to pondering. McCaire was a hard-as-nails man, used to riding
roughshod over anything got in his way. He’d lost the game with us, but would he
take it?
I wasn’t worried about him tangling with Tyrel. Nobody worried about Tyrel.
Tyrel wasn’t the kind you expected would be taken advantage of. He was a fair
man, and not a trouble-hunting man, but I never knew anybody as ready to take up
trouble if it came his way.
If Charley McCaire hunted trouble with Tyrel he just had my sympathy … him or
his boys. As for Tyrel’s vaqueros, they liked him, and if he told them to they’d
damp down the fires of hell.
Of course, that puncher, if it was him I saw, he might just have quit and
drifted.
Still, I was going to keep my eyes open and give thought to my back trail.
We would be pulling out with daybreak, riding west into the mountains, and
everyone turned in early against the riding to come.
One more time I went out to the corral to take a look around. All was quiet. The
house was dark, the horses nickered a little when I came close because I was
always packing little odds and ends of grub for them. This time I had a carrot
for each, and I stood there by the rail listening to them crunch, when I heard a
faint drum of hooves.
Now I was wearing a shootin’ iron. So I just sort of faded back against the
corral bars and scrunched down by one of the poles to get sight of whoever it
was before they saw me.
The rider slowed down, walked the horse into the yard, hesitated, then slid down
and trailed the reins. It was a woman.
I stood up and said, “Ma’am?”
She turned sharp, but stood her ground. “Who is it?”
I knew the voice, and it was Juana Pettigrew. “Tell Sackett, ma’am. I was just
checking my horses.”
“Here.” She came at me and thrust something into my hand. “Take that, and say
nothing.” She looked up at me. “You are good people, you Sacketts. Tina has told
me of you, and my cousin once worked for your brother at Mora. I want to help,
and it is wrong for my husband not to give you this.” Then she was in the saddle
once more and headed back. It was a long, hard ride she had ahead of her.
Inside the house I squatted by the light from the fire. In my hand was a large
brown envelope like I’d seen them use for deeds and the like. It was fastened
with a twist of string, and I opened it.
What I saw stopped me cold. It was pa’s handwriting.
For a moment there I just held those papers in my hand, my heart beating heavy.
Pa’s handwriting … and pa had been dead for twenty years … or had he?
Juana had brought this to me, which meant that Nativity Pettigrew had it in his
possession. He knew pa had a family, so why had he made no effort to get it to
us?
April 20: Weather bad. Hard wind, rain turning to snow. Snow still on the
mountains but Bontemps is wishful to proceed. He’s got enthusazm enough for two.
Don’t like this. Trouble has a smell to it, and Baston’s a hard man. I’ve had
words with Swan twixt over the way he treats Angus.
April 23: Clearing. Trail muddy, grass very wet. Horses about stove up. Nobody
knows mountains but me. They’ve no idea how miserable it can be up yonder this
time of year. They won’t show me the map. If it’s like most it just is no good.
I read on. The paper was old and rotting and some of the words were blurred.
April 26: In camp. Third day. Trail belly-deep in snow, drifts very deep. Only
the fact they couldn’t find anything in the snow is keeping them in camp.
Situation growing touchy. Pierre straightened Andre out today. Thought there’d
be … Angus steady. Pettigrew talks a lot, does his work. No idea where he
stands.
April 29: Moved on today. Ground soggy with snow-melt. Occasional sleet.
April 30: Showed me map. No good. Hadn’t been for ma and boys I’d not be here.
Chance to get enough to settle down, education, home for ma. Landmarks poorly
chosen, same from several points, important tree gone.
May 4: In camp on mountain. Three days scouting, digging. Nothing. Utes scouting
us. Pierre won’t … Utes or lack of treasure. Swan sullen, Andre furious.
Pettigrew quiet, secretive.
Orrin raised up from bed. “What is it?”
“Kind of a daybook. Pa’s. Juana Pettigrew brought it to us. I ain’t read it all
yet.”
“Better get some sleep. I think we’re riding up to trouble. Whatever’s there
won’t have changed by tomorrow.”
“You’re right.” I was dead tired. We’d covered a lot of country and tomorrow
there’d be more. Pa wasn’t tellin’ much, but a body could see how touchy things
had become. Swan an’ Andre sore, Pettigrew kind of bidin’ his time, and Pierre
still unwillin’ to believe he’d lost the pot. Only maybe they hadn’t. Pettigrew
come out of it with enough to buy a ranch and stock it. Now that mightn’t take
so much, but it surely cost something.
Stretched out in bed I pondered the daybook. Pa wasn’t much hand to write. He’d
had some schoolin’ and he’d read a lot, although his grammar was only a mite
better’n mine.
Why would he write that stuff? Was there more to it than met the eye? Was he
tryin’ to leave us a message, feelin’ he might not get back? But pa wasn’t apt
to think that way. He was a tough, capable man—but careful, too. Maybe the
daybook was in case—just in case something went wrong.
Why had Juana brought it to me? Because it was pa’s? Because it was intended for
us? Or because she didn’t want Pettigrew going off to the mountains again?
Now why had I thought that? Did the book have a clue to where pa was? Or where
the gold might be?
Pettigrew came back with something, but Andre did not know it or he’d have
robbed him. Or Swan would have.
Yet Andre may have come back with something, too. Suppose they had found some of
the gold and not all of it?
CHAPTER XIV
Since reaching San Luis we had used Esteban’s horses, but now we saddled our own
mounts and were gone with the sun’s rising. Clear and cool the morning was, and
I breathed deeply of the fresh air from off the mountains
Westward we rode, seeing the peaks loom up before us, the twin peaks of Blanca
and Baldy looking from some angles like one gigantic mountain The old Indian
traditions speak of them as one long, long ago.
We rode and we camped and rode again. At night I read to them from pa’s daybook,