route to the high-line trail. That Ghost Trail, as some called it. A pebble
kicked from its place on the muddy path and a couple of partial tracks showed me
he was following along the trail.
This here was rifle country, most of it wide open, for the trees give out in the
high-up country. Trees were scattered hither and yon, singly or in bunches,
among some brush. Higher up the only trees had been barbered by the wind until
they looked like upturned brushes. Then there was grass and bare rock, the
far-away mountains on every hand, and over all the sky, always scattered with
white clouds.
If that hidin’ man was in a swivet to get himself killed he’d have to bring it
to me. Generally speaking I’m not a techous man, taking most things calm. When a
man is about to get shot at he’d better be calm. As much as he can be, at least.
Nobody looks favorably on the idea of being shot at.
Trouble was, it was such all-fired pretty country, a man had trouble keeping his
mind to it. And quiet? No sound but maybe an eagle, some distance off.
You’d think that in a bald out country like that there’d be no place to hide,
but there were places, and any one of them might hide that man. He’d held to the
path—a wise man holds to what trails he can find in the mountains. I picked up
sign here and there. He’d slowed down, and a couple of times he’d stopped to
catch breath or to ponder.
He knew come daybreak I’d be seekin’ his sign. I never minced about shootin’
when it had come to that. Back in the Tennessee hills nobody did. Many a girl
back yonder bloused her waist to carry a pistol, and we Sackett boys had been
toting shootin’ irons since we were as tall as pa’s belt.
A man walked wary facin’ up to a man like this one, so I held my rifle in two
hands and kept it right up there where I could shoot without wasting time.
The trail led past a couple of small pools of water, then took a sharp
right-hand switch to go out along the ridge toward the north. Spread out before
me was a sight of beautiful country that I knowed nothing about but tell of.
Folks around had talked of it. I’d heard some talk from Cap Rountree when we
were up on the Vallecitos that time, and from others here and there. I was
looking down Magnetic Gulch toward Bear Creek, and the bear-toothed mountains
opposite were Sharkstooth Peak, Banded Mountain, and beyond it the peak of
Hesperus.
From where I stood she dropped off some two thousand feet to the bottoms along
Bear Creek. I was twelve thousand feet up. I hunkered down behind some rocks,
sort of sizing things up before I moved out.
An eagle soared yonder toward the Sharkstooth, and as I looked, some elk came
out of the trees into open country and moved across a bench toward the north of
the gulch. Now something had moved those elk … they weren’t just a-playin’
“Skip to My Lou.” They hied themselves across the clearin’ and into the trees.
Might be a bear or a lion, they grow them big in these hills, especially the
grizzlies. The grizzly was big, and, when riled, he was mean, but he wouldn’t
last—because he was fearless. Until the white man came along with his rifle-guns
the grizzly was king of the world. He walked where he had a mind to, and nobody
trifled with his temper. He couldn’t get used to man, although lately he’d
become cautious. Maybe too late.
The ridge trail led along the west side of the mountain along here. A man with a
rifle would have to be a good shot, used to mountain country.
I stood up and went down into the trees just north of the gulch. When I got into
the trees I hunkered down and listened. There was only the wind, the eternal
wind, moving along the high-up peaks, liking them as much as we did.
The grass smelled good. I looked at the rough, gray bark of an old tree, peeling
a mite here and there. I saw where a pika had been feeding, and I looked off
down the sunlit slope and saw nothing. Then I turned toward the dark clump of
spruce further down the slope. I felt suddenly hungry and I stood up and put my
left hand into my pocket for some jerky.
I put my rifle down against a limb and boosted the bottom of the pocket a little
to get at the jerky. And then from behind me I heard that voice. “Got you,
Sackett! Turn around and die!”
Well, I didn’t figure he meant to sing me no lullabies, nor the words to
“Darlin’ Cory,” so when I turned around my hand was movin’ and I hauled out that
ol’ .44, eared her back and let ‘er bang.
He had a rifle and when I turned I was lookin’ right down the barrel. I just
said to myself, Tell Sackett, you’ll die like your pa done, lonesomelike and
hunted down. But that .44 was a pretty good gun. She knew her piece and she
spoke it, clear and sharp. I felt the whiff of his bullet.
He’d missed. The best of us do it, but a body hadn’t better do so when the chips
are down and you’ve laid out your hand on the table with no way but to win or
die.
My bullet took him. It took him right where he lives, and the second one done
the same like it wanted company.
He couldn’t believe he could miss. Maybe he was too sure of it. I stood there, a
long, tall man from the Tennessee hills with my pistol in my fist, and I watched
him go.
He wanted to shoot again, but that first shot had done something to him, cut his
spinal cord, maybe, for his hands kind of opened up and the rifle slided into
the grass.
“Nativity Pettigrew,” I said, “where did you bury pa?”
His voice was hoarse. “There’s a green hillside where a creek runs down at the
base of Banded Mountain. You’ll find him there at the foot of a rock, a finger
that points at the sky, and if you look sharp you’ll find his grave and the
marker I carved with my hands.
“He had my gold and he had to die, but there’s no gainsaying he tried … I
liked him, lad, but I shot him dead and buried him there where he fell.
“Beat as he was, and wounded bad, he crawled over the mountain to get me. It was
him or me, there at the last, and I carry the lead he gave me.”
He lay there dying, his eyes open wide to the sun, and I hated him not. He’d
played a rough game and, when the last cards were laid down, he lost. But it
might have been me.
“When we get the gold out, I’ll give some to your wife. She’s a good woman,” I
told him.
“Please,” he said.
He died there, and I’d bury him where he fell.
When I came up to the campfire, they were sitting around and waiting. Flagan was
there, who’d come up from Shalako, riding a mouse-colored horse.
“You’ll have to forget Hippo Swan,” Orrin said. “He came hunting you to Shalako,
and Flagan said you weren’t the only Sackett, and they fought.”
“Sorry, Tell,” Flagan said, “but he’d come wanting and I’d not see him go the
same way. He fought well but his skin cut too easy, and now he’s gone down the
road feelin’ bad.”
“We found the gold, too,” Orrin said. “Remember what pa said about me always
wanting the cream of things and about the distance to the old well and how many
times ma scolded me for it.
“Well, I got to thinking. That word cream did it. Remember how we used the well
to keep our milk cold? When I was a youngster I used to go out and skim the
cream off. Ma was always after me about it. Well, this was the same kind of
place—a hole in the rocks—about the same distance away as the well.
“He’d laid rocks back into the hole, threw dirt and such at it, I guess. Anyway,
we pulled out the stones and there she was. More than enough to buy us land and
cattle to match Tyrel’s.”
I sat there, saying nothing, and they all looked at me. Then Orrin said, “What
happened to you?”
“It was Nativity Pertigrew,” I said. “Not so crippled up as he made out. Pa
followed him—maybe a mile out there, or more. He crawled up on him and they
swapped shots. Pa got lead into him but pa was killed, and Nativity buried him