us He got down very careful, and kelyt his horse between until he could see I really was unarmed. Then he holstered his gun and stripped his gear from the horse.
“Good water?” he asked.
‘Any water is good. If you don’t think it is, try going where I’ve been without x.we got us a fire going and he put coffee on and broke open a can of beans, giving me half and keeping the other half for himself. And while the coffee boiled I told him what had happened since Id seen that mean old man on the trail.
‘He’s down there in Silver Peak,” he said.
“These here are the Silver Peak Mountains, and the town is down yonder on the edge of Clayton Valley.” “Is it much of a townr ‘ationot so’s you could notice. She was fetching up to be and then the color ran out, and the folks just left.
There’s a store or two, there’s a place where you can sleep inside out of the rain, and there’s a corral for your horse.
“And there’s a stamp mill that ain’t running no more, and a lot of folks setting around saying how there’s millions just under the ground.
There may be, but I don’t know of what. It surely ain’t cash money. You ride in there and flash a five-dollar bill and they’re likely to give you the place and run.” “I couldn’t flash a five-cent piece,” I said. “That man cleaned me.” “Well, I got two bucks, mister, and I’ll split her right down the middle with you. I ain’t going to see any pilgrim ride into that town broke.” “How about a gun?” “Uh-uh. You get killed on your own time, with your own gun.” “If I can’t find a gun I’ll cut myself a stick,” I told him. “I want some lade off that man.” The beans were good, the coffee better, and he divided a chunk of sourdough betwixt us. He was a good man, and he never told me his name, even. At the end, I cud give him mine.
‘If you ever come to Colorado,” I said, “look me up.
I’m Shell Tucker.” ‘Heard of you,” he said. “They’re beaming to make up songs about you.” Silver Peak was a town not much more than ten, twelve years old and it was dead already .
butnobody believed it, and when you’ve got that kind of faith, who’s to say?
At the saloon three men were sitting on the porch under the overhang, and they watched me ride in. I kept a sharp lookout, but saw no sign of Pony or his horses. I rode up to the saloon and stepped down.
“I’m looking for a man with two horses,” I said, “and the right to own only one of them.” ‘He’s gone. And if you take my advice you’ll forget hirri. He didn’t look to me like he wanted to be found.” “I need a little grub and a gun,” I told them.
‘Mister, this here town is broke. Nobody has anything but what he needs. You ride right along.” “I got a dollar,” I said.
“ThatUs buy you a mite of something. You ride on, boy. We got us a marshal here who don’t cotton to man-hunting.” “Where is he?” They pointed out a shack to me and I got back on my horse and rode over there.
I got down in front of the shanty and went up the walk.
The man who opened the door was tall, lean, and hard-featured, and he wore a gun as if he knew what it was for. Behind him a woman was putting grub on the table.
“I’m Shell Tucker,” I said, “and I’m hunting a man. I need a gun and a grubstake.” “Come in.” He turned his head. “Ma, set up another place. This faller looks like he could use it.” When I sat down at the table the man tipped back in his chair, lit his pipe, and looked me over. “I’m Dean Blaisdell, and I am not long in Silver Peak. This here’s a thankless job that pays enough to keep body and soul together. Now tell me about it.” So I told the story again, and by this time I’d streamlined it some.
He needed only to look at me to see what I’d been through.
“Caet figure them redskins. Lucky they didn’t take your hair.” “They’d followed me quite a spell. I guess they thought the country had made me suffer enough.” “Give you a horse, too? That’s prime. I never knew that to happen, although they always cotton to a man who can take it.
“Tell you what I’ll do. I taken a six-shooter off a man here a couple of months ago. It’s a fine weapon. I’ll let you have it, and ma and me will fix you a bait of grub.
“You’ll need a saddle for that grulla, and there’s one over to the livery stable. The owner pulled out and he just left it … where he was going he said he hoped never to see another.” We talked of places and people. He was an Arkansawyer, who had lived three years in Texas, had come on west and married the widow of a man killed by the Apaches in Arizona. They had followed one boom after another. “We made a little, but only to tide us over. I was a marshal in Ehrenburg for a few weeks, so they gave me this job.” His wife poured more coffee. “Heard about you and Heseltine,” Blaisdell said. “I seen him once … a dangeras man, Id say, but he was quiet when he was around my neck of the woods and gave no trouble to anybody.
“Lucky,” he added, “I’d never want to tangle horns with a man like him.
I pack a gun and I do my job, but I’ve never drawn a gun on a man in my life, and never saw a gunfight.” “I have,” his wife said, “and I’d as soon never see aiaother.” “Ma growed up in Injun country,” BlaisdeUs explained.
‘ationever found no good in them,” she said brusquely, ‘alth I’ve known folks who lived among ’em. Their ways simply ain’t Christian.” “I guess they were reared without any of that teaching,” I suggested.
“You’ve got to think of that. Their beliefs are different from ours.” “They surely are. But the gunfight I saw wasn’t between white men and Indians. It was just some drunken cowboys in the street … at least folks said they was drunk. One of them was a gun-farmer and he done scattered lead all over the neighborhood. I say if men are going to shoot at each other they should shoot straight.” “That’s the general idea, ma’am,” I said.
“Are you going to kill that Bob Heseltine when you find him? Like the stories say?” “I don’t want to kill anybody. I just want my money back.” “He’s likely spent it,” she said. “Money burns a hole in a man’s pocket.” My dollar was sWI in my pocket when I rode through Paymaster Canyon into Big Smoky VaHey. I’d pulled stakes from Silver Peak before the sun was in the and by the time I was well out into Big Smoky the was setting beyond the Monte Crista Mountains, so red with their own color as well as the sun that they looked like flames against the sky.
Time and again I turned in my saddle to look back at them. They had a rare beauty, and when the shadows began to creep out from them their ridges were still crested with fire.
Nighttime found me at Montezuma’s Well, with the stars bright overhead.
There was a patch of grass there, and a few head of somebody’s cows, and I settled down for the night. The tracks of the two horses were pointing north toward the mountains that loomed up, miles away.
My hands worried me. They were healing, but not fast enough, and I had no rifle. Crossing this bald plain I could be seen for miles, and Pony was too wise an old mountain and desert man not to check his back strait “Boy,” I said to myself, “when you reach those mountains you better ride loose in the saddle.
He’ll surely be staked out and waiting.” Next morning I was well started before the sun chinned itself on the San Antonios. When I was nooning in the sandy wash where the Peavine seemed to peter out I was at a place where the trails divided.
One went northwest toward the Toiyabe Mountains, and it was unmarked by man or beast. The other followed the Big Smoky Valley, and it was covered with tracks. Somebody-four or five or more men-had herded a bunch of cattle up that trail, and only their tracks remained.
Logically, as there were no tracks on the northwest trail, Zole must have taken the northeast branch up the valley, but I didn’t believe it.