Sackett 17 - The Sky-Liners

by The Sky-Liners

  "I figure they're heading for Colorado," I said. "I think they're going to find Judith's pa."

  They all looked at me, probably figuring I had Judith too much in mind, and so I did, but not this time.

  "Look at it," I said. "Costello has been out there several years. He has him a nice outfit, that's why he wanted Judith with him. What's to stop them taking her on out there and just moving in on him?"

  "What about him? What about his hands?"

  "How many would he have on a working ranch? Unless he's running a lot of cattle over a lot of country he might not have more than four or five cowboys."

  They studied about it, and could see it made a kind of sense. We had no way of telling, of course, for Fetchen might decide to stay as far from Judith's pa as possible. On the other hand, he was a wild and lawless man with respect for nothing, and he might decide just to move in on Judith's pa. It would be a good hide-out for his own herd, and unless Costello had some salty hands around, they might even take over the outfit.

  Or they might do as Hawkes suggested and find a good water hole and simply stay there. In such a wide-open country there would be plenty of places.

  The more I contemplated the situation the more worried I became, and I'm not usually a worrying man. What bothered me was Judith. That girl may have been a fool about James Black Fetchen; but she was, I had to admit, a smart youngster. I had an idea that, given time and company of the man and his kin, she'd come to know what he was really like. The more so since he would think he had everything in hand and under control.

  What would happen if she should all of a sudden decide she was no longer inclined to marry Black Fetchen?

  If she could keep her mouth shut she might get a chance to cut and run; but she was young, and liable to talk when she should be listening. Once she let Black know where he stood with her, the wraps would be off. She would have to cut and run, or be in for rough treatment

  "They don't want to be found," I told Hawkes. "They've buried the ashes of their fires. And I trailed out two of them today, lost both trails."

  "What do you figure we can do?"

  "Let me have Galloway, Shore, and maybe one or two others. You've got hands enough. Each one of us will work out a different trail. Maybe we can come up with something."

  "You mean if the trails begin to converge? Or point toward something?"

  "Sooner or later they've got to."

  So it boiled down to me an' Galloway, Shore, Ladder Walker, and an old buffalo hunter named Moss Reardon. We hunted down trails and started following them out. They were hard enough to locate in the first place.

  The idea didn't pan out much. By the end of two days Walker's trail petered out in a bunch of sand hills south of us. Galloway lost his trail in the bed of a river, and Shore's just faded out somewhere on the flat. Only Reardon and me had come up with anything, and that was almighty little. Both of us lost the trail, then found it again.

  When we'd joined up again with the others, I drew on the ground with a bit of stick and tried to point out what I'd found. "Right about here - and there was no trail, mind you - I found a place where the grass was cropped by a horse. It's short grass country, but the horse had cropped around in a circle, so figuring on that idea and just to prove out what I'd found, I located the peg-hole that horse had been tied to. It had been filled up, and a piece of grass tucked into the hole - growing grass."

  Hawkes sort of looked at me as if he didn't believe it.

  "Only there wasn't one of them, there were three. I sort of skirted around, looking for another cropped place and I found two more, further out from camp."

  "You found their camp?"

  "Such as it was. They'd dug out a block of sod, built their coffee fire in the hole, then replaced the sod when they got ready to move."

  Hawkes sat back on his heels and reached for the coffeepot. He studied the map I had drawn, and I could see he was thinking about all we had learned.

  "What do you think, Moss? You've hunted buffalo all over this country."

  "Sand Creek," he said, "or maybe Two Buttes."

  "Or the breaks of the Cimarron," Kyle Shore suggested.

  Moss Reardon threw him a glance. "Now, that might be," he said. "It just might be."

  We moved westward with the first light, keeping the small herd moving at a good pace. As for me, just knowing that Judith was out there ahead of us gave me an odd feeling of nearness. Up to now we hadn't been exactly certain which way she was taking, but now I had the feeling that if I was setting out to do it I could come up to them by sundown.

  That night we camped on the north fork of the Cimarron, and scarcely had coffee boiling when a rider hailed the fire. In those days, as I've said before, nobody just rode up out of the dark. If he wanted to live to see grandchildren he learned to stop off a piece and call out.

  When he was squatting by the fire and the usual opening talk was over, such as how did he find the grass, and how beef prices were, or had he seen any buffalo, he looked across the fire at me and said, "You'll be Flagan Sackett?"

  "That I am."

  "Message for you, from Bat Masterson."

  He handed me a folded paper. Opening it, I found another inside.

  The first was a note from Bat: If we had known this!

  The second was an answer to our telegram sent to Tazewell: J. B. Fetchen, Colby Rafin, Burr Fetchen and three John Does wanted for murder of Laban Costello. Apprehend and hold.

  "So they killed him," Galloway said. "I had a thought it might be so."

  "We got to get that girl away from them, Galloway," I said.

  "If what you surmise is true," Hawkes said, "they might want her for a bargaining point with the old man. Look at it this way. They've got a big herd of cattle and no range. They could settle on free range most anywhere, but there will be questions asked. Mine is a known brand, so if they haven't altered it, they must."

  "They ain't had the time," Walker said. 'Takes a spell to rope and brand that many head."

  "We're wastin' time," Larnie said. "Let's locate the herd and take it from them."

  "There's nineteen of them," Briggs objected. 'Taking a herd from such an outfit wouldn't be that easy. A man's got to be smart to bring it off."

  "Larnie's right about one thing," Hawkes said. "We've got to find the herd."

  In a wide-open land like this where law was a local thing and no officer wanted to spread himself any further than his own district, a man could do just about what he was big enough to do, or that he was fast enough with a gun to do. The only restraint there was on any man outside of the settled communities was his own moral outlook and the strength of the men with him.

  Black Fetchen and his kin had always ruled their roost about as they wanted, and had ridden rough-shod over those about them, but they had been kind of cornered by the country back there and the fact that there were some others around that were just as tough as they were.

  The killing of Laban Costello had made outlaws of them and they had come west, no doubt feeling they'd have things their own way out here. They started off by stealing Hawkes's herd, killing his son, and some of his men as well, and seeming to get away with it.

  They had been mighty shrewd about leaving no tracks. Galloway and me were good men on a trail, and without us Hawkes might never have been on to them. That's not to say that Kyle Shore and Moss Reardon weren't good - they were.

  But the West Fetchen and his men were heading for wasn't quite what it had been a few years before, and I had an idea they were in for a surprise. Circumstances can change in a mighty short time where the country is growing, and the West they had heard about was, for the most of it, already gone.

  For instance, out around Denver a man named Dave Cook had gotten a lot of the law officers to working together, so that a man could no longer just run off to a nearby town to be safe. And the men who rode for the law in most of the western towns were men who weren't scared easy.

  James Black Fetchen was accounted a mighty
mean man, and that passel of no-goods who rode with him could have been no better. I had an idea they were riding rough-shod for grief, because folks in Wyoming and Colorado didn't take much pushing. It's in their nature to dig in their heels and push back.

  This was an uncomplicated country, as a new country usually is. Folks had feelings and ideas that were pretty basic, pretty down to earth, and they had no time to worry about themselves or their motives. It was a big, wide, empty country and a man couldn't hide easy. There were few people, and those few soon came to know about each other. Folks who have something to hide usually head for big cities, crowded places where they can lose themselves among the many. In open western country a man stood out too much.

  If he was a dangerous man, everybody knew it sooner or later; and if he was a liar or a coward that soon was known and he couldn't do much of anything. If he was honest and nervy, it didn't take long for him to have friends and a reputation for square-dealing; he could step into some big deals with no more capital than his reputation. Everybody banked on the man himself.

  Once away from a town, a man rode with a gun at hand. There were Indians about, some of them always ready to take a scalp, and even the Indians accounted friendly might not be if they found a white man alone and some young buck was building a reputation to sing about when he went courting or stood tall in the tribal councils.

  A rustler, if caught in the act, was usually hung to the nearest tree. Nobody had time to ride a hundred miles to a court house or to go back for the trial, and there were many officers who preferred it that way.

  Now, me and Galloway were poor folks. We had come west the first time to earn money to pay off Pa's debts, and now we were back again, trying to make our own way. And the telegram from Tennessee had changed everything.

  We had made no fight when Black Fetchen claimed Judith, because she had said she was going to marry him, and we had no legal standing in the matter. But the fact that he had killed her grandpa changed everything, and we knew she'd never marry him now, not of her own free will.

  "We got to get her away from them, Flagan," Galloway said, "and time's a-wasting."

  But things weren't the way we would like to have them around the outfit, either. That Larnie Cagle was edgy around us. He had heard of the Sackett reputation, and he reckoned himself as good with a gun as any man; we both could see he was fairly itching to prove it.

  Kyle Shore tried to slow him down, for Kyle was a salty customer and he could read the sign right. He knew that anybody who called a showdown to a Sackett was bound to get it, and Shore being a saddle partner of Cagle's, he wanted no trouble.

  Half a dozen times around camp Larnie had made comments that we didn't take to, but we weren't quarrelsome folks. Maybe I was more so than Galloway, but so far I'd sat tight and kept my mouth shut. Larnie was a man with swagger. He wanted to make big tracks, and now he had a feeling that he wasn't making quite the impression he wanted. A body could see him working up to a killing. The only question was who it would be.

  Like a lot of things in this world, it was patience that finally did it for us. Galloway and me were riding out with Moss Reardon. We had followed a faint trail, picking up where we'd left off the day before, as it had run along in the same direction we were taking. On that morning, though, it veered off, doubled back, turned at right angles, switching so often it kept Galloway and me a-working at it.

  All of a sudden we noticed Moss. He was off some distance across the country but we recognized that paint pony he was riding; we hung to our trail, though, and so did he. And then pretty soon we found ourselves riding together again.

  "I think we've got 'em," Moss said. "As I recall, there's a hole in the river yonder where water stays on after the rest dries up. There'd be enough after a rain to water the herd."

  We left the trail and took to low ground, keeping off the sky line but staying in the same direction the trail was taking. Every now and again one of us would ride out to see if we could pick up track, and sure enough, we could.

  Moss Reardon's bronc began to act up. "Smells water," he said grimly. "We better ride easy."

  We began to see where the grass was grazed off in the bottoms along the river. Somebody had moved a big bunch of cattle, keeping them strung out in the bottoms, which no real cattleman would do because of the trouble of working them out of the brush all the while. Only a man whose main idea was to keep a herd from view might try that.

  We found a place in the river bed where there had been water, all trampled to mud by the herd, but now the water had started to seep back. We pulled up and watered our horses.

  "How far do you figure?" Galloway asked.

  Reardon thought a minute or two. "Not far ... maybe three, four miles."

  "Maybe one of us ought to go back and warn Hawkes."

  It was coming on to sundown, and our outfit was a good ten miles back. Nobody moved. After the horses had satisfied themselves we pulled out.

  "Well" - I hooked a leg around the saddlehorn - "I figure to Injun up to that layout and see how Judith is getting along. If she's in trouble, I calculate it would be time to snake her out of there."

  "Wouldn't do any harm to shake 'em up a mite," Moss suggested, his hard old eyes sharpening. "Might even run off a few head."

  We swung down right there and unsaddled to rest our horses giving them a chance to graze a little.

  Meanwhile we sort of talked about what we might do, always realizing we would have to look the situation over before we could decide. The general idea was that we would Injun up to their camp after things settled down and scout around. If the layout looked good we might try to get Judith away; but if not, we'd just stampede that herd, or a piece of it, and drive them over to join up with the Hawkes outfit.

  All the while we weren't fooling anybody. That outfit had acted mighty skittish, and they might be lying out for us. They had men enough to keep a good guard all the while, and still get what sleep they needed.

  After a while we stretched out to catch ourselves a few minutes of sleep. Actually, that few minutes stretched to a good two hours, for we were beat.

  Me, I was the first one up, as I am in most any camp. There was no question of starting a fire, for some of their boys might be scouting well out from camp.

  I saddled up and then shook the others awake. Old Moss came out of it the way any old Indian fighter would, waking up with eyes wide open right off, and listening.

  We mounted up and started off, riding easy under the stars, each of us knowing this might be our last ride. Lightly as we talked of what we might do, we knew we might be riding right into a belly full of lead.

  It was near to midnight when we smelled their smoke, and a few minutes later when we saw the red glow of their fire. We could make out the figure of a man sitting on guard, the thin line of his rifle making a long shadow.

  Chapter 7

  We had come up to their camp from down wind so the horses wouldn't get wind of us. The cattle were bedded on a wide bench a few feet above the river, most of them lying down, but a few restless ones still grazing here and there.

  There would be other guards, we knew, and without doubt one was somewhere near us even now, but we sat our horses, contemplating the situation.

  About midnight those cattle would rise up, stretch, turn around a few times and maybe graze for a few minutes, and then they would lie down again. That would be a good time to start them.

  We figured to start the stampede so as to run the cattle north toward our boys, which would take it right through the camp Fetchen had made, or maybe just past it. And that meant that we had to get Judith out of there before the cattle started running.

  The upshot of it was that I cut off from the others and swung wide, working toward the camp. I could see the red eye of the dying fire all the while. Finally I tied my horse in a little hollow surrounded by brush. It was a place where nobody was likely to stumble on the horse, yet I could find it quickly if I had to cut and run.

  Leaving m
y rifle on the saddle, I started out with a six-shooter, a spare six-gun stuck down in my pants, and a Bowie knife. Switching boots for moccasins, which I carried in my saddlebags, I started easing through the brush and trees toward the camp.

  Now, moving up on a camp of woods-wise mountain boys is not an easy thing. A wild animal is not likely to step on a twig or branch out in the trees and brush. Only a man, or sometimes a horse or cow, will do that, but usually when a branch cracks somewhere it is a man moving, and every man in that camp would know it.

  Another distinctive sound is the brushing of a branch on rough clothing. It makes a whisking-whispering sound the ear can pick up. And as for smells, a man used to living in wild country is as keenly aware of smells as any wild creature is. The wind, too, made small sounds and, drawing near to the camp, I tried to move with the wind and to make no sudden clear sound.

  The guard near the fire could be seen faintly through the leaves, and it took me almost half an hour to cover the last sixty feet The guard was smoking a corncob pipe and was having trouble keeping it alight. From time to time he squatted near the fire, lifting twigs to relight his pipe, and that gave me an advantage. With his eyes accustomed to the glow of the fire, his sight would be poor when he looked out into the darkness.

  The camp was simple enough. Men were rolled up here and there, and off to one side I could see Judith lying in the space between Black Fetchen and Burr. At her head was the trunk of a big old cottonwood, and Fetchen lay about ten feet to one side, Burr the same distance on the other. Her feet were toward the fire, which was a good twenty feet away.

  There was no way to get her without stepping over one of those men, or else somehow getting around that tree trunk. Unless . . . unless the stampede started everybody moving and for the moment they forgot about her.

  It was a mighty big gamble. But I thought how out on the plains a man's first thought is his horse, and if those horses started moving, or if the cattle started and the men jumped for their horses, there might be a minute or so when Judith was forgotten. If, at that moment, I was behind that tree trunk ...