My first destination was the spot from which he had fired. I wanted to see what he liked in the way of firing positions, and if possible pick up a clear track so I could recognize it at any other time. So far I was working blind.
Taking my time, I worked my way through the woods to the north, found the mouth of Little Deadwood Gulch and worked my way across it, checking for tracks. I found the tracks of elk, deer, and some smaller game, and started up the gulch, moving a few yards at a time. Part ot that was the need to study the mountain to use the best cover, and part because of the altitude.
Just short of timberline, which I figured to be about ten thousand feet up, I crossed the gulch and worked my way along the flank of the mountain. By noon I was holed up in a clump of spruce looking over at Baldy.
For over an hour I sat there with Logan’s spyglass, which I’d borrowed, studying the side of Baldy from the bottom of Deadwood up to the top. First I swept it side by side at ten-foot levels, searching for life. Twice I glimpsed deer feeding quietly. Birds occasionally flew up, but none seemed disturbed.
Then I checked for possible approaches to Baldy, found a good one and promptly discarded it. Undoubtedly he had seen it, too, and would be watching it and occasionally making a sweep of the hillside. There was nothing.
Keeping low, I worked my way down into the gulch and up the other side. It needed an hour to find his firing position. He had built up a mound of earth on which to rest his rifle and he himself had a comfortable seat while he was waiting.
He had a good field of fire with no obstructions, and the actual distance was about four hundred yards, give or take a few. He had made no effort to conceal the fact that he had been here, probably doubting anybody would ever make a hunt for him or find the place. Or he might have left it for bait.
That idea hit me as I squatted on my heels and I just let myself go and hit the ground on my shoulder and rolled over into the brush just in time to hear the echo of a shot. It wasn’t until I was thirty feet off and still moving that I remembered hearing that bullet. It had been a close thing.
He knew where I had disappeared and I had no idea where he was shooting from so I worked my way, moving swiftly but with no sound down the slope, then along the flank below his first firing position.
Was he pulling out? Or stalking me? No sooner had I asked the question than I knew the answer. He was stalking me. This Vern Huddy was confident. He might even be cocksure. He figured he was better at this game than anybody else, and maybe he was. If he was, I was a dead man.
Crouching for a moment in a sheltered place, yet one from which I could watch around me, I considered the situation. There was a good chance that after firing the shot that killed the Ute, he had pulled back to the slope above and just waited. He figured that somebody would come looking and he would get another one.
Some time passed and he had probably begun to relax. Maybe he was beginning to think nobody would come, and somehow I had slipped in and he hadn’t seen me at first … which was almighty lucky for me. Or else there’d been a branch or something in the way of his shot and he had to wait until I moved.
There was nothing about this I liked. He was hunting me and that wasn’t the way I wanted it. He’d probably had a few days to study that slope of Baldy and knew it better than me.
How about the back side? Maybe he knew nothing about that part of the mountain and mayhap I could just lead him around there and get him into country strange to both of us. To do that I had to stay alive long enough.
The worst of it was, he was above me. Like a ghost I moved along the mountainside, careful to break no stick, to let no stones rattle, to let no branch snap back. My clothes were soft, and the leaves brushing me made no sound that could be heard more than a foot away.
Did he have a horse hidden somewhere? Did he stay on the mountain at night?
One thing I had going for me. He had visited Meg Rossiter, and that could mean he moved on and off the mountain. There was every chance I could intercept him.
Working my way on I went through a grove of aspen, circled some spruce, and then changed direction, going back and up on a diagonal line.
It almost worked. Suddenly, not a hundred yards off I saw a foot, gray moccasin, gray buckskin. My rifle came up and I fired … just as the foot was withdrawn.
Instantly I put two shots into the brush above where I’d seen the foot, then slid thirty feet down the mountain, got up and ran through the brush. I ran swiftly and silently, swinging around to get above him.
There was no sound. My heart was pounding. Running at that altitude was not the thing to do, even though I’d spent a good time in the high-up mountains, nobody runs long up that high unless they’ve lived there for years.
There was small chance I’d hit anything. The shots into the brush were fired as much to make him wary as to hit. Of course, I wanted to nail him—I had to—but the chance of scoring was small.
When I’d gotten my breath back I listened, then went on up the slope, using all the cover I could find, until I was at least a thousand feet higher up the mountain. Then I studied the terrain all around me. Timberline was close above, which cut down my room to maneuver, but which also trimmed down his chance of getting around me.
My position was good. Only a thin line of wind-torn trees and rocks separated me from the barren top of the mountain. On my right the mountain was also bare for about four hundred yards, beyond that a clump of brush and trees, low growth, but enough to conceal. It was an island, however, and farther down, the slope was bare.
Before me was a weathered outcropping covered with lichen, the gnarled trunk of a weather-beaten spruce and low brush.
For a long time nothing moved below me, then suddenly a bird flew up. It might mean anything or nothing at all. I waited, rifle ready. Taking a piece of jerky from my small pack I began to chew on it while watching the slope.
Suddenly, I heard a rock strike, then a trickle of gravel. It was on the slope to my right, but nothing moved there. Flattening out, I studied the terrain to my left, and an instant later I caught the movement. He darted, just a shadow in the brush, running to get a little closer. I led him a little and fired. He hit the ground and I fired again and again. Gravel rattled on the slope below, but I did not move. If he was dead it did not matter, if he was alive he would be waiting for me to come to check on the results of my shots, and I would do neither.
An hour passed … soon it would be sunset. Below me I heard a muffled groan, but I remained where I was. If he was dying, he could die without me. If it was a trick, and I was sure it was, it would not draw me out. Yet the coming sunset worried me for the sun would be setting just beyond that patch of brush and there would be a period when I could not see in that direction due to the glare of the sun.
It was time to move. Swiftly and silently I went along the mountainside in the opposite direction, avoided the beginnings of Sawmill Canyon, crossed over it and through a grove of aspen, some of the largest I had ever seen. While I rested there I reloaded my rifle.
We could dodge around these mountains for weeks taking potshots at each other, so something had to be done to bring it to an end. I’d dusted him a few times, I was sure of that, and I had done it to worry him. I wanted to force him to great activity, for when a man moves he takes a chance.
Night was coming on, so what would he do? If I had a girl like Meg waiting I’d get shut of this black old mountain and ride over there. He’d have to go back across the La Plata to get over to Cherry Creek and the Rossiter place, and there was a good chance he’d left his horse over there, safely out of the way.
Well, I went down off that mountain fast. Circling around, I got to our camp, got my horse and headed for Cherry Creek. Getting my horse back into the brush out of the way, I watched the ranch. Sure enough, it wasn’t more than an hour before that there Vern Huddy came a-riding up like a Sunday cowboy all slicked out in a fresh shirt and a black coat. He left his horse at the rail and went up the steps.
; I thought for a minute of finding myself a place out there in the brush and pickin’ him off when he came out. That’s what he would have done to me. But dry-gulching just wasn’t my way. I never could have faced up to Galloway and Parmalee if I’d got him that way … not to mention Meg if she ever found out.
And she probably would … I’m not much good at keepin’ quiet about something I’m ashamed of.
I got up and led my horse down, watered it, and led it to the hitch rail and tied it right alongside his. Then I went up the steps and rapped on the door.
Rossiter answered it. “Howdy there, boy! Good to see you! You’re just in time for supper!”
He led the way into the dining room and you never saw such a picture. Vern Huddy’s mouth must’ve have opened a good bit when he saw me. His face went kind of pale, he was that surprised. And Meg, she was surprised, too, but she wasn’t surprised for more than a second and then she was pleased. Here she had two men a-courting her at the same time. Of course, she knew nothing about what had gone on up on the mountain that day.
“Mr. Sackett,” she said primly, “I want you to meet Mr. Huddy.”
Me, I grinned at him. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting Mr. Huddy,” I said.
“In fact, I’ve been thinking about him all day.”
“You have?” Meg was puzzled.
“Oh, yes! He’s the kind of man to keep you thinking about him. I can understand why a girl might give a good deal of thought to him, but ma’am, if you’ll accept my word for it, he’s a mite hard to pin down.”
“Mr. Huddy and I,” she said primly, “only met a few days ago.”
“You’d better tie to him whilst you can,” I said. “He may not be with us long.”
I was feeling good. I’d surprised them both and thrown them off balance and I was feeling in the mood for fun. Anyway, this was a chance to size him up a little. I’d never actually seen him before.
He was well set-up but a mite on the thin side, with a narrow, strict-looking face and not much sense of humor to him. It made him look a little older than I knew he was. He was mad now … I could see that plain as anything. I could also see that he thought well of himself and liked folks to fear him. Kill me he might, before this was over, but make me fear him he couldn’t. He was just another man with a gun, and I’d seen a-plenty of them.
When he turned his head I saw a burned place on his forehead … it could have been from a branch but was more likely from a bullet. Had I been wrong about that groan I heard? Had he been knocked out and lying there all the time?
“Mr. Huddle,” I said, “looks to me like you ran into something in the dark. Best be careful.”
“My name is Huddy,” he said testily, “and I shall be more careful. But I don’t think the job I am doing will take me long. It is almost too easy.”
“Now that’s the way a man should look at his work,” I said heartily. “I like to see a young man with ambition. That’s what it takes to get ahead.” Meg went for another platter of meat and I added, cheerfully, “Full of lead.”
His eyes were ugly. He didn’t find me much fun, I’m afraid. “You’re easy,” he said, “there’s nothing to you, tomorrow—”
“Why not tonight?” I suggested. “We can ride down the road together, take our distance and shoot it out. You can have it as you like.”
“I’m not a fool!” he said angrily.
Meg walked in then and smiled at us both. She was enjoying herself, and if she sensed anything in the air it surely didn’t show.
“It’s a real pleasure,” I said, “meeting Mr. Huddle. I don’t know many people in the San Juan Basin yet, and I’m most anxious to get acquainted.” I looked over at him and smiled. “I understand you’re connected with the Dunn family. Good neighbors,” I continued.
“Why the other night when we were driving our cattle in, the whole lot of them waited for hours in the dark so they could be there to help us drive them in.
And we’ve scarcely met. I call that neighborly,” I said to Meg, “don’t you?”
“I hadn’t heard about it”—She was wary of me now. Something was going on and I knew she was remembering what I had said about Vern Huddy. He was no good at hiding his feelings either. A blind man could track the anger across his face—“but I would say that was very nice of them.”
“I thought so. Especially as we didn’t even know them, you know. All twenty or more of them waiting there in the dark, anxious to surprise us with their help.
Fortunately we already had recruited some Indians to help us, so we had to express our appreciation an’ run along about our business.”
Rossiter was sitting there, saying nothing, missing nothing.
He was no fool and he had heard some of the talk that was going around. Also, the facts were obvious. We Sacketts had brought cattle into the country, a big herd and good stock, and we had shown every evidence of settling down.
The Dunns had built cabins but nothing else, making no effort to improve their land.
“We’re going to build,” I said to Meg, “and when we have the barn-raisin’ we’ll have all the folks over. We Sacketts sing … not me, I’m not much good at that, except for myself when I’m riding an easygoing horse … but the rest of them.
We were Welsh and Irish away back, and we brought the singing notion with us.
“We’ll have a barn-raisin’, a house-warmin’ and a sing. We’ve got some fiddlers amongst us, and we like a good time. Now I’m the serious one, me and Cousin Tyrel, I reckon, but Galloway, he’s right amusing, downright amusing.”
“I’d love a party!” Meg said. “Nobody’s had one since we’ve been here. There are scarcely enough people, I think.”
“Ma’am, a western party never lacks for folks. I’ve seen cowboys ride from sixty, seventy miles away just to look at a pretty girl, let alone dance with her, and ma’am, you sure are the prettiest!”
Now like I’ve said, I ain’t much on saying things to girls. I get tongue-tied and all, but being here with Vern Huddy across the table, and sort of ridin’ him a mite, I just got shook loose and took to talkin’ like Galloway or somebody.
Maybe it was the excitement. I don’t know much about causes and things, but I did not like Mr. Huddy. I’ve used a gun, but never to hunt a man down and kill him in cold blood. It’s been in defense of life or property and when I’m forced to it. And I had doubts that Mr. Vern Huddy could meet anybody face to face.
Meg looked surprised and pleased, but she was also looking as if she couldn’t believe it was me that said it. Neither could I.
“Nice to have new folks in the Basin, Mr. Huddle,” I said. “We need folks who can help to build, to make this a better place to live. I look forward to the time when we’ll have schools, churches and homes around about here. I suppose you’re a prospector?”
“No, I am not.” Vern Huddy looked up, his eyes on mine. “I am going into the cattle business.”
“He’s joking,” I said, cheerfully. “At least I took him for a prospector. He was all over Baldy today, knocking on rocks, beating through the brush … he was surely looking for something and I am equally sure it wasn’t cattle.”
He ate with small appetite, while I felt good. Meg could really cook, and she was a right fine girl when it came to that, and I did justice to her food.
When the meal was over, Huddy got up. “I am sorry, but I must go.” He was a little stiff and very angry.
“I reckon I’d better go too, then.” I glanced at Meg. “You know, ma’am, there’s been some shooting from the dark around here, and I think we’d be better off if we rode two together. Nobody’s so apt to start shooting if there’s two men.”
“Oh!” she was disappointed. “Do you have to go?”
“Mister Huddy can stay if he wishes,” I said blandly. “I have to be a-gettin’ off down the road.”
He had no idea of staying after I did and giving me the chance to lay for him beside the road, or to follow him to wherever he was going.
So we walked out together.
Rossiter and Meg came with us. He gripped my hand. “It’s been good to see you, Sackett,” he said. “Come back any time.”
He glanced over at Huddy. “Goodnight, Mr. Huddle,” he said, and I chuckled. Then he and Meg went inside.
Vern Huddy wheeled his horse around and dropped his hand to his gun. Mine was covering him.
‘Temper, Mr. Huddle,” I said, “and there’s a matter of common politeness. Never shoot anybody in somebody’s yard who has been entertaining you.”
My draw had been so much faster than his that he never cleared leather, and I know he thought I was going to kill him as he certainly would have killed me.
“Now you ride out ahead of me, and don’t try anything fancy.”
He rode quietly until we neared the first bend in the road, then suddenly he was around it and running, and I let him go. We knew what was coming, both of us, and the showdown would be tomorrow, in the mountains.
To follow down that trail now with him maybe laying for me would be crazy, so I turned off. There was a dun trail that led into the high-up hills just a mite west of Starvation Creek, so I taken it.
It wasn’t until I was well up in the breaks before I realized that the head of Starvation Creek was where Nick Shadow’s gold and diamonds were supposed to be hidden.
Chapter XVII
When Logan Sackett rode back to Shalako after the haying, Berglund’s saloon was sporting a new sign—The Gold Miner’s Daughter—and a painting of a well-endowed young lady in a flaming red dress and rings in her ears.
Berglund was standing outside looking at it. “Now there,” he said, “is a work of art!”
“Who’s the painter?”
“Who, he says. I am. Pat Berglund.”
Logan studied it. “You better go back for more lessons,” he said, “and I don’t mean in painting.”
They went inside and Berglund set out a bottle of beer. Despite the fact that the year was growing late, the day was hot. The beer was cold.
“How’d a Swede ever get the name of Pat?” Logan asked.
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