"You folks got yourselves in a pack of trouble," I commented. "You'll be lucky to get out of here alive."
They both looked at me, just looked, as if trying to understand me. "What do you mean by that?" the girl asked.
"Nearest water I know of is forty miles from here ... if the creek ain't dry, which it sometimes is. If it's dry, you got twenty miles further to go. Even if you could haul the wagon--which you can't--it would mean days from here. You're way off the trail."
"It's a short cut."
"Whoever told you that had no love for you. The only place this will shortcut you to is the dry side of hell."
They both were looking hard at me.
"Your best chance is to try walking out," I said. "At best you got a fifty-fifty chance."
"But there's your horse." He gave me a cool look. "My sister and I could share it."
Now, I've come up against some mean folks in my time, but nobody quite as cool about it as these. They were in trouble, but they either had no realization of how much trouble, or they were almighty sure of themselves.
"You ain't got my horse, amigo," I said, "and you ain't about to get him. And if you had him, you'd not know which way to go. If you knew where to go, you wouldn't have come here in the first place."
They exchanged a glance. They did not believe me, and they still wanted that horse of mine.
"You've got a chance," I added, "if I ride out of here and send somebody back with a team to haul the wagon out. That's if I can find somebody who's willing to come out here.
"This here is Comanche country," I went on. "Kiowas to the north, and Apaches west and south. Nobody wants to come into this country at all."
All of a sudden I had a feeling. They were not worried, because they were waiting for something, or somebody. Something they knew would happen. Nothing I had said had impressed them in the least. They were simply waiting.
The afternoon was almost gone, and it lacked only a few hours until darkness.
Was there somebody else out there? Somebody I had not seen or heard?
Suddenly the itchy feet of fear were crawling right up my back. Somebody was out there, somewhere, watching me.
"The closest place for you is Borregos Plaza," I said, "or maybe Fort Bascom, over west of here." All the time I was trying to figure which way trouble would come from.
They were eastern folk, but I wouldn't think of them as tenderfeet. There was much they didn't know of the West, if they knew anything at all about it, but they had a quality about them ... they were ice-hard and without mercy. I had me a hunch that when in doubt they would kill, without rhyme or reason.
The company I'd known since leaving the mountains, and much of it before that, had been hard company. Feuding and fighting men, hard-working and hard-drinking men often enough, but they had fought from anger or for pay; and when they killed it was from anger or for pay, or perhaps, by blunder, but not as these two would kill.
The girl had poured a cup of coffee for me. I'd been making believe to loosen the cinch on the saddle, but had not done so. I had an idea that when I left out of there it would be of a sudden with no time to tighten a cinch.
Turning my horse, I walked toward her, keeping the horse between me and where I suspected their man to be, if man there was. Close to the fire I stopped and squatted on my heels, and glanced quickly over to where I thought he was at, and just as my eyes shifted I saw that girl shove something back in the pocket of her skirt.
Now, nothing in my life led me to be what you'd call a trusting man. Back in the Tennessee hills we did a sight of swapping and a boy soon learned that when it came to swapping he couldn't trust even his own kin. It was a game, sort of, and we all swapped back and forth and the best stories told around the cracker barrel in the store at the crossroads or around a cabin fire were about swaps and swapping, and about who got taken. This just naturally made you grow up sort of skeptical. So when that dewy-eyed girl handed me that coffee I took it, longing for a swallow, but just a mite afraid it might be my last. So I held it, wondering how a man could keep from drinking it without arousing suspicions.
Back on Clinch Mountain there was an old-timer who could set and talk by the hour and not say a word a body could recall; he would just ramble on spreading words around like a man forking hay on a stack. Right then I decided to talk.
" 'Bout the time I sighted you folks I was gettin' fed to the teeth with my own company, and there's just so much you can say to a horse. You never talked to a horse? Ma'am, you just ain't ridden far in lonesome country. Why, I'd reach out to say the horses of this man's territory know more about what's going on than anybody else. Everybody out here talks to his horse. I've seen the time I hadn't nobody else to talk to, weeks on end.
"You take this here country now. A man can ride for days and not seen even a hump in the ground, let alone a man or a horse. Maybe you'd sight some antelope, or a herd of buffalo, although they are coming up scarce about now. A body can just ride on and on across the country, watching far-off rain squalls or maybe buzzards. Not much else to see.
"And traveling in this area ain't just what you're expecting. Now you folks, for instance. You head west from here, and what do you find? A canyon maybe three, four hundred feet deep. It's cap-rock country, so usually where the land breaks off there's a drop of four to fourteen feet of sheer rock, then a steep slope off to the bottom, and you may go miles before you can find a spot to go down into the canyon, or a place to climb out.
"You never see those canyons until you're right on top of them. Comanches used to hole up in them and wait for the Comancheros coming out from Santa Fe to trade with 'em. I come upon an Indian camp one time when there must have been seven or eight thousand head of horses there--fine stock, some of them."
Both of them were watching me. I was holding the cup in my hand, gesturing with it once in a while, just running off at the mouth like that old coot back in the hills.
"You take Indians now, they're all around you before you know they're in the country. And women folks--if they know you got a woman along, they'll hunt you for miles.
"You people here, you're ripe for the picking. Any Comanche youngster could shoot you both before you even knew he were near. I'd say without help you ain't got a chance of getting out of here.
"You figure on my horse? Why, he couldn't carry the both of you even half the distance you got to go. And your wagon would have to be left where it is. Take a six-ox team to move that out of here, heavy like it is."
"What makes you think our wagon is heavy?"
Me, I grinned at him, and shoved my hat back a mite with the lip of the cup.
"Why, your tracks. The deep bite they take into the prairie tells a body that.
Moreover, I'd lay a bet the Indians know where you are, and are closing in about now."
"Don't be silly," the girl said. "If they knew where we were and wanted to attack they would have done it long since."
I chuckled. "That's your thinkin', but it ain't Injun thinkin'. You take those Indians now, to speak proper of them--they know you ain't going no place. They know where that canyon is up ahead, and they know what you'll have to do when you get there. Meanwhile you're getting closer and closer to where they want you. They probably have a camp some place up ahead, and when you get close enough so they won't have to pack all they take from you for any distance, why, they'll move in."
Of a sudden I glanced at my coffee. "Well, what d' you know? I been settin' here talkin' until my coffee's gone cold."
And as I said it I splashed the coffee on the ground, set down the cup, and picked up the coffeepot with my left hand. My right still held my Winchester. I filled the cup about a third full, sloshed it about and dumped it again. "Warms the cup," I said. "I do shy from coffee in a cold cup." Then I refilled it and sat back on my heels. "Now, where was I?"
Well, their faces were a study. They didn't know whether I was smart to them, or just dumb. He was exasperated, but she was so mad she turned a little pale.
I gulped down some of the hot coffee and it tasted good--kind of a chicory taste to it, like some of that New Orleans make.
Setting there a-drinking my coffee, seeming to pay them no mind, nor nothing else, I wasn't much worried. I could see over east toward where that canyon was from the tail of my eye, one of the quickest ways to detect movement, and I was keeping my horse within my range of vision. Shadows were growing on the lee side of that wagon, when of a sudden my mustang's ears pricked and I put my cup down.
That mustang, like all wild stock, was quick to see anything that moved. Most horses are quick enough to see and hear, but there's nothing like a wild one for letting you know when trouble's about. His ears warned me that whoever was out there had begun to move.
Any sudden move of mine to get away would bring on the fight I wanted to avoid.
I didn't cater to these folks' way of figuring things, and I didn't aim to let them take my scalp.
There was little cover out on those grasslands, and even the grass was skimpy, so if I tried to ride for it I would have two or maybe three of them shooting at me. Unless I waited until dark ... though every minute I waited increased my own risk, for darkness gave them freedom of movement.
So I just shifted my Winchester forward in my hands and looked at that young man standing over there beside his sister, and I said, "If you two figure to get where you're going all in one piece, you better tell your friend out there to stand up and come in with his hands up."
That set them back a notch. They just looked at me, and I eased back the hammer on the Winchester.
He turned a shade paler and said, "I don't know what you mean."
"You just speak up and tell him. You got a full thirty seconds to do it in, or I'll spread you wide open for the buzzards and the ants."
He didn't want to believe it, and when he decided he'd better he still didn't want to.
"It'll be you first," I said, "and then the girl and the other one. You got ten seconds now, and I'm takin' up slack."
My finger tightened on the trigger.
Chapter 2
"Andrew," the girl spoke out loud and clear, "come in with your hands up."
"Sylvie," her brother protested, "he wouldn't shoot. He wouldn't dare."
"He'll shoot, all right! " Sylvie said. "He would kill you very quickly, Ralph, and I believe he would kill me too."
There was a stir out in the darkness, and then a fat, stupid-looking boy came in toward us. He might have been only seventeen, but the rifle he carried was grown up.
"Put it down," I said to him, but I was prepared for him to try a shot. He looked at me, then shifted his eyes toward Sylvie ... toward her, not toward her brother.
"Do what he says, Andrew."
Reluctantly, he put down the rifle, then sat down abruptly and crossed his legs.
"Like I said, I don't want any trouble, but I've grown up with it. My advice to you folks is to go slow. You'll find things are different out here, and there's a lot of folks who will shoot first and ask questions later, if they have any to ask. Now, if you'll lay off trying to shoot me, I'll see if I can get you out of here."
"Why should you?" Ralph asked.
On that one I hedged. After all, why not ride out and leave them to get what they deserved? "You've got guns," I said. "I wouldn't want them in the hands of the Indians."
They didn't believe me. I doubt if they could believe any reason that was not entirely selfish.
"No matter which way you go, you ain't likely to find anybody inside of a hundred miles. I hear Jim Cator has a buffalo camp on the North Palo Duro, and the settlements west are nearer to two hundred miles than one."
They sat watching me, taking in every word.
"Whoever brought you in here trapped you for fair ... but there's a chance I might catch up to him and bring the horses back."
"If you could bring those horses back," Ralph said, "and kill the thief who stole them, I would give you fifty dollars."
"There's some who would do it for that," I commented, "but I am not one.
However, it would be easier to get your horses back than to ride out and send somebody in for you." I stood up suddenly. "I'll ride after him."
They all stood up at that, their eyes on me, ready to take any advantage. "Why not stay and try in the morning?" Sylvie suggested. "You can't track horses at night."
Stepping up, I took the bridle and turned my horse to watch them across the saddle, and then I mounted quickly, my rifle ready, covering them casually. "I don't need to track them," I replied. "He'll take them to water. I'll follow."
Swinging the horse, I rode a widening half-circle around the camp, keeping them under my gun until I was well into the darkness, then quickly I switched direction and walked my horse until I had put a good distance behind me. When I was a mile off I drew up and took off my hat and wiped the sweatband. For a while there they had me treed.
Then I set off through the night, taking my course from the stars. I had a fair idea where those horses would be, and if they were there, I'd look the situation over before making a move. I had no use for that lot back there, but I couldn't leave a woman to die out on the plains, nor did I want those guns in the hands of Indians, who had enough guns as it was.
The night was cool, and despite the fact my horse was tired, I kept him moving, and he was game enough. I don't think he'd liked that bunch any more than I had.
At times I got down and walked to save the horse. The dun had come far that day, for I had pushed him hard since early morning, but I had a hunch. There as a place in the cap rock that I knew of ... I'd been told of it by a Comanchero who had watered there at times when driving from Santa Fe over to a rendezvous with the Comanches.
It was a mere gap in the rock forty or fifty yards wide, and scarcely longer, but there was water in the bottom, a little grass, and a cottonwood tree or two.
There was a chance that the man I followed knew of it too, although few did. If he could water there, he could drive the stock north, and after another fifteen miles or so would come upon a series of small hollows fringed with cottonwoods and willows where there were fresh water lakes, or sloughs. From that time on he could move toward Tule Creek, with water to be found at intervals all along the way.
The last bright stars were hanging low in the sky when I came up to the water hole. There was the low, questioning nicker from a horse, and a sudden movement, then silence.
My move was just as quick. Leaving the dun standing, reins trailing, I ducked off to the left where a cottonwood made a shadow on the land, and I crouched there, waiting.
Slowly, the moments passed. The dun, weary of waiting when water was so close, walked a few steps toward the hollow, holding his head off to one side to keep from stepping on the reins. This was what I had expected would happen, and what I wanted to happen. Whoever was waiting would be likely to think it was a stray horse. Or so I hoped.
The dun was all mustang, however, and not one to go right down into the hollow.
He pricked his ears and whinnied a bit, and from the hollow there was an answering whinny. After a moment the dun walked on, then stopped again. Only this time he stopped because he was close to somebody.
Not moving a muscle, I waited. And then I heard a low, coaxing voice. He was trying to call my horse close enough to lay hand to the reins. The dun, knowing I was out and about, was not likely to let a strange hand reach him. Had he been a stray, lost and wandering, he might have let himself be caught ... at least as long as he had that saddle on him.
Suddenly the dun shied away ... evidently the man had tried to reach for him, which meant he was growing impatient. The dun backed off a step and stood there, and I just waited. Five, maybe ten minutes went by, and then the man stepped from the darkness and reached for the reins. The horse backed off a couple of steps, and I could have kissed him, for the man went after him.
"Hold it!" I spoke loud enough for him to hear, but not too loud, and as I spoke I cocked my rifle.
He
made a move as if to dive for shelter, but I spoke again, quickly. "Don't try! You ain't got a chance."
"Who are you?"
"A driftin' man. That there's my horse."
"Thought he was strayed." I had gotten to my feet and started toward him as he spoke. "Didn't see anybody around."
"Hadn't planned on it. Don't get nervous now ... I'm holding a light trigger."
He had turned and was facing me, a stocky, barrel-chested man with his face in shadow. Suddenly he spoke. "Hell, you're Nolan Sackett!"
"Unbuckle your belt."
"Now, see here--"
I was getting impatient. "Mister, if you figure on eatin' breakfast, you'd better drop that gun belt."
He reached for the buckle, protesting. "Now look, Sackett. I'm Steve Hooker. We met one time over in the Nation, an' you got no call to stand me up."
"Maybe, maybe not."
When he'd unbuckled his gun belt and dropped it, I had him back off while I moved in and took up the belt and slung it over my shoulder.
Gathering the dun's reins, I followed my prisoner back down into the hollow. The horses were there, a fine team of six head, and two saddle horses. Down among the willows he had a fire going that had not been visible from the cap rock. I could smell coffee, and realized I'd not had a mouthful of food all day.
Once we got into the firelight I had him face around, and I knew him all right.
He had been a teamster for a freight outfit, fired for selling stock feed that belonged to the company. He had killed a tame Indian over at Fort Griffin one time. Nobody did anything about it, but nobody had any use for him after that.
I turned him around and lashed his hands together behind his back, then tied his ankles and his knees. After setting him where I could keep an eye on him, I stripped the rig from my dun and let him roll, then rubbed him down carefully with a few handfuls of dried grass. Then I put him on a picket line where he could graze, and let him go to water as he wished.
Getting a slab of bacon from my pack, I shaved slices into a pan and broke out a half a loaf of bakery bread, brought from town. Whilst I was frying it, I poured myself a cup of coffee and made idle talk about the Indian Territory.
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