He smiled. "Never, Mr. Sackett. The woman who would leave you would certainly not destroy her wagon or those valuable mules, and you have told me of the money ... she would have taken that.
No, what I was thinking of was something else.
"Your wife," he went on, "was an attractive woman, and she was alone. This is a country where there are few women, fewer beautiful women."
"Captain, it just doesn't figure. You know how western folks feel about molesting a woman.
Nobody'd be fool enough--"
"Suppose he did not stop to think until too late?" Porter walked over to me. "He would have been wild with panic. He would have been desperate to cover up, to remove any possibility of what he had done ever being discovered."
"What about those men hunting me?"
"When you find them I think you will discover they were looking for you for some other reason. I think one man--someone able to command others--is responsible, and only he or they know the real reason you are to be killed."
Of course, it made sense. Also it meant that Ange was dead, and that her death must have been ugly. Suddenly all the fury that was in me came welling up inside until I was almost blind with it.
I stood there, my head down, my whole body shaking with it. Inside me there was only one thing left, a terrible will to destroy, to kill.
After a moment I looked up. "Captain, I got to have some rest."
"Also Seiber will take care of you." Porter paused. "Sackett, this conversation is between us.
If it is ever mentioned I shall deny that it ever took place. However, in the morning you will have a horse and a mule at your disposal, and I shall speak to Mr. Seiber about the guns."
"I have money. I can buy them."
He nodded. "Of course. But you will want good weapons, and I am afraid what you would find at the sutler's ... at the trading post ... would not be adequate."
When I stepped outside, he stood in the doorway. It was dark now, and he stood there framed against the light. "Remember, my offer holds. If you want to join up, return here.
I am sure I can arrange for your old rank, perhaps for a commission."
After the door closed I stood there a while alone in the darkness. The stars were bright in the desert sky, the night was cold ... and Ange, my Ange, was dead.
Suddenly I knew she must be dead, and that all Captain Porter had suggested was true. The chances were her body lay somewhere not far from that wagon.
I was going back to look, to give her a decent burial. And then I was going to hunt a man.
It was a long time before I knew what happened inside that building after I left it ... a long, long time.
Captain Porter went to his table and took out a sheet of paper. He put down the place and the date, and then he wrote out a letter and addressed it, a letter that would be in the mail before I ever left the post.
And that letter was to make all the difference to me.
Whether it was to be life or death for me was decided by that cavalry captain putting pen to paper in his quiet quarters that night at Camp Verde ... but that is another story.
Chapter five.
One thing I'd learned a long time back. When traveling in enemy country, never return by the same trail you used in going out ... they may be laying for you.
Also Seiber told me of an Indian trail that left the Verde at the big bend below Fossil Creek, so I took it and rode across the top of Hardscrabble Mesa and made camp at Oak Spring.
My hands were only partly healed. I could use a rifle well enough, but would hesitate to draw a Colt against anybody. It was two weeks since I'd taken my fall, and I was still in bad shape, but I could wait no longer. Right now I was no more than two miles from Buckhead Mesa and the canyon where the ruins of my wagon lay.
Two to three miles away to the north there was a Mormon settlement--not a town, just a bunch of folks settled in there who had come down from Utah ... or so I supposed.
From all I'd heard they were God-fearing folk, and it was there I planned to go when I needed supplies, and it was also where I hoped to get information. For the present what I needed was rest, for I tired easily, and I was still in no condition for what lay ahead.
Oak Spring was a good hide-out. It lay in a canyon, and I'd seen no tracks on the Indian trail leading in here. My good treatment by Victorio, if that was who it was, would mean nothing if I met other Apaches, and the Tontos were some of the worst of the lot.
Over a hatful of fire I made coffee and a good meal, for I had a feeling the meals ahead would be few and far between. At daybreak, back in the saddle, I rode over the mesa, crossed Pine Creek above the canyon and rode back onto Buckhead Mesa.
There were plenty of tracks, most of them at best a week old, all well-shod horses like you'd find on a well-run cow outfit. Nowhere was there the slightest sign there had ever been a wagon on this mesa.
When I reached the site of the burned wagon I got a surprise. Aside from some blackened brush there was no sign there had ever been a wagon here, or a fire. Somebody had done a piece of hard work, doing away with all trace of what had happened. Even the hubs were gone, dragged off somewhere and buried, I figured.
After scouting around and finding nothing, I rode back to where the wagon had been. All the time I was riding with the rifle across my saddle-bows, and keeping a wary eye for riders. I was alone, and how many enemies I had against me I didn't know, but my life wasn't worth a plugged two-bit piece if they found me.
Sitting there by that fire, I was a mighty lonesome man, my heart a-hurting something awful for thoughts of Ange. I'd long been a lonely man before I saw her, and nobody ever had a truer, finer wife.
Being the oldest of the Sacketts, I was first out of the nest when trouble came, and off I'd gone to the war. We were Tennessee folk from the high-up hills, but we had no truck with slavery or looking down the nose at any man. Many a man in my part of the country fought for the South, but while my heart was with her, my head was not, and I rode north to join the Union.
Leaving slavery aside, it was that I was fighting for--the Union. This was my country, and like Sacketts and their kinfolk for many a year, I was ready to take up my rifle and trail it off to the fightin'. Besides, none of us Sacketts were ever much on missing out on a fight. It was just in us to step in and let fly.
So I joined the Sixth Cavalry in Ohio and rode through the war with them, and then when it was over I started west to seek out my fortune, wherever it should take me.
Tyrel and Orrin had already gone, leaving about the time of the war's end, or just after. They'd gone west seeking a home for Ma, and they found it, and meanwhile Tyrel had won him a name with his shooting and had become a lawman. Orrin, he studied law and had been elected to office.
Here I was with nothing. Ange and me, we had us a gold mine in the high-up Colorado mountains, but getting the gold out was not easy, and we'd have only a couple of months each year in which to work. I'd brought some out, but what I really wanted was a ranch of my own. With what gold I had, I bought some stock and my outfit and we headed west for the Tonto Basin. Now Ange was gone, and my outfit was wiped out, and me ... I was a hunted man, sought after by Lord only knew how many. And not a friend to side me but my Colt and Winchester.
Not that there weren't plenty of Sacketts around the country, and we were a feudin' and a fightin' family, but they were scattered wide and far, and no chance for any help to me. There was Lando, Falcon, Tyrel, Orrin, and many another of our name, and all good men.
After I'd put out my fire, I crawled into the place under the trees close to my horse, and there I stretched out my tired body and closed my eyes in sleep.
The sun was high when I rolled out and led the horse to water. Then I left him on a small patch of grass whilst I made coffee and chewed on some jerky. I had a restless, irritable feeling, and I knew what it was. Being a man slow to anger, and one who can fight his anger back for a while, I knew it was working up to a point where all hell would tear loose ... and that's no goo
d.
That was the morning I found Ange.
It was only a few rods from where the wagon had been left, and I was scouting around when I saw that crack in the rock. For a moment I stood there, fear climbing up inside me, for all the while my feelings had been fighting against reason, telling me that Ange was still alive, that Ange had somehow gotten away, and that I'd find her.
That crack was no different from others. It was a place where the rocky edge of the mesa had started to break off, and this crack had broken far back into the table rock of the mesa. After a minute I walked over there. Somebody had scooped dirt in there and heaped rock and brush around it. The job had been done in a tearing hurry. Under the brush and the debris, I found Ange.
She had been strangled, but not before she had put up a terrific fight. Her fingernails were stained dark with blood, and there was flesh under them. She had fought, and she had gouged deep.
The bitter cold had left her just as she had been, but I could not bear to look at her face.
After what seemed a long time, I got my blanket and wrapped her in it. Then I rode down to where the fire had been; for one thing I'd seen left behind was my shovel. The killer had used it in controlling the fire, and thrown it aside and forgotten it.
Up on the mesa I found a place where the earth was deep and I dug a grave for her, and I buried her there. When it was over I covered the grave with rocks, and then went to work with my new bowie knife and cut a cross for her.
Using the heated edge of the shovel, I burned ^ws into this crude cross.
HERE LIES
ANGE SACKETT
MURDERED NEAR THIS SPOT
APRIL 25, 1877
Now whoever had done this would have no doubts. They would know I was alive. But those others, the ones who were hunting me who might not know the truth, they would know it now.
Then I checked my guns again, and mounting up, I rode down off the mesa.
Now the chips were down. They would be hunting me, but I would be hunting them too, and there was no mercy in me. There was only the desire to hunt them down on their bloody trail, and give them a chance to try killing somebody who was not a woman alone.
There wasn't much to Globe in those days, just a few shacks, cabins, and tents scattered along the bank of Pinal Creek. And there were three saloons. I rode up to the first one and swung down, and I saw folks a-looking at me.
Being taller than most, standing six foot three in my socks and somewhat more in boots, I'm accustomed to folks looking at me. But maybe this time there was something else.
In the saloon there were maybe seven or eight men, and I looked around at them. "I'll buy a drink," I said. "I'll buy a drink for the house."
Some of them hesitated, but not for long. A square-jawed man studied me a moment, took up his glass, and looked across it at me. "You aren't celebrating, friend."
"I'm hunting information. I'm looking for a cow outfit that had some hands working the Mogollon country a couple of weeks ago."
Nobody said anything, and finally the man next to me said, "What's the trouble, mister?"
"It's an outfit that has a couple of hands workin' for them named Macon and Dancer."
"You take my advice"--x was a stocky, swarthy-looking man who spoke--?y'll fork that horse of yours and ride out of here."
"I wasn't asking for advice."
The swarthy man grinned at me, but it wasn't friendly. "Why, you damned fool! Macon is the saltiest man with a gun in this country."
"You called me a damned fool."
He put down his glass. "So?"
He was expecting me to reach for my gun, but I couldn't trust my grip, not yet, anyway. So I hit him.
He was almost as tall as me and somewhat heavier --"twenty pounds, maybe. But that first punch counts for a lot, and I meant it to. My left fist smashed him in the teeth, and my right came around and clobbered him on the ear. That ear split and blood started to flow, and he was clawing for a gun, so I reached in and grabbed his belt, jerked him toward me, and then threw him back. He hit the wall with a thud, and when he started to come at me again I gave him a taste of my knuckles in the mouth again, and then both fists in the stomach. He folded up and went down, and I kicked his gun away.
"You talk to me again," I said, "you call me mister."
Then I walked back to the bar and took up my drink.
"That cow outfit," the square-jawed man said, "why are you hunting them?"
The man I'd clobbered was slowly getting off the floor, so I shucked my gun. I couldn't trust myself to draw fast, although I could do all right once it was out. So I just taken it out and held the gun on him and I said, "If you're a friend of Macon's, tell him he didn't kill me the first time. And tell him the next time I'll be looking right at him."
The square-jawed man looked at me from cold, steady eyes. "Are you implying that Sonora Macon shot you in the back?"
With my left hand I removed my hat. They could all see the livid bullet scar, still fresh, with the hair shaved back by the Army surgeon. "I wouldn't know him if I saw him, but he knew my back. He shot me off a cliff up on Buckhead Mesa."
"That's hard to believe."
"You can believe it." I tossed off the rest of my drink and stepped back from the bar. "You can tell them, any of them you see, that I'm hunting them.
"They ran me ragged when I was hurt and unarmed, they ran me all over that country. But now I'll be running them. You tell any man of that outfit they can fight or hunt a hole, but I'm coming for them."
"You talk large, stranger."
"Anyone that doubts me," I said, "can come asking."
"That outfit has forty men, forty very tough men.
Forty good men."
"Good men? Mister, one or more of those men murdered my wife, killed my mules, burned my wagon."
"Killed your wife?"
Now there was quiet in the room. Men looked at me, glasses in their hands, all movement stilled by what I had said.
"I left my wife at my wagon and went scouting a way down off Buckhead. Somebody shot at me an hour or so later, then they hunted for my body. I heard them. I heard the names of Macon and Dancer.
"My wife was a good girl. She was strangled, mister, and whoever did it wears her marks on his face. There was blood and torn flesh under her fingernails.
"Then he killed my mules, burned my wagon and the mules, and tried to wipe out all trace of what he had done. He murdered my wife on the twenty-fifth of last month.
Mister, there weren't too many men in that part of the country at that time. So I'll find them."
There was a mutter of anger from the men in the room. The square-jawed man's face was white and stiff, but he did not speak. He turned back to the bar. "I'll have another drink," he said thickly.
The bartender rested his hands on the bar.
"Anybody who would murder a woman is a no-gd skunk. I'll lend a hand with the rope, mister."
One of the men spoke up. "Who might you be, mister? We don't know you."
"I am Tell Sackett," I said, "William Tell Sackett, of Tennessee, Colorado, and a lot of other places."
"You related to the Mora gunfighter?"
"Brother. I taught him to shoot. Alth,"
I added, "he done all right when he taken it up."
The man beside me finished his drink, turned away from the bar, and went outside.
"Who might he be?" somebody asked.
"Cattleman, I guess," another answered. "He's a stranger to me."
Nobody said anything more for a while.
Presently the bartender said, "You eaten tonight, mister? You set down over at the table, and I'll fix you up."
Suddenly I was awful tired. My strength was coming back, but that short fight had been too much, too soon. So I leathered my gun and walked over to the table and dropped into a chair.
The bartender brought me food and a pot of coffee, and I thanked him. I ate and drank, but all the while I was thinking of Ange, and away down inside me somethin
g burned like a cold fire.
It gnawed away at my insides until there was nothing else in me, nothing to think of, nothing to dream of ... only the man I wanted to find, the man I wanted to kill.
Man ... or men ... There might have been more than one.
Chapter six.
When I'd eaten my fill and drunk my coffee I went outside and stood where the wind came down the draw. It was a wild night, with clouds racing down the long black sky, lighted weirdly by a hiding moon. I stood there alone on what passed for a street, and felt the loneliness and the pain tearing at me.
Ange! ... Ange had died horribly and alone, attacked while waiting for me, and never a chance at life, for she had spent her years so much alone before I found her high in those Colorado mountains.
Ange, who was beautiful and tender and thoughtful, who could not bear to see nothing suffer, and who was always thinking of what she could do for me to make my life a happier thing. And little enough of happiness had come my way until Ange came.
Now she was gone, and the thought of it was almost too much for me.
Deep down within me an awful rage was burning. I banked the fires of it and waited, knowing my time would come. My horse turned his head and looked at me in a woe-bbgone manner, for the wind was cold and the night was late, so I went over to him and, taking my Winchester from the scabbard, I stepped into the saddle and walked him down the empty street where dry leaves blew, and the dust.
There was no livery stable in town, only a corral with a few horses standing, tails to the wind. Some boulders and the wall of the mountain made a partial break. So I stripped the leather from him and put it under a little shelter built for the purpose, and then I rubbed him all over with handfuls of grass and turned him into the corral, first standing by while he ate a bit of corn from the sack I carried. It was a small sack, but there was enough to give him the extra something he might need for a long stretch of hard going.
Turning away from the corral, I looked toward the lighted windows. It was late, and this was an early rising town, so it was early to bed.
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