The Sacket Brand (1965) s-12

by Louis L'Amour

  It was a feeling of foolishness that came over me that finally made me move, a realization that no man as tall and tough as I was had a right to die with such melancholy on him.

  So I moved, and endured the swift pain that followed, and the sickness. I'd been hit in the side, I thought, when scarce beyond the knock on my skull from Sonora Macon's bullet, and the hurts of my fall.

  There was another one I owed ... Sonora Macon. Where was he?

  My enemies all seemed beyond me, out of my reach, and even with me running so hard and so long, I could not come upon them.

  The fires burned bright out there. No doubt their light was reflected from the face of these rocks where I lay, and a movement here could be seen. Perhaps some of them still lay living among the rocks, waiting for me to move, so they could kill me.

  But I knew that somehow I had to live long enough to meet Allen, somehow this must be done. It was the knowledge that other Sacketts might come that helped me then ... that they might even be close by.

  I was a man who had always stood alone, aware of my family though far from it, aware of their instinct for pride of family and their readiness to die for it. No matter that it made little sense to some ... a man must have something in which to believe, andwith us who were Tennessee Sacketts the family came first. Everything--life, food, shelter--all came after.

  For a hundred years my family had told stories of Sacketts who came running to help Sacketts, often men they had never known. It was the way of our kind, the way of the hills in which we were bred.

  The place where I now crouched among the rocks was only a few miles from where Ange had been killed ... maybe five or six miles.

  Buckhead Mesa was almost due north.

  There were steep canyons to the right and left of the cliff, canyons that allowed water to fall off the mesa in quick cataracts ... when there was water to fall. I did not know if I could climb, but I must try, for in the morning they would come at me.

  If I was going to make a stand I'd have to get well up among the higher rocks, above the bottom land.

  Inch by inch, I began to work my way back and up. There were cracks in the rock, and there were clumps of brush, a few small steep slopes, and some ledges. My side hurt me, and my head ached heavily. I could scarce pull up my own weight, but I made it up a few feet, waited a bit, then edged on. Certainly no Apaches were close by, or they'd have heard me.

  Once I'd started, there was brush enough on the slope to give me a little cover, but it was steep and I needed special care to keep my rifle from hitting against a rock, for the sound would be heard by any watchers below.

  In the reflected light against the wall, I could see a little space beyond a juniper that grew out from the rock. Pushing past it, not without some noise, I found a space not over three feet wide, but it evidently ran along the cliff for some distance.

  Here was a layer of sandstone that had remained when softer rock had been eroded away--there were many such places in these hills. It gave me a place to rest, and some cover from the men down below.

  I had panted and struggled, I had tugged and hauled my way up the side of the mountain, and now that I'd found even this small shelter, I just hadn't anything to go on with. The bitter hard days of riding, my wounds, and the exhaustion suddenly closed in on me. I lay down and the darkness closed around me. The night was fresh and the stars clear, and I slept.

  A shout awakened me. I came out of the darkness of sleep ... I came out a-clawing and a-grabbing, and then I sat up, soaked in cold sweat. It was full daylight, and there were men down below, among the rocks where I'd been.

  They were that close, and they were hunting for me. I started to get up, but I couldn't make it. My legs were too weak to hold me, and I just sat down again there where I'd been. By leaning a mite I could see them ... there were maybe twenty of them down there. I could see their horses back toward the river, in the bottom land. They were held in a rope corral by a wrangler.

  Reaching out, I fumbled a grip on my Winchester and drew it to me.

  "All right," I said, "you got me. But you're gonna pay to collect." I said it to myself as I eased the Winchester up where I could use it.

  And then I heard a rattle among the rocks above me, and a pebble bounced down, struck my shoulder, and fell away among the rocks. A little dust trailed after.

  So they were up there too. They were above me as well as below. This time they figured to make it a certain thing.

  Chapter fourteen.

  Bob O'Leary looked through the glass he was polishing, then added it to the stack on the back bar.

  He was worried and scared, and he was anxious for the night to end. Nobody was talking, although the saloon was half full.

  Also Zabrisky was there, seated at a table in a corner with Burns and Briscoe. O'Leary knew them all, and not favorably, from Mobeetie and Tascosa. He wanted them to leave, but was far too wise a man to order them out. Zabrisky was drinking, and O'Leary knew what that meant, though as yet he had not had much.

  Swandle was at the bar, standing alone. He looked thinner, older, and tired. O'Leary knew part of the story and could guess the rest.

  Swandle had every cent he owned invested in cattle in partnership with Van Allen, and those cattle had just finished a long desert drive a few weeks before. They had lost cattle on that drive and the stock needed time on the lush Tonto grass to recuperate. Swandle wanted no part of the fight Allen had brought on them, but he was unable to get out without losing everything.

  O'Leary had just picked up another glass when the door opened. He looked that way and felt something freeze up tight within him. At first glance he thought the newcomer was Tell Sackett, but this man was heavier. He wore his hair down to his shoulders, and there was a scar on his cheekbone.

  He wore two tied-down guns and his fringed buckskin jacket was open, showing the butt of a third. He was dusty and unkempt, and he paused momentarily in the door to let his eyes grow accustomed to the light. His nose had been broken in more than one fight, and there was a wild, reckless look about him that made O'Leary's heart miss a beat. He came on to the bar, spurs jingling, a powerful big man with the movements of a stalking lion.

  "Rye," he said, then let his eyes drift over the room. They found Zabrisky and rested there, then examined both Burns and Briscoe.

  Briscoe, who was the youngest of the three, saw him first, and spoke in an undertone to the others.

  Zabrisky turned his eyes toward the bar.

  Nolan Sackett looked down the room at him and said, "Folks down the trail said somebody up here was huntin' a Sackett."

  "So?" It was Zabrisky who spoke.

  "I'm Nolan Sackett, of the Clinch Mountain Sacketts, and I've come a fur piece jus' to he'p my kinfolk."

  Also Zabrisky had not yet had too much to drink, but what he'd had was working on him. What sanity remained warned him that he was drawing fighting wages to kill Tell Sackett.

  Furthermore, there was nothing about this big, uncurried wolf that appealed to him. The name Nolan Sackett had rung a bell ... it was a name known wherever outlaws congregated, from Miles City to Durango in Mexico.

  The ^w that came over the grapevine was loud and clear: Nolan Sackett? Leave him alone.

  "We're not huntin' you," he said.

  "Mister, you're huntin' a Sackett, an' the one you're huntin' would, man to man, make you eat that six-gun you're packin'. Howsoever, when you hunt one Sackett, you just naturally make the rest of us feel the urge.

  "Now, I don't know if I'll make it up there in time to he'p, so I figured to trim off the edges, like. You look maverick to me, so I figured to put the Sackett brand on you."

  There were five other Lazy A gun-handlers in the room. Swandle was at the bar, almost in the line of fire.

  For the first time in his life, Also Zabrisky was prepared to talk himself out of a hole. He was a money-fighter, and there was nothing in this but trouble with a capital T. He started to speak, but his gun holster was in his lap, the but
t within easy inches of his hand. Suddenly he thought, The hell with it!

  And he grabbed the bone handle of his six-shooter.

  Zabrisky's eye was quick and accurate, but he never saw the draw that killed him. He saw Sackett's hand move and then he was blinded by a stabbing light from the gun muzzle and the wicked blow of a .45 slug taking him in the stomach.

  "What ...?" He wanted to know what was happening to him, but only the dead could have told him.

  He started to go down, heard the stabbing roar of guns, and clawed his fingers into the boards of the saloon floor.

  Burns was down. In a hurried move backward, his chair had tipped, and when he came up he caught a bullet over the right eye.

  At the moment of drawing, Briscoe had thrown himself aside, getting out of the line of fire, but in so doing he lost his grip on his gun. It lay on the floor, inches from his hand. He looked at the gun, then at Nolan Sackett, who stood with his big feet apart, the six-shooter easy in his fist.

  "Go ahead, son," Nolan said mildly, "go right ahead an' pick it up. Nobody gets to live forever."

  Briscoe was sweating. The gun was close.

  He could grasp, tilt, and fire. He had a hunch he could do it and kill Nolan Sackett.

  His ambition told him to go ahead and grab, but his body had better sense, and his muscles refused to respond. Slowly, he sagged back.

  Nolan Sackett took a quick step forward.

  "Here, boy. You might as well have it." He tossed the gun to Briscoe, and the gunman leaped back as if it were red-hot, letting the pistol fall to the floor.

  Nolan Sackett shook his head reprovingly. "Son, you take it from me. Don't never tie one of those on again.

  Somebody will feed it to you."

  He turned back to the bar and was startled to see a tall elegant young man in a tailored broadcloth suit, a black planter's hat, and Spanish-made boots holding a gun on another table of riders.

  The gun was beautifully made, inlaid with gold, and it had pearl grips. Its mate was in its holster, butt forward, on the stranger's left side.

  Without averting his eyes from the men at the table, the stranger said, "How are you, Nolan? I am Parmalee Sackett, from under the Highland Rim."

  "A flat-land Sackett? I heard tell of 'em. Never did meet up with one before."

  "These lads were getting a bit restless,"

  Parmalee Sackett said. "It seemed a good idea to restrain them."

  He holstered his pistol. "I'll buy a drink, Nolan, and if these boys gets fractious, we'll share and share alike."

  "Only if you let us in," came a voice from the doorway. They turned to face the newcomers.

  Orlando Sackett and the Tinker, newly arrived in Globe, walked across to the bar, and were greeted.

  Parmalee Sackett turned to Swandle. "I understand you are one of the owners of the Lazy A?"

  Swandle straightened up. "I am not wearing a gun."

  "This isn't gun trouble," Parmalee replied. "This is business. How much of an outfit do you have?"

  "We drove in three thousand head, or a mite over. We lost cattle on the drive."

  "You want to sell out?"

  "What?" Swandle stared at him. "Sell out to y?"

  "Why not? You've got everything tied up in that herd, or so they told me. They also told me they doubted if you had anything to do with this trouble."

  "I didn't. I'll take an oath. This was Allen's doing."

  "All right, I'll buy you out, lock, stock, and barrel."

  "You'd become a partner of Allen's?"

  "That's right."

  "Look," Swandle protested, "the cattle are scattered. Nobody has tried to do a thing with them since this trouble started. The remuda is worn to a frazzle, chasing this kin of yours, and Allen won't listen to anyone. He's obsessed ... or scared to death."

  "The way it looks to me you can stay in and take a gamble on losing it all, or you can sell out now."

  "I bought cheap and I'll sell cheap. We picked our cattle up in Chihuahua for little or nothing."

  "Name your best price."

  Swandle hesitated, but he knew he was going to accept. A few hours before, he had been debating the question of riding out and just leaving it all behind. In fact, he had been thinking that way for several days past. Now he had his chance to ride out with enough to start elsewhere.

  What was the real truth of the matter he did not know. He only knew that Tell Sackett's story had sounded convincing, and that Allen had been acting very queer. He also knew that most of the old hands, the hands hired in Texas, had gone. The ones who remained were hired gun hands or no-account drifters.

  He had tried reasoning with Allen, but the man would not listen. He had offered to give Allen a note for his, Allen's, share of the cattle and outfit, but Allen had refused to either sell or buy.

  Swandle's reputation was good. This he knew, and he knew that in the West even more than elsewhere business was done on reputation.

  Now he named his price, and it was low. It was low enough so Parmalee Sackett would not back out, even if he were so inclined. "You've no idea what you're getting into," Swandle warned.

  "Van Allen is a dangerous man, and he's half-crazy now. All he can think of is killing Tell Sackett."

  "If he hasn't killed him by now, he won't."

  Parmalee Sackett took a letter from his pocket. "Do you know Fitch and Churchill, the Prescott attorneys?"

  "I've done business with them."

  "They represent me. Their offices are over the Bank of Arizona, and there is money enough on deposit there to cover this. Take this over to Tom Fitch or Clark Churchill--and you can write me out a bill of sale now."

  Swandle stood at the bar and asked for a sheet of paper. When Parmalee Sackett had glanced over the bill of sale, he turned on the Lazy A riders.

  "You have heard us make a deal. I am now an equal partner in the Lazy A, and as of now, you are fired. As I understand it, you were hired without the knowledge of Mr. Swandle for a purpose having nothing to do with handling cattle. Therefore, if you are to be paid, you can collect from Mr. Allen ... or you can go into court and sue me."

  Slowly, the men got up. They did not like what they had heard, and liked still less this stranger dude. He had covered them without warning, without their even being aware of his presence, and now he had fired them.

  "We got other ways of collecting," one of them said.

  Parmalee Sackett nodded. "Of course.

  You are wearing a gun, so how about now?"

  Barney Mifflin, faced with the situation, decided he did not care for it. There was a good chance he would collect nothing for all the riding and shooting he had already done, and only minutes before he had had a demonstration of the brand of shooting at least one Sackett could deliver.

  "How about him?" Barney indicated Nolan.

  "If it is going to be one at a time, he's out of it. Come on, gentlemen, the line forms on the right. Put up or shut up."

  Barney hesitated, then shrugged. "The stakes are too high for what's in the pot. We'll ride out."

  Deliberately, Parmalee turned his back to them. But Barney, an observant young man, noticed that he watched them in the mirror.

  Outside in the street he said, "I wished I was riding for them. That's an outfit."

  "Hell!" one of the others said, and he spat into the dust. "They don't need any help. Just the same," he added, "I'd like to be a little bird a-settin' in a tree when the show does come off."

  Parmalee turned to the bar. "Nolan, how about that drink?" Then he looked at Orlando and the Tinker. "And you, too, if you will honor me?"

  His eyes studied Lando's tremendous physique. "You're a Sackett, I take it?"

  "Orlando. And this here is the Tinker. He was a pack-peddler and tinker back in the hills."

  "Oh, yes, I have heard of you, Tinker."

  Parmalee indicated the bottle. "Help yourself." And then he added, "You're the tinker who makes the knives ... the Tinker-made knives that are the finest any
where."

  "We'd better move," Lando said. "Tyrel and them, they left at daybreak."

  "Of course. Bartender, the bill please.

  Al," he said, speaking to O'Leary, "you might pass the ^w. I am now a full partner, and no gun wages will be paid to anyone."

  Nolan emptied his glass. "When that ^w gets about," he said, "that Allen is goin' to be a mighty lonesome man."

  Nolan, Lando, and Parmalee Sackett walked to the door, followed by the Tinker.

  When the door had closed behind them, O'Leary turned to a couple of the loafers that were still in the room. "You boys cart those bodies to the stable, and I'll buy the drinks."

  When they had gone out, Briscoe got up slowly from his chair and walked over to the bar.

  "I'll buy one," he said.

  "Forget it. This one's on the house."

  Briscoe picked up the glass and looked across the bar at the Irishman. "You think I was scared, don't you?"

  O'Leary shrugged.

  "You want to know something, Bob?" Briscoe said. "I . Was scared. I was scared plumb to death ... and I never thought I'd admit that to anybody."

  "He gave you good advice. You leave those guns off, and you ride out of here."

  Briscoe nodded. He tried his drink, put the glass down, and took off his guns and placed them, rolled in their belts, on the bar. "You keep those," he said. "I never want to feel like that again ... not never."

  When he had left, O'Leary took the gun belts and the guns and hung them on a hook back of the bar.

  After a few minutes, while rinsing a glass, he looked at them. He could remember the day when he had done the same thing. That was twenty years ago. "And I'm still alive," he said to himself.

  The saloon was empty when the door opened and the girl walked in.

  "I am Lorna." she said.

  "Sorry. We don't serve ladies."

  "Oh, come off it! I'm no lady, and you're going to serve me." She put both hands on the bar and looked straight at Bob O'Leary. "Have they caught him yet?"

  "No."

  "I hope they don't. I hope they never do."

  Far down the trail toward the Mogollon country four riders were making dust.