Ride the Dark Trail (1972) (7 page)

'I'm here," I said.

"Boss?" That slim man's voice was pleading. "Those thieves are gettin' away, boss."

He swung his horse back to the trail. "So they are," he said sharply, and led off down the trail.

That was a mean man, I told myself, and a man to watch. I'd crossed him, backed him down, made him look less than he liked to look in front of his men.

"Logan," I said, "you've made you an enemy." Well, here and yonder I had a few. Maybe I could stand one more.

Nevertheless, I made myself a resolution to get nowhere near Dutch Brannenburg. Then or ever.

He had come west like many another pioneer and had taken up land where it meant a fight to hold it. Trouble was, after he'd used force a few times to hold his own against enemies it became a way of life to him. He liked being known as a hard, ruthless man. He liked being known as a driver. He had earned his land and earned his way, but now he was pushing, walking hard-shouldered against the world. He had begun in the right, but he had come to believe that because he did it, whatever he did, it was right to do. He made his own decisions as to who was criminal and who was not, and along with the horse and cow thieves he had wiped out a few innocent nesters and at least one drifting cowhand.

I'd been on the way and in the way, and only my own alertness had kept me alive. Now I'd made him stand back and he would not forgive.

The trail I'd followed had lost whatever appeal it had, so I mounted up and rode up the mountain, skirting the aspen and weaving my way through the scattered spruce that lay beyond. Somewhere up ahead was an old Indian trail that followed along the acres of the mountains above timberline. I was gambling Brannenburg did not know it.

His place was down in the flat land, and I had an idea he wasn't the type to ride the mountains unless it was demanded of him or unless he was hunting somebody. The trail was there, a mere thread winding its way through a soggy green meadow scattered with fifty varieties of wild flowers, red, yellow, and blue.

Twice I saw deer ... a dozen of them in one bunch, and on a far-off slope, several elk. There were marmots around all the while and a big eagle who kept me company for half the morning. I never did decide whether he was hoping I'd kill something he could share or if he was just lonely.

The peaks around me were ragged and gray, bare rock clean of snow except for a patch here and there in a shady place. Nor was there sound but that from the hoofs of my horse on the soft earth or occasionally glancing off a bit of rock.

It was the kind of trail I had ridden many times, and as on other times I rode with caution. A lonely trail it was, abandoned long since by the Indians who made it, but no doubt their ghosts were still walking along these mountainsides, through these same grasses.

Once I saw a silver-tip grizzly in the brush at the edge of the timber. He stood up to get a better view of me, a huge beast, probably weighing half a ton or more, but he was a hundred yards off and unafraid. My horse snorted and shied a bit, but continued on.

There were lion tracks in the trail. They always take the easiest way, even here where there are few obstructions. I'd not get a sight of the lion - they know the man smell and edge away from it.

It was mid-afternoon before I stopped again. I found a stream of snow water running off the ridge and an abandoned log cabin built by some prospector. There was a tunnel on the mountainside, and a pack rat had been in the cabin, but nobody else had been there for a long time.

I drank from the stream and left the cabin alone, not caring to be trapped inside a building, the first place anyone would look. I went back in a little cluster of pines and built my fire where the smoke would be dissipated by the evergreen branches above.

The coffee tasted good. I ate some more of the bread and chewed some jerky while drinking it, and I watched the trail below and the valley opening into the mountains, smoky with distance.

Two days later I rode into Brown's Hole from the east.

The Hole is maybe thirty-three or four miles long by five to six miles wide, watered by the Green River and a few creeks that tumble down off Diamond Mountain or one of the others to end up in the Green. It is sagebrush country, with some timber on the mountains and cedar along the ridges.

The man I was looking for was Isom Dart ... at least that was the name he was using. His real name had been Huddleston ... Ned, I think. He was a black man, and he had ridden with Tip Gault's outfit until riders from the Hat put them out of business.

I planned to stop at Mexican Joe Herrara's cabin on Vermilion Creek. Riding into the Hole I had come on a man driving some cows. When I asked about Dart, he looked me over careful-like and then said I might find him at Herrara's cabin, but to be careful. If Mexican Joe got mad at me and started sharpening his knife, I would be in trouble.

I was hunting trouble, but as for Joe, I'd heard about him before and I didn't much care whether he got mad or not.

There didn't seem to be anyone about when I got to the cabin. I pulled up and stepped down.

Chapter
6

As I tied my horse to the corral with a slipknot, I kept an eye on the cabin. Men of that stamp would surely have heard me come up, and right now they were undoubtedly sizing me up.

In those days no law ever rode into the Hole. Most law around the country didn't even know where it was or just how to get in, and they'd find little to welcome them, although a few honest cattlemen like the Hoy outfit were already there.

Hitching my gun belt into a comfortable position, I walked up to the door.

As I came up on the rock slab that passed for a stoop the door opened suddenly and a Mexican was standing there. He wasn't Herrara, not big enough or mean enough.

"Buenos dias, amigo," I said, "is the coffee on?"

He looked at me a moment, then stepped aside. There were three men in the cabin when I stepped in. I spotted Herrara at once, a tall, fierce-looking Mexican, not too dark. Sitting at the table with him was a white man who had obviously been drinking too much. He looked soft, not like a rider. There was another Mexican squatting on his heels in the corner.

"Passin' through," I commented, "figured you might have coffee."

Nobody spoke for a minute; Herrara just stared at me, his black eyes unblinking. Finally, the Anglo said, "There's coffee, and some beans, if you'd like. May I help you?"

He went to the stove in the corner and picked up the pot, filling a cup for me. Pulling back a chair, I sat down. The big white man brought me the coffee and a dish of beef and beans.

"Has Dutch Brannenburg been through?"

Herrara stared at me. "You ride for Dutch?"

I laughed. "Him an' me don't see eye to eye. I met him yonder and we had words. He's headed this way, hunting two horse thieves ... Anglos," I added, "but he hangs whoever he finds."

"He did not hang you," Herrara said, still staring.

"I didn't favor the idea. The situation being what it was, he figured he could wait."

"The situation?" the Anglo asked.

"My Winchester was sort of headed his way. His motion was overruled, as they'd say in a court of law."

"He is coming this way?"

"There's nine of them," I said, "and they size up like fighters."

For a minute or two nobody said anything, and then around a mouthful of beans and beef, I said, "They'll come in from the north, I'm thinking. I didn't find any tracks in the Limestone Ridge country."

They all looked at me. "You came that way?"

I shrugged. "Joe," I said, "I'd been in this Hole two, three times before you left South Pass City."

He didn't like that very much. Mexican Joe had killed a man or two over that way and they'd made it hot for him, so he'd pulled his stakes.

I'd come in there first as a long-geared apple-knocking youngster. I'd been swinging a hammer on the U.P. tracks and got into a shooting at the End of Track. The men I killed had friends and I had none but a few Irish track-workers who weren't gunfighters, so I pulled my freight.

"Are you on the dodge?" It was the Anglo who asked the question.

"Well," I said, "there's a posse from Nebraska that's probably started back home by now. I came thisaway because I figured I'd see Isom Dart ... I wanted to sort of pass word down the trail."

"What word?" Herrara's tone was belligerent.

The Mexican had been drinking wine, as had the others. He was in an ugly mood and I was a stranger who did not seem impressed by him. There had been some other Mexicans down in Sonora and Chihuahua who weren't impressed, either, and that was why he was up here.

"Milo Talon," I said, "is a friend of mine, and I want to pass the word along that he's needed on the Empty, over east of here, and that he's to come careful."

'I'll tell Dart," the American said.

Herrara never took his eyes off me. He was mean, I knew that, and he'd cut up several men with his knife. He had a way of taking it out and honing it until sharp, then with a yell he'd jump you and start cutting. But the honing act was to get a man scared before he jumped him. It was a good stunt, and usually it worked.

He got out his whetstone, but before he could draw his knife I drew mine. "Say, just what I need." Before he knew what I was going to do I had reached over and taken the stone. Then I began whetting my own blade.

Well, it was a thing to see. He was astonished, then mad. He sat there empty-handed while I calmly put an edge to my blade, which was already razor sharp. I tried the blade on a hair from my head and it cut nicely, so I passed the stone back to him.

"Gracias," I said, smiling friendly-like. "A man never knows when he'll need a good edge."

My knife was a sort of modified Bowie, but made by the Tinker. No better knives were ever made than those made by the Tinker back in Tennessee. He was a Gypsy pack peddler who drifted down the mountains now and again, but he sold mighty few knives. The secret of those blades had come from India where his people, thousands of years back, had been making the finest steel in the world. The steel for the fine blades of Damascus and Toledo actually came from India, and there's an iron pillar in India that's stood for near two thousand years, and not a sign of rust.

I showed them the knife. "That there," I said, "is a Tinker-made knife. It will cut right through most blades and will cut a man shoulder to belt with one stroke."

Tucking it back in my belt, I got up. "Thanks for the grub. I'll be drifting. I don't figure to be trapped inside if Dutch comes along."

Nobody said a word as I went outside, tightened my cinch, and prepared to mount.

Then the American came out. "That was beautiful," he said, "Joe is an old friend of mine, but he's had that coming for a long time. He didn't know what to think. He still doesn't."

"You're an educated man," I said.

"Yes. I studied law."

"There's need for lawyers," I said. "I may need one myself sometime."

He shrugged, then looked away. "I should pull out," he said. "I just sort of drifted into this, and I've stayed on. I guess it doesn't make much sense."

"If I knew the law," I said, "I'd hang out my shingle. This is a new country. No telling where a man might go."

"I guess you're right. God knows I've thought of it, but sometimes a man gets caught in a sort of backwater."

I stepped into the saddle, listening beyond his voice. Nobody came from the cabin. I heard no sound on the trail.

The American pointed. "Isom Dart has a cabin down that way. He's a black man, and smart."

"We've met," I said.

He looked up at me. "They'll be wondering who you are," he said. "It isn't often a man stands up to Mexican Joe."

"The name is Sackett ... Logan Sackett," I said and rode off. When I looked back he was still looking after me, but then he turned and walked toward the cabin door.

I trusted the Anglo. I had heard of him before, and he was a man of much education who seemed to care for nothing but sitting in the cabin and drinking or talking with the Mexicans or passers-by.

This Brown's Hole was a secret place, although the Indians had known of it. Ringed with hills, some of them that could not be passed, it was a good place, too, a good place for men like me. There were places like this in Tennessee where I had been born, but they were more green, lovelier and not so large.

My thoughts returned to Emily Talon. She was a Sackett. She was my kin and so deserving of my help. Ours was an old family, with old, old family feelings. Long ago we had come from England and Wales, but the family feeling within us was older still, old as the ancient Celtic clans I'd heard spoken of. It was something deep in the grain, but something that should belong to all families ... everywhere. I did not envy those who lacked it.

There'd never been much occasion to think on it. When trouble fetched around the corner we just naturally lit in and helped out. Mostly, we could handle what trouble came our way without help, but there was a time or two, like that time down in the Tonto Basin country when they had Tell backed into a corner.

Riding through wild country leaves a man's mind free to roam around, and while a body never dast forget what he's doing, one part of his mind keeps watch while another sort of wanders around. My thoughts kept returning to Em Talon and the Empty.