the Sackett Companion (1992) (9 page)

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SACKETT

First publication: Bantam Books paperback, May 1961 Narrator: William Tell Sackett Time Period: c. 1874--1875

In which William Tell Sackett finds a trail unlike any trail he had ever seen before, and he follows it to gold and a girl, in that order. Other'men come to claim the gold but not to mine it. They come to cheat and steal, to reap the benefits without enduring the hard labor and the sweat needed to bring it from the ground.

If one rides the Durango to Silverton Railroad, as many do these days, he will find himself winding through a narrow and picturesque gorge with towering peaks above the rushing waters of the Animas River below or alongside. Waterfalls will tumble over the rocks beside the train and occasionally deer will be seen. Every bend of the track will offer some new insight into the West as it was, for the gorge can only be reached by the narrow-gauge train or a helicopter. Unless, of course, one wishes to hike in.

When nearing the end of the trip through the canyon one comes to Needleton. There some will leave the train to back-pack through the Chicago Basin and over Columbine Pass into Vallecito Canyon. The scene of most of the events of this story take place in the upper Vallecito, above Johnson Creek.

Today that train is loaded with tourists seeing the canyon and visiting Silverton at the end of the run. Many years ago, when I first made the trip, it was aboard a mixed train carrying a few passengers, a couple of cars of freight, and I believe at least one flatcar, but of that I cannot be sure. It was long ago and I had no particular reason to notice. I was riding the train to Silverton with the idea that I might obtain a job >>n one of the mines. I had no such luck, but on the return trip we left the train at Needleton, and back-packed through Uiicago Basin and over Columbine Pass. If I recall correctly there were several prospects in the Basin being worked at the time.

Only a week or ten days before I'd been paid off at the mme where my friend and I had worked together. He was a machineman, I was a mucker and trammer, and I had some
money, I believe something over two hundred dollars, so there was no pressing need that I go back to work.

Once arrived at his claim I helped a little with the assessment work but most of the time was spent in hiking around the country. My friend was in no hurry, either, working a little and loafing about enjoying the warm afternoon sun, the fishing and the mountains.

If memory serves there were two or three men holed up at Logtown but we saw little of them. Most of the time I hiked the mountains, climbing into some relatively inaccessible places, spots I would eventually write about in SACKETT.

Aside from Vallecito Canyon I prowled around Mt. Oso, Irving Peak, Half Moon, and Hidden Lakes. Much of it was rugged travel but I'd always liked high mountain country and this was my first opportunity to really indulge myself. Before I had been working for somebody or under the necessity to get someplace. Much of the time I did not know exactly where I was, only where camp was, and several times I stayed out all night because it was easier to hole up in some cave, overhang, or under a fallen tree than to hike back to camp. My friend was not a worrier and for all I knew he didn't give a damn.

What I refer to in the story as the ghost lake was just a large pool of melted snow-water, probably only inches deep, but I never checked to find out. Several times I saw bears, one digging for a marmot, another turning over dead logs to look for grubs or whatever. I had good binoculars with me that I'd borrowed from my friend, and often I'd sit for a half hour or so just studying the country, watching the animals, and seeking out trails or possible routes. However, in that high country, as in many such places, following trails was always good business. Somebody had gone that way, and if it was worn, many people had, so it was possible. Many routes that seem good end in steep drop-offs and one has to climb all the way back. If there is a trail, stay with it. That's my advice. Look around if you like but when you move on, stick to the trail.

It was the first time in my life that I had leisure and I made the most of it. I doubt if I was ever more than seven or eight miles from camp but it was mostly up, choosing my way with care.

In my years of wandering about in wild places, often alone, I have never taken unnecessary chances, and anyone who does is a fool. Recklessness is not bravery. I am inclined to agree with the explorer Roald Amundsen that what we call adventure is simply bad planning.

WILLIAM TELL SACKETT: The eldest of the five Sackett brothers of his family, he grew up in the Tennessee-North Carolina Mountains, joined the Union Army in the Civil War and rode most of the time with the Sixth Cavalry. He fought Indians in Dakota and Montana and rode on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. The great love of his life was in his Civil War period, a tale yet to be told. He also appears in THE SACKETT BRAND, MOJAVE CROSSING, THE LONELY MEN, TREASURE MOUNTAIN, LONELY ON THE MOUNTAIN, and as just another working cowboy in DARK CANYON.

ANGE KERRY: An Irish-Spanish mixture; Tell found her in a cave high in the mountains above Vallecito Canyon. Discovered her, almost lost her, but eventually married her. It just goes to show you a man's not safe anywhere, even at the end of a ghost trail past a ghost lake in a place where no one is likely to be.

CAP ROUNTREE: Mountain man, cowpuncher, stage driver, he's done it all and carries the scars to prove it. Nobody knows how old he is and he isn't talking. Some say that Pikes Peak was a mere hole in the ground when he first came west. He also appears in THE DAYBREAKERS, THE SACKETT BRAND, and LONELY ON THE MOUNTAIN.

MORA, NEW MEXICO: On the Mora River, in Mora County. The name's origin has been credited to several sources. Some say it was named for the mulberry, some for a dead man found by Ceran St. Vrain, but it was probably a surname.

ELIZABETHTOWN: A onetime copper and gold mining town, about 5 miles east of Eagle Nest, in Colfax County. First settled about 1865. Prospectors found gold on Willow Creek. Town named for a daughter of John W. Moore. Now almost a ghost town.

WILL BOYD: Gambler, gunman; he loses a mustache under peculiar circumstances not altogether related to cosmetics.

JOHN TUTHILL: A banker whose interests ran beyond interest. He knew that gold was where you found it and he didn't mind one bit if the gold belonged to somebody else. John Tuthill knew a lot about gold and even where gold was likely to be found. What he didn't know was a lot about mountains when the weather has been nice in the late fall. He didn't know much about weather in a country where if you don't like the weather you just wait five minutes.

JOE RUGGER: A good man in bad company; he knew when to throw in his hand and draw fresh cards.

THE BIGELOWS: A group of very rough brothers with plenty of nerve but very poor judgment. One of them had no more sense than to try a bottom deal on a man whose father began teaching him about cards and crooked gamblers when he was five.

KID NEWTON: A would-be badman traveling in the wrong company.

BEN HOBES: Wanted in Texas and a few other places but not wanted in many more. A wise man in the ways of the wilderness, he gambled on the weather and came up the loser. Or did he? A tough man might make it, particularly if he had some Al Packer in him.

BENSON BIGELOW: The old he-coon of the Bigelow tribe; he had it made and could have walked away, only at the last he couldn't leave it at that.

No Boot Hill graves are in sight, and those who lie there were buried deep and the ground smoothed out and the grass grows green where they lie.

There were no foundations laid for the buildings there, only timbers laid on the bare ground, and time and decay have done for them. Where they stood, wind blows through the grass and a few aspen have come up, and here and there a spruce among them. Only sometimes when hiking in the high-up mountains above Vallecito Canyon, up where the gray rock is splashed with leftover winter snow, sometimes, if you listen, you can hear a sound like a woman crying in the night.

She did not die there but her ghost came back to the place where she lost a grandfather, almost died alone, and then found for her own brief while happiness with a man she loved.

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LANDO

First publication: Bantam Books paperback, December
1962

Narrator: Orlando Sackett Time Period: c. 187 3-187 5

This is the story of Orlando Sackett and his racing mule-it is also the story of the Tinker, who was a tinker but also a pack peddler, once a pirate, and whatever else it took to pick up the loose chips.

When Orlando leaves the mountains on a quest for something better than he has, he does not know that he is also embarking on a quest for hidden treasure on which several relatives are also engaged, a trek that takes him south as well as west and eventually into Mexico and behind the walls of a Mexican prison.

He becomes a bare-knuckle prizefighter and meets an old enemy inside the squared circle, but along the way he encounters several very lovely ladies, and at the end has a six-shooter arbitration with some enemies of his own and some he inherited.

THE TINKER: A gypsy, of mysterious background; a pack peddler ,n the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains who came from--who knows? Real name: Cosmo Lengro. His origin a mystery, his reasons for becoming a pack peddler even more so, except ... a pack peddler, sooner or later, hears everything' People like to talk to a friendly stranger who is gone tomorrow and often they tell him things in their quiet talk over a jug of shine or over a cup of coffee, things they would not tell their next door neighbor.

A wily young man with a gift for making things work, a man who makes knives of a quality unknown elsewhere and of a kind of steel possessed by no one, a steel that will cut through anything. His knives are sought by everyone but made for a chosen few. Even Lando, his friend, does not have one.

Mountain people eagerly await his coming. He has dress goods, needles, and all sorts of necessities, but he also has little gimcracks of gifty things that arouse eager interest. He also has news, the most precious of items, and gossip about what is happening elsewhere in the mountains and what women are wearing in the Settlements.

THE KURBISHAWS: Lando's mothet's family; Aleyne Kurbi-shaw married his father contrary to her family's wishes and there was hatred on the Kurbishaw side for Falcon, Lando's
father.

The Kurbishaws had a dark side of anger and bitterness. They thought much of themselves, and believed by rights they should have wealth except they considered themselves above the need to work for it. Work was for peasants, for common men, not for those of their presence, their family, their importance. And then to have one of the family marry a Sackett when she could have married money! It was too much.

WILL CAFFREY: Falcon Sackett left his son to be cared for by Will Caffrey, and a considerable sum of money to pay for it, and provide for his schooling. Caffrey used the money for his own purposes and to educate his own son, Duncan. Lando was forced to work, but when they tried to beat him, he ran away and went back to the deeper woods and the cabin in which they had lived when he was born. Lando left with Will Caffrey hating him both for the injury Will had done him in appropriating his money and for the beating Lando had given his son.

DUNCAN CAFFREY: Gambler, prizefighter, and boyhood enemy of Lando, but a fighter of brawn and skill.

HIGHLAND BAY: A noted racehorse with many victories behind him. Owned by Will Caffrey.

JEM MACE: An English prizefighter, said to have been a gypsy, and once bare-knuckle champion of the world. One of the very first scientific boxers. That he was an able and successful fighter, there is no doubt, although he boxed at a time when the gentry was less involved and the gamblers more so. His fistic career covered the years from 1855--1864, with most of his fights taking place in England before he came to America. Mace was born in 1831 at Beeston in Norfolk. There were no weight divisions in his period and his best fighting weight seems to have been one hundred and fifty pounds, although he often weighed less. Today he would be classed as a welterweight.

Jem Mace often fought men we would classify as heavyweights or light-heavyweights today. He fought under the London Prize-Ring rules which meant a knockdown was the end of a round. The term "knockdown" was loosely interpreted and meant any time a man went to the ground. It was perfectly permissible to throw a man down or trip him. A round might be ten minutes or it might be ten seconds, ending whenever a fighter went down.

Present-day fights are fought, as they have been for many years, under the Marquis of Queensbury Rules, and a round is three minutes, the rest between rounds one minute.

CULLEN BAKER: My novel THE FIRST FAST DRAW deals with him. To some he was a hero, to others an outlaw and a killer. What you believe often depends on your source of information. His activities were largely confined to the area around Jefferson, Texarkana, the Sulphur River area, and Caddo Lake, yet there are stories that he went west as far as Salt Lake and even that he was associated for a time with Brigham Young's so-called Destroying Angels.

He was, as in this story, associated for a time with Bill Longley and Bob Lee. Longley was only briefly associated with Baker and was later hanged. Bob Lee was a Southerner who continued to wage war after the surrender to Grant. A man of good family, he was also a good man with a gun. The title of his story comes from the fact that until the 1850s the pistols generally available were too cumbersome for a fast draw and were seldom carried on the person.

GOVERNOR EDMUND JACKSON DAVIS: A Reconstruction governor in a state needing no reconstruction, as the war had done no damage there. An honest, decent man in a very unpopular job, a Republican governor in Texas, a largely Democratic state. His black police force was extremely unpopular. Most of the better class of black men would have nothing to do with the police force and those recruited often invited trouble in a situation that demanded the utmost in tact and consideration. During the last days of the Civil War and for at least ten years after there was much feuding and fighting among the white population as the various factions tried to settle their difficulties by direct action.

The Davis police got very little cooperation, and in any event were incapable of coping with it. Davis was defeated in his bid for re-election but refused to give up the office until assured he would get no support from President Grant.