the Lonely Men (1969) (20 page)

The man who'd been alongside the fire, instead of grabbing his gun, turned to lay hold of Dorset, and at the same time that I cut loose at Wolf I jumped my horse at Arch.

He made a quick step back to get out of the way, and a rock rolled under his feet. He fell as he drew, jolting the gun from his hand.

I swung my horse and got in another shot at Wolf, who burned me with one alongside the shoulder. He was just setting up to take a dead shot when my second bullet caught him, and he backed up a full step. My black was on him, and he rolled aside, and I felt bullets whipping around me.

Somehow Dorset had a gun. She fired at one of those boys and then taken out running, the child in her arms, for the pony string.

About that time I saw an Apache up on the slope, and he was shooting down at us.

I swung my horse again and went after Dorset.

She wasn't wasting any time, and fortunately they had left a couple of horses saddled. She pulled the drawstring on one of them and swung the child to the saddle, then she went into the saddle herself with a flying leap and we were off, running our horses across that desert like crazy folks.

Maybe we were a mite crazy. I had an idea we weren't going to make it, but every jump we took gave us a better chance. Behind us I could hear a fight taking place, and somebody else was running a horse off to the right.

Suddenly the desert split right open ahead of us, a deep cut maybe eight or ten feet across. I saw Dorset jump her horse, and I slapped spurs to mine and that black took to flying as if it was second nature. We both landed safe and swung down into a hollow, raced across it and up the other side, and into a forest of cholla where our horses swung right and left and about through that prickly stuff.

We leveled out in the open and put them to a run, and when we finally got them slowed down we had made it away ... for now.

Looking back, I could see nothing behind us. We had come several miles, and now we walked the horses under some cedars whilst I unlimbered my Winchester, checked it again, and returned it to the scabbard. Then I reloaded both my six-shooters. I could remember shooting four to five tunes, but eight shots had been fired, showing I'd been doubling up. I had no recollection of having drawn the second gun, but I surely had. When I'd reloaded, I moved alongside Dorset.

She was holding the youngster on the saddle in front of her. "What happened to the others?" I asked. "They got away. Harry is like a little Apache himself.

When those men came up he just disappeared into the brush with the others."

"Let's hope he made it."

The country was changing now. It was much more broken, but there was also more growth. There had been a desert shower, one of those sudden rains that sometimes deluge only a small area and then vanish. This one had left water standing in the bottoms of the washes and in hollows atop the rocks. It had filled the desert tanks, so we watered the horses.

My eyes felt like hot lumps in my skull, and they seemed to move with incredible slowness when I turned to look around. My fingers felt stiff, and I worked them and tried to loosen them up. My mouth was dry, and after I'd drunk it was dry again in a few minutes.

All of a sudden I was dead tired again. All the days of driving ahead, running, fighting, and worrying a way out were beginning to catch up with me. But we started on.

The horses plodded ahead, dazed with weariness. Several times I found myself dozing in the saddle, each time I'd wake up with a start of fear, and look all around. My mind seemed to be in a state of despair. Spanish was dead ... Tampico Rocca was dead ... where was John J.?

It would soon be dark, and if we expected to make the border we had to find a place to stop for rest. If it had to be, we ourselves could keep going, but not the horses, and without them our chances were gone. "Do you think they're following us?" Dorset asked. "I don't know," I answered, and said no more. The sun disappeared and shadows gathered in the folded hills. The shadows lifted questioning fingers, stark against the yellow sky. The quail began to talk across the silences, the wind stirred, rustling the dry leaves on the parched brush. Our horses' hoofs whispered in the sand.

A lone coyote showed for an instant, then like a shadow was gone, leaving no more sign than an Apache. A few stars began to appear ... one bright one was low in the sky, and held steady. Time to time I looked at it, and finally I said, "That there's a light. A fire, maybe." Dorset turned her head to look. "It's not an Indian fire," she said.

We drew up, and I turned, standing in my stirrups to look back.

"It might be the Haddens," I said. She glanced at me. "After you finished with them? What you didn't get, the Apaches got. You took two of them, I'd swear.

Maybe three."

Well, maybe. I wasn't making any claims. I never was one to file notches on a gun ... a tinhorn trick.

"Shall we try for it?" I said. "It's closer than the border. And the border never meant anything to an Apache except that south of it he was free of the American troops."

"We can scout it," Dorset answered. She swung her pony and headed toward the fire.

The yellow sky faded into gray and velvety dark. Even before we came up to it, I could see it was an Army fire ... it looked big because there were three of them in line. It was a Cavalry troop of maybe forty men. We pulled up and I hailed the camp.

"Howdy, there. Is it all right to come in? There's a woman and a child with me."

Silence ...

It was a long moment, and I guess somebody was trying to make us out with field glasses, though now there was not much light.

"All right," came the answer. "Ride in. Ride carefully."

I knew that voice. It was Captain Lewiston. Lieutenant Jack Davis stood beside him.

Lewiston looked from me to Dorset Binny. He tipped his hat "How do you do, ma'am. We have been worried for you."

"I'm all right. Thanks to Mr. Sackett."

"Did you come upon any other youngsters, Cap'n?" I asked. "Harry Brook and the Creed youngsters?"

"They're here, and they're safe. That's why we waited for you."

We walked our horses into camp and swung down. I staggered when I hit ground, and Lewiston was beside me. "Here, man, you'd better sit down."

"Got to care for my horse. You take the lady and the child, Cap'n, I -- "

"No." Lewiston's tone was suddenly stern. He turned. "Corporal, take this man's horse. See that it is cared for just as mine is. The others also."

He turned back to me. "Sackett, I regret to inform you that you are under arrest."

Me, I just looked at him. "For crossing the border? Cap'n, Laura Sackett told me her son had been taken by the Apaches."

"She has no son!" Davis spoke sharply. "Sackett, that's a damned -- "

Lewiston's voice cracked like a whip. "Lieutenant!"

Davis stopped, his face flushed. "I tell you, Captain, this man is -- "

"Silence! Lieutenant Davis, I suggest you inspect the guard. Whatever needs to be said to Mr. Sackett, I will say."

Davis turned on his heel and stalked away. "Forgive him, Sackett. He's young and I'm afraid he's smitten by Laura Sackett. He is very proud, and he feels he must defend her honor."

"Let him defend it, Cap'n, but keep him away from me. Him being new to the country I might not shoot him, but I am afraid if he said what he started to say he'd be shy a good many teeth."

"There will be no fighting. You seem to have forgotten, Sackett. You are under arrest."

Well, I just walked over to the fire and sat down. Then I dug into my gear which had been dropped there and got out my cup. Reaching for the pot, I poured coffee.

"All right, Cap'n," I said, "you tell me about it. Why are you arresting me?"

"You are under arrest for murder. You are under arrest for the murder of Billy Higgins."

"Higgins?"

"We found his body out on the Yuma road. He had been shot in the head."

"Among other things," I said, "the Apaches wounded him, and then they shot him full of splinters." "But you killed him."

"That's right, I did." Carefully, with several men standing about, I told him what had happened that day. Some of it I'd told him before, back in the Shoo-Fly when he told me about Kahtenny.

"He begged me to shoot him. Under the same situation I'd have done the same, more than likely."

"Perhaps." Lewiston looked hard at me. "Sackett, is it not true that your family feuded for years with a family named Higgins? That you hunted each other and killed each other on sight?"

"That was over years ago," I said. "Anyway, I ain't been back in that country since the war. As for this Higgins, I never gave it no thought. It's been a good while since I've had any cause to think of it."

"Nevertheless, Billy Higgins is dead, killed by your bullet. I have to warn you, Sackett, the story is out, and there's considerable feeling in Tucson. Higgins had friends there."

"But I tell you, I -- "

"Don't tell me. Tell the jury." He walked away from me, and I sat there by the fire, a-staring into it. I'd run a long way. I'd fought some hard fights. I'd stood off the Apaches and the Haddens, and now here I was, arrested for a crime that was no crime, but a crime they could hang me for.

And there was only one person in Tucson likely to know about that old Higgins-Sackett feud.

Laura Sackett ...

Chapter
18

You can take it from me that no jail cell is a place for a mountain boy. I was raised up where folks looked to the hills, only up where we came from you hadn't chance to look much higher, we were that near the top of the ridge.

This cell they put me into had one small window, too small for me to crawl out of, and a door that was as barred as could be. When I heard that door clang shut I wasn't at all happy. Only thing I knew, I was going to catch up on my sleep, and at least I could eat. And right about that time I was hungry enough to eat an old saddle, stirrups and all.

Captain Lewiston was my first visitor. He came early in the morning, and brought a chair into the cell with him. He also brought the company clerk.

"Sackett," he began, "I want you to give me the whole story, in your own words.

I want to help you if I can. Right now the people are divided. Some want to hang you for killing Billy Higgins, and some want to give you a medal for saving those youngsters."

So I gave it to him. How the bunch of us, unknown to each other until then, had banded together to ride to Tucson.

The story of our fight with Kahtenny's Apaches I repeated for him, as I'd told him the whole story before, except the part about me killing Billy Higgins, which I didn't like to think on. Then I told him about my meeting with Laura Sackett, and her story of the lost boy.

"This much I have learned since your departure," Lewiston said. "Laura Sackett was divorced from your brother, and your brothers and her father had been deadly enemies."

"If I ever heard of that, I'd forgotten. We Sacketts were never much on talking of troubles when we were together. It never does any good to go worrying your thoughts about things gone by."

"I approached her last night about your story," Captain Lewiston said. "She denies ever mentioning a child to you, or giving you any cause to ride into Mexico."

I just looked at him. It was no use to say she was lying, although she surely was.

"As a matter of fact, she says you ran away to Mexico for fear somebody would discover you had taken advantage of an Apache attack to kill Higgins."

"Those boys I was with knew better. Why else would they come with me?"

"I am afraid that won't help you at all. I believe you told me that they are dead."

"I buried Rocca with my own hands. Spanish Murphy was finished off by the Haddens. By their own say-so. John J.... well, I guess he never made it that far."

"You have no witnesses then?"

"No, sir. Nary a one. You see, Cap'n, none of those men saw it anyway. When I shot Billy Higgins there was just him and me. Nobody was close enough to hear what was said."

Well, we talked a while, and he asked a sight of questions, but after that neither of us had much hope. That feud was ten years out of my mind when I met those men in Yuma, and the name Higgins meant nothing at all to me.

So here I was in jail, and Laura Sackett, who'd been the cause of the deaths of at least three good men, was walking free.

After the captain left I sat on my cot and stared at the blank wall, trying to see my way clear, but nothing came to me, so finally, tired as I still was, I rolled over on the cot and went to sleep.

When I opened my eyes again it was nigh on to sundown and the jailer was at the door. "Lady to see you," he said.

"All right." I got up, staggering with sleep and trying to get my bearings. This would be Dorset, I figured. Only it wasn't. It was the last person in the world I expected -- Laura Sackett.

She turned to the jailer. "May I talk with my brother-in-law alone?"

When the jailer had gone, she turned those big blue eyes on me.