Ride the Dark Trail

99

I might have held back myself, for fear of the women getting shot, but there was no hold-back in Em.

Nor in Pennywell.

She had got off two shots. I saw her loading up again afterwards. She was pale as a ghost when it was over, but she was thumbing two cartridges back into her pistol, and she was ready.

Man, those were women!

Chapter 12

There was a meanness in me. We'd come off lucky. Em had been burned by one bullet, but that was the only injury to any of us.

We'd lost some grass, but spring rains and the winter snows would bring that back. The burning left us secure from that side at least, for now there was nothing left to burn.

They'd busted through the front window. They'd tried to break down the door, but it just didn't bust that easy. They'd pried off one of the shutters and had busted through the window to get in. That was what allowed us time to get down there.

But it was not in me to sit by, so I went right outside, and saying nothing to anybody I hit the road for town. I pulled up in the shadow of a barn, saw their horses at the hitch rail of the hotel-saloon, and I walked across the street and up the steps. They were all inside, cursing and swearing and downing drinks when I came through the door, and they turned around thinking I was Flanner.

I never said yes or no, I just cut loose. My first bullet taken Len Spivey just as he closed his fist over his gun butt. It slammed him into the bar and the second one opened a hole right in the hollow at the base of his throat.

One other man went down before a slug hit me in the leg and I started to fall. I braced myself against the wall, hammered the rest of my shells into them, and then commenced pushing the empties out.

The room was full of smoke from that old black powder, and from somewhere near the bar flame stabbed at me and I was hit again.

I didn't fall. I just kept plugging fresh cartridges into those empty chambers and then lifted my six-gun for another have at them. Sliding down the wall to one knee I peered under the smoke that filled the room. I saw some boots, stabbed two shots about four feet above them, and saw a man fall.

I crawled toward the door and managed to push it open and get outside. Nobody needed to tell me I was hard hit, and nobody needed to tell me I'd done a damn fool thing to ride into the enemy camp and go to blasting.

My horse was yonder, and I crawled for him. A door opened in the side of the hotel, then closed easy like. I hitched myself down the steps into the street and using the hitch rail, pulled myself to my feet.

I was backing across the street, gun in hand, when Jake Flanner stepped around the corner of the hotel on those crutches of his. He had a six-shooter in one hand, and he kind of eased his weight on the other crutch and lifted the gun. At the same moment I saw Brewer come out of the saloon door. He had a rifle in his hands and he was maneuvering himself into position for the kill.

My gun came up. I took a step back and my boot came down on a rock that rolled under it. Weak as I was, it was all that was needed. The stone rolled, I staggered and fell just as two guns went off, followed quickly by a third.

That last had a different sound. It was a sharper spang, not the dull report of the forty-four. I saw Brewer stagger and go down, then crawl around the corner and out of sight.

Flanner was gone. An instant ago he was there and then he was gone.

I started to get up and felt a hand under my arm. "Easy now!" The voice was strange, but my eyes were fogging over and when I started to look around he said, "You'll have to walk. I can't carry you and shoot. Let's go."

Somewhere along in the next few minutes I felt myself getting into a saddle, and I felt the movement of a horse because every time he set a hoof down it hurt like hell.

There was a fire burning. I liked the pinewood smell. It was night and there was a roundup of stars right overhead. I could see them through the branches of a tree. My head ached and I didn't feel like moving, so for a long time I just lay there looking up at the stars.

After a while I must have passed out again because when my eyes opened the sky was gray and there was only one star left on the range of the sky. For a time I lay there looking at it and then my eyes located the fire. It was down to coals and gray ash, and over beyond it I could hear that wonderful sound of horses munching grass.

Nothing moved so I just lay there, not even wondering what had happened to me or where I was. Then I smelled something else and my eyes located it, a blackened coffeepot on the coals.

I wanted coffee. I wanted it bad but I wasn't so sure I could get to it or what I'd drink it out of. For a while I lay there, listening to the wind in the pines, and finally it began to come over me that I'd been shot ... I'd been hit at least once, probably twice or more. Somehow I'd gotten out of town. Vaguely, I recalled a gentle voice and a hand on my arm. I recalled riding, and a hand on me much of the time. Finally I'd been tied into the saddle ... but where was I now?

When I made a try at moving my right arm I found it was tied up somehow. My left was free.

Reaching out, my hand encountered something ... my pistol! Well, I'd been left a gun, anyway. I could see the horses now, right yonder beyond a few scattered aspen. They were picketed and eating grass. Turning my head I saw somebody sleeping off on my left. His head was on a saddle, and he was bundled up in blankets with part of a ground sheet over him ... but it was no type of ground sheet I'd ever known.

My right arm was hurt. Rolling to my left side a little I pushed into a sitting position. The horses looked over at me. There were two horses, one of them my roan.

Some gear was stacked on the grass near us, and two packsaddles. So this gent was a drifter. His gear looked a whole lot better than any drifter I'd ever come across, and he hadn't much in the way of spurs on his boots ... and they weren't western boots.

When I started to twist a little I got a shot of pain through me that made me gasp, and when I gasped this sleeping man came awake sudden-like.

He was a tall man, not more than thirty, and handsome. He was one of the best dispositioned men I ever met, and he dressed neat. His outfit was all of the best, and while I couldn't make out his rifle, it was a handsome weapon.

He sat up and looked over at me. "Don't try moving," he said, "you'll start bleeding again. I had a hard time getting it stopped."

"Where'd you come from?"

He chuckled dryly. "What does it matter? I came at the right time, didn't I?" He shot me a look. "What happened in there, anyway?"

"We had us a fight They were pushing us hard so I decided to push back. I done it"

"Did you get any of them?"

"I got two inside. I thought I got another outside, or somebody did."

"That was me. I took a shot at the man with the crutches but missed. Probably it was just as well. I'd hate to shoot a crippled man."

"Just because a man's got game legs doesn't say he's got a good disposition. That was the worst of the lot. That was Jake Flanner."

"What was the fight about?"

"Ranch out yonder," I said, "called the Empty .. for MT. There's an old lady runnin' it ... salt of the earth ... named Emily Talon. Those back in Siwash were tryin' to run her out, and I got myself into the fight ... I don't exactly know how. They hit us, tried to burn us out, and we saved the ranch, then whipped them in a fight at the house. But they'd be coming again and I got sore, them pushing an old lady that way ... so I rode into town."

"Alone?"

"Why not? There wasn't all that many of them. And I couldn't take from them the only hand they've got."

"You look familiar."

"There's a few posters around. My name is Sackett. Logan Sackett"

"Hello, cousin. I am Barnabas Talon. Em is my mother."

Lying back on my blankets, I looked him over. He had the look, all right He reminded me of Em, and a little more of Milo. "Heard you were in England."

"I came back. We'd received word a few years ago that ma was dead and buried. We were notified of it, and that the estate had been settled. There seemed no reason to return, so I kept on with what I was doing.

"A few months ago I was talking about Colorado with some English friends, and they commented on seeing the house, our house, and they had heard about an old woman who lived there alone.

"At first I thought it was nonsense, but it worried me, so I caught a ship and came over. In New Orleans I went to an old man who had been pa's attorney, and he told me there had been no settlement of the estate and that he had a letter from ma not two months before. So I started home."

He filled a cup with coffee and handed it to me. "My father taught me caution. I had been formally notified that the estate had been settled and ma was dead. Obviously someone had done so for a reason. Apparently the reason was to cause me to forget Colorado and whatever property we had there.

"Whoever had such intentions would not be pleased if I returned, so I came quietly, and when I reached Denver, I made inquiries. Nobody knew anything until I consulted a former deputy sheriff whom I knew. He told me that a man named Jake Flanner, who had lived in Siwash, was hiring fighting men ... the worst kind.

"There had been a mention of a man named Flanner in ma's last letter to me, so I came along through the country passing myself off as a mining engineer. I was warned a couple of times I'd better go somewhere else, that the area around Siwash was headed for trouble.

"Just as I was riding into town you fellows cut loose in there, and when you came out I got a good look at you in the light over the door. I could see you'd been hit and you were favoring one leg, but you were still in there with that six-shooter. Then Brewer came out and he started to pull down on you so I shot him, then flipped a quick one at that crippled man."

"How'd you get my horse?"

"You told me where it was."

Well, I remembered none of that. Seems I told him some other things, too.

"You'd better keep an eye on our back trail," I warned him. "They won't give up."

"You forget that I grew up around here. I know hiding places in these hills they'd take years to find. I knew places that even pa never knew. Only Milo and me."

"I put out word for him. If he hits the outlaw trail they'll tell him."

He looked at me. "Milo? An outlaw?"

"Not really, I guess. It's just that they all know him. And he's got a way with that gun of his."

Lying there alongside the fire I told him about Em, Pennywell, and the place. I also told him about Albani Fulbric, bringing him up to date on the situation.

By the time I'd finished I was all in. I drank a swallow more of coffee and eased myself back on the blankets. It was broad daylight and I could see Barnabas was worried.

"You better mount up and head for the Empty," I said. "They'll know they put lead into me and they'll try to get to the ranch."

"I can't leave you," he said. He squatted on his heels. "Logan, I got to tell you. You're hit very hard. You took three slugs. One went through the muscles on your upper leg, and you got another one in the upper arm, but the bad one is through the body. You've lost a lot of blood." He paused a moment. "I am not a physician, but I do know a good deal about bullet wounds. I was an officer in the army of France for a while during the war with Prussia. I can't leave you."

"You'd better. Em will need you. As for me, it's going to be a long, hard pull."

He looked at me for a long time, then he went to his pack and got out some coffee and other grab which he stashed near me. He refilled my cartridge belt, and broke out a box of forty-fours. "Lucky I had these. I bought them in case they were needed on the ranch."

He squatted on his heels again. "You're about six or seven miles back of the ranch, but there's no short way across. It will take me most of the day to get there.

"Right down there is the spring. Your canteen is full and I'm leaving mine also. There's a big pot of coffee, and I'll try and get some help to you as soon as I see how it is on the ranch."

I looked around at the hills. It looked like a cirque, or maybe a hanging valley. It was a great big hollow that was walled in on three sides, or seemed to be, and maybe three hundred acres in the bottom of it. There were a lot of trees, and there probably was a lake ... in such formations they were frequently found.

Barnabas saddled up, looked down at me once more, then rode off. And I was alone.

For a while I just lay there. The sun was in the hollow and the shadows of the aspen leaves dappled the grass with shadow. I was weak as a cat, and I just lay there resting.

How much of a trail had Barnabas Talon left? He might be a good man on a horse and with a gun, yet he could have left sign a child could read. Covering a trail is an art, and far from a simple one. I've heard of folks brushing out tracks with a branch. That's ridiculous - the marks of the branch are a sign themselves. Anything like that must be done with great care to make it seem the ground has not been disturbed by anything. A tracker rarely finds a complete track of man or beast on a trail he's following. Only indications of passage.

The spring was all of thirty yards off, but there was no flat ground nearer on which a man could sleep. It was all rocks down there. With my rifle close at hand and my horse nibbling grass a few yards away, I dozed the long day through. Come evening I added a few sticks to the fire, poured some water into a pot Barnabas left, shaved some jerky into it, added some odds and ends, and set it on the fire. Then I just lay back and rested.

You want to know something? I was scared. I never feared man nor beast when I was on my feet with two good hands, but now I was down, weak as could be, and my right arm was useless.

Later, I ate my stew and contemplated. I had no idea Barnabas Talon would get back. He would intend to, but there'd be need of him there and his first duty was to his ma. As for me it would be root hog or die, so I settled to figuring what I could do.

My chances were slim if Flanner's men trailed me down, as they would surely try to do. Despite what Talon said, I'd no doubt they could find this place, so I must find a better one ... somewhere I could really hide.

My need for water tied me to the spring, so I commenced to study the ground, looking for someplace I could hide. There were tumbled boulders down the stream bed below the spring, and scattered branches of dead trees, piled-up rubble, and debris.

When I finished my stew, and mighty good it tasted, I took a long pull at a canteen and felt better.

Yet worry was upon me. There was weakness in me, and I'd an idea the worst was yet to come, that I might become so weak I could not move, even delirious. I'd seen men gunshot before this and knew my chances were slight if caught in a sudden shower with a fever upon me. And showers in the high peaks are a thing that happens almost every day.

I saw nothing that would help. No caves, no corners hidden from the wind ... nothing.

Suppose I crawled into the saddle and made a try for the ranch? I'd never make it, of course. And my horse was not saddled now, and there was no way I could get a saddle on it. Yet there had to be a way.

Gathering my gear together, I rolled my bed, drank the last of the coffee, and using my rifle pulled and pushed myself up until I stood on one foot, clinging to an aspen. Inch by careful inch I searched the terrain. There was little I'd not seen in my few years and I knew about all that could happen to trees, brush, and rocks that would provide a place to hide, and I found none of it here.

Yet there was something nagging at me, something I should notice, something that worried at my mind like a ghost finger poking me. No way my thoughts took brought any clue to mind, and one by one I climbed the trees of my ideas and looked over the country around each of them. But I came upon nothing.

It came to me at last as I was hitching myself along from tree to tree toward the roan.

What I heard was a waterfall.

Chapter 13

Em Talon peered through the slats of the shutter toward the gate. Nothing in sight.

Logan should have returned by now. It was foolish of him to ride off as he had done, yet she knew how he felt, and she also subscribed to the theory that once you have an enemy backing up you must stay on top of him. "Never let them get set," she muttered.

The sky was overcast, the air still. Sullen clouds gave a hint of rain.

She went from window to window, checking the fastenings on the shutters. Pennywell had been up on the lookout atop the house and now she returned. "There's nobody, Aunt Em. The road's empty all the way to town."

"He should be back." She was talking half to herself. What would he have done? Riding in like that? She knew exactly, because it was what she would do. He had tackled them head on, horn to horn. Logan might not be the smartest Sackett there was but he was meaner than a cornered wolf, and he wasn't a back-shooter.

She pictured the town, tried to think out what he would do. And if wounded? He'd run for the hills. He would try to lead them off, like a wounded quail would do, anything to keep the enemy away from the nest. It was the instinctive response of a wild thing.

He would ride into the mountains, hunt him a hole, and wait until the time was right to come home. If he could get home.

That was the worrisome part, for he might be holed up yonder in the mountains, needing help, needing it the worst way. And the trouble was to pick up his trail a body would about have to pick it up from town, from Siwash.

Pennywell would be no good on a trail of that kind; besides, she was vulnerable. She was a young thing, and it would not do for her to be traipsing around the hills with the land of men around that Flanner had brought into the country.

Al? She hesitated. He might be a good man on the trail, but he was new to this country, and trailing was more than a matter of following the sign a body found.

She did know the country, and she could read sign as good as any Sackett she knew of, which was better than most.

Em Talon made up her mind, and she made up her mind there was nothing to do but get ready. There was also a matter of time. She'd have to cut out from the ranch at a time when she'd not be seen, she'd have to get up there in the hills and find Logan.

She told them over breakfast. "I'll be gone a day or two. Al, you stay here an' take care of the place an' you watch over Pennywell."

"Ma'am," Al Fulbric protested, "you just cain't do that! You ain't a young woman, and those are mighty rough mountains."

"Of course, they're rough! That's why I like 'em. Son, I'm mountain born an' bred. I growed up walkin' the hills. I run a trap line before your mammy was born. As for these here hills, I've dodged Injuns all over them. I know the hideouts, and I know the mind of a dodging Sackett.

"We don't run just like other folks do, an' I know what Logan'll do, more than likely. You leave him to me. Just ketch me up that grulla mule out yonder - "

"Mule?"

"That's right. Him an' me been to the wars together, an' we can go again."

"If you say so, ma'am. A mule's not very fast."

"Neither am I. But I know that there mule and he'll take me there and bring me back, and that's what counts at my age, mister."

"Yes, ma'am. At any age."

Al walked out the back door and to the corral. He looked at the mule doubtfully and the mule looked at him. "I'd like to have this friendly," Al said. "It's the old lady's idea, not mine."

The mule put his ears back, and Al shook out a loop. He had tried to rope mules a few times, and had done it too ... after a while. Most of them had a gift for ducking a rope. He walked out into the corral trailing his loop and studying the situation.

Behind him he heard Emily Talon. "You won't need that rope. Coley, come here!"

Without hesitation, the mule walked right to her. She fed him a carrot and slipped the halter on him while Al Fulbric gathered his rope.

"What was that you called him?"

"Coley ... it's short for his name. Coleus. Talon named him, and Talon was a reader of the classics. The way he tells it, Coleus of Samos was the first Greek to sail out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic."

"Well, I'll be! What did he want to do that for?"

"Seems some other folks - the Phoenicians, it was, who were some kin to the Philistines of the Bible - they had that whole end of the Mediterranean sewed up. They had laid claim to all that range, and they let nobody sail that way.

"This Coleus, he told them he got blown that way by a storm, and anyway he got through the Gates of Hercules and out into the Atlantic. And then he sailed up to Tartessus and loaded his ship with silver. That one trip made him a rich man.

"Talon favored him because he done the same. Folks said he was crazy to ride out here and start ranching in country only the Indians wanted. Anyway, Coley here, he had a way of straying into new pastures hisself, so Talon named him."

"I like it." Al Fulbric spat into the dust. "A man like that deserves credit"

"After that trip he never needed credit. He could afford to pay cash. Anyway, that's how Coley come by his name, and we've come a fur piece together, Coley an' me. We've been up the crick and over the mountain, and he'll fight anything that walks."

"That mule?"

"That mule, as you call him, was a jack once. They cut him, but they done forgot to tell him about it. He still figures he's a jack, and don't you borrow no trouble from him or he'll take a piece out of you."

Em Talon picked up her saddle and before Al could move to help her, had slung it in place and was cinching up. She slid her Spencer into the boot, then turned on him.

"Al, you go about your business now. I'm goin' to ride him astride, which no decent woman ought to do, but I'll have no man standin' by when I do it. You get to the house and keep a sharp lookout. They'll be a-comin', especially if they got Logan."

Al swore, spat into the dust, and walked off toward the house. When he reached the steps he turned to look back.

Em was riding out toward the gate, and sure enough, she was sitting astride, and he could see a short stretch of her long-Johns where they disappeared into her boot tops.

He blushed a little and turned his head away, ashamed for what he had seen. Pennywell was pouring coffee when he entered the house.

"She beats me," he said, "she really does. I'd have gone - "

"She'd not let you, and one thing I've learned about Em Talon, Al Fulbric, and that is that you get no place arguing with her. She's a notional woman, but the only notion she pays mind to is her own. When she sets her mind to something, you just stand clear."

Emily Talon was no longer young, but there was a toughness in her hard, lean body that belied its age. She had never been one to think in terms of years, anyway. A person was what they were, and many a man at forty was sixty in his ways and many another was twenty and would never grow past it.

As a small girl she had helped her father and brothers with their trap lines, and when she was ten she had one of her own. She was more familiar with the life of the forest than of the settlement, and riding away from the ranch she suddenly felt free, freer than she had felt in many a year.

She scouted back of the town, between Siwash and the hills. A Sackett hurt and hunted was a Sackett heading for the high up yonder. She knew their nature well for she was one of them ... he would ride out and he would ride far.

As it was getting dark she came upon a trail, only it was two horses rather than one. Puzzled, she studied the tracks again. One of them had to be the roan ... and the roan seemed to be led.

She squinted at the tracks warily, then looked all around. Nobody seemed to be watching, nobody seemed to have followed them, yet all hell must have torn loose down mere in town.

Scouting farther she saw bunched tracks ... seven or eight riders, not on the trail of the two, but hunting it.

She had to have more information, so she rode toward town. It was dark, and she was unlikely to be seen, but she knew where to go.

There had been a time when men had killed over Dolores Arribas, but the years had gone by and somehow she had found herself at the end of a trail in Siwash.

In her veins was the blood of Andalusia, but there was Indian blood, too, the blood of a people who built grandly in stone when Spain was only the hinterland of Tarshish.

She washed the clothes of the gringo but took no nonsense from him. Fiercely proud, she walked her own way in the town, unmolested, even feared.

Emily Talon knew that of all the people in Siwash, Dolores would know what had happened and that she would be willing to tell what she knew.

The mule picked his way delicately up the alleyway and around to the dark side of the stable. Em did not dismount, for Dolores Arribas was sitting on her steps in the cool of the evening, watching the clouds.

"You ride very late, Mrs. Talon." She spoke with only the trace of an accent.

"There was a shooting in town?"

"Yes. Two men are dead, two are wounded. One win die, I think." She spoke matter-of-factly, and then added, "They were Flanner's men."

"And he who done the shootin'?"

"There were two ... one of them was Logan Sackett, but Jim Brewer was killed by another man, a stranger with a rifle, a tall, elegant man."

"Logan was hurt?"

"Yes ... he was hit very hard ... more than once. The other man took him away."

"I got to find them."

"You think you are the only one? Flanner looks for them, too. At least, his men look for him."

They were silent, and then Dolores suggested, "You would like a cup of tea? It is long, the way you will ride."

"I reckon. Yes, I'll take that tea."

She got down from the mule, spoke gently to it, and followed Dolores into the house. It was a small house, and even in the darkness she could feel its neatness.

"I will not make a light The water is hot."

"Thank you."

They sat in the vague light, and Dolores poured the tea.

"Where are your sons?"

"I wish I knew. Milo, he's ridin' somewheres, but Barnabas, he went off to Europe, lived right fancy the way I hear tell. I always figured him for that, but wondered why he never wrote. Then I heard. Somebody passed word that I was dead and the place broken up."

"He would do that. It is like him."

"Flanner?"

"Of course. That way they might not bother to come back. What is there for anyone in Siwash? Except those of us who have no money with which to leave."

For a while they sat in silence, then Emily said, "If it's just money - "

"I earn my own money."

"Reckon so. Reckon you always will. I just figured that if a loan would help you to move out of this place, I could come up with it."

'"Gracias. I do not think so. I will wait. Soon I will have enough, and then I shall go." She paused. "At least you were never one of those who tried to force me to go."

"No, I never was ... nor was Talon." Emily Talon hesitated. "It was just that you were too popular, and a durned sight too much woman. They were afraid you'd take their men from them."

"I did not want them." She turned her head and looked at Em in the darkness. "You were not afraid?"

"Of Talon? No ... one woman was all he ever wanted. One that was his own."

"You are right, but what of your son?"

"Milo? You mean you an' Milo?"

"Not Milo."

"Barnabas? I didn't think he had it in him."

"He was a good man, a fine man. I liked him. He was a gentleman."

"Thanks." Em got to her feet. "I got to be far back in the hills come daylight."

"Be careful. Jake Flanner will not care that you are a woman. Nor will most of the men he has now ... they are scum."

"I know that Len Spivey. I ..."

"Do not worry about him. He will not be one of them."

At the door Em paused, looking back. "Len Spivey?"

"Logan killed him. He was the first one."

Em went down the steps with care, then paused to look carefully about. At last she crossed the small yard to the mule. Dolores Arribas, standing in her doorway, heard the leather creak as she mounted.

"Mrs. Talon? I did not see it, but from what I heard I would swear that was Barnabas out there today."

Emily Talon waited a slow minute, wanting to believe it. "Barnabas?"

"He rode in at the right time. They'd have killed Sackett. Oh, he was making his fight, but he'd been hit hard and Jake Flanner himself was lining up for a shot and so was Brewer."

"And Barnabas fetched him?"

"He did. He took Brewer out, then turned his rifle, but Flanner was gone."

"That's Jake, all right That's Jake Flanner."

"Yes, Mrs. Talon. So you be careful. Very, very careful. It is you they want, you know. Just you."

Emily Talon turned her mule toward the mountains. Barnabas was back. Her son was home again.

Chapter 14

Em Talon was a considering woman, and now she gave thought to Barnabas and his plight. He was riding into the mountains with a wounded man. He would need shelter, and he would need medical attention for Logan. The obvious place was the Empty, but if they had tried to cross the country between Siwash and the ranch they would have certainly been inviting death.

Hence they must have headed for the mountains, to lose themselves in the forest at the earliest possible moment.

Barnabas would undoubtedly try to reach the ranch, but he had never known the mountain trails as Milo had, and Logan might be in no condition to show him the trail he knew. Apparently Barnabas emerged from the gun battle uninjured, but there was no way she could be sure of that.

Talon had hunted and trapped these mountains years before any other white man he knew of, and part of that time Em had hunted with him. She knew trails where no trails seemed to be, and she knew those the buffalo used to find the mountain meadows.

When he was but ten years old she had once taken Barnabas with her into the mountains, showing him the lightning-blazed pine on the shoulder of the mountain that marked the opening of the trail to the crest of the ridge. It was likely he would remember that trail, for it had been their first trip into the mountains together, his first trip into the very high mountains. The mule's memory was good, for he had followed this trail many times and as soon as she turned him toward it, he knew where he was going.

It had changed, of course. The screen of brush that concealed the opening was thicker now, and the grove of young aspens had become sturdy trees in the passing of time, but the trail was there and she followed it swiftly. When she was well back in the forest she dismounted and screening the match with her hands, she studied the trail. There were two horses, one close behind the other, the second one probably led.

She made no attempt to guide the mule. It was almost too dark to see the trail under the trees and the mule could be trusted. At places they skirted the very rim of a canyon, a vast depth that fell away on one side. They climbed steadily.

At last, knowing she could go no farther without seeing their tracks, she got down from the mule at a place she knew. She had camped here before. There was fuel and shelter, and sounds from down the canyon carried easily to this point. Unsaddling the mule, she picketed it and wrapped it up in a blanket, leaning against the flat bole of a tree.

For a long tune she remained awake looking at the stars through the trees and letting her tired muscles relax slowly to invite sleep. It was not as easy as it once was. She was old now, and her muscles grew stiff too early in the game. She thought ahead, trying to decide where Barnabas would be apt to stop.

Awakening, she watched a chipmunk nibbling at a seed he had found. For a moment she sat still just enjoying the gray light of morning. The air was damp, and she was surprised to observe that a light rain had fallen during the night without disturbing her.

She got up slowly, led the mule to the little trickle of water that came from a spring under the scarp, and dipped enough water for tea. Back at camp she kindled a fire and brewed a cup, drank it, and saddled up, listening to the sounds from down the canyon. She heard nothing, but she had not expected to. If there was pursuit it would come this morning, and by now they were breakfasting and arguing about what happened the night before. That would give her another hour's advantage.

Now she moved with greater care, studying the trail as the mule moved along. Usually she could pick up the sign well ahead - a track here, a bruised leaf there, the mark left by the edge of a shoe. They had been moving slower; obviously Barnabas was hunting a place to stop.

She rode into the cirque almost an hour later when the sun was halfway up the morning. It was right at timber-line, the last of the growth giving way to the tumbled talus of broken rock that had broken off the walls and fallen down to mingle with the stunted growth and grass. She found the place where the horses had cropped grass and crushed down grass and wild flowers where a bed had been.

One rider had ridden off by himself, leaving the other behind. That would be Barnabas heading for the Empty, which was hard to get to from here unless a body knew every twist of the trail.

But where was Logan Sackett?

She knew he had to be in bad shape, and a hunted man in bad shape would hunt a hole. He would want to be out of sight, and he would need water and a place for his horse. Em Talon scanned the country, studying every possible nook or corner that might offer such a shelter. There were several possibilities but all came to nothing.

Logan Sackett had vanished.

Could he have followed Barnabas? It was a possibility. In any event there was one thing she could do. She could make a lot of tracks so those who might try to find him would not guess that he was hidden, as Em was quite sure he was.

Yet the cirque's high walls eliminated any possible way out on three sides. A rider or walker would have to go down the mountain. Mounting her mule again she also turned toward the open side of the cirque and walked the animal down the dim trail into the canyon.

White, slim aspens lined the trail on either side, their pale green leaves trembling slightly. Due to some quirk of temperature or wind currents this grove was higher on the mountain's slope than the aspen was usually found. The grove was littered with the long dead trunks of fallen trees, remnants of some old landslide or snowslide. She was well into the grove when she heard a sound of horses.

Drawing rein, she listened below her, below on the trail she had herself followed into the cirque.

A moment later they came into view. There were eight men, all tough men by their look. The man in the lead was Chowse Dillon, occasional cowpuncher, occasional outlaw, consistent troublemaker. They were no more than a hundred and fifty yards right down the hill, a hill too steep for a horse to climb except on the switch-back trail they followed. Yet by the trail they must follow they were a half mile away.

Em lifted her rifle and put a bullet into the dust about a foot in front of Dillon's horse. Most of the riders were undoubtedly on broncs - she had counted on that The sudden spat of the bullet as well as the thunder of the heavy rifle in the confinement of the rock walls was enough.

Dillon's horse reared straight up, spinning halfway around to bump the horse behind. Instantly horses were buck-jumping all over the narrow trail and one of the horses went over the edge, rider and all, rolling into the trees and deadfalls below.

Two men unlimbered their six-guns and shot into the trees where she was, but they were shooting blind and hit nothing. The shooting only added to the confusion. Emily Talon rode calmly on down the trail she had been following, leaving them cursing and fighting their horses.

The trail was never more than four or five feet wide. Somebody was up there with a rifle and willing to dispute the trail, and nobody was eager to be the first to accept the challenge.

Yet she had ridden scarcely a quarter of a mile, winding down a steep trail, when she picked up the first sign since leaving the cirque. It was the white scar left by a glancing blow from a shoe, and it was fresh! She tried listening for the horses of the men she had seen on the trail but she could hear nothing but the tumbling waters of a nearby fall.

Em Talon did not like the place. She did not like any place that drowned the sounds from her ears. She wanted to hear ... she needed to hear.

The falls was about eight feet wide, a fairly thin sheet of water except at bottom where it plunged among some boulders and slabs of rock. There it was a thick white burst of foaming water that then plunged off down the mountain in a series of steep cascades.

At the top of the falls trees leaned over the stream, and near the base was a mass of fallen timber, trees washed down from above, some of them with masses of roots, leaving a veritable maze.

Emily Talon contemplated her situation. Somewhere up the mountain behind her were several of Jake Flanner's men, and down at the ranch Barnabas, the son she had not seen in years, was returning home or trying to. Neither Pennywell or Al knew him, and they were just as apt to shoot as not.

Suddenly Em decided there was but one thing to do. She had to get off the mountain and back to the Empty. If Logan was anywhere about he was well hidden, too well hidden to be found while she herself was hunted. She hesitated a moment, but the mule was tugging at the reins, wanting to go on down the mountain, and she gave in.

At that moment she was less than seventy yards from Logan Sackett and he was looking right at her, trying to call. But he was too weak. His hoarse shouts could not be heard above the noise of the falls. Em Talon rode on.

Chapter 15

There I lay, weak as a cat and scarce able to crawl, and I seen that ol' woman draw up there and look down toward me. She was lookin' right square into my eyes, only I was behind the falls and could not be seen. I tried to yell out, but I could scarce make a sound louder than a frog croaking, and she heard nothing.

That she was huntin' me I had no doubt, and in the shape I was in I dearly wanted to be found. Yet she kept turning to look back up the trail and that made me wonder. A short time back I'd been asleep and something waked me. It could have been a shot, although behind that falls even a shot was muffled. Yet something on her back trail worried her, and she rode on.

Looked to me like I'd covered all sign, all right, but I'd done it too durned well. There was every chance I'd die right here, and nobody would find me or know what happened. Well, I'd not be the first western man that happened to. Many a man rode off them days and never came back ... there was a sight of things could happen to a man that had nothing to do with guns or Indians or anything like that.

A man could get throwed from his horse and die of thirst, or he could drown swimming a river, get caught in a flash flood, fall off a cliff, get bit by a rattler or a hydrophoby skunk, or cut himself with an ax. A lot of men them days traveled alone and worked alone, and if they had an accident that could be the end of them.

I'd known of three men who amputated their own legs, and a half dozen who had trimmed fingers off their own hands. There wasn't no medical corps around like there'd been during the war ... a body just had to make out as best he could.

Now this place I'd found wasn't the only one like it. When water falls off a ledge a certain amount of it just naturally kicks back against the wall, and after years have passed that water wears away the rock slow or fast depending on the force of the water and the softness of the rock. Sometimes it will wear away until with the river cutting down from above it cuts through the rock. Then the flow will go under what had been the rim, leaving a natural arch.

The space behind the falls is often small, and in this case it wasn't far from the year when the riverbed would drop. In other words, I'd lucked out. There'd been a sight more space back there than I reckoned.

Nor was I the first to use it. Pack rats had been back there, and judging by some old droppings, a bear had holed up there one time. Getting to it had been a puzzle, but I'd found a way through the maze of old tree trunks, broken branches, hanging streamers of torn bark, and the like, and I led my horse right into it.

That horse didn't much care for it at first, but after a bit he settled down. I was all in, and I dragged my gear into a corner back from the water and laid myself out. By dark I was in bad shape. I felt hot all over and my mouth was dry. I had me something of a fever and knew I was in trouble, bad trouble.

When I saw Em I tried to call out, but she heard nothing and rode on. I was still watching when the first of the riders came into sight They were almighty cautious, and there was eight of them. Only one of them glanced toward the falls, and he didn't seem much interested.

After a bit they rode on. I crawled back after getting a drink and passed out on my blankets.

When I came out of it again it was dark night and all I could hear was the steady roar of the falls. For a time I lay there just staring up into the darkness. My mouth was bone dry and I desperately needed a drink but lacked the energy to get over to the falls. I probably would have lay still like that forever, but it was thinking of my horse that got me to move. That horse needed to be let loose. He'd had water but nothing to eat in hours, and I might die right here with that horse tied up.

After a while I rolled over and kind of eased myself to my knees and crawled to the water. I drank and drank, and then I crawled to the horse and, catching hold of a stirrup, I pulled myself up and untied the bridle reins. Then I tied them loosely to the pommel. "You go ahead, boy," I said hoarsely. "You go on home."

You know that horse wasn't about to go? He stayed right there until I led him to the trail's opening and hit him a slap across the rump. Even then he lingered, but I'd slumped down beside the rocks. The last thing I'd done was to swing my saddlebags off the horse and let them fall to the ground.

After the horse had gone I sort of crawled back to my bed and let go of everything. It was gray light with dawn when I first opened my eyes again and I lay there knowing I had to do something. I had to think it out first, then make every move count so that my strength would last. First thing was to get a fire going. The next thing to heat water, bathe my wounds, and make some coffee. There was almighty little in my saddlebags but there might be enough to help.

There was no end of dry wood back of that fall. Some of it was driftwood, but the pack rat's nest was a bundle of dry stuff right at hand. Bundling some of it together I struck a light and got a fire going. It looked almighty good just to have it there, and once it got started I just sort of lay there and stared at it.

After a while I got into my saddlebag and got out an old pint cup I'd been toting around for years. I put water into it and then dumped in some coffee and let it come to a boil. When it had boiled enough to have body to it, I taken it off the fire and sipped a little here and there, trying not to burn my lips. That coffee surely hit the spot, and I started to perk up. After I'd emptied the cup, I boiled more water in it and set to work on those wounds I'd picked up.

Being a big, healthy sort of man I could shed hurts as well as most, better than a lot. I'd lost blood a-plenty, but what I needed now was to check out those wounds for infection. And there seemed to be none. When I'd bathed them pretty well and done the best I could dressing them, I laid back on my blankets and was soon asleep.

When I awakened I felt better. But I was worried about Em Talon. I was fearful that she'd not gotten home safe, and worried about those eight men back-trailing my horse. When that horse came up to the ranch they would think surely I was dead. Barnabas knew where he'd left me, but Em had been right there and she would have found nothing.

I checked over my guns and made ready for trouble, if trouble came. And of one thing I could be sure - where I was, trouble was not far away, dogging my heels all the way to perdition.

It was cold and damp, and for a few minutes I lay still just thinking and listening. My mouth was dry, and I felt almighty hot and tired. Although I was feeling better than I had the night before, there was just no strength in me, not even to build me a fire. I just lay there, staring into the half darkness of the cave and wondering whether I'd ever get out of there alive. Right then I wouldn't have bet any money on it.

I could hear no sound above the tumbling water, and soon I dozed off again. When I awoke I was hot and dry like before, only more so. My mite of fire had gone out long ago and I poked sticks together and got hold of some old, dry bark from one of them; crumbling it in my hands and striking a match I coaxed a little flame to burning again.

For a while I just poked sticks into the blaze and tried to get some coals, then I put some coffee into the cup again and when it was brewed, I drank it down. Just having something hot inside me felt good.

By now most of them must have figured me for dead. I guessed I had been holed up a couple of days and nights, although it could be longer. I had to get out of this place. I had to get out in the sunlight and the air, and I had to get myself some grub. Without a horse I was going to play hob gettin' anywhere, but I could surely try. If I was to die I wanted to be out in the fresh sunlight and under the trees.

It taken some time, but I rolled my blankets, taken up my guns, and crawled for the opening, dragging my gear along.

When I first got into the air everything looked wrong-side to. It was morning time and I had been sure it was afternoon. Somewhere I'd lost some time ... a day was it, or two days? By the way my stomach felt it might have been a week.

I studied the trail that I crawled along and I found no tracks. It had rained since I'd come in, but that wasn't surprising as in the high-up mountains it can rain every afternoon and often enough does just that. Whatever tracks there might have been were washed out, and I found the same thing on the regular trail when I got to it - that trail Em had followed showed nothing at all of her mule, those who chased her, or me.

Using the low limbs of a tree I pulled myself up, favoring myself not to open my wounds, and I hitched along the trail, making no effort to hurry. I just wanted to move along. Where I was headed I surely had no idea, only I was going to come down off the mountain to where I could get some better grub.

I taken rest a-plenty, but by the time an hour was passed I'd made more'n a half mile. The river was off to my left, and a mite of a stream was flowing in from the right to join it. I stopped, laying flat out on the grass, and drunk my fill. Then I hobbled on again.

Once, afar off, I seen a deer. And a couple of times grouse flew up, or some bird resembling them. Marmots, of course, were there wherever I came up to a rock pile of some sort. After a while I just couldn't make it any farther and I moved back into the trees and found a place at the edge of a small clearing where I could stretch out in the sun. When I'd rested there awhile, I started on, keeping off the trail and taking time a-plenty. Little by little I worked my way along the mountainside toward the higher meadows back of the ranch.

The easiest way had been to follow along the steep side of the canyon and gradually work my way down. I couldn't travel but a little way without stopping to rest, and nobody was going to see me unless they were looking over into the canyon. Pretty soon the sides grew steeper and I made my way down to the streambed.

It was lucky I did so because the walls became sheer, white rock cut with many places where water had run off or with deep cracks. At the bottom the stream ran almost bank to bank, but there was an edge of sand or gravel that I could work my way along so that I only had to enter the water occasionally for a few steps.

There was a lot of driftwood, logs and such, washed down by the flash floods that happen in mountain country. After a ways I commenced to get awful tired but there was no place to set down. Suddenly I came upon a kind of gap in the wall It was half filled with trees and such, but beyond it I could see a patch of green that had to be a meadow.

Crawling over the brush in the mouth of the canyon I found myself with a meadow stretching away before me, but I had to wade through marsh to get to dry land. Ahead of me were a bunch of grass-grown hummocks that were old beaver ponds, and higher I could see the still water of beaver ponds that likely had beavers in them yet.

Off to one side there was a grove of aspen, for the beaver never live very far from them. I sat down on a log just inside that aspen grove.

I was beat. My side ached and there was a weakness on me like I'd never felt before. I needed a camp and place where I could lie down and be safe, but the shape I was in I wasn't up to looking around. So I just sat there watching the light change. Huge billows of cloud lifted high above the mountains catching the last light. Slowly I began to peel flakes of thin, very dry bark from a long dead aspen; then I moved off the log with an effort and I began putting a little fire together.

Leaning my rifle against a tree I started cutting evergreen boughs for a bed. The heavy six-shooter on my leg weighted me down, and after a bit I taken it off and hung it on a low branch. Then I went on cutting boughs, rigging me a halfway shelter there in the aspens. Limping back, and nearly played out, I bent over to replenish the fire. I added a few sticks, dropping to one knee to do it. My breath was coming short and my head was dull and heavy. I had started to rise when I heard the footfall on the moss. Just as I started to turn something hit me.

I started to fall, grabbing for my six-shooter, but it was gone. Through a haze of pain I could see the legs of several horses. I tried to get up.

"Hit him." It was Jake Flanner's voice. "Make a job of it."

Something did hit me again, and this time I fell flat out on the leaves and grass. And they hit me again and again, only there was no more pain, just the sodden brutality of the blows. The first blow had stunned me, leaving me only a shell.

Somebody kicked me in the side and I felt the warm flow of blood where the wound was torn open. My hand reached out but there was nothing to lay hold of, and after a time I passed out.

It was the rain brought me out of it. A drenching downpour that came down in buckets. The rain brought me to consciousness and to realization of pain, but I did not move. I simply laid there, unable to move, while the rain poured down, soaking me through and through. After a while I passed out again.

They believed they'd killed me for sure this time. That was my first thought, and it stayed with me. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was already dead. Maybe I was dead and this was hell.

I was wet, soaked through, but it was no longer night. It was coming up to morning although there was no sun as yet. As I lay there I began to remember other things. They had shot into me as I lay on the ground. I recalled the roar of the guns and remembered a burning stab of pain. There had been at least three shots ... funny, how I remembered that.

If they had done that, how was I even alive? How could I realize anything at all? How could I feel? And I did feel. I felt pain, I felt weariness, I felt like just lying there to be finished with my dying. Trouble was, I was mean. Too many folks wanted me dead for me to go out of my way to please them. I opened my eyes and lay there looking at some sodden green-brown leaves and the wet trunk of a tree.

No matter what they'd done or tried to do I was still alive. I knew what was happening to me and a man who can feel is a man who can fight. It just wasn't in me to die there like a dog in the brush without getting some of my own back. Jake Flanner had come after me himself. He'd brought help, but he'd come. And now I was going after him. I'd no idea what happened down there in the valley at the Empty. Nor right at this moment did I care much. I was an animal fighting for life and I tried to roll over to get my hands under me.

I done it. It wasn't easy. I couldn't move at all on one side so I turned over, mighty careful, the other way. I got one hand under me and I pushed up until I could drag a knee up.

As I got to one knee I realized my shirt was stuck to my side where I'd been shot before. I'd been kicked there, right where my wound was, and it had bled some. All right, so I'd lost blood. I'd lost it before this, and a-plenty. They wasn't gettin' no maiden when they tried to bleed me.

I caught hold of an aspen and pulled myself up. By that time there was light enough for me to see what they'd done to me, and it was a-plenty. My shirt front was stiff with dried blood, and so was the side of it. On my left side I found a fresh bullet hole from front to back. The bullet had gone through a place where my shirt bagged out to one side, going clean through without so much as scratching me. I had a fresh scratch atop my shoulder, and I had bruises all over from the blows and kicks. On my skull I had a fresh cut and a couple of lumps.

Oh, they'd laid it to me proper, only being down like I was, lying on soft ground and grass, some of the shock had been taken from the blows. Most of it I had taken, and so I was sore outside as well as inside.

If they'd hunted for my guns in the dark they surely hadn't found them, for there they were - the rifle had fallen from the tree where I'd leaned it and was lying on the wet grass, but the pistol still hung from the stub of a branch where I'd hung it the night before when all weighted down.

My head was throbbing like a big drum, my stomach was hollow and I was weak, but there was a mad on me like nothing I'd ever felt before. Looking around I saw some broken branches, all seasoned and gray from exposure, and out of one of them and a crosspiece of green aspen I fashioned myself a crutch to spare my wounded leg. Then with my six-gun belted on and my Winchester in my good hand, I started off along that trail those riders had left.

It was plain to see where they were going. They were riding down on the back of the Empty, and they were going in for a kill. They had a lead on me, but it wasn't so much. Where they went, I could follow.

My clothes was torn and I looked a sight, but nobody offered me no beauty prizes at any time, so I kept on. My jaw had a healthy growth of whiskers, caked with mud and blood. My hair likewise. Somewhere back along the way I'd lost my hat, and my bloody shirt was ripped in a couple of places, but I was mean as a cornered razor-back hog and I was hunting blood.

Here and there at a place where they had to do a switch-back descent, being a-horseback, I just sat down and slid, saving myself some time a-travelin'.

By noontime I could read their sign enough to see I was closing in. They'd stopped a while to wait for sunup, not knowing the trail or what they faced, so I'd gained a mite. As I edged up to the back meadows I expected to hear gunshots, but I heard nothing at all, and that worried me. I didn't want them killing Em Talon, and I knowed that was what they had in mind. And if they killed her there must be no witnesses so they'd kill that girl I'd taken there for shelter. And that was my affair, all mine.

That crutch was sawing into my armpit, making it sore, but I'd no choice. When I slid and crawled down through the rocks near the ranch, I still heard no sound. I could see the horses down in the corral and mine was there. So he'd found his way home, all right. The horse Barnabas rode was there also. He'd gotten into the place alive ... or at least his horse had.

I'd come to that point of rocks up behind the place and to one side. It was a raw-backed ridge, covered with broken slabs of tilted rocks, a lot of brush, and some scattered pines. There were a thousand hiding places or shelters on that ridge and I could look right into the corrals and yard without being seen ... I hoped.

The sunlight lay easy upon the yard. The shadows lay where they ought to lie, and the horses lazed in the corrals. There was no sign of horses that shouldn't be there.

I couldn't make it out.

By rights Flanner and his men should have arrived and should have attacked the place. Right now there should be a fight ... or else Flanner had already taken over. But where were their horses?

It was almost midafternoon and there should be some sign of life around the place. But still nobody showed. With four people on the place somebody should be moving around.

I lay quiet in the brush and studied all the cover around. Maybe the Flanner outfit had moved in, opened fire, and now were waiting, just as I was, for somebody to make a move.

Then I saw something that didn't figure. On the back steps there was a dark patch where no shadow fell. Water would have evaporated in the time I'd been lying there, at least enough of it so's I couldn't see the stain. Water would, but blood wouldn't

That there was a blood stain.

My side was throbbing so I wrinkled my forehead against it, scowling and squinting. My side was stiff and my whole body was sore. I eased myself down among the rocks, taking a look back and up from time to time. A body can't be too careful, I told myself. Meanwhile I kept my rifle up and ready. Still no move.

Were they all dead? Every last one of them? It didn't seem likely. But maybe the men were inside now, abusing Em and the rest. That started me worrying, and I figured I had to get down there. Yet suppose they were deliberately keeping quiet, expecting an arrival?

Me?

They'd left me for dead, and if they hadn't believed me dead they'd not have left me at all.

Who, then?

Or was I figurin' it wrong, all wrong?

And while I waited somebody down there might be dead or dying, somebody who depended upon me.

Chapter 16

The black appaloosa with the splash of white over the right hip had a dainty, dancing step. Even the miles that lay behind had taken none of the spirit from the gelding and he tossed his head at the restraint of the bit, eager to be off and running.

The rider sat erect, holding the reins easy in his hand, a dark and handsome young man whose what-the-hell sort of smile was in odd contrast to the coolness of his eyes.

There had been changes made. Siwash had grown a little, as he could see even from a distance, and despite his seeming ease he rode with cautious eyes on the country. It was unlikely he would be remembered by many ... quite a few years had passed.

How had Logan Sackett ever gotten into this country? He was a drifter, of course, and his kind might light anywhere. It was odd, now that he thought of it, that he and Logan, who had been friends, might also be kin. He always thought of ma as Em or Mrs. Talon. Somehow he had forgotten she was also a Sackett.

The word had been to avoid Siwash and come right to the ranch, but if trouble lay in Siwash he'd be damned if he'd ride around it.

He stopped in a hollow where the trail passed through an arroyo, and dismounting, brushed off his clothes with care. He combed his hair by running his fingers through it, whipped the dust from his hat, then stepped back into the saddle and rode into Siwash.

Several people saw him ride into Siwash, and one of them was Dolores Arribas. Another was Con Wellington.

Dolores looked once and knew him; Con looked, then looked again. Con swore softly to himself. Logan Sackett and now Milo Talon. Things were looking up around town and he might soon be back in business. One of them - even if Logan was dead, as they believed - would be bad enough, but there was that slim young fellow with the rifle who pulled Sackett out of the soup, and now this one.

Jake Flanner should have left the Empty alone.

Johannes Duckett saw Milo Talon ride in, ride past his livery stable, and tie his horse at the hitch rail. Duckett looked long at that horse. No cowhand could afford a horse like that. Even in this country where there were many horses, such a horse could not be had for love or money.

The rider stepped down and went into the saloon, opening the door with his left hand. Johannes, who knew most of the riders along the outlaw trail at least by name, furrowed his brow with thought. Who was this man? And why was he here? Any outsider might be somebody Jake had sent for, like he had sent for others. The fact that he had gone right to the saloon without putting up his horse might be an indication. Yet it might be otherwise, and Johannes Duckett took up his rifle and walked across the street to the saloon. He entered and went to the bar, keeping the stranger on his left. In his right hand he held his rifle. Johannes Duckett had big, strong hands and he could handle a rifle as easily as a pistol, and often had.

Milo Talon walked right to the bar. "Rye," he said gently, "an honest rye, from the good bottle."

The bartender glanced at him and switched from one bottle to the other under the bar. "Yes, sir," he said. "The good rye. Ain't no better drink," he added.

He waited a minute, let Milo Talon taste his drink, and then said, "Travelin'?"

"Passin' through," Milo said politely. "Ridin' down to Brown's Hole."

"Know the place." The bartender was thoughtful. "Late in the season for much ridin' down thataway. The boys will be pullin' their freight or settlin' down for the winter."

"Maybe I'll do the same," Milo said. He downed the rye, then pointed with his middle finger to a table. "Whatever you have to eat, set it up for me over there ... the best you have."

"Yes, sir." The bartender looked at him, hesitated, and glanced at the bar. He had seen no money. "These times, when I don't know a man the boss expects cash on the barrel head."

"And rightly so." Milo pointed again with his middle finger. "Over there, and I'm right hungry."

He went outside the door where there was a barrel of water, a wash basin, and soap and towel and washed his hands. When he came in again the bartender was putting food on the table.

Milo sat down, glanced briefly at the long, quiet man at the bar and at the rifle he carried. The man had not ordered a drink. He just stood there, seemingly looking at nothing.

The door opened and two dusty riders walked in and to the bar. "The boss wants you to fix him a hamper of grub. Make it for two days."

"All right." The bartender glanced at Milo, who was eating quietly, showing no interest in the proceedings.

Milo glanced up. "Better make it a week's supply," he said gently. "When a man's travelin' an' used to good grub he'll miss it. And he's got a long way to go."

There was a momentary pause, then all eyes turned toward Milo, who continued to eat.

"What's that?" Chowse Dillon turned around. "Who put a nickel in you?"

Milo Talon smiled. "Free advice, offered freely. When a man starts on a long trip he'd better go provided for it. I've always heard that Jake Flanner liked the good things of life. Pack that hamper, bartender, and pack a little grub for those boys, too."

"You tryin' to be funny?"

Milo smiled again. "Of course not, but on a long trip - "

"Nobody said anything about a long trip!" Dillon said irritably.

"Oh, yes, they did. You weren't listening. I mentioned a long trip." Milo finished his coffee and put the cup down gently. "Free advice, freely given. Travel is broadening, gentlemen, and my advice is for you, Mister Flanner, and all concerned to broaden themselves considerably, starting as soon as possible."

They did not know what to make of him. Dillon felt he should be angry but the stranger's manner was mild and he did not seem in the least offensive. Yet there was something in his manner ... and the fact that he was obviously a seasoned rider.

"I don't know what you're gettin' at," Dillon said. "You're talkin' a lot but you ain't sayin' much."

"Then I shall put it more directly." Milo spoke quietly. "You've been stirring up trouble with the Empty, and we don't like it. So the fun's over, and all you boys who depend on Mister Flanner for a living had better rattle your hocks out of here."

There was a moment of silence. Duckett looked into his glass and said nothing; Dillon was taken aback by the calmness of this stranger, and worried by it. A lot had been happening that he did not like. First there was that other stranger who had pulled in to bail Logan Sackett out of his trouble, and now this man. How many more would there be? When Jake Flanner hired him he had promised it would be an easy job ... no trouble at all, nobody but an old lady.

Dillon turned to Milo. "You're takin' in a lot of territory, mister. Just who might you be?"

"Milo Talon. Em's my ma, and you boys been makin' trouble for her."

Chowse Dillon was worried. He was no gunfighter, although he'd had a hand in a half dozen shootings, and he had pushed his weight around here and there, mostly against nesters. But there was something about this he did not like at all.

"There's only one of you," Chowse said, trying for a bluff. "You're buckin' a stacked deck."

"Stacked decks don't always turn up the cards a body would expect," Talon said mildly, "especially when I've got all the aces. I didn't come in here to lose anything, and if you'll recall, I opened the game. Of course," he straightened from the bar, "if you boys want to see what I'm holding you'll have to ante up, and the chips are bullets ... forty-fives, to be exact.

"I'm betting," he said easily, "that I can deal them just a mite faster than you boys can, and without braggin', boys, I can say I ain't missed anything this close since who flunk the chunk."

The bartender was in the line of fire and the bartender had no stake in the game. He worked for Flanner, who paid him well and on time, but a corpse spends no wages. He cleared his throat "Chowse," he said, "Milo Talon ain't lyin'. What you do is your own affair, but this man is hell on wheels with a pistol. I've heard of him."

Chowse had made up his mind not to push. There were other times, and he could afford to wait. This might be a job for Johannes Duckett, and not for him or the others. Duckett could do it, and he would tell him as much.

There was a coolness about the features of Milo Talon that Chowse did not care for, a coolness somehow belied by the recklessness of his eyes. Chowse Dillon was a stubborn man but he was not an overly brave one. He was dangerous enough when the advantage was his or when backed into a corner, but he had not survived this long without some knowledge of men, and if he read Milo Talon right he was not only a man who would be quick to shoot, but one who would look right into a man's eyes, laugh at him, and shoot him dead.

"I am not goin' to call you," Dillon said. "That's Flanner's affair, if he wants it. If he sends me against you, I'll come, but nothing was said about you."

"He didn't know about me," Milo replied. "Jake Flanner made his bets without having any idea what Em was holding." He chuckled. "Why, ma could whip the lot of you, guns or any other way. You boys just be glad she had that place to watch over and hadn't a free hand to come after you. When I was knee high to a short sheep I saw ma send a bunch of Kiowas packin' ... and they carried their dead with them."

He stood back from the bar. "Sorry I can't wait to meet Flanner right now, but I'll be back." He paused. "Any of you boys seen Logan Sackett?"

"He's dead." Dillon said it with satisfaction. "Killed right out there in the street. He done tried to take the whole town by himself. And he's dead."

"Where's he buried?"

Dillon's smile faded. "Some other gent who came along helped him off to the hills, but he had lead enough in him to sink a battleship. Come to think of it, that other gent favored you, only he wore store-bought clothes, like a tenderfoot."

"He was no tenderfoot," Milo replied as he backed toward the door. "That was my brother, Barnabas. I've seen him cut the earlobes from a man at two hundred yards with a Winchester."

He smiled again. "Well, well! Barney is back! Looks to me like you boys bought trouble wholesale! My advice was good," he added from the door, "travel is downright healthy. You boys pull your freight or we'll be back into town to hang everyone among you who isn't killed by bullets."

And then he added, "And don't you count no Sackett dead until you've thrown the dirt on him. I've seen Logan so ballasted with lead you'd never believe a man could carry it and live. But he's alive, which is more than I can say for those who shot him up."

He stepped into the saddle, eyed the door, then gave a quick glance up and down the street. Con Wellington was standing up the street, watching. Con lifted a hand, and Milo waved in return, then rode swiftly from town.

Milo Talon was no fool. He knew what Flanner was attempting, knew also some of the hatred that welled up within the man, and knew he would not easily call it quits. And sheer numbers were always an advantage. He could afford to lose men and still send more into the fight ... men of that stamp were not hard to find, and there were always renegade Indians.

If Logan Sackett was hurt and holed up in the hills, he must find him. Despite his claims to the contrary ma could not have held out alone for long. It was Logan who had saved her and saved the ranch as well.

The road to the ranch had changed little. Longingly, he waited for his first glimpse of the old house, and when it came he sighed deeply, excited to see it, to find it still standing. He had heard his mother was dead and the land scattered among many owners, but now he knew that story must have been started by Flanner himself in an attempt to keep them away by offering no reason to come back.

Johannes Duckett had stood very quietly at the bar, his beer resting on the polished surface, scarcely tasted. He had listened to Milo Talon, keeping his eyes averted after that first glance. When Milo backed to the door and went out he made no attempt to follow, for be was thinking back to his first days with Jake Flanner.

Flanner had not hired Duckett, merely suggested they ride on together, and Duckett, essentially a lonely man, had done so. Flanner was a talker, an easy, gracious talker who won most of his battles with his smooth tongue. Somehow Flanner always had money, and Duckett, who had more often than not lived from hand to mouth, had found it easier to just ride along with Flanner. Soon Flanner was suggesting things he might do, and Duckett had done them. Occasionally Flanner had said, "Here, you must be short of cash," and then had handed him a twenty, a half dozen twenties, or whatever. Johannes Duckett found himself living better than he had ever lived, and found himself with more ready cash than ever before.

Flanner had not noticed, although he would not have cared, that Johannes Duckett had few needs, but he would have been surprised at the quiet little hoard Duckett had accumulated. A man with few or no wants and a fairly steady flow of cash can gather together a nice sum, and Johannes Duckett accumulated several thousand dollars of which nobody was aware. Neither did they know where Duckett kept it hidden.

Duckett was a lean, quiet man whom some of the hands around Siwash did not consider overly smart. Others who knew him better did believe him smart, but the fact was that the thoughts of Johannes Duckett moved narrowly in only a few deeply grooved channels. He had no particular feelings about good and evil, but he had his own odd compulsions and beliefs. No amount of money or argument could have brought him to kill a child, yet he would have killed a woman without the slightest hesitation, and he had killed several. He had no moral or religious feelings about this, nor could he have explained why he did any of the things he did. He simply had no more scruples about killing a human being than about shooting a snake or a coyote.

He had no loyalty for Jake Flanner, although Flanner believed Duckett followed him from nothing but loyalty. Jake had provided a kind of traveling companion that Duckett liked. He liked Flanner's smooth-talking ways and he liked that Flanner made his life easier. Also, Duckett had decided that Jake Flanner was shrewd ... he was a winner. And Johannes wanted to be associated with a winner.

Now for the first time he had doubts.

The doubts began when he looked at the great house on the MT. To him it was awesome, astonishing. It seemed impregnable. Emily Talon had seemed the same. In the time before the shooting started he had seen her on the trail or in Siwash and there was something about the gaunt old woman that shook him. When she looked at him he averted his eyes, and had she reason for scolding him he would have stood quietly and accepted it.

Yet he was not one to argue. Had Flanner been less full of his own plans he would have seen that Johannes Duckett was hesitant. Yet the battle had begun, and the time drew on with no decision in view. From time to time Duckett heard gossip around the town about Milo Talon and his brother. A vague feeling of unease worked itself into those deeply channeled furrows within his brain, and for the first tune he grew restless.

"Ever been to the western slope?" he asked Flanner once.

"What? No ... I never have been." Flanner was irritated. "What brought that up?"

"It's a good country, so they say. There's a place named Animas City. Down in a big park around the Animas River."

"We've got enough to do right here," Flanner replied. "Why ride away from a sure thing?"

"Is it?"

Jake Flanner was startled. He had become so accustomed to Duckett's ready acceptance of any of his ideas that the comment startled him. "Of course, it is. Once that old woman is out of there we've got the finest setup ever. We'll just move in, and - "

"There's more of them now. There's that girl, and there's Logan Sackett, and now there's that one with the rifle who helped Logan, and some of the boys say there's another man out there."

"Look, Duck, I wouldn't be in this if I didn't know we can win and win big. When the time comes that girl will just go off by herself or one of the boys will take her. And Logan Sackett's dead. No man can soak up the lead he caught without dying. Why, he must have been hit seven or eight times, and as for that other one, I think he caught some lead, too."

"You want to kill that old lady because she busted your knees."

Flanner's face grew red with anger. He stared at Duckett. "All right," he said softly, "I do ... and I will. But that's beside the case. It is the place we want."

Duckett listened but his thoughts were on this other man ... Milo Talon. Duckett talked little but he listened a lot, and he knew more about Milo Talon than any other person in Siwash. He knew, for example, that Milo was a lone wolf, that he was amazingly swift and accurate, and that even men known as dangerous avoided him.

The odds were piling up. From now on every shot fired would increase the risk, as there were more people to fire back. Johannes Duckett's thinking was simple. He knew that two and two made four. He also knew that where there had been one old woman on the place in the beginning, although even then some suspected there were more, there were now two women and probably four men, for he had not for a moment accepted Logan Sackett's death. Hurt, maybe, but not dead. Johannes Duckett counted the dead when he saw the bodies.

The odds had risen, and who was to say they would not continue to rise? Sackett was one of the feudal clans from Tennessee ... who was to say the others might not ride in?

For the first time Duckett doubted the sagacity of Jake Flanner. For the first time he began to think of that money he had put away. He had enough to live as he lived for a year, perhaps two ... and two years was an almost immeasurable distance in the day-to-day living of Johannes Duckett.

"I'm going to ride," he told himself.

Once formulated, the idea established itself in its own groove and began to develop.

Jake Flanner would have been surprised to discover that to Johannes Duckett he, Jake Flanner, meant no more than a horse Duckett might have ridden for a time. He had been a convenience over the last few years, but no more than that.

Flanner believed Duckett to be loyal to the death. Duckett considered Flanner a source of income ... and now that source of income was endangered.

And, of course, there was the western slope of the Rockies.

Chapter 17

My mouth was dry and my head was hot - the trip down the mountain had taken a lot out of me. I crouched there among the rocks and brush and studied the layout below. I still couldn't make it out.

That spot on the back step was blood, sure as shootin'. Somebody had caught one there, and I was praying it wasn't the old woman or Pennywell. Search as I might I couldn't find anybody hid out, but they'd be hard to find until they moved ... if they were there.

I'd lost a lot of blood and from the way I felt I knew I was worse off than I'd thought A couple of times there my eyes kind of glazed over until I couldn't see except through a mist. Leaning over I rested my arm on a boulder and my head on my arm. My breathing was hoarse and rasping and I was sick.

Nothing moved down below, and I must have passed out there for a few minutes. When I came out of it I was still there, my head resting on that rock, but I felt like I was dying. That made me mad.

Die? With that old lady in trouble? With that girl I'd brought to the house in danger because of me? With my friend's ma down there, maybe about to get killed? And yes, I'll sure be honest with myself - a whole lot of the reason I was mad and surely determined to live was Jake Flanner. I could hear his voice again, tellin' them to do me in. All right, Jake, I said to myself. You want Logan Sackett dead. You want him dead but you're going to have to go all the way to make it happen.

So I forced my head up and slid down to a better way of sittin'; through that brush, I watched the house. Below me I could see a sort of slide through the rocks. It was too steep to walk down, but a man lyin' flat on his back could maybe drop down fifteen or twenty feet lower, if he was careful.

Easing myself around, I got my legs stretched out. With a rifle in one hand and the crutch in the other I moved myself between two bushes and under the edge of a boulder and slid, using the crutch and rifle to keep me from going too fast. As it was I stopped with a hard jolt against a slab of rock and, worst of all, I'd made some dust

Now I was closer down. I checked my guns to be sure I had them loaded, then I felt of my cartridge belt and didn't like what I found. I had eleven cartridges left for my pistol, and in my pockets I had a couple more rounds for the rifle. This here was not going to be any long fight.

Fogged though my thinkin' was, the more I studied that layout, the more sure I was that there was somebody inside who shouldn't be, that ma and them were dead or prisoners. Surely somebody would have come out that door otherwise.

Or else there was somebody on the hill behind me.

Now that was a thought. Maybe somebody back yonder had me right in their sights. Turning my head, I peered back up the mountain, but if they were right above me they couldn't see me at all. Suddenly I saw something I couldn't have seen from where I'd been until I slid.

There was a man's body - alive or dead there was no way of knowing - sprawled in front of the bunkhouse. I couldn't see it well but it surely looked like Al Fulbric. Regardless of who it was, there'd obviously been a fight. If that was Al, and I was sure it was, then somebody would have come for him.

The day had drawn on, and the sun was warm on my shoulders, but I wasn't feeling much but the warmth and the sickness that was in me. The house and the corrals down there seemed to waver, like there was heat waves between us. From time to time I ran my hands over the rifle. It was reality, it was something tangible, something I knew. Squinting my eyes I peered down there. Somebody had to come down, somebody had to come out of the house. Then I'd know.

Suddenly my eyes caught movement, something out there on the road. Turning my head stiffly I peered, scowling, trying to see through the delirium that was in me.

It was a horse. It was a black appaloosa.

Only one man sat a horse like that, only one horse I'd ever seen looked like that. Far enough off so's I could just make him out, Milo Talon was riding up to a trap. Riding to his death from the guns that waited inside. Somehow he had to be warned, somehow he had to be told. I had no idea who was inside or how many there were, but I was sure there were too many. There'd been eight men including Flanner in the group that jumped me. Eight men in there with guns, just waiting for Milo or me.

If I fired a shot the chances were I'd never get off that slope alive. The only reason I'd made it so far was that they didn't know I was there, and if I moved they'd nail me instantly. But I knew I was surely going to do it because Milo was my friend and I wasn't about to see him shot down as he rode up, unsuspecting.

Unsuspecting? Well, maybe not. Milo never rode anywhere without being alert. He was like me, like a wild animal. He was always ready to cut and run or to fight.

He was only some three hundred yards off now, and you could bet they had him in their sights. My rifle tilted and I fired into the air. He slapped spurs to his horse, went down on the far side, and left there with bullets kicking all around him. And me, I went down off that mountain.

Nobody needed to tell me that I was walking into hell, nobody needed one word to tell me that ridge where I'd been holed up was going to be split wide open with rifle fire. If I died it was going to be gun in hand, boots on and walking, so I half ran, half slid off that hill, coming down like a madman.

I hit ground knees bent, heels dug in, with bullets kicking dust all around me. My mind was a blur but I went for that door and hit it with my shoulder. Like I said, I'm a big man and strong, and even weak as I was I tore that door loose and plunged into the kitchen. A sandy-haired man with a double-barrel shotgun was right square in front of me and I banged a shot at him, then lunged on in, jerking up the muzzle of my rifle. It missed his throat and tore his nose wide open and he screamed like a scared woman. I came around with the butt and there was a dull thunk as he hit the floor under my feet.

In the next room there was a sudden explosion, a yell, and I shifted the rifle to my left hand, grabbed up the shotgun, and plunged into the living room.

There were four men there and Em Talon and Pennywell lying in a corner. Pennywell seemed to have a bloody lip. I swung that shotgun around and let go with both triggers at twelve-foot range. She boomed like a cannon and the room was so full of smoke that my eyes stung with it. My head was buzzing and my knees felt like they were going to go any minute but I levered shot after shot into the smoke where those men were.

A man rushed through the smoke, six-gun in hand, his hat gone, hair wild, his blue eyes staring. I was to his right and he looked at me and swung the gun at me. I threw the shotgun at his face and followed it in. I had the rifle but I forgot it. I just taken a swing with my big right fist and clobbered him right over one of those blue eyes. His knees started to go and I taken that rifle in both hands and took a full swing at his belly with the butt. He folded like a wet sack and when he hit the floor on his knees I booted him in the face.

Staggering, I went down. My knees hit, and I lunged to get up and fell down. I tried to get up and rolled over in time to see a man come busting in from the front door.

He was a square-built man in a red-checkered shirt and he had a gun. He seen me and he throwed down on me. I figured he had me dead to rights. I looked square into that pistol and knew I'd bought it, but my whole life didn't pass in front of me. All I could think of was getting up and at him, knowing I'd never make it in time.

Behind me a gun boomed, then boomed again. That man stood up on his tiptoes, his gun dribbled from fingers gone rubber, and he fell all in one piece. As I turned my head, there was Em Talon holding a big Dragoon Colt she'd had hid somewhere in the folds of her dress.

Next thing I knew Pennywell was beside me, hauling me over to the wall, and the room was quiet. After a bit there was a moan ... and it was me. Then somebody said, "Don't shoot! For God's sake, don't shoot!" And a man, bloody and dying, staggered past me to the door.

A window opened and the smoke started to suck out and the air cleared up. Three men were on the floor, but what shape they were in I don't know. They just laid there as Em knelt alongside of me and stared down at me. "You come just right, boy, you surely did. They got Barnabas tied up and they've shot Al."

"Milo's here. I shot to warn him."

"Milo? Then they better hunt cover."

They never tried to move me. They fetched a pillow for my head and they bathed my wounds that had tore loose and after a while they fed me some broth. Part of my weakness was just sheer hunger, but the blood I'd lost had done me no good.

Of the three men on the floor two of them were dead. One of them had caught most of the shotgun blast and the other had taken two forty-fours from Em's Dragoon Colt.

The man I'd hit in the belly with the rifle butt was still alive although he was in bad shape. The others, one way or another, got out of the house and we never did know what became of them. Anyway, they were gone and there was no sign of Flanner. He'd been there, but crippled or not, he was gone before the shooting was over.

Em told me three of them had been down on their knees at loopholes letting Milo ride up. Somebody among them knew who he was and Flanner wanted him dead. With Em and Barnabas prisoners they expected to force one or the other to sign over the MT to them.

Three weeks I lay abed, waited on by Pennywell and Em. Three weeks when I lay mighty weak and came close to cashing in. Barnabas, Milo, and Al Fulbric rode into town but the Flanner outfit had scattered.

Albani Fulbric had been shot, all right, and had him a concussion, but no more than that and a minor flesh wound that gave him no trouble.

With Barnabas and Milo around things were back to normal. Al taken it easy a few days and then he set to and worked like the hand he was. I was the only one laid up, and I was sick enough so I scarcely knew where I was or what was keeping for the first ten days.

With the return of the Talon boys the house took on a new air. It surely didn't seem like that house was too big for them. They sang and roughhoused and told stories of the years between when they had been apart. Barnabas had traveled in Europe, had served in the army of France, and he was an educated man. Lyin' there in bed I listened to the easy flow of his talk and for the first time felt envy of another man.

When I was a boy yonder in the mountains we had to walk or ride miles to the nearest school, and often enough there was work to keep us from it, and nobody to make us go when there wasn't. We youngsters tried to duck out of school whenever possible, and it shamed me to think there were now youngsters who knew more than me, who could write better and read better.

I had never given thought to it before, and I could work as well as any man, but then I began to notice men like me ending up setting by with nothing to live on while others had a-plenty. Barnabas had plenty of schooling, and even Milo had a good bit I didn't know nothing but how to use a gun, ride a horse, and track game ... or men.

Jake Flanner had disappeared. So had Johannes Duckett. Nobody had seen either one, and that tough lot who were hired by Flanner had all shaken the dust of the country from their hocks. The Flanner saloon and hotel had been taken over by Dorothy Arribas, while Con Wellington had opened his store full blast and was doing a good business.

But lyin' up like I was I done some thinking, and I wasn't at all sure those two were gone. A man as anxious to get even as Flanner, who'd done as much and spent as much, wasn't about to quit while losing. As for Duckett, he seemed ready to do whatever Flanner wanted.

Pennywell, she was around and about. She'd put up her hair and she was making eyes at all three of us, although the Talon boys the most. Em watched it and she was amused more than anything else. Barnabas didn't seem to be aware of her as more than just another person around, but Milo, I seen him looking her over once or twice.

Em had been to town, bought herself dress material, and was sewing up some new duds for herself. The boys shaped up the place and the cattle were loosed on the open range to get the best of the grass that was left.

I lay back in bed and stared up there at the ceiling wondering what was next for me. I never gave thought to it before, taking things as they came, but here I was laid up, mending slowly but surely, but seeing this big house around me and those folks. There was a strong feeling between Milo and Barnabas ... brothers they were, and different as two men can be, and as boys they'd fought like cats and dogs, or so they said, but it was good to see them now. They made a team, the two of them, and between them the old Empty began to shape up.

Maybe I lay abed a mite longer than needful. It was simply that I hated to leave that old house, Pennywell and Em and all of them. My own family busted up early, going off in different directions. We had a strong feeling for kinfolk in trouble, but my own family had scattered to the winds. Even Nolan, who was my twin brother, I'd not seen in a coon's age.

But the time had come for ridin' and one morning I rolled out of bed and put on my hat. Seems like in cow country a man always puts on his hat first. I slid into my jeans, and pretty raunchy they were, although Em and Pennywell had each taken a hand at putting them in shape. My shirt was patched up - Em had wanted to give me one of the boys' shirts but it wouldn't fit no way. I was too big in the shoulders and chest for either of them.

I was on my feet and slinging my gun belt around my hips when Pennywell came in. She taken one look and called out, "Em! Mrs. Talon! Logan is up!"

Em Talon came in and taken a long look at me. "Well, I knew I wasn't going to keep no Sackett in bed for long. Come on down, son, and have you some breakfast. You need to get some red meat into you, for blood. You lost a-plenty."

"Yes, ma'am," I said, and went.

Chapter 18

For three days I did nothing but sit on the porch and look down the road toward Siwash. Everything was moving along on the Empty - the cattle were grazing on the prairie grass where they had not been able to graze freely since Flanner came into the country. The place was getting fixed up, and Em was for the first time looking kind of easy in the mind. She was sleeping all night, and so was Pennywell.

The Talon boys were out on the range most of the time, branding calves and picking up what mavericks they could find left over from the years since the Empty had been properly worked.

Me, I sat there on the porch and tried to think out what was in the thoughts of Jake Flanner and Johannes Duckett. Yet my mind kept straying down the trail to California. Soon I'd be well enough to go there. There was nothing to keep me longer. The boys were back, Em Talon was in good shape, and nobody would try to take the Empty with even Milo around. I'd seen Milo in action a time or two and knew he could handle whatever came his way.

In the three days of sitting on the porch I saw nothing to worry a man. In fact I saw nothing but grass and cows, with a few white clouds lazing it across a blue sky. On the fourth day I went out to the corral when the boys were topping off their horses. I was getting restless. Soon I'd be getting hog-fat with just setting by.

I taken up a rope, shook out a loop, and caught up that roan horse. He dodged around a bit but once the loop settled over his neck he stood by. I petted him a mite and talked to him, fed him a carrot, and slapped the saddle on him. He humped his back a mite, but by this time we'd become right friendly and he didn't feel like offering much of an argument. Anyway, I'd had it out with him before this and he knew who was boss.

Pennywell came to the door, drying her hands on a dish towel. "Logan Sackett, you must be a great big fool to try to ride in your condition. You tie that horse up and come in here!"

"Time for me to be headin' down the trail, ma'am. I never stay long in one place, and I've been around here a sight too long."

" 'Rolling stones gather no moss,'" she said pertly.

"I never saw moss grow on anything but dead wood and half-buried rocks," I said, "and anyway, a wandering bee gets the honey."

"A lot of honey you've had!"

"That's because you kept your eyes on Milo," I said, grinning at her. "An' I don't blame you. He's a sight prettier than me!"

"Depends on who's looking," she said. She watched me swing the horse around. "Where you all goin'? Em's in town. She's goin' to be mighty upset."

"Who rode with her?" Suddenly I was scared. "She wasn't alone, was she?"

"Who is there? Barnabas went to the mountains after a deer, an' Milo, him and Al, they went scouting the grass in the high meadows. Anyway, Em can take care of herself."

I taken up my saddlebags and slapped them over the saddle, then my rifle. "You tell the boys I said so long," I said. "I'll see Em in Siwash."

Swinging into the saddle I taken off down the trail to Siwash. Maybe it was because I'd been sick, but I was scared. Em had gone off alone, and that was what Flanner would be waitin' for. The boys figured he'd left the country, but not me. He was a vengeful man, and she'd crippled him bad. But he'd been whipped in what he'd tried against her. Maybe he had left the country but I didn't believe it.

The roan had been in the corral for a while and he was ready to go, so we taken the trail to Siwash and I scouted for sign of Em. Most of the time I'd been watching that trail, but a time or two I'd gone inside or out back and on one of those times she had taken out for town.

In no time at all I picked up mule tracks. She was walking him along, paying no mind to anything it seemed like. Anyway, from the steps of that mule she'd been letting him make his own speed, which was a bit slower than slow. That mule had no business anywhere and he was in no hurry to get there.

Meanwhile I swept the country toward Siwash, studying for sign. Nothing and nobody. Not even a dust cloud. Overhead the sky was still a clear blue dotted with fleecy clouds like lambs on a blue pasture. The roan taken me down into a hollow, then up the other side, and I'd gone several hundred yards when it came to me that the tracks were gone ... played out.

I rode on a mite farther, still studying for sign, but there was nothing. That old woman and her mule were suddenly leaving no tracks at all. Town was only a half mile farther so I booted that roan and we went into town a-flyin'.

The first person I saw was Dolores Arribas. "You seen Em Talon?" I asked her.

"She ain't in town. If she was she'd have come to see me."

Con Wellington came to the door, his store apron on. "She hasn't been in," he said. "I've been expectin' her."

"You," I said to them, "you find her if she's in town, I mean you go to every door. You be mighty damn sure she ain't here, because when I come back I'll be hunting mean."

Swinging the roan around I hightailed it back down the trail to where her trail wiped out. I found tracks before she reached the shallow bottom I'd crossed when her tracks disappeared, but I found none on the other side. She was gone.

She'd disappeared like she'd turned ghost or something. I could believe that of her, but not of her mule. A mule is a notional sort of critter and that mule wasn't going to vanish ... not before dinner time, anyway.

A quick swing up the draw, scouting for tracks, showed nothing at all. Not a turned grass blade, nothing. Then I went back to the trail and set my horse a-studying the premises. Folks just don't vanish; so somehow, some way, she'd been made to disappear ... but how? This time when I gave study I wasn't looking for her tracks, I was looking for any kind of sign, anything at all.

I'd gone over that ground two or three times before I seen it, a straight line in the dust almost under the edge of some prickly pear and right in the bottom of the draw.

Now who would draw such a line? And for what? I studied it as I sat my saddle, and I came no nearer to guessing the cause of it. Getting down, I trailed the reins of the roan and studied the ground. There was an area about twelve by twenty that was totally free of tracks except for those made by my own horse as I rode to Siwash.

Turning down the draw I stopped and studied the sand before I taken a single step. There was sand, a few scattered rocks, and some brush, nothing much to attract the attention. Yet some of the grass was kind of pushed down, and the leaves of some sunflowers were bruised and the flowers crushed. Something had pressed them down, something heavy, but what it was or how it had been done, I couldn't guess.

Wandering on down the draw about a hundred yards, I found here and there some scratch marks in the sand like somebody had brushed out tracks. Now I'd done that a time or two myself but it never fools a good tracker because he will ask himself why the scratch marks or brush marks or whatever? You don't need hoof tracks or foot tracks to follow a trail. All a body needs are the indications that somebody passed that way, and most of the ways a man can brush out a trail show up just as well as his tracks.

The draw merged into a wider one that turned off to the southeast, and there around the corner I found where several horses had been tied ... at least three, I guessed. There were several cigarette butts, like one of the men had been holding the horses or staying with them at least.

Up the draw I found what I was hunting - a mule track among the horse tracks as they went away. It taken no great figuring to see the mule was led. It might have been a pack mule except that Em Talon rode a mule and I knew the tracks her mule left.

Putting a toe to the track, I squinted at it, then sized up the other horse tracks one by one. Now a track of man or beast reads as plain as a signature to a good reader of sign. By the time I'd followed on a ways I knew each of those horses ... and one of them was the horse ridden by Jake Flanner when he gave me the beating and left me for dead in the mountains.

Turning around I walked back to my roan, gathered the reins, and stepped into the saddle.

It was a long trail. They hadn't killed Em outright so it looked to be some plan of torture or ransom or something of the kind. Knowing what I did about Flanner I knew Em could not expect to get out of it alive ... and I knew she knew it.

Fortunately, I was on the trail, and I was on it sooner than they figured anybody would be. I'd ridden the owl-hoot trail too long not to know about every dodge a man can use, and it hadn't taken me long to work out their direction. The way I surmised, they'd not expect pursuit before nightfall when Em didn't return to the Empty.

The sun was slanting down already, but it didn't look like I was more than a couple of hours behind them, and I could follow a trail like the one they now left with my horse at a gallop. The strides of their horses were longer. They were making good time now, but I could see the mule was making trouble. He was hanging back, and I hoped they wouldn't lose patience and shoot the old fellow. Em set store by that beast.

Now the route left the draw and taken off across the plains, cutting in closer and closer to the hills. It was an area I'd never seen and knew nothing about. I kept watch as far ahead as I could, knowing they might come in sight and they might also lay ambush for me. There was no dust clouds, nothing. Within an hour I'd gained on them. Some of the tracks were right fresh, but it was coming on for sundown and once it grew dark I'd lose the trail. And night would give Jake Flanner time to work on Em.

By this time the boys at the ranch would be getting restless with Em gone and me taking off like that. Pennywell would know I'd been scared for her, and the boys would come on into town to find out what had happened. Daybreak, at the latest, would see them fogging it down the trail after me - and the trail I left behind they could follow with ease.

One thing was sure. They were headed for someplace they knew. They were riding right into the hills now, not looking around for an opening, but riding toward some place they knew about. And I knew nothing about this country. The last tracks I could see were pointed into the hills, and sure enough, a canyon opened its jaws at me as I rode up. There didn't seem much chance they'd cut off to right or left, so I rode in and drew up, listening.

Now a canyon carries sound, and I did not want them to hear me. I sat very still, listening. Nothing ... just nothing at all. A night bird cried somewhere, but that was all. I searched the gray sky where a few stars appeared for the vague trail that smoke might make, and I studied the canyon walls for a reflected glow from a fire.

Nothing ...

It gave me an uneasy feeling. There was a coolness coming out of that canyon, and no smell of smoke. After a bit I walked my horse a dozen yards farther and stopped just short of where the canyon narrowed down. I stepped down from the saddle and with the most careful touch ever I touched the sand. Inch by inch I worked my way across the narrow opening. Forward, then back. There were no tracks in the sand.

Leading my horse I walked back to the mouth and went off to the right-hand shoulder of the canyon. There I peered up, looking for some opening in the dark wall of the trees that would show a trail. Sometimes there is a narrow gap against the sky ... but this time there was nothing.

On the left it looked to be the same thing, and then I caught a faint odor of something that wasn't the damp coolness of green grass, brush, and trees.

Dust...

I kneeled on the ground and felt with my fingers. Grass ... wild flowers, and then a narrow trail, and in it my fingers felt out the vague pattern of hoofs.

For a moment there I stood with my hand on the pommel, my head leaning against the saddle. I was tired ... almighty tired. This was the first time I'd been out since I'd been shot, and it was no time to be making a long, hard ride through mountains.

Pulling myself up into the saddle I let the roan have his head. "Let's see where they go," I said quietly. "Come on, boy, you've got to help me."

He taken off up the trail. I knew he could smell those other horses, and it is horse instinct to be with others of his kind, so I had a hunch I could trust that roan to take me to them once I had him on the right trail. He started along, walking fast. Loosening the grip of the scabbard on my Winchester, I taken the thong off my six-shooter. Somewhere up ahead those men had an old woman of my own family. All right ... the kinship was distant, but it was there, and we'd talked together, drunk coffee together, fought enemies side by each.

We topped out on a rise and I made it quick over to the other side, not wanting to leave any target on the ridge. Ahead of me was a meadow, tall grass all silver in the rising moonlight. Silver but for one dark streak where riders had brushed off the dew of night. I trotted my horse, knowing in that damp grass it would make no sound to be heard farther than the creak of my saddle.

Ahead of me was a grove of aspen, big stuff, much larger than a man was usually likely to see. I rode to the edge of the grove and drew up to the white trunks ghostly in the beginning moonlight. We were high up, nothing but spruce and timberline above us.

Something was beginning to nag at my memory, and I couldn't place it. We'd come a good distance since I picked up the trail near Siwash ... I'd make a guess at twenty miles. I was all in and the roan was beginning to lag, but there weren't too many groves of aspen that grew to this size. Aspen start to decay at the heart when they get too big, although I've seen some that didn't.

Looking up the mountain I could see timberline up there, not more than a thousand feet above me with a thick stand of spruce in between. There was a snaggly old tree up there that looked almighty familiar in a lopsided sort of way. And that was the trouble ... everything looked kind of back-side to.

It came to me all of a sudden as I sat there on the roan just letting it soak in.

This was the old Fiddletown Mine country.

The Fiddletown had been a hideout for outlaws almost from discovery. There'd been several mines of the name, I guess, but this one was named by an Arkansas hillbilly who killed a man in a knife fight down near Cherry Creek. He took to the hills to hide out and discovered gold, there wasn't much gold but the country was mighty pretty, so Fiddletown Jack, as they called him, built himself a cabin and worked his mine, piling up a little gold against the time when it would be safe to come out. From time to time some friends of his holed up with him, and one of them, hunting Fiddletown's gold cache, was killed by Jack. But Jack was killed by the would-be thief's partner. After that, even outlaws shied away from the place for six or seven years, but from this moment to that somebody would hide out there for a while. I'd spent three weeks there one time ... but that was years back. I hadn't heard tell of the place since then, and it was a way back yonder in the hills and an unlikely place to go.

I walked the roan on a couple of hundred yards and then drew up and got down. For a moment there my knees buckled and I feared I was about to fall, but I had me a grip on the old apple and I hung on until I got over the dizzy spell and the weakness.

I tied the roan there, leaving him room enough to nibble around on the brush, and then I shucked my Winchester and began to Injun through the aspens and spruce toward the cabins.

There was a bunkhouse yonder, the opening of the tunnel, a root cellar where Fiddletown had stored his moonshine, and there were a couple of old log cabins caved in by the heavy snows. It often got fourteen or fifteen feet deep through here, and deeper in the hollows. This was high country ... more than ten thousand feet up.

First off I hunted their horses. I wanted an idea as to how many there were. I wanted that old lady out of there but getting myself killed wasn't going to help her none.

Three horses and a mule. I found them in a corral beyond the bunkhouse, but I stayed away, looking at them from a distance.

Three horses ... was one a pack horse? Yet there had been at least three riders around the draw where they'd grabbed Em. Edging closer, and keeping shy of the corral where the horses might warn them, I worked up under the eaves of the bunkhouse. Making my way along the wall, close under the overhang of the low roof, I reached a window. It was so dirty and cobwebby I had trouble seeing through, but the first thing I saw was Em.

It gave me a lift just to see her. She was sitting up straight and tall. There was an ugly bruise on the side of her face where she must have been hit the time she was grabbed, hours ago, and there was a cut on her lip. She'd been hurt, but the fire was there, and the contempt she felt for them.

It was quiet inside and I could see none of the men I was hunting. I could make no move until I knew where every man-jack of them was. I didn't dare step into that cabin with Em in the line of fire or I'd just get her killed, and probably me, too. The worst of it was one of them might be outside somewhere on watch. If I started in he could take me from behind. My rifle shifted to my left hand while I checked to make sure my six-gun was there. It was.

Crouching down, I went under the window to look in from the other side. It was so dirty I could just barely make out one man sitting on the far side of the table from Em. He was talking to somebody else who was out of sight, so that accounted for two of them.

Em didn't seem in any immediate danger, but how could a body tell? I couldn't hear anything but a mumble of voices, but I couldn't feature them keeping her around long. Flanner wasn't fool enough to imagine he could scare the Talon boys into anything, and if he tried to get them to sign the ranch over to save their ma he'd still have them to deal with after.

Whatever he intended to do, he would do here.

I backed off from the cabin and got back to the stable.

Then I began an inch-by-inch check to see where the other man was. At least to find out if he was outside the house. None of them could be made out from that window.

Nobody was in the old stable, nor in the entrance to the mine tunnel. I worked my way around the place, moving, listening, then moving again.

There was only the one door and one window in the cabin. Squatting down among some rocks, I gave study to the situation. I had to get them out of there. There was no other way to do it - and when they came clear of the door I'd have to be shooting. It was no small thing to tackle three tough, well-armed men, and I was going to give them no more chance than they'd give me. I was sure that all three of them were in the crowd that beat me and left me for dead yonder over the mountains, so I'd get a little of my own back.

They had them a mite of fire going as the night was cold at that altitude. If I could get on the roof ...

There was no chance of that. They'd hear me right off and shoot me to pieces before I could nail even one of them. They weren't pilgrims, who'd come running outside to see who or what was up there. They'd just go to shooting right through the roof ... I'd done it myself, a time or two. A forty-five bullet will go through six inches of pine, and that roof was nothing but poles with a thin covering of grass and some dirt.

So I went back to the stable and got me a rope off one of the horse's rigs. I taken that rope, edged around in the darkness, measured the distance with my eyes, and built me a loop. Then I stepped back and roped that pipe they had for a chimney. I gave her a good yank and it came loose and there was a yell from inside. I stepped back into the deeper shadows, then ran around to the front door.

By the time I got there that cabin was filling up with smoke and those boys came out of there a-running. The first one was a man I'd seen before but never had his name. He was a big-chested man, showing a little belly over his gun belt. He came running outside, gun in hand, ready to drop whatever showed, but I wasted no time. Throwing up my Winchester, cocking as I lifted it, I shot him right in the belly. He heard the click of my hammer coming back and he let go with a shot that exploded before he wanted, my bullet knocking him back a step where the second one nailed him.

The light went out inside the cabin and then another man came out. I fired a quick shot at the vague outline of his figure and missed, and two bullets clipped brush near me. I ran at the cabin, thinkin' of Em. I beard a bullet thud into the logs just as I reached it, and I jumped inside. The cabin was filled with smoke, but I saw Em struggling against the ropes. I couldn't really see her but I made out a dim outline that had to be her.

My knife was razor sharp and I cut her loose. "Watch it!" she whispered hoarsely. "Flanner, Duckett, an' Slim are outside."

I'd figured on three ... and that made four. There might be another around.

"Em," I whispered, "can you crawl?"

She went to the floor near me and started for the door. They'd be laying for us outside, so I taken up a chair and heaved it out the door, then plunged out and began raking the area with rifle fire to cover Em's escape.

There were a couple of shots and then a whole lot of silence and I saw Em making for the corral. Nobody fired, so I backed up, trying to see all ways at once. The moon was getting up over the shoulder of the mountain now, so we got back against the corral's indefinite shadow and crouched there.

"You take care of yourself, Logan," Em said. "I got the dif'rence now," and she showed me the big old Dragoon Colt that she must have caught up before leaving the cabin.

The moon was shining over half the clearing now and we could see the body of the man I'd shot lying out there in the open. He wasn't dead but he was going to wish he was. I'd seen men shot in the gut before and took no pleasure in it. Nothing else moved. I studied the cast of the moonlight and decided we were all right as long as we stayed still. Leaning my Winchester against the poles of the corral, I shucked my six-shooter and waited for something to move out there.

It was almighty still. I could hear the chuckle of the water in the creek some distance off, and once in a while a horse shifted his feet in the corral. I guessed that the fire had gone out or died down because smoke no longer came from the cabin that did duty as a bunkhouse. The door gaped open, a black rectangle that suggested a place a body could hide and stand off a crowd, but I liked the open where a body could move.

You know something? It was beautiful. So still you could hear one aspen leaf caressing another, the moon wide and white shining through the leaves, and just above the dark, somber spruce, bunched closely together, tall and still like a crowd of black-robed monks standing in prayer.

And the old buildings, the fallen-in cabins, the log bunkhouse, the black hole of the mine tunnel. A bird made a noise, inquiring of the night. There was nothing else but an occasional rustling from the aspen whispering together like a bunch of schoolgirls. And me there with a gun in my hand, and Em by my side.

A voice spoke, a low voice, not over ten yards off. It was a voice I'd heard only once that I could recall, but I knew it for Johannes Duckett

"Logan Sackett?"

I wasn't about to answer, nor to shoot until I heard him out. I had his position spotted the instant he spoke, but I learned long since not to shoot too soon or without reason. So I waited.

"This is Johannes Duckett. I am pulling out, I have had enough of this. I never wanted to shoot at Emily Talon, and I will not. This is Jake Flanner's fight."

There was a pause, during which I waited, listening to see if it was a cover for movement. Then he said, "I want to move now, and I don't want to get shot when I do."

I said nothing, but then he commenced to move, and I could hear him drawing back. The sounds slowly drifted away farther off down the hill, and then there was silence.

Two men left ... I got up slowly, standing by the corner post of the corral, which was taller than me.

Suddenly a match flared in the cabin, a lamp was lit. I heard the tiny click of the chimney as it was fitted to the lamp again. A man moved within the cabin and we heard the thump of a crutch, but then a chair was drawn back and we heard the creak as a heavy man sat down.

"Em," I whispered, "he's gotten into the cabin."

"You don't do nothin' foolish, boy."

"There's another one, Em. I think he's out around here somewhere."

"You do what you have to, son. I'll watch that other one."

"Jake Flanner is a talker, Em. I think he wants to talk to me. I don't believe he'll try killing me until he's had his say."

"All right."

I turned and walked across the open ground toward the bunkhouse. My six-shooter was in my hand, but as I stepped inside I dropped it into the holster. I had listened for sound outside, but heard nothing.

Jake Flanner had gotten to his feet and was leaning on his crutches, favoring one side as he always seemed to do. There was a pistol showing in its holster, and I knew he carried another one inside his coat. He moved his arm, letting me glimpse the butt of that hideout gun.

Why?

Every sense alert, I waited He was the talker, not me. I was tired, dead tired. As I stood there, feet apart, hands hanging, I felt all sickish and weak. If I didn't get better soon I'd never get to California.

Suddenly Jake's voice rang out of the stillness. "You've given me a lot of trouble, Sackett. I wish you had come to work for me that first day."

"I never work for no man. Not with a gun."

"But why against me? I did nothing to you."

"I didn't like the way your boys set after that girl."

"Her? Really? But she's nobody, Sackett. She's just a broken-down nester's daughter."

"Everybody is somebody to me. Maybe she don't cut no ice where you figure, Flanner, but she's got the right to choose her man when she's ready, not to be taken like that."

He laughed, his eyes glinting, "I heard you were a hard man, Sackett, and so you've proved to be. I would never have suspected you of chivalry."

"I don't know what that means, Flanner. I only know she was a poor kid, all wet from the rain and scared from runnin', and that Spivey - "

"But that's over, Sackett. Spivey is dead. Why did you take up for Em Talon?"

"Emily Talon is a Sackett. I don't need no more reason than that."

He shifted his weight, leaning kind of heavy to one side, and that nagged at me. I don't know why except that I'm a suspicious man.

"Too bad, Sackett. We'd have made a team. You, Duckett, and me."

"Duckett is gone."

He was shocked. He stared at me. "What do you mean? You've killed him? But I heard no shot!"

"He just pulled out. He had enough, Flanner. He said he never did believe in going after Em Talon. He's gone. You're alone, Flanner."

He smiled then. "Oh? Well, if that's the way the cards fall." He moved up a little and turned a shade to one side. "Mind if I sit down, Sackett? These crutches - "

Jake Flanner hitched himself forward a little. Suddenly one of the crutches swung up and I shot him.

It was as fast and clean a draw as I ever made, but as that crutch swung up as though he were going to lay it on the table, I shot him right in the belly. My second shot hit the hand and wrist that held the crutch and he fell back against the chair, caught at it, and they fell together.

"You'd shoot a crip - ?" His voice faded, but not the glow in his eyes. His crutches had fallen but his right hand was going toward the hideout gun.

There was a sudden boom from outside that could only be the Dragoon. "Everything's all right out here, Logan," Em said. "I taken this one out."

I just stood there gun in hand, watching him take hold of the butt of his hideout gun.

"Jake," I said, "I always wondered why you favored that one crutch over the other, and all of a sudden it come to me."

With my free hand I reached over and picked up the crutch. There was a rifle barrel right down the length of that crutch, and a grip trigger on the handle. All he had to do was swing that crutch up and squeeze her off. I'd heard of trick guns, belt-buckle guns and the like, but this one surely beat all.

His hand was drawing his hideout.

"You want another one, Jake? You're dead already, why make it worse?"

He looked at me. "Damn you, Sackett. An' damn that old lady, damn her to hell, she - "

"You were out of your class, Jake. No tin-horn's ever going to come it over a woman like that. She's the solid stuff, Jake, all the way through, and you were never anything but a cheatin' tin-horn four-flusher."

Em came in and stood by my side.

"I'm sorry for them knees, Jake Flanner," she said, "but you killed my man. You killed Talon, a better man than you could ever be."

"Damn you," he whispered, "I - "

He faded out and lay there, dead as a man could ever get, and the thing that hit me so hard was how such a man could cause the death of so much a better man like Talon.

"Em," I said, "there's nothin' more for us here. The boys will be worried. Let's mount up and ride back to the Empty."

"You look kinda peaked, son. Are you up to it?"

"If you can do it, I can do it, Em. Let's make some dust."

So we rode down the trail together, Em and me, and we met the boys a-comin' up.