The Sky-Liners

Chapter 8

Morning, noon, and night we worked our hearts out, rounding up the scattered herd, and when we had finished we still lacked a lot of having half of what Evan Hawkes had started with when he left Texas. The Fetchen outfit had made off with the rest of them.

After a week of riding and rounding them up we started west once more.

Judith was quiet. She pulled her weight around camp, helping the cook and generally making herself useful, and when she was on the range she showed that she not only could ride the rough string but that she could savvy cattle.

Much as I wanted to pay her no mind, it was getting so I couldn't do that. She was around camp, stirring pots, bending over the fire, and looking so pretty I wondered whether I'd been right in the head when I first put eyes on her back yonder in Tazewell.

Nonetheless, I kept my eyes off her as much as I could. I rode out from camp early, and avoided sitting nigh her when it was possible. Only it seemed we were always winding up sitting side by side. I never talked or said much. First off, I'm simply no hand with women. Galloway now, he had half the girls in the mountains breathing hard most of the time, but me, I was just big and quiet, and when I was seated by womenfolks all the words in me just lost themselves in the breaks of my mind. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't put a loop over even one sentence.

Besides, there was the land. A big, grand, wide country with every glance lost in the distance. There was a special feeling on the wind when it blew across those miles of grass, a wind so cool, so deep down inside you that every breath of it was like a drink of cool water. And we saw the tumbleweeds far out ahead of us, hundreds of them rolling south ahead of the wind, like the skirmish line of an army.

At first they made the cattle skittish, but they got used to them, as we did. I never knew where they came from, but for three days the wind blew cool out of the north and for three days they came in the hundreds, in the thousands.

Trees grew thicker along the streams, and the grass was better. From time to time we saw scattered buffalo, three or four together, and once a big old bull, alone on a hilltop, watching us pass. He followed us for two days, keeping his distance - wanting company I suppose.

Twice we saw burned-out wagons, places where Indians had rounded up some settlers. Nobody would ever know who they were, and folks back home would wonder about them for a while, and then time would make the memories become dimmer.

Like Galloway and me. We had no close kinfolk, nobody keeping account of us. If we were to get killed out here nobody would ask who, why, or whatever. It made a body feel kind of lonesome down inside, and it set me to wondering where I was headed for.

Once, far ahead of the herd, I heard a galloping behind me, and when I turned in the saddle I saw it was that Judith girl. She rode sidesaddle, of course, and looked mighty fetching as she came up to me.

"You'd be a sight better off with the rest," I said. "If we met up with Indians, you might get taken."

"I'm not afraid. Not with you to care for me."

Now, that there remark just about threw me. I suppose nobody had ever said such a thing to me before, and it runs in the blood of a man that he should care for womenfolk. It's a need in him, deep as motherhood to a woman, and it's a thing folks are likely to forget. A man with nobody to care for is as lonesome as a lost hound dog, and as useless. If he's to feel of any purpose to himself, he's got to feel he's needed, feel he stands between somebody and any trouble.

I'd had nobody. Galloway was fit to care for himself and an army of others. He was a man built for action, and tempered to violence. Gentle, he was most times, but fierce when aroused. You might as well try to take care of a grizzly bear as of him. So I'd had nobody, nor had he.

"I'd stand up for you," I said, "but it would be a worrisome thing to have to think of somebody else. I mean, whilst fighting, or whatever. Anyway, you'd take off after that Fetchen outfit if they showed up."

"I would not!"

She put her chin up at me, but stayed alongside, and said nothing more for a while.

"Mighty pretty country," I ventured after a bit.

"It is, isn't it? I just can't wait to see Pa's ranch." She sobered down then. "I hope he's all right"

"You worried about the Fetchens?"

"Yes, I am. You've no idea what they are like. I just never imagined men could be like that." She looked quickly at me. "Oh, they were all right to me. James saw to that. But I heard talk when they didn't think I was listening." She turned toward me again. "The happiest moment in my life was when you came from behind that tree trunk. And you might have been killed!"

"Yes, ma'am. That's a common might-have-been out here. There's few things a man can do that might not get him killed. It's a rough land, but a man is better off if he rides his trail knowing there may be trouble about. It simply won't do to get careless ... And you be careful, too."

A pretty little stream, not over eight or ten inches deep, but running at a lively pace, and kind of curving around a flat meadow with low hills offered shelter from the north, and a cluster of cottonwoods and willows where we could camp ... it was just what we needed.

"We'll just sort of camp here," I said. "I'll ride over and get a cooking fire started."

"Flagan!" Judith screamed, and I wheeled and saw three of them come up out of the grass near that stream where they'd been laying for me.

Three of them rising right up out of the ground, like, with their horses nowhere near them, and all three had their rifles on me.

Instinctively, I swung my horse. He was a good cutting horse who could turn on a dime and have six cents left, and he turned now. When he wheeled about I charged right at them. My six-shooter was in my hand, I don't know how come, and I chopped down with it, blasting a shot at the nearest one while keeping him between the others and me.

Swinging my horse again, I doubled right back on my heels in charging down on the others. I heard a bullet nip by me, felt a jolt somewhere, and then I was firing again and the last man was legging it for the cottonwoods. I taken in after him as he ran, and I came up alongside him and nudged him with the horse to knock him rolling.

I turned my horse again and came back on him as he was staggering to his feet. I let the horse come alongside him again, and this time I lifted a stirrup and caught him right in the middle with my heel. It knocked him all sprawled out.

One of the others was getting up and was halfway to his horse by the time I could get around to him, but I started after him too. He made it almost to the brush before I gave him my heel, knocking him face down into the broken branches of the willows.

Judith had now ridden up to me. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Not me. Those boys are some upset, I figure." I looked at her. "You warned me," I said. "You yelled just in time."

Three riders had come over the hill, riding hell bent for election. They were Galloway, Kyle Shore, and Hawkes himself, all of them with rifles ready for whatever trouble there was.

There was only blood on the grass where the first man had fallen. He had slipped off into the tall grass and brush, and had no doubt got to his horse and away. One of the others was also gone, but he was hurting - I'd lay a bit of money on that. The last man I'd kicked into the brush looked as if he'd been fighting a couple of porcupines. His face was a sight, scratched and bloody like nothing a body ever saw.

"You near broke my back!" he complained. "What sort of way is that to do a man up?"

"You'd rather get shot?"

He looked at me. "I reckon not," he said dryly, "if given the choice."

"You're a Burshill by the look of you," I said.

"I'm Trent Burshill, cousin to the Fetchens."

"You might be in better comp'ny. But I know your outfit. You folks have been making 'shine back in the hills since before Noah."

"Nigh to a hunert years," he said proudly. "No Burshill of my line never paid no tax on whiskey."

"You should have stayed back there. You aren't going to cut the mustard in these western lands. Now you've mixed up in rustling."

"You got it to prove."

Kyle Shore looked hard at him. "Friend, you'd best learn. Out here they hold court in the saddle and execute the sentence with a saddle rope."

"You fixin' to hang me?"

"Dunno," Shore said, straight-faced. "It depends on Mr. Hawkes. If he sees fit to hang you, that's what we'll do."

Trent Burshill looked pretty unhappy. "I never counted on that," he said. "Seemed like this was wide-open land where a man could do as he liked."

"As long as you don't interfere with no other man," Shore said. "Western folks look down on that. And they've got no time to be ridin' to court, maybe a hundred miles, just to hang a cow thief. A cottonwood limb works better."

Trent Burshill looked thoughtful. "Should be a way of settling this," he said. "Sure, I lined up with Black, him being my cousin an' all."

"Where's Black headed for?" I asked.

He glanced around at me. "You're one of them Tennessee Sacketts. I heard tell of you. Why, he's headed for the Greenhorns - some mountains westward. He's got him some idea about them."

Burshill looked at me straight. "He aims to do you in, Sackett. Was I you, I'd be travelin' east, not west."

The rest of the outfit were trailing into the bottom now with the herd. I spotted a thick limb overhead. "There's a proper branch," I said. "Maybe we ought to tie his hands, put the noose over his neck, and leave him in his saddle. Give him a chance to see how long his horse would stand without moving."

Trent Burshill looked up at the limb over his head. "If you boys was to reconsider," he said, "I'd like to ride for Tennessee. These last few minutes," he added, "Tennessee never looked so good."

"That puncher with the scar on his face," I said to him, "that newcomer. Now, who would he be?"

Burshill shrugged. "You can have him. I figure he deserves the rope more than me. Personal, I don't cotton to him. He's snake-mean. That there is Russ Menard."

Kyle Shore looked at me. "Sackett, you've bought yourself trouble. Russ Menard is reckoned by some to be the fastest man with a gun and the most dangerous anywhere about"

"I knew a man like that once," I said.

"Where is he?"

"Why, he's dead. He proved to be not so fast as another man, and not so dangerous with three bullets in him."

"Russ Menard," Shore said, "comes from down in the Nation. He killed one of Judge Parker's marshals and figured it was healthier out of his jurisdiction. He was in a gun battle in Tascosa, and some say he was in the big fight in Lincoln, New Mexico."

Evan Hawkes, who had ridden over to locate his chuck wagon and crew, now came back. Judith Costello rode beside bin. Harry Briggs and Ladder Walker drifted along, leading a horse.

"Found his horse," Hawkes said.

'Tie him on it," Walker said, "backwards in the saddle, and turn him loose."

"Now, see here!" Burshill protested.

"Then take his boots off and let him walk back. I heard about a man walked a hundred miles once, in his bare feet!"

"Way I heard it," Burshill said, "was there would be land and cattle and horses for the taking. A man could get rich, that's what Black said. I never figured on no rope."

"The land's for the taking," Hawkes said, "but the cattle and the horses belong to somebody. You have helped in rustling, and you were about to dry-gulch my men. What have you to say for yourself?"

"I made good whiskey. It was 'shine, but it was good whiskey," Burshill said. "I wouldn't want to grieve my kinfolk back in Tennessee."

"I'll let you have your horse," Evan Hawkes said, "but if we see you west of here we'll hang you."

"Mister, you let me go now, and you'll have to burn the stump and sift the ashes before you find me again."

"All right," Hawkes said, "let him go."

Trent Burshill let out of there as if his tail was afire, and that was just as well. I wasn't strong on hanging, anyway.

When the night fire was burning and there was the smell of coffee in the air, I went to Evan Hawkes.

"Mr. Hawkes, Galloway and me, we figure we'd best light out of here and head for Costello's ranch in the Greenhorns. If the Fetchens come on him unprepared they might ride him down. We can make faster time free of the herd."

"All right. I'm sorry to lose you boys, but we're heading the same way." He paused. "I'm going to get my herd back, so you boys figure yourselves still on the payroll. When you get that girl back to her father, you roust around and locate my cattle for me."

By daylight we had the camp well behind us. The horses we rode were good, fast ones with a lot of stamina. Judith was a rider, all right, and we stayed with it all day, riding the sun out of the sky, and soon we could see the far-off Jagged line of mountains. The stars came up.

We slept in a tiny hollow under some cottonwoods, the horses grazing, and the remains of a small fire smoking under the coffeepot. Me, I was first up as always, putting sticks and bark together with a twist of dried grass to get the flame going, but keeping my ears alert for sound. At times I prowled to the edge of the hollow and looked around.

Back at camp Galloway still slept, wrapped in his blanket, but Judith lay with her cheek pillowed on her arm, her dark hair around her face, her lips soft in the morning light. It made a man restless to see her so, and I turned back to my fire.

Judith Costello... it was a lovely name. But even if I was of a mind to, what could I offer such a girl? Her family were movers, they were horse-traders and traveling folks, but from all I'd heard they were well-off. And me, I had a gun and a saddle.

My thoughts turned to the ranch in the Greenhorns. The Fetchens had killed Judith's grandpa back in Tennessee, more than likely in anger at Judith and because of the loss of the horses. But suppose there was something more? Suppose the Fetchen outfit knew something we did not even surmise?

First of all, it was needful for us to ride west to that ranch, and not come on it unexpected, either. It was in my mind to circle about, to look the place over before riding right in. I had no idea what sort of a man Costello was, or how much of an outfit he had, but it would do no harm to sort of prospect around before making ourselves known.

We put together a breakfast from provisions we'd brought from Hawkes's outfit, then saddled up and rode west, keeping always to low ground.

The Greenhorns were a small range, a sort of offshoot of the towering Sangre de Cristos. It was Ute country, and although the Utes were said to be quiet, I wasn't any too sure of it, and I was taking no chances.

First off, we had to locate Costello's ranch, for all we had in the way of directions was that it was in the Greenhorns. The nearest town I knew of was Walsenburg, but I wanted to avoid towns. Sure as shootin', the Fetchens would have somebody around to let them know of us coming. North of there, and about due west of us, was a stage stop called Greenhorn, and at the Greenhorn Inn, one of Kit Carson's old hangouts, we figured it was likely we'd hear something.

Big a country as it was, most everybody knew of all the ranchers and settlers around, and the place was small enough so we could see about everything in it before we rode into town - if town it could be called.

We made our nooning on the Huerfano River about ten miles east of Greenhorn, and made a resting time of it, for I wanted to ride into the place about sundown.

Galloway was restless, and I knew just what he felt. There was that much between us that we each knew the other's feelings. He could sense trouble coming, and was on edge for it. We both knew it was there, not far off, and waiting for us like a set trap.

There was a good deal of hate in the Fetchens, and it was in Black most of all; and they would not rest until they'd staked our hides out to dry, or we had come it over them the final time.

When noon was well past, we mounted up and pushed on to Greenhorn. The mountains were named for an Indian chief who had ruled the roost around there in times gone by. It was said of the young buck deer when his horns were fresh and in velvet that he was a "greenhorn," for he was foolishly brave then, ready to challenge anything. The chief had been that way, too, but the Spanish wiped him out. So the name greenhorn was given to anyone young and braver than he had right to be, going in where angels fear to tread, as the saying is.

The Greenhorn Inn was a comfortable enough place, as such places went - a stage stop and a hotel with sleeping quarters and a fair-to-middling dining room. We rode up, tied our horses out of sight, and the three of us checked the horses in the stable, but we saw none we recognized as Fetchen horses.

The place was nigh to empty. One old codger with a face that looked as if it was carved out of flint was sitting there, and he looked at us as if he'd seen us before, although I knew no such face. He was a lean, savage-looking old man, one of those old buffalo hunters or mountain men, by the look of him - nobody to have much truck with.

The man behind the bar glanced at Judith and then at us. We found a table and hung our hats nearby, then sat down. He came over to us.

"How are you, folks? We've got beans and bacon, beans and bear meat, beans and venison. You name it. And we've got fresh-baked bread ... made it my own-self."

We ordered, and he brought us coffee, black and strong. Tasting it, I glanced over at Judith. For a girl facing up to trouble, she looked bright and pretty, just too pretty for a mountain boy like me.

"This here," I said to her, "is right touchy country. There's Indians about, both Utes and Comanches, and no matter what anybody says there's angry blood in them. They don't like white men very much, and they don't like each other."

"I can't think of anything but Pa," she said. "It has been such a long time since I've seen him, and now that we are so close, I can hardly sit still for wanting to be riding on."

"You hold your horses," Galloway advised. "We'll make it in time."

Even as he spoke, I had an odd feeling of foreboding come over me. It was such a feeling as I'd never had before. I looked across at Galloway, and he was looking at me, and we both knew what the other felt.

What was going to happen? What was lying in wait for us?

When the man came back with our food I looked up at him and said, "We're hunting the Costello outfit, over in the Greenhorns. Can you tell us how to get there?"

He put the dishes down in front of us before we got an answer. "My advice to you is to stay away from there. It will get you nothing but trouble."

Judith's face went pale under the tan, and her eyes were suddenly frightened.

When I spoke, my voice was rougher than I intended, because of her. "What do you mean by that?"

The man backed off a step, in no way intimidated, simply wary. "I mean that's a tough outfit over there. You go in there hunting trouble and you're likely to find it."

"We aren't seeking it out," I said, more quietly. "Costello is this lady's pa. We're taking her home."

"Sorry, ma'am," he said quietly. "I didn't know. If I were you, I'd ride careful. There's been trouble in those hills."

It was not until we had finished eating that he spoke to us again. "You boys drop around later," he said, "and I'll buy you a drink."

At the door, hesitating before going to her room, Judith looked from Galloway to me. "He's going to tell you something, isn't he? I mean that's why he offered to buy you a drink, to get you back there without me."

"Now, I don't think - " Galloway interrupted.

She would have none of it. "Flagan, you'll tell me, won't you? I've got to know if there's anything wrong. I've simply got to! After all, I haven't seen Pa in a long time."

"I'll tell you," I said, though I knew I might be lying in my teeth, for I figured she'd guessed right. That man had something to relate, and it was likely something he didn't want Judith to hear.

She turned and went to her room, and we stayed a minute, Galloway and me, hesitating to go back.