Galloway (1970) (8 page)

"Most of the boys weren't so much for dancin' but if they couldn't dance they could hold the girl whilst she did. There'd be a fiddle, sometimes some other instrument, but a fiddle was all anybody expected or needed.

"A lot of courtin' was done at those dances, and a lot of fightin'. Mostly the boys came for the fightin'. Galloway always had some girl who'd set her cap for him, but he paid them no mind. Not serious, anyway.

"Sometimes there'd not be enough for dancin' so we'd set about an' sing. I liked that because I just plain like to sing."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Hunt us a piece of land and go to ranching. I reckon right now the thing to do is head for Shalako and team up with Galloway."

"You'd better be careful. The Dunns will think you're crowding them."

"It's open range, and there's enough for all."

"That isn't what they think, Mr. Sackett. There are six of the Dunn boys, and there's their pa, and they've a dozen or more men who ride for them."

"Well, there's two of us Sacketts. That should make it work out about right. Of course, if need be there's a lot of us scattered around and we set store by our kinfolk."

I completed the moccasins and tried them on. They felt good on my feet, which had healed over, although the skin was still tender.

I looked down at the girl. "Ma'am, you're a right pretty girl, and the man that gets you will be lucky, but don't you go wasting yourself on Curly Dunn. He's as poisonous mean as a rattler."

She sprang to her feet, her face stiff with anger. "Nobody can be nice to you!

The first time I try to talk to you you end up by criticizing Curly!"

"If I hadn't been armed last night, he'd have killed me."

"What kind of talk is that? You mean he'd have tried to kill you right in my own house, with Pa and me close by? That's ridiculous!"

"Maybe. He said it would look like suicide. Ma'am, you may hate me for this, but I'd be less than a man if I hadn't told you. That Curly is sick. He's sick in the head. You'd better understand that while there's still time."

Scornfully, she turned from me. "Go away. And I don't care if I ever see you again! Just go away!"

"Yes, ma'am. That's why I told you. Because I am going away and I don't figure to see you again too much, and you and your pa have been almighty kind. I've warned you just like I'd warn folks if there was a hydrophoby wolf in the neighborhood."

I limped to the corral and roped the grulla mustang Rossiter had agreed to loan me. I saddled up with the borrowed gear, then went to the house.

Rossiter met me at the door. "Sorry to see you go, boy. If you come back this way, drop in."

"I'll return the outfit soon as I can rustle one. Galloway has a little money. I lost all mine back yonder."

"No hurry." Rossiter stepped down off the porch and lowered his tone. "Sackett, you be careful, riding out of here. I think you have made an enemy."

"If he stays out of my way, I'll stay shut of him. I'm not one to hunt trouble.

An' Mr. Rossiter, if you ever need help, you just put your call on a Sackett.

You'll get all the help you need, an' quick. You help one of us and you've helped us all. That's the way we figure it."

The grulla was a good horse, mountain-bred and tough. He was a mite feisty there at first but as soon as he found that I intended to stay in the saddle and take no nonsense he headed off down the trail happily enough. He just wanted to settle as to who was boss.

Shalako wasn't far down the road. I kept to the trees, avoiding the trail, and at noontime I watered in the La Plata River a few miles below the town. When the grulla was watered I taken it back under the trees and found a place there with sunshine and shadow, with grass around, and a place for me to rest, and I rested while the grulla cropped grass.

Fact is, I wasn't up to much, and what lay beyond I did not know. There might be folks at the town that I wanted to see, and some I'd rather fight shy of.

Somehow the thought was in my mind that I was coming home ... this country felt right to me, and I even liked the name of that town.

Shalako ... some Indian name, it sounded like.

Then, for awhile, listening to the cropping of grass and the running water, I slept.

Chapter
VIII

The town lay off the road with the most beautiful backdrop of mountains you ever did see, and the La Plata was down off the bench and under the trees, hidden from the town, but close by.

Now when I say "town" I mean it western style. In this country we folks call anything a town where people stop. First off there's a stage stop or a store or maybe only a saloon. Out California way there was a town started because a man's wagon broke down and he just started selling whiskey off the tailgate.

Generally towns in this country, like in the old country, began at river crossings or places where the trails crossed. Folks like to stop at rivers, but the smart ones always cross the river first, and then camp. The river might rise up during the night and hold them for days.

London, folks tells me, began at the only good crossing of the river in many miles. At that place there was a gravel bottom. The same thing folks tell me was true of other cities about the world, but how Shalako came to be, I had no idea.

It was mid-afternoon when my mustang ambled up the one street of the town. With the mountains reared up against the sky in the background there were three buildings, two on one side of the street, one on the other. I swung down in front of the saloon and tied my horse, sizing up the place.

Across the street was a general store and as soon as I could round up some cash I figured to go over there and buy myself an outfit, including boots. Meanwhile I'd tackle the saloon.

Now a western saloon wasn't just a place to belt a few. It was a clubroom for the men, a clearing house for information, and often as not more business was done at the bar than anywhere else around. A man could go into a saloon and find out how the trails were, whether the Indians were on the warpath, or just about anything he needed to know. And I needed to know plenty. Mostly where I could find Galloway.

So I pushed past the swinging doors and went in. It was cool and quiet inside.

The bar ran across about two-thirds of the end of the room, and by the end of the bar there was a door. That bar was polished and in mighty fine shape. There were a dozen tables, a beat-up music box, and a man leaning over the bar.

"Howdy," I said, "I'm Flagan Sackett. I'm hunting a brother of mine and somebody who'll stake me to a bait of grub."

"Your brother Galloway Sackett?"

"That's the one."

"He and his partner rode off up country. They said to give you whatever you needed, so the grub will be ready. You want a drink?"

"Thanks. I don't shape up to be much of a drinking man, but I'll have it."

Now I didn't shape up to be much of anything right then. Like I said, those clothes I had on fit me a mite too soon. The pants ended above my ankles and the shirt sleeves only came down below my elbows. The shirt was tight across the chest and back, and of course, thin like I was from lack of eating, I looked like the skeleton had come out of the cupboard.

Just then the doors swung open and two men came in--cowhands from somebody's outfit. They wore chaps and they bellied up to the bar and then one of them saw me.

"Look, what the cat dragged in," he said. "Mister, next time you swipe somebody's pants you better make sure they fit."

"That would be hard to do," I said, "judging by what I see around. I don't think there's a man-sized pair of pants in the outfit, letting alone the bartender."

One of those gents was a stocky, redheaded gent with square shoulders and freckled hands ... fists right now. He taken a step toward me and said, "Let's see who fills the biggest pants around here."

"Mister Red," I said, "I'm in no shape for a fight. I've come off the mountain after a most difficult time with Indians and such. You just hold that head of steam for a week or so and I'll take you out and punch your head into shape."

"I think you're yella," he said.

"No," I said, "although I can understand your viewpoint. But I don't aim to give myself none the worst of it and I'm in no shape to fight. Right at this moment I couldn't whip a sick kitten."

The bartender came through the door from the kitchen pushing a tray loaded with grub ahead of him. "Here you go, Sackett," he said. "This'll put meat on your ribs."

That redhead stared at me. "Is your name Sackett? You related to Tyrel?"

"Cousins," I said, "although the only time we ever met was down in the Tonto Basin awhile back. Do you know Tyrel?"

"I know him. He's hell-on-wheels with a gun."

"Runs in the family," I said. "We all take to shooting like we do to girling or eating. Comes natural. I cut my teeth on the butt of a six-gun."

"We had trouble, Tyrel an' me."

"Must not have amounted to much," I said, "that trouble you speak of."

"Why?"

"You're still alive, ain't you? The way I heard it Tyrel don't waste around.

When he has a job to do he does it. If I were you I'd forget all about that trouble. And whatever you had in mind here, too. I don't want nothing to take my mind off this grub."

So saying I straddled a chair and cut into that meat. Hungry as I was it could have been an old saddle and I'd have eaten it, stirrups and all.

Red brought his beer over and sat down opposite me. "Truth to tell," he said, "Tyrel could have pinned my ears back, and he didn't. I was tied in with a rough crowd and I was feeling my weight. I never did get nowhere bucking Sacketts."

"Then it's about time you either stayed out of the fights or got in on the right side."

"Which side is yours?"

"One not hunting trouble. We came into this country hunting land. We figure to settle down and raise cows and families. You got anything against that?"

"No ... but the Dunns might."

Well, I didn't want to talk about it. Seemed to me there'd been too much talk already. What I wanted was some shuteye, now that I was stowing away this grub.

I wanted a rest and then an outfit. I'd need blankets, a poncho, saddlebags, a rifle, and some grub. It was a lot to ask, but no more than I could pay for, given time.

The saloonkeeper left his bar and crossed over to my table with a beer. "Mind if I join you? Name's Berglund."

He was a big, tough-looking man with yellow hair, a wide, battle-scarred face, and massive shoulders, arms and fists. "Glad to have company," I said. "You been here long?"

"Nobody has. I was driftin' through the country, headed west. I suppose I was huntin' gold, and did make a pass at it now and again, but then I came up on this bench and I decided this was there I wanted to stay. The fishing was great and the hunting was even better, so I bought an axe and an adze and built myself a saloon. I figured that was the easiest way to find company.

"In the good months I fish and hunt, and in the winter I sit by the fire and read or talk. I'm a talkative man, Sackett. I like people, and enjoy their company. Nothing like a warm fire when the weather's turning bad to get folks to sit up and talk."

"It's a risk meeting folks," I said. "You never know which one is a danger to you. It's like coming to a crossroads where you pull up and look both ways and your whole life may change if you take the wrong direction. One thing you can be sure of ... your life wouldn't be the same."

"I don't know," Berglund argued, "I think a man takes trouble with him."

"Well," I said, "I surely didn't want trouble when Curly Dunn first came up on me. He brought it to me. And I'd no idea I'd ever see him again, but when Meg Rossiter taken me home she taken me right into the middle of the target."

When I finished that meal I just sat there for a moment, enjoying the contented feeling that was settling me down. I sorely needed an outfit, but right now I'd no desire to get my feet under me and walk over there. Nor was there pleasure in the thought of pushing my sore feet down into new boots.

"There's folks a-coming in," Berglund said, "most of them prospectors, but there's a few farmers and cattlemen coming, too. This here's a growing land."

"The Dunns come in often?"

"Nearly every day. They spend money, but I don't care for them. And the worst of them isn't Curly, either. He's small calibre compared to Ollie Hammer or Tin-Cup Hone. Tin-Cup got his name from the mining camp they call Tin-Cup. They had a way of running marshals out of town or killing them, and Tin was one of the worst of the lot. Then he ran into Ollie and they teamed up and came down here and signed on to punch cows for Old Man Dunn and his boys. That's a mean lot."

Getting to my feet I thanked him and walked outside. The sun was still bright on the mountains although it would soon be hidden behind them. I walked across the street, limping some, and went into the store.

Galloway had been there before me and told them I might show up, so I outfitted myself with new pants, shirts, underwear, and socks. I looked at the guns but decided to hang onto the old Dance & Park six-shooter. That gun felt lucky to my hand.