Lando (1962) (3 page)

Once he asked me if I had any gold money ... said he could get a lot for gold.

So I told him about all our gold going to Will Caffrey, and he got me to draw him a picture what those gold pieces looked like.

"Your pa," he said, "must have been a traveled man."

"Sacketts haven't taken much to travel,"

I said, "although we hear tell that a long time ago, before they came over to the Colonies, some of them were sailors."

"Like your pa," he said.

"Pa? If he was a sailor he never said anything about it to me. Nor did ma ever speak of it."

He looked at a knot I had made in a piece of rope. "Good tight knot. Your pa teach you that?"

"Sure--t's a bowline. He taught me to tie knots before he taught me letters. Two half-hitches, bowline, bowline-on-a-bight, sheep's bend--all manner of knots."

"Sailor knots," the Tinker said.

"I wouldn't know. I expect a good knot is useful to a lot of folks beside sailors."

Aside from the cornmill and ma's trunk filled with fixings, there wasn't much left at the cabin beside pa's worn-out Ballard rifle and the garden tools. In the trunk was ma's keepsake box. It was four inches deep, four inches wide and eight inches long, and was made of teakwood. Inside she kept family papers and a few odds and ends of value to her.

The Ballard was old, and no gun to be taking to the western lands, so I figured to swap it off when I did the mill, or at the first good chance.

If I was going to meet up with Bald Knobbers or wild Indians I would need a new, reliable gun.

Now the Tinker, he sat there smoking, and finally as the fire died down he said, "Daylight be all right for you?"

It was all right, so come daylight we taken off down the mountain for the last time.

One time, there on the trail, I stopped and looked back. There was a mist around the peaks, and the one that marked the cabin was hidden. The cabin was up there in those trees. I reckoned never to see it again, or ma's grave, out where pa dug it under the big pine.

A lot of me was staying behind, but I guess pa left a lot up there, too.

And then we rounded the last bend in the trail and my mountain was hidden from sight. Before us lay the Crossing, and I had seen the last of the place where I was born.

Chapter
Two.

We fetched up to the Crossing in a light spatter of rain, and I made a dicker with the storekeeper, swapping my cornmill for a one-eyed, spavined mare.

It was in my mind to become rich in the western lands, but a body does not become rich tomorrow without starting today, so I taken my mare to a meadow and staked her out on good grass. A man who wants to become rich had better start thinking of increase, and that mare could have a colt.

The Tinker was disgusted with me. "You bragged you'd a mind for swapping, but what can a man do with a one-eyed, spavined mare?"

Me, I just grinned at him. Two years now I'd had it in my mind to own that little mare. "Did you ever hear of the Highland Bay?"

"She was the talk of the mountains before she broke a leg and they had to shoot her."

"Seven or eight years ago the Highland Bay ran the legs off everything in these parts, and won many a race in the lowlands, too."

"I recall."

"Well, when I was working in the fields for Caffrey, the Highland Bay was running loose in the next pasture. A little scrub stallion tore down the fence and got to her."

"And you think this no-'count little mare is their get?"

"I know it. Fact is, I lent a hand at her birthing. Old Heywood, he who owned the Highland Bay, he was so mad he gave the colt to a field hand."

There was a thoughtful look in the Tinker's eyes.

"So you have a one-eyed, spavined mare out of the Highland Bay by a scrub stallion. Now where are you?"

"I hear tell those Mexicans and Indians out west hold strong to racing. I figure to get me a mule that will outrun any horse they've got."

"Out of that mare?" he scoffed.

"Her get," I said. "She can have a colt, and sired by the right jack stud I reckon to turn up a fast mule."

We sat there on the bank watching that little mare feed on green meadow grass, and after a bit, I said to the Tinker, "When a man owes me, one way or another I figure to collect. Do you know where Caffrey keeps his prize jack?"

He didn't answer, but after a bit he said, "Nobody ever races a mule."

"Tinker, where there's something will run, there's somebody will bet on it. Why, right in these mountains you could get a bet on a fast cow, and many a mule is faster than a horse, although mighty few people believe it. The way I see it, the fewer folk who believe a mule can run, the better."

Caffrey's jackass could kill a man or a stallion, and had sired some of the best mules ever set foot. Before dark we were hidden in a clump of dogwood and willow right up against the Caffrey pasture fence.

The wind was across the pasture and from time to time the jack could catch scent of my mare, and while he couldn't quite locate her, he was stomping around in there, tossing his head and looking.

"Two things," I said, "had to work right for me to leave this here country--the timing had to be right: You had to come up the trail, and that mare of mine had to be ready. And this here jack will work the charm."

"You're smarter than I thought," he said, and then we sat quiet, slapping mosquitoes and waiting until it was full dark. Crickets sang in the brush, and there was a pleasant smell of fresh-mown hay.

Watching the lights of that big white house Caffrey had built just two years ago, I got to thinking how elegant it must be behind those curtains. Would I ever live in a house like that?

And have folks about who loved me? Or would I always be a-setting out in the dark, looking on?

Caffrey had done well with pa's money. He had it at a time when gold had great value, and he'd bought with a shrewd eye there at the war's last years. He was one of the richest men around.

When I called on him at Meeting to return the money I had no hope I would get it, but I wanted to put it square before the community that he had wrongfully used money with which he had been trusted.

I'd no money nor witnesses to open an action for recovery ... but almost everybody around had wondered where he got that gold money.

He had talked large of running for office, but I felt a man who would be dishonest with a boy was no man to trust with government. It always seemed to me that a man who would betray the trust of his fellow citizens is the lowest of all, and I wanted no such man as Will Caffrey to have that chance.

When I called upon him at Meeting I had my plans made to leave the mountains, for now he would not rest until he had me jailed or done away with.

Right now I was risking everything, for if I was caught I would be in real trouble.

Slapping at a mosquito, I swore softly and the Tinker commented, "It's the salt. They like the salt in your blood. On jungle rivers mosquitoes will swarm around a white man before going near a native, because a white man uses more salt."

"You've been to the jungle?"

"I've heard tell," he said.

That was the Tinker's way. He would not speak of himself. Right then he was probably smiling at me in the dark, but all I could see was the glint of those gold earrings. Only man I ever did see who wore earrings.

His being there worried me some. He was an outlander, and Tinker or not, mountain folks are suspicious of outlanders. The Tinker was a needful man in the mountains, but folks had never rightly accepted him ... so why had he come away with me?

When the barnyard noises ceased--the sounds of milking and doors slamming--we went up to the white rails of that fence and I taken a pick-head from my gear and pried loose that rail.

That one, and the next.

The mare went into that pasture like she knew what she was there for, and against the sky we saw the jack's head come up and we heard him blow. Then we heard the preen and prance of his hoofs as he came toward the mare.

We waited under the dogwood, neither of us of a mind to get shot in another man's pasture. We were half dozing and a couple of hours had gone by.

Even the mosquitoes were tiring.

Of a sudden the Tinker put a hand to my arm.

"Somebody coming," he said, and I caught the flicker of the shine on a blade in his hand.

We listened ... horses coming. Two, maybe three. The first voice we heard was Duncan Caffrey's.

"We've got to have a good horse or two in those races out west," he was saying. "The Bishop wouldn't like it if he lost money. The Bishop is touchy about money."

They had drawn up right beside the grove where we were hidden.

The older man spoke. "Now tell me about that gold. You say your pa had it from a man named Sackett? Where's that man now?"

"He left out of here. Pa thinks he's dead."

The Tinker cupped his hands to my ear. "Let's get out of this."

The trouble was that my mare was out in that pasture and I didn't want to leave her. No more did I want to leave off listening to that talk.

"You go ahead," I whispered. "I'll catch up or meet you at the crossing of the Tombigbee."

He hoisted his pack, then took up mine.

How he disappeared so quick with those packs, I'll never guess. And at the time I thought nothing of his taking up my pack, for I'd have trouble getting it and the mare both out of here.

"What difference does it make?" Dun Caffrey sounded impatient. "He's nobody."

"You got it to learn," the other man said irritably. "You're a damn' fool, Dun.

Falcon Sackett is one of the most dangerous men on earth, and to hear the Bishop talk about it, he's almighty important. So much so the Bishop has spent years hunting down every piece of that Spanish gold to find him."

"But he's dead!"

"You seen body? Nothing else would convince the Bishop. I ain't so sure he'd even believe it then."

"Are you goin' to talk all night about a dead man? Let's go get the horses," and they moved on.

It was no use waiting any longer. If I was going to get away from here it had to be now. Stepping through the opening, I started out into that pasture after my mare and not feeling any too good about it, either.

Jacks are a mean lot. If I was caught in the middle of this pasture by either the stud or the owner I might be lucky to get out alive.

It was almighty dark, and every step or two I'd hold up to listen. Once I thought I heard hoof-beats off to my left; but listening, I heard nothing more. Back behind me I heard rustling in the brush.

Suddenly, something nudged my elbow and there was my mare. All day I'd been feeding her bits of a carrot or some turnips, so she found me her ownself. More than likely it was the first time anybody'd ever fussed over her.

Hoisting myself to her back, I turned her toward that opening in the fence.

The Bishop had been mentioned, and he was a known man. River-boat gambler, river pirate, and bad actor generally, he was one of the top men at Natchez-under-the-Hill, and one of the most feared men along the river.

"Whoever went in there," somebody said, "is still there."

A light glowed close to the ground as he spoke, then vanished.

Didn't seem no call to be wasting around, so I booted the mare in the ribs and she jumped like a deer and hit the ground running--and brother, she had plenty of scat.

She went through that fence opening and when a man reared up almost in front of her she hit him with her shoulder, knocking him rump over teakettle into the brush. The other man jumped to grab me and I stiff-legged him in the belly and heard the ooof as his breath left him. He went back and down out of sight, and the mare and me, we dusted around that clump of brush and off down the pike.

There was no need to meet the Tinker at the crossing of the Tombigbee, for I came up to him just as false dawn was spreading a lemon-yellow across the gray sky. He had stopped alongside the road and put both packs down. It looked to me like he was about to open mine when I came up to him.

"You got the wrong pack there," I said.

He turned sharp around, braced for trouble.

He'd been so busy he'd not heard the mare coming in that soft dust. When he saw it was me he eased up and let go his hold on my pack.

"I was looking for the coffee," he said. "I thought you put it in your pack last night."

I didn't believe he thought anything of the kind, but I was not going to argue with him. Only it started me thinking and trying to add together two and two, which is not always as easy as it seems.

"Take it from me," I advised, "and let's get back off the trail before we coffee-up.

We may be sought after."

He pointed ahead. "There's an old trace runs up over the hills yonder. I was only down this way once, but I traveled if for a day or so."

Two days later I swapped my old Ballard for a two-wheeled cart. The Ballard wasn't much of a gun but I knew it so well I could make it shoot, and I let a farmer see me bark a squirrel with it. Now barking a squirrel is a neat trick, but most mountain boys could do it. A squirrel has little meat, and so's not to spoil any of it you don't shoot the squirrel, you shoot the branch he's setting on or one close by. It knocks him out of the tree, stuns him, and sometimes kills him with flying chips.