the Sky-Liners (1967) (21 page)

I went for my gun.

Oh, they had guns on me, all right! But they were too busy feeling satisfied with themselves at setting the trap, and there's such a thing as reaction time. A man's got to realize what is happening, what has to be done, and he has to do it, all in the same moment.

My right hand slapped leather and came up blasting fire. And almost at the same instant my left hand snaked the other Colt from my waistband.

There was no time for anything like choosing targets. I shot into the man right in front of me, shifted aim, and blasted again. I saw Judith twisting to get free, and pulling Rafin off balance.

Somebody else was shooting, and I saw Galloway, leaning on a crutch and his gun leaping with every spout of flame. And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. There was a scrambling in the brush, then silence, and I was stretched out on the rocks and the rain was pounding on my back.

It seemed like hours later that I got my eyes open and looked around.

There was a fire in a fireplace, and Judith was sitting in front of it, watching the flames. I never saw anything so pretty as the firelight on her face, and catching the lights of her hair.

I was stretched out in a bunk in some sort of a low-roofed cabin, and the floor was littered with men, all apparently sleeping. Coffee was on the fire, and by the look of the coals we'd been here quite a spell.

I felt around for my gun and found it, but the rustling drew Judith's attention. She came over to me. "Ssh! The others are all asleep."

"Was that Galloway that showed up? Is he all right?"

"He's been hurt. He was shot three times, and has a broken foot. Pa's here, and so are Cap and Moss."

"Walker?"

"He's dead. He was killed, Flagan."

"Black?"

"He got away. He was hurt, I know that. You hit him once at least. He ran, Flagan. He turned and ran."

"That ain't like him."

"He was a coward," she insisted bitterly. "For all his talk, he was a coward."

"I don't believe it," I said. And I didn't believe it either. He was a lot of things, that James Black Fetchen, but he was no coward in a fight. He hated too much for that. He might have turned and run - she said he had, and she would tell me the truth - but I was sure there was more to it than that.

The old prospector's cabin where we had found shelter was on the eastern slope, not more than half a mile from where the fight had taken place.

We stayed right there a day and a half, until Evan Hawkes and Tom Sharp brought a wagon up Medano Pass. They built stretchers, and three of us came off the mountain that way.

Two weeks later I was able to sit on the porch outside the trading post and watch folks go by. Galloway was still laid up, but he was coming along fine. Though Costello was still sick, he was looking better. Cap and Moss, like the tough old-timers they were, looked about the same.

We got the news bit by bit. Three of the Fetchens had pulled out for Tennessee. Tirey was dead ... he'd been killed up on the mountain. And they hadn't found the Reynolds treasure. Like a lot of folks who've looked for it before and since, they just couldn't locate it. They had all the landmarks and they had a map, but they found nothing.

"I've seen four maps of that Reynolds treasure," Sharp told me, "and no two of them alike."

Nobody saw any of the Fetchens around, but after a few days we heard they were camped over at the foot of Marble Mountain, with several of them laid up, and at least one of them in bad shape.

Galloway limped around, still using the crutch he had cut for himself up on the mountain. Costello filled us in on all that happened before we got there.

The Fetchens had just moved in on him and he had welcomed them as guests, although mistrusting their looks. Well, they were hunting the Reynolds treasure, all right, but they wanted his ranch and Judith as well.

Costello had had a lead on that treasure himself, but it didn't pan out, and so he had settled down to hunting wild stock and breeding them to horses brought from the East, the way Tom Sharp was doing.

"Reynolds buried some loot, all right," Costello said, "but whoever finds it will find it through pure dumb luck. I don't trust any of those maps."

"They aren't cured," Moss Reardon said. "There's supposed to be treasure in a cave up on Marble Mountain too. I'd lay a bet they're huntin' it now."

For the first time in my life I was pleased just to sit and contemplate. I'd lost a lot of blood and used myself in a hard way, and so had Galloway. As I looked around that country it made me wish I had a place of my own, and I said as much to Galloway.

"We get up and around," I said, "we ought to find us a place, some corner back in the hills with plenty of green grass and water."

James Black Fetchen seemed to me like somebody from another world. After a week had passed we never mentioned the big fight on the mountain, nor any of that crowd. One thing we did hear about them. The Fetchens had buried another man somewhere up on Grape Creek.

My appetite came back, and I began thinking about work. Galloway and me had used up the mite of cash we'd had left and had nothing but our outfits. I mentioned it to Tom Sharp.

"Don't worry about it," he said. "You just eat all you're of a mind to. Those men would have caused plenty of trouble for us if you hadn't taken their measure."

The next morning we heard about the stage holdup over on the Alamosa trail.

Four men, all masked, had stopped the stage and robbed the passengers. There was no gold riding the boot on that trip, and the passengers were a hard-up lot. The robbery netted the outlaws just sixty-five dollars.

Two days later there was another holdup in the mountains west of Trinidad. That netted the thieves about four hundred dollars. There had been six of them in that lot, and one of the passengers had ridden the other stage and said they were the same outfit. One of them had been riding a big blaze-faced sorrel that sounded like Russ Menard's horse.

Sitting around waiting to get my strength back, I hadn't been idle. I'd never been one to waste time doing nothing, so while I sat there I plaited a rawhide bridle for Sharp, mended a saddle, and fixed some other things.

Costello rode out to his ranch. His place had been burned, even his stacked hay, and all the stock in sight had been driven off.

Galloway had taken to wearing two guns, one of them shoved down behind his waistband.

Then there was a holdup near Castle Rock, to the north; and word came down that Black Fetchen had killed a man at Tin Cup, a booming mining camp.

Meanwhile, Galloway and me were beginning to feel spry again, and we helped Tom Sharp round up a few head of cattle and drive them down to Walsenburg. There we heard talk of the Fetchen outlaws.

Those days Galloway and me were never far apart. We knew it was coming. The trouble was, we didn't exactly know what to expect, or when.

Costello hired two new hands, both on the recommendation of Rodriguez and Sharp. One was a Mexican named Valdez, a very tough man and a good shot who, as a boy, had worked for Kit Carson; and the other was Frank White, a one-time deputy sheriff from Kansas. Both were good hands and reliable men.

Judith was riding with me one day when she said, "Flagan. you and Galloway be careful now. I'm scared."

"Don't worry your pretty head. We'll ride loose and careful."

"Do you think he'll come back?"

Now, I was never one to lie or to make light of trouble with womenfolks. There's men who feel they should, but I've found women stand well in trouble, and there's no use trying to make it seem less than it is. They won't believe you, anyway.

"He'll come," I said. "He wasn't scared, Judith. He just wanted to be sure he lived long enough to kill Galloway and me. I've got an idea he's just waiting his chance."

By now Galloway and me were batching it in a cabin on Pass Creek. We had built up the corral, made some repairs in the roof, and laid in a few supplies bought on credit at the trading post. Work was scarce, but we disliked to leave the country with Black Fetchen still around ... and of course, there was Judith.

We had talked about things, even made some plans, but I had no money and no immediate way of getting any. Evan Hawkes had sold out and gone back to Texas. The loss of the boy had hurt him more than he had ever showed. We were just waiting, shooting our meat out in the hills and occasionally prospecting a little.

The showdown came all of a sudden, and by an unexpected turn.

A short, stocky man came riding up to the place one day, and he had a big, black-haired man with him. Both of them were dressed like city folks, except they wore lace-up boots.

"Are you the Sacketts? Flagan and Galloway?" the short man asked.

Now, I didn't take to these men much, but they were all business. "Understand you've had trouble with the Fetchen outlaws? Well, I've got to ride the stage to Durango, and I'll need some bodyguards."

"Bodyguards?" I said.

"I'll be carrying twenty thousand dollars in gold, and while I can use a gun I am no gun-fighter, nor is my partner here. We'd like to hire you boys to ride with us. We'll pay you forty dollars each for the ride."

Now, forty dollars was wages for a top hand for a month, and all we had to do was sit up on the cushions in that stage and see that no harm came to Mr. Fred Vaughn and his money. His partner was made known to us as Reed Griffin.

We taken the job.

Walsenburg was quiet when we rode in and stabled our horses. We had come up a day early, for we both needed a few things and we hadn't been close to a town since the fight. The trading post at Buzzard Roost had most things a body could wish for, but we both figured to buy white shirts and the like to wear in Durango.

We found a table in a back corner of the restaurant and hung our hats on the rack. The food was good, and the coffee better. We were sitting where we could look out the window and down the street, and we were sitting there when we saw Reed Griffin come out of a saloon down the street

"Might as well let him know we're here," I said, but when I started to get up, Galloway stopped me.

"Plenty of time for that," he said.

Griffin walked across the road and went down a passage between two buildings and disappeared.

It was quiet where we were, and we continued to sit there, talking possibilities. We figured to prospect around Durango a mite and see what jobs were availble, if any. If there were none, we would use what cash we had to outfit ourselves and go wild-horse hunting. There was always a good market for saddle stock that had been rough-broken, and while many of the wild horses were scrubs there were always a few good ones in every herd.

Later in the afternoon we went across the street to the hotel and hired ourselves a room on the second floor, in back. Pulling off our boots, we stretched out for a rest. When I woke up it was full dark, but there was a glow coming through the windows from the lights in the other buildings.

Without putting on my boots I walked across the room and poured cold water into the bowl and washed my face and combed my hair by the feel of it. I had picked up my boots and dropped into a chair by the window when I happened to look out.

The door of a house on the street back of the hotel was standing open and there were two men seated at a table over a bottle. One of those men was Colby Rafin. The other was Reed Griffin.

"Galloway?" I said, not too loud.

He was awake on the instant. "Yeah?"

"Look."

He came over and stood beside me and we looked out of our dark window and into that open door. Reed Griffin was on his feet now, but as he turned away from Rafin he was full in the light.

"Now, what d' you know about that?" Galloway said softly. "I'd say we've got to move quiet as mice."

We ate at the restaurant that night, but we fought shy of the saloons, and in the morning, right after breakfast, we were waiting at the stage stop.

Mr. Fred Vaughn was already there. He had a carpetbag and a iron-bound box with him. The stage driver loaded the box as if it was heavy, then Vaughn got in and Griffin came out and joined him. We loitered alongside, watching folks come up to the stage. There was another man, a long-geared, loose-jointed man with a big Adam's apple and kind of sandy hair. He carried a six-shooter in a belt holster, and a Winchester.

The last man to enter was lean and dark-haired. He shot us a quick, hard look, then got in. His boots were worn and his pants looked like homespun. We had never seen him before, but he had a Tennessee or maybe Missouri look about him.

The stage driver was a fat, solid-looking man with no nonsense about him, and he was obviously well known to everybody else, if not to us. We got in last and sat down facing Griffin and Vaughn, with the Tennessee man beside us; the sandy-haired man was across the way. The stage took off, headed west

We both carried Winchesters and our belt guns, but each of us had a spare six-shooter tucked behind our waistbands. Griffin and Vaughn wasted no time talking, but made themselves comfortable as possible and went to sleep. The sandy man settled down too, although he kept measuring us with quick looks, and the man beside us as well.