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Lonely On The Mountain
The Sacketts — Book 14
We were taking it easy. We had a long way to go, but the season was early, and there was no use us gettin' so far north that the grass wouldn't have come yet. The country was greenin', but it would take time. We had come up to the Jim River just below Bear Creek.
Cap an' Tyrel scouted ahead, riding into the trees to see if company waited on us, but there was nobody. There was fair grass on the plain and mighty good grass in the creek bottom, so we swung our herd around and bedded them down.
Swingin' along the edge of the trees, I dabbed a loop on a snag and hauled it up for the fire. Lin was already down from the wagon and picking up some flat stones he could use to set pots on.
We hadn't any chuck wagon, and grub was scarce. Leavin' Brandy with the stock, Tyrel rode down to where I sat my horse. "Saw some deer back yonder." He gestured toward the creek. "Figured I'd ride out and round up some meat."
"Sure." As he turned his mount away, I said, "Keep your eyes open for those Injuns. I think they're somewhere about."
"Maybe so." He pulled up for a moment. "Night before last — maybe I was wrong, but I thought I smelled smoke." He let it rest for a minute, and then he said, "Tell? You know what I think? I think those Injuns are ridin' in our shadow. For protection, like."
He took out his Winchester and rode off into the trees, but what he said stayed with me. Those Indians were only a handful, and they'd seen trouble from somebody. Tyrel might be right, and they could be stayin' close to us with the idea that they'd not be attacked with us so close by.
By the time I started back for camp, the cattle had settled down. A few were still grazing on last year's grass, but most of them were full as ticks. I wasn't fooled by their good shape because I knew rough country lay ahead of us.
When I stepped down from the saddle and ground hitched my horse, the other two riders had come in and were drinkin' coffee. Gilcrist was a lean, dark man who handled a rope well and seemed to know something about stock but was obviously a gambler. He'd not had much luck getting up a game around camp because mostly when we bedded down the cattle, we were too tired to do anything but crawl into our blankets ourselves. The man traveling with him was a big, very heavy man but not fat. He was no taller than me, maybe even a mite shorter, but he was a good fifty pounds heavier, and it wasn't fat. Gilcrist called him the Ox, so we followed suit. Nobody ever did ask him his name, as folks just didn't ask questions. Whatever somebody named you or whatever you answered to was good enough.
Just as I was stepping down from my bronc, I heard a rifle shot. "We'll have fresh meat for supper," I said.
Gilcrist glanced around. "Suppose he missed?"
"That was Tyrel. He doesn't miss."
A few minutes later, Tyrel rode into camp with the best parts of a deer. He unloaded the meat at the fire and led his horse away to strip its gear. Nobody said anything, but when Tyrel came back into camp, I noticed Gilcrist sizing him up.
We ate, and Tyrel spoke quietly to me. "They're about, Tell. I spotted one of them watchin' me." He paused a moment. "I left them a cut of the meat."
"He see you?"
"Uh-huh. I laid it out nice and ready for him. I think they're hard up."
I turned to Gilcrist and the Ox. "When you finish', ride out and let Cap and Brandy come in."
The Ox wiped his hands on his pants. "Do the kid good to wait a mite. Teach him something."
I looked across the fire at him. "If he needs teaching, I'll teach him. You relieve him."
The Ox leaned back on his elbow. "Hell, I just got here. They can wait."
"Relieve him," I said, "now."
The Ox hesitated, then slowly got to his feet, deliberately prolonging the movements. "Oh, all right," he said. "I'll go let mama's little boy come in."
He mounted his horse and rode out. Gilcrist got to his feet, then commented, "Better go easy with him. He's a mighty mean man."
"Where I come from they're all mean if you push' them," I said. "If he stays on this job, he'll do his work."
Gilcrist looked around. "Mighty big country out here. Looks to me like a man could do what he wanted."
"Boot Hill is full of men who had that idea." Tyrel spoke casually, as if bored. "It's a big country, all right, big enough for men who are big enough."
Gilcrist mounted up and rode out, and Tyrel threw his coffee on the grass. "Looks like trouble."
"I saw it when I hired them, but who else could I get? Nobody wanted to ride north into wild country."
"Maybe they wanted to. Maybe they had reason."
"That big one," I commented, "looks strong enough' to wrassle a bull. Maybe I should save him for Logan. Logan likes his kind."
"Maybe. Maybe you won't be able to save him, Tell. Maybe he won't wait that long."
Cold winds blew down from the north, and there were occasional spitting rains. The scattered patches of snow were disappearing, however, and the trees along the river bottoms were green. There were pussywillows along the bottoms, too, and patches of crocus growing near the snow.
We moved north, day after day, following the course of the James River but holding to the hills on one side or the other.
As we came down the hill into the valley where the James and Pipestem met, Tyrel rode over to where I was. "Cold," he said, meanin' the wind, "mighty cold!"
"There's wood along the river," I said, "and we'll rest up for a couple of days. It's needful that Orrin have time. No tellin' whether he'll find the men we need or not."
"Wish we could get rid of them two." Tyrel gestured toward the Ox and Gilcrist. "I just don't cotton to them."
"Nor me," I said, "an'old Cap is keepin' his mouth shut, but it's hard."
Turning to look at him, I said, "Tye, all day I've been thinkin' of the mountains back home. Must be I'm gettin' old or something, but I keep thinkin' of how it was back home with ma sittin' by the fire workin' on her patchwork quilt. Night came early in the winter months, and lookin' out the window a body could see pa's lanterns making patterns on the snow as he walked about. He'd be doin' the last of the chores, but when he came in, he always brought an armful of wood for the wood box."
"I recall," Tyrel said. "We sure spent some time climbin' around those mountains! All the way from Chunky Gal to Roan Mountain. I mind the time Orrin got lost over to Huggins Hell and was plumb out of sight for three days."
"I wasn't there then. I'd already slipped along the mountains and over the Ohio to join up with the Union."
"Nolan went t'other way. He rode down to Richmond and joined the Confederacy. We had people on both sides."
"It was that kind of a war," I commented, and changed the subject. "When we were talkin' about who'd been to the north, I clean forgot the drive I made right after the war. Went up the Bozeman Trail into Montana. I didn't stay no longer than to get myself turned around and headed back, although it was a different trail I rode on the return.
"It was on the way up I got my first taste of the Sioux. They're a rough lot, Tyrel. Don't you take them light."
Tyrel chuckled suddenly. "Tell? You mindful of an old friend of yours? The one we called Highpockets?"
"You mean Haney? Sure. Odd you should speak of him. Last time I heard tell of him, he was headed north."
"Mind the time he went to the sing over at Wilson's Cove? He fell head over heels for some visitin' gal from down in the Sequatchie and went at it, knuckle and skull, with some big mule skinner.
"I remember he come back, and he got out what he used to call his 'reevolver', and he said, 'That ol' boy's give me trouble, so I'm a gonna take my ol' reevolver an' shoot some meat off his bones.' He done it, too."
We rounded up our steers in the almost flat bottom of that valley and let them graze on the stand of last year's grass. There was green showin' all about, but mostly what they could get at was cured on the stem. There was water a-plenty, and this seemed like a good time to rest up a mite.
Cap killed a buffalo, a three-year old cow, on the slope above the river, so we had fresh meat. The boys bunched the cattle for night, and Cap said, "We'd best start lookin' for windy hills for campin'. The way I hear it, up north where there's all those rivers, lakes, and such, there's mosquitoes like you wouldn't believe. Eat a man alive, or a horse."
"Mosquitoes?" I said. "Hell, I've seen mosquitoes. Down on the Sulphur — "
"Not like the ones they have up north," Cap said. "You mind what I say, Tell. When you hear stories of them, you'll swear they're lies. Well, they ain't. You leave a horse tied out all night and chances are he'll be dead by morning."
Me, I looked over at him, bat he wasn't smiling. Whether he knew what he was talkin' about, I didn't know, but he wasn't funnin'. He was downright serious.
There were mosquitoes there on the Pipestem, but we built a smudge, and it helped some. Nobody talked much, but we lazed about the fire, takin' our turn at watching over the cattle. The remuda we kept in close to camp where we could all more or less keep an eye on it. What Indians wanted most of all was horses, and without them we'd be helpless.
A time or two, I walked out under the stars, away from the campfire and what talk there was, just to listen.
There was no sound but the cattle stirring a mite here and there, rising or lying down, chewing their cuds, occasionally standing up to graze a bit. It was still early.
Later, when I was a-horseback on the far side of the herd, I thought I caught a whiff of wood smoke that came from a different direction than our fire. Well, if they were riding in our shadow, they were no bother, and it was all right with us.
Gave a body a kind of restful feeling, just knowing he wasn't alone out there.
This was a lovely valley, already turning green with springtime, but it was a valley in a great wide open country where we rode alone, where we had no friends, and if trouble came, we'd have to handle it all by our lonesome. There wasn't going to be anybody coming to help.
Not anybody at all.
