Free Sackett (1961) by Louis - Sackett's 09 L'amour Page B

than the end of a fingernail, and I was a good two thousand feet above the floor of the valley. My horse, feeding in the meadow where I'd left him on a picket-rope, looked like an ant.
    Clinging to the reasonably solid rock along the side of the rock slide, I worked my way to the top, and was wringing wet by the time I got there.
    Nothing but sky and cloud above me, and around me bare, smooth granite, with a hollow where there was snow, but nowhere any trees or vegetation. I walked across the top of that ridge, scoured by wind and storm ... the air was fresher than a body could believe, and a light wind was blowing.
    In a few minutes I was looking down into the valley of the Vallecitos.
    A little way down the forest began, first scattered, stunted trees, then thick stands of timber. Our camp--I could see a thin trail of smoke rising --was down there among them.
    From where I stood to the point where camp was, I figured it to be a half-mile, if it was level ground. But the mountain itself was over a mile high, which made the actual distance much greater. Here and there were sheer drops. And there would be no going straight down. One cliff I could see would take a man almost a mile north before he could find a place to get down.
    Off where Cap and me had laid out the town site there was a stir of activity. There were several columns of smoke, and it looked like some building going on, but it was too far to make out, even in that clear air.
    It was sundown when I got back to the cave, and Ange broke into a smile when I showed up.
    "Worried?'
    She smiled at me. "No . . . you said you'd come back."
    She was looking better already. There was color in her cheeks and she had started to make coffee. Coming back I had killed a big-horn sheep, and we roasted it over the fire, and had us a grand feast. That night we sat talking until the moon came up.
    After she went to sleep I sat in the door of the cave and watched the moon chin itself on the mountains, and slowly slide out of sight behind a dark fringe of trees.
    At dawn, five days later, we pulled out. We crossed toward that stream that ran down to the north or northeast and followed the old game trail Ange had mentioned. She showed me where they had lost their pack mule with some of their grub, and then she told me that there was a way which would lead down to our camp, a deer and sheep trail off to the south of the canyon.
    With Ange riding and me leading the appaloosa among those rocks and thick forests, it was slow going and it took a long time to get to the bottom. I led the horse on through the trees until I reached a point maybe a half-mile from the town site.
    There must have been forty men working around over there, with buildings going up, but I could see no sign of Cap. Somehow the set-up didn't look right to me.
    I helped Ange down from the horse. "Well rest," I said. "Come dark, we'll go to our camp. That bunch over there look like trouble." I'd no idea of facing up to a difficulty with a sick girl on my hands.
    Dark came on slowly. Finally, thinking of Cap, it wasn't in me to wait longer. I helped Ange back into the saddle, and took my Winchester from the scabbard.
    It was a short walk across a meadow and into the willows. Nothing stirred except the nighthawks which dipped and swung in the air above us. Somewhere a wolf howled. The sun was down, but it was not yet dark.
    We turned south. Wearing my moccasins, I made little sound in the grass, and the appaloosa not much more. There was a smell of smoke in the air, and a gentle drift of wind off the high peaks.
    All I could think of was Cap Rountree. If that crowd at the town site were the wrong bunch--and I had a feeling they were--then Cap was bad hurt or killed. And if he was killed I was going up to that town and read them from the Book. I was going to give that bunch gospel.
    The first of the three men who came out of the brush ahead of me was Kitch.
    "We been waiting for you, Sackett," he said, and he lifted his gun.