Louis L'Amour - Lonely On the Mountain

We had come some distance from the Bad Hills, a place we were glad to be free of, as we lost two steers there to grizzlies, both of them found in the morning, one half eaten, the other dragged some distance and covered with brush.

There were a good many Indians, all friendly, in the vicinity of Carlton. At the store, where many things were on sale, we arranged to buy a small amount of ammunition and some supplies. More, they suggested, might be available if we talked to the man in charge.

We were coming out of the store when Orrin stopped short. A girl in a neat gray traveling suit came toward him, hands outstretched. "Why, Mr. Sackett! How nice!" He flushed and said, "Tell, let me introduce you to Devnet Molrone." "Howdy, ma'am!" She turned. "And this is Mrs. Mary McCann, Mr. Sackett!" "Well, well! Howdy, Mrs.

McCann!" Mary McCann had flushed. Nettie glanced at her, surprised, then at me. I hoped my expression showed nothing but pleasure at the meeting.

"Rare pleasure, Mrs. McCann," I said. "Womenfolks to a man on the trail-- well, we surely see almighty few of them.

I've got a friend along with me who would be right happy to shake your hand, ma'am, if you was so inclined. I reckon he ain't seen a woman in weeks, maybe months." Mary McCann looked right at me and said, "Now that's interestin'. I haven't seen many men, either. Just what would his name be?" "Mr. Rountree? We call him Cap.

He's seen most everything a man can see an' been most everywhere, but I d'clare, ma'am, he'd be right proud to meet you!" Nettie Molrone put her hand on Orrin's sleeve. "Mr. Sackett? My brother is not here, and they are not sure they even remember him! They think he passed through on his way west." "I was afraid of that, ma'am." "Mr. Sackett? You're going on west.

Could you take me? Take us?" Orrin glanced at me, hesitating. Now the last person I wanted on a cattle drive was a young, pretty woman. As far as that goes, Mary McCann was a handsome woman, considering her age and poundage.

"Please? There's no other way west, and I must find my brother! I have to find him!" "Well--" I hesitated, trying to find a way out, and I couldn't see one. After all, I was the oldest brother, and officially, I suppose, I was the boss. Not that I wanted the job or cared for it.

All the time, I was wondering what Cap would say and wondering also how Mary McCann got her name and what made her change it. Not that a change of names was anything unusual west of the Mississippi, and especially west of the Rockies. The last time I'd run into Mary McCann was down New Mexico way.

"Ma'am," I said, "it's a far land to which we go, and the way will be hard. Nothing like what you see here. So far as I know, there's but one fort betwixt here and the mountains. The land is wild, ma'am, with Injuns, with wolves and grizzlies.

"We may be long periods without water, and the grub may not be of the best. We can stop for nothing, man, woman, or beast, once we start moving again. We've taken a contract to deliver these cattle before winter sets in, and we're bound an' determined to do it.

"If you come with us, we'll play no favorites. You'll stand to the drive as the men do, and at times you may be called upon to help. It is a hard land, ma'am, and we'll have no truck with those who come with idle hands." Her chin came up. "I can do my share! I will do my share!" Well, I looked at her, the lift to the chin and the glint in her eyes, and I thought of Orrin there beside her, and I remembered the failure of his first marriage. If this girl stood to it, she was a woman to ride the river with, and Orrin wanted it, and her. Surely, no woman would have a harder time of it.

"All right," I said, "but no whining, no asking for favors. You'll be treated like a lady." "You need have no fears." She stood straight and looked me in the eye. "I can stand as much as any man." "Can you ride, ma'am? And can you shoot?" "I can ride. I can shoot a little." "Come along, then, and if your brother is alive, we will find him." "What became of Kyle Gavin?" Orrin asked.

She frowned a little. "Why, I don't know.

He was very attentive, and then suddenly he was there no longer. I don't know when he left or how." When I went outside, Cap was riding in through the gate with Highpockets Haney. "Cap," I said, "if you see any familiar faces don't call them by name." He looked at me out of those wise old eyes, eyes wiser and older than the man himself, and he said, "I learned a long time ago that a name is only what a person makes it." He stepped down and said, "What about those womenfolks?" "We're takin' them with us, Cap. One of them is tough enough and strong enough to charge hell with a bucket of water. The other one thinks she is." Cap hesitated, one hand resting on his saddle. "Tell, you and me know better than any of them what lies ahead." "We do," I said.

We had ridden the empty trails with a hollow moon in the sky and the bare peaks showing their teeth at the sky. We'd seen men die and horses drop, and we'd seen cattle wandering, dazed from thirst and heat. The leather of our hides had been cured on the stem by hot winds and cold, by blown dust and snow and hail falling. We knew what lay ahead, and we knew that girl might die. We knew she might go mad from heat and dust, and we knew I'd no business in letting her come. Yet I'd seen the desperation in her eyes and the grim determination in her mouth and chin.

"Orrin's taken with her, Cap," I said, "and I think she'll stay the route." "If you say so," he said. He tied his horse. "That person you thought I might put a name to?" "Mary McCann," I said, "and she's a damned fine cook." I looked at him slyly.

"An' for much of her life she's been in love with a miserable old mountain man turned cownurse who drifts where the wind takes him." "I wouldn't know anybody like that," he said, and went inside.

We got the pemmican and other supplies we needed, including the ammunition, but we couldn't buy them for money. They needed cattle. When we started out of Fort Carlton, we were thirty head short of what we brought in. They wanted the beef, we needed th

supplies, and lucky it was because none of us were carrying much money. We'd spent a good bit and were running shy of cash money.

We went over the bluffs and into higher, beautiful pasture land, and we let the cattle graze. God knew what lay before us, but the best advice we got was to fatten our stock whilst we could.

Many a time those days I wished I had the words of Orrin, who could speak a beautiful tongue.

It was the Welsh in us, I guess, coming out in him, but it left me saddened for my own lack. I hadn't no words with which to tell of the land, that beautiful green land that lay before and around us. Some didn't like the cottonwoods. Well, maybe they weren't just that for folks up here called them poplars, and maybe that's what they were. Only they were lovely with their green leaves rustling.

Westward we marched, short-handed by two, for we'd left the Ox and Gilcrist behind.

It had all come to a head when we were fixing to leave Carlton. Gilcrist had come to me with the Ox at his shoulder. "We want our time," Gilcrist said.

When he had his money in his hand, Gilcrist said, "Someday I'm goin' to look you up, Sackett. Someday I want to find out if you can really handle that gun." "Follow me back to the States," I said, "and choose your time." "To the States? Why the States?" "I'm a visitor here," I said, "and a man has no call to get blood on a neighbor's carpet." Westward we went following a route north of the North Saskatchewan through a country of hills and poplars with many small lakes or sloughs.

There was no shortage of firewood now, for at every stop we found broken branches under the trees.

It was a lovely, green, rolling country even now in the latter days of July.