Louis L'Amour: Ride the Dark Trail

Yet he was not one to argue. Had Flanner been less full of his own plans he would have seen that Johannes Duckett was hesitant. Yet the battle had begun, and the time drew on with no decision in view. From time to time Duckett heard gossip around the town about Milo Talon and his brother. A vague feeling of unease worked itself into those deeply channeled furrows within his brain, and for the first tune he grew restless.

"Ever been to the western slope?" he asked Flanner once.

"What? No ... I never have been." Flanner was irritated. "What brought that up?"

"It's a good country, so they say. There's a place named Animas City. Down in a big park around the Animas River."

"We've got enough to do right here," Flanner replied. "Why ride away from a sure thing?"

"Is it?"

Jake Flanner was startled. He had become so accustomed to Duckett's ready acceptance of any of his ideas that the comment startled him. "Of course, it is. Once that old woman is out of there we've got the finest setup ever. We'll just move in, and - "

"There's more of them now. There's that girl, and there's Logan Sackett, and now there's that one with the rifle who helped Logan, and some of the boys say there's another man out there."

"Look, Duck, I wouldn't be in this if I didn't know we can win and win big. When the time comes that girl will just go off by herself or one of the boys will take her. And Logan Sackett's dead. No man can soak up the lead he caught without dying. Why, he must have been hit seven or eight times, and as for that other one, I think he caught some lead, too."

"You want to kill that old lady because she busted your knees."

Flanner's face grew red with anger. He stared at Duckett. "All right," he said softly, "I do ... and I will. But that's beside the case. It is the place we want."

Duckett listened but his thoughts were on this other man ... Milo Talon. Duckett talked little but he listened a lot, and he knew more about Milo Talon than any other person in Siwash. He knew, for example, that Milo was a lone wolf, that he was amazingly swift and accurate, and that even men known as dangerous avoided him.

The odds were piling up. From now on every shot fired would increase the risk, as there were more people to fire back. Johannes Duckett's thinking was simple. He knew that two and two made four. He also knew that where there had been one old woman on the place in the beginning, although even then some suspected there were more, there were now two women and probably four men, for he had not for a moment accepted Logan Sackett's death. Hurt, maybe, but not dead. Johannes Duckett counted the dead when he saw the bodies.

The odds had risen, and who was to say they would not continue to rise? Sackett was one of the feudal clans from Tennessee ... who was to say the others might not ride in?

For the first time Duckett doubted the sagacity of Jake Flanner. For the first time he began to think of that money he had put away. He had enough to live as he lived for a year, perhaps two ... and two years was an almost immeasurable distance in the day-to-day living of Johannes Duckett.

"I'm going to ride," he told himself.

Once formulated, the idea established itself in its own groove and began to develop.

Jake Flanner would have been surprised to discover that to Johannes Duckett he, Jake Flanner, meant no more than a horse Duckett might have ridden for a time. He had been a convenience over the last few years, but no more than that.

Flanner believed Duckett to be loyal to the death. Duckett considered Flanner a source of income ... and now that source of income was endangered.

And, of course, there was the western slope of the Rockies.

Chapter 17

My mouth was dry and my head was hot - the trip down the mountain had taken a lot out of me. I crouched there among the rocks and brush and studied the layout below. I still couldn't make it out.

That spot on the back step was blood, sure as shootin'. Somebody had caught one there, and I was praying it wasn't the old woman or Pennywell. Search as I might I couldn't find anybody hid out, but they'd be hard to find until they moved ... if they were there.

I'd lost a lot of blood and from the way I felt I knew I was worse off than I'd thought A couple of times there my eyes kind of glazed over until I couldn't see except through a mist. Leaning over I rested my arm on a boulder and my head on my arm. My breathing was hoarse and rasping and I was sick.

Nothing moved down below, and I must have passed out there for a few minutes. When I came out of it I was still there, my head resting on that rock, but I felt like I was dying. That made me mad.

Die? With that old lady in trouble? With that girl I'd brought to the house in danger because of me? With my friend's ma down there, maybe about to get killed? And yes, I'll sure be honest with myself - a whole lot of the reason I was mad and surely determined to live was Jake Flanner. I could hear his voice again, tellin' them to do me in. All right, Jake, I said to myself. You want Logan Sackett dead. You want him dead but you're going to have to go all the way to make it happen.

So I forced my head up and slid down to a better way of sittin'; through that brush, I watched the house. Below me I could see a sort of slide through the rocks. It was too steep to walk down, but a man lyin' flat on his back could maybe drop down fifteen or twenty feet lower, if he was careful.

Easing myself around, I got my legs stretched out. With a rifle in one hand and the crutch in the other I moved myself between two bushes and under the edge of a boulder and slid, using the crutch and rifle to keep me from going too fast. As it was I stopped with a hard jolt against a slab of rock and, worst of all, I'd made some dust

Now I was closer down. I checked my guns to be sure I had them loaded, then I felt of my cartridge belt and didn't like what I found. I had eleven cartridges left for my pistol, and in my pockets I had a couple more rounds for the rifle. This here was not going to be any long fight.

Fogged though my thinkin' was, the more I studied that layout, the more sure I was that there was somebody inside who shouldn't be, that ma and them were dead or prisoners. Surely somebody would have come out that door otherwise.

Or else there was somebody on the hill behind me.

Now that was a thought. Maybe somebody back yonder had me right in their sights. Turning my head, I peered back up the mountain, but if they were right above me they couldn't see me at all. Suddenly I saw something I couldn't have seen from where I'd been until I slid.

There was a man's body - alive or dead there was no way of knowing - sprawled in front of the bunkhouse. I couldn't see it well but it surely looked like Al Fulbric. Regardless of who it was, there'd obviously been a fight. If that was Al, and I was sure it was, then somebody would have come for him.

The day had drawn on, and the sun was warm on my shoulders, but I wasn't feeling much but the warmth and the sickness that was in me. The house and the corrals down there seemed to waver, like there was heat waves between us. From time to time I ran my hands over the rifle. It was reality, it was something tangible, something I knew. Squinting my eyes I peered down there. Somebody had to come down, somebody had to come out of the house. Then I'd know.

Suddenly my eyes caught movement, something out there on the road. Turning my head stiffly I peered, scowling, trying to see through the delirium that was in me.

It was a horse. It was a black appaloosa.

Only one man sat a horse like that, only one horse I'd ever seen looked like that. Far enough off so's I could just make him out, Milo Talon was riding up to a trap. Riding to his death from the guns that waited inside. Somehow he had to be warned, somehow he had to be told. I had no idea who was inside or how many there were, but I was sure there were too many. There'd been eight men including Flanner in the group that jumped me. Eight men in there with guns, just waiting for Milo or me.