Louis L'Amour: Mustang Man

When I reached the wagon I drew up alongside the last one and tied my horse to the tailgate. I took my Winchester from the saddle boot and placed it behind the seat, but within easy grasp of my hand.

A man came down the line of wagons. "Sackett?" he said.

"Here."

He moved over beside me, his cigar glowing redly. "You set store by that girl?"

"Some."

"She ain't showed, and it's getting nigh to time. You think she'll back out?"

"Not likely." I considered. Was this another trap? She had told me she was going tonight. Was I now supposed to go looking for her? Or had Sylvie and Ralph finally caught up with her?

"How soon you want to go?" I asked.

"Fifteen minutes. I'm waiting for another wagon, loading over yonder."

"I'll go get her."

Ollie Shaddock said, "You better wait here. She wants to come, she will."

"I'll see."

"Sackett, I've heard talk around town. You better walk careful. Somebody has been hiring guns. You know how Loma is ... you can get anything here you can pay for, and some things come cheap, like killings."

"Who's hiring?"

"No idea."

The wind off the mountains felt good on my face. It was no time for a man to die. Oddly enough, I was thinking less of that gold I would be picking up than of the wind in my face, or the girl. I had no meeting ground with gold. When it came to me I spent it and had little enough left to remember.

"Are you in love with that girl?" Ollie asked.

Was I? I didn't think so. I wasn't even sure I knew what love was, and I'd always guarded myself against any deep feeling for a girl. After all, who would want to live me? I was a big tough man with two hard hands and a gun ... that was me.

If it had been someone else I'd have answered with some scoffing thing; but it was Ollie, and he knew people of my blood, and he was from Tennessee. "Ollie, I just don't know," I said. "I don't altogether trust her. The other one, that dark-eyed Sylvie, she's pure poison. Her I know. But Penelope? Well, I can't make up my mind."

"You step light, boy. Step light." He meant it one way, but I decided to take it two ways, and I walked back to my horse and switched my boots for mocassins.

"Ollie, I'll be back. You just hold tight." It wasn't more than a hundred and fifty yards to Annie's house, and I walked along under the edge of the cottonwoods. My mouth felt dry and my heart was beating heavy--I wasn't sure whether it was because I expected trouble or because of that girl. I told myself I'd no business feeling like that about any girl, but all the telling did no good, none at all.

I could hear music at Baca's; there men were singing and drinking and laughing, men playing cards and looking at girls and chinking coins or chips in their fingers. I could see the horses standing three-legged at the hitch rail, and I saw a man come from the walk in the darkness and cross toward Baca's, a man wearing a big sombrero, spurs jingling.

In the shadows under a big old tree I stood and looked at Slanting Annie's house. Lights in the windows, all cheerful and bright. Yet bright as they were, I felt an emptiness in me, a sudden longing for lighted windows or my own, and a coming home to them, opening the door to warmth and comfort and a woman waiting.

Well, no use thinking of that, an unlikely thing for Nolan Sackett.

My mocassins made no slightest sound as I moved along under the trees. Long ago I'd learned to move like a wild animal in the wilderness. Boots would have made sound, but with the moccasins I could feel the branches under my feet before stepping down hard, and so shifted my step.

When I got to within fifty feet or so of the house I stopped again, holding myself close to the trunk of a cottonwood. There was no sound from within the house, and I moved closer and edged up to a window.

Penelope sat at the table, pouring coffee, and across the table from her sat Sylvie Karnes. Shoulder to shoulder with Sylvie was Noble Bishop. Ralph Karnes was coming in from the kitchen with a plate of cakes. Just as he put them down I heard Penelope say something about the time. All their heads turned toward the clock.

Penelope finished pouring coffee and sat back, taking up her own cup. There they sat, who were supposed to be enemies, talking together like at a tea party. I never saw the like. Maybe, after all, I was the only fool in the lot.

Then Penelope put down her cup, said something to Sylvie about the dishes, and went over and took up her bonnet. She turned and spoke to them all, obviously saying good-bye.

Like a ghost, I faded back into the trees and walked back quickly to the wagons.

Ollie was waiting impatiently.

"She'll be along," I said.

"Did you talk to her?"

"No, but she's coming."

"She'll be in the wagon right ahead of you, since both of you wanted to stop."

"Who's driving hers?"

"A good man ... Reinhardt. He's been with me a couple of years." Ollie looked around at me suddenly. "Never thought to tell you. Orrin Sackett is a partner in this outfit. He owns a third of it."

"He's done well, I guess."

"Yes, he has. I'd say he was one of the strongest political figures in the Territory."

Leaning against the wagon, waiting for Penelope to come, I reflected bitterly that Orrin had no more start than me when he came west. They had educated themselves, Tyrel and him, and both of them were big people in this country, while all I had behind me were a lot of dusty trails, barroom brawls, and lonely hideouts in the hills.

The fact that I was about to pick up enough gold to make a man wealthy for life meant little when a body figured on it. What mattered was what a man made with his own hands, his own brains. Whatever I got out of this was from sheer chance and a fast gun. And right at this moment I didn't even have the gold.

She came walking up out of the darkness. "Oh, Mr. Shaddock, I'm sorry to be so late, but some friends dropped in and I just had to talk for a few minutes. Are you ready to leave?"

"Yes, ma'am. If you'll get up in your wagon, ma'am. This here is Oscar Reinhardt. He'll be your driver."

"Thank you." I could see her eyes straining toward me, a figure she could only dimly make out.

Ollie turned and gestured toward me. "Nolan Sackett will be driving the last wagon."

Ollie walked away toward the front of the train, and Penelope came back to me.

"You're here then? I'm glad." She hesitated. "I'll have to admit that I'm glad to be leaving." Then she went on quickly. "I want to get away from this ... this killing." She looked up at me. I could see the pale oval of her face in the darkness. "Poor Mr. Loomis was shot. He's not dead, but he was badly hurt. I can't imagine how it happened."

"This here is a dangerous country," I said. "Somebody might have seen him wandering around in the dark and figured he was hunting for them. I heard about the shooting. There were two shots fired, weren't there?"

"I don't know." She turned away from me and walked up to her wagon, where Reinhardt helped her in. After a few minutes I heard the first wagons moving out. As with all such freight outfits, they wouldn't really be moving as a unit until they were on the trail. Some of the wagons were standing off the side of the road, and they would be falling into place one by one. The movement would be a lot of stop-and-go until they finally got lined out. The stopping of a wagon would attract no attention for many of them would be stopped briefly while other wagons pulled in ahead of them.

Reinhardt's wagon moved out, and I let them get a start. I was driving a team of big Missouri mules, eight of them, and they handled nice. I'd always liked handling the straps on a good team.

We moved slowly while getting lined out, slower than a man could walk. I was watching for the marks I'd chosen and it was not many minutes after the wagons pulled out that I drew up. The wagon ahead was rolling on. I listened for a while, but there was no sound.