Treasure Mountain (1972) (17 page)

We sat around the fire talking it over, drinking coffee, keeping our ears in tune with the night. I was restless, ready to move on. A lot of men had looked for gold here and not found it, and I did not wish to become another of them.

Nor did Orrin.

In the morning we would take the route to Windy Pass.

At first Nell would have none of it, but we argued there was gold closer to where her pa was. I think we all turned in figuring that tomorrow would tell us the end of the story of pa's disappearance.

None of us wanted a fight with Andre and them. Well, I'll have to back up on that. Fact was, I'd not mind so much, only that it would profit nobody. I had an itch to tangle--especially with Swan. There's something gets up in my craw when I come up against a bully, and Hippo Swan was that.

There was nothing to be gained by fighting them, and I was ready to ride off and leave them be. Just the same, I felt one of the true pleasures of life would be to plant a fist in Hippo's face. But I was prepared to deny myself that pleasure.

Some things just don't shape up the way a man hopes for.

Come morning we packed our gear, and we helped Nell get straightened around, and then we headed for Windy Pass as our first stop on the way west to Shalako.

Looking back with regret, I saw that little mountain valley disappear behind us.

It was a place we'd stopped at for only a few days, but I'd come to love it--the beaver ponds, the distant sound of Silver Falls, the cold, sparkling waters of the East Fork.

There was an easier trail down the East Fork to the main valley, but we were wishful of scouting around the pass, so we went up the mountain. It was just a mite over two miles to Windy Pass.

We found signs of several old fires up yonder, but nothing more to tell us anything about pa. He'd been there, but so had others.

Orrin pulled up quick, just as we started out. "I thought I heard a shot," he said. I'd heard nothing, but Judas believed he had, too.

We rode out on the trail to the valley and turned south. To really appreciate the valley of the West Fork of the San Juan you've got to see it from north of where we were, up yonder where the Wolf Creek Pass trail takes a big swing and starts down the mountain. There's a place there that's a thousand feet above the valley floor. You can see right down the length of the valley and there isn't a prettier sight under heaven.

We turned into the trail and started along, moving at a good pace. We had Nell with us, and, like I've said, we weren't shaping up for no fight. None of us liked Andre. We figured him for a murdering so-and-so, but we weren't elected by the good Lord to put out his light ... not so far as we knew. I surely wasn't going to hunt him, but if he happened to come up in my sights, it would be a mighty temptation.

It was a beautiful morning, a morning to ride and feel, and we all felt the same about that. None of us were much given to talk, although Orrin could sing. He sang while we rode--"Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp-Ground," "Black, Black, Black," and "Barbry Alien." I was wishful of joining him when he sang "Brennan on the Moor," but there was no use to wake the coyotes or disturb the peace of Jacob, the mule. Only time I sing is when I am alone on a sleepy horse. There's limits to everything.

Meanwhile, we rode wary for pa's camp. A lot of time had gone by, but there was a chance we could find something.

The way we figured it now, somebody had returned to murder Pierre and pa.

Andre and Swan? Or Pettigrew?

I couldn't get Nativity Pettigrew out of my mind. He was a sly man, a murderous man possibly, but he'd had the daybook, and the only way he could have gotten that daybook would have been to follow pa and Pierre.

Pettigrew had gold on his mind, and mayhap he had found it, and was wishful of keeping it. He would have to be mighty shy of how he brought it down off that mountain. A lot of people wish to find treasure, but few of them realize how hard it is to handle after you've got it.

How do you bring a million dollars in gold down off a mountain? Mules, you say?

You've got to get mules or horses, and that starts people wondering what you want them for. And you may need help, but help can be greedy, often as murderous as you.

I tell you, gold is easier found than kept.

Chapter
XVIII

Neb scouted ahead for us, and that was a canny dog. He was big enough to be kin to a grizzly and had a nose like an Arkansas coonhound.

We rode scattered out, not talking, wary for traps because this was Indian country, but wary for those coming down behind us, too. Pa's travois would have made an easy trail to follow, and I wondered if he, too, had feared what was behind him. When we came up to his camp we saw why he'd chosen it. That camp was well out in the open, among just a few trees and some brush, and there was a good field of fire wherever a body looked.

Of course, at first we weren't sure it was pa's camp. It was a likely spot, and there were stones blackened by fires in a clearing among the trees. We got down from our horses and, while the Tinker kept a lookout, we stood around and sized up the situation.

Nell found the grave. She had walked to the other side of the small clearing among the trees. It was there, south of the patch of woods and a small knoll.

Only one grave. Above it was a cross and the name, Pierre Bontemps.

Pa had walked away from here when he saw the horses, and that might be any place to the south, but he saw them from here. He'd made no mention of burying Pierre, so he must have come back ... but Pierre's killer could have buried him. And suppose pa lay in the same grave?

Neither Orrin nor me figured such would be the case, but scattered out around that little nest of trees to see what we could find. Others had been here since, and there would be nothing left unless pa had left some sign intentionally, or unless there was some item time had not destroyed.

We found nothing.

"Tell," Orrin said, "you were a mite older than any of us, and you knew pa a little better. What do you think he would have done at this point?"

"Whoever killed Pierre may have killed him," the Tinker suggested. "He may have laid by those horses waiting for your father."

Judas objected. "That is a possibility, of course. But it seems to me that whoever killed Mr. Bontemps was not one to take chances. He stabbed a wounded, helpless man three times. I believe he would prefer to wait, to catch Mr.

Sackett asleep or somehow helpless."

"The way I see it, Orrin," I said, "knowin' the kind of man pa was, why he came west and all, I think, once he had the horses and no longer had to worry about Pierre, he'd go back after some of that gold."

"I think he did go back," Nell said.

"Well, maybe," I said doubtfully. "I think he would, but we don't know if he did."

"I know," Nell repeated. "I am sure he went back."

"Why?" Orrin asked.

"I think when he left the second time, having some gold and all, and remembering what happened to Mr. Bontemps, I think he would take another route," she said.

"These mountains offer very few roads," Judas objected, "and this is the best way, obviously."

"And the most dangerous. Best routes never meant much to a mountain-born Sackett, anyway," she insisted. "I want to tell you something.

"Just east of Silver Falls I found an old Indian trail. It heads off south along the shoulder above Quartz Creek. When I first settled in there to pan that creek I studied the country in case I had to run. I scouted that trail across the high-up mountains until I could see where it led.

"It goes right to Pagosa Springs, although there's a branch, looks like, that swings south. I've got a feeling it joins up with a trail I saw coming in from the south at Haystack Mountain."

It surely made sense. Pa was never one to set himself up for somebody, and if he now had some gold he would be doubly in danger. He'd keep off the main trails, use routes where he could find cover from which to study his back trail, and he'd head west.

If anybody was lying in wait it would be along the trail east. Folks at San Luis might have talked, and there were always bad men around who'd lie up for a man and try to gather in what he had.

Pa had wintered out west and he liked that country. If he had taken his gold that way he could come by an unexpected way and likely would avoid trouble.

Still, any man packing gold was sure to be an uneasy man.

Seemed to me the only thing to do now was to cut out for Shalako, scout around there and talk to some of the Utes who might know something. Mighty few people travel through Indian country without being seen, and it was likely the Utes knew all that had taken place around Treasure Mountain--if they'd talk.

We headed west, rattling our hocks down the trail for Shalako. We knew that our cousins Flagan and Galloway had settled in that neighborhood a short time back, and we figured to meet up with them, then get our bearings. Galloway was a great hand to make friends, and chances were that he had Indian friends among them.

We Sacketts have fought Indians, camped with them, hunted with them, told stories with them, slept in their tipis and wickiups, and fought with them again. Sometimes all was friendly, depending on the tribe and how they felt at the moment. Pa had lived with Indians, too, and favored their way of life, and, of course, back there in the high-up hills of Tennessee and North Carolina, we'd had many a friend among the Cherokee, Shawnee, or Chickasaws.

They had their way of life and we had ours, and when the white man moved in he did just what the Indians had done before him. He took what land he needed.

There were mighty few Indians for the size of the country, and we crowded them like they crowded others.

Life had been that way from the beginning of time, and I could see no end to it.

Over there in Europe the Celts crowded the Picts, and the Saxons crowded the Celts, and then the Normans moved in and took over the country, and it was the same story all across the world.

Five days later we rode into Animas City which they were building into quite a town. Must have been twenty or twenty-five buildings there, most of them dwellings of one sort or another.

We rode up to Schwenk and Will's saloon, which was also a store. By the look of it, this place had just been opened, but business wasn't suffering. There were half a dozen men at the bar and this was just after midday.

The Tinker and Judas took the horses down to the river for water, Nell went with them, and Orrin and me decided to listen to what was being said and try to find out what we could.

A couple of men nodded as we came in, and one of them spoke. The rest just glanced around and paid us no mind. Nobody was talking very much. There was some talk of a railroad coming in, but it looked to me like that was nothing that was going to happen very soon.

The bartender came down our way and we both ordered rye. He glanced at us real sharp, then again. "Travelin' through?"

"Maybe."

"Pretty country," Orrin commented, "right pretty country. Much going on around?"

"Mining. Cattle. You a cattleman?"

"Lawyer," Orrin said. "But I've worked with cattle. Much ranching around here?"

"West of here, and south. Some good outfits. There's a new bunch over on the La Plata. Name of Sackett."

"Heard of them," Orrin said.

"There's other Sacketts around here. One of the first men in this country was Seth Sackett. He came in with the Baker outfit."

"Good folks, no doubt," I said.

"The best," said the bartender. He was a shrewd, competent-looking man. "You boys could do worse than to settle here yourselves."

"Maybe we'll ride over and see those Sacketts. The ones over on the La Plata."

"If you go," the bartender advised, "better go friendly. They're good boys but they don't take kindly to folks pushing them.

"They've got them a ranch over just beyond that new town--Shalako, or some such name. They've brought in some cattle, but from all I hear they're still sort of camping out. Haven't started to build, yet."

We drank our rye, then ordered coffee. We could see the Tinker had come back and was loafing near the corral, honing the blade of that Tinker-made knife of his.

Perhaps the finest knife ever made.

"You been around here long?" Orrin asked.

"We just opened up. Nobody's been here very long, some folks came in in '73, but the town didn't sort of begin to settle up until '76. If you ride around much, keep your eyes open and a gun handy. The Utes haven't decided what to do about us yet."

One of the other men--a short, barrel-chested man with a broad, friendly face--was looking at me. Suddenly he said, "Speaking of Sacketts, there was one come into this country some years back. Had him a claim up on the Vallecitos. He was hell-on-wheels with a pistol."

"You don't say?" I said, innocently. "Well, I figure if you leave those folks alone they'll leave you alone.

"There's something else, though," I added. "If any of you know anybody who was around here about twenty years back, I'd like to talk to him ... or them."