the Lonely Men (1969) Read online

  They thought I was crazy, and I was thinking so myself. Rocca was the first: one to speak. "Alone? Senor, an army could not do it. That is the Apache hideout where no white man goes."

  "It's got to be done," I said.

  Case, he just looked at me. "You're crazy. You're scrambled in the head."

  "He's just a little boy," I said, "and he's alone down yonder. I think he will be expectin' somebody to come for him."

  Chapter 2

  Laura Sackett was a strikingly pretty young woman, blonde and fragile. Among the dark, sultry beauties of Spanish descent she seemed a pale, delicate flower, aloof, serene, untouchable.

  To the young Army officers in the Tucson vicinity, Laura Sackett was utterly fascinating, and this feeling was not dulled by the knowledge that she was a married woman. Her husband, it was known, was Congressman Orrin Sackett, who was in Washington, D. C. Apparently they had separated.

  But nobody seemed to know just what the status of the marriage was, and Laura offered no comment, nor did she respond to hints.

  Her conduct was irreproachable, her manner ladylike, her voice was soft and pleasant. The more discerning did notice that her mouth was a little too tight, her eyes shadowed with hardness, but these characteristics were usually lost in the quiet smiles that hovered about her lips.

  Nobody in Tucson had ever known Jonathan Pritts, Laura's father, and none of them had been present in the vicinity of Mora during the land-grant fighting.

  Jonathan Pritts was now dead. A narrow, bigoted man, tight-fisted and arrogant, he had been idolized by his daughter and only child, and with his death her hatred for the Sacketts had become a fierce, burning urge to destroy.

  She had seen her father driven from Mora, his dream of empire shattered, his hired gunmen killed or imprisoned. A vain, petty, and self-important man, he had impressed upon his daughter that he was all the things he assumed he was, and to her all other men were but shadows before the reality of her father.

  Until he had come west, they had lived together in genteel poverty. His schemes for riches had failed one by one, and with each failure his rancor and bitterness grew. Each failure, he was positive, had come not from any mistake on his part, but always from the envy or hatred of others.

  Laura Pritts had married Orrin Sackett with one thought in mind -- to further her father's schemes. Orrin, big, handsome, and genial, and fresh from the Tennessee hills, had never seen a girl like Laura. She seemed everything he had ever dreamed of. Tyrel had seen through her at once, and through her father as well, but Orrin would not listen. He was seeing what he wished to see -- a great lady, a princess almost -- graceful, alluring, a girl of character and refinement. But in the end he saw her, and her father, for what they were, and he had left her.

  And now Laura Pritts Sackett was returning, without a plan, without anything but the desire to destroy those who had destroyed her father.

  As if by magic, on the stage to Tucson, the pieces began to fall into place. At the first stage stop east of Yuma she overheard the driver talking to the station tender.

  "Saw him in Yuma," the driver was saying. "I'd have known him anywhere. Those Sackett boys all look alike."

  "Sackett? The gunfighter?"

  "They're all good with their guns. This one is Tell Sackett. He's been out California way."

  The idea came to her that night. She had been trying to think of some way to hurt the Sacketts, to get even with them. Now here was Tell Sackett, the older brother, the one she had never met. It was unlikely that he knew of her difficulties with Orrin. The Sacketts wrote few letters, and from what she remembered Orrin had not seen his brother in years. Of course, he might have seen him since she left, but there was a chance, and she resolved to take it.

  The means was supplied to her also by way of a conversation overheard. She had heard many such conversations without thinking of how they might be used. The men were talking of the Apaches, of some children stolen by them, perhaps killed. "Two of them were Dan Creed's boys. I don't know who the other one was."

  The young Army lieutenant on the stage had made tentative efforts at a conversation with Laura, all of which she had studiously avoided. At his next attempt she surprised him by turning with a faint, somewhat remote smile.

  "Is it true, Lieutenant, that there are Apaches about? Tell me about them."

  Lieutenant Jack Davis leaned forward eagerly. He was a very young man, and Laura Sackett was a beautiful young woman. It was true he had himself been on only two scouts into Apache country, but he had served with older, more experienced men who had talked freely, and he had listened well.

  "Yes, there are Apaches," he said, "and it is true we might encounter them at any time, but the men on this coach are all armed, and are experienced fighting men. You will not need to worry."

  "I was not worried about them, Lieutenant, merely curious. Is it true that when attacked they retreat into Mexico? Into the Sierra Madre?"

  "Unfortunately, yes. And the Mexicans are not helpful. They refuse to allow any of our armed forces to cross the border in pursuit, although I believe there are some indications the two governments may work together against the Apaches."

  "So it seems likely that if a prisoner were taken over the border into Mexico you would not have much chance of recovering him, would you?"

  "Almost none. A few times exchanges have been arranged. In a few cases individuals have traded goods or horses for a prisoner, but if the Apaches are pursued, they usually kill their prisoners."

  Laura Pritts Sackett was thoughtful, and at the next stage stop she wrote her note to William Tell Sackett. Unless she was completely mistaken, he would come to Tucson at once, and unless she was equally mistaken, he would start at once for the Sierra Madres. The rest would be up to the Apaches.

  What the Apaches failed to do, if they failed, might be done by other means ... for which the Apaches would receive due credit.

  Skillfully, she drew out the young lieutenant, and his comments were added to from time to time by one or another of the coach passengers. By the time the stage arrived in Tucson, Laura was well posted on the activities of the Apaches in Arizona Territory, as well as on the many times they had killed or kidnapped children, from the Oatman Massacre to the moment of her stage trip.

  "Supposing one man or several men -- not soldiers -- were to try to go into the Sierra Madres?" she asked Lieutenant Davis.

  "They would never return alive." The lieutenant was positive. "They wouldn't have a chance."

  One of the passengers, a bleak, hard-faced man in rough frontier garb, looked around at him briefly. "Depend on the man," he said after a moment, but if he was heard his comment was not acknowledged.

  That night, seated before her mirror, Laura Sackett knew she had found what she wanted. To trap his beloved brother would be just as satisfying as to trap Orrin himself, or Tyrel, whom she blamed even more.

  She wished only for one thing: to see their faces when they realized how their brother had been duped.

  When that man at the stage station in Yuma told me there was a letter for me I thought he was surely mistaken. Why, I couldn't recall getting more than three or four letters in my whole life, and nobody knew I was in Yuma -- nobody at all.

  None of us folks had been much hand to write. Orrin and Tyrel had learned to write, but with me writing was an almighty slow affair, and not one to be undertaken lightly. And we were never much on just exchanging letters unless there was something all-fired important. But sure enough, this letter was for me, William Tell Sackett. It read:

  Dear Tell:

  Our son, Orrin's and mine, has been taken by the Apaches. Orrin is in Washington, D. C. Tyrel is laid up.

  Can you help me?

  Laura Sackett So old Orrin had him a boy! Now, nobody had seen fit to tell me, but drifting place to place the way I'd been, it was no wonder. And no need for me to know, when it came to that.

  None of the family knew where I was, but that need cut no ice now. When I'd needed
help the whole lot of them had come a-running, and if the Apaches had Orrin's boy I'd have to move fast before they killed him ... if they hadn't already.

  A body never knew what the Apaches would do. They might kill a child right off, or they might cotton to the youngster and raise him like one of their own sons, and with just as much affection and care. A lot depended on how old the boy was, on how he reacted, and on how fast the Apaches had to move.

  The Apaches, I knew, had respect for the brave. They had no use for weakness or cowardice, and you'd get nothing but contempt by asking for mercy.

  An Apache admired the virtues he himself needed in the life he led. Bravery, fortitude, endurance, and the skills of the hunter and the hunted -- these were important to him, these he understood.

  Tucson lay still under a hot noonday sun when we dusted our hocks down the main drag, eyes open for a saloon or an eating house where there'd be shade, something to wet our whistles, and the trail gossip we were eager to hear.

  We rode into town with care, for we were all men with enemies. We rode with our guns loose in the holsters, ready to run or fight, as the case might be, but the street was empty, heavy with heat.

  The temperature was over a hundred in the shade.

  "All this town needs," John J. Battles said, "is more water and a better class of people."

  "That's all hell needs," Spanish replied. "Let's get into the shade."

  We were hard and lonely men who rode a hard and lonely way. We had known nothing of each other until this ride began in Yuma, and even now we knew scarcely more.

  But we had sweated and thirsted together, we had hungered and fought, and eaten trail dust together, so now we rode as brothers ride.

  We were men with sorrows behind us, and battles too, men with regrets behind us of which we did not speak, nor too often think. With none to share our sorrows or regrets, we kept them to ourselves, and our faces were impassive. Men with no one to share their feelings learn to conceal those feelings. We often spoke lightly of things which we took very seriously indeed.

  We were sentimental men, but that was our secret, for an enemy who knows your feelings is an enemy who has a hold on you. Not all poker is played over a card table.

  Although we spoke so lightly of Tucson we all liked the town, and were glad to be there.

  Me, I was nothing but a tall boy from the high-up Tennessee hills who tried to live the way he'd been taught. Ma hadn't much book learning, but she had straight-out ideas on what was fair and decent, and there was no nonsense about her and Pa when it came to dealing with enemies, or those who were evil.

  Pa stood by the same principles Ma did, but Pa taught us other things too: how to stand up for what he believed was right, and to back down for no man when it came to fighting time. He taught us how to fight, how to find our way through rough country, and how to handle cards better than most gamblers, although he didn't hold with gambling.

  "If you go among the Philistines," he used to say, "it is better to go armed."

  So he taught us how to recognize a bottom deal, and to read marked cards, and how the sharpers operated. The four of us split up on the street in Tucson.

  Rocca had some friends in the Mexican town, and Spanish Murphy went with him.

  John J. Battles had plans of his own, and so had I.

  With me there was no choice, and little time. I met an idea head-on, and this time I had to do whatever might be done for that boy of Orrin's. I'd get cleaned up, get a bite to eat, and then I'd find this Laura Sackett. I'd never met Orrin's wife, but any woman Orrin would cotton to would be all right with me.

  I'd been away from the other boys and knew little of their affairs. Tyrel had married a girl of Spanish blood, and had done well. Orrin had run for office and been elected, and I did recall some talk of his marrying, but none of the details. Nor had I any idea why she was in Tucson, and him in Washington. Folks' affairs are their own business, and I never was one for asking questions. What folks wanted me to know they would tell me, and I had enough to keep me busy.

  The Shoo-Fly Restaurant was a long, narrow room with a white muslin ceiling and a floor of rammed earth. There were a few windows, a dozen or so tables of pine boards, and some chairs and benches, none of which would set quite even on the floor, but the food was good, and it was a cool, quiet place after the desert.

  When I ducked through the door and straightened up inside, it taken me a moment to get my eyes accustomed to the place.

  Three Army officers sat at one table, two older men and their wives at another.

  John Titus and a man named Bashford, both important men in the community, sat nearby. At a table in the corner near the window sat a blonde young woman, pale and pretty, her parasol beside her. When I came in she looked at me quick and puzzled, then glanced away.

  Seemed like I was the roughest-dressed man in the place, and the biggest. My boots were down at heel, and my big California-style spurs rattled when I walked. My jeans were 'most wore out, and they carried a blood stain. I'd shaved, all right, but my hair was long and shaggy, and of course I was packing a six-shooter as well as a bowie knife, and carrying a Winchester.

  Mrs. Wallen, who ran the place, remembered me from a while back. "How do you do, Mr. Sackett," she said. "Did you just get in?"

  "Four of us did," I said dryly. "Two of us didn't."

  Titus looked around at me. "Apaches?"

  "Uh-huh ... I'd say about fifteen, twenty of them."

  "Get any of them?"

  "Some," I said, and took a seat at a table near the wall where I could see the door and could stand my rifle in a corner.

  "If you got any," one of the Army officers said, "you were lucky."

  "I was lucky," I said.

  Mrs. Wallen, who knew hungry men, as any frontier woman would, was already at the table with a cup and a pot of coffee. Then she brought me a slab of beef and some chili and beans, regular fare for that country.

  As I ate, my muscles relaxed. A man on the run or fighting can get himself all keyed up with muscle and nerve ready for trouble until he's tighter than a drumhead. This was a pleasant room, and while I was never much hand for mixing in society, I liked folks, and liked to be among them.

  Orrin was the mixer of the family. He had him an easy way with folks, he liked to talk and to listen, and he played a guitar and sang like any good Welshman.

  Give him ten minutes in a room and he'd be friends with everybody there.

  Me, I was quiet. I guess I'm friendly enough, but I was never much hand at getting acquainted with folks.

  I figure I was shaped to be a wallflower, but I don't mind. I sort of like to set back and listen to folks, to drink coffee, and contemplate.

  When trouble shaped up, Orrin would try to talk a man out of it, although he was a hand at any kind of fighting when they decided not to listen. Tyrel, he was the mean one. I mean he was a fine man, but you couldn't push him. He just hadn't any give in him at all. If you come to Tyrel a-hunting after trouble he had plenty to offer. Me, I wasn't much of a talker, and no kind of a trouble-hunter. Folks had to bring it to me hard, but when they did that I just naturally reacted.

  I'd roped and hogtied many a wild longhorn out on the plains of Texas, and I'd busted some mustangs in my time, and quite a few hard-to-get-along-with men, too. When it came to shooting, well, me and Tyrel could never figure which was best. We had both been shooting since we were big enough to lift a cartridge.

  Sitting there in that quiet room, my muscles resting easy and the warmth of food stealing through me, I listened to the talk around and wondered if ever I would have a home of my own. Seemed as if every chance left me with less than before.

  My home was wherever I hung my hat, but these here were mostly settled folks out for a bite to eat on a Sunday, which this was. Back in the mountains, come Sunday we used to dress in our go-to-meetin' clothes and drive down to church.

  It was a fine old get-together in those days. We'd listen to the preacher expounding of our sin
s, most of us kind of prideful we'd managed to sin so much, but ashamed before his tongue-lashing, and some were kind of amazed that they were so sinful after all. Seemed like with farming and cussing the mules, a body didn't rightly find much time for sinning.

  We'd sing the hymns in fine, rolling, and sometimes out-of-tune voices, and after church we'd set out under the trees with our picnic lunches and some of the womenfolks would swap food back and forth. Emmy Tatum, she made the best watermelon pickles any place around, and old Jeannie Bland from up at the forks of the creek, she could make apple cider that would grow bark on a mushroom.

  That was long ago and far away, but sometimes I could set back and close my eyes and still hear those folks a-singing "On Jordan's Stormy Banks" or "Rock of Ages," or maybe the one about the church in the wildwood. Everything was homemade, even the clothes we wore. Why, I'd been nigh to sixteen before I ever saw a pair of store-bought pants, or shoes we hadn't cobbled ourselves out of our own tanned leather.

  One of the Army officers was standing beside my table. "Mind if I sit down, sir?" he said.

  "Welcome," I said. "My name is Sackett, William Tell Sackett."

  He extended his hand. "Captain Lewiston, sir. You mentioned a difficulty with the Apaches. Did you get a good look at any of them?"

  "Well, they weren't reservation Indians, if that's what you mean."

  "How do you know that?"

  Me, I just looked at him. "By the smell of them. They'd come out of the desert after a long ride. The droppings of their horses showed fibers of desert plants they'd eat only if there was nothing else."

  "Did you say you got some of them?"

  "Three ... and one I hurt but didn't kill." He looked at me, and so I told him.

  "He was too good a fighting man to kill, Captain. I got two of them with my rifle, and then two jumped me in the hollow. One I killed, but the other was a tiger. He seemed to have been paralyzed so I let him lay."

  "You weren't alone?"

  "Three men along with me, but not right there. I think they might have killed some, too."

  "You lost two men?"

  "Taylor and Billy Higgins. I never knew Taylor's first name. We didn't get a chance to pick up their bodies. When we could pull out, we did."