Ride the Dark Trail (1972) Read online

  A few old dried-out, worn-out boots, some odds and ends of harness and rope, a dusty coat hung from a nail.

  We crossed the yard and went very easily up the back steps. The door opened under my hand, and we stepped in.

  All was dark and still. The house had the musty smell of a place long closed. Lightning flashed revealing a kitchen storeroom. We tiptoed on through it, opening the door into the kitchen.

  There was a fire in the kitchen range, and the smell of warmth and coffee was in the room.

  The floor creaked ever so slightly as we crossed it. I could feel the skin crawl on the back of my neck, but I laid a hand on that door.

  By rights we should have had a gun barrel stuck in our faces, but there hadn’t been a sound. Was the old lady dead?

  Gently I opened the door. Beyond was a big room, cavernous and dark. Lightning flashed and showed through the shuttered windows and the glass transom window over the door. And in that momentary flash I found myself looking across the room into the black muzzle of a big pistol. Behind it stood the old lady.

  The flash, then darkness. “All right,” her voice was steady, “I may be old but I have ears like a cat. If you so much as shift your feet I am going to fire, and mister, I can hit what I aim at.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve a lady with me, ma’am.”

  “To the right of the door there is a lamp. There should still be a little coal oil in it. Take off the chimney, strike a match, and be mighty, mighty careful.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re friendly, ma’am. We’ve just had a run-in with some folks down at the town.”

  Carefully I lifted off the lamp chimney, struck a match, and touched it to the wick. Then I replaced the chimney and the room was softly lit.

  “Better stand clear of the light,” she said quietly, “those no-accounts yonder shot two or three of them out for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am. My name is Logan Sackett, and this here girl is Pennywell Farman.”

  “Any kin to Deke Farman?”

  “He was my father.”

  “Maybe he was a good father, but he was a shiftless, no-account cowhand. Never did earn his keep.”

  “That sounds like pa,” Pennywell said mildly.

  The hand that held the gun was steady as a rock. And it was no ordinary gun. It was one of those old-time Dragoon Colts that would blow a hole in a man big enough for your fist … or mine.

  “What are you doin’ here?” the old lady asked.

  “Ma’am, this young lady taken on to cook an’ care for youngsters at the Tavis place. Spud Tavis made things bad for her, an’ she run off an’ fetched herself into town. She came to the Bon Ton huntin’ the boss to ask for a job, and some of that crowd - Len Spivey for one - they talked kind of mean to her, ma’am. She needs a lady to set with, ma’am, and somebody who will teach her the things she should know. She’s sixteen, and she’s a good girl.”

  “Do you take me for a fool? Of course, she’s a good girl. I can see that. What I want to know is what kind of a man are you? Are you fit company for her?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m not. I’m mean, ma’am, meaner than a skunk, on’y I never figured to be comp’ny for her, only to bring her here. I’m fixin’ to ride on, ma’am, soon’s my horse is rested up.”

  “Ride on?” Her voice grew stronger. “Ride to where?”

  “I don’t rightly know, ma’am, just on. Just to ride on. I been a sight of places, worked at a whole lot of things. Was Milo Talon your son, ma’am?”

  Suddenly the room was still. And then she said, “What do you know of Milo Talon?”

  “Why, we met up down Chihuahua way, quite a spell back, only I understood his folks were all passed on.”

  “He was wrong, and I’m his ma. Where is Milo now?”

  “Drifting I reckon. We drifted together, there for a while, and got ourselves in a shootin’ match down Laredo way.”

  “Milo was always a hand. He was quick to shoot.”

  “Yes, ma’am, or I’d be dead. He seen ‘em sneakin’ up on us before I did an’ he cut loose. Yes, ma’am, Milo Talon could shoot. He had said his brother was better than him.”

  “Barnabas? At targets, maybe, or with a rifle, but Barnabas was never up to Milo when it came to hoedown-an’-scrabble shootin’.”

  There was silence in the room. “Ma’am? There’s coffee settin’ yonder. Mightn’t we have some?”

  She got up, placing the pistol in a worn holster slung from her hips. “What ever am I thinkin’ of? Been so long since I had a guest I don’t recall how to act, Of course, there’s coffee.”

  She started toward the door, then paused. “Young man, would you mind taking a look out yonder? If you see anybody creepin’ up … shoot him or her as the case might be.”

  She lighted the other lamp in the kitchen and then carried the lamp from the big front room back to join it. “Nobody coming, ma’am. Looks like they’re holed up against the rain.”

  “Fools! They might have had me. I fallen asleep in yonder. Heard the floor creak as you stepped into the kitchen or somewhere. They’re a lazy lot. Gunslingers aren’t what they used to be. Was a time you could hire fighters, but this lot that Flanner has are a mighty sorry bunch.”

  She turned, a tall old woman in a faded gray dress and a worn maroon sweater. She looked at me, then sniffed. “I might of knowed it. Clinch Mountain, ain’t you?”

  “What was that, ma’am?” I was startled.

  “I said you’re a Clinch Mountain Sackett, ain’t you? I’d read your sign anywhere, boy. You’re probably one of those no-account sons of Tarbil Sackett, ain’t you?”

  “Grandson, ma’am.”

  “I thought so. Knowed your folks, every durn last one of them, and a sorry lot they were, good for nothing but fightin’ an’ makin’ moonshine whiskey.”

  “Are you from Tennessee, ma’am?”

  “Tennessee? You’re durned tootin’, I am! I’m a Clinch Mountain Sackett myself! Married Talon an’ came west an’ we set up here. Fact is, a cousin of mine helped put this place together, and he was a Sackett. He went off somewhere in the mountains and never come back.”

  “Traipsin’ just like you, he was, traipsin’ after some fool story of gold. Left some boys back in Tennessee, and a wife that was too good for him.

  “Come in an’ set, son, you’re among home folks!”

  Chapter 3

  It was comfortable in that old kitchen, and old as it was the place was neat as a man could wish. The floor was scrubbed and the copper pots shone brightly with light reflected by that coal-oil lamp.

  The coffee smelled right good. Even though I’d had a cup at the Bon Ton down in town, this here was better, better by a whole lot.

  “They said down in town you had you some hands,” I told her.

  She chuckled. “I aimed for them to think so. I been alone for nearly a year now. Bill Brock, he picked up some lead last time we had us a fight with those folks, and he died. I buried him out yonder.” She nodded toward the area behind the house. “Figured to move him to a proper grave when the time came.”

  She taken a cup of coffee after she’d poured for us and then she came and set down. Her face was lined and old enough to have worn out two or three bodies but her eyes held fire. “You be Logan Sackett. Well, I d’clare! You a puncher?”

  “I’m whatever it takes to get the coon,” I said. “I guess I ain’t much, Aunt Em. I’m too driven to driftin’ an’ gun play. Why, even that horse I’m ridin’ yonder ain’t mine. Come time to leave back yonder down the country I hadn’t no time to buy a horse nor the money to do it with. This one was handy so I taken to his saddle and lit a shuck out of there.”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen it a time or two. Come daylight you go yonder to the barn an’ turn that horse loose. He’ll take time but he’ll fetch up back home sooner or later. We’ve horses a-plenty here on the Empty.”

  “I wasn’t figurin’ on - “

  “Don’t you worry none. There’s enough rooms in this h
ere house for the whole of Grant’s army, and then there’s the bunkhouse. We ain’t short of grub, although we could do with some fresh meat now and again.”

  “No reason you can’t hole up here until the weather clears.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. On’y I was sort of figurin’ on Californy. I been there a time or two and when winter comes I just naturally get chillblains. I thought maybe I’d head for Los Angeles, or maybe Frisco.”

  “I can pay,” Aunt Em said. “You needn’t worry none about that.”

  “I wouldn’t take money from kinfolk. It’s just that I - “

  “Logan Sackett, you be still! You’re not movin’ a step until the weather shapes up. If you’re worried about those folks out there, you just forget it. I can handle them, one at a time or all to onct.”

  “It ain’t that, it’s just that - “

  “All right then, it’s settled. I’ll get you some blankets.”

  Looked to me like I wasn’t going to see Californy for some time yet. That old lady just wasn’t easy to talk to. She had her own mind and it was well made up ahead of time. Anyway, I was kind of curious to see what that outfit out front looked like.

  “If I’m going to stay,” I said, “I’ll keep watch. You two go yonder and sleep.”

  When they had gone I got me a mattress off a bed in one of the rooms and laid it out on the floor, then I fetched blankets and settled in for the night.

  Outside the ram beat down on the roof and walls of the old house, and the lightning flashed and flared, giving a man a good view of what was happening at the gate and beyond. And that was just nothing.

  The lamp was in the kitchen and I left it there, wanting no light behind me when I looked out. After watching for a while, I decided nobody was likely to make a move for a time, so I went back and stoked up the fire in the kitchen range and added a mite of water to the coffee so’s there’d be a-plenty.

  Off the living room there was a door opened into what must have been old Reed Talon’s office. There were more books in there than I’d ever seen at one time in my life, and there were some sketches like of buildings and bridges, all with figures showing measurements written in. I couldn’t make much of some of them, although others were plain enough. Studying those sketches made me wonder how a man would feel who built something like a bridge or a boat or a church or the like. It would be something to just stand back and look up at it and think he’d done it. Made a sight more sense than wandering around the country settin’ up in the middle of a horse.

  Time to time I catnapped. Sometimes I’d prowl a mite, and a couple of times I put on that slicker and went outside.

  There was a wide porch on the house, roofed over, but with a good long parapet or wall that was four feet high. Talon had put loopholes in that wall a man could shoot from, and he’d built wisely and well.

  When I came in I sat down with coffee, and then I heard those old shoes a-scufflin’ and here come Em Talon.

  “Well, Logan, it’s good to see a Sackett again. It’s been a good many years.”

  “I hear tell some of them have moved up around Shalako, out in western Colorado,” I suggested. “Fact is, I know there’s several out there. Cumberland Sacketts,” I added, “good folks, too.”

  “The man who helped pa had some boys back in Tennessee. I often wonder what became of him.” She filled her cup. “His oldest boy was named for William Tell.”

  “Met him. He’s a good man, and he’s sure enough hell on wheels with a six-shooter. No back-up to him.”

  “Never was back-up in no Sackett I can call to mind. I reckon there were some who lacked sand, but there’s a rotten apple in every barrel.”

  She was a canny old woman, and we set there over coffee, with once in a while a look out to see if anybody was coming in on us. We talked of the Clinch Mountains, the Cumberland Gap country, and folks who’d moved west to hunt for land.

  “Talon was a good man,” she said. “I married well, if I do say it. When he first rode up to my gate I knowed he was the man for me, or none.

  “All the Talons had a gift for working with their hands, they had the love of good wood in their fingers, an’ when a Talon taken wood into his hands he felt of it like he loved it”

  She looked over at me. “It’s like you Sacketts with your guns.”

  “From what they tell me you’re pretty good your own self.”

  “Had to be. Pa wasn’t always home, and there were Injuns. I was never like some. Lots of folks lost relatives to Injuns, and hated ‘em because. Me, I never did. They was just something else to contend against, like the storms, the stampedes, the drought, and the grasshoppers. A time or two I seen grasshoppers come in clouds that would darken the sun and strip bare the land like a plague.” She stared off, as if calling up her memories.

  “Shoot? Well, I guess yes. Gun loads was mighty scarce back yonder in the hills, and when somebody went out for meat for our family he or she was expected to come back with meat for every load taken.”

  She refilled my cup and hers. “Logan, I got to find Milo. This here place belongs to the boys, him and Barnabas. I’m not so young as I used to be, an’ one night I’ll fall asleep and those out there, they’ll close in an’ finish me off. I need he’p, Logan.”

  I shifted in my chair, feeling guilty-like. I’d lost no ponies around here. Californy was where I’d be fixing to be, and then I had to put my oar into that squabble down in town.

  “I could stay on a few days,” I said. “There’s nobody waitin’ for me yonder. Or anywheres else,” I added, thinking on it. I guess since my folks died nobody had ever waited on my coming or cared what happened.

  “That Flanner,” I said, “he carries a gun in a shoulder holster.”

  “He does? Well, I reckon he carries one someplace. He’s killed a few. Nobody braces him.” She looked up at me, real sharp. “You seen Johannes?”

  “Not to know him. There were several men a settin’ in the saloon. In the Bon Ton. But I don’t know - “

  “Wouldn’t have been him. Johannes Duckett He’s some kin to Flanner, and he’s not quite right in the head, I think. Or maybe he’s just strange. But he’s a dead shot with a gun of any kind and he’s a back-shooter … he’ll shoot you front, back, or sideways. Mostly he cares for the livery stable.”

  “I didn’t see anybody.”

  “Well, he was around there, then. Whenever he ain’t there, somebody else is, and when Johannes is about you just don’t see him unless he’s of a mind to let you.”

  After a time she went off to bed and I fussed around a mite, and taken a turn outside. Pretty soon Pennywell came down to spell me and I curled up on a mattress to take five.

  Daylight was coming through the shutters when I awakened, and I could hear folks stirring around out in the kitchen. From the porch I could look over that layout there by the gate, and of a sudden I started gettin’ sore.

  Holding an old lady like that! And shooting at her so’s she didn’t dare stir out in front of her own house.

  Setting there on the porch in the shadows I studied the layout and made up my mind that come sundown I was going to do some moving around of my own. Californy looked bright and pretty to me and I wasn’t going to leave here with those fellers out there makin’ trouble for Aunt Em.

  Out back I fetched a bait of corn from the bin for my horse - I guess he’d never had it so good.

  Em Talon was right. They had some mighty fine stock out yonder in the fenced pasture behind the barn, so I saddled up, roped myself a half dozen horses, and brought them up to the corral one at a time. Then I stripped the gear from the borrowed horse and turned it loose.

  It ran off a ways, then commenced to graze out there betwixt those boys and the house. Finally as if it taken a notion to travel, it moved off.

  Leaning on the corral I studied those horses. The ones I’d picked were mighty fine stock, all wearing the Empty brand. There was a tough-looking strawberry roan that I liked right off, and a steeldust gelding with
a wise look about him.

  Those were good horses but they hadn’t been under a saddle for months, maybe. They’d take some riding, so I made up my mind to do it.

  Whilst I was puttering around I got to studying on where Milo Talon might be. If I was to get shut of this job I’d better find him … and that wasn’t easy to do.

  Milo was a man who covered country. There’d be folks in Brown’s Hole might know where he was, or up in the Hole-in-the-Wall country. What I had to do was start the word moving along the trails. It might take time, but if Milo was alive, he’d hear it.

  Meanwhile there was a lot to be done. I topped off those broncs, and they showed me plenty of action, but they were good stock. To make sure we’d have plenty of riding stock in case of trouble, I topped off a few others, too.

  The gate to the corral was sagging and a board on the back step had come loose, so I made out to fix them up. I never cared much for such work, liking to do nothing I couldn’t do from a saddle, but it had to be done.

  Working around, I gave the place some study. Old Talon, who had moved in here when the Injuns were on the warpath often as not, had built with cunning. And that was what had Flanner’s boys in a bind … he’d built so there was no way he could be got at.

  Moreover, each building was like a fort, and it was easy to move from one to the other without exposing yourself to rifle fire from the outside.

  There are a lot of places in the mountains where small valleys or ravines open out into the plains. Talon had found such a place and built so that there was no access except right through his ranch. Which allowed him to control the grazing in a succession of small but pleasant valleys that cut deep into the mountains.

  He had located most of the possibilities for trails into the area and had blasted rock to block them off, or had felled trees across them. It was a rugged area of deep canyons, rushing streams, and wild, broken ridges.

  There isn’t any place that I ever saw that couldn’t be got into or out of, but often it isn’t easy, and nobody wants to go scouting in rough country, scrambling up rock slides and the like when he is apt to get his skull opened up for trying.