Laura Sackett ...
Chapter 18
You can take it from me that no jail cell is a place for a mountain boy. I was raised up where folks looked to the hills, only up where we came from you hadn't chance to look much higher, we were that near the top of the ridge.
This cell they put me into had one small window, too small for me to crawl out of, and a door that was as barred as could be. When I heard that door clang shut I wasn't at all happy. Only thing I knew, I was going to catch up on my sleep, and at least I could eat. And right about that time I was hungry enough to eat an old saddle, stirrups and all.
Captain Lewiston was my first visitor. He came early in the morning, and brought a chair into the cell with him. He also brought the company clerk.
'Sackett,' he began, 'I want you to give me the whole story, in your own words.
I want to help you if I can. Right now the people are divided. Some want to hang you for killing Billy Higgins, and some want to give you a medal for saving those youngsters.'
So I gave it to him. How the bunch of us, unknown to each other until then, had banded together to ride to Tucson.
The story of our fight with Kahtenny's Apaches I repeated for him, as I'd told him the whole story before, except the part about me killing Billy Higgins, which I didn't like to think on. Then I told him about my meeting with Laura Sackett, and her story of the lost boy.
'This much I have learned since your departure,' Lewiston said. 'Laura Sackett was divorced from your brother, and your brothers and her father had been deadly enemies.'
'If I ever heard of that, I'd forgotten. We Sacketts were never much on talking of troubles when we were together. It never does any good to go worrying your thoughts about things gone by.'
'I approached her last night about your story,' Captain Lewiston said. 'She denies ever mentioning a child to you, or giving you any cause to ride into Mexico.'
I just looked at him. It was no use to say she was lying, although she surely was.
'As a matter of fact, she says you ran away to Mexico for fear somebody would discover you had taken advantage of an Apache attack to kill Higgins.'
'Those boys I was with knew better. Why else would they come with me?'
'I am afraid that won't help you at all. I believe you told me that they are dead.'
'I buried Rocca with my own hands. Spanish Murphy was finished off by the Haddens. By their own say-so. John J.... well, I guess he never made it that far.'
'You have no witnesses then?'
'No, sir. Nary a one. You see, Cap'n, none of those men saw it anyway. When I shot Billy Higgins there was just him and me. Nobody was close enough to hear what was said.'
Well, we talked a while, and he asked a sight of questions, but after that neither of us had much hope. That feud was ten years out of my mind when I met those men in Yuma, and the name Higgins meant nothing at all to me.
So here I was in jail, and Laura Sackett, who'd been the cause of the deaths of at least three good men, was walking free.
After the captain left I sat on my cot and stared at the blank wall, trying to see my way clear, but nothing came to me, so finally, tired as I still was, I rolled over on the cot and went to sleep.
When I opened my eyes again it was nigh on to sundown and the jailer was at the door. 'Lady to see you,' he said.
'All right.' I got up, staggering with sleep and trying to get my bearings. This would be Dorset, I figured. Only it wasn't. It was the last person in the world I expected -- Laura Sackett.
She turned to the jailer. 'May I talk with my brother-in-law alone?'
When the jailer had gone, she turned those big blue eyes on me.
'I never expected you to get back,' she told me coolly, 'but I am glad you did.
Now I can see you hang, with my own eyes.'
'Now that isn't what you'd call neighborly,' I said, determined not to let her get any more satisfaction than I could help.
'I only wish Orrin could be here to see you hang,' she said, staring at me. 'And Tyrel ... I hated him the most.'
'Maybe that's because you couldn't fool him,' I said. 'But ma'am, do you really want to see me hang that much? I never did you any harm. Never even saw you until I came up the trail from Yuma.'
'I want to see you hang, and I will. I only wish I could see Orrin's face when he gets the news.'
'Maybe you will see him,' I said. 'Orrin's a right good lawyer. If he can be free of his duties that long, I'll maybe get him to defend me in court.'
She did not like that. Orrin was a mighty impressive figure of a man, and he could talk. He had the Welsh gift for talking, and she knew how persuasive he could be.
'He'll never get here. If you send for him I'll get Arch Hadden to kill him.'
'Arch? So that's why he was in Mexico, a-hunting me? I wondered how he knew we'd be there, when we were so all-fired careful that nobody knew.'
'Yes, I sent them after you. And I'll send Arch after Orrin, if he comes here.'
'So Arch is in town, is he?' That was something to consider, and of a sudden those prison walls began to seem as if they were crowding in on me. Arch Hadden would know I was in jail, and he would come for me. I glanced at that high-up window, and was suddenly glad it was so small and so high up.
'Send for Orrin. I would like that. I will have him killed.' As she spoke it seemed to me there was something in those blue eyes that looked mighty like insanity.
'You mistake Orrin. He won't kill easy, and Arch Hadden never saw the day he could draw with Orrin.'
I was talking to the wind. She didn't hear me and would have paid it no mind if she had, for I knew she had no such idea as them drawing against each other. She meant a rifle from a hilltop at some stage stop, or something of that kind.
After she had gone I studied about it a mite, and then called the jailer.
'You get word to Cap'n Lewiston, will you? I got to see him.'
'Sure.' The jailer eyed me thoughtfully. 'Did you really shoot that Higgins feller?'
'If you were lying out in the glare of the sun, and you were gut-shot and dying and the Apaches were shooting flaming slivers of pitch into your hide, wouldn't you ask to be shot?'
'That the way it was? I heerd he was an enemy of yourn.'
So I explained about the old Higgjns-Sackett feud. And I said again, 'But I haven't given thought to that fight in ten years, Besides, when a man's hunkered down on a ridge alone, and the Apaches are around him, do you think he'd waste a shot to kill a man the Indians were sure to get?'
'No, sir, I surely don't,' he said.
He went away then, and I was alone until the door opened and Dorset came in. She was carrying a plate all covered over. 'The lady over at the Shoo-Fly sent this,' she said. She lifted her chin defensively. 'I didn't have any money or I'd have brought something for you.'
'You've done enough. How about you and your sister? Have you got a place to stay?'
'With the Creeds. They'll be coming to thank you. Dan Creed said he'd bust you out of here if you wanted.'
'I'll stay. Maybe I'm a fool, but no Sackett aside from Nolan ever rode in flight from the law.'
We talked for a spell, and then she left. The jailer returned, but he'd not seen hide nor hair of Captain Lewiston. Lieutenant Davis had been walking out with Laura Sackett, so he had avoided them.
Alone again, I did some right serious thinking. Tampico Rocca and Spanish Murphy were dead. Battles probably was, but even had they been alive there was nothing any of them could tell that would speak for me, because when I shot Higgins I was alone. I'd been a fool to mention it to Laura, but it lay heavy on my mind, and at the time I figured her for family.
What really stood against me was that I'd shot a man who carried the name of a family against which my
