others were there as if grown from the ground--and others, and others, and others.
'They were too many for us. We killed them, but our young men died, too, and we had not enough young men to father our children, so we must stop fighting.'
'Remember this, Old One. The white man respects success. For the poor, the weak, and the inefficient, he has pity or contempt. Whatever the color of your skin, whatever country you come from, he will respect you if you do well what it is you do.'
'You may be right. I am an old man, and I am confused. The trail is no longer clear.'
'You brought your people to my cousins. You work for them now, so you are our people as well. You came to them when they needed you, and you will always have a home where they are.'
The flames burned low, flickered, and went out. Red coals remained. The chill wind stirred the leaves again. Powder-Face sat silently, and I went to my blankets.
Nativity Pettigrew had led us to believe he had come right down the mountain and the others after him, but that had not happened. Somebody--maybe several of them--had followed pa. Somebody had come back, discovered Pierre's body gone and no sign of pa, so they'd followed, found Pierre's grave, and knew pa was alive.
Pa might return to New Orleans and tell Philip what happened in the mountains.
Or he might come back and get more gold. It must have been obvious from the tracks that pa's horses were carrying heavy. What they carried had to be gold.
Pa knew this country, and he knew old Powder-Face. He knew he could stay with him until he was rested and strong again, and he could hide the gold close by and Powder-Face would not disturb it. So he had come west, and he had been followed.
Lying there looking up at the clouds, I considered. I'd take my appaloosa, I'd take that buckskin pack-horse, and enough grub for two weeks, and I'd plan to stay in the mountains until I found what I was hunting or ran out of grub.
It began to spatter rain so I tugged my tarp over my head and just let her spatter. It was a good sound, that rain. Tyrel would be coming along from New Mexico soon and he would be bringing ma. They would bring cattle and take up land at the foot of the mountains somewhere. We were mountain folk, and we cottoned to the high-up hills.
There'd be Tyrel and me, Flagan and Galloway, and maybe Orrin would hang out his shingle down in Animas City or even in Shalako, although there was mighty little for a lawyer to do there. But just give folks time. You can't get two people together without soon or late they're lawin' at each other.
Far up there on the cold, gray rocks of the peaks where the last streaks of snow were melting off, up there would be strong, fierce winds blowing, weeping over the high plateaus, trimming the spruce to one level, driving the freezing rain into every crevice in the rock.
How could I find anything up there? If pa had died, what would be left of him now? Some scattered bones, his boot heels, maybe, and part of his holster and belt, chewed by wolves or other varmints.
It would be a lonely place to die, but maybe such a place as he'd want, for he was no stay-a-bed man. He'd always been up and doing, and when it came to that, what better way to go than on the trail somewhere, packing a gun and riding the high country?
The spattering rain made me think of Powder-Face. I raised up my head to look, but the old one was gone, vanished into the night and the rain as if he had never been.
For a moment he held in my thoughts, and I wondered how many times he or his kind had sat staring into the flames and feeling the rain fall and the wind blow?
Man had enemies, that was in the nature of things, but when it comes right down to it his battle to live is with that world out there, the cold, the rain, the wind, the heat, the drought, and the sun-parched pools where water had been.
Hunger, thirst, and cold--man's first enemies, and no doubt his last.
Chapter XXI
That appaloosa and me had reached a kind of understanding. On a chilly morning he liked to buck the frost out of his system, so whenever I put a foot in the stirrup around daybreak I knew he was going to unwind.
Naturally, I wasted no time getting into the saddle. If I put a foot in the stirrup and swung my leg over real fast, me and the saddle would come together on the rise.
Of course, I always managed to mount a little away from camp so's I wouldn't buck right through breakfast. That's the sort of thing can make a man right unpopular in any kind of outfit.
This morning that appaloosa really unwound. He was feelin' good and it done me no harm to just sit up there and let him have at it. Ridin' easy in the saddle all the time can make a man downright lazy, so when they feel like buckin', I say let 'em buck. I don't care which nor whether. When Ap had bucked himself into good nature and an appetite, I took him back to the fire and lit down from the saddle.
Judas had put together some grub and like always when he done the cookin' it tasted mighty fine. He was spoilin' me for my own cookin', and soon I'd be out yonder on the trail with nobody but myself to cook.
I told them all about the visit from Powder-Face and about my plan.
'You sure you don't want me to ride along?' Orrin asked.
'I would prefer to ride with you, suh,' Judas said. 'It might be that I could be of service.'
The Tinker said nothing. He was ready to go if I wanted him, and well he knew it and I knew it.
'It would be pleasurable,' I said. 'I could do with the comp'ny and the cookin', but a man listens better when he's alone, and he hears better.'
When we'd finished breakfast, and I'd lingered as long as I could afford over my coffee, I went to my horses. 'You ride loose, Tell,' Orrin advised. 'This isn't any western outfit. They're a murderin' lot.'
I stepped into the saddle. Ap had finished with bucking during our little set-to of the morning, and he made no fuss. Besides, he knew I was now in no mood for catywampusing around.
'The way I'm riding is round about,' I said, 'but I want to come into the mountains the way pa did. If I see the country the way he saw it maybe I can catch his frame of mind.
'By the time he started up that trail, June must have been pretty well gone, and we know the snow was light that year and had mostly gone off. He wouldn't find much snow except where the shadows gathered and in deep hollows. The trail Powder-Face speaks of might be the one he took.'
'I was talking to one of the young braves,' said Orrin. 'Some call it the Ghost Trail. They say it was made by The People. Who Went Before ...'
'Well,' I gathered the reins, 'you know me, Orrin. I'm going to ride easy into the hills and sort of let it come to me.'
When I rode down what you could call the street of Shalako, Nell was standing out before a new-built house. I drew up and took off my hat. 'Howdy, ma'am,' I said, 'I'm off for a ride.'
She looked at me, serious-like and tender. It kind of worried me, that look did, but then I figured it was just that we'd known each other awhile, not that she was thinking gentle thoughts of me. I'd gotten used to womenfolks speaking to me and passin' by toward handsome gents who had some flash and flare to 'em. Not that I blamed 'em any. I'm just a big ol' homely man who's kind of handy with horses, guns, and cattle, which doesn't fit me very much for cuttin' didoes with the female sex.
'Now you be careful, Tell Sackett!' she said. 'I wish you'd not go.'
'Somewhere my pa lies dead, unburied, perhaps, and ma's growing on in her years and it frets her to think of it. I'm going to ride yonder and try to find what remains of him so ma can go her way in comfort.'
Her eyes were big and serious. 'It is a fine thing,' she said, 'but it will do your ma no good to have your own bones unburied on some fool mountain! I wish I could talk to your ma! I'd speak to her! I'd tell her what she's doing!'
'It was not her idea that we ride out and look,' I said. 'It was ours. But it is a small thing we can do to comfort her.'
She put her hand up to me and touched me gentle on the sleeves. 'Tell? Do ride careful, now, and when you're back, will you come calling?'
'I will,' I said. 'I'll ride by and halloo the house.'
'You'll get down and come in!' she flared.
'Dast I? Seems to me I recall ol' Jack Ben was some hand with the rock salt when the boys come a-courtin'
