He didn't expect it--I had that going for me, but it wasn't enough. My hand went to the gun and she came up fast and smooth. When she came level I was going to let drive, and I kind of braced myself for the shock of a bullet.
My .44 bucked in my hands, and, an instant before it went off, his gun stabbed flame. I just stood there and thumbed back that hammer. No matter how many times he shoots, you got to kill him, I told myself. I just eared her back and let 'er bang, and Andre Baston kind of stood up on his toes. I let her go again, and his gun went off into the grass at his feet and he fell off the ledge sidewise and lit right at my feet.
'You!' There was an ugly hatred in his eyes. 'You aren't even a gentleman!'
'No, sir,' I said politely, 'but I'm a damned good shot.'
Andre Baston, of New Orleans, died on the rim of Cumberland Basin with the rain falling into his wide-open eyes, trickling down his freshly shaved jaws.
'Well, pa,' I said, 'if this was the one, he's signed the bill for it. You rest easy, wherever you lie.'
With a sweep of my palm I swept the water from my saddle and stepped up there on old Ap and pointed his nose down the basin, the buckskin right behind us. We just climbed out of that shelf and rounded a clump of spruce, and I looked back yonder at the knoll, hall-hidden in clouds now.
It came to me then, ridin' away, that Andre had missed me. I'd been so almighty sure I was going to get shot, I was ready to take the lead and send it back. But he missed. Maybe when he saw me reaching he hurried too much, maybe the panic came up in him like it does in a lot of men when they know they're going to be shot at--a kind of uncomfortable feeling.
But like I said, when you pick up a weapon you can expect a weapon to be used against you.
They had them a sort of camp on the slope, a mighty poor shelter, I'd say. I rode right up to them, two men I didn't know, and Paul, looking like something blown up against a fence by a wet wind. Of course, Fanny was there, startled to see me, the softness gone from her features, her mouth drawn hard.
'You better go get your uncle,' I said, 'He's up mere lyin' in the rain.'
They did not believe me. I had my rifle across my saddlebows, its black muzzle looking one-eyed at them, so they stood quiet.
'Was I in your place,' I suggested, 'I'd light a shuck for Bourbon Street or places around, and when I got there I'd start burning a few candles at the altar of your Uncle Philip. There's nothing left for you here.'
The trail was muddy, full of doubles and switchbacks, with little streams crossing it here and there. That was a day when it kept right on raining, and through the rain, dripping off my hat I saw the fresh green of the forest and the grass.
It was a narrow trail, no question of hurrying. All I wanted was to get to the bottom, back down to Shalako where I could wrap myself around a few steaks and some hot coffee. This was a day when I'd rather set by an inside fire and watch the raindrops fall.
Every once in a while when I'd duck under a tree, a few raindrops, always the coldest ones, would shake loose and trickle down the back of my neck.
Alongside the trail, sometimes close by, sometimes down in a rocky gorge below me, was the La Plata. Waterfalls along the trail added to the river's volume.
The trail was washed out in places.
Nobody used this trail but the Utes, or occasional hunters and prospectors.
Yet all of a sudden I saw something else. In the bank where the trail passed there was a fresh, scuffed place. My hand went under my slicker to my six-shooter.
Somebody had stepped off this trail minutes before, stepping quickly up into the trees that lined the trail. One boot had crushed the grass on the low bank that edged the trail.
Ap turned quickly around a corner of the trail and I glanced up, seeing nothing.
The man had gone into the woods, hearing me on the trail, and he hadn't the time to do more than disappear somewhere just within the edge of the trees. Who would be coming up here on a day like this? No Indian, for it had been a boat track, a wide boot, not far from new.
Nothing happened. I rode on, switching back and around on the narrow trail, and when I reached a straight stretch I stepped up the pace and let Ap trot for a while.
Safely away, I began now to look for more tracks. Occasionally I saw them, shapeless, not to be identified, but tracks nonetheless, and the tracks of somebody who did not wish to be seen. Wherever he could, he walked off the trail.
There were places when the sides were too steep, or the gorge beside the trail too deep for him to avoid the trail. The man had a good stride. He was a heavy man, too, but possibly not a tall one despite the good steps he took.
Might be a smaller man carrying a heavy pack. Had the tracks not been so sloppy I might have been able to tell if the man carried a heavy pack or was himself heavy. Of course, it might be both.
It worried me. Who was he? And why was he going up the mountain today?
Well, if he was a friend to the Bastons it did not matter, and if he was their enemy, it might be they'd shoot each other.
I was going for a hot meal, a night's rest, and a chance to put down my gun.
There's something about gold that nags at a man. I've seen it at work a time or two. I think we Sacketts have less of it than most--with us it's land. We like the ownership of land, large pieces of mountain country, that's for us.
Nonetheless, pa labored hard for that gold. He found it, brought it off down the mountain, and now it was cached up yonder ... sure as shootin' it was there. It puzzled a man to guess where.
By the time I rode up to Shalako the sun was out and sparkling on the rain-wet leaves. Orrin came out of the store and stood waiting.
He gave me a long look. 'You all right?'
'I been through it.' I stepped down and stood, hands resting on the saddle, and then I turned my head toward him. 'I left Andre up yonder. Right where pa was cornered, I think.'
'The rest of them?'
'Up there. Paul's there with Fanny and a couple of others.'
'Leave your horses,' Orrin said. 'Judas said to tell you he'd care for them. You come in and have some grub.'
Judas came out to take Ap and the buckskin, and I walked across to the saloon with Orrin.
'There was a man came into town. Had his face all torn up and couldn't talk much, or didn't want to. He went off down the road mumbling to himself.'
'He ran into a rifle muzzle, I guess. Orrin, did you see anybody else? Did anybody go up the canyon?'
'Not by daylight. We've been watching. I mean we've been watching that road every minute.'
I told him about the tracks in the trail, but he shook his head, having no more explanation than I did.
'Somebody followed pa to that place. Somebody cornered him up there, and he may have been hurt. Pa taught us boys so much, and we've lived about the same. I figured I'd just let myself go the likely way. He left notches here and there, the deep, gashlike blazes, you know.' I took the other daybook out of my pocket.
'And I found this.'
Orrin took it in his hands. 'I wonder what pa was thinking, Tell. Why he took to keeping these on that last trip? Do you suppose he had a premonition?'
I'd been thinking of it, too. 'Either that, or something was turning wrong with him. He never was much to complain, you know, and we always just took it for granted he was about the strongest man around. Maybe he was feeling poorly and wasn't wishful that we know.'
The words were no sooner out than I was sure I'd hit on it. This trip had been pa's last chance to do something for his family. He'd cared for us, but suddenly he might have felt he wouldn't be able to, and he began to worry.
Neither of us wanted to open the book. This would be our last word from pa, and these last few weeks we'd felt close to him again, walking in his footsteps and all. After this we both felt there would be nothing left to the story, nothing but what must have happened when he stopped writing.
Berglund brought some hot soup and bread and I made a meal of it. The book lay there on the table, and from time to time I looked up to see it there.
