What I had to do was make a fast ride to the Hole and back, trying to get out without Flanner knowing I was gone, and then get back before he found out. Anybody in the Hole might know where Milo was, but the ones most likely to know or to pass the word along were Tip Gault or Isom Dart.
Gault's outfit rustled horses and cattle mostly. It was not much of a business with them. They were just out to get money enough to throw a wingding once in awhile and have eating money.
Dart was a horse thief, too, but more cautious. He'd come close to losing his hair or winding up at the end of a rope not long before and he was a cautious man. That first close shave had taught him a lesson. He'd been a slave, freed by the war, and had come west under another name. He knew everybody along the outlaw trail and would give the word to any drifter who came along. Wherever Milo Talon was, he'd hear that word sooner or later, I hoped it would be sooner. What I really hoped was that Milo would be wintering in the Hole from time to time and they might know where he'd gone.
'Aunt Em,' I said, when supper was finished, 'I got to ride off a ways.'
'Are you pullin' your stakes?'
'No, ma'am, but we got to get word to your son. I think if I rode out of here a spell I could give the word to a man who would pass it along.'
She looked up at me, Em did. That old woman was no fool; she'd lived close to the edge for a good long time and she knew things.
'You going into the Hole?'
'Well ... ' I hesitated, not wanting to lie, 'I guess that's the best grapevine in the world, out of there.'
'You mean Isom Dart? You tell him you're a friend of mine. We saw him through it once when he was bad hurt.'
'Flanner's cookin' up something, and I hate to pull out like this, but it's got to be done.'
We talked it around over coffee, thinking over the trail I had to ride. Aunt Em had been in the Hole herself, with her husband when they first came west
'We wintered in there our ownselves,' she said. 'We'd heard of it from some Cherokees who held cattle there.'
Pennywell hadn't much to say. She sat across the table looking big-eyed at me and making me uneasy. When a talking woman sits quiet a man had better look at his hole card and keep a horse saddled.
The old house was warm and quiet. Taking up a rifle I walked out the back door and around to the front, holding close to the wall. Nothing showed against the skyline, but probably they wouldn't, anyway.
I stood listening for a while, but the sounds seemed right and I went back to the stable, forked down some hay for the stock, and looked over the horses. Then I went to the bunkhouse and got a pair of old, wore-out boots somebody had cast off. I taken them to the house.
'Ma'am,' I said to Pennywell, 'I want you to put these on.'
She looked at the boots and then at me. 'They're too big,' she said, 'and too old. Besides, I've got shoes.'
'You've got none that make man tracks, and that's what I want.'
She put on the boots and we walked out to the gate and up where the Flanner gunmen had their camp. We walked around, leaving tracks. They'd figure mine were the big ones, but they'd surely figure there was at least one more man on the place.
Later that night I got moccasins out of my saddlebags, put them on, and went out again. That way they'd see those tracks, too.
We Sacketts were mountain folk, and that meant we'd been woodsmen before we were riders. All of us had growed up among Indians and had learned to like moccasins for work in timber country; a man can feel a dry stick under his foot and not step down on it with a moccasin. With a boot or shoe it isn't that easy to go quiet.
Time was wasting, so when I came back I turned in for an hour or two of sleep. When I woke up, I got dressed and went into the kitchen.
Em Talon was there, and there was hot coffee on the stove. 'I figured you'd be riding,' she said. 'Nothing like coffee to set a man on the right trail.'
'Thanks,' I said. I taken the coffee and set down across that well-washed kitchen table. 'Aunt Em, you're quite a woman.'
'Always wanted to be six feet high,' she said, 'my brothers were all six-footers, and I aimed to be high as them. I never quite made it.'
'You stand tall in any outfit,' I said. 'I'd like to have known your husband.'
'Talon was a man ... all man. He walked strong and he thought right, and no man ever left his door hungry, Indian, black man, or white. Nor did he ever take water for any man.'
'He was a judge of land,' I said, 'and of women.'
'We had it good together,' Em said quietly, 'we walked a quiet way, the two of us, and never had to say much about it to one another.'
She paused. 'I just looked at him and he looked at me and we knew how it was with each other.'
Hours later, well down the trail to Brown's Hole, I remembered that. Well, they'd been lucky. It was not likely I'd ever find a woman like that, but no matter what any man says, there's nothing better than two, a man and woman, who walk together. When they walk right together there's no way too long, no night too dark.
Chapter 5
The Union Pacific tracks lay to the north, and beyond was the Overland Trail to California. On the Pacific side of South Pass that route divided into two, the northern becoming the trail to Oregon.
Horse and cattle thieves operating out of Brown's Hole had developed a thriving business stealing stock from emigrants on one trail and selling to those on the other. Occasionally the thieves drove their stolen stock into Brown's Hole for sale the following season. The grass was good, and by comparison with the country around the winters were mild.
To the north and east lay the Hole-in-the-Wall country; north and west from there, the Crazy Mountains with the border of Canada beyond. To the southwest of Brown's Hole lay Utah's San Rafael Swell with its Robbers' Roost, and south of that, Horse Thief Valley near Prescott, and a ranch near Alma, New Mexico. This was the country of the so-called Outlaw Trail.
In fact it was a maze of trails, obvious and hidden, and along those trails ranchers or homesteaders were friendly to drifting men, asking no questions, and providing no information to strangers.
Originally most of the trails had been scouted by Indians or mountain men, and here and there they had located hideouts away from prying eyes. A drifting man might ride from the Mexican border to Canada and be assured of meals and shelter or an exchange of horses anywhere along the route.
Those who rode the outlaw trail were not all wanted men; some were tough cowhands or drifters who traveled with the seasons and had friends among the wild bunch. A few were occasional outlaws, rustling a few cows when the occasion offered, playing it straight the rest of the time.
Milo Talon was known along the Trail. As there was constant movement up and back, it seemed the best way to get in touch with him was just to ride to the Hole and pass the word.
Morning came with me a-horseback. By daylight I'd put the Empty far behind and was snaking along a trail up through the pines and skirting the aspen groves. It was a fine, clear morning with the air washed clean by rain and drops hanging silver on every leaf. Even the wild things a body saw didn't seem to mind him much, so pleased they were with the morning.
My horse and me were of a mind. We taken our time, just breathing the good air, keeping an eye out for trouble, but just enjoying it. Far off and below I seen a dot that had to be buffalo. Most of them had been killed off, but here and there small herds had taken to the mountain valleys. Maybe two hundred in the lot I saw.
Of a sudden I rode out on a grassy slope that dropped steeply off into a valley far, far below. Ahead of me and a mite higher was a thick stand of aspen, and turning my horse I skirted the edge of that grove until I came on a likely spot. Putting my horse on a picket rope, I bunched a few sticks and with some shredded bark and twigs built myself a coffee-making fire.
I'd backed up against that grove on purpose. Looked at from down below no smoke would show against the white of the tree trunks and the gray-green of the leaves. From alongside the aspen a little branch trickled down over the rocks, twisting and turning to find itself a way down the mountain. It was so narrow in places the grass almost covered it from view. Dipping up a pot of water I set her on the fire, dumped in some coffee, and waited for
