her.
That crack was no different from others. It was a place where the rocky edge of the mesa had started to break off, and this crack had broken far back into the table rock of the mesa. After a minute I walked over there. Somebody had scooped dirt in there and heaped rock and brush around it. The job had been done in a tearing hurry. Under the brush and the debris, I found Ange.
She had been strangled, but not before she had put up a terrific fight. Her fingernails were stained dark with blood, and there was flesh under them. She had fought, and she had gouged deep.
The bitter cold had left her just as she had been, but I could not bear to look at her face.
After what seemed a long time, I got my blanket and wrapped her in it. Then I rode down to where the fire had been; for one thing I'd seen left behind was my shovel. The killer had used it in controlling the fire, and thrown it aside and forgotten it.
Up on the mesa I found a place where the earth was deep and I dug a grave for her, and I buried her there. When it was over I covered the grave with rocks, and then went to work with my new bowie knife and cut a cross for her.
Using the heated edge of the shovel, I burned ^ws into this crude cross.
HERE LIES
ANGE SACKETT
MURDERED NEAR THIS SPOT
APRIL 25, 1877
Now whoever had done this would have no doubts. They would know I was alive. But those others, the ones who were hunting me who might not know the truth, they would know it now.
Then I checked my guns again, and mounting up, I rode down off the mesa.
Now the chips were down. They would be hunting me, but I would be hunting them too, and there was no mercy in me. There was only the desire to hunt them down on their bloody trail, and give them a chance to try killing somebody who was not a woman alone.
There wasn't much to Globe in those days, just a few shacks, cabins, and tents scattered along the bank of Pinal Creek. And there were three saloons. I rode up to the first one and swung down, and I saw folks a-looking at me.
Being taller than most, standing six foot three in my socks and somewhat more in boots, I'm accustomed to folks looking at me. But maybe this time there was something else.
In the saloon there were maybe seven or eight men, and I looked around at them. 'I'll buy a drink,' I said. 'I'll buy a drink for the house.'
Some of them hesitated, but not for long. A square-jawed man studied me a moment, took up his glass, and looked across it at me. 'You aren't celebrating, friend.'
'I'm hunting information. I'm looking for a cow outfit that had some hands working the Mogollon country a couple of weeks ago.'
Nobody said anything, and finally the man next to me said, 'What's the trouble, mister?'
'It's an outfit that has a couple of hands workin' for them named Macon and Dancer.'
'You take my advice'--x was a stocky, swarthy-looking man who spoke--?y'll fork that horse of yours and ride out of here.'
'I wasn't asking for advice.'
The swarthy man grinned at me, but it wasn't friendly. 'Why, you damned fool! Macon is the saltiest man with a gun in this country.'
'You called me a damned fool.'
He put down his glass. 'So?'
He was expecting me to reach for my gun, but I couldn't trust my grip, not yet, anyway. So I hit him.
He was almost as tall as me and somewhat heavier --'twenty pounds, maybe. But that first punch counts for a lot, and I meant it to. My left fist smashed him in the teeth, and my right came around and clobbered him on the ear. That ear split and blood started to flow, and he was clawing for a gun, so I reached in and grabbed his belt, jerked him toward me, and then threw him back. He hit the wall with a thud, and when he started to come at me again I gave him a taste of my knuckles in the mouth again, and then both fists in the stomach. He folded up and went down, and I kicked his gun away.
'You talk to me again,' I said, 'you call me mister.'
Then I walked back to the bar and took up my drink.
'That cow outfit,' the square-jawed man said, 'why are you hunting them?'
The man I'd clobbered was slowly getting off the floor, so I shucked my gun. I couldn't trust myself to draw fast, although I could do all right once it was out. So I just taken it out and held the gun on him and I said, 'If you're a friend of Macon's, tell him he didn't kill me the first time. And tell him the next time I'll be looking right at him.'
The square-jawed man looked at me from cold, steady eyes. 'Are you implying that Sonora Macon shot you in the back?'
With my left hand I removed my hat. They could all see the livid bullet scar, still fresh, with the hair shaved back by the Army surgeon. 'I wouldn't know him if I saw him, but he knew my back. He shot me off a cliff up on Buckhead Mesa.'
'That's hard to believe.'
'You can believe it.' I tossed off the rest of my drink and stepped back from the bar. 'You can tell them, any of them you see, that I'm hunting them.
'They ran me ragged when I was hurt and unarmed, they ran me all over that country. But now I'll be running them. You tell any man of that outfit they can fight or hunt a hole, but I'm coming for them.'
'You talk large, stranger.'
'Anyone that doubts me,' I said, 'can come asking.'
'That outfit has forty men, forty very tough men.
Forty good men.'
'Good men? Mister, one or more of those men murdered my wife, killed my mules, burned my wagon.'
'Killed your wife?'
Now there was quiet in the room. Men looked at me, glasses in their hands, all movement stilled by what I had said.
'I left my wife at my wagon and went scouting a way down off Buckhead. Somebody shot at me an hour or so later, then they hunted for my body. I heard them. I heard the names of Macon and Dancer.
'My wife was a good girl. She was strangled, mister, and whoever did it wears her marks on his face. There was blood and torn flesh under her fingernails.
'Then he killed my mules, burned my wagon and the mules, and tried to wipe out all trace of what he had done. He murdered my wife on the twenty-fifth of last month.
Mister, there weren't too many men in that part of the country at that time. So I'll find them.'
There was a mutter of anger from the men in the room. The square-jawed man's face was white and stiff, but he did not speak. He turned back to the bar. 'I'll have another drink,' he said thickly.
The bartender rested his hands on the bar.
'Anybody who would murder a woman is a no-gd skunk. I'll lend a hand with the rope, mister.'
One of the men spoke up. 'Who might you be, mister? We don't know you.'
'I am Tell Sackett,' I said, 'William Tell Sackett, of Tennessee, Colorado, and a lot of other places.'
'You related to the Mora gunfighter?'
'Brother. I taught him to shoot. Alth,'
I added, 'he done all right when he taken it up.'
