Lando (1962) (10 page)

Somewhere out there, lying on the bottom close in to shore, was a ship loaded with gold and silver, with gems maybe, and schlike. Pa had found it and brought gold from it, and pa must have come back again after he left me. It would be like him to let on he was going for fur, then to trail south where the gold was. Why trap for skins, when the price of thousands of them lay off that coast in shallow water?

It set a man to sweating, just to think of that much gold. It had never really got to me until now.

And after all, that was what we'd come for. We hadn't really come for a few hundred scrawny Mexican steers. ... I wondered how long it would take that Herrara to figure that out.

Not that a few folks weren't buying Mexican stock. With the prices offered in the railhead towns, it was a caution what folks would do to lay hands on a few steers.

But this gold, now. LaFitte, he wasn't only a pirate and slave trader, he was a blacksmith in New Orleans with a shop where slaves did the work, and he and his brother ... now how did I know that?

Had the Tinker mentioned it? Or Jonas?

Jonas, probably, when we were talking. Yet the notion stayed with me that I'd heard it before.

Now I was imagining things. I couldn't call to mind any mention of Jean LaFitte--not before we came up to that plantation house after leaving San Augustine. Not before we met Jonas.

The dun was streaked with sweat and I could tell by the way he moved that he was all in. We hadn't come twenty miles, either. Not by a long shot.

Miguel dropped back beside me, and that horse of his looked worse than mine.

"Se@nor," he said, "we must stop."

"All right," I said, "but not for the night. We'll take ourselves a rest and then push on."

He looked at me, then shrugged. I knew what he was thinking. If we kept on like this we'd be driving those cattle afoot. We should have a remuda, and Jonas was supposed to be bringing one south. We weren't supposed to drive these cattle not even a foot after the vaqueros left us.

We turned the herd into a circle and stopped them where the grass was long and a trickle of water made a slow way, winding across the flatland toward the dunes that marked the lagoon's edge.

We found a few sticks and nursed a fire into boiling water for coffee. Miguel hadn't anything to say. Like me, he was dead beat. But I noticed something: like me, he had wiped his guns free of dust and checked the working mechanism.

"I ain't going to no prison," I said suddenly. "I just ain't a-honing for no cell.

That there Herrara wants me, he's got to get me the hard way."

"We have no chance," Miguel said.

"You call it then," I said. "Do we fight?"

"We try to run. We try to dodge. When we can no longer do either, we shoot." He grinned at me, and suddenly the coffee tasted better.

I don't know why I was so much on the shoot all to once, but lately I'd heard so many stories of what happened in those prisons that I just figured dying all to once would be better.

Besides, I didn't like that Herrara, and I might get him in my sights. Why, a man who could bark a squirrel could let wind through his skull.

That's what I told myself.

Besides, I hadn't shot that Henry .44 at anything. Nor the Walch Navy, as far as that went.

We lay by the trail for three, four hours.

We rubbed our horses down good, we led them to water, we let them eat that good grass. And afws we saddled again, and mounted up.

The steers were against it. They'd had enough for the day, and were showing no sign of wanting to go further. We cut this one and that one a slap with our riatas, and finally they lined out for Texas.

You don't take a herd nowhere in a hurry.

Not unless they take a notion to stampede. Maybe eight to ten miles is a good day, with a few running longer than that. We'd been dusting along since four o'clock in the morning and it was past four in the evening now. When they first started, they fed along the way, so we'd made slow time.

All I wanted was a little more distance. If we could get where I wanted to hold up, we'd be about twenty-five miles or so from the border.

If a difficulty developed, I figured I could run that far afoot with enough folks a-shooting after me. Anyway, I'd be ready to give it a try. I kept in mind that I'd no particular want to see the inside of one of Mr. Herrara's jail cells.

I was a lover, not a fighter. That's what I said to myself, though I'd no call to claim either.

I was only judging where my interest lay.

My thoughts went to Gin Locklear--what a woman! I'd blame no man setting his cap for her, although the way I figured, it would take some stand-up sort of man to lay a rope on her.

That Marsha now ... she was only a youngster, and a snippy one, but if she went on the way she'd started she might take after Gin ... and I could think of nothing in woman's clothes it would be better for a girl to take after.

Shy of midnight we held up near salt water, with high brush growing around, and not more than four miles or so off was the tiny village of Guadalupe. Right close was a long arm of the Gulf.

"We will camp here," I said. "There is fresh water from a spring near the knoll over there."

Miguel looked at me strangely. "How does it happen that you know this?" he asked.

"Se@nor Locklear said you had never been to Mexico."

"I--" I started to answer him, to say I know not what, perhaps to deny that I had been here or knew anything about it. Yet I did know.

Or did I? Supposing there was no spring there? How much had Locklear said?

The spring was there, and Locklear had said nothing about it. I knew that when I looked at the spring, for there, in a huge old timber that was down, there were initials carved. And carved in a way I'd seen only once before, that being in the mountains of Tennessee.

FSct Just like that ... carved there plain as day, like pa had carved them on that old pine near the house.

He had been here, all right. Miguel did not notice the initials, or if he did he paid them no mind. I doubt if he would have connected them with Falcon Sackett, and I was not sure how much had been told him. Something, of course ... but not all.

Believe me, those steers were ready to bed down.

We bunched them close for easy holding, and they scarcely took time to crop a bait of grass before they tucked their legs under them and went to chewing cud and sleeping.

Miguel wasn't much behind them. "Turn in,"

I said, "and catch yourself some shut-eye. I'll stand watch."

It wasn't in him to argue, he was that worn-out.

Me, I was perked up, and I knew why. Pa had told me of this place, and I'd forgotten.

Yet it had been lying back there in memory, and probably I'd been driving right for this place without giving it thought.

Now the necessary thing was to recollect just what it was pa had told me. He surely wouldn't tell me the part of it without he told me all.

When had he told me? Well, that went back a mite. Had to be before I was ten, the way I figured. He rode off when I was eleven and ma had been sick for some time before that, and he was doing mighty little talking to me aside from what was right up necessary.

It wasn't as if he'd told me one or two stories. He was forever yarning to me, and probably when he told me this one he'd stressed detail, he'd told it over and over again to make me remember. Somehow I was sure of that now.

Maybe I'd been plain tired out by the story.

Maybe it hadn't seemed to have much point, but the fact was that he must have told me where the treasure was, and all I had to do was let my memory take me there.

Thing was, suppose it didn't come to me right off? I'd have to stay, and I'd need explanation for that. The fast drive we'd made would help. I could let on I didn't know much about cattle; and if anybody who talked cows to me did so more than a few minutes, they'd know I didn't know anything about them.

So I'd let on like I'd driven the legs off the cattle, to say nothing of our horses, and we were laying up alongside this water to recuperate.

That much decided, the next thing was to get my memory to operating. But the difficulty with a memory is that it doesn't always operate the way a body wants. Seems contrary as all get out, and when you want to remember a particular thing, that idea is shunted off to one side.

Rousting around, I got some sticks, some dead brush, and a few pieces of driftwood left from storms, and I made a fire. Then I put water on for coffee.

All of a sudden I felt my skin prickle, and I looked over at the dun. Tired as he was, he had his head up and his ears pricked. His nostrils were spreading and narrowing as he tried the air to see what it was out there.

That old Walch Navy was right there in my belt, and I eased it out a mite so's it was ready to hand.

Something was out there.

Me, I never was one to believe in ha'nts.

Not very much, that is. Fact is, I never believed in them at all, only passing a graveyard like--well, I always walked pretty fast and felt like something was closing in on me.

No, I don't believe in ha'nts, but this here was a coast where dead men lay. Why, the crew of the gold ship must have been forty, fifty men, and all of them dead and gone.

Something was sure enough out there. That line-back dun knew it and I knew it. Trouble was, he had the best idea of what it was, and he wasn't talking. He was just scenting the air and trying to figure out for sure. Whatever it was, he didn't like it--I could tell that much. And I didn't either.

I felt like reaching over and shaking Miguel awake, only he'd think I was spooked. And you know something? I was.

This here was country where folks didn't come of a night, if at any time. It was a wild, lonely place, and there was nothing to call them.

I taken out that Walch Navy and, gripping it solid, I held it right there in my lap with the firelight shining on it. And you can just bet I felt better.

Out there beyond the fire I suddenly heard the sand scrooch. You know how sand goes under foot sometimes. Kind of a crunch, yet not quite that.

Heard it plain as day, and I lifted that .36 and waited.

Quite a spell passed by, and all of a sudden the dun, who'd gone back to feeding, upped with his head again. Only this time he was looking off toward the trail from the north, and he was all perked up like something interesting was coming. Not like before.

He had his ears up and all of a sudden he whinnied--and sure enough, from out of the darkness there came another whinny. And then I heard the sound of a horse coming, and Miguel, he sat up.