the Sky-Liners (1967) (22 page)

The road was rough. The stage bounced, jolted, and slid over it, and every time we slowed the dust settled over us in a thick cloud.

Both of us were thinking the same thing. Why hadn't Vaughn taken the train? It ran west as far as Alamosa now, and much of our route by train ran parallel to it. In fact, the stage line was going out of business soon. This made no sense ... Unless there was something that could be done on the stage that could not be done on the train.

La Veta lay ahead. Once, not long ago, it had been the end of the railroad tracks, and a wild, wild town. Now the end-of-the-line boys had moved to Alamosa, although a couple of dives still remains there. To most people in this part of the country it was still simply the Plaza.

The hunch came to me suddenly, and my elbow touched Galloway ever so gently. I had noticed that Reed Griffin did not seem to be really asleep, though his eyes remained closed. My eyes went to Vaughn. He was also shamming sleep. The Tennessee man beside me was unfastening a button on his coat. Sandy was completely awake. He was watching me with bright, hard eyes, and his hand stayed close to his pistol butt.

When we got to the Plaza we changed horses, and I noticed that the Tennessee man disappeared into the stable there. Shortly after he returned, a man came from the stable, mounted a horse, and rode off down the road along which we would soon travel.

The stage driver stood by with a cup of coffee in his hands, watching the teams being switched. Strolling over to him, I said, "You size up like an honest man."

"I am that," he said cooly, "so don't make any mistakes."

"I won't, but some others will. Mister, if you hear a shot or a Texas yell from inside the stage, you let those horses run, d' you hear?"

He gave me a quick look. "What do yon know?"

"I'm Flagan Sackett. That there's my brother. I think the Fetchen gang plan to take us, or kill us. And probably rob your stage in the process."

"Now I'm told. There's no law at the Plaza now."

"We'll handle it You just run the legs off that team."

"All right," he said.

Indicating the sandy man, I asked, "Do you know him?"

"El Paso to Denver, Durango to Tucson. That's all I know. My guess is that he's a Ranger, or has been one."

He walked back inside with his coffee cup and the Tennessee man strolled over and got into the stage. Vaughn and Griffin followed. The sandy man threw down his cigarette and rubbed it out with his toe. I took one step over so he had to come up close to me, and when he drew abreast I said, "Stay out of it. The trouble's ours."

He turned his eyes on me. "You're a Sackett, aren't you? That's why you are familiar. I rode with McNelly at Las Cuevas. Orlando Sackett was there. He was a good man. I won money on him once when he fought in the ring."

"They've set us up," I said. "Everybody in that stage but you and us is safe enough," I said. "They'll stop us on the grade, I think, near Muleshoe."

The stage rolled out again, and the climb before us was a long one. Gradually the team moved slower and slower. Taking my hat from my head, I lowered it into my lap, and as I did so I drew out my waistband gun and eased it down beside my leg and out of sight, then I put my hat on again.

We went on, climbing steeply. The men across from me appeared to sleep again.

The switchback was behind us, and the stage leveled out, then suddenly I heard the driver hauling on the lines, and I lifted my Colt and looked at the men across from me.

"Sit tight, if you want to live," I said.

Galloway had lunged against the Tennessee man and I saw him strip his gun from him. The Tennesseean started up, but Galloway laid the barrel of the gun alongside his skull and he fell across our knees. We pulled our legs back and let him go to the floor of the stage.

Vaughn and Griffin both started to complain, but I shut them up. "Unless you want a cracked skull," I said.

From outside we heard a familiar voice. "All right, pull up there!"

To the Texan I said, "You want to hold these boys for me? I've got some shooting to do."

"A pleasure!" he said, and meant it.

Catching the top of the door I drew myself out of the open window on my side, hesitated an instant, and dropped to the road on the balls of my feet.

Rafin walked up to the door of the stage on the other side. I could see his boots. "All right, boys," he said. 'Trot them out!"

Galloway shoved the door open, knocking him back, and leaped into the road. At the same moment I stepped around the back of the stage.

Russ Menard was the first man I saw. He was on his horse, and he had a gun resting easy in his hand. Galloway had hit the dirt and, dropping into a crouch by the wheel, was shooting into Rafin. I shot over him and my bullet crossed that of Menard, who had been taken by surprise.

He shot quickly, his bullet hitting the edge of the stage-door window, and mine knocked his shoulder. Stepping wide of the door, I shot at him again. I felt the whiff of a bullet and, turning slightly, I saw Black Fetchen taking dead aim at me.

The muzzle of his gun wasn't three feet from my head and I dived at him, going under his outstretched arm. My shoulder sent him crashing into the side of the stage. I pushed my gun against him and fired three blasting shots, and felt his body jerk with every one, then whip free.

Menard had held his fire for fear of hitting Black, but now he fired, the bullet striking my gun belt such a blow that I was knocked staggering, and it exploded a cartridge in my belt that cut a groove in my boot toe. His horse had turned sharply, and for an instant his gun couldn't bear. When it could, I was ready and shot first, Galloway's bullet crossing mine.

Menard went off his horse, hit ground on the other side, and tried to get up. He had been hit hard, but his eyes were blazing with a strange white light and his grip on his gun was steady. I shot into him again and he backed up and sat down again.

Somewhere off to my right I heard the stage driver saying, "Careful now, you with the itchy finger. This shotgun will cut you in two. Just stand fast."

Menard was sitting there looking at me, one knee sort of drawn up, his gun lying across his leg. He had been hit twice in the lungs and every time he drew breath there was a frothy burst of blood from the front of his vest.

"I told him he should leave you alone," he said, "but he wouldn't listen. I told him nobody could beat a man's luck, and you had it."

"So this is all for you," I said quietly.

"Looks like it. Pull my boots off, Sackett, and bury me deep. I don't want the varmints after me."

Not being a trusting man, I still held my gun on him while I tugged his boots free.

"You take the gun," he said. "It brought me nothing but trouble."

Galloway had come up to me. "Fetchen's dying," he said. "You tore him apart"

Taking Menard's gun, I backed off from him.

James Black Fetchen was not dying; he was dead, and there were two others besides him, one of them the man I'd seen at the stable.

The stage driver rolled his tobacco in his cheeks. "If you boys are through, we might as well bury 'em and get on. I got a schedule to keep."

At the placer-mining camp of Russell the stage pulled up and we got down. We took Reed Griffin and Fred Vaughn out on the street. "We agreed to see you safe to Durango. You had us set up for killing. Now, do you figure we've earned our money, or do we take you all the way?"

"You going to let us go?"

"Forty dollars each," I said, and he paid it.

"Ride out with the stage," I said, "and keep going."

So we let them go, the Texan riding along to see them on their way.

"Galloway," I said, "we'd better find some horses and ride back to that cabin on Pass Creek."

"You figure we should stay there?"

"Well, there's Judith. And that's pretty country."

"Hey, did you see that niece of Rodriguez' do the fandango? Every time I looked at her my knees got slacker'n dishwater."

We had come a far piece into a strange land, a trail lit by lonely campfires and by gunfire, and the wishing we did by day and by night. Now we rode back to plant roots in the land, and with luck, to leave sons to carry on a more peaceful life, in what we hoped would be a more peaceful world.

But whatever was to come, our sons would be Sacketts, and they would do what had to be done whenever the call would come.

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Qvadis

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