Sacketts 14 - Galloway Read online

  Galloway by Louis L'Amourrelease info

  Galloway

  by

  Louis L'Amour

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  About the Author

  Chapter I

  The old elk walked up the knoll where the long wind blew. The wolves followed.

  The elk realized what was happening, but he didn't know it was only a part of

  something that had been going on since life began.

  He didn't know that it was because of these wolves or their kindred that he had

  been strong, brave, and free-running all his past years. For it was the wolves

  who kept the elk herds in shape by weeding out the weak, the old, and the inept.

  Now his time had come, and the wolves were there. He no longer had the speed to

  outrun them nor the get-about to outfight them, and there were four wolves

  working as a team, not one of them weighing less than a hundred pounds and two

  of them nearly twice that.

  All he had going for him was his wisdom, and so far he was making a fair country

  try in getting himself to a place where he could make a stand. You could see,

  plain as the snow on the mountains yonder, that he was heading for the rocks

  where he could get his back to the wall.

  His trouble was that wolves, like Indians, are patient. They had hunted elk

  before, had seen all of this happen many times, and they knew they were going to

  get that elk.

  They didn't know about me. Coming up as I had, they'd caught no wind of me, nor

  could they guess it was my work they were doing. For I was figuring on having

  most of that elk myself.

  When a man has been on the run and hasn't had a bite in three days, he's ready

  to eat an elk—head, hoofs, and horns—all by himself. Trouble was, I'd no way of

  killing an elk ... or anything else, really, and if those wolves got the idea I

  was as bad off as I was they might take right in after me.

  A lobo is too smart to harry a man unless he's down and well-nigh helpless. They

  don't like the man smell, which always means trouble, but a wolf is born with a

  keen sense of something ready for the kill ... which I was. Up to a point, I

  was.

  My feet were raw and bloody, the flesh churned into a bloody mess by running

  over the broken rock, gravel, and stubble of the desert. My body was worn with

  hunger, thirst, and exhaustion to a point where I could scarcely walk. But there

  was that inside me, whatever it was that made me a man, that was a whole long

  way from being whipped.

  The wolves could smell blood, they could smell a festering wound, but could they

  smell the heart of a man? The nerve that was in him?

  That elk sprinted for the rocks and the wolves taken in after him, wary of his

  hoofs, shy of the vicious drive of those forefeet that could stab and cut a wolf

  to a cripple. The horns didn't worry them too much, but a wolf is a shrewd

  hunter and wants to lose no hide for his meal.

  My instinct is for mountains. The Sacketts of our branch were mountain people,

  hill folk from Tennessee, and when trouble showed it was our way to take to the

  hills again. At least until we got our second wind. That was why I pointed

  toward the mountains yonder. Ever since I'd got shut of those Jicarilla Apaches

  I'd been heading for the hills, but they hadn't left me much to go on. I was

  making no complaints. If they still had me by this time I'd be dead ... or

  wishing I was.

  Somebody back yonder stirred up a pack of trouble and those Apache warriors had

  taken off like somebody'd set their breechclouts afire, leaving me with the

  squaws.

  Now squaws are no bargain. They take to torturing with genuine pleasure. Thing

  was, when the warriors taken off they also took all the ponies in camp, so I

  just cut loose and started to run.

  The squaws came close to catching me, with my hands tied and all. But I was a

  long-legged man, barefooted and stark naked and knowing what would happen if

  they caught me. When the warriors returned they taken after me, too.

  By that time I was far off and had gotten my hands free, and was just beginning

  to run. All that day and into the night I ran ... maybe fifty miles ... but an

  Apache is like a hound on the trail. So they were back yonder coming after me,

  and if I didn't get something to eat I was a finished man.

  The elk had got the rock behind him and turned to fight, but for the time those

  wolves were just a-setting there, looking at him, their tongues hanging out.

  There was scattered cedar where I lay, and I kept my eyes open for a club,

  a-wishing all the time for Galloway to show up. But for all I knew he was miles

  away down in New Mexico.

  Worming my way along the ground, I got closer to the wolves. It wasn't going to

  do me a sight of good to come up on them until they'd made their kill. I was

  sorry for the elk, but it was no use. If this bunch didn't get him the next

  would.

  Sure enough, when I was still sixty, seventy yards away that elk turned too far

  after one wolf and another one slipped in behind and hamstrung him. The elk went

  down, making a game fight of it, but he had no chance. About that time I got to

  my knees, yelled, and threw a rock into their midst.

  You never seen the like. That rock lit close to one big wolf with a cropped ear

  and he jumped like he'd been hit. Maybe sand from the ground stung him. Anyway,

  they turned to stare at me, waving my arms and yelling.

  They backed up as I rose to my feet and started slowly toward them. I was

  holding two stones and I could fling passing well, so I let drive again and had

  the luck to hit one on the leg.

  He jumped and yelped, so I flung the other and they backed up, getting the smell

  of me now. If those wolves taken a notion I was in as bad shape as I was I'd

  have had no more chance than the elk, but wolves have always feared man and

  these were no exception.

  Just then I saw a dead cedar, limbs all spread like something had dropped in the

  middle of them. I picked up a branch longer than my arm and about as thick as my

  wrist and started on.

  The wolves taken off.

  They ran off a ways and I limped up to the elk. It was dead.

  The wolves stopped a hundred yards or so off and sat down to watch. They hadn't

  given up by a long shot, but there was a whole lot about me that troubled them.

  Naked as I was, I must have looked uncommonly white to them, and that was all

  wrong according to their notion of men. And they could smell the blood from my

  feet and maybe the festering that was there. One of the wolves had gone over

  where I'd been lying and was smelling around to see what his hillside newspaper

  would tell him. I could guess he was reading a lot out there that I wished he

  didn't know.

  Yet I had a good club in my hands, my back to a cliff, and meat enough to feed

  me into health again if I could get it cut up. I also needed that hide.

  The rock against which the elk had chosen to make his s
tand was about thirty

  feet high and sloped off another twelve feet or so that was mostly broken rock.

  Some of it was obsidian.

  I found myself a good chunk of the right length and began chipping away at it

  with another rock. I'd seen Indians make arrowheads and when a boy back in the

  mountains had sometimes made small hunting arrows for my own bow. The Cherokees

  we grew up around showed us how.

  What I wanted now was a knife, and I began chipping away. Those wolves weren't

  about to leave that much meat, but my chipping made them wary, as wild animals

  are of anything strange.

  After I'd worked awhile on the knife I picked up some dried wood and put it

  together where it would be handy. My knife was still not in the shape I wanted,

  but it had a cutting edge and with it I started skinning the elk. When I had

  peeled back enough of the hide I cut two pieces off and tied them around my feet

  with strips of the same hide. Even looking at the condition of my feet made my

  stomach turn over with fear, for they were bloody, torn, and shapeless. But the

  covering of wet hide made it easier to stand on them and using my club for a

  cane, I began to hobble around.

  The cliff where the elk had made his stand was a thirty foot dropoff at the end

  of a long, steep mountainside, and among the rocks at its base was all the junk

  that had fallen down the mountain. Plenty of dried wood, and a wide variety of

  rocks. What I hunted was iron pyrites, and I found several chunks and broke off

  two pieces to use in starting a fire.

  Beside the elk I made a small pile of shredded bark, crumbled dry leaves and

  slivers, and then I tried striking the two chunks of iron pyrites together. The

  sparks came easy, but it taken nearly an hour to get one into the shredded

  leaves and bark. Then I coaxed it, blowing gently to get a flame going.

  Once a tiny flame began I fed it carefully with more bark and then with some

  slivers of pitch pine until it was blazing nicely. When those flames leaped up

  and began to crackle I felt like morning on the first day. It was no time at all

  until I had a steak broiling on a stick propped over the fire. Then I went back

  to work on my knife.

  The wolves showed no mind to leave, and I didn't blame them, so I cut out a few

  chunks of meat I wasn't going to want and threw them out. They sniffed kind of

  cautious, then gobbled them up, but they looked surprised, too. Nobody had ever

  fed them before, seemed like.

  In the back of my thoughts there was knowledge of those Jicarillas. They'd be of

  no mind to give up, and my bloody feet had blazed a pretty easy trail for them.

  Keeping my fire alive I skinned out the rest of that elk, scraped some fat off

  the hide, and cut out the best chunks of meat. I broke off a couple of pieces of

  antler because it makes a good tool for chipping stone, then I bundled those

  cuts of meat into the elk hide, whilst ever and anon I tossed a bone or

  something to those wolves whose kill I had taken.

  I understood how they felt, for they had been hungry, too.

  My eyes kept straying to the country south of me, but I could see no movement,

  nothing. With Apaches your first look is often your last one.

  Putting out my fire, dropping the two pieces of iron pyrites into the hide along

  with the meat, I swung the hide over my shoulder and taking up my staff, I moved

  out. Following the face of the cliff, I started north. Behind me the wolves were

  snarling and tearing at the carcass.

  "Flagan Sackett," I said to myself, "you owe those wolves. You surely do."

  It was slow going. The meat and hide were a burden, and in spite of the elk skin

  on my feet it was all I could do to step on them. What I needed was a hideout, a

  place where I could rest up and let my feet heal ... if they would.

  The desert had run out behind me. Low green hills broken by jagged outcroppings

  and covered by clusters of aspens or scattered pines lay before and around me.

  Twice I followed the crests of ridges, hidden by the scattered trees, scouting

  the land as I went.

  It was a wild, lonely country with occasional streamers of snow in the shadows

  where the sun did not reach. The wind was cold off the mountains and I was a

  naked man with enemies behind me and nothing before me but hope.

  Once I lowered my pack to gather some snakeweed that I found in a hollow, and

  blessed my mountain boyhood where a body had to scrape and scrabble to live.

  When I could go no further I worked my way back into a willow clump where rising

  smoke would be scattered by the leaves and branches. Then I built a small fire

  of dry wood that gave almost no smoke, and made a vessel from bark. Dipping up

  some water from the creek I put it to boil on a stick suspended above the fire,

  and put some snakeweed into it. When the snakeweed had boiled for a time I

  bathed my feet with it, using a few handfuls of soft sage for a cloth. Meanwhile

  I broiled more meat.

  The day had ruined my crude moccasins so I staked out the hide, scraped it some

  more, and cut out another pair made a little better.

  After I'd eaten, during which time I moved my fire a few feet, I worked at my

  knife of obsidian, chipping away to get a good edge. I was clumsy. I'd seen

  Indians do it in a third of the time. Then I moved my fire again, scattered pine

  needles over the warm ground where the fire had been, and curled up there with

  the elk hide over me.

  Just a-wishing wouldn't take me there, but my thoughts kept drifting back to the

  mountain cabin where I was born, back nigh to Denney's Gap, in Tennessee. That

  old cabin had been mighty comfortable, poor as it was, but unless some squatter

  had moved into it the cabin was alone now, and empty.

  In the cold of dawn the birds were telling stories in the brush, and that spoke

  well of the neighborhood. As happy as they sounded it was unlikely there was

  anything hateful around.

  My feet were sore and the muscles of my calves ached from the awkward way I'd

  walked trying to spare my feet. I got up, but my first step hurt so that tears

  came to my eyes. I sat back down, scared to think of the trouble I was in.

  This was no place to stop. I had to start on again, no matter what. Suddenly the

  eye caught movement on the slope, and when I turned my head I saw the wolf.

  It was the one with the cropped ear, and he was watching me.

  Chapter II

  What had become of the others I did not know, but this one was there, and I

  remembered it well.

  "Howdy, boy!" I said, and taking up a scrap from near the fire, I threw it out

  toward him. He stood up then, started forward, then stopped. Turning my back on

  him I shouldered my pack, and taking my club in my hand, I started along the

  mountain.

  When I came out into the open I looked back down the mountain. Far below and far

  away I could see something moving ... several men.

  My throat kind of tightened up on me. They were still coming then, and that

  meant I hadn't a chance in the world. Not one.

  If they stayed on my trail they were sure to get me.

  The wolf had come up to where I had thrown the scrap of meat and was sniffing

  it.

  My trouble started wh
en Galloway and me decided to go to ranching. We wanted to

  find ourselves some fresh country not all cluttered up with folks. We wanted to

  settle somewhere in the mountains or with mountains close by, and we wanted land

  where there was grass and water.

  We had us a talk with Tell Sackett and old Cap Rountree, and both of them told

  us about the country around the Animas, Florida, and La Plata rivers. It seemed

  that it would be a good idea to take a ride out thataway and sort of prospect

  the country.

  Galloway had been helping Parmalee Sackett with a herd of cattle he'd bought in

  Arizona awhile back, so I decided to go ahead and scout the country my own self.

  It was as fine a ride as ever I had until I come up on those Apaches.

  They spotted me and they came in after me and I decided to show them some

  distance, so I swung my horse around and taken out of there. About the fourth

  jump my horse took, his hoof went into a gopher hole and he spilled us both. I

  came up with my eyes and ears full of sand, my rifle on the underside of the

  horse, which had a broken leg, and those Indians came sweeping down on me.

  There were too many of them to fight so I decided to try to face them. Indians

  are notional, and it just might be that no shooting and a brave face might

  change their way to favor me.

  So I just walked out to meet them, and when they showed up I cussed them out in

  Apache, as much of it as I knew, and told them that was no way to treat a

  friend.

  Well, it didn't work. They bound my hands and feet and taken me back to camp.

  They were all set to find out how tough a man I was, and they began it by

  stripping my clothes off and staking me out in the sun. They hung a water bag

  close to my head with water dripping from it drop by drop within inches of my

  mouth, but they'd give me none of it.

  The youngsters around camp and some of the squaws would come around and throw

  sand in my face or beat me with sticks, sometimes for a half hour at a time. An

  they got out of me was a lot of cussin', so they decided to try something really

  good.

  Whilst they were setting around the fire talking it over, I did some business on

  my own account. One of the youngsters had dropped his stick when he got tired of

  beating me and it lay across my chest. By humping myself up I slid it down