Sackett (1961) by Louis - Sackett's 09 L'amour Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Louis - Sackett's 09 L'amour
the thought of those six men and why they were riding after us worried me, and I could see Cap had it in mind.
We saddled up and got moving. During the ride west Cap Rountree, who had lived among Indians for years, told me more about them than I'd ever expected to know. This was Ute country, though the Comanches had intruded into some of it. A warlike tribe, they had been pushed out of the Black Hills by the Sioux and had come south, tying up with the still more warlike and bloody Kiowa. Cap said that the Kiowa had killed more whites than any other tribe.
At first the Utes and the Comanches, both of Shoshone ancestry, had got along all right. Later they split and were often at war. Before the white man came the Indians were continually at war with one another, except for the Iroquois in the East, who conquered an area bigger than the Roman empire and then made a peace that lasted more than a hundred years.
Cap and I rode through some of the wildest and most beautiful country under the sun, following the Rio Grande up higher and still higher into the mountains. It was hard to believe this was the same river along which I'd fought Comanches and outlaws in Texas--that we camped of a night beside water that would run into the Gulf one day.
Night after night our smoke lifted to the stars from country where we found no tracks. Still, cold, and aloof, the snow-capped peaks lifted above us. Cap, he was a changed man, gentler, somehow, and of a night he talked like he'd never done down below. And sometimes I opened up my Blackstone and read, smelling the smoke of aspen and cedar, smelling the pines, feeling the cold wind off the high snow.
It was like that until we came down Bear Creek into the canyon of the Vallecitos.
West of us rose up the high peaks of the Grenadier and Needle Mountains of the San Juan range. We pulled up by a stream that ran cold and swift from the mountains. Looking up at the peaks I wondered again: what was it up there that got the meat I left hanging in that tree?
Cap, he taken a pan and went down to the creek. In the late evening he washed it out and came back to the fire.
There were flecks of gold in the pan . . . we'd found color. Here we would stake our claim.
Chapter VII
We forted up for trouble.
Men most likely had been following us. Sooner or later they would find us, and we could not be sure of their intentions. Moreover, the temper of the Utes was never too certain a thing.
Riding up there, I'd had time for thinking. Where gold was found, men would come.
There would be trouble--we expected that--but there would be business too. The more I thought, the more it seemed to me that the man who had something to sell would be better off than a man who searched for gold.
We had made camp alongside a spring not far from the plunging stream that came down the mountainside and emptied into the Vallecitos. I was sure this was the stream I had followed into the high valley where my gold was. Our camp was on a long bench above the Vallecitos, with the mountainside rising steeply behind it and to the east. We were in a clump of scattered ponderosa pine and Douglas fir.
First, we shook out our loops and snaked some deadfall logs into spaces between the trees. Next we made a corral by cutting some lodgepole pine --the lodgepole pine grew mostly, it seemed, in areas that had been burned over--and laying the ends of the poles in tree forks or lashing them to trees with rawhide. It was hard work, but we both knew what needed to be done and there was little talk and no waste effort.
Short of sundown I walked out of the trees and along the bench. Looking north, we faced the widest spot we had so far seen in the canyon of the Vallecitos. It was a good mile north of our camp.
"That's where we'll build the town," I told Cap. He took his pipe out of his mouth. "Town?" "Where there's gold, there'll be folks. Where folks are, there's wanting. I figure we can set up store and supply those wants. Whether they find
We saddled up and got moving. During the ride west Cap Rountree, who had lived among Indians for years, told me more about them than I'd ever expected to know. This was Ute country, though the Comanches had intruded into some of it. A warlike tribe, they had been pushed out of the Black Hills by the Sioux and had come south, tying up with the still more warlike and bloody Kiowa. Cap said that the Kiowa had killed more whites than any other tribe.
At first the Utes and the Comanches, both of Shoshone ancestry, had got along all right. Later they split and were often at war. Before the white man came the Indians were continually at war with one another, except for the Iroquois in the East, who conquered an area bigger than the Roman empire and then made a peace that lasted more than a hundred years.
Cap and I rode through some of the wildest and most beautiful country under the sun, following the Rio Grande up higher and still higher into the mountains. It was hard to believe this was the same river along which I'd fought Comanches and outlaws in Texas--that we camped of a night beside water that would run into the Gulf one day.
Night after night our smoke lifted to the stars from country where we found no tracks. Still, cold, and aloof, the snow-capped peaks lifted above us. Cap, he was a changed man, gentler, somehow, and of a night he talked like he'd never done down below. And sometimes I opened up my Blackstone and read, smelling the smoke of aspen and cedar, smelling the pines, feeling the cold wind off the high snow.
It was like that until we came down Bear Creek into the canyon of the Vallecitos.
West of us rose up the high peaks of the Grenadier and Needle Mountains of the San Juan range. We pulled up by a stream that ran cold and swift from the mountains. Looking up at the peaks I wondered again: what was it up there that got the meat I left hanging in that tree?
Cap, he taken a pan and went down to the creek. In the late evening he washed it out and came back to the fire.
There were flecks of gold in the pan . . . we'd found color. Here we would stake our claim.
Chapter VII
We forted up for trouble.
Men most likely had been following us. Sooner or later they would find us, and we could not be sure of their intentions. Moreover, the temper of the Utes was never too certain a thing.
Riding up there, I'd had time for thinking. Where gold was found, men would come.
There would be trouble--we expected that--but there would be business too. The more I thought, the more it seemed to me that the man who had something to sell would be better off than a man who searched for gold.
We had made camp alongside a spring not far from the plunging stream that came down the mountainside and emptied into the Vallecitos. I was sure this was the stream I had followed into the high valley where my gold was. Our camp was on a long bench above the Vallecitos, with the mountainside rising steeply behind it and to the east. We were in a clump of scattered ponderosa pine and Douglas fir.
First, we shook out our loops and snaked some deadfall logs into spaces between the trees. Next we made a corral by cutting some lodgepole pine --the lodgepole pine grew mostly, it seemed, in areas that had been burned over--and laying the ends of the poles in tree forks or lashing them to trees with rawhide. It was hard work, but we both knew what needed to be done and there was little talk and no waste effort.
Short of sundown I walked out of the trees and along the bench. Looking north, we faced the widest spot we had so far seen in the canyon of the Vallecitos. It was a good mile north of our camp.
"That's where we'll build the town," I told Cap. He took his pipe out of his mouth. "Town?" "Where there's gold, there'll be folks. Where folks are, there's wanting. I figure we can set up store and supply those wants. Whether they find
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