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is
a small thing we can do to comfort her."
She put her hand up to me and touched me gentle on the sleeves. "Tell? Do
ride
careful, now, and when you're back, will you come calling?"
"I will," I said. "I'll ride by and halloo the house."
"You'll get down and come in!" she flared.
"Dast I? Seems to me I recall ol' Jack Ben was some hand with the rock salt
when
the boys come a-courtin' around."
She flushed. "He never shot at you, did he? You don't look like you caught
much
salt, the way you set that saddle! If pa'd shot you, you'd still be ridin'
high
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in your stirrups!"
"I never came around," I said simply. "I didn't reckon there was much point
in
it." I blushed my ownself. "I never was much hand to court, Nell Trelawney, I
never quite got the feel of it. Now if it was somethin' I could catch with a
rope, I'd "
"Oh, go along with you!" She stepped back, looking up at me, disgusted maybe.
I
never was much hand at readin' the faces of womenfolks, nor understandin'
their
ways. I go at 'em too gentlelike, I suspect. Sometimes it's better to use the
rawhide manner.
Anyway, when I turned in the saddle she lifted a hand at me, and I got to
thinking maybe I should fetch up to her door when my way led down the
mountain
again.
The trail I wanted was best found riding out of Animas City, but I figured
there
was no point in showin' everybody what was on my mind, so instead of taking
off
up Junction Creek I went up Lightner Creek and found my way by game trails
over
to where Ruby Gulch opens into Junction.
It was mighty pretty country, forest and mountain and a trickle of water here
and there, some of them good-sized streams. I scrambled my horses up a slope
onto a point of the mountain that gave me a sight of country to see over. It
was
open a mite, there on the point, backed up with scattered aspen and then a
thick
stand that climbed up the point behind.
There was a place just back of the point where a big old spruce had been torn
up
by the wind. Where its roots pulled free of the soil there was a kind of
hollow
where the grass had begun to grow. In the grass where no trees grew, I
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picketed
the horses, stripped the gear from them, and went about putting together a
mite
of fire. The wood I chose was dry, and it burned with almost no smoke, and
after
I'd eaten I set on the point between two trees where the branches hung low
and
shadowed me.
For over an hour I just set there, a-listening to the evening. There was
sunlight on the mountain across from me, but it was high up, toward the crest
of
the ridge. There was stillness in the canyon below, and a marvelous coolness
coming up.
Somewhere an owl spoke his question to the evening, and the aspen leaves hung
as
still as you'll ever see them, for they move most of the time.
It was a mighty fine thing setting there getting the feel of the night, a
kind
of stillness like you never felt anywhere else but in the far-off wilderness.
There was no vanity here, nor greed, there was only a kind of quietness, and
the
thought came upon me that maybe this was how pa wanted to go, out on some
rocky
ledge with the whole world falling away before him, a gun in his hand, or a
knife the love of the world in his guts and the going out of it like an old
wolf
goes, teeth bared to his enemies.
I never was much to mind where my bones would lie once the good Lord had
taken
my soul. I had a feeling maybe I'd like to leave myself upon the mountains,
my
spirit free to lean against the wind.
Death never spent time in my thoughts, for where a man is there is no death,
and
when death is there a man is gone, or the image of him. Sometimes I think a
man
walks many lives like he does trails. I recall a man in a cow camp who was
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a-reading to us about some old battle the Greeks had fought a time long ago,
and
suddenly I was all asweat and my breath was coming hard, and I could feel a
knife turning in my guts.
The man looked at me and lowered the book and said, "I did not know I read so
well, Sackett."
"You read mighty well," I said. "It's like I was there."
"Maybe you were, Tell, maybe you were."
Well, I don't know about that, but the shadows came down the canyon and the
trees lost themselves in it, crowding all together until they were like one
big
darkness.
And then I heard in the darkness a faint chink of metal on stone.
So ... after all, I was not alone. Something, somebody was out there.
The butt of my gun felt cool in my fist. I did not draw my piece; I just sat
there, listening. There was no further sound, and, softly as a cat walks, I
went
from there and back to my camp.
My fire was down to coals.
I brought the horses in closer, picketing one on either side of me, and then
I
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