Lando (1962) by Louis - Sackett's 08 L'amour Page B

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