Milo Talon by Louis L’Amour Page B

toward Pablo’s camp. As I rode I was puzzling over what I had learned, which was little enough.
    Somebody had followed and murdered the man I had found. He had been dragged, tortured, and left for dead. The dead man had once visited my home in Colorado, and he had been called Tut. There had been two men with him.
    Had their visit been a coincidence? Or had their visit to our ranch been a preliminary to what was happening now?
    How long ago had their visit been? Checking back along memory’s trail, I came up with the idea that it must have been at least a year and probably a year and a half ago. Something about the three men had arrested my attention. Or was it some comment Ma had made?
    Portis had been right. The situation was dangerous. The Magoffins had been poisoned, Tut had been killed. Certainly, men who had already killed would not hesitate to do so again. My hunch was that I had better walk carefully and that Pablo had better move his horse camp. I told him so.
    It was noon by the time I got back to his horse camp. He listened, and when I advised moving, he agreed.
    “Today,” I said, “now. I’ll help you.”
    He hesitated. “The patron. My boss. He will come soon to look for me.”
    “He’ll find you. I just want him to find you alive. This is a bad outfit.”
    He shrugged. “I have seen many bad outfit,
amigo
. I do not want trouble, but if they come—?”
    “They didn’t give him much chance,” I said.
    “You say you know this man? The dead one?”
    “I saw him once. Three men came to our ranch looking for land to buy. A place to settle.”
    “For such a little thing you remember very well.”
    “It was Ma, I think. I believe there was something about them she did not like. And when Ma didn’t like a man, she didn’t waste much time on him.”
    Pablo smiled. “Your Ma is Em Talon? I have heard of her.”
    “If my Ma,” I said grimly, “found a grizzly bear on her place she’d order him off. And you know something? He’d go.”
    “Tut?” Pablo spoke the word thoughtfully, as if trying to remember. “It is a name?”
    “I’ve heard of folks named Tutt, but this here’s more than likely a nickname, short for something else like Tuttle—”
    I stopped short and Pablo looked around at me. “What’s the matter?”
    “Humphrey Tuttle,” I said. “It was one of the names I got from Jefferson Henry. Humphrey Tuttle and Wade Hallett. They were tied to Newton Henry somehow.”
    “It is possible.”
    When we finished eating we bunched the horses, and with Pablo driving the wagon, we started them northwest, toward the hills. It might not keep him out of trouble but at least it was farther from what seemed to be the center of things, that water-tower and the town itself.
    “Near the mountains,” Pablo said, “there is a place. There are cottonwoods and a good spring with a large pool. Next week I was to have been there.”
    Every step was taking us higher, but it was a long, scarcely noticeable climb, and when we camped we had a good fifteen miles behind us and we had the stock on good grass and near a small stream.
    Several times I’d checked our back trail. There was no reason why anyone should follow Pablo and his horses nor why they should connect me with them unless I’d been seen talking to him in town. Even that should not make a difference, for over-the-beer conversations usually went no further. Nonetheless, I was in no mood to take chances.
    “We do not have need to sit up,” Pablo said. “My dogs will do that for us and the horses will not stray from such good grass and water.”
    “What of Indians?”
    He shrugged. “Perhaps. It has been a long time.”
    Nevertheless, I picketed my horse close by, and as I rested my head on my saddle, I tried to fix my thoughts on the situation.
    If Tut was Tuttle he had been prowling around these hills for a long time. Yet no longer than Jefferson Henry had been looking for his granddaughter. Obviously, they had some clue, yet why