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Monica, both the old town and the new, so I'd heard, took their water. It was
a long ride, and despite the fact that I kept moving right along, it was nigh
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to midnight before I got where I could hear the sea.
There was a ranch house on the bluff, about a half mile back from the sea,
but I was shy of folks and rode clear of it, although I was near enough that
their dog barked at me.
The stars were out and a fresh wind from off the sea felt good against my
face. Down at the end of the arroyo was a clump of trees, great big old
sycamores, and some brush, but there were too many squatters, to judge by the
campfires still going. So I turned north along the shore until I found another
canyon. Up that canyon about a quarter of a mile I found a clump of trees with
nobody around, and I rode in, unsaddled, and bedded down.
It was sure lucky that nobody followed me all the way out there, for I slept
like a hibernating bear until the sun found my face through the leaves.
My stock had made a good thing of it on the grass in the clearing, so I taken
my time getting around. My saddlebags were empty of grub, and after a bit I
saddled up and rode along the shore to the town.
After stabling my horses, I got me a room at the Santa Monica Hotel, and made
a dicker with the manager, a man name of Johnson, to take my gold off my hands
for cash money.
When he paid it over to me he gave me a sharp look and said, "You seem to be
a nice young man. If I were you I should be very careful, carrying that much
money. There are thieves hereabouts."
"You don't say!" I said with astonishment. "Well, thank you kindly. I shall
be wary of strangers."
They had a bath house there where folks came to take the baths, and it seemed
to me a good soaking couldn't but do me good. Whilst I was in the bath I laid
my saddlebags close by and my pistol belt atop them where I could lay hand on
the gun mighty easy. Several folks came by and looked at me and then at that
gun, and they fought shy of me. They were mostly older men, taking the baths
for their rheumatism.
After a good meal I walked around town a little, looking at the schoolhouse,
the churches, and the railroad, which had been built out there just a year or
so earlier. Some folks were saying this would be the biggest seaport on the
west coast ... at least, the biggest south of San Francisco.
A couple of times I went around to check my horses, and from the livery
stable door I studied the town to make sure that nobody was following me, or
that any of that Dyer outfit had showed up hunting me.
That night I slept, and slept well, in a hotel bed. I mean I just stretched
out and didn't mind it a whole lot when my feet pushed out below the covers. I
was sure enough in a bed, and nobody knew where I was. However, I slept with
those saddlebags under the covers with me, and a six-shooter too. You might
say I was not a trusting man.
Most folks can be trusted up to a point, but it always seemed to me the best
thing was not to put temptation in their way. Now that black-eyed witch girl
... she made a business of temptation. When she was around, temptation was
always in the way.
It was noontime when I showed up at that Mandrin ranch.
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The way I figured, they'd be expecting me at most any other time, and I'd
noticed that during dinnertime when they were inside eating, and right after
when they took their siesta, the place was quiet as death.
After I thought that word, I tried to unthink it. Death was riding at my
heels these days, and I didn't want to charm it to me by thinking of it.
When a man rides as much country as I have, he gets a feeling for it, and
wherever he rides, he looks around to get to know it. So it was that I knew
just how to come up to the ranch unseen, and I was in the ranch yard and
putting ropes on my mules before anybody came out of the house.
The one who appeared was a dark-eyed man wearing a white hat.
"Howdy," he said. "You'd be Tell Sackett."
"Seems like."
"You stirred a lot of talk yonder in the pueblo. Everybody's been wonderin'
what became of you."
"I'm a driftin' man, so I drifted."
He stood there trying to size me up, and as I roped my mules together for
better handling, I managed not to turn my back on him, nor to seem like I was
thinking of such a thing. With mules fidgeting around the way they do, that
was simple enough. All the time I was debating whether I should go inside and
say good-bye to the old man.
This man with the white hat had a hurt arm, and he limped a mite, too. There
was a cut on his face that might have come from broken glass. He looked like a
man who might have been thrown out of a window and rolled down a porch roof
before falling off into the street. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]