Lonely On the Mountain (1980) Read Free Page B

agree with the government on all things, but we elect
    d them, a majority of us did, and it's up to us to stand by them and their laws.
    "From all I hear handed down," he added, "that Yance was a wild one, and his get are the same.
    Those boys are rougher than a cob, but if you're in trouble, they'll come a runnin'. They'll build you a fire, lend you money, feed you, give you a drink from the jug, or he'p you fight your battles. Especially he'p you fight battles. Why, ain't one of them Clinch Mountain Sacketts wouldn't climb a tree to fight a bear.
    "Why, there was a man over at Tellico whupped one of them boys one time. Sure enough, come Saturday night, here was that Sackett again, and the feller whupped him again. An' ever' Saturday night, there was Sackett awaitin' on him, an' ever' time he whupped that Sackett, it got tougher to do. Finally, that feller just give up and stayed to home. He was afraid to show his face because Sackett would be waitin' on him.
    "Finally that feller from Tellico, he just taken out and left the country. Went down to the settlements and got hisself a job. He was a right big man, make two of Sackett, but it was years before he stopped jumpin' if you came up behind and spoke to him. "Made a mistake," he said after. "I should have let him whup me. Then I'd of had some peace. Wust thing a man can do is whup a Sackett. They'll dog you to your dyin' day."" That was the way it was. If one of us was in difficulties, Logan would come a-runnin', and the least we could do was go see what we could do.
    He said he needed beef cattle, so we'd take him beef cattle. I don't know what had him treed up yonder, but it must've been somethin' fierce, knowin' Logan.
    So we'd spent all we had, barrin' a few dollars in pocket, and we were headed into wild, rough country with eleven hundred head of steers.
    But it wasn't only that Logan was in trouble. It was because a Sackett had given his word.
    I hear tell that down in the towns some folks don't put much store in a man's word, but with us it was the beginning and the end. There were some poor folks up where we come from, but they weren't poor in the things that make a man.
    Through the long afternoon, we plodded steadily west, the blackened earth only a few hundred yards off on our right. The low gray clouds broke, and the sky cleared. The grass was changing, too.
    We rarely saw the tall bluestem that had grown further east. Now it appeared only in a few bottoms. There was a little bluestem, June grass and needle grass.
    Slowly, the herd was gettin' trail broke.
    Once in a while, some old mossyhorn steer would make a break to go home, and we'd have to cut him back into the herd, but generally they were holdin' steady. A rangy old brindle steer had taken the lead and held it. He was mean as a badger with his tail in a trap and would fight anything that argued with him, so mostly nobody did.
    Cap rode back to me just about sundown as we were rounding the stock into a hollow near a slough.
    "Tell," he said, "better come an' have a look whilst it's light." He led the way to the far side of the slough, and we studied the ground. The grass was pressed down here and there, the remains of a fire and the tracks of two travois.
    "Six or seven, I'd say," Cap said, "but you're better at this than me." Well, I took a look around. "Six or seven," I agreed. "Maybe eight. One of them travois leaves a deep trail, and I figure they've got a wounded man on it.
    "They've had them a fight," I said, "and that's odd because there's at least two women along. It's no war party." "There's a papoose, too," Cap said.
    "If you look yonder by that rock, you'll see where they leaned his cradle board." I indicated a dirty piece of cloth lying in the trampled-down grass. It was very bloody.
    "Somebody is hurt," I said. "Probably the man on the travois." Squatting, I sat on my heels and looked over the place where they'd camped and the ashes left from their fire. "Yesterday," I said, "maybe the day