We stood there facing each other in the street, two mighty big men, both of us armed, and both carrying the scars we'd picked up since we left Tennessee, and a few from before that.
"If he's a friend of yours, you just tell him to hand over my gold. I got no quarrel with him."
Nolan didn't even smile. "Don't be a fool, man! You came out of that alive, and you're damned lucky. Now let well enough alone."
"I'm going after my gold."
He looked disgusted and mad all to once.
"Look," he said irritably, "you're kin of mine, or I'd let you go your way and get killed. Dyer has forty men around him, and he himself is one of the most dangerous men alive."
"So he sends a man to knife me in the dark?"
Nolan had an odd look in his eyes.
"Believe me, Tell, that man never came from Dyer. Dyer just couldn't care less about you."
He shoved his hat back on his head, and there was a worried look in his eyes. "For a man who says he minds his own affairs, you can pick up trouble faster than anybody I ever did see.
You'd be right smart if you just climbed up on that stallion of yours and lit out for the high-up desert.
There's three or four passels of folks here just a-honin' to see you dead and buried."
"You tell Dyer to have my gold ready. You go right along and tell him."
"Damn it, if you come against him you'll be facing me. I'm with him."
"Like I say, I never drew iron on ary a Sackett, but if you stand between me and what's rightfully mine they can bury you along with Sandeman Dyer."
"There'll be forty men, damn you!"
"Seems to me Dyer can't be too sure of himself if he needs all that company. You go stand beside him, Nolan, and when they bury me they can dig the grave wide enough for the lot of us."
When he had gone I stood there on the street, staring off toward the hills. Maybe I was crazy. After all, why not get into the saddle and ride away? Most of that gold was my own ... and true, it represented my stake for the future.
It represented the cattle I wanted to buy to stock a ranch in Arizona. It represented a future for Ange and me, if future there was to be.
And those other folks who lost gold entrusted to me ... they could less afford to lose their gold than I could, although they would not lose near so much.
Nobody needed to tell me what I'd be going into, and I had no plan, no idea of what to do. Like I said, I never was much account at plotting or planning or working things out. All I know is to go bulling in and do whatever comes natural. Only thing I regretted was Nolan Sackett being there.
It went against me to fire on a Sackett of the blood. It would go hard to take lead from him, or to shoot him down where he stood. Even a Clinch Mountain Sackett was kin, and I wanted no shooting between us. Still, he had chosen his side, and now it was up to me.
Odd thing, the way a man is.
Trouble waited me there, I knew, maybe injury and death, but I turned around and started down the street, and headed right into x. Maybe I just didn't know any better.
Pausing on the corner, I taken out my six-shooter and spun the cylinder. She worked smooth and easy. A passerby gave me a sharp glance and hurried on past.
That man who took one look and hurried on was the smart one. He saw trouble and avoided it.
Only he didn't have all that gold awaiting him.
Tao's place was sure jumping. I mean, there were a lot of folks there, all of them gambling or drinking. By the time I reached the bar they had me spotted. Until that moment I'd have sworn I didn't know any but one or two of the men who had followed me out on the Mojave, but right away I recognized two of them here.
That black-eyed gunman was standing at the bar when I walked up to it, and he had a taunting, challenging sort of look to him that riled me. "You tell Dyer," I said, "that Tell Sackett is here, and wants to see him."
"He knows you're here."
Two men had walked over to a table near the door, where they sat down. Two other men strolled up to a card game and stood by, watching the play. A man playing at that table glanced around thoughtfully, then laid down his hand and cashed in his chips. He got up, kind of careless-like, and went out the door. He was a wise one ... he knew enough to get out before things busted wide open.
Nobody needed to tell me, after all, where to find Sandeman Dyer. The minute I saw him, I knew him.
He was sitting at a table in a little alcove, a man of less than medium height, with square shoulders, and a kind of angular face with high cheekbones. When a body first laid eyes on him it seemed that his face was out of kilter somehow, that maybe it was misshaped, but you couldn't find any one thing about it that was wrong by itself. It was just an impression you got.
He was smiling now, smiling easy and friendly.
And then I thought back to Shiloh, and I felt reason to worry, for when this man smiled he was dangerous indeed.
"Well, now, Sackett, it has been a long time. A very long time." And he held out his hand to me.
When I took it I knew how it would feel ... cold, and clammy. For I had shaken this man's hand before, and it meant no more now than it did then. He was a great one for shaking hands. I didn't make the mistake of forgetting his little tricks; only knowing Dyer, I knew it would not be now.
Sandeman Dyer--we called him Sandy then-- was a talker. He was a man with a love for the sound of his own voice. He was not only a talker, but a man who liked to parade what he knew, and he was almighty sure that he knew a whole lot more than anybody else. That easy smile of his, that easy laugh, they sort of covered the contempt he felt for anybody and everybody.
He was a bright man, all right, and a shrewd one. He was cunning like an animal ... it was a savage cunning ... but when the Good Lord put him together something went wrong. For he was a man without mercy, a man with cruelty so deeply ingrained in him that it was the most important part of his life. He was made up of cruelty and self-importance, I guess, in about equal amounts.
Yes, he loved to talk, to parade his smartness, but the trouble was he could stop talking awful sudden. ... He could break off in the middle of a sentence and kill you, or have you killed.
I'd seen it happen, for back there at Shiloh we were in the same outfit. The first time I saw it happen--the first time he shot an unarmed prisoner--I thought he'd gone wild from the pounding of the guns. Cruelty was a rare thing in the war. Fireside folks who talk about war and read about it, they figure it's cruel more often than not, but it simply isn't so. When you kill in war it is usually impersonal, except when you've seen a friend shot down, and then you strike back and hard ... if you can.
You kill in war because it is your job, and because you want to survive, and not because of any desire to kill. Cruelty takes time, and there is mighty little of that in war. But Sandy Dyer was a different kettle of fish.
The second time it was a major we'd captured, a handsome man of thirty-five, a gallant gentleman, who when trapped had surrendered. Come right down to it, he was my prisoner. That was what made me mad.
But when Dyer started talking to him nice and friendly like, I thought nothing of it. There were six of us there, and the prisoner. But mighty soon that talk of Dyer's began to take on a nasty edge I didn't care much for, and I said so. He paid me no mind.
"Got a family, Major?" Dyer asked, ever so gentle.
"Yes. I have a wife and two sons."
"Those boys, now. They in the army?"
"They are too young, sir. One is six and one is twelve."
"Ah ..." He looked up, innocent as a baby, and he looked right into t major's eyes and he said, "I wonder how many times your wife has been raped since this war started?"
It came so sudden we all sort of jumped, and three, four of us, we started to bust in. That major's face had gone white and he stepped forward and drew back his hand to strike, and Dyer stepped back out of reach and he said, "Major ... you ain't never going to know."