Louis LAmour - The Sky-Liners: The Sacketts Series, Book 13

Contents

THE SACKETTS

T HEIR STORY IS the story of the American frontier, an unforgettable chronicle of the men and women who tamed a wilderness and built a nation with their dreams and their courage.

Created by master storyteller Louis LAmour, the Sackett saga brings to life the spirit and adventures of generations of pioneers. Fiercely independent and determined to face any and all challenges, they discovered their destiny in settling a great and wild land.

Each Sackett novel is a complete, exciting historical adventure. Read as a group, they tell the thrilling epic tale of a country unlike any the world has ever known. And no one writes more powerfully about the frontier than Louis LAmour, who has walked and ridden down the same trails as the Sackett family he has immortalized. The Sackett novels represent LAmour at his very best and are one of the greatest achievements of a truly legendary career.

T HE S ACKETTS

Sacketts Land

To the Far Blue Mountains

The Warriors Path

Jubal Sackett

Ride the River

The Daybreakers

The Courting of Griselda
(from the collection End of the Drive)

Lando

Sackett

Booty for a Badman
(from the collection War Party)

Mojave Crossing

The Sackett Brand

The Sky-Liners

The Lonely Men

Mustang Man

Galloway

Treasure Mountain

Ride the Dark Trail

Lonely on the Mountain

Chapter 1

E VERYBODY IN OUR part of the country knew of Black Fetchen, so folks just naturally stood aside when he rode into town with his kinfolk.

The Fetchen land lay up on Sinking Creek, and it wasnt often a Sackett got over that way, so we had no truck with one another. We heard talk of him and his doingshow hed killed a stranger over on Caneys Fork, and about a fair string of shootings and cuttings running back six or seven years.

He wasnt the only Fetchen whod worked up to trouble in that country, or down in the flat land, for that matter. It was a story told and retold how Black Fetchen rode down to Tazewell and taken some kin of his away from the law.

James Black Fetchen his name was, but all knew him as Black, because the name suited. He was a dark, handsome man with a bold, hard-shouldered way about him, as quick with his fists as with a gun. Those who rode with him, like Tory Fetchen and Colby Rafin, were the same sort.

Me and Galloway had business over in Tazewell or wed never have been around those parts, not that we feared Black Fetchen, or any man, but we were newly home from the western lands and when we went to Tazewell we went to pay off the last of Pas debts. Pa had bad luck several years running and owed honor debts we were bound to pay, so Galloway and me rode back from the buffalo plains to settle up.

We had taken off to the western lands two years before, me twenty-two then and him twenty-one. We worked the Santa Fe Trail with a freight outfit, and laid track for a railroad mountain spur, and finally went over the trail from Texas with a herd of steers. It wasnt until we went buffalo hunting that we made our stake.

About that time we heard some kinfolk of ours, name of William Tell Sackett, was herding up trouble down in the Mogollon, so we saddled up and lit out, because when a Sackett has trouble his kin is just bound to share it with him. So we rode down to help him clean things up.

This debt in Tazewell now was the last, and our last cent as well. After two years we were right back where we started, except that we had our rifles and hand guns, and a blanket or two. Wed sold our horses when we came back to Tennessee from the hunting grounds.

We walked across the mountain, and when we got to town we headed for the town pump. Once wed had a drink we started back across the street to settle our debt at the store that had given Pa credit when times were bad.

We were fairly out in the middle of the street when hoofs began to pound and a passel of folks a-horseback came charging up, all armed and loaded for feudin or bear-fightin.

Folks went high-tailing it for shelter when they saw those riders coming, but we were right out in the middle of the street and of no mind to run. They came a-tearing down upon us and one of them taken a cut at me with a quirt, yelling, Get outen the street!

Well, I just naturally reached up and grabbed a hold on that quirt, and most things I lay a hand to will move. He had a loop around his wrist and couldnt let go if he was a mind to, so I just jerked and he left that saddle a-flying and landed in the dust. The rest of them, they reined around, of a mind to see some fun.

That one who sat in the dust roosted there a speck, trying to figure what happened to him, and then he came off the ground with a whoop and laid at me with a fist.

Now, we Sacketts had always been handy at knuckle-and-skull fighting, but Galloway and me had put in a spell with Irish track-layers and freighting teamsters who did most of their fighting like that. When this stranger looped a swing at my face, I just naturally stepped inside and clobbered him with a short one.

I fetched him coming in on me, and his head snapped back as if youd laid the butt end of an axe against it. He went into the dust and about that time I heard Galloway saying, mild-like, Go ahead, if youre a mind to. Im takin bets I can empty four, five saddles before you get me.

Me, Id held my own rifle in my left hand this while, so I just flipped her up, my hand grasped the action, and I was ready. The two of us stood there facing the nine of them and it looked like blood on the ground.

Only nobody moved.

The big, handsome man who had been riding point for the outfit looked us over and said, Im Black Fetchen.

Galloway, he spoke over to me. Black Fetchen, he says. Flagan, are you sacred?

Dont seem to be, now that I think on it. But Ive been scared a time or two. Recall that Comanche out there on the short grass? There for a minute or two I figured he had me.

But you fetched him, Flagan. Now, what all do you figure we should do with this lot?

Well, he made his confession. He owned up fair and honest who he was. He never tried to lie out of it. You got to give credit to a man wholl confess like that.

MaybeGalloway was almighty seriousbut I think youre mistaken in this man. He owned up to the fact that he was Black Fetchen, but there wasnt the shame in him there should have been. I figure a man who can up and say Im Black Fetchen should feel shame. Might at least hang his head and scuff his toe a mite.

Black Fetchen had been growing madder by the minute. Ive had enough of this! By the!

Hold off, Black. That was Colby Rafin talking. I seen these two before, over nigh the Gap. These are Sacketts. I heard tell theyd come home from the buffalo range.

Now, we Sacketts have been feuding up and down the country with one outfit or another for nigh on to a hundred years, and nobody could say we hadnt marked up our share of scalps, but nobody could say that we hunted trouble.

When Rafin said that, we could just sort of see Black Fetchen settling down into his saddle. We werent just a pair of green mountain boys putting on a show. He was a brave man, but only a fool will chance a shot from a Winchester at forty feet. Knowing who we were, he now knew we would shoot, so he sat quiet and started to smile. Sorry, boys, but a joke is a joke. Weve come to town on business and want no trouble. Shall I say we apologize?