Louis LAmour - Lonely on the Mountain: The Sacketts Series, Book 19

Their story is the story of the American frontier, an unforgettable chronicle of young men and women who tamed a growing land, transforming a wilderness into a nation with their dreams and their courage.

Created by master storyteller Louis LAmour, the Sackett saga brings to life the spirit and struggles 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 epic tale of a clan whose stories left their indelible mark on a new world. And no one writes more powerfully about the frontier than Louis LAmour, who has walked and ridden the same trails as the Sackett family he has immortalized. The Sackett novels represent LAmour at his most entertaining and are one of the widely beloved achievements in a truly legendary career.

SACKETTS LAND circa 1600

TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS circa 16001620

THE WARRIORS PATH circa 1620s

JUBAL SACKETT circa 1620s

RIDE THE RIVER circa 1840s1850s (before Civil War)

THE DAYBREAKERS circa 18701872

LANDO circa 18731875

SACKETT circa 18741875

MOJAVE CROSSING circa 18751879

THE SACKETT BRAND circa 18751879

THE SKY-LINERS circa 18751879

THE LONELY MEN circa 18751879

MUSTANG MAN circa 18751879

GALLOWAY circa 18751879

TREASURE MOUNTAIN circa 18751879

RIDE THE DARK TRAIL circa 18751879

LONELY ON THE MOUNTAIN circa 18751879

Lonely on the Mountain is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

2010 Bantam Books Mass Market Edition

Copyright 1980 by Louis LAmour Enterprises, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ANTAM B OOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in paperback in the United States by Bantam Books in 1980.

eISBN: 978-0-553-89939-9

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

The story of Louis Riel and the Metis, barely touched upon in this book, is one of the most exciting in Canadian history. At the present time, I have a book in its development stages which will deal with this subject at greater length, and touch upon some other aspects of Western Canadian history.

Early travelers in Western Canada had much to say about the mosquitoes and these stories in this book are not exaggerated. David Thompson, Palliser, the Earl of Southesk, Butler, Traill, Kootenai Brown and many others told such stories as those repeated here.

Louis LAmour

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

Pa said that when I was a boy. There was a hot, dry wind moaning through the hot, dry trees, and we were scared of fire in the woods, knowing that if fire came, all we had would go.

We had crops in the ground, but thered been no rain for weeks. We were scrapin the bottom of the barrel for flour and drinkin coffee made from ground-up beans. Wed had our best cow die, and the rest was ganted up, sos you could count every rib.

Two years before, pa had set us to diggin a well. Pa? I asked. Why dig a well? Weve got the creek yonder and three flowin springs on the place. Its needless work.

He lifted his head, and he looked me right in the eye and said, Dig a well.

We dug a well.

We grumbled, but when pa said dig, you just naturally dug. And lucky it was, too.

For there came the time when the bed of the creek was dust and the springs that had always flowed werent flowin. We had water, though. We had water from a deep, cold well. We watered our stock, we watered our kitchen garden, and we had what was needful for drinkin because of that well.

Now, years later and far out on the grass prairie, I was remembering and wondering what I could do that I hadnt done.

No matter which way you looked between you and anywhere else, there was a thousand miles of grassand the Sioux.

The Sioux hadnt come upon us yet, but they were about, and every man-jack of us knew it. It could be they hadnt cut our sign yet, but cut it they would, and when they did, they would come for us.

We were seven men, including the Chinese cook, in no shape to fight off a bunch of Sioux warriors if they came upon us. Scattered around the cattle, wed be in no shape at all.

If it comes, I told them, center on me and well kill enough cattle for a fort and make a stand.

Have you seen that Dakota country? It varies some, but its likely to be flat or low, rolling hills, with here and there a slough. You dont find natural places to fort. The buffalo wallows offer the best chance if theres one handy. The trouble was, if the Sioux came upon us, it would be a spot of their choosing, not ours.

The buffalo-chip fire had burned down to a sullen red glow by the time Tyrel rode back into camp. He stripped the gear from his mount and carried his saddle up to the fire for a pillow. He took off his chaps, glancing over at me, knowing I was awake.

Theyre quiet, Tellhe spoke soft sos not to wake the others, who were needful of sleepbut every one of them is awake.

Theres something out there. Something or somebody.

This here is Injun country. Tyrel shucked his gun belt and placed it handy to his bed. He sat down to pull off his boots. We knew that before we started.

He went to the blackened, beat-up coffee pot and looked over at me. Toss me your cup.

Well, I wasnt sleeping, nohow. I sat up and took the coffee. It aint Injuns, I said. Least it doesnt feel like Injuns. This is something else. Weve been followed, Tyrel. You know that as well as me. Weve been followed for the last three or four days.

The coffee was strong enough to grow hair on a saddle. Tye? You recall the time pa wanted us to dig that well? He was always one to be ready for whatever might come. Not that he went around expecting trouble. He just wanted to be ready for whatever happened. For anything.

That was him, alright.

Tyrel, something tells me I forgot to dig my well. Theres something I should have done that Ive missed, something weve got to think of or plan for.

Tyrel, he just sipped his coffee, squatting there in his sock feet, feeling good to have his boots off. Dont know what it could be, Tyrel said. Weve got rifles all around and ammunition to fight a war. At Fort Garry, Orrin will pick up some Red River carts and a man or two. Hell load those carts with grub and such. He pushed his hat back, sweat-wet hair plastered against his forehead. The stock are fateleven hundred head of good beef, and weve gotten an early start.