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San
Juans. Trouble coming or not, this was great country, a man's country.
The trail took a turn and I lost sight of them below. Alongside the trail
there
was a beautiful little patch of blue, like a chunk of the sky had floated
down
to rest on that frost-shattered rock and gravel beside the trail it was some
alpine forget-me-not. Down the steep slope where a fallen man or horse would
roll and tumble for seven or eight hundred feet, I could see the bright gold
of
avalanche lilies here and there.
The last few yards was a scramble, but Ap was a mountain horse and the
buckskin
seemed content to follow any place Ap would go. When we topped out on the rim
there was a view you wouldn't believe. Down below us was a huge basin, one
side
opening and spilling down into La Plata Canyon. There was another vast
glacial
gouge on my left, and ahead of me I could see the thread of that high, indent
trail winding its way across the country, a thin thread through the green of
the
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high grass that was flecked with wild flowers of every description.
All around were vast and tumbled mountains. I was twelve thousand feet above
sea
level. Far off to the north I could see the great shaft of the Lizard Head
and
get a glimpse of Engineer Mountain, and off to the east were the Needles,
White
Dome, Storm King, and what might be the Rio Grande Pyramid, near which the
Rio
Grande rises. It was the kind of view that leaves a man with a feeling of
magnificence, but there just ain't words to cover it.
Old Ap, he seemed happy on that high place, too, but he snorted a little when
I
started him down the thread of trail that led through the gravel and the
frost-shattered rocks on the inside of the cirque.
It was like going down the inside of a volcanic crater, only there was a
meadow
at the bottom and no fires.
The man lying under the spruce had been there since shortly after daylight.
He
had a Sharps rifle, one of the best long-range weapons there is, and he had a
natural rest across the top of a fallen tree. His view of the trail down the
inside of the rim was clear and perfect, and when he saw Tell Sackett top the
rim he was pleased. This was going to be the easiest hundred dollars he had
ever
earned and it surely beat punching cows.
He was a dead shot, a painstaking man with a natural affinity for weapons and
a
particular ease with rifles. He let Sackett come on, shortening the distance
for
him.
He picked his spot, a place where the steepness of the trail seemed to level
off
for a few feet. When Sackett reached there, he would take him. The range was
roughly four hundred yards possibly a bit over. He had killed elk at that
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distance, and kills had been scored with a Sharps at upwards of a thousand
yards.
He sighted, waited a little, then sighted again. About twenty yards now ...
he
settled himself into the dirt, firmed his position. Sackett was a salty
customer, it was said. Well, soon he'd be a salted customer.
He looked again, sighted on a spot below the shoulder and in a mite toward
the
chest, took a long breath, eased it out, and squeezed off his shot.
The best laid plans of mice and men often seem to be the toys of fate. The
marksman had figured on everything that could be figured. His distance, the
timing, the fact that the rider was at least a hundred and fifty feet higher
than himself. He was a good shot and he had thought of it all.
He had the rider dead in his sights, and a moment after the squeeze of the
trigger William Tell Sackett should have been bloody and dead on the trail.
The trouble was in the trail itself.
At some time in the not too distant past, nature had taken a hand in the
game,
and in a playful moment had trickled a small avalanche off the rim, down the
slope, and across the trail. In so doing it left a gouge in the trail that
was
about a foot deep.
As the marksman squeezed off his shot, the appaloosa stepped down into that
gully. The drop as well as the lurch in the saddle that followed was just
enough. The bullet intended for Tell's chest nicked the top of his ear.
The sting on my ear, the flash of the rifle, and the boom that followed
seemed
to come all at once, and whatever else pa taught us boys he taught us not to
set
up there and make a target of yourself.
Now it was a good hundred and fifty yards to the foot of the trail and every
yard of it was bare slope where I'd stand out like a whiskey nose at a
teetotalers' picnic. So I just never gave it a thought, there wasn't time for
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it. I just flung myself out of that saddle, latching onto my Winchester as I
kicked loose and let go. I hit that slope on my shoulder, like I'd planned,
rolled over and over, and came up at the base of the slope with my rifle
still
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