6

As I tied my horse to the corral with a slipknot, I kept an eye on the cabin.  Men of that stamp would surely have heard me come up, and right now they were undoubtedly sizing me up.

In those days no law ever rode into the Hole. Most law around the country didn’t even know where it was or just how to get in, and they’d find little to welcome them, although a few honest cattlemen like the Hoy outfit were already there.  Hitching my gun belt into a comfortable position, I walked up to the door.  As I came up on the rock slab that passed for a stoop the door opened suddenly and a Mexican was standing there. He wasn’t Herrara, not big enough or mean enough.

“Buenos dias, amigo,” I said, “is the coffee on?” He looked at me a moment, then stepped aside. There were three men in the cabin when I stepped in. I spotted Herrara at once, a tall, fierce-looking Mexican, not too dark. Sitting at the table with him was a white man who had obviously been drinking too much. He looked soft, not like a rider. There was another Mexican squatting on his heels in the corner.

“Passin’ through,” I commented, “figured you might have coffee.”

Nobody spoke for a minute; Herrara just stared at me, his black eyes unblinking.  Finally, the Anglo said, “There’s coffee, and some beans, if you’d like. May I help you?”

He went to the stove in the corner and picked up the pot, filling a cup for me.  Pulling back a chair, I sat down. The big white man brought me the coffee and a dish of beef and beans.

“Has Dutch Brannenburg been through?”

Herrara stared at me. “You ride for Dutch?”

I laughed. “Him an’ me don’t see eye to eye. I met him yonder and we had words.  He’s headed this way, hunting two horse thieves ... Anglos,” I added, “but he hangs whoever he finds.”

“He did not hang you,” Herrara said, still staring.  “I didn’t favor the idea. The situation being what it was, he figured he could wait.”

“The situation?” the Anglo asked.

“My Winchester was sort of headed his way. His motion was overruled, as they’d say in a court of law.”

“He is coming this way?”

“There’s nine of them,” I said, “and they size up like fighters.” For a minute or two nobody said anything, and then around a mouthful of beans and beef, I said, “They’ll come in from the north, I’m thinking. I didn’t find any tracks in the Limestone Ridge country.”

They all looked at me. “You came that way?”

I shrugged. “Joe,” I said, “I’d been in this Hole two, three times before you left South Pass City.”

He didn’t like that very much. Mexican Joe had killed a man or two over that way and they’d made it hot for him, so he’d pulled his stakes.  I’d come in there first as a long-geared apple-knocking youngster. I’d been swinging a hammer on the U.P. tracks and got into a shooting at the End of Track. The men I killed had friends and I had none but a few Irish trackworkers who weren’t gunfighters, so I pulled my freight “Are you on the dodge?” It was the Anglo who asked the question.  “Well,” I said, “there’s a posse from Nebraska that’s probably started back home by now. I came thisaway because I figured I’d see Isom Dart ... I wanted to sort of pass word down the trail.”