THE PROVING TRAIL
Louis L'Amour
Bantam paperback edition/January 1979
The Louis L'Amour Collection / April 1984
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Copyright ©1978 by Louis L'Amour Enterprises, Inc.
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1
 THE PROVING TRAIL
2
 ,ilene"" ' i '
S
..
CENTRAL GREAT PLAINS
D
Butte
SPANISH PEAKS
Contour interval
500 feet
Miles 5 10 1
-.M--O -by -A-an McKnight
3
 CHAPTER I
11 winter long I held them cattle up on the plateau whilst pa ,collected my wages
down to town. Come first grass I taken |em cattle down to Dingleberry's and I told
old Ding what he tdd do with them, that I had my fill of playin' nursemaid to a nnch
of cows.
lie made quite a fuss, sayin' as how pa had hired me out to im and I'd no choice,
being' a boy not yet eighteen. So I told him if he figured I'd no choice, just to
watch the tail ad of my horse because I was fetchin' out of there. I knew pa as down
to town gamblin', workin' with my money as his e, but pa was a no-account gambler,
generally speakin', and uldn't seem to put a winnin' hand together.
Nonetheless he might have enough put by to give me a road "the, and I could make
do with five dollars, if he had it. Only when I rode into town pa was dead. He was
not only cad, he was buried, and they'd put a marker on his grave.
It taken the wind out of me. I just sort of backed off an' set own. Pa, he was no
more than forty, seemed like, and a man , fair health for somebody who spent most
of his time over a ard table.
There was a lot of strangers in town, but one man who nowed me and who'd knowed pa,
too, he told me, "Was I you d git straddle of that bronc an' light a shuck. Ain't
nothin' ound town for you no more, with your pa dead."
1
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4
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Louis L'AMOUR
"How'd he die? It don't make no sense-him dyin' right off, like that."
"That's the way folks usually die, son. Everybody knows he's goin' to die sometime,
but nobody really expects to. You light out, son. I hear tell they're hirin' men
for work in the mines
out in the western part of the Territory."
"How'd he die?" I persisted.
"Well, seems like he killed hisself. I never did see the body, mind. But Judge Blazer,
he seen it. He shot hisself. Lost money, I reckon. You know he was always gamblin'."
"Hell," I said, disgusted, "he'd not kill himself for that! He'd done been losin'
money all his life! That man could lose more money than you'd ever see."
"You take my advice, boy, an' you light out. There's some mighty rough folks in this
town an' they won't take to no wet-eared boy nosin' around."
That couldn't make no sense to me, because I'd been around rough folks all my life.
We never had nothin', our family didn't, scrabblin' around for whatever it was we
could find after ma died an' Pistol--that's my brother--taken off. It just left me
an' pa, an' we'd gone from one cow camp or minin' camp to another. Now pa was dead
an' I was alone.
Pa wasn't much account, I guess, as men went, but he was pa, and a kindly man most
of the time. We'd never had much to say to one another but hello or good-bye or how
much money was I holdin'? Nonetheless, he was pa an' I loved him, although that was
a word we'd have been shamed to use.
Pistol, he was my half brother, ten year older'n me, an' he'd taken off a long time
back, six or seven years back. Pa kind of hinted that Pistol had taken off along
the outlaw trail but I never did think so. Pistol always seemed the kind to ride
them straight up the middle.
The Bon Ton was down the street, and I was surely hard up for grub. I'd been so long
without eatin', my belly was beginning to think my throat was cut, so I bellied up
to a table in the Bon Ton and ordered, thankin' my stars a body could still get him
a good meal for two bits.
Until I set down there, I'd had no chance to give much thought to pa. We'd sort of
taken one another for granted, or so it had seemed to me. Now all of a sudden he
was gone and there was a great big hole in my life and an emptiness inside
me.
Nothing had ever seemed to go right for pa. A couple of
5
 THE PROVING TRAIL
3
we had ourselves a little two-by-twice outfit, but the first time it was get run
off or fight, an' ma didn't want us to fight so we pulled out. Then the Comanches
run us off the next place, .stealin' our horses and cows an' leavin' us with a burned-up
.mgon and no stock. Next time pa was about to make out, ma
;took sick, and it needed all pa had just for doctor's bills and After that pa took
to gamblin' reg'lar and it was all bad and slow horses.
fan at the next table was talkin'. "Never seen such a thing,"
sayin', "not in all my born days. When they raised him last time, he'd taken out
a six-shooter an' there for a minute
knew what was going to happen. Then he put that gun in the middle of the table. 'Ought
to be worth twenty
he says, "and I raise you twenty.'
:. "Two of them stayed, and when the showdown came he was
a full house. Well, sir, that started it! You never seen iike! The cards began runnin'
his way and it seemed he
do anything wrong! If they could have gotten the
into the game, he'd have owned the Territory! I tell
he must have won eight, maybe ten thousand dollars!" The waitress brought me beef
and beans and filled my coffee
She was a pretty redhead with freckles, and when she
over to pour my coffee, I looked up at her and she
"You be careful! You be real careful!'"
that mean?" I said. "I never said a word."
don't mean that. Was I you, I'd fork that roan of yours and right out of town and
never even look back. If'n I was you,
never see me for the dust."
"Why? What have I done? I ain't been to town for months,
no sooner do I ride in than folks start tellin' me I should
better," she warned, and walked away.
Well, I drank some coffee and it tasted mighty good. Then I
to work on the beef and beans, half-hearin' the talk at the table about that card
game. "It was that six-shooter did it.
been losin' steady until he staked that six-shooter with
handle and the little red birds inlaid into the pearl. I
I just stopped chewin'. I set there for a full minute
I leaned over to that man and said, "Sounds real pretty. you say red birds in a pearl
handle?"
"That's right! Talk about lucky! That gun worked a charm! ,
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
Soon's he put up that gun his luck changed an' there was no stoppin' him."
"Medium-sized man, with a mustache?"
"Had him a mustache, all right, but he was a tall, thin galoot. Wore one of those
Prince Albert coats, a black frock coat, y'know." He peered at me. "D'you know him?"
"The gun sounds familiar. I got an eye for guns, and a man wouldn't be likely to
forget anything like that."
"He sure was lucky! Won him maybe nine, ten thousand dollars! More'n that, he won
the deed to some big cattle outfit up north. He seemed to make all the wrong moves,
yet he kept pullin' down the high cards."
The other man at the table looked around. "Only reason he didn't win all the money
in the world was because those other fellers didn't have it. He just won all they
did have. I seen it."
They went back to talkin' amongst themselves, and I finished what was before me.
Meanwhile I did some thinkin'. Now, I'm not quick to think. I act fast but I consider
slow. I like to contemplate a subject, turnin' it on the spit of my mind until I
have seen all sides of it. This here shaped up like plain, old-fashioned trouble.
I was right sorry for pa. I'd be sorrier later on, for things never hit me all of
a sudden. Yet maybe I shouldn't be sorry for him, because pa died right at the peak
of the greatest run of luck he'd ever had.
He died winners, and not many gamblers could say that. Certainly nobody expected
pa to beat the game, but he had. if he had come off that run of luck alive, he'd
have lost it all had he continued to gamble. So he passed out a winner.
Shot through the skull, though. Now how come that? Whose was the bullet? What finger
squeezed off that shot? Now I could see why folks were suggesting I get away while
I could. They didn't want too many bodies clutterin' up the town, and me being' his
son and all . . .
I walked across the street to Judge Blazer's. He was not only a judge but the coroner
as well.
He was a-settin' up there on the porch of that ho-tel, tipped back in a chair smokin'
a big seegar. He seen me comin' and squinted his eyes to make me out.
I promise you I didn't look like Sunday meetin' time. I'd been all winter up in the
mountains, and it was almighty cold up there. I was wearin' all the clothes I owned,
and I'd made a hole in a blanket for a poncho.
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
5
"Judge Blazer," I said, "you buried my pa. I've come for his belongin's."
I-Ie just set there. Then he taken the seegar from his lips. "Now, now, son, you
now your pa never had nothing. He was never much account at anything at all, and
all he done for the trust year was gamble. We done buried him our own selves, mad
he had just three dollars and six bits on him when he i imssed on. He had him a gold
watch and his six-shooters. One
was in his hand, the other was on the bureau." He hitched himself around in his chair.
"You're welcome to 'em."
. He got up and went through the door ahead of me. He was a hig man, and fat, but
folks said he was almighty strong, that little of what looked like fat was really
fat. I never cottoned to
much, but had he known he'd not have cared. Who was I a youngster still wet behind
the ears? He thought.
In his oce he waved at a table. There was a rolltop desk, a iron safe, a brass spittoon,
and there was this table. There one of pa's guns in the holster with his gun belt.
The other
lay free on the table. Pa's old black hat was there, too.
I,... Judge Blazer taken three dollars and six bits from a drawer put it down along
with a gold watch. "There you be, boy. he'p yourself an' run along. I got business
to attend to."
I taken up that gun belt an' strapped her on. She down natural-like against my leg.
Then I pocketed the
and the money and swapped my beat-up old hat for pa's
one. Then I spun the cylinder on that second gun, and it fully loaded. Pa was always
careful with his guns. He kept
first-rate.
.: She was working and she was ready.
"Judge?" I was holdin' right to that six-shooter, kind of
but ready. "Seems to me you're being' forgetful. I
a man like you, with business and all, could forget." iI-Ie turned around slow and
he stared hard at me. He looked
me to the gun, then back at me. Maybe I was only
but pa an' me had cut the mustard in a lot of mean He didn't look no different than
a lot of others we'd
"Forget what?" he asked.
"All that money. Pa had him some winnin' hands that last
He won a lot of cash money and he won property, and I see any of it on that table."
"Now, now, son! You've been misinformed. I think---" "Mister Judge," I said, keeping
my voice quiet-like, "this
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 6
LouIs L'AMOUR
here gun don't have so much patience. Could get right hasty, in fact. Now, if you'd
like, I can round up twenty, maybe thirty witnesses who saw that game. There's a
lot of strangers in town, Judge, and they ain't afeered of you, an' many of them
seen what happened last night. The whole town's talkin'. You hold out one penny on
a poor orphant boy who's just lost his pa an' I think those boys would be huntin'
theirselves a rope. Now I can guess why o1' Dingleberry was so upset about me pullin'
my freight. You'd likely told him to keep me busy up yonder until all this sort of
blowed over."
He didn't like it. No man likes to give up that kind of money
to what he figures is a no-account boy. That was probably more money than the judge
hisself had seen all to one time, and he was in no mood to let loose of it. On the
other hand, there I
stood with a six-shooter and maybe I was trigger-happy.
"You pull that trigger, boy, an' you'll hang for sure."
"I don't know anybody got hung for shootin' a thief," I said.
His face flushed up red and angry. His eyes got real mean.
"Now, you look here!"
Me, I just tilted that gun a mite. "All you got to do to prove
me wrong is hand over that money and those deeds. If you want to go to court about
it, we can arrange to hold it yonder in the saloon where pa won the money."
He didn't like any part of it, but he didn't want to hear what
a jury of rough-and-ready western men would say, either. They believed in fair play
and most of them had seen the game.
Reluctantly he dropped to one knee in front of the safe, and
I moved right behind him. Maybe I looked green, but not so green that I didn't know
some folks kept a six-shooter in their safe to watch the money.
Sure enough, I seen one. As he reached his hand for it, I
said, "Judge, when your hand comes out of that safe, it better have nothing in it
but money. You lay hold of that gun and you still have to turn around to shoot. I
don't."
He got up, very careful, holding the money in his two hands.
He placed it on the table in front of me, and I told him to back
off, easy-like.
"Son," he said, "I wasn't holdin' out on you. I meant to take
care of this money for you until you come of age. Fact is"---and I'd bet the idea
just occurred to him--'Tve been fixin' to get myself appointed your guardian by the
court." He smiled like a cat lickin' cream. "A young boy with all that there money,
he
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
7
needs advice. I figure to send you off to school to get you some eddication."
"You ain't my guardian or likely to be," I said.
"On the contrary." He was pleased with himself now. "I'll draw up the papers. Appoint
myself your guardian. I'll take that money an' invest it for you."
"Pull in your horns, Judge. You made your play an' you've come up empty. Just give
me that deed."
' "'Ain't worth the paper it's writ on," Blazer protested.
"Just hand it over," I insisted, and he done so. He didn't like it, but he could
see my thumb was holdin' back the hammer, and if I was so much as nudged that gun
would tear a hole in
big enough to drive a Conestoga wagon through. Backing to the door, I stepped into
the street, pulled the
the tie rope, and stepped into the saddle. That roan
tired. He was plumb beat, but he sensed I was in trouble he taken out of there like
a scared rabbit.
was a road into town and there was a road out of town, it stood to reason I had to
take one or the other, so I took
I took the trail to my cow camp, which I figured would the last place they'd look.
place, nobody rightly knew where it was but me, and
was no need to pass Dingleberry's place in gettin' there, there'd be nobody to report
my passing. That cow camp had
for the roan for some time, so he taken the trail at a gait. Twice I glanced back.
Nobody was in sight.
They'd study on it and Blazer would figure it out, but not
they had wasted time on other trails, and by that time I
it would be too late.
Only I'd better hurry. If it came on to snow before I got off
mountain--and there could be heavy snows up yonder--I'd
trouble.
If a man got snowed in up there at this time of year, he
never get off. It was slide country and all the trails in or were subject to snowslides.
The year had been an open one with little snow. Cold as it
the grass was good, cured on the stem, and the cattle had well. I'd kept alert, ready
to move them fast if need be, there were some valleys close by that offered shelter.
In
country a man got out fast or he was stuck. That had been right for me, as I'd had
plenty of grub stashed up there and
close to hand. Trouble was that during the winter I'd used most of the grub and the
fuel as well.
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
The wind blew cold off the peaks and the trickles of melt had stopped flowing, which
meant it was freezing on top. The roan, tired as he was, stepped faster. From where
the trail topped out, four or five miles shy of the high grass, I turned in my saddle
to look back.
Nothing in sight, nothing at all. But I knew they were back there, and I knew they
were coming.
How much money I had I didn't know, but it was aplenty and Blazer figured to have
that money. He wouldn't be coming alone. He'd have however many he figured he needed,
no matter what reason he gave them. He was a judge, probably no more than a justice
of the peace, I thought. Still, he knew more about the law than me and he might be
able to get himself appointed my guardian. He could even appoint himself and make
a good story of how I was a wild kid who needed taking care of. Meanwhile he'd have
his use of, and the spending of, my money.
When I saw, far ahead, the dark shadow of the cabin, it was already coming on to
snow. I pulled up, although the roan wanted to go on in. I sat in my saddle taking
a long look at my hole card, and it didn't shape up to very much.
How did I know nobody knew of that place but me? Wasn't I taking a lot for granted?
That gold money rested heavy in my saddlebags and so did the paper. The gold might
be just too much weight, going off the mountain in the deep snow. Besides, if they
got me I didn't want them to profit by it.
It was then I thought of the cache.
11
 CHAPTER II
was a crack in the rock, that was all, hidden in a niche of
,the wall. It was a crack not over six inches wide and maybe feet deep about ten
feet off the ground. I'd found it a handy to cache a bite of lunch, time to time,
or some extra and coffee in case the cabin burned down whilst I with the cattle.
cabin was still a good two miles off, although I could see of black blotch where
it stood. Swinging the bronc over the niche, I stood up in my stirrups and put the
gold away in that crack and then the bills and replaced 'the rock that the crack.
hundred dollars in paper money I kept. I hid five under the sweatband of my hat,
another five in a slit belt, and the last five I wadded into a tight ball in the
of my holster. That last made my gun ride a little high, thong would still slip over
it, although a snug fit. I was on using my waist gun if I had to use any.
I headed for the cabin, circling a little to come up on back side through the aspen.
Back there about fifty yards the cabin and down over a little aspen- and spruce-covered
there was another cabin. This one was built mighty strong square-cut logs and was
warmer than the stable near the I led the roan into it and dished out some corn I
kept for cold spells.
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Louis L'AMOUR
Then I started for the cabin. There was a side of bacon there, some beans, flour,
salt, sugar, and coffee. There was also some dried apples and odds and ends of grub.
I had me a feeling I was going to need it.
This here was springtime, but in the high country it wasn't a dependable thing. I'd
seen the spring come with flowers and all, and then off the mountains come a storm
and there'd be another ten to fifty days of winter.
The high mountain pasture which we called the plateau was actually no such thing,
but rather a series of high mountain valleys above timberline or right at it, where
grew the richest of grass. Most winters they were free of snow, and warmer than some
lower-down country due to what pa called a local weather pattern--winds off the desert,
I guess.
Pa had known about this place and he had gone to Dingleberry with the suggestion
that he'd graze a few hundred head of Big D cattle in the high country and I'd see
to them, for so much a head and wages for me.
How pa found this place or heard of it I never did know. He had never been given
to talk. I was just beginning to realize how little pa had told me about himself,
his early life, or his family. I'd not paid it much mind because pa was always there
to ask in case I wanted to know, but now he was gone. His death not only left me
alone but it cut me off from whatever past there was, and whatever family we might
have had somewhere.
When I got to the cabin, all was quiet and I went in. It was ice-cold, so I taken
the time to put a fire together. Then with the flames crackling, I went to putting
grub into a burlap sack. I worked fast, all the time thinking maybe I should just
spend the night where I was instead of heading out across that mountain country in
the cold and the dark.
I packed my sack of grub down and tied it behind the saddle, still thinking I should
unsaddle and give us both a rest. The roan was tuckered and so was I, but I recalled
the mean look in Blazer's eye and I knowed he'd be comin' after me, cold or no. Be
a long time before he had a chance at that much cash money again.
There was a small paper sack with some .44s in it lyin' on the floor in the cabin,
and I decided I'd better take them with me, so I walked back to the cabin and pushed
open the door.
Something loomed in front of me, big as a grizzly, it seemed, and my hand went for
my gun, but then I remembered I'd
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
11
hung the gun belt over the saddle horn and the spare gun with
it whilst I was working around.
What hit me was a fist, but it felt like the butt end of an axe.
I staggered, and something fetched me a clout from behind, knocking me through the
door into the lighted cabin. I sprawled on the floor, my head buzzing, but I wasn't
let lay. A big hand
grabbed the scruff of my neck and flung me into a chair.
"Where is it, kid? Where's the money?"
Dazed, I looked up at Judge Blazer. There were three other
men in the cabin. The only one I knew by sight was Tobin Wacker, a teamster who drove
freight wagons and was said to be the meanest man anywhere around. He was a brawler
and a bully, outweighed me by fifty pounds, and he was three, four i inches taller.
I don't know why they had the other two, be with
Wacker they surely didn't need anybody else.
Blazer grabbed me by the shirtfront and half-lifted me out of
chair. "Where is it? Where'd you hide that money you stole
me?"
"It was took," I lied. "I figured it was you."
"Took?" He stared at me.
"'Two fellers with guns. They taken the money and told me
get gone. That if they ever seen me around town they'd
my head off. One of them had a shotgun."
"You expect me to swallow that?" Blazer had a mighty un look to him, and I was scared.
All the same I had
enough to know that once they had that money, I was
They'd never leave me alive to protest or make trouble
them.
:"I figured you sent 'em," I said. "They taken everything. My
my horse . . . they cleaned me out."
Blazer's voice got real quiet--"you're a liar, and I
you're a liar. You can tell us where it is or we'll beat it
"Look," I said, "I don't know--"
He hit me in the mouth. I tasted blood and came off that and that Wacker, he just
grabbed me, grabbed my arms Blazer went to work on me. He slugged me in the belly,
kneed me in the face when I bent over. He straightened
up and slapped me back and forth across the face until my
rung like a bell. Then he stepped back and kicked me in
groin, and they dropped me on the floor.
They set down then, and one of them added fuel to the fire.
cold," he commented.
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 12
Louis L'AMOUR
Wacker, he kicked me in the ribs. "Better tell us, boy," he said. "We got all night."
"Maybe you got all spring," I said, spluttering it out between split lips.
Blazer stared at me. "We have. We got all spring. We can beat you until you tell
us, so make it easier on yourself."
He surely didn't take my meaning, and it didn't look like he knew what could happen
up this high. Down yonder at town it was warm in the daytime, the flowers were out,
and the trees budded. I mean, it was sure enough springtime down yonder, but that
didn't hold up here in these hills.
"Make some coffee," he said to one of the others. He looked down at me. "Where's
the coffee?"
"I taken it all down when I quit," I said. "Wasn't much left, anyway."
"I got some," this gent said, and he opened the door to go out. A gust of wind and
snow come in the door.
"Would you look at that," Blazer said. "Snow!"
I was beginning to really hurt. Felt like I'd got myself a busted rib. I tried to
sit up, but it hurt so I lay back down. My head was beginning to clear up, but my
face was sore and my head ached. And now I was gettin' mad. I was feelin' almighty
mean toward those men. I tried again to sit up, and Wacker, he just reached out and
kicked me in the face. Lucky I jerked back and he missed my chin, but the rough sole
of his boot taken the hide off my cheek.
"You set still, boy. You tell us an' we'll leave you be. You don't tell us an' we
just keep on beatin'. It's gonna be a long night for you."
"'The longest," I muttered through split lips. "Maybe your longest."
The man at the fire turned halfway around and looked at me. "What's that mean?"
"Listen to the wind," I said.
Blazer glanced at me. "Wind? What about it?"
"Snow," I said, "lots of snow. I've seen it when these late snows come so's a man
couldn't get out for six, eight weeks. I hope you boys brought plenty of grub or
fat horses. You'll need it."
The man at the fire looked at Blazer. "Is that right?'"
"He's lyin'. This is springtime." Nevertheless he looked uneasy. "This is April."
15
 THE PROVING TRAIL
13
"I seen it so's you couldn't get in or out before June," I said. "You boys say good-bye
to your womenfolks?"
He backhanded me across the mouth. "Shut your trap!" he said.
After a minute I said, "Man a few year ago started across the mountains with some
trappers. Come spring he showed up in mighty g, ood shape. They backtracked him and
found he'd killed an eaten all the others. They call that place Cannibal Plateau
now.
The coffee was ready. "Heard about that," Wacker said. "It
enough happened."
"Lucky you boys have Blazer," I said. "He's good an' fat. He'll--"
kicked me. Then he got up on his feet and stomped on fingers. He kicked me again
in the belly, and I felt a stab of
He jerked me up by the shirtfront and punched me in wind again. "Where's that money?"
he said.
" I muttered. "That money was stole. An' it must've you who murdered pa."
. He dropped me like I was too hot to hold. Then he stepped
and kicked me in the ribs. I was turned half over, and he
me in the kidneys three, four times. I didn't say anything. My face was against the
floor, and the cold was coming up
the cracks, but all I could feel was pain. I hurt like I'd hurt before.
"'I better put the horses up," one of those men said. "That's a
g wind."
"Get at it, then," Blazer said irritably. "Come morning we'll
out."
I laughed. I didn't feel much like laughing, but I done it.
went out and I lay there. They had two cups and they turns at the coffee. All of
a sudden the door slammed
with a blast of cold air, and amid considerable cussing got the door closed.
I "I got the horses in," the man said. He was a sour-faced man
a scar on his jaw. "Judge? He may be tellin' the truth. don't have no horse."
"They taken my horse, too," I said.
"Hell, he's a-lyin'," Wacker said irritably. "Come morning
find the horse and the money, too."
"By morning"---I fumbled at the words with swollen, bloody
be snowed in, the pass closed for maybe six, eight
16
 14
LOUIS L'AMOUR
weeks. An' don't think about game. There's none up this high, this time of year."
"And by morning," Judge Blazer added, "we will either have the money or you will
be hammered to a pulp. We've only begun, you know. If you wish to survive at all,
you will tell us."
I looked down at my hands. My eyes were swollen almost shut, my head was thick with
pain, and the hands I saw through the slits left to me were mangled beyond belief.
Yet I would not talk. If I told them, I would die. As long as I did not tell them,
I had a chance.
Suddenly, without warning, Wacker kicked me in the kidney. Agony shot through me
and I gasped. Blazer struck me again across the face.
"And now you'll die." I formed the words, made the sounds, clumsy as they were. "The
passes will be closed soon, and there will be no getting out."
"Suppose he's right?" one of the other men said suddenly. "I don't like it, Blazer.
Those passes are almighty narrow, and the snow's a-fallin' fast out there."
Wacker walked to the window and peered out. For the first time he seemed uneasy.
"Aw, that's a lot of crap!" he said irritably. He walked back to the bunk and sat
down. The wind moaned around the eaves, and suddenly he got up and went again to
the window. He could see nothing, I knew. It was all dark and still.
I had seen the flakes that had blown into the room. They were thick and white now,
and that kind of snow would pile up fast. They wouldn't get out, but neither would
I. Except . . . except that I had an idea of another way out.
Maybe. I'd never tried it. An old Indian had come up that way and told me about it
over the meal I'd fixed for him.
Could I find it in the dark and the snow? Could I find it even without them? He had
not been very explicit, but Indians rarely were.
Blazer got up and went to the door. He peered out, then shouldered into his coat
and went outside. When he came back, his manner had changed. "Dick," he said, glancing
over at the man who'd made the coffee, "go saddle up. We're riding
out."
"What about him?" Wacker asked.
"He'll tell us before we go. We're through fooling around." Dick went out the door.
Three of them left. I tried to grin
17
 THE PROVING TRAIL
15
my bloody, broken lips. "He'll lose them horses in the You'll die here."
picked me up and I struck at him. My fist caught his and it must have hurt because
he kneed me in the then began that ponderous slapping of my face, each my skull.
The man was strong. Very strong.
began hitting me, slowly, methodically, steadily. I made effort to fight back. I
had strength. I had some reserve, and been waiting. My time would come.
I took the blows. He smashed a fist into my belly, struck me the ear, slapped me
until my head rang. me have him," Wacker said. "I can make him talk." the room my
eyes caught a bloody image in the cracked over the washbasin, a bloody caricature
of something had been human. That was me.
what you're of a mind to," Blazer said, arm-weary from on me. "Just keep him alive
until he talks. He's got money."
his story is straight?" the other man said. "He just have been robbed. Somebody might
have known where money was. Sure it is that nigh ever'body knew his old won it."
wouldn't buy that. Without his belief that I had the he had nothing. He was wasting
his time and he did t want that at all.
I heard a crunch from the doorway. Dick was coming back. had dropped into a chair
near the fire. Wacker pushed off at arm's length. He was a cruel man and much stronger
Blazer. He'd kill me. Dick fumbled with the latch, and I lunged.
a quick step forward, my left palm came up under elbow, my right came down hard on
his wrist. There a snap of bone, and Wacker screamed. I shoved him hard Blazer, and
both of them tumbled toward the fire. Then I myself at the door.
was coming in, had just opened the door when my hit it, knocking him sprawling in
the snow with me astride of him. I scrambled to get up, smashing my knee his chin
in the process, and then I was rolling over and in the snow.
fought myself to my feet. Instinctively I went for the Behind me I heard a shout,
cries of pain, and cursing. I and fell, crawled madly toward the trees, sprawled
18
 16
LouIs L'AMOUR
again, and got hold of a tree and pushed myself and pulled myself up.
For a moment, groggy and hurt, I leaned against the tree, my breath coming in rasping
gasps, each one like a knife grinding against bone.
I tried to look around, but my eyes were swollen almost shut. I made it to another
tree, then another. I fell, sliding down the tree into the snow. Yet I knew from
a lessening of the wind that I was in the aspens. I struggled on.
My horse! They had not found my horse. If I could only... I fell again and again.
Now the snow was blowing in a howling blizzard. I did not think. I fell, striking
my side and sending a spasm of pain through me. I had a broken rib, maybe more than
one. From the feel of my nose, that was broken, too.
Scooping up a handful of snow, I wiped it across my battered features. Then grasping
the slim trunk of a tree, I pulled myself erect again.
Somehow my sense of direction remained with me. The cabin was on my right rear now.
The small shelter where I'd left the roan was ahead of me, lower down . . . twenty
yards?
Fighting to keep my feet, I worked my way across the slope from tree to tree. Suddenly
it was there, Then I was inside, and the roan nickered a welcome.
I fell flat, but managed to push the door shut. The room was cold, but secure . .
. secure.
For how long? They would search. They would find me. I had to get away. Could I find
my way across the valley? Down its long length? How far? Two miles? Less.
Once in the broken country beyond, there would be some shelter from the wind.
I leaned against the horse and tightened the cinch. Then I opened the door and crawled
into the saddle. Ducking my head low, I urged the roan out into the storm.
He must have known I was in a bad way, for surprisingly he did not resist.
Out into the storm, up into the aspens, out between the grove and the house. I could
vaguely hear them shouting inside. I walked the horse past and pointed him down the
valley, and the poor beast trusted me.
Here where the wind blew, the snow could not drift. Here we could canter, and we
did. Out across the empty land,
19
 ,
THE PROVING TRAIL
17
toward a crack in the rock that I only hoped I could find, or he
i Behind us, death. Before us, freezing cold, miles of hard riding. possibly a chance.
Turning briefly, I looked back. I could see a faint glow in the
drkness through the snow. The window.
From my scabbard I fumbled my Winchester. With frozen, numbed fingers I steadied
the rifle, and then I fired three fast shots through that window.
Shoving the rifle down into the scabbard, "I rode on into the
night and the snow. At least I had left them a defiance. I had thrown them a gesture.
Whatever else they knew, they knew I was not defeated.
And now, the storm...
20
 CHAPTER II1
I
t was cold, bitter, bitter cold. I had to find the opening of that Indian trail,
and it was narrow, scarcely to be seen even in the best of weather, but the roan
and I had been down that trail several times for short distances. Would he know now
where I was going?
The wind was directly in my face, and to catch a breath I had to hold my head down,
try to get my mouth and chin behind the edge of my coat. The snow was growing deep,
even out here on the fiat. Several times the roan stumbled. He was dog-tired, I knew,
and in no shape for such a trip as this.
The wind was like a wall of iron, cold, cold iron against which we pushed and pushed.
Suddenly the roan slipped and almost fell. He scrambled, regained his feet, and stood
trembling. Then I remembered. Just to the right of that opening there was a sort
of gentle slope where the ground fell off several feet in a gradual slant. Was it
there? Was that why the roan had slipped?
Taking a chance, I pulled his head over and urged him forward. He took a tentative
step, then another. Liking the level ground, he went on, and suddenly something black
loomed beside us and I knew it was the big spruce. I urged him in close to it and
swung down.
Every bone in my body ached, every muscle was bruised and sore. I was in no shape
to walk, yet I must save the roan. We needed each other, that horse and me, if we
were to
18
21
THE PROVING TRAIL
19
at all. From here I thought I could follow the trail, for
wound down along through the trees and rocks, narrow,
but possible.
Leading the roan, I walked on, stamping my feet from time . time to shake off the
numbness from the cold. We could not :on like this. Somewhere, somehow, we had to
find shelter. overhanging cliff, a wind-hollowed cave, some fallen trees-- We had
to find shelter and we had to have a fire.
I peered into the storm, turning my head slowly, to find something, anything. And
there was only the the staggered ranks of the spruce, and the howling wind lashed
the trees like a gigantic whip. We pushed on and
I paused, trying to judge the distance we had come finding the trail--if this was
it. A quarter of a mile? A half More... probably a little more. My brain seemed dull.
slowly, but I fought desperately to remember. Had been a place in the part of the
trail I knew, any place that shelter? A riding man in wild country naturally looks
things, but I could remember nothing.
started on. I walked and walked. Then suddenly I slipped. feet shot from under me,
and I fell heavily. For a moment t there, ready to quit. The roan nudged me with
his nose, me to get up. I put my hands down to push myself up. My hands were on ice.
That was why I had slipped... under the snow. I struggled erect and stood there,
my humped against the wind. Ice meant water. This be the stream the old Indian had
mentioned. The stream flowed from a cave.
o,ave ?
turned left up the mountain and walked gingerly on the
. holding to the bed of the small stream. We walked on, the
following meekly enough. The wind seemed to ease . . .
that my imagination? We plodded on, one step at a The wind was easing off.., or else
we were in the lee of
.. something.
longer was I a thinking, reasoning being. The cold was
my brain as well as my feet and legs. Enough of
left to tell me that either we found shelter quickly would both die.
slipped, almost fell. This time I gathered myself together
slowly. I took a step on. The ice was tilting ahead of me :. or was tilted. It was
a slope, a steep place in the drop of
22
 20
Louis L'AMOUR
the stream. Working myself to the right, I tried to find an opening in the thick
brush along the bank. It was a wall, stiff, frozen branches, closely intertwined.
We climbed, and this time the roan slipped and fell.
It was all both of us could do to get him back on his feet. I stood gasping with
effort, pain stabbing my side. Something was black before me. There seemed a break
in the wall of brush. I went into the narrow opening, pulling the horse after me.
Suddenly we were out of the wind. I put my gloved hand to my face. It was stiff and
cold.
There was a path or opening. I followed along, and suddenly the cave was there, a
black opening. I went in, leading the roan.
It was dark and still. I peered around, seeing nothing. My hands were numb, feeling
like thick clubs. I beat them against each other, against my legs, then tucked them
into my armpits. Numb with cold, I began to move, stiffly, slowly, sweeping the snow
from the saddle, from the roan's back.
I must move and keep moving. My eyes slowly were adjusting to the darkness, and I
could see I was in a room no more than twenty feet in diameter, off which seemed
to run at least two dark passages. There was scattered wood on the floor, left from
campfires of the past. Overhead there was an opening, a sort of crack through which
smoke could find a way out.
When I stamped my feet, it was like they were made of wood, yet stamp them I did.
Working very slowly, I got a few sticks together, but my hands were too clumsy to
hold a match. What I needed was simply to keep moving, and here, out of the chilling
wind, I might slowly recover the warmth my body needed.
Fumbling with the cinch, I succeeded in loosening it and swinging the saddle off
the roan. With a quick smash of the saddle blanket against the rock wall, I cleared
it of most of the accumulated snow and ice, and began to wipe the roan, rubbing warmth
back into it, and at the same time into myself.
It was a long time, for my movements were clumsy from the cold, but slowly my own
blood began to flow more freely. Kneeling down, I gathered some slivers together,
a few pine cones and some sticks from a pack rat's nest. With infinite care I put
together some dried leaves and part of the stuff of the nest itself. Then I struck
a match. It had long been a matter of boyish pride that I could start a fire with
but one match. Fortunately, it worked for me now.
23
 THE PROVING TRAIL
21
The flame caught, blazed up, licked hungrily at the long dry
I added fuel, extending my still-cold hands to the warmth. As the light grew, I peered
around to see what kind of place had come to. There was a considerable pile of fuel
stacked the walls, and an old tin bucket, several Indian pots, a dipper, and some
odds and ends of rope harness. Indians no doubt, had been using this cave.
At the door I scooped up a bucket of snow and put it near fire to melt and warm up.
When the water was warm, I it to the roan, who drank long and gratefully. With my
which I had in my gear, I made coffee.
the water was coming to a boil, I wiped my Winches and my pistols also.
I looked at the twin six-shooters. They were but hard up as he had often been, pa
had never with them. For the first time I found myself curious that.
Why would pa, the least violent of men, have carried guns? He never wore them both
in public, and I had never him draw a gun except to clean it.
on me then that I actually knew very little about ,. father. Little? Did I actually
know anything? t the dark and lonely cave, with the storm howling outside the bitter
cold, I crouched by my fire with its light flicker on the walls and thought of my
father, that strange and man.
I knew now that he had been lonely. Only now did little come back to be remembered--the
clumsy ways he had show affection, and the lost man he had become when
never talked of her. Whenever I mentioned her, he got left the room, or turned from
me. I know now it was he liked to think she was not dead, that she was just somewhere
and would soon be back.
remembered him as he was, in his threadbare frock coat its worn velvet collar. Even
when shabby, he had something about him. Yet why did I know so little? Was there
reason for being secretive? Or was he just not given to of his family? If there was
a family.
he was born, why he had come west, or where he ma, I never knew, nor had I given
thought to it until now. sitting in our room at the hotel, he had read some
24
 22
LOUIS L'AMOUR
thing in the paper that irritated him. He slammed it down and with a sudden anger
that was so unlike him he said, "Son, get an education! Whatever you do, get an education!"
It was cold. I went to the door of the cave, into which the
wind whipped from time to time, and peered out. I could see nothing. That we were
back from the faint trail we had followed, I knew, but how far back? And when the
storm ended, would we be visible?
Again I checked the guns.
From the pile of wood I took a fair-sized log and added it to
the fire. It was almost warm in the cave now. At least we would
not freeze.
What would happen back there? Would they try to get out?
Or would they be trapped in the old cabin? There was a little food left, how much
I did not know, but a little. There was not enough to last one man even a week, let
alone several men, and some of them would die.
Between the cave wall and the fire, I made my bed and lay
down upon it, my guns beside me. Hands clasped behind my head, I returned again to
the thoughts of my father. I hadn't spent much time with him, not as much as I could
have. There'd been a couple of times when he seemed to want to talk, but I was in
no mood for listening. I'd been rude at times, and it shamed me to recall it. He
had wanted to tell me something, I think, but I'd been only a youngster and full
of myself and not anxious to hear a lot of talk about the past or his boyhood. Because
of that I'd missed learning what he might have told me.
Dozing on the bed, I suddenly recalled ma's voice saying,
"Why don't you go back? Or is there some reason why you cannot?"
If he made a reply to that, I did not hear it. Only her words,
"I am not thinking of us, only of you."
"It is too late," he said then. "It would not be the same."
And then, after a minute or two, "I dare not ... I must not start that all over again.
It is better that they never know."
I was very young then, and the words meant nothing. Just grown-up talk. But why did
I not forget the words? Why did I remember them now?
Pa was gone now. He was dead.
Yet he had not killed himself. For one thing I knew about
25
 THE PROVING TRAIL
23
wasn't a quitter. Until the end, fail as he might, he be in there trying.
That started me thinking about his gambling. When ma was
he had never gambled. Come to think of it, he had not jnbled until just the last
two or three years.
One night I'd seen him throw down a deck of cards in
"Td just as soon never see a card again!" he said
"Why don't you quit playing if you don't like it?" I asked
lie stood there for a minute looking at nothing and then he
"It's the only way. It's the only chance now. Just one good
That's all I ask!"
the time I did not believe him. Now I began to wonder.
bits and pieces of things began to come back to me as I there in the half-warmth
of the cave.
was gone. Pa never seemed to want anything. I mean he not much for spending money,
even when we had it. All of
the answer was there. He wanted it for me.
up on my bed and put a stick into the fire, and then
Of course! Why else did he want it? I remembered a times when he looked at me wearing
that old blanketof mine, and my boots with the heels almost wore off, beat-up old
hat.
it," he said once, "I wish---"
never finished what he was going to say. He just taken
and left, and that night he lost the thirty-odd dollars we between us.
morning I made six dollars breaking horses at fifty cents
I got tossed a couple of times, but I rode them. When
don't eat unless you ride, you ride. It's simple as that. One time when I was sick,
he stayed up night after night
for me. I was eleven then, or twelve. I just taken it for
and never really thought of his health. Only time I much of that was when I come
in the room one time pa was washing. It was the first time in all the years I saw
with his shirt off, and I saw those two bullet wounds low
on his left side.
made some comment, but he brushed it off and changed subject. I kept after him, so
he finally said, "I got shot one
It doesn't matter."
there, I tried to piece it all together but I came up
26
 24
LouIs L'AMOUR
with nothing, and it began to irk me. Who was pa, anyway? Why couldn't he go back?
And if he could have, where would he have gone to?
By that time I'd warmed up some, and I went to the cave opening and stepped outside
into the shelter of a corner of the cliff. The snow was swirling out there, falling
fast and blowing just as much. If they were in trouble back at the cabin, I was in
trouble out here. Any time you get caught ten thousand feet up in a heavy snow, you're
in trouble, and I was. Outside there was a deadfall, a tree that had toppled over
close to the cave, and I tried to drag it inside, but it was frozen to the ground.
I broke off a big branch, though, and it cracked like a pistol shot.
I got that branch inside, then some slabs of bark and other fuel lyin' about. It
would help a little, when the ice melted off it.
It was a long, long night. Every few minutes I'd have to wake up and add fuel to
the fire, and on a cold, windy night a fire can eat up a lot of wood. Fortunately,
there was a good bit stored inside.
Come dawn I awakened stiff with cold and my fire down to gray ashes. After a bit
I got it going again and built it up good and warm.
I went to the cave mouth to size up the situation. Everything was white and still.
The wind had died down, but it was cold, real cold. It must've been thirty below
or better, and it didn't look like it was going to get better fast. Furthermore,
if they came looking, they would find me. I had to have the fire to keep from freezing,
and they'd smell the smoke if they got anywhere close.
For a long time I stood shivering, studying the layout before me. There was an Indian
village down off the mountain somewhere, and the trail should take me there, but
an Indian trail in the mountains can take a body into some almighty scary places,
and somewhere there might be a lot of ice. Yet when I thought of what food I had,
the fuel that was left, I decided I .had to chance it.
The snow crunched underfoot when I went back inside. I added a couple of sticks to
the fire and then I saddled up. The roan didn't offer any arguments, so I guess he
didn't take to that dark old cave no more than I did. About an hour after daybreak
we rode out of the cave and taken the trail to wherever we were going.
27
 THE PROVING TRAIL
25
We walked a spell, then trotted to warm up a mite, and then off and walked to keep
warm. I had pa's watch and I to keep going at least four hours, and then see where
we were. Meanwhile, I'd keep an eye out for another camp, as ilhad no idea how long
the roan could take it... or me.
i We dipped down into the spruce, ragged, windblown trees !.that grew shaggier and
shaggier. The snow was knee-deep, and some of the canyons off the trail it looked
to be twenty, thirty feet deep. But the trail led down, circling among trees, rounding
boulders dropped off the rtdge.
i When I'd been riding or walking for four hours, we just anywhere. I saw no tracks
of man or beast, and my feet like clumps of ice again.
: Once again the trail led upward, and I found myself riding a great tilted slab
of rock covered with snow. From I came upon it to as far as I could see in the low
clouds shrouded the peaks, there was at least three miles of
expanse. Nowhere was there a track of man or animal. lonely wind prowled above the
snow with eerie, threaten, whispers. In the vast silence even the roan seemed uneasy,
I was glad when I glimpsed a way off into the forested below, yet I held back, looking
doubtfully at the steep that would take us down the first fifty feet or so. But the
tugged at the bit, so I let him have his head and he went into the notch and down
the slide without hesitation.
we were in a thick, dark stand of spruce, a place of silence. We crunched along,
but here, too, I saw no Animals were simply not stirring, and of course the bear
marmot were both hibernating, although there was no about a bear. He might wake up,
be hungry, and go on even in the deepest winter.
nightfall I found a corner of a cliff that gave us a break the wind. I found a slab
of rock that I could tilt up to as a reflector for my fire, and I got the roan in
close to wall, then built a fire.
was wood aplenty as there is apt to be in high moun country where wind and frost
wreak havoc with trees. It
night, but come daylight we were on our way again, then all of a sudden the trees
petered out and there we facing a trail one horse wide, covered with snow and ice
under it. Down below, in a deep, wide valley, I see a thin trail of smoke. So there
were folks down there,
28
 26
LOUIS L'AMOUR
of some kind, there was warmth, probably food. And we had to use that trail to get
there.
It was unbroken snow. What lay under it a body could not guess, but we were going
to have to go that way, and one stirrup would be hanging out in space with maybe
two thousand feet of open air under it.
I tell you I swallowed a couple of times. I looked at the trail and felt the cold
sweat start. The roan seemed edgy but willing. He started for the trail, tossed his
head a couple of times, then
with ears pricked he started forward.
"Boy," I said, "if you slip-!"
He taken a step, then another. My boot scraped the side of the cliff, the other hung
out in space. The roan walked on and headed for a bend around which we could not
see. One thing I knew, that horse had to keep going. He couldn't back very well on
that narrow path, and it was a cinch I couldn't get off unless over his. hindquarters,
which I wasn't aiming to do.
He walked forward, stepping like he was on eggs. He'd been a wild mustang in his
time and no telling where he'd gone then, but I hoped it was nothing like this. We
edged around the corner of the cliff, and the trail sloped steeply away ahead of
us. I kept my eyes on the trail, trying to think that horse for every step, trying
to hold him on there by sheer will power. Only once did I glance aside, when some
movement in the valley drew my eye.
Maybe a dozen to twenty Indians had come out on the snow and were looking up at me.
If I'd thought that trail was hairy before, I had no doubt of it now. Those redskins
were out there to watch, and if it was that bad, it must be as mean as it could get.
Indians take most any kind of a trail, but it looked like nobody took this one come
snow-time.
But that roan was steppin' easy and light. Once in a while he'd blow through his
nostrils, scared as I was, but he knew the only way was down and he went right along.
All of a sudden the narrow part played out and the trail widened. I taken a long
breath and I felt the roan do the same thing, then we trotted along the rest of the
trail, took two or three switchbacks, and then we were cantering up to that Indian
village.
It wasn't much, just three tepees up against some aspen, but smoke lifted from those
tepees and I was glad to see them.
For ten days I stayed with those Indians. Old Tom Beaver
29
 THE PROVING TRAIL
27
was one of them, and I'd fed him many a time up on that plateau. When I saddled up
to leave, they were pulling down their tepees, too. "If anybody comes looking," I
said, "you don't know anything."
Lying there in that Indian village, I had time to think back to pa and to wonder
who had killed him.
Blazer? Maybe . . . but why had pa always carried a gun? Of course, most men did.
Certainly all of them did when
because there could be a lot of occasions when a six-shooter was essential. Occasions
that had nothing to do with outlaws, Indians, horse thieves, or whatever.
And pa could shoot. I'd seen him shoot, and he was good, better than many a man who
carried a reputation as a gunfighter.
When I came down off the mountain, it was to a strange
There was a church there, because I seen its steeple afar, and there was a double
row of storefronts and a
of houses.
There were three two-story buildings, a store, the bank, and
with a sign that said Hotel.
There was a plump, white-haired woman dusting when I in. She went behind the counter
and looked at me with a
eye. I had on pa's black hat, which fitted, my blanket poncho, and those run-down
boots. I hadn't shaved in several
and must have looked like the wrath of God.
"Room will be two bits," she said, "two bits each night,
in advance. Four bits if you want a bath."
at her, and her face lit up. She smiled back,
I'll want a room for two nights at least," I said, definitely a bath. I been riding
some rough country." "You look it," she said cheerfully.
So I dug down and come up with a dollar, which I gave her.
'?" she asked.
;:: "I could eat a wolf," I said.
"We're fresh out of wolves," she said, "but we got us a
"All right," I said, "I never et cougar but I'm up to it." I
she was funnin' me, but she wasn't. Not a-tall.
"My pappy was a mountain man," she said, "and he had the
of the finest meat in the West, just for the shooting. He rated cougar meat the best
there was. After that come tail and buffalo tongue."
"Bring on your cougar," I said. "Just be sure he's declawed and
cause I'm a mite tuckered."
30
 28
LOUIS L'AMOUR
"Bath first?"
I just looked at her. "All right, all right, you can eat first."
She indicated a door. "Right through that door, and don't go to makin' sheep's eyes
at the waitress. She's my niece and she's seen a sheep."
31
 CHAPTER IV
man should always bathe before he eats. I didn't, and that got me into more trouble
than you could shake a at.
.I mean had I gone upstairs and had a hot bath, that man have been in the restaurant
when I went in there. have been off down the country, gone clean out of there, I'd
never have met up with him.
Sure, I was hungry, but it wasn't the first time and I could waited. They'd already
shot their cougar and he wasn't anyplace. I mean the meat would have been there,
and
pretty waitress would have been there, too. Only difference have been in that man.
I'd just left trouble behind, and I walked right through that into twicet as much.
It wasn't only that the man was it was what I said and what he saw.
went through the door and he set there with his back to There was nobody else in
the room but that girl, who was coming through the door with a coffeepot in her hand.
Had
her first, it might have changed everything, too, because was right pert and pretty,
but what I saw was that man's a man in a black frock coat, and before I could think
I "Pa?"
looked so much like pa that it just come out of me, me thinking, but it turned that
man sharp around, and
29
32
 30
LOUIS L'AMOUR
sure enough, he had a cast of feature much like pa's only he was younger by ten years,
and there was something else about him. Pa had a touch of gentleness in his face,
where this man had none. His features were cold, handsome, clean-cut, but you needed
only to look at him once to know there was no mercy in him, none at all.
"'Pa?" he said. "I'm not your pa.'" And then his eyes dropped
to my gun.
The blanket-coat was off and slung over my arm, and he could see that gun with its
pearl handle and its red birds. I seen his face change. The expression, I mean. His
scalp kind of drawed back, and when he looked up at me it was like a wolf ready to
jump a rabbit.
"What made you think I was your pa?"
I laughed, kind of embarrassed. "I didn't, really. Only when
I come through the door, your back looked like---I mean, he's
got him a coat like that. I'm sorry, I just made a mistake."
I started across the room toward another table, but he spoke
and his tone was quiet. "No need to eat alone, boy. Sit here
with me."
If that wolf I mentioned could have talked, he would have
said something just like that, but what was I to do? If I could have thought faster,
I might have excused myself. Instead I turned around, pulled back a chair, and sat
down, and if there'd ever been a chance to avoid trouble, I missed it right then.
The girl brought me a cup and a plate with grub on it. There
was meat, cougar meat from what they said, and there was some rice and beans. It
looked good to me, and I set to, all the
while wondering about that man at the table with me.
"Travel far?" he asked.
"Come down the mountain," I said. "Been ridin' herd on some cows up yonder."
"Looks like you quit at the right time." He sipped his coffee. "This pa of yours
... with the coat like mine? He herdin' cattle, too?"
"Not right now. Ain't seen him in a while."
He kind of prodded at me with questions, but I wasn't telling him anything. Least
of all where I'd come from. By this time Judge Blazer may have had the word out to
pick me up.
As we sat there eating and sort of talking along, I began to
get real bothered. This man had a gesture or two just like pa
and a way of lifting an eyebrow like him when he was skeptical
33
 THE PROVING TRAIL
31
Of something. Many a time I'd known kinfolk to have the same
ms and gestures--whether they inherited them or
them up from seeing them used, I don't know--and it
began to come over me that this man did not only look like pa
that he might even be related to him.
What I wanted to know was who he was and where he hailed
!from, and in western country you never just up and asked a
his business or where he come from. You just waited until
:he told you, if he was of a mind to. Yet I could try.
' "How's things back east?" I asked.
"Times are hard," he said. He studied me coolly, and I felt
he thin edge of fear, and it angered me. I told myself I was
that I was afraid of nothing. Besides, why should I fear
Or anybody? Yet something about him haunted me, and
have been his resemblance to pa.
your father," he asked, "have you been here long?"
"We move around," I replied. "A man takes work where he
find it."
pa now? He was from back east?"
I chuckled. "Ain't ever'body? Nobody come from this coun ' but Indians, and from
what they tell me they came from
else, too."
lie threw me a hard glance. He didn't like me any better
I liked him, and as we talked back and forth he would
out with a question or, more often, just some leading
He was fishing for information, and I wasn't giving
. Truth to tell, I knew mighty little about pa. I'd never
how little until he was gone, and with him the chance
more.
maybe I'm only seventeen, but most of my years been
working around over the mountains or desert and plains
and I'd learned a thing or two. This man carried a
that was plain to see, but he carried a sleeve gun,
one of them gambler's hideout guns, derringer type that
two shots. Mighty good for close action across a card table.
it because of the way he favored his right wrist when
put it down on the table and the way he held his arm. Only
different, but to somebody who knows it was plain
Staying in town?" he asked, finally.
a while. I been up in the hills so long I'm growin' grass
ears. I want to just set and look at the street for a while."
34
 32
LouIs L'AMOUR
He didn't like that, and I had an idea--I don't really know why--that he wanted me
away from there.
"Too bad," he said, casually, "I thought we might ride down
the country together."
"Ain't good weather for travelin'," I said. "It's too durned
cold to suit me."
I was itching to get away from him, but I had an idea he
might just pick up and follow me. Yet I was curious, too, and wanted to know more
about him. If he was some kin of pa's, I might learn something about pa from him,
or about pa's family.
Yet every instinct I had told me this man was dangerous, and
more than that, he was evil. He had the look about his eyes and mouth of a man who
was short-tempered and cruel. And I trust my instincts.
His manners were those of a gentleman, but fine manners do
not make a fine man, and I was alert for any clue as to what he planned, where he
was from, or where he planned to go. He was no miner--that much I could see--nor
was he a cowhand. A gambler? Well . . . maybe.
The girl with the freckles was watching me, and she seemed bothered by something.
After a bit I finished my coffee and pushed back my chair.
"I'm almighty tired," I said. "Good night."
I arose abruptly and, without so much as a glance back, I left
the room. I had moved quickly, hoping to catch him kind of off balance, and that
was just what I done. It hadn't seemed like I was fixing to move, but looked like
I was going to set for a spell, which was how I'd wanted it to look. I wasted no
time in the lobby but went right upstairs to my room. Once inside, I shut the door
and put a chair under the knob so's it couldn't be opened.
It was in my mind to open the window, get out, and leave,
taking out of there just as fast as I could travel, but it was a miserable night
and I was bone-tired.
The thought that come to me was almost as good. He didn't
know what horse I'd been riding, because he'd been in town for some time before I
arrived and had no reason to be curious about me until I walked into that eating
room and spoke to him.
I'd been cold before and could be again, so I opened my window wide and then got
into bed.
The wind blew through that window, icy cold, and I done
some shivering. Must have been an hour later somebody tried
35
 THE PROVING TRAIL
33
the door, turning the knob real slow and careful. The door didn't give because I
had that chair under the knob, and after a minute or two the knob was released and
all was quiet. About that time he seemed to get the message of that cold wind comin'
from under the door, because of a sudden I heard a kind of an exclamation and then
quickly retreating footsteps. After a minute I heard the sound of a horse ridden
rapidly down the street. Cheerfully, I closed the window and got back into bed.
were two ways I could have gone if I'd left town by
trail, and he'd have to check them both out. Meanwhile I'd get some sleep.
Lying there in bed, I studied about it. This man, whoever he was, had tried my door--leastwise,
I could think of nobody
who might try it. He had seemed suspicious of me, and he resembled pa. Now, what
did all that amount to?
Exactly nothing, except that man had apparently ridden out
!town trying to overtake me, thinking I'd flown the coop. Why?
Pa was dead, murdered by somebody. Somebody who was
Judge Blazer or one of his friends, or who was somebody If it was somebody else,
he hadn't murdered pa to rob because Blazer did that, or tried to.
Suppose Blazer hadn't murdered pa, but just found him
and took advantage of the chance? That sounded like Blazer.
that implied somebody else had done it, somebody didn't even know pa had all that
money, and from his
and the state of his clothes, figured he hadn't anything taking.
If that was the case, it had to be somebody who had known
somebody from out of his past.
"That's storybook stuff," I said aloud. "You got no reason to
anything of the kind."
would anybody from pa's past want him dead? Pa
been east in years (if that was where he come from), and far as I knew, he'd had
no letters from yonder.
of which left me nowhere but asleep. When I opened eyes with daybreak, the thought
was still in my mind but gotten nowhere.
After washing up a mite and brushing my clothes as much as
I combed my hair slick and went down to the lobby. ,as quiet and there was nobody
around, so I stepped over
desk and turned that register around and looked at it.
36
 34
Louis L'AMOUR
There was my name, and above it--the only one who had checked in during the last
three days--was the name Felix Yant. It was a name that meant nothing to me, and
I had an idea it was a name the man had assumed. Yet what was his purpose?
The restaurant was empty, but there was a rustle of sound from the kitchen and an
occasional rattle of dishes. I pulled back a chair, rather noisily, and sat down.
I wanted to eat and get out.
The girl with the freckles looked in and then came quickly over. "You're early. Not
much is ready, but we can make you some flapjacks."
"Fine. How about some eggs?"
"I'll see." She hesitated. "Did you know that man who sat with you?"
"Never saw him before." I looked up at her. "Do you know him?"
'"No, but he told my aunt he was looking for mining properties. He rides out a good
deal."
"In this weather? Seems a bad time to look for a mine, when the ground's covered
with snow and you can't even see how it
lays or what the formations are."
"We thought so, too."
She brought coffee and, after a little while, a stack of hotcakes and maple syrup.
"We've got some eggs. My aunt says you can have them." She hesitated again. "She
likes you."
"Well, that's a help. Maybe I should stick around."
"There isn't much work." She lingered. "This is mostly mining around here, and some
lumbering. Over the mountain and to the south there's cattle. Are you a cowboy?"
"'I'm whatever I need to be to get a job,'" I said, "but I've put by a little."
She looked at me thoughtfully, for it was a rare man in those days who thought of
tomorrow while punching cows. I didn't feel it necessary to explain that it wasn't
my saving that had provided the money. Still, come to think of it, it had been my
capital. Thinking of that made me feel better, and for the first time it seemed maybe
I was entitled to that money.
"I'm Teresa," she said. "Sometimes they call me Terry." "My name's McRaven. Kearney
McRaven. And sometimes they call me just anything they can think of." I grinned at
her. "I ain't seen such a pretty girl in a long time."
She flushed up a mite but she liked it, too. I was no hand at
37
 THE PROVING TRAIL
35
making talk with womenfolks, but pa, he'd always had a friendly way about him. "Say
something nice to them," he told me once, "and particularly waitresses and such people.
You've got to remember they put in a long, hard day, and many people grumble a lot.
It does no harm to speak a friendly word."
Well, I was willing. Fact is, I could have been more than
friendly with that there Teresa if I knowed how to go about it. "He ever talk much?"
She knew who I meant, all right. "No... scarcely at all. But he watches. Nothing
that happens around him happens without his seeing it.'" And just at that minute
he came in.
"Good morning," he said cheerfully enough. "You rise early."
"On a cow ranch you're up before the sun," I said. "I was never no hand to lie abed,
anyway."
Yant was what his name was? Should that mean any to me? I hadn't heard the name before,
so far as I could recall, and my recall was pretty good, yet the man worried me.
he knew more about me than he had any use for, and I
like it. Gave me a feeling of being watched.
He seemed friendly enough, and began to talk of the .mountains, the trees, then got
to comparing these mountains
those back east. I listened mighty sharp, wanting to pick Up a clue.
He had hands like a gambler. They were slender and white,
hands, actually. I suspect he was what is called a
but I had a feeling if he was, it was more by birth by instinct. Yet he was an interesting
talker, and once
he could hold a body spellbound.
"This is all very well," he said, waving a hand at the
gs, "but one needs to travel. You need perspective, basis for comparison."
Seemed to me he was talking as much for Teresa as for me, there's nothing like a
smooth-talking man to have a way womenfolks. This here little one-horse town seemed
mighty
when he began talking of San Francisco, New York,
Paris, and suchlike. Seemed to me he'd been everywhere seen everything and remembered
most of it. Teresa was
at him all starry-eyed, and that didn't set well with me. i began to feel sore. I
wished I had a story to match him, but
all you've done is play nursemaid to a few cows, it
leave you much to spend on conversation.
"Me an' pa traveled some," I said defensively. "We covered
38
 36
LOUIS L'AMOUR
most of the West, time to time. I been to Dodge, and down
there in E1 Paso... that's right across the river from Mexico!"
"So it is." Yant was amused and showed it. Then he slipped
it in so casually I almost spoke up. He said, "Your father ever
talk of taking you home? To his home, I mean?"
That was one thing pa never mentioned, but I felt no need to
say so. "Time to time," I lied. But I wondered why he had never mentioned it. Why
had he not talked of home? Told me of his family, the place where he was born? The
memories of his childhood?
And then suddenly something did come back. I'd been very
young then, a mere child, and there'd been a woman in the room. I remember she was
slender and dark-haired with large, lovely black eyes . . . or almost black. I do
not know where she came from, how she came to be there, or where "there" was, except
that she was wearing a cloak and she had come in out of the night.
Did I remember anything? Or was it all my imagination?
"I've only a few minutes. I'm afraid . . . deathly afraid! He's coming back, Charles,
and you know how he is! I'm afraid! If he ever finds out that I've even talked to
you, he'd kill me. I mean it. Literally."
"'You mustn't be here. Leave . . . get away while you can. I
only wish I--"
"There's nothing you can do, Charles. There's nothing anybody can do! And if you
come back, that would be the end of everything. They believe you did it, Charles.
They all believe it... except grandfather. I don't believe he does."
"Well, I didn't do it. We had trouble, I'll admit that, but it
was nothing, and I'm not a vengeful person."
Did I remember all that? Why had I remembered it at all,
when I had forgotten so much? Maybe it was her beauty, her sudden arrival out of
the night, and the intensity with which she spoke.
How long had it been? Thirteen years? Closer to fourteen, I thought.
It was the only time I remembered a woman coming to our
rooms, wherever we lived . . . that is, the only time when pa
was home.
There was that other time, the time I never liked to remember,
the time I never told pa about, when the witch-woman came.
I'd been alone in the room, but that was years later, and I
was eight years old. I remember that because it was my birth
39
 THE PROVING TRAIL
37
day and pa had promised me something special, a real treat for my birthday.
I never got my treat, and that I remembered most of all because pa always did what
he promised, except that time. That was the time he got sick, he almost died . .
. and for months after that he was sick.
Was it because of the witch-woman?
40
 CHAPTER V
S ettin' there breakfast he riled me. Talkin' smooth
over
was
one thing, but he looked so elegant, always lookin' like he'd
stepped out of a bandbox, as they used to say. Made me look
shabby.
Well, I had me a little money, so I made up my mind right
then I'd get fixed up. Finally, he got up and left, but he'd been
talkin' smooth and easy-like and it got to me, him making
himself big in front of Teresa. So I said, "I'm tired this morning.
Some damn fool was ridin' his horse up an' down last night,
away after midnight. You'd think folks would have the sense to
stay inside when it's that cold."
It stopped him, and he turned his head to look at me just like a rattler does when
he fixes to strike. There was no
laughter in his eyes, nor no smoothness in his tongue.
"Sometimes, they tell me, when you hear a rider in the night,
it's a sign of death."
"I never heard that," Teresa said. "That's a new one."
"I heard it," I lied, "it's somebody ridin' a dark horse to his
death."
He looked at me with those fiat, cold eyes, and I looked
right back, and then I grinned. I don't know how I done it, but
suddenly everything seemed funny. I'm like that. Solemn occa sions seem to arouse
the humor in me. It wasn't that way with
him, for when I grinned, he got up. I could see the temper in
38
41
 THE PROVING TRAIL
39
his eyes and knew right then his weakness was his impatience. I-Ie was a man who
hated to wait, hated to be thwarted or put off, hated anybody that didn't sidestep
for him.
"We'll meet another time," he said, and turned sharp around ;!on his heel and went
out, leaving the money to pay for his
i breakfast.
I "He doesn't like me," I said dryly.
"'He doesn't like anybody," Teresa commented.
"He likes you," I said.
She shrugged. "Not really. And I'm afraid of him, really
After I finished my coffee, I went out. Being cold winter like was, not many folks
were moving about. We hadn't had snow, but it was surely cold. I went down to the
general and looked over what he had. It wasn't much.
bought myself a couple of pairs of black Frisco jeans for work and a sheepskin coat.
Then I bought some shirts, a of gray striped pants, and a black suit. They were hand-me
of course, and would have the sharp creases that come the shelf, but would no doubt
lose them in time. I bought socks, some underwear, and a few odds and ends, and went
to my room to bathe and change.
When I opened my pack, I seen right away somebody had through my gear. After living
out of a pack for years, a gets so he packs for easy handling, and somebody had through
my things, then had neatly repacked them, but as I'd had them.
who would d(r-- It was him! It had to be him . . . but ? What was there about me
that would interest him that What was there to bring him to this country at all?
. . just suppose he tied into all this mystery about and his past? Suppose we were
related? Why would what did matter to him?
man like him, he would be apt to do something only for or hate. This might be one
or the other, and it might be
would he be looking for? Fortunately, what money was on me, but I didn't think it
would be money. I'd had anything else worth taking, and no personal papers no kind,
and as for pa, he never carried his papers--
!I just sort of backed up and set down. Pa's papers--those
big brown envelopes he had for so long . . . where were ? And what were they?
42
 40
LOUIS L'AMOUR
Pa an' me, we'd knocked about the country a good bit,
hunting work here and there, and pa had always carried those two brown envelopes
in a sort of buckskin case he had with a belt run through it. Yet it had not been
on him when he was killed, and in fact, I hadn't seen it for some time.
Kid-like, I was mostly concerned with my own affairs, and somewhere along the line
pa had left those envelopes with somebody or hid them somewhere, and I'd no idea
where they were.
There was a lot I had never known and had never thought to
ask about that was suddenly important to me. If there were any answers, they would
be in our past. Somewhere down the drifting path we had taken over the years, pa
had left a clue.
Those papers now, in those brown envelopes in the leather
case ... pa hadn't lost them. He'd just plain left them somewhere, and if he left
them he left them a-purpose, someplace where they would be safe until needed. He
had carried those guns, but he was never a quarrelsome man, although I'd seen him
shoot and knew he feared no man. Yet death finally caught up with him.
Murder... and if I was not careful, I would be next. Somehow I never doubted that.
It was just the way things shaped. I could see it coming, and had I been out on the
trail in the snow, I would now be dead. Or if I hadn't locked my door. What I should
do was run . . . yet I knew I'd never get away. This man would be a bloodhound on
a trail. Hadn't he found pa and me after all those years?
First, I'd better not let him think I was smart . . . if I was.
He had to believe it wasn't going to be all that hard to win or he would suddenly
try much harder, and to kill a man in our day wasn't all that hard. He could start
a quarrel, then shoot me down . . . if he was fast enough.
That, of course, was the question. I'd never had a gunfight,
nor wanted one. No man in his right mind does. I heard tell of a kid or two running
around trying to get a reputation, but it was a rare thing, and only some half-baked
youngster whose cards were badly mixed would be that crazy. I knew I was fast, and
pa had taught me to shoot.
Running went against the grain, even if I could get away. On
the other hand, I might be better out in the hills than he was, and it might make
all the difference. Yet with him around and knowing what it was about, I'd be better
off to try to blunder
43
 THE PROVING TRAIL
41
some hint of why he was here, and why it was important pa be dead.
either hated pa something fierce or there was money Or maybe some family feud. thinking
about it would help me none at all, and if I was to survive, I was going to have
to do some thinking.
When I got all dressed, I looked at myself in the mirror and just what I was, a country
boy all dressed up to go to I didn't look right to myself, and wouldn't to those
folks
there, including Teresa. I had nothing of that casual eleFelix Yant had. He was the
kind of a man who would looked well-dressed in his long johns. He had manner and
Well, pa.had it, too. Why not me?
I taken off that new suit and hung it up. I just put on a pair iFrisco jeans, a gray
flannel shirt, a black handkerchief at my and my new sheepskin coat. But I did not
forget my Nor my knife . . . which I'd carried all my life. Never :tell when you
might come on somebody needs skinning.
I taken that coat off again and set down at the bureau, would do for a table. On
the edge of an old newspaper I to write down the towns we'd been in. I never realized
was so many.
I got to counting towns, I found that in the past four stopped or worked in twenty-two
different places. it was that pa had an itchy foot or some other reason for on, and
the rest of it was that work was scarce and few "lasted long.
two months pa worked for the stage line. He was an and bookkeeper in Eureka, Nevada.
I'd had a job herd right near town, a herd that had been driven in to beef to the
miners. We went over to Pioche from there,
[ it was a rough town, a boom mining town with a man Morgan Courtney walking the
streets, a hard, irritable
always on edge for trouble. Pa took the place of a teller in there, for the regular
man had to go to a funeral in Salt somewheres. I taken a job washing dishes in a
restaurant. way and another we moved across the country, from in California to Kansas
City in Missouri, with stops Worth, Fort Griffin, Santa Fe, and Silver City, and
back to Dodge and up to Yankton.
had I last seen those brown envelopes? He'd had in Eureka, because he kept them in
the company safe there. I recall stopping for them before we rode out.
44
 42
Louis L'AMOUR
And he'd had them when he was teller, that time. I had seen him roll the buckskin
wallet up in his bedroll when we left Dodge, and I thought I recalled pa having them
in Kit Carson.
Georgetown! Try as I might, I could not remember them after we stopped at the Hotel
de Paris in Georgetown. Pa was friendly with the owner, a Frenchman, and they often
talked French together. I recall pa telling me Louis Dupuy was a man he could trust.
"He's a hard, opinionated man, but nobody can
push him, buy him, or sway him. I'd trust him with my life." So there it was.., maybe.
Which didn't help me one bit, for that was clear across the country from where I
was. There were a lot of passes choked with snow between here and yonder, and i had
a bloodhound on my tail.
About then I began to get an idea. It was a crazy sort of thought that came into
my mind and stayed there. Part of it was because I thought I might be better off
in the wild country than he would be. Nobody tried to cross those mountains in the
winter. Up high there, the passes were often packed with twenty to thirty feet of
snow, and it was cold, really cold.
But west and south of here was some desert like you've never seen, and it come to
me that maybe I should head off west right into the midst of that desert. I'd pick
a stretch where I knew the water holes and I'd lose him out there. It sounded simple,
but I wasn't at all sure. Felix Yant was not a simple man.
Getting into my coat, I went off down to the restaurant again. Seemed like the only
place I was going these days, but where could a body go, it being so cold and all?
Teresa looked at me and smiled. "You look very nice, Kearney," she said. I felt like
I was blushing, and maybe I was.
"We've got some hot soup," she suggested. "Lots of beef and vegetables."
"Sounds good," I said, and I meant it, but at the same time an idea hit me. What
I should do was take out of here at midday or later. A traveling man starts early
to get the light for traveling, but if I were to take out suddenly, I might just
get a lead on Yant before he knew I was gone.
Chances were I wouldn't, but it was a thought. I'd been stopping by the livery barn
to see if my horse was all right, and I'd continue to do that, stopping by in the
afternoon so there'd be a pattern.
The soup was good. Only trouble was, in the midst of it I
45
 THE PROVING TRAIL
43
looked up and I seen Tobin Wacker and Dick riding into town. There was no sign of
Judge Blazer or the others.
I started to get up, then sat back down. That was mighty good soup, and it might
be awhile before I had more. My eyes followed Wacker and Dick as they rode up to
the saloon and
got stiffly down. They looked to be wore out. Even Wacker, big and burly as he was,
staggered a mite when he stood.
Right be because they'd been in the saddle for some time.
They went into the saloon, and I finished my soup. It was
I did some thinking. Had they come down here hunting
or were they just getting out of the mountains? It looked to !!he like they'd had
a rough, rough time.
Teresa came in and sat down across the table from me.
in some kind of trouble, aren't you?"
"You could say that," I agreed, "but it's none of my seeking." "Is it him? Mr. Yant,
I mean?"
shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "I don't know what he
or where he comes from, but he worries me." Suddenly it all began to come out. Maybe
I was lonely,
I just needed to get it all straight in my mind. Anyway,
her about me an' pa, our drifting and the like, and I told about pa's big winning
and what followed after. I didn't
was to happen, and maybe I just wanted something on record, with somebody, and she
was a good listener.
what man doesn't like having all the attention of a girl?
more I talked, the more it began to shape up like this Yant was kin to me. At least,
I had something he wanted,
want, to find.
scared of him?" She looked at me with those blue eyes,
I looked into myself for the answer. Was I scared of him? i'"No," I said, after a
bit. "I ain't . . . I'm not scared of him,
he worries me, because I don't know what he's after. You
and I know that nobody but a crazy man would be out inspecting mining properties
with all this snow on the
You can't see the formations, how the land lays, or
I don't know why he's here, but it ain't that."
are you going to do?" she asked.
'I got to do some detective work," I said, and I'll not deny
that word made me kind of swell up a little. "I've got to
along the country a ways and maybe find out where pa from and where Yant comes from."
be careful," Teresa warned.
46
 44
LOUIS L'AMOUR
"You can do something for me," I said, "if you're of a mind
to."
"What is it?"
"Those two men I spoke of?. The ones who just came into
town? If they should come in here, try to hear what they say if you can do it without
seeming to. I'd like to have an idea what they have on their minds."
I'll do it." She got up. "I'll get you some hot coffee."
From where I sat, I could see up and down the street while
sitting back from the window. Those two had gone into the saloon and they were having
a few. Tobin Wacker was a right quarrelsome man when drinking. I knew nothing about
Dick except the company he kept and the fact he'd been one of those who attacked
me on the mountain.
What had become of Judge Blazer? There was just no way he
was going to get back to where he came from after that snow, and he wasn't the kind
of a man to stay in any cold mountain cabin when he could get off the mountain. It
began to look to me like Judge Blazer was dead.
They came out on the street and they looked right over at
the restaurant. They looked up and down the street and then they started over. Dick,
who was about average size for our time, was maybe five foot eight. I guess he'd
weigh maybe one fifty. Tobin Wacker was something else. He was maybe six inches taller
than my five foot nine, and he was a good seventy pounds heavier than my one sixty.
If I was going to tangle with them, it wouldn't be for fun. I'd have to take Dick
out with one punch so's I could devote my time to Wacker.
Just then Teresa came in with my coffee. She seen my expression and she stopped.
"What is it? What's the matter, Kearney?"
"It's them. They're comin' across the street. If there's to be a
fight, I'll try to get them outside so's we won't tear things up."
"You'll do what you have to, Kearney," she said coolly. "My
pa was a fighting man, and I've heard him say it a thousand times, 'Land the first
punch. The first punch wins nine out of ten fights.' You land the first punch, Kearney,
and leave the cleaning up to me. I've mopped up blood before this."
Here they come. Right at me. I pushed a chair to one side
so's my feet wouldn't get tangled.
47
 CHAPTER VI
When he came through the door, the first thing Tobin
Wacker laid eyes on was me.
lie stopped right in the door, looking like he'd seen death. If
I saw a man scared, it was him. Whatever he expected
he came in, I wasn't any part of it. Maybe he figured me dead. I don't know what
was in his mind, but whatever it
he had no idea of fighting.
"Howdy, Wacker," I said. "You had enough or are you
some more?"
Rightly, I should have been over there where I could nail
before he got out of that doorway, and before his partner
make it through.
:They came on into the room, and when Dick seen who was his face turned white. Puzzled
me, what they were so
about. From behind me, from the entrance to the hotel
came a low, quiet voice. "Need some help, McRaven?'" It was Yant.
..'rhanks." I was irritated. Was it him they was . . . were
of?. How long had he been there, anyway? "I can skin
I can catch."
"We ain't huntin' trouble," Wacker said, rubbing his big
on his pants. "We just come for some grub." Recalling my talk about cannibalism,
I said kind of wryly,
the matter? Didn't Blazer last you?"
45
48
 46
Louis L'AMOUR
You'd of thought I lashed them with a whip. They just turned and busted out of that
door and went a-flyin'.
Yant walked up beside me, still watching the door. "Now what was that all about?"
"Nothing," I said, "we had trouble awhile back. I thought
they'd come for more."
"So did I," he said.
"Thanks," I said.
"Thanks? For what?"
"Offering to help," I said.
He pulled back a chair and sat down opposite me, and for once that poker face showed
something. He was puzzled and angry, but with himself, I thought. "Think nothing
of it," he muttered, and I began to wonder if that offer to help hadn't come naturally,
without him thinking of it at all. If that was true, I felt better about him, but
still, why should he help me? This was a country where a man was supposed to saddle
his own broncs and fight his own battles. Yet he had offered to help.
"Have something," I said. "I was fixing to eat."
He didn't say anything, but he did order when Teresa came in. He was in what some
folks call a brown study, I mean he was figuring something out and he didn't like
it. If it was true that he figured on killing me, and I surely believed it, he had
missed a good chance of having it done for him. He had offered to step in when all
he needed to do was stand aside and let it happen, whatever it was. I was going to
barrel right into them, but I'd no idea I could whip them both, the shape I was in.
My ribs still hurt me once in a while, and my nose was swole. That old Indian woman
had set it best she could, and strapped up my ribs.
"They were afraid of you, McRaven,'" Yant said. "Why were they afraid? Who are you?
What are you?"
"I'm an orphan," I said, "who herds cows when he can find the work. That's all I
am."
"And all you want to be?" he asked sharply.
"Now, I never said that. Ever'body has some notion of being more than he is, I expect."
He stared at me out of those level, cold eyes. "Did you ever go to school?"
"Not so's it would count. Time or two I went for aspell. Never liked it much, though.
I liked pa teaching me."
"He taught you?"
49
 THE PROVING TRAIL
47
"Surely did. From the time I can first recall. He'd read aloud and then we'd talk
about it. I guess come graduation time in a proper school it wouldn't count for much,
but he surely taught me a lot. He taught me to shoot, to throw a knife, and how to
hunt and to live off the country. Then he taken me to the cotton markets in New Orleans
and Mobile and showed me how business was done there, and how it was done in stores,
. and where the money went that they took in.
"We talked to cattle and wool buyers, to horse traders and
steamboat men. We worked in mines, and he showed me how i, they operated. He used
to read to me from the classics, and
liner he read we'd talk about them, and about people he met.
was a quiet man, but uncommon shrewd."
"You knew those men?" he asked. "I mean the ones you had
with?"
"We went round and about awhile back. Maybe they didn't
what they got."
You didn't like it, either, I told myself. You taken a beating
But even as I thought that, I remembered they'd up on the plateau quite awhile. There
was no more grub
a day.., two at most. Yet it had been more than two and they looked to be in good
shape. Maybe that was they were scared. Maybe what I'd said about Blazer hit
right where it hurt. I'd spent about ten days with those
and I'd been a few days getting to where they were that was all hazy now. Had it
been two or three days? I
recall.
"Your English is very bad," he said to me then.
I just looked at him. "That just ain't none of your business," itold him. "Besides,
I can talk better if need be. Sometimes
think you're puttin' on airs if you talk so hifalutin."
not think that of you."
;
"Didn't aim for them to." I pushed back my chair and got . I was tired of this talk,
and I had some thinking to do.
you use that gun?"
have to take a ride out of town, and you can show
Well, I just looked at him. "Like hell we will, mister. My pa me never to draw a
gun unless I meant to use it. off with guns is for tinhorns. If you ever see me with
a in my hand, mister, it'll be because I got good reason. A isn't a toy to pleasure
yourself with. I carry it because
50
 48
Louis L'AMOUR
I live in a rough country. I herd stock where there's wolves and cougars, and some
of the stock is mighty mean itself. I need a gun, mister.'"
With that I walked out and left him sittin' there, and I went for my horse, mounted,
and rode out of town.
He was standin' on the walk in front of the restaurant when I rode out, and a moment
later, watching from behind some trees on the slope of a hill, I seen him cantering
out the way I'd gone. When he was gone by, I rode down to the stable and put up my
horse. Then I went up to my room and stretched out on my bed.
Hour or so later I heard him ride back, and I grinned at the ceiling. He'd had him
a ride and he'd missed finishing his dinner. If he was going to keep track of me,
he had his work cut out for him.
51
 CHAPTER VII
I began to look forward to those meetings with Felix Yant. He irritated me, and I
was wary of him. I was he meant to kill me, but there was a quiet elegance about
that I envied, and his obvious assurance, which I lacked... maybe when I was out
in the wild country.
Oddly enough, I think in his own way he liked me. Not that would have stopped him
from killing me if the chance but there was something in each of us to which the
responded. He was like pa, which may have been part of but in some ways I was freer
with him than I ever had been pa.
Yet I doubt if he had an ounce of human sympathy for or anything. Whatever he was,
he was complete in He asked for nothing but to remain as he was, and if was money
involved, I believe he wanted it to give him Solitude is a hard thing to buy if one
expects bodily too, and he was a man who liked to take his ease. He me of a rattlesnake
on a warm rock, just content to there.
To have the solitude he wanted demanded money, and he not the kind of man to turn
outlaw. No matter what says, an outlaw's life is a hard one. He spends most of time
dodging the law, hiding out in the hills or in shacks from town. If he's half-smart,
he won't flash money around
49
52
 50
Louis L'AMOUR
to make people curious as. to how he got it, and in most ways it is a rougher life
than making an honest living.
Felix Yant would have none of that. He had a distaste for the crude, the uncomfortable,
and the ignorant. He had nothing but contempt for most people, and it showed.
"What are you going to do with yourself?." he demanded suddenly of me. "Do you expect
to spend the rest of your life just looking between a horse's ears? Haven't you discovered
that the world belongs to those who can use it?"
"What's wrong with me? I'm gettin' along all right."
"Are you?" He eyed me coolly. "You're just like a million others, just walking blindly
through life. Why don't you get out
of the rut you're in and get an education?"
"You mean go back to school?"
"Of course not. All any school can give you is the barest outline of an education.
You have to fill it in yourself. Read... listen.., taste. An ignorant man has such
limits on his possibilities of enjoyment. He is denying himself all the richness
in life. Just is with food, your taste in all things needs experience of flavor.
Education is in part just learning to discriminate between ideas, tastes, flavors,
sounds, colors, or whatever you wish to mention. The wider your range of taste experience,
the greater your possibilities of pleasure, of enjoyment.
"If evil and hardship come upon you at least you will be aware of what is happening,
and you will have some understanding of why. It is better than falling under the
axe like some dumb brute in a slaughterhouse who has no awareness of what is happening
to him. A wise man can even experience the approach of death with some awareness.
It may be the final experience, but it is experience."
There was nothing much I could say to that. Yet it ired me to be taken with such
contempt. Pa had read a lot to me, and I'd read a good bit myself, when we could
find the books. And there was more to be learned than just from books. There was
music in the mountains, and lessons wherever grass grew, and a body who kept his
eyes open could learn anywhere.
"Why did you come west?" I asked him straight out. "You could live the way you want
to back wherever you came from."
"That I could," he said dryly, "and I shall soon be back there again, living as I
wish. Often to attain one's goals one has to take a few extra steps." He looked straight
at me with a kind of amused contempt. "I have one minor chore. When that is done
53
 THE PROVING TRAIL
51
I shall return, live the life of a country gentleman and leave the pushing and shoving
to the rest of these pigs."
I had an idea what that minor chore was, and it made me sore to have him speak of
it thataway.
"I ain't been east since I was a youngster," I commented, "although pa used to talk
about times when the azaleas were in bloom. He was always a man who loved fine horses,
too."
"He sounds like a most interesting man. Did he give you at gun?"
"'He was murdered," I said, "by some coward who was afraid to face him. Shot in the
back of the head. Had he seen his murderer he would have killed him first."
Yant shrugged. "Then the murderer, as you call him, was wise not to be seen, was
he not? Yet it sounds more like an execution than a murder."
"Does it? I wonder what gave you that idea? Executions are out by what pa used to
call 'duly constituted authority' in a legal manner. Anyway, pa never did anything
to be
for."
he not? I doubt if you were with him all his life, and
men have done something for which they should be
"Do you speak for yourself?."
lie turned those hard, straight eyes on me. They stared
g, and I met his gaze. After a moment he shrugged.
must learn to guard your tongue, boy. A man must for his words when he talks with
men." talked with men since I was six," I said coolly, "and am
to answer for anything I say or have said. Anyway,
spoke of men generally, and I merely wondered if you for yourself too." did not like
me and he did not like the way I replied to so he got up and walked away without
speaking or looking
I watched him go, suddenly conscious that Teresa was at
side. "Be careful of him," she said. "I'm afraid of him."
sat down across from me, and for a moment we looked at
another. I'd never known many girls, or how to deal with
but with Teresa it seemed no problem. "What are you
to do?" she asked suddenly. "Are you going to stay here?
isn't much to do, you know."
"I'd be gone," I said, "if it weren't for you . . . and him."
I' A few people came and went, and after waiting on them she
back to sit with me. Betweentimes I thought about my
54
 52
LOUIS L'AMOUR
father and Felix Yant. Somehow there was a connection, and I meant to know what it
was.
"If I leave suddenly," I said, "just remember I'll come back." "Maybe," she said.
"Men always say they will come back,
but they rarely do."
"I will."
She was silent a minute, and then she said, "He was talking
to them, to those men who came in here that day."
To Wacker and Dick? Now what did that mean? What could
he get from them that he did not know already? Or was he going to let them do the
job for him?
"Tomorrow," I said, "watch for me. But don't expect me." "Watch for you?"
"So he will think I am coming."
I rode out quickly at sundown, back a half hour later. He watched me from behind
his curtain but did not follow. Was he so sure I'd be back?
Immediately I went to bed. I had eaten earlier, now I wanted rest, but I put my few
things together first, and at four in the morning, with a cold wind blowing along
the streets, I slipped out and went to the stables. Swiftly I saddled, keeping my
face toward the door. Then I walked out and took a trail out of town, around the
corrals and away from the street. When I passed from sight of any window in town,
I started to canter.
It was still dark, and what warned me was a sudden catch of wood smoke on the air.
Just a breath of it, then it was gone, yet instantly I was alert. The wind was wrong
for the town, and there were no shacks out here that I knew of.
Instantly, I turned the roan into the deeper shadows along
the edge of the forest and drew up, touching his shoulder gently with a gloved hand.
Again I caught the smoke. A camp or a cabin of which I knew nothing . . . somebody
was there . . close by.
The roan walked at my signal, hoofs crunching a bit on the hard snow. Suddenly a
man loomed up before me, rising out of a creek bed, but his rifle was not up, and
I had the impression he had not meant to be seen, for when we glimpsed each other
he shied as if he would try to hide, but there was no place, so he stood still. It
was Wacker.
"So that's it? He set you to spy on me?"
He stood silent, watching me warily. "I think," I said, "I would be very slow about
going to him with news of my ride. He won't like it when I come back into town."
55
 THE PROVING TRAIL
53
"If you do."
"If I do. But wouldn't you like it better if I did not? Where is
' bread buttered, Wacker? Would you rather have me gone
I cannot get people to asking questions, or in town i where you have to worry?"
. "I think he means to kill you."
"I have no doubt of it, Wacker, but you found that I do not
die easily, and I'm tougher now. Go if you like, but if I were I'd let well enough
alone. Go in an hour from now and tell you saw me leave . . . choose whatever time
you like." I
at him. "By that time I may be coming back.'"
He stood there looking at me, and I was wasting time.
is it between you? He wants you bad, I think."
, "Ask him."
I'd ask him nothing. Not that one."
He stepped aside and I rode on, watching back, however,
trusting him not one whit. When there was a good two
yards and a bend in the road between us, I spoked roan and we took the next mile
at a good run, then slowed,
rising from us in a cloud.
Felix Yant would be after me now. This would be his chance kill. I had no doubt that
he was a dead shot. His kind would
An excellent horseman, also, but his horse was a finely
eastern gelding, not a mountain horse. I felt very sorry for horse.
My destination was Georgetown, but I headed west, away it. I headed away from the
high, snow-covered peaks with passes choked with snow. I headed for the desert.
He had told me nothing of the years he had left behind, but
they were akin to mine. He had lived well, I
or almost well, and he wanted more of that life. Now would find how others lived,
for I knew where he was to be
Mine were but seventeen, almost eighteen years, but had been lean and hungry years,
with long, lonely rides.
I was old enough to recall, I had ridden the wild country, I knew how to live there
even like the coyotes who haunt empty desert spaces.
Did he know the high desert in winter? Did he know those
and empty spaces, sometimes spotted with patches of thin always swept by cold and
bitter winds? If he did not he would learn, for that was where I now went.
iThe roan knew. The roan was bred in those spaces, in the wild,
canyon country and in the high deserts to the south of
56
 54
LouIs L'AMOUR
there. If Felix Yant wanted my hide, he would have to buy it with suffering, cold,
and every bit of toughness there was in him.
Wild and broken was the land to the west, a land of little water and less rain, a
land where the rivers ran in canyons a thousand feet deep and where the springs were
hidden in hollows of rock. Where a few Indians lived and no white man except a chance
prospector or a trapper whom no one had told that the great days of fur were gone.
I rode down with the wind, down off a lofty plateau and into a canyon, then out to
the lonely outpost store, where I led my horse to the stable. I had an hour, perhaps
two. I went inside after watering my horse and giving him a bait of corn. Inside
the store was warm, and an old man, very tall and thin with steel-rimmed spectacles,
read a book by the potbellied stove. He looked over his glasses at me. "Not many
ride in this weather," he commented.
"There's a man behind me," I explained.
"The law?"
"No . . . an enemy. I don't know how much of an enemy, but if he follows where I
am going, he'll be wanting me bad."
I walked to the counter and ordered what I would need, a side of bacon, some dried
fruit, flour, salt, beans, a few odds and ends, and some hard candy. It would help
me through the times when I could not stop. I also bought one hundred rounds of .44s.
"You been out there before?"
"I have."
"Has he?"
"I don't believe so."
"West, south, and north," he said, "there isn't another white
man for a hundred miles . . . more likely two hundred miles." "Nobody at Lee's Ferry?"
"They come and got him. Or took him somehow. I don't think there's anybody there
now."
He looked at me. "You're almighty young. Have you killed somebody?"
"Not yet," I said. "I'm hoping not to."
"If he ain't use to it, an' he follers you," the old man said, "you won't need to
kill him. That country will do it."
He looked at me again. "You been there, you say?"
"I come across with my pa. I was a youngster the first time, standing about as high
as the sight on a Winchester."
He nodded slowly. "With a tall man? A gentleman?"
57
 THE PROVING TRAIL
55
"He was my father," I said gently, "and he was always a gentleman, and always a man."
"Ride well, son," the old man said, "an' make your grub last. I seen you come in.
That's a good horse."
"This was his country," I said. "Pa taken him from the wild bunch over there back
of the Sweet Alice Hills."
The ]and fell away in a vast sweep like a great, empty sea where no billows roiled,
nor even waves. Stiff grass stood in the wind, scarcely bending, and the cedar played
low, humming songs with the wind.
I rode away into the empty land, and there was no sound but the drum of hoofs upon
the hard ground, and there was no dust, and scarcely a track to mark my passing.
58
 CHAPTER VIII
W
hat is it makes a man do the things he does? Time to time I've wondered about that,
and it was pa who set me to thinking. I never realized that pa was running until
it was too late. Sure, it occurred to me now and again that we moved a lot, sometimes
leaving good jobs and places we liked. It was only now that I wondered if pa was
running away from something, or simply avoiding an issue, a settlement he did not
wish to face.
Pa wasn't scared. I'll give him that. Several times I'd seen him face up to mighty
dangerous situations, always calm, easy, and in command. And he was a good man with
a gun.
Something happened back yonder in his younger years that had brought him to grief.
That something was tied in with the reason Felix Yant would come riding after me.
Oh, I never doubted he'd come! And deep inside me I was sure it was he, and nobody
else, who killed pa.
What bothered me was I felt an uneasy kinship with the man. Maybe we were related,
but it was more than that. Sometimes when he spoke, I knew what he would say before
he said it, and that was strange, too, for he was a different kind of man than I'd
ever known.
Some things about me bothered him, too. He didn't like the language I used most of
the time. What he hadn't yet realized was that it was a sort of a vernacular most
western men slipped
59
 THE PROVING TRAIL
57
.into, no matter how well they could talk or how much they :,knew of the language.
Part of it was that the educated ones didn't want to seem to be putting on airs,
as the saying was, but it was more than that. It was almost as if it was a dialect.
..We used a lot of contractions and Indian or Spanish words that into our speaking
natural-like.
Yant, who was obviously new to the West, would and look at me to guess the meaning
of what I'd said. I an idea the words we used would in a short time become much a
part of the language nobody would even hesitate them.
We used lariat, which was short for the Spanish la reata, hombre was used almost
as much as man. There were of other words and expressions that sort of filtered into
talk from the Indians, the Spanish, and the coun itself.
an' that roan, we just taken off into the desert-like coun toward the west. Not that
it was desert, but it was dry-- you knew where the water lay. And all the advantage
lays a man who is making the trail. He can go where he stop when he likes, and I
was of no mind to make it
first I didn't attempt to make myself hard to find. What I
most was distance, and I hit a fair pace and held to it. roan could go all day at
a kind of shambling trot. no illusions about what I was getting into. Yant, if he
killed pa, was as cold-blooded as they come. He'd shot pa
range and in the back of the head, and he'd do same for me if the chance allowed.
Maybe I was better in country and maybe I wasn't. In any event, the man was a and
a tough, dangerous man, not to be held lightly. could shake him loose, I'd strike
out for Georgetown and that pa had left something there. If not, I'd have to the
situation and go over pa's back trail.
and the judge and them seemed far away and in world. I was staking my life on outguessing
Felix Yant. was nobody I could go to for help. Anyway, it wasn't things were done
in the West. A man saddled his own and he fought his own battles. He stood alone,
on his i.two feet. A gang was a place for cowards to hide, because were afraid to
stand out in the open. They wanted others their battles for them and to shield them
from attack.
wind was cold, right off the snow-covered flanks of the
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 58
LOUIS L'AMOUR
mountains, which lay behind me now. How far I was going west I had no idea, only
that somehow I had to shake Yant from my trail and then turn east once more.
There was ice on the edges of Cherry Creek when I crossed it. Then, deciding here
was where I should start, I turned downstream, keeping my horse in the water for
a couple of miles, then out on the east bank again, and by high noon I was skirting
the La Plata on the west side, hunting for an arroyo I dimly remembered that ran
off to the northwest. Sometime about an hour later, I saw it off to the west and
cut acrosscountry. There was a trail but I chose to avoid it, crossing to the arroyo
itself. There had been recent rains, but cattle had gone up and down the canyon leaving
a maze of tracks that in the soft sand had no distinction, one from the other. Keeping
to the arroyo for another hour, I reached the old Ute Trail, which would take me
west to the Mancos River.
Leaving the roan to graze on whatever he could find, I climbed a high shoulder near
the trail and sat there for a good half hour, watching my back trail. I saw nothing,
not even dust. Ifistead of making me feel good, it left me worried.
Suppose I was all wrong and he had not followed me? Suppose he had outsmarted me
and guessed my intention and was waiting until I started east again? He was a shrewd
man, and I returned to my horse feeling none too good.
The land through which I rode was lonely, desolate, offering nothing. Here and there
great mesas thrust up from the land about, towering like islands from a vanished
sea. Off to the south was the tableland of Mesa Verde, its great promontory like
the bow of a ship outlined sharply against the sky.
Everywhere there was a thick stand of cedar, and wherever there was an open space,
it was grown up to sagebrush. From time to time up some branch canyon, there was
a glimpse of spruce trees along the flanks or in the ends of the canyons. It was
rough, broken country with many fallen slabs of rock and talus slopes. I needed a
place to hole up. If Yant lost my trail, he might give up on me.
At the head of a canyon a trail branched off to the northwest. No Indian tracks,
although this was Ute country, only a scattering of deer and other animal tracks.
I was catching a sense of the country now, remembering it from a time long since,
when pa and me had holed up here for a spell.
Red Horse Gulch was somewhere off to the south, and if I
61
 THE PROVING TRAIL
59
wasn't guessing wrong, this trail led to a spring. I turned the roan along that trail,
and from the way he quickened his step I had an idea there was water ahead.
Believe me, I was mighty uneasy. Felix Yant might be green io this country, but he'd
ridden and hunted a lot and it would ;llke some doing to fool him. I was banking
that he'd sightmostly, or trailed game with dogs, and that he wasn't of a tracker.
Yet to underestimate an enemy is always
About a half mile or so from where I left the Ute Trail, I the spring. First off
I let my horse have what he wanted, myself, and filled my canteen. Plenty of game
tracks but horse tracks.
Squatting beside the spring, I considered what lay before me behind me. Odd part
of it was, I was kind of enjoying this game. The trouble was--and this I had to keep
ilrnindmthat it was no game. It was being played for keeps, all a man needed was
one mistake.
ght now a man was on my back trail who was deadly as a He'd shot pa in the back,
so it showed he didn't have mercy in him. It may have shown something else . . .
that it came right down to it, he was scared of pa.
strange that anybody could be afraid of pa, who had seemed the gentlest of men, yet
Yant had taken no with him.
spring was in a small branch canyon, and I didn't much there for fear Yant would
come down the draw and me there, so I straddled the roan and started down Here and
yonder the trail went up the flank of the to get away from great blocks of rock that
had broken wall and tumbled to the bottom, blocking any trail there have been.
and there I saw broken pieces of pottery, so Indians lived here before. Pa had told
me of some cliff dwellings this canyon and another branch that ran back toward the
north.
the canyon forked, I turned right and found myself up into the high arch of one of
those shallow, windcaves where the old cliff dwellers liked to build. was a cliff
dwelling there, too, but it was different.
was a ledge crossed that cave some sixty feet from the of the arch, and on that ledge
was built a house. Only
62
 60
LOUIS L'AMOUR
ruins were left, yet pretty substantial ruins. How a body could get up there was
more than I could figure, but a man sitting up there with a rifle could cover anybody
coming down that canyon where I was.
The cave was right at the junction of those two canyons, and the more I looked at
that cliff house, the more I wanted to see what was inside. Certainly once a man
got in there, a body would surely be in a fix trying to get at him. If I could get
in.
Riding up the canyon was no easy matter. There was a sandy strip in the bottom where
water had run during rains, but great boulders and slabs of rock had fallen across
the way in several places. There was more pottery down here, or bits and pieces of
it, and there were several ruins tucked back under the brows of the cliff. Back at
the junction those canyon wails were maybe five hundred feet high, but a little less
toward the canyon's head. Near the far end I glimpsed what seemed to be some ruins
in behind some spruce trees. Leaving my horse cropping at some brush, I scrambled
up there and found the ruins of a house and the edge of what might have been a kiva,
one of their round ceremonial centers. It was mostly filled with rock that had sloughed
off the roof of the cave. The place was cool, still, and almost entirely hidden from
below. In a couple of pools water stood, runoff from recent rains that had not evaporated
in this shaded place.
Returning to my roan, I found a place where it could be hidden behind a thick stand
of spruce, a fairly level area, although small. Here, too, there were broken fragments
of pottery and some ears of corn that were only three or four inches long and no
larger around than my finger. Stripping the gear from the roan, I hid it as well
as I could with some fallen branches and the like. Then, taking my rifle and canteen,
I went back down the canyon, working my way along the steep side, following what
must at one time have been a foot trail, that took me higher and higher along the
canyon wall.
Several hundred feet above the canyon floor I found a crack in the canyon wall where
stood the notched trunk of a cedar. Rigging a crude sling for my rifle, I hung it
over my back to have both hands free for climbing. Slowly and carefully, aiding myself
with handholds or fingergrips on the rocks, I mounted to an excessively narrow ledge,
then by another notched pole to a still higher one.
Working my way along and up, I reached a ledge that led to
63
 THE PROVING TRAIL
61
the cliff house. Once settled inside, I unslung my rifle and lered out through a
crack in the crumbling wall. From here I could look down to the junction of the two
canyons. It was an easy rifle shot, but did I wish to kill?
Settling back, I studied my surroundings. On my right, almost under my elbow, was
the edge of the kiva, a round cremonial room with some of the ancient timbers still
in place although the roof had long since fallen in.
There was a door, broader at the top than at the bottom, for is not a man wider at
the top? And often carrying a burden on his back or shoulders? And another opening
that gave access to an area beyond.
There were bits of broken pottery lying about and a number of small corncobs, less
than a third the size of those with which
was familiar. Corn had been domesticated, apparently, but of developed to our present
standard. I took a short drink my canteen and settled back to rest.
All was quiet in the canyon. Occasionally a rock, loosened by animal or by the workings
of nature, would tumble off the canyon below. Once I heard some small animal
horse was reasonably safe. Shielded by trees as he was, somewhat above the canyon
floor in the old ruin, there was
chance he would be discovered. It would need someone
lacking in caution to go up the canyon to its end,
exposed to rifle fire from a dozen possible places of Felix Yant was not, I was sure,
such a man.
What I needed was a little rest, time to think and to plan,
a chance to observe my enemy, ff such he was, and to
what manner of man he was.
Slowly the afternoon passed. I dozed, awakened, dozed again. At last, peering through
some broken brick atop the wall, I
a bird fly up.
'Somebody coming? Suddenly I began to sweat. Suppose had seen me climb up here? If
sueh was the ease I could
be trapped, for impossible as the place was to attack, it
almost equally impossible to leave without exposing myself. At night? The thought
of attempting that cliff in the darkness
me no pleasure. I was agile enough, and had climbed a lot
rocks, but at night? Not if I could help it.
. Nothing happened. All was still. Watching, I thought of of those cold, measuring
eyes that seemed to possess no human feeling than those of a rattler.
64
 62
Louis L'AMOUR
That he was a relative I accepted. His resemblance to pa was too uncanny for it to
be otherwise. Yet how related? And if related, why would he wish to kill me?
An estate of some kind? Money motivated more things than hatred, yet there could
be both.
The two mysterious women who had come to visit us returned to mind. One had been
friendly, yet I had been so frightened of the other I had never even told pa . .
. and she had tried to kill him. To poison him, somehow. I knew that now. Pa had
been deathly ill after her visit.
Who could she be? And why did they wish us dead?
I was alone. I knew nothing. And they were seeking me out. Suddenly, I was uneasy.
I felt cramped, closed in, eager to be out and away. Yet to move now would be fatal.
I must remain where I was, let them search, let them seek me.
Georgetown. I was sure now that was where pa had left his papers. He and Louis Dupuy
had struck up a friendship, and the man Dupuy was a strange, bitter, self-isolated
man, influenced by no one, beholden to no one. If pa wished to leave those papers
with someone, he could have chosen no better man.
A stone fell from the canyon wall opposite, a pebble that bounded from rock to rock.
My eyes searched the rock wall opposite. Much broken rock, clumps of cedar, and some
lower brush. The rock atop the cliff was largely water-worn and smooth, but here
and there were hollows that held water. It was from these natural reservoirs, most
of them small, that the cliff dwellers had obtained some of their water.
A faint flicker of light on metal, seen and gone. A rifle barrel?
There was silence in the canyon. Easing my rifle forward, I waited. The last thing
I wished was to give away my position, and to move might be fatal. I had water enough
for another day and night if I was careful. I had a little food. It was unlikely
they would find the way up that I had used, impossible for them to use it by night,
so for the moment I seemed secure.
Peering through a crack in the rocks, I saw a man suddenly appear opposite me on
the rim of the canyon. He moved out in plain sight and just stood there.
Puzzled, I watched him for several minutes before it dawned on me that he was there
to draw my fire, or to somehow make
65
 THE PROVING TRAIL
63
me give away my position. I remained very still. The man disappeared, and a moment
later there was a shot. The bullet struck the rock outer wall of the cliff house.
Careful to make no sound, I crawled through the T-shaped door into the inner room,
which was completely enclosed. I would be safe from ricochets.
Apparently they had no idea where I was or if I was even in canyon, and if my horse
made no sound we might well them into moving on.
Another shot, and this time the bullet struck the back wall of ie cave, and the ricochet
smashed into the rock wall. For a time then, there was no sound. I took a swallow
of water waited. There were no more shots. After a while I moved of the inner room
and peered through the rocks. Nobody in sight.., nothing moved.
Somewhere thunder rolled and a wind stirred the cedars the canyon. Leaning my head
back against the rock pile I sat, most of it debris or slabs fallen from the wall
of the I dozed.
i I awakened to the patter of rain and a crash of thunder a flash of lightning. That
one was dose. Sitting up, I
out. Here I was sheltered, but the canyon was veiled by of rain. g, I clasped my
hands behind my head. They have to find shelter, and I just hoped they did not
my horse. But they had seemed unaware of any caves houses further up the canyon and
had evidently missed
For a long time I slept, and when I awakened it was cold and It was raining softly
now, and thunder was a muted far off. Listening, I heard nothing but the rain. I
thought imy horse and of the trail I must follow to reach it. To wait daylight would
mean I would be exposed and helpless on canyon wall, yet if I could make it by night
I might slip away.
still for a while, reluctant to break my comfort, for the hard rocks upon which I
lay, I had rested well. the longer I lay still, the more urgent became the need Carefully,
I reviewed the steps I had taken in mount; the cliff. Dare I attempt it by night?
In the rain and the
I sat up and looked around. It was very dark, for the
66
 64
LOUIS L'AMOUR
sky was still heavy with rainclouds and no star could be seen. My father had told
me the spirits of the dead were believed by the Indians to still linger in these
cliff dwellings, and I did not doubt it. Lying alone in one of a night, where nothing
else lived, subtle stirrings could be heard, and sometimes mumbling and distant chanting
or the sound of flutes. So it was said and so it was believed. I heard stirrings
enough, but the earth itself makes sounds and the wind finds holes to whistle through.
Maybe . . . who was I to argue the point? In any event, if the spirits lingered here,
they were no enemies of mine, or should not be, for I wished them no harm, nor their
dwelling. This had been a shrewd place in which to build, where attack by night was
virtually impossible.
Gathering my few things about me, I slung my rifle over my shoulders to have my hands
free. Then I crept back over the narrow ledge, bending far over because of the low-hanging
rock above me. At one point I knew to step carefully, for a deep crack cut through
the ledge to the back wall, a drop of several hundred feet if one made a false step.
Inching along in the darkness, I found that despite the darkness my eyes could pick
out places for my feet, and eventually I found the two notched poles down which I
must descend.
For a few moments I crouched there at the top of the first. Below me gapped the blackness
of the canyon depths, above me loomed the cliff. I listened, but heard nothing. That
pole worried me. It simply stood there, unfastened to anything. The slightest overbalance
and it would fall, and I would go with it.
However, it did stand in a sort of notch that concealed it from observation and helped
to hold it in place. At last I got a good grip on a corner of rock and turned slowly
around and felt with my toe for the first notch.
My toe missed it, and desperately I felt it sliding down the pole. Then it caught
on another step. Gingerly I lifted the other foot and took a long step downward.
The pole wavered under me, and I leaned toward the rock to hold it still. Then I
took another careful step downward . . . how many steps had there been?
It started to rain again, a hard, pelting rain. Step by step I worked my way down
to the rock ledge on which the pole stood. Now a little to one side, and the other
pole. It was the longer of the two . . . I thought.
67
 THE PROVING TRAIL
65
Working my way along the ledge, I found the second pole and descended it warily.
When my feet were once more on olid ground, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Now to my horse . . . if he was still there . . . and someone
not waiting there, lying in wait for me.
Now the heavy rain was in my favor. Not only did it mask itlae sounds of my movements,
but nobody would be abroad in sueh a rain.
I hoped.
68
 CHAPTER IX
There sound in the
sound but the rain
was
no
canyon,
no
on
the rocks, on the brim of my hat and my shoulders. The
ruin cloaked by trees where I had left my horse lay hidden in the
deepest shadow. Warily, I paused before descending over the
mound of fallen rock and earth.
Here the rain was muted by the cavern and the trees. I
listened, holding my Winchester ready in my two hands to use
as a club or to fire.
Nothing stirred. I took a tentative step forward, waited a bit,
then another step. All was still. Another step, moving a little to
the right, closer to the edge where the walking was better. My
boot toe kicked a rock and it fell, bounding off a rock, then
falling into the kiva.
Instantly I dropped to a crouch, rifle ready to fire. Had there
been anyone waiting, the sound of the pebble falling should
have drawn a gunshot.
Waiting ... listening ... how much time did I have? I
must be out of the branch canyon and well down the main
canyon before first light.
Suddenly something stirred. A footfall? I straightened up
and took a step forward. Then my horse nickered softly. Mov ing closer, I felt his
nose at my shoulder. "Hello, boy." I spoke
quietly. "Have you missed me?"
Feeling about in the darkness, I found my saddle, blanket,
66
69
 THE PROVING TRAIL
67
bridle where they had been left. The roan welcomed the
and smoothing the hair on his back, I shook out the blanket free it of any grains
of sand. Then I saddled up. Taking each
with care, I led the horse to the edge of the trail. Once there ,waited, listening.
Then I removed my slicker from the blanket
back of the saddle and donned it.
The rain fell steadily. There would be a danger of flash floods
I got out of this branch canyon. Around me the rocks
with wet. Leading the roan, I felt my way cautiously the slope to the canyon floor.
Here there was a strip of already running with water.
i!.With a palm I swept the saddle free of water and mounted.
rifle in hand, I walked him down the canyon, keeping
L to the sand, where his hoofs made almost no sound. iThis must be the one they had
called Lion Canyon ...
with reason, and probably why the roan was eager to
the mouth of the canyon I hesitated. If I remembered this larger canyon was about
five miles longer. At the it joined the still larger canyon of the Mancos River.
The
if I recalled correctly, held to the east side of the river back from the bank, which
was where I wished it to be. well past the entrance to Lion Canyon, I moved the into
a canter. Five miles in the darkness and rain? Pera half hour if lucky, three-quarters
of an hour if I was not. if there was danger of a flood here, but once in
Canyon the chances were increased tenfold, for there canyons that fed into it, particularly
those from the mesa north of the river.
they would find no tracks. All would be washed by the rain. The Mancos might be too
deep for them to and that might hold them up . . . if I could get across it
was somewhat lighter in Mancos Canyon, because it was
I rode to the edge of the river and drew up. The dark rushed by, at least three times
as wide and probably times as deep as normally. An instant I hesitated, then I the
roan forward. Snorting a little, wary of the water, he hesitated, then plunged in.
A moment of deep wading i, then he was swimming. The current was strong. We swept
struggling toward the far bank.
suddenly he was scrambling for a footing, and then we
70
 68
LOUIS L'AMOUR
were out of the water and weaving a way through the rainheavy willows. Turning, I
glanced back.
There was only the dark, rushing water, still rising, and the wide jaws of the canyon,
black against the night. The trail was further east and north. Emerging from the
willows, the roan found his way to the trail, and I turned him northwest. Above us
to the northwest and mostly north was the vast bulk of Mesa Verde, split with myriad
canyons. When my father had brought me through here long ago, he told me of whispers
from among the Indians of strange castles built in the cliff walls, ruined castles
or dwellings of a people who vanished long before.
Riding along through the rain, I kept thinking of Teresa. Do no harm to stop by and
make a little talk on the way east. Seemed to me they'd waste time hunting me back
there in the canyons. Me leaving no tracks in the rain, they'd study on it no doubt
and search careful before they pulled out.
So far I'd seen nobody, which probably meant nobody had seen me, not in the dark
and the rain. I'd have to hole up and rest some, come morning, for the roan was a
good horse and needed to be treated kindly. It was nigh to breaking day when the
canyon forked. One line went due north and the other took off toward the east, which
was my direction.
When we reached the main trail east, I just taken off to the north of it, rode up
the slope for a ways, and found myself a place among the aspen. There was a hollow
screened by aspen from the main trail. There I picketed the roan, and taking my gear
back under the trees, I made a hurried shelter from some fallen aspen and brush in
a space well covered by the aspen branches. Wet though the ground was, I put down
my slicker and roiled up in my blanket to hope for the best.
It was nigh on to noon when I opened my eyes. For a moment I just lay still to listen,
but heard nothing. After a bit I rolled my gear, saddled up, and lit out.
At Starvation Creek I drank, watered the roan, then cut down for the main trail.
I taken a look back to the west, but nobody was in sight, although I couldn't see
far. There were no tracks on the trail since the rain, so I taken out down the road.
Maybe I was a fool to go back, yet I wished to see Teresa. Why, I did not know. No
doubt it was loneliness, for now I had begun to feel my father's absence more than
I could tell. We had been much together, often not talking, yet together
71
 THE PROVING TRAIL
69
and he was all I had as I was all he had. At least,
at the end.
Always the nagging thought.., who had he been? Who was
Kearney McRaven? The name did not sound right, although how a name should sound I
did not know.
But who had my father been? And who was Felix Yant? Why he killed my father, for
I was now sure it had been him, why did he seek ,to kill me?
Who were the women who came to visit when I was young?
where were they now? What part had they in all this? The questions nagged at me,
irritated me. Why had I been
a fool not to listen when I had the chance?
Nobody paid much mind when I rode into town It was a late
and, it being largely a mining town, folks had gone to
. Folks who handle drill steel and a single or double jack day, or swing a muck stick,
they don't have much use for
hours. This time of year things were slow, waiting for the
to show and the warm weather to come.
stabled my horse and fetched my gear over to the hotel, I just dumped her there at
the foot of the stairs and went the restaurant
thing I saw was her. She was across the room taking an
from a customer and she just stared at me, then went to kitchen. Me, I dropped into
a chair
brought food to those men at the other table and then
to me with the coffeepot and a cup. She filled the cup, hand shaking so she spilled
some in the saucer
. . you're back!"
seemed surprised, and I couldn't make out whether she
or not, but I guessed she was. "Seems as though," "That's my horse yonder in the
stable, and these are my so this must be me."
thought... I mean I was afraid you were . . . dead."
or two," I said, "I was cold enough to be. You got a slice of cow meat? Or cougar,
for that matter."
up the coffee, I said, "Been drinkin' my own make. taste near as good as this."
better leave," she warned "He's . . . he's here." That would be Yant. "'Here?" I
couldn't believe it.
been here. He said you'd be back.., if you lived" looked up and I saw her face turn
kind of pale and there
tall, neat, and well set out like a gentleman should be. looked at me for a moment
from those cold, cruel eyes, and
72
 70
Louis L'AMOUR
I had no idea what he was thinking. Nor could I guess whether he was glad to see
me or sorry. No doubt he expected me to be dead.
Teresa, she hurried off and he set down. Didn't even wait to ask my leave. He turned
a chair around and set straddle of it. "You had a long ride for nothing," he commented.
"Maybe. I figure a man learns by travel, and I seen some country."
He looked at me sharply, irritated. "You saw some country. If your father was your
teacher, he did a damned poor--"
"Mr. Yant," I interrupted him, "you leave my pa out of this. You say one more bad
thing about him an' I'll blow your guts out."
He just stared at me. "'You?" he said contemptuously. "Don't talk like a fool, boy.
I was using guns before you were born."
"Maybe," I replied coolly, "but I'll be using them after you're dead."
We just looked at each other, and I was almighty glad my coat was open and I had
one gun shoved out in my waistband. He saw that, too. If there was an edge, I had
it.
"Don't be a fool, boy. You aren't dry behind the ears yet."
"That may be true," I said, "but this gun's full-growed . . . grown."
He stared at me, but I stared right back. Boy-like, I hadn't no intention of being
stared down by him. After a moment he shrugged. "You'll never live to be old enough.
You're too cocky. You're too sure of yourself."
"Maybe I've got reason. Did you ever think of that? My pa was good with a gun, almighty
good. The man who murdered him knew that, I think, and was too yellow to stand up
to him so he shot him in the back. If the man who did that should come around, he
ought to know that pa always said I could draw faster and shoot straighter than any
body he ever saw."
Teresa returned with another cup and coffee for Yant. She put both of them down and
a moment later was back with food.
"Would you like?" She was looking at Yant. "I mean, do you want to eat?"
"Yes, my dear," he said. "I believe I will join our young friend here."
Whatever was on Yant's mind was not shooting. Not at the moment, at least. In fact,
I got the idea he was even relieved to see me. As he had no liking for me, I got
to wondering why that was.
73
 THE PROVING TRAIL
71
"Your father must have been quite a man," he commented.
'¥ou two traveled a lot, I take it?"
"We did."
"Were you always alone? No friends along the way?"
"Here and there," I said, "here and there."
"You should have gone to school," he commented. "Surely
stayed some places long enough?"
lie sipped his coffee and seemed irritated when I made no
,. He was a most impatient man. "I mean, he could have you with friends if he just
had to move on. That way you
have gone to school."
Ie liked having me with him." As I spoke, the idea came to that he was fishing, He
wanted to find out if we had good
He had the same idea I had, that pa might have left
somewhere.
just maybe I could give him a false lead. "Oh, we
here and there," I said casually, "but pa didn't get to many people. Of course, there
was Jim Gillette. He
were close. There was some sort of a fandango down in
. . . getting somebody out of jail down there and back the border. Pa had some good
friends in Mexico, and he
somehow."
Wasn't he an orncer.
Ranger. He had some position in El Paso, too, I We stayed in E1 Paso some little
time. Pa was working for the stage company, I think it was." ate in silence, and
then I added the kicker. "Wasn't
pa trusted, but Gillette was one of them."
to belabor the point, I moved on. "Pa met him on the
plains first, I think. Or in Amarillo. Pa said when he saw that town, it was built
of buffalo hides. You know,
get stiff as iron, and folks had built houses and even stores
kept watching us, but now I was wary of her, too. all, she had been here and Felix
Yant had also, and he i a smooth-talking man. Certainly he had more to offer than
t drifter like me. Or so it might seem to both her her. And no doubt they'd begun
to wonder why he was about, this time of year. They would surely think it rather
than anything to do with me. '
been my reason for coming back here, but all of a I felt uneasy about her. And right
then I begun to be a lonesome boy. It just seemed there was nobody in the
74
 72
Louis L'AMOUR
world I could get close to. She'd been in my thinking ever since we met, but now
I wasn't so sure. Since pa had been killed, I'd been alone, and I didn't favor it
much.
She came over to see if our coffee was hot and she taken up the pot to go for more.
"You're not too busy," Yant said. "Why don't you sit down for a minute or two? I
am sure Kearney
would appreciate your company as much as I would.'" "Well, I--" She hesitated, sort
of, looking at me. "Sure," I said, "sit down."
Maybe I didn't sound too happy, because she looked at me funny-like, but she said,
"I'll get some fresh coffee."
When she was gone, Yant looked at me, smiling a little. "A
pretty one," he said. "I hope you do not mind her joining us?" "Not at all," I said.
I was restless to get away. I wanted to be alone, to clean up, and to think of what
I must do. To find him here was the last thing I expected. Who then had pursued me
westward? Who had fired those inquiring shots into the cliff dwelling? Had he simply
sat here while men he hired followed me? I had been a fool, and he had outwitted
me at every turn.
What would happen when I started for Georgetown?
He would follow, of course. Somehow he had deduced that if my father had left me
anything of his past, it must be at some place further east. Did he believe my hints
about Jim Gillette? The man was no made-up figure but one well known there, and even
he had recognized the name.
Teresa returned with a fresh pot of coffee, yet she had no sooner seated herself
than Yant arose, surprising me, and her, too, I believe.
"There," he said, "I shall leave you two together. No doubt you will have much to
talk about. Your trip west, I imagine, was quite fascinating.., and so sudden. You
must tell Teresa about your experiences."
With that he was gone, and we sat there staring at each other. She was displeased,
I thought, by his sudden leave taking, but she tried to continue.
"What did happen out west?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Nothing much. Rain, cold, and a long ride.
Somebody followed me from here, I think, and shot at me." She stared at me. "'Shot
at you? Why?"
"I think it was those same two men, the two who came in here that day, just before
I left."
75
 THE PROVING TRAIL
73
"Who are you, Kearney?" she asked suddenly. "I mean
rally. You've never told me anything about yourself."
"I didn't figure you were interested."
"Oh, but I am! You told me about your father being killed. I'm
orry. That must have been awful for you. Did you send his
body back home?"
Well, I just looked at her. "'We hadn't a home," I said.
"Home was wherever we hung our hats. He was buried in the
to,,w where he fell.., like I'll be, no doubt."
,i
Fe I mean Mr. Yant, he has a plantation back in Carolina.
beautiful place, he said, with a lovely old house and acres
id acres of trees and planted land, right along a river."
"Good for him."
"He said he thought your father must have come from a good
too. Before the trouble."
"What trouble?"
. . I don't know. I just thought . . . I mean he said
most men who came west like that had come because they
in some kind of trouble."
"Is that why you folks came west?" I asked bluntly.
She flushed "It is not! And you've no right to suggest--"
"You just did it to me," I said.
; She stared at me, half-angry. "Well, you told me yourself
and your pa wandered all over, never stopping anyplace at
And then he did get shot. Somebody killed him, and they
have had a reason.'"
,"What do you mean by that?"
were alone in the room now, as the others had gone. I
angry and defensive.
he had done something to someone. Isn't that why
are usually killed? In revenge? Or in punishment?"
"Or because they have something," I said.
"You told me he wasn't robbed."
a moment I did not reply, for what had been lingering in
back of my mind all the time suddenly was there, right me. Of course that was why
he was killed. Revenge or might have had a part in it, but there was more than
He had been killed because of something somebody wanted.
nothing had been taken that I knew of, it must have been
he did not have with him but something that be to him, and that meant property.
Property? Land? But if Felix Yant had a plantation in Carolina,
would he be worried about what pa might have?
76
 74
LOUIS L'AMOUR
I knew very little about such things. Only supposing they were kin. Suppose that
plantation belonged to them both, and the only way Yant could have it all was to
kill pa? And then he discovered me, of whom he had not known?
That was a lot of surmising, yet pa and Yant did favor each other. I'd mistaken Yant
for pa, and they had mannerisms alike, and what was Yant doing out here, anyway?
"He wasn't robbed of anything he had on him," I said. "Maybe somebody was trying
to rob him of something he owned. If that was true, then I own it now.., whatever
it is."
"If your pa owned something that valuable, he'd be tending to it, not running around
over the country letting his boy grow up every which way."
She was quiet for a few minutes and so was I. She seemed like a totally different
girl, somehow. Had she always been that way, or was this something Yant had done
to her?
"If I were you," she said, "and I thought I owned anything, I would find out what
it was and claim it. Your pa, now, if he owned anything he would have some record
of it, or he would have told you."
"'He may have planned on telling me. Then he was killed."
"He must have told you something. If you tried, you could remember."
My coffee was cold. So was the night. I got up suddenly. "See you tomorrow," I said.
"
She started to turn away, then she looked back. Kearney. I
think you're angry with me."
"No, I ain't. Why should I be? You've done nothing."
"Mr. Yant likes you. He really does. He says you deserve a better future than this,
and I think he would help you if you
could just remember."
"Remember what.
"'Well, he said he thought maybe your pa had come from a good family, and that somewhere
he'd had some records or something. If you could find those, you could be somebody
yourself. He said he was sure you knew, although you might not think you did."
That, at least, was probably the truth. He wanted me to find those records. Maybe
he was afraid that if something happened to me, those records would show up. It was
then I thought back to Pistol. We'd always called ourselves brothers, but actually
we weren't blood kin. Somewhere along the line Pistol just took on with us, and pa
raised him along with me, only
77
 '
THE PROVING TRAIL
75
Pistol was older than me and before long he took off on his
Pistol, being older than me, might know something, but the
I heard Pistol was out California way. He taken his name from his skill, for he was
a natural with any kind of shooting iron. He was almighty quick and he was steady,
and that was
how come he left us.
We'd been in Missouri at the time, and pa was down sick ;i.. pneumonia, I think it
was. Pneumonia was a real killer them days, and pa was in bad shape. A woman there
was caring
him . . . name of Kate Donelson.
Pistol an' me, we were just sort of waitin' around. My age
about ten, if I recall, an' Pistol was closing in on sixteen.
these two men came to town.
I recall them clear. They were tall, straight men who never
. . not at least when I seen them. They wore black like the one pa had when he was
shot, and like the one Yant wore. I guess they were the style down south or east
or wherever. Mostly out west it was gamblers or
who wore them, and often doctors.
two men came to town, and I heard them inquiring pa. The man at the livery stable,
he told them he didn't
such a man, and he lied because he was friendly with pa.
to tell them, but something in that livery man's face me shut up.
I walked away and seen Pistol and told him. He asked me
they were an' I told him. Well, he taken a look and said should get on home. When
we got there, he went inside
buckled on his six-shooter. Now like I say, Pistol was
handy with one of them short guns but he never wore
in town . . . only on the trail. Pa had asked him not to.
Me, I said as much this time, an' Pistol said, "Pa won't mind time, Kearney. He surely
won't. You see those men coming, tell me and then you get inside, and do it quick."
Small town like that, there's always somebody who talks too
an' somebody did. We was settin' on the porch . . . I'd brought Pistol a cup of coffee
as he wouldn't leave those
not no way.
We seen.., saw.., them coming down the pike an' I says,
them!" He puts down his coffee and says, "You get inside stay away back. This here's
trouble."
"Trouble? Why?"
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 76
Louis L'AMOUR
"Those men are huntin' your pa to kill him. I got to stop them."
Well, I'd been taught long ago not to argue when told to move and I done it. I moved
inside and I went back to pa's bed and lifted one of his pistols from the holster.
He opened his eyes and looked at me.
"What's the trouble, boy?" he asked, his voice weak and sick-sounding.
"Nothing we can't handle," I said, and went back to the door, then to the window.
That window was open, and from beside it I could see those men. They looked at the
house, at Pistol, and then they started for the steps, and Pistol says, "You lookin'
for somebody?"
"It's nothing to you, boy. Get out of the way."
He stood up. "You just back off there," he says, quiet-like. "We ain't havin' visitors
today. There's a sick man in there."
"Don't worry about that," the biggest one said. "He won't be sick much longer. We're
doctors, boy, an' we got the cure."
"He's got him a doctor," Pistol said, and then he added, very quiet, "I ain't never
killed a man yet, so don't you boys insist."
Well, they taken a look at him then. They'd been figuring him for some wet-nosed
kid, and he stood there looking back at them and all of a sudden their manner changed.
"You never killed a man, boy? Well, we have. We've both killed our man, an' more
than one. We'd as soon make it another if you don't move, and now."
Suddenly he laughed. He laughed right out loud and that surprised them. It was a
real surprise because his laugh threw them off just enough and he went for his gun.
It was only an edge and a mighty slight one, but Pistol was fast and he was
sure.
He put two bullets into that big man faster'n you could wink, and then he shot the
other one just as his gun came into action. Pistol taken a bullet through the side
of his shirt, but that second man was already down.
I ran out on the porch, and Pistol turned on me. "You're hurt!" I said.
"No, I ain't, but the law here don't like me much and I'm leaving. You tell pa to
get well. He's the best man ever!"
He turned and started up the street, and just as he turned his back, that big man
who was lying there raised up on one elbow and pointed a six-shooter at his back.
I was to one side of
79
 THE PROVING TRAIL
77
him and seen it, and next thing I knew, I'd fired, my shot being just a mite faster
than the big man's.
Pistol turned and taken one quick look. "Thanks, Kearney ... thanks."
And then he was gone, and people came crowding up. We'd been on a sort of back street
where there weren't many folks, but they came back from the main street as soon as
the shooting stopped. And right behind the first of them was that two-bit town marshal.
Nobody liked him much, because he was mean. He pushed through the crowd soon as he
saw the shooting was over. I'd stuck my six-shooter back under the window-curtain
so's it was lying on the sill, out of sight.
"Here! What's going on here?" he demanded.
"Those men threatened to kill pa," I said, "an' pa's sick in bed." That was something
most of the town knew, as there
mighty few people in town and news got around, such as
weddings, and such. "They tried to push in here and brother, he stopped them."
Somebody in the crowd said, "Serves 'em right! Comin' after sick man!"
From the way folks reacted, that seemed to be the general
and nobody was quicker to sense that than the marshal.
know these men?" he asked.
Nobody did.
"What about you, boy? Did you know them? Why did they
to kill your pa?"
"'I never saw them before. I don't know why they wanted to
him. They must have hated him, to want to shoot a sick
who's on his back in bed with pneumonia. And they must come a long way looking for
him."
"Got what they deserved," one man muttered.
The marshal, he looked at me. "You sure your pa is down
"'You can ask Doc Cory," I said. "He's treating him.'"
He looked at the bodies. One of the men had a white vest, there was a bullet hole
where the heart was. The other had bullets in the body and a third in the head. That
one was
but I didn't lay claim to it.
"Didn't figure that brother of yours was that fast," the mar said.
"He's mighty good," I said, "maybe as good as pa."
,They carried the bodies away, and that was the end of it. Pa
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 78
Louis L'AMOUR
got well and we dragged our freight out of there, but we surely missed Pistol.
Standing there in that restaurant, empty but for Teresa and me, I thought back to
Pistol. I also thought of those two dead men and of Kate Donelson.
Pistol might know something, and so might Kate, if she was alive.
And those two dead men . . . maybe the folks in the town where they were killed had
some record, from the stuff in their pockets or what gear they had.
It was something to go on, and it was time I got started.
Teresa, she looked at me. "What are you going to do? Are you going off again?"
"Might as well. Looks like you found yourself a man."
She flushed. "He's not my man. At least he knows how to treat a lady and he's not
running off around the country all the time."
"You just see how long he stays once I'm gone," I said.
"Oh, my!" She stared at me. "You really think yourself important, don't you? He did
not leave before, after you left!"
"Some others did," I said, "and he didn't figure he'd need to. This time I'm going
east."
"He won't leave," she insisted. "When the snow is off, he plans to start mining."
"Good for him," I said, "and goodbye!"
I taken out of there, and picking up my gear, I went to the stable. They could keep
their old hotel. I'd sleep in the hay. The good Lord knows I'd slept in worse places.
81
 CHAPTER X
aylight was an hour away when I fetched out of there, and be lying if I said I'd
slept well. Tired as I was, I surely sleep. I'd been building ideas in my mind about
Teresa.
for that other freckle-faced girl I'd seen when I first off the mountain, I'd had
no girl in my thoughts.
is going to think about girls and such, he has to have particular girl in mind, and
I hadn't even seen one in or nine months. Teresa had seemed right friendly and I'd
of warmed up to her in my mind, but Yant was a talker I'd been gone awhile.
Me and that roan, we just taken out of there. The snow was passes now, and the trees
were budding out in fine
When I left town I was riding south, but I knew where I was
and a few miles out I took a dim mountain trail up Scotch That was high country and
rough, but I held to the old trail and went around a ridge and cut over to Hotel
I was heading east I might need a sight of money, and
I'd spent mighty little going west, a body never knew
he might fetch up to needing. So I was heading back to cache on the plateau, or what
I called the place.
enough, when I topped out, the snow was gone except the peaks around. The wind was
chill but the grass and
79
82
 80
LouIs L'AMOUR
flowers were coming up. On the sunny, south-facing slope the tree-cover was higher,
mostly spruce so far as I could see, and the wild flowers would be blooming in no
time. Up that high a flower can't afford to waste time. They have to grow, blossom,
and put out seed before the next frost comes, and it's a hurry-up job for them.
The sun was warm and friendly, and when I looked across at the old cabin, it wasn't
there. Standing in my stirrups, when I topped a little rise I could see charred timbers.
Burned. I felt a twinge then, for I'd spent some good nights in that place. Burned
by the judge and them, no doubt.
I stayed shy of it, heading for my cache. There was no time to waste around if I
figured to get anywhere, and already I was thinking of that town where pa had been
killed. It was fairly enough on my route, and even if it meant taking a chance, I
was going on in.
A whiskey-jack made noises at me from a rock, hoping I'd go into camp. He followed
along, keeping track of me. Jacob's ladder was blooming, and I saw some wand lily
and alumroot here and there.
When I found my cache, I taken a long look around and then reached up and fetched
out my money. I'd never yet counted it and wasn't about to do so now. I stashed it
away in my saddlebags and taken out of there, heading out along a narrow trail through
boulder piles and uplifted slabs. Frost, wind, and sun had worn the sharp edges off
the rocks over the years, but here and there among the piles of boulders there was
some dwarf columbine with a flower no bigger than my thumbnail.
Marmots whistled signals to each other as I wove a way through the rocks, but they
didn't pay me much mind. Usually they whistle and disappear in the rocks, but they
must have remembered me putting crusts of bread out for them now and again, because
they just whistled and sat there, watching me pass. Maybe it was their way of saying
good-bye, because I never figured to see that place again.
Old Dingleberry was nowhere around when I passed the trail leading to his place,
and it was after sundown when I rode into the town where pa had been killed. There
were lights at the portals of some of the mines, and there were lights along the
street, mostly in saloons or eating places.
The roan was tired and so was I, so I fetched around to the livery stable. Old Chalk
was there, and he seen me ride up.
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
81
He knew that horse as well as me or better, and he said,
"Howdy, son. It's been awhile."
"Anybody around town lookin' for me, Chalk?"
"Not so's I heard, son. The judge, he cut up somethin' fierce
for a while, then he an' some others taken out. I reckoned they
was huntin' you."
He didn't ask no questions and I didn't offer any answers. A
man learns to keep his own affairs to himself. "Give old roan
a bait of oats. He's earned it."
"All right, son." Chalk watched me take my gear off the
and if he noted those saddlebags were heav,, he didn't
,speak of it.
"Chalk," I said, "you knew my pa."
"I did so. A finer man never walked, although he was no
abler. Not until that last night."
.' "He was gamblin' for me, Chalk. I never guessed until it was
late. He was trying to get me a stake so's I could go to
and such. It was the only way he knew how."
"He might have gone to minin'," Chalk commented.
"Now, the way I see it," I replied, "pa didn't figure he had
and there was a man on his trail . . . more than one of That reminded me. "Chalk,
did you ever see a man here, tall man, black coat like pa's, a man who favored
some?"
seen him."
i.. "'Can you tell me when?"
., "He come in the day your pa was killed and he rode out that
night. Had him a mighty fine horse."
,Thanks, Chalk."
"He the one who did it?"
"Seems like. I think he was family. I met him over yonder,"
Said, gesturing south. "He'll likely be along again, might even
after me."
should I tell him?"
"You haven't seen me. We'll meet up someday, and I figure
it, but there's some things I got to get straight first."
careful, boy. He may be a pilgrim but he's a hard, hard
I seen it in him."
'"Chalk? Did pa ever talk to you? I mean, you know more folks than anybody around,
and I've got to find out he came from." I kicked a toe into the dirt. "Chalk, I
rightly know who I am. I don't know why that man killed
or why he's wishful to kill me."
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
"'Your pa was not a talking man, son, but he was a good man and he was a gentleman.
Good family. I could tell that. He come from the South, too. I'd guess Caroliny,
maybe Georgia. I could get it by his accent, although most of it was lost. He had
the pride, too. Southern pride. I fit again them in the War, but they was good folks,
mostly, wrong to want to split the Union, but good folks. Your pa was such a one."
"Thanks, Chalk. I'll have a bite and go to sleep."
"Better get yourself a place first, because there's a lot of strangers in town. Been
some good ore showin' up, and the boomers can smell it from a thousand miles off,
the way they start comin' in."
"Chalk? Better have that horse ready. You hear any shootin', you saddle him, you
hear?"
"Will do." Chalk hitched his belt and looked at me, then spat. "You take care of
yourself, boy, and steer clear of grief."
When I had booked a room and left my gear in it, I went to the restaurant, but that
freckle-faced girl wasn't there and the fat-bellied man with the rolled-up sleeves
and hairy arms did nothing to brighten my evening but bring me grub. That was good,
however, and a body can't expect too much of life.
When I'd had something to eat, I walked out on Blair Street. In just two blocks of
that street there were thirty-two places where a man might get what he wished in
food, drink, or women. There was Big Mollie's place, Diamond-Tooth Lil's, the Sage
Hen, the Mikado, the Bon Ton, and Lola's. There was any kind of game you wanted,
if it was gamblin' you were hunting for.
Here I was, weighted down with money, more than anybody on the street, I guess, but
I'd learned not to flash it about, and looking at me nobody would guess that I had
anything, especially as I was just rubber-necking around.
Truth was I was lonely, just wishful of setting down with somebody to hear them talk.
I was turning back toward the hotel when I saw that girl with the freckles. She was
hurrying across the street with a couple of packages, and I spoke to her, but she
hurried on, paying me no mind.
"Ma'am?" I said. "I'll pack your groceries for you. We talked some awhile back in
the restaurant."
"Oh?" She hesitated, looking at me, and I taken off my hat. She recognized me then.
"You're the boy whose father was killed!"
85
 THE PROVING TRAIL
83
"'Yes, ma'am. You were the one warned me to be careful."
"Yes, I did. I was afraid for you." She stood looking at me. "Whatever happened to
Judge Blazer?"
"Last I seen of him he was with Tobin Wacker and a man they called Dick.'"
"I was afraid they had found you."
"Here." I took the packages from her arms and walked
her. "You lead the way and I'll pack these for you." ,i. "I liked your father," she
said. "He was a nice man."
i "He was. A better father than I knew I had." I hesitated a
"Do you know where they buried him? I taken out so
., "I'll show you, if you are going to be around."
"Well ... I can't. There's things I have to do back east
but I'll come back. I want to put some flowers on his Maybe a marker."
"There's a wooden cross with his name on it. We thought
knew."
"Knew? Why? Knew what?"
"That there was to be a cross. That note you left."
:i "I left no note."
was one. It was in the post oflqce, addressed To It May Concern, and it left some
money for a decent burial, and a marker. We thought you left it."
Yant. It had to be him. Shoot a man and then . . . he be kin, to do a thing like
that.
reckon I know who done.., did it. Anyway, I want some
on his grave. He'd have liked that. He was forever about the dogwood and laurel back
home . . . wherever
was."
"It sounds like the South."
We had fetched up to a cabin with a little picket fence
it and a light in the window. She hesitated. "I'd like to meet my mother, but not
right now. I don't think--"
me just set these things down inside," I said, "and I'll my way."
'
She opened the door and I stepped in behind her. There was fire burning in a coal
stove and there was a coal-oil lamp
on a table. Near it a woman was sewing. She was a thin,
woman, but she was some surprised when she saw
put her sewing down quick and said, "I--"
86
 84
LouIs L'AMOUR
"Now, ma'am, I just carried the groceries in for your daughter. I'll be leaving now."
Something got knocked over in the next room, and then a big man, unshaven and not
too clean, showed in the door. He had no shirt on, just his suspenders over his undershirt,
and he looked bleary, whether from being waked up or booze I couldn't tell.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, mighty rough.
"Kearney McRaven," I said. "I just showed your daughter home with--"
"Get out!" he said. "By the Lord, I'll not have any drunken saddle tramp coming around
here! Get out!"
Putting the groceries down on the table, I said, very quiet, "Mister, I'm not drunk
and I'm not a saddle tramp."
"'I don't give a damn who you are! I said get out, and I mean out!"
Her mother stood up then. She stood up quickly and she did it with grace and dignity.
"Henry, the young man is a guest. He just carried Laurie's groceries in."
He paid her no mind but walked into the room. "You get out," he said, "or I'll throw
you out!"
"I am leaving," I repeated, "but, mister, don't you ever try throwing me out. I don't
want to make any trouble for this young lady, but you've no call to talk like you've
been. Now you just back up an' back off."
He stopped, glaring at me. He'd expected me to get when he yelled, but there I stood.
Laurie's mother turned around quietly and said, "Mr. McRaven? Would you sit down?
I was just about to make some coffee."
"Now, see here!" he blustered. I'll be damned if--" "Henry," she said, turning on
him, "you've said quite enough. We would like to have you join us. If you do not
wish to, I am sure your friends down at the National will be waiting for you."
He was angry enough to have hit her, but I was standing there and I guess he didn't
like my manner.
"McRaven, is it? You're likely the son of that gambler who got himself killed."
"I am," I said, "and he was shot in the back, so I do not believe he 'got himself
killed," as you put it. He was never afraid to face a man with a gun or any other
kind of weapon. And," I added, "neither am I."
He stared at me, a mean, ugly look. "There's them as are lookin' for you," he said,
"an' I hope they find you!"
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
85
I smiled at him. "Just be sure you are not with them when they do."
He stomped back in the other room, and Laurie's mother
gestured to a chair. "Please? I cannot let you go now."
"I don't want to cause any trouble," I suggested.
"You are not causing trouble," she insisted. "You are perhaps bringing to a head
a difficult situation. Please sit down."
Well, I did so. First I took off my coat and put it over the back of the chair. My
hat was on the table beside me, but when I sat down they could see my cartridge belt
and pistols. She noticed them, as did Laurie.
"I just came in off the trail," I said. "I've been traveling
rough country."
"That is perfectly all right, Mr. McRaven. My husband fought .in the War Between
the States and often against Indians."
The man loomed in the door again and was about to say
else. Then he saw the gun I carried in my waistband, whatever he was about to say
died on his lips. He
"'We do not often have visitors, Mr. McRaven, and Laurie
all day so we do not often go out. It is good to have
: "Since pa died, I've been lonesome myself, ma'am. I haven't
to a woman.., excepting one.., in quite some time." "It is cold for traveling," she
said. "Many of the high passes
be open for another month. That poor Mister Nilson, you
The man who carried the mail? Some believe he took
money was in the mail and skipped out, but I think he trapped in a slide. He's been
missing for months."
"It was a mean winter," I said.
father was a southern man, Mr. McRaven? I did not him, but he often talked to Laurie.
She liked him very
Said he was such a gentleman."
"He was from the South, but I never knew exactly where.
he never talked about it much. Only some days he
get to remembering and he'd mention places . . . rivers plantations and such. But
I never did hear him mention a
or a town ... only big towns like New Orleans or
but he spoke of Boston, too, and Philadelphia." "Mr. Mclaven, I'd like you to know
that man is not my
nor is he Laurie's father. He is my brother-in-law, to my sister until her death.
He had no place to go and
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 86
LouIs L'AMOUR
we took him in, and for a few weeks he worked and occasionally contributed to the
expenses of living. For some time now he has done neither, but he considers himself
the man of the
house. You are not the first man he has ordered out."
"Why don't you tell him to leave?"
She smiled. "And if he refuses? What am I to do?"
"Ma'am, you tell him to leave and I'll see that he does, but if I'm not here, you
or Laurie just go down to the marshal or some businessman you know and tell them.
If that fails, you go
to any saloon on Blair Street and tell them your troubles." "They might hang him."
"Yes, ma'am, they might . . . and good riddance. Even the roughest of those men down
along the street won't see a decent woman abused."
The floor creaked faintly from the other room. The door was closed, but I had a feeling
he had been listening. I put up a hand for quiet and drew my belt gun.
Laurie's mouth opened and I said, "There will not be any shooting."
The door opened suddenly, and he stood there with a rifle in his hands. "Now you
git!" He raised the rifle threateningly, but it was not aimed, which was his mistake.
He started into the room and then he saw that six-shooter in my hand and he stopped
so fast he almost fell.
"Put the rifle down," I told him, "and take whatever belongs to you and get out.
Get out and stay out. If you ever come back here again or if you so much as speak
to one of these women, I'll see you hang. I may not be around too long, but I shall
talk to the marshal before I leave, and I'll also talk to some of the boys down along
Blair Street."
He dearly wanted to shoot. He wanted to lift that rifle and turn it on me, but he
knew he didn't have a chance. "Who the
hell do you think you are?" he blustered.
"I'm a friend of the family," I said.
He blustered and he grumbled but he went. He was a loafer and a bully but a man of
no courage, yet I recalled my father warning me against taking such men too lightly.
When he was gone, I moved my chair so that I couldn't be seen from outside and holstered
my pistol. "Sorry, ma'am. The only other thing was to throw him out bodily, and that
might have torn up the room somewhat."
"Thank you, Kearney, thank you very much. He has been . . . oh, obnoxious! And getting
worse every day."
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
87
She refilled my cup, and I sat back and enjoyed it, my eyes straying to the books
on the shelf. There were a couple of novels by Sir Walter Scott, Little Dorrit by
Charles Dickens, and Vivian Grey by Benjamin Disraeli.
She saw me looking at the books. "They are presentation copies," she explained. "My
husband knew them all, and his father went to school with Sir Walter. They were pupils
of Mr. Luke Fraser, in his second-year class. He lived off Canongate !Street, and
they often walked home together. Later he moved to ia house near that where John
Knox died." i' "What did your husband do?" ii. She smiled. "Nothing very well, I
am afraid, but he was a
man for all of that and I loved him dearly. He wished most all to paint, but his
paintings did not sell. Then we were
and he had a small inheritance, so we came to America. had known Sir Walter from
childhood, but he met Mr.
only when he came to London, and he knew Mr.
then, too. In New York he taught painting and the
but the life was confining, so he joined the army at last. became a sergeant major,
and when the Indian wars needed
they made an officer of him."
"I don't even know your name," I said.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" She put her hand to her mouth. "I am Anne
and my daughter is Laurie."
. We talked long, and when I left it was to walk back to the
and to bed. First I stopped by the livery stable to see old
"Well, you don't look in no hurry, so I guess you'll be
' OVOF."
a few minutes, I told him about Mrs. McCrae and
1.
i "Know him," Chalk said. "He's no-account. He's lazy and
a boozer. They're well rid of him. An' don't you worry
They're fine folks an' we'll take care of them."
He looked at me thoughtfully. "You figure on coming back
son?"
"I do."
'nat there's a fine girl. We here in Silverton think a lot of
and her ma. They're good folks, gentle folks."
"I know." After a moment I said, "Chalk, there's a man
me . . . maybe more than one. I think one of them is man who killed my father. The
others are men he has
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
"We talked of that. I'll keep my eyes open.'"
In the hotel I put a chair under the knob again and lay down to sleep with my six-shooter
on a chair alongside the bed where I could lay a hand on it.
Yet I didn't go to sleep right away. There were movements in the hallways and horses
passing in the street. Lying on my back, hands clasped behind my head, I thought
back to my earliest memories.
Finally I got up and went to the small desk in one corner of the room. I found a
tablet in the drawer, and taking a pencil, I started to note down all I could recall.
Lying on a boat dock or some such place with the sun on my back . . . the long-legged
birds in the swamp . . . that time down on the sand by the sea, a lonely place .
. . an old hulk half-buried in the mud that pa wouldn't let me go near, and the big,
empty old house with the shutter banging.., the gnarled old man in the faded green
cloak who came to our house one night when pa was away, a man all crippled and twisted..,
or so he seemed.
Pa talking. "No, I will not have her in the house! I will have nothing to do with
them!"
Somebody said something about a curse. "Curse? I know nothing about that, only they
contaminate everything they touch! There's evil in them . . . evil!"
A door had closed and I had heard no more.
Just odds and ends of memories, although I remembered my father had reacted strangely
when I told him of the old man in the green cloak.
And then there was the night that ended something and began something else, the night
my father came home, bundled me up, and took me away, and we never went back.
Names... there had been names--Old Tolbert... Faustina ... Weber ... Naomi ... There
were many, but none of them seemed connected with anything. At last I returned to
my bed and slept.
When morning came, I went to breakfast and it was Laurie who served me. She came
quickly to my table with coffee. "There are eggs," she whispered. "If you want them,
you'd better order, because there are not many and they do not last long."
"I'll have two, scrambled."
Suddenly the door opened and two men came in. Both men
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89
wore badges on their vests and they looked quickly around the room. When they saw
me, they turned and walked to my table.
"McRaven? My name is Burns. I am making inquiries about man named Blazer. Judge Blazer."
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A
moment only, I held myself very still inside. This could be trouble, serious trouble.
"I met him," I replied.
"So we understand. Would you explain what happened?"
Laurie came over, looking frightened. "Laurie, would you bring some cups for these
gentlemen? And some hot coffee?"
Briefly, I explained about herding Dingleberry's cattle in the high country, coming
down to find my father murdered and then to hear of his heavy winning the night before.
Then I told them about my showdown with Blazer.
"I went to his office and he held back the money my father had won, evidently imagining
I had not heard of it. So I told him I knew of it and impressed him with the necessity
of
turning it over to me."
"And he did?"
"Well, I had to nudge him a mite. He didn't take kindly to
the notion of giving up all that money."
"And then?"
"Mister, I hadn't any friends around that I knew of, so I taken out. I figured they'd
look up and down the trail for me,
so I went back to the hills."
" 'They' ?"
"Yes, sir. He brought some men with him. Tobin Wacker for one. They followed me."
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91
Choosing my words with care, I explained about the fight in the cabin, how I was
badly beaten and escaped into the storm.
"Indian woman fixed my nose. They broke it. She put the
in place and put some kind of wax or something over it
that stiffened up tight. They took good care of me."
"You never saw Blazer again?"
"No, but I saw Tobin Wacker and that man called Dick. I
them in Rico."
!i They asked me a sight of questions, and I was itching to get
It was time I started for Georgetown, but there was no I could leave them.
"Do you believe Blazer killed your father for his winnings?" i "No, sir. I don't
believe he killed my father. I think he just
all that money and got greedy."
""l'he last you saw of him was in the cabin? But you saw
and Dick in Rico? And the cabin had been burned?" "Blazer's missing," the other officer
said, "and we have to
him.., or his body."
"My guess would be in the ruins of that burned-out cabin.
Wacker and Dick saw me in Rico, they were scared. doesn't make sense. Why should
they be scared of me? that Wacker, he wasn't afraid of anything. Only I had seen
with Blazer on the mountain before that last snow." "We will look around." They got
up. "Are you going to be
town?"
"Not for a while. I am going east . . . Cherry Creek, and
that part of the country."
ey exchanged a glance. "It would be better if you stayed
until this Blazer affair is straightened out."
:For a moment I said nothing and then I replied. "I cannot.
business and personal reasons I have to go east, but I will
back here when I have done what needs to be done."
just looked at me, and finally I said, "There's a man
me, and Wacker and Dick have been helping him. I
know why he wants me killed, but if I go east I can find
I figure if a man is gunning for me, I should know why." i: Burns laughed. "Seems
reasonable. All right, you go. Think
can be back here in thirty days?"
try."
back his chair. "That's good enough for me. we'll have a look at that cabin."
Burns, you'd better pull back. Unless you know the
that cabin isn't easy to find."
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
With salt and pepper shakers and the cups, I showed him where the peaks and passes
were. He needed no diagram. There'd been two thousand head of cattle driven over
trails of as many miles with no more direction than I was giving these
men.
When they had gone, Laurie came over. "Kearney, what is it? Are you in trouble?"
"No, ma'am. They're just investigating. Judge Blazer hasn't been seen and they're
looking into it. Why, I don't know, but I suspect Blazer was up to something himself.
When he wasn't with Wacker and them over at Rico, I knew something was wrong. He
would have come with them or back here. The way
I see it, he never got off that mountain."
"When are you going?"
It came to me of a sudden. I'd been thinking about daybreak, but the words were saying
themselves before I had a chance to think. I said, "I'm going now. This minute."
I got up. "Laurie, I told them I'd try to be back in thirty days. That's what I'm
aiming for, but if something happens, I may have to go further east. If I do, and
if I can, I'll write."
The roan was ready. I mean that was a trail horse, never so contented as when going
somewhere, and when I'd saddled up and strapped on my gear, I taken out of there.
It was too late in the day and it was a lot else, but I taken out, and the next good
stopping place was more than twenty-five miles away.
The trail I followed around those mountains to Ouray would have scared a gopher to
death.
The trail was clear if narrow, and I was moving along at a good clip, yet I didn't
like it. The further I went the more uneasy I became, for the country was confining.
Most of the time I was riding along trails cut into the walls of a canyon, and if
a man should be trapped in such a place, he was a goner. There was simply no place
to hide for long stretches.
Then it started to rain. When thunder rumbles in those narrow, rocky gorges, you
just naturally curl up. It pulls in all the edges, if you get what I mean. By the
time I got to where I could see the lights of Ouray nestled in the valley below,
it was pouring down rain, and every once in a while the sky would split wide open
with a crash of thunder and a flash of lightning. They were all close by, hitting
those 13,000-foot mountains all around the town.
There was a dim light over the door of the livery stable, and when I rode in, an
old man with handlebar mustaches stuck his
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93
head out of the office door. "Put up your hoss, boy! An' come in for a cup of java!"
First time I'd heard it called that since Texas, where they had names for everything.
Stripping off my gear, I rubbed the roan dry and put a bait of oats in the bin. Then
I went up the ladder to the loft and forked down some hay. By that time I was ready
for coffee.
Walking down the middle of the barn, I peered into all the
stalls. No familiar horses, which did not necessarily mean anything. I'd learn more
from the hostler.
He was setting back in a swivel chair in front of a rolltop desk and he had him a
dime novel he was reading. It was about ome daredevil who kept rescuing fair maidens
from Indians or iiwhatever. What the fair maiden was doing where she was
puzzled me, and I was never so lucky. Most of the
I came upon were most unfair.
"Wet out there," I commented.
"I can see that, an' I can hear it. No night for man or beast.
far?"
"Silverton."
"How's things yonder?"
"Pretty good. They were runnin' a raise up from the three level in one of those mines
and struck some mighty rock. Tons of it."
The coffee was hot and strong enough to stand by itself,
any cup. I drank it and liked it.
"Keepin' busy?" I suggested.
"So-so.'"
"Much travel?"
in town?"
He turned his head and looked right at me. "Always is, boy.
folks who travel are strangers. Like you, now. You're a
"My friend," I said cheerfully, "I just look young because
lived a peaceful life. I was here when that mountain over
was just a soft place in the valley. When I first come I had to comb grizzlies out
of my hair!"
looked at me out of those cool blue eyes and he said,
I come from Arkansas-Missouri country. We seen of windy penny-grabbers down there."
why you come west? Where there weren't so many of
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Louis L'AMOUR
He took his pipe out of his mouth and reached for the pot. "Have another," he said.
"Who was you worried about seeing?"
"Not worried," I said, "just careful. And it isn't the law." I described Felix Yant
and Tobin Wacker.
"Know Wacker," he commented. "Seen the other man around a time or two. I was wondering
what he had on his mind. I'll keep an eye out for them."
He leaned over with the pot and refilled my cup. "You ridin' out?"
Why I told him I did not know, only that I was very much alone and needed to put
it all into words. He sat back and smoked, listening without comment. He knocked
out his pipe when I was finished. "There's money in it, boy. You an' him are some
kin, I'd say, and if you live he don't get anything or maybe not as much. He wants
you dead out here so he can go back and have it all to hisself. There may be more
to it, but that there's the way I see it. Them women now, I can't figure them, least
one of them is also in line for that money or
whatever it is and wants you out of the way."
"What about the other one?"
"Them's the kind to watch most, boy. She may be a fine woman, and the good Lord put
aplenty of them on earth, but you got to know what she wants, what she's after. Maybe
it was your pa," he added.
He tamped fresh tobacco in his pipe. "Son, I cotton to you. I
like your style. Now I've got a black horse here--"
"I don't want to trade."
"I ain't talkin' trade. I'm talking loan. You got the roan and that's a mighty fine
horse, but ridin' the way you figure to do, you'll wear him down to a nubbin'. So
you keep your roan, but you take the black, too. You can switch so's you won't tire
them too much."
He lighted his pipe. "You take my advice an' cut across the hills to Lake City. Save
you time an' distance."
With daylight I was high in the mountains and keeping to Indian trails and the like.
Prospectors had been all over this country, and here and there I could see signs
of their work. This was high-up country, and without mountain-bred horses a man would
get nowhere. It was high but it wasn't lonely. Here and there I sighted men working
claims, but I was traveling, not talking. My trail led along Mineral Creek, then
climbed the divide up to around 13,000 feet. A body could judge his
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95
altitude pretty easy by what grew or did not grow, and vegetation was almighty scarce
up that high.
Reining in atop a ridge between two peaks three or four miles apart, I let my horse
take a blow and sat my saddle looking over the country. Redcloud Gulch dropped off
on my left, but my trail was to the right below Hurricane Basin. From where I sat
a man could see a sight of magnificent country, great bald peaks with long talus
slopes everywhere about. A big peak off to the southeast was an easy 14,000 feet
if ever I saw it.
The air was fresh and clear, and the sky was a vast vault of blue, flecked only here
and there with clouds. The roan was eager to go, so we started down, dropping down
at least a thousand feet in a mile or so.
Stopping at some marshes where there was water, I let the drink, then took off down
the canyon to where my trail into a trail along Henson Creek.
The trail suddenly turned sharply northeast, and I pulled off some spruce trees,
stripped the gear from the roan, and him roll a bit. When I saddled up, it was the
black. The way it, we had no more than fifteen or sixteen miles to City. From where
I rested, I could look back up the trail
about a mile. Then it was out of sight for a ways, and the where I'd topped out was
in plain view.
I lay there, just relaxing, watching that ridge. Nothing showed but a soaring eagle
and a couple of whiskey-jacks, who around me looking for something to eat. They were
thieves and a nuisance, but I kind of favored them for friendly way.
When we'd rested about an hour, I mounted up, rode northuntil I sighted a couple
of cabins, then hit the Henson Trail that took me due east. There were no tracks
than a week.
The way I saw it, I was ahead of them, but I daren't take for granted. When I rested
in Silverton, they might gotten ahead of me.
The town lay in a pretty little valley among the mountains, she was booming. This
had all been Ute country until just a short time back, and then the Utes ceded it
and came in. They struck gold, yet for a time there were a dozen log cabins or so.
Then the boom hit and the town to build.
Riding down the main drag, I counted seven saloons and
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Louis L'AMOUR
four eating places, several hotels and a couple of Chinese laundries and a billiard
parlor or two.
A few days later I rode into Georgetown and put up at the Hotel de Paris.
99
 CHAPTER Xll
woman who came to the desk was a small, pleasant-faced
woman, and I knew her at once. "Aunt Sophie?" I said, and
looked up, startled.
"Why! Why, it's Kearney! Of all people!" She turned quickly
called into another room. "Louis! It's Kearney come back!
McRaven!"
Louis Dupuy, sometimes called French Louie, came in from
kitchen. "Ah! Mon ami! But you have grown tall! You were
boy, and now you are a man! And your father, where is he?'"
"He was killed.., murdered," I said. "I do not know why. I come to you, who were
his friend, to see if he left papers you."
"Come!" He took me by the arm. "It is a quiet morning. We
have coffee in the courtyard." He turned. "Sophie?"
"Of course, m'sieu. At once."
When we were seated in the courtyard, he said, "Tell me.
of it."
So concisely as possible I related the story of the events from
father's death to the moment. He listened without com until
I was finished.
"So... it is as he suspected. This Felix Yant. He knew what
expect of him, and he is, as you suspect, a very dangerous
Your father spoke of him. He was a duelist, and he has
several men, but he is not the worst of them. It is she."
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Louis L'AMOUR
"Which one.
"Ah, if we but knew that! This Felix Yant has a sister, an evil woman who loves wealth,
power, and cruelty, and the last most of all.
"Your great-grandfather, Kearney, was a ship's captain, and
on one of his forays into the West Indies he met a woman on Haiti, a woman of surpassing
beauty. Her nationality? Who knows? Perhaps French, Spanish, or Portuguese, perhaps
all three, but the other half of her was Carib . . . do you know them? They were
a cannibal people who lived in the Indies before Columbus came, a wild, fierce, cruel
people.
"Where this woman was born no man knew, and if she knew
she never told, nor what or who she was. Your great-grandfather brought her back
to Charleston with him, a passenger on his vessel. Shortly after, his wife died .
. . very suddenly, for she had always been in good health, and this woman married
your great-grandfather. You are descended from the first wife, Felix Yant from the
second.
"As is often the case, the two branches of the family diverged sharply. Yours were
planters, professional men, and soldiers. Those descended from Serena were wholly
committed to evil, yet one and all they had intelligence beyond the average . . .
much beyond.
"Your grandfather was an astute businessman who became wealthy through shrewd investments,
the acquisition of lands, and the West Indian trade. In the latter case he built
upon old established relationships developed by your great-grandfather.
"Unfortunately your cousins were less provident, and moreover there had been a complete
break between the two sides of the family. Felix Yant killed your uncle in a deliberately
provoked duel, an aunt of yours died from poison ... nothing ever proved. Your father
did all he could to avoid becoming involved, and was serving in the army when your
grandfather died.
"There is a plantation of some size. There is property in Charleston, and more of
it in Savannah. There is a plantation in Jamaica. Apparently Felix, his sister, and
others of his family believed that if your father died, they would inherit. They
knew nothing of you."
"My father left some papers with you?"
"He did. He left some evidence he did not wish to use, evidence that would convict
one of his cousins of murder, as well as his father's will and deeds to various properties.
Other
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99
information, I am informed, relates to other properties and the location of other
documents you would need to establish ownership."
For a moment there was silence. Then Dupuy added, "As you may have heard, I permit
no unmarried, unescorted women to stay in my hotel. I have but a few rooms and I
let them to whomever I choose, but only when I choose. Two days ago a
came here who wished to have a room. I refused her. became quite furious with me."
He shrugged. "As you may know, such things I ignore. I have no time to be bothered
with tantrums. But this woman.., she was very beautiful, and very strong, and I think
she is given with hatred of a very
kind. She left, but I do not think I have seen the last of her. What is important
is that I am sure she is Felix Yant's sister or aunt. So be warned."
"How could she know to come here?" I wondered.
He shrugged. "My cooking is famous . . . but no, I do not
it is that. Perhaps when here, your father wrote . . . a
perhaps to a friend or relative. She might have guessed was the place to come."
Yet she might have come simply from hearing of the place, for
Hotel de Paris was famous, already a legend, and our friend,
the miners knew as French Louie, was one of the most
chefs of his time. Many noted travelers had gone far of their way to reach this little
mining town in the Rockies
to enjoy one of his fantastic meals or the hospitality of hotel.
with gaslights purchased from Tiffany's, with black woodwork, books bound in leather
in a library of three
volumes, and marble sinks in each room, the Hotel Paris had an elegance peculiar
to itself.
The dining room had a yellow and white striped floorq
g strips of maple and walnut--and the meals served a Continental distinction. General
Grenville Dodge, PresiUlysses S. Grant, Jay Gould, Russell Sage, Baron
the Prince de Joinville, and many another wealthy famous man had dined at his table.
There were but ten rooms, each with private bath, a thing
heard of in that time and place. Georgetown was a
mining camp, but not even Denver had food to
with that produced by Louis Dupuy, for he was his chef, with reason to be proud of
his skill.
. "Louis, do you have a room for me?" I asked.
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Louis L'AMOUR
"For you? I would put somebody out! Yes, I have a room."
He led the way upstairs and showed me to a pleasant, sunlit
room. "Rest," he suggested, "and then we must talk, you and
At the door he paused. "As you may know, I am a man of
few friends. Your father was one, a man of true taste and of philosophical leanings.
Did you know that he once taught philosophy? Not that that is any criterion. Many
of the teachers know nothing. They are parrots of poorly comprehended ideas, but
your father.., he knew. Since leaving France I have met no one whose ideas were so
challenging. We talked often . . .
and he told me of his plans for you."
"He never told me," I said sadly.
"Ah, I know! You see, Kearney, he had nothing. Much was
due him, but he dare not return to claim it. He was a man alone and only with such
skills as lacked importance in the West. He was a thinker, and the West was a place
where
people must do. He did what he could with what he had."
"He left me well off at the end," I said.
"So? Then we must talk. You must hear his plans, even if he
is gone and though you may not be interested. We will see. In the meantime, stay
away from windows, rest, and I will come up later."
He left, closing the door softly behind him. Pulling off my
boots, I draped my coat over the back of a chair, and taking off my gun belt, placed
it on a chair beside the bed with the gun butt close to my hand.
Occasionally a rig went by in the street, or a rider. Once I
heard a subdued murmur of voices. Then I slept, and when I awakened it was night.
A reflection of light from the outside kept the room dimly lighted. The walls were
dark, but I could see the table and a chair in the corner.
The chair in the corner? I looked again. I stared. A woman sat there, rocking just
a little.
For a moment I lay absolutely still, the hair lifting on the back of my neck. What
I felt then may have been fear, it may
have been sheer disbelief, I do not know.
"I see you are awake, Kearney." The voice was low, a lady's cultured voice, a kindly
voice as well. "I hope my being here is not distasteful. I simply had to come. Oh,
I know! You do not know me. Your father did, however. He knew me quite well. And
you must come to know me, too. After all, we are cousins."
"Are we. Somehow in that moment when she was speaking,
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101
I had controlled my fear. My father had once said, "Fear is a weapon to be used by
you if you control it, by your enemies if you do not." I added, "'I am afraid you
have the advantage of
me.
"I am Delphine, Kearney. You have not heard of me?"
"I have not.'"
"A pity. We could have been such good friends. You see, we heard you had died ...
we even thought your father had passed on . . . some years ago. We were sure . .
. well, it was quite a surprise to us to learn that he still lived."
"A shock, I imagine." How had she gotten in here? I knew Louis would not have permitted
it, and Sophie would do nothing of which Louis did not approve. Yet she was here,
sitting in the corner of my room.
Old tales returned to mind, tales from the swamps and back country of the Deep South,
tales of witches and witchcraft, of people who came and went mysteriously. I shook
my head irritably to clear it of such nonsense, yet I wished I could make her out.
From below came the subdued mutter of voices, people at supper, no doubt.
"Yes," she admitted, "quite a shock. But now that we have found you, we must become
friends. We must see much of each other. We are cousins," she added, "of a sort.
Several times removed, that is."
"Louis told me he refused you a room."
"Oh? He spoke of that, did he? Yes, he was tiresome. Very tiresome. A most disagreeable
man. The people about town say a girl refused him and he could not abide it, so now
he hates all women. What a foolish man!"
"But a wise one," I replied quietly, "a man learned in philosophy and history, a
man worth talking to."
"Oh, I suppose he could be interesting in a way, but I do not
like him. He is cold and abrupt."
"And suspicious?" I suggested.
"But of what? I am but a woman who has traveled far simply to meet her cousin!'"
Fortunately, I had not undressed, planning to go down for supper later. My boots
were beside the bed, and my gun. I glanced at the chair. It was there, half-covered
by my hat. Had she seen it? I made a mental reservation not to try to use it until
I had checked the loads.
"Felix will be so relieved, you know.'" I could not see her
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
smile but knew it was there. "Somehow he quite lost you. I must speak to him about
that. It is not good to lose track of one's relatives after having been separated
so long."
Slowly I sat up and swung my feet to the floor. Once when I was very small, this
woman--I believed it was shehad visited us, and after that my father had been ill
for months. Was there a connection? Or was that only my imagination?
Picking up a boot, I shook it out, a habit one acquires when sleeping out where there
are snakes, tarantulas, and scorpions. I shook it, and something fell to the floor,
something with a metallic sound. Ignoring it, I tugged on a boot, then felt for the
other one. It had fallen out of reach, so I stood up and took a step. My foot came
down on something on the floor. I gave a sharp outcry, as one will, and Delphine
said quickly, "What is. it, Kearney? Did you stub your toe?"
"Stepped on something," I commented, tugging on the boot. "Nail or something." I
swung my gun belt around my waist and buckled the belt. "Come. We will have supper."
We went down the steps together, and Sophie saw us first. Her lips tightened and
her eyes flashed angrily, but she said nothing. "Supper, Sophie? Are we too late?"
"You are in good time, m'sieu. There is roast ptarmigan, hearts of artichokes, and
for fish there is trout." She bustled ahead of us, seating us at a table in the warmly
lit, pleasant room. Several other tables were occupied. The men, I noticed, all looked
at my companion, and so, for the first time, did I.
She was beautiful. As to her age, a factor my father always assured me I should never
notice in women, she might have been nearly thirty. I was sure she was older, how
much I did not know. She was beautifully gowned, her black hair done in the latest
fashion, her black eyes very large and ringed with long lashes.
Beautiful, as I have said, but there was something about her mouth and eyes I did
not like, a sense of cruelty and of something else.., something grossly evil.
Or was it my imagination, coupled with some ancient memories of things heard or seen
and long forgotten because I had been too young to give them significance?
"You are handsome, Kearney." She looked at me critically. "And quite the young man.
I wonder just how old you are?"
"Age is a relative thing," I said. "It is character, as my father always said, that
matters. In horses, dogs, men, and women." "He seems to have been a wise man, your
father," she said,
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103
a touch of irritation in her tone. "Why then did he not come
home?"
"Perhaps because he was a wise man," I said.
"You should come home, Kearney." She leaned toward me.
"You should know your own country, your own people. You
must come back to Carolina with us. You would love it." She
put her hand over mine. "Please, Kearney? You will think of
it? We need you there.'"
She said "we" but she meant me to think "I." The fashions of
the time were suited to her, and she used them well. The
gown she wore suggested what it concealed, and although all
the men in the place were giving her their attention, she
ignored them, devoting herself completely to me.
"We have been searching for you, you know," she said.
"We traveled a lot," I said, thinking of nothing better.
"This man, this Frenchman... he was a good friend of your
father?"
She suspected, or perhaps from some means she knew, that
whatever my father had might have been left here. I shrugged
and waved a careless hand. "Father always liked good cooking,
and Louis is the best, the very best. They talked of books, too,
friends? I think no more than acquaintances. If my father
had a friend," I said thoughtfully, "it was that man in Denver
. the one on Larimer Street. I was too young," I added,
we were there, but the man was from somewhere in
the South. New Orleans, I think. I know they had much in
common."
Whether she was believing me I had no idea, yet she lis attentively as she ate.
Why had she come west when Felix was already here? Did
she not trust him? Or was there some deadline, some date that made speed imperative?
Somehow I must be rid of her and talk to Louis again, and I must see those papers,
whatever they were.
"This man in Denver," she said, "you knew him?"
.... I only saw him. I was a child. My father was back this way
alone, later. I was working at the time and he traveled east by stage I only know
that he spent some time in Denver, doing what I am not sure."
That was true, and remembering it, I wondered. What had
my father been doing? He left me but rarely, as if knowing there was a danger that
threatened us both, but on that occasion he had gone to Denver and had been gone
more than two
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Louis L'AMOUR
weeks. Had he come to Georgetown then? It would not have been out of his way.., at
least not much.
"The food is good!" Delphine was saying. She looked at me oddly as she spoke, almost
as though she were examining me, expecting some effect or reaction from me. "You
must talk to him. He will listen to you. I do want a room here, Kearney, a room just
like yours." She looked at me. "Close to yours."
"He listens to no one," I said. "Louis makes up his own mind, and if he dislikes
someone, he tells them to leave. No
matter who they are."
"But surely--"
"I would not even try," I said. "I know the man."
"Not even for me?" She put her hand on mine again, her fingers caressing my wrist.
I was embarrassed, yet short of breath too. She was a beautiful woman, and I had
been long in the mountains and never in all my life had met such a woman, so seductive,
so beautifully gowned. "I . . . I'll try," I said. "I'll see."
And at the moment, I meant it. After all, what harm could it do? This was the most
comfortable place to stay, and she was very muchthe lady . . . or appeared to be.
I started to rise and in my haste put my foot down wrong and fell back rather awkwardly
into my chair. It was nothing but clumsiness, but as my hands dropped to the chair
arms to push myself up again, my eyes met hers.
In them I surprised an expression such as I had never seen in the eyes of any human,
and only once in the eyes of any living thing. Rising once from a stream where I
had been drinking, I had looked right into the eyes of a mountain lion, all poised
to leap.
Suddenly I knew I had to get away, to be alone, to recover
"I
what was left of my good sense, am afraid I... I think I had
better go lie down," I said. "I am feeling unwell."
"Do that, Kearney. Go lie down. I will see you another time."
Excusing myself, I got up hastily and went to my room.
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 CHAPTER XIII
carcely was I back in my room with the gaslight lit than Louis appeared. I sat down
on the bed.
"Are you all right?" he asked sharply. "How did she come to be with you?"
When I explained, he shook his head irritably. "She must
come in while I was in the garden. Damn the luck! Kearney, you must avoid her! She
is the one, I am sure, whom
father warned me against."
I Moving my boot, something rattled on the floor and I looked
A carpet tack. It must have been that which I shook if tom my boot.., but how would
such a thing get into my boot
in the first place?
"What's the matter?" Louis demanded.
Reaching down, I picked up the tack. It was an ordinary
tack except that the point was covered with a hard, shiny substance of a yellowish
brown color. "This," I said. "It fell out of my boot."
He took it from me, very carefully, and studied the point iunder the light. Briefly,
I explained how I shook out my boots
as I jalways did and the tack fell to the floor, and that it must
,, been that I had stepped on when I stood up.
Get your sock oflq." he said. "Let's see that foot."
"I must have stepped on the side of it," I said. "It would have hurt much more had
I stepped on the point."
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 106
Louis L'AMOUR
There was no puncture or scratch on my foot. Louis examined the point again. "You've
been very lucky," he commented grimly. "I am sure this is a poison, and I am sure
it was meant to kill you. She must have placed it in your boot while you
were asleep, never imagining you'd shake out your boots."
"We all do it," I said. "You learn quickly out here."
"She must have believed you stepped on it when you stood
up. She believes you are poisoned."
He was still examining the tack. "I know something of this
sort of thing," he commented. "When I was studying at the seminary in France, there
was a professor there who was making a study of plant poisons--arrow poison and the
like which had been used by primitive peoples. It resembles pakuru, a poison made
from a tree of that name. If my memory serves me correctly one staggers, becomes
clumsy, is apt to lose control of some muscles, then one dies. Depending on whether
one gets a little of it or much, it can kill in anywhere from fifteen minutes to
several hours, but usually the quicker time."
"When I started to rise, I almost fell," I said. "It was pure clumsiness, but--"
"Of course, she believed her poison was working. Very well,
the thing for you to do is be gone before morning. Be out of
here and away into the mountains."
"I came to see the papers my father left," I protested.
"And so you shall. How long will it take? An hour . . . less, surely. In the meanwhile
I shall see your horses are made ready."
He took up the tack. "'I shall get rid of this. It must not be
left lying about, and I am sure you do not want it." He looked at it. "An ugly thing
. . . murder is the answer to nothing. It invariably creates more problems than it
eliminates. A dozen times in my life I have thought of it, and of course did not
do it. I am a civilized man. However, a year after, the person I would cheerfully
have murdered was no longer of importance to me, and in many cases of no importance
to anyone. Time eliminates so many problems. It is a good thing, I think, to save
newspapers, then read them months later. One soon discovers then what is important
and what is not. Many a crisis that seems about to shake the earth and bring down
governments turns out to be no more substantial than those dust devils which one
sees in the desert or plais. They spin furiously for a few minutes, then fall apart,
leaving not even a ghost of themselves."
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107
There was a tap at the door, and when Louis opened it, Sophie was there holding the
familiar buckskin case that my father had so long carried.
He took it from her and passed it on to me. "There! I know nothing of what it contains,
and only what he told me of his story. I think you should read these, but please,
mon ami,
before you do anything, consult with me. And with Sophie." "Sophie? I thought you
did not like women?"
"Most of them I dislike. Not woman ... women. Silly creatures, most of them. Sophie
is different. We have been friends, Sophie and I, and although she does not know
it, when I am gone this will become hers. Sophie is a jewel, Kearney, a jewel of
the purest water. She is a philosopher, a true philosopher with a sense of reality
far better than mine. She sees much and says nothing, a rare quality in a man, let
alone a woman. Most women sparkle beautifully as young girls. These are the robes
nature puts on them to help trap the unwary male, but once the game is trapped the
bait disappears, and most of them settle into dullness."
The idea was amusing, but I objected. "You can't say that of her . . . of Delphine,"
I said. "It seems to me the bait is still
there."
He shrugged. "Of course. She is a huntress. She is not
for a man. All men are useful to her, none really
important. Many of the famous courtesans of history were such women. Sex was not
important to them. They simply used it as
a tool in reaching for wealth or power. Such a woman usually controls the situation
because she herself does not care. I think
like her brother, if such he is, wants wealth because it insulates her from people.
She has an inborn hatred and contempt for people. They are like spiders with webs,
not to trap prey necessarily, but simply as a place to be, where the world cannot
brush against them. Apparently whatever they
have is not enough to insure this, and what is yours would be enough. But beware,
my friend! Such people are intent, they are relentless and single-minded in their
purpose, whatever it may be."
"I cannot always run from them," I protested.
"You cannot. What you must do is go east, establish your claim to the property, and
settle the fact once and for all that there is an heir and you are he. If you wish
to take possession, do so. If not, sell the property and return here, away from them
and all they mean, buy yourself a ranch, and make your
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
own place in the world. Your father avoided the issue because he wished to avoid
the family feud, he wished to be free of all that, but there was a final killing.
It disturbed him very greatly, and to return would have meant more killing. Also,
there were others between him and the property. That, apparently, is no longer so.
You are a shrewd, intelligent young man, Kearney, but I would suggest you move quickly
to assert your claim while they are still looking for you here. I have friends, and
I can arrange for you to move very swiftly indeed, so go east, see a man whose name
I shall give you, and take possession. The rest is up to you, and now I shall leave
you with these things," he said, tapping the buckskin case, "but do study the contents
carefully."
The room I had overlooked the street, and I sat near the window but at one side of
it so that I might survey the approach to the hotel. I could not see directly down
into the street without pressing my face against the glass, which caution told me
would not be advisable. Delphine was not likely to take a shot at me, but I did not
believe for the moment that she was alone. And if she had come alone, she would not
long remain without recruits.
Louis was right in suggesting that I slip out of town. One attempt had been made
to kill me, but when it was realized that the attempt had failed, they would surely
make another. It was this that was irrational about them, that they seemed to want
to gain possession of what papers my father had left and to kill me also, but so
impatient were they that they could not seem to wait until I came into possession
of the papers they wanted. They would kill me first and take their chances on the
papers . . . or that seemed to be the case. What I had surprised in the eyes of Delphine
was simply that, an eagerness for the kill.
First, to read and understand what my father had left. It was only a small packet
of papers, including a very skillfully drawn map showing the locations of several
pieces of property, two plantations, one quite large, and several patches of pasture
and woodland in other parts of the state. Accompanying them were the deeds to two
of the smaller parcels.
There was a letter, folded and sealed, addressed to me. I broke the seal.
My Son:
When you read this I shall be dead. Since your mother died I have lived for you and
you alone and now that I am
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gone the decisions will be yours to make. If you decide to go back, know that you
must see Old Tolbert. He will know best how to proceed.
For three generations there has persisted in our family a deadly feud which has resulted
in seven duels, four of them fatal. There have been other deaths attributed to one
cause or another, but some at least were from poison.
Twice I was myself embroiled in duels, twice I was victorious, and after that efforts
were made to use poison or to way-lay me. I had enough. I simply disappeared. Then
I met your mother, married, and you were born.
There was no honor among them. They wasted their inheritance and wanted the rest.
At last count there were thirteen of them and but three left of us. Their name is
Cabanus although some have used the name of Yant. If something happens to us they
will be the closest and can claim any estate, and this, as much as hatred, is behind
it.
Do not take them lightly. They have intelligence of a high order, and they have courage,
yet they will stop at nothing, and will kill from ambush or with a knife in the dark,
or poison, and it is said the women are skilled and practiced poisoners with poisons
brought by them from Surinam, where they frequently go.
I had hoped to keep you from all this, had hoped to win by gambling enough money
to send you to school, to set you up somewhere in a business or profession, and have
done with all that. Then word came to me that they were seeking me out.
The most skillful and deadly of them all is Joseph Vrydag, a cousin of theirs, lately
of Surinam. He would now be a man of forty years and spent some years before he was
twenty in the goldfields of California and Nevada. I have no idea as to his appearance.
There was a little more, but there lay the gist of it, and it
seemed I should have no recourse but to lay claim to what
there was, if only to defeat them. When one is very
death seems remote. I thought of the poisoned tack in
boot. I should have to be wary.
Joseph Vrydag . . . no idea as to appearance, but a man of
years. I must walk with caution, and alone.
There remained one more document. It was another map,
an ancient map, drawn upon beautifully tanned deerskin.
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Louis L'AMOUR
On it were located a river, a small fort or what appeared to be so, and an Indian
village. Trees were indicated and a cliff, nearby a deep canyon or ravine, and at
a point in the wall of the canyon, a cave was indicated, or what appeared to be a
cave, behind a waterfall.
What it meant I had no idea, but somehow I got the idea that it might be the most
important item of all. Why was it enclosed here? Obviously it was very old, obviously
a part of my legacy, if such it could be called. There was no indication as to the
location of the map, no names were given, nothing beyond the few terrain features.
The map was meant to be used by someone who knew the area to which the map applied.
On a sudden inspiration I opened my bedroll, where I sometimes carried a few extra
items of clothing, and got out my old buckskin hunting shirt. It had been patched
a time or two but was still useful. On the inside of the back, just above the waistline,
I stitched the buckskin map, the face of the map toward the back of the shirt so
it was not visible.
When I had finished the stitching, I stood up and stretched, and as I did so I glanced
out of the window. There was a man standing across the street, somewhat in the shadows.
As the night was cold, he wore a heavy coat. Moving to the side of the window, I
drew the shade, then went to the door, glanced into the empty hall, and in two quick
steps was at the door of the room next to mine. It stood open, as the room was empty.
Closing the door after me, I went to the window of the dark room and peered out.
The man in the heavy coat was still there, his shadow obscured so I could not make
him out. Another man came up the street and joined him. I saw the white of his face
as he looked up. So then, I was being watched for.
Returning to my room, I put the last of my possessions together, rolled my blanket
roll tighter, and lay down on my bed to wait, with the light turned off.
A hand touched my shoulder. It was Louis. "No light," he warned, "and come now!"
Rising, I took my rifle and blanket roll and followed him down the dark hall. How
he expected me to leave the hotel without being seen I had no idea, for the front
entrance opened upon the street and the back door upon what I remembered as a wide,
vacant area. Yet I had not had time to examine it.
He led the way to the back door and paused. Outside I heard a confused mumbling and
what sounded like a drunken
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111
argument, then a rather confused medley of voices singing
"Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair."
"Step outside," Louis whispered, "and join them. Say nothing,
just go along with them."
The door opened a crack and I slipped out and men closed
around me. Almost at once the door opened again, but this
time the hall was lighted and a shaft of light fell over the group.
"Come on, boys," Louis was saying, "be reasonable! I've got
some sleepy, tired people inside!"
"Aw, look[" a drunken voice said. "There's French Louie!
Good o1' Frenchy! Come on, Louie] Have a drink!"
"Too much work," Louis said affably, "but I'll tell you what
I'll do. You go sing somewhere else and I'll give you a couple of
bottles!"
"It's a deal!" the man beside me shouted. "Good o1' Frenchy!
'Member when we worked the graveyard shift together?"
"Now, now, boys," Louis said. "Here, take these bottles,
and you boys just drift along. My guests are tired people and
need their rest."
"We were just serenadin' 'em," another miner said. "Come
on, Louis! Come along with us!"
"'Some other night," he said. "You boys get along now['"
He closed the door, and staggering and singing, waving a
bottle or two, they started off across the lot, singing "Tenting
Tonight on the Old Camp Ground.'"
The man who had draped his arm around my shoulders now
whispered, "Your hosses are under them cottonwoods yonder.
When we get to 'em, you just slip off and you're on your own."
"Sure . . . and thanks."
"Forget it. Any friend of Louis's is a friend of ours."
They staggered on singing, and I stood under the trees for
several minutes watching the hotel. Nobody followed the
"drunken" miners and nobody came toward me, so evidently
i:. the ruse had worked. Mounting and staying behind the trees and buildings, I found
my way to the edge of town, taking bypaths until well clear of it. Then I rode off
along the trail to the south, following Clear Creek.
From time to time I paused to listen, but there were no
sounds of pursuit. Nevertheless, I decided to leave the trail at
the first opportunity.
By moonrise I was on the dim trail that led to Chicago
Lakes. There was a good chance they would not guess what I
was doing, and I had told no one. Had I been going west, the
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
route was by way of Silver Plume and Bakerville, and east the logical route was that
toward Idaho Falls and Denver. Instead I had gone south into some very rough, wild
country. By daybreak I was crossing a shoulder of Chief Mountain, and looking back
could see no sign of pursuit. After a brief stop to switch gear to my other horse,
I rode on down to Cub Creek and followed it to Troublesome.
Coming out of the mountains with the Hogback in front of me, my belly was fighting
hunger and my .horses needed a rest if I intended to push them as hard as planned.
Ahead of me there was a low house built of fiat rocks, a corral with a couple of
horses, and some cultivated ground. I rode into the gate and stepped down.
A man came to the door. " 'Light an' set," he said. "We're just at table."
"I'd be obliged," I said, and led my horses to the trough for water. When they'd
had their fill, I picketed them on a patch of grass, and dropping my gear in the
shade I walked in.
There was a blond young man and a woman just as blond. Neither of them were much
older than me. The house was far cleaner than most.
"Come far?" he asked.
"A piece."
"Out of the way here," he commented. "We see mighty few people."
"Been workin' the other side of the Divide," I said. "Goin' to see my folks in Kansas."
We talked idly as we ate, about grass conditions, rainfall, and the price of silver
and beef, always top subjects in Colorado at the time. News was scarce and they were
hungry for outside talk, so I gave them what I could, as I'd covered a sight of country
one time and another. They hungered for me to stay, but the road was calling and
the distance great.
When I topped out on the rise, I looked back. They were still standing in the yard
and they seemed to be waving, so I waved as well, although I knew they could not
see me. They were tough young folks, the kind who made do, and they would get along
all right until there was sickness. It's then you need folks around you, and a woman
needs womenfolks.
Denver lay off to the north, but I made no show of going there, just taking out across
the prairie and putting the Front Range behind me.
This was Indian country I was riding into, Comanche,
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113
Cheyenne, and Arapaho country, with Kiowas further east and Utes all about. Pa had
been friends with the Utes, knew both Ouray and Shavano, or Showano---I'd heard him
called both. Why they took to pa as they did I'd no idea, but they surely did. Somewhere
along the line he'd done them a service or proved himself to them somehow. They were
a strong, courageous people, and I hoped I could avoid them, for they did not know
me and I wanted to kill none of them, nor to be killed by
them.
That night I camped on Willow Creek, made me a spot of coffee and finished the cold
meat and bread Louis Dupuy had given me to travel on, then turned in, dead beat.
My eyes opened on a damp, foggy morning. Everything was ,ing and wet, and much as
I was wishful for a hot meal and coffee, I decided against it. Bringing in the horses,
I saddled i:up and taken out.
It was spooky, riding in that fog. A body couldn't see beyond horse's ears, and although
I was riding a dim trail, I'd no where it went or what lay ahead of me.
Suddenly it seemed to me I heard other sounds than my I pulled up sharply, listening.
Sure enough, there was somebody.., or something.., out in the fog.
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 CHAPTER XIV
S
omebody--and more than one rider--was moving out there in the fog, and not far away.
I whispered to my horses, trusting to my own, worried about the other. Their ears
were pricked but they seemed as nervous as I, and neither made a sound.
Hoofs coming nearer. It would be close work for a rifle, so I drew my pistol and
waited. Closer and closer, and then they were passing by, not more than fifty or
sixty feet away. There was only a sound of hoofs, one irritable curse, and they had
passed me by, pointing toward Denver. For several minutes I waited, then holstered
my pistol and started off, at a walk first, then a canter.
Whoever had passed me might have no interest in me, but they were dangerous times,
with Indians riding the war trails and any number of men willing to take advantage
of any unwary traveler. The old-timers never shot until they could see what they
were shooting at, but the greenhorns might blaze away at anything that moved.
As the fog lifted, I slowed my pace to look around. It was wide-open country, a distant
butte showing here or there and not two hundred yards off a herd of antelope, heads
up to see what manner of a creature I might be. Uneasily they moved away, not running,
just fading into the landscape.
At noon I made a stop on Box Elder Creek. The creek was
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
115
not running but there were pools of water here and there. After stripping the gear
from my horses, I gave them a chance to roll, watered them, and then saddled the
other horse and got a fire started for coffee. The place I'd chosen was under the
edge of the creek bank with brush growing along the edge, so my smoke--what little
there was from dry wood---dissipated in going through the branches.
By simply standing up I could survey the country without showing myself, so I looked
it over carefully now and again, ate, drank several cups of coffee, and dozed a little
in the sun. By the time an hour was past, I was moving out over the prairie again,
holding to low ground and changing my angle of travel from time to time so anybody
watching me could lay no ambush.
The afternoon was hot and still. In the distance heat waves danced and shimmered,
and in a far-off basin lay a vast blue lake that was not there at all. A lone buffalo
bull, looming black and ominous against the sky, seemed to have legs enormously long,
and he seemed but a short distance away, but I knew he was well over a mile away.
This was a land where mirage was usual, and I had seen them before this.
Eastward I rode as the day was waning, eastward while the shadows gathered, and nowhere
did I see any rider or any
thing but occasional buffalo, antelope, and a few stray
cattle, yet I was haunted by uneasiness. By now my enemies would be moving to prevent
me from reaching Carolina. They
know Delphine's attempt at poison had failed, and would be coming east to find me.
Some of their clan remained in the East and they could be
reached by telegraph. The wires had been in for several years now and were frequently
used by cattlemen and other businessmen. I knew about them, and their existence made
me uneasy, fOr by now word could have reached others of the clan, who might even
now be moving west toward me. I had no reason to doubt that the others had remained
in the East to await word from Delphine or Felix.
Now I rode into a rough and broken land, sand hills and washes, sparse growth of
any kind, yet riding up a wash I came on an undercut bank where the remains of old
campfires were. Charred ends of sticks and brush lay about some of the fires.
Dismounting, I put together a small fire from the ends of charred sticks and whatever
was around, needing only enough to make coffee. It was very still. No sound but my
own
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Louis L'AMOUR
movements, the slight jingle of spurs, the occasional scuffing of my boots, and the
crackle of the fire taking hold, and my eyes kept straying to my horses, trusting
to their natural alertness.
I did not like being hunted. It kept me on edge, irritable and restless, yet these
very qualities were needed now, for to relax too much might mean the end of me. Well
I knew the caliber of the men who sought me. They were ruthless, relentless, without
scruple. I was something in the way of what they wanted and so to be erased, rubbed
out, dismissed with a gunshot or a knife blade. Yet there was hatred for me and what
I had come from, so there would be a measure of satisfaction in destroying me.
They were several.., how many I had no idea. I was a man alone.
My water bubbled and boiled. I dropped in the coffee, then
after a bit a few drops of cold water to settle the grounds, although I did not much
care.
Several times I stood up, letting my eyes sweep the country around, yet my horses
cropped at the sparse grass contentedly. I was filling my cup when I saw the roan's
head come up, ears pricked.
Well, it taken me a minute, no more. I scooped sand
over that fire and gulped coffee whilst standing up to have a look-see.
Nothing.
The roan was looking off to the southwest, nostrils dilated. "Watch 'em, boy," I
said.
Taking up my rifle, I walked a bit higher up the draw, my
cup still in my left hand. I was going to get me a bait of that coffee come hell
or high water, and it looked to be all of that. One thing I was sure of. When trouble
came, it wasn't going to be something picayunish.
Nothing in sight, so I went back, filled my cup again, emptied out the coffeepot,
rubbed sand over it to take off the worst of the soot, then fitted it into my gear.
Shoving the rifle back in the boot, I straddled my horse and led out of there.
My mother never raised any foolish children, so I rode down
that wash for a half mile before I decided to come up out of it. Taking a draw that
ran off the wash to the northeast, I followed it until it shallowed out and I rode
up on the plain.
Several times before I topped out, I pulled rein to give
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117
myself a look around, but I could see nothing. It was twilight on the plains, or
as much twilight as a man ever sees in a land where darkness comes quickly.
A star hung in the sky like a lonely lamp in a widow's window. The air was cooler
now, and fresh with a wind off the western mountains. The horses stirred restlessly,
eager to be off, so seeing nothing, I turned my face eastward and rode away toward
the coming night.
Behind me the sky was weirdly lit, a magnificent sunset with clouds tinted rose and
red, with golden arrows shot upward by the archer of the sun. Sometimes I looked
back, but not only to see if I was followed. In part I looked toward the setting
sun because terror may ride with beauty, and a man needs to milk his hours of the
precious things.
To ride fast, to travel far, these were empty things unless a man took the time to
savor, to taste, to love, to simply be. That much I had from pa, and some from Louis
Dupuy, who for all his cynicism was a sentimentalist under the skin.
Into the coolness of the night I rode alone. Onward, eastward. There was a railroad
at Dodge City. Maybe it was further west, for they'd done a sight of building. The
steam cars would carry me fast to where I needed to go.
For an hour after darkness fell, I pushed on before I began watching for a place
to camp.
When the moon was rising, I rode into a tree-bordered
hollow in the prairie where there was a good spring and a pool
:of water. My horses gave no sign of anything, so I rode in, gun hand for trouble,
but hoping the way was clear.
First off I saw a pole corral, then a lean-to barn, and beyond
a dugout faced with rock slabs built into a good wall. The horses wanted water and
I let them have it, ears pricked for
my nose for any smell.
No wood smoke, no fresh manure, no fresh-cut wood. Walking over to the dugout, I
rapped on the door. When no response came, I lifted the latch and, keeping well to
one side, opened the door.
All quiet. The place smelled empty, so I struck a match. A bunk bed, a fireplace,
a table, cooking utensils, and on the wall a piece of paper nailed up.
Lighting a candle I held it up to the paper.
NOTISS
This here place belongs to me, you are welcome. Just leeve it like you fond it. My
wife's buried yonder under the
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trees, an our baby beside her. I am a lonely man. Can't take it alone. I hev gone
back for another woman.
A.T.T.
P.S. If there's flowers about, put sum on the graves. She was a good woman. She done
her best.
There was a fire laid on the hearth and the floor was swept. Going outside, I stripped
the gear from my horses and turned them into the corral. Then I went back to the
house and bedded down for the night. Several times I awakened to hear the coyotes
howling. It must have been a lonely place for the woman, too. He would have been
gone much what with hunting for meat and working.
At daybreak I was out and saddled the roan, led both horses outside, and tied them
to the corral. Then I went in, laid a fresh fire, and swept the floor. After closing
the door carefully, I looked for the graves. They were both on a low knoll somewhat
shaded by a huge old cottonwood. The two graves were side by side and both were covered
with withered flowers, obviously left by several different hands.
There were a lot of yellow and some purple flowers about, I didn't know what kind.
I put them on the graves, stood beside them with my hat off for a few minutes, then
I mounted up and rode out of there.
The date on that notice had been two years old. Had he made it out? Would he find
his woman? I had an idea he would be back, and if not, another like him would come
along eventually. Over thousands of miles of western lands where pa and me went riding,
we saw their burned-out cabins, their burned wagons, their graves, and sometimes
their bones, but nothing stopped them. There were always more. Not the wildest of
the Indians nor the army itself could keep them back. There was a hunger in them
to blaze new trails, to farm new land, to watch the sun rise up over their own acres.
The Indians were magnificent warriors and they themselves had once come from out
of nowhere to take the land from those who held it, and to hold it for a while themselves.
Guns and arrows may stop an army, but they cannot stop men and women with their dreams.
Three days later I rode into Dodge City and left my horses with Bill Tilghman, who
was marshal there. "Turn them into the pasture," he said. "They will be safe there."
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"Tilghman?" I said. "My pa knew some Tilghmans back east. There was a Tench Tilghman
who was an aide to Washington, back in Revolutionary times."
"We were related," he replied.
He was seated in a chair outside the office. I squatted on my heels. "I'm Kearney
McRaven," I told him, "and headed east to claim some property that's been willed
to me. There's some coming along who would like to keep me from it, and they are
kinfolk, but distant. I am wanting no trouble, but if they come
hunting me, I got to stand up to them."
"You planning to be in town long?"
"I'm riding out on the steam cars," I said, "and it will be in the morning. Best
I can do."
"Would you leave tonight if I can get you on a train?" "Sooner the better."
"I believe in avoiding trouble, Mr. McRaven. I will put you
on the train tonight."
"They said--"
"I know what they said. I know what they would say, but I also know a man who is
going east who would just as soon leave
One way to keep the peace in a town, Mr. McRaven, is to recognize the possibilities
of trouble beforehand."
"Why I spoke to you. This here is your town, and I am of no mind to make trouble."
"Thank you." He got to his feet. "Leave your horses here and take what you need with
you. I'll see they are cared for."
My blanket roll and saddlebags were what I needed. I slung them over my left shoulder,
and carrying my rifle, I went along with him. In a matter of minutes I was fixed
to leave on the evening train.
"Buy you some dinner?" I suggested. "I am obliged.'"
"It looks like a busy night," he said, "but thank you, just the same." He turned
away, but when he had gone only a few steps, he paused and turned. "McRaven?"
When I stopped, he said, "Those men looking for you . . . i what are they like?"
i "Those I know are tall, slim men. Favor black frock coats and :black hats. Long-faced
men who don't smile very much, and
they always stay together."
When the steam cars rolled out of town that evening, I was riding the cushions, setting
back there like a king, letting the
locomotive take me along. Last thing I saw as I rode out of
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town was three men riding in. Three long, tall men in black coats.
They were riding side by side and they did not turn their heads toward the train.
Maybe it was them.
123
 CHAPTER XV
W
e had ridden the steam cars a time or two when pa and me were traveling, but not
enough for me to get used to it. When I came into the car, I dropped into one of
the seats upholstered with red plush and I settled back for the ride.
The train was mixed, two freight cars, four cattle cars, a mail car, and two passenger
coaches. Hooked on behind was a caboose. The folks in the car with me were a plump
young woman, very blond, and two younger versions of her, maybe six or eight years
old. There was a stern-looking man with a chin whisker who looked like he had just
bitten into something that tasted bad.
A man of about forty sporting a heavy gold watch chain across his vest with an ivory
toothpick dangling from it sat in a seat ahead of and just across from me. On the
seat right opposite there was a sleeping cowhand. Like me he had a rifle stuck down
beside him, and I suspected his belt gun was stuck into his waistband.
There wasn't much to see outside the windows but the wide grasslands and the smoke
streaking past. After a while I dozed off. The train was going almighty slow most
of the time. This was track that had been laid fast, so they were cautious with it.
Once we stopped while several hundred buffalo crossed the track. The towheaded children
stared wide-eyed, and even the sour-looking gentleman with the chin whisker leaned
forward
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|
/
to see. The cowhand took a look to see what was happening,
then went back to sleep. The train whistled and began to inch forward. Over on the
trail I saw a stagecoach passing us. A few minutes later, we passed them, the engineer
whistling derisively at them. Most places the stages had been put out of business
by the railroad, but here and there they hung on, mostly serving off the right-of-way
towns.
Sometime during the afternoon we slowed again and stopped.
I was half-asleep and did not open my eyes. After a bit the
train moved on, bumping and groaning between whistles.
We stopped at a station. There were three or four houses, a
big tent with a hotel sign on it, and some large corrals. We ducked out of the train
and ran for the eating place, first in,
first served. I found myself sitting next to the cowhand. "Goin' fur?" he asked.
"Carolina... if I'm lucky."
He sized me up quizzically. "Expectin' not to be?"
I shrugged. "There's some don't want me to," I said, "mostly
back yonder."
"I'm with the cattle," he said. "S'posed to be ridin' the caboose, but what the hell?
I never rode no cushions before, so I slipped in here."
"Conductor say anything?"
"Naw. Hell, my boss ships five, six thousand head a year. He
ain't about to complain."
The food was antelope steaks fried in rancid grease, but I'd
eaten worse. The coffee was good, the bread dry and crumbly. I gulped more coffee,
wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, and sprinted for the train. It was whistling,
and when we grabbed hold of it we had to run, for it was already moving. I was first
on the steps and gave him a hand.
"Thanks," he said. "The boss will be waitin' when we hit
Kansas City. Wouldn't want him to find me missin'."
"Tough?"
"Tougher'n a boot. Pays well, feeds well, expects to get two
days' work for one day's pay."
We both went to sleep. We rumbled over a bridge, slowed
down for some reason, and I looked out to see the sun was down, the sky streaked
with red, and a herd of antelope keeping pace with the train.
The cowhand looked over at me. "They catch you, what'll
they do?"
"Shoot me, or try to. You see, there's money in it for them.'"
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We dozed, and the train rumbled on into the night. There was a smell of coal smoke
and cinders in the car. I turned around, trying to find a comfortable spot on a seat
that had long since ceased to be comfortable.
He glimpsed the butt of my pistol. "Can you use that thing?" he asked.
"Uh-huh," I said. And after a minute, "Hope I don't have
We slowed down again, traveling no faster than a man could walk. "I'm Billy Jenkins,"
he said suddenly.
"Kearney McRaven," I said, and we shook hands.
"Punch cows?" he asked.
"I have. Held a bunch in the mountains all last winter. Rode
down out of the hills an' found they'd killed my pa." "Same fellers?"
"Uh-huh."
"You get to Kaycee, you see my boss. He's Ben Blocker. Tougher'n a boot, but a good
man. You tell him about it. He's
tough but he's square. Knows folks."
"Not much anybody can do."
"You just think there ain't. You talk to o1' Ben. He's got him
answer for everything. Mostly he's right."
"Thanks."
The train rumbled on, and we both slept. It was the same,
stopping, picking up speed.
We stopped at a station to take on water. "Got to see to my
he said, lurching erect.
"Give you a hand," I said.
We walked back along the cars. Only one was down, and with a couple of long poles
we prodded it erect again so it
not be trampled.
"I can't afford to get in no fight," Jenkins said. "I got to think of them cows."
"Ain't askin' you to. It's my fight. Anyway, I think I'm
ahead of them . . . unless they wired ahead."
"How many is there?"
"Too many. Maybe a dozen. So far's I know, there were only
two or three out west. There's some womenfolks, too." "Young?"
I shrugged. "Young enough. Beautiful ... like a desert rattler is beautiful."
The train moved out and we dozed again. I awakened with the cold nose of a pistol
against my temple, and out of the
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corner of my eye I saw a tall man in a black coat and black hat standing over me.
"Get up," he said. "Get up easy."
A moment I hesitated. Might as well be killed fighting as taken out and be butchered
like a sheep. And then I thought of
that blond woman and those two youngsters.
"All right," I said, "just take it easy."
Slowly I got to my feet. Billy Jenkins was asleep, or seemed
to be. The woman was staring at us, wide-eyed. So was the
man with the chin whisker.
Carefully I got up. Another man stood in the end of the car
and he had a shotgun in his hands. This was it, then. Even if I tried, they'd blow
me apart with that scatter-gun and probably kill or injure the others as well.
"Walk to the back of the car," the tall man said, and when I turned my back to walk,
he jerked my six-shooter from my belt and tossed it on the seat.
The man with the chin whisker straightened up. "Here! What are you doing to that
man?"
The tall man's voice was deadly. "Pull in your horns, granpa. We're just takin' him
for a walk."
"An' set still," the other man commanded. "Set right still." The train was slowing
again. Teetering a little with the uneven movements of the car, I walked back toward
where the man with the shotgun stood. He had piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones,
and a thin mustache. There was a scar on his chin.
He stepped aside to let me go through the door to the platform that separated this
car from the caboose. I stepped onto the platform at the very instant the train shuddered
to a stop. Instantly, I moved. My left hand slashed back to hit the gun wrist of
the man following me, and at the same moment my right shot up, taking the man with
the shotgun under the chin and smashing his head back.
Taking a wild leap, I sprang from the platform into the night.
I hit the ground with my knees bent and went head over heels down the slight embankment.
I rolled over and came up holding my waist gun, which they hadn't got.
rearney. Jenkins yelled.
I glanced up quickly, and he threw me my other gun. A deft catch and it hit my hand
just as one of the men came down the steps. I shot him as he hit the ground. He threw
his hands up, and I shot him again, and he turned halfway around and fell, rolling
slowly down the bank not a dozen feet from me.
Up at the front of the train I heard curses and the fall of
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125
something heavy, like a timber. Evidently the track had been blocked to stop the
train, so that meant there was another man out there somewhere in the dark. The train
whistled. In a moment I was going to be alone on the plains with one dead man and
two who wanted me dead.
Jumping up, I sprinted for the front of the train. A bullet whined past, and I heard
the report of a heavy rifle, and then the train beside me was moving. I shoved one
gun into my waistband and then the other, hoping they would stay where I put them.
Another shot that kicked up gravel under my feet. The train whistled, and I leaped
at the ladder on the end of a cattle car. A bullet ricocheted off the car above me,
but by then I had swung between them. Clinging with one hand, I drew a pistol with
the other and waited. The train was rolling faster now, but somewhere up ahead there
was another man.
I caught a flash of white from a shirtfront and then the red
blast of a shotgun. Sheer reflex action saved me for that
glimpse of white, and I swung my back against the car following and shot.
It was a waste shot. I hit nothing, but where I'd been that shotgun charge hit, and
one of the cattle gave a frightened lunge, smashing against the side of the car.
And then we were rolling down the grade ahead. Slowly I holstered my gun and
for the other. It was still there, behind my belt.
Clinging to the ladder, I tried to catch my breath and slow
heart from its pounding. The train rumbled on into the night.
A long time later I climbed to the top of the train and walked along the top to the
car behind. When I reached my car, I
down the ladder, swung to the platform, and went in.
Billy
Jenkins sat up when he saw me, and the blond woman around and stared, as did the
two little girls. I walked
and dropped into my seat. "Thanks," I said to Billy. "Thought you'd need that," he
said.
"I did." No need to tell him I carried a spare. "You get one of them?"
"Uh-huh."
"You didn't see him after?"
"Didn't have time. Didn't need to. I shot where I was
looking. He's dead. ,. twice."
"One down," Jenkins said.
"Yeah... and too many to go."
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"Like I said, when you get to Kansas City, you talk to Ben. He always knows what
to do."
The man with the chin whiskers no longer looked sour. "That was fast work, young
man," he said, "mighty fast. Who were they?"
"Doesn't matter much," I said. "The name they use isn't their own."
I slipped out my gun and fed three cartridges into it to replace those fired.
"Billy," I said, "when we get to a station, wake me up, will you?"
He nodded. "I will. You go ahead an' sleep. I'll keep watch." "May have hurt one
of your steers," I said. "I think the crosspieces caught part of the shot, but not
all of it. You may have a dead crittur on your hands."
"You get some sleep," Jenkins said, "and don't you forget that telegraph. We passed
a station back yonder."
Suddenly I could scarcely keep my eyes open. I curled up in the seat, trying to make
myself comfortable. Under me the car rumbled and bumped over the rails. The train
whistled, a long, lonely call into the darkness.
And then I was asleep.
129
 CHAPTER XVI
H
e was seated on the top of the corral watching his cattle when Billy Jenkins led
me to him. He wore corduroy pants down into laced boots, a corduroy jacket with the
belt hanging loose, and a narrow-brimmed felt hat. His mustache '.iwas dark and streaked
with gray. There was a touch of gray at
temples.
"Mr. Blocker? This here is Kearney McRaven. He's got
and I told him you could help him."
Blocker rolled his cigar in his teeth and glanced over at me. :iYLooks like a man
who could take care of his own troubles," he
He motioned to a seat beside him on the corral. "Climb up and sit down."
He glanced down at Billy. "Your report says you're one head
What happened?"
"'That was my fault, sir," I said. "That steer was shot with ;lead intended for me."
"'You catch any of it?'"
"A couple of pellets. Done me no harm. Don't know where
picked up that shotgun, but they taken it for granted it loaded with slugs. It carried
bird shot." "Tell me about it.'"
So while Billy Jenkins went off about cattle business, I sat on ithe corral bar and
told Ben Blocker about what happened and
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LOUIS L'AMOUI
what I had to do about claiming my property. He listened, rolling his cigar a time
or two but making no comment.
"They're a-hunting me, Mr. Blocker," I said, "and I can handle the fighting part
of it. Maybe I can handle it all. Trouble is, pa ain't with me no longer and I'd
nobody to sort of talk it over with. Billy, he surely sets store by you. He figures
you can do anything."
"He's wrong, Kearney. I can't, nor can any man. Looks to me like you're in trouble,
all right. But maybe I can help. What you need is a good lawyer."
"Pa always fought shy of lawyers. Said they caused more trouble than they ever settled."
Blocker laughed. "Well . . . sometimes. But a good lawyer can save you a lot of trouble.
For instance, I know one right here in Kansas City who was born in Carolina. He knows
folks down there. More than that, he's figuring on taking a trip
home right soon. We'd better go see him."
"No, sir."
"What?" He looked around at me. "Did you say no?"
"Yes, sir. I don't want to get him killed. Or tangled up with them women, either.
Maybe we could get him to come to you . . not me. Maybe I could sort of drop in on
you, like."
"You think you'll be watched? And if you went to a lawyer's office they'd guess why?"
"Yes, sir. And they'd kill him. I mean that, sir. This bunch are like wolves. They
kill first and ask questions afterward. Killing the wrong man doesn't mean that to
them. I've been watching and I've seen nobody around, so they don't have me located
yet, but by nightfall they will."
Blocker took out a heavy gold watch and glanced at it. "All right. These stockyards
are in what is called the West Bottoms. You meet me at six o'clock in the Livestock
Exchange, at Twelfth and State Line. We can talk there."
He paused, looking at me again. "Have you got walkingaround money?"
"'Yes, sir. I have enough, sir."
"See you there." Blocker dropped off the fence. "Keep out of trouble now. This here
is a fast town."
Carrying my rifle, saddlebags, and blanket roll, I headed uptown, keeping off the
busy streets. Mostly I was worried about all that money I was carrying, so I headed
for the Wells Fargo office,
Now, coming in off the street I looked pretty rough, but
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129
Wells Fargo had done business with rough-looking men since the gold rush in California.
"I want to make a deposit," I told the man in the otce.
He looked me over carefully. "All right. How much?" "Have you got a private offce?
I want to get in out of sight."
He looked at me again. "Come right along," he said, and indicated that I should walk
ahead of him.
Seated in his office, I taken up my saddlebags and began taking out the money. He
never turned a hair. In those days a man never knew who was carrying money and who
wasn't, and there were men selling stock down in the Bottoms or at the Exchange who
looked a lot rougher than me.
It came to nine thousand seven hundred and lift, c-two dollars. I'll keep the seven
fifty-two," I said. "I'll need some walking around money."
"That should do it," he commented dryly. "Now, your name?" "Kearney McRaven." I hesitated.
"Anything happens to me, this here is to go to Miss Laurie McCrae of Silverton, Colorado
Territory."
"My name is Eliot," the Wells Fargo man said. "This is quite a large sum of money."
I pocketed my receipt. "If it's all right with you, I'll leave my rifle and my gear
with you. I've got some running around to do, and it wouldn't look right to be packing
a rifle."
"Stay away from gambling, Mr. McRaven," Eliot suggested. "Thanks," I said, "but I'm
not inclined that way. Do you
Ben Blocker?"
"Of course." Eliot's interest was obvious. "We all know Mr. Blocker and we have all
done business with him. I had no idea
were an associate of his.'"
Well, I wasn't quite sure what he meant by associate, but it
right so I didn't argue the point. "Look," I said, "there's been some shooting trouble
back down the line, so if a couple of men come hunting me, you don't know anything
me. It won't be a lie, because you surely don't know much, but above all don't tell
them where I went. I don't want any trouble in Kansas City."
"Is the law involved?" Eliot asked. "We cooperate with officers whenever we can."
"So would I, if they seemed to need it. So far the law has taken no interest in what's
going on, and I don't think they will. Seems to me most officers right now are more
concerned
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
with what happens in their own town without hunting trouble outside it."
He noticed my holstered gun. It was barely covered by my coat, but the tip of the
holster showed. "You can be arrested in this town for carrying a weapon," he said.
"You know, this isn't Dodge City."
I grinned at him. "I surely know it, Mr. Eliot, but I'd sooner be arrested than killed,
which is what I have to think about."
At six o'clock I was at the Livestock Exchange, and the first person I saw was Ben
Blocker.
"Good! I was getting worried. We have an appointment at the House of Lords." Then
he added, "It's a gambling house, but you can get the best food in town there . .
. if they know you.
"All right," I agreed, "but I don't gamble. Fact is, I was just warned against it
by Mr. Eliot over at Wells Fargo."
"A good man," Blocker said. "We've done business from time to time."
As we walked up the street, he explained a little about his business, buying cattle
in Texas and driving them north to the market, sometimes holding them on good grass
until they were well fattened before bringing them to market. I had worked with enough
stock to know competence, and had been impressed by the way people responded to his
name.
"Mr. Blocker," I said hesitantly, "when you buy cattle, do you ever have partners?"
"'Almost always. Cattle buying isn't as lucrative as it once was. Prices for cattle
bought on the range in Texas have gone up, and so have the expenses of making a drive,
but there's still money to be made."
"I'd like to get into something like that," I said, "but I've been thinking of ranching,
too. There's mighty fine grass in the mountains out Colorado and Wyoming way, and
the cattle can winter on the range."
"I've heard of that." He glanced at me. "You've experience with that?"
"Yes, sir. I held a herd on grass all last winter, and they came off in fine shape.
The grass cures on the stem, and you won't find any better feed anywhere. The trouble
is that most of them are so hungry for profit they overgraze. Seems to me from what
I've seen that small herds of mixed longhorn and Durham or longhorn and Hereford
do the best."
We stopped outside the door of the House of Lords. I was
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131
looking around warily. I'd seen two men following us and I said, "Mr. Blocker, there's
two men behind us who've been following right along. You'd better get inside."
He smiled and put his hand on my arm. "Son, don't worry about it. Those are my men
. . . just in case. Billy Jenkins is one of them, because he saw those men who attacked
you. The
other one is Carlin Cable."
"I've heard the name."
Blocker chuckled. "So have a lot of others. He's a good man with a gun."
When we were seated at a table in a quiet corner, Ben Blocker ordered dinner. "Charlie
will be along soon. His name is Attmore. Good man, with connections in the South.
He came from the Carolinas or Georgia, I'm not sure which, but he will know what
you're talking about."
He paused for a minute, his eyes sweeping the crowd in the gambling hall below. "You
spoke of investing in cattle. How much money are you talking about?"
"Two or three thousand dollars," I said.
"That isn't all you have, I hope?"
"No, sir."
"Good! Never put all your eggs in one basket, to repeat an old
saying. At going prices, two thousand dollars will buy and
deliver at the railroad about one hundred head of steers. No one can be sure what
the market will be, but this year I brought them to Dodge City for eighteen dollars
a head and sold for twenty-eight. Last year I started three herds over the trail.
Indians stampeded one of them and managed to drive off about two hundred head. We
lost a half dozen swimming a swollen river, and two more were killed in that stampede.
All that cuts into the profits, as you can see."
A short, fat man suddenly appeared at the table. He wore a gray suit, obviously tailored
for him. His face was florid, his shock of white hair carefully combed. He carried
a widebrimmed hat in his hand. "Ben! It's good to see you! And this," he said, turning
to me, "will be Mr. McRaven? How do you do, sir? It's a pleasure, a great pleasure!"
"Sit down, Charlie, and order. Then we can talk."
When I left my gear at the Wells Fargo office, I had kept with me my father's buckskin
case. Now I took it out and spread the papers before him.
He glanced at the map first. He looked at it, looked again, and swore softly. "Yes,
yes! Well, I'll be damned!" He looked
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LouIs L'AMOUR
up at me and tapped the largest plantation marked on the map.
"You know the story about this place? They say it's haunted." "Considering some of
my relatives, I'm not surprised."
He chuckled. "Met them, have you? Met Delphine? Oh,
she's a pretty one!"
He turned to Blocker. "Yes, I know the story, know the
area, and that's not surprising, because a lot of people do. That plantation has
a bloody history, right from the beginning, but it's a valuable piece of property."
Briefly, I explained the circumstances of pa's death and what
had happened since.
"You killed one of them? You're sure?'"
"Yes, sir. I know where I put my shots, sir. Either one
would have killed him."
"They're a bad lot, Ben, a bad lot. I've known them or
known of them since they were boys. Yant isn't their name. It is L'Ollonaise. Whether
they were related to the pirate of that name, I do not know. One of the boys was
reared by a very decent family named Yant, but he ran away and left them. They have
used the name intermittently ever since, as well as others."
"The one with the scar on his chin?"
"Elias, and one of the most dangerous of them. A dead shot
and a master with any sort of weapon. He killed a man in Charleston when he was but
fourteen. He got off because he was so young and the man he killed was a notoriously
quarrelsome man. Later he killed a man in a duel at Mobile, another in New Orleans.
It is a question between he and Felix as to who is the most dangerous."
"Not a pleasant family," Blocker said wryly.
"You are right. Nobody ever wanted to cross them, because
sooner or later, on one pretext or another, there would be a challenge. Nowadays
a lot of us have forgotten how prevalent dueling was in the old days."
Attmore glanced at me. "What is it you wish me to do?"
"Take the necessary steps so I can inherit," I said.
He had been glancing through the papers as he talked, and
now he shrugged. "Nothing so very difficult here. You may
have to actually go there to take possession."
"Then I shall go."
"If you do, please remember an attempt was made to poison
your father, and at least one attempt to poison you. They will
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not give up, even after you have inherited, for they will still be next in line."
Suddenly I glimpsed Billy Jenkins coming across the room, weaving through the crowd
of gamblers and sightseers. "Boss,'" he said to Blocker, "they're coming up the street
now. There's four of them, alike as peas in a pod."
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 CHAPTER XVII
A
ttmore glanced at them, then at a nearby table, lifting his hand to his hat as he
did so. "Rest easy," he said to me, "nothing will happen."
Jenkins had fallen back a few steps from the table, and I saw Carlin Cable come moving
up behind the L'Ollonaise men.
They moved up to our table and ranged themselves before it, staring hard at me, then
glancing at the other two. "Sit tight, gentlemen." It was Elias, he with the scar.
"We only wish to talk to McRaven here."
"I doubt if we have anything to talk about," I replied, "and whatever it might be,
you are wasting your time."
"I think not," he said, and brushed his coat back. He had a gun in his waistband,
a hand resting on it. "If you will come along with us there need be no trouble."
A quiet voice spoke from behind them. "Gentlemen? I am Tom Speers, the city marshal.
Is there something I can do for you?"
It was the man to whom Charlie Attmore had gestured. Beside him were two other men,
both tough, competent-looking men. Elias glanced over his shoulder and saw Billy
Jenkins and Carlin Cable. Two more men, obviously Texas cowhands, loitered near the
door.
Elias let his hand fall. "No, I am afraid not, Marshal. We wanted to talk to Mr.
McRaven here, but it can wait."
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"Of course," Speers replied quietly, "but not in Kansas City. Do you understand?"
He gestured about him. "In this room now and before the night is over there will
be twenty-five of the most noted gunfighters in the West. All are my friends, all
of them avoid trouble in Kansas City, and all of them would be very upset if anything
happened here to disturb the situation. They come here to relax when not handling
cattle or hunting buffalo. They know how much I enjoy a quiet town."
He took a gold watch from his pocket. "Nearly eight o'clock, gentlemen. I've just
had your horses brought up outside. By eight-thirty you should be outside of town
and moving away. I might add that if you are not, a posse made up of the men I mentioned
will apprehend you, and sometimes it takes eight or nine months to bring such a case
to trial. I know," he said, gesturing with a careless hand, "it isn't very efllcient
of us, but that's the way it is."
Elias L'Ollonaise shrugged. "Of course. We understand perfectly and would do nothing
to disturb the tranquility of your fair city." He smiled thinly. "Thank you for bringing
our horses around. We came in by train and weren't aware we had any."
"You have now," Speers replied cheerfully. "'I can't offer any promises as to their
quality or disposition, but they are horses." Elias glanced at me. "We'll be meeting
again, I think."
' "Of course," I replied cheerfully, "but didn't we meet before? iOn a train?"
The only visible signs of anger were in a tightening of the lips. "We remember,"
he said coolly, "and we won't forget.
When it is something like that, we never forget."
They were escorted from the room, and Attmore shook his
"Had me worried there for a minute, but I'd told Tom might be expected."
I "You're giving them horses?" I asked skeptically.
"I am," Blocker said. "They are four of my remuda on the
drive. They either made trouble or didn't stand up to the
rough work. I'm well rid of them."
"Saddles?'"
Blocker shook his head. "I didn't go that far. They will ride bareback with rope
hackamores." He smiled. "One of those horses is a bucker, a very mean, deceptive
bucker. He will go along quietly until something startles him or he takes a notion."
Attmore tapped the papers before him. "Lucky Ben caught
when he did. I leave for Charleston tomorrow, and I'll see
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Louis L'AMOUR
what can be done about this. In the event that I need you, you will be here?"
"I'll be in touch with Mr. Blocker and with Tom Speers as well. One or the other
will be able to locate me at any time. I'll get my mail at the Livestock Exchange."
"Fair enough." We shook hands. "One more thing. Do not imagine you have defeated
them."
Nobody needed to tell me how lucky I had been, and how lucky I continued to be. We
ate our supper and I talked almost none at all, leaving that to Ben Blocker and Attmore.
Sitting there, wrapped in my own thoughts, I thought about all that had transpired
since that day when I came down from the mountains to find my father had been killed.
Whatever I might inherit was still a vague dream that did not seem quite real to
me. Never until pa died and left the money he won gambling had I had even a penny
I had not worked for, and worked hard.
A few things I had learned. A poor man gets little respect from strangers. If he
is a good honest workman who does his job well, even if he is poor, he will get respect
from those who know him.
I'd never known a thief who was what you would call a poor man. The thieves I'd known,
and knocking about as pa and me had, I'd known aplenty, were always folks who had
a little and wanted more . . , without working for it.
They stole because they wanted money to spend on women, gambling, or flashy clothes.
They weren't willing to earn their way into affluence, but wanted to steal from somebody
who had earned it.
Using the effort spent in tracking pa and me down, the Yants or L'Ollonaises or whatever
they called themselves could have been well-off. Of course, they were a special kettle
of fish and there was vindictiveness involved in their pursuit of us.
"About those cattle," I said to Blocker. "I want to buy a hundred head of steers
to sell, and I want to buy a hundred head of young breeding stock to drive to Colorado."
"I've a man in Beeville who is buying stock for me. You write me a draft on your
Wells Fargo account, and he will do the buying for you as well."
He turned to the lawyer. "Attmore, this young man has been herding cattle in Colorado
and Wyoming. He knows the country. He says the grass cures on the stem and cattle
will fatten on
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137
the range there. I think we should pool our resources and locate a ranch--"
"Two ranches,'" I said, "one at a lower elevation to which we can drive in bad winters.
I know some good locations if nobody has moved in since I left."
"We would need somebody to handle the ranching operation," Attmore said.
"'I could do that," I said, thinking of Laurie. "I've been thinking of locating out
there, somewhere on the western slope of the Rockies."
We talked for an hour or more, discussing all aspects of the problem, and I surprised
myself. Never before had I had to come up with answers, but my hard work on the range
with cattle and horses, and in some cases sheep, had taught me more than I'd realized.
At the time I had not been thinking of going into the cattle business but only doing
the job at hand, yet in the process I had learned a lot. For the first time I began
to think of settling down, ranching, and the problems involved. "We'd need more than
my hundred head of young stuff," I "We should start with five or six hundred at least."
"We will start with two thousand," Blocker said. "Attmore I will provide the stock,
other than your hundred head, and we will provide the working capital. You will handle
the
project on the ground itself. You will get one third "
"Fifty percent," I said.
"What?" Blocker stared at me.
"'I get fifty percent, each of you get twenty-five percent. You will provide the
capital, but I will be working every day of the i),ear to see that our investment
pays off. I will have to check conditions and water, handle any rustlers, deal with
and either do or take charge of all the work involved. " I said, "I will have to
scout the country for a ranch site, which will take a good deal of doing in and then
hold it against others who might fancy my
Blocker glanced over at Attmore. "He's got a point, Charlie." "Yes," Attmore agreed
reluctantly, "so he has. Neither of us eould afford either the time or the energy
to explore that country, while he probably knows right where to go."
"Each of us has to sell what he has," I said, feeling a little
'smug, for it was the first actual business deal I had ever made
ifor myself.
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LouIs L'AMOUR
"It's agreed then?" Blocker said. "And as soon as you've
finished this business in Carolina, you'll go west?"
"I will."
We talked on for another hour and then, growing tired, I
stood up, suddenly realizing I had no place to sleep and my bedroll was undoubtedly
locked in the Wells Fargo office.
"No problem," Blocker said, when I explained. "Right down
the street there's a hotel . . . a good one, too. At this time of night Sam Dean
will be on the desk. You just tell him Ben Blocker sent you."
Tired as I was, I was glad it would be no further. On the
street I stopped for a minute, looking around. Several men stood on the curb, talking
and chewing tobacco, and further down the street was another saloon and a crowd of
men stood before it. Beyond it I could see a hotel sign. It must be the one Blocker
mentioned.
Turning, I started going along the street. Suddenly a voice
spoke almost at my elbow. "Sir?"
She was small, seemed scarcely more than a girl, and sedately dressed, but well dressed.
She had big dark eyes and a lovely clear complexion. "Sir? Would you walk me past
those men? It is very late, and I--"
She took my arm. "Please! My father would die if he knew I
was on the street at this hour, but Amy had so much to tell me and we hadn't seen
each other in so long and the time just flew!'"
As we spoke, we were walking along. She did not look like
the sort of girl who would accost a man on the street, and I was
going that way anyhow.
"It isn't far. Just around the corner. Oh, I am so glad you
came along! I didn't know what to do, and some of those men looked so rough!"
"Is this your home?"
"Oh, dear, no! My home is in Virginia, but papa had to come
out here to buy cattle. And he is selling some horses, too. We raise horses, you
know, and papa said these cattlemen are getting so they want fine stock and not just
those grubby Mexican horses . . . mustangs, they call them."
I was acutely conscious of the fact that I was still wearing a
shirt I'd had on for three days and that my suit was needing a
good brushing. With my free hand I straightened my tie.
Suddenly we were passing my hotel. I glanced inside and glimpsed a man behind the
desk wearing a green eyeshade and
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139
sleeve garters. "'This is my hotel," I said. I was dead tired, and pretty or not,
I needed sleep. In another few minutes I'd be fiat on my face.
"Please? It's just around the corner."
"All right," I said, "but I'm just about all in. I--"
We turned the corner and suddenly her hands gripped hard on my right sleeve. "All
right, here he is, kill him!'"
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 CHAPTER XVIII
H
ad there been time to think, I would have blessed my father. "Someday," he told me
when I was very young, "you may not have the use of your right hand, if only for
a few days, so learn to use your left."
Boxing, where a left is of first importance, helped a lot, but I had deliberately
used it for many things, becoming able to use it with saw or hammer as well as my
right. Of course, I learned to use a pistol as well.
My left hand drew the pistol without even thinking, and I fired. They were close
together and coming at me, and I must have hit something. Jerking my right arm free,
I sent her staggering toward them, fired again, and dodged around the corner.
Thrusting the gun into my waistband, I stepped into the hotel. The night clerk was
on his feet, spectacles in his hand. "What's going on out there?" he asked.
"Damned if I know," I replied. "Ben Blocker told me to come to you and you'd fix
me up with a room. I was almost to the door when the shooting started. I ran."
"Wise," he said. He pushed the register toward me. "Sign right there. It will be
number twelve, upstairs on the right." People were running in the street outside,
and there were
" A
shouts. razy. I commented, man's a fool to go where
there's shooting. It's a good way to get killed."
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141
"You're right," he said, "but the world is full of rubbernecks. They want to see
everything."
Locking the door behind me, I reloaded the empty chambers and put the gun on the
dresser. Then I took off my coat and shirt, washed my hands and face, and pulling
off my boots, I lay down on the bed.
Just what happened out there I did not know. They had been close together and coming
at me, but even so I might have missed. They had flred, but obviously I had not been
hit. I had seen the girl fall, but that might have been from being off balance as
I jerked free. In any event, Tom Speers was not going to like it.
There was much confusion in the street below, but I had not lighted a light, wishing
to attract no undue attention. For a long time I lay awake, thinking. Attmore would
discover what must be done to claim my inheritance, but that would take time. In
the meantime there was nothing to be done here. I could go to Carolina myself or
go back west and wait to see what was happening.
If I went west, I could scout the location for our ranch. I had a few ideas, but
I'd be looking at the country with new eyes as it is one thing to ride through a
country, another to plan a ranching operation, and the right location would be important.
We had only discussed cattle, but I was also thinking of sheep as a possibility.
Although I'd herded cattle and worked on ranches here and there, I'd never picked
up the average cattle rancher's dislike of sheep. Given the right area and management,
they might be better and steadier money than cattle, but that needed some looking
into.
Lying there on my back, I considered all aspects. Finally I got undressed and into
bed, but with a pistol at hand. Getting shot at was no pleasure, and although they
were hunting me, I was not hunting them. I wanted to get out from under and I felt
safer out west.
That girl now, the one who grabbed my arm . . . was she one of them or somebody they
hired for the job?
It wasn't until I got dressed the next morning that I found the bullet hole through
the side of my coat. It had been
hanging open, and the bullet had made two holes.
That had been close . . . much too close.
For several minutes before going down the stairs, I studied the street outside. There
was only a little I could see of my own side of the street, but across the street
there was nobody.
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Louis L'AMOUR
When I reached the lobby, a place with hide-covered chairs
and several buffalo and elk heads on the walls, there were men standing around and
talking. The air was thick with cigar and pipe smoke.
"Shot," somebody said. "They found her on the street after
that shooting. She's not dead, but she was hit twice."
"'Who did it?"
"Who knows? It was some more of that night shooting that
has been going on. She was a new girl over at Mary's place."
"Why would anybody want to kill her?"
"Speers believes she got mixed up in something that did not concern her. Right now
he's looking for a wounded man. He found some spatters of blood on the walk about
twenty feet from where she fell."
Ben Blocker was at the Livestock Exchange when I came in.
He waved at me to come over, and I crossed the room to sit with him. There were at
least twenty men scattered around the room but nobody who looked familiar.
Ben threw me a sharp look. "Shooting last night," he said.
"So I heard."
We had some bacon and eggs, and I told him I was leaving.
"My problem," I added, "is getting out of town. Obviously
they are watching me."
Blocker took out a fresh cigar and removed the band. He glanced at it, then bit off
the end and spat it out. He reached for his vest pocket and lifted out his watch.
He glanced at it. "Steamboat," he suggested, "to Leavenworth. I can arrange for you
to pick up a horse there. You can catch the steam cars further west, if you like."
"My problem," I explained, "is that I don't know who to look
for. Some of them I know, some I don't, and there are so many
they can hire."
Blocker shrugged. "Know what you mean. There's a good
fifty men within a dozen blocks of here who would kill a man
for fifty dollars."
He glanced at me. "That shooting last night. Were you involved in that?"
Briefly, I told him what had happened. "It was dark around
that corner. I don't know whether there were two or three of them. She grabbed my
arm, and when I threw her off she must have staggered toward them, and they shot.
At least one of them shot at me." I showed him the holes in my coat. "And I shot
twice at them, nicked one of them, I think. But my bullets
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143
didn't hit her. She was well off to my right. I am sure they shot her by mistake,
or she fell in the line of their fire."
We finished our coffee. "That steamboat . . . when does it leave?"
He glanced at his watch again. "You've got an hour." I got up. "That girl . . . where
would she be?" "Down the street.., at Mary's place."
"I want to see her."
"Stay away from her. You're in the clear. Not a thing to tie
you to it, and there may be an inquiry. Will be, I should say." "Take me a minute."
He shrugged. "I'll go with you then." He glanced across the room, motioning to Billy
Jenkins and Carlin Cable.
She was fully conscious when they showed me to her room. She was lying in bed, her
face very pale, her large brown eyes, really beautiful eyes, seeming even larger
now.
She was scared when she saw me. Blocker carried such an air of authority that she
was sure he was an ocer. ': "I'm sorry you got hurt," I said. "'I didn't mean for
that to ;happen."
She was very cool. "I tried to get you killed," she said.
"They paid me."
"How much?"
She flushed. "I was to get fifty dollars, which they paid me, and fifty more if you
were killed."
"Is it so easy to get a man killed?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I've seen them killed for less. What do you want with me?"
"Nothing... except to say I am still sorry. And you earned your money, even if it
didn't work."
"You're very good, you know," she commented. "Nobody so much as thought about you
shooting with your left hand. I was to keep your right hand in a tight grip and press
against your
"They really didn't care about you, did they? Standing that close, there was every
chance you'd get shot."
"I mentioned that. They said they couldn't miss at that range." She turned her eyes
back to mine. "If you say I said any of this, I'll say you're a liar."
"You're a cold-hearted little devil," I replied, "but I am not going to say anything.
I am just sorry you got shot."
Taking fifty dollars from my pocket, I gave it to her. "Get
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Louis L'AMOUI
well," I said. "And if you hope to live long, stay out of such things.'"
She took the fifty dollars. "You are a fool," she said, "but ff you wish to remain
a live fool, watch out for the blond one."
She would say no more, and we left, and when the steamboat left the landing, I was
upon it. Standing by the rail, alone in the darkness, I asked myself why I had not
gone east? Was I afraid? Perhaps, I admitted, but mostly it was distaste at what
I might find there. The country itself I knew I would love, but I wanted no more
to do with the L'Ollonaises. After all, my future lay in the West. I liked Blocker.
He was a solid, simple man, but a shrewd man of business and just such a one as I
needed. The cattle on the range I could handle, but the business I would leave to
him.
My thoughts kept returning to Laurie, in Silverton. On a sudden inspiration I went
below and sat down in the main cabin and wrote her a letter.
There were few passengers aboard, and I kept to myself. So much had happened since
the death of my father that there had scarcely been time to take stock, but I felt
that now was the time to stop roaming about and to make something of myself. All
about me the country was growing, expanding, developing, and I wanted very much to
be a part of it. Also, Felix Yant's questions as to what I intended to make of myself
had irritated me. He had left me feeling inadequate, and less than I should be.
What had become of him? Where was he now? The man was dedicated to killing me, yet
there was something about him that I liked. Was it his resemblance to my father?
Or to myself?.
Suddenly I looked about me. How did I know he was not near? Or some of the others?
And what had that girl meant when she warned me against "the blond one"? She would
say no more, having said that, and I knew not who she meant, or whether it was man
or woman.
At Leavenworth I took a room at the National Hotel, bought a newspaper, and scanned
it. There was a presidential election coming, and with shame I realized I knew nothing
of either man, nor had I ever taken interest in politics or government, unusual in
my time, for politics was the chief subject of conversation wherever one went.
My world was too narrow, too involved with myself and my own problems, and this when
I lived in the land where government was the business of every man and such a government
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145
could only do well if each of us voted with intelligence. I shook the paper irritably.
My father had talked of such things and I had listened with only half an ear, yet
at the Livestock Exchange men had talked of little else.
Determined to become more than I was, I read the paper through, each item betraying
to me how little I knew, My father had tried to give me something of an education,
but since then I had done nothing to further it.
When morning came, I ate a quick breakfast in the hotel's dining room and then went
down Delaware Sreet to Sidney Smith's Book and Stationery Store.
Although I'd never done it myself, being too busy herding cattle, cutting railroad
ties, or whatever, I knew that most men spent a lot of time in courtrooms. The popular
heroes of the West were less likely to be stage drivers or gunfighters than lawyers.
To hear one of the best-known lawyers plead a case, men would ride for miles, and
when court was in session a western town was crowded with people. Most of those frontier
lawyers were handy with quotations from Alexander Pope, from Shakespeare, Milton,
Gray, or Francis Bacon as well as the Bible.
The lawyers knew the public came for the show, and they usually managed to put on
a performance. There were always a few men sitting around the cracker barrel in a
store or on a bench in front of a saloon or the post office talking about trials.
It was the theater of the West, before there was any theater. Lawyers were much admired,
their quotations recognized like old friends, and their arguments analyzed. Nobody
had to ask if court was in session in a western town, you only had to notice the
number of rigs tied to the hitching rails, the number of men in black broadcloth,
and the women in their Sunday-go-tomeeting clothes. They came from miles out in the
country and they brought picnic lunches. Many of the lawyers knew but little law,
but they were long on common sense, the logic born of the frontier itself coupled
with a shrewdness in reading people and juries. The emotional appeal was important,
and they wasted no opportunities.
Time and again I'd heard them quote, but I'd never read the books they quoted from,
although a surprising number of the courtroom followers had.
The bookstore was well stocked, but I didn't know where to start. I ended up buying
copies of Appleton's and Blackwood's magazines, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith,
and The
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Louis L'AMOUR
Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. I knew nothing of either book except that pa
had often talked about Scott and he had read me most of Ivanhoe. Once in a while
when we were riding out across the country pa would recite poetry, of which he knew
a lot. One I remembered was Lochinvar, by Scott. It was very popular all over the
West. In a saloon one time, I heard a drunken cowpuncher recite most of it.
There was at least one more bookstore in town, operated by
a Mr. Morgan, but I had no more time. The longer I remained, the greater were my
chances of being located, if that had not happened already.
At the bar of the Star of the West Saloon I found my man.
He had been described, so I knew him on sight. He was a slim, dark man with a hawklike
nose wearing a derby and a black broadcloth suit.
"'Hobie Jackman?" I asked.
He gave me a quick, hard look. "It is," he said.
"Ben Blocker sent me." I paused. "He said you'd give me a
horse . . . or provide one."
"A horse, is it? A fast horse?"
"Fast is all right," I said. "A stayer is more important. I am
riding west. I might need him as far as Abilene."
He paid for his drink and turned toward the door, and I followed. "Have you eaten?"
he asked suddenly. "I was just about to have a bite next door at Delmonico's."
I'd been browsing in the bookstore longer than intended,
and it was nigh time for a noontime meal. "All right," I said, not knowing if there
was some other purpose in his suggestion. He was a sharp-looking character, not the
sort of man with whom to trade horses.
Delmonico's was in a two-story brick building not exactly
next door, but close. We got a table near the wall, where I could watch the door.
He let me choose my seat, and when I chose the one where I could watch the door,
he smiled for the first time. When he sat down, I saw he was packing a gun in a shoulder
holster. I had not seen many of them, but heard of them.
"Play cards?" he asked suddenly.
"'I don't know enough about them," I replied.
He smiled again. His teeth were white and even, and when
he smiled he was an attractive man. "Nobody does," he said,
"only some of us think we do."
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147
We ordered beef stew, mashed potatoes, and coffee. He said
suddenly, "Got the rigging? I mean, do you have a saddle?" "Not with me. I came east
on the cars."
"All right." The food was served and we ate. "Where are you staying? The National
or the Planters?"
When I told him, he nodded again. "If you've got any gear, get it and pay your bill.
Don't waste any time. I don't know
what the trouble is and don't want to know."
"It isn't the law," I said.
He shrugged. "That's what I figured. I know Ben Blocker and he's a straight shooter.
Saved my bacon once, but that's awhile back." He looked at me quickly. "Anybody I
should be looking out for?"
So I told him about the L'Ollonaises and about the women. He flashed his teeth at
me over that. "Beautiful as that? I'd let 'em catch up."
"You wouldn't," I said. "They fancy poison and have no hesitation about using it."
"Come down Fourth Street," he said. "It will be the old red barn setting back off
the street. Better move fast."
At the National I picked up my blanket roll and my rifle. A quick glance around the
lobby showed no familiar face, and nobody was paying attention. As I had paid when
I took the room and had nothing more to say, I walked swiftly into the street and
headed for Fourth. There had not been time for them to get here, yet I was worried.
Suppose they had guessed which way I'd run. And expected me to run.
Hobie Jackman was standing outside the barn and he had a saddled sorrel horse standing
ready. It was a handsome animal,
looked to have some Morgan strain, which spoke well for him. "What do I owe you?"
I said.
He waved a hand. "Any friend of Ben's is a friend of mine. The hostler at the Drover's
Cottage will take the horse. If you need him further, keep him."
Swinging into the saddle, I shoved my rifle into the boot. "Thanks," I said.
"One more thing. Stay off the trail when it gets close to the railroad. They can
see you from the cars and be waiting up ahead."
Turning the sorrel, I rode out of town. Glancing back, I saw Hobie Jackman standing
there, looking after me. I wondered about him. There was something quiet, sure, and
deft about him. Whoever he was, he was a dangerous man, a skilled man
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Louis L'AMOUR
at whatever he did. There was no wasted motion about him, and no wasted words.
The saddlebags were stuffed. Opening the flap on one, I saw it was packed with food.
A square of bacon wrapped in brown paper, some coffee, some biscuits. In the other
bag was about four handfuls of .44 cartridges. Mr. Hobie Jackman was a knowing man.
Twenty miles west I made camp under some cottonwoods in a hollow off the road.
Abilene was no longer a cow town. The trail drivers had long since worn out their
welcome, and the railroad had gone on west. Turning into the street, I glimpsed a
slim, blond man in a black, flat-brimmed hat standing on a corner. He wore a tied-down
holster with no gun in it. Abilene no longer cared for pistol toters. Turning the
sorrel around, I rode into an alley and along it, and then I simply rode out of town.
That night I stopped at a farm well off the road and out of sight.
Probably that man was an innocent stranger, but I was taking no chances. That he
was not a resident was obvious from the holster.
He just might have been the blond man I was to watch out for. If that girl had been
telling the truth, and if it was a man she had meant.
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A
t the livery stable in Hays City I asked the hostler if he knew Hobie Jackman. He
looked at me, tamped tobacco in his pipe, and said, "I know him."
"He loaned me this horse. Will you hold it for him?" "Surest thing. You need never
worry about no horse of Jackman's, not in this country." He spat. "Hobie Jackman's
knowed all up and down the country, mister. Minute you rode in I knew that was a
Jackman horse. Even before I seen the brand."
"I'll need another horse."
"Got me another Jackman horse here, young man. He's a black . . . fine horse. Do
you?"
He indicated the horse, and I nodded. I should not have needed to look, for I was
beginning to understand that a
Jackman horse could not be bad.
"You know Bill Tilghman?"
"Everybody does, mister."
"'He'll have the horse, if there's any question."
"I never answer questions of that kind, mister. Who rides through here passes in
the night as far as I'm concerned.
Anyway, any friend of Bill's is a friend of mine."
On impulse, I asked, "How about Hobie?"
"He pays his bills. Takes good care of his stock."
Switching saddles, I stopped by the store for a few odds and
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ends, then rode down Big Creek toward the southeast for a couple of miles, then skirted
a clump of brush and a few trees and headed off to the southwest. That night I made
camp in Longout Hollow. Riding out before the stars faded, I was crossing the Smoky
Hill when the sun came up.
It was a long riding country with nothing anywhere you looked but distance, miles
upon miles of grass with nothing in sight but occasional herds of antelope. Once
I sighted a prairie falcon, and jackrabbits aplenty. There'd been scattered showers,
so we made no dust, and I was thankful for it. I rode west, then turned up Wildon
Draw, skirted the Round-House Hills, and made camp on Big Timber.
Since the buffalo had grown fewer, the grass was growing
up. This was mixed grass country I was in, western wheat-grass mixed with bluestem
and patches of crazy weed, whose blossoms made great patches of pink and rose on
the low hills.
It was a fine country for riding, but I was riding wary of trouble. Felix Yant was
somewhere about, and like all of that L'Ollonaise crowd, he had a gift for showing
up when least expected. Yant had apparently not come east at all, just setting back
there in Colorado waiting for me to come back like he knew I would. Yet if he was
expecting me to visit Teresa, he was wrong. I'd put her from my thoughts, not liking
the way she cottoned up to Yant while I was westward.
Nobody needed to tell me I'd had the breaks. Sure, I could
shoot and I could get into action pretty fast, but I'd been lucky,
too, and I could not expect to be lucky all the time.
Bill Tilghman was on the street when I met him. He recognized me at once. He smiled
as he noticed the horse I was riding. "I see you have met Hobie. Well, you will be
able to tell your grandchildren about him. Do you mind my asking how you met?"
So I told him about Ben Blocker and Mr. Attmore, and also
about the trouble on the railroad and the further trouble in Kansas City. He listened
without comment until I finished and
then he said, "I can have your horses brought in tonight."
"Thanks. I want to leave by daybreak."
"The men you mentioned," he said, "came in shortly after
you left. One of them went back toward the west. I have not
seen them since."
"And I hope I don't. I am not afraid of them, but I want no trouble I can avoid.
I'll get my horses and ride out. I'm heading for the western slope of the Rockies."
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"I've heard of it." I thought he sounded a bit wistful. "I doubt if I will ever get
so far."
In the morning my horses were there, and I mounted up. My roan gave me enough of
a workout to let me know he hadn't lost anything, and then with a good pack of grub
I headed west. At noon I had miles behind me, so I took a short rest and switched
horses. That night I camped in a draw just back from the Arkansas River.
In the middle of the night, I awakened suddenly. All was still, but the horses had
their heads up and were looking down toward the riverbed.
It took me only a minute to get my boots and pants on. I swung the gun belt around
my waist and drew it to the right notch. A glance at my fire showed it was still
holding a faint red glow, and I swore softly. If the wind was right, they could smell
that.., or at least I would.
Moving like a ghost, I got my horses in close, rolled my bed, and saddled up, taking
a moment every now and again to listen.
A glance at the stars told me I'd slept about two hours. If that was Yant down there,
he had been watching Dodge. Probably spotted my horses and figured I'd return for
them.
Careful to make no sound, I sifted dirt over my fire and rode out of there, walking
my horses where I knew the soft grass was. Not until I had a quarter of a mile behind
me did I start to run for distance. Turning southwest past the sand hills, I headed
for the Cimarron. Striking another area of soft sand, I held to it until there were
no tracks for him to find and then I rode due west.
After a bit I turned sharply south along a shallow streambed and made dry camp that
night in a buffalo wallow. Next day I
came up to the railroad.
A dozen empty cars, picked up from sidings here and there. The train had stopped
at another siding, and they were coupling up to another empty freight car. There
was an earthen ramp there for loading, and I rode up to the trainman. "How's
for a ride? The horses an' me?"
He glanced at me. "Cost you a couple of dollars," he said. "Three," I said, "if you
let me off this side of La Junta." We led the horses into the empty boxcar and tied
them at one end. Then I went back outside and scuffed out the horses' tracks. He
watched me skeptically.
"You dodgin' the law?"
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"No. But I'm dodging."
He chuckled. "Better get that boot track yonder, then. No railroad man wears high-heeled
boots."
When I was aboard, he gave the signal and the train slowly
pulled away. I closed the car door so it was only open a few inches. Then I went
into the corner of the car away from the horses and stretched out with my folded
coat for a pillow.
The train rumbled and bumped over the track, occasionally whistling like some wailing
monster. From time to time I went to the door and peered out. It was night, and the
stars were out. I talked to the horses a little bit and went back to sleep. In the
chill of dawn I awakened. The train was stopped.
When I reached the door, I heard the crunch of footsteps alongside and the trainman
came to the door. "Ready for some coffee?"
"Ready and willing," I said.
Swinging down, I walked along to the caboose with the brakeman. "Recognized you,"
he said. "You went east with the Blocker cattle. He ships a lot of stock over this
road."
A huge pot of stew was on the stove. He waved at it. "We
killed a buffalo calf a couple of days ago and saved the meat.
That's the last of it."
"You grew the vegetables, I suppose?"
"Nope. You'll find that stew long on spuds. We gathered up a few off the top of several
carloads we were carrying. The
onions and carrots we picked up here and there."
The stew was excellent, the coffee black and hot. I drank a
cup, and at their invitation had another.
"You shoot mighty quick," the brakeman commented. "I had to. They were fixing to
kill me."
"Who were they?"
"Relatives of mine," I said, "distant relatives, but not distant enough to suit me."
"Place this side of La Junta," he said, "where there's a loading platform and a chute.
Like back yonder. Be the best place to get off."
We were silent for a while, and then the conductor asked
me, "Known Blocker long?"
"Not long. We're partners in a cattle deal. Ranching." "Money in that, I hear. I
heard a lot about it from a German baron who had some fancy racing stock in Colorado.
Before I took to railroading I worked for him a spell. His name was Baron von Richthofen.
He had some of the finest trotting
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horses in the country, but he was always talking about the money to be made from
cow ranching."
We yarned away the hours until the train slowed for the stop where I was to unload.
I jumped the horses over the little gap between the earth platform and the car and
sat my saddle waving as they pulled away.
For a few moments I waited and watched the train pull away toward the westward, and
then I came down off the ramp and headed southwest. Over there beyond the Spanish
Peaks was the Wet Mountain valley, and I wanted to look it over before going on west.
My enemies, I was sure, were far behind and had lost my trail. If they looked for
me now, it would be in Denver or Georgetown... or ,maybe in Rico, where Teresa was.
Nevertheless, I checked the magazine in my Winchester and the chambers of my pistols.
A man couldn't be too careful, and I remembered only too well the cold blue eyes
of that man with the scar.
And there was always Felix Yant, a cool, thoughtful, dangerous man who made few mistakes.
Alone I might be, and maybe they were far away, but I pulled up and took a careful
look around the country. It was mid-morning and already the heat waves were shimmering
out there.
It was going to be a long, hot day.
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opping out on a ridge, I stood in my stirrups and looked all around the country.
It was typical plains country, slightly rolling and here and there some staghorn
cholla, a variety of cactus typical of this country. In the distance some mesas loomed
against the sky, and the dark spots on them would be juniper.
Settling back in the saddle, I came down off the rise and immediately turned down
a draw, then up another one, and cut across a low divider between two more. It looked
like nobody was out there, but I did not feel that way. I just had a hunch, and it
kept spooking me . . . somebody was closing in on me from somewhere.
Again I switched back and rode up a draw in some soft sand, then out upon the plains,
where I let the roan run for a bit, then slowed him down. The country ahead was rimrock
country, low hills rimmed with sheer faces of rock, some of them no more than four
to six feet high, while the hills themselves varied around forty or fifty feet. There
was a lot of juniper here and more cholla. The Purgatoire River was off to the west.
My trail led me up on the mesa again. It was very hot. Wiping the sweat from my brow,
I looked all around. Empty . . not even an antelope. Heat waves shimmered and danced.
Mopping my tace, I rubbed my hands down on my pants to dry the palms. No tracks but
animal tracks. I drew up at a little seep and let the horses drink. Trotting the
horses down the
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draw, I wove around through some juniper and then went up on the cap-rock for another
look around.
Off to the southwest there was a plume of dust, and it seemed to be coming my way.
Walking my horses toward it, I suddenly sighted a well-worn trail and beside it a
stone corral and a building. There was a faint suggestion of smoke rising from the
chimney.
Pulling up in a clump of five or six junipers, I stepped down, and rifle in hand,
walked closer. There were several horses in a corral, and a harnessed team waiting.
A stage station! Sitting down in the shade of the junipers, I watched the stage come
in, saw some dusty people get down to stretch their legs, and watched the teams changed.
I saw nobody whom I knew, but there were two horses at the hitching rail near the
station.
After a bit the stage pulled out, but nobody came near the horses. I was hungry and
there would be food down there I did not have to fix for myself, and fresh coffee.
Mounting up, I rode around the corral and down to the stage station, coming up on
its blind side. I shucked my Winchester from the scabbard, tied my horses in what
little shade there was, and walked around the corner.
It was a low-roofed building with two windows and a door. The door stood open and
I stepped inside.
There was a man behind the bar with no hat on, and two men on the business side of
the bar who wore hats. Both had been and were drinking. One was a stocky, barrel-chested
man with thick legs and worn-down boot heels. The other was lean and tall, slightly
stooped. He turned his head slightly and peered at me. Crossing to the one table,
I pulled back the bench and sat down, laying the Winchester across the bench beside
me.
The man without the hat looked at me and asked, "What'll it be?"
"Coffee," I said, "and whatever you have fixed to eat." "Give you a chunk of pot
roast," he said, "if you like buffalo," "I could eat a wolf," I said. "Let's have
it."
The tall man looked at me again. I knew trouble when I saw it, and did not meet his
eyes. "I'm a wolf," he said.
Under my breath I swore. The last thing I needed now was a quarrelsome drunk. I was
hungry and I was a little tired and my patience was running short. The heavyset one
had not even given me a glance. He was pouring another drink.
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
"I'm a wolf," the tall one repeated.
Ignoring him, I watched the man bring in the meat from the kitchen. He put it on
the table in front of me and said, under his breath, "Watch yourself."
The tall man had turned his back to the bar and was looking
at me, a hard, ugly stare. I'd seen the kind before. Give them a drink and all their
natural meanness comes out and they'll pick on anything handy, preferably an Indian
or a Mexican.
"I'm a wolf," the man repeated. "Let's see you eat me."
The meat smelled good and I started to eat, ignoring him. Yet
I'd had no more than two bites when he loomed over the table.
"When I talk, damn you, pay attention!" He grabbed at me,
and I knocked the hand aside and shoved the table into him. He staggered and went
down. I walked around the table, and when he came up off the floor I hit him with
my left hand.
As I did so, I moved so that he was between me and the man
at the bar, who had not even turned around. That way I could see them both. The tall
man was four inches taller and had longer arms, but loudmouthed as he was, he knew
nothing about fighting. He took a long, clumsy swing at me, and I grabbed his sleeve
and jerked him toward me, kicking his feet from under him. He hit the floor hard
and for a moment sat
there, shocked and suddenly sober . . . or nearly so.
"I'll kill you for that," he said matter-offactly.
"I'd give it another thought," I told him. "You haven't done
very well so far."
Without taking my eyes from him, I said to the stage tender,
"You got a graveyard out here?"
"We have. Nothing but Injuns in it, though."
"If you want to be remembered," I said to the tall man,
"you'd better tell him your name before you reach for that
gun."
"Think I'm scared?" he demanded, and I knew he wouldn't
fight unless the odds were all with him.
"I don't think you're scared," I said, "and I hope you're
smart."
He stood there, and I backed off and sat down at the table.
When I picked up my fork, it was with my left hand. He looked at me and he wanted
to kill me, but he simply didn't have what it took. "To hell with you!" he said.
He looked at me, and my right hand was resting on my thigh
close to my gun butt. It was even closer to the gun in my waistband, but I didn't
believe he had even seen that. It was
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also within two inches of my Winchester, which was pointed
toward him under the table.
"To hell with you!" he repeated. Then he turned to the man
at the bar. "Come on, Shorty. I'm leavin'."
The man at the bar still did not turn. "You go ahead, Slim,
I'll stick around for a while."
"You what?"
Shorty turned his back to the bar. "We ain't known each
other long, Slim, but I reckon it's long enough."
Slim stared at him, unbelieving, then he went out and
slammed the door behind him. Shorty looked after him, then
turned back to the bar.
After a minute I said, "Shorty?"
He turned his head to look at me. "Have you eaten yet? This
pot roast is pretty good.., if you like buffalo." "I've et it a time or two," he
said.
"Sit up, then," I said. "I'm buying."
He walked over with his drink and sat down across the table
from me. He had a broad face and a thick neck, and he looked
like a fighter and a stayer.
"'Him an' me," he said, "we rode for the same outfit. We
quit at the same time, just naturally drifted off together. I
never saw him when he was drinkin' before."
"He'll get himself killed," I said.
"And I'd be his partner. I'd have to stand with him," Shorty
said. "If a man has to die, it should be for something worthwhile,
not a two-by-twice loudmouth trouble-hunter."
We ate and we talked very little. When I'd finished my third
cup of coffee, he said, "You goin' far?"
"Huntin' a ranch out on the western slope. Figured to look
over the Wet Mountain country first."
"Mind if I ride along?"
"You hadn't better, Shorty," I replied. "I've got trouble on
my trail, but it's my trouble, not yours, and I want to handle it
alone."
"Too bad," he said wistfully, "you're the kind of gent I'd like
to ride along with."
"Shorty," I said, "my name's Kearney McRaven. I'm headed
for the upper Colorado River area on the west slope. I'll be hunting ranchland. I'm
going partners with Ben Blocker and a lawyer named Attmore from Kaycee. We could
use a good man."
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"I heard of Ben Blocker," he said. "He any relation of Ab Blocker, the trail driver?"
"'Not that I know of," I said, "'but they're cut from the same mold."
"Those fellers you got trouble with . . . are they close by?" "I have a feeling they
are, but I don't know. It's an ugly fight, Shorty, but it's my fight and I have to
make it. I don't want a good man to die because of me. If you see two or three long,
tall, slim men wearing black outfits, you fight shy of them, They are mean, and they
are trouble. They will face any man living with a gun, but they'd just as soon shoot
him in the back, dry-gulch him, or drop poison in his soup. So stay clear . . but
I'd like it if you showed up out west there, rustling a job."
"I can use a gun."
"Not this time, Shorty. You come west and you've got yourself a partner, but this
is my fight. There's another thing, Shorty. I'm keyed for this fight. I'm ready to
handle it alone. If I start depending on somebody to help, it will take the edge
off and I'll be less careful. There are times when it is better for a
man to be alone and dependent on nobody but himself."
"Your funeral."
"It may be." I paid for my meal and his and then walked outside. After a careful
look around, I switched the gear to my other horse and rode out of there. When I
topped out on the ridge, I glanced back and Shorty was standing there, looking after
me.
Most western cowhands rode partners with somebody, and
often they stayed together for years, but I had ridden with nobody excepting pa,
and when I was a youngster, with Pistol.
When I pulled out of that stage station, I didn't plan on
going far, but I found a good horse trail that led toward the south and took it.
This was country I'd been through a time or two and I held to a good pace. I knew
where I was going now, for it was a place where pa and me had holed up once a long
time ago.
It was coming on to dark, with a few stars already in the sky,
when I unsaddled and picketed my horses. There was water there, and grass. There
was a good stand of juniper around and a place where a fire could be lit and kept
out of sight. By day a man could see for miles, for we were a good thousand feet
above the rest of the country. The view to the north was especially good.
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There was plenty of dry wood around that would give off no smoke, so I had a fire,
a hot meal, and some coffee. I took the horses to water again because I hadn't let
them have much there at first, then picketed them again.
Leaving the coffee on the coals, I took my rifle and picked my way through the rocks
and the juniper to the edge of the cliff.., or as near as I needed to go.
Above were the stars, a million or two of them, it seemed like Below was a vast empty
blackness, blackness without a break for miles and mi--
There was a fire down there. It was a long way off, a pinpoint of light was all,
but a campfire nonetheless. Nobody needed to tell me who was at that fire. Of course,
it could be somebody else, but I knew it was not, and at the same time I had a sort
of strange premonition that a showdown was before me.
I didn't mean a showdown on some far-off day, I meant now . . soon . . . within hours.
Walking back to the fire, I laid out my guns, and one after the other I cleaned them,
checked the action, and then reloaded them.
All right, then. They were asking for it and they could have it.
Unrolling my bed, I banked my fire a mite and laid some sticks close to hand, for
the night was cold. This country was like that. Hot as it might be in the daytime,
a man could always use a blanket at night . . and I was at an altitude of about sixty-five
hundred feet
Twice during the night I awakened to listen, and each time I checked my horses, but
they were eating quietly, unworried by anything.
Lying awake that last time, I tried to come up with some scheme that would give me
the advantage, but the trouble was, I would not go hunting them, and that gave them
the choice of a battleground. Think of it as I would, I could come up with no bright
ideas.
I was going to have to face two or three tough, dangerous men, and I would have to
do it alone.
The Mesa de Mayo, where I now was, was a lookout point long favored by Indians in
the area. From one position or another atop the mesa, a man could see for miles in
any direction he chose Before daylight I was up, saddled the roan, and packed my
gear as soon as I'd had some coffee There was
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
no need to make fresh coffee. I just drank what was left in the pot.
Somehow they had managed to stay with me, losing the trail now and again, but generally
aware of what my destination might be. I could be sure they would have a man in Silverton
and probably one in Rico, and they would be watching the railroads and scouting the
main routes west.
Coming down off the east end of the Mesa de Mayo, I crossed the Cimarron, taking
time to water my horses as I did so. Then I doubled back to the west, keeping the
mesa close on my right.
By noon the coolness of the morning was gone, and once again the heat waves were
shimmering, turning the horizon and the plains before me into a dancing, liquidlike
air. The Spanish Peaks, which I knew were far away, suddenly stood in the sky before
me.
There was no water that I knew of close by, although there were creeks that ran into
the North Canadian. However, I did not want to turn from my trail and pushed on.
Turning off might have saved me a lot of grief.
There was a dim trail led between Sierra Grande, a huge peak lifting thousands of
feet above the country around, and Capulin Mountain, a sort of tower. I started some
antelope, and they went bounding away, taking my attention with them. When my eyes
returned to the trail, I pulled up sharply.
Riding toward me through the shimmering heat waves were three immeasurably tall black
figures. They were spread out and riding right for me, walking their horses.
There was no way I could escape. My only choice was to fight. Yet there was a chance
. . . a slim chance.
To reach for my Winchester would invite a bullet. Trusting their picture of me was
as indistinct as mine of them, I slipped the six-shooter from my waistband and held
it alongside the pommel of the saddle as I rode toward them.
It was them. I'd had no doubt of it, and now there could be no more running, no more
evasive action. My heart pounded with slow, heavy beats, and even the roan seemed
to sense the tension that was in me, for he began to step with short, quick steps,
alert for an instant movement. It was well that he did so.
They came toward me, and the distance narrowed. I made no attempt to get away, just
kept my horse moving right at them. One of them spoke to the others under his breath,
and they all started to pull up. It was the moment I had been waiting for.
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Just as their horses began to pull up, I slapped the spurs to mine. Rarely did I
use spurs on a horse, but this time the signal was instantaneous. He gave a great
bound, and as he leaped my pistol came up. I saw one of them grab wildly for a gun,
and then I was among them, through them.
There was time for one quick, chopping shot as I brought the gun down. The man who
was drawing threw up his hands, and as his horse leaped wildly, he toppled from the
saddle, and I was off and running.
I heard a shouted curse and then a clatter of hoofs as the horse whose rider I had
shot started to run away. Glancing back, I saw one of them going after the horse
and the other swinging for a shot at me. Yet before he could get his horse turned
and steadied for a shot, I had put at least four horselengths between us, and before
me was a dip in the trail. I heard the angry whip of a bullet and then the report
and turned the roan at right angles down the hollow, my other horse running neck
and neck with my mount.
Behind and above me I heard the pound of hoofs of a running horse and knew a rider
was cutting across-country to head me off. He was closing in on me, and suddenly
the shallow wash along which I had been riding petered out and I was facing a lava
field close on my left. Yet the trend of the lava was forcing me toward the east
and closer to those in pursuit of me. I was trapped . . . unless there was a way
through the lava.
A gap opened on my left ahead, and gambling it was not a blind passage, I swung my
horses into it. Yet my horses had put scarcely their length into the opening before
I was struck a wicked blow on the shoulder.
Almost, I lost my grip on the pistol I held, but somehow managed to get it thrust
back behind my belt. The opening in the lava took a sharp turn, and I was racing
north again, but somehow I had lost my grip on the lead line, and my other horse
was running free. The mountains before me danced weirdly, and I felt a strange lightness
and giddiness. Losing my grip on the reins, I grabbed wildly for the saddle horn
and fastened both hands on it. Yet suddenly my horse swerved, and I felt myself falling.
I fell.., hitting hard and bouncing, then lunged to my feet and made the edge of
the lava in a plunging run, where I fell once more. A moment I lay there, then I
crawled deeper into the lava, keeping my head down and using every bit of skill
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I knew. Twice I got up and ran for short distances, working deeper and deeper into
the ferocious-appearing lava. There were jagged edges everywhere, but I crawled wildly
to get some distance behind me, then tumbled into a gap where the lava had been forced
to either side by a huge boulder. I lay there, gasping for breath . . . listening.
My own horses ran off somewhere, and the riders swept by, following them. Within
minutes they would realize I had fallen and would come back, searching for me.
Careful to make no sound, I worked my way through a narrow gap in the lava, and keeping
to my belly or knees, I wormed my way through it. There were spaces where the flows
had parted to go around some obstruction, others where it had piled up, and there
were abrupt drop-offs of eight to ten feet. Coming upon a few feet of grass, I lay
still for a while, listening.
How far had I come? Less than a hundred yards so far. I heard an angry shout, then
swearing. The clatter of a horse's hoofs, then the horse drew up, not far from where
I was. I lay perfectly still, careful to make no sound.
Over me the sky was blue, scattered with a few puffballs of cloud. Almost due south
of me loomed the tower of Capulin Mountain. Beyond it was the still greater mass
of Sierra Grande, over two thousand feet above the surrounding country.
Somebody spoke, and in the clear air I could hear their voices. "Got to be near."
Another voice said, "I hit him. Hit him hard."
As if on cue, my shoulder began to hurt. I remembered that savage blow on the shoulder.
I had been shot then. Moving
slightly, I felt a dampness on my side, below the shoulder. Blood . . . I had been
hit.
I must get away. If they began to climb over the lava, they would find me. Desperately,
I tried to recall how wide this flow had been. Not much over a mile, I thought. Avid
as they were to kill me, I doubted if they would cut their boots to pieces hunting
me. They would look, probably not for long. They knew I was wounded but they also
knew I was armed.
Rolling over on my knees, I started to crawl. A voice stopped
me.
"How's Corley?"
"Bad. We've got to get him to a doctor. He was hit hard and dragged. Elias is with
him."
"Wait until I get my hands on that McRaven!"
"Hell, he's dyin' now. I got him. I know I did."
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"We thought we had him two or three times. He's harder to kill than a 'possum. Every
time you think you've got him, he crawls off. I d'clare, next time we get him, alive
or dead, I'm a-goin' to bury him. Bury him deep an' pile the grave with rocks."
"He's afoot, and he's bad hurt. Leave Elias to take care of Corley. You an" me, we'll
scout both sides of this lava bed. Sooner or later he's got to come out, if he lives.
Then we'll get him."
I sat up and felt up under my shirt. I found the hole. Could see it by craning my
neck. The bullet had gone through my shoulder, leaving an ugly blue hole where it
went in, and it had come out at the back. Tearing my handkerchief, I plugged both
holes, barely reaching the one back of my shoulder. The shoulder moved, so I didn't
figure I'd broken any bones, yet I had lost blood. I crawled a little further, following
the way that seemed easiest, then stopped. My shoulder was really hurting now, and
my throat and mouth were dry. My head felt heavy and my eyes did not seem to focus
properly. Shock, maybe, as much as the bullet. What I needed was a hole. Someplace
to crawl into, someplace where they couldn't find me.
A shadow crossed my face. I glanced around, then up. A buzzard!
They would not have to look for me now. The buzzards would point the way.
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H
of was the sun above me, slow the circles of the waiting buzzards, silent the rocks
about me. I lay fiat on my back, and I closed my eyes. Only to lie still, only not
to move, only to wait!
Wait for what? For death? I was a fool. Many a man had recovered from worse wounds
than I had. A bullet through the shoulder, what was that? Yet I did not move.
The wound was probably not too serious. The loss of blood was, and the lack of water.
My horses were gone. I had my pistols and what ammunition remained in my cartridge
belt. Around me was a bed of broken, jagged lava, which would cut my boots to ribbons
in no time. There were pitfalls and cracks, and nowhere a man could run except in
those occasional places where the lava had run around an area because of some obstruction
or chance. Here and there were long aisles between flows. In some of them grass grew,
in some there was only sand. Water, if it was to be found at all, would be caught
in some natural tank or hollow in the basalt.
A boot scraped upon stone, and the sound shocked me into awareness. Pushing myself
up, I broke into a stumbling run down the little avenue between flows.
My wounded shoulder hurt abominably when I ran, and I could feel the dampness of
blood. I ran clumsily, staggering, stumbling, bumping into rocks. My feet seemed
to come
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down in erratic patterns. I swore bitterly and plunged on until I fell.
For a long moment I lay still, heart pounding. Then I got up and ran on until suddenly
my way was blocked by a jagged wall of basalt. Finding a break that gave access to
the top, I climbed up. Instantly a bullet smashed the rock beside my head and the
report of a heavy rifle boomed in my ears. I tried to run over the broken lava, risking
a broken leg at every step. A jackrabbit burst from the ground at my feet and went
leaping along over the rocks and down another crack. Turning sharply, I followed
it just as another bullet whapped against a rock and then went whining off across
the lava.
The crack where the rabbit had gone led to another of those breaks in the lava field,
and I went down it, hearing another shot as I did. This time fragments of rock stung
my cheeks and one good-sized piece rapped me on the skull.
For a moment I thought I was hit again, but the flying rock had merely broken my
scalp. At the bottom I turned sharply down the space between the flows and came to
a drop-off of some six feet. Down I went, half-falling, bringing up at the bottom
in a cloud of dust.
For a moment I stood still, my lungs gasping for air, my head spinning dizzily.
No further, I told myself. I'd make a stand here. I simply could go no further.
Yet I did go on. Only now I walked, peering this way and that for some hiding place,
some spot fit for defense.
Let them find me. I'd rather fight than run. I told myself that, but all the while
another part of my brain sat in judgment on my actions, telling me that I did want
to live, and not only to live but to defeat them. They must not profit by killing.
My
father was gone, and probably others, but I would not--
I fell.
Even as I fell, I knew that I was falling and there was nothing I could do about
it. I did not feel myself hit the ground, but when I got my eyes open and my brain
clear for an instant, I was on the ground.
Getting my hands under me, I pushed myself up. There was blood where my head had
been. There was blood where my shirt pressed against the sand. On my hands and knees
I knelt, staring at the bloody sand. Slowly the idea percolated through the fog in
my brain. I had to get up. I had to move. I had only
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Louis L'AMOUR
my pistols and they had rifles, and they would not be likely to
miss again.
Shelter . . . a hideout . . . someplace, just anyplace. Lava
fields are of many kinds, and lava flows proceed to cover everything. Sometimes the
outer skin of a flow would cool and solidify while the lava kept flowing within,
as water through a pipe. But I could find no such place.
Then, when I had given up, suddenly the narrow aisle along
which I had been walking opened on the bank of a small stream. Kneeling, I scooped
up water, splashed it over my face. Then I drank a little, and then a little more.
I crossed the stream, which was very small, and kneeling to face the direction from
which I'd come, I drank some more. Then taking off my hat, I threw a double handful
of water on my head. It stung a little where it touched the cut on my scalp.
Finally rising, I walked up the slope and onto the trees.
It was late afternoon now. The sun would be gone soon. I sat
down close among some junipers and waited for somebody to
come after me.
Surprisingly, I felt better. It might have been the water. It
might have been the moment of rest. From where I sat I could see the edge of the
lava and the opening from which I'd come. Gun in hand, I waited.
A rattlesnake crawled from some rocks into the grass near
the stream, just at the place where I had crossed. "Let them
come now," I told myself. "I have an ally." But they did not
come.
Suddenly I awakened. It was cold. The stars were coming out, and the lava field lay
flushed and sullen in the last reflections from the vanished sun. I put my gun back
in my holster. I had dozed, slept, and not for a little while but at least an hour.
Or so I thought.
For a few minutes I looked all around. Directly to the south of me was the vast bulk
of Sierra Grande. To my right front the lesser tower of Capulin, and off my left
shoulder a peak bulked large.
My shoulder was stiff and sore, and I was afraid to move for fear of starting the
bleeding again, yet if ever I was to escape it must be now, under cover of darkness.
If only I could find my horses! The roan would not go far and would try to find me.
I knew this because he had done it before. Often he followed me like a dog, and sometimes
I would deliberately hide, but he always found me. A horse,
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particularly one that has run wild, has a nose almost as good as
a hound.
The other horse would undoubtedly stay with the roan. They
would also want to feed and they would want water. The creek where I had drunk and
which lay before me, just down the slope, probably was a feeder for the Cimarron
River.
Grasping a branch with my right hand, I pulled myself erect.
For a moment I stood still, bracing myself. I had lost blood and was weak, but under
the circumstances was not in bad shape. Less bad than after the beating I had taken
in the cabin. It seemed a long time ago.
Keeping to the slope, slight as it was, I started to work my
way downstream. Suddenly I saw a light. It was far off, perhaps two or three miles,
and it was on the slope of that other big peak. At the base of that peak, rather.
And it was not a campfire.
Slowly the stiffness left my legs and I walked more easily.
Aftera bit I thought I saw another light, near the first
one.
A ranch?
Skirting a bunch of trees, I got a better glimpse. It was a
town. But what town? Further east, maybe thirty or forty miles--I was unsure of the
distance as I'd never been there-- was Robber's Roost, where Coe hung out with his
outlaws, but this was too far west.
A half hour or so later I was crouched in the darkness at
the town's edge. My head was aching and I was exhausted. Kneeling on the ground,
I studied the buildings, which were few. A blacksmith shop, now closed, a saloon,
a general store, and a couple of other buildings. There were several dwellings built
of logs or stone, and one that I could see was adobe.
At the hitching rail before the saloon, three horses were
tied, the horses of the L'Ollonaise brothers.
So they were here before me. Carefully, I moved my arm to
a more comfortable position. Without doubt they had brought the wounded one here
for treatment, and also without doubt they would spend the night here and would be
eating here. The thought of food made my stomach growl.
First, I must discover where they were. I started to rise, and
just at that moment someone said, "What's the trouble? Have
you been hurt?"
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Louis L'AMOUR
My hand went to my gun, but it had been a woman's voice
and she was speaking from a darkened window close by. I could see the vague outline
of her, and of something white, a curtain, no doubt.
"'I've been shot,'" I said,,,straightening up. "'I need some care
and some food. I can pay.
"Come to the back door," she said. "I would rather no one
saw you enter."
When I reached the back door, she had it open. For an instant I hesitated. This woman
knew nothing of me, yet she was inviting me in. I started to speak, but she interrupted.
"Please! Come in!"
Once inside, she drew the blinds and then lighted a lamp.
She was young, quite pretty, and simply dressed. "Sit down right here." She indicated
a chair. "I'll get some hot water. Luckily," she said, "I was just about to make
tea."
She poured the water into a washbasin and then put more on
the stove. She came to me with the washbasin and a cloth.
"Let's have that shirt off."
When I took the gun from my waistband, she held out her
hand for it. "Let me put that down for you."
"I'll just keep it," I said. "I feel better with it close by." She put my shirt aside,
and with many ohs and tsk, tsks she began to bathe my shoulder. Dried blood had caked
around the wound and stained my side. Carefully she washed it away,
then bathed the wound with a solution of carbolic and water.
"You were lucky," she said. "It broke no bones."
While she was bathing and dressing my shoulder, my eyes strayed around the room.
There were a few pictures, a thick carpet on the floor, a bed, and a dresser. The
stove was in an adjoining room and visible through the door.
When she had finished with my shoulder, she went for the
tea and brought it back with a thick sandwich. "You'd better eat," she said. "I don't
have much to offer." She smiled suddenly.
"I wasn't expecting anyone.'"
"'You live alone?"
"'Yes... my mother died. I work in the store sometimes."
"What place is this? I had no idea there was a town anywhere near."
"It's Madison. Named for Madison Emery. The mountain
out there is Emery Peak, and that's named for him, too. It's quiet, usually, unless
some of that crowd over at Kenton come in here. That's Robber's Roost, Kenton is.
Sometimes a dozen
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169
of them will stop here when passing through. We all know them."
She watched while I ate. "You were hungry!" she said. "I wish I had more. In fact,
I was going over to the store when I saw you. I just ... well, I just knew you were
hurt and couldn't stand having you out there, needing help.', She got up, putting
a shawl around her shoulders. "You lie down when you've finished that. I'll be right
back."
"There are some men out there," I said, "who are looking for
me. Don't tell anyone about me."
"I won't," she promised.
She glanced at me again. "Please lie down," she'said. "It will be all right. There's
another bed in the next room, so you can stay the night if you want, right where
you are."
She went out and closed the door behind her. For a moment I sat perfectly still.
She seemed nice, but . . .
I was worried, and trusted nobody. One after the other I checked my guns and reloaded
the empty chamber/. Then I poured a fresh cup of coffee.
Desperately tired as I was, I could not trust myself to sit down on the bed. To sit
down would be to lie down, to lie down would be to fall instantly asleep. Suddenly
I got up and put on my shirt, difficult as it was to do. Taking my coat, still stiff
with dried blood, I went outside and closed the door behind me. Then I walked swiftly
along the back of the buildings toward the general store. I glanced in.
It was empty except for a balding man with glasses behind the counter. Glancing across
the street from the dark alley where I stood, I saw the horses, still tied to the
hitching rail.
As I stood there, two men came to the door. One of them was a L'Ollonaise. The other
was saying, "... wants to speak to you. Right here a minute ago."
They stepped out on the boardwalk, and she came from the shadows, the shawl over
her head now. She was speaking. "Can tell . . , where . . ."
There was some subdued talk and then L'Ollonaise said, "Fifty dollars? Are you crazy?
I can find him myself!" He turned to the man beside him. "Where does this woman live?"
She grabbed at his sleeve and he thrust her roughly aside, then stepped to the door
and spoke to someone inside. Another L'Ollonaise came out, and following the third
man, they started down the street. The woman screamed something at them, then began
to run . . . straight toward me.
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Louis L'AMOUR
She came into the narrow space between the buildings, and there was no way we could
avoid coming face to face. She stared, wild-eyed. "You! I thought--"
"Thanks for fixing my shoulder," I said. "Now you know how Judas felt."
"I'm sorry! I really am! I wanted to get out of this place! I want to live! I want
to get away from here and never see it again! I hate everything about it!"
"You will hate the next place, too," I said. "What you are you will carry with you."
I brushed past her and walked across the street. At the hitching rail I untied their
horses and mounted one of them. He humped his back a little at the unfamiliar touch,
hut I turned him sharply around and, letting the others do as they would, I rode
out of town.
The rough road sent my shoulder to throbbing, but I followed a trail up the creek,
then cut back through the hills toward the area where I had last seen my own horses.
It was beginning to cloud over, only a few stars showing when I reached the creek
again about at the place I had crossed it to reach the town. Starting back along
my trail, I rode at a rapid clip toward the lava beds.
The horse I rode was restive, sensing the unfamiliar rider and not at all pleased.
Coming through a scattered clump of trees, I came suddenly upon my own horses. Pulling
up, I called out to them, then swung down and caught the roan's reins. Swiftly I
changed horses, then turned and rode into the night.
Westward now, my shoulder throbbing, and so tired I could scarcely sit a saddle.
All night long I rode, dozing in the saddle, and at daybreak I rode into the streets
of Trinidad.
First off, I found a corral and a bait of hay for my horses. Then, packing my gear,
I headed down the street. There was a hotel alongside Davis and Barraclough's store
and another across the street and further along. At the Colorado Hotel I got a room,
and stripping down to my belt, I bathed my shoulder in hot water. It was stiff and
sore and I took my time getting cleaned up. I washed some of the blood out of my
coat and shirt and hung them to dry, digging into my blanket roll for a fresh shirt.
It was rumpled but clean.
There was a drugstore run by a man named Beshoar, who was also a doctor, but he was
in Pueblo on business, so I
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171
bought some carbolic and went back to my room and stretched out on the bed.
I'd only seen three riders coming up on me out there, but there had been four of
them . . . and that fourth man worried me. He had not been in Madison, apparently
. . . so where was he? Anyway, one of the four had been wounded and dragged. He was
down and probably out of the picture.
After a while I dozed off, and when I awakened it was sundown. I looked out of the
window and along the street. There was a rig standing in front of the Davis and Barraclough
store and a couple of horses tied to the hitching rail. Neither horse nor brand was
familiar. My room was on the ground floor, so I drew the shades a little tighter
and pulled on my boots. My coat was almost dry. Checking my guns, I belted them on
and then donned my coat. I was hungry and still tired, and my mouth tasted awful.
My head ached and I wanted no trouble from anybody. Leaving my Winchester and gear,
I went out on the street.
The air was cool and pleasant with a faint smell of sagebrush and cedar, mingled
with the wood smoke of cooking fires. For a few minutes I just stood there, enjoying
the evening and the quiet of the place. Trinidad was on occasion a pretty wild place,
but at the moment it was tranquil, and that was the way I hoped it would stay.
Fisher's Peak loomed black and huge beyond the town. There was a restaurant sign
down the street, and I went in. There were two long tables where a half dozen men
were eating family-style and some extra tables. I was in no mood for conversation
but didn't want them to think me uppity, so I dropped down at the end of a bench.
A bald-headed man, quite fat' and sweating, walked over with a coffeepot. "Two bits,"
he said, "an' all you can eat. If you want somethin' you don't see, don't bother
to ask. We ain't .got it."
I put my two bits on the table and reached for a plate loaded with thick slices of
beef. There was a mound of mashed potatoes into which somebody had been digging and
a bowl of beans. I helped myself.
"'One thing," the fat man said, pausing across the table from me, "there's fresh
apple pie. You ask for that, you get it. One piece to a customer. I don't dare set
that out or these cow nurses would eat the whole thing. Leave nothing for nobody."
"Now, now, Slats," a tall, redheaded cowpuncher said, "you'll
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
make this gent think we got no manners, although I do allow you make a mighty fine
apple pie."
"That still won't get you no extry piece," Slats said.
Red looked over at me. "He used to cook for the old BB4 outfit. When he quit, the
whole crew quit an' follered him."
Red's eyes hesitated a moment on the hole in the shoulder of my coat, and undoubtedly
he had noticed the stiffness with
which I moved my left arm, when I did.
"Good cooks are hard to find," I said.
He passed me the meat. "Eat up," he said. Then he added, "This here can be a troublesome
country, but we're lucky. We got us a good sawbones. He's a mighty decent man," he
added, "closemouthed, too."
"Thanks," I said, "I hope I won't need him."
He gave me a long look but said nothing more. The others talked among themselves,
seeming not to even be aware of me. My seat left me a view of the door, and had been
taken with that in mind, which I am sure Red noticed.
The view of the street was a good one, so I lingered over my coffee. Red stayed on,
too, seeming to ignore me. We watched the others leave, and then he turned around
toward me, pushing his hat back on his head.
"I'm a kind of friendly gent," he commented casually. "I punch cows when the job's
available. Come up the trail from Texas."
"I've been there."
"Seen your horses when you come in. They've covered some country."
"They're good stock."
"None o' my business," he commented, "but I surely hate to see a man walk into a
trap."
Something inside me chilled. For an instant even my heart seemed to stop. "A trap?"
"Uh-huh. Seems to me you're a man runnin' from something or runnin' at it. Maybe
this here ain't my business, like I said, but I sort of cottoned to you, and I surely
didn't to those
others. Not even their woman."
"How many of them?"
"Two... three, countin' her. The way I figure it, you better count her."
"You are right, amigo," I said quietly, "she may be the worst of the lot. They're
here?"
"They surely are, and they seen you come in. They know
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where you are right now. They have staked out your hotel. In fact, they staked out
Sherman's, too, not knowing where you'd go.
There was a door to the street, the one where I had come in, and there was a door
out through the kitchen. Both would be watched by now, I was sure.
"'What made you think they were watching for me?"
He chuckled. "Mister, you come into town on two hardridden horses, you leave them
at a corral, you get you a room. You got blood on your coat when you come in, you
favor one
side of you. You're watchful as a cat huntin' mice, an' besidesw" "'Besides?"
He grinned, both hands fiat on the table. "I been waitin" for you my ownself."
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 CHAPTER XXII
M
y coffee cup was in my right hand, but my left was in my lap close to my belt gun.
"You? Waitin' for me? Well, looks like you found me. If I'd known you were waiting,"
I added, "I'd have come along a little faster."
He smiled. "From all I hear, you've been ridin' a rough trail
to trouble these last months. How could a pleasant-lookin' gent
like you get so many folks mad at him?"
"They chose up sides before I was born," I said. Carefully, I
put down the cup.
He had a taunting, whimsical look in his eyes, not at all an unfriendly one. "Family
fight?" he asked.
"Sort of. Since they killed my pa, I'm the last one to stand between them and all
they want, and from the way they act, it must be plenty, although they are said to
be good haters. I
never even knew they existed until just awhile back."
"You got a friend knows all about it.'"
"A friend? Me? I don't know anybody in this part of the country."
"This here friend, he sent a man ever which way to flag you
down an' get you to set still until he caught up with you. He'll
be along soon, if you can just abide here."
Someone was coming along the walk outside, and then the
door opened and a man came in. It was Felix Yant.
He stopped just inside the door and looked straight at me.
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
175
He was wearing a holster, as always, but he carried a sleeve gun, too. That was what
I thought of now.
"You cover a lot of country," I said. "Pull up a bench and sit down."
He crossed to the table and sat opposite me, which put him around the corner from
where Red was sitting. If he so much as glanced at Red, I did not see it. He was
totally concerned with me, totally concentrated. He was like a bull snake facing
a mouse . . . only I didn't feel like a mouse.
He turned and looked at Red. "This will be a private conversation, do you mind?"
led got up. "Nope, I surely don't." Then led looked at me. "'Abide is the word,"
he said.
"Thanks," I said, and he walked over to the bar.
Yant studied me. "You've grown up," he said. "You've come a long way."
"Things been sort of pushing me," I said.
"You didn't make it to Carolina," he said, smiling with that chilly little smile
he had.
"I didn't have to go," I said. "It's all taken care of without
me."
That startled him. "What? What do you mean?"
"Made a tie-up with Ben Blocker," I said, "who is a big cattleman. With him and his
lawyer. I didn't have to go east, because I sent my lawyer to look after things."
It shocked him. Obviously he had known nothing about Attmore, nor apparently had
he had any idea of my using a lawyer. There are those, and we were both of that sort,
who handle such matters on a one-to-one basis. The intervention of third parties
is unpleasant and not to be considered. There are people who live out their entire
lives in such a manner, and Yant was probably one. Essentially a loner, a cold, distant
man, he probably had few contacts away from his immediate family, and it was possible
they saw little of each other unless drawn together by some mutual need.
"I am going into the cattle business," I added, "and just did not have time, and
this lawyer was from that part of the country and understands the situation."
Obviously it was something they had not bargained for. They had centered their attention
upon me eliminate me and the field was clear.
"Now," I said, and this I did not know, "the matter has been
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
settled. If anything happens to me, the estate goes to my heirs, and you folks aren't
among them."
"You're lying." I am sure that made him feel better, but he was obviously worried.
"Nothing can be done that fast."
"It can," I said, "when the man doing the fixing has the right connections. He's
related to a judge and some other folks. He looked over the papers and didn't figure
it would take long."
He sat very still. Slats came over with a pot of coffee. "One for my friend," I said,
"and for me."
"You're cool," Yant said at last. "You have guessed that we have you trapped and
you're trying to talk your way out of it."
"No," I replied, after a minute, "I am not talking my way out of it, and I don't
want to." Surprisingly, I realized what I had said was true. I'd been too busy running
and protecting myself to think about it all, but now I was getting mad, and the more
I thought about it, the madder I became. "You and your folks have been begging for
trouble. You've hunted me and hounded me, and it stops here. By this time you should
have learned better. You've lost one man--"
"Two," Felix said. "For that alone we would kill you."
"I skinned up a few others," I added.
He looked at me, and for a moment there was a shadow of something else in his eyes,
almost a wistfulness. "I am sorry it
is this way," he said then. "Maybe if--"
"You murdered my father," I said.
He shrugged. "He was in the way, as you are now. I am not alone in this. It involves
all of us, and our futures. We were so sure your father was dead ... had been killed.
And then you..." His voice trailed off and he was silent.
Not for an instant did I relax. This was a dangerous man, and perhaps he was trying
to get me off guard. My ears were alive to the slightest sound, too, although I observed
Red standing at the bar in such a way that he could watch both doors. What we were
expecting never happened, for suddenly the batwing doors were shoved aside and two
men came into the room. Both men wore badges. The first one was a small, gray-haired
man, but with a look about him that called for no nonsense.
They came right to our table. He looked at me, then at Yant. "I understand you two
and some of your friends out there are having difficulties."
"Not really," Yant started to say. "I--"
"You," the gray-haired man said, "are riding out of town. You are leaving now, and
I mean right now. I will tolerate no
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177
shooting in our streets. I don't give a damn what your troubles are, but settle them
somewhere else . . . not here.'"
"Officer," Yant said, "I do not think we need listen to any more of that. Outside
are---"
"I know," the marshal replied grimly, "several more of your murdering kind, and right
now they are being watched by six good citizens armed with shotguns and buffalo guns.
Get out now--and fast!'"
When Yant had gone, I sat very still, waiting. After walking to the door with Yant,
he came back to me. "All right, I am giving you one hour to clear out. Let them get
on their way and then you go."
Red spoke up. "He's supposed to meet a man here, Marshal. It is important."
"That's his hard luck," the marshal said. "You get your gear and your horses and
get out, do you hear me? I've nothing personal against you, don't even know who you
are, but I want no shooting in my town. Do you understand?"
"Of course," I replied. "In your place I'd have taken the same action. I will be
gone within the hour."
As I rose he noticed my belt gun and smiled grimly. "Ready with it, were you? Well,
I don't blame you. They're a bad lot. There's a way down the Picketwire that Red
here can show you. In your place, I'd keep off the trail and along the river and
cut off up Burro Canyon toward the Spanish Peaks."
His cold gray eyes warmed a little. "Been on the dodge a time or two in my younger
days. Know how it feels."
Red took me down the lanes between barns and corrals, along a muddy little street
overhung by trees to the riverbed. For a while we sat there, looking over the country
ahead of
m.
"On your own," Red said. "I got to wait for your friend." "If he figures to traipse
along after me," I said, "he'd better pull his head down into his collar, because
I've no friends around that I know of and I am going to be looking out for Yants
or L'Ollonaises or whatever they call themselves. I'll be
right edgy about the time he catches up to me... if he does." "He will."
"I'm cutting out for Apishapa Pass right now, yonder west of the Spanish Peaks. If
he's so anxious to get himself into a shooting fight, tell him to come on . . . whoever
he is. I'm going to be needing all the help I can get, but tell him no more running
and dodging for me. From here on I'm hunting scalps."
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
Red turned his horse around, lifted a hand, and loped off. Me, I just sat there a
mite, studying the country without anybody around, and then I took off toward the
west, keeping to cover.
Nobody needed to tell me this was a showdown. They wanted it and I wanted it. All
of a sudden I realized I wasn't at all scared. I was wary and I was ready.
The way they indicated was a good one, and holding to the river bottom of the Purgatoire,
I rode westward until I was about opposite Reilly Canyon. Riding up out of the riverbed,
I found my way into the trees and cut across the hill to Burro Canyon.
When I came down into the Burro Canyon trail, I found none but old tracks, and started
up canyon, riding at a good gait.
The mountain air was cool and pleasant, with a smell of pines and wood smoke from
the fires of a few prospectors working along the canyon or small draws opening into
it. There was no sound but the hoofs of my own horses. Looking up the slopes around
and before me, I could see the lighter green of aspen thickly massed along the mountainsides.
Checking every trail that came in from a branch canyon, I found nothing, yet I knew
my enemies were not far off and would be making every effort to locate me.
Before me loomed the towering Spanish Peaks, clouds gathering around them. "Rain,
boy," I said to the roan. "She's going to rain. I think we'd better hole up."
High above on the slope ahead I glimpsed what looked to be a small bench tucked into
a corner of an aspen grove. Riding past it and looking for a way up, I found what
I wanted and rode a switchback route up that steep slope.
It was not all I'd hoped, but I could get my horses back far enough so as not to
be seen from below. Stripping their gear, I picketed them on the meadow and went
to work to build a shelter. From the ominous look of the clouds gathering over the
mountains, I did not have much time.
At the near edge of the aspen were dozens of small trees from six to eight feet tall,
and going among them I cut off a few of the smaller ones close to the ground, then
bent the tops of four of the eight-foot trees together and tied them, adding others
where their position made them useful. Working swiftly, taking only time to glance
at the lowering clouds from time to time, I gathered spruce boughs and thatched the
dome-shaped
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179
frame, working from the bottom up with each successive layer overlapping the one
below.
Gathering other spruce boughs, I made a bed for myself, and in a relatively sheltered
place outside the shelter I laid a fire and a crude reflector made of some great
slabs of bark from a deadfall.
After building a fire, I dipped water from a stream and started my coffee. Then I
returned to my thatching. By the time I had water boiling, a few spattering drops
of rain were falling, lunning out to the meadow, I brought my horses in close to
my own shelter, for there was much good feed to be found under the aspen. Then I
added fuel to my fire, hustled my gear into the shelter, and was all snugged down
for the night.
Frying the last of my bacon, I ate a chunk of biscuit and drank what amounted to
three cups of strong black coffee. Hungry as I was, it tasted good. The rain had
increased to a steady downpour, and here and there large drops fell inside my shelter,
but not enough to worry about. I'd taken the trouble to build where no water ran,
and where it could not gather in pools. Outside my horses stirred from time to time.
Lying on my back in the darkness, my face carefully situated between places where
large drops occasionally fell, I stared up into the blackness of night and thought
how little it took to really satisfy a man.
Shelter, a small fire, food, and a time to rest. It wasn't much, but I'd been so
many times with less. This, I reflected, might easily be my last night on earth.
Whatever else I was getting into, one thing was sure. It would be a fight with nobody
to stop it and no getting away.
Momentarily I wondered who the "friend" might be of whom Red had spoken. Who was
there? I shook my head in the darkness. It had to be a mistake. Pa was dead and I
had no friends close enough to help, certainly none who could send men out to watch
the different routes I might have taken.
For a long time I lay awake, mostly thinking about Laurie and wondering how she was.
The movements of my horses were reassuring, for that roan would let nobody come near
without snorting, blowing, or showing his anxiety in one way or another.
Sitting up, I added a few sticks to the edge of my fire to keep it smoldering. Then
pulling my blankets around my shoulders, I went to sleep.
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Louis L'AMOUR
Snug and warm I slept, but I awakened to dampness and cold. Turning on my back, I
looked up at the spruce boughs overhead. Much of the rain had run off due to my thatching,
but some had come through. Sitting up, I put on my hat, shook out my boots, and tugged
them on. Then I got to my knees and put on my gun belt, thrusting my spare into my
waistband.
My fire was cold and dead, but I dearly wanted a cup of coffee, so I started the
fire again and put the coffee closer. It was the remnants of last night's coffee
and so would be strong enough to float an ox, but right now that was what I needed.
With all tracks washed out, they were not going to find me unless by accident or
the smell of my smoke, and I wanted my coffee enough to take the risk. Brushing off
any twigs or leaves I'd picked up, I carefully rolled my blanket and groundsheet.
It was still raining but it had settled down to a fine, gentle rain. Building up
the fire a bit, I warmed the saddle blanket a mite and then saddled up, wiping away
most of the water on the roan's back before I put the blanket on him.
If my friend found me, he was going to have to be good. Still, he would know I was
directed to Burro Canyon, and the rest might follow from there. But this was not
a much-used trail, and I believed it would drop off to the west and let me down into
White Creek or at the head of Echo. I'd never been up this far before. I was a mite
southwest of the West Peak of the twins, and they towered above me. The nearest one
was over thirteen thousand feet and the other only slightly less. There were several
lesser peaks, including Sawtooth, just west of them.
Stepping into the saddle, I turned off along the bench I was on, keeping the aspen
between me and the trail below. Now I was through running. They were somewhere about
and I meant to find them.
From time to time I paused to listen. Sounds carry well in the mountains, although
a peak or a shoulder of mountain can screen them away from a man. Yet I heard nothing.
The trees grew thicker. The bench fed onto a small plateau between West Spanish Peak
and the White Peaks. It offered a way north, skirting some slide rock by a very rough
route.
Topping out on a low ridge, I pulled up at the edge of the spruce and looked back
the way I had come. It was well that I did, for they were there, maybe four or five
miles back. Four, I counted, following right along the way I had come. And there
very easily could be more of them somewhere around.
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181
Above me loomed the naked rocks of West Spanish Peak, and I sat my saddle, watching
them come, only specks along the trail, unrecognizable as anything but men on horseback
at this distance. Turning, I glanced up at the peak that towered above me.
This was Huajatolla, the double mountain, often called "the breasts of the world."
There were dozens of legends about them and about their being the home of the highest
gods. Years ago pa had told me stories of the gold that was said to have been taken
from them by the Aztecs and carried away to Mexico. Legends, or the stuff of legends.
If mines there were, they have been long since covered by slides. Sun worshipers
were rumored to have had a temple on the eastern peak.
Wind ran a ripple through the aspen just below me, moving across them like a small
wave in a sea. The rain had stopped. Here and there the sun threw a shaft of light
down from the clouds.
On my left staggered platoons of spruce advanced up the steep sides of the West Peak,
platoons broken by inroads of slide rock weathered from off the peak. Here and there
pockets of snow remained, clinging to shadowed places. The pass swung westward here
to descend to White Creek, but I turned north, planning to cut over to the head of
Echo. And then I saw the knoll.
It was low, covered with spruce, some of them fallen across and among some moss-covered
boulders. Long ago someone, Indian or white, had camped there, for a little circle
of blackened stones indicated where fires had been. Behind it on the slope there
was grass, then scattered spruce, and a dim trail through the spruce seemed to point
toward Echo Creek. Riding up the knoll, I turned in the saddle and looked back down
the trail. From this spot one had a perfect field of fire.
Dismounting, I led the horses back to that grassy slope and picketed them there.
Taking my Winchester, I walked back to the rocks and brush atop the knoll and sat
down in a comfortable place.
I was tired of running, tired of wondering what came next, ready for a showdown.
They were many and I was one, but before this day was over, I told myself, I'd lessen
the odds.
Warm sunlight came through the broken clouds, Far-off rain still obscured the distance.
I nibbled at a cracker, and a curious whiskey-jack hopped close, watching for crumbs.
Breaking off a piece, I tossed it to him, and he accepted it quickly and
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Louis L'AMOUR
hopped nearer, either trusting too much or secure in his ability to fly quickly up
and away.
They were closer now, coming on without seeming to worry, sure no doubt that I was
still running. The rifle felt good in my hands, my position was excellent, and I
had a getaway route at the back. Nor was the knoll isolated. If need be, I could
move to either direction under partial cover.
My shoulder was still stiff and I moved carefully, sparing it. Good health, natural
strength, and the clean, fresh air of the mountain country healed wounds quickly.
I took a sight on a turn in the trail. It was a good four hundred yards off. To the
right of it a splash of scarlet gilia ran down the slope, the flowers red as blood.
Pushing my hat back on my head, I placed my rifle on the tree trunk I intended using
for a rest and got out another cracker, sharing it with the whiskey-jack.
How did a man feel, living his last hours? Was I, now? The air was fresh off the
peaks, cool with a chill of snow and the icy cold that was up there, only a couple
of thousand feet above
me.
A bird flew up down by the trail, and the first rider appeared. They were hunting
me and they had shown they would kill without hesitation, so I shot him.
My sight was purposely low, for they were coming up the mountain, but my bullet went
where intended, a flickering light on his vest, a medallion, perhaps, or a gold nugget
on his watch chain.
He must have convulsed at the moment the bullet hit him, spurring his horse by accident,
for the gray horse leaped forward, the rider swaying loosely in the saddle, then
falling.
He toppled from the saddle, hitting hard beside the trail, falling in that splash
of gilia while the gray horse came running on up the slope and past me, stirrups
flopping.
The rifle shot slapped against the rocky peaks and echoed off down the canyons, and
then it was still. The whiskey-jack rustled impatiently among the leaves, and far
overhead an eagle soared.
My eyes went from the trail, where the others might appear, to the fallen man. A
man shot so is rarely killed at once but dies slowly, yet to aim at a man's head
when the body presents so much the better target was foolhardy. There was no movement.
Either the fallen man was still in shock, was shot
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183
through the spine, or was lying still to deceive me. In any case, I remained where
I was.
For a long time nothing happened. Yet I was wary. Perhaps they were talking over
their next move, yet perhaps one of them had already gone to the ground and was now
trying to encircle me. If so, he had several bare or almost bare patches of ground
to cover, of which I had already taken note.
The sun was warm and comfortable. On the trail below nothing moved, but I was not
deceived. They were somewhere along that slope, edging toward me no doubt, watching
for a shot. Carefully I eased myself further down behind the logs for better protection.
Another man gone. Was anything worth the death of so many strong men? They could
draw off... I could not. I had only myself on whom to depend, and it was I they were
trying to kill, so I had no choice but to fight. If they were to pull off now, it
would be the end of it as far as I was concerned, but beyond this point I was not
going to run. No longer could I stand to live with death hanging over me and about
me.
Suddenly a flicker of movement caught my eye, and a man darted from behind some rocks
and ran for cover. Briefly he was in full view, but it would have been a scratch
shot and I did not fire.
Then there was a time of waiting. Soon that man would have to move, and when he went
for the next cover, he would be in the open for a good thirty steps, time enough
and more.
Uneasily, I looked all around. It was too quiet. A glance at my horses, and they
were cropping placidly at the grass. Suddenly I had an urge to get out, to get on
my horse and get out, as fast as I could.
Moving along deeper into the grove, I took another careful look around. Of one thing
I could be sure. They were neither the kind of men to quit nor the kind to sit waiting,
so I knew that somewhere, somehow they were moving, trying to get to me or get around
me.
Worried now, I swept the slopes of West Spanish Peak but saw nothing.
Turning swiftly, I went back through the trees overlooking the meadow where the horses
were. I started to step out and go to them, but hesitated. Softly I called. The roan
looked up and took a couple of steps toward me, and I called again. He took a bite
of grass and drifted my way, the other horse
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
following. When they were near, I spoke softly again. "Come
on, boy, right over here."
He came, taking his time, ears pricked, yet playing a game
with me. He was not going to make it easy. He would have to be coaxed a little. Again
I spoke, more softly, and he took a step toward me, then another.
Glancing back along the trail, I saw nothing. Carefully I
scanned the slope that rose on the east. Nothing. Westward the ground fell away toward
Sawtooth and the canyon of Chaparral Creek. There was a trail a mile or two west
that dropped off toward the Cucharas River. The other trail, along which I had come
and which led past my temporary base, led northward and then dropped off into Echo
Canyon. To the eastward, which was on my left, there were patches of slide rock in
among the trees. Timberline here was about eleven thousand feet, I figured. Judging
by the plant growth, I was a mite below ten thousand feet.
Nothing stirred.
Worried, I moved up a little, keeping low to the ground.
They weren't just setting there waiting for me. They were the hunters and I the hunted,
and they were coming at me from somewhere. Higher up on my left those patches of
slide rock left them open spaces to cross, and that slide rock could sound like a
lot of bottles rattling against each other when you crossed it. From my right they
had to come up slope through the trees to get at me.
My position was good, but I didn't like it. I never liked
being stalked. A cool wind came down off the West Spanish Peak, and overhead a lone
buzzard swung lazily down the sky, then hovered over the trail to the south. That
man I'd shot... well, that was three of them gone.
I wondered if Yant was out there. Elias surely was. And
suddenly I realized they were in no hurry. They had me. No doubt even now they were
moving to get behind me, to hold me here until I was dead.
They knew I could shoot. They knew now that I wasn't going
to be easy, and they also knew that they could not afford to lose
more men.
Again I looked around, trying to imagine how they planned
to come at me, but I could see no way. My position, such as it
was, was good.
To hell with them! I wanted some coffee and I was going to
have it. Snuggling close under a spruce with low-hanging boughs,
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185
I built a small fire, never taking my eyes from my surroundings for more than an
instant and always ready to catch any movement from the corners of my eyes. The rising
smoke would dissipate itself upon the spruce boughs. They would smell smoke and wonder.
For the first time the thought came to me that I might not get out of this alive.
In the rush of action there is small time for thought. Now there was. These people
wanted me dead, and they had killed before this. They were out there, how many I
did not know. There might be four, and there could be a dozen. I put the coffeepot
on the fire. Then I smiled to myself. They would smell the coffee and they would
wonder.
Felix Yant would like that touch. He had enough of a sense of irony to appreciate
it, and it would make them think I was not afraid.
Was I afraid? Yes, I guess I was. I was scared to death.
"Kearney?" The call was low, a woman's voice. "Kearney,
come here, I want to talk to you . . . alone."
I'll just bet she did.
"Kearney? We haven't had any trouble, you and I, and we mustn't have any. Why don't
we just ride out of here? Just you and me?"
Reminded me of that story pa used to tell me about Ulysses putting wax in the ears
of his crew whilst he had himself tied to the mast so's he could hear the song of
the sirens. Only I didn't need any wax. I recalled that brad loaded with sticky poison
and left in my boot.
So I sat right still and said nothing at all. Yant, I knew, was an impatient man.
I hoped the others were, too. What was the name of the one I'd been warned was most
dangerous? Vrydag, Joseph Vrydag. I wondered if he was out there.
That was the trouble. I was alone and there were several of them, all of them shrewd,
conniving people.
Were they waiting for dark? Hoping I'd try to get away? The little knoll on which
I'd taken refuge was only a few feet higher than the country close around me and
covered not over a third of an acre, if so much. There was a tight grove of trees,
mostly spruce, and some boulders, several of them waist-high. There was considerable
brush. The chance that they could hit me by just shooting into the area was a hundred
to one or better.
Going out of here, my only way was north, but I'd heard much talk of this area and
knew from that and my own experience that there were three ways I could take. Due
west past
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Louis L'AMOUR
Sawtooth there was a trail into Chaparral Canyon and down to the Cucharas. Right
behind me was the trail down Wade Canyon and another that branched off it and led
to Echo Canyon.
Trouble was, I was sore. I was tired of running and ready for a showdown. Or so I
told myself. Probably I was a damned fool, seeking a showdown when there were so
many against me. So far I'd been lucky, too lucky for it to last.
Suddenly they began shooting, searching fire aimed at driving me into the open. Hugging
the ground, I let them shoot. Only a ricochet could get me where I lay, but there
were a couple that came too close for comfort.
Right then I was wishing pa was with me. Then I was glad he wasn't, only I was a
mighty lonesome boy with all those men shooting to kill me and me here alone without
a soul to help.
The fire was still showing coals and the coffee was hot. I poured and drank a cup,
hunkering down under that o1' spruce. A couple of hard biscuits in my saddlebag provided
all the meal I was likely to get, but they tasted good.
It was clouding up, clouds gathering real heavy around the Spanish Peaks. Unless
I missed a guess, it was going to be one of those thunderstorms that scare the living
daylights out of a man. Up this high, every bit of lightning in miles would be drawn
to those towering peaks above me like to a lightning rod. I'd heard folks say that
aside from the Lone Cone out in western Colorado, there was no place like the Spanish
Peaks for lightning. A magpie who had been fretting and scolding around evidently
figured the same way, because he flew off and left me there alone. I finished the
last of my biscuit and brushed off the crumbs. A bullet clipped a bit from the spruce
and dropped it to my shoulder.
Those folks out there now, tlose Yants and L'Ollonaises or whatever their names were,
had they ever been through a thunder and lightning storm up this high? If they hadn't,
they were going to get a surprise, I could tell them that.
When the lightning starts striking around within a few yards and the thunder starts
rolling and banging down those rockwalled canyons, it's enough to make the hair stand
on end . . . but the electricity in the air takes care of that.
How many of them were out there? Four? Or a dozen? And that woman . . . she was out
there.
Where was that Joseph Vrydag, said to be the worst of them? Emptying the grounds
from my coffeepot, I packed it up.
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187
Suddenly I was thinking that when darkness came, or in the midst of the storm, I
was taking out of there. I was going to run like a scared chicken, Right then I just
didn't want anybody shooting at me again.
The storm came with a rush of wind and a crash of thunder. Lightning struck that
peak above me, and the air was filled with the smell of brimstone. The rain was a
solid wall advancing toward me on the breast of the wind. I made a run for my horses.
To hell with it! I was--
And there they were, three tall Yants, or whatever they called themselves. They stood
facing me and they had guns and the next thing I was shooting.
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 CHAPTER XXIII
T
he sun was gone but its bloody light lay splashed upon the Sawtooth Rocks, and upon
my left enormous masses of black and ugly cloud thrust like Hercules between the
pillars of the twin peaks, cloud shot through with lightning that lit up the bare
pink slopes of Wah-to-yah, the Breasts of the World.
And facing me, three tall dark men, their faces reflecting
the red light of the dying sun like light from the fires of
hell.
No word was spoken, nor could one have been heard. The
sky in that moment was weirdly lit, and then the rain swept on us and our pygmy guns
made tiny sounds against the crash and roll of thunder.
Their eyes were on my rifle in my left hand, and the surprise
for them had been as great as for me. Only I dropped the rifle and opened fire with
my six-shooter and I saw a man spin and drop, and firing again I saw a blood-red
face turn to blood itself as my bullet smashed him back.
Desperate, alone, fighting for life and for the death of my
father, I triggered the gun empty, then grabbed the second from my waistband. Then
another gun was firing on my right. I saw them fall, and a man at whom I had not
fired spun and dropped with the rain driving down upon him, and then it was that
all three were gone, and for a moment I stood in the driving rain staring at their
crumpled bodies, and a hand fell on
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 THE PROVING TRAIL
189
my shoulders and a voice said, "That was for pa, Kearney," and turning around I saw
it was Pistol.
His battered hat was rain-soaked now, but he was smiling and his teeth showed white.
He grabbed my hand and put an arm around my shoulder. "Let's get out of here, boy,"
he said, "there's a better place close by."
It proved not to be so close by, but it was a better place. It was a log cabin at
a place called the Gap on the Cucharas River. We followed the Peaks Trail down along
the slopes and then cut across a saddle to come down to the cabin. It was warm and
pleasant inside and there was a good smell of frying meat.
A bald-headed man turned around from the fire. He had a fringe of red hair around
his ears and a wide red mustache, waxed at the ends that stuck out beyond the sides
of his face.
"Set up, boys!" he said. "The steaks are fried and the beans are on the way!"
We'd been soaked through before we got our slickers on, so we were wet now. We backed
up to the fire, and steam began to rise from our clothes, but the smell of the food
was too much for us and we sat down on the homemade benches and ate, and while we
ate we did not talk.
When we had eaten and the coffee was poured, Mustache put more wood upon the fire.
Outside the wind whipped the house with lashes of icy rain, but we sat snug within,
and Pistol and me, we looked at each other. At that moment I was proud of my broad
shoulders and the strength I had, for Pistol had been a boyhood idol for me.
"Ah, lad," he said, smiling, "you're a man now!" He turned on the others. "Would
you believe it? He had two of them down and was working on the third before I could
get a shot in.
This kid is hell on wheels!"
"You taught me," I said.
"Not me." His face was sober. "It was your pa taught us both, and a better man never
lived." He looked at me. "It was them killed him, wasn't it?"
"One of them," I said, "shot him in the back of the head." By the firelight in the
old log cabin, I told them of the judge and how I recovered my money and of the fight
in the snowbound cabin. The words I used were stark and simple words, for these men
had lived such things and they needed no dressing up. What was not said they could
supply, for they
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LOUIS L'AMOUR
knew how such things went. They were lonely men, hard men,
men who had lived by the gun. One of them was Red.
"I wanted to tell you, McRaven," he said, "but the name I'd
have used wasn't one you'd have known. He told me to tell you to wait, and if the
sheriff there had known Pistol was close by, he'd have killed horses trying to get
him."
Our eyes met, and surprisingly he was embarrassed. "Yeah,"
he said, throwing the dregs of his coffee into the fire, "your pa tried to steer
me clear, but somehow I was just headed down the outlaw trail. He was a good man,
your pa."
"When this is over, I'm going to ranching, Pistol. I'm going
to need good men who can handle cattle." I told them about Ben Blocker and the deal
we made, and Mustache said, "I rode with Ben. I rode up the trail to Kansas with
him, and on to Ogallala, and a squarer man I never knew, nor one more loyal."
"You can ride for him again," I said, "and for me." "You settling down?" Pistol looked
at me, and I nodded. "I've got a girl in Silverton, and when this is over I'm riding
back that way."
"When it's over?" Pistol looked up at me from where he sat
by the fire. "It's over now. That was the end of it."
"'No," I said, "I saw their faces there in the last sunlight.
Felix Yant was not one of them. So he's left, and so is the
woman."
Red shifted his feet, and his boots grated on the sandy floor.
"There's another, too. He did not come with them. He told them they were fools, that
they must wait for you to light
somewhere, but they wouldn't listen."
"Felix stayed?"
"He didn't say why. He just stayed." Red paused. "It was
the woman got it out of him. I'd followed them and I listened outside the wall, pulled
mud from the chinks and listened. She told him he'd gone soft.
"Felix, he looked at her and said, 'He's one of us, after all.
He's kin.'
" 'Wasn't his father kin? You killed him.' That was what she
said.
" 'This is different,' he said. 'Why, he could be my own son!
If I had a son--'
"Then she laughed, she just laughed at him and said, 'Felix,
you'll never have a son! You couldn't have one if you wanted
one!'
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191
"Well, he just looked at her. He said, 'Delphine, if somebody else doesn't kill you,
I may.'
" 'Stop it," this Vrydag interrupted, 'just stop it. We've troubles enough. Our strength
has always been because we worked together, and we must work together now. We must
destroy him.'
"Felix Yant smiled. 'And suppose he has established a legal claim to the estate?
What then?' "
Red waved a hand. "That was the way it sounded. Anyway, it isn't over. There's three
of them left." He paused. "That's a mean lot of folks, believe me. In all my born
days, and I've ridden the trail for years, I never seen such a poisonous lot."
"I'm going to Silverton," I said, "and they can follow if they like. I want no more
killing."
"'Sounds like this Felix Yant likes you," Pistol suggested. For a minute I considered
that, then shook my head. "It's just a notion. It won't stop him, believe me. That's
a hard man yonder."
Outside the rain came down in a drenching downpour, and I knew the canyons would
be running neck-deep with floodwater. It was no time to travel.
Pistol had aged and seasoned, but there were laugh wrinkles
at the corners of his eyes and his face was leaner and harder. "When you ride, boy,"
he said, "I'm riding with you."
"It's been a long time," I agreed. "We've got a lot of ground to cover, talking about
pa and all." I glanced around at him. "You knew more about pa than I did.'"
He nodded. "He helped me when it was needful, and I was a good listener. You were
young, Kearney, and he didn't like to burden you with all of it. Me, I could listen
and keep my mouth shut, and much of his talking was just sort of thinking out loud."
"Wherever you go," Red advised, "watch your back trail." We ate the steak and beans,
and we ate doughnuts that Mustache made, and we talked of cattle, horses, and mines
as such men will. Each had a tale to tell of a horse or a place or a time, and the
cabin was warm and pleasant, with the storm outside.
Often I just listened, and sometimes my thoughts would wander back to the Spanish
Peaks and the three dead men who lay together there, their bodies washed by rain
and the hate they carried dissipated by the bullets that took their lives. They were
strange men, born to hatred and motivated by little
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else. Even the desire for the estate, which was strongest in Felix and Delphine,
seemed less a motivation than that blazing fire of hatred and the lust to kill.
These men were riding the outlaw trail, but all of them had
punched cows in their time, and no doubt would again.
There were things to be learned by listening, and I was
always one for learning, yet I could not forget Felix Yant and Delphine. That other
one, with whom I'd had no contact, was not quite real to me. A danger . . . but a
quantity unknown and therefore not to be judged.
Where were they now? They had not followed, but soon
they would know something had happened if they did not
know even now.
Suddenly I became worried about Laurie. Suppose Delphine
learned of her?
Yet how could she? I had walked along a street with Laurie,
I had spent an evening in her home--was that so much?
Did I dare go to her now? Might I not attract the vindictive
spite of Delphine to them?
"Storm or no storm," I said suddenly, "I'm riding out at daybreak."
"And I'll ride with you," Pistol said.
Mustache packed grub for us, and when the first light came,
we took out down the trail. Red was outside with Charlie and Mustache, and they said,
"Don't you worry none about anybody along this trail. We're going to stake it out."
Well and good, but they could not watch all the trails.
We had two packhorses now and we took off down the Cucharas River, and Pistol led
the way up a narrow game trail along the east slope of a north-south ridge to Coleman
Canyon, then down to the head of Rilling Canyon, following that for roughly a mile,
then cutting through the forested hills to Indian Creek.
It was a lonely route, and we were whipped by wind and
rain, the rocky trails often slippery underfoot.
We camped near a rainwater pool in rocky country surrounded by cedars just shy of
La Veta Pass. We had pushed hard, but that night we sat by the campfire and remembered
the days when we were boys together and wandering with pa.
"You saved my bacon that time," Pistol said suddenly. "That
man would have killed me. And you just a youngster, too."
"It was our fight you were fighting."
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193
"Mine, too. When your pa took me up and helped me, I got
to feeling I was a son to him, too."
"And we felt the same," I said.
"It's been a rough ride since," he said. "I came upon trouble here and there, so
I got to riding the wrong trail, just like Red did."
"In every town in the West there's men who got off into rough country a time or two,"
I said, "but it's their own fault if they stay there. The way I see it, every time
a man gets up in the morning he starts his life over. Sure, the bills are there to
pay, and the job is there to do, but you don't have to stay in a pattern. You can
always start over, saddle a fresh horse and take another trail. Now look at it straight.
I've come upon some money from pa's winnings. Perhaps there'll be more from that
estate back east. Anyway, I've bought cattle and I'm going into the Rockies to locate
in some high country I know, and I'll need help. There will be a job for you, and
one for Red, and Mustache . . . well, I could eat his cooking forever."
Pistol added fuel to the fire. "Kearney, since I taken off from you and your pa,
I've never rightly had no home. I've been holed up with those outlaws over east of
here lately or further north along the trail in Brown's Hole or at Robber's Roost
over on the San Rafael Swell. I surely would like to cut loose from all that."
"Looks to me like you've cut loose," I said. "We'll say no more about it. You'll
have a working interest in my share, because part of this money was pa's and he would
have wanted it so... and l do too."
We let the fire die and rolled up in our blankets, watching the stars play peekaboo
through the cedar branches and the clouds drifting. I was almost asleep when Pistol
commented, "Well, he died winners, anyway. Not many of us do that."
Silverton lies in a basin something over nine thousand feet up with mountains all
around. Otto Mears had built a narrowgauge railroad up from Durango, winding through
a deep gorge that engineers had told him was impossible as a route. The town was
booming. The mills and the mines were working, and there were a lot of miners working
small operations in all the canyons close by.
We rode into town just shy of sundown and I got a room at a hotel for the two of
us, and Pistol, he said, "Kearney, I'm not a trusting soul. You go see your girl.
I'm going down to the
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Tremont and ask around a little. If there's any of that lot in
town, there's a man down there will know it."
First I rode over to the livery barn, and Chalk got up when
he saw me pull up outside.
"Howdy, son! Looks like you kept your hair so far!"
"So far," I agreed. "Any trouble with Henry bothering the McCraes?"
"He come back around, but two, three of us, we sort of read
him the riot act. We also told him how healthy it was down Arizona way and how men
of his stature and disposition were about to come onto hard times in Silverton. He
slung his pack and started leavin' tracks behind him. Judgin' by the speed at
which he taken out, I expect he's nigh to the border by now."
"Thanks. I'm beholden."
"No trouble. We don't cotton to his kind. One of those
gamblers down on Blair Street, he was all for shootin' him on general principles.
Then like him,' this gambler said, 'contribute nothing but trouble.' "
When I'd stripped the gear from the horses, Chalk indicated
the black. "Seems familiar. Get him from the man over to
Ouray?"
"I did."
"He must have cottoned to you. Not often he lets a body
take that horse . . . and you've had him awhile."
"I'll buy, if he'll sell," I said. "That's a good horse." Then I
told him about my ranching plans and who I was doing business with.
"Reminds me," he said, "I've been holding a letter for you
. . from Kansas City."
It was from Attmore. The matter of the estate was settled,
my ownership proven, and the title delivered free and clear. There were a few papers
to sign, which Blocker would bring west with him. From what Attmore suggested in
his letter, the surrounding neighborhood breathed a sigh of relief to know the
Yant-L'Ollonaise family had not inherited.
So that was over.
Somewhere down the canyon a train whistled.
"There she comes!" Chalk said. "The Durango train's comin'
in!"
Pistol had gone over to the Tremont, and I decided to
follow. I'd collect him and we'd eat at the Bon Ton, as I always
did.
A cool wind was blowing down the gulch when I turned into
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Blair Street. The train was chug-chugging up the track and there were lights in the
cars, and lights were starting to appear in the buildings, although it was early.
The train was running late, I gathered, and would be starting back almost at once.
People were spilling from the train as I came abreast of it, and I paused to watch.
Seeing a train come in was still a novelty in most western towns, and there was always
the chance of seeing someone one had known.
Coming down the steps, the people trooped toward the street or scattered toward their
homes or places of resort. A fair lot of them headed for the Tremont, where Pistol
was.
The last of them came off the train, and I turned to walk away when something caught
my eye, and I turned sharp around.
Felix Yant stood on the platform facing me, and out at the edge of the platform,
maybe fifteen feet from him, was a short, rather heavyset man with a wide face wearing
a derby. His black coat was open, and I could see a gold chain from which were suspended
several objects indiscernible at the distance.
Behind them a woman was descending, and at a car yet further along, a rather stooped
old man wearing a white planter's hat. All this I took in at a glance.
From the direction of the Tremont someone was coming toward me also, but my eyes
were upon Felix.
On my left the locomotive was still gasping steam after its long climb up from Durango,
on my right, space and some buildings, but I did not look. My eyes remained on Yant
but held within their range the others as well. The woman I knew. Was one of the
others the mysterious Joseph Vrydag?
This was the end. My hat brim was pulled low. It was pa's hat, one of the few things
of his own that he'd left me. I wondered if Felix recognized it.
There was not hate. He had hated pa and killed him, and yet I had no hate in me,
but just the grim acceptance of the inevitable. Yet it was Delphine who worried me.
What would she do? What if she produced a gun and began to shoot? Could I shoot a
woman? Of course, if she attacked me, yet I wanted only to have her out of it.
"Yant," I said clearly, "you can get back on that train. You've still got time."
He had stopped, a good thirty yards off. The heavyset man had stopped too and had
turned half toward me. Only Delphine
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continued to move toward me, and suddenly I was swept by
panic.
What was she doing? What--
"Kearney," she said sweetly, "it has been such a long time!
Such a very long time! We're so-o-o glad to see you!"
Men and women stood around watching, people who knew
none of us, people who would only see a beautiful woman approaching a young man with
endearing remarks, a woman who seemed to be welcoming a long-lost friend or relative,
and with every step she was drawing closer.
She was speaking loudly enough for all to hear, and now she
said, "Kearney! It has been so long! I want only to hold you in
my arms again! I want--"
She meant to kill me, or to hold me while the others did,
and I dare not fire, I dare not resist. I could turn and run or I
could be killed. I--
Suddenly someone ran past me. I heard a voice that I knew.
"Delly! Of all people! What a thrill to find you all here so far
from home! I do declare, Delly!"
Laurie!
I started to yell to warn her, but she was not stopping. She
ran up to Delphine, who tried to avoid her. She made a desperate effort to turn aside
and keep coming at me, but Laurie caught at her arm.
"'Delly! Just like you used to be! Always out chasing the
young men! And so much younger, Delly! Why, he's young
enough to be your son! Maybe your grandson!"
Delphine jerked angrily, but Laurie clung to her arm. And suddenly the men started
to move. Their ruse failing, they were coming at me, and I saw the man in the derby
reach inside his coat.
Not many in the West were familiar with a shoulder holster,
but I'd seen them in Kansas City. As his hand came clear, I
drew and fired.
There was no thinking. In that instant everything inside me
was icy still. My gun came from my waistband and I fired. Then without looking, I
swung my gun toward Felix Yant. It had to go past the struggling women, and his gun
was coming up. He was taking aim, duelist-style, but even as my gun swung to cover
him, there was a shot and I saw his knees buckle.
Pistol was suddenly beside me, and he fired again as Yant
tried to lift his gun.
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197
Then we both walked in.
Felix Yant was sitting sidewise on the platform. There was blood on the planks beneath
him and there was blood on his shirt, and his gray trousers were soaked with it.
"From the first," he muttered, "from that first day in Rico, I..." He stopped talking
and simply stared vacantly at nothing. "I knew, I... Kearney, I... I'm glad it wasn't..,
you.'"
People were coming up. They were standing around. "Evil,'" he muttered, talking to
no one now, "evil! All of us! Cabanus, L'Ollonaise, Yant . . . evil! All of us."
A hand slipped into mine, and Laurie was beside me. "Let's get away from here," Pistol
suggested.
Behind us the train whistled and began the slow chuga-chug as it backed away from
the station. I glanced back. A few people were clustered around Yant, and now someone
walked over to the man who must have been Vrydag.
"Delphine!" I pulled up suddenly. "Where--"
"She got on the train," Laurie said quietly. "I put her on the train along with an
old man who had been following her, a man in a white hat. He said to tell you his
name was Tolbert. I don't know why, but when he told her to get on the train, she
said never a word, but did just as he said."
"My father mentioned him," I said. Vaguely I remembered something about going to
Old Tolbert if there was trouble . . . or that he w uld help me.
"They're gone," Laurie said. "Come home with me. You, too," she said, turning to
Pistol. "You're one of the family
now.
Burns was sitting on the edge of the porch when we walked up to the house. "Your
mother invited me in," he said to Laurie, "but I thought I'd better wait out here."
"It took me longer than I planned," I said, "but I came back."
"So you did," he agreed, "and brought trouble with you." "No way a body can account
for other people's notions," I replied cheerfully. "I came back because of my promise
to you and another to Miss Laurie McCrae. Now, tomorrow Miss Laurie McCrae and me,
we have an appointment with a sky pilot who will make it proper for us to travel
in double harness.
And there's one more thing you can do, if you're of a mind to." "And that is?"
Me, I taken some money from my pocket. "Buy a marker for
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the grave of Felix Yant," I said, "a man of taste who would not settle for enough."
"You'd buy a stone for a man you killed?"
"He did it for pa. I want to kill no man. As for him, he put in his bid but he couldn't
meet the price. One thing I've learned, Mr. Burns, when you buy chips in the pistol
game, you'd better have enough to raise the ante."
Burns got to his feet. "You will be leaving town then?"
"For a rising young man of business," I said, "it seems an awful lot of towns want
me to move on. Yes, I'm going."
"We wouldn't want to bankrupt you," Burns said, "buying tombstones."
I walked to the door with him, and he held out his hand to me. I took it and he smiled
a little, then said, "We found the remains of Judge Blazer in your burned-out cabin.
We had a warrant for him from Kansas for misappropriation of public funds."
"You talk to Wacker?"
"Left the country. We did talk to your Indians, and they verified your story."
When he walked away, I closed the door. Pistol had gone to bed and so had Mrs. McCrae.
Well, I just looked at Laurie and asked, "You mean it?" "I mean it," she said.
And I believed her.