Louis L'Amour (3 page)

“ ‘He wasn’t fast, son. He wasn’t even close.’ ”

We sat down in the boxcar door and dangled our legs. The sun was warm and pleasant. You could smell coal smoke from the engine, and that hot dry smell you get from ripening grain fields. They’d be shucking wheat in no time at all, but I’d had my fill of that, even though it paid better than punching. I never hunted no kind of work a man couldn’t do from the back of a horse.

“Comin’ to a town,” Eddie said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Seems to me you could get you a pass. I mean on this railroad. They tell me when a man ships cattle or rides with cattle, the railroad will give him a pass back home.”

“You heard it right. On’y I didn’t take to that new clerk back in Chicago. The one I used to know, he was all right. This one looks down his nose at a man … nobody does that to Barney Pike.”

Suddenly footsteps drummed on the car top, and then a face leaned over, grinning. It was Van Bokkelen. He turned around, lowered his feet, then his full length, and, swinging by his hands he swung in and dropped to the floor of the car beside us.

“You could get killed that way,” I said.

He chuckled. “My number’s not up.” There was a
hard, reckless light in his eyes that I did not like. Maybe because they were also lighted with contempt. The way I figure it, a man has no right to hold anybody or anything in contempt … especially the odds. From time to time I’d seen a few men die, and I couldn’t bring myself to think there was any special providence looking out for any of us.

Seems to me we work out our destinies subject to a lot of accident, incident, and whim. The men I’d seen die, died mostly because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the kind of men they were mattered not in the least. The good seemed to go as easily as the bad, the brave as quickly as the cowards.

As for me, I did what I had to do, what I believed I should do, and tried not to take any unnecessary chances. Here and there I’d seen more than one man die showing how brave he was, or doing something he was dared to do … which didn’t make sense anyway you looked at it.

“That Law back there,” Van Bokkelen asked, “he ask about me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothin’ much. On’y they seemed anxious to lay hands on you. If I was you,” I added, “I’d fight shy of places. And we’re comin’ into a town now.”

“You call that a town?” he sneered. “That’s nothing but a wide spot in the road. The town clown in a place like that won’t worry me.”

The “town clown” … I’d heard that name given to small-town peace officers before, but not by me. More often than not the constable or marshal in those little towns is a good enough sort if you give
him a chance, and often he’s mighty salty when pushed. Right then I decided the further we stayed away from Van Bokkelen, the better. He was a trouble-hunter, and Boot Hill graveyards were filled with his kind.

“They don’t bother me.” He slapped his waistband. “I’m packing the difference.”

Why do all those would-be toughs talk like echoes of each other? How many times had I heard such talk since I was a kid, knocking around? And each one of them figures he’s got a patent on luck and brains. They live like animals in their hideouts, coming out every once in a while, and the rest of the time hiding from the law and bragging about all they plan to do. And then, like the James-Younger gang, they run into a bunch of farmers and small-town businessmen and get shot to doll rags.

“That gun you’re packin’,” I told him, “is the handle that will open a grave for you on Boot Hill.”

Eddie Holt got up. “Pronto, let’s unload and hunt us some grub.”

Van Bokkelen chuckled. “You boys on your uppers? Don’t be damn fools. Stick with me and you’ll be rollin’ in money.”

“You’re ridin’ the same train we are,” I said.

An ugly light came into his eyes. “What I’m doing here is my own business, and business is good.” He brought a roll of bills from his pocket. “How about that?”

“Eddie, there’s a house with a woodpile and two axes,” I said. “Let’s you and me see if we can earn our breakfast.”

Eddie dropped to the roadbed, ran a few steps,
then walked back to meet me. I tossed my saddle out into the weeds, and dropped off myself.

The last I heard was Van Bokkelen saying, “A couple of finks! Just plain bums!”

“I don’t like that man,” Eddie said. “There’s trouble in him.”

He waited by the woodpile while I walked up to the house and rapped on the door. A stout Irish woman looked at Eddie and then at my sack. “What’s in that?” she asked.

“My saddle, ma’am. I’m a rider, but right this minute I’m ridin’ a two-day hunger. There’s a pair of axes, and we were wondering if we could earn a meal.”

“Well, now, you’re a couple of stout lads. You heft those axes a while and I’ll be makin’ up me mind.”

We’d worked only a few minutes when she came to the door. “Come off it, now!” she called. “Pat’ll be home for his supper, and if he found me makin’ you work for a meal he’d take the stick to me.”

She produced two big plates piled high with ham hocks, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob, and set them down on the stoop. “If that’s not enough, rap on the door. Himself is a healthy eater, and I know he’d make way with twice the lot.”

We sat down by the food, and she placed a pitcher of cold milk besides us and went back inside.

“There’s good people wherever you go,” Eddie said. “She didn’t even comment that I was a black man.”

“Could be she didn’t notice,” I said.

If her Pat was a healthy eater we’d no idea of putting the man to shame, so after a bit we knocked on the door and she filled our plates again, then brought
a paper sack to the door. It was a peck sack, and packed to the top.

“Here’s a bit to take along,” she said, “and there’s a mite of coffee there if you can find somewhat to make it in.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you, indeed.”

“Obliged,” Eddie said.

“It’s been said that hoboes mark the gates of houses where they’ll be fed. Is it true, then?”

“Ma’am, I’ve no idea. Only I shall remember this place as the home of the fairest flower of Old Ireland. You’re the picture of loveliness, ma’am.”

“Oh, g’long with you! You’ve had your bait. Now take yourselves off!”

We slept the night in another empty boxcar, listening to the creaking of the car as it rounded curves, the bumping as the train rolled over the tracks. We had seen no more of Van Bokkelen, and I was sure he had left the town before us, and I was pleased at that.

“Where do we stop next?” Eddie asked. “I’ve never ridden the N.P. before.”

“Jimtown, I guess. If we can pick up a meal there, we can ride on to Miles City, with a little tightening of the belt.”

“That’s a far piece,” Eddie objected, “and I’m a man likes to eat.”

The train rumbled along, accompanied by whistles now and then as it neared some road crossing. The country we were passing through was broken into wheat fields … miles of them … and sometimes there were stretches of pastureland. It was a glaciated region of rolling prairies with occasional low hills and small lakes or sloughs, their fringes lined with
cattails. The only trees were those along the streams, or freshly planted ones near farmhouses or villages.

When the freight slowed down before coming into the station at Jimtown, we dropped off and headed for Main Street. This was my second time in the town, and I saw that it had changed some.

“I was shy of fourteen,” I told Eddie, “and came riding in here on the first train over the road. The BB outfit had driven some cattle from Texas to Abilene, then shipped them to Chicago, and I’d gone along.

“The boss, he decided to have a look at the Dakota grass, so he rode that first train west with a few horses and a couple of hands. He took me along to feed the stock.”

“Nothing much here then, I reckon,” Eddie commented. “Ain’t much now.”

“Mostly tents then,” I said. “Now they’ve got hotels and everything.”

It was in my mind to look around for a man I’d known as a boy in Fargo-in-the-Timber. Back in those days that was the roughest place a man could find, and it stayed rough until Custer’s soldiers cleaned it out. Jack O’Niel had killed three of the soldiers before they moved in to get him.

This friend of mine was one of the BB cowboys who decided to stay in Dakota, like I had, and we stayed together in Fargo-in-the-Timber. There was a Fargo-on-the-Prairie, too, but that was mostly decent folks, but not so exciting to me as Fargo-in-the-Timber.

This man I knew, he was wise enough to decide we should leave Fargo-in-the-Timber after Jack O’Niel killed those soldiers. He had known the Seventh Cavalry
down in Kansas, and they weren’t likely to stand by when some of their outfit had been killed. We had nothing to do with it, but my friend taught me a good lesson then. “Stay away from trouble,” he told me. “It’s the innocent bystanders who get hurt.”

So we went west to the end of the line on the James River … to Jamestown, which everybody called Jimtown. It was built in a valley where the Pipestem River flowed into the James, and there were a few soldiers stationed there when we first came.

Now there were no uniforms about, and small as the place was, it looked prosperous.

“If we find this friend of yours,” Eddie asked, “will he stake us to a feed?”

“That’s my guess,” I said; “and if he’s around I know how to find him. I’ll hunt up a drugstore. Tom Gatty never could pass up a drugstore. I never knew a man who had so many ailments. He told me he never knew how sick he was until he was snowed in one winter with a
Home Medical Advisor
, and read it cover to cover. If it hadn’t been for that book, he might have lived a long life in bad health without knowing it.”

We found a drugstore, and while Eddie watched my saddle on the street, I went in the store. “I’m hunting a man named Tom Gatty,” I said.

“Three like him, and I wouldn’t need anybody else for customers,” the druggist said. “He’s the strongest dying man I ever knew, but you’ve come too late. He went west … Medora, I think.”

“Just my luck,” I said.

The man came from behind the counter. “You
might learn something from Duster Wyman. He handles Gatty’s local business.”

The Gatty I knew had no head for business, nor for poker, either, when it came to that. “Last time I saw him he was punching cows,” I said. “We worked for the same outfit.”

“That must have been several years ago. Mr. Gatty has been shipping cattle, trading in horses and mules. He’s done very well, I believe.”

We found the Duster loafing in front of a saloon, and when I told him I was hunting Tom Gatty he got up carefully, and looked me over, and then looked Eddie over, too.

“Just what do you want with him?” The Duster was carrying a gun, tucked back of his belt, under his coat. A rough guess told me that Duster Wyman was a pretty salty character; and if Gatty was trading in horses, mules, and cattle they must have some fancy work for brands. Come to think of it, Tom Gatty used to brag he could write a Spencerian hand with a cinch ring, so I began to understand some of the phases of his business.

“As a matter of fact,” I explained, “I was hunting a road stake. Me an’ Eddie here, we’re broke and headed for Miles City. Tom was an old friend of mine. In fact, we came to Dakota together.”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Pike … they call me Pronto.”

Well, his face cleared right up. He had been looking mighty suspicious until then. “Oh, sure! I’ve heard him speak of you.”

He ran his hand down into his Levis and came up with a handful of silver dollars. He counted out
ten of them. “You take this,” he said. “I’ll get it back from Tom.”

“Where’ll I find him?”

“Well, he moves around a good deal. Don’t you go askin’ for him. If you want to see him, look around Miles City. You stay around a while and he’ll find you.”

When we walked away from there, Eddie looked at the money with respect. “You got you some good friends,” he said.

Me, I didn’t say anything, because I was wondering why the Duster was so quick to hand out ten dollars and say Tom would pay him back. Tom Gatty never had much money, but the way I remembered him he was mighty poor pay. Of course, that could have been because he never had much. Maybe he was doing better now.

If he could afford having a man living around Jimtown like the Duster was, well, he was doing a lot better.

But why ship from here? Why not from Miles City itself?

We had ourselves a meal, and when we came out of the restaurant a man was standing on the curb. “Hello, Pike,” he said.

It was that man Fargo that we’d last seen a couple of hundred miles east.

“I figured you’d settle in eastern Dakota, with a town named for you,” I said.

“It wasn’t named for me.” He took some cigars from his pocket and offered them. “Smoke?”

It was a good cigar.

He took one himself and we all lit up. Then he said, “You’re living good.”

“We got a right.”

“I was wondering how somebody broke enough to cut wood for a meal could suddenly pay cash for one.”

“Look, mister, you ain’t the law here. You want to start something, you keep poking that long nose into my business.”

He chuckled. “You have the best of me there. I can’t break yours. Somebody beat me to it.”

Well, what could I do but laugh? My nose had been broken a couple of times. “The hell with it! You followin’ us?”

“No. Just going west. Have you seen any more of Van Bokkelen?”

Odd thing. I’d been so busy thinking about Tom Gatty that I’d forgotten all about Van Bokkelen.

When I didn’t say anything, Fargo glanced at his cigar and commented, “Pike, you strike me as an honest man. Maybe a hard one to get along with, but an honest one. So I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I been up the crick,” I said, because I had. Most ways, I knew my way around.

“All right.” He held out his hand. “Boys, my name is Jim Fargo—call me Jim. And if you ever want to talk about things, or if there’s anything I can do, call on me.”

We walked away and left him standing there, and when we had gone several blocks toward the west end of town where we would catch our freight going out, Eddie said to me, “He’s a Pink, Pronto. That’s a Pinkerton man.”