The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (3 page)

“He—Ed was like that. He never considered consequences until it was too late.”

“Lucky for me he didn't.”

He was younger-looking with his beard gone. There was a certain quiet dignity in his face. She went back inside and began putting plates on the table. She was conscious that he had moved to the door and was watching her.

“You don't have to stay,” she said. “You owe me nothing. Whatever Ed did, he did because he was that kind of person. You aren't responsible.”

He did not answer, and when she turned again to the stove, she glanced swiftly at him. He was looking across the valley.

There was a studied deference about him when he moved to a place at the table. The children stared, wide-eyed and silent; it had been so long since a man sat at this table.

Angie could not remember when she had felt like this. She was awkwardly conscious of her hands, which never seemed to be in the right place or doing the right things. She scarcely tasted her food, nor did the children.

Ches Lane had no such inhibitions. For the first time, he realized how hungry he was. After the half-cooked meat of lonely, trailside fires, this was tender and flavored. Hot biscuits, desert honey … Suddenly he looked up, embarrassed at his appetite.

“You were really hungry,” she said.

“Man can't fix much, out on the trail.”

Later, after he'd got his bedroll from his saddle and unrolled it on the hay in the barn, he walked back to the house and sat on the lowest step. The sun was gone, and they watched the cliffs stretch their red shadows across the valley. A quail called plaintively, a mellow sound of twilight.

“You needn't worry about Cochise,” she said. “He'll soon be crossing into Mexico.”

“I wasn't thinking about Cochise.”

That left her with nothing to say, and she listened again to the quail and watched a lone bright star.

“A man could get to like it here,” he said quietly.

That Man from the Bitter Sands

When Speke came at last to water, he was two days beyond death.

His cracked lips rustled like tissue paper when they moved, trying to shape a thought. The skin of his face, long burned to a desert brown, had now taken on a patina of crimson.

Yet his mind was awake, and alive within him was a spirit that even the desert could not defeat. Without doubt Ross and Floren believed him dead, and this pleased him, stirring a wry sense of humor.

The chirping of birds told him of water before he saw it. His stumbling, almost hypnotic walk ceased, and swaying upon his feet, he turned his head slowly upon his stiff neck.

The basin remained unchanged, only now he had reached the very bottom of the vast depression, and a jagged knife's edge of rocks, an upthrust from a not too ancient fracture, loomed off to his right.

He had seen a dozen such along the line of travel, yet there was a difference. The faint, grayish green of the desert vegetation here took on a somewhat deeper green. Yet without the birds he might not have noticed. There was water near.

Through the heat-engendered haze in his skull there flickered grim humor. Floren and Ross thought they had taken from him all that promised survival when they had also taken his gold. They had robbed him of weapons, tools, canteen, food, and water. They had left him nothing.

Better than anyone else he had known what lay before him. After they had gone he had worked to free himself, but when he had succeeded he did not move away. He waited quietly in the shadow of the ledge, gutted of its small hoard of gold. Only when the sun was down did he move, and then he stepped out with a long, space-eating stride, walking away into that vast wasteland, shadowed with evening.

They had left him two things they did not realize would matter. They had seemed but bits of debris in the looted camp: a prospector's gold pan and a storm square from his canvas groundsheet.

Before it grew too dark to travel he had walked eight miles. Stopping then, he scooped a shallow hole in the sand and placed in it the gold pan. Over it he stretched the canvas, and above that he built a small pile of large stones. When his dew trap was complete he lay down to sleep.

Scarcely a spoon of water rewarded the effort, yet he swallowed it and was grateful. Before the sun topped the ridge he had three more miles behind him. Near two boulders he stopped and made a sun shade of a ruined cedar in the space between the boulders. He crawled into this island of coolness and lay down.

Midafternoon of the second day he found a barrel cactus, and cutting off the top he squeezed some water from the whitish green pulp. On the second and third nights he also built his dew traps, and each time got a little water. When he first heard the birds he thought he was losing his reason, yet turning toward the serrated ridge, he stumbled on. At its base, among some desert willows, was a small pool some four feet across … but lying in it was a dead coyote.

Swaying drunkenly, he stared hollow-eyed at the dead coyote and the poisoned water. He could go no farther, he knew. He must drink, yet, in his weakened state, a case of dysentery would surely kill him. It was not in him to yield, and too well he knew the ways of the wild country and the lessons it taught.

The will that had carried him more than forty miles across the desert moved him then. He dragged the remains of the dead coyote from the water. Then he gathered sticks and built a fire. When he had a small heap of charcoal, he scooped up some water with the gold pan. He covered the water until it was two inches thick with charcoal. Then he stoked his fire and waited. Soon the water was boiling.

The desert night drew darkness around him. The firelight flickered on the rock wall and upon the fragile boughs of the willow, and the smoke drifted and lost itself in the night. Sparks flew upward and vanished.

With a flat stick, he skimmed off the thick scum of charcoal and coagulated impurities. Then he added more charcoal and the water continued to boil. A second time he skimmed it, and only then did he put some aside to cool.

The very presence of water seemed to help. His brain cleared and he thought. He was now halfway across the vast bowl of desert. He was walking toward a place he knew, a ranch with a well of cool, clear water, and a man who would lend him a horse. A horse and a gun.

Forcing himself to ignore the water, he leaned back against the rocks. His lips rustled together and his tongue felt like a dry stick. He closed his aching eyes and waited out the minutes, listening like a prisoner to the faint trickle of water into the pool.

When an hour had passed, he allowed himself his first drink. Dipping up a little of the water he took some in his mouth and held it there, feeling the coolness bringing life back to the starved, shrunken tissues. Slowly he let the water trickle down his throat, feeling the delightful coolness all through him. Even that tiny swallow seemed to reach into every part of his body.

He bathed his lips and face then, taking his time, and finally allowing himself another swallow of the water. Finding in the rock a natural basin that was almost a foot across he used it as a mold, and with a rounded stone he carefully pounded his prospecting pan down into it, forcing the pan into a shape more like that of a bucket. Returning to the fire he boiled more water with charcoal, then poured it into the basin in the rock, repeating the process with his newly made pail. Adding a few more bits of charcoal, he lay back on the ground and was almost at once asleep, knowing that with the dawn the water would be clear and sweet.

Long ago he had established a pattern of awakening, and despite his exhaustion he was stirring long before dawn. It was cold when he opened his eyes, and his body was chilled with the cold of the desert night. Hurriedly, he built a fire and let its warmth permeate his entire being. Then he drank, and after a while, drank again. Then he turned to the desert.

A fleshy-fruited yucca grew near the water hole and he picked some of the long pods. He ate one of them raw, then roasted the others with some bulbs of the sego lily. When he had eaten these he took a thin, flat sheet of sandstone and began to dip water from the hole. Despite the little water there was, it took him more than an hour to empty the hole.

From time to time he paused to rest. Once, still having his tobacco, he rolled a smoke. He would need no more water than that in his bucket, but if others came along they would not know of the coyote and the poisoned spring. He did not know if his actions would help, but a water hole was a precious thing, to be safeguarded by all who passed.

When the hole was emptied he scraped the bottom with his flat stone, throwing out huge chunks of the mud. He then enlarged the opening through which the water flowed, still only a mere trickle, and finally sat down to eat more of the pods and bulbs, and to drink more water.

Water slowly trickled back into the hole. By night it would be full, and rested, he would start on with the first shadows.

 

Three days later, he was mounted on a horse. In the scabbard on his borrowed saddle was a Winchester, and thrust into his waistband was a battered but capable Colt.

They had insisted he remain and rest, but Speke would have none of it. Floren and Ross had taken his gold and he had been abandoned to die, yet it was with no thought of actual revenge that he returned to the desert. Nor did he blame his sufferings upon the two thieves whom he had taken into his camp when they had been half dead from thirst. The sufferings he had endured he accepted, as he accepted so much else as a part of life in the desert, yet the gold they had taken was his, and he intended to get it back.

Speke was not a big man but he was tough. The years and the desert had melted away any softness he might have had, and left behind a hard core of that rawhide resilience that the desert demands. Never a gunman, he had used weapons as a soldier in the Apache wars, as a buffalo hunter, and in his own private skirmishes with desert Mohaves or Pimas.

He needed no blueprint to read the plan in the minds of Floren and Ross. They would go first to Tucson.

It was a sufficient distance away. It had whiskey, women, and for a desert town of the era, remarkably good food.

On a sunlit morning not long after daybreak, Tom Speke rode his shambling buckskin into the main street of Tucson. He rode past staked-out pigs, dozens of yapping dogs, a few casual, disinterested burros, and a few naked Mexican youngsters. He was a lean man of less than six feet, not long past thirty but seasoned by the desert, a man with dingy trousers, a buckskin jacket, a battered narrow-brimmed hat, and a lean-jawed look about him.

He swung down at the Shoo Fly, and went into the restaurant. It was a long room of adobe, walls washed with yellow, a stamped earth floor, and tables of pine covered with cheap tablecloths. To Tom Speke, who had sat at a table four times in two years, the Shoo Fly represented the height of culture and gastronomic delight. He did not order—at the Shoo Fly one accepted what the day offered, in this case jerked beef, frijoles, tomatoes, and stewed prunes (there had recently been a series of Apache raids on trains bringing fresh fruit from Hermosillo) and coffee. All but the coffee and the prunes were liberally laced with chile colorados, and there was still some honey that had been brought from the Tia Juana ranch below the border.

Tom Speke devoted himself to eating, but while he ate, he listened. The Shoo Fly was crowded, as always at mealtimes, and there was much talk. Turning to the kid who was clearing tables, he asked if there was any recent news of prospectors striking it rich in the area. The kid didn't know, but a man up the table looked up and put down his fork.

“Feller down to Congress Hall payin' for drinks with dust. Says he made him a pile over on the Gila.”

“Big feller? With blond hair?” A man spoke up from the end of the bar. “Seen him. Looks mighty like a feller from Santa Fe I run into once. They were huntin' him for horse stealin'.”

Tom Speke forked up the last piece of beef and chewed it thoughtfully. Then he wiped his plate with a slab of bread and disposed of it in the same way. He gulped coffee, then laid out his dollar and pushed back from the table. The description was that of Floren.

The sun stopped him on the step, and he waited until his eyes adjusted themselves to the glare. Then he walked up the street to the Congress.

Pausing on the step he eased the position of the Colt, then stepped inside and moved away from the door. Early as it was, the place was scattered with people. One game gave the appearance of having been on all night. Several men stood at the bar. One of these was a giant of a man in a stovepipe hat and a black coat. Speke knew him for Marcus Duffield, onetime town marshal and now postal inspector, but still the town's leading exponent of gun-throwing.

Speke glanced around. There was no sign of Ross, but Floren's big blond head was visible. He was sitting in the poker game, and from the look of it, he was winning.

Speke moved down the bar to Duffield's side. He ordered a drink, then jerked his head at Duffield. “An' one for Marcus, here.”

Duffield glanced at him. “Goin' to be some shootin' here right sudden,” Speke said quietly. “I figured to tell you so's you wouldn't figure it was aimed at you.” He indicated Floren by a jerk of his head. “Feller there an' his partner come into my camp half dead. I gave 'em grub an' water. Second day they throwed down on me, tied me up, an' stole my outfit, includin' three pokes of gold.”

“Seen the gold,” Duffield said. “Didn't figure him for no miner.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Better wait'll he finishes this hand. He's holdin' four of a kind.”

Speke lifted his glass and Duffield acknowledged it. They drank, and Tom Speke turned around and then moved down the bar. He waited there, watching the game, his eyes cold and emotionless. Floren raked in the pot on his four queens and started to stack the money.

And then he looked up and saw Speke.

He started to move, then stopped. His eyes stared, his face went sickly yellow.

A card player noticed his face, took a quick look at Speke, then carefully drew back from the table. The others followed suit.

“You won that with my money, Floren,” Speke said carefully. “Just leave it lay.”

Floren took a quick look around. His big hands rested on the arms of his chair, only inches from his gun. One of the players started to interrupt, but Duffield's bold black eyes pinned the man to the spot. “His show,” Duffield said. “That gent's a thief.”

Floren touched his lips with his tongue. “Now, look,” he said, “I—”

“Ain't aimin' to kill you,” Speke said conversationally, “nor Ross. You stole my outfit an' left me for dead, but all I want is my money an' my outfit. Get up easy an' empty your pockets.”

Floren looked at the money, and then at Speke. Suddenly his face seemed to set, and an ugly look flared in his eyes. He started to rise. “I'll be double d—!” His hand dropped to his gun.

Nobody had seen Ross come in the door. He took one quick look, drew, and fired. Even as Speke thumbed back the hammer, he was struck from behind. He staggered, then fell forward.

Floren stood, his unfired gun in his hand, and looked down at Speke. Ross held the room covered. Floren lifted the muzzle of his gun toward the fallen man.

“Don't do that,” Duffield said, “or you'll have to kill every man in this room.”

Floren looked up at him, and hesitated.

“Don't be a fool,” Ross said, “pick up your money and let's go.”

 

It was two weeks before Speke could leave his bed, despite excellent care by Semig, a Viennese doctor attached to the Army. It was a month before he could ride.

Duffield watched him mount the buckskin. “Next time don't talk,” he advised. “Shoot!”

Tom Speke picked up the trail of Floren and Ross on the Hassayampa and followed them into Camp Date Creek. Captain Dwyer of the Fifth Cavalry listened to Speke's description, then nodded. “They were here. I ordered them out. Ross was known to have sold liquor to the Apaches near Camp Grant. I couldn't have them around.”