The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (41 page)

Ahead of him a Joshua tree thrust itself up from the plain. It was a lone sentinel, the only one of its kind in many miles. He glanced at it and was about to ride by when something caught his eye. He reined the horse around and rode closer. Thrust into the fiber of the tree was a playing card. A hole had been shot through each corner.

“Well, I'll be damned!” he said. “Texas Dowd. He finally figured out I was here—” His comment to the stallion stopped abruptly, and he replaced the card, looking at it thoughtfully. Then, on a sudden inspiration, he wheeled the stallion and rode off fifty feet or so, then turned the horse again. His hand flashed and a gun was in it. He fired four times as rapidly as he could trigger the gun. Then he turned the horse and rode away.

There were four more holes in the card, just inside the others. A message had been sent, and now the reply given.

 

The great wall of the Rimrock loomed up on his left. It was a sheer, impossible precipice from two to six hundred feet high and running for all of twelve miles. For twenty miles farther there was no way over except on foot. It was wild country across the Rim, and not even Finn Mahone had ever explored it thoroughly.

Straight ahead was the great rift in the wall. Sheer rock on one side, a steep slope on the other. Down the bottom ran the roaring, brawling Laird River, a tumbling rapids with many falls. The trail to Crystal Valley skirted the stream and the sheer cliff. Eight feet wide, it narrowed to four, and ran on for three miles, never wider than that.

After that it crossed the Laird three times, then disappeared at a long shale bank that offered no sign of a trail. The shale had a tendency to shift and slide at the slightest wrong move. It was that shale bank that defeated ingress to the valley. There was a way across. An outlaw had shown it to Finn, and he'd heard it from an Indian.

By sighting on the white blaze of a tree, and a certain thumblike projection of rock, one could make it across. Beneath the shale at this point there was a shelf of solid rock. A misstep and one was off into loose shale that would start to slide. It slid, steeper and steeper, for three hundred yards, then plunged off, a hundred feet below, into a snarl of lava pits.

Once across the slides, the trail was good for several miles, then wound through a confusion of canyons and washes. At the end one rode through a narrow stone bottleneck into the paradise that was Crystal Valley.

Finn Mahone dismounted at the Rimrock, and led his horse to the edge of the river. While the black was drinking, he let his eyes roam through the trees toward the Notch, then back over the broad miles of the Lazy K.

Remy Kastelle. The name made music in his mind. He remembered the flash of her eyes, her quick, capable walk.

The sun was warm, and he sat down on the bank of the stream and watched the water. Until now he had known peace, and peace was the one thing most to be desired. His cattle grew fat on the grassy valley lands, there were beaver and mink to be trapped, deer to be hunted. Occasionally, a little gold to be panned from corners and bends of the old creek bank. It had been an easy, happy, but lonely life.

It would be that no longer. For months now he had seen the trouble building in Laird Valley. He had listened to the gossip of ranch hands in Rico, the cattle buyers and the bartenders. He had heard stories of Byrn Sonntag, of Montana Kerr, of Ringer Cobb.

Simple ranchers? He had smiled at the idea. No man who knew the Big Bend country would ever suggest that, nor any man who had gone up the trail to Dodge and Hays. They were men whose names had legends built around them, men known for ruthless killing.

Frank Salter was just as bad. Lean and embittered, Salter had ridden with Quantrill's guerrillas, then he had trailed west and south. He had killed a man in Dimmit, another in Eagle Pass. He was nearly fifty now, but a sour, unhappy man with a rankling hatred for everything successful, everything peaceful.

Of them all, Sonntag was the worst. He was smooth, cold-blooded, with nerves like chilled steel. He had, the legends said, killed twenty-seven men.

Looking on from a distance Mahone had the perspective to see the truth. Until lately, there had been no suspicion of rustling. No tracks had been found; there had reportedly been no mysterious disappearances of cattle. The herds had been weeded patiently and with intelligence.

Abraham McInnis suddenly awakened to the realization that the thousand or more cattle he had believed to be in the brakes were not there. The rustlers had carefully worked cattle down on the range so there would always be cattle in sight. They had taken only a few at a time, and they had never taken a cow without its calf, and vice versa.

McInnis had gone to town and met with Brewster, and Van had returned to his own ranch. For three days he covered it as he had not covered it since the last roundup. At the very least, he was missing several hundred head of cattle. The same was true of Collins, the Kastelles, and Pierce Logan.

All of this was known to Finn Mahone. Stories got around in cattle country, and he was a man who listened much and remembered what he heard. Moreover, he could read trail sign like most men could read a newspaper.

He mounted the stallion and started over the trail for Crystal Valley.

 

Pierce Logan was disturbed. He was a cool, careful man who rarely made mistakes. He had moved the outlaws into Rawhide, had made sure they all had small holdings, had given them their brands. Then he had engineered, from his office in town and his ranch headquarters, the careful job of cattle theft that had been done. Byrn Sonntag was a man who would listen, and Byrn was a man who could give orders. The stealing had been so carefully done that it had been going on for a year before the first rumbles of suspicion were heard.

Even then, none of that suspicion was directed toward Rawhide. When Rawhide ranchers came to Laird they were quiet and well behaved. In Rawhide they had their own town, their own saloon, and when they felt like a bust, they went, under orders, to Rico.

Logan had understood that sooner or later there would be trouble. He had carefully planned what to do beforehand. He had dropped hints here and there about Finn Mahone, choosing him simply because he lived alone and consequently was a figure of mystery and some suspicion. He had never mentioned Finn's name in connection with rustling. Only a couple of times he had wondered aloud what he found to do all the time, and elsewhere he had commented that whatever he did, it seemed to pay well.

Pierce Logan had seen Mahone but once before, and that time from a distance. He had no animosity toward him, choosing the man cold-bloodedly because he was the best possible suspect.

His plan was simple. When Mahone was either shot, hung for rustling, or run out of the country, the pressure would be off, the ranchers would relax, and his plans could continue for some time before suspicion built up again. If in the process of placing the blame on Mahone he could remove some of the competition from the picture, so much the better. He had a few plans along those lines.

His was not a new idea. It was one he had pondered upon a good deal before he came west to Laird. He had scouted the country with care, and then had trusted the gathering of the men to Sonntag.

Everything had gone exactly as planned. His seeds of suspicion had fallen on fertile soil, and his rustlers had milked the range of over five thousand head of cattle before questions began to be asked. No big bunches had been taken, and he had been careful to leave no bawling cows or calves on the range. The cattle had been shoved down on the open country on the theory that as long as plenty of cattle were in sight, few questions would be asked.

Two things disturbed him now. One of them was the fact that Finn Mahone had proved to be a different type of man than he had believed. He had defeated Leibman easily and thoroughly, and in so doing had become something of a local hero. Moreover, the way he had done it had proved to Logan that he was not any ordinary small-time rancher, to be tricked and deluded. Also, despite himself, he was worried by what Dowd had said.

The unknown is always disturbing. Although he and Dowd had little to do with one another, Texas Dowd had the reputation of being a tough and capable man. The fact that he knew Mahone and had referred to him as dangerous worried Logan. In his foolproof scheme, he might have bagged some game he didn't want.

The second disturbing factor was Texas Dowd himself. Pierce Logan's easy affability, his personality, his money, and his carefully planned influence made no impression on Dowd. Logan knew this, and also knew that Dowd was suspicious of him. He doubted that Dowd had any reason for his suspicion. Yet, any suspicion was a dangerous thing.

Pierce Logan had been careful to see that some of his own cattle were rustled. He had deliberately planned that. It made no difference to him how they were sold; he got a big share of the money in any event, and it paid to avoid suspicion. Also, he had gone easy on the Lazy K, because Texas Dowd was a restless rider, a man forever watching his grazing land, forever noticing cattle. Also, Pierce Logan was pretty sure he would someday own the Lazy K.

Along with his plans for the Laird Valley, two other things were known only to Pierce Logan. One was that he was himself a fast man with a gun, with nine killings behind him. The second was that he could handle his fists.

He had seen Leibman fight before, and had always been quite sure he could whip him, if need be. Until today he had never seen a man he was not positive he could beat. Finn Mahone was a puzzle. Especially as he noted that Finn had never let himself go with Leibman. He had toyed with him, making a fight of it and obviously enjoying himself. Then suddenly, dramatically, he had cut him down.

Pierce Logan made his second decision that night. Earlier, he had decided that Dowd must be killed. That night he decided that his plans for Finn Mahone must be implemented quickly. Mahone must be used and then removed from the scene, thoroughly.

He got up and put on his wide white hat, then strolled out on the boardwalk, pausing to light a cigarette. It was a few minutes after sundown, and almost time to go to supper at Ma Boyle's. His gray eyes shifted, and saw the man dismounting behind the livery stable.

Logan finished his smoke, then stepped down off the porch and walked across to the stable. His own gray nickered when it saw him, and he walked in, putting a hand on the horse's flank. Byrn Sonntag was in the next stall.

Speaking softly, under his breath, Logan said, “Watch when Mahone makes his next shipment. Then get some altered brands into them and let me know as soon as it's done.”

“Sure,” Sonntag said. He passed over a sheaf of bills to Logan. “I already taken my cut,” Sonntag said.

Logan felt a sharp annoyance, but stilled it. “Dowd,” he said, “looks like trouble. Better have one of the boys take care of it.”

Sonntag was quiet for a minute, then he replied, “Yeah, an' it won't be easy. Dowd's hell on wheels with a gun.”

Pierce Logan left the barn and walked slowly down the street. He scowled. It was the first time he had ever heard Sonntag hesitate over anything.

 

Byrn Sonntag was pleased beyond measure when he encountered Mexie Roberts in the Longhorn. He passed him the word, then went on and sat in on a poker game. When the game broke up several hours later he was a winner by some two hundred dollars.

Mexie Roberts joined him on the trail. He was a slight, brown man with a sly face. “You know Texas Dowd?” Sonntag demanded.

“Sí.”
Roberts studied Sonntag.

“Kill him.”

“How much?”

Sonntag hesitated. Then he drew out his winnings. “Two hundred,” he said, “for a clean job … one hundred now.”

CHAPTER 2

The Rimrock that divided the open range of Laird Valley from Mahone's holdings was almost as steep and difficult to scale from the inside. Finn Mahone had often studied the mountains, and knew there was an old, long-unused path that seemed to lead toward the crest. His black stallion was a mountain-bred horse, and he took the trail without hesitation.

The steep mountainside was heavily timbered with pine, mingled with cedar and manzanita. The earth under the trees was buried deep under years and years of pine needles, except where here and there rock cropped out of the earth: the rough granite fingers of the mountain.

Several times he reined in to let the stallion breathe easier, and while resting the horse, he turned in the saddle to study the land around him. Below him, stretched out like something seen in a dream, were the three links in the Crystal Valley chain, and along the bottom the tumbling silver of Crystal Creek.

His stone cabin, built in a cleft of the mountain, was invisible from here, but he could just see the top of the dead pine that towered above the forest to mark the opening into the trail to Rico. It was a trail rarely used except when he drove his cattle to the railroad siding in the desert town.

Rico was as turbulent as Laird was peaceful, and it was a meeting ground of the cattlemen from Laird, the sheep men from the distant Ruby Hills, and the miners who worked a few claims in the Furbelows. Rico had no charms for Finn Mahone, and he avoided the town and the consequences of trouble there.

His occasional visits to Laird had built friendships. He had come to enjoy his contacts with Judge Collins, Doc Finerty, Dean Armstrong, and Otis.

Big, quiet, and slow to make friends, he had bought drinks for and accepted drinks from these men, and had, at the insistence of Otis, gone around to see Lettie Mason. Her house of entertainment was frowned upon by the respectable, but offered all Laird possessed in the way of theater and gambling. Lettie had heard Mahone was in town and sent Otis to bring him to call.

She was a woman of thirty-four who looked several years younger. She had lived in Richmond, New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, and had for eight years of her life been married to a man of old but impoverished family who had turned to gambling as a business.