The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (6 page)

Isager pushed himself to his knees, then got up. The beach weaved slowly, sickeningly beneath him. He turned his head stiffly and looked toward Rodelo. The fallen man looked like a bundle of old clothes, but as Isager looked, the bundle moved. Rodelo uncoiled himself and got up. Blood covered his face from a cut on his cheek. He stared at his empty gun, then clumsily began feeding shells into the chambers.

Across the wavering sand the two men stared at each other, then Rodelo laughed hoarsely. “You look like hell!” he said, grinning from his heat-blasted face.

Isager's brain seemed to spin queerly and he blinked. What was the matter with him? A pain bit suddenly at his side, and he clasped the pain with his hand. His fingers felt damp and he drew them away, staring stupidly at the blood dripping from his fingers.

“You copped one,” Rodelo said. “You're hit.”

Isager swayed. Suddenly he knew this was it, right here on this dead-white beach washed by an ugly weedy sea. It was no way for a cowhand to cash in his chips. “Beat it,” he said hoarsely. “There's more coming.”

“How do you know that?”

“That's why they rushed. To get us an' claim the reward. If they'd been alone they would have taken their time.” His knees felt buttery and queer. “There's one good horse. Take the gold an' beat it. I'm done in, so I'll hold them off.”

He went to his knees. “Only …” His voice trailed off and he waited, his eyes begging Rodelo to wait a minute longer, then he managed the words, “get some of that money to Tom Hopkins's wife. He … he was that marshal. Funny thing, funny … Never meant to kill him. He came at me an' it was just reflex … jus' … just drew an' shot.”

“All right,” Rodelo said, and he meant it. He turned and disappeared into the blinding light.

Isager lay down behind the fallen horse. He slid the rifle from its scabbard and waited.

 

Sheriff Bill Garden and two Apache trackers found Isager a few hours later. Gunfire from the advance party of six Yaquis had led them to this desolate beach. The convict was curled up behind a dying horse, surrounded by bright brass shells ejected from his rifle. Two of the Apache horses were gone and only one of the horses ridden by the convicts was alive. He was standing head down on the hillside not far away.

Horse tracks trailed away from the body of Isager, a faint trail toward the bluff to the south. Bill Garden glanced after them. The remaining scouts were still after the last man. He turned and looked down at Isager. “Lord a-mighty,” he said. “What a place to die!”

Far off across the water there was a flash of white, a jib shaken out to catch the wind … a boat had left the fishing beds at Rocky Bay and was beating its way southward toward Guaymas.

Dutchman's Flat

The dust of Dutchman's Flat had settled in a gray film upon their faces, and Neill could see the streaks made by the sweat on their cheeks and brows and knew his own must be the same. No man of them was smiling and they rode with their rifles in their hands, six grim and purposeful men upon the trail of a single rider.

They were men shaped and tempered to the harsh ways of a harsh land, strong in their sense of justice, ruthless in their demand for punishment, relentless in pursuit. From the desert they had carved their homes, and from the desert they drew their courage and their code, and the desert knows no mercy.

“Where's he headin', you reckon?”

“Home, mostly likely. He'll need grub an' a rifle. He's been livin' on the old Sorenson place.”

Kimmel spat. “He's welcome to it. That place starved out four men I know of.” He stared at the hoof tracks ahead. “He's got a good horse.”

“Big buckskin. Reckon we'll catch him, Hardin?”

“Sure. Not this side of his place, though. There ain't no shortcuts we can take to head him off, and he's pointin' for home straight as a horse can travel.”

“Ain't tryin' to cover his trail none.”

“No use tryin'.” Hardin squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun.

“He knows we figure he'll head for his ranch.”

“He's no tenderfoot.” Kesney expressed the thought that had been dawning upon them all in the last two hours. “He knows how to save a horse, an' he knows a trail.”

They rode on in near silence. Hardin scratched his unshaven jaw. The dust lifted from the hooves of the horses as they weaved their way through the catclaw and mesquite. It was a parched and sun-baked land, with only dancing heat waves and the blue distance of the mountains to draw them on. The trail they followed led straight as a man could ride across the country. Only at draws or nests of rocks did it swerve, where they noticed the rider always gave his horse the best of it.

No rider of the desert must see a man to know him, for it is enough to follow his trail. In these things are the ways of a man made plain, his kindness or cruelty, his ignorance or cunning, his strength and his weakness. There are indications that cannot escape a man who has followed trails, and in the two hours since they had ridden out of Freedom the six had already learned much of the man they followed. And they would learn more.

“What started it?”

The words sounded empty and alone in the vast stillness of the basin.

 

Hardin turned his head slightly so the words could drift back. It was the manner of a man who rides much in the wind or rain. He shifted the rifle to his left hand and wiped his sweaty right palm on his coarse pants leg.

“Some loose talk. He was in the Bon Ton buyin' grub an' such. Johnny said somethin' at which he took offense an' they had some words. Johnny was wearin' a gun, but this Lock wasn't, so he gets him a gun an' goes over to the Longhorn.

“He pushes open the door an' shoots Johnny twice through the body. In the back.” Hardin spat. “He fired a third shot, but that missed Johnny and busted a bottle of whiskey.”

There was a moment's silence while they digested this, and then Neill looked up.

“We lynchin' him for the killin' or bustin' the whiskey?”

It was a good question, but drew no reply. The dignity of the five other riders was not to be touched by humor. They were riders on a mission. Neill let his eyes drift over the dusty copper of the desert. He had no liking for the idea of lynching any man, and he did not know the squatter from the Sorenson place. Living there should be punishment enough for any man. Besides—

“Who saw the shooting?” he asked.

“Nobody seen it, actually. Only he never gave Johnny a fair shake. Sam was behind the bar, but he was down to the other end and it happened too fast.”

“What's his name? Somebody call him Lock?” Neill asked. There was something incongruous in lynching a man whose name you did not know. He shifted in the saddle, squinting his eyes toward the distant lakes dancing in the mirage of heat waves.

“What's it matter? Lock, his name is. Chat Lock.”

“Funny name.”

The comment drew no response. The dust was thicker now and Neill pulled his bandanna over his nose and mouth. His eyes were drawn back to the distant blue of the lakes. They were enticingly cool and beautiful, lying across the way ahead and in the basin off to the right. This was the mirage that lured many a man from his trail to pursue the always retreating shoreline of the lake. It looked like water, it really did.

Maybe there was water in the heat waves. Maybe if a man knew how, he could extract it and drink. The thought drew his hand to his canteen, but he took it away without drinking. The slosh water in the canteen was no longer enticing, for it was warm, brackish, and unsatisfying.

“You know him, Kimmel?” Kesney asked. He was a wiry little man, hard as a whipstock, with bits of sharp steel for eyes and brown muscle-corded hands. “I wouldn't know him if I saw him.”

“Sure, I know him. Big feller, strong made, rusty-like hair an' maybe forty year old. Looks plumb salty, too, an' from what I hear he's no friendly sort of man. Squattin' on that Sorenson place looks plumb suspicious, for no man can make him a livin' on that dry-as-a-bone place. No fit place for man nor beast. Ever'body figures no honest man would squat on such a place.”

It seemed a strange thing, to be searching out a man whom none of them really knew. Of course, they had all known Johnny Webb. He was a handsome, popular young man, a daredevil and a hellion, but a very attractive one, and a top hand to boot. They had all known him and had all liked him. Then, one of the things that made them so sure that this had been a wrong killing, even aside from the shots in the back, was the fact that Johnny Webb had been the fastest man in the Spring Valley country. Fast, and a dead shot.

Johnny had worked with all these men, and they were good men—hard men, but good. Kimmel, Hardin, and Kesney had all made something of their ranches, as had the others, only somewhat less so. They had come west when the going was rough, fought Indians and rustlers, and then battled drought, dust, and hot, hard winds. It took a strong man to survive in this country, and they had survived. He, Neill, was the youngest of them all and the newest in the country. He was still looked upon with some reserve. He had been here only five years.

Neill could see the tracks of the buckskin, and it gave him a strange feeling to realize that the man who rode that horse would soon be dead, hanging from a noose in one of those ropes attached to a saddle horn of Hardin or Kimmel. Neill had never killed a man or seen one killed by another man, and the thought made him uncomfortable.

Yet Johnny was gone, and his laughter and his jokes were a thing passed. They had brightened more than one roundup, more than one bitter day of heartbreaking labor on the range. Not that he had been an angel. He had been a proper hand with a gun and could throw one. And in his time he had had his troubles.

“He's walkin' his horse,” Kesney said, “leadin' him.”

“He's a heavy man,” Hardin agreed, “an' he figures to give us a long chase.”

“Gone lame on him maybe,” Kimmel suggested.

“No, that horse isn't limpin'. This Lock is a smart one.”

They had walked out of the ankle-deep dust now and were crossing a parched, dry plain of crusted earth. Hardin reined in suddenly and pointed.

“Look there.” He indicated a couple of flecks on the face of the earth crust where something had spilled. “Water splashed.”

“Careless,” Neill said. “He'll need that water.”

“No,” Kesney said. “He was pourin' water in a cloth to wipe out his horse's nostrils. Bet you a dollar.”

“Sure,” Hardin agreed, “that's it. Horse breathes a lot better. A man runnin' could kill a good horse on this Flat. He knows that.”

 

They rode on, and for almost a half hour no one spoke. Neill frowned at the sun. It had been on his left a few minutes ago, and now they rode straight into it.

“What's he doin'?” Kesney said wonderingly. “This ain't the way to his place!” The trail had turned again, and now the sun was on their right. Then it turned again and was at their backs. Hardin was in the lead, and he drew up and swore wickedly.

They ranged alongside him, and stared down into a draw that cracked the face of the desert alongside the trail they had followed. Below them was a place where a horse had stood, and across the bank something white fluttered from the parched clump of greasewood.

Kesney slid from the saddle and crossed the wash. When he had the slip of white, he stared at it, and then they heard him swear. He walked back and handed it to Hardin. They crowded near.

Neill took the slip from Hardin's fingers after he had read it. It was torn from some sort of book and the words were plain enough, scrawled with a flat rock for a rest.

That was a fair shutin anyways six aint nowhars enuf, go fetch more men. Man on the gray better titen his girth or heel have him a sore-backed hoss.

“Why that …!” Short swore softly. “He was lyin' within fifty yards of us when we come by. Had him a rifle, too. I seen it in a saddle scabbard on that buckskin in town. He could have got one of us, anyway!”

“Two or three most likely,” Kimmel commented. The men stared at the paper and then looked back into the wash. The sand showed a trail, but cattle had walked here, too. It would make the going a little slower.

Neill, his face flushed and his ears red, was tightening his saddle girth. The others avoided his eyes. The insult to him, even if the advice was good, was an insult to them all. Their jaws tightened. The squatter was playing Indian with them, and none of them liked it.

“Fair shootin', yeah!” Sutter exploded. “Right in the back!”

The trail led down the wash now, and it was slower going. The occasional puffs of wind they had left on the desert above were gone and the heat in the bottom of the wash was ovenlike. They rode into it, almost seeming to push their way through flames that seared. Sweat dripped into their eyes until they smarted, and trickled in tiny rivulets through their dust-caked beards, making their faces itch maddeningly.

The wash spilled out into a wide, flat bed of sand left by the rains of bygone years, and the tracks were plainer now. Neill tightened his bandanna and rode on, sodden with heat and weariness. The trail seemed deliberately to lead them into the worst regions, for now he was riding straight toward an alkali lake that loomed ahead.

At the edge of the water, the trail vanished. Lock had ridden right into the lake. They drew up and stared at it, unbelieving.

“He can't cross,” Hardin stated flatly. “That's deep out to the middle. Durned treacherous, too. A horse could get bogged down mighty easy.”

They skirted the lake, taking it carefully, three going one way, and three the other. Finally, glancing back, Neill caught sight of Kesney's uplifted arm.

“They found it,” he said. “Let's go back.” Yet as he rode he was thinking what they all knew. This was a delay, for Lock knew they would have to scout the shores both ways to find his trail, and there would be a delay while the last three rejoined the first. A small thing, but in such a chase it was important.

“Why not ride right on to the ranch?” Short suggested.

“We might,” Hardin speculated. “On the other hand he might fool us an' never go nigh it. Then we could lose him.”

The trail became easier, for now Lock was heading straight into the mountains.

“Where's he goin'?” Kesney demanded irritably. “This don't make sense, nohow!”

There was no reply, the horsemen stretching out in single file, riding up the draw into the mountains. Suddenly Kimmel, who was now in the lead, drew up. Before him a thread of water trickled from the rock and spilled into a basin of stones.

“Huh!” Hardin stared. “I never knowed about this spring afore. Might's well have a drink.” He swung down.

They all got down and Neill rolled a smoke.

“Somebody sure fixed her up nice,” he said. “That wall of stone makin' that basin ain't so old.”

“No, it ain't.”

Short watched them drink and grinned.

“He's a fox, right enough. He's an old ladino, this one. A reg'lar mossy horn. It don't take no time for one man to drink, an' one hoss. But here we got six men an' six horses to drink an' we lose more time.”

“You really think he planned it that way?” Neill was skeptical.

Hardin looked around at him. “Sure. This Lock knows his way around.”

When they were riding on, Neill thought about that. Lock
was
shrewd. He was desert-wise. And he was leading them a chase. If not even Hardin knew of this spring, and he had been twenty years in the Spring Valley country, then Lock must know a good deal about the country. Of course, this range of mountains was singularly desolate, and there was nothing in them to draw a man.

 

So they knew this about their quarry. He was a man wise in the ways of desert and trail, and one who knew the country. Also, Neill reflected, it was probable he had built that basin himself. Nobody lived over this way but Lock, for now it was not far to the Sorenson place.

Now they climbed a single horse trail across the starkly eroded foothills, sprinkled with clumps of Joshua and Spanish bayonet. It was a weird and broken land, where long fingers of black lava stretched down the hills and out into the desert as though clawing toward the alkali lake they had left behind. The trail mounted steadily and a little breeze touched their cheeks. Neill lifted his hand and wiped dust from his brow and it came away in flakes, plastered by sweat.

The trail doubled and changed, now across the rock face of the burnt red sandstone, then into the lava itself, skirting hills where the exposed ledges mounted in layers like a vast cake of many colors. Then the way dipped down, and they wound among huge boulders, smooth as so many waterworn pebbles. Neill sagged in the saddle, for the hours were growing long, and the trail showed no sign of ending.