After that he lay still, eyes closed, too weak to move. After a long time he fought another stone into place, and worked a little further toward the edge. He had now moved nearly two feet, and had the fourth stone in place, hoping they would mistake the stones for his body and not come to look.
Why were they so sure his mother would return now? Were they tricking her into coming back now? What was happening?
Somewhere along the line, he passed out, and when he was conscious again he had a throb of pain in his head, another in his side, and a stiffness and agony in his left leg.
He lay very still. Somehow he had rolled over on his back and was staring up into a starlit sky. The moon was gone. He lay very still, trying to breathe slowly and carefully, fighting by sheer will to get his mind to working.
He had been out cold. Now he was aware again. But how long before his mother came? How much time did he have?
He tried to move his left leg, but it felt heavy and awkward, the muscles refused to respond. Using his right hand he pushed himself up a little and managed to roll over. Now he was within inches of the wash.
After a struggle, he got his hand on another stone and rolled it into line. Slowly then, he eased himself back into the wash and lowered his head to the sand. For a long time he lay there, knowing such weakness as he had never imagined, his head throbbing heavily with a dull, solid pounding. His side seemed wet, and when he touched himself there a spasm of pain went through him.
He looked around for his rifle, but could make out nothing but the deep shadows in the wash and the vague light in the ranch yard, light from the stars overhead.
They should be coming soon, and he must be awake. He must be ready to warn them. He must be ready to shoot.
Over and over he said it in his mind. He lay gasping slowly, heavily. He desperately wanted a drink, and the thought of the
ollas
hanging under the porch was almost more than he could bear. There they were, gallons of cold, clear water.
There was water at the trough near the corral, too, but that was far, far away, beyond the limit of what strength he had left.
Suddenly his eyes were open and he was aware that he had been asleep without remembering even closing his eyes. He listened…somebody in the house was talking.
He could make out none of the words.
He blinked his eyes…why, it wasn’t in the house! It was there! Right in front of him.
His mother was on a horse and someone was beside her. It was Mariana.
Someone was talking.
“He’s dead, and we killed him.” Wooston suddenly stepped from under the overhang. “Look for yourself. He’s there!”
He stepped out another step and pointed at the rocks. Suddenly, as the skies had paled somewhat since he had gone inside, he seemed to see the rocks for the first time.
Unbelieving Wooston took a step forward and Sean grabbed the bank and pulled himself erect. He grabbed a stick and using it for a staff, propped himself up. His gun was in his right hand.
“Not yet, Wooston. I’m not dead yet.”
With an animallike cry, Wooston swung his gun up as Fernandez ran from the house. Sean shot, firing quickly but smoothly.
Wooston wore a white shirt and the target was perfect. Fernandez ran into the open and began firing rapidly. Bullets dusted around Sean but suddenly somebody else was shooting and then another. Sean shot Fernandez and saw the man fall.
Tomas Alexander suddenly appeared in the door, his hands up.
The shooting was over, and all was still.
Sean Mulkerin stood weaving on his feet, staring around him, and then he had two women holding him and crying, and Johnny Mims was riding into the yard with Honeycutt and Campbell.
Chapter 21
S
EAN MULKERIN HAD been in bed three weeks when Andres Machado came to see him.
Mariana opened the door for him, and Machado stepped in. “So?” he said. “You choose this way of escape! Anything to avoid fighting Machado! You go out and get yourself shot by a pack of dogs! Well, so be it. I shall have to wait.”
“Sorry, my friend,” Sean said, smiling a little. “First time I can ever remember keeping any man waiting, but I guess it will have to be.”
Machado walked closer to the bed. “My friend, you are a brave man, a very brave man. I am sorry that my anger would not let me think wisely.
“You were right, of course! Why waste time on a girl who does not love me when so many do? Of course, it is true! I shall stay here awhile, and then I shall go back to Mexico, but I shall miss you, my friend.”
Sean held out his hand. “You’re a tough enemy, amigo, but you’ll make a better friend.”
When he was gone, Sean closed his eyes. He could hear the voices outside, the soft murmur of them, slowly receding as they drew away from the house.
His eyes closed. It was good to rest, and he would have to rest a great deal. He had been hit three times, and he had lost blood.
The curtain stirred. He heard his mother’s voice outside. She was talking again of planting flowers where the stones were…how many times had she planned that?
Michael was coming out. He was back from Monterey. Things were happening and there was talk of a rebellion against Micheltorena.
Suddenly his muscles tensed, then slowly, very slowly they relaxed. His eyes closed. Somebody was in the room with him, somebody who moved very, very softly. He thought something brushed against the bed, he thought someone leaned above him, then a faint click of a stone on stone and a faint shuffling.
Under the blankets his fingers closed around the butt of his Paterson. He waited, but there was no further sound, nothing but a faint, lingering smell of crushed cedar.
Suddenly someone was singing outside, then Mariana came in. She stopped suddenly, and he opened his eyes. His mother was behind her and they were staring with eyes that would not believe.
He lifted himself up and looked.
On the mantle above the fireplace was the missing jar from the cave in the mountains.
The Señora crossed to the mantle and started to pick it up. Then with both hands she lifted it down. It seemed to be heavy…quite heavy.
She looked within. “It’s gold,” she said, her voice trembling a little with surprise. “It’s gold, Sean.”
He lay back and closed his eyes. “Wherever you are…whoever you are…thanks.”
Historical Note
T
HIS IS A fictional story of the Malibu coast and some of the mountains that lie inland.
Shortly after the period of this story the people of California rebelled against Micheltorena and he was expelled from the province. His place was taken by Pio Pico.
Many of the names along the coast
were
given by an unknown people before the coming of the Chumash. Who these people were we do not know.
There were two peoples before the Chumash of whom we know a little: the Oak Grove people, and the Hunting people who followed them. The Chumash seem to have been an intelligent, generally well-built people whose boats show considerable sophistication, and judging by their construction, the Chumash must have been skilled in rough seas and landings through the surf.
Actually the Chumash area extended from Malibu and perhaps Topanga to the vicinity of San Luis Obispo, and inland beyond the Cuyama River, Pine Mountain, and Mt. Pinos.
Presumably the first man to own the Malibu was Jose Bartolome Tapia, a colonist who came north with de Anza in 1775. The grant was made about 1802. In 1848 the Malibu was sold to a young Frenchman, Leon Victor Prudhomme who married a daughter of Tiburcio Tapia.
In 1857, with the title in question, Prudhomme sold the Malibu to an Irishman, Matthew Keller, for ten cents an acre. Thirty-four years later his son sold the place for ten dollars an acre, and the Malibu comprised 13,316 acres. The buyer was Frederick Rindge, who had found his dream home and lived many happy years on the rancho, leaving it to his wife, May Rindge.
The story of her defense of the property against the oncoming tide of highway and subdivision is an epic in itself, too long to be entered into here.
Before the tides of change few things remain the same, and the shores of Malibu are crowded with the homes of motion picture and television stars. Further along there are beaches, motels, restaurants, and cottages.
Behind them are the mountains. Roads now cross these mountains and wind along their flanks, yet isolated spots remain, unchanged in the passing of years. The graves of the earlier peoples have often been looted by the unthinking, destroying any chance of proper dating, and vandals have marred cave paintings left by the Chumash.
When people from Los Angeles “go to the snow” it is often to the vicinity of Pine Mountain, but the hollow where lay the Old One’s cave is as it was, unchanged from one hundred, perhaps one thousand or ten thousand years ago.
Only do not look for the cave. You might find it.
About Louis L’Amour
“I think of myself in the oral tradition—
as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man
in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way
I’d like to be remembered as a storyteller.
A good storyteller.”
I
T IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L’Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family’s frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.
Mr. L’Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L’Amour published his first full-length novel,
Hondo
, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are nearly 270 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.
His hardcover bestsellers include
The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum
(his twelfth-century historical novel),
The Californios, Last of the Breed
, and
The Haunted Mesa
. His memoir,
Education of a Wandering Man
, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L’Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio publishing.
The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L’Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life’s work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.
Louis L’Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L’Amour publishing tradition forward.
Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour
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