The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (12 page)

The Skull and the Arrow

Heavy clouds hung above the iron-colored peaks, and lancets of lightning flashed and probed. Thunder rolled like a distant avalanche in the mountain valleys.… The man on the rocky slope was alone.

He stumbled, staggering beneath the driving rain, his face hammered and raw. Upon his skull a wound gaped wide, upon his cheek the white bone showed through. It was the end. He was finished, and so were they all … they were through.

Far-off pines made a dark etching along the skyline, and that horizon marked a crossing. Beyond it was security, a life outside the reach of his enemies, who now believed him dead. Yet, in this storm, he knew he could go no farther. Hail laid a volley of musketry against the rock where he leaned, so he started on, falling at times.

He had never been a man to quit, but now he had. They had beaten him, not man to man but a dozen to one. With fists and clubs and gun barrels they had beaten him … and now he was through. Yes, he would quit. They had taught him how to quit.

The clouds hung like dark, blowing tapestries in the gaps of the hills. The man went on until he saw the dark opening of a cave. He turned to it for shelter then, as men have always done. Though there are tents and wickiups, halls and palaces, in his direst need man always returns to the cave.

He was out of the rain but it was cold within. Shivering, he gathered sticks and some blown leaves. Among the rags of his wet and muddy clothing, he found a match, and from the match, a flame. The leaves caught, the blaze stretched tentative, exploring fingers and found food to its liking.

He added fuel; the fire took hold, crackled, and gave off heat. The man moved closer, feeling the warmth upon his hands, his body. Firelight played shadow games upon the blackened walls where the smoke from many fires had etched their memories … for how many generations of men?

This time he was finished. There was no use going back. His enemies were sure he was dead, and his friends would accept it as true. So he was free. He had done his best, so now a little rest, a little healing, and then over the pine-clad ridge and into the sunlight. Yet in freedom there is not always contentment.

He found fuel again, and came upon a piece of ancient pottery. Dipping water from a pool, he rinsed the pot, then filled it and brought it back to heat. He squeezed rain from the folds of his garments, then huddled between the fire and the cave wall, holding tight against the cold.

There was no end to the rain … gusts of wind whipped at the cave mouth and dimmed the fire. It was insanity to think of returning. He had been beaten beyond limit. When he was down they had taken turns kicking him. They had broken ribs … he could feel them under the cold, a raw pain in his side.

Long after he had lain inert and helpless, they had bruised and battered and worried at him. Yet he was a tough man, and he could not even find the relief of unconsciousness. He felt every blow, every kick. When they were tired from beating him, they went away.

He had not moved for hours, and only the coming of night and the rain revived him. He moved, agony in every muscle, anguish in his side, a mighty throbbing inside his skull, but somehow he managed distance. He crawled, walked, staggered, fell. He fainted, then revived, lay for a time mouth open to the rain, eyes blank and empty.

By now his friends believed him dead.… Well, he was not dead, buthe was not going back. After all, it was their fight, had always been their fight. Each of them fought for a home, perhaps for a wife, children, parents. He had fought for a principle, and because it was his nature to fight.

With the hot water he bathed his head and face, eased the pain of his bruises, washed the blood from his hair, bathed possible poison from his cuts. He felt better then, and the cave grew warmer. He leaned against the wall and relaxed. Peace came to his muscles. After a while he heated more water and drank some of it.

Lightning revealed the frayed trees outside the cave, revealed the gray rain before the cave mouth. He would need more fuel. He got up and rummaged in the farther darkness of the cave. He found more sticks and carried them back to his fire. And then he found the skull.

He believed its whiteness to be a stick, imbedded as it was in the sandy floor. He tugged to get it loose, becoming more curious as its enormous size became obvious. It was the skull of a gigantic bear, without doubt from prehistoric times. From the size of the skull, the creature must have weighed well over a ton.

Crouching by the firelight he examined it. Wedged in an eye socket was a bit of flint. He broke it free, needing all his strength. It was a finely chipped arrowhead.

The arrow could not have killed the bear. Blinded him, yes, enraged him, but not killed him. Yet the bear had been killed. Probably by a blow from a stone ax, for there was a crack in the skull, and at another place, a spot near the ear where the bone was crushed.

Using a bit of stick he dug around, finding more bones. One was a shattered foreleg of the monster, the bone fractured by a blow. And then he found the head of a stone ax. But nowhere did he find the bones of the man.

Despite the throbbing in his skull and the raw pain in his side, he was excited. Within the cave, thousands of years ago, a lone man fought a battle to the death against impossible odds … and won.

Fought for what? Surely there was easier game? And with the bear half blinded the man could have escaped, for the cave mouth was wide. In the whirling fury of the fight there must have been opportunities. Yet he had not fled. He had fought on against the overwhelming strength of the wounded beast, pitting against it only his lesser strength, his primitive weapons, and his man-cunning.

Venturing outside the cave for more fuel, he dragged a log within, although the effort made him gasp with agony. He drew the log along the back edge of his fire so that it was at once fuel and reflector of heat.

Burrowing a little in the now warm sand of the cave floor, he was soon asleep.

 

For three weeks he lived in the cave, finding berries and nuts, snaring small game, always conscious of the presence of the pine-clad ridge, yet also aware of the skull and the arrowhead. In all that time he saw no man, either near or far … there was, then, no search for him.

Finally it was time to move. Now he could go over the ridge to safety. Much of his natural strength had returned; he felt better. It was a relief to know that his fight was over.

 

At noon of the following day he stood in the middle of a heat-baked street and faced his enemies again. Behind him were silent ranks of simple men.

“We've come back,” he said quietly. “We're going to stay. You had me beaten a few weeks ago. You may beat us today, but some of you will die. And we'll be back. We'll always be back.”

There was silence in the dusty street, and then the line before them wavered, and from behind it a man was walking away, and then another, and their leader looked at him and said, “You're insane. Completely insane!” And then he, too, turned away and the street before them was empty.

And the quiet men stood in the street with the light of victory in their eyes, and the man with the battered face tossed something and caught it again, something that gleamed for a moment in the sun.

“What was that?” someone asked.

“An arrowhead,” the man said. “Only an arrowhead.”

End of the Drive

We came up the trail from Texas in the spring of '74, and bedded our herd on the short grass beyond the railroad. We cleaned our guns and washed our necks and dusted our hats for town; we rode fifteen strong to the hitching rail, and fifteen strong to the bar.

We were the Rocking K from the rough country back of the Nueces, up the trail with three thousand head of longhorn steers, the first that spring, although the rivers ran bank full and Comanches rode the war trail.

We buried two hands south of the Red, and two on the plains of the Nation, and a fifth died on Kansas grass, his flesh churned under a thousand hoofs. Four men gone before Indian rifles, but the death-songs of the Comanches were sung in the light of a hollow moon, and the Kiowa mourned in their lodges for warriors lost to the men of the Rocking K.

We were the riders who drove the beef, fighting dust, hail, and lightning, meeting stampedes and Kiowa. And we who drove the herd and fought our nameless, unrecorded battles often rode to our deaths without glory, nor with any memory to leave behind us.

The town was ten buildings long on the north side of the street, and seven long on the south, with stock corrals to the east of town and Boot Hill on the west, and an edging of Hell between.

Back of the street on the south of town were the shacks of the girls who waited for the trail herds, and north of the street were the homes of the businessmen and merchants, where no trail driver was permitted to go.

We were lean and hard young riders, only a few of us nearing thirty, most of us nearer to twenty. We were money to the girls of the line, and whiskey to the tenders of bars, but to the merchants we were lean, brown young savages whose brief assaults on their towns were tolerated for the money we brought.

That was the year I was twenty-four, and only the cook was an older man, yet it was my fifth trip up the trail and I'd seen this town once before, and others before that. And there were a couple I'd seen die, leaving their brief scars on the prairie that new grass would soon erase.

I'd left no love in Texas, but a man at twenty-four is as much a man as he will be, and a girl was what I wanted. A girl to rear strong sons on the high plains of Texas, a girl to ride beside me in the summer twilight, to share the moon with me, and the high stars over the caprock country.

For I had found a ranch, filed my claims, and put my brand on steers, and this drive was my last for another man, the last at a foreman's wages. When I rode my horse up to the rail that day, I saw the girl I dreamed about … the girl I wanted.

She stood on the walk outside the store and she lifted a hand to shade her eyes, her hair blowing light in the wind, and her figure was long and slim and the sun caught red lights in her hair. Her eyes caught mine as I rode tall in the leather, the first man to come up the street.

She looked grave and straight and honestly at me, and it seemed no other girl had ever looked so far into my heart. At twenty-four the smile of a woman is a glory to the blood and a spark to the spirit, and carries a richer wine than any sold over a bar in any frontier saloon.

I'd had no shave for days, and the dust of the trail lay on my clothes, and sour I was with the need of bathing and washing. When I swung from my saddle, a tall, lonely man in a dusty black hat with spurs to my heels, she stood where I had seen her and turned slowly away and walked into the store.

 

We went to the bar and I had a drink, but the thing was turning over within me and thinking of the girl left no rest for me. She was all I could think about and all I could talk about that afternoon.

So when I turned from the bar Red Mike put a hand to my sleeve. “It's trouble you're headed for, Tom Gavagan,” he said. “It's been months since you've seen a girl. She's a bonny lass, but you know the rule here. No trail hand can walk north of the street, nor bother any of the citizens.”

“I'm not one to be breakin' the law, Mike, but it is a poor man who will stop shy of his destiny.”

“This is John Blake's town,” he said.

The name had a sound of its own, for John Blake was known wherever the trails ran; wherever they came from and where they ended. He was a hard man accustomed to dealing with hard men, and when he spoke his voice was law. He was a square, powerful man, with a name for fair dealing, but a man who backed his words with a gun.

“It is a time for courting,” I said, “although I want trouble with no man. And least of all John Blake.”

When I turned to the door I heard Red Mike behind me. “No more drinking this day,” he said. “We've a man to stand behind.”

 

When the door creaked on its spring a man looked around from his buying, and the keeper of the store looked up, but the girl stood straight and tall where she was, and did not turn. For she knew the sound of my heels on the board floor, and the jingle of my Spanish spurs.

“I am selling the herd this night,” I said, when I came to stand beside her, “and I shall be riding south with the morning sun. I hope not to ride alone.”

She looked at me with straight, measuring eyes. “You are a forward man, Tom Gavagan. You do not know me.”

“I know you,” I said, “and know what my heart tells me, and I know that if you do not ride with me when I return to Texas, I shall ride with sorrow.”

“I saw you when you rode into town last year,” she said, “but you did not see me.”

“Had I seen you I could not have ridden away. I am a poor hand for courting, knowing little but horses, cattle, and grass, and I have learned nothing that I can say to a girl. I only know that when I saw you there upon the walk it seemed my life would begin and end with you, and there would be no happiness until you rode beside me.”

“You are doing well enough with your talk, Tom Gavagan, and it is a fine thing that you do it no better or you'd be turning some poor girl's head.”

She put her money on the counter and met the glance of the storekeeper without embarrassment, and then she turned and looked at me in that straight way she had and said, “My uncle is Aaron McDonald, and he looks with no favor upon Texas men.”

“It is my wish to call on you this night,” I said, “and the choice of whether I come or not belongs to you and no one else.”

“The house stands among the cottonwoods at the street's far end.” Then she added, “Come if you will … but it is north of the street.”

“You can expect me,” I replied.

And turning upon my heel I walked from the store and heard the storekeeper say, “He is a Texas man, Miss June, and you know about the ordinance as well as anyone!”

Once more in the sunshine I felt a strength within me that was beyond any I had ever known, and an exhilaration. Lined along the street were fourteen riders. They loitered at the street corners and relaxed on the benches on the walk in front of the barber shop. A group of them waited for me before the saloon. They were my army, battle tested and true. With them I could take on this town or any other.

Then I saw John Blake.

He wore a black frock coat and a wide-brimmed black planter's hat. His guns were out of sight, but they were there, I had no doubt.

“Your men aren't drinking?” he commented.

“No.”

“Red Mike,” Blake said. “I remember him well from Abilene, and Tod Mulloy, Rule Carson, and Delgado. You came ready for trouble, Gavagan.”

“The Comanches were riding, and the Kiowa.”

“And now?”

“I will be going north of the street tonight, John, but not for trouble. I was invited.”

“You know the rule here.” He looked at me carefully from his hooded eyes. “It cannot be.”

“There are other ways to look, John, and I am not a trouble-hunting man.”

“The people who live here have passed an ordinance. This is their town and I am charged with enforcing their laws.” He stated this flatly, and then he walked away, and I stood there with a lightness inside me and an awareness of trouble to come.

 

The cattle were checked and sold to Bob Wells. We rode together to the bank and when we went in John Blake stood square on his two feet, watching.

McDonald was a narrow man, high-shouldered and thin, dry as dust and fleshless. He looked at me and gave a brief nod and counted over the money for the cattle, which was my employer's money, and none of it mine but wages.

He watched me put the gold and greenbacks in a sack and he said, “Your business here is finished?”

“I've some calls to make.”

“You are welcome,” he said, “south of the street.”

“Tonight I shall come to call on your niece. She has invited me.”

“You must be mistaken.” He was a cold man with his heart in his ledgers and his dollars. “You are welcome here to do whatever business you have, and beyond that you are not welcome.”

“I am not a drunk, wandering the streets and looking for trouble. I am one who has been entrusted with these two thousand cattle and now, like you, with this money. But, unlike you, I will carry this payment across many dangerous miles back to Texas. My honesty and character are not in question there.”

“Mr. McDonald,” Wells protested, “this is a good man. I know this man.”

“We put up with your kind,” McDonald said, “south of the street.”

I could see my attempt had been wasted on him. The issue was not character but class. McDonald had decided to put himself above me and there was no chance he'd be seeing it differently.

“Five times I have come over the trail,” I told him, “and I have seen towns die. Markets and conditions change, and neither of us has been in this country long enough to be putting on airs.”

“Young man, let me repeat. South of the street you and your kind are welcome, north of it you become a subject for John Blake. As for this town … I am the mayor and it will not die.”

“I have spoken with Mr. Blake. He is aware of my plans.” I glanced over at the marshal and deep in his eyes something glinted, but whether it was a challenge or amusement I couldn't be sure. “I know him, Mr. McDonald,” I said, “and he knows me.”

 

Rocking K men were in the saloons that night, and Rocking K men were south of the street, but I sat at the campfire near the chuck wagon and Red Mike joined me there.

“If you'll be riding, I'll saddle your horse.”

“Saddle two, then.”

“Ah? It's like that, is it?”

“A man must find out, Mike, one never knows. If she's the girl I want, she will ride with me tonight.”

We were young then, and the West was young, with the land broad and bright before us. We knew, whatever the truth was, that every horse could be ridden, every man whipped, every girl loved. We rode with the wind then, and sang in the rain, and when we fought it was with the same savage joy as that of the Comanches who opposed us, these fierce, proud warriors who would ride half a thousand miles to fight a battle or raid a wagon train. And no Bruce ever rode from the Highlands with a finer lot of fighting men than rode this day with the Rocking K.

“And John Blake?”

“Stay out of it, Mike, and keep others out. John Blake is a stubborn man, and if we go against him there will be killing in the town. This is a personal matter and does not concern the brand.”

With a mirror nailed to the chuck wagon's side I shaved and combed my hair and made myself ready for courting. It was much to expect of any girl, to ride to Texas with a man she did not know, and yet in those days when men constantly moved such things happened. There were few men from whom to choose in those wild small towns, and the best were often moving and had to be taken on the fly. And to me this was the girl and now was the time.

There was John Blake to consider, a man seasoned in the wars of men and cattle, who knew all the dodges and all the tricks, and whatever a man might invent he had known before. Each herd had a man who wished to prove himself against a trail town marshal, never grasping the difference between the skilled amateur and the hardened professional. John Blake looked upon men with vast patience, vast understanding, and used a gun only when necessary, but when he used it he used it coldly, efficiently, and deliberately.

In a black broadcloth suit with my hat brim down, I rode up the middle of the street with the reins in my left hand, my right resting on my thigh near my gun.

Tonight I was more than a Texas man a-courting, I was a challenge to the rule of John Blake, and it was something I had no liking for. No man from the Texas trails had been north of the street since he had been marshal, and it was assumed that no man would.

Outside the town a Rocking K rider dozed on the ground near his horse, and grazing close by was another horse, saddled and bridled for travel.

John Blake was not in sight, but when I passed the livery stable Tod Mulloy was seated under the light, minding his own business, and on the edge of the walk near the eating house Rule Carson smoked a cigar. Inside, over coffee, were Delgado and Enright. They would not interfere, but would be on hand if needed. Nor did I doubt that the rest of them were scattered about town, just waiting for my call.

At the end of the street when I turned north John Blake was awaiting me. And I drew up.

“I'd hoped it would not come to this, John, but a man must go a-courting. He must go where his heart would take him, and I think in my place, you would go, no matter what.”

He considered that, a square black block of a man looking as solid as rock and as immovable. “It might be,” he agreed, after a moment, “but is it courting you are about, or is this a Texas challenge to me?”

“I wouldn't go risking the lady's reputation by asking her to sneak away and meet me after dark. This is no challenge.”

He nodded. “If it was,” he replied, “I'd stop you, for kill or be killed is my job when it comes to an issue, but I'd stop no decent man from courting … although if I were giving advice about the woman in question—”