The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (18 page)

Tandy had not noticed. He dipped up water with a wooden bucket and let some run into the rocker. Then, holding the bucket with one hand, he began to rock vigorously, letting water trickle over the edge of the bucket. The water and the rocking washed the smaller sizes of gravel through the screen into the apron. The abrupt stops at the end of each stroke jarred the gravel against the sides of the rocker.

Putting down the bucket, he mashed up some chunks of clay and mixed them in water, agitating the rocker as he did so. When no more particles came through the screen, he searched the heavier gravel for any nuggets of a size too large to pass through the mesh. Then he dumped the tailings and filled the rocker once more. Sweat darkened his shirt and trickled down his cheeks. Acutely conscious of Janey's presence, he said nothing. He was sure he had grossly offended her, but suddenly she was bending over the apron. “Oh, you've got some color!” she exclaimed. “A lot!”

He swept the particles together and then blew out the lighter grains of sand. It was not, he decided, a bad bit of work.

Several times Em Peters came to the edge of the bank and looked down toward the bench. There was no more talking now. Tandy was working hard and without any breaks. Janey hovered about him excitedly. Once they found a nugget the size of the end of his finger and she danced with excitement.

When he cleaned the riffles and the apron after two hours of work, he had nearly an ounce and a half of gold to put in the leather sack.

It
was
a good claim. No wonder that Richter was bothering around. Trust him to be thinking of the claim as well as Janey. Although, he decided, beginning to show some intelligence about girls, it would be better not to suggest that to her. At sundown, when he walked wearily back up the path to the cabin, he had two ounces of gold.

Em smiled at him. “My! You've worked hard! How did it go? Did Janey bother you?”

“Naw!” he said. “I didn't even know she was there.”

Janey flared. “Oh—oh, you didn't?” She flounced away angrily and began rattling pans.

Tandy stared after her, deeply puzzled. Em put her hand on his shoulder. “That's all right, Tandy,” she said. “Girls are like that.”

“That's right!” Janey called out angrily. “Take his side!” She burst into tears and walked away toward the edge of the woods.

Tandy stared after her helplessly, and then dried his hands and followed. “Look,” he protested. “I didn't—”

“Oh, go away!” She turned half around, not looking at him. “Don't talk to me!”

He looked at the back of her neck where little whorls of hair curled against a whiteness the sun had not reached. He hesitated, tempted to kiss her neck, but the thought made him flush guiltily. Instead, he lifted a tentative hand to her shoulder.

She let it rest there a minute, then jerked her shoulder away. “Don't
touch
me!” she said.

He looked at her, then slowly turned and walked back to the fire where Em smiled kindly and handed him a plate and a cup. He sat down, suddenly conscious of his hunger, and began to eat. He was enjoying the food hugely when he saw Janey come up to the fire, her face streaked with tears. She glared at him. “That's it—
eat
! All you ever think about is
eating
!”

Tandy looked at her in astonishment, his mind filled with protest. Words rose to his lips but were stifled there. He looked at his food, and suddenly his appetite was gone. Disgustedly, he got to his feet. Whoever could figure a girl out, anyway? What was she mad about?

He turned back to Em. “Ma'am,” he said, his eyes showing his misery, “I reckon I'm makin' trouble here. Janey, she's some aggravated with me, so I figure you'd best take this here gold. I'll be walkin' along.”

“She's not really angry,” Em said. “Girls are that way. I expect they always will be. A girl has to fuss a certain amount or she doesn't feel right.”

“I don't know about that,” he said doubtfully. “Sally, she—”

Janey had turned on him. “So that's it! You've got a—a—” Tears rose to her eyes. “You've got a sweetheart!”

“No such thing!” he protested.

“Well.” Her head came up and her eyes flared. “I don't
care
!”

Janey turned away from him, her chin high. He pushed the gold sack into Em Peters's hand and picked up his pack and shotgun and turned away. Em stared after him helplessly, and Janey, hearing his retreating footsteps, turned sharply, pure agony in her eyes. She took an involuntary step after him, then stopped. Tandy Meadows walked into the brush, and they heard him moving away toward the main trail.

Wearily, Em Peters began to scrape the food from the dishes. Neither of them saw Richter until he was close alongside them. “Pulled out, did he? I figured he would.”

Em Peters faced him. “You go away, Carl Richter! I don't want you around here, nor any of your kind!”

Richter laughed. “Don't be a fool!” he said. “I'm stayin'. You'll get used to me.” He looked around. “Janey, you pour me some of that coffee.”

“I'll do no such thing!”

Richter's face turned ugly. With a quick step, he grabbed for her.

“I'd not be doin' that.”

All eyes turned toward Tandy Meadows, who had come silently back through the trees.

Carl Richter stood very still, choking with fury. He had thought the boy was gone. By the—! He'd show him. He wheeled and started for his rifle.

“Go ahead.” Tandy was calm. “You pick that rifle up. That's what I want.”

“I'll kill you!” Richter shouted.

“I reckon not.” Tandy Meadows eared back the Roper's hammer.

Not over fifteen yards separated them. Richter considered that and four loads of buckshot in the cylinder of the boy's shotgun and felt a little sick. He backed off warily from the rifle. “I ain't huntin' no trouble!” he said hoarsely.

“Then you start travelin', mister. I see you along this crick again, an' I'll fill your measly hide with buckshot. You head for Hangtown, you hear me?”

“I got a claim!” Richter protested.

“You get you another one.” Tandy Meadows had come from a country where there were few girls but lots of fights. What he lacked in knowledge of the one he more than made up with the other. “You don't get no second chance. Next time I just start a-shootin'.”

He stood there, watching Richter start down the trail. He felt a hand rest lightly on his sleeve. Janey said nothing at all, watching the dark figure on the evening trail.

“Did”—the voice was low—“did you like Sally … very much?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did … do you like her better than me?”

“Not near so much,” he said.

She moved against him, her head close to his shoulder. Sally was his sister, but he wasn't going to tell Janey that.

He was beginning to learn about women.

Elisha Comes to Red Horse

There is a new church in the town of Red Horse. A clean white church of board and bat with a stained-glass window, a tall pointed steeple, and a bell that we've been told came all the way from Youngstown, Ohio. Nearby is a comfortable parsonage, a two-story house with a garreted roof, and fancy gingerbread under the eaves.

Just down the hill from the church and across from the tailings of what was once the King James Mine is a carefully kept cemetery of white headstones and neatly fitted crosses. It is surrounded by a spiked iron fence six feet high, and the gate is always fastened with a heavy lock. We open it up only for funerals and when the groundskeeper makes his rounds. Outsiders standing at the barred gate may find that a bit odd … but the people of Red Horse wouldn't have it any other way.

Visitors come from as far away as Virginia City to see our church, and on Sundays when we pass the collection, why, quite a few of those strangers ante up with the rest of us. Now Red Horse has seen its times of boom and bust and our history is as rough as any other town in the West, but our new church has certainly become the pride of the county.

And it is all thanks to the man that we called Brother Elisha.

 

He was six feet five inches tall and he came into town a few years ago riding the afternoon stage. He wore a black broadcloth frock coat and carried a small valise. He stepped down from the stage, swept off his tall black hat, spread his arms, and lifted his eyes to the snowcapped ridges beyond the town. When he had won every eye on the street he said, “I come to bring deliverance, and eternal life!”

And then he crossed the street to the hotel, leaving the sound of his magnificent voice echoing against the false-fronted, unpainted buildings of our street.

In our town we've had our share of the odd ones, and many of the finest and best, but this was something new in Red Horse.

“A sky pilot, Marshal.” Ralston spat into the dust. “We got ourselves another durned sky pilot!”

“It's a cinch he's no cattleman,” I said, “and he doesn't size up like a drummer.”

“We've got a sky pilot,” Brace grumbled, “and one preacher ought to balance off six saloons, so we sure don't need another.”

“I say he's a gambler,” Brennen argued. “That was just a grandstand play. Red Horse attracts gamblers like manure attracts flies. First time he gets in a game he'll cold deck you in the most sanctified way you ever did see!”

 

At daybreak the stranger walked up the mountain. Years ago lightning had struck the base of the ridge, and before rain put out the fire it burned its way up the mountain in a wide avenue. Strangely, nothing had ever again grown on that slope. Truth to tell, we'd had some mighty dry years after that, and nothing much had grown anywhere.

The Utes were superstitious about it. They said the lightning had put a curse on the mountain, but we folks in Red Horse put no faith in that. Or not much.

It was almighty steep to the top of that ridge, and every step the stranger took was in plain sight of the town, but he walked out on that spring morning and strode down the street and up the mountain. Those long legs of his took him up like he was walking a graded road, and when he got to the flat rock atop the butte he turned back toward the town and lifted his arms to the heavens.

“He's prayin',” Ralston said, studying him through Brennen's glass. “He's sure enough prayin'!”

“I maintain he's a gambler,” Brennen insisted. “Why can't he do his praying in church like other folks. Ask the reverend and see what he says.”

Right then the reverend came out of the Emporium with a small sack of groceries under his arm, and noting the size of the sack, I felt like ducking into Brennen's Saloon. When prosperity and good weather come to Red Horse, we're inclined to forget our preacher and sort of stave off the doctor bills, too. Only in times of drought or low-grade ore do we attend church regular and support the preacher as we ought.

“What do you make of him, Preacher?” Brace asked.

The reverend squinted his eyes at the tiny figure high upon the hill.

“There are many roads to grace,” he said, “perhaps he has found his.”

“If he's a preacher, why don't he pray in church?” Brennen protested.

“The groves were God's first temples,” the reverend quoted. “There's no need to pray in church. A prayer offered up anywhere is heard by the Lord.”

Ralston went into the hotel, and we followed him in to see what name the man had used. It was written plain as print:
Brother Elisha, Damascus
.

We stood back and looked at each other. We'd never had anybody in Red Horse from Damascus. We'd never had anybody from farther away than Denver except maybe a drummer who claimed he'd been to St. Louis … but we never believed him.

It was nightfall before Brother Elisha came down off the mountain, and he went at once to the hotel. Next day Brace came up to Brennen and me. “You know, I was talking to Sampson. He says he's never even seen Brother Elisha yet.”

“What of it?” Brennen says. “I still say he's a gambler.”

“If he don't eat at Sampson's”—Brace paused for emphasis—“where does he eat?”

We stared at each other. Most of us had our homes and wives to cook for us, some of the others batched it, but stoppers-by or ones who didn't favor their own cooking, they ate at Sampson's. There just wasn't anywhere else to eat.

“There he goes now,” Brennen said, “looking sanctimonious as a dog caught in his own hen coop.”

“Now see here!” Ralston protested. “Don't be talking that way, Brennen. After all, we don't know
who
he might be!”

Brother Elisha passed us by like a pay-car passes a tramp, and turning at the corner he started up the mountain. It was a good two miles up that mountain and the man climbed two thousand feet or more, with no switchbacks or twist-arounds, but he walked right up it. I wouldn't say that was a steep climb, but it wasn't exactly a promenade, either.

Brace scratched his jaw. “Maybe the man's broke,” he suggested. “We can't let a man of God starve right here amongst us. What would the folks in Virginia City say?”

“Who says he's a man of God?” Brennen was always irreverent. “Just because he wears a black suit and goes up a mountain to pray?”

“It won't do,” Brace insisted, “to have it said a preacher starved right here in Red Horse.”

“The reverend,” I suggested, “might offer some pointers on that.”

They ignored me, looking mighty stiff and self-important.

“We could take up a collection,” Ralston suggested.

Brother Elisha had sure stirred up a sight of conversation around town, but nobody knew anything because he hadn't said two words to anybody. The boys at the hotel, who have a way of knowing such things, said he hadn't nothing in his valise but two shirts, some underwear, and a Bible.

That night there was rain. It was soft, pleasant spring rain, the kind we call a growing rain, and it broke a two-year dry spell. Whenever we get a rain like that we know that spring has surely come, for they are warm rains and they melt the snow from the mountains and start the seeds germinating again. The snow gone from the ridges is the first thing we notice after such a rain, but next morning it wasn't only the snow, for something else had happened. Up that long-dead hillside where Brother Elisha walked, there was a faint mist of green, like the first sign of growing grass.

Brace came out, then Ralston and some others, and we stood looking up the mountain. No question about it, the grass was growing where no grass had grown in years. We stared up at it with a kind of awe and wondering.

“It's him!” Brace spoke in a low, shocked voice. “Brother Elisha has done this.”

“Have you gone off your head?” Brennen demanded irritably. “This is just the first good growing weather we've had since the fire. The last few years there's been little rain and that late, and the ground has been cold right into the summer.”

“You believe what you want,” Ralston said. “We know what we can see. The Utes knew that hillside was accursed, but now he's walked on it, the curse is lifted. He said he would bring life, and he has.”

It was all over town. Several times folks tried to get into talk with Brother Elisha, but he merely lifted a hand as if blessing them and went his way. But each time he came down from the mountain, his cheeks were flushed with joy and his eyes were glazed like he'd been looking into the eternity of heaven.

All this time nothing was heard from Reverend Sanderson, so what he thought about Brother Elisha, nobody knew. Here and there we began to hear talk that he was the new Messiah, but nobody seemed to pay much mind to that talk. Only it made a man right uneasy … how was one expected to act toward a Messiah?

In Red Horse we weren't used to distinguished visitors. It was out of the way, back in the hills, off the main roads east and west. Nobody ever came to Red Horse, unless they were coming to Red Horse.

Brennen had stopped talking. One time after he'd said something sarcastic it looked like he might be mobbed, so he kept his mouth shut, and I was just as satisfied, although it didn't seem to me that he'd changed his opinion of Brother Elisha. He always was a stubborn cuss.

Now personally, I didn't cater to this Messiah talk. There was a time or two when I had the sneaking idea that maybe Brennen knew what he was talking about, but I sure enough didn't say it out loud. Most people in Red Horse were kind of proud of Brother Elisha even when he made them uncomfortable. Mostly I'm a man likes a hand of poker now and again, and I'm not shy about a bottle, although not likely to get all liquored up. On the other hand, I rarely miss a Sunday at meeting unless the fishing is awful good, and I contribute. Maybe not as much as I could, but I contribute.

The reverend was an understanding sort of man, but about this here Brother Elisha, I wasn't sure. So I shied away from him on the street, but come Sunday I was in church. Only a half dozen were there. That was the day Brother Elisha held his first meeting.

There must've been three hundred people out there on that green mountainside when Brother Elisha called his flock together. Nobody knew how the word got around, but suddenly everybody was talking about it and most of them went out of curiosity.

By all accounts Brother Elisha turned out to be a Hell-and-damnation preacher with fire and thunder in his voice, and even there in the meeting house while the reverend talked we could hear those mighty tones rolling up against the rock walls of the mountains and sounding in the canyons as Brother Elisha called on the Lord to forgive the sinners on the Great Day coming.

Following Sunday I was in church again, but there was nobody there but old Ansel Greene's widow who mumbled to herself and never knew which side was up … except about money. The old woman had it, but hadn't spent enough to fill a coffee can since old Ansel passed on.

Just the two of us were there, and the reverend looked mighty down in the mouth, but nonetheless he got up in the pulpit and looked down at those rows of empty seats and announced a hymn.

Now I am one of these here folks who don't sing. Usually when hymns are sung I hang on to a hymnal with both hands and shape the words and rock my head to the tune, but I don't let any sound come out. But this time there was no chance of that. It was up to me to sing or get off the spot, and I sang. The surprise came when right behind me a rich baritone rolled out, and when I turned to look, it was Brennen.

Unless you knew Brennen this wouldn't mean much. Once an Orangeman, Brennen was an avowed and argumentative atheist. Nothing he liked better than an argument about the Bible, and he knew more about it than most preachers, but he scoffed at it. Since the reverend had been in town his one great desire had been to get Brennen into church, but Brennen just laughed at him, although like all of us he both liked and respected the reverend.

So here was Brennen, giving voice there back of me, and I doubt if the reverend would have been as pleased had the church been packed. Brennen sang, no nonsense about it, and when the responses were read, he spoke out strong and sure.

At the door the reverend shook hands with him. “It is a pleasure to have you with us, Brother Brennen.”

“It's a pleasure to be here, Reverend,” Brennen said. “I may not always agree with you, Parson, but you're a good man, a very good man. You can expect me next Sunday, sir.”

Walking up the street, Brennen said, “My ideas haven't changed, but Sanderson is a decent man, entitled to a decent attendance at his church, and his congregation should be ashamed. Ashamed, I say!”

Brennen was alone in his saloon next day. Brother Elisha had given an impassioned sermon on the sinfulness of man and the coming of the Great Day, and he scared them all hollow.

You never saw such a changed town. Ralston, who spoke only two languages, American and profane, was suddenly talking like a Baptist minister at a Bible conference and looking so sanctimonious it would fair turn a man's stomach.

Since Brother Elisha started preaching, the two emptiest places in town were the church and the saloon. Nor would I have you thinking wrong of the saloon. In my day in the West, a saloon was a club, a meeting place, a forum, and a source of news all put together. It was the only place men could gather to exchange ideas, do business, or hear the latest news from the outside.

And every day Brother Elisha went up the mountain.

One day when I stopped by the saloon, Brennen was outside watching Brother Elisha through his field glasses.

“Is he prayin'?” I asked.

“You might say. He lifts his arms to the sky, rants around some, then he disappears over the hill. Then he comes back and rants around some more and comes down the hill.”

“I suppose he has to rest,” I said. “Prayin' like that can use up a sight of energy.”