The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (34 page)

Almost due west was the canyon through which ran the old Indian trail … maybe five miles.

It was too far. And then he got up without decision and walked away. He walked with his head up, his mind gone off somewhere, walking with a quick, lively step. When he had walked for some distance he fell flat on his face.

A lizard on a rock stared at him, throat throbbing. Something stirred Cavagan's muscles, and he got his hands under him and pushed himself to his knees. Then he got up, weaving a little. It was daylight.

A bee flew past.

He swayed a little, brow puckered, a bee flying straight … hive or water or a hive near water? He took a few hesitant steps in the direction the bee had flown, then stopped. After a bit another droned past and he followed, taking a sight on a clump of ocotillo some distance off. He stumbled and fell, scarcely conscious of it until he arose and stared at his palms, lacerated by the sharp gravel.

When he fell again he lay still for what must have been a considerable time, finally becoming aware of a whistling sound. He pushed himself up, listening. The sound reminded him of a cricket, yet was not a cricket. He listened, puzzled yet alerted for some reason he did not understand.

He moved then, and under a clump of greasewood something stirred. He froze, thinking first of a rattler, although the heat was too great for one to be out unless in a well-shaded position. And then his eye caught a movement, and he knew why the sound had alerted him. It was a tiny red-spotted toad.

Long ago he had learned that the red-spotted toad always lived within the vicinity of water and never got far from it.

Awkwardly he got to his feet and looked carefully around. His eyes could not seem to focus properly, yet down the canyon he glimpsed some galleta grass and walked toward it, coming upon the seep quite suddenly.

Dropping to his knees he scooped water in his palm and drank it. A cold trickle down his throat was painful on the raw flesh. With gentle fingers he put water on his lips, bathed his cheeks and face with it, then drank a little more.

Something inside was crying out that he was safe, but he knew he was not. He drank a little more, then crawled into the shade of a rock and lay on his back and slept.

When he awakened he crawled out and drank more and more, his water-starved body soaking up the moisture. He had found water but had no means of carrying it with him, and the canyon of the seep might well become his tomb, his open tomb.

Cavagan got out the rawhide with which his wrists had been bound and rigged a snare for small game. In placing the snare he found some seeds, which he ate. He drank again, then sat down to think his way forward.

From where he now sat there were two possible routes. Northeast toward the Colorado was Red Butte Spring, but it was at least twenty-five miles away and in the wrong direction.

The twelve miles to Chuckawalla Spring began to loom very large, and leaving the water he had found worried him. The Chuckawalla Mountains were a thin blue line on the northern horizon, and even if he reached them the next spring beyond was Corn Springs, just as far away. Yet the longer he waited the more his strength would be drained by lack of food. He had never known such exhaustion, yet he dare not wait.

On the second morning his snare caught a kangaroo rat, which he broiled over a small fire. When he had eaten he got up abruptly, drank some more, glanced at the notch in the Chuckawallas and started walking.

At the end of an hour he rested, then went on at a slower pace. The heat was increasing. In midafternoon he fell on his face and did not get up.

More than an hour must have passed before he became aware of the intense heat and began to crawl like a blind mole, seeking shade. The plants about him were less than a foot high, and he found nothing, finally losing consciousness.

He awakened, shaking with chill. The moon cast a ghostly radiance over the desert, the clustered canes of the ocotillo looking like the headdresses of gigantic Indians. He got to his feet, aware of a stirring in the night. He waited, listening. A faint click of a hoof on stone and then he saw a desert bighorn sheep walk into the wash and then he heard a faint splash. Rising, he walked down to the wash and heard a scurry of movement as the sheep fled. He almost walked into the spring before he saw it. He drank, then drank again.

Late the next afternoon he killed a chuckawalla with a well-thrown stone. He cooked the big lizard and found the meat tender and appetizing. At dusk he started again, crossing a small saddle to the north side of the mountains. It was twelve miles this time, and it was daybreak before he reached Corn Springs. He recognized it by the clump of palms and mesquite in the wash before reaching the spring, some clumps of
baccharis,
clusters of small twigs rising two to three feet. And then he found the spring itself. After drinking he crawled into the shade and was asleep almost at once.

He opened his eyes, aware of wood smoke. Rolling over quickly, he sat up.

An old man squatted near a kettle at a fire near the spring, and on the slope a couple of burros browsed.

“Looks to me like you've had a time of it,” the old man commented.

“You et anything?”

“Chuckawalla … had a kangaroo rat a couple of days ago.”

The old man nodded. “Et chuck a time or two … ain't as bad as some folks might figger.”

Cavagan accepted a bowl of stew and ate slowly, savoring every bite. Finally, placing the half-empty bowl on the ground he sat back. “Don't suppose a man with a pipe would have a cigarette paper?”

“You started that Mex way of smokin'? Ain't for it, m'self. Give me a pipe ever' time.” The old man handed him his tobacco pouch and dug into his duffle for a rolled up newspaper. “Don't tear the readin' if you can he'p. A body don't find much readin' in the desert and sometimes I read through a newspaper five or six times.”

Cavagan wiped his fingers on his pants and rolled a smoke with trembling fingers. Then he put the cigarette down and ate a few more bites before lighting up.

“Come far?”

“Fifty-five, sixty miles.”

“An' no canteen? You had yourself a time.” The old man said his name was Pearson. He volunteered no more than that. Nor did he ask questions. There were not four white men between the San Jacintos and the Colorado River.

“I've got to get to that hot spring this side of the pass, up there by the San Jacintos,” Cavagan said. “I can get a horse from the Cahuillas.”

The old man stirred his fire and moved the coffeepot closer. “You listen to me you won't go back.”

“You know who I am?”

“Got no idea. Figgered you didn't get where you was by chance. Six years I been prospectin' hereabouts an' I ain't seen nobody but a Chemehuevi or a Cahuilla in this here country. A man would have himself an outfit, gun, knife, canteen. Strikes me somebody left you out here apurpose.”

“If you could let me have a canteen or a water sack. Maybe a knife.”

“How d' you figger to get out of here?”

“West to the Hayfields, then Shaver's Well and the Yuma stage road.”

Pearson studied him out of shrewd old eyes. “You ain't no pilgrim. You made it this far on nerve an' savvy, so mayhap you'll go all the way.”

He tamped his pipe. “Tell you something. You fight shy of them Hayfields. Seen a couple of gents settin' on that water with rifles. A body could figger they was waitin' for somebody.”

The old man helped Cavagan to more stew. He rarely looked directly at Cavagan.

“Are they on the Hayfields or back up the draw?”

Pearson chuckled. “You do know this country. They're on the Hayfields, an' could be they don't know the source of that water. Could be you're figurin' a man might slip around them, get water, and nobody the wiser.”

“If a man had a water sack he might get as far as Hidden Spring.”

The old man looked up sharply. “Hidden Spring? Never heard of it.”

“Southwest of Shaver's … maybe three miles. Better water than Shaver's.”

“You must be Cavagan.”

Cavagan did not reply. He finished the stew, rinsed the bowl, then filled his coffee cup.

“Nobody knows this country like Cavagan. That's what they say. Nobody can ride as far or shoot as straight as Cavagan. They say that, too. They also say Cavagan is dead, left in the
algodones
with his hands tied. Lots of folks set store by Cavagan. Them Californios, they like him.”

Cavagan slept the day away, and the night following. Pearson made no move to leave, but loafed about. Several times he cooked, and he watched Cavagan eat.

Cavagan found him studying some Indian writing. “Can't make head nor tail of it,” Pearson complained. “If them Cahuillas can, they won't say.”

“This was done by the Old Ones,” Cavagan said, “the People Who Went Before. I've followed their trails in the mountains and across the desert.”

“They left trails?”

“A man can go from here to the Cahuilla village at Martinez. The trail follows the canyon back of the village and goes back of Sheep Mountain. There's a branch comes down back of Indian Wells and another goes to the Indian village at the hot spring at the entrance to San Gorgonio Pass. There's a way over the mountains to the coast, too.”

Back beside the fire Cavagan added coffee to what was in the pot, then more water before putting it on the fire. Pearson watched him. “Met a damn fool once who throwed out the grounds … throwed away the mother. Never seen the like. Can't make proper coffee until she's two, three days old.”

He lit his pipe. “A man like you, he might know a lot about water holes. Worth a lot to a man, knowin' things like that.”

“The rock tanks in the Chocolates are dry this year,” Cavagan said,

“but there's a seep in Salvation Pass.” He poked twigs under the coffeepot. “Twenty, twenty-two miles east of Chuckawalla there's a red finger of butte. Maybe a quarter of a mile east of that butte there's a little canyon with a seep of water comin' out of the rock. Good water.”

“Place like that could save a man's life,” Pearson commented. “Good to know things like that.”

“The Cahuillas used the old trails. They know the springs.”

Wind was rustling the dry palm leaves when Cavagan crawled out in the early dawn and stirred the coals to life to make coffee.

Pearson shook out his boots, then put on his hat. When he had his boots on he went to the limb where his pants were hung and shook them out. A scorpion about four inches long dropped from a trouser leg and scampered away.

“Last time it was a sidewinder in my boot. A body better shake out his clothes before he puts 'em on.”

Pearson slipped suspenders over his shoulders. “Figger you'll hit the trail today. If you rustle through that stuff of mine you'll find you a water sack. Crossin' that ol' sea bottom out there, you'll need it.” He hitched his shoulders to settle his suspenders. “Still find shells along that ol' beach.”

“Cahuillas say a ship came in here once, a long time ago.”

“If they say it,” Pearson said, “it did.”

Cavagan filled the bag after rinsing it, then dipped it in water from the spring. Evaporation would keep it cool.

Pearson took a long knife from his gear. “Never catered to that one m'self, but a body never knows when he'll need an extry.”

Cavagan shouldered the sack and thrust the knife into his belt. “Look me up some time,” he said. “Just ask for Cavagan.”

Pearson's back was turned, packing gear, when Cavagan spoke. He let him take a dozen steps, and then said, “You get to Los Angeles, you go to the Calle de los Negros. Ask for Jake. He owes me money an' I expect he might have a pistol. Get whatever you need.”

 

John Sutton sat at dinner at one end of a long table in his ranch house at Calabasas. The dinner had been enhanced by a turkey killed the day before at a
cienaga
a few miles away. He was restless, but there was no reason for it. Almost a month had gone by. His men had returned to the
algodones
but found no trace of Cavagan. Nor had they expected to. He would have died out on the desert somewhere.

Juan Velasquez saw the rider come up the canyon as he loafed near the gate, standing guard. At the gate the rider dismounted and their eyes met in the gathering dusk.
“Buenos noches, señor,”
Juan said. “I had expected you.”

“So?”

“I have an uncle in Sonora, señor. He grows old, and he asks for me.”

“
Adíos,
Juan.”

“Adíos, señor.”

Cavagan walked up the steps and into the house where John Sutton sat at dinner.

To Make a Stand

When the snow began to fall, Hurley was thirty-six hours beyond the last cluster of shacks that might be called a town, and the plain around him stretched flat and empty to the horizon.

The sullen clouds sifted sparse snow over the hard brown earth and the short, dust gray grass. The fall of snow thickened and the horizons were blotted out, and Hurley rode in a white and silent world where he was a man alone.

Had he dared, Hurley might have turned back, but death rode behind him, and Hurley was a frightened man, unaccustomed to violence. He had ridden into town and arrived to see a stranger dismounting from a horse stolen from his ranch only a month before.

Following the man into the saloon, Hurley demanded the return of the horse, and the man reached for his gun. In a panic, Hurley grabbed frantically for his own.

His first shot ripped splinters from the floor and his second struck the thief through the body and within minutes the man was dead.

Clumsily, Hurley reholstered his gun. Shocked by what he had done, he looked blindly around the room like a man suddenly awakened in unfamiliar surroundings. Vaguely, he felt something was expected of him.

“He asked for it,” he said then, striving for that hard, confident tone that would convince them he was a man not to be trifled with. Inside he was quivering with shock, and yet through the startled horror with which he looked upon the man he had killed came the realization that he had actually defended himself successfully in a gun battle. The thought filled him with elation and excitement.

Hurley was not a man accustomed to violence. He carried a gun only because it was the custom, and because in the daily round of activity emergencies might arise with wild steers or half-wild horses when a gun was needed, but he had never dreamed of actually killing a man.

From time to time he heard at the store or the post office some talk of gun battles, but that was in another world than his, and he could remember few of the names he had heard and none of the details.

Hurley had come west from Ohio, where he combined his farming with occasional carpentry work. When he first arrived, he drove a freight team for a season. The one time their wagon train was attacked by Indians the attack broke off before he was able to fire a shot. Leaving the freighting, Hurley had bought a few head of cattle and settled on a small stream with a good spring close by, and true to his Ohio upbringing he put in a crop of corn and a few acres of barley, and planted what was the first vegetable garden in that part of the country. He cut hay in the nearby meadow and stacked it for the winter feeding.

He had wanted no trouble, and expected none. He was a sober, hardworking man who had never lifted a hand in violence in his life.

“He asked for it,” he repeated.

“Nobody's going to argue that.” Pearson was the saloonkeeper, a man Hurley had several times seen but never spoken to. “But what are you going to do about his brothers?”

Pearson looked upon Hurley with cool, measuring eyes that had looked upon many men and assayed their worth. He found nothing special in Hurley, and of the men in the room, he alone had seen Hurley's success had been born of pure panic and unbelievable luck.

The words failed at first to register on Hurley's stunned consciousness, and when they did register he looked around. “Brothers? What brothers?”

“That's Jake Talbot you killed, and Jake has four brothers, all men mighty big-talking about how tough they are. They're just down the street to Reingold's, and they'll be hunting you.”

The momentary elation over his astonishing victory oozed out of him and left Hurley standing empty of all pretense. He looked to Pearson in that moment like a frightened and trapped animal.

“He stole my horse,” Hurley protested. “I can prove it.”

“Nobody asked for proof. You've got two choices, mister. You can dig in for a fight or you can run.”

“I'd better go see the sheriff.”

Pearson looked upon him without pity. A man behind a bar cannot afford to take sides. He was an observer, a spectator, and Pearson was not disposed to be otherwise. He viewed all life with complete detachment except as it affected him, personally.

“The sheriff never leaves Springville,” he said. “Hereabouts, folks settle their own difficulties.”

Hurley walked to the bar and put his hands upon it. Jake Talbot … the Talbot brothers. They had an outfit somewhat closer in to town than his, and it seemed that half the stories of shootings and knifings he had heard of centered around them. He could recall no details, only the names and their association with violence.

Four of them … how could he be expected to fight four men? He was not a brave man and had never pretended to be one. Fear washed over him and turned his stomach sick. Turning swiftly, he went outside and stood staring down the hundred yards of dusty street into the open prairie. Against the four Talbots he would have no chance. He had worked hard since coming here, but had no friends to go to for help or advice.

If they did not find him in town, they would come at once to his ranch and murder him there. Mounting, Hurley rode west, away from town and away from his ranch.

That had been thirty-six hours ago, and now the snow was falling. Thirty of those hours had been in the saddle, and although the bay gelding was an excellent horse the long miles had sapped his strength and the need for rest was desperate.

Hurley got down from the saddle and looped the reins about his arm as he walked. However little he knew about guns and fighting, he knew a great deal about the weather, and he knew his situation was dangerous. At this time of year such a storm as this might be over within hours, and a bright sun might wipe away the snow as if by a gesture. However, such a storm might last for two or three days and the resulting snow remain for weeks.

Until now his mind had been a blank, with no thought but to escape, to get away from the danger of tearing, ripping bullets that would spill his life's blood on the ground—and for what?

Hurley had looked upon the dead face of Talbot and had seen himself lying there, knowing better than most how narrow had been the margin. That he had scored with his second shot had been luck of purest variety, for it had been aimed no more than the first.

The snow fell steadily. The trail he followed was no longer visible, but he could feel the frozen ruts with his feet. It was not a narrow trail, but one a hundred yards or more wide where wagons had cut deep ruts into the prairie sod, yet once away from the road the wagons had traveled, the prairie became flat and smooth. The difference he could tell with his feet … until the snow became too deep.

Night offered no warning of its coming, for in this white, swirling world of snow there were no advancing shadows, no retreating light, not even, it seemed, a visible darkening. Only suddenly the night was around them and upon them.

A faint stir of wind sent a chill through Hurley. If the wind started now there would be a blizzard, and dressed as he was even his slim chance of survival would be lost. He had never been farther west than the town, and rarely in town in the short time he had been located on the ranch. From overheard conversations in the stores and the livery stable, Hurley knew there was nothing in the direction he was going for several days of riding.

Finally, he stumbled and stumbled again. Wearily, he turned to the horse and, brushing off the saddle, he mounted again. There was no longer any use in trying to follow the trail through the snow for it had become too deep, so he simply gave the gelding its head.

It might have been an hour or even two hours later when the gelding stopped abruptly and awakened him from a doze. He peered through the still falling snow, and at first he saw nothing, but then a gate, and some distance beyond it, a cluster of buildings. Actually, they were not buildings, but merely roofs indicating the sod houses below them.

As he got down from the saddle, his legs were so stiff he almost fell, but he managed to fumble the gate open and get his horse inside, and to fumble the gate shut again. He had farmed and ranched long enough to instinctively close all gates behind him.

The house was built into the side of a low hill where drainage was good, and the door he faced was strongly built. There were two windows, both frosted over, but behind them was a faint glow of light. Hurley lifted his fist and dropped it against the door.

The floor creaked inside and then the door opened, and a tall old man held a rifle in his hand. There was an oil lamp on the table, its wick turned low.

“Can you put me up? I'm lost.”

The old man's eyes were cold and measuring. “Can't turn a man away in a storm. Go put your horse up.”

The door closed in his face, and Hurley turned away, blinking. There was a dug-out and sod-faced barn not far away and he went to it, kicked back the snow, and forced the door open. It cracked loudly, complaining against the rust and frost in its hinges, and he led the gelding inside and fumbled to light the lantern.

It was a snug barn. The farmer in him appreciated its warmth, the solid construction of the stalls, the strongly made feed bin, and the mangers. He tied the gelding, stripped off saddle and bridle, and then with a handful of hay he wiped the snow and damp from the horse. After he had filled the manger with hay and put a little corn in the feed box, Hurley went to the house.

The single room was square and well built. The plank floor was an unusual feature in a soddy, and it was fitted well. Clothing hung on a row of pegs in the wall, and against the end wall there were four bunks in two tiers, but only one held bedding. There was a glowing kitchen range, and on top of it a teakettle.

The old man was very tall, his wide, thin shoulders slightly stooped, his face deeply lined under the high cheekbones. The furrows in his cheeks seemed to make him look even more grim and determined. He had started to warm some food.

“No weather to travel.” Hurley cupped the coffee the old man offered him in his two hands. “Unexpected storm.”

“That's fool talk. This time of year a body can expect any kind of weather.”

Hurley pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. The chair sat even on the floor, as did the table; both were well made. There was no arguing with the man's comment, for Hurley knew it to be true. “My name is Hurley,” he said.

The old man filled his own cup and glanced over the rim at Hurley. “I'm Benton,” he said. “What are you runnin' from?”

Hurley stiffened, half angry. He started to protest, but Benton ignored him.

“No man would be caught this far from the settlements without an outfit unless he was runnin' from something, or somebody.”

Hurley did not reply. He accepted the offered stew sullenly. He did not like the implication that he was running away.

“I shot a man back there.” He tried to make it sound bigger than it was. He wanted to impress this old man, to get under his hide.

“If he's dead, there's no use to run. If he ain't dead, you better improve your shootin'.”

“He was a Talbot … with four brothers.”

“I know those Talbots,” Benton replied. “They're a pack of coyotes.”

They ate in silence for several minutes. Hurley stared glumly at his coffee. Benton made it sound petty, like nothing at all. Hurley's killing had made no impression, and the Talbots obviously did not impress him.

“Did you leave anything back there?”

“Yes,” Hurley admitted, “I left a good ranch, and a good crop of corn standing, and oats growing. A few head of cattle.”

“Where you runnin' to?”

“I never gave it much thought,” Hurley admitted. “There were four of them, all rated tough men.”

“Were you runnin' when you came out here, too?”

Hurley put down his knife and fork. “Now, see here—!”

Benton never looked up. “A man starts runnin', he doesn't stop. If you run once, you'll run again. Probably you never had as much in your life as you left back there, but you cut out and ran. All right … something else happens, you'll run again.”

Hurley's features flushed with anger. Who did this old fool think he was? If it hadn't been for the storm he would have taken his horse and ridden on. “There were four of them,” he repeated.

“You said that before, and it don't cut no ice. You didn't even meet up with them. Take it from me, you get four men together and one of them has to take the lead, and nobody wants to be that one. I'd rather face four men anytime than one real tough man.”

“Easy to talk.”

Benton went to the stove for the coffeepot. “You get yourself a shotgun. You go back there and you walk right in on them. You don't give them any chance to talk, you just tell them if they want trouble they've got it and to cut loose their wolf. They'll back down so fast it will make your head swim.”

“And if they don't?”

“Then shoot 'em.”

Hurley snorted contemptuously. This old man living out here like a hermit … what did he know?

“A man who won't fight for what's his ain't much account,” Benton said. “You take it from me.”

Hurley started to rise from the table. He was mad clear through.

Benton looked up, his hard eyes level and cold. “You set down, Mr. Hurley. Just set down. I ain't about to be scared of no man who can be run clean out of the country by a passel of tinhorns.” The old man grinned sardonically. “Anyway, you ain't about to leave a fireside for that storm out there.”

Hurley sat down helpless and angry. Benton gathered the dishes and carried them to the sink, then, pouring water into a dishpan from the teakettle, he began washing the dishes.

The warmth of the room, combined with his weariness, made Hurley nod. His head bobbed several times but he struggled to keep his eyes open. It was comfortable to relax after his long battle against the storm, and outside the sod house he could hear the wind blowing, enough to remind him that had he not found shelter he would have been dead by morning.