The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six (77 page)

Rolling dangerously near the cliff edge, Shannon scrambled as the man dove for him. Shannon slashed out with the pistol barrel, but caught a staggering blow and lost his grip on his gun. He swung a left and it sank into the man’s stomach. He heard the breath go out of him, and then Shannon lunged forward, knocking the other man back into an upthrust ledge of rock.

They struggled there, fighting desperately, for the other man was powerful, and had the added urgency of fear to drive him. All he had gambled for was lost if he could not win now, and he was fighting not only for money, but for life.

A blow staggered Shannon, but he felt his right crash home, took a wicked left without backing, and threw two hard hooks to the head. He could taste blood now, and with a grunt of eagerness, he shifted his feet and went in closer, his shoulders weaving. His punches were landing now, and the fellow didn’t like them, not even a little. This was a rougher game than the other man was used to, but Shannon, who had always loved a rough-and-tumble fight, went into him, smashing punches—until the man collapsed.

It was pitch dark even atop the mountain, and Shannon was taking no chances that the man was playing possum. When he felt the man go slack under his punches, he thrust out his left hand making a crotch of his thumb and fingers and jammed it under the fellow’s chin, jerking him erect. Then he hooked his right into his midsection again and again. This time when he let go, he wasn’t worried.

Swiftly, in a move natural to every policeman, he rolled the fellow on his face and handcuffed his hands behind his back. Then, at last, his breath coming in painful gasps, sweat streaming from him, he straightened.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said quietly. “You can come back out.”

Her voice was strained. “I—I can’t. I’m afraid to let go. I—”

Quickly, he went to the cliff edge, then worked his way around. Only the balls of her feet were on a narrow ledge, and her fingers clutched precariously at another. Obviously, she had clung so long that her fingers were stiffened. He moved closer, put his left arm around her waist, and drew her to him.

Carefully, then, he eased himself back until they stood on the flat rocks, and suddenly she seemed to let go and he felt her body loosen against him, all the tension going out of her. He held her until she stopped crying.

“Better sit down right here,” he said quietly then. “We won’t try the path for a little while, not until you feel better. I’ve got to take him down, too.”

“But who—who are you?” she protested. “I don’t know you, do I?”

“No, Miss Lane.” He heard her gasp at the name. “You don’t. But I know all about you. I’m a private detective.”

He told her, slowly and carefully, about Jim Buckle and his will, about the search for her, about Hugh Potifer, Stukie Tomlin, and Amy Bernard. From a long way off a siren approached, red lights flashed against the rocks. He’d worry about the sheriffs in good time….

“Now,” he said, “you tell me, and then we’ll get this straight, once and for all.”

“I can’t!” There was panic in her voice. “I—I don’t know…”

“Take it easy,” he said sympathetically, “and let’s go back to the day you met that chap Brule. It was him, wasn’t it?”

He saw her nod. The moon was coming up now, and the valley off to the right and the canyon below them would soon be bathed in the pale gold beauty of a desert night. The great shoulders of rock became blacker, and the face of the man, who lay on the rocks, whiter.

“After I met him, only a few days after, I was painting. I was on an old oil dock—where there was one of those offshore wells, you know? He came along in a motorboat and wanted me to come for a ride, offered to drop me back at Santa Monica. I had come up on the bus, so I agreed.

“We started back, but he kept going farther and farther out. I—I was a little worried, but he said there were some sandbars closer. Then he stopped the boat and said something about a lunch. He told me it was under a seat. I stooped to get it, and something struck me. That was the last I remembered. The last, except—well, I felt the water around me. I remember then that when he struck me I fell over the side and went down.”

“Nothing more—until when?”

“It was”—she hesitated—“days later. I was on a bus, and—”

“Wait a minute,” he said quietly. “Before that. You remember Sam Wachler?”

Her gasp was sheer agony, and he took her hand. She tried to draw it away, but he held it firmly.

“Let’s straighten this all out at once, shall we?” he insisted. “There’s a bunch of people down below who are going to want to know what’s been going on. So, no secrets anymore. And let me promise you. You have nothing to be worried about, frightened of, or ashamed of.”

“You—you’re sure?” she pleaded.

“Uh-huh,” he said carefully, “I’ve followed your every footstep for the last year; I would know. But I’ve an idea that Wachler told you something, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “Both of them. It was—that second day. I was beginning to remember, but was all—all sort of hazy about it. I saw the calendar, and it didn’t make sense to me until later. They told me that I’d killed a man, that they were my friends, and they had brought me away to safety, and that if I did as they told me to, they would keep my secret.”

“You didn’t believe them?”

“Not really, but they showed me blood on my clothes. Afterwards, I thought it was from my cut head, but I couldn’t be sure. So I ran away. I stole a dress, and they had taken my watch off, but I stole it back. I pawned that and bought a ticket out of the state.

“I didn’t know where to go, but this place was in Arizona, and Jim Buckle had owned it, so I came here. They traced me somehow, and I had to—I sent them money. It was all very hazy. They sent me some clippings about a man found dead, and I didn’t know what the truth was, and couldn’t imagine why that Brett Brule had struck me like that, so I was really scared they were right.”

An ambulance arrived, adding to the flashing lights in the canyon. Questioning voices drifted up to them.

He stood up. “Let’s go down below. Better to go to them before they come to us.” Catching the bound man by the coat collar, he dragged him after them. At the bottom, he said, “There’s another thing. What about Stukie Tomlin?”

“Oh.” She turned sharply around. “I’d forgotten him. He came here a few days ago and said I was in danger. He told me that I was to inherit a lot of money, but that somebody was asking a lot of odd questions and that I should be careful. I didn’t know what to believe. But, you see, I’d met Stukie before—when I was with Mr. Buckle.”

T
OMLIN WAS AWAKE
when they came in; a medic was working on him, and he grinned weakly when he saw Darcy. Shannon dropped his burden on the floor, then looked down into the face of Watt Braith.

“I thought so,” Shannon said. He turned to Darcy. “This is Brule, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes…”

“Hey, mister!” A deputy sheriff stepped forward. “You going to explain all this?”

“Give him a minute and I expect he will, Hank.” Hualapi Johnny spoke up from the doorway.

Shannon turned back to Darcy Lane, but he spoke for the others, too. “His real name is Braith. He was Buckle’s lawyer. If anything happened to one of the heirs, that estate would be in his hands for five years. With five years and two million dollars to work with, a man can do plenty. So he decided to kill you, Miss Lane. He probably figured on sinking your body, but his blow knocked you over the side. You’d told him you couldn’t swim, so he figured he was pretty safe.”

“But Buckle was alive!” she protested.

“Sure. He was alive for six months. You hadn’t showed up, so Braith went ahead and killed Buckle.”

“You’ll have a time proving that,” Braith growled.

“I can already prove it,” Shannon said quietly. “Within twenty minutes after I left you yesterday, I knew it.”

“That’s like I figured,” Tomlin interrupted. “I’d lent the old man some tools, stuff I needed. I drove over here to get them back, and saw where he died. I prowled around and found that slide might have been caused by somebody with a crowbar. I told the sheriff about it and we both looked around, but there was nobody around then who seemed to have a motive, so we dropped it.”

“And then the will came out in the open?”

“Yeah,” Hank said, “and the boss still couldn’t figure it. We all liked that old man. He was mighty nice. Potifer knew about the will. Buckle had told him, but he didn’t fit the other facts.”

They picked Stukie Tomlin up and were carrying him out. He caught Darcy’s sleeve. “I saw him in town. I didn’t know what was up but I never trusted him so I thought I’d warn you.”

Darcy touched his shoulder. “Thank you.”

Shannon sat down and lit a cigarette. “I made some calls and checked into the guy. I found he had made a lot of money with real estate he had handled, and his success began with the death of Buckle. Then, I got in touch with the Mojave County sheriff, and he told me somebody else had been suspicious, also, and that he had checked all strangers in and out of the county at that time. One of them answered the description of Braith, here. He said if I could produce the man, he had the men to identify him. We know one of them is Tomlin.”

“We’ll meet with the sheriff in the morning,” said Hank. “But it doesn’t sound like we’ll have to spend much time explaining what happened. You-all need to be here for that meeting, though.” He shoved the cuffed Braith ahead of him out the door.

Darcy Lane sat, her legs still trembling from her ordeal on the cliffs.

“You must have done a lot of work on this to locate me,” she said.

“Uh-huh.” He grinned at her. “I even read your diary.”

She blushed. “Well,” she protested defensively, “there was nothing in it to be ashamed of.”

“I agree. In fact,” he added seriously, “there was a lot to be proud of. So much that I often found myself wanting to meet you…even if I couldn’t find you.”

She smiled at him and laughed, and after a moment, he did, too.

Backfield Battering Ram

L
eaning on the back of the players’ bench, “Socks” Barnaby stared cynically at the squad of husky young men going through their paces on the playing field.

“You’ve got plenty of beef, Coach,” he drawled, “but have you got any brains out there?”

Horace Temple, head coach at Eastern, directed a poisonous glare at the lean, broad-shouldered Barnaby, editor of the campus newspaper.

“What d’you care, Socks?” he said. “Aren’t you one of these guys who thinks football is overemphasized?”

“Me? I only think you’ve placed too much emphasis on sheer bulk. You need some smarts, that’s all.”

“Yeah?” The coach laughed. “Why don’t you come out then? You were good enough at track and field last year.”

“I haven’t got the time.”

“Crabapples!” Temple scoffed. “You’ve got time for more activities and fewer classes than any man on the campus. Editor of that scurvy sheet, president of the Drama Club, Poetry society…Writing that thesis on something or other is the only thing that keeps you from graduating!”

Coach Temple glanced back at the football field, and instantly he sprang to his feet.

“Kulowski!” he called. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you even
hold
a football?” He glared at the lumbering bulk of “Muggs” Kulowski. “Of all the dumb clucks! Kulowski, get off the field. When you aren’t fumbling, you’re falling over one of my best men and crippling him. Go on, beat it!”

Muggs Kulowski looked up, his eyes pleading, but there was no mercy in Temple now. Slowly, his head hanging, Muggs turned toward the field house.

“That guy!” Coach Temple stared after him. “The biggest man I’ve got. Strong as an ox, an’ twice as dumb. We’re going to get killed this year!”

T
HOUGHTFULLY
, B
ARNABY STARED
after Kulowski. The man was big. He weighed at least forty pounds over two hundred, and was inches taller than Socks himself. But despite his size there was a certain unconscious rhythm in his movements. Still, in three weeks he hadn’t learned to do anything right. For all his great size, Kulowski went into a line as if he was afraid he’d break something, and his fingers were all thumbs.

“You cut us a break, Barnaby. All you do is use that sheet of yours to needle everybody who tries to do anything. A lot you’ve done for Eastern.”

Socks grinned. “Wait until after the Hanover game,” he said. “I’m just trying to save you from yourself, Coach. If you get by Hanover, we’ll say something nice. I’d like to be optimistic but I’ve got to call it as I see it.”

B
ARNABY WALKED OFF
the field, heading for the quad. Kulowski was shambling along ahead of him, and something in the disconsolate appearance of the huge Pole touched a sympathetic chord in him. More, he was curious. It seemed impossible that any man with all his fingers could be as clumsy as this one. Stretching his long legs, Socks Barnaby quickened his pace to catch up with Kulowski.

“Hey, Kulowski, rough going today?” he asked, walking up beside the big fellow.

“Yeah.” Muggs looked at him, surprised. “Didn’t know you knew me.”

“Sure,” Socks replied. “Don’t let this get you down. Tomorrow you’ll do better.”

“No,” Muggs said bitterly. “He told me yesterday that if I messed up one more time I was through.”

“Can’t you get the hang of it?”

“No.” The guy’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Well, football isn’t everything.”

“For me it is,” Kulowski said bitterly. “If I lose my scholarship, I’m finished. And I want a degree.”

“That’s something,” Barnaby agreed. “Most football players don’t care much about finishing. They just want to play ball. But if you lose the scholarship you can always get a job.”

“I’ve got a job, but the money has to go home.” He glanced at Socks. “I’ve got a mother, two sisters, and a kid brother.”

B
ARNABY LEFT
K
ULOWSKI
at the field house and started across the campus to the
Lantern
office in the Press Building. He was turning up the walk when he saw Professor Hazelton, and he stopped. The two were old friends, and Barnaby had corrected papers for him a few times, and written reviews for a book page the professor edited.

“Prof, don’t you have Muggs Kulowski in a couple of classes?”

“Yes, of course. Why do you ask?” Hazelton was a slim, erect man of thirty-five and had been a crack basketballer.

“An idea I’ve got. Tell me about him.”

“Well.” Hazelton thought for a moment. “He always gets passing grades. He’s not brilliant, mostly a successful plodder.”

“How about recitations?” Barnaby asked.

“Very inferior. If it wasn’t for his paperwork he wouldn’t get by. He’s almost incoherent, although I must say he’s shown some improvement lately.”

After a few minutes, Socks Barnaby walked on into the office. He sat down at the typewriter and banged away on a story for the
Lantern.
It was several hours later, as he was finishing a letter to a girl in Cedar Rapids, when he remembered that Kulowski was working at the freight docks. On an inspiration, he got up and went out.

He liked Coach Temple. He and the coach had an old-time feud, but underneath there was a good deal of respect. Knowing a good many of the faculty and alumni, Barnaby had heard the gossip about the coach being on his last legs at Eastern. He had to turn out a team this year or lose his contract.

The fault wasn’t wholly Temple’s. Other schools had more money to spend, and were spending it. Yet, here at Eastern, they expected Temple to turn out teams as good as the bigger, better financed schools.

Temple had a strategy. Digging around in the coal mines and lumber camps he had found a lot of huskies who liked the game, and many of them had played in high school and the Army. He recruited all he could but the teams he fielded were often uneven. This time it was his backfield where the weakness lay. They lacked a hard-hitting offensive combination. Kuttner was a good steady man, strong on the defense, and a fair passer and kicker. Ryan and DeVries were both fast, and fair backs, but neither of them was good enough to buck the big fast men that Hanover and State would have.

T
HE FREIGHT DOCK WAS
dimly lit and smelled of fresh lumber, tar, and onions. Socks walked out on the dock and looked around. Then he saw Kulowski.

The big fellow hadn’t noticed him. In overalls and without a shirt, with shoulders and arms that looked like a heavyweight wrestler’s, he trundled his truck up to a huge barrel, tipped the barrel and slid the truck underneath, dipped the truck deftly, and started off toward the dim end of the dock.

Socks walked after him, watching. There was no uncertainty in Muggs Kulowski now. Alone here in the half-light of the freight dock, doing something he had done for months, he was deft, sure, and capable.

“Hi, Muggs,” Socks said. “Looks like you’re working hard.” Kulowski turned, showing his surprise.

“Gosh, how did you happen to come down here?” he asked.

“Came to see you,” Socks said casually. “I think we should get together on this football business.”

Kulowski flushed: “Aw, I’m just no good. Can’t get it through my head. Anyway, Coach is dead set against me.”

“D’you play any other games?” Socks asked.

“Not exactly.” Kulowski stopped, wiping the sweat from his face. “I used to play a little golf. Never played with anybody, just by myself.”

“Why not?”

“I guess I wasn’t good enough. I could do all right alone, but whenever anybody got around, I just couldn’t hit the ball. I couldn’t do anything.”

Socks sat around the dock, strolled after Kulowski as he worked, and talked with the big fellow. Mostly, he watched him. The big guy was doing a job he knew. He was not conscious of being observed, and as he worked swiftly and surely, there wasn’t a clumsy or awkward thing about him.

“I had trouble with games ever since I was a kid,” Muggs Kulowski admitted finally. “My old man used to say I was too big and too awkward, and he made fun of me. I guess I was clumsy, growing fast and all.”

“Muggs.” Socks stood up suddenly. “We need you out there on that field this year. We need you badly. You know where Springer’s barn is?”

“You mean that old red barn out there by the creek?”

“That’s it. You meet me out there tomorrow. Bring your football suit, and don’t tell anybody where you’re going. We’re going to work out a little.”

They settled the time, and then Socks walked back to his room. He knew what it meant to grow fast and be awkward. His own father had been understanding, and had helped him get by that awkward period. But he knew how shy he had been, himself, how it embarrassed him so terribly when anyone had laughed.

S
OCKS
,
IN A FADED GREEN SWEATER
and slacks, walked out on the field the next afternoon. He paced off a hundred yards, and then walked back to the cottonwoods that divided the field from the edge of the campus. In a few minutes he saw Muggs, big as a house, coming up, grinning.

“Hi, Coach!” Muggs said. “What do I do first?”

“First we try you for speed,” Socks said. “No use fooling with you if you’re slow.” He pointed. “See that stake down there? That’s an even hundred yards. You go down there, and when I give you the word, shag it up here as fast as you can.”

Muggs shambled down the field, turned and crouched in a starting position. At the barked command, he lunged forward.

Socks clicked the stopwatch as Muggs thundered past him, and looked thoughtful. Thirteen seconds, and there was a lot Kulowski didn’t know about starting.

Barnaby dug out the football from his bag of gear.

He walked over to his pupil.

“You’ve got big hands,” he said, “and long fingers, which is all to the good. But when you take hold of the ball, grip the thing, don’t just let it lay in your hand. Take it between the thumb and fingers, with the fingers along the laces, just back of the middle. Press it well down into your hand with your left. When you pass, throw it overhand, right off the ear. You know all this, but we’re going to work on it until it’s automatic…until you can do it whether you’re self-conscious or not.”

I
T WAS ALMOST DARK
when they left the field. For two hours Kulowski had practiced passing and receiving passes, and he had fallen on the ball until he seemed to have flattened every bit of grass on the field. They walked back toward the field house together, weary but cheerful.

“You’ll do,” Socks said quietly. “Don’t let anything Coach said bother you. You’re big and you’re fast. We’ll have you faster. All you need is confidence, and to get over being afraid of other people looking on.”

Muggs looked at him curiously.

“How come you aren’t playing football?” he asked. “You seem to know plenty about it.”

“Too many other things, I guess.” Socks shrugged. “A man can’t do everything.”

T
HE
H
ANOVER GAME WAS
three weeks away. Sitting beside Muggs in the stands, Socks saw Eastern outplayed by Pentland, a smaller and inferior team.

It had been pretty bad. Socks glanced at Temple’s face as the big coach lumbered off the field, and he didn’t have the heart to rib him. Kuttner, battered from sixty minutes of play, looked pale and drawn.

One thing was sure, Socks decided. Hanover or State would ruin them. Hanover had an aerial game that was good, and as strong a line as Eastern’s. Unless something happened to develop a behind-the-line combination for Eastern, an awful drubbing was in the cards.

D
AY AFTER DAY
, Barnaby met Kulowski in the field by the red barn, and worked the big guy and himself to exhaustion. Kulowski grinned when he got on the scales. His big brown face was drawn hard. He had lost almost twenty pounds in three weeks of work.

“Well, the Hanover game is tomorrow,” Socks said, watching Kulowski curiously.

“What d’you think? Want to try it if the coach says yes?”

Kulowski’s tongue touched his lips. “Yeah, I’ll try,” he said. “I can’t do any more than mess it up.”

“You won’t mess it up. You’re plenty fast now. You’ve cut two seconds off that hundred. And you know how to use your hands and your feet. If you get out there, just forget about that crowd. Just remember what we’ve been doing here, and do the same things.”

Kulowski hesitated, staring at Barnaby, one of the most popular men in school. In those three weeks of bitter work, he had come to know him, to like him, and to respect him. He had seen that lean body lash out in a tackle that jarred every bone in his huge body. He had seen passes rifle down the field like bullets, right into his waiting arms.

Time and again Kulowski had missed those passes. They had slipped away, or dropped from his clumsy fingers, yet Socks had never been angry. He had kidded about it in friendly fashion, and encouraged him, flattered him.

Now, Kulowski wasn’t missing the passes. He was taking kicks and coming down the field fast. Socks had shown him how to get to full speed at once, how to get the drive into his powerful legs. He had shown him how to tackle. He had taught him to use his feet and his hands.