The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five Read online

  He went into their camp on cat feet. He gathered their rifles and was taking a pistol from one of them when the man awakened. His eyes riveted on Noble’s face and he started a yell, but the pistol barrel across his head stopped it.

  Walking out of their camp he gathered their horses and led them to where his horse waited. Surprisingly, they were still asleep. Perhaps somewhere in their raiding they had found some whiskey, for they slept too soundly.

  Picking up an armful of brush he tossed it on the fire and at the first crackle of flame they came awake. He was waiting for them with a gun in his hand.

  They started to rise and he shouted, “No! You stay!”

  They waited, watching him. They were tough men, and thank God, one of them was old enough to have judgment. “No trouble!” he reiterated. “I want no trouble!”

  “My cow,” he gestured, “all mine! You go now. Don’t come back!”

  The oldest of the warriors looked up at him. “You say we come again, you kill all.”

  “I don’t want to kill. White Stone Calf is my friend. You can be friend also.”

  “You say you kill. Can you kill me?”

  “I can kill you. I do not wish to. I am a man who plants trees. I grow corn. If an Indian is hungry, I will feed him. If he is sick, I will try to make him well, but if he harms my crops, if he attacks me or steals my cows or horses, I will kill him. Some have already died, how many must die before you understand me?”

  “We will go,” the Indian said. “You will give us our horses?”

  “I will not. You have taken my time. I take your horses. Next time I shall take more horses. You go. If you come again, come in peace or I will follow to your village and many will die.”

  The following year there were two raids into the area, but they rode around the big man’s land; and when the next winter was hard and the snows were heavy and icy winds prowled the canyons he rode into their village, and they watched him come.

  He brought sides of beef and a sack of flour. He rode to the Indian to whom he had talked and dropped them into the snow before him. “No trouble,” he said, “I am friend.”

  He turned and rode away, and they watched him go.

  GIDDINGS STOPPED AGAIN at the McGann home. “Dropped by to buy some stock from that Noble feller. Got fifty head of good beef from him. I reckon he’s got at least three hundred head of young stuff, and he’s kept a few cows fresh for milking.”

  “Did you say milking?” McGann was incredulous. “I never heard of a man milkin’ a cow west of the Rockies.”

  “He’s doing it.” Giddings glanced slyly at Ruth. “He says womenfolks set store by milk cows. Gives ’em real butter and cream. For a woman who bakes, he says, that’s a big help.”

  Ruth seemed not to hear, continuing with her sewing.

  “His cherry trees are growing, and they look mighty nice. Long rows of them. He’s put in a kitchen garden, too. Seems he came prepared with all kinds of seed. He eats mighty good, that feller. Corn on the cob, cabbage, peas, carrots, onions, lots of other stuff. He’s found a little gold, too.”

  It was this last item that reached the attention of Lay Benton. It was just like that crazy man, he thought, to find gold where nobody else had even looked for it. His grudge against Noble had grown as stories of his improving ranch continued to spread. He took that success as a personal affront.

  Late on a night after another of Giddings’s visits, Lay met with Gene Nevers and Ab Slade. “He’s got gold, horses, cattle, and some cash money Giddings paid him. Must run to seven or eight hundred dollars.”

  “How do you figure to do it?” Slade asked.

  “Take no chances. We lay for him and shoot him down. There’s nobody there but him and everybody will think Injuns done it.”

  At daylight they rode out of town, and Giddings saw them go. He stopped by the McGann house. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that gold,” he said. “Benton, Slade, and Nevers rode out of town, then circled and headed west.”

  “You think they’re going after Noble?” McGann asked.

  “Where else? Benton never liked him, and we all know what Benton is.”

  Ruth sat quietly sewing and did not look up. Giddings glanced at her. “You don’t look worried,” he commented.

  She looked up at him. “Why should I be? If a man can’t look after himself of what account is he?”

  “By the way,” Giddings smiled at her. “He said for you to get to work on that trousseau.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Does he think me a fool?”

  Three days went by and there was no change in Ruth, or if there was it went unnoticed by old man Border, who missed nothing. Except, he added, that lately Ruth had been watering her flowers nine or ten times a day, and each time she took a long time shading her eyes down the trail toward the west. The trail was always empty, and the purple hills of evening told her nothing.

  Benton might have been loudmouthed and Ab Slade a coward, but Gene Nevers was neither. He was an experienced outlaw and stock thief, and he had killed several men.

  Benton wanted to slip up on Noble and shoot him down from ambush, but Nevers was practical. “He’ll have that gold hid, and we’ll never find it.”

  “Maybe we should catch him and burn him a little. Make him talk.”

  Nevers was impatient. “Don’t be a fool! His kind never talk.”

  At the last they decided that was the way to do it. They slipped down near the house and were waiting when Noble went to the spring for water. As he straightened up his eye caught the glint of light on a rifle barrel, and he was unarmed.

  He made a very big target, and he was no fool. These men had come to rob him first and then kill him. Had it been only the latter he would already be dead. He thought swiftly and coolly. The only reason he was alive was because they needed him to locate the gold.

  As the three stepped into the open his eyes went from one to the other. Nevers was at once the most dangerous and the most reasonable. Slade hung back, either overly cautious or a coward. That Benton disliked him he knew.

  “Howdy, gents! Why all the guns? You been hunting?”

  “We were hunting you,” Benton said.

  “A long way to come and a big risk for what there is in it,” he said.

  “Where’s the gold, Noble?” Nevers asked. “It will save trouble if you tell us.”

  “Most likely, but I never paid much mind to trouble. Kind of liked it now and again. Keeps the edge on a man.” If he could just get within reach—

  He moved toward the door and instantly the guns lifted. “Hold it now!” Benton was eager to shoot.

  “Just aimin’ to set my bucket inside. No use to talk out here in the sun. I was just fixin’ to have breakfast, so if you boys don’t mind, we’ll just have breakfast first and then talk. I’m hungry.”

  “So am I.” Slade moved toward the door.

  “Ab,” Nevers said, “you go inside and pick up his guns. Move them into the farthest corner, behind where we will sit. We will let this man fix our breakfast, like he says. I’m hungry, too.”

  Ab Slade went inside and Noble knew what he was doing, he could follow his every move. He came to the door. “All right, just a Winchester and a couple of forty-fours.”

  They went inside. Putting down his bucket Noble went to work. He had no plan, no idea. He would fix breakfast as promised. Besides, he was hungry himself.

  They stayed across the room from him, but Nevers was very alert. Several times he might have surprised the others but not Nevers.

  “I found gold, all right”—he talked as he worked—“but not much of it yet. You boys came too soon. You should have waited another month or two when I’d cleaned up the sluice after some long runs. I’d just finished the sluice and now it’s a loss. Too bad.”

  “Why too bad?” Benton asked.

  “The claim will be lost. Nobody could find it but me, and after you boys kill me you’ll have to skip the country. You’ll never dare show face around Wagonstop again,
so the gold won’t do you any good.”

  “We ain’t leavin’,” Slade said. “We’ll say it was Injuns.”

  “That won’t work.” Noble slapped some beef in the frying pan. “I’m friends with all the Indians. In fact, they’re due over here now. I promised them some beef and some tobacco.”

  Nevers glanced uneasily out the door. Giddings had said that Noble was friendly with the Indians. Suppose they appeared now, and suspected something was wrong?

  Noble knew what was in his mind. “You boys may have to kill your horses getting out of here because those Injuns will be right after you. I’ve been helping them through some hard times.” He forked beef from the pan. “How you figuring on getting out? Unless you know the country you’re in a trap.”

  “Southwest,” Benton said, “to Arizona.”

  “See? You don’t know this country. The Colorado Canyon, looks like it’s a mile deep, lies right in the way.”

  Gene Nevers swore mentally, remembering that canyon only then. He had never been south from here, only east and north. Wagonstop was east and the Indians were north. For the first time he was worried.

  “You’d better get outside, Ab, and watch for those Indians.”

  “They’re touchy,” Noble said, “shoot one of them, and they’ll really come after you.”

  He dished up the food, placing plates before Nevers and Benton. Both men had drawn their guns and placed them on the table beside their plates. Cherry Noble noted the fact and turned back to the fireplace.

  Beside the woodpile was the old burlap sack in which he had the guns he had taken from the Piutes. An old blanket was partly thrown over it. In that sack there were weapons…but were they loaded? Could he, he asked himself, be sure of getting a loaded weapon if he dropped to one knee and grabbed? There was no certainty, and there would be no second chance.

  Carefully he placed two cups on the table and picked up the coffeepot. Nevers watched him with hawk eyes as he filled the cups. Then they took their cups in their left hands and as Noble filled his own cup inspiration came. He reached for a spoon and accidentally knocked it to the floor. Stooping to retrieve it, he hurled himself against the legs of the table.

  His three hundred and thirty pounds hit the table like an avalanche, smashing it back into the two outlaws. Nevers grabbed wildly at his gun and it exploded, sending a bullet into the wall as the table hit him waist-high. He was smashed backward and with Benton slammed against the wall, the boiling coffee cascading over them.

  Leaping up, Noble sent a huge fist that smashed into Benton’s face. His head hit the wall with a thud. Nevers pulled free of the table, gasping for breath, and lunged at Noble sending them both crashing to the floor. Nevers swung wildly, and the blow caught Noble on the chin. He might as well have hit a stone wall.

  Jerking free, Nevers grabbed for his gun, which lay on the floor. Nevers got a hand on the gun and Noble grabbed for Benton’s gun. Nevers fired wildly and missed, then fired again and didn’t. Noble felt the bullet hit him and fired in return.

  He saw Nevers fall and heard running feet as Ab Slade rushed the door. He turned, swaying, and fired as Slade framed himself in the door.

  Slade fell. Fully conscious, slumped against the doorjamb, he said, “You got Gene?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Benton?”

  “He’s out cold.”

  Slade stared at him, almost pleading. “I tried, didn’t I? They can’t say I was yella, can they?”

  “You tried, Ab. You really tried. You could have run.”

  “Tell them that. Tell them I—” He rolled over, out of the doorway to the hard-packed earth outside.

  He died like that and Cherry Noble went back inside.

  ON THE SIXTH DAY after Benton, Slade, and Nevers rode out of town, Ruth McGann walked up the street to the store. She lingered over her shopping, listening for the news. There was none.

  Then somebody in the street let out a yell. The store emptied into the street.

  There was no mistaking the rider on the black mule. Behind him there were three horses. Two with empty saddles, the third with a rider tied to his horse. That rider’s face was battered and swollen. Cherry Noble drew up before the store.

  “They came hunting me. Two are buried back yonder. If anybody wants to collect them, they can. I caught one but not bad. Not enough to worry about. This one”—he indicated Benton—“put them up to it and as he sort of figured himself a fighter, I turned him loose and let him have at it. He didn’t cut much ice as a fighter.”

  Ruth stepped off the porch and walked away in the dust. Cherry Noble glanced after her, threw one longing look at the saloon and the beer he had wanted for the last thirty miles, and followed.

  He caught her in three long strides. She had shortened hers, just a little. He was at a loss for words but finally he said, “I’ve come back.”

  “So you have,” she replied coolly.

  “We can be married by the preacher, and start for home in the morning. It’s a long ride.”

  “Do you think I’m such a fool?” she burst out. “You told Giddings I should start a trousseau!”

  “Was that foolish of me? Ruth, I loved you the moment I saw you and knew that for me there could be no other. Ruth, will you marry me?”

  “You told him to tell me to start my trousseau!” she repeated. “Did you think me such a fool?”

  “Why, I just thought—”

  “You’re the fool,” she said, “I started it the morning after meeting you in the street.”

  “‘Women,’” Cherry started to quote, “‘are—’”

  “For you,” Ruth said sweetly, “the word has now become singular…so do not say ‘women’!”

  Showdown on the Tumbling T

  CHAPTER I

  DEATH TRAP

  Under the slate-gray sky the distant mountains were like a heap of rusty scrap iron thrown helter-skelter along the far horizon. Nearby, the desert was the color of pink salmon and scattered with the gray of sagebrush and a few huddles of disconsolate greasewood. The only spot of green anywhere in sight was the sharp, strong green of tall pines in a notch of the rust-red mountains.

  That was the place I’d come from Texas to find, the place where I was to hole up until Hugh Taylor could send word for me. It was something to have a friend like Hugh, someone to give you a hand up when the going was rough. When I had returned from Mexico to find myself a fugitive from justice, he had been the only one to offer help.

  A few scattered drops of rain pounded dust from the desert. I dug into my pack for my slicker. By the time I had it on the rain was coming down in a steady downpour that looked fair to last the night through as well as the afternoon.

  Rowdy, my big black, was beginning to feel the hard going of the past weeks. It was the only time I had ever seen the big horse even close to weariness, and it was no wonder. We had come out of Dimmit County, Texas, to the Apache country of central Arizona, and the trails had been rough.

  The red rocks of the mountains began to take on form and line, and I could see the raw cancers of washes that ate into the face of the plain, and the deep scars of canyons. Here and there lines of gray or green climbed the creases in the rock, evidence of underlying water or frequent rains among the high peaks.

  The trail curved north, skirting the mountains toward the sentinel pines. “Ride right to the Tin Cup ranch,” Hugh Taylor had said, “and when you get there, ask for Bill Keys. He’ll be in charge, and he’ll fix you up until this blows over. I’m sure I can get you cleared in a short time.”

  The mountains cracked wide open on my left and the trail turned up a slope between the pines. Blue gentians carpeted both sides of the road and crept back under the trees in a solid mass of almost sky-blue. The trail was faint, and apparently used very little, but there were tracks made by two riders and I watched them curiously. The tracks were fresh and they were headed into the Tin Cup canyon.

  You can bet I had my eyes open, for even so far away
from anyone that knew me there might be danger, and a man on the dodge learns to be careful.

  Then I heard a shot.

  It rapped out sharp and clear and final, bringing my head up with a jerk and my hand down to the stock of my Winchester. My rifle rode in a scabbard that canted back so that the stock almost touched my right thigh, and I could draw that rifle almost as fast as a man could draw a six-gun.

  Rowdy heard that shot, too, and Rowdy knew what shooting could mean. He skirted the rocks that partially barred the way into the Tin Cup, and I looked down into a little valley with a stone barn and stone house, two corrals, and two riderless horses.

  Then I saw the men. The air was sharp and clear, and they were only a couple of hundred yards off. There were three of them, and one was lying on the ground. The man who stood over the body looked up and yelled at the other one near the corner of the house. “No, it ain’t him!” And then they both saw me.

  Panic must have hit them both, but one of them made a break for his horse while the other swung his hand down for his gun. Honest men don’t start shooting when a stranger rides up; so as his six-gun lifted, my rifle cleared the boot. He fired, but I wasn’t worried. He was much too far away.

  He made a dive for his horse and I held my fire. As he settled in the saddle I squeezed off my shot. He jerked like he was hit and I saw the gun fall from his hand into the rocks, and then they were taking out of there, but fast. They wanted no part of my shooting.

  Rowdy wasn’t gun-shy. With me in the saddle he had no cause to be, after all we had been through down Mexico way. That was a part of my life I never talked about much, and even Hugh, who was my best friend, knew nothing about it. To him I was still the quiet kid he had seen grow up on our uncle’s ranch, the XY.

  Rowdy was in no shape for a chase, so I let the riders go and swung down beside the old man and felt of his pulse. That was mostly a matter of form. No man with that last bullet hole where he had it was going to be alive. The first shot was a bit high, and I could see there had been some interval, for the blood around the first wound was coagulated.