The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 3 Read online

  “Good job,” Creet said, grinning at his crony. “Now we’ll have the money, and the girl.” He looked up at the Indian. “And I mean both of us. Let’s eat, and then we’ll go up.”

  Carefully, Brett Larane eased away from the cabin wall. On cat feet he started for the house, and when he got to the door, he tried the knob. It was not locked. Opening it, he stepped in.

  Marta heard the creak of the door and looked up. Her eyes went wide in startled horror. He lifted his finger to his lips. Then he got to the table and dropped into a chair. In gasping words, he told her of the shooting on the trail, of his own wounds, and of the murder of Gay Tomason.

  His face was deathly pale, and he felt sick and empty. He tried holding his hands steady, and his lips stiffened as he felt them tremble. He could never hope to shoot accurately enough to kill both men before they got him. He needed time—time. And there was no time. They were coming now, in just a few minutes.

  Yet there was a chance. If he could keep them in the cabin, prevent them from getting out … He looked up. “Where’s my rifle?” he asked hoarsely. With the rifle he could pin them down, hold them back, possibly kill them at a distance. Away from Marta.

  “They took it, Brett. Creet came in with Gay, said there was a coyote he wanted to kill. There isn’t a gun in the house except the one you’re wearing.”

  For money and a girl … they believed they had killed him, they knew they had killed Gay. They would stop at nothing, and they had been sure Marta had no weapons. The minutes fled, and he stared wildly from the girl to the window, trying desperately to think. Some way to stop them! There had to be a way! There just had to be!

  His dwindling strength had mostly been dissipated on the long ride home. He knew, with an awful fear for Marta, that he could never get to the bunkhouse again. He doubted if he could cross the room. The sweat stood out on his face, and in the pale light he looked ghastly.

  Slumped in the chair, his breath came in long gasps. His head throbbed, and the rat’s teeth of agony bit into his side. He tried to force his fevered mind to function, to wrest from it one idea, anything, that might help.

  When Creet saw him there, he was going to shoot. The outlaw would give him no chance to plan, to think. Nor would he hesitate. Creet knew him too well. He would, at first glimpse, realize Brett Larane’s tragic weakness. There would be no second chance. Joe Creet must die before he cleared the doorstep, while he was stepping across it. Brett frowned against the pain, and his thoughts struggled with the problem.

  He had no strength to lift a gun, no strength to hold a gun even, nor did he dare risk Marta’s life by allowing her to use his gun. There was in his mind no thought of fair play, for there was nothing fair about any of this. It was murder, ugly and brutal, that they planned.

  They had not thought of fair play when they ambushed him. Creet hadn’t thought of fair play when he lured Gay Tomason into a chance at his back while Indian Frank sneaked up with his knife. If he was to save Marta and the ranch he had worked for, it must be now, and by any means.

  Then he saw the box. It was a narrow wooden box, quite heavy, with rope handles. He had seen such boxes often used for carrying bar gold. The handles were inch-thick rope in this case, the ends run through holes and held on the inside by knots.

  “Marta,” he whispered hoarsely, “break the near end out of that box. Force the nails without noise, if you can.”

  He sat at the table and stared as she worked, and in a few minutes she had the end removed. “Now, from the other end,” he whispered. “Cut the rope handle out and put the box on the table!”

  Wondering, she did so, and looked at him curiously as he fumbled with the box to move it, the long way toward the door, the open end toward him. “Now,” he said softly, “my gun.”

  Drawing it carefully from its worn holster, Marta placed it on the table beside him. Lifting the gun, he gripped the butt and pushed his arm and hand into the box, which was open on top. Marta, her eyes suddenly bright, caught his intention, and guided the muzzle of the barrel to one of the holes from which the rope had been taken. It was just large enough to take the muzzle of the six-gun.

  “Now,” he said, looking up at her, “throw a cloth over it, like it was food or something, covered on the table.”

  His hand gripping the butt on the gun, and the box covered by the cloth, Brett Larane sat facing the door, waiting. They would come, and they would come soon, and he had the gun fixed now, in position, pointed directly at the door. And he needed no strength to hold it ready for firing … but he had to get that first shot, while Joe Creet was in range, and he had to kill with that first shot. Afterward, Indian Frank might run off, or he might try to come through the door. If he came through the door, he, too, would die.

  “Will you be all right, Brett?” Marta asked him gently.

  He nodded, liking the feel of her hand on his shoulder. “Only, I hope they come … soon.”

  She left him to put coffee on the stove, and his eyes strayed toward the door, knowing as well as she what little chance they had. He must make desperately sure of that first shot. Indian Frank was not dangerous without Creet, but the outlaw would be dangerous at any time.

  She glanced from the window, but shook her head, and Brett sipped the coffee she offered him, a little at a time. His left hand trembled so, she had to hold the cup to his lips. He drank, then managed a few swallows of food.

  They came silently and were scarcely heard. A quick grasp on his shoulder and Brett opened his eyes, aware for the first time that he had fallen asleep. His heart pounding, he gripped the gun butt and his finger slid through the trigger guard. And then the door opened.

  It was Creet, but even as Brett Larane’s finger tightened on the trigger, Joe turned sidewise and motioned to Indian Frank. “Come in!” he said, and then his head swung toward the room.

  For the first time he saw the man sitting across the table beyond the coal-oil lamp. He jumped as if shot, and his hand swept down for his gun, but at that instant, Indian Frank stepped into the doorway. Brett squeezed the trigger, and the concealed gun bellowed loud in the silent room.

  Frank, caught in midstep, stopped dead still, then sprawled facedown in the doorway, and Joe Creet leaped aside. Brett’s second shot, booming hollowly, lost itself through the open door.

  Creet, gun in hand, stared at him. “Well, I’m forever damned!” he said softly. “You’re a hard one to kill, Larane! A hard one! I’d have sworn you were dead back there, with blood all over you! And now you’ve got Frank … well, that saves me the trouble. I never figured on him sharing the money. I had plans for him.”

  He looked at the table and the cloth-covered box. “Whatever you’ve got there, I don’t know,” he said, his eyes wary, “but you’d never be settin’ that way, your hand covered an’ all, if you could hold a gun. You’d never have missed the second shot you fired. Nor would you be settin’ there now. You’d have turned that gun on me.

  “No, I reckon you’re not dead, but you’re not quite alive, either. You’re hurt bad.”

  The outlaw’s face was saturnine, and his eyes were wicked with triumph.

  “Well, well! I’m glad to see you, Larane! Always did sort of spoil my fun, thinkin’ you wouldn’t be here to watch.”

  Brett’s fingers tightened on the gun butt, trying to ease it out of the hole in the box, but it would not come loose, or his strength was too little to exert the necessary pull.

  “Come over here!” Creet looked up at Marta. “Come over here and do what I tell you, or I’ll drill him right through the head.”

  Marta Malone, transfixed with horror, stared from Creet’s tense, evil features to the poised gun in his hand. Then, as if walking in her sleep, she started to move toward him.

  Brett Larane stared at Creet, too weak to lift a hand, helpless to prevent the outlaw from doing as he wished.

  Suddenly, something clicked in his brain. It was a wild, desperate, impossible chance—but there was no other choice.
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br />   “Marta—!” he said, speaking as loudly as he could. “Think!”

  “Shut up!” Creet snarled at him. “Shut up or I’ll brain you!”

  “Think, Marta!” Brett begged. “Please think! Marta …!” His voice lifted as she drew near Creet. Think—the door!

  As if he had spoken his thought, Marta understood, and with all her strength she hurled herself at the side of the gunman! Her weight hit him, and he staggered. His gun blasted a stab of flame, and a dish across the room crashed into bits as Joe Creet went staggering into the open doorway!

  As he hit the doorpost with his shoulder he ripped his next shot out, and the lamp beside Brett shattered into bits, splashing him with oil, and then his own gun bellowed, and the dark figure in the doorway jerked spasmodically. Brett triggered the gun again, and the outlaw screamed … then broke his scream off in a choking, rattling sound, drowned by Brett Larane’s last shot.

  Joe Creet, hit three times, toppled forward and sprawled on his face outside the door. For a moment, in a deathly silence, they could hear the scratching of his fingers on the hard-packed earth beyond the step. Scratching, and then silence, a lonely shuddering silence in which Marta Malone clasped Brett Larane’s head against her breast and sobbed brokenly in relief and shock.

  There was sunlight in his face when he opened his eyes, sunlight, but he liked it, enjoyed it.

  He looked around, remembering Marta’s room, and seeing the sharp, bright cleanliness of it, and the look of home about it.

  The door opened as he lay there, enjoying the warmth and peace of it, and knowing it was early morning, and that he felt good.

  The door opened, and Marta came in, her face bright when she saw he was awake. “Oh, Brett! You’re up at last! I thought you would never awaken! How do you feel?” She put her hand on his face. He caught it and held it, looking up at her. “Like I never wanted to leave!” he said, smiling. “But what happened?”

  “Nothing, until the next morning. Then a man came out from Willow Springs to get some money I owed him, and he buried the bodies and then he went in and sent the doctor out. I found the money they had stolen in Joe Creet’s saddlebags in the bunkhouse.”

  “Better not think about it,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow it will be an old story.”

  “Tomorrow, Brett? Why, it’s already been more than two weeks! You’ve been awfully sick! Your side … the doctor said if it hadn’t had care right away, you would have died!”

  “Well, I didn’t. Now we’ve got work to do. I’ll have to find a crew, and—”

  “We’ve got a bunch of boys, Brett. The doctor hired them for me, four of them, Texas men who were heading back after a cattle drive. You’ll have a crew to boss when you can get around again!”

  “And I suppose they are all flirting with you!” he said darkly. “I reckon it is time I got around!”

  “No, they haven’t flirted—much. The doctor told them we were going to be married.”

  “Oh, he did, did he? And what did you say?”

  “Why, what could I say? He was such a nice man, and had been so helpful, I just couldn’t have all those cowhands thinking he lied, could I?”

  Brett Larane sank back against the pillow and grinned weakly. “You sure couldn’t!” he said. “You sure couldn’t!”

  Fork Your Own Broncs

  Mac Marcy turned in the saddle and, resting his left hand on the cantle, glanced back up the arroyo. His lean, brown face was troubled. There were cattle here, all right, but too few.

  At this time of day, late afternoon and very hot, there should have been a steady drift of cattle toward the water hole.

  Ahead of him he heard a steer bawl and then another. Now what? Above the bawling of the cattle he heard another sound, a sound that turned his face gray with worry. It was the sound of hammers.

  He needed nothing more to tell him what was happening. Jingle Bob Kenyon was fencing the water hole!

  As he rounded the bend in the wash, the sound of hammers ceased for an instant, but only for an instant. Then they continued with their work.

  Two strands of barbed wire had already been stretched tight and hard across the mouth of the wash. Several cowhands were stretching the third wire of what was obviously to be a four-wire fence.

  Already Marcy’s cattle were bunching near the fence, bawling for water.

  As he rode nearer, two men dropped their hammers and lounged up to the fence. Marcy’s eyes narrowed and his gaze shifted to the big man on the roan horse. Jingle Bob Kenyon was watching him with grim humor.

  Marcy avoided the eyes of the two other men by the fence, Vin Ricker and John Soley, who could mean only one thing for him—trouble, bad trouble. Vin Ricker was a gunhand and a killer. John Soley was anything Vin told him to be.

  “This is a rotten trick, Kenyon,” Marcy declared angrily. “In this heat my herd will be wiped out.”

  Kenyon’s eyes were unrelenting. “That’s just tough,” he stated flatly. “I warned yuh when yuh fust come in here to git out while the gittin’ was good. Yuh stayed on. Yuh asked for it. Now yuh take it or git out.”

  Temper flaring within him like a burst of flame, Marcy glared. But deliberately he throttled his fury. He would have no chance here. Ricker and Soley were too much for him, let alone the other hands and Kenyon himself.

  “If you don’t like it,” Ricker sneered, “why don’t yuh stop us? I hear tell yuh’re a plumb salty hombre.”

  “You’d like me to give you a chance to kill me, wouldn’t you?” Marcy asked harshly. “Someday I’ll get you without your guns, Ricker, an’ I’ll tear down your meat house.”

  Ricker laughed. “I don’t want to dirty my hands on yuh, or I’d come over an’ make yuh eat those words. If yuh ever catch me without these guns, yuh’ll wish to old Harry I still had ’em.”

  Marcy turned his eyes away from the gunman and looked at Kenyon.

  “Kenyon, I didn’t think this of you. Without water, my cows won’t last three days, an’ you know it. You’ll bust me flat.”

  Kenyon was unrelenting. “This is a man’s country, Marcy,” he said dryly. “Yuh fork your own broncs an’yuh git your own water. Don’t come whinin’ to me. Yuh moved in on me, an’ if yuh git along, it’ll be on your own.”

  Kenyon turned his horse and rode away. For an instant Marcy stared after him, seething with rage. Then, abruptly, he wheeled his grayish-black horse—a moro—and started back up the arroyo. Even as he turned, he became aware that only six lean steers faced the barbed wire.

  He had ridden but a few yards beyond the bend when that thought struck him like a blow. Six head of all the hundreds he had herded in here! By rights they should all be at the water hole or heading that way. Puzzled, he started back up the trail.

  By rights there should be a big herd here. Where could they be? As he rode back toward his claim shack, he stared about him. No cattle were in sight. His range was stripped.

  Rustlers? He scowled. But there had been no rustling activity of which he had heard. Ricker and Soley were certainly the type to rustle cattle, but Marcy knew Kenyon had been keeping them busy on the home range.

  He rode back toward the shack, his heart heavy.

  He had saved for seven years, riding cattle trails to Dodge, Abilene, and Ellsworth to get the money to buy his herd. It was his big chance to have a spread of his own, a chance for some independence and a home.

  A home! He stared bitterly at the looming rimrock behind his outfit. A home meant a wife, and there was only one girl in the world for him. There would never be another who could make him feel as Sally Kenyon did. But she would have to be old Jingle Bob’s daughter!

  Not that she had ever noticed him. But in those first months before the fight with Jingle Bob became a dog-eat-dog fight, Marcy had seen her around, watched her, been in love with her from a distance. He had always hoped that when his place had proved up and he was settled, he might know her better. He might even ask her to marry him.

  It had been a foolish
dream. Yet day by day it became even more absurd. He was not only in a fight with her father, but he was closer than ever to being broke.

  Grimly, his mind fraught with worry, he cooked his meager supper, crouching before the fireplace. Again and again the thought kept recurring—where were his cattle? If they had been stolen, they would have to be taken down past the water hole and across Jingle Bob’s range. There was no other route from Marcy’s corner of range against the rim. For a horseman, yes. But not for cattle.

  The sound of a walking horse startled him. He straightened and then stepped away from the fire and put the bacon upon the plate, listening to the horse as it drew nearer. Then he put down his food, and loosening his gun, he stepped to the door.

  The sun had set long since, but it was not yet dark. He watched a gray horse coming down from the trees leading up to the rim. Suddenly he gulped in surprise.

  It was Sally Kenyon! He stepped outside and walked into the open. The girl saw him and waved a casual hand and then reined in.

  “Have you a drink of water?” she asked, smiling. “It’s hot, riding.”

  “Sure,” he said, trying to smile. “Coffee, if you want. I was just fixin’ to eat a mite. Want to join me? Of course,” he said sheepishly, “I ain’t no hand with grub.”

  “I might take some coffee.”

  Sally swung down, drawing off her gauntlets. She had always seemed a tall girl, but on the ground she came just to his shoulder. Her hair was honey-colored, her eyes gray.

  He caught the quick glance of her eyes as she looked around. He saw them hesitate with surprise at the spectacle of flowers blooming near the door. She looked up, and their eyes met.

  “Ain’t much time to work around,” he confessed. “I sort of been tryin’ to make it look like a home.”

  “Did you plant the flowers?” she asked curiously.

  “Yes, ma’am. My mother was always a great hand for flowers. I like ’em, too, so when I built this cabin, I set some out. The wildflowers I transplanted.”