Bendigo Shafter (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Read online

  We circled, and I staked out my horses and took the oxen to the herd. By the time Ma had her grub-box lid down, I was fixing at a fire when here come Mr. Buchanan, Mr. and Mrs. White, and some other folks, including that Webb.

  “Ma’am”—Mr. Buchanan was mighty abrupt—“we figure we ought to know what you said to those Sioux. We want to know why they turned off just because you went out there.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Mr. Buchanan’s face stiffened up. “We think it does. There’s some think you might be an Indian your own self.”

  “And if I am?” Ma was amused. “Just what is it you have in mind, Mr. Buchanan?”

  “We don’t want no Injuns in this outfit!” Mr. White shouted.

  “How does it come you can talk that language?” Mrs. White demanded. “Even Tryon Burt can’t talk it.”

  “I figure maybe you want us to keep goin’ because there’s a trap up ahead!” White declared.

  I never realized folks could be so mean, but there they were facing Ma like they hated her, like those witch-hunters Ma told me about back in Salem. It didn’t seem right that Ma, who they didn’t like, had saved them from an Indian attack, and still the fact that she talked Sioux like any Indian bothered them.

  “As it happens,” Ma said, “I am not an Indian, although I should not be ashamed of it if I were. They have many admirable qualities. However, you need worry yourselves no longer, as we part company in the morning. I have no desire to travel farther with you…gentlemen.”

  Mr. Buchanan’s face got all angry, and he started up to say something mean. Nobody was about to speak rough to Ma with me standing by, so I just grabbed that ol’ rifle and jacked a shell into the chamber. “Mr. Buchanan, this here’s my ma, and she’s a lady, so you just be careful what words you use.”

  “Put down that rifle, you young fool!” he shouted at me.

  “Mr. Buchanan, I may be little and may be a fool, but this here rifle doesn’t care who pulls its trigger.”

  He looked like he was going to have a stroke, but he just turned sharp around and walked away, all stiff in the back.

  “Ma’am,” Webb said, “you’ve no cause to like me much, but you’ve shown more brains than that passel o’ fools. If you’ll be so kind, me and my boy would like to trail along with you.”

  “I like a man who speaks his mind, Mr. Webb. I would consider it an honor to have your company.”

  Tryon Burt looked quizzically at Ma. “Why, now, seems to me this is a time for a man to make up his mind, and I’d like to be included along with Webb.”

  “Mr. Burt,” Ma said, “for your own information, I grew up among Sioux children in Minnesota. They were my playmates.”

  Come daylight our wagon pulled off to one side, pointing northwest at the mountains, and Mr. Buchanan led off to the west. Webb followed Ma’s wagon, and I sat watching Mr. Buchanan’s eyes get angrier as John Sampson, Neely Stuart, the two Shafter wagons, and Tom Croft all fell in behind us.

  Tryon Burt had been talking to Mr. Buchanan, but he left off and trotted his horse over to where I sat my horse. Mr. Buchanan looked mighty sullen when he saw half his wagon train gone, and with it a lot of his importance as captain.

  Two days and nearly forty miles farther and we topped out on a rise and paused to let the oxen take a blow. A long valley lay across our route, with mountains beyond it, and tall grass wet with rain, and a flat bench on the mountainside seen through a gray veil of a light shower falling. There was that bench, with the white trunks of aspen on the mountainside beyond it looking like ranks of slim soldiers guarding the bench against the storms.

  “Ma,” I said.

  “All right, Bud,” she said quietly, “we’ve come home.”

  And I started up the oxen and drove down into the valley where I was to become a man.

  COMMENTS: Two decades after writing “Home Is Where We Are Going,” Louis started planning its expansion into a novel. In preparation he made the following notes:

  The town begins…

  Show character change in:

  Bendigo

  Webb

  Sampson

  Loss of children.

  Aiding Mormons:

  She gives them clothing. They see it is new and repay her.

  Fight with outlaws: Webb.

  Scarcity of food, the long hunt.

  Burt & Bendigo prove their worth.

  The first planting, first harvest.

  New arrivals.

  Begin menace of Indian at once, build. Also outlaws.

  You can tell these were fairly early jottings; Louis is obviously plotting pieces of the novel that come after the events covered in the short story, but he still uses the name “Burt” for Tryon Burt. He has not yet decided to use Ethan Sackett in Burt’s place.

  Here he articulates one of the crucial themes of Bendigo:

  “A town is not made of wood and stone, but of flesh and blood.”

  And then he experiments with an ending to the novel that suggests another theme—impermanence or change, tempered with the role the town itself plays in molding the character of the people who live there:

  Some walls still stand there—wind prowls through the empty doors and dust stirs. An old paper stirs, lies still again. The hearts that once beat here are gone—the tears are dried, the echoes of the songs and laughter have died away, but the town is not dead, for what went into the building of the town is now built into the fiber of other towns, some far away. Some of the things learned here have been built into the laws of the land, some are written into books, some become motions offered in town meetings, some are written into music to be sung in the temples of sound and song.

  What was built here was built by strong men and women with hearts and souls who worked against the cold and snow, against rain and wind. It will not be destroyed by the careless vandals who wish to destroy that which they do not and cannot understand.

  What follow are more notes, some of which indicate that Louis was still discovering the concept of the town not needing to survive in order to ultimately have done its job.

  Give us this day our daily bread.

  Weave into this book the building—the death, the struggle, the loneliness—

  The steadfastness and urge for education of Ruth, the strength and solidity of Cain, the wisdom of John Sampson, the wit of Drake Morrell and his perception.

  The songs of Ninon, the heartbreak of Lorna

  I am unsure what “heartbreak” Dad had in mind here.

  Neely’s sister marries and destroys a good man.

  This may be an unfulfilled idea. Meg, Neely’s daughter, seems to be headed for some sort of “fall” based on the way she is using her sexuality. Ultimately, however, the story goes on without her. At a guess, Louis intended her to chase another man after Bendigo proved to be strong enough to resist her. Perhaps he even intended that she get involved with a man she didn’t really care about in order to prove something to Bendigo.

  Rework the whole book. Make it an argument against the destruction of what it has taken so long to build.

  This comment is interesting because it’s rare to see Louis reworking an entire book. No alternate manuscript exists to suggest that this one was completely rewritten, though some changes were made.

  Here is some experimental dialogue written early in the process:

  “You aren’t simply growing up, boy, you’re building a man—You’re building the muscle and bone, the intelligence, the courage, that is going to count for years—so don’t build too casually, boy, remember that’s the man you are going to be that you are building there. And you’d best remember this: what you are building is what you’ve got to live with the rest of your days.”

  A few more notes:

  United by action

  Divided by peace.

  Webb changes for worse.

  Bendigo grows in judgment.

  Ruth & Cain cope with problems. Work as a team. No physical contact. At one point they talk,
but simply, a few lines make sit. clear, both understand, “in another life?”

  Town booms & grows.

  The people change.

  The prof kills & leaves.

  I have no idea who this “prof” was supposed to be…maybe an early version of Drake Morrell. Another possibility is that Moses Finnerly originally billed himself as a prophet.

  Girl confesses she loved him.

  I doubt that Louis was thinking of the final form of either Meg’s or Ninon’s character here. It is usually a healthy sign when a writer doesn’t follow his notes or outlines exactly; the story needs to have a life of its own. That does not, however, mean that discarded or forgotten ideas are all bad. Some are quite good and you wonder why the writer gave up on them. Some, like the one just mentioned, probably don’t matter one way or the other.

  Ruth helps to shape Bendigo—about what kind of girl—steer him away from girl—trap, just in time.

  Prof agrees.

  Sampson has fulfilled himself.

  Webb has been killed.

  Cain and family go on west.

  Giddy girl runs off with a man.

  Ben’s sister grows—marries a good man.

  Ethan moves on—no chance—

  I’m guessing that means that there is no chance for him with Ruth.

  In each case the town has changed them.

  The town is a failure but it has done its work.

  They move on but the shell remains.

  R leads B to achieve beyond his belief. She gives him Blackstone—

  R creates the town.

  R leads B.

  R accepts situation with C.

  C must be Cain, while R seems to be Ruth and B Bendigo.

  R leads Prof into teaching son.

  He says he has failed—

  She says “Have you?”

  Later Prof & B meet.

  Victory not always immediately apparent.

  Moral victory even greater success

  Rd. Mumford in this connection

  This is probably Lewis Mumford’s The City in History.

  Town grows according to Ruth, dies so.

  Express this in words.

  What is victory?

  Cities, governments will not be perfect until people are.

  Ben passes thru this stage. Despises politicians.

  R tells him politics is art of civilization.

  It was in the spring of 1972 that Louis first mentioned working on his “South Pass book.” By the fall, the novel had taken on the title Bendigo Shafter, and it seemed to be nearly done. But Louis was considering a rewrite of the last third. That final push would have to wait six years. It was a trip to Wyoming, not so much for research as for inspiration, that would get it going again.

  August of 1977 was a busy month for the L’Amour family. We had traveled to Durango, Colorado, and stayed briefly in our “home away from home,” the Strater Hotel. Dad had been asked by the Southern Utes to be present at the Ute-Comanche peace ceremony that was to celebrate the official cessation of hostilities (which dated back two hundred years or so) between the two tribes. He was also asked to perform the role of guest commentator by a local radio station. The event lasted four days—four days of dancing, feasting, and, for my parents, meeting a great number of very interesting Native Americans from many tribes around the Southwest.

  Dad was decorated with the Great Seal of the Ute tribe and given a book of tribal history, which became a very prized possession. I hid behind my camera, an awkward teen who enjoyed being there but didn’t really know how to relax and participate.

  After a few days of recuperation Mom, Dad, my sister, and I crammed ourselves into a rented station wagon and headed off for points east and north. I believe we hit Walsenburg around the 15th or 16th of August, because I can remember being in a motel there when I heard Elvis Presley died.

  We visited the Wine Glass Ranch, went to a clambake outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming, stopped by Medicine Bow as a nod to Owen Wister, then went on to Cody and Casper. The high point of the trip was a visit to the Medicine Wheel, a Native American astronomical observatory seemingly similar to Stonehenge in its purpose. Atop a windswept mountain, it is a circular ring of stones about twenty-five yards in diameter with spokes and cairns of rock indicating alignments with various planets or stars. It is between two hundred and eight hundred years old.

  More interesting to me (at the time) was a death trap cave, a hole in the ground that tended to get covered over with snow. The skeleton of a mountain man had been found inside, complete with buckskin clothing and a flintlock rifle.

  Some eighteen months later, the Medicine Wheel had been incorporated into Bendigo Shafter as the location of the climactic battle and the place where old Uruwishi would meet his death.

  Before we returned home we had covered a great many miles, quite a few of them on secondary roads. We had seen a lot of country and rolled through a number of ghost towns or near ghost towns, places that would reinspire Louis to examine the theme of the cycle in a town’s life; how it does not have to continue to exist in order to have performed a useful function for the people in it. His having lived in—and moved away from—many places, it was a poignant concept for Dad. His life was always oriented toward the future; home was always where he was going.

  In closing, there are a couple of aspects of this book that I’d like to comment on. You can really feel Louis’s memories of the North Dakota cold in this book, his knowledge of the winters that he moved to Southern California to avoid. There is also more of a sense of wistfulness or nostalgia in Bendigo Shafter than is present in most of his work. That is expressed most clearly when he discusses the impermanence of the place, the town that will soon be a ghost town. He also seems to touch on the impermanence of human beings, their memories and connections. In Bendigo Shafter Dad puts forward his alternate meaning to Shakespeare’s line “No Traveller Returns.” Certainly, as The Bard says, no one comes back from beyond the veil of death, but even in life, no traveler returns home the same person. Our experiences change us, and the more we are changed the more we need to move on and leave our past behind.

  For more interesting information, photos, fragments of stories, and notes, please visit

  louislamourslosttreasures.com.

  Beau L’Amour

  August 2017

  To the hard-shelled men who built with nerve and hand that which the soft-bellied latecomers call the “western myth.”

  Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour

  * * *

  NOVELS

  Bendigo Shafter

  Borden Chantry

  Brionne

  The Broken Gun

  The Burning Hills

  The Californios

  Callaghen

  Catlow

  Chancy

  The Cherokee Trail

  Comstock Lode

  Conagher

  Crossfire Trail

  Dark Canyon

  Down the Long Hills

  The Empty Land

  Fair Blows the Wind

  Fallon

  The Ferguson Rifle

  The First Fast Draw

  Flint

  Guns of the Timberlands

  Hanging Woman Creek

  The Haunted Mesa

  Heller with a Gun

  The High Graders

  High Lonesome

  Hondo

  How the West Was Won

  The Iron Marshal

  The Key-Lock Man

  Kid Rodelo

  Kilkenny

  Killoe

  Kilrone

  Kiowa Trail

  Last of the Breed

  Last Stand at Papago Wells

  The Lonesome Gods

  The Man Called Noon

  The Man from Skibbereen

  The Man from the Broken Hills

  Matagorda

  Milo Talon

  The Mountain Valley War

  North to the Rails

  Over on the Dry Side


  Passin’ Through

  The Proving Trail

  The Quick and the Dead

  Radigan

  Reilly’s Luck

  The Rider of Lost Creek

  Rivers West

  The Shadow Riders

  Shalako

  Showdown at Yellow Butte

  Silver Canyon

  Sitka

  Son of a Wanted Man

  Taggart

  The Tall Stranger

  To Tame a Land

  Tucker

  Under the Sweetwater Rim

  Utah Blaine

  The Walking Drum

  Westward the Tide

  Where the Long Grass Blows

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Beyond the Great Snow Mountains

  Bowdrie

  Bowdrie’s Law

  Buckskin Run

  The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour (vols. 1–7)

  Dutchman’s Flat

  End of the Drive

  From the Listening Hills

  The Hills of Homicide

  Law of the Desert Born

  Long Ride Home

  Lonigan

  May There Be a Road

  Monument Rock

  Night Over the Solomons

  Off the Mangrove Coast

  The Outlaws of Mesquite

  The Rider of the Ruby Hills

  Riding for the Brand

  The Strong Shall Live

  The Trail to Crazy Man

  Valley of the Sun

  War Party

  West from Singapore

  West of Dodge

  With These Hands

  Yondering

  SACKETT TITLES

  Sackett’s Land

  To the Far Blue Mountains

  The Warrior’s Path

  Jubal Sackett

  Ride the River

  The Daybreakers

  Sackett

  Lando

  Mojave Crossing

  Mustang Man

  The Lonely Men

  Galloway

  Treasure Mountain

  Lonely on the Mountain

  Ride the Dark Trail