The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 7 Page 7

  Merrano took his last armful of groceries and turned toward the door. White with fury, Joe Stangle stuck out his foot and Barry tripped and sprawled on the floor, spilling his groceries.

  Nobody laughed. Tom Drake threw an irritated glance at Stangle, but said nothing.

  Barry Merrano got up. His face was very cold and still. “That was a cheap thing to do, Stangle,” he said. “There’s not much man in you, is there?”

  Had he been slapped across the mouth it would have been easier to take. Stangle trembled, and his hand dropped to his gun. Only Jim Hill’s grabbing his arm prevented him from shooting Merrano in the back as he walked out the door.

  “Yellow!” Stangle sneered. “Yellow, like any greaser!”

  “You’re wrong, Joe,” Hill said quietly, “he’s not yellow, nor was his old man.”

  “He run, didn’t he?” Stangle said. “He quit, didn’t he?” His voice was hoarse with hatred.

  “Yes, he left, but if I recall correctly he backed you down, Joe.”

  Stangle’s face was livid, but Hill turned his back on him and asked Mayer, “I’ll have to ask for credit again, Mayer. Can you carry me?”

  “I always have.” Mayer tried to smile. He had carried them all, but how much longer he could afford to do it he did not know. Only the cash Barry Merrano had spent with him enabled him to meet his own bills, but scarcely that.

  BARRY MERRANO’S BUCKBOARD rattled out of town, hitting the long, dry road to Willow Springs. It was almost sundown but heat lay over Mirror Valley like a sodden thing, dust hanging heavy in the air. It was always here now, that dust. A few years back, his mother told him, this valley had been a green and lovely place. There had been fat cattle around then, and it was here she had met his father, that pleasant-faced, friendly Mexican—slim, wiry, and elegant—and it was here they had courted and here they were married.

  “I’m glad she didn’t live to see it,” Barry muttered, “it would have broken her heart.”

  In the rush to get rich from beef cattle the grass had been overgrazed, and the creosote, cat-claw, and tarweed had started to move in. The grass had grown thinner. It had been eaten down, and worn down, wind had whipped the dust from around the roots and rains had washed out the clumps of grass. The water holes, once plentiful, never seemed to fill up or remain full anymore.

  “Climate’s changing,” Drake had suggested to Hill, and the latter nodded his agreement.

  “Don’t ever recall it being so dry,” Hill added.

  They watched with sullen impatience when Barry Merrano returned to occupy his father’s ranch. And they turned away in contempt when he told them the climate was not changing, but they were simply running more cattle than the range would support.

  Willow Springs loomed before him, and Barry kept his eyes averted. It was at Willow Springs where his father and mother first met. It had been green and lovely then, and the pool had been wide and deep. Now most of the willows were dead and where the pool had been, the earth was cracked and gray. There had been no water since early summer.

  Turning right at Willow Springs his road became a climb. It was only a trail, two winding ruts across the parched plain. Ahead of him he saw The Fence.

  All over the country it was known by no other name. It was simply The Fence, only nowadays it was mentioned rarely.

  Seven ranchers had built The Fence, and they had built it when Barry refused to leave.

  That was four years ago but to Barry it seemed longer. He had returned, knowing every detail of the hatred Mirror Valley people had felt for his father. He was determined to face it down and win a place for himself; and the land his father left him was all he had. He turned up the draw toward the house Miguel Merrano had built in the basin under the shoulder of Table Mountain.

  THREE DAYS after his arrival a dozen horsemen had ridden up the draw to tell him he was not wanted. They wanted no Mexicans in Mirror Valley.

  He had waited in the door, listening. And then he smiled, looking much more like his Irish mother at that moment. “I’m sorry you’ve had your ride for nothing,” he said. “I’m staying.”

  “Get out or we’ll run you out!” Stangle had shouted.

  “Then why waste time talking?” Merrano suggested. “Why don’t you start your running?”

  With an oath, Stangle had reached for his gun, but his hand got no farther than the butt, then very, very carefully he moved his hand away. Not one of them saw where Merrano had held the shotgun, but suddenly it was there, in Merrano’s hands.

  “Sorry, gentlemen, but I don’t like being shot at. I am not a man of violence, but I’ve several thousand rounds of ammunition and I hit what I aim at.

  “I’ve noticed that a shotgun has a depressing effect on violent men, as nobody can tell just who is going to get himself ripped open. Now, gentlemen, I’ve a lot of work to do. Do you go cheerfully or do I have to start a graveyard?”

  They went, and Joe Stangle was not the last to leave.

  Three days later they built The Fence. They built it across the draw that led from Merrano’s adobe in the basin to town. They built it horse-high, hog-tight, and bull-strong. Then six men waited with rifles for somebody to try cutting The Fence.

  Barry Merrano came down the draw in his buckboard, and they picked up their rifles for a killing. Before he came to The Fence, Barry pulled up and tumbled a roll of barbed wire from the back of the buckboard. Then, as they watched, suddenly feeling very foolish, Barry Merrano built his own fence, higher, stronger, and tighter. In place of their nine strands of wire he put up fourteen. In the forty feet of width across the draw he put up nine posts to their five. Then he got into his buckboard and drove away.

  Cab Casady, forty-five, and accounted one of the toughest men in the valley, laughed. Just as suddenly as he began laughing, he stopped. “We’re a pack of fools!” he said with disgust. “And for one, I’m ashamed of myself. I’m going home.”

  Avoiding each other’s eyes the others went to their horses, mounted up and rode away. The Fence was a topic no longer mentioned in conversation.

  Yet all wondered what Merrano would do, for there was no way out of the basin unless one walked. For three weeks they waited, and then one day Barry Merrano drove into town for supplies. When they rode out to see, The Fence was still intact.

  Jim Hill, although he would not admit it, was relieved. Yet like the others, he was curious. He mounted up and scouted around the country. It was almost a month after that he rode into town. He had a drink in the Faro House and said, “Do you know what that Mex did? He’s bored him a hole through the Neck!”

  Anybody but Jim Hill they would have called a liar. The Neck was a wall of rock that joined the bulk of Table Mountain to the rest of the range, yet when they rode out to see it, there was a black hole in that red wall of rock.

  How could it have been done? It was impossible, yet it had been done.

  Nobody mentioned fencing the tunnel mouth.

  A FEW DAYS LATER when he passed Willow Springs, Barry Merrano saw a rider emerge from the shabby little grove and start across the trail. When she saw him, she pulled up. It was Candy Drake.

  He stopped the buckskins when he drew close. “How are you, ma’am?” He touched his hat. He started to comment on the heat and the drouth but thought the better of it. Instead he indicated the pinto’s leg. “I see that leg is coming along all right.”

  “Yes, it got well just like you said it would.”

  He wanted to talk, yet wanted to avoid anything that might give offense. Candy Drake was the prettiest girl in Mirror Valley. He had talked to no one in almost three months, and he admitted to himself that he had been in love with Candy Drake for three years.

  “The drouth came the way you said it would, too,” she said almost accusingly. “Everything seems to turn out the way you say it will.”

  He flushed slightly. “Anybody who took the time to look could see this country was in trouble,” he said. “This country had been so overgrazed there was no gra
ss to hold what moisture we got. Most of it could have been prevented if work had been started a couple of years ago.”

  He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “Nobody would listen to me when I offered to help. I was just that damned greaser son of Molly O’Brien’s, so what could I know?”

  There was a bitterness in his voice that came through no matter how hard he tried to hold it back. He had lived too close to this for too long a time.

  Mirror Valley had been outraged when pretty Molly O’Brien had married Miguel Merrano. He had been a top-hand, hired only for the roundup. Pete Drake had his eyes on Molly, and so had others, but she had made promises to no one until she met Merrano.

  Miguel bought the Table Mountain place and for four bitter years struggled against the hatred and the prejudice directed against them. Finally, when young Barry was almost two, they had gone away.

  Surprisingly, they prospered. Barry heard many tales of Mirror Valley as he was growing up but nothing of the reason for leaving until he was fifteen. He determined then to return and fight it out if it took twenty years.

  “My father certainly should know how to run cattle,” Candy protested. “He’s raised more cattle than you have ever seen.”

  “I’m twenty-six,” Barry said, “and I’ve a lot to learn, but simply growing old doesn’t make one wise. Your father came into a rich, new country and nothing could convince him it would not always stay rich.

  “The others were the same. They ran more cattle than the range could support. Once when I was visiting at your place I tried to suggest some changes, but he just thought me a fool.”

  “But Barry,” she protested, “millions of buffalo used to run on these plains, so how could they be spoiled by a few thousand cattle?”

  “Your father said the same thing,” Barry said, “but you both forget that the buffalo never stopped moving as they grazed. They were constantly moving and as they moved on, the grass had a chance to grow back before they returned again. Now the range is fenced and the cattle are continually feeding over the same ground.”

  Candy was exasperated. “We always have the same argument,” she protested. “Can you talk of anything else?”

  “Many things, if you’ll listen. Candy, why don’t you come over to my place and see for yourself?”

  “To your place?” She was shocked, yet as the idea took hold, she was intrigued. Like all in the valley she was curious. What was he doing back there? Nobody had visited the basin since he took over, and they all knew Barry Merrano paid cash for everything. How could he do it?

  That he ran cattle, they all knew. He had driven cattle into Aragon to sell and Aragon was out of the way for people from the valley. They knew he did it to avoid meeting them.

  “It wouldn’t be proper,” she said, but as she said it she knew it was a feeble excuse. She had done many things that were often considered improper. “Anyway, that dark tunnel would frighten me. However did you make it?”

  “It was not hard. Want to come?”

  Her father’s disapproval and what might be considered proper was opposed to her curiosity, which resulted in a sweeping victory … for her curiosity.

  Interested in spite of herself, she followed along. He drove the buckskins into the dark tunnel, and she fell in behind them. The buckskins trotted along undisturbed by the darkness until rounding a small curve they saw light before them. When she emerged from the tunnel she pulled up with a gasp.

  The first impression was of size. She had thought of the basin as a small place, yet there must have been thousands of acres within that circle of hills. When she looked again she saw nothing was as it had been.

  The basin, in contrast to the country she had left, was green and lovely. A winding road led to a stone cottage that stood on a wide ledge and on either side of the road there were fenced fields, the one on the right of clover, on the left of corn, and the corn was shoulder high as she rode past it on her horse.

  The old trees she remembered from a time she had come here as a child, when it was abandoned, but there were younger trees, including a small orchard, carefully set out. The valley of the basin itself was green, with here and there a small pool that caught the sunlight. “Is that grass down there?”

  “Most of it. Some is black grama, some is curly mesquite grass. It has always grown in this country but I am careful not to overgraze it. The basin opens at the other end into a canyon and then into Long Valley, the old Navajo sheep range. I made a deal with the Navajo to graze some of it. I run about fifteen head to the section but actually most of this will support twice as many.”

  Her father should see this, she thought. He would never believe it if she told him.

  “But what about water? Where do you get water?”

  “This country never has enough, and most of the rain comes in late summer. When I came back I already knew the problem I faced. I did some blasting, built three dams the first summer, damming three draws that open into the basin. Wherever I found a low spot I made some kind of a reservoir. Now I have a couple of small lakes behind the dams and there are pools scattered all over the basin and down into Long Valley. Toward the end of summer most of them do dry up, but by that time the rains are not far off.

  “In this country water runs off the hills like off a tin roof so you have to save what you can. Of course, I’ve drilled a couple of wells, too.”

  Amazed, she listened with only half her attention. Suddenly, she was frightened. If Joe Stangle saw this place his hatred and envy would be doubled.

  She thought of something she had wondered about. “Barry? However did you make that tunnel?”

  He chuckled. “Candy, over two-thirds of it was a big, natural cave. I paced it off, then went on top and measured the rock and found I only had a little way to go and much was an upthrust from below that I could take off with a pick.

  “As far as the grass goes, I never graze much stock on it at any one time, and I shift them around to give the grass a chance to grow back.”

  “Don’t you have trouble with old Two Moons?”

  “Not at all. I explained what I had in mind, and he understood right away. The Navajo have always understood grazing pretty well, and I offered them a fair price.”

  As they walked back her eyes strayed toward the house. She would have liked to see the inside, but he did not suggest it.

  He stripped the harness from the team and turned them into the corral, then saddled a horse. “It’s getting late,” he said, “I’ll ride home with you.”

  THE RIDE to the TD was silent, for neither felt like talking. Barry was happy and miserable at the same time. He was in love with Candy; but her father had been one of those who tried to drive him off the place, and her father had lent his tacit consent to building The Fence, if no more than that.

  The feeling against him had grown stronger rather than otherwise. The incident in the store would make them turn even further away, and as none of them liked him, most would be only too quick to accept his walking away from Stangle as cowardice.

  When they drew up at the gate he said, “I wish you’d come again. And bring your father.”

  “He wouldn’t come, Barry.” She was puzzled about her feelings toward him. He had talked more than ever before, and for the first time she had seen something of the kind of man he was, yet she could not quite understand him. He was, she suspected, a much more complex human being than any she had known.

  “You’re beautiful, Candy.” The words came so suddenly that she looked up, surprised by them. “You’re so beautiful it hurts. I wish—”

  A dark figure loomed near the gate. “Candy? Is that you? Who’s that with you?”

  “Price? I was just saying good night to Barry Merrano.”

  “Who?” Astonishment mingled with anger. “Has that dirty Mex been botherin’ you? If he has, I’ll—!”

  “I simply rode home with Miss Drake,” Barry said. “There’s no reason to get excited.”

  Price Taylo
r shoved open the gate and came out. “Listen, greaser! You turn that horse and cut loose for home! Don’t you be tellin’ me not to get excited! I’ll take you off that horse and beat your skull in!”

  “Price!” Candy exclaimed. “This is outrageous!”

  Taylor was beside Barry’s horse. He was a large, somewhat top-heavy young man. As foreman of the TD he had become almost one of the family and he had long looked upon Candy Drake as someone very special and reserved for him, although he had had no encouragement from her and certainly none from Tom Drake, who would have been appalled at the thought. Seeing her in the moonlight with Merrano turned him ugly.

  “This is no business for womenfolk! You get along to the house now. I’ll take care of this!”

  He reached a big hand for Barry and Barry went, much faster than Taylor expected. As Taylor laid hold of him Barry swung his other leg over the saddle and drove his heel into the bigger man’s chest, sending him staggering. Then he dropped to the ground.

  Coolly, he waited until Taylor recovered his balance. “I’d rather you’d go along to the house,” Barry said, “but if you want a licking you can have it.”

  “A lickin’? Me?” Taylor’s size had won several brawls for him, and he fancied himself a tough man.

  He started for Merrano and a stiff left stopped him, smashing his lips. Taylor dropped into a half-crouch, arms wide to grapple, and moved in. Barry caught the larger man’s sleeve and jerked him forward, off-balance, then kicked his foot from under him. Taylor sprawled forward, falling on his hands and knees.

  Merrano stood waiting, and Taylor came half erect, then launched himself in a long dive. Merrano sidestepped and waited.

  Slowly, carefully, Taylor got up from the ground. Putting his fists in front of him in an awkward simulation of a boxer, he moved in. Merrano moved to the side and Taylor caught him on the cheekbone with a clumsy swing, but Merrano stood his ground and struck three hard, fast blows to the body, then an uppercut thrown in close that tipped Taylor’s chin back.

  Taylor bored in, swinging wildly.

  Taylor turned, Barry feinted a left and Taylor pawed at the air to knock the punch down, but the feint was followed by a stiff left, then another and another. Taylor was big, but lacked any semblance of fighting skill. He came in, legs spread wide, swinging. Barry hit him with a left, then knocked him down with a right. Taylor got up slowly and Barry knocked him down again.