Last of the Breed (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  At the edge of the woods, Joe Makatozi ran softly on the moss. He ran and then waited, and as the next soldier appeared between the trees, he let go his arrow. The soldier cried out and fell.

  The man ahead of him in the single file turned impatiently, then stared in horror at the arrow and died beside him.

  There were six men in the patrol and a huge, bearlike man who led them. Joe Mack ran on, and when they stopped at a small stream, he let go another arrow. The target turned and took the arrow in the shoulder instead of the throat.

  He cried out and the others turned. Joe Mack dropped his bow and drew a pistol.

  He fired once, caught up his bow, and vanished into the trees, not waiting to see the effect of his shot.

  It was growing dusk, as dusk as it ever became at this latitude, and he faded back among the trees.

  On the soft moss, his moccasins made no sound. He moved among the trees, listening. There was no sound but a subdued murmur from a stream.

  Alekhin had survived, then? He was here. “Now, my friend,” Joe Mack said aloud, “we shall meet, you and I, and I am ready for you.”

  He circled the camp, but there was no camp, and they had no fire. They waited for him somewhere in the woods.

  He crept close and lay still in the brush. How many were Siberians, he wondered, aside from Alekhin? He waited, and feeling about he found a rock and threw it, arching it high. It fell into the brush and he lay still. They would be waiting, and they would be fearful, for three or perhaps four of their mates had died.

  Where was he? They did not know.

  Did it mean he was there? Or somewhere near? He threw another stone and heard it land.

  No sound, and he expected none. Would they remain where they were until morning? Or would one or more of them try to slip away to some further spot? He believed they would think of going but would stay.

  He waited, resting easily on the moss, ears tuned to the slightest sound. Then he threw another stone. This time there was a subdued gasp, not too far from where the stone landed. There was vague light, and something stirred in the shadows; something moved. He let go an arrow and heard the thud of its strike and then a rustling in the brush. He let go another arrow. It was a miss, he believed, but a close one.

  Gently, ever so gently, he eased back, went down into the hollow behind, and crossed a stream. He climbed into the rocks to a place he had seen earlier. Then he settled down to rest.

  When the dawn was yet an hour away, he prepared several traps, and when he went back he left several slight tracks. Not enough to make them suspicious, but several. Then he went down the mountain toward the shore.

  Major Joseph Makatozi walked along the shore in the gray morning and looked at the gray seas rolling in to beat against the rocky shore. He looked at the piled roots of great trees and at the little cove where a man worked upon some nets. He walked down to him and stood for a moment, watching. “I have come far,” he said at last, trying his English, “to see the place where once Olaf Swenson traded. He was an American, I think.”

  “And an honest man,” replied the old Chukchi. “I knew him when I was a boy, but he traded with my father and my grandfather.”

  “My grandfather was a Scot. Once long ago he sailed to these shores and traded here with Swenson.”

  “That was long ago. Nobody remembers Olaf Swenson anymore. They do not remember the good days of trade, nor do they remember that we Chukchis crossed the narrow seas to Alaska each year, sometimes more than once in the year.”

  “You caught salmon there?”

  “No more. All that is gone. They will not let us go anymore, but sometimes—

  “Sometimes I wish I could go again, but I am old, old.”

  “I would go,” Joe Mack said, “if I had a kayak.”

  The old man looked up. His brown face was deeply lined under the mane of white hair. He looked at Joe Mack and at his braids. He looked at his face again.

  “It would need a man who knew the kayak to do it. Such a trip is not easy.”

  “But with a kayak, they might not know he was going. It is a small thing, made of hide only.”

  “It might be done. I am an old man and have not tried.”

  “But I am a young man, and my home is over there. I want to go home, Grandfather.”

  “I have a kayak, a very good one. For the grandson of a man who sailed with Olaf Swenson—I do not know. Perhaps.”

  “I have some rubles. A kayak is not a small thing. It is made with craft not many possess. I would pay.”

  “What are rubles to an old man? The sea gives me my living, and I give it my blessing.”

  “Once long ago, Grandfather, it is said my people came this way, crossing when there was no water here. I follow in their footsteps.”

  “I have heard of this, and I have found arrowheads and bones. Yes, I believe it is true.” The old man looked up from the net. “Those who watch have eyes to look where we cannot see. They have wings to fly over.”

  “I shall go at night, Grandfather.”

  “Ah? It has been done by day, and long, long ago. One must understand the kayak.”

  “We are not strangers. I have used them at sea, and upon rough rivers.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight, if I live.”

  The old man looked at him again. “I have heard some shots fired upon the mountain.”

  “Yes, and today I shall go back to find one who looks for me. I do not wish him disappointed.”

  “There will be shooting?”

  “I hope not. I wish to do it with these.” Joe Mack held up his hands. “My people were warriors once. Am I to be less than they?”

  “If you come in the evening when the sun is low, the kayak will be lying by those roots. What you do is your affair.”

  “Speak to the spirits of the sea, Grandfather. My voice is lonely in the night.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  HE SMELLED THE smoke before he saw the fire, and when Joe Mack walked through the scattered rocks, Alekhin was waiting.

  Joe Mack’s eyes swept the little hollow, but the Yakut said, “They have gone to recover the bodies you left.”

  “I came for you.”

  “I am here.”

  * * *

  —

  COLONEL ARKADY ZAMATEV took up the package the soldier had placed on his desk. Slowly, with careful fingers, he began to undo the knots.

  The package was very light, and it was wrapped in the skin of some small animal, but there was something inside, part of which felt like bark from a tree.

  The last knot came loose, and the package opened. Colonel Arkady Zamatev sat very still, his mouth dry, his heart beating heavily. What lay on the table before him was obviously a human scalp with a small, distinctive blaze of white on one side, white hair growing where an old scar had been.

  With it was a narrow strip of birchbark, and on it, printed in neat lettering:

  THIS WAS ONCE A CUSTOM OF MY PEOPLE.

  IN MY LIFETIME I SHALL TAKE TWO. THIS IS THE FIRST.

  WHAT IS LOUIS L’AMOUR’S LOST TREASURES?

  Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures is a project created to release some of the author’s more unconventional manuscripts from the family archives.

  Currently included in the project are Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume One, which published in the fall of 2017, and Volume Two, which will be published in the fall of 2019. These books contain both finished and unfinished short stories, unfinished novels, literary and motion picture treatments, notes, and outlines. They are a wide selection of the many works Louis was never able to publish during his lifetime.

  In 2018 we released No Traveller Returns, L’Amour’s never-before-seen first novel, which was written between 1938 and 1942. In the future, there may be a selection of even more L’Amour titles.r />
  Additionally, many notes and alternate drafts to Louis’s well-known and previously published novels and short stories will now be included as “bonus feature” postscripts within the books that they relate to. For example, the Lost Treasures postscript to Last of the Breed will contain early notes on the story, the short story that was discovered to be a missing piece of the novel, the history of the novel’s inspiration and creation, and information about unproduced motion picture and comic book versions.

  An even more complete description of the Lost Treasures project, along with a number of examples of what is in the books, can be found at louislamourslosttreasures.com. The website also contains a good deal of exclusive material, such as even more pieces of unknown stories that were too short or too incomplete to include in the Lost Treasures books, plus personal photos, scans of original documents, and notes.

  All of the works that contain Lost Treasures project materials will display the Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures banner and logo.

  POSTSCRIPT

  By Beau L’Amour

  The genesis of the story that became Last of the Breed dates back decades before the book was written. Over the years Louis told different stories about its origin. In one, he met a Siberian aborigine while working on a ship in the Sea of Japan and became intrigued by the similarities between the man and the many Native Americans he had known. Supposedly they docked briefly at Plastun Bay, and Louis met a number of other Siberians.

  In another version, soldier of fortune Frank “One-Arm” Sutton supposedly told him stories of Siberia at the Astor Bar in Shanghai. Sutton had indeed spent some time dredging for gold in Siberia before going on to build weapons for various Chinese warlords.

  Although I am suspicious of both these tales, Dad did write several short stories set along the Siberian Coast (“Flight to the North,” “Coast Patrol,” and “Wings over Khabarovsk”) in the 1940s. While it seems like an unlikely setting to feature without there being some personal connection, Louis did fall in love with a number of places just by looking at them on a map.

  But there was another event that inspired Last of the Breed. In 1960, American pilot Francis Gary Powers’s U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying over the Soviet Union, just north of modern-day Kazakhstan. Convinced the pilot could not have survived, the American government began a cover-up. In a dramatic piece of political theater, the Soviets finally trotted Powers out after he’d spent a full year in captivity. He eventually returned home when the United States traded Soviet spy William Fisher, aka Rudolf Abel, for his freedom. The incident set back peace talks between Khruschev and Eisenhower, and ended up being a major propaganda victory for the Communists. The U.S. had violated Soviet airspace just as Cold War tensions were beginning to wane.

  In later years, my family came to know Sue Powers, Gary’s second wife. She and Dad were active in a charity that a number of writers supported. There were also others who contributed information relating to the story. One was an elderly gentleman who, in the early 1950s, often ate in Tilford’s restaurant at the same time of day as Louis and who had lived in Siberia for some fifteen years. Dad also had a number of Native American friends who contributed either inspiration or information to Last of the Breed. Connie Lavin and Albert White Hat, a Lakota language expert, suggested the name for the character Joe Makatozi (Joe Mack). Ponca Chief Tug Smith, who had been an actor in Shalako, was also helpful in the earliest stages of planning the story. Additionally, there was Librarian of Congress James Billington, who arranged for Dad to get access to some oddly secret maps of the Soviet Union.

  Although Dad planned some stories in a fair amount of detail, more often than not once he started writing he rarely referred to any of those notes, relying instead on his memory and whatever path the story took to direct his writing. Going where the story leads, rather than getting locked into one’s original plans, and diving in with single-minded energy are usually excellent qualities in a writer. But sometimes a good idea can get left by the wayside…especially if you write as much as Louis L’Amour did. In the case of Last of the Breed, a significant element somehow got left behind.

  Although I had heard some of Dad’s plans for his “Siberian story” considerably earlier, his first journal entry mentioning it is on March 12, 1985:

  “Work plans are to complete PASSIN’ THROUGH, which we decided was a better title than STARVATION CREEK and then what Bantam people call a “thriller”…mine has a working title of THE SKULL AND THE ARROW, a contemp. [contemporary] story of Siberia. I’ve had it in mind for 35 years or more. I recall telling the story to a newspaperman (Dewey Linze was his name, I believe) at a bar downtown, I believe after a meeting of the Adventurer’s Club.

  A bit of research suggests that Dewey Linze was an aviation writer for the Los Angeles Times…and given that Joe Mack is a pilot, discussing early plans for this story with Linze would have made a lot of sense.

  The most interesting thing about this journal entry, however, is the title of the piece. As you can tell from his mention of Starvation Creek, which became Passin’ Through, Louis was often unsure until the last minute what title he was going to use. Similarly, The Skull and the Arrow would go on to become Last of the Breed. However, the original title is the key to a missing element of the novel.

  Maybe twenty or thirty years before, Dad wrote a Western short story called “The Skull and the Arrow.” It was not published until 1997, in the collection End of the Drive. But as you will see, at one point Louis intended to use not only the title but the tale itself as the heart of the novel Last of the Breed.

  Here is a copy of the short story:

  The Skull and the Arrow

  Heavy clouds hung above the iron-colored peaks, and lancets of lightning flashed and probed. Thunder rolled like a distant avalanche in the mountain valleys….The man on the rocky slope was alone.

  He stumbled, staggering beneath the driving rain, his face hammered and raw. Upon his skull a wound gaped wide, upon his cheek the white bone showed through. It was the end. He was finished, and so were they all…they were through.

  Far-off pines made a dark etching along the skyline, and that horizon marked a crossing. Beyond it was security, a life outside the reach of his enemies, who now believed him dead. Yet, in this storm, he knew he could go no further. Hail laid a volley of musketry against the rock where he leaned, so he started on, falling at times.

  He had never been a man to quit, but now he had. They had beaten him, not man to man but a dozen to one. With fists and clubs and gun barrels they had beaten him…and now he was through. Yes, he would quit. They had taught him how to quit.

  The clouds hung like dark, blowing tapestries in the gaps of the hills. The man went on until he saw the dark opening of a cave. He turned to it for shelter then, as men have always done. Though there are tents and wickiups, halls and palaces, in his direst need man always returns to the cave.

  He was out of the rain but it was cold within. Shivering, he gathered sticks and some blown leaves. Among the rags of his wet and muddy clothing, he found a match, and from the match, a flame. The leaves caught, the blaze stretched tentative, exploring fingers and found food to its liking.

  He added fuel; the fire took hold, crackled, and gave off heat. The man moved closer, feeling the warmth upon his hands, his body. Firelight played shadow games upon the blackened walls where the smoke from many fires had etched their memories…for how many generations of men?

  This time he was finished. There was no use going back. His enemies were sure he was dead, and his friends would accept it as true. So he was free. He had done his best, so now a little rest, a little healing, and then over the pine-clad ridge and into the sunlight. Yet in freedom there is not always contentment.

  He found fuel again, and came upon a piece of ancient pottery. Dipping water from a pool, he rinsed the pot, then filled it and brought it back to heat
. He squeezed rain from the folds of his garments, then huddled between the fire and the cave wall, holding tight against the cold.

  There was no end to the rain…gusts of wind whipped at the cave mouth and dimmed the fire. It was insanity to think of returning. He had been beaten beyond limit. When he was down they had taken turns kicking him. They had broken ribs…he could feel them under the cold, a raw pain in his side.

  Long after he had lain inert and helpless, they had bruised and battered and worried at him. Yet he was a tough man, and he could not even find the relief of unconsciousness. He felt every blow, every kick. When they were tired from beating him, they went away.

  He had not moved for hours, and only the coming of night and the rain revived him. He moved, agony in every muscle, anguish in his side, a mighty throbbing inside his skull, but somehow he managed distance. He crawled, walked, staggered, fell. He fainted, then revived, lay for a time mouth open to the rain, eyes blank and empty.

  By now his friends believed him dead….Well, he was not dead, but he was not going back. After all, it was their fight, had always been their fight. Each of them fought for a home, perhaps for a wife, children, parents. He had fought for a principle, and because it was his nature to fight.

  With the hot water he bathed his head and face, eased the pain of his bruises, washed the blood from his hair, bathed possible poison from his cuts. He felt better then, and the cave grew warmer. He leaned against the wall and relaxed. Peace came to his muscles. After a while he heated more water and drank some of it.

  Lightning revealed the frayed trees outside the cave, revealed the gray rain before the cave mouth. He would need more fuel. He got up and rummaged in the further darkness of the cave. He found more sticks and carried them back to his fire. And then he found the skull.