Over on the Dry Side

by Louis L'Amour

  “The trouble is with wandering that after a bit a man looks around and the horizons are still there. There are nameless canyons and rivers still unknown to man. But a mortal man is suddenly old. The dream is there still, but rheumatism and weakening strength rob him of the chance to go farther.

  “See me five years from now, Doby…or ten.”

  Well, I just looked at him. He wasn’t payin’ me no mind, just lookin’ off across the country, thinkin’ his own thoughts. Me, I had thoughts of my own.

  Then Chantry walked out to his horse. Whenever he had thinkin’ to do, he curried his horse, fussed over it. You’d think that black was a baby. Yet he cared for the packhorse just about as well.

  I went inside. Pa was settin’ by the fire. “Pa, you think he’s speakin’ the truth?”

  “Who?” Pa was startled. “You mean Chantry? Course he is!”

  “But maybe they had reason to kill his brother, if they done it.”

  “We done found the body, son. And I know ’bout Mowatt and his outfit. I heard.”

  “You heard. Ain’t you always told me not to b’lieve all I heard?”

  “You had trouble with ’em first, Doby.”

  Well, that kind of backed me up in a corner. It was true. They’d been mighty rough with me. So I just said, “That don’t prove nothin’.” It was a feeble answer and I knowed it.

  *

  WE NEEDED POLES for fencing if we were growin’ any garden, so daybreak next day I packed me a lump and taken off for the hills to cut aspens.

  Aspens grow tall and slim. Just right for making a fence quick, usin’ them as rails. I taken an ax and when I fetched up to the nearest grove I got down and set to.

  Sixteen ain’t many years, but I was strong and I’d used an ax good, and I made the blade bite deep an’ fast. By noon I’d cut enough poles for the best part of a day. I looped a half hitch and a timber hitch to ’em, took a turn around the saddle horn, and dragged the poles out to where I could get at ’em when I come with the team.

  I dragged the first bunch, then the second. That done, I taken my horse to the creek, and when he’d had himself a drink I picketed him on the good feed there was where I’d been cuttin’ aspens, and then I set down by the stream and opened my lump.

  It looked like a lump, too, the bread all squeezed up and out of shape, but it tasted almighty good.

  When I finished eatin’, I hunted ’round for wild raspberries but they was skimpy and small. In a good year they’d be plenty of ’em around, if a body got to them before the bears and birds. But I found a few dozen and started to turn back to my horse when I seen something move out of the tail of my eye.

  My rifle was on my saddle so I just squatted down at the edge of the trees, hopin’ I hadn’t been seen.

  By that time it’d been the best part of an hour since I’d been choppin’ trees. So there’d been no sound from me that a body could hear more’n a few feet off.

  Lookin’ up to where I’d seen that movement, I set still an’ waited.

  The mountain sloped up under that cloak of aspens to the very foot of that great red wall that was the rampart below the mountain cabin. The cabin itself was across the canyon and more than a mile…maybe two mile off. Lookin’ over a canyon that way, distance can fool a man.

  Mountain air, specially over here on the dry side, is almighty clear and I could see somethin’ movin’ at the base of the red wall. He might be atop a rock slide. That was a place I’d never had cause to go, and I didn’t know for sure…but he was alongside the rampart.

  Now my eyesight is good, and blinkin’ my eyes a couple times, I set to lookin’ off to one side a little and, sure enough, I saw that movement again. Something was movin’ along the base of that cliff, for sure. And while I set and watched, that somebody—or something—moved along the base of the wall and finally disappeared. I set there awaitin’, but whatever it was was gone.

  Now I studied on what I’d seen. It might have been a animal, but it looked otherwise to me. I believed it was a man, or a man on a horse, and whoever it was might have been lookin’ for a way to the top.

  If a body could find a way up that cliff, he could save himself several miles of ridin’ to and from…an hour or more each way. And it struck me then that whoever I’d seen was him…Owen Chantry.

  He was huntin’ a quick, easy way to the top.

  Well, why not? I could just as well do that my own self. Settin’ back where I was.…Well, I pulled back fifty yards from where I’d been an’ set down on a stump. Then I gave study to that red wall.

  Most places it was so sheer a man would have to be a sure-enough mountain climber to scale it. But there were a couple notches on the south side of the mesa that looked right promisin’. Chantry’d been workin’ north along the west face when I seen him, and when he disappeared.

  I looked at the sun. Too late. I’d have to hightail it for home to get there ’fore sundown, ’cause I had to go down to the river canyon and up the other side, and I wasn’t wishful of tryin’ it after dark. It was a right spooky ride down and up in the daylight. Even ridin’ a good mountain horse like I had.

  Tomorrow…tomorrow I’d have to hitch up the team and come after them poles. Once up here I’d picket the team and head for the red wall.

  Right then I had a worried time. What right did I have to go traipsin’ off? Pa was doin’ his share, and it was up to me to do mine. He needed them poles. He needed the team, and he needed me and my time. We had our work cut out for us.

  Still, how long would it take? An hour, maybe two. I picked up my ax and stuff and headed for the canyon.

  What if I picketed the team an’ a mountain lion come down on ’em? Or a bear? Course, most times bears won’t kill livestock, not unless they done it before or need to eat.

  We couldn’t afford to lose that team, not even one of ’em.

  The bottom of the canyon was dark when I got there, but the top was still gold with sunshine. That trail was a hair-raiser. But it would’ve been more scary if it hadn’t been for part of the slopes bein’ timbered.

  I fetched to the bottom. It was dark down there, only water shinin’ like silver. We splashed through and started up to the crest. A third of the way up I stopped to let my horse catch wind, and I turned in the saddle and looked back.

  I seen nothin’, but I heard splashin’ in the water, then a hoof clicked on stone.

  Me, I touched a heel to my horse an’ we started on. I didn’t know what was back there, and I wanted to make no effort to find out. This was a plumb spooky place, and even if it was just one man, I wanted no gunfight on that hairline trail.

  When I topped out on the crest, I put a spur to that gelding an’ lit out for home. It wasn’t far, but I let my horse go. Goin’ home, that was the fastest horse. I never seen a horse had more love for home and the stable than that one. He lit out for home like he had fire under his tail.

  The house light sure looked good! I rode into the yard, slid off that horse, and led him into the stable. Pa come to the door.

  “Dry that horse off, boy, an’ git in here. Supper’s on the table.”

  When I taken my riggin’ off, I went to throw it over the partition and there was Owen Chantry’s black. I hung up my saddle and spoke soft to the black, and put a hand on it.

  Wiped off, yes. Curried a mite, yes.…But the skin was damp. I was sure the skin was damp.

  When I come through the door, Chantry was settin’ at the table with Pa. He looked up and smiled, and that made me sore. Who did he think he was? And how did he beat me gettin’ home? Maybe it wasn’t him.

  Then I was wondering. Who was it out there? Who followed me up that canyon trail?

  Chapter 7

  *

  OWEN CHANTRY WAS restless, irritable. What he wanted was something to read, but the Kernohans were not readers. There was only a copy of the Iliad, which had belonged to his brother. Which was odd, for Clive had always been a reader.

  “Kernohan,” Owen said suddenl
y, “weren’t there any books here when you came? Clive was a man who liked reading. I would have expected him to have some books.”

  “Books? Oh, sure! There’s a-plenty. We boxed ’em up an’ stored ’em in the loft. They was takin’ up space and collectin’ dust, so we just put ’em up there.

  “Me, I never did learn to read much, an’ Doby here, he’s mostly innerested in horses an’ guns.”

  “If you don’t mind,” Chantry said, “I’ll look those books over. Might be something to read.”

  “He’p yourself. I looked through a few of ’em but there ain’t much there that makes much sense to me. Books by them Greeks, histories an’ such. Nothin’ that would he’p a man work land.”

  Dawn came with a cool wind off the mountains, a smell of pine and the chill of rocky peaks where some of last year’s snow still lingered from the winter, awaiting the next snow.

  Owen went to the woodpile and took up the ax. For a half hour he worked, cutting wood for the cooking fires. From time to time he paused, leaning on the ax and taking time to study the country. His eyes searched out every canyon, every draw, placing them exactly in his mind.

  Lost Canyon lay just north, a great, timbered gash coming down from the northeast. Only barely visible from where he stood, he had ridden to it on his first scouting of the country. A creek ran along the bottom.…One day he would go down there.

  It was one of the last areas in the States to be settled. Rivera had reached it in 1765, and Escalante had passed through in 1776. Otherwise the vast land had remained unrecorded by any white man, yet men must have ridden through, hunted and prospected here. There was always one curious rider who went a little farther, or passed through going from here to there. Discoverers were only those who called attention to what they’d seen and done.

  When Owen left the woodpile he climbed to the loft and rummaged through the books. The Odes of Horace in the original Latin did him no good at all. Clive had been the Latin scholar of the family.

  There was a two-volume edition of the poems of Alfred Tennyson—a contemporary—published in 1842. Chantry had read some of Tennyson, and enjoyed him. The rest could wait. He took up the two Tennyson books and climbed down.

  He opened a book when he reached the last step and looked through it, riffling the pages and glancing at a poem here and there. One page was marked by a torn piece of newspaper. It was “Ulysses.”

  He closed the book and put it down for later reading.

  When he walked outside again, both Kernohan and Doby had gone. The team was gone, as was Doby’s gelding. Owen had started back toward the house when he glimpsed three riders coming down the draw toward the house.

  Chantry took his rifle from inside and placed it beside the door. Suddenly, he saw movement near a bush by the stable. His hand was poised for a draw when a voice called out, “Don’t shoot, Owen!”

  It was Kernohan, hoe in hand, unarmed.

  “Stay right where you are or get into the barn,” Chantry advised.

  He was watching the riders. He knew that bay. It was a big horse, weighing twelve hundred or more and standing over sixteen hands. It was notoriously fast and had won many races around the country.

  It was Strawn’s horse, and nobody ever rode that horse but Strawn.

  Freka would be with him. Freka was part Finlander, a troublemaker who had lived in a colony of Scandinavians in Utah until they drove him out. He was known to be a good man with a gun and had figured in several pointless killings in the past few years.

  They turned into the yard and drew up when they saw Chantry standing in the door, waiting for them.

  “Howdy, Chantry!” Strawn said casually. “It’s been a while.”

  “Fort Worth, wasn’t it?” Chantry asked.

  Freka was the thin, blond man in the checkered shirt. The third man was heavier, a barrel-chested fellow with a bull neck and a shaved head to whom Chantry couldn’t yet put a name.

  “You boys traveling?” Chantry asked them.

  “Sort of prospectin’ around. You ever been to the La Platas?”

  “Time or two.”

  “Rough country, but mighty purty. How’s for a drink?”

  “Water or coffee? We haven’t any whiskey.”

  “Coffee sounds good.” Strawn swung down from his bay, and the others followed. Slowly, they walked toward the house. Halfway there, Freka suddenly turned and looked toward the barn, pausing, then saying something in a low voice to the barrel-chested man, who was nearest him.

  Owen Chantry got down four cups from the shelf and then the coffeepot. They seated themselves around the table and Chantry filled their cups.

  “No sugar out here,” Chantry commented. “Honey all right?”

  “I favor it,” Strawn said.

  He was a good-looking man, his face somewhat long under a high forehead, with carefully parted and combed hair. He was a man of nearly thirty but he looked younger. He was good with a gun. He had been in a couple of cattle wars and several shootouts.

  Jake…that was the third man’s name. He’d used other handles from time to time, but that was his real name.

  “This here’s a long way from somewhere for you, Chantry,” Strawn said. “I figured you for a town man.”

  “I like wild country. The wilder the better.”

  “Well, you got it,” Strawn said. “There just ain’t hardly nobody around here. You could ride a hundred miles in any direction and find nobody.…Nobody.”

  “Except the Mowatt outfit,” Chantry commented.

  Strawn looked up, grinning. “You seen them?”

  “They stopped by to visit. Didn’t stay long.”

  Strawn stared at him, then smiled. “Well, well. You mean you backed him off? You backed off Mac Mowatt?”

  Chantry refilled their cups. “You know how it is, Strawn. Mac didn’t figure the odds were right. Maybe he wanted company to be present. He might have been waiting for somebody.”

  Strawn chuckled. “You know, I like you, Chantry. I really do. Hope I never have to kill you.”

  “Be a shame, wouldn’t it, Strawn? Somebody sending you out on a job like that? And you so young, too.”

  Strawn’s eyes glinted, but he chuckled again. “Good coffee, Owen. I’m glad we stopped by.”

  “You know, Jake, I was hoping to have this talk with you. You know me better than Mowatt does, and I don’t think you ever knew me to lie.”

  “You?” Strawn stared. “I’d shoot the man who even suggested it.”

  “Mowatt is after something, Jake. He’s after something that isn’t even there, that never was there. I don’t know all the facts, but I do know there’s no treasure. There’s nothing here that would be valuable to anybody but a scholar.”

  “What’s that mean?” Freka was suddenly alert.

  “It means that when my brother rode up out of Mexico he brought something he valued greatly…and the treasure story got started.”

  “So?”

  “What he brought…and I’ll admit I’ve never seen it…was information. A book, a manuscript, some notes…perhaps a plaque of some kind. To someone trying to reconstruct history it would be valuable. But to the average person, worthless.”

  Freka smiled with exasperation. “You must think we’re all simpleminded to believe a story like that. Why would a growed-up man risk his life for something like that?”

  Jake Strawn looked thoughtful. “And if there’s nothing there, we wind up empty?”

  Chantry shrugged. “Did you ever hear of Mowatt giving away anything of his own? Look, Jake, you’ve ridden for some tough outfits, and so have I, and you know that nobody but some crazy kid, some wild youngster fights for anything but gain.…Not in our world. So if there’s no gain in treasure, where’s the payoff? You know I’m good with a gun. I know you are. I know damn well I don’t want to come up against you for fun, and I don’t think you want to lock horns with me for no payoff.”

  “And you say there’s no gold?”

  “I do.
What I suggest is this, Jake. I suggest you and Freka talk to Mowatt. Make him lay it on the line. I know all he’s doing is following a dream. Somebody told a story once, and then it was told again and again and each time it got bigger. A Chantry riding out of the desert with treasure in gold on him. With a Mowatt. How did they carry all that vast treasure?”

  Strawn, Chantry could see, was half convinced. But Freka wasn’t even listening. In fact, he was making a great show of ignoring the talk.

  “Hot air,” Freka said. “Mowatt’s no fool. He knows what he’s about.”

  “Like a hundred other foolish prospectors roaming these mountains to the east of us, hunting for gold they’ll never see.” Chantry emptied his cup. “Just thought I’d lay it on the line, Jake. You know me, and I know you.”

  “So why’re you here?” Freka demanded.

  “A good question, Freka. I’ve had a brother killed, and that’s a part of it. The rest is something you’d not likely grasp.

  “I’ve been up and down and across this country. I’ve gambled and fought, and I’ve killed men for reasons that might seem slight. I’ve fought in cattle wars, and town-site battles, for railroad rights of way and just about everything else. I’ve never had much and never expect to have, but I’d give ten years of my life to add just one little bit to the knowledge of the world.

  “We Chantrys have a failing, Freka. We like to finish what we start. I know the history of my family for two hundred years the way you know the trail to Santa Fe. And we’ve always finished what we started, or died in the trying. It’s a kind of stubbornness…damned foolishness, maybe.

  “Look, Strawn, a million years or more ago men began to accumulate learning. Over the years more bits and pieces of knowledge have been added and all of it is building a wall to shut out ignorance.

  “I think what Clive Chantry brought back from Mexico was a piece of the pattern, his brick for the wall. Maybe it was a clue to a lost civilization, maybe a treatment for some killing disease, maybe a better way to grow a crop. Maybe it’s one of the books of the Mayas that didn’t burn. The one thing I know is that it wasn’t gold.”