Matagorda

by Louis L'Amour

  “We got to get our horses,” one of the men said.

  “Walk,” Duvarney said. “A good walk in the rain and the wind will give you time to consider your ways. And boys—be sure you take that stage. If I saw you around I might just think you were waiting for me, and I’d have to shoot on sight, I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  He watched them go, and then he walked back to the cabin and went in the door.

  The old man was tipped back in his chair, and he let the chair legs down hard when Duvarney came in. Welt Spicer merely gave Tap a satisfied look, and Lawton Bean stretched.

  “Two of them are walking to Refugio,” Duvarney said. “It will cool them off a bit.”

  “Pinto?” the old man asked quickly.

  “Pinto’s out there. Will you take care of him, amigo? We’ll take those horses, too,” he added. “I think we’re going to need them, the way the weather is.”

  “You killed Pinto Hart?” The old man could not find it in himself to believe it could happen that way.

  “He killed himself,” Duvarney said. “He made an error in judgment.”

  They rode to the south and then east, and within a few miles they began to see Rafter K cattle.

  Chapter 14

  *

  JESSICA TRESCOTT HUDDLED in her Mackintosh, half asleep. The wind filled the day with a dreadful roaring, like nothing she had ever heard. Outwardly, Jessica was calm; inwardly, she trembled. It was a trembling down deep inside her, the trembling of a fear such as she had never known.

  The others were gathered about her, together yet alone; for in a terrible storm each person is alone within their minds, cowering with their own private fears, their uncertainties. There is no isolation like that brought on by storm, for the voice cannot rise above the wind, nor can it reach that private place within the head where man hovers in the midst of all that he is and has been.

  Jessica’s hands were thrust deep in her pockets, her shoulders were hunched, as much to shut out the sound as to bring warmth.

  The courthouse was of concrete, and it was strongly built. The rise of ground on which it sat lifted it somewhat above the waters.

  And now, for the first time, the great waves began to break over the island.

  Up to now the wind had driven the waters of the bay upon the shore, had driven great volumes of water through the passages between the islands, and the swells had pounded the outer islands, but only now had the sea begun to roll its swells clear across the island and up on the low shores.

  It began in the town with a mighty wave that sent a rolling wall of water up the street. This was almost immediately followed by another. The outer buildings of the town, battered by the gigantic winds, now crashed before the onrushing sea.

  “Ma’am?”

  Jessica looked up to see Bill Taylor standing beside her, hat in hand. “Ma’am,” he repeated, “you got to see this. Maybe you’ll never see the like again.”

  With Mady and Bob Brunswick, she followed him up the stairs to the second floor. Up there she was conscious only of the mighty sound of the wind. The building seemed to give before the weight of it pressing against the walls. It even seemed to suck the breath from her lungs, causing her to gasp for each breath. When he led her to a window with a broken shutter, she looked out over Indianola and was appalled.

  As far as her eyes could see, in the intervals between the gusts of wind and rain, there was only water. The rushing waves were smashing the buildings now, floating the less securely anchored, sending them crashing one against another with tremendous, splintering force.

  There was no longer a harbor, no longer any piers to be seen, or any land at all. Here and there a tree, rooted more deeply than the others, still held its place, almost drowned by the rising water.

  The boardwalk where she had stood not long ago was gone, and the hotel itself canted over weirdly. For a moment she thought of her clothing there…of the pictures of her father and mother, her diary…all would be gone, carried away by the flood.

  Mady was thinking of those dresses, too. “All those beautiful gowns!” she wailed.

  Jessica glanced at her, and said wryly, “I don’t believe those clothes have much to do with what is really worthwhile, and I doubt if Tappan will even realize they are gone.”

  “I wish I had them.”

  “The only things I regret are a few personal keepsakes and my books, and I haven’t really lost them, I suppose. Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.”

  She looked out at the frightful havoc of the storm. A town was dying out there, being wiped from the earth, but guiltily she realized that all she could think about was Tappan. Where was he? Was he safe?

  The worst of it was, there was nothing she could do. Those who could reach the courthouse were there. Bill Taylor and a few others had performed amazingly, rescuing men, women, and children, and getting them all inside. Taylor, awaiting trial for his part in a shooting, had worked harder than anyone in getting people to safety.

  She went back and sat down. The water was over the steps now, and the town was simply caving in under the combined attack of sea and wind.

  Here and there clusters of men bunched together. Once Taylor came over and squatted near by. He knew Mady, of course, but it was to Jessica he talked. “Stories are going around,” he said, “that there’s been more shooting south of here. But don’t you worry; that man of yours is a good hand. I watched him out there against Eggen and Wheeler. He’ll take care of himself.”

  He did not look at Mady or speak to her. Once she started to address him and he pointedly looked away. She flushed.

  “Tom Kitt’ry,” Taylor said, “ran into a bunch of trouble. Seems they knew right where to find him, and they did. Feller rode into town…he’s downstairs right now…he heard Pete Remley and Joe Breck were dead…Roy Kitt’ry too. Tom’s hurt, an’ he’s hid out. Somebody wished him no good,” Taylor added insinuatingly, “and folks know it. If there ever was a talker, it was that show-off, Ev Munson.”

  From the corners of her eyes, Jessica looked at Mady. Her face was shockingly white and pinched. She seemed shrunken, somehow, and she stared straight ahead in a kind of stark shame.

  “Tom’s goin’ to win now. That man of yours, Duvarney—he makes the difference. Those men he’s got, they’re good ones, but it’s Duvarney…he’s outguessed them every turn.”

  After a while, Taylor moved away, and the two girls sat silent. Finally, Jessica could restrain herself no longer. “Mady…why did you do it?”

  “Oh…you! You think you know so much! How do you know how it is to live in a place like this, year after year? I wanted Tom to leave. I wanted him to get out. And I knew he never would as long as that crazy feud was going on! Anyway, I had nothing to do with what happened.”

  “I saw you talking to Every Munson, Mady.”

  “What if you did? I’ve known Ev Munson all my life. I never cared about their silly feud. All I wanted was for Tom to take me away.”

  “Away from all he knew? Did that seem wise, Mady? This is Tom’s life. He knows cattle. He knows the range, the people. In the city he would be just another man struggling for a living among men who had grown up in a life he had never known.”

  “Tom would do all right,” Mady said defiantly.

  “And so you betrayed him?”

  Mady turned on Jessica, her eyes hot with anger. “I did no such thing!”

  “I think you did, Mady. I also think you were there when Lon Porter was killed.”

  Mady was silent. After a moment she said, “I did see that, but I had nothing to do with it. When I got to the corral Lon Porter was tying up his horse and asking for Major Duvarney. He said he had a message from Tom.…Well, he talked too loud and Jackson Huddy heard him.”

  “Did Jackson Huddy kill him?”

  “Yes, he did. He shot him through the back of the head, and I saw it. Oh, he didn’t see me, and I was so scared I couldn’t move if I’d wanted to! Jacks
on Huddy wasn’t more than thirty feet from him, and Lon Porter never knew anybody else was around, and you can just bet that hostler isn’t going to tell of it.”

  The wind was rising, and talk was becoming impossible. Sheets of rain battered the walls, seeping through around window casings and falling in huge drops from the ceilings. Outside, almost nothing could be seen, and nobody wanted to risk standing near enough to a window even to try.

  All of those on the ground floor had now climbed the stairs, for water was coming through under the doors, and one of the windows had been smashed by the wind. The wild banshee howling of the storm was maddening, and Jessica crouched on a bench, her legs drawn up under her, her head sunk behind the collar of her mackintosh, and her hands over her ears.

  Once, Taylor caught her shoulder and pointed. A window had smashed and water was pouring in, blown by the howling wind. A momentary lull gave them a glimpse of the town…only there was no town, only a torn and ravaged sea, littered with wreckage and the hull of a bottom-up ship. Then the streaming rain and blown spray shut out the sight again.

  Cowering on her bench, Jessica could only clutch herself and wait.

  *

  TAPPAN DUVARNEY AND his men were scattered widely when the wind came. Duvarney himself had found some thirty head of cattle on a slope and started moving them inland. Soon he had come upon a dozen more, all steers in this lot, bedded down on a long ridge.

  He had driven them no more than a mile when Lawton Bean appeared, driving thirty-odd head of mixed stuff. Some distance off they could see a long ridge running roughly north and south, and they started for it, picking up a few head from the country between.

  Welt Spicer came up driving a small herd, and they bunched them on the ridge, somewhat in the lee of the rocky crest that was tufted with stunted trees and low brush. There, under a deep hollowed-out space in the rock, they found where men had occasionally taken shelter. A crude wall of piled-up stone had been built to offer even more shelter, and when the wind came they brought their horses under the overhang.

  Thunder was now an almost continuous sound, and lightning flared again and again, lighting up the deep shadows under the overhang. The darkness was like late twilight. The rain roared down, slashing at the skin like cutting knives whenever one got within its range.

  Spicer sat in the farthest corner of the cavelike space and stared out at the storm. All the men, for fear of lightning, had placed their guns some distance away from them. Suddenly Bean looked around at Tap. “I thought I heard a yell!” he shouted. “Listen!”

  Duvarney went close to the mouth of the cave and waited, but for several minutes he heard nothing; then faint and far off, he heard what sounded like a shout.

  “Somebody is out there needing help,” he said. “You sit tight, and I’ll have a look.”

  “Don’t be loco,” Spicer objected. “A feller often hears such sounds in a storm.”

  Drawing the string under his chin a little tighter, and turning up his collar again, Duvarney hesitated only briefly, then plunged into the wall of water outside. His heels skidded on the muddy surface, and he almost fell, then he turned and started to clamber up the slope toward the crest of the ridge, clinging to the brush to help him climb.

  He could see that on the top of the ridge the trees were bent at an impossible angle, their roots still holding but the trunks almost parallel with the ground beneath. He clung to some brush, half crouching, and looked at the top of the ridge.

  No man could stand erect there. The wind would blow him right off. He turned and looked all around. He could see nothing but the driving rain. Below the ridge all was a swirling mass of water from the swollen creeks. The cattle were huddled just under the crest of the long ridge, taking what shelter they could from the onslaught of the storm.

  A feeble shout made him turn his head again, and he saw them. Past the point of the ridge where the slope fell away to the creek bottom a man was struggling with a mired horse, a horse that carried a dark, humped bundle on its back.

  Duvarney fought his way along the ridge through the brush. One look and he could see that the man was staggering with weariness. Once he fell to his knees and could barely struggle up. Duvarney yelled and ran to him, stumbling and falling himself, skidding on his knees. He got up, reaching the man just as he was about to fall into the water.

  It was Tom Kittery.

  Tap led him back to the slope, where he made him sit down, and then he caught up the reins on the horse. “Come on, boy!” he called. “Let’s get you out of here!”

  The horse needed little help, only a little more than Tom Kittery was able to give in his exhausted condition. He struggled, forefeet clambering at the bank, but with Duvarney’s help he struggled free. It was only then that Duvarney looked to see who was on his back. Two men…or bodies…wrapped in their slickers so as to shelter their heads, and tied to the horse’s back.

  Grabbing Tom by the arm, Duvarney pulled him erect. Just then he saw Lawton Bean and Spicer coming toward him in a tumbling run.

  “Wondered what was keepin’ you!” Spicer yelled.

  With Bean supporting Kittery, and Spicer walking alongside, they got back to the shelter of the overhang. Once they were out of the immediate roar and rush of the storm, it was like a reprieve from some ghastly hell, or from a wind-tortured world where one gasped for every breath, struggled to make every step.

  Duvarney untied the men on the horse, and saw that they were the Cajun and Lubec. Both were wounded. The Cajun was stretched out on his slicker, and Lubec helped himself to a corner and leaned back, breathing hoarsely. One of Lubec’s arms was clumsily bandaged and in a crude splint.

  “What happened to that?” Spicer asked.

  “Horse fell on me,” Lubec grumbled. “Slipped on a bank.” He indicated the Cajun. “That one’s been shot. Caught two slugs.”

  A long time later, with the wounded men cared for and Tom in an exhausted sleep, Tap Duvarney slept, too.

  Outside the storm still raged, thunder crashed and reverberated against the hills, but he slept.

  Chapter 15

  *

  WHEN THE MORNING came, the storm was gone. A few scattered clouds, ragged with a memory of yesterday’s winds, still remained in the sky. Only a small wind blew, and there was no rain.

  Tappan Duvarney stood at the opening of the overhang and looked out across the rain-soaked landscape. Everywhere were evidences of the hurricane’s passing. Trees were down, streams still rushed bank-full, and great pools of water were everywhere over the land.

  He went outside and looked along the ridge. The cattle were up, begining to move around, seeking out the sparse grass. Half a mile away he could see another slope, also dark with cattle.

  Welt Spicer came out, hitching his gun belt into place. “What’s up, Major?”

  “We’re going to move cattle,” Duvarney said grimly. “When we get some chow we’re going to check out that bunch yonder. If there’s any Rafter K stuff there, we’ll drift it north along with what we have.”

  “What about them?” Spicer motioned behind them.

  “The Cajun’s got to have treatment. If we can find that buckboard—”

  “I know where it is. Come across it t’other day. Do you want I should ride up there and get it?”

  Duvarney checked his watch. It was not yet five o’clock in the morning. There were several hundred head of cattle on this ridge, and nearly as many on the other. He went to his saddlebags for his field glasses and climbed to the top of the ridge. From there, studying the terrain, he saw that, as he had suspected, there were cattle and occasionally horses on every rise within sight. Some of those must be from the scattered herds or ungathered cattle wearing the Rafter K brand.

  Spicer had coffee boiling when he came back. The Cajun was lying on his back, half reclining against the wall.

  “A man would think you’d been hurt,” Tap said, grinning. “You mean it only took two slugs to put you down?”

  “Maybe I’
m gettin’ weak in my old age.” The Cajun’s eyes searched his. “You find many cow, yes?”

  “Plenty. Can you sit it out here while we round them up? Then we’ll get the buckboard and you can ride in that when we drive them.”

  “I be all right. You go along.”

  Tom Kittery was on his feet. “I’m ready to ride if you are, Tap,” he said quietly. “I’m beginning to think you’re right. We should be in the cattle business.”

  “How about you?” Duvarney looked over at Lubec.

  Johnny Lubec had changed none at all. “I’ll handle as many cows as any of you, busted arm and all, but I’d rather stay and fight.”

  “Welt, you ride south with Johnny. Start all the Rafter K stock north and west. If you see trouble coming, come on back this way and we’ll meet it together. But if you see Jackson Huddy, come running for me, fast.”

  They looked at him.

  “I’ve staked him out,” Tap said quietly. “When he killed Lon he killed a man of mine; and besides, he’s the one who’s out to stop us. When we get this drive started I’m going to cut out and go after him.”

  “Who’s huntin’ trouble now?” Lubec said.

  “It’s a safety precaution. If there was any other way I’d leave him until later. But I’m going to hunt the hunter.”

  “He’ll kill you,” Lubec said.

  “Well,” Tom said, “Huddy ain’t never got me, and Tap here took me alive…although,” he added, grinning, “I don’t believe he could do it again.”

  Bean worked east, and Tom Kittery with Duvarney himself rode north. By noon they had brought the cattle down off the high ground, and had then waded them and swum them until they could get them to still higher ground west and north of Horseshoe Lake.

  Lawton Bean was the last man to come along. None of the cattle were in a mood to cause trouble. After the fury of the storm, they seemed to welcome the presence of men and drifted ahead of them as if they realized they were driving them to safety.