Riders of the Dawn

by Louis L'Amour

It was a free swing, and it cracked like a pistol shot. McCarran’s face went white from the blow, and he rushed, swinging, but Sabre brought up his knee in the charging man’s groin. Then he smashed him in the face with his elbow, pushing him over and back. McCarran dived past him, blood streaming from his crushed nose, and grabbed wildly at the papers. His hand came up with a bulldog .41.

  Matt saw the hand shoot for the papers, and, even as the .41 appeared, his own gun was lifting. He fired first, three times, at a range of four feet.

  Prince McCarran stiffened, lifted to his tiptoes, then plunged over on his face, and lay still among the litter of papers and broken glass.

  Sabre swayed drunkenly. He recalled what Sikes had said about the desk. He caught the edge and jerked it aside, swinging the desk away from the wall. Behind it was a small panel with a knob. It was locked, but a bullet smashed the lock. He jerked it open. A thick wad of bills, a small sack of gold coins, a sheaf of papers.

  A glance sufficed. These were the papers Simpson had mentioned. The thick parchment of the original grant, the information on the conflicting Sonoma grant, and then … He glanced swiftly through them, then, at a pound of horses’ hoofs, he stuffed them inside his shirt. He stopped, stared. His shirt was soaked with blood.

  Fumbling, he got the papers into his pocket, then stared down at himself. Sikes had hit him. Funny, he had never felt it. Only a shock, a numbness. Now Reed was coming back.

  Catching up a sawed-off express shotgun, he started for the door, weaving like a drunken man. He never even got to the door.

  *

  The sound of galloping horses was all he could hear—galloping horses, and then a faint smell of something that reminded him of a time he had been wounded in North Africa. His eyes flickered open, and the first thing he saw was a room’s wall with the picture of a man with mutton-chop whiskers and spectacles.

  He turned his head and saw Jenny Curtin watching him. “So? You’ve decided to wake up. You’re getting lazy, Matt. Mister Sabre. On the ranch you always were the first one up.”

  He stared at her. She had never looked half so charming, and that was bad. It was bad because it was time to be out of here and on a horse.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Only about a day and a half. You lost a lot of blood.”

  “What happened at the ranch? Did Keys get there in time?”

  “Yes, and I stayed. The others left right away.”

  “You stayed?”

  “The others,” she said quietly, “went down the road about two miles. There were Camp Gordon, Tom Judson, Pepito, and Keys. And Rado, of course. They went down the road while I stood out in the ranch yard and let them see me. The boys ambushed them.”

  “Was it much of a fight?”

  “None at all. The surprise was so great that they broke and ran. Only three weren’t able, and four were badly wounded.”

  “You found the papers? Including the one about McCarran sending the five thousand in marked bills to El Paso?”

  “Yes,” she said simply. “We found that. He planned on having Billy arrested and charged with theft. He planned that, and then, if he got killed, so much the better. It was only you he didn’t count on.”

  “No.” Matt Sabre stared at his hands, strangely white now. “He didn’t count on me.”

  So it was all over now. She had her ranch, she was a free woman, and people would leave her alone. There was only one thing left. He had to tell her. To tell her that he was the one who had killed her husband.

  He turned his head on the pillow. “One thing more,” he began. “I …”

  “Not now. You need rest.”

  “Wait. I have to tell you this. It’s about … about Billy.”

  “You mean that you … you were the one who …?”

  “Yes, I …” He hesitated, reluctant at last to say it.

  “I know. I know you did, Matt. I’ve known from the beginning, even without all the things you said.”

  “I talked when I was delirious?”

  “A little. But I knew, Matt. Call it intuition, anything you like, but I knew. You see, you told me how his eyes were when he was drawing his gun. Who could have known that but the man who shot him?”

  “I see.” His face was white. “Then I’d better rest. I’ve got some traveling to do.”

  She was standing beside him. “Traveling? Do you have to go on, Matt? From all you said last night, I thought … I thought,” her face flushed, “maybe you … didn’t want to travel any more. Stay with us, Matt, if you want to. We would like to have you, and Billy’s been asking for you. He wants to know where his spurs are.”

  After a while, he admitted carefully, “Well, I guess I should stay and see that he gets them. A fellow should always make good on his promises to kids, I reckon.”

  “You’ll stay, then? You won’t leave?”

  Matt stared up at her. “I reckon,” he said quietly, “I’ll never leave unless you send me away.”

  She smiled and touched his hair. “Then you’ll be here a long time, Mathurin Sabre … a very long time.”

  Riders of the Dawn

  I

  I rode down from the high blue hills and across the brush flats into Hattan’s Point, a raw bit of spawning hell, scattered hit or miss along the rocky slope of a rust-topped mesa. Ah, it’s a grand feeling to be young and tough with a heart full of hell, strong muscles, and quick, flexible hands! And the feeling that somewhere in town there’s a man who would like to tear down your meat house with hands or gun.

  It was like that, Hattan’s Point was, when I swung down from my buckskin and gave him a word to wait with. A new town, a new challenge, and, if there were those who wished to take me on, let them come and be damned.

  I knew the whiskey of this town would be the raw whiskey of the last town, and of the towns behind it, but I shoved through the batwing doors and downed a shot of rye and looked around, measuring the men along the bar and at the tables. None of these men did I know, yet I had seen them all before in a dozen towns. The big, hard-eyed rancher with the iron-gray hair who thought he was the bull of the woods, and the knifelike man beside him with the careful eyes who would be gun slick and fast as a striking snake. The big man turned his head toward me, as a great brown bear turns to look at something he could squeeze to nothing, if he wished.

  “Who sent for you?”

  There was harsh challenge in the words. The cold demand of a conqueror, and I laughed within me.

  “Nobody sent for me. I ride where I want and stop when I want.”

  He was a man grown used to smaller men who spoke softly to him, and my answer was irritating.

  “Then ride on,” he said, “for you’re not wanted in Hattan’s Point.”

  “Sorry, friend,” I said. “I like it here. I’m staying, and maybe, in whatever game you’re playing, I’ll buy chips. I don’t like being ordered around by big frogs in such small puddles.”

  His big face flamed crimson, but before he could answer, another man spoke up, a tall young man with white hair.

  “What he means is that there’s trouble here, and men are taking sides. Those who stand upon neither side are everybody’s enemy in Hattan’s Point.”

  “So?” I smiled at them all, but my eyes held to the big bull of the woods. “Then maybe I’ll choose a side. I always did like a fight.”

  “Then be sure you choose the right one,” this was from the knifelike man beside the bull, “and talk to me before you decide.”

  “I’ll talk to you,” I said, “or any man. I’m reasonable enough. But get this, the side I choose will be the right one.”

  The sun was bright on the street and I walked outside, feeling the warmth of it, feeling the cold from my muscles. Within me I chuckled, because I knew what they were saying back there. I’d thrown my challenge at them for pure fun; I didn’t care about anyone. And then suddenly I did.

  She stood on the boardwalk straight before me, slim, tall, with a softly curved body and
magnificent eyes and hair of deepest black. Her skin was lightly tanned, her eyes an amazing green, her lips full and rich.

  My black leather chaps were dusty, and my gray shirt was sweat-stained from the road. My jaws were lean and unshaven, and under my black, flat-crowned hat my hair was black and rumpled. I was in no shape to meet a girl like that, but there she was, the woman I wanted, my woman.

  In two steps, I was beside her. “I realize,” I said as she turned to face me, “the time is inopportune. My presence scarcely inspires interest, let alone affection and love, but this seemed the best time for you to meet the man you are to marry. The name is Mathieu Sabre. Furthermore, I might as well tell you now, I am of Irish and French extraction, have no money, no property but a horse and the guns I wear, but I have been looking for you for years, and I could not wait to tell you that I was here, your future mate and husband.” I bowed, hat in hand.

  She stared, startled, amazed, and then angry. “Well, of all the egotistical …”

  “Ah.” My expression was one of relief. “Those are kind words, darling, wonderful words. More true romances have begun with those words than any other. And now, if you’ll excuse me?”

  Taking one step back, I turned, vaulted over the hitching rail, and untied my buckskin. Swinging into the saddle, I looked back. She was standing there, staring at me, her eyes wide, and the anger was leaving them.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, bowing again. “I’ll call upon you later.”

  It was time to get out and away, but I felt good about it. Had I attempted to advance the acquaintance, I should have gotten nowhere, but my quick leaving would arouse her curiosity. There is no trait women possess more fortunate for men than their curiosity.

  *

  The livery stable at Hattan’s Point was a huge and rambling structure that sprawled lazily over a corner at the beginning of the town. From a bin, I got a scoop of corn, and, while the buckskin absorbed this warning against hard days to come, I curried him carefully. A jingle of spurs warned me, and, when I looked around, a tall, very thin man was leaning against the stall post, watching me.

  When I straightened up, I was looking into a pair of piercing dark eyes from under shaggy brows that seemed to overhang the long hatchet face. He was shabby and unkempt, but he wore two guns, the only man in town who I’d seen wearing two except for the knifelike man in the saloon.

  “Hear you had a run in with Rud Maclaren.”

  “Run in? I’d not call it that. He suggested the country was crowded, and that I move on. So I told him I liked it here, and, if the fight looked good, I might choose a side.”

  “Good. Then I come right on time. Folks are talkin’ about you. They say Canaval offered you a job on Maclaren’s Bar M. Well, I’m beatin’ him to it. I’m Jim Pinder, ramroddin’ the CP outfit. I’ll pay warrior wages, seventy a month an’ found. All the ammunition you can use.”

  My eyes had strayed beyond him to two men lurking in a dark stall. They had, I was sure, come in with Pinder. The idea did not appeal to me. Shoving Pinder aside, I sprang into the middle of the open space between the rows of stalls.

  “You two!” My voice rang in the echoing emptiness of the building. “Get out in the open! Start now or start shooting!”

  My hands were wide, fingers spread, and right then it did not matter to me what way they came. There was that old jumping devil in me, and the fury was driving me as it always did when action began to build up. Men who lurked in dark stalls did not appeal to me, or the men who hired them.

  They came out slowly, hands wide. One of them was a big man with black hair and unshaven jowls. He looked surly. The other had the cruel, flat face of an Apache.

  “Suppose I’d come shootin’?” the black-haired man sneered.

  “Then they’d be planting you at sundown.” My eyes held him. “If you don’t believe that, cut loose your wolf right now.”

  That stopped him. He didn’t like it, for they didn’t know me and I was too ready. Wise enough to see that I was no half-baked gunfighter, they didn’t know how much of it I could back up and weren’t anxious to find out.

  “You move fast.” Pinder was staring at me with small eyes. “Suppose I had cut myself in with Blacky and the ’Pache?”

  My chuckle angered him. “You? I had that pegged, Jim Pinder. When my guns came out, you would have died first. You’re faster than either of those two, so you’d take yours first. Then Blacky, and after him,” I nodded toward the Apache, “him. He would be the hardest to kill.”

  Pinder didn’t like it, and he didn’t like me.

  “I made an offer,” he said.

  “And you brought these coyotes to give me a rough time if I didn’t take it? Be damned to you, Pinder! You can take your CP outfit and go to blazes!”

  His lips thinned down and he stared at me. I’ve seldom seen such hatred in a man’s eyes. “Then get out!” he said. “Get out fast! Join Maclaren, an’ you die!”

  “Then why wait? I’m not joining Maclaren so far as I know now, but I’m staying, Pinder. Any time you want what I’ve got, come shooting. I’ll be ready.”

  “You swing a wide loop for a stranger. You started in the wrong country. You won’t live long.”

  “No?” I gave it to him flat and face up on the table. “No? Well, I’ve a hunch I’ll handle the shovel that throws dirt on your grave, and maybe trigger the gun that puts you there. I’m not asking for trouble, but I like it, so whenever you’re ready, let me know.”

  With that I left them. Up the street there was a sign:

  MOTHER O’HARA’S COOKING

  MEALS FOR BITS

  With the gnawing appetite of me, that looked as likely a direction as any. It was early for supper, and there were few at table. The young man with white hair and the girl I loved, and a few scattered others who ate sourly and in silence.

  When I shoved the door open and stood there with my hat shoved back on my head and a smile on my face, the girl looked up, surprised, but ready for battle. I grinned at her, and bowed. “How do you do, the future Missus Sabre? The pleasure of seeing you again so soon is unexpected, but real.”

  The man with her looked surprised, and the buxom woman of forty-five or so who came in from the kitchen looked quickly from one to the other of us.

  The girl ignored me, but the man with the white hair nodded. “You’ve met Miss Maclaren, then?”

  So? Maclaren it was? I might have suspected as much. “No, not formally. But we met briefly on the street, and I’ve been dreaming of her for years. It gives me great wonder to find her here, although when I see the food on the table, I don’t doubt why she is so lovely if it is here she eats.”

  Mother O’Hara liked that. “Sure ’n’ I smell the blarney in that,” she said sharply. “But sit down, if you’d eat.”

  My hat came off, and I sat on the bench opposite my girl, who looked at her plate in cold silence.

  “My name is Key Chapin.” The white-haired man extended his hand. “Yours, I take it, is Sabre?”

  “Matt Sabre,” I said.

  A grizzled man from the foot of the table looked up. “Matt Sabre from Dodge, once marshal of Mobeetie, the Mogollon gunfighter?”

  They all looked from him to me, and I accepted the cup of coffee Mother O’Hara poured.

  “The gentleman knows me,” I said quietly. “I’ve been known in those places.”

  “You refused Maclaren’s offer?” Chapin asked.

  “Yes, and Pinder’s, too.”

  “Pinder?” Chapin’s eyes were wary. “Is he in town?”

  “Big as life.” I could feel the girl’s eyes on me. “Tell me what this fight is about?”

  “What are most range wars about? Water, sheep, or grass. This one is water. There’s a long valley east of here called Cottonwood Wash, and running east out of it is a smaller valley or cañon called the Two Bar. On the Two Bar is a stream of year-round water with volume enough to irrigate land or water thousands of cattle. Maclaren wants that water. The CP
wants it.”

  “Who’s got it?”

  “A man named Ball. He’s no fighter and has no money to hire fighters, but he hates Maclaren and refuses to do business with Pinder. So there they sit with the pot boiling and the lid about to blow off.”

  “And our friend Ball is right smack in the middle.”

  “Right. Gamblers around town are offering odds he won’t last thirty days, even money that he’ll be dead within ten.”

  That was enough for now. My eyes turned to the daughter of Rud Maclaren. “You can be buying your trousseau, then,” I said, “for the time will not be long.”

  She looked at me coolly, but behind it there was a touch of impudence. “I’ll not worry about it,” she said calmly. “There’re no weddings in Boot Hill.”

  They laughed at that, yet behind it I knew there was the feeling that she was right, and yet the something in me that was me told me no, it was not my time to go. Not by gun or horse or rolling river—not yet.

  “You’ve put your tongue to prophecy, darling,” I said, “and I’ll not say that I’ll not end in Boot Hill, where many another a good man has gone, but I will say this, and you sleep on it, daughter of Maclaren, for it’s a bit of the truth. Before I sleep in Boot Hill, there’ll be sons and daughters of yours and mine on this ground. Yes, and believe me,” I got up to go, “when my time comes, I’ll be carried there by six tall sons of ours, and there’ll be daughters of ours who’ll weep at my grave, and you with them, remembering the years we’ve had.”

  When the door slapped shut behind me, there was silence inside, and then through the thin walls I heard Mother O’Hara speak.

  “You’d better be buyin’ that trousseau, Olga Maclaren, for there’s a lad as knows his mind!”

  This was the way of it then, and now I had planning to do, and my way to make in the world, for although I’d traveled wide and far, in many lands not my own, I’d no money or home to take her to. Behind me were wars and struggles, hunger, thirst, and cold, and the deep, splendid bitterness of fighting for a cause I scarcely understood, because there was in me the undying love of a lost cause and a world to win. And now I’d my own to win, and a threshold to find to carry her over.