The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Five

by Louis L'Amour

  They made it sound bad. Leo admitted he had killed seven men. Fair, stand-up fights, but still the men were dead by his gun. He admitted to rustling a few cows. Leo could have denied it, and maybe they couldn’t have proved it in a court of law, but Leo wasn’t used to the ways of courts and he knowed darn well we all knew he had rustled them cows. Fact is, I don’t think he ever thought of denying it.

  He had stuck up a few stages, too. He even admitted to that. But he denied killing Mitch Williams and he denied getting that box.

  Twenty thousand, it held. Twenty thousand in gold.

  Everybody thought Webb Pascal would defend Leo, but he refused, said he wanted no part of it. Webb had played poker with Leo and they’d been friends, but Webb refused him. Leo took that mighty hard. Lane Moore refused him, too, so all he could do was get that drunken old Bob Keyes to handle his case.

  Convicted? You know he was. That’s why they are hanging him. Keyes couldn’t defend a sick cat from a bath. When they got through asking questions of Leo Carver, he was a dead Injun, believe me.

  He had tried to stick up the stage once. He was a known killer. He had rustled cows. He traveled with a bad element in Canyon Gap. He had no alibi. All he had, really, was his own statement that he hadn’t done it—that and the thing we knew in our hearts that isn’t admissible as evidence.

  “Shame for you fellers to go to all that trouble,” Leo said now. That was Leo. There’s no stopping him. “Why don’t we just call the whole thing off?”

  Mort Lewand stood in his doorway chewing his cigar and watching that gallows go up, and it made me sore, seeing it like that, for if ever one man had hated another, Mort Lewand had hated Leo.

  Why? No particular reason. Personality, I’d guess you’d say. It was simply that they never tied up right. Mort, he pinched every dime he made. Leo spent his or gave it away. Mort went to church regular and was a rising young businessman. He was the town’s banker and he owned the express company, and he had just bought one of the finest ranches in the country.

  Leo never kept any money. He was a cattleman when he wanted to be, and as steady a hand as you’d find when he worked. One time he saved the CY herd almost single-handed when they got caught in a norther. He took on the job of ramrodding the Widow Ferguson’s ranch after her old man was killed, and he tinkered and slaved and worked, doing the job of a half-dozen hands until she had something she could see for money enough to keep her.

  Leo never kept a dime. He ate it up, drank it up, gave it away. The rest of the time he sat under the cottonwoods and played that old guitar of his and sang songs, old songs like my mother used to sing, old Scotch, Irish, and English songs, and some he made up as he went along.

  He got into fights, too. He whipped the three Taylor boys single-handed one day. I remember that most particular because I was there. That was the day he got the blood on Ruth Hadlin’s handkerchief.

  THE HADLINS WERE the town’s society. Every town’s got some society, and Judge Emory Hadlin was the big man of this town. He had money, all right, but he had name, too. Even in the West some folks set store by a name, and whenever the judge said his name it was like ringing a big gong. It had a sound. Maybe that was all some names had, but this one had more.

  Honor, reputation, square dealing, and no breath of scandal ever to touch any of them. Fine folks, and everybody knew it. Mort Lewand, he set his cap for Ruth but she never seemed to see him. That made him some angered, but tickled most of us. Mort figured he was mighty high-toned and it pleased us when Ruth turned him down flat.

  Don’t get the idea she was uppity. There was that time Old Pap come down with pneumonia. He was in a bad way and nobody to look after him but little Mary Ryan from down on the Street. Mary cared for him night and day almost until Ruth Hadlin heard about it.

  She came down there and knocked on the door, and when Mary opened it and saw Ruth she turned seven colors. There she was, a mighty pert little girl, but she was from the Street, and here was Ruth Hadlin—well, they don’t come any farther apart.

  Mary flushed and stammered and she didn’t know what to say, but Ruth came right on in. She turned around and said, “How is he, Mary? I didn’t even know he was ill.”

  Ill, that’s what she said. We folks mostly said sick instead of ill. Mary was shocked, too, never guessing that anybody like Ruth would know her name, or speak to her like that.

  “He’s bad off, Miss Ruth, but you shouldn’t be here. This is the—it’s the Street.”

  Ruth just looked at her and smiled, and she said, “I know it is, Mary, but Old Pap is ill and he can be just as ill on the Street as anywhere. I just heard about it, Mary, and how you’ve been caring for him. Now you go get some rest. I’ll stay with him.”

  Mary hesitated, looking at that beautiful blue gown Ruth was wearing and at the shabby little cabin. “There ain’t—isn’t much to do,” she protested.

  “I know.” Ruth was already bending over Old Pap and she just looked around and said, “By the way, Mary, tell somebody to go tell Doctor Luther to come down here.”

  “We tried, miss. He won’t come. He said all his business was the other side of town, that he’d no time for down here.”

  Ruth straightened up then. “You go tell him that Ruth Hadlin wants him down here!” Her voice was crisp. “He’ll come.”

  He did, too.

  But that was Miss Ruth. She was a thoroughbred, that one. And that was where she first met Leo Carver.

  It was the third day she had been sharing the nursing with Mary Ryan, and she was in the shack alone when she heard that horse. He was coming hell-bent for election and she heard him pull up in front of the house and then the door opened and in stepped Leo Carver.

  She knew him right off. How could you miss him? He was two inches over six feet, with shoulders wider than two of most men, and he was dark and clean-built with a fine line to his jaw and he had cold gray eyes. He wore two guns and his range clothes, and right then he had a two-day growth of beard. It must have startled her. Here was a man known as an outlaw, a rustler, and a killer, and she was there alone with a sick man.

  He burst in that door and then drew up short, looking from Ruth to the sick old man. If he was surprised to find her there, he didn’t let on. He just swept off his hat and asked, “How is he, Miss Hadlin?”

  For some reason she was excited. Frightened, maybe. “He’s better,” she said. “Miss Ryan and I have been nursing him.”

  Mary had come into the room behind him, and now she stepped around quickly. “He’s a lot better, Leo,” she said.

  “Maybe I can help nurse him, then,” Carver said. He was looking at Ruth and she was white-faced and large-eyed.

  Old Pap opened one eye. “Like hell,” he said expressively. “You think I want a relapse? You get on out of here. Seems like,” he protested plaintively, “every time I git to talk to a good-lookin’ gal, somebody comes hornin’ in!”

  Leo grinned then and looked from Ruth to Mary. “He’s in his right mind, anyway,” he said, and left.

  Mary stood there looking at Ruth, and Ruth looked after Leo and then at Mary.

  “He’s—he’s an outlaw,” Ruth said.

  Mary Ryan turned very sharp toward Ruth, and I reckon it was the only time she ever spoke up to Ruth. “He’s the finest man I ever knew!”

  And the two of them just stood there looking at each other and then they went to fussing over Old Pap. That was the longest convalescence on record.

  But there was that matter of the blood on her handkerchief. Ruth Hadlin was coming down the street and she was wearing a beautiful gray dress and a hat with a veil—very uptown and big city.

  She was coming down the boardwalk and everybody was turning to look—she was a fine figure of a woman and she carried herself well—and just then the doors of the Palace burst open and out comes a brawling mass of men swinging with all their fists. They spilled past Ruth Hadlin into the street and it turns out to be the three Taylors and Leo Carver.

 
They hit dirt and came up swinging. Leo smashed a big fist into the face of Scott Taylor and he went over into the street. Bob rushed him and Leo ducked and took him around the knees, dumping him so hard the ground shook.

  Bully Taylor was the tough one, and he and Leo stood there a full half-minute slugging it out with both hands, and then Leo stepped inside and whipped one to Bully’s chin and the pride of the Taylors hit dirt, out so cold he’s probably sleeping yet.

  Ruth Hadlin had stopped in her tracks, and now Leo stepped back and wiped the blood from his face with a jerk and some of it spattered on Ruth’s handkerchief. She cried out. He turned around and then he turned colors.

  “Miss Hadlin,” he said with a grin on his face, “I’m right sorry. I’d no intention getting blood on you, but”—and he grinned—“it’s good red blood, even if it isn’t blue.”

  She looked at him without turning a hair, and then she said coolly, “Don’t stand there with your face all bloody. Go wash it.” And then she added just as coolly, “And next time don’t lead with your right. If he hadn’t been so all in, he’d have knocked you out.” With that she walks off up the street and we all stood there staring.

  Leo, he stared most of all. “Well, I’m a skinned skunk!” he said. “Where do you reckon she ever heard about leading with a right?”

  Mary Ryan, she heard about it, but she said nothing, just nothing at all, and that wasn’t Mary’s way. Of course, we all knew about Mary. She was plumb crazy about Leo but he paid no particular attention to any one of the girls. Or all of them, for that matter.

  There was talk around town, but there always is. Some folks said this was as good a time as any to get shut of Leo Carver and his like. That it was time Canyon Gap changed its ways and spruced up a bit. Mort Lewand was always for changing things. He even wanted to change the name of Canyon Gap to Hadlin. It was the judge himself who stopped that.

  SO WE SAT AROUND NOW and listened to the hammers and thought of how big an occasion it was to be. Some of the folks from the creek were already in town, camped out ready for the big doings tomorrow.

  Ruth Hadlin was not around and none of us gave it much thought. All of this was so far away from the Hadlin folks. Ruth bought a horse, I remember, about that time. It was a fine big black. The Breed done sold it to her.

  Funny thing, come to think of it, because I’d heard him turn down five hundred for that horse—and that in a country where you get a good horse for twenty dollars—but Ruth had ways and nobody refused her very much. What she wanted with a horse that big I never could see.

  Editor Chafee, he hoisted his britches and was starting back toward the shop when Ruth Hadlin came down the street. She stopped nearby and she looked at that gallows. Maybe her face was a little pale, but the fact that all those roughnecks were around never seemed to bother her.

  “Tom,” she said right off, “what do you believe Leo Carver did with that money?”

  Chafee rubbed his jaw. “You know,” he scowled, “I’ve studied about that. I can’t rightly say.”

  “What has he always done with it before?”

  “Why, he spent it. Just as fast as he could.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t use it to hire a better lawyer? He could have had a man from El Paso for that. Or for much less! A good lawyer might have freed him.”

  “I wondered about that.” Chafee looked a little anxiously at Mort Lewand. Mort was a power in town and he disliked Carver and made no secret of it. Lewand was looking that way, and now he started over. “It doesn’t really matter now, does it?” Chafee added.

  Lewand came up and looked from one to the other. Then he smiled at Ruth. “Rather noisy, isn’t it, Ruth? Would you like me to escort you home?”

  “Why, thank you,” she said sweetly, “but I think I’ll stay. I’ve never seen a gallows before. Have you, Mr. Lewand?”

  “Me?” He looked startled. “Oh, yes. In several places.”

  She stood there a few minutes watching the carpenters work. “Well,” Ruth said slowly, “it’s too bad, but I’m glad no local people lost anything in that holdup.”

  We all looked at her, but she was watching the gallows, an innocent smile on her lips.

  Editor Chafee cleared his throat. “I guess you weren’t told, Miss Hadlin. The fact is, that money belonged to Mort here.”

  She smiled brightly. Women are strange folk. “Oh, no, Tom. You’ve been misinformed! As a matter of fact, that money was a payment on Mr. Lewand’s ranch, and when he consigned it for carriage it became the property of the former owner of the ranch. That was the agreement, wasn’t it, Mr. Lewand?”

  For some reason it made Mort mad, but he nodded. “That’s right.”

  Ruth nodded, too. “Yes, Mr. Lewand was telling me about it. He’s very farsighted, I think. Isn’t that wonderful, Tom? Just think how awful it would have been if he had paid that whole twenty thousand dollars and then lost it and had to pay it over! My, it would take a wealthy man to do that, wouldn’t it now?”

  Editor Chafee was looking thoughtful all of a sudden, and Old Pap had taken the pipe from his lips and was staring at Ruth. Mort, he looked mad as a horny toad, though for the life of me, I couldn’t see why. After all, it had been a smart stunt.

  “Those awful shotguns!” From the way she was talking you wouldn’t have believed that girl had a brain in her head. “I don’t believe people should be allowed to own them. I wonder where Leo got the one he used?”

  “Claimed he never owned one,” Chafee commented slowly.

  “He probably borrowed one from a friend,” Mort said carelessly. “I suppose they are easy to find.”

  “That’s just it!” Ruth exclaimed. “The man who loaned him that shotgun is just as guilty as he is. I think something should be done about it.”

  “I doubt if anybody loaned him one,” Mort said, offhand. “He probably stole it.”

  “Oh, no! Because,” she added hastily, “if he did, he returned it. Everybody in town who owns a shotgun still has it. There are only six of them in Canyon Gap. Daddy has two, Editor Chafee has one, Pap here has an old broken one, and Mitch always carried one.”

  “That’s only five,” Old Pap said softly.

  “Oh!” Ruth put her fingers to her mouth. “How silly of me. I’d forgotten yours, Mr. Lewand.”

  There was the stillest silence I ever did hear, with nobody looking at anybody else. Suddenly Ruth looked at a little watch she had, gasped something about being late, and started off.

  Editor Chafee began to fill his pipe, and Old Pap scratched his knee, and all of us just sat there looking a lot dumber than we were. Mort Lewand didn’t seem to know what to say, and what he finally said didn’t help much. “If a man wanted to find a shotgun,” he said, “I don’t suppose he’d have much trouble.” With that he turned and walked off.

  You know something? The sound of those hammers wasn’t a good sound. Editor Tom Chafee scratched his chin with the stem of his pipe. “Pete,” he says to me, “you were supposed to ride shotgun that night. Whose shotgun would you have used?”

  “Mitch always lent me his. I was feeling poorly and Mitch took over for me. Leo, he called my name when he first rode up, if you recall.”

  That shotgun business was bothering all of us. Where did Leo get a shotgun? This was rifle and pistol country, and shotguns just weren’t plentiful. Ruth Hadlin could have narrowed it down even more, because everybody knew that Judge Hadlin wouldn’t let anybody touch one of his guns but himself. They were expensive, engraved guns, and he kept them locked up in a case.

  Where had Leo picked up a shotgun? What had he done with the money?

  Editor Chafee looked down at Old Pap all of a sudden. “Pap,” he said, “let’s walk over to my place. You, too, Pete. I want you to look at my shotgun.”

  We looked at that gun and she was all covered with grease and dust. That shotgun hadn’t been fired in six months, anyway. Or for a long time. It certainly hadn’t been the gun that killed Mitch and Doc.

 
; “Just for luck,” Chafee said seriously, “we’d better go have a look at the judge’s guns.”

  Behind us we could hear those hammers a-pounding, and we could hear O’Brien rehearsing his German band. From where we walked we could see six or seven wagons coming down the road, all headed into Canyon Gap, for the hanging.

  CERTAIN THINGS HAPPENED that I didn’t hear until later. I didn’t hear about Ruth Hadlin, all pretty as ever a picture could be, walking into that jail to see Leo Carver. When she got into the office the sheriff was standing there looking down at a cake on his desk. That cake had been cut and it was some broken up because he had taken two files from it. Mary Ryan was standing by his side.

  Sheriff Jones looked mighty serious. “Mary,” he was saying, “this here’s a criminal offense, helping a man to break jail. Now, where’s those other two files? No use you stalling—I know you bought four of ’em.”

  “You’re so smart,” she said, “you find ’em!” She tossed her head at him and gave him a flash of those saucy eyes of hers.

  Sheriff Jones leaned over the table. “Now look, Mary,” he protested, “I don’t want to make trouble for you, but we just can’t have no prison break. Why, think of all those folks coming for miles to see a hanging! They’d be mad enough to string me up.”

  “Why not?” she said, short-like. “He’s no more guilty than you are.”

  Jones started to protest again and then he looked up and saw Ruth Hadlin standing there in the door. Her face was cool as she could make it, and, mister, that was cold! In one hand she held Leo’s guitar.

  The sheriff straightened up, mighty flustered. Here he was, talking confidential-like with a girl from the Street! Suppose that got around among the good folks of the town. Be as much as his job was worth, and election coming up, too.

  He flushed and stammered. “This here—this young woman,” he spluttered, “she was trying to smuggle files to the prisoner. She—”

  Ruth Hadlin interrupted, her eyes cold and queenlike on the sheriff. “I can assure you, Sheriff Jones, that I am not at all interested in your relations with this young lady, nor in the subject of your conversation.