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

by Louis L'Amour

  There was the old cabin as he had remembered it, a long, low building with a stable and corrals some fifty yards away. He squatted on his heels against the bole of a tree and built a smoke. The rain had dwindled away to a fine mist, and he waited in the growing dusk, watching the trail.

  It was almost dark when he saw them coming. Six riders and several stolen horses loaded down with packs. They had taken time out to loot the stage station before firing it. With his field glasses he studied their faces, looking first at Angela. She looked white and drawn, but defiant. One of the men pulled her down off of the horse and took her inside. The others stripped the horses of their saddles and turned them into a corral.

  There was but one door to the cabin, and no windows. There were portholes for defense, but they offered no view of the interior. There was only one means of entering the cabin, and that was right through the front door.

  He sat down on the edge of the hill and studied the scene with cold, careful eyes. He knew what he was going to do. It was what he had to do—go in through that door. And quickly…

  ANGELA THORNE RUBBED her wrists and stared around the long room.

  Along both sides of the opposite end were tiers of bunks, two high, and wide. Several were filled with tumbled, unwashed bedding. A bench was tipped over at the far end, and there were muddy boots, bits of old bridles, a partially braided lariat, and various odds and ends lying about. The air was hot and close, and smelled of stale sweat.

  Frazer was bending over the fire, warming up some beans in a greasy pot. Dave Otten, a darkly handsome man with a wave of hair above his brow, had pulled off his boots. He grinned at her from the nearest bunk, his hands clasped behind his head.

  It had been Dave who had grabbed her when she refused to reply to his opening remarks, and Barlow had struck his hand away.

  One of the others had knocked Barlow down and started kicking him. Dave had left her and walked over and joined the kicking. It had been slow, methodical, utterly brutal. Ed Hunter had come to the door at her scream, and had wheeled and rushed for the stable…. Ben Otten hadwalked to the door, lifted a gun, and deliberately shot him down.

  Then he had walked outside, and a moment later there was another shot.

  By that time Barlow was lying on the plank floor, his face a bloody wreck, all life gone.

  They forced her up on a horse. Through the open door of the station she could see two of them shoveling embers out of the stove, dumping them on the floor and piling them under the curtains. Jude set the stock loose as the roof of the building, despite the rain, went up in a rush of flame. On the way back to his horse he picked up a burning shingle and tossed it into the stagecoach.

  Dave Otten laughed as he watched the flames. He was still laughing as they set out on the trail that led into the mountains.

  Now Ben Otten slowly rolled a smoke and watched his brother stretch out on the bunk. “Dave,” he said slowly, “you get them horses saddled come daybreak. We’re takin’ out.”

  Dave rolled up on his elbow. “Ain’t no need, Ben,” he protested. “Who’d figure it was us? Anyway, what could they prove?”

  Jude rolled his tobacco in his jaws and spat expertly at the fire. “Folks won’t need to prove nothin’,” he said. “They’ll know it was us, an’ they’ll come. Ben’s right.”

  “If you are wise,” Angela said suddenly, “you’ll give me a horse and let me go right now. My husband will be coming after you.”

  Dave turned his head and looked at her with lazy eyes. “Never figured you for married.”

  “You’d better let me go,” she repeated quietly.

  Ben Otten lighted his cigarette. “We ain’t worried by no one man. But folks get riled up when you mess with their womenfolks. It’s them in Whitewater that worries me.”

  She sat very still. Ben Otten was the shrewd one. If only she could make him see…. “My husband will know where I am. By now he has found the station burned. He will know what happened.”

  Dave chuckled, that lazy, frightening chuckle. “Ain’t likely. Left him, didn’t you? I heard some talk betwixt you an’ Barlow. Didn’t know what it meant until you said you was married.”

  “I left him a note.”

  Ben Otten was watching her. He seemed to be convinced she was not lying. “Better hope he don’t foller you.”

  In desperation she said, “He can take care of himself. He was a Ranger in Texas.”

  Otten’s back stiffened and he turned on her. “What was his name?”

  She lifted her chin. “Jim Thorne.”

  A fork clattered on the hearthstone. Frazer put down the pot and got up. He didn’t look well. “Ben, that’s him. That’s the feller I was tellin’ you about. He kilt Lonnie Mason.”

  Nobody spoke, but somehow they were impressed. Despite her fears she felt a wild hope. If they would only let her go! Let her ride away before Jim could get here…for she suddenly realized with a queer sense of guilt that he would come, he would not hesitate.

  She saw his face clearly then, cool, quiet, thoughtful. The tiny laugh wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the little wry smiles, the tenderness in his big, hard hands.

  “He done a good job.” That was Silent Otten. The oldest one except for Ben, the one who never talked. “Lonnie was a dirty little killer.”

  “But fast,” Frazer said. “He was fast. An’ Baker was with him.”

  He squatted again by the fire.

  Ben Otten drew on his cigarette. “Maybe she’s right,” he said. “Maybe we better let her go.”

  Dave came off the bunk, his eyes ugly. “You crazy?” His voice was hoarse. “She’s mine, not yours! I ain’t a-lettin’ her go.”

  Ben turned his black eyes toward Dave and for a long minute he looked at him. “You forgettin’ who got us into this mess?” he asked softly. “It was you, Dave. If ’n you’d kept your hands off her, we’d still be safe here, an’ no trouble. I’m gettin’ so I don’t like you much, Dave. It was you make us leave Mobettie, too. You an’ women.”

  “She’d tell off on us,” Jude Otten said. “Come daybreak we better get shed of her. They’d never prove nothin’ then.”

  Ben Otten frowned irritably. The idea of anybody proving anything angered him. They would not try to prove. They would decide, and there would be a necktie party. He drew on the last of his smoke. No chance for—

  The door opened and the lamp guttered, then the door closed and they all saw the tall man standing inside. He had rain-wet leather chaps on, and crossed belts. Under his slicker something bulked large. With his left hand he lifted his hat just a little, and Angela felt a queer little leap in her throat.

  “You boys played hob,” Jim Thorne said quietly.

  “It was you that played hob,” Ben said, “comin’ here.”

  “Got the difference.” Jim Thorne’s voice was quiet. But as he spoke the muzzle of the sawed-off four-shot Roper tilted up. “You boys like buckshot?”

  Frazer was on his knees. He came in range of the gun. So did Ben and Jude. Frazer looked sick and Jude sat very quiet, his hands carefully in view.

  “So what happens?” Ben asked quietly.

  “I’m takin’ my wife home,” Thorne said quietly. “The rest is between you boys an’ the town.”

  “You’re takin’ nobody.” Dave rolled over and sat up, and his .44 was in his hand. “Drop that shotgun.”

  Jim Thorne smiled a little. He shook his head.

  Ben Otten’s eyes seemed to flatten and the lids grew tight. “Dave, put that gun down,” he said.

  Dave chuckled. “Don’t be a fool, Ben. This here’s a showdown.”

  “Three for one,” Thorne said quietly. “I’ll take that.”

  “Put down that gun, Dave.” Ben’s voice was low and strange.

  Dave laughed. “You don’t like me much, Ben. Remember?”

  “Dave!” Frazer’s voice was shrill. “Put it down!”

  Angela sat very still, yet suddenly, watching Dave, she knew he was not going t
o put down the gun. He would risk the death of his brothers and of Frazer—he was going to shoot.

  Ben knew it, too. It was in his face, the way the skin had drawn tight across his cheekbones.

  Jim Thorne spoke calmly. “I’ve seen a man soak up a lot of forty-four lead, Dave, but I never saw a man take much from a shotgun. I’ve got four shots without reloadin’, and pistols to follow. You want to buy that?”

  “I’ll buy it.” Dave was still smiling, his lips forcing it now.

  Angela was behind and to the left of Ben, a little out of range. She was opposite Dave. And beside her, scarcely an arm’s length away, was Silent.

  Angela’s fingers lifted. That gun…if she…and then Silent slid the six-gun into his hand. “Put your gun down, Dave,” he said. “You’d get us all kilt.”

  Dave’s eyes flickered, and hate blazed suddenly in their depths. He swung toward Angela. “Like h—!” He started to rise and thrust the gun toward her, and Silent Otten shot his brother through the body.

  Dave’s gun slid from his fingers to the floor and blood trickled down his arm. He looked around, his face stunned and unrealizing, looking as if awakened from a sound sleep.

  Jim Thorne did not fire. He stood wide-legged in the door and said quietly, “Better for you boys. Now set tight.” He did not shift his eyes, but he spoke quietly. “Angela, get up and come over here. Don’t get between me an’ them. I ain’t aimin’ to kill nobody if I can help it.”

  Angela got shakily to her feet, and nobody else moved. Ben was staring at Jim. “If it wasn’t for that shotgun—!” His voice sounded hoarse.

  She walked around Ben, fearing he might try to grab her, but he did not. She moved to her husband’s side, and Jim said quietly, “Just open the door, Angela, and get out—fast.”

  The Roper four-shot was out in the open now, and Jim Thorne had both hands on it. “You’re through around here,” he said. “You’d better scatter and run. There’ll be a hangin’ posse after you.”

  “There’s time,” Ben Otten said thickly. “We’ll catch up to you. You hadn’t no time to go to Whitewater.”

  “’Bout an hour after I left Dry Creek,” Jim Thorne replied, “the stage bound for Whitewater came through. I left a note on the stable door. By now there’s fifty men headed for here. You ain’t goin’ to get away, but you can try.”

  Angela opened the door, the lamp guttered again, and Jim sprang back, jerking the door to and then leaping to catch Angela’s hand. Quickly, he sprang around the corner of the house and ran for the woods. Stopping at the corral gate he threw it open, and waving his arms he chased the animals through the gate while trying to keep an eye on the cabin.

  Below them a door banged and there was a shout, then running feet. In the stable door a light flared. Whipping his shotgun up, Thorne dropped three quick, scanning shots at the area of the light. The match went out and there was darkness and silence.

  Jim Thorne led the way up to the bench where he had left the dun. Riding double and leading the spare horse, they turned up the slope toward the saddle between the peaks. Angela spoke softly in his ear. “Will they follow?”

  “No.” He took his poncho from the bedroll and put it around her shoulders. “Unless they can catch up those horses.”

  “Then they’ll be caught?”

  “Most likely.”

  They rode in silence for several minutes. Somewhere off over the hills they heard the sudden clatter of the hoofs of many horses. There was a long silence then, and after the silence, a shot, then a rattle of shots…silence…then a single shot.

  The water in the canyon was much lower. Hours later, they reached the flat again. Angela leaned against him, exhausted. “You want to ride into Whitewater?” he said. “You can catch a stage there.”

  “I want to go home, Jim.”

  “All right,” he said.

  In the gray cold light of a rain-filled dawn, they rode across a prairie freckled with somber pools. He reached a hand down to hold her hand where it rested at his waist, and they rode like that, across the prairie and past the blackened ruins of the stage station, and up to the mountain and into the pines.

  When a Texan Takes Over

  When Matt Ryan saw the cattle tracks on Mocking Bird, he swung his horse over under the trees and studied the terrain with a careful eye. For those cattle tracks meant rustlers were raiding the KY range.

  For a generation the big KY spread had been the law in the Slumbering Hill country, but now the old man was dying and the wolves were coming out of the breaks to tear at the body of the ranch.

  And there was nobody to stop them, nobody to step into the big tracks old Tom Hitch had made, nobody to keep law in the hills now that old Tom was dying. He had built an empire of land and cattle, but he had also brought law into the outlaw country, brought schools and a post office, and the beginnings of thriving settlement.

  But they had never given up, not Indian Kelly nor Lee Dunn. They’d waited back in the hills, bitter with their own poison, waiting for the old man to die.

  All the people in the Slumbering Hill country knew it, and they had looked to Fred Hitch, the old man’s adopted son, to take up the job when the old man put it down. But Fred was an easygoing young man who liked to drink and gamble. And he spent too much time with Dutch Gerlach, the KY foreman…and who had a good word for Dutch?

  “This is the turn, Red,” Ryan told his horse. “They know the old man will never ride again, so they have started rustling.”

  It was not just a few head…there must have been forty or more in this bunch, and no attempt to cover the trail.

  In itself that was strange. It seemed they were not even worried about what Gerlach might do…and what would he do? Dutch Gerlach was a tough man. He had shown it more than once. Of course, nobody wanted any part of Lee Dunn, not even Gerlach.

  Matt Ryan rode on, but kept a good background behind him. He had no desire to skyline himself with rustlers around.

  For three months now he had been working his placer claim in Pima Canyon, just over the ridge from Mocking Bird. He had a good show of color and with persistent work he made better than cowhand’s wages. But lately he was doing better. Twice in the past month he had struck pockets that netted him nearly a hundred dollars each. The result was that his last month had brought him in the neighborhood of three hundred in gold.

  Matt Ryan knew the hills and the men who rode them. None of them knew him. Matt had a streak of Indian in his nature if not in his blood, and he knew how to leave no trail and travel without being seen. He was around, but not obvious.

  They knew somebody was there, but who and why or where they did not know, and he liked it that way. Once a month he came out of the hills for supplies, but he never rode to the same places. Only this time he was coming back to Hanna’s Stage Station. He told himself it was because it was close, but down inside he knew it was because of Kitty Hanna.

  She was something who stepped out of your dreams, a lovely girl of twenty in a cotton dress and with carefully done hair, large, dark eyes, and a mouth that would set a man to being restless….

  MATT RYAN HAD STOPPED by two months before to eat a woman-cooked meal and to buy supplies, and he had lingered over his coffee.

  He was a tall, wide-shouldered young man with a slim, long-legged body and hands that swung wide of his narrow hips. He had a wedge-shaped face and green eyes, and a way of looking at you with faint humor in his eyes.

  He carried a gun, but he carried it tucked into his waistband, and he carried a Winchester that he never left on his saddle.

  Nobody knew him around the Slumbering Hills, nobody knew him anywhere this side of Texas…they remembered him there. His name was a legend on the Nueces.

  Big Red ambled on down the trail and Matt watched the country and studied the cattle tracks. He would remember those horse tracks, too. Finally the cow tracks turned off into a long valley, and when he sat his horse he could see dust off over there where Thumb Butte lifted against the sky.r />
  Indian Kelly…not Dunn this time, although Dunn might have given the word.

  Kitty was pouring coffee when he came in and she felt her heart give a tiny leap. It had only been once, but she remembered, for when his eyes touched her that time, it made her feel the woman in her…a quick excitement such as she felt now.

  Why was that? This man whom she knew nothing about? Why should he make her feel this way?

  He put his hat on a hook and sat down, and she saw that his hair was freshly combed and still damp from the water he had used. That meant he had stopped back there by the creek…it was unlike a drifting cowhand, or had it been for her?

  When he looked up she knew it had, and she liked the smile he had and the way his eyes could not seem to leave her face. “Eggs,” he said, “about four of them, and whatever vegetable you have, and a slab of beef. I’m a hungry man.”

  She filled his cup, standing very close to him, and she saw the red mount under his dark skin, and when she moved away it was slowly, and there was a little something in her walk. Had her father seen it, he would have been angry, but this man would not be angry, and he would know it was for him.

  Dutch Gerlach came in, a big, brawny man with bold eyes and careless hands. He had a wide, flat face and a confident, knowing manner that she hated. Fred Hitch was with him.

  They looked at Ryan, then looked again. He was that sort of man, and something about him irritated Gerlach. But the big foreman of the KY said nothing. He was watching Kitty.

  GERLACH SEATED HIMSELF and shoved his hat back on his head. When his meal was put before him, he began to eat, his eyes following the girl. Fred seemed preoccupied; he kept scowling a little, and he said something under his breath to Dutch.

  Gerlach looked over at Matt Ryan. “Ain’t seen you around before,” he said.

  Ryan merely glanced at him, and continued eating. The eggs tasted good, and the coffee was better than his own.