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

by Louis L'Amour

  In the silent house the clock ticked loudly. Matt Ryan sipped his coffee and laid his Winchester on the table.

  He checked his gun while the clock ticked off the measured seconds.

  It was broad day now…. Kitty and her father would be well into the valley. Would the ranchers come? His was a new voice, they did not know him. They had only that slip of paper and the words Take over.

  He got up and walked to the window. And then he saw them coming.

  HE PLACED HIS RIFLE by the door and stepped outside. There were ten of them…ten, and one of him. A fleeting smile touched his lips. Old Tom Hitch had stood off forty Apaches once…alone.

  “Tom,” he whispered, “if you can hear me…say a word where it matters.”

  He stepped to the edge of the porch, a tall man, honed down by sparse living and hard years, his wedge-shaped face unshaven, his eyes cool, waiting. It had been like this on the Nueces…only different.

  They drew up, a line of men on horses. Lee Dunn and Gerlach at the center.

  He saw no others, he thought of no others. These were the ones.

  “Hello, Dunn.”

  The knifelike man studied him, his hands on the horn of his saddle.

  “Dunn, I’m serving notice. Tom Hitch sent me a note. His orders were for me to take over.”

  “Think you can?”

  “I can.”

  Lee Dunn waited…why he waited he could not have said. He had heard from Gerlach that this man was yellow. Looking at him, seeing him, he knew he was not. He knew another thing—this man was a gunfighter.

  “Who are you, Ryan? Should I know you?”

  “From the Nueces…maybe you heard of the Kenzie outfit.”

  Lee Dunn’s lips thinned down. Of course…he should have known. It had been a feud…and at the last count there were five Kenzies and one Ryan left. And now there was still one Ryan…

  “So this is the way it is,” Matt said, making his plea. “The old days are over, Lee. You an’ me, we’re of the past. Old Tom was, too. He was a good man, and his guns kept the peace and made the law. But the old days of living by the gun are gone, Lee. We can admit it, or we can die.”

  “Where’s the girl?” Gerlach demanded.

  “Gone with her father. They are in the valley now rounding up all of Old Tom’s supporters from the Slumberin’ Hills.”

  His eyes held on them, seeing them both, knowing them both. “What’s it to be, Dunn?”

  A voice spoke behind him. “I did not go…. Dad went. I’m here with a shotgun and I’m saying it’s between Matt Ryan and the two, Gerlach and Dunn. I’ll kill any man who lifts a gun other than them.”

  “Fair enough.” It was a lean, hatchet-faced hand. “This I want a see.”

  Lee Dunn sat very still, but he was smiling. “Why, Matt, I reckon mebbe you’re right. But you know, Matt, I’ve heard a sight about you…never figured to meet you…an’ I can’t help wonderin’, Matt—are you faster than me?”

  He spoke and he drew and he died falling. He hit dust and he rolled over and he was dead, but he was trying to get up, and then he rolled over again, but he had his gun out. The gun fired and the bullet plowed a furrow and that was all.

  Gerlach had not moved. His face was gray and seemed suddenly thinner. As though hypnotized, he stared at the thin tendril of smoke from the muzzle of Ryan’s .44 Colt.

  Slowly, his tongue touched his dry lips, and he swallowed.

  “You boys will be ridin’ on,” Ryan said quietly. “That rope you got there should be handy. There’s a tree down the trail…unless you want to ride out with a yella-belly.”

  “Ain’t honin’ to,” the hatchet-faced man said. He looked down at Lee. “He made his try, Ryan. Give him a send-off, will you?”

  Matt nodded, and Kitty walked out and stood beside him, watching them ride away, gathered around Gerlach, who sat his horse as if stunned. Only now his hands were tied.

  Matt Ryan looked down at Kitty, and he took her arm and said, “You know, you’ll do to ride the river with, Kit. You’re a girl to walk beside a man…wherever he goes.”

  “Come in,” she said, but her eyes said more than that. “I’ve some coffee on.”

  Big Medicine

  Old Billy Dunbar was down flat on his face in a dry wash swearing into his beard. The best gold-bearing gravel he had found in a year, and then the Apaches would have to show up!

  It was like them, the mean, ornery critters. He hugged the ground for dear life and hoped they would not see him, tucked away as he was between some stones where an eddy of the water that once ran through the wash had dug a trench between the stones.

  There were nine of them. Not many, but enough to take his scalp if they found him, and it would be just as bad if they saw his burros or any of the prospect holes he had been sinking.

  He was sweating like a stuck hog bleeds, lying there with his beard in the sand and the old Sharps .50 ready beside him. He wouldn’t have much of a chance if they found him, slithery fighters like they were, but if that old Sharps threw down on them he’d take at least one along to the happy hunting ground with him.

  He could hear them now, moving along the desert above the wash. Where in tarnation were they going? He wouldn’t be safe as long as they were in the country, and this was country where not many white men came. Those few who did come were just as miserable to run into as the Apaches.

  The Apache leader was a lean-muscled man with a hawk nose. All of them slim and brown without much meat on them, the way Apaches were, and wearing nothing but breechclouts and headbands.

  He lay perfectly still. Old Billy was too knowing in Indian ways to start moving until he was sure they were gone. He lay right there for almost a half hour after he had last heard them, and then he came out of it cautious as a bear reaching for a honey tree.

  When he got on his feet, he hightailed it for the edge of the wash and took a look. The Apaches had vanished. He turned and went down the wash, taking his time and keeping the old Sharps handy. It was a mile to his burros and to the place where his prospect holes were. Luckily, he had them back in a draw where there wasn’t much chance of them being found.

  BILLY DUNBAR PULLED his old gray felt hat down a little tighter and hurried on. Jennie and Julie were waiting for him, standing head to tail so they could brush flies off each other’s noses.

  When he got to them he gathered up his tools and took them back up the draw to the rocks at the end. His canteens were full, and he had plenty of grub and ammunition. He was lucky that he hadn’t shot that rabbit when he saw it. The Apaches would have heard the bellow of the old Sharps and come for him, sure. He was going to have to be careful.

  If they would just kill a man it wouldn’t be so bad, but these Apaches liked to stake a man out on an anthill and let the hot sun and ants do for him, or maybe the buzzards—if they got there soon enough.

  This wash looked good, too. Not only because water had run there, but because it was actually cutting into the edge of an old riverbed. If he could sink a couple of holes down to bedrock, he’d bet there’d be gold and gold aplenty.

  When he awakened in the morning he took a careful look around his hiding place. One thing, the way he was located, if they caught him in camp they couldn’t get at him to do much. The hollow was perhaps sixty feet across, but over half of it was covered by shelving rock from above, the cliff ran straight up from there for an easy fifty feet. There was water in a spring and enough grass to last the burros for quite some time.

  After a careful scouting around, he made a fire of dead mesquite, which made almost no smoke, and fixed some coffee. When he had eaten, Dunbar gathered up his pan, pick, shovel, and rifle and moved out. He was loaded more than he liked, but it couldn’t be helped.

  The place he had selected to work was the inside of the little desert stream. The stream took a bend and left a gravel bank on the inside of the elbow. That gravel looked good. Putting his Sharps down within easy reach, Old Billy got busy.

  Be
fore sundown he had moved a lot of dirt and tried several pans, loading them up and going over to the stream. Holding the pan under the water, he began to stir the gravel, breaking up the lumps of clay and stirring until every piece was wet. Then he picked out the larger stones and pebbles and threw them to one side. He put his hands on opposite sides of the pan and began to oscillate it vigorously under water, moving it in a circular motion so the contents were shaken from side to side.

  With a quick glance to make sure there were no Apaches in sight, he tipped the pan slightly, to an angle of about thirty degrees so the lighter sands, already buoyed up by the water, could slip out over the side.

  He struck the pan several good blows to help settle the gold, if any, and then dipped for more water and continued the process. He worked steadily at the pan, with occasional glances around until all the refuse had washed over the side but the heavier particles. Then with a little clean water, he washed the black sand and gold into another pan, which he took from the brush where it had been concealed the day before.

  FOR SOME TIME he worked steadily. Then, as the light was getting bad, he gathered up his tools and, concealing the empty pan, carried the other with him back up the wash to his hideout.

  He took his Sharps and crept out of the hideout and up the wall of the canyon. The desert was still and empty on every side.

  “Too empty, durn it!” he grumbled. “Them Injuns’ll be back. Yuh can’t fool an Apache.”

  Rolling out of his blankets at sunup, he prepared a quick breakfast and then went over his takings of the day with a magnet. This black sand was mostly particles of magnetite, ilmenite, and black magnetic iron oxide. What he couldn’t draw off, he next eliminated by using a blow box.

  “Too slow, with them Apaches around,” he grumbled. “A man workin’ down there could mebbe do sixty, seventy pans a day in that sort of gravel, but watchin’ for Injuns ain’t goin’ t’ help much!”

  Yet he worked steadily, and by nightfall, despite interruptions he had handled more than fifty pans. When the second day was over, he grinned at the gold he had. It was sufficient color to show he was on the right track. Right here, by using a rocker, he could have made it pay, but he wasn’t looking for peanuts.

  He had cached his tools along with the empty pan in the brush at the edge of the wash. When morning came, he rolled out and was just coming out of the hideout when he saw the Apache. He was squatted in the sand staring at something, and despite his efforts to keep his trail covered, Dunbar had a good idea what that something would be. He drew back into the hideout.

  Lying on his middle, he watched the Indian get to his feet and start working downstream. When he got down there a little farther, he was going to see those prospect holes. There would be nothing Dunbar could do then. Nor was there anything he could do now. So far as he could see, only one Apache had found him. If he fired to kill the Indian, the others would be aware of the situation and come running.

  Old Billy squinted his eyes and pondered the question. He had a hunch that Indian wasn’t going to go for help. He was going to try to get Dunbar by himself, so he could take his weapons and whatever else he had of value.

  The Indian went downstream farther and slipped out of sight. Billy instantly ducked out into the open and scooted down the canyon into the mesquite. He dropped flat there and inched along in the direction the Indian had gone.

  He was creeping along, getting nearer and nearer to his prospect holes, when suddenly instinct or the subconscious hearing of a sound warned him. Like a flash, he rolled over, just in time to see the Indian leap at him, knife in hand!

  Billy Dunbar was no longer a youngster, but he had lived a life in the desert, and he was as hard and tough as whalebone. As the Apache leaped, he caught the knife wrist in his left hand, and stabbed at the Indian’s ribs with his own knife. The Apache twisted away, and Billy gave a heave. The Indian lost balance. They rolled over and then fell over the eight-foot bank into the wash!

  Luck was with Billy. The Indian hit first, and Billy’s knife arm was around him, with the point gouging at the Indian’s back. When they landed, the knife went in to the hilt.

  Billy rolled off, gasping for breath. Hurriedly, he glanced around. There was no one in sight. Swiftly, he clawed at the bank, causing the loosened gravel to cave down, and in a few minutes of hot, sweating work the Indian was buried.

  Turning, Billy lit out for his hideaway, and when he made it, he lay there gasping for breath, his Sharps ready. There would be no work this day. He was going to lie low and watch. The other Indians would come looking, he knew.

  After dark he slipped out and covered the Indian better, and then he used a mesquite bush to wipe out as well as possible the signs of their fighting. Then he cat-footed it back to the hollow and tied a rawhide string across the entrance with a can of loose pebbles at the end to warn him if Indians found him. Then he went to sleep.

  At dawn he was up. He checked the Sharps and then cleaned his .44 again. He loaded his pockets with cartridges just in case and settled down for a day of it.

  LUCKILY, HE HAD SHADE. It was hot out there, plenty hot. You could fry an egg on those rocks by ten in the morning—not that he had any eggs. He hadn’t even seen an egg since the last time he was in Fremont, and that had been four months ago.

  He bit off a chew of tobacco and rolled it in his jaws. Then he studied the banks of the draw. An Apache could move like a ghost and look like part of the landscape. He had known them to come within fifteen feet of a man in grassy country without being seen, and not tall grass at that.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if his time hadn’t been so short. When he left Fremont, Sally had six months to go to pay off the loan on her ranch, or out she would go. Sally’s husband had been killed by a bronc down on the Sandy. She was alone with the kids, and that loan about to take their home away.

  When the situation became serious, Old Billy thought of this wash. Once, several years before, he had washed out some color here, and it looked rich. He had left the country about two jumps ahead of the Apaches and swore he’d never come back. Nobody else was coming out of here with gold, either, so he knew it was still like he remembered. Several optimistic prospectors had tried it and were never heard of again. However, Old Billy had decided to take a chance. After all, Sally was all he had, and those two grandchildren of his deserved a better chance than they’d get if she lost the place.

  The day moved along, a story told by the shadows on the sides of the wash. You could almost tell the time by those shadows. It wasn’t long before Dunbar knew every bush, every clump of greasewood and mesquite along its length, and every rock.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow and waited. Sally was a good girl. Pretty, too, too pretty to be a widow at twenty-two. It was almost midafternoon when his questing eye halted suddenly on the bank of the wash. He lay perfectly still, eyes studying the bank intently. Yet his eyes had moved past the spot before they detected something amiss. He scowled, trying to remember. Then it came to him.

  There had been a torn place there, as though somebody had started to pull up a clump of greasewood and then abandoned it. The earth had been exposed and a handful of roots. Now it was blotted out. Straining his eyes he could see nothing, distinguish no contours that seemed human, only that the spot was no longer visible. The spot was mottled by shadows and sunlight through the leaves of the bush.

  Then there was a movement, so slight that his eye scarcely detected it, and suddenly the earth and torn roots were visible again. They had come back. Their stealth told him they knew he was somewhere nearby, and the logical place for him would be right where he was.

  Now he was in for it. Luckily, he had food, water, and ammunition. There should be just eight of them unless more had come. Probably they had found his prospect holes and trailed him back this way.

  There was no way they could see into his hollow, no way they could shoot into it except through the narrow entrance, which was rock and brush. There was no concealed approach to i
t. He dug into the bank a little to get more earth in front of himself.

  No one needed to warn him of the gravity of the situation. It was one hundred and fifty miles to Fremont and sixty miles to the nearest white man, young Sid Barton, a cowhand turned rancher who had started running some cattle on the edge of the Apache country.

  Nor could he expect help. Nobody ever came into this country, and nobody knew where he was but Sally, and she only knew in a general way. Prospectors did not reveal locations where they had found color.

  Well, he wasn’t one of these restless young coots who’d have to be out there tangling with the Apaches. He could wait. And he would wait in the shade while they were in the sun. Night didn’t worry him much. Apaches had never cared much for night fighting, and he wouldn’t have much trouble with them.

  One of them showed himself suddenly—only one arm and a rifle. But he fired, the bullet striking the rock overhead. Old Billy chuckled. “Tryin’ t’ draw fire,” he said, “get me located.”

  BILLY DUNBAR WAITED, grinning through his beard. There was another shot and then more stillness. He lay absolutely still. A hand showed and then a foot. He rolled his quid in his jaws and spat. An Indian suddenly showed himself and then vanished as though he had never been there. Old Billy watched the banks cynically. An Indian showed again and hesitated briefly this time, but Dunbar waited.

  Suddenly, within twenty feet of the spot where Dunbar lay, an Indian slid down the bank and with a shrill whoop, darted for the entrance to the hideaway. It was point-blank, even though a moving target. Billy let him have it!

  The old Sharps bellowed like a stricken bull and leaped in his hands. The Apache screamed wildly and toppled over backward, carried off his feet by the sheer force of the heavy-caliber bullet. Yells of rage greeted the shot.