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

by Louis L'Amour

  Dunbar could see the Indian’s body sprawled under the sun. He picked up an edged pieced of white stone and made a straight mark on the rock wall beside him, then seven more. He drew a diagonal line through the first one. “Seven t’ go,” he said.

  A hail of bullets began kicking sand and dirt up around the opening. One shot hit overhead and showered dirt down almost in his face. “Durn you!” he mumbled. He took his hat off and laid it beside him, his six-shooter atop of it, ready to hand.

  No more Indians showed themselves, and the day drew on. It was hot out there. In the vast brassy vault of the sky a lone buzzard wheeled.

  He tried no more shots, just waiting. They were trying to tire him out. Doggone it—in this place he could outwait all the Apaches in the Southwest—not that he wanted to!

  Keeping well below the bank, he got hold of a stone about the size of his head and rolled it into the entrance. Instantly, a shot smacked the dirt below it and kicked dirt into his eyes. He wiped them and swore viciously. Then he got another stone and rolled that in place, pushing dirt up behind them. He scooped his hollow deeper and peered thoughtfully at the banks of the draw.

  Jennie and Julie were eating grass, undisturbed and unworried. They had been with Old Billy too long to be disturbed by these—to them meaningless—fusses and fights. The shadow from the west bank reached farther toward the east, and Old Billy waited, watching.

  He detected an almost indiscernible movement atop the bank, in the same spot where he had first seen an Indian. Taking careful aim, he drew a bead on the exposed roots and waited.

  He saw no movement, nothing, yet suddenly he focused his eyes more sharply and saw the roots were no longer exposed. Nestling the stock against his shoulder, his finger eased back on the trigger. The old Sharps wavered, and he waited. The rifle steadied, and he squeezed again.

  The gun jumped suddenly and there was a shrill yell from the Apache, who lunged to full height and rose on his tiptoes, both hands clasping his chest. The stricken redskin then plunged face forward down the bank in a shower of gravel. Billy reloaded and waited. The Apache lay still, lying in the shadow below the bank. After watching him for a few minutes, alternating between the still form and the banks of the draw, Dunbar picked up his white stone and marked another diagonal white mark, across the second straight line.

  He stared at the figures with satisfaction. “Six left,” he said. He was growing hungry. Jennie and Julie had both decided to lie down and call it a day.

  AS LUCK WOULD have it, his shovel and pick were concealed in the brush at the point where the draw opened into the wider wash. He scanned the banks suddenly and then drew back. Grasping a bush, he pulled it from the earth under the huge rocks. He then took the brush and some stones and added to his parapet. With some lumps of earth and rock he gradually built it stronger.

  Always he returned to the parapet, but the Apaches were cautious and he saw nothing of them. Yet his instinct told him they were there, somewhere. And that, he knew, was the trouble. It was the fact he had been avoiding ever since he had holed up for the fight. They would always be around somewhere now. Three of their braves were missing—dead. They would never let him leave the country alive.

  If he had patience, so had they, and they could afford to wait. He could not. It was not merely a matter of getting home before the six-month period was up—and less than two months remained of that—it was a matter of getting home with enough money to pay off the loan. And with the best of luck it would require weeks upon weeks of hard, uninterrupted work.

  And then he saw the wolf.

  It was no more than a glimpse, and a fleeting glimpse. Billy Dunbar saw the sharply pointed nose and bright eyes and then the swish of a tail! The wolf vanished somewhere at the base of the shelf of rock that shaded the pocket. It vanished in proximity to the spring.

  Old Billy frowned and studied the spot. He wasn’t the only one holed up here! The wolf evidently had a hole somewhere in the back of the pocket, and perhaps some young, as the time of year was right. His stillness after he had finished work on the entrance had evidently fooled the wolf into believing the white man was gone.

  Obviously, the wolf had been lying there, waiting for him to leave so it could come out and hunt. The cubs would be getting hungry. If there were cubs.

  The idea came to him then. An idea utterly fantastic, yet one that suddenly made him chuckle. It might work! It could work! At least, it was a chance, and somehow, some way, he had to be rid of those Apaches!

  He knew something of their superstitions and beliefs. It was a gamble, but as suddenly as he conceived the idea, he knew it was a chance he was going to take.

  Digging his change of clothes out of the saddlebags, he got into them. Then he took his own clothing and laid it out on the ground in plain sight—the pants, then the coat, the boots, and nearby, the hat.

  Taking some sticks he went to the entrance of the wolf den and built a small fire close by. Then he hastily went back and took a quick look around. The draw was empty, but he knew the place was watched. He went back and got out of line of the wolf den, and waited.

  The smoke was slight, but it was going into the den. It wouldn’t take long. The wolf came out with a rush, ran to the middle of the pocket, took a quick, snarling look around, and then went over the parapet and down the draw!

  Working swiftly, he moved the fire and scattered the few sticks and coals in his other fireplace. Then he brushed the ground with a branch. It would be a few minutes before they moved, and perhaps longer.

  Crawling into the wolf den he next got some wolf hair, which he took back to his clothing. He put some of the hair in his shirt and some near his pants. A quick look down the draw showed no sign of an Indian, but that they had seen the wolf, he knew, and he could picture their surprise and puzzlement.

  Hurrying to the spring, he dug from the bank near the water a large quantity of mud. This was an added touch, but one that might help. From the mud, he formed two roughly human figures. About the head of each he tied a blade of grass.

  Hurrying to the parapet for a stolen look down the draw, he worked until six such figures were made. Then, using thorns and some old porcupine quills he found near a rock, he thrust one or more through each of the mud figures.

  They stood in a neat row facing the parapet. Quickly, he hurried for one last look into the draw. An Indian had emerged. He stood there in plain sight, staring toward the place!

  They would be cautious, Billy knew, and he chuckled to himself as he thought of what was to follow. Gathering up his rifle, the ammunition, a canteen, and a little food, he hurried to the wolf den and crawled back inside.

  On his first trip he had ascertained that there were no cubs. At the end of the den there was room to sit up, topped by the stone of the shelving rock itself. To his right, a lighted match told him there was a smaller hole of some sort.

  CAUTIOUSLY, BILLY CRAWLED BACK to the entrance, and careful to avoid the wolf tracks in the dust outside, he brushed out his own tracks and then retreated into the depths of the cave. From where he lay he could see the parapet.

  Almost a half hour passed before the first head lifted above the poorly made wall. Black straight hair, a red headband, and the sharp, hard features of their leader.

  Then other heads lifted beside him, and one by one the six Apaches stepped over the wall and into the pocket. They did not rush, but looked cautiously about, and their eyes were large, frightened. They looked all around, then at the clothing and then at the images. One of the Indians grunted and pointed.

  They drew closer and then stopped in an awed line, staring at the mud figures. They knew too well what they meant. Those figures meant a witch doctor had put a death spell on each one of them.

  One of the Indians drew back and looked at the clothing. Suddenly he gave a startled cry and pointed—at the wolf hair!

  They gathered around, talking excitedly and then glancing over their shoulders fearfully.

  They had trapped what they
believed to be a white man, and knowing Apaches, Old Billy would have guessed they knew his height, weight, and approximate age. Those things they could tell from the length of his stride, the way he worked, the pressure of a footprint in softer ground.

  They had trapped a white man, and a wolf had escaped! Now they found his clothing lying here, and on the clothing, the hair of a wolf!

  All Indians knew of wolf-men, those weird creatures who changed at will from wolf to man and back again, creatures that could tear the throat from a man while he slept and could mark his children with the wolf blood.

  The day had waned, and as he lay there, Old Billy Dunbar could see that while he had worked the sun had neared the horizon. The Indians looked around uneasily. This was the den of a wolf-man, a powerful spirit who had put the death spell on each of them, who came as a man and went as a wolf.

  Suddenly, out on the desert, a wolf howled!

  The Apaches started as if struck, and then as a man they began to draw back. By the time they reached the parapet they were hurrying.

  Old Billy stayed the night in the wolf hole, lying at its mouth, waiting for dawn. He saw the wolf come back, stare about uneasily, and then go away. When light came he crawled from the hole.

  The burros were cropping grass and they looked at him. He started to pick up a pack saddle and then dropped it. “I’ll be durned if I will!” he said.

  Taking the old Sharps and the extra pan, he walked down to the wash and went to work. He kept a careful eye out, but saw no Apaches. The gold was panning out even better than he had dreamed would be possible. A few more days—suddenly, he looked up.

  Two Indians stood in plain sight, facing him. The nearest one walked forward and placed something on a rock and then drew away. Crouched, waiting, Old Billy watched them go. Then he went to the rock. Wrapped in a piece of tanned buckskin was a haunch of venison!

  He chuckled suddenly. He was big medicine now. He was a wolf-man. The venison was a peace offering, and he would take it. He knew now he could come and pan as much gold as he liked in Apache country.

  A few days later he killed a wolf, skinned it, and then buried the carcass, but the head he made a cap to fit over the crown of his old felt hat, and wherever he went, he wore it.

  A month later, walking into Fremont behind the switching tails of Jennie and Julie, he met Sally at the gate. She was talking with young Sid Barton.

  “Hi,” Sid said, grinning at him. Then he looked quizzically at the wolfskin cap. “Better not wear that around here! Somebody might take you for a wolf!”

  Old Billy chuckled. “I am!” he said. “Yuh’re durned right, I am! Ask them Apaches!”

  Gila Crossing

  CHAPTER I

  There was an old wooden trough in front of the livery barn in Gila Crossing and at one end of the trough a rusty pump. When Jim Sartain rode up the dusty street, four men, unshaven and tired, stood in a knot by the pump, their faces somber with dejection.

  Two of the men were tall, but in striking contrast otherwise. Ad Loring was a Pennsylvania man, white-haired but with a face rough-hewn and strong. It was a thoughtful face, but resolute as well. The man beside him was equally tall but much heavier, sullen and black-browed, with surly, contemptuous eyes. His jaw was a chunk of granite above the muscular column of his neck. Roy Strider was the kind of man he looked, domineering and quick to use his muscular strength.

  Peabody and McNabb were equally contrasting. McNabb, as dry and dour as his name suggested, with narrow gray eyes and the expression of a man hard-driven but far from beaten. Peabody carried a shotgun in the hollow of his arm. He was short, and inclined to stoutness. Like the others, he turned to look at the man on the dusty roan when he dismounted and walked to the pump. The roan moved to the trough and sank his muzzle gratefully into the cool water.

  Sartain was conscious of their stares, yet he gave no sign. Taking down the gourd dipper, he shook out the few remaining drops and began to pump the protesting handle.

  The men studied his dusty gray shirt as if to read his mission from the breadth of his powerful shoulders. Their eyes fell to the walnut-butted guns, long-hung and tied down, to the polished boots now dust-covered, and the Mexican-type spurs. Jim Sartain drank deep of the cold water, a few drops falling down his chin and shirtfront. He emptied two dippers before he stopped drinking.

  Even as he drank, his mind was cataloging these men, their dress, their manner, and their weapons. He was also studying the fat man who sat in the huge chair against the wall of the barn, a man unshaven and untidy, with a huge face, flabby lips, and the big eyes of a hungry hound.

  This fat man heaved himself from his chair. “Put up your hoss, stranger? I’m the liveryman.” His shirt bulged open in front and the rawhide thong that served as a belt held his stomach in and his pants up. “Name of George Noll.” He added, “Folks around here know me.”

  “Put him in a stall and give him a bait of grain,” Sartain said. “I like him well fed. And be careful, he’s touchy.”

  Noll chuckled flatly. “Them hammerheads are all ornery.” His eyes, sad, curious, rolled to Sartain. “Goin’ fer? Or are you here?”

  “I’m here.” Sartain’s dark eyes were as unreadable as his face. “Seems to have been some fire around. All the range for miles is burned off.” The men beside him would have suffered from that fire. They would be from the wagons behind the firebreak in the creek bottom. “Noticed a fire-break back yonder. Somebody did some fast work to get that done in time.”

  “That was Loring here,” Noll offered. “Had most of it done before the fire. He figured it was coming.”

  Sartain glanced at Loring. “You were warned? Or was it an accident?”

  But it was Strider who spoke. “Accident!” The dark-browed man spat the word. Then he stared at Sartain, his eyes sullen with suspicion. “You ask a lot of questions for a stranger.”

  SARTAIN TURNED HIS BLACK EYES to Strider and looked at him steadily while the seconds passed, a look that brought dark blood to Strider’s face and a hard set to the brutal jaw. “That’s right,” Sartain said at last. “When I want to know something I figure that’s the way to find it out.” His eyes swung back to Loring, ignoring Strider.

  “We assume we were burned out by the big ranchers,” Loring replied carefully. “We’ve been warned to leave, but we shall continue to stay. We are not men to be driven from our homes, and the land is open to settlement.

  “Three ranchers control approximately a hundred miles of range. Stephen Bayne, Holston Walker, and Colonel Avery Quarterman. We deliberately chose a location that would interfere as little as possible, moving into the mountainous foothills of Black Mesa, north of the Middle Fork. Despite that, there was trouble.”

  “With the men you named?”

  “Who else? Bayne accused Peabody of butchering a Bar B steer, and at Peabody’s denial there would have been shooting except that McNabb and I were both there. Then a few days ago Peabody and I rode to Oren McNabb’s place, the brother to this gentleman, and found him dead. He had been shot down while unarmed. His stock had been run off, his buildings burned.”

  “Then there was a rumpus here at the Crossin’,” Peabody said. “Loring, Strider, an’ me, we jumped Colonel Quarterman on the street. He was mighty stiff, said he knew of no murder and we could get out or take the consequences. Strider here, he came right out an’ accused him of murder, then called him out.”

  “He didn’t fight?”

  “He’s yeller!” Strider sneered. “Yeller as saffron! With no riders at his back he’d never raise a hand to no man!”

  “Sometimes,” Sartain replied dryly, “it needs more courage to avoid a fight. If this Quarterman is the one I’ve heard of, he has proved his courage more than once. He’s a salty old Injun fighter.”

  “So he kills a lone rancher who’s unarmed?” Again Strider sneered. The big man’s dislike for Jim Sartain was evident.

  “Had you thought somebody else might have done it? Did you find him there?
Or any evidence of him or his riders?”

  “Who else would have done it? Or could have done it?”

  “You might have.”

  “Me?” Strider jerked as if struck and his face went pale, then ugly with fury.

  “Hold your hand, Roy.” George Noll was speaking from the barn door, and there was unexpected authority in his tone, casual as it sounded. “Draw on this hombre an’ you’ll die. He’s the Ranger, Jim Sartain.”

  CHAPTER II

  Strider’s big hand was spread above his gun butt and it froze there, then slowly eased to his side. “Sorry,” he said resentfully. “I didn’t know you was no Ranger.”

  It was not respect for the law that stopped Strider. Nor was it fear; blustering he might be, but not afraid.

  “I was saying that you might have done it,” Sartain repeated, “or Loring, or myself. You have no more evidence against the ranchers than they would have against us.”

  “That’s what I’ve said, Roy,” Loring interposed. “We can’t go off half-cocked when it will lead to bloodshed. The odds are all against us, anyway. Before we move we must be sure.”

  “This Ranger won’t help us any!” Peabody declared. “Who sent for you…Quarterman?”

  “That’s right, and that should prove something to you. If he were guilty he wouldn’t call in a Ranger, he’d wipe you out himself, and they must muster a hundred riders between them. He thinks there is something else behind this.”

  “He does, does he?” Strider sneered. “All he called you for was to get it done legal.”

  Noll walked up on the other side of the trough. “Hotel up the street. Clean beds, too, an’ down thisaway a mite Amy Booth has her eatin’ house. Best grub west o’ the Pecos. Reckon I’ll see you there.”

  Sartain nodded, then turned back to Loring. “You men take it easy. I’ll look into this.”

  “An’ we starve while you do?” McNabb spoke for the first time, bitterness edging his voice. “Man, those wagons you saw belong to us! Those women an’ kids are ours! We’re nigh out of grub an’ our stock’s been run off! How can we wait? What can we do? You talk about takin’ it easy! Them ain’t your womenfolks!”