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

by Louis L'Amour

  “You are late!” he said impatiently. “We have been waiting. Señor DeCarte is most angry.”

  “It was unavoidable,” Fernandez replied shortly. “Señor Chafee slept late.”

  “Slept?” The man stared at the Kid in astonishment. “That soundly?”

  “Why not?” The Kid shrugged, and then glanced across the clearing. A big man on the far side had taken off his coat and was now selecting a pistol from a box.

  The Cactus Kid stopped in his tracks…it was ridiculous…it couldn’t be!

  But it was. Fernandez was beside him. “Your jacket, señor?” he said. “You will remove it?”

  The Kid slipped out of the jacket, then asked, “By the way, you know in the States we don’t do this quite the same way. Would you mind telling me the rules?”

  Fernandez bowed. “I am sorry. I thought this had been done. You will face each other at a distance of twenty paces. At the word, you will lift your pistols and fire. If neither scores a hit, you will advance one step closer and fire a second time.”

  Fernandez’s eyes searched the Kid’s anxiously. “I…hope you will win, señor. This is all very strange. Somehow you do not seem…if I did not know I would think…you will pardon me, of course, but…”

  “You don’t think I’m Jim Chafee?” The Kid chuckled. “You’re right, amigo, I’m not.” Before the startled man’s words could come, the Kid said quickly, “Chafee was ambushed. He is either dead by now, or dying. I am taking his place, and you may be sure I’ll shoot as straight.

  “Now tell me: Who am I shooting, and what for?”

  Fernandez stared. He gulped, and then suddenly, he laughed. “This is most unbelievable! Preposterous! And yet…amusing.

  “This man is Colonel Arnold DeCarte. He is one of certain deadly enemies of General Francisco Ibanez, the father of Marguerita. In fact, he is believed to be their leader and one of those in a plot to dispossess the señorita of her estates.

  “He challenged Ibanez and was to have fought him today but Ibanez was slain by assassins. Now you tell me that Jim Chafee, who took up the fight, has also been slain, or badly wounded, at least.”

  The Cactus Kid looked at the pistol in his hand. It would have to serve, but he would have preferred his own Smith & Wesson .44. DeCarte was advancing to position, but now he stopped, staring at the Cactus Kid.

  The Frenchman turned abruptly. “What farce is this? This is not Señor Chafee…it is a child!”

  As the others turned, the Kid stepped forward, interrupting the excited babble of their voices. “What’s the matter, DeCarte? Afraid? Or do you prefer to shoot your men down from ambush, as General Ibanez and Chafee have been shot?”

  DeCarte’s face turned dark with angry blood. “You accuse me of that?” he roared. “By the—!”

  “Control yourself, señor!” Fernandez said sternly. “The duel is arranged. If you wish to retire from the field, say so. This gentleman is taking the place of Señor Chafee.”

  DeCarte stared at the Kid angrily, yet as he looked, his expression changed. The Cactus Kid stood five feet seven in his socks, and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. His hair waved back from his brow and his face looked soft. He was deceptively boyish-looking, a fact that had cost more than one man dearly. The Kid could almost see the thought in DeCarte’s mind. This boy…I will shoot him down….

  “Take your place!” DeCarte snapped. “Let the duel commence!”

  Coolly, the Cactus Kid walked to his place. This was different from the gun duels he was accustomed to where men met in the street or elsewhere and moved and shot as they wished. For this sort of thing there was a ritual, a ceremony, and he wished to conform. He glanced down at the heavy pistol. It was a good pistol, at that. It was a single-shot gun, and a second was thrust into his belt.

  The third man stepped to his position. “One!” he barked.

  The Cactus Kid stiffened and stood, his right side turned toward DeCarte. The man seemed very near.

  “Two!”

  They lifted their pistols. The guns were heavy, but the Kid’s wrists were strong from the endless hours of roping, riding, and range work. He held it steady and looked along the barrel at DeCarte.

  “Three!”

  Flame stabbed at him and something brushed at his face. DeCarte stood very still, then turned slowly toward the Kid and fell flat on his face. He had been shot through the right eye.

  The Kid put his hand to his cheek and brought it away bloody. He touched his cheek again. The bullet had burned him, so near he had been to death. Excited men gathered about DeCarte, and the Kid picked up his jacket and slipped into it. His own .44 was still behind the sash where he had carried it since his arrival in Mexico.

  Fernandez came to him. “A splendid shot!” he said. “A remarkable shot! But we must go, at once! He has many friends. You must leave Mexico.”

  “Leave?” The Cactus Kid shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he said quietly. “I must stay. And I want to see the señorita.”

  “That is impossible.” Sandoval had come up to them. “It is not to be considered. If you are not out of Mexico in a matter of hours, his friends will have you arrested.”

  “That I’ll gamble on,” the Kid said shortly. “I’m staying.”

  Sandoval’s face stiffened slightly. “As you wish,” he said, and turned abruptly.

  As they swung into their saddles, Fernandez leaned closer to the Kid. “I will take you to her. We ride now to the hotel. Go at once to your room!”

  They rode swiftly over the road back to town and then to the inn. The Kid stabled his horse and then checked his gun. Swiftly, he mounted the stairway. In his room he changed at once into range clothes and belted on both his guns. That there would be further trouble, he did not doubt. What lay behind all this he did not know, nor exactly who his enemies were. Chafee had warned him to trust no one, and had said that Marguerita’s uncle was one of those trying to grab the vast estate of which he had heard only hints.

  Waiting irritated him. He packed his few things into his saddlebags and the small carpetbag in which he carried his gray suit. From the window he looked down into the patio. There was nobody in sight, although it was well along toward midday. Nor was there any sound of anyone approaching his room.

  Suddenly, through the gate came a half-dozen mounted soldiers and an officer. Four of the soldiers swung down and started for the entrance. The Kid wheeled to rush to the door, then heard a faint sound from without—the merest scrape of a foot!

  He hesitated, picked up a chair in one hand, and laid the other on the doorknob, stepping back as far as he could while still retaining his grip. Then he swung the door wide and hurled a chair into the hall!

  Yet as he jerked wide the door and swung the chair, a shotgun blasted and the heavy charge smashed into the chair bottom, some of the shot ricocheting from the doorjamb. Leaping out, gun in hand, he was just in time to see a man rushing down the hall. The Kid stepped out of the door and shot from the hip.

  The running man seemed to stumble and then he sprawled headlong to the floor. From below there was a shout, and he heard the soldiers rushing toward the stair. Grabbing his saddlebags and carpetbag, he darted out of the door, slamming it after him, and turning down the hall, ran past the fallen man and through a door that waited beyond. It led down a narrow stair to the ground outside the inn.

  He hit the bottom running and charged into the open, seeing a horse standing there. Instantly, he sprang into the saddle, swung the horse wide, and spurred it into the brush. In two jumps it was running all out. Behind him there were yells and running feet, but he was already out of sight.

  Instantly, he drew up. No need to let them hear the running horse to know his direction. Turning at right angles to his original course, he swung around the town and headed into the chaparral. It was rough going and there was no trail, but he worked his way back through the brush, heading toward the mountains. It was scarcely noon now, and he had many daylight hours ahead of him. He paused
a moment to fasten down his saddlebags. He patted the horse’s flank.

  What had become of Fernandez? And of Marguerita?

  THE CACTUS KID SAVED his horse but worked, on a zigzag trail, back into the roughest kind of country, yet avoiding the canyons that led into the Sierra Madre. It would be his luck to ride into a box canyon and be trapped.

  Several times he studied his back trail from the summits of ridges he crossed, taking precautions so as not to be seen. He saw no dust or evidence of pursuit.

  Finding a faint cattle trail, he followed it, winding along the slope of the hills. The trail suddenly divided, and one path led higher up into the rugged mountains. He chose this way and dismounted to save his horse. It was not his own, but it would do, and was a powerful gray gelding with the deep chest and the fine legs of a runner and stayer.

  At the crest of the range, with several miles of terrain exposed below him, he turned into the trees and stopped, slipping the bit from the gelding’s mouth so it could feed properly. Then he picketed the horse and sat down on the slope.

  Almost an hour had passed before he saw any sign of life, and then it was only a peón driving a goat. The man was coming up the trail and making a hard time of it. When almost to the Kid, the goat suddenly stopped and shied away. The peón straightened and looked at the trees. “It is all right, old one,” the Kid said softly, “I am a friend.”

  He saw then that the man’s face was bleeding from a cut across the cheek. The peón did not come toward him but stood there, holding his hand against his face. “If you are he they seek,” he said, “may you go with God. Those others—they are devils!”

  “They struck you?”

  “With a whip.” The peón turned his head now and stared at the Kid, who was visible to him but out of sight of anyone below. “They asked me if I had seen a gringo. I told them no and they swore I lied. I had not seen you, señor. Then they struck me.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “In the canyon below. They search for tracks.”

  The Kid nodded. They would find them, of course. Then they would be on his trail. He gathered up his picket rope and put the bit back in the gelding’s mouth.

  “Old one,” he said, “do you know the hacienda of Ibanez? Is it near?”

  “It is north,” the old man said, “you are pointing for it now. It is thirty miles from east to west, and fifty miles from north to south. If you ride straight on, you can reach there for dinner. But they are there also, the devils.”

  “Ibanez was killed.”

  “Sí, we know this, but those who come in his place, ah!”

  The Cactus Kid mounted. “They won’t have it so good, old-timer,” he said grimly. “I’m looking for some of them now.”

  THE WORST OF IT WAS, he reflected as he rode on, that he did not know whom he was looking for. What he intended to do was to find Marguerita and talk to her. She would put him straight, and he grinned at the thought; talking with her would cause him no pain. If one had to be trapped into defending or aiding a girl, it was pure luck that she turned out to be so beautiful.

  The Ibanez hacienda was something to look at, and the Kid studied the place thoughtfully. The house was surrounded by a wall on three sides, the back of the house making up most of the fourth side. There were orchards and meadows, irrigation ditches and row crops. The fields were not small, but stretched on for acres and acres. On a far hill he could see cattle grazing; whiteface cattle such as they were now bringing into Texas.

  Keeping to back trails, he rode for the house itself and finally stopped under some eucalyptus trees a hundred yards off. No pursuit was in sight, and he doubted if they would find him soon, for they would still be hunting him in the mountains. He was about to mount up when he saw a peón standing under the trees, watching him.

  He was gambling on the dislike the peóns seemed to have for his own enemies, and he said, “I am a friend to the Señorita Marguerita. I have just killed in a duel an enemy of the old general. I need a fresh horse and to see the señorita. She is here?”

  The man had a thin face and large, hot eyes. He came forward quickly, showing beautiful teeth in a quick smile. “She is here, señor. She has come within the hour. And already the story is told that you…you must be the one…who killed DeCarte. We are happy, amigo!”

  The Mexican came forward and took the horse. “I will prepare for you a fine horse, señor, who runs like the wind and never stops! And I will warn you if they come. Go down to the house…but be careful.”

  Taking nothing with him but what he wore, the Cactus Kid turned and walked swiftly toward the gate. Now he would find out what this was all about and there need be no more going it blind. That he was far from out of the woods, he knew. Whoever these enemies of the old general were, they seemed to have influence enough to employ the army, and they would certainly want him dead. Yet the Kid knew that he was relatively unimportant and what they feared was that he might try to aid the señorita.

  He walked through the gate and across to the door of the house. When he stepped through he became immediately conscious of his dusty, disheveled appearance. His boots sounded loud on the worn stone floor and he walked on into the large room with dark panels on the walls.

  The whisper of a footstep startled him and he turned. It was Marguerita, her magnificent eyes wide and frightened. “Señor! You must leave at once! They are searching for you everywhere. Here they will look, and we, my uncle and I, we are suspect.”

  “Your uncle?” His eyes searched her face. “He is here?”

  “Yes, of course. He was so pleased when he heard of your victory. It was magnificent, señor. But,” she hurried on, “you must not stay. DeCarte had powerful friends and they are searching for you. My uncle says you must not come here.”

  “He didn’t see me come now?” the Kid asked hastily. “If he didn’t, don’t tell him.”

  “And why not?” The voice was cool. “You think me ungrateful, my young friend?”

  The Cactus Kid half turned to face the tall, aristocratic man with the white goatee and mustache. Certainly, he had never seen a finer appearing man, and yet as the uncle drew nearer, the Kid could see the hard lines around his mouth, half concealed by the mustache, and the coldness in the man’s eyes.

  “I am Don Estaban,” he said, “the master here. We are at your service.”

  “You own the ranch?” The Cactus Kid looked surprised. “It was my impression that it belonged to the señorita.”

  Don Estaban’s lips tightened and his eyes flashed hard and cold. This man, the Kid reflected, had a mean temper. “So it does,” Don Estaban said quietly. “I am but the manager, the master in function, if you will.”

  The Kid turned to Marguerita. “May I talk with you? There is much to say.”

  Before she could reply, Don Estaban interrupted. “It is not the custom in Mexico,” he said, “for young ladies to talk to gentlemen unchaperoned. I cannot permit it.”

  “Perhaps he would like to bathe and prepare for dinner, Uncle Estaban,” Marguerita said quickly. “If you would show him to a room. Or I can call Juana.”

  Turning, she called out and a slender girl came quickly into the room, and the Kid followed her away. Behind him he heard low conversation.

  Once in the room, he glanced suspiciously about. It was spacious, with a huge four-poster bed. Throwing his hat on a hook, he poured water into a basin and unfastened his neckerchief and started unbuttoning his shirt. Then the door opened quickly and the señorita stepped into the room. “Always I come to your room!” she whispered. “It is most improper!”

  “I like it.” The Kid looked at her appreciatively. “I like it very much. I wish you’d make a habit of it. Now tell me what this is all about, and quickly.”

  The story was simple enough, and she told it rapidly with no time wasted on details. The ranch was part of a grant that had been in the hands of her family since the Conquest, but of late it had become more and more valuable. During the reign of Maximilian�
�who had been shot only a short time before—it had been taken from their family and given to the DeCartes, who were adventurous followers of the French king.

  When he was thrown out, the estate had been returned to its original owners, but by that time DeCarte had married into an influential Mexican family and he had continued to claim the estate. There had been some furious words between the old general and DeCarte, and the resulting challenge. The fact that the general had been a renowned pistol shot might have had something to do with his assassination. Jim Chafee had been planning to take up the challenge when he himself had been shot, and the arrival of the Cactus Kid at the time Chafee was expected had led Fernandez and Sandoval to believe he was their man.

  DeCarte was dead…the bullet had killed him instantly, but the trouble was only just begun.

  “You must not stay here,” Marguerita told him quickly. “It is not safe. You must return to your own country.”

  “What about you?” he asked. “How will you deal with your uncle?”

  “My uncle?” She turned on him quickly. “What do you mean?”

  “Your uncle is one of them, Marguerita. He is trying to get your estate for himself, to divide it with DeCarte and someone else.”

  Her face paled. “Oh, no! You don’t mean that! You can’t!”

  Yet even as she spoke he could see the dawning of belief in her eyes. She turned on him. “Where did you get that idea? Who would suggest it?”

  “Chafee told me it was he who killed your father. He said it was your uncle who had him ambushed.”

  She stood very still, and then suddenly she sat down on the chair near the table. “What am I to do? He was the only one…there is no one, nobody to help me.”

  “Why not me?” The Cactus Kid sat down on the bed and began to build a cigarette. “Marguerita,” he said quietly, “I’m in this up to my ears. Even for my own safety, I would be better off staying here and licking it than trying to beat them to the border. Go on, we don’t want you to get caught here…I’ll see you at dinner.”