The Lonesome Gods

by Louis L'Amour

  I wished Francisco was here.

  * * * *

  I HAD BEEN in Los Angeles a long time when one day, our girl Rosa told me she had seen someone lurking under the willows near the house. When I entered the kitchen that morning, Rosa was making tortillas.

  She went to the door and pointed. “It was over there!” she said. “He was standing back under the leaves. I could not see him very well.”

  Walking over to the willows, I prowled around among them, looking for tracks. Suddenly I found them, and not only tracks but cigarette butts, many of them. Some were old, some were new. Some were there from before the last shower; some were fresh.

  Somebody was watching our house.

  Searching, I found where the tracks entered the willows to come to the place of watching. I followed them back to a narrow lane that led along behind some farm yards to a street.

  Whoever was watching us had come up that lane from the street several times, perhaps many times, and he had watched our house while hidden in the willows.

  Had he seen Aunt Elena?

  Who was it, and why was he watching our house? Was he watching me? Or Miss Nesselrode?

  When school was over that day I went to the book shop, and when there were no customers, I told Jacob, who was there, and Miss Nesselrode about my discovery.

  “Look into this, will you, Jacob?” she asked.

  “The boy’s good, ma’am. I’ll take a look, but I doubt I’ll find anything he didn’t.”

  “I believe,” she added, “it is time you took that trip we spoke of once to see the Indians.” She stood up suddenly. “Tomorrow morning, Jacob. You and Johannes start tomorrow morning.”

  “We’ll be gone quite a while, ma’am. Don’t you think—”

  “Mr. Kelso will be here. I want Johannes out of here, and be sure nobody sees you leave. Change horses as often as you wish, but get away from this area very quickly.”

  She turned to me. “You wished to take some books? Pick five or six and list the titles, if you will. Leave the list on my desk.”

  Jacob took up his hat. “All right, ma’am, just so you will be in good hands.”

  “I can handle it.” Miss Nesselrode smiled a little. “I believe you will remember that when need be I do not hesitate to shoot.”

  Jacob smiled. “No, ma’am, you surely don’t.” He turned his hat in his hands. “Do you want us to check out that wild-horse hunt while we’re gone? Might be a good idea to come back by Cajon Pass. Give us a chance to ride up through the edge of the mountains and desert, maybe get a line on where we’d best look.”

  “All right.”

  She looked over at me. “Pack what you need, Johannes, and only what you need. I shall miss you very much, but you will have a great adventure, I am sure.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Will you see Aunt Elena, ma’am?”

  Miss Nesselrode considered that, her fingertips resting on the table. “I shall try. She is a very interesting woman, your Aunt Elena.”

  * * * *

  WE RODE AWAY before the sun was up, when the last stars lingered in the sky, reluctant to yield their light to the sun. We rode rapidly, and as before, we held to the back roads and trails.

  As we rode, Jacob pointed out places he knew or had heard of. We covered a lot of ground, moving at a shambling trot except where we walked up the steeper hills. Wherever possible, we kept to routes that were parallel to the trail, wishing to be seen by no one.

  “How you gettin’ along in that school?” Jacob asked suddenly. “Had any more trouble with that Huber boy?”

  “No, sir. It is a good school. Mr. Fraser is a good teacher, the best I ever had.”

  “Don’t see how he makes it pay with no more students than he has, but if he can hold on, there will be more.”

  “There are six now,” I said.

  “I saw Cap’n Laurel’s daughter there, didn’t I? The pretty one with the gold hair?”

  “Red-gold,” I corrected. “Yes, she sits beside me.”

  “Oh? No wonder you had trouble with that Huber boy.” He glanced at me with sly amusement. “Wait until you meet her pa. Ol’ Cap’n Laurel—now, there’s a character!”

  There was nothing I could say, although I had heard stories, and Meghan had said he had asked about me.

  “Laurel’s a canny man. In some ways an uncanny one. Some of his crew were ashore here a time or two, and it seems the old man is either mighty knowing or he’s tuned into something. They say he goes places where no cargo could be expected and there is always cargo for him.

  “He knows the coast of China and Japan like he owned it. Siberia, too. Sometimes he sails up the rivers, they say. Always something doing with him. ‘Uncanny’ is the word.

  “You know these fellows who go around tuning pianos? They have an ear for the sound, the exact sound? Well, Laurel seems to be that way. He’s been known to change course of a sudden, no warning, just a sudden change of course that will take him out of trouble or where there’s cargo.”

  “You mentioned Japan. I didn’t think they allowed foreign ships to come to their ports.”

  “They don’t. Only Laurel, he knows somebody or something and he goes. If you get to know him, I’d surely like to hear what you think. So would Miss Nesselrode.”

  Riding in silence as we usually did gave me time to think, and there was so much to think about. So many puzzling things had come up. My mother had said my father had premonitions. Was that what Captain Laurel had? Or were they what is called hunches? Or was it merely knowledge?

  My father had talked to me of his voyages and of my grandfather’s, and I knew that sometimes a sea captain kept certain ports of call or anchorages to himself, knowing that at intervals valuable cargo might be picked up there.

  “I always listened carefully when your father talked about the sea,” Jacob said. “Your father would tell me we will never know how much of the world was explored. The sea was often difficult to cross, but it was never impossible, and it has been crossed again and again by craft of every size and material. The Phoenicians, who were among the greatest of the early navigators, never allowed anyone to know where they went, and only a few stories have come down to us.

  “They knew, as did the Carthaginians who developed from a Phoenician colony, sources of raw materials they divulged to no one. For many years they permitted no other ships in the western Mediterranean, or to sail through the straits into the Atlantic. Then a Greek captain named Coleus sometime around 600 B.C. managed to slip by them and went to Tartessus, a port near Gades, which we call Cádiz. He returned with a ship loaded with silver, which left him a rich, rich man.

  “Nobody will ever know what voyages were made in the long ago. Hanno, a Phoenician, is reported to have sailed around Africa on orders from Necho, a pharaoh of Egypt.

  “Eudoxus was on a ship off the mouth of the Red Sea in the Indian Ocean when some wreckage was seen that included the figurehead of a ship he had last seen in Gades, and that was over one hundred years before Christ.

  “You’ll like Cap’n Laurel, I think, and he will like you. Get him to talkin’ about the sea, if you can. He’s made friends with some priests in Japan an’ China and they’ve told him things.”

  Before sundown we would ride off the trail and camp in a secluded spot, preparing our meal while it was light and with wood that gave off no smoke. By darkness the fire was put out and we slept until morning, trusting our horses to warn us of danger.

  We stopped to buy a few supplies at El Campo, a place of one store and a few adobes.

  “Stay with the horses,” Jacob told me, “and keep out of sight. Folks remember travelers when there’s so few.”

  It was hot and still. The horses stood in the shade of some trees and I sat down against the trunk of a thick old tree. Flies buzzed lazily. The horses dipped their noses in the water and drank; bees also came for water. I looked off toward the store, several hundred yards away, and wished Jacob would hurry.

  The warm sun made me slee
py. I tugged my hat lower over my eyes. The horses flicked their tails to drive away the flies. I dozed.

  There were footsteps in the dust. A boot crunched in the sand. I put my hand under my coat where the gun was, for the step was not Jacob’s.

  Boots and legs. From under my hat’s brim without lifting my head I saw them. Narrow Spanish boots, large-roweled California spurs, pants split from the knee down.

  “Most folks,” a voice said, “would think you was asleep, but not Monte McCalla. I’ve played ’possum a time or two m’self.”

  Tilting my head back, I looked up at him. He was slim and wiry, not a tall man, but with broad shoulders and the slim hips of a man of the saddle.

  “How are you?” I said.

  “You can take your hand off that gun, boy. I’m friendly.”

  “As long as I have my hand on this gun, you better be,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Now, I like that! That’s a proper answer.” He squatted on his heels and tilted his broad-brimmed Mexican sombrero back from his face. He was a handsome man, with sideburns and a black mustache and eyes that laughed a lot.

  “Sort of curious,” he said. “Isn’t often a man leaves his horses and walks away to a store when there’s a hitchin’ rail right out front.”

  “There’s shade here.”

  “Now, that could be it. A boy like you, now. He’d like to look around in that store, maybe see something he wants, but you ain’t doin’ it. When I was a boy—”

  “I was sleepy,” I said.

  “Maybe,” he agreed, “an’ maybe you just don’t want to be seen. An’ why would that be? Isn’t likely you’d be a cow thief or a horse thief, not at your age. So who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m sleepy,” I said.

  Chapter 28

  THE TWO-STORY ADOBE was shaded by massive oaks whose branches hung above the porch on the second story. In the patio a fountain bubbled. The night was cool and pleasant, and in the main room on the first floor Don Isidro sat with his cigar, a glass of wine on the table close by.

  He was a thin man with high cheekbones and hollow cheeks. His hair was gray and his mustache and beard were streaked with it. He was dressed with quiet elegance, and when he heard the sound of booted feet on the patio pavement, he frowned slightly.

  What? At this hour?

  A man appeared in the open door, a man with a flat nose and a scarred face, holding his hat in his hand. The man wore a white shirt, a red sash, and fringed leggings. A big pistol in a holster, and a knife.

  He was a man, Don Isidro recalled, who preferred the knife.

  “You wished to see me?”

  The man turned his hat in his hand; then he said, very softly, “He lives.”

  An icy chill seemed to touch the back of Don Isidro’s neck. He leaned forward and dusted the ash from his cigar.

  “Bah!” There was contempt and impatience in his tone.

  “I have seen him. I have seen him alive.”

  “You are mistaken. You have seen another. He could not survive.”

  “The father survived.”

  Blue veins showed on Don Isidro’s brow. “Nonsense!” Then he asked, “Where did you see this…this child?”

  “In the pueblo. On the street. It was he. I know it was he.”

  Doña Elena had appeared, almost ghostlike, at his elbow. There was irritation in his tone. “It cannot be. It is not possible.”

  “There is a woman, an Anglo. It is Señorita Nesselrode. He lives at her house.”

  Without turning his head, he said to Elena, “What do you know of this?”

  “I know the woman. She has many friends.” Then gently she added, “She is a friend to Don Abel Stearns and Don Benito Wilson.”

  “Bah! Who are they? Anglos!”

  “You have forgotten, my brother. It is not we who are in power, but the Anglos.” Then she added, “Pio Pico is also her friend, and General Vallejo.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “She knows everyone, my brother. She has many friends.”

  “So you have said. And we have not, is that what you imply?”

  “It is well to have friends.”

  “So you say. So you often say. This woman? This Señorita Nesselrode? I wish to visit her home. I wish to visit it now…tonight!”

  “Tonight? But it is far. It would be after midnight—”

  “So much the better. I wish to arrive without warning.” He got to his feet. “You! Get five men and come with me. Five armed men, do you understand?”

  “You cannot do this! Go to a woman’s house in the middle of the night?”

  “I shall do as I please. If the boy is there, he is mine, and I shall take him away. What right has this woman to have my grandson?”

  “So you can kill him? Kill him as you have tried before?” She paused. “You do not know the Anglos, my brother. They do not care for you or your name. You would hang.”

  “Hang? Do not talk like a fool!”

  He turned sharply around, glaring at a serving woman. “You! My boots! Quickly now!”

  He tugged on the boots, then stamped into them. He turned to his sister. “You are a woman, so I can expect no more, but you are a fool, also! This child’s existence is an insult! My daughter and that…that peón!”

  “He was a fine man, and he would soon have been a ship’s captain.”

  “Bah! A ship’s captain! Of some miserable little coastal vessel? Married to my daughter?”

  He strode to the door, turning there. “Do not worry yourself. The child is dead. I go but to make sure.”

  Doña Elena listened to his footsteps as they retreated across the patio. For an instant she thought of getting her own horse and trying by back trails to reach the town before him. Yet it was no use. She did not know the trails well enough and could easily become lost.

  She remembered the cool beauty of Miss Nesselrode. She was a woman, that one. She would not be easily defeated.

  Yet, Doña Elena was frightened. What of the boy? Isidro would see him, recognize him, know he was alive, and he would kill him.

  Even the courts, even the law, would return a grandson to a grandfather.

  * * * *

  MISS NESSELRODE AWAKENED suddenly as a rider rode past her window. She sat up. Had Johannes and Jacob come back? What was wrong?

  No, of course not! Nobody in her employ would ride past on that side of the house.

  Outlaws? Thieves? Quickly she got to her feet and slipped into her robe.

  Where was Kelso?

  Taking up her pistol and holding it at her side, concealed in the folds of her gown, she went into the living room just as the door burst open and several men charged in. The first one through the door was Don Isidro.

  “You have a boy here. I want to see him.”

  “I do not know what you are talking about, señor, but you have broken into my home. You have broken into a lady’s home in the middle of the night, a despicable act, something no gentleman would do. Now I must ask you to leave.”

  “Search the house!” Don Isidro ordered.

  Miss Nesselrode lifted her pistol. “Señor! I am a dead shot! If you or one of your men takes a single step, I shall shoot you through the ear, señor, and tomorrow morning it shall be told all over the pueblo that the noble Don Isidro was shot through the ear by a woman!”

  A voice from her right said quietly, “They ain’t goin’ nowhere, ma’am. I got me a scatter-gun.”

  Kelso turned up the wick on the lamp, shedding more light into the room, holding the shotgun ready, elbow braced against his right hip.

  “You!” She pointed suddenly at a vaquero standing toward the rear, a younger and seemingly somewhat embarrassed young man. “Will you do me the honor of walking through those rooms? If you see a boy, please call out.”

  He hesitated a moment, then came forward. It required only a minute, for the doors of the rooms stood open. He emerged from the kitchen at the last. “Señor? There is no boy. There are only these, and the coo
k. No more.”

  Furious, Don Isidro glared at the man with the flat nose. “You!” He turned back to Miss Nesselrode. “Señorita, I am—”

  “Sir, you are a fool. You are also a coward and a disgrace to the name of grandfather. You are proud of a name which you disgrace with every day you live.

  “Your story is well known. You drove your daughter from the country, you had her husband murdered, and you have attempted to murder your grandson.

  “Do you think it is not known, señor? Do not be such a fool. Behind your back they shrug, they sneer, and sometimes they shudder.

  “The son-in-law whom you had killed was a dozen times the man you think you are. You are nothing, sir! Nothing!”

  Don Isidro’s face was a haggard mask, gray and ugly. “If you were a man, I would kill you !” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “I would—”

  “No you would not, Don Isidro. You would not face a gun in the hands of any man, or a blade. You would have me killed by one of those!” She pointed at the men at his back. ‘When did you ever kill a man? Or defend yourself? When did you ever do anything but live on what your ancestors created for you, shielding yourself behind an honorable name?

  “Your ancestors, señor, and your countrymen were proud men, they were explorers, fighting men, but what are you? What have you ever been but an empty shell?”

  The young man who had searched the house had turned and slipped quietly away. The others, shamed, were backing toward the door.

  Don Isidro struggled to speak, but before he could find words, she said, “Get out! Get out and stay out and don’t ever come to my door again or I shall shoot you myself. Better still, I shall simply set the dogs on you. It is what you deserve!”

  He turned; his men were gone. Blindly he went to the door and stepped out into the night.

  Kelso lowered the shotgun. “Lord a’mighty! Ma’am, I never saw the like! You whipped him like a mangy dog!”

  “I am sorry, Mr. Kelso. I did not mean to lose my temper, but that fine boy, and his mother and father…It was evil, Mr. Kelso! Evil!”