The Lonesome Gods

by Louis L'Amour

  “Watch that stallion,” Monte warned. “He’s ready to go at the slightest chance. One of these days he’s going to try it, and I just hope I’m not in the way when he starts!”

  * * * *

  CHANGE WAS IN the air, and no amount of concentration on one’s personal affairs could prevent one from realizing it.

  Miss Nesselrode was crocheting when I entered the shop. “Johannes! I see very little of you these days.”

  “We’ve some fine horses out there, ma’am. Monte’s working them hard, and he’s got about three dozen as good roping horses as a man could want.

  “We’ve picked out some others, paired them up for teams. We’ve been working them together, getting them used to each other.”

  “We’ll need them, Johannes. There’s a man on the other side of town who has started building wagons. It will take time to make the change, and the Californios may want to stay with their carretas. I am depending on the easterners to want wagons, and later, buggies.”

  Glancing over the new books that had come in, I looked across the street and saw a tall man in a dark tailored suit. He was just standing there, apparently reading a newspaper, but he was watching the shop, too.

  “Ma’am? Do you know that man?”

  She glanced up at me, then followed my gaze to the street. After a moment she said, “I am not sure, Johannes. He does look familiar.”

  Several vaqueros rode by; then a carreta passed. When I looked again, he was gone. Miss Nesselrode put down her pen, placed her palms flat on the desk as if she was about to rise, then relaxed. She was disturbed.

  “Someday,” she said, “we must have a talk.”

  “Have I done something wrong?”

  She flashed a quick smile. “No, Johannes, but I may need some advice.”

  “Advice? From me? If there is anything I can do…?”

  “I value your judgment, Johannes. I have no one else to turn to.”

  “Whatever I can do. You have only to ask.”

  Yet I was puzzled. She had always seemed so thoroughly in command of herself, so self-sufficient. I looked again at the street. The well-dressed man was gone.

  Who was he? Was it he who had triggered that comment by Miss Nesselrode? Or was it merely a coincidence?

  For that matter, the very question of who Miss Nesselrode was still left me with a sense of guilt. What, after all, did I know of her? What did anyone know? As far as I was concerned, her life began when she appeared for our ride west in Farley’s wagon.

  Who was she? What had she left behind? To all appearances she was a lady. Obviously she had education. Of her intelligence there could be no doubt, but where had she come from?

  Fletcher had been suspicious, yet he was suspicious of everyone. As with many a dishonest man, he suspected everyone of duplicity.

  * * * *

  OUR HORSES WERE held in a series of corrals near a spring at the edge of the mountains. There was a small grove of sycamores and oak nearby that offered shade, and the water was good. It was far enough up the side of the mountains to offer a good view of the wide-open country, below which was grasslands and ciénaga, dotted with clumps of trees, some of them quite extensive. On a clear day we could actually make out riders or carretas along the old Indian trail from Santa Monica Bay to Los Angeles, the same trail that led to and past the pits of brea.

  Francisco and his Cahuillas had taken their cattle and the rest of their payment and returned to their own country, far away on the desert’s edge.

  Jacob Finney came up to the fire in the coolness of the morning, stepping down from his horse and trailing the reins. He extended his hard brown hands to the fire’s warmth. “I don’t like it, Johannes. We need more men, good men. Coming in from the La Brea Ranch, I saw tracks, fresh horse tracks coming this way.”

  Monte looked up at him from where he squatted, cup in hand. “How fresh?”

  “Last night. Maybe sundown or after. They were scouting us.” He reached for a cigar from his breast pocket. “I think they’re holed up down there near the old Anza spring, eight to ten of them.”

  “Stearns and Wilson have both lost horses,” Monte said. “Stearns thinks it’s some outfit from over on the Mohave River.”

  “Kelso should be back in town tomorrow,” Jacob said. “He’s been up to Santa Barbara for Miss Nesselrode.”

  “The Yorbas have lost both cattle and horses,” I said. “They think it was some of the old Jack Powers outfit.”

  “He lit out,” Jacob said. “Powers, I mean. He went down to Baja just ahead of a posse with a hangin’ noose.”

  “I can stay around,” I said. “We’ve put in too much hard work on these horses to lose them.”

  “How you comin’ with that stallion of yours?” Jacob asked.

  I shrugged. “He’ll take bread or a carrot from my fingers, but if I go to put a hand on him, he shies away.”

  “Be careful. You can’t trust a stallion.”

  “Odd about people’s notions of riding,” I said. “Most Americans will only ride geldings. I’m talking about working riders. The Spanish conquistadors favored stallions, and the Arabs, I hear, favored mares.”

  Jacob took up the reins and led his horse to the corral, where he tied the reins. “You know the Yorbas,” he said to me. “Did Raymundo tell you anything about that bunch of horses they took back from outlaws over at Tujunga Canyon? A couple of hundred of them, somebody said.”

  “Hundred and fifty, the way Raymundo tells it. Mexican and American outlaws. Maybe some of that same bunch we ran into over near the Grapevine.”

  Jacob dropped to his heels by the fire. “Monte? You know those folks over at El Monte? Why don’t you take some time off and ride over there? If you can find three or four good hands, hire them.”

  “They’re a tough lot of Texas boys, but they’re good hands, too.”

  “That’s what we want, isn’t it?” Jacob smiled slyly. “Although with Johannes takin’ all those fightin’ lessons, we may not need anybody else. He should handle four, maybe five all to onct.”

  “Give me time,” I said. “Somebody has to protect you boys from the boogers.”

  Sunshine lay along the slopes, and from Los Angeles a few thin trails of smoke pointed fingers at the clouds. Where we sat under the sycamores, sunlight and shadow dappled the earth.

  “It has to change,” I commented, “yet I wish it were not so. This is my kind of country. This”—and I waved a hand toward the distant hills—“and what we saw out there. Maybe I’ll go to horse ranching. There’s nothing prettier than a bunch of colts playing in a meadow.”

  “It’s a livin’,” Monte said. He looked from me to Jacob. “You really want me to ride over to El Monte?”

  “We do. But don’t waste around. You’ll miss all the fightin’ if you do, and Johannes will have all the fun.”

  Monte walked to the corral and took his rope from where his saddle lay. He went into the corral and roped a mouse-colored mustang with three white stockings. He led it out and saddled up. We sat by the fire, watching while slow smoke drifted up from the dying coals.

  “You serious about that?” Jacob asked. “Horse ranching, I mean?”

  “I am. At least it is something I can do until I find my way. My trouble is the wild country, and there’s no money in trapping anymore. Prospecting…well, I don’t know. Since they’ve found gold up north, everybody is hunting it.”

  “Is it the gold? Or is it the country?”

  With a small stick I poked at the coals. “The country, I guess. There’s something out there, something I’ve got to find. I feel sometimes like I’d lost something out there, but I don’t know what it is.”

  He got up, dusted off his pants, and looked around at me. “Will you be all right here? Monte’s ridin’ in, and I think I’ll go along and see Miss Nesselrode. I can make it back before sundown.”

  “Go ahead, I’ll be all right.”

  When he had gone I walked over to the corral and talked to the stall
ion. He had to have a name, but what would it be? Standing near the corral, I let my eyes slowly sweep the country to the south, east, and west. North and west, the mountains were close, and the timber was thicker but rarely dense. A few vague trails reached toward the canyons.

  I stood my rifle near me and against the corral bars, sweeping the country again with careful attention. Many times before I had watched that country down there. The view was unbroken except for the occasional clumps of trees, and I could see anybody approaching from afar.

  The trouble was that I could not keep a good watch down toward the Anza spring. From there attackers could hold to low ground and groves, coming around behind me, and there was no need to wait until dark. Many previous raids had been by daylight.

  Vásquez was somewhere around, and Joaquin Jim. Joaquin seemed to be a popular name for outlaws for there were at least three by the name. Probably that was why John Rollin Ridge, the Cherokee writer whose Indian name was Yellow Bird, had chosen that for the name of his outlaw. He had written a story for The Police Gazette about an outlaw named Murietta, and many people had come to believe he was a real person.

  Pancho Daniel was around, and Juan Flores, both known men, and dangerous. Three-Finger Jack, whom Ridge had attached to the so-called Murietta gang, was actually riding with Vásquez.

  Far away I could see the plume of dust that would be Monte and Jacob. Taking up my rifle, I turned toward my fire.

  For a moment my heart stilled; then I felt its slow, heavy beat.

  A man was standing by the fire, a square-shouldered man with a thick neck, a man no longer young but whose shoulders were shocking in their intimation of quiescent power.

  How he had come there, I did not know, but he was standing, as if waiting. Rifle in hand, I walked toward him, walking slowly, very slowly.

  Chapter 39

  HE WORE DUNGAREES such as were worn by sailors on the China ships, a broad leather belt, and a white cotton shirt stretched tight over unbelievable muscles. So far as I could see, he carried no other weapon.

  “Good morning.” I gestured toward the pot. “Will you have some coffee?”

  His features had an Oriental cast but he looked unlike any Japanese or Chinese I had seen, although my knowledge of both peoples was limited. He had high cheekbones and a scar on the side of his jaw. When he got that scar, he had also lost an earlobe.

  He squatted on his heels and accepted the cup I brought from an arbor we had built to add to the tree’s shade.

  “I am Johannes Verne,” I said.

  He tasted the coffee. “You grandson to Captain Verne?”

  “Yes.”

  “Captain my friend.”

  “I wish I had known him. All I know is what my father told me. He sailed off the China coast for many years, I believe.”

  He watched the horses moving inside the corral. We took some of them out to graze each day, returning them to the corral at night. A few of the horses had already been driven to the corral in town, others to land held by Miss Nesselrode on the old Indian trail to Santa Monica.

  “You have many horses.”

  “If we can keep them. There are many thieves, too. I am told there are some bandits down near Anza spring.”

  “Eleven,” he said.

  Surprised, I said, “Eleven?”

  “Yes. I count. They wait for somebody who comes from the town.”

  “You know them?”

  “I see them. I come by, see, go to look. I listen.”

  “They did not see you?”

  “Did you see me come here? I am Yacub Khan.”

  Apparently that was explanation enough, and he was right, for I had not seen him until he stood at the fire. It irritated me that I had been so careless. How could I not have seen him? I was alert. I was a damned fool. He had done it, somehow. If he had, others might.

  As if he read my mind, he said, “You watch good. I see it.”

  He emptied his cup, then stood up. He watched the horses for a few minutes, then walked to the corral. He put his hands on the bars and then called; he called to the black stallion and it came right up to him. He put his hand out and the stallion did not shy. “He is a good horse,” he said. “Yours?”

  “He’s unbroken. Some say he is a bad one.”

  “He is good horse. Very strong. He run very far, very fast.”

  “You have had experience with horses?”

  “In my country everybody rides; from tiny baby, we ride. I am of Turkestan, what the Chinese call Sinkiang. We have the best horses in the world. There are no better horses than those of Karashar or Bar-Kol.”

  When I was a small boy my father often showed me maps and pointed out places on them, some of them places he had visited, others places he simply knew about. Turkestan I remembered because Marco Polo had crossed it.

  The black stallion had remained close to us, and putting out a hand, I scratched its neck.

  “He is a good horse,” Yacub Khan said. “He is the best of them.”

  It dawned on me suddenly. “You are from Khotan? You are the fighter?”

  “I have fought.” Abruptly he turned and started away. Having no idea what to say or why he had come or why he was going, I simply stood and watched him go.

  When he was some fifty yards away, he turned and looked back at me. “You are strong. Become stronger.”

  Then he walked away, his shoulders very straight, walking with a curious flat-footed style, toes turned out.

  Why had he come? He, whom I had heard was a recluse, seeing no one, wishing to see no one. Captain Laurel had said he was the best, and Liu Ch’ang agreed. Now he said: You are strong. Become stronger.

  When I looked again, he was gone. Of course, he could have gone into the trees. No doubt he had.

  Eleven outlaws, he said. It was too many. For a few minutes I stood looking about me as if seeing the place for the first time.

  Suppose they came now to run off my horses? What would I do? What could I do? The corral, which opened on a small pasture fenced with rails, stood on a level spot among low, rolling hills close to the mountains. One of the several canyons that offered trails to the San Fernando Valley was close by, and Los Angeles was less than ten miles away. In the clear air it was not easy to judge distance.

  Between where I now stood and Los Angeles there were numerous clumps of brush and trees and some vast stretches of prickly pear. Against the mountains and around Anza spring, named for the explorer who stopped there on a trip to the north, there were trees.

  By this time the outlaws must know I was alone, so if they attacked, how would they do it? Our fire could be seen for miles, and they would judge that I was nearby. A sudden charge might kill me and run off the horses, needing no more than minutes.

  My position close to the corral was not a good one, for riders could split, ride around the corral, and take me from both sides. Thinking of that, I recalled a spot I had seen while gathering firewood.

  No more than fifty yards from the corral, it was a low knoll covered with rocks and chaparral, backed by a few trees and some fallen logs. From one of these I had taken bark for kindling, and broken some small branches.

  Building up the fire and adding fresh fuel, I then retreated to the knoll and found the view I had of the corral and my camp was better than expected. Carefully I looked around, choosing several possible firing positions, for after firing, I must move at once. My movements could be covered by the way the hill fell away as well as by the brush and rocks.

  Checking my field of fire, I settled down to wait, and was scarcely in position before I glimpsed three riders come out of the trees and ride slowly along the dim trail that led from the southwest. They were ambling along as if going nowhere, and in no hurry, yet I was suspicious.

  Where were they going?

  The route they followed would bring them close to our camp, and the trail led on past and into one of the canyons that offered access to the valley beyond. Yet, at this hour, where were they going? There were ran
ches in the valley, and a stage stop at Calabasas.

  Curiously I watched them draw nearer. As I watched, one of them drew his rifle from the scabbard. My own rifle eased forward. At the corral the black stallion was restless, and glancing that way, I saw he was not watching the three riders, but something off to my right, head up, ears standing.

  Turning sharply, I saw five riders, rifles in hand, less than a hundred yards away. While my attention had been riveted on the three riders, as was no doubt intended, the others were approaching under cover and from almost behind me.

  Eleven, Yacub Khan had said, and there were but eight in sight. Where were the others? By now they all must know I was not at the fire, and were waiting until I gave away my position.

  They did not know how I was armed, but would assume I had a rifle, which, once fired, must then be reloaded. They would also assume that I had a pistol capable of five or six shots, depending on whether all cylinders were loaded. Thinking of that, I drew each pistol, for I had two, and in each I loaded the extra chambers while watching the riders.

  The five had drawn up. One man was standing in his stirrups, peering around.

  That I was not in sight disturbed them. If they could surprise me, they need not fire a shot. Otherwise they could draw my fire and leave me with an empty rifle. That I had two pistols and my father’s shotgun loaded with slugs, they could not guess.

  Monte and Jacob had expected to be back before sundown, and any firing would bring them on the run. Yet now I was alone, very alone.

  Where were the other riders?

  The three riders drew abreast of our fire, but a good hundred yards off, then walked their horses past it. Glancing around swiftly, I saw the five riders were moving forward.

  Sweat broke out on my brow. My heart was pounding heavily. What should I do? To shout a warning meant to give away my position, yet it went against the grain to shoot an unwarned man. Yet, they had come here to steal, and so were taking their own chances.

  The three riders suddenly turned and started for my fire. The first of the five rode around the near corner of the corral and trotted his horse to the gate. He reached to unfasten it, and I yelled, “Get away from there!”