Novel 1963 - How The West Was Won (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Zeb shouldered the trunk and started back to the buckboard. Right now, he thought, youngsters around the country were playing they were Jesse James and his gang; and men who ought to have known better were telling about the treasure Jesse had buried.

  In their sixteen years as outlaws, few of the James gang even made a decent living, and most of that time they were on the dodge, hiding out in caves, barns, and shacks, poorly fed, poorly clothed, suspicious of each other and everyone else.

  Folks made a lot of the fact that Jesse had been killed by one of his own men. What most of them didn’t know was that he had already murdered two of his own gang and was planning to kill others.

  As for how tough they were—that bunch of farmers and businessmen up at Northfield had shot them to doll rags, killing two of them in the gun battle. The only men the James gang killed in Northfield were an unarmed man crossing the street, unaware a holdup was in progress, and the banker, beaten unconscious inside the bank, whom Jesse shot as he fled from the building.

  Several of the Jesse James outfit had been wounded, and later, when the Youngers—Cole, Bob, and Jim—were captured Jim had five wounds, Bob two, and Cole Younger had been shot eleven times. Charlie Pitts was dead.

  Zeb turned his back to the buckboard and lowered the trunk into place, then pushed it deeper along the bed and lashed it in place with rope. With Julie and Lilith crowded into the seat beside him, he drove into town and up the crowded street to the old clapboarded hotel.

  Zeb got down and tied the team. “See to the rooms, will you, Julie?”

  He turned and started up the street. Lilith caught Julie’s expression as she gazed after him. “Is anything wrong, Julie?”

  “No…nothing.”

  The hotel lobby was high-ceilinged and spacious, with two elk heads looking down from the walls, and an antelope head over the mirror. Back of the counter, high on the wall, was a buffalo head, huge and black.

  “Ma?” Prescott caught her arm. “Can Linus and me sleep outside? Can we, ma? In the buckboard?”

  “All right,” she said, “but you mustn’t go running around. You go right to sleep.”

  Zeb Rawlings walked up the street and into the office of the town marshal. “Got a minute, Lou?”

  “Zeb! Of course, I got a minute.”

  Lou Ramsey put aside a stack of papers and pushed a cigar box toward Zeb. “Help yourself.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Ramsey bit off the tip of his cigar and spat it toward the spittoon. “What can I do for you, Zeb? Go ahead. Name it.”

  Zeb pushed his hat back on his head. “Charlie Gant’s in town.”

  “What?”

  “I saw Gant get off the train today. There were three men waiting for him.”

  Lou Ramsey’s face tightened a little, and he felt irritation mount within him. Why did this have to happen now? Just when he had everything going right and could relax?

  “That why you came to me?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Zeb, there ain’t anything we can do about Charlie Gant. He’s a free citizen, and he can come and go as he likes. Furthermore,” Ramsey added, “we don’t want any trouble here.”

  Zeb made no reply, and Ramsey went on, “I know what he was, Zeb, but that’s over now. It was over the day his brother got himself killed. You should have killed them both, Zeb, but you didn’t, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it now. All that’s past—over and done with.”

  “Why’d he come here, Lou? Aren’t you even curious?”

  Ramsey stared morosely out the window. Zeb Rawlings was an old friend, and a good officer. There might be a time when he would have to ask Rawlings for help, which made it worse. His town was only sixty miles north, and Zeb handled it very well, and was known as a man who was never anxious to shoot, which was rare in old-time marshals who had grown into their jobs at a time when it was often safer to shoot first and ask questions afterward.

  Zeb was of the tradition of Bill Tilghman, Jim Gillette, and Jeff Milton—all experts with the gun, but each one prepared to give the other fellow a chance to surrender. They were good men, the best men.

  Basically, there had been three types of frontier marshals. There were those like Tilghman, Gillette, Milton, and a few others, who gave a man every chance.

  Then there was the type like Hickok, who gave you no second chance. If yours was the reputation as a troublemaker, or if you came to town loaded for trouble, the first wrong move might get you shot.

  And there was another sort, like Mysterious Dave Mather. If you came into their town hunting trouble they didn’t wait for you; they went looking for you and shot you where they found you, and wasted no time in the process.

  Wherever Zeb Rawlings carried the badge, there was law. He enforced it quietly, surely, and without favoritism. He had even lost a few jobs because he would throw a troublemaking rancher with thousands of head of cattle into jail just as quickly as he would jail a thirty-dollar-per-month cowhand.

  But this Gant affair…it had the look of a personal feud. Lou Ramsey did not know if that was the case, but he was afraid of it. When a man got to enforcing the law, he could not allow personalities to enter into it.

  “What do you want me to do?” Ramsey said. “Run him out of town? You know I can’t do that. We don’t carry the law in a holster, Zeb. Not anymore. Besides, what would I have to back it up? That he keeps bad company? There’s no wanted posters out on him, not from anywhere.”

  “Charlie was always smart enough for that,” Zeb replied. “He never let himself get in a bind. Charlie did the planning. It was Floyd who carried it out, Floyd who ramrodded the action.”

  “And Floyd’s dead.”

  Ramsey chewed on his cigar. “Times have changed, Zeb. These aren’t the old gunfighting days.” He tilted back in his chair. “The James-Younger gang was the last of them.”

  Zeb glanced sardonically at Ramsey. “You aren’t keeping posted, Lou. Charlie Gant’s still around.”

  “You get me a warrant, and I’ll get you Charlie Gant.”

  The door opened and Stover, the deputy, stepped in. “Lou, they want three guards on the wagon with the gold shipment tomorrow.”

  “Three?”

  “It’s a heavy load. Over a hundred thousand dollars’ worth. I’d better take Clay and Sims with me.”

  When Stover had gone out, Lou looked at Zeb, who was staring at the ceiling, grinning.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Ramsey growled. “We ship gold out of here all the time. Some of the shipments are big. So we’ve put on three men to guard it.”

  “What happens after it gets on the train?”

  Lou Ramsey got to his feet. “Zeb, you’ve no call to make something out of this. Sure, Charlie Gant’s in town…just about every outlaw in the country has been through here at one time or another, and we’ve never lost a gold shipment yet.”

  Rawlings got up and went to the door, but as he pushed the door open, Ramsey spoke. “Zeb?”

  Rawlings turned to look back. “I don’t want any trouble here,” Ramsey said. “We’ve been friends a long time, and as a friend I’d like you to leave town.”

  Zeb Rawlings offered no reply, but stepped out and closed the door quietly behind him. Outside he paused on the street, thinking it through. He had Aunt Lilith to consider now as well as his own family, but to go off to the ranch with this thing hanging fire…he wouldn’t be able to sleep nights knowing Gant was in the country. And he knew the man too well to believe he had forgotten.

  Charlie Gant would never feel safe until the man who had killed his brother was dead…and much more important to Charlie, the man who knew that Charlie had run out on his brother when the going got rough, that he had ducked out of the fight and saved his own skin. If that ever got around, Charlie Gant would find no outlaw, let alone an honest man, who would ride with him.

  Deeply concerned, Zeb Rawlings went back to the hotel, replying to an occasional greeting, but with his mind far awa
y. He missed nothing along the street, however, but that was long practice. When a man had been a marshal for a few years he saw everything without really seeming to pay attention.

  He had planned to stay inside, talking to Lilith about old times—after all, he had heard little of the family in a good many years—but the boys wanted to go up to the mine, and they had never seen a mine. Concealing his irritation, for he understood the interest the boys had, he agreed to go up to the collar of the shaft with them.

  He knew he should stay inside, for one thing he had learned long since was to keep out of trouble by staying away from where it was…and somewhere in town would be Gant and his friends. Yet, if he was correct in his belief that they planned a train robbery, then the last thing they would want would be trouble now, in this place.

  The town had one street that could be called a street. It was half a mile long, and for almost a quarter of a mile on either side it was built solid. After that it sort of tapered off, with scattered buildings and open spaces between them.

  Poston Street, named for an Arizona pioneer, cut off near the end of the solidly built part and went up the slope to the mine buildings and the collar of the shaft. It ended at the mine. On one side were the mine offices, behind them the assay office, and beyond that the hoisting-engine room, which faced the collar of the shaft. There were other buildings too—a warehouse, a blacksmith shop, and a long shed for storing timber to be used in the mine.

  The cage which carried the miners down into the mine was topped by a large metal bucket, or hopper, that would hold five tons of ore. As this came to the top, the bucket was tripped and the ore spilled into a huge bin from which it ran into the ore wagons below. A wagon was driven up beneath a chute, the door was lifted, and the rock ran into the wagon until it was filled. Then the metal door was dropped in place, cutting off the flow.

  The hoisting-engine chugged away, shooting up a white cloud of steam. Lanterns hung about, and these had already been lighted although the evening was young.

  Linus ran toward the edge of the shaft to look down, and Zeb called him back. “You stay close to me,” he said sternly. “That shaft’s a thousand feet deep. If you had two hundred brothers down there, each one standing on another’s shoulders, they wouldn’t reach the top.”

  “You ever work in a mine, pa?”

  “Some…not any so good as this one, by all accounts. I worked in low-grade gold…a good bit of it was there, but I never saw any of it. All we miners ever saw was broken rock.”

  “Is this always the way they get the ore out?”

  “No, for some kinds of ore they use a conveyor system, a lot of little buckets on an endless chain. But in a mine this deep that isn’t practical. It’s mostly used in coal mines. Men push ore cars to the edge of the shaft and dump them in a pocket, a big hole covered by steel rails, they call a ‘grizzly.’ The man who operates the cage fills that bucket you see on top of the cage at those pockets and hoists it on top.”

  As he spoke he was watching a man who came out of the assay office. It had become dark as they walked about, and he could not quite distinguish the man’s face, but when he stepped into the light of a lantern, Zeb saw it was Charlie Gant. Gant saw him at the same instant, and after a moment’s hesitation, he started over.

  “Boys,” Zeb suggested to the children, “you go in the hoisting-engine room and look at the steam engine. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  Gant walked up to him. “Evenin’, Rawlings. Marshal tells me you had a word with him. Now, would you call that friendly?”

  “I never thought of us as friendly.”

  “I ain’t lookin’ for trouble,” Gant said, “but if you’d like to put it on the old basis, just you an’ me, that’s fine.”

  “I’ve no reason to fight you, Gant, as long as you obey the law and stay out of the way. Floyd and I had differences that were strictly a matter of law. They’re settled. As far as that’s concerned, I’ve finished.”

  “You went to the marshal.”

  “Of course.” Zeb tapped the badge on his chest. “I still wear it, and when you come around I’m suspicious. Other than that, I’ve nothing to do with it. This is Lou Ramsey’s problem. I’m not asking for trouble.”

  “So it’s peace you want, Marshal?” His tone changed. There’ll be only one peace for you, Rawlings, the kind my brother got.”

  “What happened to him didn’t teach you much, did it?”

  “Easy, Marshal.” Anger burned in Gant’s eyes. “I wouldn’t push my luck.”

  “Floyd made mighty few mistakes…except the time he depended on you. And you were the one who got away.”

  Gant held himself still. Zeb Rawlings could see the anger that flared in him, but Gant controlled himself, although not without effort. For several minutes he was silent, watching the ore bucket come up, dump, and go back down the shaft again.

  “I don’t like you, Marshal,” he said finally. “I don’t like what you and your kind have done to this country, and are doin’ to it. Used to be a man felt free around here, now a man can hardly breathe.”

  “I haven’t noticed any honest men having trouble.”

  “One of these days, Rawlings, I’ll pay you Rawlingses a visit. I’ll pay you a visit you’ll never forget.”

  Turning on his heel, he strode away, and after a minute, Zeb called to the boys, who had waited not far off. It was not until he called them that he noticed each boy held a large chunk of rock. Surreptitiously, they dropped them. He smiled, but made no comment.

  “What did he mean, pa?”

  “Nothin’ much, boys. But you know how womenfolks worry about such things. I want you to make me a promise—a real promise—not to say a word to ma about this. Will you, Prescott?”

  “I promise.”

  “Linus?”

  “Sure, I promise, and I bet I keep it better than Prescott!”

  “Good! Now let’s go back down the mountain.”

  They walked together down the hill, and Zeb moved along easily, but with all his old alertness. Charlie Gant had something more important than revenge on his mind just now, but one could never tell…there were times when emotion defeated reason, and Charlie Gant was a man who knew how to hate.

  Zeb strolled along with the boys, liking the coolness of the evening air after the heat of the day. That was one thing you could say for the desert. It was like a man with a quick temper: it cooled off fast once the sun went down.

  The windows were lighted, and men stood along the walk, talking and smoking. Down at the far end of the street a few children played tag, and horses at the hitch-rail stood three-legged…waiting. Inside the saloons there was a rattle of chips, and the sounds of men at cards.

  Zeb paused outside the hotel and let the boys go up by themselves. It was a good life, he thought, and this was a part he had always enjoyed, this business of coming out and taking stock of a town. Yet how quickly one learned to sense trouble. It was an instinct one acquired. Only he was not the marshal here—that was Lou Ramsey’s job.

  He thought back again to the rifle and pistol left by the strange rider, and the message. If that old outlaw had left it, it was a curious mark of respect, something that went beyond the law or lawlessness.

  Of course, it had been that way in the old days, and still was, in a way. The men on both sides of the law had known each other, often respected each other. Sometimes a sheriff was himself a reformed outlaw, but that made no difference. What was mutually respected was courage, fair play, ingenuity, and ability.

  How many times he had sat in a ranch house and heard a rancher tell admiringly of the slick way he had been outfixed by cow-thieves. And there were many stories about how clever Indians became at stealing horses, which was their favorite sport.

  Like the time the soldier was sent out to graze the regimental race horse. He had the horse on a picket rope, but he did not even take a chance of picketing it. To be sure the horse was safe, he held one end of the rope.

  It was a bright
, sunny day, and the grass was good and green. The horse cropped grass and the soldier watched, and then all of a sudden he realized he was holding a rope’s end and nothing more. The horse had been stolen right before his eyes.

  Had he blinked? Closed his eyes for a moment, looked away without realizing? Anyway, the horse was gone, and they never saw it again.

  A cowhand passed behind him. “Evenin’,” he said, and Zeb answered. A tin-panny piano started down the street, and in the restaurant a dish was dropped and broke. Zeb Rawlings stood there, at peace with the night.

  Old Jethro was dead, then…Lamar Valley. They’d have to go up that way sometime. Julie said her pa had often talked of going back up there. There was some little valley off the headwaters of the Yellowstone that he wanted to see again. And likely that was it.

  Prescott came to the door. “Pa? Ma says they’re going to eat supper. You want to come in?”

  “Sure, son.”

  They were already at table, but it took him a moment to realize that the beautiful young woman with Lilith was truly his wife. She had done something to her hair, and he had never seen it more lovely. Also, she was wearing a dress he had never seen before—one of Lilith’s, no doubt.

  He felt a little pang, realizing he had never been able to afford such a dress for her. And likely never would. Folks expected a lot of their law officers, but they never liked to pay them for it.

  He walked up to the table, keeping his eyes from Julie. “Aunt Lil, how soon will Julie be coming down? I sure want to—”

  “Zeb!” Julie interrupted.

  “What!” he exclaimed in mock astonishment. “Why, Julie! I’d never have known you! And I never saw you look more beautiful.”

  She knew he was faking his amazement, but she was pleased. “Do you really like it?”

  “Of course—and thanks, Lilith. I detect your San Francisco hand in this.”

  “It does a woman good to change her looks once in a while—the way she does her hair…something…”

  “If this is a sample, I’ll accept your judgment,” he said. He glanced at Lilith approvingly. “You don’t need any changes, Lilith.”