An ambulance arrived, adding to the flashing lights in the canyon. Questioning voices drifted up to them.
He stood up. “Let’s go down below. Better to go to them before they come to us.” Catching the bound man by the coat collar, he dragged him after them. At the bottom, he said, “There’s another thing. What about Stukie Tomlin?”
“Oh.” She turned sharply around. “I’d forgotten him. He came here a few days ago and said I was in danger. He told me that I was to inherit a lot of money, but that somebody was asking a lot of odd questions and that I should be careful. I didn’t know what to believe. But, you see, I’d met Stukie before—when I was with Mr. Buckle.”
* * *
TOMLIN WAS AWAKE when they came in; a medic was working on him, and he grinned weakly when he saw Darcy. Shannon dropped his burden on the floor, then looked down into the face of Watt Braith.
“I thought so,” Shannon said. He turned to Darcy. “This is Brule, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes…”
“Hey, mister!” A deputy sheriff stepped forward. “You going to explain all this?”
“Give him a minute and I expect he will, Hank.” Hualapi Johnny spoke up from the doorway.
Shannon turned back to Darcy Lane, but he spoke for the others, too. “His real name is Braith. He was Buckle’s lawyer. If anything happened to one of the heirs, that estate would be in his hands for five years. With five years and two million dollars to work with, a man can do plenty. So he decided to kill you, Miss Lane. He probably figured on sinking your body, but his blow knocked you over the side. You’d told him you couldn’t swim, so he figured he was pretty safe.”
“But Buckle was alive!” she protested.
“Sure. He was alive for six months. You hadn’t showed up, so Braith went ahead and killed Buckle.”
“You’ll have a time proving that,” Braith growled.
“I can already prove it,” Shannon said quietly. “Within twenty minutes after I left you yesterday, I knew it.”
“That’s like I figured,” Tomlin interrupted. “I’d lent the old man some tools, stuff I needed. I drove over here to get them back, and saw where he died. I prowled around and found that slide might have been caused by somebody with a crowbar. I told the sheriff about it and we both looked around, but there was nobody around then who seemed to have a motive, so we dropped it.”
“And then the will came out in the open?”
“Yeah,” Hank said, “and the boss still couldn’t figure it. We all liked that old man. He was mighty nice. Potifer knew about the will. Buckle had told him, but he didn’t fit the other facts.”
They picked Stukie Tomlin up and were carrying him out. He caught Darcy’s sleeve. “I saw him in town. I didn’t know what was up but I never trusted him so I thought I’d warn you.”
Darcy touched his shoulder. “Thank you.”
Shannon sat down and lit a cigarette. “I made some calls and checked into the guy. I found he had made a lot of money with real estate he had handled, and his success began with the death of Buckle. Then, I got in touch with the Mojave County sheriff, and he told me somebody else had been suspicious, also, and that he had checked all strangers in and out of the county at that time. One of them answered the description of Braith, here. He said if I could produce the man, he had the men to identify him. We know one of them is Tomlin.”
“We’ll meet with the sheriff in the morning,” said Hank. “But it doesn’t sound like we’ll have to spend much time explaining what happened. You all need to be here for that meeting, though.” He shoved the cuffed Braith ahead of him out the door.
Darcy Lane sat, her legs still trembling from her ordeal on the cliffs.
“You must have done a lot of work on this to locate me,” she said.
“Uh-huh.” He grinned at her. “I even read your diary.”
She blushed. “Well,” she protested defensively, “there was nothing in it to be ashamed of.”
“I agree. In fact,” he added seriously, “there was a lot to be proud of. So much that I often found myself wanting to meet you…even if I couldn’t find you.”
She smiled at him and laughed, and after a moment, he did too.
Afterword
* * *
By Beau L’Amour
THIS COLLECTION CONTAINS a couple of our earliest short stories and a couple of the latest. “The Ghost Fighter” and “Fighter’s Fiasco” were the second and third stories that Louis sold and the first two that he sold to editor Leo Margulies. “The Hand of Kuan-yin” was written in 1956 and was sold with the intention of its being the pilot episode for a CBS television show called Hart of Honolulu. I have no idea if this show was actually shot or, if it was, if it ever aired. Louis wrote the story in the weeks after he and my mother acquired an ivory Kuan-yin, the first piece of valuable art that they ever bought (not as valuable as the one in the story by a long shot). “May There Be a Road” was written in 1960 and attempted to alert people to the Red Chinese invasion of the Tibetan plateau. Though submitted to The Saturday Evening Post, it was never published.
“Wings over Brazil” is one of the last two short stories in the Ponga Jim Mayo series. It is interesting to note the scene where Mayo fights the German boxer while trying to steal a plane. Both this and the scene in “South of Suez” (published in West from Singapore) where Ponga Jim escapes from the Egyptian tomb filled with snakes seem to have ended up (in a slightly different form) in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dad and I went to see that movie together (we had both loved the trailers for it), and during the scene with the snakes he leaned over and whispered “I think I wrote this part.” If those scenes were actually inspired by his material I’m here to tell you he was very flattered.
We have one more book of short stories, which will be published in the spring of 2002. It will include the last of the Jim Mayo stories, “Voyage to Tobali,” a few more boxing yarns, a couple of thrillers, and one last western. There will be more of Louis L’Amour’s material available, however, on our website, louislamour.com. We will be expanding the site to include an area containing, a selection of Louis’s articles, journals, reading lists, and, most importantly, fragments of many stories that Louis did not complete in his lifetime.
When Dad was hard at work on a story he would often get ideas for other tales that he was inspired to tell. Usually, he would take a few hours out to write what he believed the first chapter would be like. Many times Louis would begin a story and then run out of inspiration or be drawn away by another project that was more ready to be completed. In the coming months we will be posting many of these fragments and beginnings for your enjoyment. I will be doing whatever I can to draw the bigger picture that these various pieces of work fit into. Many other interesting items, photographs, and information will appear in this section of the website…please come and visit us.
The biography project is slowly changing shape; research is slowing down and the focus of our work is changing to organizing the materials that we have on hand. Still, as always, there are loose ends to be dealt with. Below are the names of the people whom I would like to contact. Although it may seem the same year after year, there have been some additions and deletions. Please, if you are interested at all, read it carefully. If you find your name on the list, I would be very grateful if you would write to me. Some of these people may have known Louis as “Duke” LaMoore or Michael “Micky” Moore, as Louis occasionally used those names. Many of the people on this list may be dead. If you are a family member (or were a very good friend) of anyone on the list who has passed away, I would like to hear from you, too. Some of the names I have marked with an asterisk (*); if there is anyone out there who knows anything at all about these people I would like to hear it. The address to write to is:
Louis L’Amour Biography Project
P.O. Box 41183
Pasadena, CA 91114-9183
Because of the many demands on our time we will no longer be responding to fan mail sent to
this address…it is for correspondence regarding the biography only!
J. E. Sparks—A special education teacher at Beverly Hills High School in the 1960s and ’70s. Any information on recordings of Louis L’Amour that he made for his classes would be greatly appreciated.
Ted Nelson—Took a trip to Wyoming with Louis back in the 1940s or 1950s.
Bill and Nadine Hamon—Louis used to know them in Oklahoma City and at one time they used to work the Fine Arts Institute in Omaha, NE.
Irving Kahn and Ben Lyon—Worked in Hollywood during the late 1940s.
Kathy Greenlaw—A friend of Louis’s in the late 1940s.
Truman—Of “Truman’s,” a restaurant in Westwood in the 1940s.
Tully Brown—Who had a position with the Wilshire Bank of America in 1949.
Jack Berges—Had a store in Hollywood in the late 1940s.
Ed Roth—Who lived in Hollywood in the late 1940s and was often seen with a woman named Maxene.
Alphonso Bedoya—Actor. Best known for his role as “Goldhat” in The Treasure of Sierra Madre. I’m looking for someone who knew him personally in the ’40s or ’50s or if anyone knows if there has ever been a biography done on him that details the same period.
Bob and Gail “Boots” Davis—Wasn’t she in a western TV series? Louis knew them in 1949.
Frank Godsoe—An Amarillo sportswriter.
Harry Gilstrap—Who flew to Tascosa with Louis in 1946.
Maggie Savage, Cully Richards, Orry Kelly, Joe Frisco, Cyril Smith, Sam Roberts, Nicky Conners—I am looking for any of these people or anyone who personally knew them.
Al Holdcraft—A friend whom Louis occasionally met in Hollywood in the 1940s.
Scotty—Who worked for the Citizen News.
Joe Zdana—Whom Louis knew in the late 1940s.
Becker—A friend of Louis and Joe’s.
Welch—Who took a trip with Louis in 1947.
Ray Gray—A policeman in LA as of 1949.
Bodil Mueller—A Danish actress Louis met in 1949.
Ed Jacobs—Who was in the 670th Tank Destroyers with Louis and was friends with him in LA after the war.
Marcel Clower—Who introduced Louis to Mauri Grashin.
Jim Hendryx, Charles N. Heckelmann, Mike Tilden, Jim O’Connell—Editors from New York City.
Adolphe DeCastro—A friend of Louis’s who wrote him some letters of recommendation to various people in Mexico.
Marian Payne—Married a guy named Duane. Louis knew her in Oklahoma in the mid- to late 1930s. She moved to New York for a while; she may have lived in Wichita at some point.
Chaplain Phillips—Louis first met him at Fort Sill, then again in Paris at the Place de Saint Augustine Officer’s Mess. The first meeting was in 1942, the second in 1945.
Anne Mary Bentley—Friend of Louis’s from Oklahoma in the 1930s. Possibly a musician of some sort. Lived in Denver for a time.
Pete Boering*—Born in the late 1890s. Came from Amsterdam, Holland. His father may have been a ship’s captain. Louis and Pete sailed from Galveston together in the mid-1920s.
Betty Brown—Woman whom Louis corresponded with extensively while in Choctaw in the late 1930s. Later she moved to New York.
Jacques Chambrun*—Louis’s agent from the late 1930s through the late 1950s.
Des—His first name. Chambrun’s assistant in the late 1940s or early 1950s.
Joe Friscia*—One of two guys who joined Hagenbeck & Wallace circus in Phoenix with Louis in the mid-1920s. They rode freights across Texas and spent a couple of nights in the Star of Hope mission in Houston. May have been from Boston.
Harry “Shorty” Warren*—Shipmate of Louis’s in the mid-1920s. They sailed from Galveston to England and back. Harry may have been an Australian.
Joe Hollinger*—Louis met him while with Hagenbeck & Wallace circus where he ran the “privilege car.” A couple of months later he shipped out with Louis. This was in the mid-1920s.
Joe Hildebrand*—Louis met him on the docks in New Orleans in the mid-1920s. Then ran into him later in Indonesia. Joe may have been the first mate and Louis second mate on a schooner operated by Captain Douglas. This would have been in the East Indies in the later 1920s or early 1930s. Joe may have been an aircraft pilot and flown for Pan-Am in the early 1930s.
Turk Madden*—Louis knew him in Indonesia in the late 1920s or early 1930s. They may have spent some time around the “old” Straits Hotel and the Maypole Bar in Singapore. Later on, in the States, Louis traveled around with him putting on boxing exhibitions. Madden worked at an airfield near Denver as a mechanic in the early 1930s. Louis eventually used his name for a fictional character.
“Cockney” Joe Hagen*—Louis knew him in Indonesia in the late 1920s or early 1930s. He may have been part of the Straits Hotel, Maypole Bar crowd in Singapore.
Richard LaForte*—A merchant seaman from the Bay Area. Shipped out with Louis in the mid-1920s.
Mason or Milton*—Don’t know which was his real name. He was a munitions dealer in Shanghai in the late 1920s or 1930s. He was killed while Louis was there. His head was stuck on a pipe in front of his house as a warning not to doublecross a particular warlord.
Singapore Charlie*—Louis knew him in Singapore and served with him on Douglas’s schooner in the East Indies. Louis was second mate and Charlie was bo’sun. He was a stocky man of indeterminate race and if I remember correctly Dad told me he had quite a few tattoos. In the early 1930s Louis helped get him a job on a ship in San Pedro, CA, that was owned by a movie studio.
Renee Semich—She was born in Vienna (I think) and was going to a New York art school when Louis met her. This was just before WWII. Her father’s family was from Yugoslavia or Italy, her mother from Austria. They lived in New York; her aunt had an apartment overlooking Central Park. For a while she worked for a company in Waterbury, CT.
Aola Seery—Friend of Louis’s from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s. She was a member of the “Writer’s Club” and I think she had both a brother and a sister.
Enoch Lusk—Owner of Lusk Publishing Company in 1939, original publisher of Louis’s Smoke from This Altar. Also associated with the National Printing Company, Oklahoma City.
Helen Turner*—Louis knew her in late 1920s Los Angeles. Once a showgirl with Jack Fine’s Follies.
James “Jimmy” Eades—Louis knew him in San Pedro in the mid-1920s.
Frank Moran—Louis met him in Ventura when Louis was a “club second” for fighters in the late 1920s. They also may have known each other in Los Angeles or Kingman in the mid-1920s. Louis ran into him again on Hollywood Boulevard late in 1946.
Jud and Red Rasco*—Brothers, cowboys, Louis met them in Tucumcari, NM. Also saw them in Santa Rosa, NM. This was in the early to mid-1920s.
Olga Santiago or Scarpone—Friend of Louis’s from late 1940s Los Angeles. Last saw her at a book signing in Thousand Oaks, CA. She married a guy named Ray Scarpone in the early ’50s.
Jose Craig Berry—A writer friend of Louis’s from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s. She worked for a paper called the Black Dispatch.
Evelyn Smith Colt—She knew him in Kingman at one point, probably the late 1920s. Louis saw her again much later at a Paso Robles book signing.
Kathlyn Beucler Hays—Friend from Choctaw, taught school there in the 1930s. Louis saw her much later at a book signing in San Diego.
Floyd Bolton*—A man from Hollywood who came out to Oklahoma to talk to Louis about a possible trip to Java to make a movie in 1938.
Lisa Cohn—Reference librarian in Portland; family owned Cohn Bros. furniture store. Louis knew her in the late 1920s or early 1930s.
Mary Claire Collingsworth—Friend and correspondent from Oklahoma in the 1930s.
C. A. Donnell—Guy in Oklahoma City in the early 1930s who rented Louis a typewriter.
Captain Douglas*—Captain of a ship in Indonesia that Louis served on. A three-masted auxiliary schooner.
L. Duks*—I think that this was probably a short
ened version of the original family name. A first mate in the mid-1920s. I think that he was a U.S. citizen, but he was originally a Russian.
Maudee Harris—My aunt Chynne’s sister.
Parker LaMoore and Chynne Harris LaMoore*—Louis’s eldest brother. Parker was secretary to the governor of Oklahoma for a while, then he worked for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. He also worked with Ambassador Pat Hurley. He died in the early 1950s. Chynne was his wife and she lived longer than he did, but I don’t know where she lived after his death.
Mrs. Brown—Who worked for Parker LaMoore in the 1930s through the 1950s.
Haig*—His last name. Louis described him as a Scotsman, once an officer in the British-India army. Louis says he was “an officer in one of the Scottish Regiments.” Louis knew him in Shanghai in the 1930s and we don’t know how old he would have been at the time. He may have been involved in some kind of intelligence work. He and Louis shared an apartment for a while, which seems to have been located just off Avenue King Edward VII.
Lola LaCorne—Who along with her sister and mother were friends of Louis’s in Paris during World War II. She later taught literature at the Sorbonne, had (hopefully still has) a husband named Christopher.
Dean Kirby—Pal from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s who seems to have been a copywriter or something of the sort. Might have worked for Lusk Publishing.
Bunny Yeager—Girlfriend of Dean Kirby’s from Oklahoma City. Not the famous photographer for Playboy.
Virginia McElroy—Girl with whom Louis went to school in Jamestown.
Guardsman Penwill— A British boxer in the period between the mid-1920s and the mid-1930s.
Arleen Weston Sherman—Friend of Louis’s from Jamestown, when he was thirteen or fourteen. I think her family visited the LaMoores in Choctaw in the 1930’s. Her older sister’s name is Mary; parents’ names are Ralph and Lil.
Collection 2001 - May There Be A Road (v5.0) Page 23