the Key-Lock Man (1965)

by L'amour, Louis

  Their party split, three circling the lake in either direction, seeking tracks. They had gone only a few hundred yards when Neill glanced back to see Chesney's uplifted arm, calling them back. He had found where the horse and rider had left the water.

  The ruse was a simple one, but it was a delaying tactic that gave advantage to the pursued.

  Neill felt his anger rising. The man was playing them, playing them like fish on a line.

  In the beginning Neill had hoped to have it over and be back at the ranch tonight, but as the hours went by it had become obvious that their chase was not to prove so easy. The time consumed, even their choice of a camp, would not be left to them. It would be dictated by the man they hunted. He knew where he would go, and when, while they did not know and could not know. It was clear now that his intent was to discourage them. Deliberately, he was choosing the roughest country, the worst trails.

  The line of hoof prints veered sharply to the left, pointing through thick brush toward the shoulder of the mountain.

  "Where the devil's he goin'?" Chesney demanded irritably. "This doesn't make sense."

  No one answered him. Strung out in single file, they rode on, sagging with weariness. Suddenly Kimmel, who was in the lead now, pulled up short.

  Before them a thread of water trickled from the rocks into a basin of stones.

  "I'll be damned for a coyote!" Hardin exclaimed. "I never knew this was here."

  Kimmel swung down, and the others followed. "I can use a drink," he said. Indicating the small stone basin, he added, "Somebody put in a sight of work here. This hasn't been built long."

  Hardin had been scouting around, studying the tracks, old and new. All were made by the same horse and the same man. "Fixed it himself. Wonder how he located it in the first place?"

  "Looks to me like he knows this country," Short said.

  Hardin chuckled, eyes glinting with a hard humor.

  "We hooked onto a real old he-coon, boys.

  This one's from the high timber. Now, we know it takes no time for a man and a horse to drink, but it takes a while for six horses and six men to drink. That little basin will need time to refill before we can all water up."

  "He ain't missed a trick," Kimmel said.

  "D'you think he'll stand and make a fight of it?" McAlpin asked.

  "He'll fight," Chesney said. "This one will fight, and I hope he does."

  Hardin shot him a glance. "You read that sign like I do?" he asked quietly. "If you do, you know what's comin'."

  Neill put his tongue to dry lips. He looked from one to the other. A change had come over them now, and fear touched him with cold fingers.

  This man was sure of himself. He had told them it was a fair shooting, but that note had been a warning if anything ever was. The fact that he could have had them within easy range told them what he might have done.

  He could have shot them like fish in a barrel, but when he chose to fight he would choose his ground, and theirs.

  Neill was no coward, but when he thought about his wife alone on the ranch, he felt sick. He might die today, and she could never make it alone.

  She would have to give up the ranch, and all their plans together. She would have to go back to her folks, and would have to sell everything to raise money for the trip. How long since he had seen any cash money?

  By now the glare had faded and softened. The desert sunset bathed the land in a pastel radiance mingled with fingers of shadow. Out on the desert, a quail called. Another, somewhere to their right, replied.

  We could quit, Neill thought. We could quit now before it's too late.

  But he did not speak this thought aloud, nor would any of the others, even if they thought it. Something had been started, and they must carry it through. The law must not be flouted, the sinful must pay for their sins.

  "It's like he had a goddam string on us,"

  Chesney complained.

  From the beginning the hunted man had been in command, from the beginning he had led them on. Most escaping men think only of escape; they do not make plans for the pursuers. This man should have been running scared, he should have been hunting a hole somewhere, but he was doing no such thing. He was desert-wise, and he was in no hurry. He was borrowing time when he felt it necessary, but he was choosing his own course and his own gait.

  Into the minds of each man crept an uneasy thought: Sooner or later he would have them where he wanted them, and then what? How many would die?

  But now their pride was involved, their pride as well as their code, and their code said that for a life taken as Johnny's had been, a life must be paid.

  Neill's thoughts turned again to his wife. She would be feeding the baby now, wondering where he was, and keeping the food warm. None of them had expected this to be anything but a short chase, with perhaps a brief gun battle at the end.

  Regretfully, Neill realized that now it might be a week before he got home-if he ever did.

  The TRAIL THEY followed led across starkly eroded foothills dotted with clumps of cedar and Spanish bayonet. It was a weird and broken land where long fingers of black lava stretched out toward the dry lake they had left behind. Ahead of them rose a low mesa.

  The Key-Lock man was in no hurry, and he traveled like an Indian, taking the longest route if it was the easiest on his horse. Each of the pursuers was worried by this in his secret mind. What could lie before this man that gave him such confidence?

  Chesney topped out on the mesa and drew up to give his horse a breather, and they all gathered about him, studying the country. Hard-working men, they had been held to their own range by the demands of water and cattle, and the need to get something started; none of them had ever ridden so far to the north as this.

  "Hardin, what do you think he's got in his mind?"

  Chesney asked. "So far's I know, there's nothin' off where he's bound. Just nothin' at all."

  "He can't go west. . . the canyon's thataway, and without wings he couldn't go any further." Hardin rinsed his mouth with a meager gulp of water, then swallowed it. was We don't think there's anything up there, but maybe he knows different." He hung the canteen carefully on the saddle horn.

  "We've sure bought ourselves an old hecoon, and he ain't goin' to be took easy."

  "Took, hell!" Chesney exploded. "I'll see the man hang! I'll see him hang before ever I ride into Freedom again!"

  Chesney meant just what he said, and it showed in each line of his hard-boned face. A good friend, he was a bitter, unrelenting enemy. And the man called Key-Lock had killed his best friend.

  Neill was puzzled by his own feelings. He knew the need for law and order, and where no official law existed the citizens themselves were responsible, unless they wished to live in complete anarchy. He accepted the logic of the idea, but held no enthusiasm for the immediate situation. Like many another man, he preferred going about his own affairs, sitting at supper with his wife, smelling the good cooking smells, feeling the slow comfort of evening, the welcome release of the bed that awaited.

  He looked almost enviously at Chesney, Hardin, and the others. Why didn't he feel as dedicated as they did?

  Certainly, no man's life or property could be safe unless there was a rigidly enforced law, and he realized almost with shame that he wished this job was being done without him. He knew the law was every man's concern, but it was high time they elected a marshal.

  This mesa on which they stood was at least a quarter of a mile square. Here and there a horse's hoof had left a white scar upon the surface, but it took them more than half an hour to find where their man had left the rock.

  Hardin chuckled in appreciation as they followed the trail down. "Took him only a few minutes, so he gained good time on us. Long as he can do that, he don't have to run."

  Shadows gathered in the low places as the sky took on a pattern of amazing colors. This was a corner of what was called the Painted Desert.

  Crossing a wide wash, they came out onto a desert of almost endless d
unes. Beyond, rock pinnacles rose, and a mesa that loomed a good thousand feet above the desert.

  "Lucky he ain't layin' for us. We'd get picked off like flies," Hardin said.

  At that moment there came a smashing report followed by an angry whine, and the men broke and fled for shelter.

  Short simply rolled from his saddle, and crawled behind a hummock of sand. His horse stood where his master had left him, and the canteen made a large hump behind the saddle. Suddenly the horse leaped to the solid thud of a bullet.

  Short swore viciously. "If he's killed that horse, I'll-was But the horse, shifting nervously, stood ground hitched where the reins had fallen. A trickle of water ran from the punctured canteen.

  There was nothing at which to fire. Their eyes searched the dunes, but there was no movement, no sign of life. The setting sun glared full into their eyes.

  Their trail had swung around a dune, the shot coming from their rear. Had he circled around them? Or had he been lying in wait when they rode past?

  The trickle of water slowed to a slow drip. A bullet that could puncture a canteen could do as much for a man's skull.

  Every man among them thought of what that emptied canteen might mean. They had filled their canteens at the spring, and it should be water enough, but only the man they pursued knew where they would be going, and he would not have emptied that canteen without reason.

  They lay where they had dropped, and they waited.

  It was hot, but the creeping shadows brought a measure of coolness to the men in the shelter of the dunes.

  "He's long gone," McAlpin said at last.

  Nobody showed any inclination to test the matter, so he thrust his own hat just past a rock. Nothing happened. But when he gave up and withdrew the hat, a bullet struck the sand nearby, a message from the Key-Lock man that he was still there, but that he was not to be fooled by such an obvious trick.

  Their horses dozed in the sun. The warm sand under their bodies made it seem warmer still. Neill was bone tired and he was glad of the rest. He had worked his body into a thin edging of shadow and was trying to relax.

  When half an hour had gone by, Hardin began a flanking movement, crawling around the dunes. He vanished from sight, and after what seemed a long time, Neill was started from a doze by a long halloo.

  He could see Hardin standing where the shots had been fired, waving them on. One by one they went to their horses and mounted, then rode to the dune where Hardin waited for them.

  On a bare shelf of sand stood three brass cartridge shells, neatly lined up. Nearby was a crude arrow formed from stones, and beside it, scratched in the hard-packed sand, were the words: Foller the signs.

  Chesney jerked off his hat and threw it to the ground. "Why, that dirty, no-good-to " The words trailed off as he scuffed his foot through the message written in the sand.

  "He's makin' light of us," Short said bitterly. "That damn' back-shootin' killer's goin' to pay for this!"

  They started on again, their quarry's horse leaving a plain trail, here and there deliberately marked by an arrow of broken branches or stones.

  They were serious men riding on serious business, and the seeming levity, if not contempt, added to their irritation. Now the matter was becoming personal with each of them, for not only was the man evading them with success, but he was taunting their inability to catch up. The worst of it was, such a horse as the killer rode, handled with such care, might go on for days, even for weeks.

  The vast basin was now behind them, lost in the misty purple of distance. The sun was going down, but all could see ahead of them the message chalked on the rock wall in big, sweeping letters. The flat piece of chalk rock with which it had been written lay in plain sight below:

  Shade, so you won't get sunstroke.

  Tired and surly, they merely stared at it without comment. The shadows lengthened, and their horses moved on without eagerness. In the desert air was a growing chill. Neill, riding at the end of the line, turned in his saddle to look back.

  Behind them lay an enormous sweep of country, the mountain ridges and the edge of the escarpment touched by gold, the sky shot with great arrows of crimson.

  The desert's purple had grown deeper, and black shadows crouched in the open jaws of the canyons. Far away back there his wife would be at the door, looking up the trail toward town. Soon, despairing of his return, she would feed the stock they kept in the corral and then would go inside and feed the baby. She would eat alone, still watching the trail.

  Before them, he thought, the days might stretch on and on, and suddenly he was shaken by a strange premonition that none of them would ever see Freedom again.

  Who was this strange man who rode ahead of them, taunting them, but never deliberately trying to kill?

  Was it logical that a man who had shot another in the back would act in this way?

  Kimmel and McAlpin, who had been riding side by side, halted suddenly, and the others rode up and gathered around. Before them on the trail an arrow of stones pointed down to a narrow, forbidding cleft in the rock; a chill wind blew from it, adding to their misgivings. Once within that cleft, where the walls lifted several hundred feet on either side, there would be no turning back, nor could more than one man at a time ride into the narrow space.

  Kimmel dug into his shirt pocket for the makings and rolled a careful cigarette, his narrowed eyes studying the cleft, the cliffs above it, the rocks around.

  "What do you think, Hardin?"

  "Well, he ain't tried it yet, but if he's goin' to make a stand, this could be the place. A good man with a rifle could do about as he had a mind to, once he got us in there."

  "I don't think he wants to."

  Neill spoke without thinking, and the words hung in the still air.

  "What's that mean?" Chesney sounded belligerent.

  "I don't know." Whatever Neill's reasons, they weakened under Chesney's hard stare. "Only he's had chances. Seems to me if he wanted to kill somebody he could have done it. I'd say he's wasting a lot of time."

  The others ignored him, and he withdrew into himself.

  Nevertheless, having said it, he wanted to bolster his argument with facts. Only he did not speak them aloud. Why, he told himself, he had us dead to rights when he left that first note. He could have killed at least some of us, and when we hunted cover he could have taken out.

  That canteen shot... he had been a good three hundred yards off when he fired, and it was a clean hit. No sooner had Neill considered this idea than he asked himself how, at that distance, he could have known it was a canteen? Did he have field glasses? And as soon as this occurred to him he was convinced of it. Not many men had field glasses, but here and there some ex-soldier had them, or might have picked them up by swapping around an army post.

  It gave him a queer feeling to think that the man might even now be looking right into their faces, or reading their lips as they talked.

  "The hell with it!" Hardin exclaimed suddenly, and shucking his Winchester he rode down into the gloomy cleft. There was nothing to do but to follow.

  Immediately it was dark. The rock walls crowded in on either side. Neill's stirrup brushed the wall from time to time, and he could see nothing either before or behind him. Only when he looked up could he see the narrow strip of sky, far above, and occasionally a star.

  Momentarily he feared the racketing boom of a shot in the narrow passage, but it did not come. After riding for some time and after several winding turns, they saw gray light before them, and then a bright star.

  Only it was not a star-it was a campfire.

  As they emerged from the passage they spread out quickly and advanced in a mounted skirmish line, rifles ready.

  There were scattered trees about, and some low brush, rendering their view indistinct. Chesney was the first to reach the campfire, and the sound of his swearing shattered the stillness like the splintering of glass.

  Beside a running stream a small fire had been built, and near it was a supply of
additional fuel. On a bit of paper, weighted with two stones, was a small mound of coffee, and a smaller mound of sugar.

  They stared at the scene, choked by bitterness. The taunt was obvious. They were being nursed along like a pack of tenderfeet.

  "I'll be double-damned if I will!" Short exclaimed angrily.

  Hardin was more philosophical. "Might as well make the most of it. We can't trail him at night anyway."

  Kimmel brought a coffeepot from his gear and dipped water from the stream. Kimmel was a practical man, and he liked his coffee.

  They stripped the rigs from their horses and picketed them on the grass of a meadow close by.

  There was little enough in their saddlebags, for none of them had expected a long chase, and they must ride on short rations to make them last. Neill looked at the small pile of sugar enviously, wishing he might hide some of it to carry home to his wife. It had been a long time since she had tasted real sugar.

  Short, his burst of anger gone, was staring about in an odd manner. He looked from the flowing water to the pool into which it fell. "Boys, I know this place," he said. "I've heard tell of it many's the time.

  This here is Mormon Well."

  Hardin had been feeding twigs into the fire. Now he stood back and looked carefully around, measuring what he saw against what he had heard in the towns and the cow camps. Towering cliffs on three sides of a bowl, the clustered trees, the meadow. "Yes, I think you're right," he agreed. "It could be."

  "Now, why do' you suppose he led us here?"

  McAlpin asked.

  "What's Mormon Neill glanced from face to face. "What's Mormon Well, I never heard of it."

  Nobody replied, but Short walked around the pool. "Why, the damned fool!" he said. "He's led us right to it! I'd lay a dollar to a doughnut he's never even heard the story."

  Hardin's eyes were grimly amused. He repeated McAlpin's question. "Why do you suppose he led us here?"

  Chesney was sour. "That Mormon Well story is just whiskey talk."

  "Like hell it is!" Short's temper flared.

  "I've seen gold from that cache-seen it with my own eyes! Held it right in my hand!" He thrust out an open hand, then closed it to a hard fist. "Within a few miles of this place there's more gold than a man's likely to see in a lifetime!"