Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “You think you’ll be watched? And if you went to a lawyer’s office they’d guess why?”

  “Yes, sir. And they’d kill him. I mean that, sir. This bunch are like wolves. They kill first and ask questions afterward. Killing the wrong man doesn’t mean that to them. I’ve been watching and I’ve seen nobody around, so they don’t have me located yet, but by nightfall they will.”

  Blocker took out a heavy gold watch and glanced at it. “All right. These stockyards are in what is called the West Bottoms. You meet me at six o’clock in the Livestock Exchange, at Twelth and State Line. We can talk there.”

  He paused, looking at me again. “Have you got walking-around money?”

  “Yes, sir. I have enough, sir.”

  “See you there.” Blocker dropped off the fence. “Keep out of trouble now. This here is a fast town.”

  Carrying my rifle, saddlebags, and blanket roll, I headed uptown, keeping off the busy streets. Mostly I was worried about all that money I was carrying, so I headed for the Wells Fargo office.

  Now, coming in off the street I looked pretty rough, but Wells Fargo had done business with rough-looking men since the gold rush in California. “I want to make a deposit,” I told the man in the office.

  He looked me over carefully. “All right. How much?”

  “Have you got a private office? I want to get in out of sight.”

  He looked at me again. “Come right along,” he said, and indicated that I should walk ahead of him.

  Seated in his office, I taken up my saddlebags and began taking out the money. He never turned a hair. In those days a man never knew who was carrying money and who wasn’t, and there were men selling stock down in the Bottoms or at the Exchange who looked a lot rougher than me.

  It came to nine thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars. “I’ll keep the seventy fifty-two,” I said. “I’ll need some walking-around money.”

  “That should do it,” he commented dryly. “Now, your name?”

  “Kearney McRaven.” I hesitated. “Anything happens to me, this here is to go to Miss Laurie McCrae of Silverton, Colorado Territory.”

  “My name is Eliot,” the Wells Fargo man said. “This is quite a large sum of money.”

  I pocketed my receipt. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll leave my rifle and my gear with you. I’ve got some running around to do, and it wouldn’t look right to be packing a rifle.”

  “Stay away from gambling, Mr. McRaven,” Eliot suggested.

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not inclined that way. Do you know Ben Blocker?”

  “Of course.” Eliot’s interest was obvious. “We all know Mr. Blocker and we have all done business with him. I had no idea you were an associate of his.”

  Well, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by associate, but it sounded right so I didn’t argue the point. “Look,” I said, “there’s been some shooting trouble back down the line, so if a couple of men come hunting me, you don’t know anything about me. It won’t be a lie, because you surely don’t know much, but above all don’t tell them where I went. I don’t want any trouble in Kansas City.”

  “Is the law involved?” Eliot asked. “We cooperate with officers whenever we can.”

  “So would I, if they seemed to need it. So far the law has taken no interest in what’s going on, and I don’t think they will. Seems to me most officers right now are more concerned with what happens in their own town without hunting trouble outside it.”

  He noticed my holstered gun. It was barely covered by my coat, but the tip of the holster showed. “You can be arrested in this town for carrying a weapon,” he said. “You know, this isn’t Dodge City.”

  I grinned at him. “I surely know it, Mr. Eliot, but I’d sooner be arrested than killed, which is what I have to think about.”

  At six o’clock I was at the Livestock Exchange, and the first person I saw was Ben Blocker.

  “Good! I was getting worried. We have an appointment at the House of Lords.” Then he added, “It’s a gambling house, but you can get the best food in town there…if they know you.”

  “All right,” I agreed, “but I don’t gamble. Fact is, I was just warned against it by Mr. Eliot over at Wells Fargo.”

  “A good man,” Blocker said. “We’ve done business from time to time.”

  As we walked up the street, he explained a little about his business, buying cattle in Texas and driving them north to the market, sometimes holding them on good grass until they were well fattened before bringing them to market. I had worked with enough stock to know competence, and had been impressed by the way people responded to his name.

  “Mr. Blocker,” I said hesitantly, “when you buy cattle, do you ever have partners?”

  “Almost always. Cattle buying isn’t as lucrative as it once was. Prices for cattle bought on the range in Texas have gone up, and so have the expenses of making a drive, but there’s still money to be made.”

  “I’d like to get into something like that,” I said, “but I’ve been thinking of ranching, too. There’s mighty fine grass in the mountains out Colorado and Wyoming way, and the cattle can winter on the range.”

  “I’ve heard of that.” He glanced at me. “You’ve experience with that?”

  “Yes, sir. I held a herd on grass all last winter, and they came off in fine shape. The grass cures on the stem, and you won’t find any better feed anywhere. The trouble is that most of them are so hungry for profit they overgraze. Seems to me from what I’ve seen that small herds of mixed longhorn and Durham or longhorn and Hereford do the best.”

  We stopped outside the door of the House of Lords. I was looking around warily. I’d seen two men following us and I said, “Mr. Blocker, there’s two men behind us who’ve been following right along. You’d better get inside.”

  He smiled and put his hand on my arm. “Son, don’t worry about it. Those are my men…just in case. Billy Jenkins is one of them, because he saw those men who attacked you. The other one is Carlin Cable.”

  “I’ve heard the name.”

  Blocker chuckled. “So have a lot of others. He’s a good man with a gun.”

  When we were seated at a table in a quiet corner, Ben Blocker ordered dinner. “Charlie will be along soon. His name is Attmore. Good man, with connections in the South. He came from the Carolinas or Georgia, I’m not sure which, but he will know what you’re talking about.”

  He paused for a minute, his eyes sweeping the crowd in the gambling hall below. “You spoke of investing in cattle. How much money are you talking about?”

  “Two or three thousand dollars,” I said.

  “That isn’t all you have, I hope?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good! Never put all your eggs in one basket, to repeat an old saying. At going prices, two thousand dollars will buy and deliver at the railroad about one hundred head of steers. No one can be sure what the market will be, but this year I brought them to Dodge City for eighteen dollars a head and sold for twenty-eight. Last year I started three herds over the trail. Indians stampeded one of them and managed to drive off about two hundred head. We lost a half dozen swimming a swollen river, and two more were killed in that stampede. All that cuts into the profits, as you can see.”

  A short, fat man suddenly appeared at the table. He wore a gray suit, obviously tailored for him. His face was florid, his shock of white hair carefully combed. He carried a wide-brimmed hat in his hand. “Ben! It’s good to see you! And this,” he said, turning to me, “will be Mr. McRaven? How do you do, sir? It’s a pleasure, a great pleasure!”

  “Sit down, Charlie, and order. Then we can talk.”

  When I left my gear at the Wells Fargo office, I had kept with me my father’s buckskin case. Now I took it out and spread the papers before him.

  He glanced at the map first. He looked at it, looked again, and swore softly. “Yes, yes! Well, I’ll be damned!” He looked up at me and tapped the largest plantation marked on the map. “You know
the story about this place? They say it’s haunted.”

  “Considering some of my relatives, I’m not surprised.”

  He chuckled. “Met them, have you? Met Delphine? Oh, she’s a pretty one!”

  He turned to Blocker. “Yes, I know the story, know the area, and that’s not surprising, because a lot of people do. That plantation has a bloody history, right from the beginning, but it’s a valuable piece of property.”

  Briefly, I explained the circumstances of pa’s death and what had happened since.

  “You killed one of them? You’re sure?”

  “Yes, sir. I know where I put my shots, sir. Either one would have killed him.”

  “They’re a bad lot, Ben, a bad lot. I’ve known them or known of them since they were boys. Yant isn’t their name. It is L’Ollonaise. Whether they were related to the pirate of that name, I do not know. One of the boys was reared by a very decent family named Yant, but he ran away and left them. They have used the name intermittently ever since, as well as others.”

  “The one with the scar on his chin?”

  “Elias, and one of the most dangerous of them. A dead shot and a master with any sort of weapon. He killed a man in Charleston when he was but fourteen. He got off because he was so young and the man he killed was a notoriously quarrelsome man. Later he killed a man in a duel at Mobile, another in New Orleans. It is a question between he and Felix as to who is the most dangerous.”

  “Not a pleasant family,” Blocker said wryly.

  “You are right. Nobody ever wanted to cross them, because sooner or later on one pretext or another, there would be a challenge. Nowadays a lot of us have forgotten how prevalent dueling was in the old days.”

  Attmore glanced at me. “What is it you wish me to do?”

  “Take the necessary steps so I can inherit,” I said.

  He had been glancing through the papers as he talked, and now he shrugged. “Nothing so very difficult here. You may have to actually go there to take possession.”

  “Then I shall go.”

  “If you do, please remember an attempt was made to poison your father, and at least one attempt to poison you. They will not give up, even after you have inherited, for they will still be next in line.”

  Suddenly I glimpsed Billy Jenkins coming across the room, weaving through the crowd of gamblers and sightseers. “Boss,” he said to Blocker, “they’re coming up the street now. There’s four of them, alike as peas in a pod.”

  Chapter 17

  *

  ATTMORE GLANCED AT them, then at a nearby table, lifting his hand to his hat as he did so. “Rest easy,” he said to me, “nothing will happen.”

  Jenkins had fallen back a few steps from the table, and I saw Carlin Cable come moving up behind the L’Ollonaise men.

  They moved up to our table and ranged themselves before it, staring hard at me, then glancing at the other two. “Sit tight, gentlemen.” It was Elias, he with the scar. “We only wish to talk to McRaven here.”

  “I doubt if we have anything to talk about,” I replied, “and whatever it might be, you are wasting your time.”

  “I think not,” he said, and brushed his coat back. He had a gun in his waistband, a hand resting on it. “If you will come along with us there need be no trouble.”

  A quiet voice spoke from behind them. “Gentlemen? I am Tom Speers, the city marshal. Is there something I can do for you?”

  It was the man to whom Charlie Attmore had gestured. Beside him were two other men, both tough, competent-looking men. Elias glanced over his shoulder and saw Billy Jenkins and Carlin Cable. Two more men, obviously Texas cowhands, loitered near the door.

  Elias let his hand fall. “No, I am afraid not, Marshal. We wanted to talk to Mr. McRaven here, but it can wait.”

  “Of course,” Speers replied quietly, “but not in Kansas City. Do you understand?” He gestured about him. “In this room now and before the night is over there will be twenty-five of the most noted gunfighters in the West. All are my friends, all of them avoid trouble in Kansas City, and all of them would be very upset if anything happened here to disturb the situation. They come here to relax when not handling cattle or hunting buffalo. They know how much I enjoy a quiet town.”

  He took a gold watch from his pocket. “Nearly eight o’clock, gentlemen. I’ve just had your horses brought up outside. By eight-thirty you should be outside of town and moving away. I might add that if you are not, a posse made up of the men I mentioned will apprehend you, and sometimes it takes eight or nine months to bring such a case to trial. I know,” he said, gesturing with a careless hand, “it isn’t very efficient of us, but that’s the way it is.”

  Elias L’Ollonaise shrugged. “Of course. We understand perfectly and would do nothing to disturb the tranquility of your fair city.” He smiled thinly. “Thank you for bringing our horses around. We came in by train and weren’t aware we had any.”

  “You have now.” Speers replied cheerfully. “I can’t offer any promises as to their quality or disposition, but they are horses.”

  Elias glanced at me. “We’ll be meeting again, I think.”

  “Of course,” I replied cheerfully, “but didn’t we meet before? On a train?”

  The only visible signs of anger were in a tightening of the lips. “We remember,” he said coolly, “and we won’t forget. When it is something like that, we never forget.”

  They were escorted from the room, and Attmore shook his head. “Had me worried there for a minute, but I’d told Tom what might be expected.”

  “You’re giving them horses?” I asked, skeptically.

  “I am,” Blocker said. “They are four of my remuda on the last drive. They either made trouble or didn’t stand up to the rough work. I’m well rid of them.”

  “Saddles?”

  Blocker shook his head. “I didn’t go that far. They will ride bareback with rope hackamores.” He smiled. “One of those horses is a bucker, a very mean, deceptive bucker. He will go along quietly until something startles him or he takes a notion.”

  Attmore tapped the papers before him. “Lucky Ben caught me when he did. I leave for Charleston tomorrow, and I’ll see what can be done about this. In the event that I need you, you will be here?”

  “I’ll be in touch with Mr. Blocker and with Tom Speers as well. One or the other will be able to locate me at any time. I’ll get my mail at the Livestock Exchange.”

  “Fair enough.” We shook hands. “One more thing. Do not imagine you have defeated them.”

  Nobody needed to tell me how lucky I had been, and how lucky I continued to be. We ate our supper and I talked almost none at all, leaving that to Ben Blocker and Attmore. Sitting there, wrapped in my own thoughts, I thought about all that had transpired since that day when I came down from the mountains to find my father had been killed.

  Whatever I might inherit was still a vague dream that did not seem quite real to me. Never until pa died and left the money he won gambling had I had even a penny I had not worked for, and worked hard.

  A few things I had learned. A poor man gets little respect from strangers. If he is a good honest workman who does his job well, even if he is poor, he will get respect from those who know him.

  I’d never known a thief who was what you would call a poor man. The thieves I’d known, and knocking about as pa and me had, I’d known aplenty, were always folks who had a little and wanted more…without working for it.

  They stole because they wanted money to spend on women, gambling, or flashy clothes. They weren’t willing to earn their way into affluence, but wanted to steal from somebody who had earned it.

  Using the effort spent in tracking pa and me down, the Yants or L’Ollonaises or whatever they called themselves could have been well-off. Of course, they were a special kettle of fish and there was vindictiveness involved in their pursuit of us.

  “About those cattle,” I said to Blocker. “I want to buy a hundred head of steers to sell, and I want to buy a hun
dred head of young breeding stock to drive to Colorado.”

  “I’ve a man in Beeville who is buying stock for me. You write me a draft on your Wells Fargo account, and he will do the buying for you as well.”

  He turned to the lawyer. “Attmore, this young man has been herding cattle in Colorado and Wyoming. He knows the country. He says the grass cures on the stem and cattle will fatten on the range there. I think we should pool our resources and locate a ranch—”

  “Two ranches,” I said, “one at a lower elevation to which we can drive in bad winters. I know some good locations if nobody has moved in since I left.”

  “We would need somebody to handle the ranching operation,” Attmore said.

  “I could do that,” I said, thinking of Laurie. “I’ve been thinking of locating out there, somewhere on the western slope of the Rockies.”

  We talked for an hour or more, discussing all aspects of the problem, and I surprised myself. Never before had I had to come up with answers, but my hard work on the range with cattle and horses, and in some cases sheep, had taught me more than I’d realized. At the time I had not been thinking of going into the cattle business but only doing the job at hand, yet in the process I had learned a lot. For the first time I began to think of settling down, ranching, and the problems involved. “We’d need more than my hundred head of young stuff,” I said. “We should start with five or six hundred at least.”

  “We will start with two thousand,” Blocker said. “Attmore and I will provide the stock, other than your hundred head, and we will provide the working capital. You will handle the project on the ground itself. You will get one-third—”

  “Fifty percent,” I said.

  “What?” Blocker stared at me.

  “I get fifty percent, each of you get twenty-five percent. You will provide the capital, but I will be working every day of the year to see that our investment pays off. I will have to check range conditions and water, handle any rustlers, deal with Indians, and either do or take charge of all the work involved. Furthermore,” I said, “I will have to scout the country for a suitable ranch site, which will take a good deal of doing in itself, and then hold it against others who might fancy my location.”