Novel 1978 - The Proving Trail (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “Think I’m scared?” he demanded, and I knew he wouldn’t fight unless the odds were all with him.

  “I don’t think you’re scared,” I said, “and I hope you’re smart.”

  He stood there, and I backed off and sat down at the table. When I picked up my fork, it was with my left hand. He looked at me and he wanted to kill me, but he simply didn’t have what it took. “To hell with you!” he said.

  He looked at me, and my right hand was resting on my thigh close to my gun butt. It was even closer to the gun in my waistband, but I didn’t believe he had even seen that. It was also within two inches of my Winchester, which was pointed toward him under the table.

  “To hell with you!” he repeated. Then he turned to the man at the bar. “Come on, Shorty. I’m leavin’.”

  The man at the bar still did not turn. “You go ahead, Slim, I’ll stick around for a while.”

  “You what?”

  Shorty turned his back to the bar. “We ain’t known each other long, Slim, but I reckon it’s long enough.”

  Slim stared at him, unbelieving, then he went out and slammed the door behind him. Shorty looked after him, then turned back to the bar.

  After a minute I said, “Shorty?”

  He turned his head to look at me. “Have you eaten yet? This pot roast is pretty good…if you like buffalo.”

  “I’ve et it a time or two,” he said.

  “Sit up, then,” I said. “I’m buying.”

  He walked over with his drink and sat down across the table from me. He had a broad face and a thick neck, and he looked like a fighter and a stayer.

  “Him an’ me,” he said, “we rode for the same outfit. We quit at the same time, just naturally drifted off together. I never saw him when he was drinkin’ before.”

  “He’ll get himself killed,” I said.

  “And I’d be his partner. I’d have to stand with him,” Shorty said. “If a man has to die, it should be for something worthwhile, not a two-by-twice loudmouth trouble-hunter.”

  We ate and we talked very little. When I’d finished my third cup of coffee, he said, “You goin’ far?”

  “Huntin’ a ranch out on the western slope. Figured to look over the Wet Mountain country first.”

  “Mind if I ride along?”

  “You hadn’t better, Shorty,” I replied. “I’ve got trouble on my trail, but it’s my trouble, not yours, and I want to handle it alone.”

  “Too bad,” he said, wistfully, “you’re the kind of gent I’d like to ride along with.”

  “Shorty,” I said, “my name’s Kearney McRaven. I’m headed for the upper Colorado River area on the west slope. I’ll be hunting ranchland. I’m going partners with Ben Blocker and a lawyer named Attmore from Kaycee. We could use a good man.”

  “I heard of Ben Blocker,” he said. “He any relation of Ab Blocker, the trail driver?”

  “Not that I know of,” I said, “but they’re cut from the same mold.”

  “Those fellers you got trouble with…are they close by?”

  “I have a feeling they are, but I don’t know. It’s an ugly fight, Shorty, but it’s my fight and I have to make it. I don’t want a good man to die because of me. If you see two or three long, tall, slim men wearing black outfits, you fight shy of them. They are mean, and they are trouble. They will face any man living with a gun, but they’d just as soon shoot him in the back, dry-gulch him, or drop poison in his soup. So stay clear…but I’d like it if you showed up out west there, rustling a job.”

  “I can use a gun.”

  “Not this time, Shortly. You come west and you’ve got yourself a partner, but this is my fight. There’s another thing, Shorty. I’m keyed for this fight. I’m ready to handle it alone. If I start depending on somebody to help, it will take the edge off and I’ll be less careful. There are times when it is better for a man to be alone and dependent on nobody but himself.”

  “Your funeral.”

  “It may be.” I paid for my meal and his and then walked outside. After a careful look around, I switched the gear to my other horse and rode out of there. When I topped out on the ridge, I glanced back and Shorty was standing there, looking after me.

  Most western cowhands rode partners with somebody, and often they stayed together for years, but I had ridden with nobody excepting pa, and when I was a youngster, with Pistol.

  When I pulled out of that stage station, I didn’t plan on going far, but I found a good horse trail that led toward the south and took it. This was country I’d been through a time or two and I held to a good pace. I knew where I was going now, for it was a place where pa and me had holed up once a long time ago.

  It was coming on to dark, with a few stars already in the sky, when I unsaddled and picketed my horses. There was water there, and grass. There was a good stand of juniper around and a place where a fire could be lit and kept out of sight. By day a man could see for miles, for we were a good thousand feet above the rest of the country. The view to the north was especially good.

  There was plenty of dry wood around that would give off no smoke, so I had a fire, a hot meal, and some coffee. I took the horses to water again because I hadn’t let them have much there at first, then picketed them again.

  Leaving the coffee on the coals, I took my rifle and picked my way through the rocks and the juniper to the edge of the cliff…or as near as I needed to go.

  Above were the stars, a million or two of them, it seemed like. Below was a vast empty blackness, blackness without a break for miles and mi—

  There was a fire down there. It was a long way off, a pinpoint of light was all, but a campfire nonetheless. Nobody needed to tell me who was at that fire. Of course, it could be somebody else, but I knew it was not, and at the same time I had a sort of strange premonition that a showdown was before me.

  I didn’t mean a showdown on some far-off day, I meant now…soon…within hours.

  Walking back to the fire, I laid out my guns, and one after the other I cleaned them, checked the action, and then reloaded them.

  All right, then. They were asking for it and they could have it.

  Unrolling my bed, I banked my fire a mite and laid some sticks close to hand, for the night was cold. This country was like that. Hot as it might be in the daytime, a man could always use a blanket at night…and I was at an altitude of about sixty-five hundred feet.

  Twice during the night I awakened to listen, and each time I checked my horses, but they were eating quietly, unworried by anything.

  Lying awake that last time, I tried to come up with some scheme that would give me the advantage, but the trouble was, I would not go hunting them, and that gave them the choice of a battleground. Think of it as I would, I could come up with no bright ideas.

  I was going to have to face two or three tough, dangerous men, and I would have to do it alone.

  The Mesa de Mayo, where I now was, was a lookout point long favored by Indians in the area. From one position or another atop the mesa, a man could see for miles in any direction he chose. Before daylight I was up, saddled the roan, and packed my gear as soon as I’d had some coffee. There was no need to make fresh coffee. I just drank what was left in the pot.

  Somehow they had managed to stay with me, losing the trail now and again, but generally aware of what my destination might be. I could be sure they would have a man in Silverton and probably one in Rico, and they would be watching the railroads and scouting the main routes west.

  Coming down off the east end of the Mesa de Mayo, I crossed the Cimarron, taking time to water my horses as I did so. Then I doubled back to the west, keeping the mesa close on my right.

  By noon the coolness of the morning was gone, and once again the heat waves were shimmering, turning the horizon and the plains before me into a dancing, liquidlike air. The Spanish Peaks, which I knew were far away, suddenly stood in the sky before me.

  There was no water that I knew of close by, although there were creeks that ran into th
e North Canadian. However, I did not want to turn from my trail and pushed on. Turning off might have saved me a lot of grief.

  There was a dim trail led between Sierra Grande, a huge peak lifting thousands of feet above the country around, and Capulin Mountain, a sort of tower. I startled some antelope, and they went bounding away, taking my attention with them. When my eyes returned to the trail, I pulled up sharply.

  Riding toward me through the shimmering heat waves were three immeasurably tall black figures. They were spread out and riding right for me, walking their horses.

  There was no way I could escape. My only choice was to fight. Yet there was a chance…a slim chance.

  To reach for my Winchester would invite a bullet. Trusting their picture of me was as indistinct as mine of them, I slipped the six-shooter from my waistband and held it alongside the pommel of the saddle as I rode toward them.

  It was them. I’d had no doubt of it, and now there could be no more running, no more evasive action. My heart pounded with slow, heavy beats, and even the roan seemed to sense the tension that was in me, for he began to step with short, quick steps, alert for an instant movement. It was well that he did so.

  They came toward me, and the distance narrowed. I made no attempt to get away, just kept my horse moving right at them. One of them spoke to the others under his breath, and they all started to pull up. It was the moment I had been waiting for.

  Just as their horses began to pull up, I slapped the spurs to mine. Rarely did I use spurs on a horse, but this time the signal was instantaneous. He gave a great bound, and as he leaped my pistol came up. I saw one of them grab wildly for a gun, and then I was among them, through them.

  There was time for one quick, chopping shot as I brought the gun down. The man who was drawing threw up his hands, and as his horse leaped wildly, he toppled from the saddle, and I was off and running.

  I heard a shouted curse and then a clatter of hoofs as the horse whose rider I had shot started to run away. Glancing back, I saw one of them going after the horse and the other swinging for a shot at me. Yet before he could get his horse turned and steadied for a shot, I had put at least four horse-lengths between us, and before me was a dip in the trail. I heard the angry whip of a bullet and then the report and turned the roan at right angles down the hollow, my other horse running neck and neck with my mount.

  Behind and above me I heard the pound of hoofs of a running horse and knew a rider was cutting across-country to head me off. He was closing in on me, and suddenly the shallow wash along which I had been riding petered out and I was facing a lava field close on my left. Yet the trend of the lava was forcing me toward the east and closer to those in pursuit of me. I was trapped…unless there was a way through the lava.

  A gap opened on my left ahead, and gambling it was not a blind passage, I swung my horses into it. Yet my horses had put scarcely their length into the opening before I was struck a wicked blow on the shoulder.

  Almost, I lost my grip on the pistol I held, but somehow managed to get it thrust back behind my belt. The opening in the lava took a sharp turn, and I was racing north again, but somehow I had lost my grip on the lead line, and my other horse was running free. The mountains before me danced weirdly, and I felt a strange lightness and giddiness. Losing my grip on the reins, I grabbed wildly for the saddle horn and fastened both hands on it. Yet suddenly my horse swerved, and I felt myself falling.

  I fell…hitting hard and bouncing, then lunged to my feet and made the edge of the lava in a plunging run, where I fell once more. A moment I lay there, then I crawled deeper into the lava, keeping my head down and using every bit of skill I knew. Twice I got up and ran for short distances, working deeper and deeper into the ferocious-appearing lava. There were jagged edges everywhere, but I crawled wildly to get some distance behind me, then tumbled into a gap where the lava had been forced to either side by a huge boulder. I lay there, gasping for breath…listening.

  My own horses ran off somewhere, and the riders swept by, following them. Within minutes they would realize I had fallen and would come back, searching for me.

  Careful to make no sound, I worked my way through a narrow gap in the lava, and keeping to my belly or knees, I wormed my way through it. There were spaces where the flows had parted to go around some obstruction, others where it had piled up, and there were abrupt drop-offs of eight to ten feet. Coming upon a few feet of grass, I lay still for a while, listening.

  How far had I come? Less than a hundred yards so far. I heard an angry shout, then swearing. The clatter of a horse’s hoofs, then the horse drew up, not far from where I was. I lay perfectly still, careful to make no sound.

  Over me the sky was blue, scattered with a few puffballs of cloud. Almost due south of me loomed the tower of Capulin Mountain. Beyond it was the still greater mass of Sierra Grande, over two thousand feet above the surrounding country.

  Somebody spoke, and in the clear air I could hear their voices. “Got to be near.” Another voice said, “I hit him. Hit him hard.”

  As if on cue, my shoulder began to hurt. I remembered that savage blow on the shoulder. I had been shot then. Moving slightly, I felt a dampness on my side, below the shoulder.

  Blood…I had been hit.

  I must get away. If they began to climb over the lava, they would find me. Desperately, I tried to recall how wide this flow had been. Not much over a mile, I thought. Avid as they were to kill me, I doubted if they would cut their boots to pieces hunting me. They would look, probably not for long. They knew I was wounded but they also knew I was armed.

  Rolling over on my knees, I started to crawl. A voice stopped me.

  “How’s Corley?”

  “Bad. We’ve got to get him to a doctor. He was hit hard and dragged. Elias is with him.”

  “Wait until I get my hands on that McRaven!”

  “Hell, he’s dyin’ now. I got him. I know I did.”

  “We thought we had him two or three times. He’s harder to kill than a ’possum. Every time you think you’ve got him, he crawls off. I d’clare, next time we get him, alive or dead, I’m a-goin’ to bury him. Bury him deep an’ pile the grave with rocks.”

  “He’s afoot, and he’s bad hurt. Leave Elias to take care of Corley. You an’ me, we’ll scout both sides of this lava bed. Sooner or later he’s got to come out, if he lives. Then we’ll get him.”

  I sat up and felt up under my shirt. I found the hole. Could see it by craning my neck. The bullet had gone through my shoulder, leaving an ugly blue hole where it went in, and it had come out at the back. Tearing my handkerchief, I plugged both holes, barely reaching the one back of my shoulder. The shoulder moved, so I didn’t figure I’d broken any bones, yet I had lost blood. I crawled a little further, following the way that seemed easiest, then stopped. My shoulder was really hurting now, and my throat and mouth were dry. My head felt heavy and my eyes did not seem to focus properly. Shock, maybe, as much as the bullet. What I needed was a hole. Someplace to crawl into, someplace where they couldn’t find me.

  A shadow crossed my face. I glanced around, then up. A buzzard!

  They would not have to look for me now. The buzzards would point the way.

  Chapter 21

  *

  HOT WAS THE sun above me, slow the circles of the waiting buzzards, silent the rocks about me. I lay flat on my back, and I closed my eyes. Only to lie still, only not to move, only to wait!

  Wait for what? For death? I was a fool. Many a man had recovered from worse wounds than I had. A bullet through the shoulder, what was that? Yet I did not move.

  The wound was probably not too serious. The loss of blood was, and the lack of water. My horses were gone. I had my pistols and what ammunition remained in my cartridge belt. Around me was a bed of broken, jagged lava, which would cut my boots to ribbons in no time. There were pitfalls and cracks, and nowhere a man could run except in those occasional places where the lava had run around an area because of some obstruction or chance. Her
e and there were long aisles between flows. In some of them grass grew, in some there was only sand. Water, if it was to be found at all, would be caught in some natural tank or hollow in the basalt.

  A boot scraped upon stone, and the sound shocked me into awareness. Pushing myself up, I broke into a stumbling run down the little avenue between flows.

  My wounded shoulder hurt abominably when I ran, and I could feel the dampness of blood. I ran clumsily, staggering, stumbling, bumping into rocks. My feet seemed to come down in erratic patterns. I swore bitterly and plunged on until I fell.

  For a long moment I lay still, heart pounding. Then I got up and ran on until suddenly my way was blocked by a jagged wall of basalt. Finding a break that gave access to the top, I climbed up. Instantly a bullet smashed the rock beside my head and the report of a heavy rifle boomed in my ears. I tried to run over the broken lava, risking a broken leg at every step. A jackrabbit burst from the ground at my feet and went leaping along over the rocks and down another crack. Turning sharply, I followed it just as another bullet whapped against a rock and then went whining off across the lava.

  The crack where the rabbit had gone led to another of those breaks in the lava field, and I went down it, hearing another shot as I did. This time fragments of rock stung my cheeks and one good-sized piece rapped me on the skull.

  For a moment I thought I was hit again, but the flying rock had merely broken my scalp. At the bottom I turned sharply down the space between the flows and came to a drop-off of some six feet. Down I went, half-falling, bringing up at the bottom in a cloud of dust.

  For a moment I stood still, my lungs gasping for air, my head spinning dizzily.

  No further, I told myself. I’d make a stand here. I simply could go no further.

  Yet I did go on. Only now I walked, peering this way and that for some hiding place, some spot fit for defense.

  Let them find me. I’d rather fight than run. I told myself that, but all the while another part of my brain sat in judgment on my actions, telling me that I did want to live, and not only to live but to defeat them. They must not profit by killing. My father was gone, and probably others, but I would not—