Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists

by Louis L'Amour

  She had told him, frankly, that her money was almost exhausted and she must return to her job.

  His response had been automatic. “Why not stay here with me?” He started to add that he would gladly pay her whatever she was earning at wherever she had been working, but somehow she had misunderstood him and the first thing he knew she was accepting his proposal.

  Flustered, he started to explain, but there had been no chance, and as she talked happily on, he began to think of the advantages…a home, Dia…It was more, really, than he had ever expected.

  Now, looking back, he was forced to smile at the way it had all happened. Dia…but Dia was gone…gone.

  And he was accomplishing nothing. He must get out and join in the search. He glanced at his watch. It was not yet eight o’clock in the morning. He could not have slept more than two, possibly three hours. He had been awake thirty minutes at most.

  He walked back through the house to the bathroom and washed hurriedly, then combed his hair. He was thinking again of the problem at hand, and where to search. He would work, as he always did, by himself. He knew where they had been, knew exactly where he had last seen Dia…and he would investigate that slide.

  Perhaps she had rested a few minutes, then wandered up the canyon. Frightened, she might have started up the wall. Frightened by what? A snake…a skunk…a steer…almost anything might have frightened her. The slide might have started and she might have believed it was easier to continue on to the top than to return.

  Back in the kitchen he selected a cup and poured coffee. It was only lukewarm but he gulped several swallows, then put it down and started for the door.

  Passing the window he stopped abruptly.

  They had something. He looked again. It was a scarf of Dia’s….

  A scarf…but Dia had worn no scarf!

  He was a man who gave attention to detail, and he could describe in detail what Dia had been wearing, and there had been no scarf.

  Yet the scarf was here; he remembered buying it for her. The scarf was hers—and it was dark with the stain of blood!

  COMMENTS: The Dark Hole is in Kings County, California. Louis’s journal shows that he first visited the area in November of 1951. Indonesia, the country of Magill’s ornithological studies, only came into being in 1949, so it seems very likely that this was written by the mid-1950s.

  I like the character of Morgan Magill. He’s a more normal guy than a lot of Dad’s heroes. It’s amusing to see Louis commenting:

  When he was exploring he was always overeager and sometimes he forgot that others lacked his enthusiasm and his physical condition. Yet today he had remembered not to hurry, to think of Dia, to take his time.

  That was Dad. I think most of the memories I have of him when we were hiking were from behind. Dad was always moving on, barely waiting for whoever was with him. He might pause, but as soon as my mother, sister, and I caught up, he would head off again….If we wanted to keep up we didn’t take time to rest, we just kept plodding!

  * * *

  SAMSARA

  * * *

  Three Beginnings for an Adventure Novel, and a Treatment

  A toe prodded me in the ribs. “Get up,” a voice said, “here they come again.”

  And then I was conscious of the sun’s heat, and the smell of blood, sweat, and dust. From afar I heard a thunder through the earth, and grasping my broken spear, I stood.

  We could scarcely see them for the dust, and our ranks were thin. I, who had stood in the third rank of the phalanx, now stood in the first row. My spear, which had been twelve feet long, now measured less than half of that. My skull throbbed and the pounding grew louder and they came out of the dust, a solid wall of horsemen. To my left they crashed upon our points. There was a screaming of animals and men. A sword swept down and my shield shattered under the impact.

  I saw the fierce glare of eyes, a face only half revealed because of the helmet, and as the sword lifted to strike again, I thrust upward with all my strength.

  The point of my spear took him below the breastbone and went into him like a driven spike. We crashed to the ground. He swept a hand up, brushing back the helmet, and for the first time I saw his face.

  His eyes were wide, his lips already pale with death, twisted with words. “Apollodorus! It is I—Rameses, your friend!”

  My name was not Apollodorus and I had never a friend named Rameses, yet something stayed my hand. “My horse!” he gasped. “Get my horse…quick! There is a book—!”

  That ended it. He died like that, leaving me staring at him, this man who seemed to know me as someone I was not. Still, the horse was there, and it was my prize, along with what armor and possessions the man had. But as I grasped the bridle, a hand reached over mine to take it, an officer of Alexander.

  “The horse is mine,” I said, gripping the bridle. “I won fairly.”

  “You shall have him,” the officer replied shortly, “but first there will be questions.”

  “Forget it then. I want no questions.”

  The battle was over. I picked up a shield and a whole spear before leaving the field, for our leader looked with no favor upon a weaponless man.

  As to the man Rameses, I despoiled him of a ring, and two bracelets from his arm. His sword was a handsome weapon with a fine, beautiful feel to it, so I chose it for my own. Then I walked away, but twice I looked back upon him. He had been so sure he knew me, and even knowing he was dying he had sought to do me well. He had mentioned a book. I had nothing to do with books, but to mention a book at such a time…

  I wished for the horse. Not that I could do ought but trade him, for I was a foot soldier.

  Back at camp I cleansed myself with fresh sand, for water there was none. I rubbed the sweat and dust away, then hunted for wine. I had none, nor had Crates, the one who had kicked me out there after I had been felled. My head still ached from that one, or from something else, for there was an uncertainty in me that I had not known before.

  The officer who had taken the horse came to me. “He wishes to see you.”

  I was shocked, and frightened, too, for I knew what might come of his displeasure. We who served him thought well of him, for he was brave and wise in battle, a wiser man than his father, whom I had served as a boy.

  “Be quick—he does not like to be kept waiting.”

  —

  He was sprawled in a chair just inside the door of his tent where he could drink wine and watch the camp. I had seen him like that before, and he missed nothing. It was said that he had eyes and ears everywhere, and we believed it.

  Alexander was a handsome man, arrogant and proud, but as fine-looking a man as ever I had seen, and he wore more gold than I had ever seen upon any man or woman. Some said he wore it as a challenge to enemy soldiers. To kill him and take what he had in battle would make a man wealthy. My mouth watered at the thought, but I’d no wish to kill him, only to serve him. As much as he appeared the dressed-up one, he was a fighter. Few of us could have stood up to him in even battle.

  “What is your name?”

  There was something in this that puzzled me, and I agonized trying to think what I had done that was wrong. But there was a curious look in his eyes. He was not looking at just a soldier, he was looking at me. Besides, he knew my name well enough. He knew the name of every man in his army, and always had.

  “Carlax,” I said.

  There was movement behind me and I glanced around, though I knew I shouldn’t, for when you talked to him you faced him.

  It was the horse. They had led him right up behind me.

  “Carlax,” he said, “you fought well today. You fought very well, as you have always done.”

  He straightened in his chair and studied me; still dusty from the field he was. “A good soldier,” he said, “and a fighting man. I have watched you. You do your job well—no recklessness, no heroics, just a good steady job. I like that in a man. We would win nothing if it were not for your sort.”

  He seeme
d to ponder, and then casually, he asked me, “Who was that man you killed? I hear he called himself Rameses, but I also know that was not his name.”

  “I never saw him before.”

  “He knew you. I saw it with my own eyes. I was there to see if the charge would break upon you spearmen, as it did. He seemed to know you well, and wished you to have his horse.”

  He studied me in a disturbing way. I did not like it and wanted to be away. He seemed to feel I was concealing something, and I had heard it said he had a way of sensing things unspoken. The man knew so much. Aristotle was his teacher, after all. Whenever there was no fighting he had a way of gathering the wise men around him…those from the land around…and he asked them many questions, far into the night, prodding them to debate with one another.

  “He was sure he knew you. He called you Apollodorus.”

  “It is not my name.”

  “And he called himself Rameses, and that was not his name. I have prisoners. They have looked at the body and told me his rightful name. Do you wish to know what it is?”

  “What for? He is dead.”

  “Ah…? Yes, of course. He is dead. And death does come to us all, does it not? Too soon, sometimes.”

  He glanced around at Ptolemy. “A chair for our friend. We have much talking to do.”

  Uneasily, I sat down. He sat there for a long time, watching the camp bring itself into order. Crates would be opening a bottle now, and slicing a haunch of mutton. I was hungry, and ill at ease, wishing to be free of all this. I did not know the man I had killed….Did they think I was a spy?

  “You have served me long. How old are you, Carlax?”

  “Twenty-nine, I think. I have been fourteen years a soldier.”

  He was in a strange mood, silent, musing, yet there was friendliness in him. “You fought well at the Cilician Gates,” he said to me, “and you prevented a fight at Soli.”

  This was a surprise. My way was the soldier’s way, and I did what had to be done, not looking to be seen or praised for it, unaware that it had been noticed.

  “You did not think I had seen,” he said, “but believe me, Carlax, there are twenty thousand of you whose worth I know as well as this ring.” He tapped the heavy gold ring with the red stone. “It is the commander’s task to know.” He looked around at me. “Battles are won by men, not by tactics alone.”

  The minutes dragged by. Wine was poured, and I drank, feeling better. Some of the tiredness left me. “You fought in the army of Philip,” he said. “Did you know Aristotle at all?”

  “When I came for the first time to the army,” I said. “He had questions, that one.”

  He looked at me. “He asked you questions?”

  “He asked me an odd thing: Had I ever been to Samothrace, or to Delphos.”

  He did not look at me now, but at the plain where the tents were pitched. “And had you?”

  “No.”

  He shifted his seat somewhat, impatiently, I thought. “He was not one to ask the foolish question, Carlax. Why did he have questions for you at all?”

  I shifted uneasily. “There was foolish talk. Some comrades of mine began it. We had come up to a mean village, a petty sort of place on a low hill beside a stream. I found a corner of wall…it was some ancient ruin…and I dug down and found a vase filled with coins.”

  The shadows had vanished; the fires were showing bright against the darkness. Still Alexander sat there, staring out over the plain. “Had you been there before?”

  I hesitated. “No…no, never. Only…it reminded me of something I couldn’t put a name to. As for the gold, well, I just tried to think where I might bury some gold….It was a fortunate chance.”

  He was still silent, and after a long time said, “You can ride?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep the horse. You will not be with the phalanx any longer. I shall want you close to me.”

  He had said nothing about the book, but I knew that I was dismissed, and got to my feet, leading the horse away.

  Out in the darkness, I stopped to think about what had been said, but it made no sort of sense. Yet I could not get the face of the man I had killed from my thoughts. It stayed with me, open, smiling, as no dying man’s face was expected to be when he looked into the eyes of the man who had killed him.

  What had Samothrace, Aristotle, Delphos, and the discovery of a small vase of gold to do with this?

  COMMENTS: Thus begins just one version of what is probably the strangest story in this book—and in Louis’s career. It was an idea that he experimented with in different forms for nearly thirty years. The story of a man, or a group of people who, at some point in their lives, realize that they have been reincarnated and that the knowledge from their past lives can be recovered. From generation to generation, these reborn souls or identities have moments where they can recall those lives and, if the conditions are right, find repositories of information cached in order to help them remember more and move forward in whatever plan fate has in place for them.

  I do not possess every version of these manuscripts, nor a complete set of Louis’s notes. Whether the other pieces were lost in one of Dad’s moves, thrown in the waste can in frustration, or suffered some other fate I do not know. What I do know is that a few other fragments remain. Here’s an alternate version where, instead of telling Alexander the Great about finding the hidden coins, Carlax tells a more mysterious story:

  He sat there staring at nothing for several minutes, then he called to the man holding the captured horse and told him to bring the saddlebags. But he let them lie unopened.

  “Tell me, has this ever happened before? Have you been recognized by anyone else?”

  “No,” I said, and then hesitated. He waited expectantly, and I replied that there had been one other occasion.

  “It was in Crotona, when I was a lad. I had come there for the first time that morning and a passenger aboard our ship wished to see the school where Cythogorus taught. So I took him there—I do not remember how it was that I knew, but I did.

  “He was curious, and asked me many questions. He, too, said I looked like someone he knew.”

  “And…?”

  “That night he tried to kill me.”

  We sat long over our meal and the wine that followed, and he asked me many questions about myself. Yet what was there to tell?

  I was a soldier. I had been a man of the sea from boyhood, but joined Alexander when he marched into Asia.

  COMMENTS: When Dad wrote the majority of these drafts he was in his sixties, and I have often wondered if his work on Samsara may have been an attempt to confront his own mortality. He collected dozens of books on the subject of reincarnation and on the various religions and mythologies that dealt with the transmutation of souls. Although a spiritual man, he was not an adherent of any particular religion. I have often wondered if his interest in writing this story (especially, as you will see, since his efforts took so many forms) didn’t come from some desire to feel that there was something beyond death, some continuation of the soul’s narrative.

  Below is a piece of either a series of notes or part of one of the various forms of this story that explains a certain amount of what Louis had in mind:

  It is not surprising that some know and others do not. Some men are content with a little knowledge, others would not be content with all knowledge. Some wish to know enough to get along from day to day, some wish to know enough to progress in their particular field, but there are always a few who wish to reach out, farther, and still farther.

  Long ago there came a realization to such a man: perhaps an ancient memory from some past life, perhaps a recognition of some other such as himself. He approached the other, discussed the question, felt his way carefully along until he knew that this man also remembered. So a pact was made. An agreement to find a way to meet again in some future life, to share experiences, and to plan for the future. This must have happened so long ago that when these men planned to cache a few treasur
es against a future life, all they could leave would have been a stone ax or perhaps an amulet.

  Over the years, over the centuries, a few such men and women banded together, and from this derived the Eleusinian Mysteries, and many secret orders had their beginning in this desire to preserve this esoteric knowledge for themselves in future lives, and for others like themselves.

  These people chose themselves and as a result of their mystical experiences and thinking, planning, and mental preparation they became able to control the processes of rebirth, and they shared this knowledge among themselves. Few could pass on the new knowledge, and fewer still had the discipline necessary to cope with it, or to use it. Some of the elect died before they could effect plans for their future, and after several such deaths or failures to locate the repositories of knowledge, some of the elect forgot the old knowledge. In other places it became mingled with ineffective superstition and only the superficial forms of the practices were followed, and thus the effect was lost.

  Each of the elect made it a practice to exchange knowledge with the others, but also to leave behind in some form the knowledge he had, and the knowledge that he would need in the future. Among the ancient Egyptians and some others it came in the form of murals on the walls of tombs, or tools and equipment, much of it fallen to dust, that had been left for the future. Many of the tomb robberies were done by the former occupants of the tombs, returned to find that which was needed for a future life.

  Most of the elect deliberately court obscurity, and they learn very early to be wary of sharing any part of what they know, for skepticism, resentment, and persecution often follow.

  COMMENTS: Now, here are two chapters of a very different version of the story, or perhaps simply the story of another incarnation in the wheel of many lives that the soul of our narrator has lived.