the Proving Trail (1979)

by L'amour, Louis

  "Well, I didn't do it. We had trouble, I'll admit that , but it was nothing, and I'm not a vengeful person."

  Did I remember all that? Why had I remembered i t at all, when I had forgotten so much? Maybe it wa s her beauty, her sudden arrival out of the night, and th e intensity with which she spoke.

  How long had it been? Thirteen years? Closer t o fourteen, I thought.

  It was the only time I remembered a woman comin g to our rooms, wherever we lived . . . that is, the onl y time when pa was home.

  There was that other time, the time I never like d to remember, the time I never told pa about, when th e witch-woman came.

  I'd been alone in the room, but that was years later , and I was eight years old. I remember that because i t was my birthday and pa had promised me somethin g special, a real treat for my birthday.

  I never got my treat, and that I remembered mos t of all because pa always did what he promised, excep t that time. That was the time he got sick, he almos t died . . . and for months after that he was sick.

  Was it because of the witch-woman?

  Chapter V

  Settin' there over breakfast he riled me. Talkin' s mooth was one thing, but he looked so elegant, always lookin' like he'd stepped out of a bandbox, a s they used to say. Made me look shabby.

  Well, I had me a little money, so I made up m y mind right then I'd get fixed up. Finally, he got up an d left, but he'd been talkin' smooth and easy-like and i t got to me, him making himself big in front of Teresa.

  So I said, "I'm tired this morning. Some damn foo l was ridin' his horse up an' down last night, away afte r midnight. You'd think folks would have the sense t o stay inside when it's that cold."

  It stopped him, and he turned his head to look a t me just like a rattler does when he fixes to strike. Ther e was no laughter in his eyes, nor no smoothness in hi s tongue. "Sometimes, they tell me, when you hear a rider in the night, it's a sign of death."

  "I never heard that," Teresa said. "That's a ne w one."

  "I heard it," I lied, "it's somebody ridin' a dar k horse to his death."

  He looked at me with those flat, cold eyes, and I l ooked right back, and then I grinned. I don't kno w how I done it, but suddenly everything seemed funny.

  I'm like that. Solemn occasions seem to arouse th e humor in me. It wasn't that way with him, for when I g rinned, he got up. I could see the temper in his eye s 41 a nd knew right then his weakness was his impatience.

  He was a man who hated to wait, hated to be thwarte d or put off, hated anybody that didn't sidestep for him.

  "We'll meet another time," he said, and turned shar p around on his heel and went out, leaving the mone y to pay for his breakfast.

  "He doesn't like me," I said dryly.

  "He doesn't like anybody," Teresa commented.

  "He likes you," I said.

  She shrugged. "Not really. And I'm afraid of him , really afraid."

  After I finished my coffee, I went out. Being col d winter like it was, not many folks were moving about.

  We hadn't had much snow, but it was surely cold. I w ent down to the general store and looked over wha t he had. It wasn't much.

  I bought myself a couple of pairs of black Frisc o jeans for rough work and a sheepskin coat. Then I b ought some shirts, a pair of gray striped pants, and a black suit. They were hand-me-downs, of course, an d would have the sharp creases that come from the shelf , but would no doubt lose them in time. I bought som e socks, some underwear, and a few odds and ends, an d then went to my room to bathe and change.

  When I opened my pack, I seen right away somebody had been through my gear. After living out of a pack for years, a man gets so he packs for easy handling, and somebody had been through my things, the n had neatly repacked them, but not as I'd had them.

  Now who would do It was him! It had to be hi m but why? What was there about me that woul d interest him that much? What was there to bring hi m to this country at all?

  Suppose . . . just suppose he tied into all thi s mystery about pa and his past? Suppose we were related? Why would what we did matter to him?

  A man like him, he would be apt to do somethin g only for money or hate. This might be one or th e other, and it might be both.

  But what would he be looking for? Fortunately , what money I had was on me, but I didn't think i t would be money. I'd never had anything else wort h taking, and no personal papers of no kind, and as fo r pa, he never carried his paper s I just sort of backed up and set down. Pa's paper s those two big brown envelopes he had for so long .. . w here were they? And what were they?

  Pa an' me, we'd knocked about the country a goo d bit, hunting work here and there, and pa had alway s carried those two brown envelopes in a sort of buckskin case he had with a belt run through it. Yet it ha d not been on him when he was killed, and in fact, I h adn't seen it for some time.

  Kidlike, I was mostly concerned with my own affairs, and somewhere along the line pa had left thos e envelopes with somebody or hid them somewhere, an d I'd no idea where they were.

  There was a lot I had never known and had neve r thought to ask about that was suddenly important t o me. If there were any answers, they would be in ou r past. Somewhere down the drifting path we had take n over the years, pa had left a clue.

  Those papers now, in those brown envelopes in th e leather case . . . pa hadn't lost them. He'd just plain lef t them somewhere, and if he left them he left them a-purpose, someplace where they would be safe unti l needed. He had carried those guns, but he was never a quarrelsome man, although I'd seen him shoot an d knew he feared no man. Yet death finally caught u p with him.

  Murder . . . and if I was not careful, I would b e next.

  Somehow I never doubted that. It was just the wa y things shaped. I could see it coming, and had I bee n out on the trail in the snow, I would now be dead. Or if I hadn't locked my door. What I should do was ru n .. yet I knew I'd never get away. This man would b e a bloodhound on a trail. Hadn't he found pa and m e after all those years?

  First, I'd better not let him think I was smart . . . i f I was. He had to believe it wasn't going to be all tha t hard to win or he would suddenly try much harder , and to kill a man in our day wasn't all that hard. He could start a quarrel, then shoot me down . . . if he wa s fast enough.

  That, of course, was the question. I'd never had a gunfight, nor wanted one. No man in his right min d does. I heard tell of a kid or two running around trying to get a reputation, but it was a rare thing, an d only some half-baked youngster whose cards were badly mixed would be that crazy. I knew I was fast, an d pa had taught me to shoot.

  Running went against the grain, even if I could ge t away. On the other hand. I might be better out in th e hills than he was, and it might make all the difference.

  Yet with him around and knowing what it was about , I'd be better off to try to blunder into some hint of wh y he was here, and why it was important that pa be dead.

  He either hated pa something fierce or there wa s money involved. Or maybe some family feud.

  Just thinking about it would help me none at all , and if I was going to survive, I was going to have to d o some thinking.

  When I got all dressed, I looked at myself in th e mirror and looked just what I was, a country boy al l dressed up to go to town. I didn't look right to myself , and wouldn't to those folks out there, including Teresa.

  I had nothing of that casual elegance Felix Yant had.

  He was the kind of a man who would have looke d well-dressed in his long johns. He had manner an d style. Well, pa had it, too. Why not me?

  I taken off that new suit and hung it up. I jus t put on a pair of Frisco jeans, a gray flannel shirt, a black handkerchief at my neck, and my new sheepski n coat. But I did not forget my guns. Nor my knife . . . w hich I'd carried all my life. Never can tell when yo u might come on somebody needs skinning.

  Next I taken that coat off again and set down a t the bureau, which would do for a table. On the
edge o f an old newspaper I started to write down the town s we'd been in. I never realized there was so many.

  When I got to counting towns, I found that in th e past four years we'd stopped or worked in twenty-tw o different places. Part of it was that pa had an itchy foo t or some other reason for moving on, and the rest of i t was that work was scarce and few jobs lasted long.

  For two months pa worked for the stage line. He wa s an agent and bookkeeper in Eureka, Nevada. I'd had a job herding cows right near town, a herd that had bee n driven in to supply beef to the miners. We went over t o Pioche from there, and it was a rough town, a boo m mining town with a man named Morgan Courtne y walking the streets, a hard, irritable man always o n edge for trouble. Pa took the place of a teller in a bank there, for the regular man had to go to a funera l in Salt Lake or somewheres. I taken a job washin g dishes in a restaurant.

  One way and another we moved across the country , from Placerville in California to Kansas City in Missouri, with stops at Fort Worth, Fort Griffin, Santa Fe , and Silver City, and then back to Dodge and up t o Yankton.

  Where had I last seen those brown envelopes? He'd had them in Eureka, because he kept them in the company safe whilst there. I recall stopping for them before we rode out. And he'd had them when he wa s teller, that time. I had seen him roll the buckskin walle t up in his bedroll when we left Dodge, and I thought I r ecalled pa having them in Kit Carson.

  Georgetown! Try as I might, I could not remembe r them after we stopped at the Hotel de Paris in Georgetown. Pa was friendly with the owner, a Frenchman , and they often talked French together. I recall pa telling me Louis Dupuy was a man he could trust. "He's a hard, opinionated man, but nobody can push him , buy him, or sway him. I'd trust him with my life."

  So there it was . . . maybe.

  Which didn't help me one bit, for that was clea r across the country from where I was. There were a lo t of passes choked with snow between here and yonder , and I had a bloodhound on my tail.

  About then I began to get an idea. It was a craz y sort of thought that came into my mind and staye d there. Part of it was because I thought I might be bette r off in the wild country than he would be. Nobody trie d to cross those mountains in the winter. Up high there , the passes were often packed with twenty to thirty fee t of snow, and it was cold, really cold.

  But west and south of here was some desert lik e you've never seen, and it come to me that maybe I s hould head off west right into the midst of that desert.

  I'd pick a stretch where I knew the water holes an d I'd lose him out there. It sounded simple, but I wasn't at all sure. Felix Yant was not a simple man.

  Getting into my coat, I went off down to the restaurant again. Seemed like the only place I was goin g these days, but where could a body go, it being so col d and all?

  Teresa looked at me and smiled. "You look ver y nice, Kearney," she said. I felt like I was blushing, an d maybe I was.

  "We've got some hot soup," she suggested. "Lot s of beef and vegetables."

  "Sounds good," I said, and I meant it, but at th e same time an idea hit me. What I should do was tak e out of here at midday or later. A traveling man start s early to get the light for traveling, but if I were to tak e out suddenly, I might just get a lead on Yant before h e knew I was gone.

  Chances were I wouldn't, but it was a thought. I'd been stopping by the livery barn to see if my hors e was all right, and I'd continue to do that, stopping b y in the afternoon so there'd be a pattern.

  The soup was good. Only trouble was, in the mids t of it I looked up and I seen Tobin Wacker and Dic k riding into town. There was no sign of Judge Blazer o r the others.

  I started to get up, then sat back down. That wa s mighty good soup, and it might be awhile before I ha d more. My eyes followed Wacker and Dick as they rod e up to the saloon and got stiffly down. They looked t o be wore out. Even Wacker, big and burly as he was , staggered a mite when he stood. Might be becaus e they'd been in the saddle for some time.

  They went into the saloon, and I finished my soup.

  It was time I did some thinking. Had they come dow n here hunting me or were they just getting out of th e mountains? It looked to me like they'd had a rough , rough time.

  Teresa came in and sat down across the table fro m me. "You're in some kind of trouble, aren't you?"

  "You could say that," I agreed, "but it's none of m y seeking."

  "Is it him? Mr. Yant, I mean?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know," I said. "I don't kno w what he wants or where he comes from, but he worrie s me."

  Suddenly it all began to come out. Maybe I wa s lonely, maybe I just needed to get it all straight i n my mind. Anyway, I told her about me and pa, ou r drifting and the like, and I told her about pa's bi g winning and what followed after. I didn't know wha t was to happen, and maybe I just wanted something t o be on record, with somebody, and she was a good listener. Anyway, what man doesn't like having all th e attention of a pretty girl?

  The more I talked, the more it began to shape up lik e this Felix Yant was kin to me. At least, I had something he wanted, or didn't want, to find.

  "You scared of him?" She looked at me with thos e blue eyes, and I looked into myself for the answer.

  Was I scared of him?

  "No," I said, after a bit. "I ain't.. . I'm not scare d of him, but he worries me, because I don't know wha t he's after. You know and I know that nobody but a crazy man would be out here inspecting mining properties with all this snow on the ground. You can't se e the formations, how the land lays, or anything. I don't know why he's here, but it ain't that."

  "What are you going to do?" she asked.

  "I got to do some detective work," I said, and I'l l not deny using that word made me kind of swell up a little. "I've got to go back along the country a way s and maybe find out where pa came from and wher e Yant comes from."

  "You be careful," Teresa warned.

  "You can do something for me," I said, "if you'r e of a mind to."

  "What is it?"

  "Those two men I spoke of? The ones who just cam e into town? If they should come in here, try to hea r what they say if you can do it without seeming to.

  I'd like to have an idea what they have on their minds."

  "I'll do it." She got up. "I'll get you some hot coffee."

  From where I sat, I could see up and down the stree t while sitting back from the window. Those two ha d gone into the saloon and they were having a few. Tobi n Wacker was a right quarrelsome man when drinking. I k new nothing about Dick except the company he kep t and the fact he'd been one of those who attacked m e on the mountain.

  What had become of Judge Blazer? There was jus t no way he was going to get back to where he cam e from after that snow, and he wasn't the kind of a ma n to stay in any cold mountain cabin when he could ge t off the mountain. It began to look to me like Judg e Blazer was dead.

  They came out on the street and they looked righ t over at the restaurant. They looked up and down th e street and then they started over. Dick, who was abou t average size for our time, was maybe five foot eight.

  I guess he'd weigh maybe one fifty. Tobin Wacker wa s something else. He was maybe six inches taller tha n my five foot nine, and he was a good seventy pound s heavier than my one sixty. If I was going to tangl e with them, it wouldn't be for fun. I'd have to take Dic k out with one punch so's I could devote my time t o Wacker.

  Just then Teresa came in with my coffee. She see n my expression and she stopped. "What is it? What's the matter, Kearney?"

  "It's them. They're comin' across the street. If there's to be a fight, I'll try to get them outside so's we won't tear things up."

  "You'll do what you have to, Kearney," she sai d coolly. "My pa was a fighting man, and I've heard hi m say it a thousand times, 'Land the first punch. The firs t punch wins nine out of ten fights.' You land the firs t punch, Kearney, and leave the cleaning up to me. I'v e mopped up blood before this."

  Here they come. Ri
ght at me. I pushed a chair t o one side so's my feet wouldn't get tangled.

  Chapter VI When he came through the door, the first thin g Tobin Wacker laid eyes on was me.

  He stopped right in the door, looking like he'd seen death. If ever I saw a man scared, it was him.

  Whatever he expected when he came in, I wasn't an y part of it. Maybe he figured me for dead. I don't kno w what was in his mind, but whatever it was, he had n o idea of fighting.

  "Howdy, Wacker," I said. "You had enough or ar e you huntin' some more?"

  Rightly, I should have been over there where I coul d nail him before he got out of that doorway, and befor e his partner could make it through.

  They came on into the room, and when Dick see n who was there, his face turned white. Puzzled me , what they were so scared about. From behind me, fro m the entrance to the hotel lobby came a low, quiet voice.

  "Need some help, McRaven?"

  It was Yant.

  "Thanks." I was irritated. Was it him they was . . . w ere scared of? How long had he been there, anyway?

  "I can skin anything I can catch."

  "We ain't huntin' trouble," Wacker said, rubbing hi s big meat-hooks on his pants. "We just come for som e grub."

  Recalling my talk about cannibalism, I said kind o f wryly, "What's the matter? Didn't Blazer last you?"

  You'd of thought I lashed them with a whip. The y just turned and busted out of that door and went aflyin'.

  Yant walked up beside me, still watching the door . L "Now what was that all about?"

  "Nothing," I said, "we had trouble awhile back. I t hought they'd come for more."

  "So did I," he said.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Thanks? For what?"

  "Offering to help," I said.

  He pulled back a chair and sat down opposite me , and for once that poker face showed something. He was puzzled and angry, but with himself, I thought.

  "Think nothing of it," he muttered, and I began t o wonder if that offer to help hadn't come naturally , without him thinking of it at all. If that was true, I f elt better about him, but still, why should he help me?