Sitka

by Louis L'Amour

  "You ridin' from the law?"

  "No." LaBarge got down on the far side of his horse. A man could shoot better from the ground and there was no telling what might happen. "But we need horses mighty bad."

  The bearded man was a thin, high-shouldered fellow in torn shirt and homespun jeans, but he looked like a man who could use the rifle he carried. He sized up their horses with shrewd, appraising eyes. "Reckon I'll swap. You got boot to offer?"

  "Look, friend," Jean smiled, "we want horses, but not that bad. I'll trade our horses for that Roman-nosed buckskin and the gray. You can throw in a couple of sandwiches and some coffee."

  The man glanced at the horses, both fine animals. "I reckon it's a trade.

  Sal"--he looked toward the woods --"fetch these men some supper." While Ben switched saddles, Jean faced the fire and the two men. The bearded man had been studying Jean's expensive boots and drawing conclusions. The boy could be no more than half-witted and the women were hard-faced. The coffee was black as midnight and scalding hot, and the sandwiches were slabs of bread inclosing hunks of beef.

  "Anbody comes along," the man suggested slyly, "what should I say?" Jean grinned at him. "Tell 'em you saw two men nine feet tall riding north with fire in their eyes. Or tell 'em whatever you want. If anybody was chasin' us, we'd stop an' wait for the fun, wouldn't we, Ben?" "Those who know us well enough to come after us," Ben agreed, "are too smart to try."

  Ten hours out of Sacramento, they rode into Red Bluff, and ten minutes later rode out again, their extra saddlebags stuffed with food. Twenty-five miles farther they stopped at a lonely cabin for coffee and when they rode out they were astride two paint Indian ponies.

  The air was cool and damp. Twice they glimpsed campfires but their horses seemed no more tired than at the start and they pushed on farther into the night. Once a dog rushed out to bark, amazed and angry that anybody should be moving at all. The night air, cool as a freshwater lake, washed them as they dipped into a hollow of the hills, and then for twenty miles they saw no one, nor any human sound save their own.

  At daylight, for forty dollars, Jean swapped for a black stallion with three white stockings and a trim bay gelding. The stallion had an edge on his temper but distance robbed him of his urge for trouble. They were climbing steadily through country where they saw few houses and no settlements. Before them and on their right was Mount Shasta, sending chill winds down across the low country, winds that blew off the white, white snows of her peak.

  This was Modoc country and they rode with rifles across their saddlebows. The Modocs had been slave traders among the Indians long before the coming of the white man. At nightfall they reached Tower House, beyond which point there was no road and little trail. At daybreak, on fresh horses, they were moving again. Glancing back, when farther along the trail, Jean saw a rider at the edge of the trees, and later after they had crossed a clearing, he watched long enough to see three riders come out of the trees, then swing back under cover. "Look alive, Ben. Trouble coming up behind."

  A dim trail suddenly turned into the trees, a trail that by its direction might intersect with their own somewhere beyond the valley. They turned off, then obliterated their tracks as best they could in the few minutes they could afford and rode down through the forest. When their path turned off in a wrong direction they cut through the trees until they reached the main north-south trail once more.

  At Callahan's they switched horses again, and Jean found himself with a tough line-back dun. Taking the old Applegate wagon road, they reached the mining village of Yreka just seventy hours of Knight's Landing. Putting their horses up at the livery stable, Ben nudged Jean. "Look," he said, low-voiced.

  Two men were riding into town on blown horses, one wearing a short buffalo coat they remembered as worn by one of the men seen behind them on the trail. As they watched the third man rode into town and the three went along the street, examining all the horses.

  Jean led the way into the saloon and they stood at the bar, cutting the dust from their throats and some of the chill from their bodies for the first time on the trip. At a casual question from the bartender, Jean explained, "Riding north, buying wheat for a ship that will meet us at Portland, and there are three men following us, hunting trouble."

  A man in a dark suit standing near them, backed off. "Not my fight," he said. Taking his drink, Jean motioned to Turk and they crossed to a table and sat down, facing the door. The bartender brought steaming white cups filled with coffee and, of all things, napkins. Jean slid his Navy pistol from his belt and laid it under his napkin. The other gun was in plain sight in his holster. When the three men pushed through the door they glanced sharply at LaBarge and Turk, then walked to the bar. The three were obviously thieves, trailing them to rob and murder. No honest man ducked off a trail as they had. After a quick drink they turned and started out.

  "You in the buffalo coat!"

  The three stopped abruptly at Jean's call and turned slowly, spreading out a little as they turned. They could see the gun in LaBarge's holster. Ben's gun was belted high and out of view.

  The last man in wore a fur cap, the one in the buffalo coat had a thin, scarred face. The third was short with a wide, expressionless face. "You talkin' to us?" he asked.

  "You followed us out of Scott Valley, and you followed us into town. Now get this. If we see you anywhere close to us again, we'll kill you." "G'wan!" he said irritably. "You ain't seen nobody! We ain't even goin' your way."

  "How come you know which way we're going? Look, when I see men dodging in and out of the brush on my back trail I get suspicious, and when I get suspicious, I get irritable, and when I get irritable I'm liable to start shooting, so just to avoid trouble, stick around town a few days."

  "We'll go where we like!" The man in the fur cap was growing red in the face.

  "We wasn't dodgin' in no bush, either!"

  Jean smiled pleasantly. "And I say you're a liar!" The man's face seemed to swell. "By God!" he shouted. "You can't call me a liar!"

  "I just did," Jean replied coolly. He was determined to bring the matter to an issue now, on ground of his own choosing. "Furthermore, you're a couple of thieves." He took a wild gamble. "As for you," he looked right at the man in the fur cap, "you stole that red horse you're riding at Callahan's." The man in the fur cap was a coward, but he could see Jean with a cup of coffee in his right hand, and Jean knew the instant he started to reach for his gun. "You called me a liar!" he shouted. "And by the Lord--!" The gun cleared leather as Jean shot. He fired with his left hand, from under the table. The man jerked sharply with the impact of the bullet and dropped his gun. He fell, rolling over on his side with his knees drawn up. Ben Turk was on his feet, watching the man in the buffalo coat. Jean gestured at the third man. "Take your hand off that gun. I never like to kill more than one man while I'm eating."

  The fat man seemed about to speak but Jean interrupted. "Bad company for you, mister. They'll get you into trouble."

  "I guess you're right."

  The wounded man was cursing now, in a low, monotonous voice. Gingerly, the others picked him up and helped him from the room. At the bar the man in the dark, suit turned to face them. "That was mighty cool," he said to Jean. "I don't know whether I like it or not." "I don't like dry-gulchers trailing me."

  "We don't know they were dry-gulchers."

  "You'll have to take my word for it, and if you have any thinking to do, do it quietly. I'm hungry."

  At the bar there was subdued muttering and glances cast in their direction. More men drifted into the bar, but a difference of opinion was obvious. Jean knew there would be no chance to sleep here now. They must ride, and at once. The man in the dark suit turned on them. "You two stay in town until we decide what to do about this, you hear?"

  LaBarge got to his feet. "Listen to me, mister. You said before this wasn't your fight, so don't make it yours. Those men were trailing us to rob us, and if any of you want to keep us here, you just stand out in the street
. In ten minutes we'll be riding out with our rifles across our saddlebows." He paused, letting it sink in. "And, mister, if you feel lucky, you just try stopping us."

  Ten minutes later, mounted on a horse loaned him by Charley Brastow of the stage company, Jean LaBarge rode out of town with Ben Turk beside him. The man in the dark suit stood on the steps of the saloon chewing on a cigar, several men around him, but he made no move.

  "I seen them come in," Brastow had said, "an' I can smell a bad one further'n most. They sized up your horses and asked where you went." He looked over their horses. "I'll credit you with fifty apiece for the horses and you can leave mine at Johnson's Camp on Hungry Creek. Tell him you're to have the two grays."

  Johnson met them at the corral as they rode up. He was a tall man with no chin and he came from his clumsily built log cabin on the run. "Get the grays for us, will you? Brastow said we were to have them. We're riding on to Portland."

  Johnson's Adam's apple bobbed against his frayed collar. "That's crazy, stranger! Pure dee crazy! Them Modocs killed a trapper up the crick yestiddy, and burned a couple of farms! Mister, you two wouldn't have a chance against 'em!"

  Jean took a rope from the corral post and shook out a loop. One of the grays shied but he swung his loop and made an easy catch. Both were magnificent horses, and as he roped them, Ben stripped their gear from the others. Still protesting, Johnson watched them mount up and ride off. Both men were dead tired. Their plan to sleep in Yreka had been blasted by impending trouble. Jean's eyelids felt thick and heavy, and he rode as did Ben, in a sort of stupor.

  Hours later they were walking their horses along Bear Creek bottom when a bullet struck water ahead of them and whined away into the brush. Glancing around they saw five Modocs come out of the trees on their right rear, and fan out as they came down the meadow at a dead run, whooping shrilly. "Make the first one count, Ben." Jean lifted his rifle and looked down the barrel. He was wide awake now. He took a long breath, let it out easy and tightened his finger on the trigger. The rifle jumped in his hands and the foremost Modoc fell face forward from his running horse. The report of Ben's rifle was only an instant behind his own, and a horse fell, spilling its rider. Both men were using the Porter Percussion Turret rifle, .44 caliber, firing nine shots. Steadying himself, Jean fired twice more and saw Ben's second man swing away, clinging to his horse with only a mane-hold, his body slumped far forward. The Modocs drew off, two men gone, another wounded, and shaded their eyes after Jean and Ben Turk. Accustomed as they were only to single-shot rifles, the burst of firing was too much for them.

  At Jacksonville they stopped for coffee and sandwiches, and an hour farther along they mounted a tree-covered knoll and caught an hour's sleep, trusting the horses to awaken them if Indians approached. Twice more they exchanged horses, giving up the grays with reluctance, knowing such horses were rare. They passed the place called Jump-Off Joe, and later, crossing Cow Creek, they saw more Indian signs. At Joe Knott's Tavern they exchanged horses again. After a meal and a short rest they pushed on.

  An hour out of Knott's it began to rain and with less than two hundred miles to go they spotted a cabin, barn, and corrals. Beyond was some forty acres of stubble. They rode toward the cabin, hallooing their presence. A man with yellow side-whiskers stood in the door, rifle in hand. "Light an' set, strangers," he invited, "you're the first folks we seen in two weeks." "Modocs are raiding," Jean explained, then jerked his head to indicate the stubble. "What was that ... wheat?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "I'll buy it. How much have you?"

  "Done sold it, mister. Feller name of Bonwit from Oregon City bought wheat all through here. Why, he must have upward of two thousand bushels headed for the Willamette."

  A meal and thirty minutes later they stepped into the saddle. Bonwit of Oregon City was the man to see.

  He was a stocky man in a store-bought suit and a cigar clamped in his hard mouth. His face was wide, his hair sparse and rumpled. He rolled his dead cigar in his jaws and spat into a brass spittoon. "I'll sell," he said flatly, "for cash!"

  "I'll take two thousand bushels, delivered in Portland," LaBarge said, and began counting out the gold.

  Bonwit rolled his cigar again and shot a glance at LaBarge from astonished eyes.

  "You carried that over the trail ... just you two?"

  "Part of the way we had Modocs with us."

  They sold their horses in Portland and pocketed the money. They had ridden six hundred and sixty-five miles in one hundred and forty-four hours.

  Chapter 14

  Baron Paul Zinnovy sat at his desk in a San Francisco hotel. The wheat had been destroyed but LaBarge had vanished, and it worried him. A close watch had been kept on the schooner until it sailed; LaBarge was not aboard. He paced the floor, scowling. Rotcheff seemed willing to remain right here in San Francisco, and as long as he did so, he would be safe. He had his instructions as to Rotcheff but nothing could be done here. If Rotcheff was lost at sea farther north there would be no investigation but his own. Or at a landing on one of the lesser islands they might be attacked by the Kolush... Officially, the Russian American Company was losing money, but actually a few key men were doing very well indeed between paying low prices to the promyshleniki and padding expenses in stockholders' reports. If Rotcheff succeeded in getting wheat to Sitka conditions would be alleviated and prices could no longer be held down.

  It was dangerous to leave Rotcheff unwatched. There were Boston men here in San Francisco who could offer evidence on the cruelties of the Company, and Rotcheff could choose his own time to come north--perhaps one inopportune for Zinnovy. None of his agents had learned anything of LaBarge. On the evening of the fire he had been seen riding with Helena de Gagarin, but had dropped off the world right after that, and whatever she knew she was keeping to herself. Without wheat LaBarge could not really cause any serious trouble, and yet it was strange that he should have disappeared. Still, the thing to do was to take one thing at a time and the first was Rotcheff.

  The Susquehanna, as Jean LaBarge had renamed the schooner, arrived in Portland only a few hours after he did. Knowing that if he reached Sitka before the Baron Zinnovy his chances would be greater to get the cargo of fur he wanted, he laid his course for Queen Charlotte Sound as soon as the last of the wheat was aboard.

  Clearing the mouth of the Columbia with a cold wind kicking up whitecaps around them, the Susquehanna lay over on her side and took the bone in her teeth, pointing her bows into the cold northern seas as if anxious for the green water that lay ahead.

  LaBarge, his wind-brown face wet with flying scud and spray, stood beside Larsen at the wheel, watching her move along under a full head of sail. His sea boots and oilskins were shining wet, the sky was gray and lowering with clouds, but the wind was good.

  "How was the trip up the coast?"

  "Flying fish sailing ... it was good time."

  "How about the Russian ship?"

  "I think she go to sea soon. We see her loading stores." He went below to study the charts again, glancing at Kohl asleep in his bunk, his body moving slightly to the roll of the schooner. If the wind held... Hours later when he came down to shake Kohl awake, the mate opened his eyes at once. "How is she?"

  "Holding steady, and we're making knots." He took off his sou'wester. "She's raining a little, and we're catching some spray, but the wind is right. Just what the doctor ordered."

  Kohl shrugged into a thick sweater. "You figuring on trouble in Sitka?" "Not if we can get out before Zinnovy gets there. Sitka should be glad to see the wheat."

  "What then?"

  "We discharge as quickly as possible, stock with whatever we can get of food and water, then lay a course for Cross Sound. With luck we'll have our furs and be on our way south before Zinnovy can get his patrol boat to watching us." "We'll be lucky to find furs that fast. There'll be ships ahead of us." Jean grinned. "Don't worry about it. I know where there's furs to be had ... plenty of them."

  Kohl cocke
d an eye at him. "Seems to me you know a lot." LaBarge shugged. "I know enough. Listen, Barney, I hired you because you're one of the' best men with a ship on the west coast. I hired your ability, all your knowledge, but this much I know. You may know things I don't about particular bits of this northwest coast, but I know more about the whole coast than any man alive. I've made it my business to know."

  "That won't help if Zinnovy gets you."

  "One thing at a time."

  LaBarge rolled in his bunk. Outside the hull, just beyond his ear, he could hear the whispering wash of the sea, rustling by with its strange secrets, its untold tales. On deck the sky would be gray with the last of the day's light, and there would be phosphorus in the water. There would be no stars tonight, or if any, a mere glimpse between rifted clouds. Yet he was strangely content. This was the world he wanted, this was the way. Sailing north in command of his own ship to trade along that coast that had so long held his thoughts.

  Rising some hours later, Jean shrugged into a sweater and his oilskins and went topside. A pale-hearted moon hung above the fo'm'st and the sea rushed past in the half-darkness. Spray blew against his face and he put out his tongue, tasting the salt.

  Walking forward along the deck he watched the black, glistening water as the great waves rose and then slid away beneath the hull. Aft there was no sign of anything else upon the sea; they were a tiny microcosm, a little lost world of their own, moving upon the sea with their own heart beating in time to the sea's great rhythm and the talking of the wind in the shrouds. Far behind him there was a girl with green eyes and dark hair, a tall and regal girl who had walked beside him briefly, a girl who was not his and could never be his, yet a girl who held his heart now and would hold it always. He walked aft and found Kohl, wide as a door in his bulky clothes, standing by the port rail.

  "How does she go?"

  "She's a dream ship, this one. If the Russkies get her, I'll shoot myself."