The Man Called Noon

by Louis L'Amour

  He glanced up the steep chimney that led to the top of the mesa. One misstep in the climb might send one crashing down and over the brink into the valley below; and anyone caught midway in the climb by someone approaching from above would be helpless.

  "Will they follow us?" Fan asked.

  "They've got to be rid of us. We know too much, and Ben Janish knows I've been sent to kill him."

  "Could we get out if we went back there?"

  "I doubt it. I dropped the rope, and I hope they accept that as an accident and think we're trapped. If they buy that idea they won't follow us. In any case, a man with a rifle could shoot down that long passage and stop them."

  "But you're not back there . . . why?"

  He shrugged again. "Maybe I just don't want to kill unless I have to ... maybe I'm hoping there's a way out up there." He indicated the chimney.

  It was about four feet wide at the bottom, narrowing to less than three toward the top. Broken rock, all of it loose and jagged, lay along the bottom or along the side along which they must climb. Behind them as they climbed would be the vast gulf of the canyon, its bottom far below.

  Obviously the people who had come to this spring, the growers of corn and the makers of the black-on-red pottery, had climbed this chute, but conditions at that long-ago time might have been far different. Much erosion had taken place, and wind and rain, ice and roots had operated here; and once they started to climb, rocks and earth in the chute might suddenly give way and slide right over them, and there would be no escape.

  He lay down and took a long drink from the cold water of the spring. When he rose, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked up at the chute. "Will you try that with me?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Once we start, there will be no turning back. Climbing down would be just as hard as climbing up. We'll have to keep going."

  "All right."

  Still he hesitated. Perhaps as Ruble Noon, the hunter of outlaws, he had been fearless; but if so he was not fearless now. He knew how uncertain such slides can be; he realized well the danger.

  "Isn't it strange?" Fan said. "I know so little about you, but I feel safe with you. I always have."

  "I don't know much about myself. I do know that my name was once Jonas Mandrin, that I had been a journalist of sorts, and that later I had an arms company. But that doesn't tell very much."

  "May I call you Jonas?"

  "If you like." He took up one of the sacks, "We'd better be going now. I have no idea what's waiting up there. They could have found another route to head us off."

  "How would they know where we will appear?"

  That was true, but he did not underrate Niland, nor Ben Janish either. They were shrewd men, and Niland was playing a dangerous game, risking not only his respectable reputation but his life.

  "You'd better go first," he said. "If you slip I might be able to catch you."

  He had two sacks, but would leave one behind now. He changed the extra ammunition to the sack he was to carry, and slid a side of bacon in, too. There was food enough for several days if they were careful. The sack would make balance difficult, especially as it could not easily be strapped on.

  Suddenly he heard them. The sound was distant, but it was distinct enough. They were coming along the passage!

  Abruptly he turned toward the chute. "Let's go," he said.

  Fan looked at the chute, and then said, "You go first ... please."

  There was no time to argue. He tested a rock with his foot - it seemed solid. He swung his weight to it and began to climb. One step, two ... three.

  Using his hands to feel for good grips, he worked his way up the steep incline. Once a stone rolled under him, and he glanced back. Fan was close behind him, and beyond her was the dark depth of the canyon.

  He started climbing once more. The top was such a few feet away, but the distance seemed enormous. He felt for another grip, hoisted the sack a bit to let it rest, then went on. The chute was even steeper than it had seemed. Perspiration was streaming down his face, down his ribs underneath his shirt, and his wounded shoulder was stiff. Gasping with effort, he paused again to rest for a moment. Glancing up, he could see the rim, now so close. If Niland and Janish found them now they could be shot like frogs in a tub.

  He felt for a foothold, and started to push himself up when the rock gave way suddenly. He felt himself going, and with a wild grab at the wall, caught his fingers over a thin edge of rock and clung tight. Even as he grasped the edge, he felt a hand close on his ankle. Behind them he could hear rocks cascading down plunge into the canyon below.

  He tugged himself a little higher. The walls of the chute were closer together here and he got one foot against the rock wall opposite and pushed himself back until his shoulders were against the wall behind him.

  Braced there, he drew his other leg up, with Fan clinging to his foot, but helping with her own foot.

  He swung the sack over and up, landing it a couple of feet above him on the slide. Fan had her own grip now, and was edging up closer. Using his hands against the rock wall behind him and his feet on the one opposite, he hitched himself higher ... a foot, two feet.

  Bracing himself, he grasped the sack and swung it again, gaining only a few inches. He hitched higher, and heard voices from below. They were wondering how their quarry had disappeared, but it would be only a moment until they were discovered.

  He worked himself a little higher, threw the sack and got a good lift, gaining a full yard. He started to turn around, and suddenly heard a yell below. He looked down and saw a man he had never seen before pointing up at him and yelling. "Ben! Ben, we got him!"

  "Fan," he said quietly, "crawl right over me. Come on, quick ... and don't ask questions!"

  She scrambled up, and he caught her by the waist. Lying almost flat, his feet braced against the rocks on either side, he literally lifted her over and above him. It was only a few yards to the top now.

  "Keep going!" he said sharply. "When you get up there you can cover me with a rifle."

  He slipped the thong off his six-gun and, gripping it in one hand, he began to hitch himself up, keeping his eyes on the space below.

  Suddenly a head loomed, and instantly he fired. He heard a scream, saw a man clap his hands to his head and fall ... he fell a long way, his scream trailing out behind him.

  A shot hit the rock near Noon, scarring the face of the wall with white slash; then came another ... a near miss.

  He scrambled higher, then deliberately dislodged a heavy rock with one foot and watched it fall. It rolled over and over, fell a few feet, hit a rock, and bounded into space, hit again, and then fell clear.

  With bullets smashing the rocks below him, he threw himself at the rim, made it, and rolled over. There he lay still, panting. For a moment he lay sprawled on the coarse grass, his muscles trembling with the release from strain, his mind a vacuum. When he did glance around he saw Fan near him, her face pale.

  "Are we all right?" she whispered.

  "We'll never be all right," he replied, "until they are dead, or driven away. We are the hunted, and we have gone as far as we can go."

  "What will we do?"

  "We will fight. We have not hunted trouble, but it takes two sides to make a peace. The hunters like nothing better than to see the hunted come walking to them, unarmed. We have no choice now, Fan, so we will fight . . . fight as they haven't yet seen us fight."

  Chapter Sixteen

  He shoved back from the rim and got to his feet. They were on top of the mesa in the clear, cool air. A soft wind stirred the air around Fan's cheek. About fifty feet away were the ruins of an ancient village, which had once been two rows of houses, back to back, but was now no more than a few shallow pits and ridges of earth, littered with fragments of the red-on-black pottery.

  The wide sky was above them and around them. They stood upon an island where only the clouds were close; nothing moved about them. It was a moment of pristine stilln
ess.

  They stood a little apart, merely living the stillness, with no thought of any other time than this. A rattle of rocks drove the stillness away, and brought back with a shock the immediacy of danger.

  "I'll stop them, Fan. You look around ... see what else there is."

  He went back to the rim, crawling the last few feet, then toppled a heavy boulder down the chute. There was a cry, a scramble, a rattle of rocks, and the sound of someone swearing.

  That would hold them for a little while. No man in his right mind was going to attempt that chute with somebody above him ready to send down rocks.

  He got up and walked over to the ruins. Here men had lived, men in an early state of civilization, men organizing their first attempts at a settled community, men thinking out the rules that would give them freedom, for freedom and civilization can exist only where there are laws and agreement.

  The man men called Ruble Noon kicked his toe against a pile of earth. Tom Davidge had accumulated treasure, and men wanted it now who were prepared to obtain it, who were ready to kill his daughter, his friends, anyone. Tom Davidge had excited the greed of men, and here in these western lands men were fighting again the age-old struggle for freedom and for civilization, which is one that always must be fought for. The weak, and those unwilling to make the struggle, soon resign their liberties for the protection of powerful men or paid armies; they begin by being protected, they end by being subjected.

  Ruble Noon was sore and he was tired. He wanted no more of running and fighting, but no end was in sight. He looked across the mesa toward Fan, who had walked toward the edge and was looking for a way down. Her skirt blew in the wind, and he watched for a moment as she walked the rim, occasionally pausing to look over. He went back to the chute and trickled a few small rocks over the edge, merely as a warning.

  Ruble Noon wondered where, exactly, they were. They had gone into the cave and moved away from the mountain cabin, and they had traveled what seemed to be half a mile or so, and now they had emerged on top of a large mesa. From this vantage point, none of the mountains around looked familiar. Obviously he was seeing them from a different viewpoint and their altered appearance left him unsure.

  Already there was darkness in the canyon. When he peered over the edge of the chute, nothing was in sight. He listened, but he heard no voices. No doubt they had decided against attempting the climb for the present, or they decided on another approach. Ben Janish had ridden this country and might know a good deal more about it than Ruble Noon could recall.

  For luck, he started a fair-sized rock rolling down the chute. Other rocks slid with it, and for a moment he could hear the rattle and bump as they went down. When the sound died the evening was empty.

  He took up his rifle and pack and started after Fan. He plodded along, putting one foot ahead of another with effort. He was dog-tired, his head ached, and he wanted nothing so much as sleep.

  As he went across the mesa, he several times saw bits of pottery, usually of the same type as those he had seen at the ruins.

  Fan had seen him coming and had paused beside some low brush. "It will be dark soon," she said. "I've seen no path, no animal tracks. Do you suppose that was the only way up, and that they have closed it off?"

  He shook his head. "There's got to be a way. I've seen some steep-walled mesas, but never one that couldn't be scaled, either up or down."

  Already a star had appeared, for night fell fast in this desert land. The air was chill. He saw a line of trees and started toward it.

  Suddenly the mesa broke off sharply in front of them in a V of rock filled with trees and brush, and sloping steeply down. He saw what he wanted, a thick clump of trees surrounded by blowdowns-trees flattened by the wind and long dead, their whitening bones sprawled across the ground.

  They crossed over them, walking carefully, and when he was among the trees he cut branches for a bed for Fan on the ground under the pines. Pines meant a good chance that this was a south slope. Most of the trees below them were aspen, a thick stand, almost filling the notch. The place was walled in, secluded.

  "We will sleep here," he told Fan. "The bed of dead branches out there will warn us if anyone tries to come close."

  From dead branches he built a small fire, and they made coffee in an empty can after they had eaten the beans from it. There was a trickle of water coming down from a crack in the mesa wall above them, and he put out the fire, making sure every ember was dead. Then he placed the can in a fork of a tree. Some other traveler might need it.

  He built his own bed well back under the trees. When he went back to speak to Fan, she was already asleep. He covered her with his coat, and returned to his bough bed. Chilly as it was, he was soon asleep.

  He awoke suddenly, stiff and cold in the first light The trees were still dark around him, and Fan was sleeping. He got up, wiped off his rifle and hers, and then went a few feet away from the camp to listen. There was no sound but the distant wind in the trees.

  Evidently they had moved well away from the ranch during their escape, and now must be several miles off. Below them, a mile or two away, he could see a meadow where there was what appeared to be a corral... he felt that he should know something about that. It was just a thought, the shadow of a memory that lurked at the rim of his consciousness.

  He came back and sat down. He cleared the action of his rifle and checked the barrel. It was clear and clean, considering the shooting that had been done. Then he checked his Colt.

  Fan sat up. "Have you been waiting for me?" she said. "I'm sorry."

  "We'll go down this notch," he said. "There's a corral or something down there."

  "What are you going to do?"

  'I'm going to fight. They want war, and we can't wish them away, so I'll give them war. I'm tired of running, and now I'm going after them."

  "I'm coming along. After all, you're fighting my fight."

  He did not protest. She would come anyway, and there was no place to leave her.

  They worked their way down the steep slope through the aspens. Ruble Noon felt better, although his shoulder was sore. He moved carefully for fear it might begin bleeding again.

  Beyond the aspens there was a growth of scattered pines, and after that the meadow, with grass standing more than two feet high. Beyond it was a corral and a log cabin. No smoke came from the chimney, nor was there any sign of life, so far as they could see.

  "I know this place," he said. "I am sure I do."

  She looked at him, waiting.

  "There's a well there, just the other side of the cabin. And there are horses in the pasture beyond. There'll be a saddle or two in the cabin, and food there, too."

  "You have been here before?"

  "I am sure of it. Remember, as Ruble Noon I was always hiding out. Nobody ever saw me. That means I must have had several places to hide. Using the same routes all the time would be a dead giveaway, and this may have been one of the places I used. . .."

  He did not remember clearly, and he must think it out. He must try to reconstruct in his mind the plans that would have been used by Ruble Noon, and drawing on the same memory source, he might come up with the right answers.

  Apparently his center of activity had been these mountains, and the cabin in the mountains above the Rafter D had been one hide-out, perhaps the principal one. The ranch below where the old Mexican had lived had been merely a place to pick up a horse when needed. This ranch on which he now centered his attention was obviously on the other side of the mountain, with different lines of communication, different sources of supply.

  But had this actually been a hide-out for him? Or was it, too, merely a place to pick up a horse? Or was it a place with which he had no connection?

  "All right," he said at last. "We're going down there."

  He knew that no place was safe. At any point he might come upon enemies and not know them as such. Even though no smoke was coming from the ranch house, that proved nothing. Keeping to the trees, he began to skirt
the meadow, with Fan close behind him.

  The log cabin was built in two sections, with a roofed porch joining them, Texas fashion. There were pole corrals and the well he seemed to remember. What he did not remember was the old man sitting on a bench at the door, mending a bridle.

  The man glanced up, without surprise. "Howdy," he said. "Been expectin' you. Want I should catch up a horse or two?"

  "You've been expecting me?"

  "Well, there was a lady here. She was inquirin' for a man of your appearance. A right purty woman she was, too."

  Peg Cullane!

  "Was she alone?"

  The old man chuckled. "Now you know darned well no woman that purty would be ridin' out alone. Not so long as there's an able-bodied man in the country. She had two gents with her. Not that I'd call them gents. If I ever seen a couple ridin' the owl-hoot trail, they was. I'd have knowed those two a mile off, an' they come right up close."

  "Did they know you?"

  He cackled. "Nobody ever knowed me, no more than you. But those two . . . Finn Cagle an' German Bayles. Two real bad boys. Me, I didn't know from nothin'.

  " 'Lady,' I said, 'the other side of the mountain is a world away from here. I never been yonder, never figure to go, an' nobody ever comes over. There's no trail.' I pointed up yonder. 'You figure anybody could cross that? Well, they all taken a look an' shook their heads an' rode off."

  "How long ago was this?"

  "Two days ago. She described you almighty well, mister. Too durned well."

  He was a gnarled and wizened old man with a face that looked old enough to have worn out two bodies. Only the hands looked young as they worked at the lacing of the leather. The fingers were quick, adroit, and did not suffer from rheumatism. He wore no gun in sight, but the bib overalls he wore had a slight bulge at the waist line, and a shotgun stood just inside the door.

  "I'll catch up a couple of horses for you." He hesitated a moment, fumbling with his rope. "Now, I ain't one to butt in, mister, but if'n I was you I'd ride almighty careful. I got an idea those folks didn't just ride off. I figure they left somebody behind, somebody with a mighty good rifle."