Hondo (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  The fire smoldered and blinked its light away, finding no fuel, and in the cold sundown Hondo Lane opened his eyes and looked up at the roof, and then swung his feet down.

  The rain was gone. There was no wind. Out there all was silent. He opened the door and stepped out. Broken clouds floated above, and in the far-off west the storm rolled and grumbled like a drunken sergeant in his sleep.

  Lane led out his horse and tightened the cinch, then stepped into the saddle again and followed westward, after the storm.

  And the storm clouds were topped with fire, spears of crimson shot out, piercing the tall sky, and a star appeared. It was cool now, and still.

  The miles fell behind. In the distance there was faint smoke, then came the rain-washed walls of the village and the rain-darkened parade ground, the sutler’s store and the home of the Army west of the Rio Grande.

  Hondo Lane pulled his hat brim lower and started the lineback down the slope. At least, he thought, this is still here.

  But behind this thought there was the memory of a quiet-faced woman and a child, of a house beside a stream, and of a woman moving in the house while he slept. He shifted restlessly in the saddle and swore at the horse to cover his feeling and his wonder at it.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE STORM, SWEEPING westward across the vast reach of desert and mountain, had crossed the little ranch in the basin before it reached Hondo Lane and the bodies of Company C’s fallen veterans. It had come roaring out of the sky, driving before it a barrage of rain that pelted the dry soil, lifting dust as it struck, and bringing to the air that peculiar odor that comes when rain first strikes dry ground.

  Not even the cliff protected the cabin from the force of the storm or from the roar of thunder, but it was filled with warmth, comfort, and the smell of coffee. But it was a house empty, for the man was gone.

  The sound of rushing water in the usually dry wash frightened her a little, for she had seen those torrents move all before them, and had seen them come when the sky was clear above, and rain only over the distant mountains. Yet now the rain was general, and the parched earth of her garden drank it eagerly.

  Some water would remain in the hollow behind the washed-out dam, too. It would last a few weeks, enough so she could irrigate several times, and so it might be the difference between a good crop and none at all.

  Johnny was unnaturally quiet, watching her, his face serious. “Will the man come back, Mommy?”

  “I don’t know, Johnny. He’s very busy.”

  The same question was haunting her own thoughts. Would he return? And why should he? But if he did, what would she do?

  The thought disturbed her. Why should she think of doing anything? What was there to do?

  Worried by her own feelings, she sorted clothes for washing, then dusted and mopped, doing work she had not planned to do, merely to keep her thoughts occupied. Yet she kept wondering about him. Had he found shelter?

  Remembering the incidents of his visit, she tried to tell herself that he was hard, cruel. His attitude toward the dog, toward Johnny…all of it. Yet in her heart she knew he was not cruel. Hard, yes. But how else could he be? And how deep did the hardness go?

  What lessons he had learned had come to him in a bitter school. It was the way he knew of learning, a hard way but a fast way that taught its lessons well. She remembered the way he had come off the pallet, gun in hand. What life had a man lived who could be so alert, even in sleep?

  It was nearly sundown when the rain ended at the basin, and she went outside. The air was miraculously cool and washed clean and clear. To breathe it was like drinking cold water. The sky was still a broken mass of cloud, and thunder rumbled off in the canyon of the faraway western hills. Lowering masses of cloud filled the hollows of the hills and nestled in the saddles where the ridge dipped low. Occasionally the bulging domes of cloud flared incandescent with distant lightning.

  Leaves dripped, water whispered against the banks of the wash, brown and swirling. She fed the horses and stood silent in the yard, looking around at the hills. He was gone. Even his tracks were gone. What kind of woman was she, a married woman and a mother, to be thinking like this of any man?

  A man who had gone as if he had never been. But that was not true. His footprints were gone from the yard, yet something remained, something intangible, yet present. A something that set her heart yearning toward the way his horse had gone, that made her remember the way he walked, the strange, somber, almost lonely expression of his eyes. The hunger in them when she had looked up suddenly and met his gaze…She flushed, remembering it. And the way he had kissed her, and what he had said.

  “A woman walks with her head up ought to kiss a man before she dies.”

  She repeated the words, feeling the heavy beat of her heart. What a strange thing to say to a woman! And the way he had kissed her…not fierce, not possessive, not demanding, and yet so much much more.

  Slow drops from the eaves fell into the barrel placed to catch the runoff. In the late dusk the hills were unnaturally green and lovely after the rain. She would take the horses out to the hills in the morning and picket them on the grass where she could keep watch on them from the garden. She walked to the corral and put her hand on the wet top rail and looked again at the hills. The hills etched themselves against the sky darkening and gray. It would be lonely now, lonely as never before.

  She turned quickly from the thought, gathering her skirt in a quick gesture and biting her lip against sudden tears. She brushed them away hastily and, squaring her shoulders, walked to the house. Yet in the door, as if reluctant to close it finally against the night where he had gone, she turned again to look toward the hills. And the silent hills lay still. Even in the moments of her walking their green had gone, and the dark wings of night shadowed the basin.

  She closed the door and dropped the bar in place. It was no use to think. He was a man with his life to live, a man who had stopped for a night, bought a horse, and ridden away. Other men had come and gone. He was no different…yet he was.

  This was her home. She had no time for pilgrim thoughts to go wandering away over the hills after a strange rider. She had a home and a son. It was like her that she no longer thought of Ed. She did not believe him killed, but he would not come back, not unless he was hurt and running. He was out of her life…a boy who had taken vows it took a man to keep.

  And a woman.

  And keep them she had. Only now he was gone, and their marriage was a shadow thing that had left only Johnny behind it. And even here Ed seemed to have failed; he was a man who left his mark upon nothing, not even upon his son.

  It was enough to think of her son, enough to see that he grew tall and strong, that he became a citizen of his land, a father of children in his time, that he learned to build instead of destroy, that he learned to use the land and protect it, not waste the wealth it gave. This was her mission, her problem.

  There was something her father had said. “We do not own the land, Angie. We hold it in trust for tomorrow. We take our living from it, but we must leave it rich for your son and for his sons and for all of those who shall follow.”

  Yet as she put supper on the table her thoughts were not upon the land. They were hearing the creak of a saddle and a big man’s slow voice, quiet in the room.

  And when she lay in bed and drew the blankets high, she looked up into the darkness and remembered Johnny’s question. “Will the man come back, Mommy?”

  * * *

  —

  THE MORNING WAS nearly gone when Angie took the two buckets and walked to the well. The sun was high, and only a few lost tufts of cottony cloud floated in the wide sky. All morning she had worked steadily around the house, only going out to feed the horses and to check the amount of water behind the dam. There was not so much as she had hoped, but enough to irrigate her garden several times. She had cleared mud aw
ay from the gate her father had built so the water would be free to flow when it was opened. Her decision to take the horses to the hills had been changed in favor of discretion. She did not believe the Apaches would ever bother her, but horses were a temptation she did not intend to make too inviting.

  She filled the first bucket, then the second. She heard no sound, and was standing looking toward the hills when something made her turn.

  An Indian had come from the trees and sat the back of his rough-looking paint pony, staring at her. She had heard no sound, no movement.

  Another appeared, and then another. And then they began to materialize from the trees as though by magic until there were a dozen.

  She had seen them ride by, from time to time she had seen them at the spring, yet this was the first time she had seen so many at such close range.

  They were men of medium height who seemed shorter than their height because of wide shoulders and deep chests. Most of their faces were flat-lipped and cruel, but all were sinewy and powerful in build, dark-skinned and dusty now, their lank black hair hanging to their shoulders, bound only with headbands.

  One of these men sat a very striking pony, and by his looks, Angie knew him for their leader. Her eyes looked past him at a tall, evil-looking Apache who whispered something to the older man, who seemed to be a chief. From the mane of the tall Indian’s horse hung several strips of bloody flesh and hair. Scalps, and none of them more than a day old.

  She felt herself turn faint and sick, but she forced herself to stand straight. Pale and frightened, she nevertheless managed to keep her voice strong as she spoke to the older man.

  “You are Vittoro.”

  “I am the one who is called Vittoro.”

  “Your horses have watered here.”

  His flat black eyes made no change. His face might have been hewn from mahogany.

  “You were warned.”

  “I could not leave. My husband is away. And this is my home.”

  Vittoro looked at her, and the Indians waited. A vagrant breeze caught at the drying dust of the yard and it swirled briefly, then died. The cottonwoods rustled among themselves.

  “This is an Apache spring.”

  “The Apaches live in the mountains,” Angie replied. “They do not need this spring. I have a son. I do need it.”

  “But when the Apache comes this way, where shall he drink? His throat is dry. You would keep him from water.”

  “There is water yonder.” She pointed to the hills. “But if the people of Vittoro come in peace, they may drink. When have I denied them?”

  Vittoro’s voice was shaded with impatience, and with a stab of fear she knew that talking was over.

  “It is sworn there will be no whites in Apache territory.” He turned on the tall Indian. “Silva!” He spoke rapidly in the Apache tongue, and Angie saw the quick grin on Silva’s face. The tall Indian slid from his pony. He touched the mane of Vittoro’s palomino and said something, evidently comparing it with the color of Angie’s hair. Then he drew his knife and started toward her.

  She did not scream. She could not. Nor would she let them see her fear. She stood straighter, putting contempt in her face. And then Johnny came out of the door.

  He had the Walker Colt. He was holding the big pistol up and pointing it at Silva.

  Silva stopped, and one of the Indians chuckled. Even Silva grinned at the ludicrous sight of the boy holding a pistol nearly as large as himself, and so obviously determined.

  Angie wheeled and started for the rifle on the porch, but an Indian grabbed her from behind. As he did so, the gun bellowed.

  The gun was tipped high, and when it went off the bullet creased Silva’s scalp, knocking him down. Johnny, knocked backward by the kick of the huge pistol, also fell.

  Jerking loose from the Indian who held her, Angie ran to Johnny. Silva lay still on the ground, unconscious.

  Vittoro sat on his pony, his face showing no expression. He looked at the boy. “You are the mother of a strong son,” he said quietly. “It is well you have no man. You might raise an army of warriors to fight my people.”

  “I have no wish to fight your people.” Angie spoke with dignity. “Your people have your ways, I have mine. I live in peace when I am left in peace. I did not think,” her chin lifted, “that the great Vittoro made war upon women!”

  Vittoro slid from his horse and drew his knife. Angie clutched her son, wishing she had picked up the pistol, knowing now it would do no good. There was nothing anyone could do now.

  He walked toward them, a bigger man than she had believed, and every inch the chief. The Indians behind him sat their horses in silence.

  Vittoro picked up Johnny’s hand and knicked his thumb with the point of the knife, then his own. He pressed them together, their blood mingling.

  “He is my blood brother. I name him Small Warrior, of the Moon Dog Lodge of the Chiricahua Apache.” He looked at Angie, a flicker of something that might have been kindness in his eyes. “You will care for him well. As mother of a Chiricahua warrior, you may live here in safety.”

  Silva came swiftly to his feet, staring around. He put a hand to his head. It came away bloody. Knife in hand, he started forward, but Vittoro spoke sharply. Sulking, Silva turned and strode to his pony.

  Angie clutched Johnny. Vittoro swung to the back of the palomino. “I knew you were a great warrior,” she said. “I hope someday someone befriends your sons.”

  The iron face turned bleakly savage. “My sons are dead—in a white man’s prison.”

  They rode swiftly off. Only Silva looked back, and Angie caught that look. From that day on she knew only Vittoro stood between her and the shame and anger of Silva. And she knew the story of Silva’s defeat would be told in the villages, and his hate would harden to an evil thing.

  She lifted the pistol from the ground. It had been loaded. Even when he was not with them, Hondo Lane had been the reason of their security. It was he that had advised her, and had loaded the pistol.

  CHAPTER 7

  BEYOND THE SPRAWLING villages of adobes and jacales were the neatly ranged tents of the cavalry unit, and beside them and forming two sides of the square were the sutler’s store, the quartermaster’s storehouse, the bakery, the headquarters building, the blacksmith shop, and the stables. None of these were imposing structures. All looked squalid and dismal even after the bathing of rain.

  A few scouts and frontier drifters lounged in the area near the sutler’s store, or sat on the steps before it. They watched the lone rider come down the slope and ventured guesses as to who he was and where he came from. It was not a time to be riding alone, and not many were willing to chance it. Not even the hardy souls who loitered around the sutler’s store.

  A man came to the door of a jacal, a structure of upright logs set in holes in the ground and plastered with mud, roofed with smaller branches and more mud. He stared at the rider. He said something over his shoulder and another face appeared in the door of the jacal, and then both men walked out.

  It took little to get men out of the jacales, places more suited to the residence of scattered and indifferent centipedes, scorpions, or occasional tarantulas than of human beings.

  “Him, all right.” Dick spat tobacco juice at an unoffending lizard and chuckled. “Knowed it.”

  Hondo walked the lineback to the hitch rail and swung down. Sam stopped a few feet away, looking at the scouts without pleasure. He did not even pant. He just sat and stared glumly.

  “Well,” said Buffalo, a huge, whiskered man in a greasy buckskin shirt. “I owe you a jug of redeye. Settle come payday.” He walked around the dog. “That dog’s as friendly as a puma.”

  He looked carefully at the lineback, noting the strangeness of the horse. His eyes were sharp and attentive and as quick to see and catalogue as the eyes of an Apache. Hondo Lane had been pla
ces and none of it had been easy. It showed where the scout could see it.

  “Figured your hair would be hanging in some Apache wickiup. Bet Dick on it. You’re sure a disappointment to me, Hondo.”

  “You like to won. I wore out some horses.”

  “You wore out you, while you was at it,” Dick said. “Lemme get that war bag.”

  Headquarters building was a structure of adobe and rough planks identified by the flagpole. A sergeant sat behind a box that did duty for a desk. An enlisted cavalryman and a scout sat on a bench against the wall.

  A tall, rather handsome young man with a petulant, irritable expression was addressing the sergeant. He was a lean-bodied man with a low-tied gun and something of the dress of a frontier dandy, limited only by his cash outlay.

  “I say I got a right to talk to this here bowneck major.” His voice was casually insolent. “I don’t talk to no underlings.”

  “The Major’s sleeping.” The sergeant spoke in a careful, noncommittal tone. His manner betrayed all too clearly that he spoke to a civilian, to a man he disliked, and to a man he would cheerfully throw out of the office if it were permitted. At the same time, he spoke with the exasperated patience of a man who knows he must keep peace with citizens.

  “That’s too bad about him. I’m a citizen and I want to see him.”

  “Major Sherry ain’t slept for three days. I can tell you everything just as well as him. We ain’t heard nothin’ from up north.”