Hondo (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  Saddles creaked; men watched the hills. Sweat darkened the hides of the horses. The sun was hot. The uniforms of the men were stiff with ancient sweat and dust, and their lips cracked. Occasionally a low wind moved among them, cooling and fresh like a draught of cold clear water.

  Sergeant Young mopped his face and looked over at Hondo. “You think he’s coming?”

  “I know he is.”

  “How much time we got?”

  “Three-four hours.”

  “Wished the lieutenant was up.”

  Hondo Lane said nothing. He knew how the sergeant felt. They were pitifully short of officers all along the frontier.

  Lane dropped back along the column, then swept the hills behind them. No sign of anything yet, but it was too soon. But once the medicine was made, Silva would not wait long. He was dangerous, but too impatient. He would be relentless and ruthless, but less shrewd than old Vittoro had been.

  Behind the column the dust settled and there were only the tracks, a plain trail that nothing could remove. Not even a bad storm would wipe out that trail, and behind them would be the Mescaleros and their allies.

  He looked around at the parched and lonely country, then swung the lineback. There was yet time, but to hole up and make a stand would be worse than useless. They must keep going, get near enough for a relief column to reach them.

  He rode after the moving train, and they plodded on wearily, pushing toward the afternoon and the rim of distant hills beyond the post, still so far, far away.

  There was a brief noon halt near a water hole whose waters swiftly dwindled and died as the horses drank. No man touched any water but that from his canteen, and sparingly. The horses were all-important now, and each horse drank.

  Lieutenant McKay was delirious, talking of Richmond, of the Point, and of a girl somewhere who had said no, when she could not have found a better man.

  The sun was high and hot. Fifteen minutes of halt, then the column moved out. Men slumped in the saddle, weary after miles, yet knowing what was yet to come. In the wagons the cursing man had lost consciousness, and a man with a broken collarbone and a bandaged skull was singing to a mandolin the good songs, the old songs….

  In the hot stillness of the afternoon they came down from the hills, their dark bodies dusty with the trail and the column swung its few wagons into a tight circle and the rifles spoke. The Indians vanished, then came again, swiftly, some on horseback, but more upon foot. The Apache was a daring runner, and he trusted his feet.

  Cold eyes looked down the barrels of rifles and then men fired. Dust leaped from the hillside. An Apache stopped in mid-stride as though he had run headlong into some obstruction, and then he fell, his shrill dying cry hanging in the stillness of the afternoon long after the man was dead.

  The charge ended, the rush was gone, the hillside was a barren and empty thing, alive with death.

  Like ghosts, somebody said. Vanished, melted into the landscape, as was the Apache way. A rifle spoke. A trooper cried out and died. Hondo rode swiftly around the inner circle. He called his orders in a low, hard voice, Sergeant Young making the other loop. The rush came suddenly, and as it did the column sprang into life and went hurtling forward, wagons three abreast, horses racing, surrounded by cavalry.

  It caught the Apaches by surprise. Most of them were dismounted, moving forward among the rocks. It caught them unprepared and the tight knot of wagons and men rolled out and over the crest and down the long sweep of the valley. A mile fell behind…two miles. Whooping Indians came up behind, firing and missing, yet racing forward.

  Hondo yelled at Young and the sergeant gave a quick command. Ten troopers swung their horses into line and dropped to the ground, to their knees. An instant they waited as the Apaches charged nearer. The volley was a solid sound, a sound that struck and melted the advancing Indians. Swiftly the kneeling men fired again.

  Leaving chaos behind them, they swung into their saddles and were off after the train.

  “We’ll try that again!” Young yelled.

  “Won’t work again,” Hondo said. “They’ll be scattered out now.”

  But some of the attackers had gone on ahead, cutting across the hills, and now they came down, pouring over the crest like a dark flood, lit by flashes of color and flame. The wagons rounded again into a circle and the troopers swung down from their horses. Hondo put the butt of his Winchester against his shoulder and fired, his shots seeking out the Apaches, firing carefully, squeezing off every shot.

  Attacks began and ended. The Apache was never one to trust a wild charge. He was a shrewd and careful fighter, knowing the value of cover, moving with care, never wasting time or shots. They moved in closer, then closer.

  They were elusive, targets scarcely seen. A flash of brown against the desert, then no sign of life, no movement. Worming their way closer, they used scant inches of cover for their movements. When they came again it would be from close up, their charge only a few yards. Hondo worked his way around, warning the troopers to be ready. He scattered the few men with pistols in positions to cover every yard of space.

  A half hour passed. The sun beat down from a wide and brassy sky. Sweat trickled down the faces and necks of the waiting troopers. Its salt made them blink. Their rifles were hot from the desert sun.

  The Apaches knew the value of waiting, and as they waited, they drew nearer. A single rifle shot sounded. A trooper had seen a flashing brown leg and fired. His shot ripped the heel from the vanishing Indian.

  Silence lay heavily upon the circle. Heat waves shimmered. A man coughed, a horse stamped at a fly. There was no other sound. Hondo shifted his Colt, drying a sweaty palm. They waited, hugging their sparse cover.

  Suddenly fifty horsemen charged over the hill. Eyes lifted to them and rifles…and in that instant, the nearer Indians charged also. It was perfect—except for Hondo’s pistol men.

  There were six of them in all, but their fire was point-blank. It broke the force of the charge, and the Indians that reached the barricades were clubbed down by battering rifle butts. And then the horsemen came.

  Some had gone down, but a dozen leaped their horses into the circle. One big brave lunged his horse at Hondo, his lance poised. Hondo’s step saved him and his quick grasp of the lance wrenched the Indian from the saddle. The Indian hit on the small of his neck, and as he tried to roll over, Hondo kicked him under the chin, then shot him.

  A horse was down, screaming. The inner circle was a whirl of fighting men. From the outer circle came the heavy bark of rifles to prove that Indians were still coming. Lieutenant McKay was on one elbow, firing his pistol.

  Hondo swung his pistol barrel at a head, heard it crunch, saw a lance aimed for him and swung aside. And then in the swirl of dust and smoke he saw Silva.

  The big Indian’s face was a twisted mask of fury and he leaped his horse at Hondo. The animal’s shoulder hit Hondo and he was knocked rolling. Silva swung down from his horse and sprang, knife in hand. Hondo came up from the ground and his kick caught Silva below the knee. The Indian stopped in mid-stride and another Apache swept by. Hondo struck out at him and saw the man fall, then caught up his broken lance in time to meet Silva’s lance. He parried the blow, then gutted the Indian as the Indian had gutted the dog.

  Silva went down, the lance ripping him up, and Hondo said, “Like my dog…you die!”

  As suddenly as it had begun, the attack broke. A swarm of Apaches swept round him, and then they were gone, carrying Silva among them.

  And then there was only settling dust and the moans of the wounded and the dying.

  Again the wagons rolled, only now there were more wounded, now there were empty saddles, now there were more bandaged heads.

  Sergeant Young dropped back beside the wagon where Hondo rode. “That hurt ’em!” he said. “We hurt ’em bad!”

  “They won’t bother
us.”

  “You don’t think they’ll attack again?”

  “Another chief’s dead. We’ll make the fort before they have another leader.”

  Angie started to bandage a wound on Hondo’s arm. He handed the reins to Johnny, who accepted them eagerly.

  “He’s never learned to drive!” Angie protested.

  “By the time we make California, he’ll be top teamster.” He yelled shrilly at the horses, and they moved out.

  Angie finished with the arm, and held it, and all up and down the column there was only the movement of wagons rolling, the sound of horses’ hoofs, and an occasional low moan from a wagon.

  From far back in the column a mandolin sounded and a rolling bass started the words of “Sweet Betsy from Pike.”

  A long time later, when the column rolled over the long hill and headed for the parade ground, Hondo looked up from the reins he now held. He could see the flag fluttering in the wind, the troops marching onto the field for retreat, and westward the land was bright with a setting sun, and a dull rose shaded the clouds and faded away against the higher heavens, and from the parade ground he heard a bugle, its notes bright and clear.

  He heard Sergeant Young’s command, saw the men form up, and saw them, battered and wounded and bloody, riding proudly to the parade ground.

  He saw them go, and knew their fierce pride, and their glory. But he was remembering a long meadow fresh with new-cut hay, a house where smoke would soon again rise from the chimney, and where shadows would gather in the darkness under the trees, quiet shadows. And beside him a woman held in her arms a sleeping child…a woman who would be there with him, in that house, before that hearth.

  WHAT IS LOUIS L’AMOUR’S LOST TREASURES?

  Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures is a project created to release some of the author’s more unconventional manuscripts from the family archives.

  Currently included in the project are Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures: Volume 1, published in the fall of 2017, and Volume 2, which will be published in the fall of 2019. These books contain both finished and unfinished short stories, unfinished novels, literary and motion picture treatments, notes, and outlines. They are a wide selection of the many works Louis was never able to publish during his lifetime.

  In 2018 we released No Traveller Returns, L’Amour’s never-before-seen first novel, which was written between 1938 and 1942. In the future, there may be a selection of even more L’Amour titles.

  Additionally, many notes and alternate drafts to Louis’s well-known and previously published novels and short stories will now be included as “bonus feature” postscripts within the books that they relate to. For example, the Lost Treasures postscript to Last of the Breed will contain early notes on the story, the short story that was discovered to be a missing piece of the novel, the history of the novel’s inspiration and creation, and information about unproduced motion picture and comic book versions.

  An even more complete description of the Lost Treasures project, along with a number of examples of what is in the books, can be found at louislamourslosttreasures.com. The website also contains a good deal of exclusive material, such as even more pieces of unknown stories that were too short or too incomplete to include in the Lost Treasures books, plus personal photos, scans of original documents, and notes.

  All of the works that contain Lost Treasures project materials will display the Louis L’Amour’s Lost Treasures banner and logo.

  POSTSCRIPT

  By Beau L’Amour

  Hondo is perhaps the best known of all my father’s works. Initially, it was just the paperback novelization of a motion picture, a type of literature that was nearly guaranteed to keep it from garnering any respect at all. However, it was a major point of departure for Dad’s career, the place where he began to make a name for himself as something other than a guy who wrote stories for the pulp magazines. It also remains, more than six decades and ninety novels later, the starting point for many people when they first begin to read Louis L’Amour.

  For such a career-changing work, Hondo has a very complex and sometimes controversial history, a history that starts with the short story that was its genesis and inspiration, “The Gift of Cochise.”

  THE GIFT OF COCHISE

  Tense, and white to the lips, Angie Lowe stood in the door of her cabin with a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. Beside the door was a Winchester ’73, and on the table inside the house were two Walker Colts.

  Facing the cabin were twelve Apaches on ragged calico ponies, and one of the Indians had lifted his hand, palm outward. The Apache sitting the white-splashed bay pony was Cochise.

  Beside Angie were her seven-year-old son Jimmy and her five-year-old daughter Jane.

  Cochise sat his pony in silence; his black, unreadable eyes studied the woman, the children, the cabin, and the small garden. He looked at the two ponies in the corral and the three cows. His eyes strayed to the small stack of hay cut from the meadow, and to the few steers farther up the canyon.

  Three times the warriors of Cochise had attacked this solitary cabin and three times they had been turned back. In all, they had lost seven men, and three had been wounded. Four ponies had been killed. His braves reported that there was no man in the house, only a woman and two children, so Cochise had come to see for himself this woman who was so certain a shot with a rifle and who killed his fighting men.

  These were some of the same fighting men who had outfought, outguessed, and outrun the finest American army on record, an army outnumbering the Apaches by a hundred to one. Yet a lone woman with two small children had fought them off, and the woman was scarcely more than a girl. And she was prepared to fight now. There was a glint of admiration in the old eyes that appraised her. The Apache was a fighting man, and he respected fighting blood.

  “Where is your man?”

  “He has gone to El Paso.” Angie’s voice was steady, but she was frightened as she had never been before. She recognized Cochise from descriptions, and she knew that if he decided to kill or capture her it would be done. Until now, the sporadic attacks she had fought off had been those of casual bands of warriors who raided her in passing.

  “He has been gone a long time. How long?”

  Angie hesitated, but it was not in her to lie. “He has been gone four months.”

  Cochise considered that. No one but a fool would leave such a woman, or such fine children. Only one thing could have prevented his return. “Your man is dead,” he said.

  Angie waited, her heart pounding with heavy, measured beats. She had guessed long ago that Ed had been killed, but the way Cochise spoke did not imply that Apaches had killed him, only that he must be dead or he would have returned.

  “You fight well,” Cochise said. “You have killed my young men.”

  “Your young men attacked me.” She hesitated, then added, “They stole my horses.”

  “Your man is gone. Why do you not leave?”

  Angie looked at him with surprise. “Leave? Why, this is my home. This land is mine. This spring is mine. I shall not leave.”

  “This was an Apache spring,” Cochise reminded her reasonably.

  “The Apache lives in the mountains,” Angie replied. “He does not need this spring. I have two children, and I do need it.”

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

  The very fact that Cochise was willing to talk raised her hopes. There had been a time when the Apache made no war on the white man. “Cochise speaks with a forked tongue,” she said. “There is water yonder.” She gestured toward the hills, where Ed had told her there were springs. “But if the people of Cochise come in peace they may drink at this spring.”

  The Apache leader smiled faintly. Such a woman would rear a nation of warriors. He nodded at Ji
mmy. “The small one—does he also shoot?”

  “He does,” Angie said proudly, “and well, too!” She pointed to an upthrust leaf of prickly pear. “Show them, Jimmy.”

  The prickly pear was an easy two hundred yards away, and the Winchester was long and heavy, but he lifted it eagerly and steadied it against the doorjamb as his father had taught him, held his sight an instant, then fired. The bud on top of the prickly pear disintegrated.

  There were grunts of appreciation from the dark-faced warriors. Cochise chuckled. “The little warrior shoots well. It is well you have no man. You might raise an army of little warriors to fight my people.”

  “I have no wish to fight your people,” Angie said quietly. “Your people have your ways, and I have mine. I live in peace when I am left in peace. I did not think,” she added with dignity, “that the great Cochise made war on women!”

  The Apache looked at her, then turned his pony away. “My people will trouble you no longer,” he said. “You are the mother of a strong son.”

  “What about my two ponies?” she called after him. “Your young men took them from me.”

  Cochise did not turn or look back, and the little cavalcade of riders followed him away. Angie stepped back into the cabin and closed the door. Then she sat down abruptly, her face white, the muscles in her legs trembling.

  When morning came, she went cautiously to the spring for water. Her ponies were back in the corral. They had been returned during the night.

  Slowly, the days drew on. Angie broke a small piece of the meadow and planted it. Alone, she cut hay in the meadow and built another stack. She saw Indians several times, but they did not bother her. One morning, when she opened her door, a quarter of antelope lay on the step, but no Indian was in sight. Several times, during the weeks that followed, she saw moccasin tracks near the spring.