to Tame a Land (1955)

by L'amour, Louis

"They stole the cows," I said.

  "I know."

  "And Ma's picture."

  He glanced at me. "Oh, I see."

  It was a wild and lonely land of great red walls an d massive buttes. There were canyons knifed deep in th e rocky crust of the earth, and cactus with red flowers , and there were Indians, but they seemed friendly enough , and we traveled on, me riding Old Blue.

  The sun rose hot and high in the mornings, and sometimes we took all morning to get to the bottom of a canyon, then all afternoon climbing out. We crossed wide re d deserts and camped in lonely places by tiny water holes , and my face grew browner and leaner and I learned mor e of the country. And one morning I got up and looked ove r at Logan Pollard.

  "Today I'm fourteen," I said.

  "Fourteen. Too young to live like this," he said. "A m an needs the refining influences of feminine companionship."

  He was a careful man. Careful of his walk, careful o f the way he dressed, careful when he handled guns, an d careful in the care of his horse. Every morning he brushe d the dust fiom his clothes, and every morning he combe d his hair.

  And when we rode he talked to me about Shakespear e and the Bible, and some about Plutarch and Plato. Som e of it I didn't set much store by, but most of it made a kind of sense.

  From Virginia, he'd come. Educated there, and the n he'd come west.

  "Why?"

  "There was a man killed. They thought I did it."

  "Did you?"

  "Yes. I shot him fair, in a duel."

  We rode on for several miles. I liked watching th e shadows of the clouds on the desert. "I was to have marrie d his sister. He didn't want me to."

  And in California I went to school.

  Logan Pollard stayed around for a while, and then h e rode away. I did not believe Mary Tatum wanted him t o go.

  Yet he was gone no more than a week before he cam e back, and when I came riding in on Old Blue I saw the m talking, serious-like, on the porch. "It has happened before," he was saying, "and it may happen again."

  "Not here," she told him. "This is a quiet place."

  "All right," he said finally. "I'll stay."

  The winter passed and all summer long I worked, fellin g logs for a lumber mill and holding down a riding job o n a nearby ranch the rest of the time. In the fall and winte r I went to school and learned how to work problems an d something of history. Most of all, I liked to read Plutarch.

  Logan Pollard rode out to see me one day. I was sittin g on a log, reading my nooning away.

  "Third time," I said. "I read slow."

  "This is a book to be read that way. Taste it, roll th e flavor on your tongue."

  It was not only school and reading. I was growing, too , and some part of every day I went out into the woods an d practiced with the gun. I'd a natural gift for guns, an d my skill had increased rapidly. Pollard never mentione d guns to me now, and was no longer wearing his. Not i n sight, anyway..

  These were good months. Work never worried me. I e njoyed using my muscles, liked feeling strong, and ther e was always a little time for riding in the mountains, tracking stray cattle or horses, hunting varmints that preyed o n the stock.

  It was spring again and Old Blue kept looking at me , and I knew he expected me to saddle up and ride. It wa s spring, and I was fifteen years old, close to six feet tall , but thin. Only my shoulders and arms were strong, an d my hands.

  "What happened to the gun?" Logan asked me.

  So I reached down in my pants and brought it out, tha t old Shawk & McLanahan .36 Pap had given me.

  "Ever shoot it?"

  "Yes," I said, and turning the muzzle, I fired. It wa s all one easy move. Sixty yards away a pine cone shattere d into bits. Pollard looked at me and nodded. "You ca n shoot. I only hope you never have to."

  He was married that next Sunday to Mary Tatum, an d I stood up with them, feeling awkward in a store-bough t broadcloth suit and a stiff collar, the first I ever owned.

  And when it was over and we ate the cake, Mary said, "We want you to stay with us, Rye. If you can't be my son , be my brother."

  So I stayed on.

  When two months more had passed I mounted Old Blu e and rode down to the store. It was mighty pretty tha t morning, and the sun was bright, and every leaf was lik e a tiny mirror. The water of the stream rippled and rollicke d over the stones, and it seemed the world had never bee n so nice.

  I was wearing my broadcloth suit because I was goin g to a pie supper before I came home.

  At the store I bought some crackers and cheese and wen t to the steps to eat, and there I was sitting real quiet whe n a big man rode up on a white horse. He was thick i n the middle and his vest was dirty with food stains, an d when he saw Old Blue he fetched up short and stopped.

  He got down from the saddle and he walked slow aroun d that horse. He glanced over at me, only my head wa s down and he couldn't make out my face, and I was eating.

  "Who owns this horse?"

  He said it real loud, his voice mighty big and important -like. There were two men settin' up on the porch and the y said nothing, so he looked over at me. Who owns thi s horse?"

  Stuffing the last of the cheese and crackers in m y mouth, I got up. "I own him, McGarry. You want t o make something out of that?"

  His nose was blue-veined and bigger than I'd remembered, and his eyes were even smaller and more piggish. He was a wide man, the sleeves of his dirty white shirt rolle d halfway to his elbows, his big boots scuffed and worn.

  His hat was too small for his big head and he was unshave d and dirty.

  "You? You, is it?"

  "It's me," I said, and suddenly I knew I hated thi s man. I was wondering, too, if he realized Mary Tatu m was in town. Or that she was married to Logan Pollard.

  "It was you made all that trouble," he said. "I ain't had no luck since. You an',that little skirt your pap playe d with."

  Right then I hit him. I hit him on the mouth and h e staggered back two steps and almost fell. Blood started t o come and he grabbed for his gun.

  Then something bucked in my hand and he stepped bac k and sat down as my gun bucked again, and he was settin' t here dead almost half a minute before he rolled over o n his face and stretched out, but in that last split secon d of life I saw shocked surprise on his face. And there I s tood with that old Shawk & McLanahan in my hand an d Big Jack McGarry dead at my feet.

  Chapter 4

  M ARY TATUM was feeding the chickens when I rod e into the yard. She looked up and I saw her eyes widen a little, and she came up to me as I got down.

  "Rye, what is it? What's happened?"

  So I stood there, feeling a sinking in me, hating to tel l her, yet knowing I had to.

  "Mary," I said, "I killed a man."

  "Oh, no!" she caught my arm. "Not you, Rye!"

  "Yes, ma'am. I killed Jack McGarry."

  That stopped her, and she held my arm a minute, he r gray eyes searching mine. "Jack McGarry? Here?"

  "Yes, ma'am. He said words. . . . He reached for hi s gun after I hit him."

  "Words, Rye?'

  "Yes, ma'am. He spoke slighting of you and Pap."

  "Oh. We had better tell Logan."

  Somehow Logan did not seem surprised. He listened t o me and I told it plain and simple, holding nothing back.

  "I reckon," I said honestly, "it was partly because I hate d him."

  There was something else on his mind. "He touched hi s gun first?"

  "Yes, sir. He had it almost out when I shot him."

  Nothing more was said and Mary went about gettin g supper. She was never one to take on when it was pas t time for it to do any good. We ate some, although I d idn't have much appetite, and kept seeing how McGarr y looked, lying there on the ground with that shocked. expression on his face. I didn't hate him any more, I didn't feel anything about him except maybe sad that he ha d pushed me into it. I didn't want to shoot anybody an y more.

  We went out on the porch and Logan began to
talk. Firs t off, it seemed like he was just telling us about his boyhoo d and his travels, and then it came to me that this was something special, for me. It was a lesson, like.

  He had killed a man at nineteen. The man was a riverboat gambler. Then he killed his sweetheart's brother, because back there, them days, if a man called you out , you went, or you left the country wearing the cowar d brand.

  Afterward he left the country, anyway. He had kille d four men in gun battles, he said, and he told me h e hoped never to kill another, and then he said, "Rye , you're a hand with a gun. Maybe the best I ever saw.

  You've a natural skill, a natural eye, and you judge distance easy and fine. That's a responsibility, Rye. Thi s is a time when all men carry guns. Naturally, some ar e better than others, just like some men can use an a x better, or make a better wheel, like your pap. But a gu n is different, because with a gun you can kill."

  He paused a minute, looking down at his fine brow n hands, the sort of hands you might expect to see on a violinist. "You'll have to use a gun, from time to time.

  So be careful that you use it right. Never draw a gun unless you mean to shoot, never shoot unless you shoot t o kill.

  "Back there with the Mexicans you were too slow t o shoot. If I hadn't been there you might have been killed.

  Yet I'd rather have you shoot too slow than have yo u too ready to shoot. Never kill the wrong man or it wil l punish you all the days of your life."

  He was right about that, and I knew it. I was no foo l kid who thought a gun made me a big man. Right the n I didn't ever figure to kill anybody else, anytime.

  Morning came, and when I walked out to saddle u p there was a big, rawboned roan coming into the yard wit h a man on his back. The man had a shock of uncut hai r and a big mustache. His hat was small and he looke d sort of funny, but there was a badge on his chest that wa s not funny, and he wore a pistol.

  Logan came to the door, and Mary. She looked whit e and scared, but Logan was like he always was, quiet an d sort of stem.

  The man on the roan wore a checked shirt and i t was untidy. He wore suspenders, too.

  "Name of Balcher," he said, and he took some chewing tobacco from his shirt pocket. "Carry it there," h e said, sort of smiling, "so nobody will mistake I'm reachin g for a gun. I'd sure hate," he added, "to be shot by mistake."

  "What's your business, Mr. Balcher?" Logan steppe d down off the porch.

  Balcher looked at him thoughtfully. "My!" he said.

  For a quiet man I sure run into a lot of you folks. You'r e one of them, too, sure's shootin'."

  Logan stood quiet, waiting. Balcher turned his big hea d and looked at me, chewing slow. "How old are you, boy?"

  "Fifteen. Going on sixteen."

  He rolled his squid in his jaw. "Young," he said, "bu t you handle a gun like a growed man. You killed that feler yestiddy."

  "Yes, sir."

  He studied me carefully. "You know him before?"

  Logan Pollard interrupted, and quietly he told th e story of what happened on the trail, leaving out nothing.

  He made it plain that I had reason to feel as I did, an d that McGarry had opened the trouble, not I.

  Balcher listened, looking from Logan to me with lonesome hound-dog eyes.

  "Reckon I'd feel like shootin' him myself." He turne d in his saddle. "Don't blame you, son. Understand that.

  Don't blame you a bit. But you got to go."

  "Go?" Mary said. "But he can't, Sheriff! He's like m y own brother! This is his home!"

  The way she said it made a lump come in my throa t and I was afraid it was bringing tears to my eyes. I recko n there was nobody quite so nice as Mary.

  " 'Fraid so," Balcher said it regretfully. "I ain't muc h hand with a gun, myself. Reckon either one of you coul d shoot me dead before I could touch iron, but the way I k eep the peace about here is to send all gun folks apackin'.

  "Now don't get me wrong. I got nothin' against you , Tyler, but folks know you're handy with a gun now. Som e rambunctious youngster is liable to want to find out i f he's better. So I reckon you better ride."

  The sun was bright on the hard-packed earth of th e ranchyard. It was warm and pleasant, standing there, a trickle of water falling in the trough, the smell of coffe e from the house. This was home for me. The only hom e I'd had for a long, long time. And now they were tellin g me to go.

  "And if he doesn't?" Logan asked the question, hi s voice low and hard.

  Balcher shrugged. "Well, I can't shoot him. Folks dow n to town say they never saw anything as fast as this Ry e Tyler. He shucked his gun so fast nobody scarce seen it.

  An' he didn't miss once he got it out. I reckon if th e bullet hadn't killed McGarry, the shock would have, h e was that surprised."

  Balcher turned in his saddle. "Look, Mr. Pollard. I go t to keep the peace. She's my job. I reckon I'm too lazy t o farm, and nothing much grows for me, anyway. But, fou r years now I kep' the peace. I hope, folks, that he'll rid e out quiet. If he don't, I got to go back down to town an d round up eight or ten of the folks with shotguns to star t him movin'. To do that I'd have to spoil a day's work fo r a lot of folks. Now, you wouldn't want that, would you?"

  "I reckon not, Mr. Balcher," I said. "I reckon I ca n go, , "Rye!" Mary protested.

  "Got to, Mary. You know I got to. It's all right. I bee n sort of itchin' to see more country, and Old Blue, he's been downright disappointed in me."

  Daybreak I taken the road out to Surprise Valley , across the mountains and north. I figured I might hun t a little, then maybe get a riding job before I heade d south. Right then I had twenty-six dollars of my ow n money, and I was still carrying the forty dollars Pap lef t me.

  Saying good-by to Mary was worst of all. She clun g to my sleeve and she kissed me, and I reckon it was th e first time since I was a mite of a baby I'd been kissed.

  It was kind of sweet-like, and the feel of it stayed on m y cheek all the way across the mountain.

  Logan rode a ways with me, then he shook hands an d said, "Come see us, Rye. This is home, always."

  Two miles down the trail I saw a man on a roa n horse setting out there in plain sight. He was setting sideways on that horse when I came up to him, and he grinne d at me, sort of sly. It was Balcher. He put his hands on th e pommel and said, "Boy, I wish you luck. You take it eas y with that gun. You're a fine boy, so don't you start t o shootin' less you have to."

  Then I rode down the trail, and a lump was in m y throat and in my heart, too, and my stomach was all empty. This was the second time I'd lost folks that loved me.

  First Pap, by Indian guns, and now Mary and Logan, b y my own gun.

  Was that the way it was going to be?

  Do you know that Western land? Do you know th e far plains and the high, snow-crested ridges? Do you kno w the beaver streams, the water laughing in the bright sun?

  Do you know the sound of wind in the pines? The clou d shadows on the desert's face? Have you stood on a high ridge and looked fifty miles across the country, country known only to Indians, antelope, and buffalo?

  Have you crawled out of your bedroll in the chill of a spring morning with the crisp air fresh in your lungs an d the sound of running water in your ears? Have you started a fire and made coffee, and broiled your vension ove r an open fire? Have you smelled ironwood burning, o r cedar?

  That was how I lived for a whole year after I lef t Mary and Logan. I lived away from men, riding, drifting , and reading Plutarch for the fourth time.

  Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, an d down to Colorado.

  Beside campfires under the icy Teton peaks, I rea d of Hannibal and of Cato. I smelled the smoke of a hundred campfires, as I drifted.

  Rarely did I find a white man's fire, and only occasionally one left by an Indian. I saw the country o f the Nez Perces and the Blackfeet, of the Crows, th e Shoshones, and the Sioux. I wandered up the lost red canyons of the La Sal Mountains, and through the Abaj o Range.

  The only soun
ds I heard were the sounds that the wilderness makes. The slap of warning from a beaver's tai l on water, the sudden crash and rush of an elk, the harsh , throaty snarl of a mountain lion . . . the wind, the water , and the storm.

  The shelters I had were caves or corners among th e tree; or wickiups I built myself. All that Logan Pollar d had taught me came in handy, and I learned more.

  And so after many days I came again to a town wher e there were people. I rode to the edge of the hill an d looked down, a little frightened, a little uncertain. An d I knew that I had changed. Some of the stillness of th e mountains was in me, some of the pace of the far forests , but there was also the old thing that lived in me always.

  But I could be alone no longer. It was time to retur n to the world of people, and so I started Old Blue dow n the slope.

  Chapter 5

  MY SHIRT WAS BUCKSKIN. My breeches were buckskin.

  My boots had long since worn to nothing and been replaced by moccasins. I still carried the old Joslyn carbine , and I still carried the Shawk & McLanahan .36. So I r ode into town to sell my furs.

  Right then I was nigh seventeen. I was an inch over si x feet and I weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, an d no bit of fat on my bones. Lean and tough as any ol d catamount, wearing a torn and battered hat, I must hav e been a sight to see. Into that town I came, riding slow.

  Old Blue was beginning to feel the miles. He was getting some years on him, too. But he loved the life as I di d and he could still run neck and neck with a buffalo while I s hot.

  The town was a booming mine camp, the street line d with a jostling crowd of booted, belted men. Leaving Ol d Blue at the livery-stable hitch rail, I walked up the street , happy to be among people again, even if I knew non e of them. Yet I walked aloof, for I hesitated to meet people or to make friends. There was always in the back o f my mind the thought of the gun, and I did not wish t o fire in anger at any man.

  Oddly enough, in those long wilderness months I ha d no trouble with Indians. I had wandered their country , shared their hunting grounds, but evaded contact wit h them. A few times I had gone into the Nez Perce village s to trade for things I needed.

  It was warm and sunny in the street. Leaning agains t an awning post, I watched the people pass. Tents an d false-fronted stores, a long log bunkhouse that called itself a hotel, and a bigger log building that was a saloon.