West of the Tularosa

by Louis L'Amour

  “Exactly,” Doc Lander agreed, “an’ for every Mohave Kid there’s a…”

  Some men are born to evil, and such a one was the Mohave Kid. Now I’m not saying that environment doesn’t have its influence, but some men are born with twisted minds, just as some are born with crooked teeth. The Mohave Kid was born with a streak of viciousness and cruelty that no kindness could eradicate. He had begun to show it when a child, and it developed fast until the Kid had killed his first man.

  It was pure, unadulterated murder. No question of fair play, although the Kid was deadly with any kind of a gun. He shot an old Mexican, stole his outfit and three horses that he sold near the border. And the Mohave Kid was fifteen years old when that happened.

  By the time he was twenty-two he was wanted in four states and three territories. He had, the records said, killed eleven men. Around the saloons and livery stables they said he had killed twenty-one. Actually he had killed twenty-nine, for the Kid had killed a few when they didn’t know he was in the country, and they had been listed as murders by Indians or travelers. Of the twenty-nine men he had killed, nine of them had been killed with something like an even break.

  But the Mohave Kid was as elusive as he was treacherous. And his mother had been a Holdstock. There were nine families of Holdstocks scattered through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and three times that many who were kinfolk. They were a clannish lot, given to protecting their own, even as bad an apple as the Mohave Kid.

  At twenty-two, the Kid was five feet seven inches tall and weighed one hundred and seventy pounds. He had a round, flat face, a bland expression, and heavy-lidded eyes. He did not look alert, but his expression belied the truth, for he was always wary, always keyed for trouble.

  He killed for money, for horses, in quarrels, or for pure cruelty, and several of his killings were as senseless as they were ruthless. This very fact contributed much to the fear with which he was regarded, for there was no guessing where he might strike next. People avoided looking at him, avoided even the appearance of talking about him when he was around. Usually they got out of a place when he came into it, but as unobtrusively as possible.

  Aside from the United States Marshals or the Texas Rangers in their respective bailiwicks, there was only local law. Little attention was given to arresting men for crimes committed elsewhere, which served as excuse for officers of the law who preferred to avoid the risks of trying to arrest the Mohave Kid.

  Ab Kale was an exception. Ab was thirty-three when elected marshal of the cow town of Hinkley, and he owned a little spread of his own three miles out of town. He ran a few cows, raised a few horses, and made his living as marshal. For seven years he was a good one. He kept order, never made needless arrests, and was well liked around town. At thirty-four he married Amie Holdstock, a second cousin to the Mohave Kid.

  As the Kid’s reputation grew, Kale let it be known throughout the family that he would make no exception of the Kid, and the Kid was to stay away from Hinkley. Some of the clan agreed this was fair enough, and the Kid received word to avoid the town. Others took exception to Kale’s refusal to abide by clan law where the Kid was concerned, but those few dwindled rapidly as the Kid’s murderous propensities became obvious.

  The Holdstock clan began to realize that in the case of the Mohave Kid they had sheltered a viper in their bosom, a wanton killer as dangerous to their well-being as to others. A few doors of the clan were closed against him, excuses were found for not giving him shelter, and the feeling began to permeate the clan that the idea was a good one.

  The Mohave Kid had seemed to take no exception to the hints that he avoid making trouble for cousin Kale, yet as the months wore on, he became more sullen and morose, and the memory of Ab Kale preyed upon his mind.

  In the meantime, no man is marshal of a Western cow town without having some trouble. Steady and considerate as Kale was, there had been those with whom he could not reason. He had killed three men.

  All were killed in fair, stand-up gunfights, all were shot cleanly and surely, and it was talked around that Kale was some hand with a gun himself. In each case he had allowed an even break and proved faster than the men he killed. All of this the Mohave Kid absorbed, and here and there he heard speculation, never in front of him, that the Mohave Kid was avoiding Hinkley because he wanted no part of Ab Kale.

  Tall, well-built, and prematurely gray, Kale was a fine-appearing man. His home was small but comfortable, and he had two daughters, one his own child, one a stepdaughter of seventeen named Ruth who he loved as his own. He had no son, and this was a matter of regret.

  Ab Kale was forty when he had his showdown with the Mohave Kid. But on the day when Riley McClean dropped off a freight train on the edge of Hinkley, the date of that showdown was still two years away.

  If McClean ever told Kale what had happened to him before he crawled out of that empty boxcar in Hinkley, Ab never repeated it. Riley was nineteen, six feet tall, and lean as a rail. His clothes were in bad shape, and he was unshaven and badly used up, and somebody had given him a beating. What had happened to the other fellow or fellows, nobody ever knew.

  Ab Kale saw McClean leave the train and called out to him. The boy stopped and stood, waiting. As Kale walked toward him, he saw the lines of hunger in the boy’s face, saw the emaciated body, the ragged clothes, the bruises and cuts. He saw a boy who had been roughly used, but there was still courage in his eyes.

  “Where you headed for, son?”

  Riley McClean shrugged. “This is as good a place as any. I’m hunting a job.”

  “What do you do?”

  “`Most anything. It don’t make no difference.”

  Now when a man says that he can do almost anything, it is a safe bet he can do nothing, or at least that he can do nothing well. If a man has a trade, he is proud of it and says so, and usually he will do a passing job of anything else he tackles. Yet Kale reserved his opinion. And it was well that he did.

  “Better come over to my office,” Kale said. “You’ll need to get shaved and washed up.”

  McClean went along, and somehow he stayed. Nothing was ever said about leaving by either of them. McClean cleaned up, ate at the marshal’s expense, and then slept the clock around. When Kale returned to the office and jail the next morning, he found the place swept, mopped, and dusted, and McClean was sitting on the cot in the open cell where he had slept, repairing a broken reata.

  Obviously new to the West, Riley McClean seemed new to nothing else. He had slim, graceful hands and deft fingers. He cobbled shoes, repaired harnesses, built a chimney for Chalfant’s new house, and generally kept busy,

  After he had been two weeks in Hinkley, Ab Kale was sitting at his desk one day when Riley McClean entered. Kale opened a drawer and took out a pair of beautifully matched .44 Russians, one of the finest guns Smith & Wesson ever made. They were thrust in new holsters on a new belt studded with cartridges. “If you’re going to live out here, you’d better learn to use those,” Kale said briefly.

  After that the two rode out of town every morning for weeks, and in a narrow cañon on the back of Kale’s little ranch Riley McClean learned how to use a six-shooter.

  “Just stand naturally,” Kale advised him, “and let your hand swing naturally to the gun butt. You’ve probably heard about a so-called gunman’s crouch. There is no such thing among gunfighters who know their business. Stand any way that is easy to you. Crouching may make a smaller target of you, but it also puts a man off balance and cramps his movements. Balance is as important to a gunfighter as to a boxer. Stand easy on your feet, let your hand swing back naturally, and take the hammer spur with the inside of the thumb, cocking the gun as it is grasped, the tip of the trigger finger on the trigger.”

  Kale watched McClean try it. “The most important thing is a good grip. The finger on the trigger helps to align your gun properly, and, after you’ve practiced, you’ll see that your gun will line up perfectly with that grip.”

  He watched McCle
an keenly and was pleased. The boy had the same ease with a gun he seemed to have with all tools, and his coordination was natural and easy. “You’ll find,” he added, “in shooting from the hip that you can change your point of aim by a slight movement of your left foot. Practice until you find just the right position for your feet, and then go through the motions until it’s second nature.”

  Finally he left him alone to practice, tossing him a box of shells occasionally. But no day passed that Riley McClean did not take to the hills for practice.

  There are men who are born to skill, whose coordination of hand, foot, and eye is natural and easy, who acquire skills almost as soon as they lift a tool or a weapon, and such a man was Riley McClean. Yet he knew the value of persistence, and he practiced consistently.

  It was natural that he knew about the Mohave Kid. Riley McClean listened and learned. He talked it around and made friends, and he soon began to hear the speculations about the Kid and Ab Kale.

  “It’ll come,” they all said. “It can’t miss. Sooner or later him an’ Kale will tangle.”

  As to what would happen then, there was much dispute. Of this talk Kale said nothing. When Riley McClean had been two months in Hinkley, Kale invited him home to dinner for the first time. It was an occasion to be remembered.

  The two months had made a change in Riley. The marks of his beating had soon left him, but it had taken these weeks to fill out his frame. He had gained fifteen solid pounds and would gain more, but he was a rugged young man, bronzed and straight, when he walked up the gravel path to the door of the Kale home. And Ruth Kale opened the door for him. She opened the door and she fell in love. And the feeling was mutual.

  Ab Kale said nothing, but he smiled behind his white mustache. Later, when they had walked back up to town, Kale said: “Riley, you’ve been like a son to me. If anything should happen to me, I wish you would see that my family gets along all right.”

  Riley was startled and worried. “Nothing will happen to you,” he protested. “You’re a young man yet.”

  “No,” Kale replied seriously, “I’m not. I’m an old man as a cow town peace officer. I’ve lasted a long time. Longer than most.”

  “But you’re chain lightning with a gun,” Riley protested.

  “I’m fast,” Kale said simply. “And I shoot straight. I know of no man I’d be afraid to meet face-to-face, although I know some who are faster than I. But they don’t always meet you face-to-face.”

  And Riley McClean knew that Ab Kale was thinking of the Mohave Kid. He realized then, for the first time, that the marshal was worried about the Mohave Kid. Worried because he knew the kind of killer the Kid was. Deadly enough face-to-face, the Kid would be just as likely to shoot from ambush. For the Kid was a killing machine, utterly devoid of moral sense or fair play.

  The people of Hinkley knew that Riley McClean had taken to carrying a gun. They looked upon this tolerantly, believing that Riley was merely copying his adopted father. They knew that Kale had been teaching him to shoot, but they had no idea what had happened during those lessons. Nor had Ab Kale realized it until a few days before the pay-off.

  The two were riding out to look over some cattle, and Kale remarked that it would be nice to have some rabbit stew. “If we see a fat cottontail,” he said, “we’ll kill it.”

  A mile farther along, Kale spotted one. “Rabbit!” he said, and grabbed for his gun.

  His hand slapped the walnut butt, and then there was an explosion, and for an instant he thought his own gun had gone off accidentally. And then he saw the smoking .44 in Riley McClean’s hand, and the younger man was riding over to pick up the rabbit. The distance had been thirty yards and the rabbit had lost a head.

  Ab Kale was startled. He said nothing, however, and they rode on to the ranch, looked over the cattle, and made a deal to buy them. As they started back, Kale commented: “That was a nice shot, Riley. Could you do it again?”

  “Yes, sir, I think so.”

  A few miles farther, another rabbit sprang up. The .44 barked and the rabbit died, half his head and one ear blasted away. The distance was a shade greater than before.

  “You’ve nothing to worry about, Riley,” Kale said quietly, “but never use that gun unless you must, and never draw it unless you mean to kill.”

  Nothing more was said, but Ab Kale remembered. He was fast. He knew he was fast. He knew that he rated along with the best, and yet his hand had barely slapped the butt before that rabbit died…

  The days went by slowly, and Riley McClean spent more and more time at the Kale home. And around town he made friends. He was quiet, friendly, and had a healthy sense of humor. He had progressed from the town handyman to opening a shop as a gunsmith, learning his trade by applying it that way. There was no other gunsmith within two hundred miles in any direction, so business was good.

  He was working on the firing pin of a Walker Colt when he heard the door open. He did not look up, just said: “Be with you in a minute. What’s your trouble?”

  “Same thing you’re workin’ on I reckon. Busted firin’ pin.”

  Riley McClean looked up into a dark, flat face and flat, black eyes. He thought he had never seen eyes so devoid of expression, never seen a face more brutal on a young man. With a shock of realization he knew he was looking into the eyes of the Mohave Kid.

  He got to his feet and picked up the gun the Kid handed him. As he picked it up, he noticed that the Kid had his hand on his other gun. Riley merely glanced at him, and then examined the weapon. The repair job was simple, but, as he turned the gun in his hand, he thought of how many men it had killed.

  “Take a while,” he said. “I s’pose you’re in a hurry for it?”

  “You guessed it. An’ be sure it’s done right. I’ll want to try it before I pay for it.”

  Riley McClean’s eyes chilled a little. There were butterflies in his stomach, but the hackles on the back of his neck were rising. “You’ll pay me before you get it,” he said quietly. “My work is cash on the barrel head. The job will be done right.” His eyes met the flat black ones. “If you don’t like the job, you can bring it back.”

  For an instant, their eyes held, and then the Kid shrugged, smiling a little. “Fair enough. An’ if it doesn’t work, I’ll be back.”

  The Mohave Kid turned and walked out to the street, stopping to look both ways. Riley McClean held the gun in his hands and watched him. He felt cold, chilled.

  Ab Kale had told the Kid to stay away from Hinkley, and now he must meet him and order him from town. He must do that, or the Kid would know he was afraid, would deliberately stay in town. The very fact that the Mohave Kid had come to Hinkley was proof that he had come hunting trouble, that he had come to call Kale’s bluff.

  For a minute or two, Riley considered warning the marshal, but that would not help. Kale would hear of it soon enough, and there was always a chance that the Kid would get his gun, change his mind, and leave before Kale did know.

  Sitting down, Riley went to work on the gun. The notion of doctoring the gun so it would not fire properly crossed his mind, but there was no use inviting trouble. Running his fingers through his dark rusty hair, he went to work. And as he worked, an idea came to him.

  Maybe he could get the Kid out of town to try the gun and, once there, warn him away from Hinkley himself. That would mean a fight, and, while he had no idea of being as good as the Kid, he did know he could shoot straight. He might kill the Mohave Kid even if he got killed in the process.

  But he did not want to die. He was no hero, Riley McClean told himself. He wanted to live, buy a place of his own, and marry Ruth. In fact, they had talked about it. And there was a chance this would all blow over. The Kid might leave town before Ab Kale heard of his arrival, or something might happen. It is human to hope and human to wish for the unexpected good break—and sometimes you are lucky.

  As Riley was finishing work on the gun, Ruth came in. She was frightened. “Riley”—she caught his arm—“the Mohave
Kid’s in town and Dad is looking for him.”

  “I know.” He stared anxiously out the window. “The Kid left his gun to be repaired. I’ve just finished it.”

  “Oh, Riley, isn’t there something we can do?” Her face was white and strained, her eyes large.

  He looked down at her, a wave of tenderness sweeping over him. “I don’t know, honey,” he said gently. “I’m afraid the thing I might do, your father wouldn’t like. You see, this is his job. If he doesn’t meet the Kid and order him to leave, he will never have the same prestige here again. Everybody knows the Kid came here on purpose.”

  Ab Kale had heard that the Mohave Kid was in town, and in his own mind he was ready. Seated at his desk, he saw with bitter clarity what he had known all along, that sooner or later the Kid would come to town, and then he would have to kill him or leave the country. There could be no other choice where the Kid was concerned.

  Yet he had planned well. Riley McClean was a good man, a steady man. He would make a good husband for Ruth, and together they would see that Amie lacked for nothing. As far as that went, Amie was well provided for. He checked his guns and got to his feet. As he did so, he saw a rider go by, racing out of town.

  He stopped dead still in the doorway. Why, that rider had been Riley McClean! Where would he be going at that speed, at this hour? Or had he heard the Kid was in town…? Oh, no! The boy wasn’t a coward. Ab knew he wasn’t a coward.

  He straightened his hat and touched his prematurely white mustache. His eyes studied the street. A few loafers in front of the livery stable, a couple more at the general store, a half dozen horses at the hitch rails. One buckboard. He stepped out on the walk and started slowly up the street. The Mohave Kid would be in the Trail Driver Saloon.