Desert Death-Song

by Louis L'Amour

  “You are Tony Costa?” he said to the Mexican. “The foreman of Casa Grande?”

  The three other horsemen clattered into the yard and the leader, a big man with bold, hard eyes, swung down. He brushed past the stranger and confronted the foreman.

  “Well, Costa,” he said triumphantly, “today this becomes my ranch! You’re fired!”

  “No!”

  All eyes turned to the stranger, the girl’s startled. This man was strong, she thought incongruously. He had a clean-cut face, pleasant gray eyes, hair that was black and curly.

  “If you’re Walt,” the stranger continued, “you can ride back where you came from. This ranch is mine. I am Michael Latch!”

  Fury and shocked disbelief shook Walt Seever. “You? Michael Latch?” Anger and disappointment struggled in his face as he stared. “You couldn’t be!”

  “Why not?” Jed spoke calmly. Eyes on Seever, he could not see the effect of his words on the girl or Costa. “George sent for me. Here I am.”

  Mingled with the baffled rage there was something else in Walt’s face, some ugly suspicion or knowledge. Suddenly Jed had a suspicion that Walt knew he was not Michael Latch. Or doubted it vehemently.

  Tony Costa shrugged.

  “Why not?” he repeated. “We have been expecting him. His uncle wrote for him, and after Baca’s death, I wrote to him. If you doubt him, look at the guns. Are there two such pairs of guns in the world? Are there two men in the world who could make such guns?”

  Seever’s eyes dropped to the guns, and Jed saw doubt and puzzlement replace the angry certainty.

  “I’ll have to have more proof than a set of guns!” he said.

  Cooly, Jed drew a letter from his pocket and passed it over.

  “From Tony, here. I also have my father’s will, and other letters.”

  Walt Seever glanced at the letter, then hurled it into the dust. He turned furiously.

  “Let’s get out of here!” he snarled.

  Jed Asbury watched them go, but he was puzzling over that expression in Walt Seever’s eyes. Until Walt had seen the letter he had been positive Jed was not Mike Latch; now he was no longer sure. But what could have made him so positive in the beginning? What could he know?

  The girl was whispering something to the foreman. Jed smiled at her.

  “I don’t believe Walt is too happy about my bein’ here!” he said.

  “No—” Costa’s face was stiff—“he isn’t. He expected to get this ranch himself.” He turned toward the girl. “Senor Latch. I would like to introduce Senorita Carol James, a—a ward of Senor Baca’s, and his good friend!”

  Jed acknowledged the introduction.

  “You must give me all the information,” he said to Tony Costa. “I want to know all you can tell me about Walt Seever.”

  Costa exchanged a glance with Carol. “Si, senor. Walt Seever is a malo hombre, senor. He has killed several men, and the two you saw with him—Harry Strykes and Gin Feeley—are notorious gunmen, and believed to be thieves.”

  Jed Asbury listened attentively, wondering about that odd expression in Carol’s eyes. Could she suspect he was not Michael Latch? If so, why didn’t she say something? He was a little unsure of himself because they had accepted him so readily. For even after the idea had come to him suddenly that he might take the dead man’s place he had not been sure he would go through with it. He had a feeling of guilt, yet the real Mike Latch was dead, and the heir was a killer, perhaps a thief. All the way on his wild ride to reach here before the date that ended the year of grace Latch had been given, Jed had debated with himself.

  At one moment he had been convinced that it was the wrong thing to do, yet he could not see how he could be doing Latch any harm. And certainly, Costa and Carol seemed pleased to have him there, and the expression on Seever’s face had been worth the ride even if Jed did not persist in his claim.

  Yet there was another undercurrent here that disturbed him. That was Walt Seever’s baffled anger.

  “You say Seever seemed sure he would inherit?” Jed asked.

  Carol looked at him curiously. “Yes, until three months ago he was hating George Baca for leaving his ranch to you, then he changed and became sure he would inherit.”

  It had been three months ago that Jed Asbury had come upon the lone covered wagon which had been attacked and three people, one of them Michael Latch, had been killed. Could Walt Seever have known of that?

  The idea took root. Seever must have known. If that was so, then those three people had not been killed by Indians, or if so the Indians had been set upon the wagon. A lot remained to be explained. How had the wagon happened to be out there alone? And what had become of the girl, Arden?

  If it had not been Indians, or if it had been Indians operating for white men, they must have taken Arden prisoner. And she would know the real Michael Latch! She would know Jed Asbury was an imposter, and might know who the killers were.

  Walking out on the wide terrace that overlooked the green valley beyond the hacienda, Jed stared down the valley with his mind filled with doubts and apprehension.

  In the valley, trees lined the banks of the streams, and on the higher mountains the forest crept down almost to the edge of the valley. It was lovely land, well-watered and rich. Here, with what he knew, he could carry on the work that old George Baca had begun. He could do what Michael Latch might have done. And he might even do it better.

  There was danger, but when had he not known danger? And these people at the ranch were good people, honest people. If he did no more than keep Seever and his lawless crowd away, it would be adequate reason for taking the dead man’s place. Yet he knew he was only finding excuses for something that might be entirely wrong.

  The guns he wore meant something, too. The girl and Costa had recognized them, and so had Seever. What significance had they?

  He was in deep water here. Every remark he made must be guarded, also making sure that he did not unconsciously fall into western idiom. And even though they had not seen him before, they would have memories or knowledge in common. He must watch for any trap.

  CHAPTER THREE: The Interloper

  A movement behind Jed Asbury made him turn. In the gathering dusk he saw Carol. He could hear Costa whistling as he walked toward the corrals.

  “You like it?” Carol gestured toward the valley.

  “It’s splendid!” he said. “I reckon I never seen—saw anything prettier.”

  She glanced up at him, but said nothing. Then after they had stood there for a few minutes, she said:

  “Somehow you’re different than I expected.”

  “I am?” He was careful, waiting for her to say more.

  “Yes, you’re much more assured than I’d ever expected Mike Latch to be. Mike was quiet, Uncle George used to say. Read a lot, but didn’t get around much. That was why you startled me by the way you handled Walt Seever.”

  He scarcely knew what to say. He shrugged finally.

  “A man grows older,” he said. “And coming West, to a new life, makes a man more sure of himself.”

  She noticed the book in his pocket.

  “What’s the book?” she asked curiously.

  It was the battered copy of Plutarch he had found in the wagon. He drew it from his pocket and showed it to her. He was on safe ground here, for inside the book was inscribed, “To Michael, from Uncle George.”

  “It was a favorite of his,” Carol said. “Uncle George used to say that next to the Bible more great men had read Plutarch than any other book.”

  “I like it,” Jed agreed. “I’ve been reading it nights.”

  He turned to face her more directly. “Carol, what do you think Walt Seever will do?”

  “Try to kill you, or have you killed,” she said honestly. She gestured toward the guns. “You had better learn to use those.”

  “I can, a little,” he admitted.

  He did not dare admit how well he could use them. A man did not come by such skill as his in a
few weeks. It would be better to retain such knowledge until time to display it. “Seever has counted on having this place, hasn’t he?”

  “He has made a good many plans, and a good deal of big talk.” She glanced up at him again. “You know, Walt was no blood relation of Uncle George. Walt Seever was the son of a woman of the gold camps who married George Baca’s half-brother.”

  “I see.” Actually, Jed decided, Walt’s claim was scarcely better than his own. He added tentatively, “I know from the letters that Uncle George wanted me to have the estate, but never having seen my uncle, or not within any reasonable time, I feel like an outsider. I am afraid I may be doing wrong to take a ranch that has been the work of other people. Perhaps Walt has more right than I have. Perhaps he is not as bad as you believe and I may be doing wrong to assert my claim.” He was aware of her searching gaze. When she spoke it was deliberately, and as though she had reached some decision.

  “Michael, I don’t know you. But you would have to be very bad indeed, to be as dangerous and as evil as Walt Seever. I would say that no matter what the circumstances, you should stay and see this through.”

  Was there a hint that she might know more than she was implying? No, it was only natural that he should be looking for suspicion behind every bush. But he had to do that, to keep from being trapped.

  “However,” Carol went on, “it is only fair to warn you that you have let yourself in for more than you bargained for. Uncle George understood what you would be facing, for he knew the viciousness of Walt Seever. He was doubtful if you were strong enough and clever enough to defeat Walt. So I must warn you, Michael Latch, that if you do stay, and I believe you should, you will probably be killed.”

  He smiled into the darkness. Since his early boyhood he had lived in proximity to death. He was not foolhardy nor reckless, for a truly brave man was never reckless. Yet he knew that he could skirt the ragged edge of death, if need be, as he had in the past.

  He was an interloper here. He was stealing, and there was no other way to look at it. Yet the man whose place he had taken was dead, and perhaps he could carry on, taking that man’s place, making this ranch safe for the people who loved it. Then after a while, he could step out and leave the ranch to this girl.

  He turned very slowly. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’ve been riding hard, and I think I’ll go to bed. But I’m going to stay… .”

  Jed Asbury was fast asleep when Carol went into the long dining room and stood looking at Tony Costa. Without him, what would she have done? He had been with her father for thirty years, and was past fifty now, but he was as erect and slender as a young man. And he was shrewd.

  Costa looked up as she walked to where he sat drinking coffee by the light of a candle.

  “Well, senorita,” he said, “for better or worse, it is begun. What do you think now?”

  “He told me, after I warned him of what to expect, that he was staying.”

  Costa studied the coffee in his cup. “You are not afraid?” he asked finally.

  “No,” she said honestly. Her decision had been made out there in the darkness. “He faced Walt Seever, and that was enough for me. I think anything is to be preferred to Seever.”

  “Si.” Costa’s agreement was positive. “Senorita, did you notice his hands when he faced Seever? They were ready, carolita, to draw. This man has used the gun before. He is a strong man, carolita!”

  “I think you are right. He is a strong man… .”

  For two days nothing happened from the direction of town. Walt Seever and his hard-bitten companions might have vanished from the earth, but on the Rancho Casa Grande much was happening, and Tony Costa was whistling most of the time.

  Jed Asbury’s formal education was slight but he knew men, and how to lead them, to get the results he wanted and he had practical knowledge.

  He got up at five the morning after his conference with Carol, and when she awakened, old Maria, the cook, hastened to tell her that the senor was hard at work in the office. The door was open a crack, and when she came by she saw Jed, his curly hair on end, deep in the accounts of the ranch. Pinned up before him was a map of the Casa Grande holdings, and as he checked the disposition of cattle and horses he studied the map.

  He ate a hurried breakfast and at eight o’clock was in the saddle. He ate his other meals at one of the line camps in the mountains, and rode in after dark.

  In two days he spent twenty hours in the saddle.

  On the third day he called Costa to the office, and asked Maria to request the presence of Carol. Puzzled and curious, she joined them.

  Jed wore a white shirt, the black broadcloth trousers, and the silver guns. His face seemed to have hardened in those past two days, but when he smiled, it lighted up.

  “You have been here longer than I,” he said to Carol, “and are in a sense, a partner.” Before she could speak he turned on Costa. “And you have been foreman here. I want you to remain foreman. However, I asked you both to be here because I am making some changes.”

  He indicated a point on the map. “That narrow passage leads over the border of our land into open country and then the desert. I found cattle tracks there, going out. It might be rustlers. A little blasting up on the rocks above the gap will close it tight.”

  Costa nodded. “You are correct, senor. That is a good move.”

  “This field—” Jed indicated a large area in a broad valley not far from the house—“must be fenced off. We will plant it to flax.” “Flax, senor?” Costa was puzzled.

  “Yes. There will be a good market for it.” He indicated a smaller area. “This piece we will plant to grapes, and all that hillside will support them. There will be times when we cannot depend entirely upon cattle or horses, and we must have other sources of income.”

  Carol studied him in wonderment. He was moving fast, this new Michael Latch. He was getting things done. Already he had grasped the situation, accomplishing much.

  “Also, Costa, we must have a roundup. Gather all the cattle, weed out all those over four years old and we’ll sell them. I found a lot of cattle back in the timber that run five to eight years old… .”

  A few hours after he had ridden away, Carol walked down toward the blacksmith shop to talk with Pat Flood. He was an old seafaring man with a peg leg whom Uncle George had found on the beach in San Francisco, and he was a marvel with tools.

  He glanced up from under his bushy gray brows as she drew near. He was cobbling a pair of boots.

  Before she could speak he said:

  “This here new boss, Latch—been to sea, ain’t he?”

  She looked at him quickly. “What gave you that idea?”

  “Seen him throw a bowline on a bight yesterday. Purtiest job I seen since I come ashore. He made that rope fast like he’d been doin’ it for years.”

  “I expect many men handle ropes well,” she said.

  “But not sailor fashion. He called it a line, too. ‘Hand me that line!’ he says. Me, I been ashore so long I’m callin’ them ropes myself, but not him. I’d stake my dinner he’s walked a deck… .”

  Jed Asbury was riding to Noveno. He wanted to do several things he might not do so well, unless alone.

  In the first place, he wanted to assay the feeling of the town toward the ranch, toward George Baca, and toward Walt Seever. He thought he might talk with a few people before they discovered who he was. Also, he was growing irritated at the delay in a showdown with Seever. His appearance in town alone might force that showdown, or allow Seever an opportunity if he felt he needed one.

  Jed had never avoided trouble. He always went right to the heart of it. For this trip he was dressed for it, wearing a pair of worn gray trousers, boots, his silver guns, and a battered black hat. He hoped to pass as a drifting puncher.

  Already, in his riding around the ranch and his conversations with the riders he had learned a good deal. He knew that the place to go in Noveno was the Gold Strike. He swung down and tied his horse to the hitching-ra
il and walked inside.

  Three men were loafing against the bar. Immediately he recognized the big man with the hard face and the scar on his lip as Harry Strykes, the gunslick who had ridden with Seever. As Jed stepped up to the bar and ordered a drink, a man who was seated at a table got up slowly and walked up to Strykes.

  “Never saw him afore,” he said.

  Strykes walked around the man and stopped in front of Jed.

  “So?” he sneered. “A smart trick of yore own, huh? Well, nobody cuts in on my boss. Go for yore gun, or go back to Texas!”

  Jed did not move.

  “I’ve no reason to kill you,” he said calmly. “I don’t like your tone, but I’m not going to touch a gun, because if I drew I’d shoot you so you’d take a long time to die. Instead, I’m going to teach you to have better sense than to speak to strangers as you have me.”

  His right hand grabbed Strykes by the belt. He shoved back, then lifted, and his left toe hooked Strykes’ knee with a sharp kick. Strykes’ feet flew up and Jed jerked him free of the floor, his arms pawing wildly at the air. Jed dropped him flat on his back.

  Strykes had been caught unawares, and he hit the floor so hard that for an instant he was stunned. Then with a curse he came off the floor.

  CHAPTER FOUR: Cut Down to Size

  Jed Asbury held his drink in his left hand, leaning carelessly against the bar. Harry Strykes stared at him, too furious for words. Then he lunged.

  Jed’s left foot was on the brass rail, but as Strykes lunged and swung, Jed moved out from the bar to the full length of his straightened left leg. Strykes’ swing missed and the force of it threw his chest against the edge. Jed lifted the remainder of the glass of rye and tossed it in the man’s eyes.

  Coolly he put the glass down and stepped away. He made no move to hit Strykes, merely waiting for him to paw the liquor out of his eyes. When he seemed about to get that done, Jed leaned forward and, with a sudden jerk, whipped open the man’s belt. Strykes’ trousers slid toward his knees, and he grabbed at them wildly. Jed pushed him, with the tips of his fingers. Strykes couldn’t stagger with his trousers around his knees, so he fell.