Louis L'Amour

by The Cherokee Trail

  The trouble lay with Preston Collier. He needed Collier’s support if he planned on running for office, and to reach Collier’s place he almost had to go through Laporte and then past Cherokee to Collier’s ranch. He could circle around, of course.

  If Longman could get rid of Mrs. Breydon, then he would get rid of Longman. He wanted nobody alive who could point a finger at him.

  He got to his feet and flicked some dust from his boots with the end of his handkerchief. Carefully, he straightened his cravat. Anyway, it was time he cut himself free from all of the old crowd. His future was assured, and he was moving in a different direction now and needed them no longer. He went out the back door, closing it carefully behind him.

  *

  LONGMAN AVOIDED THE trail to Cherokee, staying in the back country away from the traveled road. He held to the rolling hills and the grasslands, a route he had used before. Jason was right, of course. Her testimony could get them hung. Neither the North nor the South had any use for guerrillas. Nonetheless, he was tired of doing Jason’s dirty work. It wasn’t as if he had never killed a woman, for he had killed a dozen or more in raids, but this was different. He had been one of many then, robbing, killing, and raping without discrimination. Now he was alone, going out to shoot a woman with the necessity of escaping afterward and no friends to fight off his pursuers.

  One last time, and he had the spot picked. Move in, await his chance, one clean shot, and a fast getaway. He had even planned that, with a spare horse hidden in a brush corral in the woods.

  The sorrel horse he left in the brush corral was a fine animal, and he was fast. He was also a horse Turkey Joe had never been seen riding. A true beauty, the sorrel was, a horse to take the eye of any man who loved or wanted a fast horse.

  Turkey Joe rode a gray horse to the line of trees and tied the horse with a slip knot to some brush right behind him. He slid his rifle from the boot and edged up to the tree where he had found a convenient rest for his rifle over the stub of a broken branch. Then he settled down to wait. Turkey Joe Longman had planned carefully and well. The trouble was that, like many another criminal, he had not considered the imponderables, the accidental, the unexpected.

  *

  MARY BREYDON CAME to the door with her Henry rifle and placed it beside the door as she had been doing for the past three days. A dozen times in those three days, she had taken up the rifle and aimed it through the brush and trees at the tree Boone had indicated. Her chances of shooting through all that brush without the bullet being deflected were slight, but at least she could, if still alive, strike back.

  She had been thinking a good deal about Temple Boone’s comments and had decided he was probably right. If civilization was to endure, those who believed in it must be prepared to strike back at the dark forces that would destroy it. Aside from that, she was Peg’s mother, and Peg’s mother had to live to ensure Peg of the education and the chance she should have. For that, she was willing to fight. She poured a cup of hot coffee.

  The stage would be coming soon. She took her apron from the back of a chair and walked to the door, tying it. She had just stepped into the door when, on the hill beyond the trees, Turkey Joe Longman leveled his rifle. In the moment Turkey Joe took aim, the first of the imponderables, the accidental, happened.

  Peg turned quickly to speak to her mother and knocked over a cup of coffee. It burned her hand, and she screamed, “Mama!”

  Mary Breydon turned sharply, and the bullet aimed for her heart burned the outside of her left shoulder.

  Almost without thinking, she whipped up the Henry and fired at the target for which she had so often aimed. The bullet missed Turkey Joe but it hit the gray horse. Wheeling about, Turkey Joe hit the saddle, whipping the slip knot free as he passed it, and he was off with a jump.

  Temple Boone, throwing one quick glance toward the door, seeing Mary on her feet and Matty beside her, hit the saddle running, Ridge Fenton only a jump behind him on another horse.

  At the tree, there was blood on the leaves where the horse had been tied, and the two were off on the trail.

  Swearing, Turkey Joe spurred the wounded horse.

  Within a few miles, the horse began to labor, and Turkey Joe urged it on. His pursuit was behind him but still far enough away, and he had a fresh horse, a fast horse, waiting.

  The second of the imponderables, the unexpected, had happened only minutes before. Bear Walker, a Comanche brave, had come upon the brush corral and the sorrel, and Bear Walker had an eye for horse flesh and a picture of himself riding into the village on such a horse. Bear Walker was no laggard but a man of instant decision.

  Dust still hung in the air when Turkey Joe, stripping the gear from the bloody gray, stopped, saddle in hand, staring at the open gate in his corral. Behind him, he heard the pound of hoofs. He dropped the saddle and went for his gun.

  The gun came up fast, but not fast enough. The last thing he saw was Temple Boone, gun in hand.

  “Damn you, Boone! I—!”

  “He’s had it comin’ for a long time,” Ridge Fenton said.

  *

  VARY THE HOURS at which you do things. Avoid patterns.” He put down his cup and reached for the coffeepot. “Have you talked to Ridge Fenton about this?”

  “No.”

  “You should. Get him in here, soften him up with a piece of pie or a couple of doughnuts because he’s a crusty old codger, as you probably know.

  “Tell him what’s happening. Lay it on the line to him because Ridge makes a great fuss about bein’ gun-shy. He’ll tell you he wants no part of any fight. He wants no shooting around where he is. He’s a peaceful man. He will tell you that, but don’t you believe him because that old man has ridden with Indian war parties, he’s had hand-to-hand fights with Indians, he’s guided army patrols, and he’s been fightin’ since he was knee-high. Believe me, and I’ve been around the mountain a few times, I’d rather tackle three cougars in your tack room than that old man when he’s riled.”

  He paused, drawing his cup near. “How about Wat?”

  “He knows, but he’s just a small boy.”

  “And a mighty tricky one. Don’t you forget that he survived on his own for some little time. He listens a lot, misses mighty little, and he can track better than most grown men.”

  He finished his coffee and pulled back from the table. “I’ll be around time to time. If you need me, Wat will know where I am.”

  Chapter 13

  *

  JASON FLANDRAU WAS at supper in the hotel dining room when he overheard the conversation.

  “Can’t figure it out,” a man was saying. “Who would want to shoot a woman? If it had been Scant Luther, I’d not be surprised, but this was a man named Longman. Shot at her from ambush.”

  “He ought to be hung!”

  “Too late,” the first speaker commented. “Temple Boone caught up with him, and Longman was a little slow.”

  “What was Longman’s connection?”

  “That’s just it. There is no connection of which anybody knows. It seems Longman was by the station at Cherokee just a few days ago, but he didn’t see Mrs. Breydon—”

  “Breydon? Wasn’t that the name of that former army officer who was shot over at Julesburg a few months ago?”

  Jason Flandrau’s back was to them, but he felt a sudden chill. It was getting close, too close. Somebody would be apt to remember who had done that shooting and wonder if there was any connection. For a moment, he sat very still, carefully reviewing his past meetings with Longman.

  Had they been seen together? He had tried to be careful, but there had seemed no reason to be too careful until now.

  The worst of it was he would have to move with extreme care. If people were already wondering and anything else happened, they would start not only asking questions but looking for the answers.

  Should he move out now? Leave Colorado at once, for Montana, perhaps? Or California? That was stupid. He had established himself here. They were talking
of him for governor, perhaps for senator. He had been fortunate here and had fallen in with the right group at the right time. Such a coincidence might not happen again. Could he let one woman stand between him and the wealth that could be his by discreetly using his power as governor? And all the honor and position that would be his?

  But what to do? His strong right hand was gone. At least he had not talked. Thoughtfully, he began considering the men who were left to him, the men from the old outfit. Most of them were simply brutes, tough, lawless men who were loyal enough as long as they had money to gamble and buy whiskey. They knew him, but none of them were in his confidence.

  What about that young fellow, that friend of Turkey Joe’s? He was, Longman had said, very good with a gun, and he was shrewd.

  Jason Flandrau finished his meal, but he ate without appetite. To attempt to kill Mary Breydon now would be stupid, but he could not afford to let her live.

  He got up and walked into the street, standing there, looking about. He reached into his vest pocket and took out his watch, glanced at it, then returned it to his pocket and walked back to his office. Jordy Neff was waiting for him when he stepped in.

  “That true what they’re sayin’ about Joe?”

  “It is. Temple Boone killed him.”

  “Maybe I better go call on Mr. Boone. Turkey Joe was my partner.”

  “You were out at Cherokee with him? And you only saw one woman?”

  “Woman and a boy-kid. It was John Tanner’s boy.”

  “I don’t know the name?”

  “Owned him a ranch over yonder by Bonnar Springs. West of Owl Canyon. Had a few head of cows, some horses, but his place was a natural hideout, and there was a kind of natural rock fortress there, so some of the boys began usin’ it for a hideout.

  “Tanner didn’t like it much, but there wasn’t much he could do. Then, one day, one of the boys hit the kid over some impudence, and Tanner objected. This man—it was Mody Mercer—he damn near beat Tanner to death. Tanner crawled away, and a couple of days later, when he could walk, he came back with a gun. He hadn’t much luck that way, either. Mercer killed him. A few days after that, the boy disappeared. Never saw him again until he showed up there at Cherokee.”

  “This Mercer now? Where’s he from?”

  “Missouri, or so I heard, but that doesn’t mean much because around that time Missouri was a sort of a catch basin for anybody runnin’ loose.

  “The story was that he rode with Bloody Bill Anderson. He’s no gun hand, but he’s mean. Shoot you in the back or kill you with an ax…anything.”

  Mody Mercer…a name to remember.

  “Jordy? Stay away from Boone. Do you hear me?”

  Neff stiffened. “Now look here—!”

  “Neff, I need a few good men, men who can do what they are told and who know how to keep their mouths shut. I had hoped to have Joe Longman around, but since he can’t be, I’d been thinking about you.” Flandrau took two gold pieces from his pocket and placed them on the table. “It’s a lot easier than punching cows or working in a mine and a lot safer than what that crowd at Bonnar Springs were doing.”

  Jordy Neff hesitated, thought of the three silver dollars in his pocket, and picked up the gold pieces. “What do I have to do?”

  “Just be around, and when I take my watch out of my pocket with my left hand, meet me here, just like today, just like Turkey Joe told you.”

  Jordy Neff would be useful. He looked like a nice, clean-cut young man, and he was good with a gun. Maybe, in time, he would let him kill Temple Boone.

  If he could. Temple Boone was, all agreed, very, very fast.

  That was all very good, all very convenient, but the man who interested him was Mody Mercer, and that other man, only now recovered from his wound. The man they called Scant Luther.

  Scant was drinking more than he should, and Scant was nursing a grudge.

  *

  WHEN THE SUN went down, Mary Breydon went back inside. Her shoulder was almost healed, although she was still wearing a bandage to cover the wound. It had barely split the skin but had been sore for days and hurt when she forgot and moved her arm too freely.

  Turkey Joe Longman, they said his name was, would come no more, but who might be the next one that would be sent?

  “It was well planned,” Boone commented. “He’d had a horse waiting, but it was stolen before he could reach it. He had no choice but to make a fight.”

  He paused. “Do not think it was only for you, ma’am. He had attacked from ambush, and if we are to have a good life here, such things cannot be permitted. To have arrested him, had there been an officer present, would only mean that he’d be turned loose. Longman had a friend who would have protected him. However, he gave us no choice. It was kill or be killed.”

  “Will you have supper with us, Mr. Boone?”

  “I will, ma’am, and gladly. Whether it is Matty or yourself who does it, you set the best table in Colorado.”

  “That’s an exaggeration, Mr. Boone, but thank you.”

  When they were at the table, Peg said, “Mama, tell us about your home. I mean, when you were a little girl.”

  “I’m afraid Mr. Boone wouldn’t want to hear all that. Maybe some other time—”

  “On the contrary, ma’am. I’d be most interested.”

  “All right, I will if Matty will.”

  “My story would be nothing the like of yours, mum, but if it’s my story you would hear, I’ll tell it, as much as I can.” She paused, cup in hand. “But you first, mum. It is your story we would hear.”

  “It is all gone now, the house where I was born and where we lived. My grandfather named it Harlequin Oaks when he finished it, and my family had lived there one hundred years before the big house was built.

  “The first of us came there in 1660 when it was wilderness. He cut down logs and built a cabin and a barn and plowed land. He chose the site for the big house and cleared the land, leaving the fine big oak trees where they were. He had been an officer in the army, and he brought two of his men with him when he settled, and each of them took land nearby but worked for him.

  “By the time I was born, all the building was done. We had fine horses and carriages—”

  “Slaves?” Boone asked.

  “Never! My ancestor who built the first cabin, he had been captured from a ship by Algerian pirates and had himself been a slave—”

  “But he was a white man?”

  “Yes, he was, but many whites were enslaved in Algiers, Tunis, and elsewhere. As for that, there had been slaves in Europe for a thousand years before ever they saw a black man.

  “The Romans enslaved the Greeks and later the Gauls, the Jews, whoever they conquered. It was so all over the world, I’m told. When they conquered a people, they killed them or made slaves of them.

  “My grandfather, though, he said slaves were too expensive. It was cheaper, he said, to hire men to do the work than to feed and clothe them the year around.

  “Aside from the house, there were two barns for hay and wheat, four stables for cows, horses, and mules, the carriage house, a smoke house, and an ice house. There was also a walled-in spring.

  “The brick for the house was made right on the place, and the lumber was cut there or in the mountains not far away. My great-grandfather and my grandfather supervised the work themselves, just as they did all the planting that was done.”

  “Were there many rooms?” Wat asked.

  “Twenty-eight, I believe, in the main house. As you went in, the study was on the right, and there was a stair to the second floor on the left.

  “One could walk straight through to the garden, but on the right of the hall was the parlor, on the left the dining room.”

  “Quite a place,” Boone commented.

  “My father loved to entertain, so we often had people staying with us, and on almost any evening we had from four to eight guests. When people traveled by carriage in those days, they often stopped with friends, and of course
we had many of those who came up the Shenandoah Valley who were going on to Washington.”

  “You still have guests,” Boone said, “only you have to share them with the Overland Stage Company.”

  Mary looked up at Matty, who had started to clear the table. “Now it’s your turn, Matty.”

  “Another time,” Matty said, “but ’twill be no such tale as yours, nor was I born in a house so grand but in a wee cottage with a thatched roof where we could look westward over the sea.” She paused, dishes in hand. “My first memories were of me mother standin’ lookin’ off to sea, shadin’ her eyes for a sight of m’ father’s boat.

  “The sea gave us our livin’, such as it was, but we dinna trust it to bring back those who sailed out upon it, and many’s the poor lad from the village who sailed after fish and was seen no more, my father among them.”

  “He was a fisherman?”

  “Aye, but a soldier before that. As a lad, he fought in Spain with Wellington and was at Waterloo with a brother of his on the side of Bonaparte. He saved a bit, my father did, and married late and bought the boat, and ’twas a good living we had whilst he lived and before the sea took him, and his boat, too. Only the sea gave us back the boat but not the man.”

  “On another night you must tell us, Matty.” She turned to Boone. “And you, Mr. Boone? You’ve a story, I am sure. Will we hear it someday?”

  He smiled. “What story could I tell? I know little enough of my people, although I’ve a memory of sitting by a field while my father plowed, the lines about his neck so he could have both hands for the plow. I remember the crops standing tall and my mother crying when the grasshoppers took it all.

  “I was a sagebrush orphan like Wat here. Cholera took my mother and father and my baby sister. My father was wanting to cross the plains to Oregon, but he lacked the money. He had six crow-bait cattle hitched to our old farm wagon, but no wagon train would accept him.

  “That wagon would break down before you’d gone fifty miles if your stock didn’t die first. We can’t risk it, they all said, to have the wagon train waiting while you made repairs. It would be a risk for us all.”