Perhaps a dry season…But, no, it had not been a dry season. Certainly no dryer than any other year at this time.
He stared across the place where the pool had been. Rocks and a few rock cedar and some heaped-up rocks from a small slide. He stumbled across and began clawing at the rocks, pulling, tearing. Suddenly, a trickle of water burst through! He got hold of one big rock and in a mad frenzy tore it from its place. The water shot through then, so suddenly he was knocked to his knees.
He scrambled out of the depression, splashing in the water. Then, lying on his face, he drank, long and greedily.
Finally he rolled away and lay still, panting. Dimly he was conscious of the wind blowing. He crawled to the water again and bathed his face, washing away the dirt and grime. Then, careful as always, he filled his canteen from the fresh water bubbling up from the spring.
If he only had some coffee.…But he’d left his food in his saddlebags.
Well, Madge would be all right now. He could go back to her. After this, they wouldn’t bother him. He would take her away. They would go to the Blue Mountains in Oregon. He had always liked that country.
The wind was blowing more heavily now, and he could smell the dust. That Navajo hadn’t lied. It would be hell down in the Sink. He was above it now and almost a mile away.
He stared down into the darkness, wondering how far Lopez had been able to get. The others didn’t matter; they were weak sisters who lived on the strength of better men. If they didn’t die there, they would die elsewhere, and the West could spare them. He got to his feet.
Lopez would hate to die. The ranch he had
built so carefully in a piece of the wildest, roughest country was going well. It took a man with guts to settle where he had and make it pay. Shad Marone rubbed the stubble on his jaw. That last thirty head of his cows I rustled from him brought the best price I ever got! he remembered thoughtfully. Too bad there ain’t more like him!
Well, after this night, there would be one less. There wouldn’t be anything to guide Lopez down there now. A man caught in a thick whirlpool of dust would have no landmarks; there would be nothing to get him out except blind instinct. The Navajos had been clever, leading the Apaches into a trap like that. Odd, that Lopez’s mother had been an Apache, too.
Just the same, Marone thought, he had nerve. He’d shot his way up from the bottom until he had one of the best ranches.
Shad Marone began to pick up some dead cedar. He gathered some needles for kindling and in a few minutes had a fire going.
Marone took another drink. Somehow he felt restless. He got up and walked to the edge of the Nest. How far had Lopez come? Suppose…Marone gripped his pistol.
Suddenly he started down the mountain. “The hell with it,” he muttered.
A stone rattled.
Shad Marone froze, gun in hand.
Lopez, a gray shadow, weaving in the vague light from the cliff, had a gun in his hand. For a full minute, they stared at each other.
Marone spoke first. “Looks like a dead heat,” he said.
Lopez said: “How’d you know about that water hole?”
“Navajo told me,” Shad replied, watching Lopez like a cat. “You don’t look so bad,” he added. “Have a full canteen?”
“No. I’d have been a goner. But my mother was an Apache. A bunch of them got caught in the Sink once. That never happened twice to no Apache. They found this water hole then, and one down below. I made the one below, an’ then I was finished. She was a dry hole. But then water began to run in from a crack in the rock.”
“Yeah?” Marone looked at him again. “You got any coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Well,” Shad said as he holstered his gun, “I’ve got a fire.”
About the Editor
Jon Tuska is the author of numerous books about the American West as well as editor of several short story collections, BILLY THE KID: HIS LIFE AND LEGEND (Greenwood Press, 1994) and THE WESTERN STORY: A CHRONOLOGICAL TREASURY (University of Nebraska Press, 1995) among them. Together with his wife Vicki Piekarski, Tuska cofounded Golden West Literary Agency that primarily represents authors of Western fiction and Western Americana. They edit and copublish twenty-five titles a year in two prestigious series of new hardcover Western novels and story collections, the Five Star Westerns and the Circle Westerns. They also coedited the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FRONTIER AND WESTERN FICTION (McGraw-Hill, 1983), THE MAX BRAND COMPANION (Greenwood Press, 1996), THE MORROW ANTHOLOGY OF GREAT WESTERN SHORT STORIES (Morrow, 1997), and THE FIRST FIVE STAR WESTERN CORRAL (Five Star Westerns, 2000). Tuska has also edited a series of short novel collections, STORIES OF THE GOLDEN WEST, of which there have been seven volumes.
Other Leisure books by Louis L’Amour:
THE LAWLESS WEST (Anthology)
SHOWDOWN TRAIL
A MAN CALLED TRENT
THE SIXTH SHOTGUN
THE GOLDEN WEST (Anthology)
THE UNTAMED WEST (Anthology)
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
March 2008
Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 2007 by Golden West Literary Agency
“The Black Rock Coffin Makers” first appeared in .44 Western (2/50). Copyright © 1950 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
“Grub_Line_Rider” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in Triple Western (6/51). Copyright © 1951 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
“Desert Death Song” first appeared in Dime Western (2/50). Copyright © 1950 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
“One Last Gun Notch” first appeared in .44 Western (5/42). Copyright © 1942 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
“Ride, You Tonto Raiders” first appeared in New Western (8/49). Copyright © 1949 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
“War Party” first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post (6/13/59). Copyright © 1959 by The Curtis Publishing Company. Copyright © renewed 1987 by The Curtis Publishing Company. Reprinted by permission of The Curtis Publishing Company.
“Law of the Desert” first appeared under the title “Law of the Desert Born” in Dime Western (4/46). Copyright © 1946 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
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E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0257-4
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Contents
Introduction
The Black Rock Coffin Makers
Grub Line Rider
Desert Death Song
One Last Gun Notch
Ride, You Tonto Raiders
War Party
Law of the Desert
About the Editor
Other Leisure Books By Louis L'Amour
Copyright
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