the Lonesome Gods (1983)

by L'amour, Louis

  "Five, at least. There's maybe more. He's got a way of sending a backup crew to circle around and come in behind."

  Peter ducked outside, and I could hear him running as he led the horse to the corral and turned him in out of the way, saddle and all. When he came through the door, he was sweating, and it was still early and the air was cool. "We've water piped into the house, Peter, and we've food enough. This place is built like a fort, and I expect we'll have a good deal better time in here than they will out in the sandhills. So sit down."

  Peter sat down, glancing uneasily out the doorway. "I know about the water. Ain't often you see that. He must have figured on being trapped here sometime." "That, or he didn't want to be seen."

  "Who would see him out here? Who but Injuns?"

  My father shrugged. "Perhaps he just did not want to be seen."

  "You don't believe that Tahquitz stuff, do you?"

  "I don't know. After all, what is Tahquitz, if there is such a being? It is just a name to cover a belief or an idea or a fear."

  He turned to me. "Hannes, I'd like it if you'd get back in a corner and sit down on the floor behind the bed there."

  "I want to be with you."

  "I'm sorry, Hannes. I want you to do as you're told." "I could load your guns."

  "Maybe. Later."

  Peter looked at me, smiling a little. "The boy ain't scared, is he?"

  "He's my son," Papa said, and I was suddenly very proud. But I was scared ... a little.

  We heard their horses' hooves on the hard-packed yard. I hoped my blue lizard was hiding.

  "Halloo, the house!"

  My father went to the door, glancing from the window as he went toward it. "They don't know for sure that it's me who is here," he commented to Peter. "No use keeping them in doubt."

  He opened the door.

  He did not step outside, but simply stood in the door, perhaps a foot inside, waiting.

  "You, there!" The speaker was a burly Anglo in a striped shirt. "We're huntin' Zachary Verne. You seen him?"

  "I can't say that I have," my father replied mildly, "not since I got up."

  "He's here, then? He's been here?"

  "Oh, he's here, all right." My father was smiling. "I think he's going to be around for the next few weeks, anyway."

  Over his shoulder he spoke in a lower tone. "Peter? Cover the rear of the house, if you will."

  "You say you saw him? When was that?"

  "This morning, when I looked in the mirror. I was shaving."

  It took them a minute. One of the Mexicans behind the Anglo said, "It is heem! He is the one!"

  "You? You're Zachary Verne?"

  My father simply stood there, smiling a little, and then suddenly he said, "Well? What did you come for?"

  "I came to ki--!" Even I, who was not quite seven, even I saw he was clumsy at it. He started to lift the rifle which he held across the saddle in front of him, and my father shot him. Without haste, he shot the third man, for the second, the one who had been quickest to recognize him, had gone around the house.

  Peter's gun boomed, and as he started to load it, I took it from his hands and showed him the shotgun, which he took.

  Careful to spill no powder, I reloaded Peter's rifle and then crossed to stand behind my father, but those who had been about to attack were gone. One man, the Anglo, lay sprawled on the hard earth where I had drawn Francisco's picture. There were spots of blood where another had bled, and two riderless horses stood in the yard. Suddenly a horseman spurred by us at a dead run down the lane, and my father watched him go, gun in hand. "No use to shoot him," my father said. "He's anxious to get away. I do not think he will come back." "He's lost some fingers," Peter Burkin said. "He dropped on the far side of his saddle, so I shot off the pommel and took some fingers with it."

  "Thank you, Peter." My father turned to me. "And thank you, Hannes. You are very cool. I like a man who doesn't lose his head."

  My father sat down suddenly, as if exhausted. He looked at Peter and shook his head. "I don't have the strength anymore, Peter. I lack stamina."

  "You're lookin' better." Peter walked over and closed the outer door. "No matter what you may think, this air's good for you."

  "Possibly."

  Peter went out, and when I looked again, the body was gone and the spots of blood had disappeared.

  When we were alone, my father said, "To kill a man is not a nice thing, no matter what the reason. He would have killed me, and you, so I had no choice. I hope this will be an end to it."

  "Who was he, Papa? He is not the don?"

  "No, just a man hired to kill, as they all were."

  "Is the don afraid, that he does not come himself?" "No, he is not afraid. I do not believe he knows fear. Perhaps he has never had occasion to be afraid. He hires such work to be done, just as he would hire a man to break horses or trap coyotes."

  It was almost a month before Peter Burkin rode again to our house at the end of the lane. He rode a fine bay gelding and sat well in the saddle, and he brought a sack of good things to eat and three books. "Got 'em from a ship's master," he said. "Your pa dearly loves reading, so I keep my eyes out for him. I do a mite of tradin' now and again. This time I had me some sea-otter pelts, prime fur. I made him throw in the books as boot."

  He stripped the gear from the bay, talking the while. "He remembered your pa, and his pa before him. You come from a seafarin' family, boy. Your pa was more'n seven years at sea before he come to California. Get him to tell you about those places he went to.

  "My stars! When I hear him talk, his words are like a song my ears have been wanting. He sailed afar, boy, to places with names like music: Gorontalo, Amurang, Soerabaja, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Mombasa, and places like that. I d'clare, I could sit and hear him talk forever. It's no wonder Consuelo fell in love with him. The way I hear it, half the girls in California were in love with him. He was a talker, your pa was."

  Peter turned the bay into the corral and put his saddle and gear in the small barn. "Listen to me, boy, and gather memories while you can. They come easily now and will warm an old man's heart when the time comes. "Do not forget the lasses who were good to you along the years. Remember their eyes and their laughter and the way they were with you. It is a good thing not to forget. And remember the shadows on the hills at sunset or in the dawning."

  He paused. "Your father is better?"

  "I think so. He seems to cough less, but he coughs." "Aye, it is a miserable thing, the lung disease. Stay in the fresh air, boy." He looked around at me, taking off his chaps. "Have you seen the Indian lad?"

  "No."

  "Do not worry about it. He will come again. They are strange folk, Indians. Perhaps not so strange as just different from us, but he will come back. I know his father, too. He's an important man among them."

  "Will you come in?"

  "Of course I shall. Am I interrupting, then?"

  "My father reads to me at this hour. Less than he used to because of the coughing, but he reads."

  "Good! He can read to me, too. If it's Scott or Byron, I'll prove a good listener. Or Shakespeare. There was a cowhand once who said that Shakespeare was the only poet who wrote like he'd been raised on red meat." "Shakespeare?" my father said when asked. "Not today, I think. This is a day for Homer. You will like him, Peter. His people were very like those around us now. Achilles or Hector would have done well as mountain men, and I think Jed Smith, Kit Carson, or Hugh Glass would have been perfectly at home at the siege of Troy."

  "Troy?" Peter Burkin said. "I mind something of Troy. That's where they fought that war over a woman. Helen, wasn't it?"

  "She was the excuse, Peter. Troy controlled travel from the Black Sea into Mediterranean waters, and the Greeks wanted to be rid of Troy. If it had not been Helen, they would have found another excuse."

  Those were the wonderful, beautiful days! My father grew better. The clear dry air seemed good for him, and he began to take walks with me, and sometimes
to ride. Yet never without a rifle and a pistol.

  We saw the Indians from time to time. Once I saw Francisco, and waved. He stood watching us ride away, yet I continued to look, and finally he waved.

  My father talked of the desert, of books and men and ships. Peter Burkin returned and rode with us. He was worried about the old don, and warned my father.

  "He'll try again. I don't figure he's worried as long as you're here, just among Indians. If you started for Los Angeles ...

  "He don't want you there, no way." He rode in silence, then added, "After what happened here, nobody is very anxious to try you. At first it seemed like money found, just to ride out here and kill a man already sick.

  "When that first outfit came back with one man dead and two wounded, those who might have tackled you were short on enthusiasm."

  My father tired quickly, so sometimes we sat down right where we were and talked. When he grew tired, his cough was worse.

  Often he spoke of the Indians, of how they lived and of their beliefs. "We do wrong," he said, "to try to convert them to our beliefs. First we should study what they believe and how it applies to the way they live. First they must be sure of our respect."

  "Francisco does not come."

  "Give him time. They believe ours was the house of Tahquitz."

  "It was another thing, I think."

  My father waited, watching the cloud shadows on the desert. "I spoke of the Indian I saw at the Indian well. The old man who wore turquoise."

  "You really saw such an Indian?"

  "I do not know if he was an Indian. I thought he was." There was a time when I said nothing, and then I said, reluctantly, for I did not wish to be thought a fool, "I do not know where he was standing. I have thought of it since."

  "I do not understand."

  "At the foot of the steps, beside the water, there is a flat place of hard earth. I stood there. When I took a drink, I looked around and he was standing there."

  "Beside you?"

  "Facing me. He was standing where there is no place to stand." I hesitated; then I said, "I offered him a drink, in the dipper. He just looked at me."

  "And then?"

  "You called."

  My father was silent for some time and then he said, "Hannes, we know so little. Our world is far stranger than anyone has guessed. We know a little and scoff at much we do not understand, but the Indians are either a simpler people or one far more complex who merely seem simple.

  "There are trails in the desert, and mountains, Hannes, trails the Indians no longer follow. Here and there, for a little way, they use them. The trails were made by the Old Ones, the people who were here before the Indians. We do not know who they were or what became of them, and some of the white people do not believe in them at all. The fathers at the missions have told the Indians it is nonsense and they must not speak of them."

  "These Indians, too?"

  "No, these are not mission Indians. Some of them go to Pala occasionally, but usually they return here. No priests have come here yet."

  "Where do the trails go?"

  "Nobody knows. To water, probably. Sometimes I believe they go to hidden places where there is writing on the rock walls."

  "What does the writing say?"

  "Often it is only a few pictures of animals, sometimes there is more. We do not know what it means."

  "I shall find out. I want to know what it means." "There are trails no Indian will follow. Someday you may go, but first there is much to learn." My father got up. "It grows late. Now we will go home."

  There were sandhills and cactus where we were, and there was scattered brush. The sun was going down. Something moved in the sand and started a small trickle down the dune toward us. Looking up, I saw nothing.

  "If it is the house of Tahquitz," I said, "I like it. Will we stay there?"

  "If he comes to claim it," my father said, "we will give it up, although I like it, too." He paused to rest. "It shows much love, that house. It shows the love of a man for his materials and his creation. It is a thing to be respected. There is beauty in the house," he added, "and I envy the skill of the builder."

  I thought of the trickling sand. It was probably a lizard. "Will he come back, do you think?"

  "Who knows?"

  My father took my hand. "Come, we must get home. I am suddenly very tired. I wish ..."

  They were there, waiting for us in the yard. There were four of them. The first was an old man with white hair and a stern face. His eyes were mean and cruel. He said, "It is he. Kill him."

  "Sir?" My father's tone was calm, although he must have heard the men behind us. "Let the boy go. He is a child."

  "Kill the cur," the old man said, "and kill the whelp. Do it now!"

  He turned sharply away as he spoke, and my father shoved me hard away and to the ground, and he drew. His right hand was shoving me from danger, so he drew more slowly. He was hit twice--I saw it--before he could fire. He fired then, once, and a man fell. His second shot cut a nick in the corner of our door, and then he fell.

  "Be sure he is dead." The old man spoke quite calmly. "Such carrion is harder to kill than a snake."

  Men came around my father and shot into his body. One of them turned his pistol to me.

  "Not here," the old man said. "We will take him with us and leave him in the desert. It is better so."

  A man grabbed me, and I kicked him. He slapped me hard across the face, smiling past his mustache. "Try that again and I'll cut off your ears before we leave you."

  He had a scar across the bridge of his nose, a livid scar that must have almost cut it in two. He was one of those who shot my father as he lay on the ground.

  "Take him," the old man said impatiently. "We must be gone. The Indians will come."

  "We will kill them, too," said the man with the scar. "You are a fool! They are many, we are few. Always," he added, "they have liked him as if he were one of their own."

  Holding me tight, the man with the scarred nose twisted my arm and smiled when I winced. "Maybe he will give you to me," he said. "Then we shall see you cry. When I move, you will tremble. When I lift a hand, you will scream."

  It was almost dark now, and they rode swiftly, avoiding trails. There were nine of them besides the old man. One was a young man, very handsome, very cold. He had looked at me with contempt. Now he said to the old man, "At last it is done. When this one is dead, it will be finished."

  "Leave him to me," the scarred one said.

  The old man turned sharply. "Silence! He will die. We will leave him in the desert."

  "We are riding east!" the young man said suddenly. "It is the wrong way!"

  "It is the right way," the old man said impatiently. "The Indios will believe we are returning through the pass. They will ride after us. They cannot see our tracks, for it is dark. East is the right way."

  There was a faint light in the sky when they stopped. It was an empty place of flat sand and broken rock and cactus. All around, as far as I could see, there was nothing but a few great boulders and the empty desert. "Here," the old man said. "Leave him. He is of my own blood, after all. If he dies--"

  "Kill him now," the younger man said. "Leave him dead."

  "/ will not," the old man said stubbornly. "Leave him. Let the desert do it. I will not destroy my own blood even if it is mingled with that of scum. Leave him."

  The man with the scarred nose pulled me free of the saddle and dropped me, then sharply turned his horse so that it would trample me, but I rolled away, then ran and hid among some stones.

  "Leave him!" the old man said impatiently.

  They started off, and filled with anger, I stood up among the rocks. "Good-bye, Grandpa!" I shouted.

  He winced as if struck, and his shoulders hunched as from a blow. He started to turn, but the young one said, "It is an insolent whelp! Like the father!"

  They rode away, and I was alone.

  Chapter 14

  I was in the desert. I was alone. To myse
lf I whispered, "I am Johannes Verne, and I am not afraid." My father was dead. They had killed him, and they had left me to die.

  I was not going to die. I was going to live. I was going to live and make them wish they were dead. The faint light in the sky had increased. I stood by the rocks where I had gone to hide, and I looked around.

  Everywhere was desert, sand and bare rock. Here and there was cactus. Those who brought me here had ridden all night, and they had said they were riding east, but I knew it was not only east. It did not matter. I would follow their tracks.

  How far had we come? They had traveled at a good gait, slowing to a walk from time to time, but most of the time at what my father called a shambling trot.

  I knew something of distance, for we had counted the miles westward from Santa Fe. Mr. Farley had often spoken of how far he must go each day, or how far he had come. I suspected they had brought me forty miles into the desert. Those who rode horses thought it a lot to walk, but I had walked behind the wagon sometimes and I did not think it was so far.

  It would be hot. If I was to walk, it must be now when the air was cool. Mr. Farley had rested hig horses during the hottest part of the day. He would only begin to travel when the sun was down. When it was cool, I would walk; when it was hot, I would find a place to hide from the sun.

  Where? I did not know.

  What would Francisco do? He would do as I was doing. He would walk. What else?

  There were the tracks of their horses in the sand. I could follow them back to the house of Tahquitz. Turning slowly around, I looked at where I was. It was a place to start from, a place to begin. In a few days I would be seven years old. In a few years I would be old enough, and then I would go calling. There were three men I would visit. The old don, the young handsome one, and he of the scarred nose. It was a thing to live for.

  My mother had taught me never to hate. Hate would destroy him who hated. Nevertheless, I would hate. My mother was gone, my father had been murdered, I had nothing else.

  My legs were short. I wished they were longer, and tried stretching my steps. Behind me the sun would be rising. The tracks were there, sometimes plain, sometimes faint. My father had taught me a little of tracking, but here it was not needed. The tracks of ten horses were plain.