Novel 1963 - Dark Canyon (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  For several miles he worked his way cautiously along the bottom, finally leaving his horse at a small meadow among the trees, where the grass was luxurious and green. That meadow, he realized, could not be seen from above. The lower walls of the canyon rose sheer, while up there they ran back steeply for some distance, and as a consequence the best position one could find for looking down into the canyon was well back from the sheer edge.

  Here, in the barren, rocky country of the southeastern corner of Utah was a veritable Eden, a place so lovely and so remote as to be unbelievable. And from above not a hint of it, so far below.

  Behind some cottonwoods and willows Riley found an overhang forming a good-sized cave, not too far from the meadow. The floor of the cave was level, of smooth sand and rock. There was a spring nearby that spilled water into a deep, shaded pool.

  He had discovered what he wanted … a hideout where he could retreat in case of trouble; a place where Colburn and the others could hole up and still be close by.

  But even while he explored the canyon, always in the back of his mind there were thoughts of Marie.

  DAN SHATTUCK SAID nothing to Marie on her return, waiting to see if she would say anything herself, but she did not. That she had suffered a shock was obvious; twice when passing her bedroom door in the night, he was sure he heard her crying.

  Alone in his own room, he stared dismally at the wall. He had never known anything about women. His own marriage had not been a success, and a good part of that had probably been his own fault. Yet if it had done nothing else, it had given him time to think and to respect the feelings of others. After his wife left him he had for a time acted the fool. Whether it was love for her or simply hurt feelings that made him do so, he never did understand, but after a while, there was no more of this.

  He had often been lonely before Marie had come to live with him. She had changed his life in every way, and a welcome change it was. He was no longer lonely and rarely depressed, and he had somebody to think about other than himself.

  Pico had helped. Pico understood women much better than he did, and he was ready to admit it—to himself at least. No matter what face he might put on for other people, he had never fooled himself.

  Now he was losing cattle, and they were cattle he could ill afford to lose, but he said no more about it. There was more talk than ever, and he knew that all he had to do was speak a word and a group of self-appointed vigilantes would ride out to Dark Canyon and there would be a hanging.

  Oddly enough, he who had been so sure was no longer so. He had gone to the ranch reluctantly, but he had gone; and had he not seen Marie’s shadow against the curtain he might have led an attack. Once he realized she was there, he was helpless—if the others discovered her presence there, he knew the kind of talk there would be. They would not know, as he did, that she had raced there ahead of them to warn Riley. And talk could destroy her—and him, too, when it came to that; although that had not occurred to him at the moment.

  He knew, too, that he would kill the first man who spoke against her, and it would not end with one killing. There were always more.

  Marie still rode out, taking long rides across the high mesas, but she rarely rode toward Dark Canyon. Occasionally on those rides she saw the tracks of other riders.

  One day she had ridden out across the mesa and, leaving the trail that descended into Cottonwood Draw and followed the creek back into the Blues, she held to the mesa itself and skirted the base of the Blues, planning to water at a spring under the rim of Maverick Point.

  It was a wild and lonely country, but she rode with confidence. Never in all her rides had she encountered trouble, and there was small chance she would see anyone in this empty land.

  She had discovered the spring several years before, and had never seen any tracks there but those of wild animals, but now as she slid her horse down into Hop Creek, which offered access to Cottonwood Draw near the spring, she suddenly smelled smoke.

  Concealing her horse among the cedars, she worked her way along the bench above Cottonwood Draw until she could look down upon the spring.

  Three men stood about a fire, and there were four horses. She did not see the fourth man until one of the others went to him with a cup. She lay there, watching them, knowing the man was ill.

  But why were they here, in this lonely place?

  Suddenly a voice was raised, and a man said, “The devil with what he wants! He’ll die here. I say, take him to the kid’s place!”

  Voices were lowered then, and they talked for some time. At last the tallest one of the group mounted his horse and, taking great pains to cover all sign, he rode away. After a bit, she went back to her own horse and followed.

  She lost him when she crossed Cottonwood Draw above their camp, but sighted him again on Maverick Mesa. She lost him again, then saw him riding along the Reef of Rocks, headed west. She was sure now—there was nothing over there but Riley’s place until you came to Dandy Crossing. When they spoke of the “kid” they had to mean Riley. Taking another trail, she started for Rimrock.

  She rode swiftly, thinking of the strange riders in the canyon, and of the wounded man, for she was sure he must have been wounded. She did not think about where she was riding, for she knew all of the trails very well; she had no wish now but to get back to the ranch, to be at home before her uncle began to worry. And it was already late.

  Riding down to the banks of a small creek, she started to wade her horse through when she saw a rider sitting his horse in the middle of the trail. To right and left there was thick brush, and her only route lay straight ahead.

  She looked again, trying to make out the features under the hat brim. She saw that the man was Strat Spooner, and suddenly she was frightened.

  He stared at her, smiling a little, as her horse walked nearer. By his gaze she was made acutely conscious of her figure, of the way her breasts tautened the material of her blouse. She wished she were away from here, anywhere at all.

  “You’re quite a ways from home, Marie,” he said, and his smile broadened. His eyes held a curious hard yet speculative glint. “And quite a woman, I’d say.”

  To ride on was to draw nearer to him, but to turn back meant to ride into wilder country, where there was nothing and nobody. She hadn’t seen so much as a chipmunk in miles.

  She started to ride around him but he swung his horse in front of hers, still smiling, a lazy, insolent smile.

  “Are you going to get out of my way?”

  “Ain’t decided.”

  He rested his big hands on the pommel of the saddle and rolled his fresh cigarette in his teeth. She was mighty pretty, but if she kicked up a row he’d have to leave the country. He had seen what happened to men who molested women in the western country—there was nothing that brought action faster. If a man was lucky he would simply be hung; some had been burned.

  If she kicked up a fuss … but would she? Maybe she was just waiting for a man like him. She was a high-stepping filly with quite a body under the clothes. He felt himself starting to sweat.

  Marie Shattuck was in a quandary. She might try riding upstream or downstream in the water, but the creek was shadowed by willows and cottonwoods; and back there away from the trail it was now almost dark. Yet the longer she delayed the greater the danger.

  Putting spurs to her horse, she started forward with a lunge, but Spooner was too quick and too ready. His big hand dropped to her wrist, and as her horse leaped forward she was dragged from the saddle.

  Instantly, she swung her quirt. The leather lash whipped across his face, and involuntarily he jerked back. Even in the half-light she could see the livid streak where the quirt had struck him. With an oath, he lunged for her—and then a rope shot out of nowhere and Strat Spooner was jerked back off his feet into the water.

  Wildly, he fought to throw off the rope, and struggled to get to his feet. The stranger’s horse simply backed up, as any good roping horse would do, and Spooner sprawled in the water, cursing. H
e grabbed for his gun but it was gone, fallen from his holster when he had hit the water.

  Marie recognized the rider at once. It was the tall man she had seen by the fire in the canyon. “Evenin’, ma’am,” he said gently. “This feller seems to need a mite of cooling off.”

  “Drown him for all I care!” she flared. Then she smiled. “I want to thank you. I don’t know what I’d have done.”

  The black horse moved again, and Strat Spooner fell again, all sprawled out.

  “Figured you’d best have an escort back to Rimrock, ma’am. I know Riley would be mighty put out if he knew a friend of his was in trouble.”

  “You’re a friend of his?”

  “Lord Riley? I should reckon.” He turned his horse and dragged Spooner out on the far bank. He shook the rope loose and Spooner backed out of the loop.

  “I’ll kill you for this!” Spooner said.

  “My, my! He surely does get wrought up, ma’am. Maybe what he needs is an evenin’ walk.”

  Spurring his horse, he rode up alongside of Spooner’s horse and slapped it lightly with the rope. The horse leaped away and Spooner broke into a torrent of curses.

  Kehoe rode up beside her. “If you will permit me,” he said politely, “I’ll ride the rest of the way into town with you.”

  “Be careful. That was Strat Spooner back there.”

  “Heard of him.”

  “He’s killed several men.”

  “He seemed mighty upset back there.” Kehoe glanced at her. “Was he waitin’ for you?”

  “He might have been. I—I often ride this way.” She paused, thinking about it. “Now that I remember, so does he. And not only when I ride out that way.”

  “Nothing out there to call a man.”

  Kehoe was puzzled. And then he did remember something. “Unless he’s tied in with those men holed up over in the Blues. There’s twenty or thirty men over there—gunhands, and such.

  “You know the spring over east of the head of Indian Creek?” he went on. “They’re holed up there, a pretty rough crowd. We stumbled on them one time—they didn’t see us—and it was pretty obvious they were hiding out. I recognized one of them. A man named Gus Enloe—a wanted man down in the Nation.”

  She had heard the name somewhere.

  By now they were at the edge of Rimrock. He drew up and half turned to go.

  “Who are you? What shall I call you?” she asked.

  “You mustn’t call me anything, Miss Shattuck. Just forget about me. I know that Lord is very concerned about you … not that he has mentioned your name, because he wouldn’t. But when I heard your horse crossing Cottonwood Draw, I followed on to see who you were, and then trailed you back toward town to make sure you got home all right.”

  “Thank you… . You called him ‘Lord’?”

  “Short for Gaylord—one time I saw him trying on a top hat and said he looked like a lord.”

  “You’ve known him long?”

  Kehoe hesitated, and then he said quietly, “Yes, I have … long enough to know there isn’t a better man anywhere, at any time; and if he’s given a chance, he will make something of that ranch.”

  “They are saying he has stolen cattle.”

  “Lord? Not on your life.”

  “But he has cattle?”

  “He bought that herd up Spanish Fork way, and drove it down over the Swell.”

  “But that’s impossible!”

  “No, it isn’t. Most times it is, but if a man tries it after heavy rains, as he did, and if he has friends who tell him where the water is, then he can make it. And believe me, he made it. I’m one of the men who helped him.”

  “One of your friends was hurt.”

  “You noticed that? Yes, he is, and we’re worried.”

  “Do you have anything—medicines, or like that?”

  “Nothing,” Kehoe said bitterly. “We haven’t a damn thing, and he’ll fight us if we try to take him to the kid’s place—to Lord’s. He’s afraid he’ll get him into trouble.”

  “It’s a bullet wound?”

  Kehoe knew he had gone too far not to trust her now; in fact, he had been trusting her all the way along. “Yes,” he said.

  “You wait here. I’ll ride in and see what I can get.”

  She rode swiftly to the drugstore. She had several times helped to care for wounds, and knew very well what to get that the drugstore had in stock. She ordered quickly.

  The druggist, a short, red-faced man named White, looked at at her. “You had a shootin’ yonder? To the ranch?”

  “No … only Uncle Dan wanted to have these things on hand … with the rustlers, and all.”

  “Oh, sure! Liable to be some shootin’, at that.”

  Then he scowled. “Say, come to think of it, Pico was in here and stocked up only last week. Durned near bought me out.”

  “Give the things to me anyway,” she said impatiently. Every moment the man waited he was in danger, and he might begin to doubt her and just ride off. “And please hurry!”

  “Well, if you say so,” White grumbled, “but Pico, he bought enough bandages and medicine and suchlike to outfit a regiment. Seems a waste of—”

  “Are you going to give me what I ordered or not?”

  “Oh, sure!” Hastily, he wrapped up the package. “I surely didn’t mean—”

  She took the package and turned swiftly toward the door, brushing by the man who was coming in, not even noticing who it was.

  Ed Larsen turned and looked after her. Now, how long had it been since Marie Shattuck had failed to speak to him? He walked to the counter.

  “A dime’s worth of hoarhound,” he said. “I take to sweets,” he explained. “Aboudt all dat’s left for an old man.”

  “That Marie Shattuck,” White said, shaking his head. “I never knew her to get mad before. She—”

  Sheriff Ed Larsen was a patient man and a good listener, and tonight he listened, offering no comment until the end of what the druggist had to say.

  “Some boy,” he explained wisely. “Young girls get mighty fidgety at such times.”

  White’s face cleared. “Oh, surel Never thought of that!”

  Larsen went outside and closed the door behind him, effectively cutting off the questions White would have. After all, it was a small town, and White would be curious. Also, there were very few eligible young men around, and Larsen did not wish to be subjected to White’s speculations.

  Marie was gone, leaving only the dust of her going to settle in the empty street.

  “If I were to ride oudt,” he said aloud, “I could get to the ranch aboudt suppertime. Seems to me Dan Shattuck eats late.”

  The more he thought of it, the more he thought it was a good idea. And it was not much of a ride, when a man considered the kind of cooking at Shattuck’s ranch.

  And no telling what a man might turn up—if he listened.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE DINING ROOM at Shattuck’s ranch was a long, low room with heavy beams and a huge fireplace. Dan Shattuck was a man who liked to live well, and he had come to the frontier when living well was impossible.

  Breakfast he ate with the hands, and at noonday he was usually on the range and ate a lunch, or he was at a chuck-wagon or a campfire. Supper he insisted on enjoying in the grand manner, at a table with a tablecloth, cut glass, and silver.

  Partly, it was a matter of preference; but partly, too, it was for Marie’s sake. This was the background a girl should have, he believed, the background of a stable home, of dignity, courtesy, and manner—but without stuffiness.

  Of the visitors who came to his table, Sampson McCarty, Sheriff Larsen, Oliver, and Doc Beaman were welcome at any time. Sampson McCarty and Doc Beaman were both there tonight when Larsen rode in and was promptly invited to dinner.

  Marie, who had changed quickly and hurried to the dining room for supper, came to the door just as the men were walking into the room, and she caught a thread of conversation as she entered.

  “
… holdup at Casner Station. One of them, at least, was wounded. I believe it was the Colburn bunch.”

  Doc Beaman was a wiry little man, often rough, impatient. For all of that, he was a good doctor, and the frontier was accustomed to roughness. Had he been easier to get along with, he might never have come west, for his professional training was far superior to the average doctor of his time.

  He was impatient now. “Damn it, Larsen,” he said testily, “when are you going to arrest that Riley? You know damn well he’s a thief. And probably a murderer. I’ve heard he admits he got those cattle from Coker.”

  “Dere is no evidence of such a t’ing. Of stealing—Burrage, he tells me nearly four t’ousand dollar was drawn by Riley.”

  “We’re all losing cattle,” Oliver suggested mildly, “and we weren’t before he came into the country. I will admit that’s no evidence, but there it is.”

  McCarty helped himself to the roast beef and passed the plate to the sheriff. “I told him your nephew had those cattle at Spanish Fork, and I let him know they might be had for a bargain. You told me yourself he tried to get additional capital from you, Doc.”

  “Well, he didn’t get it! Coker Beaman was always a fool about money. Throwing good money after bad! Why, he knew nothing about cattle! That boy jumped into one fool thing after another. Just the same, he was murdered. Murdered and robbed, and who knew he had that money? The only one who could have known was Riley.”

  “A dozen men might have known,” McCarty suggested. “Doc, if you operated on your patients with as little evidence as you’re using to convict Riley, you’d have a lot of dead men on your hands.”

  “Operation—that’s what’s needed. That’s just what’s needed! An operation with a rope!”

  “He’s a hard worker,” Shattuck said suddenly. “When we were out there that night, I noticed it. He’s done a lot of work. A man like that doesn’t steal.”

  Marie glanced at him quickly, gratefully, and he was glad he had said it, even if he was not quite sure of what he said. Work had been done—he had begun to notice that before they reached the ranch. They had crossed a small wash and he had seen a dam holding back a little water. Later he had seen a spreader dam on a slope. He had never built such a thing himself, but he had heard of them. Then the house, the corrals … and he knew the kind of rawhide building rustlers did. They threw together a shack, never expecting to be around very much. Riley’s house was of logs—and built to take additions. Riley might be a thief, but if he was he intended to be among them for a long time.