High Lonesome (1962)

by L'amour, Louis

  At last the sudden dampness told them they faced the canyon, for cool air usually came down those canyons, and to a knowing man it was an indication. Once within the canyon, they were engulfed in a vaster, deeper darkness, for the walls rose five hundred feet above them. The sand was firm from recent floods following the rain, and it made walking easier, but it would leave tracks.

  Spanyer blessed his luck in having a daughter who did not complain. Lennie was a girl to make a mother of men, not weak, sniveling mama’s boys. She was a good walker, too, and better than the average man with a rifle.

  When they had come two miles into the canyon, they stopped to rest. It would be nearly morning now, although still night-dark in the canyon. Since their start they had come six or seven miles.

  “Used to be a shanty up there”uhe gestured to the mountains ahead, and spoke in a whisperu “and a cave. It was a hideout some of the boys used. There’s a spring.”

  Something scurried in the darkness. The horse shifted his feet. Suddenly something bounded in the night, sticks cracked, the brush whispered. The horse jerked up its head at the sounds. Spanyer kept an iron grip on the lead rope, and after a minute the horse quieted.

  “Lion,” Spanyer explained. “Probably smelled the horse before he smelled us.”

  The stars kept their shy lamps alight in these last hours of darkness. The canyon narrowed and the walls seemed higher; but they had begun to climb, and after a while the canyon widened out and they found themselves in a small basin. Knee-high grass grew around them, and they could smell the freshness of water.

  “We’ll rest,” said Spanyer. “Come daybreak, I’ll get my bearings.”

  Lennie sat down and cradled her head in her arms, which rested on her knees. She thought of the tall rider with the easy walkumore like that of a woodsman than a cowhand. She could imagine him cutting wood for the fire while she fixed dinner, or washing in a tin basin with his sleeves rolled up over muscular arms, his hair splashed with water and sparkling where the drops caught the sun.

  He did not seem like an outlawuand her own father had changed when her mother married him. Maybe he would come west … When they got to California she would look around for another place, close to Pa’s…

  She knew she was dreaming. She knew she would not see him again. For all she knew, he might even now be dead, his body propped up to be photographed, the way they often did with dead outlaws. Or he might be in prison.

  Yet she could not admit either possibility, for she knew, deep down within her, that she loved him, and only him. She knew, too, that she was not cut out to be an outlaw’s woman. Oh, she could stand the hard travel, the rough living and all … she had done that with Pa ever since leaving school; but she knew what she wantedua home, a nice ranch with cattle feeding on the hills, a stream somewhere close by, shaded trees, and the flowers she would plant

  “We’ll move now,” her father said. “I can make out the shape of things.”

  He was an exciting man … she blushed with the memory of how she had felt in his arms … but what must he think of her? Scarcely dressed, and soaked to the skin like that.

  They moved on, and the climbing was steady now. In some places it was difficult for the horse, and Lennie found herself gasping for breath. How her father made it she could not imagine, but he seemed made of rawhide and steel wire, for all the effect. At last they reached a cluster of rocks among which there was a spring, partly shaded by mesquite, cottonwood, and willow. From the edge of the rocks one could see all around.

  They had come out on top of the canyon, and it lay like a tremendous gash in the mountain, falling away steeply into its own darkness below them.

  “They may not find us,” Spanyer said. He glanced at her. “I got to sleep, Lennie. Can you stay awake?”

  She did not want to sleep. She wanted to stay awake and think. The Apaches seemed farther away, more unreal than Considine … what was his first name? Oddly enough, she had never heard him called anything but Considine. She knew the memory of him would fade out … it would grow dim and she would forget, and she did not want to forget, for it was the only memory she wished to hold close.

  There was so little else. She had been abysmally unhappy at school, although she was a good student. She could remember faintly her mother, a slender, lovely woman who had been tender and thoughtful, but Lennie had been at a friend’s when her mother died … only vague impressions remained.

  Pa was brusque, often stern, and she knew he was worried about her. Pa was a man who was sure in most things. He handled horses and cattle with easy confidence, and among men he walked his own way, never going around anybody. She knew he was respected … even feared.

  Back in Socorro where they had lived for a time she had been surprised to hear the respect with which he was addressed by men like the banker, the sheriff, and the big cattlemen around. He was beholden to no man, and the gun that rode his hip was a known thing. Yet it was not the gun that counted; it was the fact that Pa respected himself.

  Those cold eyes of his could chill men … she had heard them say it. Yet in his own rough way he was a good father, and a kind one, even though he often said and did the wrong thing.

  Her father had that quality of desert and mountain men that he could sleep when he wished, and he slept now, curled up on the sand. Several times she got up from where she sat and looked around, careful to show no movement to any possible watcher below. Already she had acquired from her father those habits of care and eternal watchfulness so essential to the wilderness life among hostile Indians.

  The sky grew pale, then the red arrows of the sun opened the heavens to the gold that followed. The shadows fled, somewhere a bird sang, the song crystal clear in the morning air. The sky became blue, the cacti turned from gray to green, and the morning was with them.

  Her father still slept; and now, relaxed in the shade of a boulder, his face for the first time looked old, and for the first time she thought what this must mean to him, to be starting over again at his age, to be making a new life … and for her.

  There was strength in him still, a resilient strength as of some kind of strange steel that resists all corrosion, so that he lived on, seemingly timeless, everlasting. Yet he was not … and she knew some of his haste, knew the reason for it.

  The sky was fully light now, and when she looked around again she saw an Indian sitting on a horse. He was not over a hundred yards away, and he was looking straight toward them.

  a

  Considine was riding with the Kiowa. The Apaches, who were stalking the two ahead of them, had not held to the trail, but they were moving westward. Considine remembered vaguely some story about a Yuma Indian who had taken an Apache girl to wife and had become a noted warrior among them. If that was the case, it might account for the Apaches ranging so far west.

  The four riders had been following the trail only a short time when they found the broken shoe. From there on, the tracks were of two people who walked, leading the horse. Only occasionally did they ride, obviously saving the horse as much as possible for whatever might lie ahead.

  Considine closed off his thoughts from Spanyer and Lennie. They would make it … somehow. Tonight he and the boys would hole up in that cave on Castle Dome.

  West of the Dome there was a saddle by which they could cross into the valley beyond, and then follow Silver Creek to the east side of the mountains. There were a couple of springs down there. It might be better to stay west and avoid those springs … but there was good water there.

  He could tell that the horse Spanyer led was limping badly, and would be no use at all if they did have to run for it. He swore to himself … nobody looked at him, or said anything. The story of the tracks could be read by them all.

  Hardy mopped his face and tried to ease his position in the saddle. Their eyes were constantly moving, searching, watching. They were carrying more money than they had ever had in their lives, or were likely to have again.

  “Man,” Hardy said sudden
ly, “I’d like to have seen their faces back in Obaro!”

  Nobody replied … somehow robbing the bank in Obaro seemed a small thing today.

  Hardy stared at the others belligerently, but they ignored him. Well, nobody else had ever done it, had they? And they had. He could tell the girls down in Sonora that he was one of those who stood up the bank in Obaro. That would make them sit up and listen!

  Only he was not convincing himself. Somehow, the robbery of the bank had dwindled in importance. Their eyes were reading the trail sign: an old man and a young girl were leading a crippled horse through Indian country.

  “The posse might help them,” Dutch said, voicing a thought that was in all their minds.

  “Take ‘em off our trail,” Hardy said, with false cheerfulness.

  The four rode on in silence, dusty, tired, and wary. Behind them was a posse, before them a war party of Indians, south of them the inviting border where there was a ranch they knew of, where they could hole up for a few days before going back toward Sonorita and then down to Hermosillo.

  Suddenly a flock of quail burst from the brush some fifty yards ahead and to the left. Dust lifted from an empty trail. The four riders were gone … vanished. The explosion of those quail had been warning enough, and they had acted with the split-second speed they had acquired by years of danger.

  From the lip of a dry wash, Considine held his Winchester steady while his eyes searched for an enemy. Dutch had gone into the same wash some fifty yards up. The others were nowhere in sight.

  For a short space of time nothing happened. Considine glanced around at his horse, surveyed the wash behind him, and waited. His skin itched from the dust and sweat, his tongue touched his dry lips. He squinted his eyes into the hot bright day and searched for an Indian. And then a rifle’s flat statement ended the silence.

  The shot came from their side, and it brought a dozen quick replies.

  Hardy came walking placidly down the wash behind Considine and grinned up at him. “That Kiowa, he sees better than any man I know. I’ll lay you five to one he notched one.”

  He unlimbered his rifle and crawled up beside Considine. “The Kiowa’s not a dozen feet from where he was when those quail went up. He’s got him a nest among the rocks.”

  There was no sign of Dutch. The Kiowa fired again, but nobody replied to his shot. Considine mopped his forehead to keep the sweat out of his eyes. The earth felt hot, and the temperature here against the sand was much hotter than it was when one was riding. His shirt was soaked with sweat.

  The Kiowa shot again, and an Indian reared up suddenly and threw his rifle out in front of him; then he toppled forward over a creosote bush. Silence followed, a silence in which there was only sand and sun, and the smell of their own stale clothing.

  Suddenly there was a chorus of shrill yells and half a dozen Indians came from the sand and rushed the Kiowa’s hideout. All three men fired from the wash, and two Indians fell. Considine triggered his rifle swiftly again, and in the moment following his shot, Dutch fired from up the wash.

  The Kiowa had deliberately baited the Apaches into an attack to open them up for the guns of his friends. The Indians probably thought they had fled.

  Minutes passed, long, slow minutes, and nothing happened. Then the Kiowa came into sight, riding his horse. He drew up, looking around, and the three men came over the edge of the wash, leading their horses. Dutch was bleeding from a scratch on his face.

  “Shale,” he said, “ricocheted from a bullet.”

  It was their only injury. They found no Indians, not even dead ones, but there was blood.

  “Two,” the Kiowa said, “maybe three.”

  The Apache was a good fighting man, but no fool. Against the kind of shooting they had faced, this was not the time nor the place. But these Apaches were not the same bunch that followed Spanyer and Lennie. Perhaps thirty or more had broken up into small parties because of the water.

  “They were coming here,” the Kiowa said. “There is water there.” He indicated a dry waterfall and, turning his horse, he rode to it and swung down. Dropping to his knees, he dug into the sand. Soon the sand was wet, and then there was water. They drank, then one by one they allowed their horses to drink as the water seeped into the hole.

  “There is often water in such places, but after a rain it is sure,” the Kiowa said.

  A few clouds drifted across the sky, making islands of shadow upon the desert. There was no smoke.

  “An old hideout’s up yonder,” Dutch said suddenly, “up on High Lonesome.”

  “Pete Runyon knows it.”

  “Do you think he’s still coming?” Hardy asked.

  “You can just bet he is.” Considine glanced at their back trail. “I can say for sure that he’s a persistent kind of man.”

  “Does he know about the cave on Castle Dome?”

  “I doubt it … but he might.”

  Dutch rolled a smoke, letting his huge body relax slowly. “Only the old ones know it,” he said.

  “I told Considine.” He touched his tongue to the cigarette paper. “Spanyer probably knows it, and he knows about High Lonesome.”

  “We turn south right up ahead,” the Kiowa said. “Beyond that peak.”

  They squinted against the sun. Before them were the tracks of the man and the girl and, almost wiping them out, the tracks of the Indians.

  Dutch stared at the tracks, then blinked his eyes against the smart of the salt from the sweat trickling into his eyes.

  Considine looked up toward High Lonesome.

  Chapter X

  Before Lennie could wake her father, the Indian on the horse had vanished.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to her. “You saw it all right.”

  Under the hot morning sky the desert mountains looked like a crumpled sheet of dusty copper, dotted here and there with clumps of green brush.

  Dave Spanyer had studied their situation in the vague light before he closed his eyes, and he knew they could be approached from all sides. But on two sides there was almost no cover, and therefore he expected the attack from there.

  Any sensible defender would be watching the approaches that allowed for cover, and Spanyer was sure the Indians would show themselves there. But the real attack would come from the quarter least expected.

  A master of concealment, the Apache knew the art of guerrilla fighting as no people before or since. Moreover, he lived in a country that provided little in the way of natural cover, and he had learned the art of winning battles in such a country.

  The old man placed Lennie where she could do the best job of covering any attack from the obvious sides, and took the other sides himself. Fortunately, their circle of rocks was small, and the hollow was sufficient to allow cover for the horse.

  “That Considine …” Spanyer began, and after a pause he continued, “He might make you a good man.”

  Tears came to her eyes, and in that moment Dave Spanyer was_closer to his daughter than ever before. She no longer had even hope of seeing Considine again, but the brief moment with him had been her only moment of love, and she did love him.

  Suddenly, with that one sentence, Dave Spanyer had broken down whatever barrier there was between his daughter and himself. In her own mind she could see them together, these two men whom she loved, and herself.

  Looking out over the rocks and the mountain around them, she thought of the tired, stoop-shouldered man who was her father. He was oddly puritanical, not alone in his care for her, but in his viewpoint toward women in general. A man who had known nothing but loneliness since her mother died. Somehow, some way, she must make that up to him.

  There was no movement out among the clumps of brush. Lennie held her rifle ready. She had killed game, but only when it was necessary for food; she had never shot at a man. It gave her a terribly frightened feeling to think of it … and to think that within a few minutes she might be dead herself.

  Her eyes searched the terrain, shifting from one rock or clump
to another, moving slowly across the area before her. She was aware that movement is first detected, and best detected, from the corners of the eyes.

  She saw nothing, no movement … And then there was, a faint stirring on the ground, and she saw it was a brown foot that drew in behind a bush.

  She judged the distance carefully, considered the bush. There was no place he could get to quickly from where he had been, so she sighted into the bush a little to the right of where she had seen the foot. She took a deep breath, let out a little of it, then steadied the rifle on the target. The muzzle wavered, and she steadied it again, and all the time she was taking up slack on the trigger. Suddenly the rifle leaped in her hands.

  The foot stiffened out, then slowly drew back part way, and remained there.

  “That’s one, Pa.”

  “Good girl.”

  Three Indians rose at once and started toward her. She fired … too quick. All three disappeared into the brush, a good fifty feet closer.

  Spanyer had not turned his head, and suddenly they came out of the desert where nothing had been a minute before. He fired carefully … once … twice … a third time.

  One down, and one possible.

  He wiped the sweat from his eyes. There was nothing in sight, nothing anywhere. They were out there, but they were invisible.

  He wanted a drink desperately, for his mouth was suddenly very dry, but he dared not move from his post. They would get close, for there was no possible way to keep them off for long.

  He glanced at the sun. It was still early. How long had they been watching out there? He shot suddenly at a suspicion of movement, then threw a wild shot into a vacant area to let them know that he knew what they were doing.

  It came to him suddenly that he would never see the sun go down this day.

  Well, he had lived a full life, if a hard one. What worried him was Lennie. She deserved better than this, to die in a lonely circle of rocks, die by a bullet … for he would save a bullet for her. He owed her that, more than anything. He had given her life; now, to save her from what might come, he would also give her death.