High Lonesome (1962)

by L'amour, Louis

  He turned the idea over in his mind and reluctantly decided that if there were no results by noon they would return home. And it was not far from noon now.

  He said as much to Weedin.

  “Maybe that’s the best thing,” Weedin agreed. “But a man hates to give up.”

  Pete Runyon studied the situation and tried to recall everything he knew about Considine. The others were also known men, but it would be Considine he would have to outguess if the outlaws were to be caught and the money recovered.

  Without doubt Considine knew the country as far as the border, and from all reports Dutch did also. And Considine had daring enough to ride right off into the heart of Indian country. Where four men might slip through if they knew the tinajas and the seeps, a large party like the posse could not.

  Weedin considered the matter and agreed with Runyon. “If he turns toward the border we might as well give up. What I can’t understand is why he is so far west if it’s the border that he figures on.”

  Mack Arrow, the Indian tracker who was riding ahead checking the trail, turned his horse and waited for the others to come up.

  “No turn,” he said. “Follow man and girl.”

  Runyon scowled thoughtfully and studied the tracks indicated by the Indian. They had noticed the tracks of the couple some time back, and they had seen a few of their tracks around the Chavez store, where they were sure Considine had kept his spare horses.

  The safety of Considine lay south across the border, so why were they continuing on west? Runyon thought this over, remembering Considine. He looked over at Arrow.

  “Are you sure that’s a girl?” he asked.

  “Small tracks, light foot, quick step. It is a girl, all right. I see where she sleep, also. Very small, like girl or child.”

  If Mack Arrow said it was a girl, it was a girl. The Indian added, “First man and girl, then many Indians, then Considine and other men.”

  Weedin eased himself in the saddle and bit off a corner of his plug of tobacco. “We know Considine,” he said quietly, “what else would you expect? He must have seen those folks back there at Honey’s place … then he sees the Indians are on their trail.”

  “Two people on one horse,” Pete Runyon said. “Believe me, they’d have no chance.”

  Mack Arrow indicated the ground. “Men talk, horses very active … want to go. Then one man goes off … the others follow, one at a time.”

  The members of the posse glanced at one another. All of them but one were western men, and they understood how Considine was thinking. Sure, he had made a big strike. He had sixty thousand in gold and a clear run to the borderubut here was a man and a girl on one horse, with Indians on their trail … and they might not even know it.

  The picture was plain: Considine had gone to help, and the others had followed him.

  “That Dutch,” Weedin said, “he’s a good man, too.”

  “Well,” Runyon said, and he turned his horse, “the men we want and the loot they took have gone up High Lonesome, so let’s ride.”

  But Runyon contemplated the situation uneasily. He had that strong sense of justice and fairness that was so much a part of the western man, for it was the way of the time and the country to judge a man by his motives as well as by the results, and it was obvious that Considine and his outlaws had thrown over a chance for escape to help some people they could only have known casually, at best.

  It would not be pleasant to arrest Considine after this, but they would have no choice. Arrest him, or shoot him.

  Runyon swore quietly, and Weedin turned to look at him. “Ollie, that damned fool could have whipped me. He let up on meutwice.”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s what makes me so mad. He was playing with me!”

  “Wouldn’t say that,” Weedin commented dryly. “I seen that fight. There wasn’t much layin’ back, no matter what you may think. Considine just needed time. He wasn’t thinkin’ of you. He was thinkin’ of those boys at the bank.”

  Runyon merely growled. He was angry with himself. All through the fight he had known something was wrong, because Considine was not acting like himself. He was never one to taunt a manuwhip him, yes, but not taunt him. Considine had been doing his best to get Runyon so mad he could not think clearly.

  “Well,” Weedin said mildly, “he’s one of our own. It wasn’t any damned outsider who done it.”

  Knowing the humor of the men who followed him, Runyon was aware that, angry as they were at being tricked, they were somewhat mollified by that fact: Considine was one of their own boys. There were men here, men like Weedin, who had fought Indians and punched cows beside Considine.

  Epperson, who never missed a posse any more than he did a fight, pulled alongside of Runyon. “Pete, those Indians may beat us to it.”

  “Save us trouble,” Eckles spoke up.

  Epperson exchanged an irritated glance with Weedin. “I wouldn’t wish that on any man,” he said brusquely.

  “Outlaws,” Eckles responded. “What’s the difference?”

  Runyon touched a spur to his horse to step up the gait. Eckles was new out here. He didn’t know what Apaches could do to a man. Eckles was all right, but he needed education.

  The clouds were breaking up now, and the sun was coming through. It was going to be another hot day, hot and muggy after the rain. Runyon could smell the damp earth, the way it smelled when the rain came after a long dry spell.

  These men were family men, most of them. They should be at home, he was thinking, not out here in Indian country chasing outlaws. How much was sixty thousand dollars, anyway? How many lives would it buy? How much sadness would it pay for if one of these men was killed?

  Just then, somewhere in the distance, far up around High Lonesome, they heard a shot.

  The sound hung in the still air, and each man sat his saddle a little straighter, but they did not look at each other. The shot was followed by the drum of rifle fire.

  The thunder of far-off battle rolled down the canyon.

  “What d’you think, Pete?”

  “High Lonesome … they’re making a stand on High Lonesome.”

  Suddenly silent, rifles ready, ears alert for the slightest sound, twenty-five belted men rode into the hard bright sunlight.

  a

  Hardy and Dutch … good men gone.

  Considine walked around the small circle and gathered their weapons, stripping each body of its cartridge belt and pistol.

  The Kiowa was rolling a smoke. There was blood on his face from a scalp wound that Lennie had tried to stop from bleeding. “I think we don’t make it, hey?” the Kiowa said.

  “Maybe.”

  Considine levered a shell into the chamber of Dutch’s rifle and stood it against a boulder. A loaded rifle ready at hand could be almost as good as an extra manubut not quite.

  “Kiowa … if they get me, kill Lennie.”

  “All right.”

  The Kiowa drew on his cigarette. There was a swelling over one eye, and Considine wondered what had happened out there during the night “We make a good fight, hey? Many are kill,” the Indian said.

  They were making a good fight. These men around him, both the living and the dead, had used their guns many times before. They had fought Indians and killed buffalo. They had killed deer and mountain sheep and bear. They knew how to shoot, and when.

  Considine looked down at the canyon. Where the hell was that posse? He wanted them desperately now, no matter what happened to him. He wanted Lennie to live. He wanted Spanyer and the Kiowa to live.

  The trouble was you never could see an Indian until he came at you … at least not often. And the Indians would know what they had done. Trust them to know that two men were out of action, and that there was a girl in the circle. She was one reason for their persistenceuthe girl, and the weapons. For the Indians were always short of rifles and ammunition.

  His eyes searched the grass, the brush, the trees. Two men were dead, and neither of them had
needed to be here. They had come partly from loyalty to him; partly because of a young girl with a bright, fresh face who had smiled at them in her frank and friendly fashion; and partly because each of them was, to some degree, living the life of chivalry each admired in his secret heart.

  No sound, no movement. The waiting was hell, almost worse than the end of waiting. An occasional touch of wind rustled the grass and the leaves. The clouds were broken, the sun was bright on the mountains. High Lonesome lay still under the morning sun.

  Spanyer stepped up beside Considine. “You ain’t just the man I might have pickedusort of wanted her married to some steady man who’d give her what she deserves, but if you get out of this, Considine, you have my blessing, for what it’s worth.”

  “I’d like nothing better, Dave.”

  Get out? Who was going to get out?

  Suddenly an Indian showed, climbing to the high rocks that overlooked their position. If an Indian got up there they would have no chance, none at all. The only reason the attackers had held off was that it was a dangerous climb.

  Considine lifted his rifle. The Indian appeared out of the shelter of the treetops, climbing by hands and feet up the almost sheer face. Considine fired, and they saw his outstretched hand turn to a burst of crimson. The Indian started to slide back and Spanyer fired. The Indian humped his back strangely, and then fell clear.

  And then they came with a rush.

  Considine dropped his rifle and opened up with his six-gun. He felt rather than heard the roaring of his gun, then flipped the gun to his left hand and caught his left-hand gun with the right in the border shift, continuing his firing.

  Something hit him low and very hard, and he half turned. There was gun smoke before him and a savage face looming through it. He fired from where the gun was and saw the face wiped away as if by a mighty fist. The Indian fell back, pawing at the raw furrow where his eyes had been.

  Considine wheeled to look at Lennie, and saw Spanyer fighting with a huge warrior, struggling for a knife. Considine turned swiftly and brought his gun down as though on a target and shot the Indian through the temple. He saw Spanyer’s eyes turn toward him and then Considine himself was down, fighting in mortal combat with a stocky Indianuwho smelled, of all things, of cheap perfume, probably captured in some raid.

  Considine struggled up, and felt angry teeth tear at his side. He shot an Indian who was coming over the barrier, and saw the Kiowa fall to his knees, laying about him with a Bowie knife.

  Then he saw the Kiowa start to come up, and three bullets seemed to strike him at once. He was knocked clear around and fell back against the rocks, and as he caught Considine’s eyes on him, he seemed about to smile.

  Just then Considine saw an Indian grasp Lennie, and he lunged up and stepped in swiftly, laying the long barrel of his six-shooter along the man’s head. As the Indian fell, Considine shot into him.

  His pistol knocked from his fist, Considine grasped the Bowie knife the Kiowa had dropped, and threw himself at the other Indians who were fighting around Lennie.

  Right and left he slashed, his blade red. His shirt was torn from his body, but he fought like a man gone berserk, until the Indians fell away from him … and they fell back … and back…

  He rushed out of the circle of rocks. He ran a few feet, searching right and left for an enemy to strike at. Something was wronguhe saw no Indians. He turned halfway around and heard Lennie call something to him, and she threw him a Winchester.

  He caught it in midair, and then he was runninguwhy or where he had no idea. He ran, and then he stumbled and fell with his face in the wet grass. He tried to get up, but could only crawl forward. He felt the shadow of brush around him, and crawled like an animal deeper into the darkness. The last thing he could remember was Lennie screaming something at him.

  What was she trying to say to him? Had it been a warning? And where were the Indians?

  From somewhere he heard a vast thunder that seemed to come from the earth beneath him, a thunder that grew louder and then suddenly faded out, and he was alone. It was dark, and his memory was gone … Was this what it felt like to die?

  The Obaro posse, led by Pete Runyon, came with a rush. They came spread out in a scattered line, and they came with a thunder of hoofs.

  Racing up, guns ready, they rode into High Lonesome, but it was into a dead silence. The basin was empty. Hot stillness held itself in this hollow hand of hills.

  Where there had been the beat of rifle fire, there was now no sound but that of the soft wind. High overhead a buzzard circled, soon to be joined by another.

  They slowed to a funeral pace, for, wise in such things, they knew they rode into a place of death. A lone gray gelding stood by a clump of mesquite. On the ground, abandoned by the fleeing Indians, were the dark, still forms of the Apache and Yuma dead.

  The circle of rocks was before them … and within it … An old man appeared suddenly in an opening of the rocks, a bloody old man, and beside him a girl in a torn dress. A wide-eyed and frightened girl, but a pretty one, despite that.

  “They had no sense, Pete,” Weedin said. “They rode right into a fight they couldn’t win.”

  Dave Spanyer and Lennie stood waiting. “Howdy,” Spanyer said. “Ain’t much to say except that you didn’t come any too soon.”

  Pete Runyon looked past him into the ring of rocks, then walked his horse still closer. From the saddle he could see into the rough circle that had been their defensive position.

  He saw a dead Apache, then Dutch, lying half under the rocks, a cartridge spilled on the ground near him. The Indian he had throttled lay beside him in death.

  Dutch … the big man was wanted in seven states. And Hardy … all whang leather and steel wire, tough, dangerous, quick to shoot. He lay where he had taken his last bullet. The gravel near his mouth was dark with blood.

  “There’s the money,” Epperson said. He made no move to pick it upujust looked at it.

  Eckles glanced around, saw the Kiowa sprawled and dead, and looked further. He started to speak, but Weedin interrupted.

  “It must have been a buster of a fight. There’s seventeen or eighteen dead Indians out there.”

  Weedin took a cautious look around. The other men looked away uneasilyuat the sky, at the mountains. One man kicked his toe into the gravel, another cleared his throat

  “We’d better get out of here, Pete.” Weedin’s voice was casual. “They’ll be coming back for their deaduwith more Injuns.”

  Two of the men moved abruptly toward their horses, eager to be away. A third and a fourth followed. Most of the men had not dismounted.

  Nobody looked toward the steeldust gelding.

  “We might catch us a couple of those Apache horses,” Spanyer commented. “We’re goin’ on to Californy.”

  “After this?”

  “Where we was headed. Where we aim to go.”

  Eckles lifted a hand to point toward the gelding, but his eyes met Weedin’s and his hand stopped in midair and he walked hastily away.

  Pete Runyon picked up a sack of the gold and handed it to Weedin, then took the other himself. He stood looking around him, trying not to seem curious, but struggling to read the story in the earth, scarred with footprints and evidence of the struggle. Once, lifting his eyes, he glanced toward the brush against the wall of rock, some distance off.

  “Nothin’ over there,” Dave Spanyer said quietly. “They came from the other way.”

  “These were outlaws,” Runyon said. “They robbed the Obaro bank.”

  Dave Spanyer looked straight into his eyes. “Three of ‘em, was there?”

  “Why, yes.” Pete Runyon spoke slowly. He had not considered that aspect. “There were just three.”

  At his horse, Runyon worked with the saddle. His canteen slipped and fell to the earth, but he ignored it. He stepped into the saddle. “You and your daughter,” he said, “you come with us. We’ll see you started on your way.”

  Dave Spanyer mounted the h
orse they brought for him. Lennie, her face very pale, was already in the saddle. She kept her eyes on the horizon, as if there was something out there that gripped her attention … or as if she dared not trust herself to look anywhere else.

  Spanyer glanced at Weedin and Murphy, both of them seasoned with dust and fighting and the ways of men and cattle. “They come just in time, those outlaws. Only just in time,” he said.

  “They done some shootin’,” Weedin said.

  The posse turned their horses and started down from High Lonesome. Runyon looked over at Weedin. “You got some tobacco, Ollie?”

  “Sure haven’t, Pete. Must’ve lost mine … back there.”

  They rode away down the canyon and nobody wanted to look back. After a few minutes Lennie and Dave Spanyer caught up with them.

  “Our bank was robbed,” Murphy commented, to no one in particular, “but we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.”

  No sound disturbed the clear air of afternoon. Wind stirred in the grass, ruffling the hair of a dead Apache.

  Out from the brush against the rock wall crawled a tall, lean-waisted young man and he limped toward the steeldust that somehow had his bridle caught in the brush. There was blood on Considine’s leg, and there was blood on his side, but he could walk, and he carried his rifle.

  A gun belt with his six-shooters hung over the pommel of the steeldust’s saddle. Considine found the canteen where it had been dropped, with the name on the side in black paint … Pete. He saw the sack of tobacco, and retrieved it.

  Once more in the saddle, he took the trail the Kiowa had used and rode up into the hills above High Lonesome.

  Far off to the east, on the main trail, he saw a small dark spot, and a trailing dust clouduthe posse, returning home with the bodies of three dead outlaws.

  On the hill’s long crest he sat his horse, the sun in his eyes. There was a stubble of beard on his jaws. He was weak from loss of blood and very tired, but he scarcely glanced toward the south and the border. Castle Dome lifted its massive shoulders above the desert mountains.

  Shadows, faintly purple, were gathering along the mountains. Far off, the Sand Tanks were already growing darker. He started the steeldust down the hill toward the west, toward California.