The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (43 page)

Remy Kastelle practically lived in the saddle. Her white mare, Roxie, loved exploring as much as she did, but in the next few days Remy studiously avoided the wide ranges toward the Highbinders in the west. But, time and again she would find her eyes straying toward the high pinnacle that marked the entrance to the Notch.

Then one day she mounted and turned her horse toward the Rimrock. As she drew closer, her eyes lifted toward the great red wall of the mountain. It was like nothing she had ever seen. In all her riding she had never come this far to the west, although she was aware that Lazy K cattle fed as far as the wall itself.

When she drew near, she turned the mare and rode along toward the Notch. She was riding in that direction when she saw the bullet-marked card on the Joshua tree. Curiously, she stared at it. This was not the first time she had seen a card with the corners drilled by bullets. Many times she had seen Texas Dowd shoot in just that way. It was the first time she had ever seen the other four bullet holes. She studied the card for a while, then shrugged and rode on. It meant nothing to her.

She rode on, and the sun was warm in her face. She knew she should be turning back, but was determined to see the Notch at close hand. A shoulder of the rock jutted out before her and she rounded it, and the air was suddenly filled with the rushing roar of the Laird River. To her left was a dim trail up through the pines. Scarcely thinking what she was doing she turned the white mare up the trail into the Notch.

Remy told herself she was riding this way because she wanted to see the Notch, and because she was curious about Crystal Valley. Carefully, she kept her mind away from Finn Mahone. The tall rider could mean nothing to her. He was just another small rancher, and a brawler in the bargain.

Yet Dowd's warning, and his obvious respect for Mahone, stuck in her mind. Who was Finn Mahone? What was he?

The trail dipped suddenly and she hesitated. Only eight feet wide here, and a sheer drop off to her right. The tracks of Mahone's stallion showed plainly. “If he did it, I can!” she told herself, and spoke to the horse. They moved on, and the trail narrowed, almost imperceptibly. Roxie shied nervously at the depth to her right, and Remy bit her lip thoughtfully as she studied the trail. It would be impossible to turn around now. For better or worse, she must keep going.

When the narrow trail finally ended she was nearing the bank of the Laird. She had heard that three crossings must be made, and she hesitated again, looking at the sky. There was going to be little time. The thought of going back over the trail in the dark frightened her.

She forded the Laird and rode up the opposite bank. The side from which she had just come was sheer cliff, towering upward to a height of nearly four hundred feet. The trail was narrow but solid, some fifteen feet above the tumbling Laird.

The country was wild and picturesque. In all her life she had never seen such magnificent heights of sheer rock, nor such roaring beauty as the rushing rapids below her. Tall trees towered against the sky, and when there was a glade or open hillside on her right the grass was green and thick. Entranced by the sheer beauty, she rode on, passing a waterfall that let the Laird go rolling over its brink in a smooth, glassy stream of power, thundering to the stones thirty feet below.

This was the country of which she had heard, the country that was almost unknown to the outside world. She pressed on, forgetful of the dwindling afternoon, and thinking only of the beauty of the landscape. She forded the Laird again, a swift, silent stream this time, and her road came out under great trees, turning the afternoon into a dim twilight as though she rode through a magnificent cathedral of towering columns.

Roxie was as interested as she herself, the mare's ears forward, twitching and curious. They continued, came out in a steep-walled canyon, and forded the stream for the third time. Again it was white water, but slower than below. The trail took her out of the canyon then, and across a valley of some fifty acres, the river, wider and deeper, was backed up behind a natural dam until there was a small lake among the trees. A bird flew up from the water, but she caught only a glimpse and could not identify it.

Then suddenly the trail channeled again and she was in another narrow-mouthed canyon. Great crags leaned over the trail here, and the river was no longer near, but had taken a turn away to the right. Then, riding out of the canyon, she stopped, staring across the first of the dreaded shale banks.

Evening had come, although it was still light, and there was no sound but the soft whisper of the wind in the trees. This was a lonely land, a land where nothing seemed to move, nothing seemed to stir, not even a leaf.

Looking up, she saw the long, steep slide of shale, and looking down, she saw that the shale disappeared in growing darkness below. But when she looked off to the right now, there was no canyon wall, no river. There was only a vast and empty silence, and the somber shadows of twilight lying over a gloomy desert. These were the lava pits, a trackless, lifeless region of blowholes and jagged rock. It lay below her, something like a hundred feet below.

Roxie shied at the bank, and backed away nervously. There was a route across. That much Remy knew. Yet how it went, or how one knew where to enter, she could not guess. Hopelessness overwhelmed her, and anger, too. Anger at herself for failing now, and for persisting so long.

Fortunately, they would not be worried at home. She often rode to the McInnis ranch, or to Brewster's. Occasionally, she stayed all night. But the thought of staying in this lonely place at night frightened her. She did not want to turn around, yet the slate bank was appalling in its silent uncertainty.

Dismounting, she walked up to it, and stepped in with a tentative foot. Her boot sank, and almost at once the shale began to slide under her feet. She drew back, pale and disturbed.

Roxie pulled back nervously; the mare was obviously afraid and wanted none of it. Standing there, trying to make up her mind, Remy was suddenly startled.

A horseman was riding out of the darkness on the far side, and he rode now up to the edge of the awful drop-off into the lava pits. From across the distance she could hear he was singing, some low, melancholy song.

Remy stood still, her heart caught suddenly by the loneliness of the man, and the low, dreaming voice made the night seem suddenly alive with sadness. Stirred, she stood still, her lips parted as though to call, watching, and listening. It was only when he turned his horse to ride on that she became aware of herself.

She called out, and the man reined in his horse suddenly, and turned, listening. Then she called again. “Hey, over there! How do I get across?”

“What the devil?” It was Mahone. The realization made her eyes widen a little. “Who is it?” he demanded. “What are you doing here?”

“It's Remy Kastelle!” she said. “I started for a look at Crystal Valley! Can you help me over?”

He sat his horse, staring across the way, his face no more than a light spot in the darkness. She could almost imagine him swearing, and then he moved his horse to a new position. “All right,” he called, “start toward me. Come straight along until I tell you to stop. How's that mare of yours? Is she skittish?”

“A little,” Remy admitted, “but I think she'll be all right.”

“Then come on.”

Roxie hesitated, put a hoof into the shale, and snorted. Remy spoke soothingly, and the mare quieted. Mahone called again, and the sight of the stallion on the other side of the bank seemed to encourage the white mare. Gingerly, she moved into the slate. It sank sickeningly, then seemed to reach solid footing. Stepping with infinite care, the mare moved on.

When they had gone something over twenty yards, Mahone called to her, and she reined in.

“Now be very careful!” he shouted. “See that tall pine up there? Turn her head and ride that way. Count her steps, and when she has gone thirty steps, stop her again.”

Her heart pounding, Remy spoke to the mare, and Roxie moved out, very slowly. This was a climb, and the shale slid around her hooves. Once the mare slipped and seemed about to fall, but scrambled and got her feet under her once more.

When they had gone thirty steps, Mahone called again. When she looked, she saw he had shifted position. “Now ride right to me!” he said.

It was so dark now she could make him out only by his face and the brightness of some of the studs on the stallion's bridle. She turned again, and after stumbling and sliding for another fifty yards, the mare scrambled onto solid earth and stopped, trembling in every limb.

Remy slid to the ground and her knees melted under her. “I wouldn't do that again,” she protested, “for all the money in the world! How do you ever live in such a place?”

Mahone laughed. “I like it!” he said. “Wait until you see Crystal Valley!”

She started to get up and he helped her. The touch of his hand made her start, and she looked up at him in the darkness, just distinguishing the outline of his face. She sensed his nearness and moved back, strangely disturbed. Something about this man did things to her, and she was angered by it.

“But what will we do?” she protested. “Isn't there another slide? Longer than this?”

He grinned and nodded. She saw his white teeth in the darkness. “Yes, there is, but I'll put a rope on your saddle horn for luck and lead the mare by the bridle reins.”

“Are you trying to frighten me?” she flared.

“No, not a bit. If you were riding ahead of me, and my horse didn't know the trail, I'd want your rope on my saddle horn. This next slide is a dilly!”

They started on, and he rode rapidly, eager to get the last of the dim light. The sky was still a little gray. When they reached the edge of the slide it was abysmally dark. He reined in abruptly. “Too dark,” he told her. “We'll get off and wait until the moon comes up. It should be over the rim in about an hour. By moonlight we can make it.”

He walked over to some trees and tied the two horses loosely. Gathering some sticks, he built a fire. When the dry sticks blazed up, he looked across at her and grinned. “Seems sort of strange. This is the first time a woman's ever crossed that slate bank, unless it was some Indian.”

Remy looked at him gravely, then stretched her hands toward the fire. Surprisingly, the evening was quite cool, and the air was damp. Mahone knelt beside the fire and fed dry sticks into it, then looked up at her. “Your name is Kastelle?” he said. “It's an odd name. It has a ring to it, somehow.”

“Perhaps you knew my father?” she suggested. “Before we came here we lived in Texas, and before that he was a gambler in San Francisco, what used to be called the Barbary Coast. They called him Frenchy.”

He was looking at the fire. “Frenchy Kastelle?” He shook his head thoughtfully. “Seems like I would remember.”

“I gathered from what my foreman said today that you know
him
.” Remy leaned back, looking at the fire. “His name is Texas Dowd.”

“Did this Dowd say he knew me?”

“No, he didn't, but he won money on your fight. He won a bet from Pierce Logan. Logan was sure Leibman would win.”

“This Pierce Logan must know Leibman,” Mahone commented. “No man risks his money on a stranger.”

It was something she had not considered. Still, Logan got around a good deal, and he might have met the big German. But she was not to be turned from her main interest. “That's why I thought Dowd knew you. He seemed so sure.”

“He might know me. In cattle country men get to know others by name lots of times, or maybe you meet in a bar, or in passing.”

“Were you ever in Mexico?” It was a shot in the dark, but she noticed that Finn picked up a stick and began poking the fire. Why, she could not have guessed, but suddenly she felt she had touched the nerve of the whole story.

“Mexico? I reckon most every man who lives along the border gets into Mexico. Right pretty country … some of it. Fine folks, too.”

They were silent for a moment.

“What's it like in there?” Remy indicated the trail toward Crystal Valley.

“Like a little bit of heaven,” he said. “Quiet, peaceful, green … the most beautiful spot I ever saw. There's something about living back in these hills that gives a man time to think, to consider. Then, I like to read. Back there I can sit on my porch for hours, or over a fire in the cabin, and read all I like.”

“How about your cattle? Don't you ever work them?”

He shrugged, and poked thoughtfully at the fire. “They aren't much trouble,” he said. “No other cattle can get to them. I brand the calves while out riding around. Carry a running iron with me all the time. That way the work never gets much behind.”

He stood up. “The moon's higher. We'd better go.”

Remy knew one thing. She would never forget that night ride across that mile of treacherous shale. It was a ride she would never want to make alone, even by day. Yet she was dozing in her saddle and half asleep when they pulled up at the cabin.

“Go on in,” he said. “I'll put up the horses.”

She went up the steps and opened the door. It was dark but warm inside. She was struck at once by that warmth. An empty house, empty for hours on a chill night, shouldn't have been warm. She struck a light, and saw the candle on the table. When she lighted it, she turned slowly, half expecting to see someone in the room, but it was empty.

Puzzled, she walked to the fireplace and, with the poker, stirred the coals. They glowed red. Then she saw the coffeepot and, stooping, touched it with her hand. It was warm, almost hot.

She straightened then, and looked around. The room was small, but comfortable, having none of the usual marks of bachelor quarters. Surprisingly, it was neat. The few clothes she saw were hung on pegs, the pots and pans were polished and shining, the dishes on the shelves were neatly stacked, and all was clean. Only one cup stood on the table. In it were a few coffee grounds.