The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 2 (61 page)

With his left hand he gathered up the sacks. The shotgun rested on the back of a chair with the muzzles pointed at Sutton, not ten feet away.

“Now,” he waved to Stormy, “you tie these gents up. Tie 'em good an' tight because I'll look 'em over after. Then I'm takin' out. Sure do hate to take your money, young lady, but I'll need it, an' you're young.”

Johnny Sutton was the last one tied. The girl drew the ropes about him, then tied a knot and, opening Johnny's hand, placed the end of the rope in it. Instantly, he realized what she had done. She had gambled and tied a slip noose!

Rope Nose called her over and proceeded to tie her hands. Then he picked up the sacks and, with the shotgun, backed to the door. As the door closed after him, Sutton jerked on the rope. His wrists were tied, and he could only pull a little at a time. Sweat broke out on his face and body but he fought with his fingers, struggling to pull the knot loose. He heard a horse walking, then another. He heard one of the outlaws call out from the barn, and Rope Nose replying.

Suddenly the noose slipped, and then he was jerking his arms and shaking loose the loops of rope about his wrists. Swiftly he untied his feet and grabbed for his gun belts. Whipping them about him, Johnny rushed to the door. Rope Nose had both blacks saddled. He hung the saddlebags and sack on one, then swung to mount the other.

Johnny heard Lucas swearing from the barn, and heard the refusal of Rope Nose to give them aid. Then Johnny stepped out and let the door slam behind him. Rope Nose whirled as if stabbed, the shotgun in his hands. He was all of fifty yards away and his mouth was wide, his eyes staring with incredulous horror.

Suddenly he shouted, almost screamed, “No! No, you ain't goin' to stop me!” He stepped forward and fired the shotgun waist high, and then Sutton fired. The widely scattered pellets of the shotgun clicked and pattered about him as he fired. He shot once, twice.

Rope Nose staggered, dropping the shotgun as the second barrel of shot plowed up earth. Sutton could see the man's fat stomach bulging over his leather belt. He saw the sudden whiteness in the man's face. Saw him step forward, hauling clumsily at a belt gun. He got it out, his eyes wide and staring.

“Drop it!” Sutton shouted. “Drop it, George!”

“No!” the fat man gasped hoarsely now. “No, I won't …!”

The gun came waist high and he began to shoot. The first shot went wild, the second kicked up earth at Sutton's feet, and then he saw the muzzle was dead on him, and Johnny Sutton fired a third shot. Rope Nose took a short step forward and kept falling until he hit the hard ground on his face. Then he rolled over and lay staring up at the sky, a spot of mud on his nose.

Sutton ran to him. The man was still alive. His eyes met Sutton's. “Should of knowed I'd … I'd never make it,” he whispered, “but me, an' I'm a yaller dog, killed in a gun … gunfight with Ranger Johnny Sutton!” He breathed hoarsely. “Yessir, let 'em say I was yaller! Let 'em say that! But let 'em remember I faced up to Sutton with a six-gun! Let 'em remember, I died … game.”

Johnny Sutton stared down at him, a fat, untidy man who had rolled over in the mud. The florid features were pale and the spot of mud might have made him ludicrous, only somehow he was not. It was simply that in this last minute, this moment of death, by his own shady standards at least, he had acquired a certain nobility.

Stormy Knight came up beside Sutton and took his arm. He put his hand over hers and turned away. Why didn't men like this ever learn that it wasn't money in the long run? It was contentment. Or had Rope Nose found contentment in that last moment when he knew he had faced a gun and stood up to it?

“You think it will be all right for us to go on tomorrow?” Stormy was trying to make conversation.

“Sure,” Sutton replied, “I think it will. When you get that ranch, you might write me. I'll come calling.”

“I'd like that,” Stormy said, and when she smiled, Johnny knew she meant what she said.

Trail to Pie Town

Dusty Barron turned the steel-dust stallion down the slope toward the wash. He was going to have to find water soon or the horse and himself would be done for. If Emmett Fisk and Gus Mattis had shown up in the street at any other time it would have been all right.

As it was, they had appeared just as he was making a break from the saloon, and they had blocked the road to the hill country and safety. Both men had reached for their guns when they saw him, and he had wheeled his horse and hit the desert road at a dead run. With Dan Hickman dead in the saloon it was no time to argue or engage in gun pleasantries while the clan gathered.

It had been a good idea to ride to Jarilla and make peace talk, only the idea hadn't worked. Dan Hickman had called him yellow and then gone for a gun. Dan was a mite slow, a fact that had left him dead on the saloon floor.

There were nine Hickmans in Jarilla, and there were Mattis and three Fisk boys. Dusty's own tall brothers were back in the hills southwest of Jarilla, but with his road blocked he had headed the steel-dust down the trail into the basin.

The stallion had saved his bacon. No doubt about that. It was only the speed of the big desert-bred horse and its endurance, that had got him away from town before the Hickmans could catch him. The big horse had given him lead enough until night had closed in, and after that it was easier.

Dusty had turned at right angles from his original route. They would never expect that, for the turn took him down the long slope into the vast, empty expanse of the alkali basin where no man of good sense would consider going.

For him it was the only route. At Jarilla they would be watching for him, expecting him to circle back to the hill country and his own people. He should have listened to Allie when she had told him it was useless to try to settle the old blood feud.

He had been riding now, with only a few breaks, for hours. Several times he had stopped to rest the stallion, wanting to conserve its splendid strength against what must lie ahead. And occasionally he had dismounted and walked ahead of the big horse.

         

Dusty Barron had only the vaguest idea of what he was heading into. It was thirty-eight miles across the basin, and he was heading down the basin. According to popular rumor, there was no water for over eighty miles in that direction. And he had started with his canteen only half full.

For the first hour he had taken his course from a star. Then he had sighted a peak ahead and to his left and used that for a marker. Gradually, he had worked his way toward the western side of the basin.

Somewhere over the western side was Gallo Gap, a green meadow high in the peaks off a rocky and rarely used pass. There would be water there if he could make it, yet he knew of the gap only from a story told him by a prospector he had met one day in the hills near his home.

Daybreak found him a solitary black speck in a vast wilderness of white. The sun stabbed at him with lances of fire and then rising higher bathed the great alkali basin in white radiance and blasting furnace heat. Dusty narrowed his eyes against the glare. It was at least twelve miles to the mountains.

He still had four miles to go through the puffing alkali dust when he saw the tracks. At first he couldn't believe the evidence of his eyes. A wagon—here!

While he allowed the steel-dust to take a blow, he dismounted and examined the tracks. It had been a heavy wagon pulled by four mules or horses. In the fine dust he could not find an outlined track to tell one from the other.

The tracks had come out of the white distance to the east and had turned north exactly on the route he was following. Gallo Gap, from the prospector's story, lay considerably north of him and a bit to the west.

Had the driver of the wagon known of the gap? Or had he merely turned on impulse to seek a route through the mountains. Glancing in first one and then the other direction, Dusty could see no reason why the driver should have chosen either direction. Jarilla lay southwest, but from here there was no indication of it and no trail.

Mounting again, he rode on, and when he came to the edge of the low hills fronting the mountains, he detected the wagon trail running along through the scattered rocks, parched bunch grass, and greasewood. It was still heading north. Yet when he studied the terrain before him he could see nothing but dancing heat waves and an occasional dust devil.

The problem of the wagon occupied his mind to forgetfulness of his own troubles. It had come across the alkali basin from the east. That argued it must have come from the direction of Manzano unless the wagon had turned into the trail somewhere further north on the road to Conejos.

Nothing about it made sense. This was Apache country and no place for wagon travel. A man on a fast horse, yes, but even then it was foolhardy to travel alone. Yet the driver of the wagon had the courage of recklessness to come across the dead white expanse of the basin, a trip that to say the least was miserable.

Darkness was coming again, but he rode on. The wagon interested him, and with no other goal in mind now that he had escaped the Hickmans, he was curious to see who the driver was and to learn what he had in mind. Obviously, the man was a stranger to this country.

It was then, in the fading light, that he saw the mule. The steel-dust snorted and shied sharply, but Dusty kneed it closer for a better look. It had been a big mule and a fine animal, but it was dead now. It bore evidence of that brutal crossing of the basin, and here, on the far side, the animal had finally dropped dead of heat and exhaustion.

Only then did he see the trunk. It was sitting between two rocks, partly concealed. He walked to it and looked it over. Cumbersome and heavy, it had evidently been dumped from the wagon to lighten the load. He tried to open it, but could not. It was locked tight. Beside it were a couple of chairs and a bed.

“Sheddin' his load,” Dusty muttered thoughtfully. “He'd better find some water for those other mules or they'll die, too.”

Then he noticed the name on the trunk.
D.C. LOWE, ST. LOUIS, MO.

“You're a long way from home,” Dusty remarked. He swung a leg over the saddle and rode on. He had gone almost five miles before he saw the fire.

         

At first, it might have been a star, but as he drew nearer he could see it was too low down, although higher than he was. The trail had been turning gradually deeper into the hills and had begun to climb a little. He rode on, using the light for a beacon.

When he was still some distance off he dismounted and tied the stallion to a clump of greasewood and walked forward on foot.

The three mules were hitched to the back of the wagon, all tied loosely and lying down. A girl was bending over a fire, and a small boy, probably no more than nine years old, was gathering sticks of dried mesquite for fuel. There was no one else in sight.

Marveling, he returned to his horse and started back. When he was still a little distance away he began to sing. His throat was dry and it was a poor job, but he didn't want to frighten them. When he walked his horse into the firelight the boy was staring up at him, wide-eyed, and the girl had an old Frontier Model Colt.

“It's all right, ma'am,” he said, swinging down, “I'm just a passin' stranger an' don't mean any harm.”

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“Name of Dusty Barron, ma'am. I've been followin' your trail.”

“Why?” Her voice was sharp and a little frightened. She could have been no more than seventeen or eighteen.

“Mostly because I was headed thisaway an' was wonderin' what anybody was doin' down here with a wagon, or where you might be headed.”

“Doesn't this lead us anywhere?” she asked.

“Ma'am,” Dusty replied, “if you're lookin' for a settlement there ain't none thisaway in less'n a hundred miles. There's a sort of town then, place they call Pie Town.”

“But where did you come from?” Her eyes were wide and dark. If she was fixed up, he reflected, she would be right pretty.

“Place they call Jarilla,” he said, “but I reckon this was a better way if you're travelin' alone. Jarilla's a Hickman town, an' they sure are a no-account lot.”

“My father died,” she told him, putting the gun in a holster hung to the wagon bed, “back there. Billy an' I buried him.”

“You come across the basin alone?” He was incredulous.

“Yes. Father died in the mountains on the other side. That was three days ago.”

Dusty removed his hat and began to strip the saddle and bridle from the stallion while the girl bent over her cooking. He found a hunk of bacon in his saddle pockets. “Got plenty of bacon?” he asked. “I most generally pack a mite along.”

She looked up, brushing a strand of hair away from her face. She was flushed from the fire. “We haven't had any bacon for a week.” She looked away quickly, and her chin quivered a little and then became stubborn. “Nor much of anything else, but you're welcome to join us.”

He seated himself on the ground and leaned back on his saddle while she dished up the food. It wasn't much. A few dry beans and some corn bread. “You got some relatives out here somewheres?”

“No.” She handed him a plate, but he was too thirsty to eat more than a few mouthfuls. “Father had a place out here. His lungs were bad and they told him the dry air would be good for him. My mother died when Billy was born, so there was nothing to keep us back in Missouri. We just headed west.”

“You say your father had a place? Where is it?”

“I'm not sure. Father loaned some man some money, or rather, he provided him with money with which to buy stock. The man was to come west and settle on a place, stock it, and then send for Dad.”

Dusty ate slowly, thinking that over. “Got anything to show for it?”

“Yes, Father had an agreement that was drawn up and notarized. It's in a leather wallet. He gave the man five thousand dollars. It was all we had.”

When they had eaten, the girl and boy went to sleep in the wagon box while Dusty stretched out on the ground nearby. “What a mess!” he told himself “Those kids comin' away out here, all by themselves now, an' the chances are that money was blowed in over a faro layout long ago!”

         

In the morning Dusty hitched up the mules for them. “You foller me,” he advised, and turned the stallion up the trail to the north.

It was almost noon before he saw the thumblike butte that marked the entrance to Gallo Gap. He turned toward it, riding ahead to scout the best trail and at times dismounting to roll rocks aside so the wagon could get through.

Surmounting the crest of a low hill, he looked suddenly into Gallo Gap. His red-rimmed eyes stared greedily at the green grass and trees. The stallion smelled water and wanted to keep going, so waving the wagon on, he rode down into the gap.

Probably there were no more than two hundred acres here, but it was waist deep in rich green grass, and the towering yellow pines were tall and very old. It was like riding from desolation into a beautiful park. He found the spring by the sound of running water, crystal clear and beautiful, the water rippling over the rocks to fall into a clear pond at least an acre in extent. Nearby, space had been cleared for a cabin and then abandoned.

Dusty turned in the saddle as his horse stood knee deep in the water. The wagon pulled up. “This is a little bit of heaven!” he said, grinning at the girl. “Say, what's your name, anyway?”

“Ruth Grant,” she said, shyly.

All the weariness seemed to have fled from her face at the sight of the water and trees. She smiled gaily, and a few minutes later as he walked toward the trees with a rifle in the crook of his elbow he heard laughter and then her voice, singing. He stopped suddenly, watching some deer feeding a short distance off, and listening to her voice. It made a lump of loneliness rise in his throat.

That night, after they had eaten steaks from a fat buck he'd killed, their first good meal in days, he looked across the fire at her. “Ruth,” he said, “I think I'll locate me a home right here. I've been lookin' for a place of my own.

“I reckon what we better do is for you all to stay here with me until you get rested up. I'll build a cabin, and those mules of yours can get some meat on their bones again. Then I'll ride on down to Pie Town and locate this hombre your father had dealin's with an' see how things look.”

That was the way they left it, but in the days that followed Dusty Barron had never been happier. He felled trees on the mountainside and built a cabin, and in working around he found ways of doing things he had never tried before. Ruth was full of suggestions about the house, sensible, knowing things that helped a lot. He worked the mules a little, using only one at a time and taking them turnabout.

He hunted a good deal for food. Nearby he found a salt lick and shot an occasional antelope, and several times, using a shotgun from the wagon, he killed blue grouse. In a grove of trees he found some ripe black cherries similar to those growing wild in the Guadalupe Mountains of west Texas. There was also some Mexican plum.

When the cabin was up and there was plenty of meat on hand he got his gear in shape. Then he carefully oiled and cleaned his guns.

Ruth noticed them, and her face paled a little. “You believe there will be trouble?” she asked quickly. “I don't want you to—”

“Forget it,” he interrupted. “I've got troubles of my own.” He explained about the killing of Dan Hickman and the long-standing feud between the families.

He left at daybreak. In his pocket he carried the leather wallet containing the agreement Roger Grant had made with Dick Lowe. It was a good day's ride from Gallo Gap to Aimless Creek, where Dusty camped the first night. The following day he rode on into Pie Town. From his talks with Ruth he knew something of Lowe and enough of the probable location of the ranch, if there was one.