Taggart (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  It was dusk when he returned to his camp. Deliberately, he had not permitted himself to begin work, not by so much as a sample. He must be deliberate in all his actions, and never for a second should he forget the mass that towered above him. A split second of hesitation when the crash came—and he accepted it as inevitable—would mean burial under tons of crumbled rock.

  The following morning he picketed his burros on a small meadow near the spring, cleaned the spring itself, and prepared a lunch. Then he removed his shirt, drew on a pair of gloves, and walked to the face of the cliff. Yet even then he did not begin, knowing that upon this habit of care and deliberation might depend not only his success in the venture, but life itself. He gathered flat stones and began building his walk. “When you start moving,” he told himself, “you’ll have to be fast.”

  Finally, and with infinite care, he began tapping at the quartz, enlarging cracks with the pick, removing fragments, then prying loose whole chunks. He did not swing the pick, but used it as a lever. The quartz was rotten, and a man might obtain a considerable amount by this method of picking or even pulling with the hands. When he had a sack filled with the richest quartz he carried it over his path to a safe place beyond the shadow of the tower. Returning, he tamped a few more flat rocks into his path, and began on the second sack. He worked with greater care than was, perhaps, essential. He was not and had never been a gambling man.

  In the present operation he was taking a careful calculated risk in which every eventuality had been weighed and judged. He needed the money and he intended to have it; he had a good idea of his chances of success, but knew that his gravest danger was to become too greedy, too much engrossed in his task.

  Dragging the two sacks down the hill he found a flat block of stone and with a single jack proceeded to break up the quartz. It was a slow and a hard job but he had no better means of extracting the gold. After breaking or crushing the quartz much of the gold could be separated by a knife blade, for it was amazingly concentrated. With water from the spring Wetherton panned the remainder until it was too dark to see.

  Out of his blankets by daybreak he ate breakfast and completed the extraction of the gold. At a rough estimate his first day’s work would run to four hundred dollars. He made a cache for the gold sack and took the now empty ore sacks and climbed back to the tower.

  The air was clear and fresh, the sun warm after the chill of night, and he liked the feel of the pick in his hands.

  Laura and Tommy awaited him back in Horsehead, and if he was killed here, there was small chance they would ever know what had become of him. But he did not intend to be killed. The gold he was extracting from this rock was for them, and not for himself.

  It would mean an easier life in a larger town, a home of their own and the things to make the home a woman desires, and it meant an education for Tommy. For himself, all he needed was the thought of that home to return to, his wife and son—and the desert itself. And one was as necessary to him as the other.

  The desert would be the death of him. He had been told that many times, and did not need to be told, for few men knew the desert as he did. The desert was to him what an orchestra is to a fine conductor, what the human body is to a surgeon. It was his work, his life, and the thing he knew best. He always smiled when he looked first into the desert as he started a new trip. Would this be it?

  The morning drew on and he continued to work with an even-paced swing of the pick, a careful filling of the sack. The gold showed bright and beautiful in the crystalline quartz which was so much more beautiful than the gold itself. From time to time as the morning drew on, he paused to rest and to breathe deeply of the fresh, clear air. Deliberately, he refused to hurry.

  For nineteen days he worked tirelessly, eight hours a day at first, then lessening his hours to seven, and then to six. Wetherton did not explain to himself why he did this, but he realized it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay on the job. Again and again he would walk away from the rock face on one excuse or another, and each time he would begin to feel his scalp prickle, his steps grow quicker, and each time he returned more reluctantly.

  Three times, beginning on the thirteenth, again on the seventeenth, and finally on the nineteenth day, he heard movement within the tower. Whether that whispering in the rock was normal he did not know. Such a natural movement might have been going on for centuries. He only knew that it happened now, and each time it happened a cold chill went along his spine.

  His work had cut a deep notch at the base of the tower, such a notch as a man might make in felling a tree, but wider and deeper. The sacks of gold, too, were increasing. They now numbered seven, and their total would, he believed, amount to more than five thousand dollars—probably nearer to six thousand. As he cut deeper into the rock the vein was growing richer.

  He worked on his knees now. The vein had slanted downward as he cut into the base of the tower and he was all of nine feet into the rock with the great mass of it above him. If that rock gave way while he was working he would be crushed in an instant with no chance of escape. Nevertheless, he continued.

  The change in the rock tower was not the only change, for he had lost weight and he no longer slept well. On the night of the twentieth day he decided he had six thousand dollars and his goal would be ten thousand. And the following day the rock was the richest ever! As if to tantalize him into working on and on, the deeper he cut the richer the ore became. By nightfall of that day he had taken out more than a thousand dollars.

  Now the lust of the gold was getting into him, taking him by the throat. He was fascinated by the danger of the tower as well as the desire for the gold. Three more days to go—could he leave it then? He looked again at the tower and felt a peculiar sense of foreboding, a feeling that here he was to die, that he would never escape. Was it his imagination, or had the outer wall leaned a little more?

  On the morning of the twenty-second day he climbed the fan over a path that use had built into a series of continuous steps. He had never counted those steps but there must have been over a thousand of them. Dropping his canteen into a shaded hollow and pick in hand he started for the tower.

  The forward tilt did seem somewhat more than before. Or was it the light? The crack that ran behind the outer wall seemed to have widened and when he examined it more closely he found a small pile of freshly run silt near the bottom of the crack. So it had moved!

  Wetherton hesitated, staring at the rock with wary attention. He was a fool to go back in there again. Seven thousand dollars was more than he had ever had in his life before, yet in the next few hours he could take out at least a thousand dollars more and in the next three days he could easily have the ten thousand he had set for his goal.

  He walked to the opening, dropped to his knees, and crawled into the narrowing, flat-roofed hole. No sooner was he inside than fear climbed up into his throat. He felt trapped, stifled, but he fought down the mounting panic and began to work. His first blows were so frightened and feeble that nothing came loose. Yet, when he did get started, he began to work with a feverish intensity that was wholly unlike him.

  When he slowed and then stopped to fill his sack he was gasping for breath, but despite his hurry the sack was not quite full. Reluctantly, he lifted his pick again, but before he could strike a blow, the gigantic mass above him seemed to creak like something tired and old. A deep shudder went through the colossal pile and then a deep grinding that turned him sick with horror. All his plans for instant flight were frozen and it was not until the groaning ceased that he realized he was lying on his back, breathless with fear and expectancy. Slowly, he edged his way into the air and walked, fighting the desire to run, away from the rock.

  When he stopped near his canteen he was wringing with cold sweat and trembling in every muscle. He sat down on the rock and fought for control. It was not until some twenty minutes had
passed that he could trust himself to get to his feet.

  Despite his experience, he knew that if he did not go back now he would never go. He had but one sack for the day and wanted another. Circling the batholith he examined the widening crack, endeavoring again, for the third time, to find another means of access to the vein.

  The tilt of the outer wall was obvious, and it could stand no more without toppling. It was possible that by cutting into the wall of the column and striking down he might tap the vein at a safer point. Yet this added blow at the foundation would bring the tower nearer to collapse and render his other hole untenable. Even this new attempt would not be safe, although immeasurably more secure than the hole he had left. Hesitating, he looked back at the hole.

  Once more? The ore was now fabulously rich, and the few pounds he needed to complete the sack he could get in just a little while. He stared at the black and undoubtedly narrower hole, then looked up at the leaning wall. He picked up his pick and, his mouth dry, started back, drawn by a fascination that was beyond all reason.

  His heart pounding, he dropped to his knees at the tunnel face. The air seemed stifling and he could feel his scalp tingling, but once he started to crawl it was better. The face where he now worked was at least sixteen feet from the tunnel mouth. Pick in hand, he began to wedge chunks from their seat. The going seemed harder now and the chunks did not come loose so easily. Above him the tower made no sound. The crushing weight was now something tangible. He could almost feel it growing, increasing with every move of his. The mountain seemed resting on his shoulder, crushing the air from his lungs.

  Suddenly he stopped. His sack almost full, he stopped and lay very still, staring up at the bulk of the rock above him.

  No.

  He would go no farther. Now he would quit. Not another sackful. Not another pound. He would go out now. He would go down the mountain without a backward look, and he would keep going. His wife waiting at home, little Tommy, who would run gladly to meet him—these were too much to gamble.

  With the decision came peace, came certainty. He sighed deeply, and relaxed, and then it seemed to him that every muscle in his body had been knotted with strain. He turned on his side and with great deliberation gathered his lantern, his sack, his hand-pick.

  He had won. He had defeated the crumbling tower, he had defeated his own greed. He backed easily, without the caution that had marked his earlier movements in the cave. His blind, trusting foot found the projecting rock, a piece of quartz that stuck out from the rough-hewn wall.

  The blow was too weak, too feeble to have brought forth the reaction that followed. The rock seemed to quiver like the flesh of a beast when stabbed; a queer vibration went through that ancient rock, then a deep, gasping sigh.

  He had waited too long!

  Fear came swiftly in upon him, crowding him, while his body twisted, contracting into the smallest possible space. He tried to will his muscles to move beneath the growing sounds that vibrated through the passage. The whispers of the rock grew into a terrifying groan, and there was a rattle of pebbles. Then silence.

  The silence was more horrifying than the sound. Somehow he was crawling, even as he expected the avalanche of gold to bury him. Abruptly, his feet were in the open. He was out.

  He ran without stopping, but behind him he heard a growing roar that he couldn’t outrace. When he knew from the slope of the land that he must be safe from falling rock, he fell to his knees. He turned and looked back. The muted, roaring sound, like thunder beyond mountains, continued, but there was no visible change in the tower. Suddenly, as he watched, the whole rock formation seemed to shift and tip. The movement lasted only seconds, but before the tons of rock had found their new equilibrium, his tunnel and the area around it had utterly vanished from sight.

  When he could finally stand Wetherton gathered up his sack of ore and his canteen. The wind was cool upon his face as he walked away; and he did not look back again.

  The first mention of “Trap of Gold” appears in Dad’s journal for February of 1949:

  “Have a blank sheet of paper but for the title THE STONE TOWER. Now what’s that going to be? I’ve no idea, but I like the look of it, and somewhere about there’s sure to be a yarn. I’ve wasted too much time on pot boilers, although I need the cash.”

  Nothing came of that idea for several months, but then in May this entry appeared:

  “Worked some, did a couple of desultory pages of DESPERATE MEN and later turned to THE STONE TOWER and wrote four before stopping. That feels like it has something. I must be careful, for I am inclined to hurry and do slipshod work.”

  Four pages would have taken him to the point in the narrative structure I call “the dilemma” or “the hinge.” That’s the spot, often midway or a bit earlier, where the protagonist is confronted by the fundamental question of the story. In this case it’s the tipping point between discipline and greed; knowing when to say enough is enough. It’s also the point when a writer knows whether he or she has a story or not. Generally, if you have a quality dilemma, you have a quality story.

  “Trap of Gold” was then likely set aside for around eighteen months before Dad went back and finished it. In July of 1951 Louis notes:

  “Argosy out with my story THE WHISPERING ROCK published under the title TRAP OF GOLD. I prefer my title, but theirs may be the better for sales. They gave me headline position, and it is, I believe, a very good story.”

  Argosy was established in 1882, and by the 1950s it was one of the oldest names in the fiction magazine business. Over the years it had published children’s stories, pulp fiction, true crime, and men’s adventure. “Trap of Gold” was firmly planted in the style of early-1950s men’s adventure, but without any of the more lurid plot elements or typical claims that it was a “true story.” In those days, when the pulps were going out of business left and right, it was a minor victory for Louis to make any sale he could. Argosy still had a circulation of 1.2 million readers, and that was, in my father’s words, “not bad,” at all.

  * * *

  —

  The next step in the development of the novel Taggart took place in 1956 when Dad met the actress Katharine Hepburn at the home of director George Cukor. Cukor was best known for his work on My Fair Lady, A Star Is Born, and The Philadelphia Story. At the time, he was trying to get a studio to purchase my father’s novel Heller with a Gun for him to direct. Whether Cukor was hoping that Hepburn would appear in Heller is not clear; she might have been seen as too old for the part. In any case, the film did not get made for another five years. In my father’s opinion, he and Hepburn “hit it off at once,” and along with Cukor they began to discuss an alternative production based on “Trap of Gold.” At times Louis refers to it in his journals as “the Hepburn story.”

  By late 1958 Dad had shipped the manuscript off to Bantam, and in February of 1959 he sent a copy of the novel, by then retitled Taggart, to Hepburn, noting in his journal that he expected little from the attempt. The consummate professional, Hepburn got back to him within forty-eight hours with the following letter, one that utterly captures the essence of the lady in nearly every way:

  “I read the book with enormous interest. Your way of writing of the sounds and the sky and the feeling of the country is thrilling and they make me long to be anywhere but in New York City, where I seem to find myself.

  “The characters are all most interesting and the talk very good indeed—but again as in all stories of this nature—the men are the ones who turn out to be the sort of life force of the story and the ladies are left to cope with love and somehow at my particular phase of life, I have to play a character who is more fully developed. One whose character motivates the action, otherwise they are better off with a pretty young girl. She (Miriam) is a very well indicated character, but you seem to let it go at that and I must say in the story, as it moves along, this is entir
ely satisfactory. But in dramatizing it for a movie, I think the story is really about three men and the women are fairly incidental and I haven’t been able to think of a suggestion which would make it something which I could play well.

  “By that I hope I don’t mean that I would like to play Taggart, but realizing that I am an actress, this could be a likely possibility. At least in the few westerns that I have been offered, I have always suggested that I play the man….for as I think I told you, I just seem to see myself on a horse eluding the Indians—saving the ladies and then riding off alone. Oh dear, it is a pity. I think I have always been the wrong sex for the parts I would like to play….

  “I’ll read the Saturday Evening Post stories, as anything you write I enjoy thoroughly and maybe George would have a notion about Taggart and prove me silly. But anyway I write you my impressions regretfully, that this one is not for me, without ruining what seems to be there and fine—as it is. Many many thanks for sending it and please don’t lose interest in thinking of me in your setting. With all good wishes to you and your wife.”

  I doubt that Louis was very discouraged; he knew that Katharine Hepburn had a keen nose for drama and had astutely assessed the situation. He also knew that the qualities that a writer sees in a story, or a character, are often very different from what a reader reads. A writer lives through all his characters, even those barely mentioned, and tends to love every one of them.

  Another offer soon came his way, and he made the following note in his 1962 journal:

  “Some chance of selling TAGGART but not too intrigued. I’d sell now, as it would furnish the house, but that’s one I’d planned to do myself. It’s capable of a lot of development…However, I can write another, and will.”