Tucker (1971)

by L'amour, Louis

  He threw a hard look at me, but he did check the pistol too. He held it to the light and looked through the barrel. The cylinder held five cartridges, a sixth chamber was empty, but that was the way we carried them.

  "These guns have not been fired." Rowland spoke clearly, emphatically. -This man could not have fired the shot."

  An angry sound rose from the men around us, but as the information circulated among them it died down.

  "Then who did shoot him?" Rowland demanded.

  "Somebody behind me, Sheriff," I said. "Somebody who must have been in a second-story window, or on a roof, for the bullet passed me, but killed him, and he was standing on the ground."

  The sheriff turned and looked across the Plaza. 'Gone now, whoever it was. Question is, were they shooting at you or him?"

  "At me," I said, "although Todd was about to take a shot at me himself. I was trying to talk him out of it."

  "Get down and come inside," he said. "We've got some talking to do."

  A deputy had come up and Rowland turned and spoke rapidly. The deputy hurriedly named five or six men in the crowd, and they scattered in the direction from which the shot seemed to have come.

  Inside the Pico House we were away from the crowd, and Rowland led me into the hotel office. "Sit down," he said. "I want the whole story."

  So I laid it out for him from the beginning. My pursuit of Heseltine, Reese, and Ruby Shaw, my discovery of her using another name here, Hampton Todd knowing some man was involved with her, and believing it was me.

  "Why you?"

  I shrugged. "I was probably the only one who seemed to know anything about her. I doubt if he ever saw Heseltine, so when he discovered another man was involved he thought it was me. I was a stranger in town, who knew her."

  "You think it was Heseltine who fired the shot?"

  "Heseltine or Reese, shooting at me. My guess would be Heseltine. I don't think Reese was in any shape to be shooting at anybody, and I doubt if he would have been able to get here in time. Bob Heseltine could have."

  "But he's a gunfighter, not a back-shooter."

  "rye been dogging him, Mr. Rowland. I've been right on him. He can't find anybody to work with him because I'm always right there, not far behind him. Nobody wants to try pulling a job when somebody is hunting them before they start, and they don't want to get involved."

  He considered the matter, taking a cigar from his vest pocket. "Have you ever thought of something else? It might have been Ruby Shaw who tried to kill you."

  "Well," I said, "as nearly as I can find out, she was the one who hired Al Cashion."

  "What do you know about that woman getting money from Todd?"

  "Nothing at all, but she's shrewd and she's tough.

  There probably isn't a crooked dodge she doesn't know.

  He was roped in, and she might have spun him any kind of a story. Men like to brag ... maybe he showed her bow much cash he had. That would be like showing a hen to a hungry fox."

  He got up. "'There's no reason to hold you, but what I said before goes double. I want you out of town."

  "Thanks, Mr. Rowland. A less reasonable man, and I might have been hung out there." I held out my hand.

  "They're a rough crowd," he admitted, shaking my hand. "There's a few among them I want to float out of Los Angeles the first chance I get. This town wants peace."

  The Plaza was empty again. The light of dawn was yellow in the gray sky, with here and there a crimson streak. I liked the smell of the air, for the wind was from off the sea. I untied my horse and stepped into the saddle.

  Rowland's deputy came back across the Plaza alone.

  He took a cigar from his mouth. "It was a woman," he said. "Went into an empty room. We could smell the perfume in there, and when she ran she forgot a glove."

  He showed it to me. It was for a small hand a hand that could pull a trigger as well as a man's could.

  "See you," I said, and rode out of town.

  They were gone again, lost again, out in the open again.

  Where would they go?

  Chapter 16

  Conchita was in the yard when I rode up, and she came over to me as her grandfather came out of the house.

  "You are well?" Her eyes searched my face. "A man passing by said there was a shooting in town."

  When I had loosened the girth I went into the house with them. Conchita put coffee on the table and her brother came to listen as I told them what had happened.

  "And now amigo?" the old man asked.

  "I shall ride on. Try to pick up the trail."

  He looked at me thoughtfully. "I am an old man, senor, and you must forgive me, but do you not think you waste your life? Those who lost the money have given it up now; they work and think of other things.

  Their lives go on, as yours must also.

  "It does no good to follow and follow these men. They will have their suffering. Believe me, this woman will bring evil upon them. Such a woman will never cease from evil, and those with her will suffer. Leave them to their lives, senor, and find a place for yourself. The years pass swiftly, you will be an old man, with nobody, and with nothing to look back upon but the chase."

  "It is something I must do. Sometimes I think that, just as a beaver must build dams, I must pursue these men."

  "But all is changing around you. Even I, who am an old man, see that change. From day to day the law grows stronger. Men will work together, senior, and the lawless will soon be pursued wherever they may go."

  He was right, of course. Sitting there in the cool room, I could look out on the sunlit yard and far away to the hills that bordered the sea. It was pleasant here, and there was land to be had. This valley was so beautiful it would attract people, and they would come and build homes here. It was the way of the world that nothing remains the same.

  "I shall go on." I said. "I have a little more of the money, and I shall send it back to my neighbors."

  We talked long drank good coffee and then with the morning gone at noontime I tightened the cinch and stepped into the saddle. They stood in the open, on the hard-packed ground and waved a good-bye. When I turned at last in my saddle to look back from the trail, only Conehita was still there. She lifted her hand once more, and I answered with mine.

  Was it to be always so that I should come into the lives of people get to feel close to them, and then ride on? Would there be no end to it?

  For two weeks I cast back and forth, trying all the trails that led out of Los Angeles to the east, the north, the south.

  Then finally at a wayside station in the desert a man heard me speak of them and turned to me. "I saw some folks looked about like you said. A pretty blonde woman and two men They came into Whiskey Flat from the southwest. They headed east out toward Walker's Pass."

  We talked a little longer, and I knew he had seen them all right. One of the men. he said. had a bad cut over his eye and another on his cheekbone. The other man who was powerfully built, was wearing a leather coat and a black hat.

  He drew me a map in the dirt outside the station, showing me Whiskey Flat the trail to Walker's Pass and our own location We were at the new railroad town of Mohave It had been called a lot of things before that.

  Elias Dearborn had a stage station there as early as 1880, and later the Nadeau freight teams used to make stops there.

  "The trail here," the man said, "goes up through Red Rock Canyon toward Walker's Pass. It ain't much of a trail, but I come down that way yesterday, and you've got you a good horse. Carry plenty of water, though, and watch for rattlers. Seems to be a lot of them out this year."

  "Pack horse?" I queried.

  The man shrugged. "Not much chance here. Horses are scarce. Chavez and his outlaws he's got the ragged end of the old Vasquez crowd trailin' with him they've stole most of the good horses around. You might pick up a mule."

  I went on, and I found the trail hot and dusty. When I had been riding about two hours it had become so hot that I knew it would he foolis
h to go on. I reined over to one side and rode into a small canyon where there was an island of shade forty or fifty feet across. Stepping down from the saddle, I poured a little water into my, hat and let my horse drink, then tied him to some brush and settled down against the canyon wall to rest.

  It was very still. My horse nibbled at brush, then closed his eyes and dozed three-legged, flicking his tail at an occasional fly.

  From where I sat I could see almost half a mile of the trail as it wound up into the canyon that led to the plateau beyond. A lizard came out on a rock and studied me, his mouth gaping.

  It was a place in which to sit and think about my own place in what was happening. One fact kept nudging me . . . I wasn't getting anywhere. Was my pursuit of Heseltine just a way of not looking forward to the future?

  All the time they were running and I was following, the fact was staring me right in the face that a man may run all his life and get nowhere.

  The trouble was I'd just never had a destination in mind that I wanted... and yet I did want one. As long as pa had been alive I could think about being on my own, but postponing everything until that day when I would face the world alone. Then suddenly he was ,dead and I had those people to repay; and chasing Heseltine was just one more way of avoiding the day when I had to do and be all those big things I'd told myself pa was keeping me from doing and being.

  With hat slightly tipped over my eyes, I watched the heat waves dancing watched the trail as it went up through the rocks, where occasional ocotillo and some stunted Joshuas grew.

  All right, I said to myself, supposing you get all that money back from Heseltine, what will you do then? Was I going to be a rancher? Was I going to try gold mining?

  There were a lot of things I hadn't education enough to do, but even as I thought of that I could feel Con Judy's eyes on me and hear his dry comment. "You can read, can't you? If you can read, you can learn You don't have to go to school to get an education although it is the best way for most of us, and anyway, all school can give you is the outline of the picture. You have to fill in the Mani, places yourself, later."

  That was what he would say, or something like it. The truth was that I had to face up to myself. Maybe pa had never gotten anywhere, but he never quit trying, and no matter how much he got beat down he kept on getting up.

  There isn't any bright, patent-leather world that's always shining no matter what you do ... you have to make your own world, and your own place in it.

  For the first time I checked the money in the saddlebags. There was slightly more than twelve hundred dollars. I'd keep a couple of hundred, and send the rest back to Texas.

  After a while, I dozed. My horse awakened me, blowing softly.

  I sat up abruptly. My horse's ears were pricked, and he was looking along the trail. A man was coming along it on a crow-bait horse. He was looking my way.

  Getting up from the ground. I tightened my cinch.

  The shadows were reaching out from the rocks and cliffs.

  The sun was low, not yet down, but the coolness had begun and I could now ride on, but I was not pleased by this meeting.

  The man on the crow-bait had pulled up on the trail, waiting for me. His hands were in plain view, and he showed no danger signs, but I was wary.

  Swinging into the saddle, I walked my horse down to the trail.

  "Howdy!" His eyes were a watery blue, but there was a sharpness to them, and I was sure he had missed no detail of my outfit. "Travelin' fur?"

  "Walker's Pass. Maybe east from there."

  "Ain't no other way to go, onct you get there."

  "I could turn around and ride back," I said. And if there were no tracks there, that was just what I might do.

  "So you could." His eyes clung to the saddlebags.

  "Been minin'?"

  "Me? I'm a cowhand." And then I added, not too honestly, for I did not want him to know too much, "I never do anything I can't do from the back of a horse."

  "Must be difficult, sometimes," he said. "I can think of a lot of things I couldn't do a-horseback."

  When I offered no comment, we rode on in silence for some distance.

  His horse was in poor shape. It had been hard-used for some time, but it had not been much of a horse to begin with. The man himself had a poor outfit, all except his rifle. That was in good shape, oiled and cared for. He had no hand-gun anywhere that I could see, but I had learned not to be too trusting.

  After a while he began to talk again, and his comments were prying ones. The less I said the more curious he became, so I finally said, "I like drifting. Never held to one job too long. I came out California way after a girl," which was at least partly true, "but she took off with another man. Right now I'm just seeing country, but I'm trying to decide whether I should try to ride up Virginia City way, or turn back and ride north to Oregon. I've never been to either place."

  "They ain't much. Anyways," he suggested, "a man would have to have eatin' money."

  I chuckled. "Not if he rides the grub-line. I can always do a mite of work for a meal, if need be. I never paid much mind to money. I'm no hand for gambling, and as long as I can eat and sleep, I'll make out!'

  "Good horse you got there," he said. 'Don't look like no cowhand's horse."

  'Swapped for him," I lied. 'I'd caught me a couple of wild ones young stuff and pretty good. I swapped 'em for this one."

  But my outfit was just a little too good for a cowhand to afford, and I felt that he believed none of it The well-filled saddlebags continued to hold his attention. If given a chance, I was sure he would try to steal everything I had and to murder me if chance allowed.

  The miles fell behind us, and night drew near. The heat had gone, and here and there a star was appearing.

  From time to time his horse started to lag behind, something to be expected considering the animal he rode, but I didn't like it, so I drew up and waited for him.

  "Sorry, mister," he grumbled, "this here animal just ain't able to keep up. You ride ahead and find a place to camp. We'll catch up."

  "It's early to camp " I said.

  There was something about him now that turned me cold inside, and I knew I didn't want to go to sleep in the same camp with him. I was dead-tired with the riding, the heat and the dust. and I had relaxed from what I had gone through in the days just past. I knew I would sleep too soundly for my own safety. The way he eyed my horse and saddlebags left me only one conclusion yet I could neither accuse him nor offer any good excuse for riding on without him.

  My horse could easily outdistance his, but that would mean turning my back to him, something I certainly didn't want to do.

  "Maybe you're right," I said after a moment "I am tired."

  Suddenly I saw a small cove in the hills with some clumps of brush. "There! That might be a good place."

  He turned his head, and I drew my gun When he turned hack and started to speak he looked hard at me and then at the gun. He made no move at all. He was a very careful man.

  "My friend " I said, "I don't know you. I like traveling alone and so I'm going to leave you right here Get off your horse."

  He hesitated. For a moment I thought he was going to chance it, but he had no pistol in sight, and I could not figure him having anything larger than a derringer. "You can't get away with this" he said "leavin' a man afoot"

  "You aren't going to be afoot," I said. "I'm just going to let you walk a mile to get your horse. I'll leave him tied up Yonder."

  "I done nothin' to you." His voice was surly.

  "You had some ideas, though," I told him, "and I didn't care for them. I've got nothing anybody would want but this horse "

  "Yeah?" he sneered. But my gesture with the gun got him off the horse, and taking its bridle I rode away, keeping an eye on him nonetheless. A mile away I tied the horse to some brush and lit out.

  He could make that mile in fifteen minutes, I figured, but by that time I would be four or five miles off and still going.

  The dun was
ready for it. The horse had liked that man no more than I had, and felt like running in the cool air of evening.

  It was wide-open country, gently rolling hills apd little brush, and by day one could see for miles, but at night after a few yards a man was lost to view. I rode rapidly for perhaps three miles, then settled down to an easy lope and kept it up. The dun was a tough range-and-mountain horse, and was accustomed to going for long stretches.

  From time to time I checked the Big Dipper for the time, watching it swing around the Pole Star. After a while I slowed the dun to a walk but I kept on going. I should camp soon, but the thought of that old man on my trail worried me. He would be coming along, and he was not going to be easy to lose.

  The country presently became more broken. Several times I deliberately turned off the trail to one side or the other, leaving well-defined tracks where I turned off, and returning to the trail in places where the tracks were not likely to be seen. But I had a hunch the old man was an Injun on the trail.

  For five hours I rode, and then my own weariness and the growing weariness of my horse made me realize that I must turn off and find a camp. Taking a turn at a place in the deepest shadow of a rock, I scrambled up a steep trail and rode along the top of a mesa, then off the other edge into a deep canyon. Here there was a trail of sorts, for the dun kept going when I could see nothing but occasional glimpses of the whiter, hard-packed ground.

  Of a sudden, I heard water. Rounding a corner of rock, I found myself in a small basin where a trickle of water fell into a pool. A few cottonwoods were there, and some willow brush, and it was as good a camping spot as a man could want. It was at least three-quarters of a mile off the trail, and in a spot where I'd be hard to find.

  Picketing my horse on a small patch of grass, I unrolled my blankets on the far side of a cottonwood tree where the ground lay bare and smooth. With my saddle for a pillow, I was soon asleep, not forgetting to place my Colt close to my hand.

  My eyes opened to broad daylight, and opened on my strange pursuer. He sat his saddle not twenty feet away, and as I opened my eyes he shook out a loop. I started to come up fast, the loop shot out, and I had just warning enough to throw up an arm and get that as well as my neck, into the loop. Dropping my hand, I grasped the rope, but he slapped spurs to his horse and jumped him, and all that saved me was the sudden lunge I gave, throwing myself past the cottonwood tree and snubbing the rope there.