the Key-Lock Man (1965)

by L'amour, Louis

  "What's that mean?" Short demanded belligerently.

  "It means that if I ever catch you on my trail again I'm going to take it as unfrly."

  "We ain't huntin' you," McAlpin protested.

  "We figured to have a look for the Lost Wagons."

  "That's your privilege. Only keep this in mind: If I catch you on my back trail, no matter what you're hunting, I'll stake each of you to six feet of northern Arizona that nobody will ever take away from you."

  Deliberately, he turned his back and walked to his horse. He stepped into the saddle, then turned his horse. Neither man had moved.

  But it was not in Short to keep still. "We don't give a damn what you do. If Bill Chesney doesn't get you, Neerland will."

  Matt Keylock ignored the remark and started off, following Kris. He glanced back once.

  Neither man moved from his seat until they were crossing the low hill, and then there was no hurry in them.

  "They were afraid of you," Kristina said.

  "No, Kris, they weren't afraid. Only I had them dead to rights, and only a damned fool would gamble at such a time. Under other conditions, and if they wanted me bad enough, they'd not hesitate."

  "That took nerve."

  "A man does what he has to."

  They rode steadily westward. Keylock studied his back trail from time to time, but there was no dust, no indication that they might be followed.

  "You knew that man back there."

  "Gay Cooley? Yes, I've known him for quite a while. If anybody ever finds the Lost Wagons, it will be him."

  "Nobody can be sure about a thing like that. It could be anybody. It could be found by accident." Then her mood changed. She looked back quickly, suddenly worried. "Matt, did they believe us? Will they believe we left the country?"

  "We'll hope so. We'll just have to hope so. And in the meanwhile, we're going back after those horses."

  "But if you get the horses, won't you go to Prescott? Won't they find you then?"

  "Maybe. I'm figuring they'll look there, they won't find us, and they'll give up on that part of the country."

  He glanced toward their shadows, estimating the time.

  There was a stretch of blown sand ahead, and he wanted to reach it at nightfall; for that sand would hold no tracks that could be identified, and if it was dark enough there would be no eye to see when they turned off.

  In the west the sky was ablaze with the sunset glow.

  Over there lay the Painted Desert and the Canyon of the Colorado, north lay Echo Cliffs, where the trail lay. But they would not take that known trail; theirs would be an ancient Indian trail, old before time began, a trail that led northward toward the Crossing of the Fathers, but a trail no longer used.

  Such trails he had always known, and such were the trails he loved the best.

  From THE RIM near War God Spring, Matt Keylock studied the vast broken land to the south.

  Using the field glasses, he ignored no patch of shadow, no fold or crack in the land. In the ten days since leaving the trade store at Tuba City they had seen no evidence of pursuit, nor had they seen the tracks of the golden stallion.

  Obviously, something had frightened the mustangs from their accustomed haunts, but where had they gone? That they occasionally came here to War God Spring, Matt knew. There was lush grass, plenty of good water, and there was the shade of aspens and tall pines.

  All morning he had had the feeling of being watched, the sense of something happening of which he was unaware, but he had seen neither smoke nor dust, nothing to give a reason for his worry. At last he lowered the glasses and went back to camp.

  Behind him, and many miles off across the country he had been studying, a small puff of dust appeared, faded, then grew and maintained a course toward the northeast.

  At the fire, Kris looked up. "Matt, I've been thinking. Let's ride back to Organ Rock where we saw them last."

  "Why there?"

  "That stallion was going somewhere, Matt. I think he was taking his herd to some particular place, but when they saw us they veered off. If we go back we might find some tracks."

  It was good thinking, and he told her so. Animals were notional, and if they took a notion to go somewhere, they would usually keep trying until they made it.

  The trouble was, he knew of no direct route, although there might well be one. He disliked going back toward the south and the proximity of any searchers, while to the north the country was crossed by the San Juan River and its deep, winding canyon. War God Spring was good water, and it was the perfect hideaway. Getting out of it toward the south would take him right into the trail through Marsh Pass, the last place he wanted to be.

  He had come to War God Spring half expecting to find the stallion there, but the only tracks were old ones. Only the Navajos knew the place-unless perhaps, Gay Cooley knew of it... but every hour increased their danger.

  The coffee tasted good. He nursed a cup in his hands and looked across the fire at Kris. "How about it? Have you had enough of this? I mean a girl like you . .

  . used to so much."

  She smiled. "Matt, I left nothing behind me that mattered. Oh, I will admit that once in a while I think of what all my friends may be doing, but I've no desire to be back there again. Father said I was a throwback to the Vikings, that there was wildness in me."

  She looked around, then her eyes went back to Matt. "You must believe this. I am happier than I have ever been before."

  Before daylight the next morning they abandoned the spring, taking a faint Indian trail across Rainbow Plateau. They descended to Piute Creek by a switchback trail.

  Matt was worried, and said as much. "I don't know this part of the country, Kris. Unless we can find a way to get down off Piute Mesa, we may have to turn south."

  When a man had a woman riding with him he asked for trouble, for his attention was distracted in planning for her, thinking of her welfare. For himself, it mattered little. He was accustomed to hardship, accustomed to thirst, hunger, heat, cold, and trails that made the hair crawl on the back of his neck. Now he must hesitate . . . not that Kris would be willing to receive privileged treatment if she became aware of it.

  There was a trace of water in the bottom of Nakia Wash, left over from a recent rain. He allowed the horses a breather, for the trail was hard, and might be harder. At this point there was a trail coming in from the south, a well-marked trail, which must be one he had heard of that led to ruins farther along the mesa.

  Leaving the water, he walked the horses for a short distance, then returned and brushed out their tracks and sifted dust over the brushing.

  Another trail, a dim one, completely vanished in places, led them to the rim of the cliff.

  Below them lay the gap toward which the wild bunch had been pointing. Across Nakia Canyon to the north was No Man's Mesa, lifting its ominous bulk against the sky.

  Here again they waited while he studied the land below them. There must be a place below to rest. They had come at least thirty miles that day, and the animals were tired.

  Directly across the canyon, and perhaps a thousand feet lower, was the top of Nakia Mesa. Beyond the canyon there appeared to be a cove among the trees, which looked to be a secure place. And there they would be within a short distance of the trail the wild horses had followed.

  Usually such bands of wild horses follow a route they establish over a wide sweep of country, a route that may make a circle of forty or fifty miles, but that constantly returns to grass and water.

  The stars were out when they reached the cove. When Matt reached up to help Kris from the saddle she almost fell into his arms.

  "I am sorry," he said, and he held her in his arms for a moment. "Truly sorry."

  "For better or worse, Matt. . . remember? I asked for this. I bought it with my eyes wide open." She drew back her head to look at him. "But I am tired!"

  He left her with the horses and went off into the night, but he was back almost at once. He led them through the brush
and up a steep trail to a small bench among the rocks and trees above the cove.

  With a fire going in a corner of the rocks, under a shelving ledge, Kris prepared a meal. While she worked by the fire, Matt cleaned and oiled his Winchester, then his six-gun. Then he went to his pack for his spare Colt, and cleaned it.

  When they sat down to eat, Kris said, "Do you think they'll find us, Matt?"

  "They will."

  "What will we do?"

  "When the waiting is over, we will do what we can."

  Shortly before dawn he woke suddenly, and his eyes went at once to the horses. They were standing, heads up, listening.

  At first he heard nothing; then came a rustle of far-off movement. The sound grew louder and he heard horses, many horses, passing in the night.

  At daybreak, while Kris prepared breakfast, he went to the canyon and found tracks-thirty or forty unshod horses, among them the tracks of the golden stallion. They seemed to have gone north, up Nakia Canyon.

  They ate swiftly, then saddled up and rode out on the trail of the wild bunch. Ol' CHESNEY WAS irritable. He glared at Neill. "Sometimes I think you don't care whether we find that Key-Lock man or not."

  The hard riding of the past few weeks had put an edge to Neill's temper, too, and he was growing up. Too long he had worried about what Bill Chesney thought, and a man earned respect not by following in another man's tracks, but by making his own.

  "I am not riding to kill a man. If he shot Johnny in the back he deserves hanging, but he should get a chance to tell his side of it. He claims it was a fair shooting."

  "Claims?" Chesney's tone was ugly. "What did you expect him to do-confess?"

  "He had his chance if he wanted to kill. He could have had one or more of us and gotten off down that wash. And when it comes to that, Bill, you know as well as I do that Johnny was a trouble-hunter. He fancied himself with those guns of his."

  "You tryin' to tell me about Johnny? Why, you-was "Take it easy, Bill." Kimmel spoke with quiet authority. "You've got no call to ride Neill."

  Chesney wheeled on Kimmel. "You, too?"

  Neill might be an uncertain quantity, but Kimmel was not. Whatever else he might be, Kimmel was definitely a dangerous man to tangle with in any kind of a fight. Now, through the heat of Chesney's anger blew the cool wind of sanity. Kimmel, relaxed, rested on one elbow, saying nothing more.

  The fire crackled in the night's stillness, and Neill added fuel to it. Then he commented, "I came along because I intend to see fair play. We don't know the circumstances of the killing and we don't know this man. If you ask me, he shapes up like somebody to ride the river with, as Sam would say. It might just be that Johnny tackled too much man."

  "Hell, nobody was as fast as Johnny,"

  Chesney declared but with less heat.

  "Nobody? Not even Jim Courtright, or Clay Allison? Or Wild Bill?"

  "That Key-Lock man is no Wild Bill."

  "You can't be sure, Bill. If you can read anything at all from a man's trail, this one is a curly wolf."

  In the silence that followed this remark, the leaves were restless, and the flames leaned before a puff of wind.

  "Before this here is over," Kimmel said, "somebody is sure going to buy chips to make him show his hand."

  "Look at it this way, Bill," Neill said quietly. "We're starting a new town. Sure, it isn't much of a place yet, but it can be. You and me, we'll raise our families there, and we don't want it to start off with the lynching of an innocent man."

  Chesney made no reply, but his jaw was set hard and his face seemed closed to reason.

  Neill got up to gather more fuel, but he paused for several minutes, hands on hips, and looked up at the stars. Well, he had asserted himself, at least. He had said what he had to say, and he felt better because of it. He wanted friends, of course, but the friends a man had must accept him on his own terms, and not because he merely stepped in their tracks.

  Half the trouble in the world, he thought, was probably caused because right-thinking people kept their mouths shut instead of speaking up and saying what they believed.

  Nobody knew what had happened in that saloon except Johnny and the man they hunted. All agreed that the Key-Lock man had to go get his gun from his pack, and that did not argue that he was a trouble-hunter. It could be that Johnny had tried to run up a score against the wrong man.

  Some men would naturally back down. Neill himself had kept his mouth shut more than once in the past few years. He was a stranger and he did not know the people or the country, and it was good to wait until you knew what you were talking about. But Kimmel had stood his ground against Chesney, and you could bet that the next time Chesney rode out he would want Kimmel with him.

  He had sand, and they all knew it.

  Neill was some distance from the fire when he heard Chesney grumbling. "... too big for his britches."

  "You lay off him," Kimmel was saying. "That boy's solid. You push him and you're goin' to have to shoot him or get shot."

  "Him?"

  The incredulity in Chesney's voice made Neill flush with anger and shame.

  "Don't be a damn' fool, Bill. He was new to the country, so he's walked soft and listened.

  Well, he's eaten the dust and tasted the salt, and from here on he'll make his own tracks."

  When they bedded down for the night, they were just eleven miles from Neerland and his two men; and the two fires formed the base corners of a triangle at the point of which were Kris and Matt Keylock.

  The desert wind that stirred the smoke of their two fires moved north and, channeled by the canyons, stirred the smoke of the Keylock fire also. And only a little farther north, that smoke was smelled by a golden stallion that tossed his head irritably, staring uneasily into the wind.

  MATT KEYLOCK WOKE from a heavy sleep with the lemon light of day showing faint across the eastern sky. The snort of a horse had awakened him and his eyes went, as always, toward his buckskin, whose ways he knew well. The animal had his head up, nostrils distended, and was staring toward the mouth of the cove.

  "Quiet, boy! Quiet now!" Rifle in hand, Matt moved to the trees at the edge of the bench.

  Moments passed, and he saw nothing, heard no sound.

  His boots were back at camp, and his shirt. He hesitated, wanting to go back and get dressed. A man caught without boots in this country was in trouble.

  He was about to turn away when some suggestion of movement arrested his attention. It was no more than a shift in a shadow-an outline that had not seemed to be there before ... or was he imagining things?

  Suddenly Kris was beside him, carrying his boots, his shirt and gun belt. "Watch that," he said, indicating the place, and he handed her the rifle.

  Then he sat down swiftly and tugged on his boots. When he stood up she gave back his rifle.

  "Nothing," she said.

  But there had been something down there. He stared, looked away, then looked past the spot to put it in the outer limits of his gaze. Yes, there was something or somebody down there. He put down his rifle and calmly got into his shirt.

  All right... so they were here. He had done what he could to avoid trouble, so if they came to him now they had to put their bullets on the line. From here on out, it was pay to play.

  Then suddenly a man appeared in sight, and he was both young and a complete stranger.

  He wore a battered hat, a cowhide vest, and a pair of tied-down guns. He carried a Henry rifle in his hands, and he seemed to be looking for something-some landmark, some object.

  They stood silent, watching as the man came nearer to where they stood. He looked at the mesa opposite, then turned and looked up, straight toward them. They were back under the trees, fronted by brush, and there was scarcely a chance that they could be seen-and in fact the man did not see them.

  "He isn't hunting tracks," Matt whispered, "so whatever he's looking for, it isn't us."

  "What else would he be hunting?"

  The Lost Wagons . . .
>
  But surely not way up here! The Lost Wagons were south of here a good many miles . . . ten or fifteen, anyway. Or were they? Something in the stranger's manner implied knowledge, for he was not looking about at random. He was searching for some definite thing, or some particular place.

  If he was looking for the Lost Wagons he should have been searching for wheels, or for some remnant of the wagons themselves, for the bolts or the hubs of the wheels, which were of hardwood and virtually indestructible in this desert country. But it seemed obvious that he was looking for some landmark, some sign on the mountains themselves.

  And then Matt heard another sound, the faintest whisper of rough material against rock. It came from behind him. He turned swiftly, dropping to one knee, Winchester lifted for firing.

  A man stood just inside the rim of brush, hands lifted. It was Gay Cooley.

  Matt remained where he was, the rifle held steady. Gay came toward them, keeping his hands high. Behind him walked his horse, followed by a pack horse. When he was within twenty yards, Matt stopped him.

  "Lost something?"

  Gay grinned. "The Lost Wagons. You know me."

  "I don't take kindly to folks who come up behind me."

  "Don't blame you. But you'd better take to me, because I may be the only friend you've got."

  "So?"

  "After you left, Bill Chesney showed up.

  Neill and Kimmel were with him. Short and McAlpin told them about you two, but Chesney wouldn't buy the Skull Valley story."

  "We tried."

  "Neerland is already up here with two other men."

  Matt gestured toward the man below them. "That one of them?"

  Gay Cooley stepped nearer, then leaned forward and peered. He swore softly. "Matt, that's Muley. That's the kid who was with the gold wagons."

  Lost to his surroundings, Muley moved along the foot of the mesa near them. "Look at him!"

  Cooley whispered hoarsely. "He knows where he is! He's found something!"

  It did look that way, for Muley was moving along more rapidly, his excitement obvious. If he had not found a sign or landmark, he certainly believed he had.

  At that moment there was a rattle of hoofs and a shout. "Muley! Damn it, man! Where you going?"