The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 7

by Louis L'Amour

  Grimly Bill Carey swung his saddle to his right shoulder and clumped down the mountain, staggering over the rocks. Might as well saddle that big black and be ready. When Walters came, he wouldn’t have much time.

  Walters! Ryerson! Carey grinned. If the two came at once, that would be something. He chuckled, and the thought kept stirring in his mind.

  Walters could have lost his trail the other side of the mountain. Probably even now he was striking around for it. Carey recalled that he had ridden over a long rock ledge back there, and his trail might have been even better hidden than he believed.

  If Buck Walters had seen him, he would have come right over here. And Tabat—

  Carey dropped the saddle on the hard ground and, picking up his hair rope, shook out a loop. When he had roped the black and led the mount out of the corral, he turned to see Janie standing in the doorway watching him gravely. Their eyes met briefly; then she turned and walked back into the house, her face grave and serious.

  He flushed suddenly. She thought he was leaving. She thought he was running away. Stubbornly he saddled the black, then swung into the saddle. The outlaw bunch might get here before he could find the sheriff. It was a chance he would have to take. His eyes strayed to the door again, and he turned the horse that way.

  Janie stepped into the doorway.

  “You got a rifle?” he demanded. His voice was harsh without his wanting it so.

  She nodded, without speaking.

  “Then hand me mine,” he said. “If they come, be durned sure it’s Ryerson’s gang, then use that rifle. Be sure, because it might be a posse.”

  He held his rifle in his hand and, turning the black, rode off up the mountain down which he had come the night before. Three times he looked back. Each time the trail was empty of dust, and each time he could see the slim, erect figure of the girl in the doorway.

  When he had been riding for no more than a half hour, he saw the posse—a tight little knot of some fifteen men, led by a tall, white-haired old man on a sorrel horse. Buck Walters. Beside the white-haired man was a thin, dried-out wisp of a half-breed. Antonio Deer! With that tracker on his trail, it was a wonder they hadn’t closed in already.

  He looked downhill, then grinned and lifted his rifle. He aimed and fired almost in the same instant, shooting at a tree a dozen feet away from the sheriff. The sorrel reared suddenly; then he saw the posse scatter out, hesitate only an instant, and then, with a whoop, start for him.

  He was several hundred yards away and knew the country now. He wheeled his horse and took off through the brush at right angles to the trail, then cut back as though to swing toward the direction from which they had come. Whipping the black around a clump of juniper, he straightened out on the trail for home.

  They would be cautious in the trees, he knew. That would delay them a little, at least.

  When he came out on the mountainside above the Conway cabin, his heart gave a leap. Down the trail was a cloud of dust, and the horsemen were already within a quarter of a mile of the cabin!

  TOUCHING SPURS TO THE black he started downhill at breakneck speed, hoping against hope they wouldn’t see him. Yet he had gone no more than a hundred yards when he heard a distant yell and saw several men cut away from the main body and start for him. A rifle spoke.

  The lead horse stumbled and went down, and Bill Carey saw a tiny puff of smoke lift from a cabin window.

  The horsemen broke, scattering wide, but advancing on the house. The black was in a dead run now, and Bill lifted his rifle and took a snapshot at the approaching horsemen who were coming on undaunted by the girl’s shot.

  At that distance and from a running horse, he didn’t expect a hit, nor did he make one, but the shot slowed the horsemen up, as he had hoped. Then he was nearing the cabin, and he saw two more horsemen break from the woods and start for him. They were close up, and he blasted a shot with the rifle held across his chest, and saw one man throw up his hands and plunge to the ground.

  The other wheeled his horse, and Bill Carey fired three times as swiftly as he could chamber the shells. He saw the horse go down, throwing the man headlong into the mesquite.

  Then the black was charging into the yard, and Bill Carey hit the ground running and made the cabin. The door slammed open as if it had been timed for his arrival, and he lunged inside.

  Janie looked up at him, her eyes flashing; then as he crossed to the window, she dropped the bar in place.

  A shot splattered glass and punched a hole in the bottom of the washbasin. Another thudded into the log sill below the window. Kneeling beside it, Carey put two quick shots into the brush beyond the corral, and drew back to reload.

  Suddenly, from outside, there was a startled yell. Peering out through the window he could see a long stream of horsemen pouring out of the woods and coming down the hill.

  Startled, Janie glanced at him.

  “The posse!” he said grimly.

  Her father was up on one elbow, cursing feebly at his helplessness. A man started from the brush, and Janie’s rifle spoke. The fellow stumbled, then scrambled back into the mesquite.

  Outside everything was a bedlam of roaring guns now. Somewhere a horse screamed in pain, and shots thudded into the cabin wall.

  Jerking out his six-guns, Bill Carey sprang for the door. He threw it open and snapped a quick shot at a man peering around the corral. The fellow let go and dropped flat on his face, arms outspread.

  The fight was moving away. Both outlaws and posse were mounted, and it was turning into a running fight.

  Bill Carey crouched near the house, his face twisted in a scowl. Tabat Ryerson had come back to kill him. It wasn’t like Tabat to run, not at this stage of the game. He would never leave now without killing Carey, or being killed. Where was he?

  Carey slid along the cabin wall, pressed close to the logs. The space between the house and corral was empty, except for a dead horse, lying with its back toward him. There was no movement in the corral. The dead man lay by the corner; another lay across the water trough.

  The barn! Carey lunged from shelter and made the corral in a quick sprint. He went around the corral, still running, and dived for the side wall of the barn. When he reached it, he lifted himself slowly, trying to get a look into the window.

  Carey could see nothing. Sunlight fell through the open door and across the shafts of an old buckboard. Wisps of hay hung down from the small loft overhead. There was nothing. No movement. No sign of anything human.

  The firing had faded into the distance now, and was growing desultory. Somebody was winning and, knowing Buck Walters and the hardbitten posse behind him, Bill Carey thought he knew who it was.

  Bill Carey eased around the corner and glanced at the door of the barn. When he went through that door he was going to be outlined, stark and clear in the sunlight. But he was going through. Suddenly, he was mad clear through. He had never liked sneaking around. He liked to meet trouble face to face and blast it out, and the devil take the unfortunate or the slow of hand!

  He lunged around the doorpost and went through that path of sunlight with a lunge that carried him into the shadow even as a gun bellowed. Dust fell from overhead, but he had seen the flash of the gun. Tabat Ryerson was behind the buckboard!

  CAREY STEPPED BACK into the open, firing as he moved. He could see only a vague outline, but he salted that outline down with lead and snapped a few shots around it just for luck. He felt a slug hit him and went to his knees. Then he was up, and standing there swaying, he thumbed shells into a gun and heard Ryerson’s gun bellow. Something knocked him back into the corner of the stall; then Tabat came out into the open and Bill drilled him four times over the shirt pocket with four fast-triggered shots, all of them within the outline of the pocket itself.

  Tabat folded and went down, and with his heart shot to pieces, he still had life in him. He stared up at Carey, his eyes blazing. “You always had my number, curse you!” he gasped. “I hate the life of you, but you’re a mule-to
ugh hombre!”

  He sagged, and the light went out of his eyes. Bill Carey automatically thumbed shells into his guns, staring down at the bullet-riddled body. The man was fairly ballasted with lead.

  “You’re a right tough man, yourself!” he said softly. “A right tough man!”

  Carey walked out into the sunlight and saw Sheriff Buck Walters and several of his men riding into the yard. He holstered his guns, and stood there waiting, his mouth tight.

  Janie was standing in the doorway, standing as he had seen her so many times, as he knew he could never forget her.

  Suddenly Bill Carey felt strange and lonely. Walters looked down.

  “Looks like you had a bad time, Bill,” he said drily, “tackling all these bandits. I want to apologize, too.”

  “For what?” Carey stared up at the hard-riding sheriff.

  “Why,” Buck said innocently, “for thinking you was a thief! Old Hankins swore it was you robbed him, but he’s so mean he can’t see straight. When we found all that gold in Ryerson’s saddlebags, we knew it was him was the thief. He being an outlaw, anyway, stands to reason we was wrong. Anyway, when we seen you this morning you was riding a big black, and that bandit didn’t have no black horse.”

  “Funny, ain’t it,” Carey agreed, looking cynically at the old sheriff, “how a man can make mistakes?”

  “Sure is,” Walters agreed. “Even a salty hombre like you might make one.” The sheriff patted his horse on the shoulder. “But there’d be no reason for him to make two!”

  Bill Carey glanced at Janie Conway, her eyes shining with gladness.

  “Why, Buck, I reckon you’re right as rain!” Bill said. “I think if I was to leave this here ranch, I’d be making another one! Maybe you all better ride over here sometime and pay us a visit!”

  “Us?” Walters looked at him, then at the girl. “Oh! Yeah, I see what you mean.” Buck swung his horse around, then glanced down again. “Can she bake a cherry pie?”

  “Can she?” Carey grinned. “Why, man, when we get married, she—”

  He looked toward the door, and the girl had disappeared.

  “Don’t bother me, Sheriff,” he said, grinning. “Can’t you see I’m a family man?”

  The Marshal of Sentinel

  At eight o’clock Marshal Fitz Moore left his house and walked one block west to Gard’s Saloon. It was already open and Fitz glimpsed Gard’s swamper sweeping up debris from the previous night. Crossing the street the marshal paused at the edge of the boardwalk to rub out his cigar on the top of the hitching rail. As he did so he turned his eyes but not his head, glancing swiftly up the narrow street alongside the saloon. The gray horse was gone.

  Fitz Moore hesitated, considering this, estimating time and probabilities. Only then did he turn and enter the restaurant just ahead of him.

  The Fred Henry gang of outlaws had been operating in this corner of the territory for more than two years, but the town of Sentinel had thus far escaped their attention. Fitz Moore, who had been marshal of Sentinel for more than half that time, had taken care to study the methods of Henry and his men. In recent raids the marshal had been slain within minutes before the raid began, or just at the moment the gang arrived.

  A persistent pattern of operation had been established and invariably the raids had been timed to coincide with the availability of large sums of money. Such a time had come to Sentinel, as Fitz Moore had reason to know.

  So, unless all his reasoning had failed, the town was marked for a raid within the next two hours. And he was marked for death.

  Fitz Moore was a tall, spare man with a dark, narrow face and carefully trimmed mustache. Normally his face was still and cold, only his eyes seeming alive and aware.

  As he entered the restaurant he removed his black, flat-crowned hat. His frock coat was unbuttoned, offering easy access to the Smith & Wesson Russian .44. The gun was belted high and firmly on his left side just in front of his hipbone, butt to the right, holster at a slight angle.

  Three men and two women sat at a long community table but only one murmured a greeting. Jack Thomas glanced up and said, “Good morning, Marshal,” his tone low and friendly.

  Acknowledging the greeting, the marshal seated himself at the far end of the table and accepted the cup of coffee poured by the Chinese cook.

  With his mind closed to the drift of conversation from the far end of the table, he considered the situation that faced him. His days began in the same identical manner, with a survey of the town from each of the six windows of his house. This morning he had seen the gray horse tied behind Peterson’s unused corral, where it would not be seen by a casual glance.

  With field glasses the marshal examined the horse. It was streaked with the salt of dried sweat, evidence of hard riding. There were still some dark, damp spots indicating the horse had been ridden not long before, and the fact that it was still bridled and saddled indicated it would be ridden soon again. The brand was a Rocking R, not a local brand.

  When Fitz Moore had returned to his living room he had seated himself and for an hour he read, occasionally glancing out of the window. The gray horse had not been moved in that time.

  At eight when he left for breakfast the horse was still there, but by the time he had walked a block it was gone. And there lingered in the air a faint smell of dust.

  Where was the horse?

  Down the arroyo, of course, as it gave easy access to the forest and the mountain canyons where there was concealment and water. Taking into consideration the cool night, the sweat-streaked horse … not less than six miles to the point of rendezvous.

  The rider of the gray had obviously been making a final check with a local source of information. To return to the rendezvous, discuss the situation and return, gave him roughly two hours, perhaps a bit more. He would deal in minimums.

  The marshal lighted a cigar, accepted a fresh cup of coffee and leaned back in his chair. He was a man of simple tastes and many appreciations. He knew little of cattle and less of mining, but two things he did know. He knew guns and he knew men.

  He was aware of the cool gray eyes of the young woman, the only person present whom he did not know by sight. There was about her a haunting familiarity that disturbed him. He tasted his coffee and glanced out the window. Reason warned him he should be suspicious of any stranger in town at such a time, yet every instinct told him he need not be suspicious of her.

  The Emporium Bank would be open in about an hour. A few minutes later Barney Gard would leave his saloon and cross the street with the receipts from Saturday and Sunday. It could be a considerable sum.

  The Emporium safe would be unlocked by that time and, as they had been accepting money from ranchers and dust from miners, there would be plenty of cash on hand. In approximately one hour there would be no less than twenty thousand dollars in spendable cash within easy reach of grasping fingers and ready guns.

  The Henry gang would, of course, know this. By now they were in the saddle, leaving their camp.

  He did not know the name of the stranger who played poker with the Catfish Kid, but he had known the face. It had been the face of a man he had seen in Tascosa with Fred Henry, the bandit leader, some two years ago. Tied to this was the fact that the Rocking R was a brand registered to one Harvey Danuser, alias Dick Mawson, the fastest gun-hand in the Henry outfit.

  He was suddenly aware that a question had been directed to him. “What would you do, Marshal,” Jack Thomas was asking, “if the Henry gang raided Sentinel?”

  Fitz Moore glanced at the end of his cigar, then lifted his eyes to those of Jack Thomas. “I think,” he said mildly, “I should have to take steps.”

  The marshal was not a precipitate man. Reputed to be both fast and accurate with a gun, he had yet to be proved locally. Once, not so long ago, he had killed the wrong man. He hoped never to make such a mistake again.

  So far he had enforced the peace in Sentinel by shrewd judgment of character, appreciation of developing situations
, and tactical moves that invariably left him in command. Authorized to employ an assistant, he had not done so. He preferred to work as he lived … alone.

  He was, he acknowledged, but only to himself, a lonely man. If he possessed any capacity for affection or friendship it had not been obvious to the people of Sentinel. Yet this was an added strength. No one presumed to take him lightly or expect favoritism.

  Long ago he had been considered a brilliant conversationalist and, in a time when a cowboy’s saddlebags might carry a volume of the classics as often as Ned Buntline, he was known as a widely read man. He had been a captain in the cavalry of the United States, a colonel in a Mexican revolution, a shotgun messenger for Wells Fargo, and a division superintendent for the Butterfield Stage Line.

  Naturally, he knew of the Henry gang. They had been operating for several years but only of late had they shown a tendency to shoot first and talk later. This seemed to indicate that at least one of the gang had become a ruthless killer.

  Three marshals had been killed recently, each one shot in the back, an indication that a modus operandi had been established. First kill the marshal, then rob the town. With the marshal out of action it was unlikely resistance could be organized before the outlaws had escaped.

  Fitz Moore dusted the ash from his cigar. He thought the gray horse had been standing long enough to let the sweat dry, which meant the horse had been ridden into town before daybreak. At that hour everything was closed and he had seen nobody on the street, and that seemed to indicate the rider had gone in somewhere. And that meant he not only knew where to go at that hour but that he would be welcomed.

  So the Henry gang had an accomplice in Sentinel. When the rider of the gray horse left town that accomplice had undoubtedly been awake. With a raid imminent it was unlikely he would risk going back to sleep. What more likely place for him to be than right in this cafe? Here he could not only see who was around but would have a chance to judge the temper of the marshal.

  Had anyone entered before he arrived? Fitz Moore knew everyone in the room except the girl with the gray eyes. She was watching him now.