Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists

by Louis L'Amour

Tex shrugged. “Well, we done it. Might’s well divvy up an’ skip the country.”

  “I want no part of it,” Aylmer said.

  “Me neither,” Stan agreed. “I’m no thief.”

  “You sayin’ I am? I wasn’t alone back there. But what’s done is done.” Tex scowled at him.

  “I’m only sayin’ this was a damn-fool notion and we’d better return the money and light out…fast. That man’s dead an’ that could mean a necktie party.”

  Tex shrugged. “Well, maybe you’re right. It wouldn’t do for us to get caught with this stuff. I’ll tell you what. We’ll ride into town, leave the stuff, have a drink, then get the hell out of the country.”

  It had made a kind of sense at the time and neither of them had a better idea.

  —

  Tex indicated a saloon as they rode in. “Let’s have a drink and get the lay of the land,” he suggested. “Then we can decide where to leave the gold.”

  Tex seemed friendly with the bartender and they all had a second drink on him. That last drink evidently carried something special because Stan recalled nothing more until he awakened in the rooming house with Aylmer dead on the floor.

  Why had Bud Aylmer been killed? Had he awakened and caught Tex leaving with the loot? Or was there some other reason? The fact remained that whatever the reason, Bud was dead.

  Looking back it was easy to see that Tex had planned the whole operation. Obviously he had known about the twenty thousand in gold the stage was carrying, and he had simply picked up a couple of gullible drifters and talked them into helping him. He had then killed Bud and stuffed Stan’s pocket with gold, evidence enough to hang him for both the killings.

  Stan Brodie turned from the trail where several cows had crossed it and followed their trail along a ridge until he could look over the country. He disliked sky-lining himself but this was not familiar territory and he needed to put some distance between himself and town.

  He followed a game trail marked with fresh tracks of a deer. He was no more than five or six miles from town but well away from the usual trails.

  Nothing was to be gained by riding without destination, and if he got out of this predicament it would only be by using his head. From time to time he glanced down his back trail and kept aware of the country around while trying to assay his position.

  Nobody back there knew him. He had been seen by that girl and by the hostler. No doubt some of those in the saloon the night before had seen him, but how many would remember him he could only guess. Nor did he know how he had gotten into that room where he had found himself.

  Tex had not known his name, nor had Bud Aylmer, so he had that much going for him. Yet as soon as Bud’s body was found they would be looking for anyone connected with him.

  Obviously Tex had planned for him to be found in the room with the dead man, a knife in his hand and loot from the stage robbery in his pocket. There could have been no other reason for stuffing his pocket with a couple of dozen gold coins.

  Thinking of that, he counted the money for the first time. Twenty gold coins of twenty dollars each. Four hundred dollars that would buy him a rope necktie if they were found on him.

  He had eighteen dollars of his own money and the hostler had seen him drop a gold coin so he would keep the oldest and most worn piece. He began looking for a place to cache the rest.

  Rounding a corner of a bluff he saw a huge rock, tall as a three-story building. Momentarily out of sight of any trail, he dismounted and climbed up to the rock, hiding the money under a pack rat’s nest in one of the wind-worn hollows.

  He climbed down, dusted his pants, and turned to his horse.

  A rider was sitting there, holding his horse’s reins. He was a tall man with close-set eyes and a coarse face. “What you doin’ up yonder?” he asked.

  Stan Brodie took the reins from his hands. “Never could pass up one of those honeycomb cliffs,” he commented. “Always figured there should be something hid in them. Too obvious, I guess.”

  “Find anything?” The small eyes probed his.

  “Oh, sure! Pack rat’s nests, one hawk’s nest, and a place where there was fresh bobcat sign. I came down fast. I got no wish to tackle a bobcat on a cliff-face.”

  He mounted. “One time I did find some pots, and when I told some Eastern dude about them he offered to pay me to show him where they were. He said some folks study them.”

  “You mean them ol’ clay pots like the Injuns use?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That makes no sense. They’re just pots for storin’ water, grain, an’ such. Anyway, what did them Injuns know?”

  “Maybe, but he give me twenty dollars to guide him. Only a few miles, too. Easiest twenty bucks I ever made.”

  They rode on, the stranger lagging, seeming in no hurry. Soon the stranger pulled up. “I been thinkin’. I’ve got no grub for a long trip. You headin’ west?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’d better stock up. See you.”

  The stranger swung his horse and started back. Stan stared after him, glad to be free of him yet worried as to what he might say back in town. He might also stop to look over that honeycomb cliff, just for luck.

  The morning was hot and still. Heat-waves danced over the bunchgrass levels where the cattle grazed…a few cattle.

  A lonely, empty land, and he was unarmed. Tex had taken both his Winchester and his Colt. He needed a gun. He had never killed anyone and did not want to…not even Tex. Gun or no, a man who wanted to kill could always find a way. Defending yourself, however, that was often a last-minute thing and a gun would be good to have.

  He had seen too much killing in his time. All he wanted was a quiet place where he could work and save a little.

  He rode on into the morning, rode until the sun was high. Sweat trickled down his face and into his eyes. He looked back. Nothing…nothing yet.

  Finding a dim trail leading off to the east and north, he followed it. When he had gone a hundred yards he tied his horse to a clump of brush and taking off his boots walked back in his sock feet until he reached his turnoff. The tracks he had left were vague. He took his hat and fanned the dust until the tracks showed almost none at all. Backing up, he did the same thing further along, then returned to his horse, brushed off his tracks, pulled on his boots, and rode away.

  Was that a dust-cloud?

  He had been a fool to take those drinks. He had no head for liquor and had never cared for it. Tex made it all seem like a joke until suddenly that driver was dead and it wasn’t funny at all. If they caught him they would hang him.

  When that stage driver reached for his gun Stan knew it was no lark. That driver hadn’t been amused. Then Tex shot and the driver tumbled into the dust.

  Tex had known right where to look for that box and he had gone right to it, paying no mind to the driver he had said was his friend. Of course, that had all been a lie. Bud and him…they were fools. But he had never heard of anybody escaping hanging because he had been a fool.

  He slowed his horse. No use killing the poor beast because he was running scared.

  Something shadowed the land, far ahead.

  Hills? Trees? A ranch? No matter, for there was apt to be water and he was already spitting cotton…or would have been if he could spit. The horse needed water.

  He glanced at the shadows behind the brush. Almost two hours past noon. The shadow ahead began to take shape and it was all three things he had suspected: low hills, trees, and a ranch.

  When he came up to it the house and barn proved to be low buildings made of flat stones taken from a ledge behind the barn. There were a couple of corrals, no horses or cattle, but there was a well.

  He rode into the ranch-yard and swung down. There was water in the trough, some green moss in the bottom of it, and there was a pump. He trailed the reins and began pumping. He expected to have to prime the pump but it was not necessary. Clear, cold water gushed into the trough. With a gourd dipper that hung from the pump, he drank, t
hen drank again.

  He pumped the trough full, keeping an eye on the house. There was neither sound nor movement. Was it empty?

  Stan Brodie pushed his hat back on his head and, holding the dipper for another drink, he looked carefully around. No sign of life, no dogs, no stock, yet the pump had been recently used.

  The leaves of the cottonwoods rustled and the sound brought him to realization. He was still not far enough away for safety but his horse had been hard ridden and he knew it needed rest. He led the horse to the stable. There was fresh hay and he forked some into the manger. He stripped off the gear and left the horse free to eat or to roll in the dust of the corral. If anyone did come he wanted to appear unworried and unhurried.

  He took a handful of hay and rubbed the horse down, talking to it as he did so. A man had to talk to somebody and most cow-horses received a lot of confidential chatter which they were in no position to repeat. That was one thing about a horse. You could say almost anything to it as long as you treated it decent.

  Walking outside he sat down on the bench that circled a huge cottonwood. The soft wind stirred the hair over his damp brow. It was good, good to stop if even for a little while.

  Stan Brodie was twenty-two and had been an orphan since he was nine. He had never had anything like a home since his folks passed on, but he knew what a home could be like.

  Once when he was eleven a man needed a boy to do some chores around the place, but when Stan arrived the man was not yet home so the maid showed him into the parlor and warned him, “Now just you set, and don’t you touch anything.”

  He had seated himself on the very edge of the sofa, holding his cap in his hands. The carpets were deep and soft, and there were pictures on the wall and some glass-doored bookcases holding books in red and gold or black and gold leather. There was a lamp with a fringed lamp-shade and the room was all red plush, so quiet that his breathing worried him.

  Finally he tiptoed over to the bookcases and read the names on the books. Scottish Chiefs, by Porter; Lord Halifax, Gentleman, whose author he couldn’t make out; Pilgrim’s Progress, by John Bunyan; and The History of the Five Indian Nations, by Cadwallader Colden. He was staring longingly at the books when a man entered.

  “What is it, boy? What are you looking for?”

  Guiltily, Stan had stepped back quickly. “I…I was just looking at the books, sir.”

  The man was pleased. “Well…I haven’t many. About thirty, I’d guess, but I’ve read them. Most of them several times. Can you read, boy?”

  “Yes, sir. I can do sums, and I can write. I went to school in the orphan asylum.”

  “Orphan? You’ve no parents?”

  “No, sir. Not that I know of, sir. My mother died when I was nine and my father was off somewhere and nobody knew where to find him. I ran away from the asylum, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted a job, sir. I wasn’t getting anywhere in that school.”

  He had worked for Alec Winters for two months, cleaning up the yard, cutting grass, sawing wood, and exercising his horses. Then Mr. Winters got him a job herding cattle.

  Not that he was a real cowboy. He had to be sure that no cattle strayed and to bring them into the big corral at nighttime. He stayed with the job all summer and when he left Mr. Winters he had seventy dollars. He put ten dollars in his pocket and hid the rest in his belt at a place where the stitching was broken.

  Two men grabbed him as he left town. Peterson was an itinerant laborer of doubtful background, the other man he did not know. One held him with his face in the dirt while the other went through his pockets. They found a little more than seven dollars because he had bought a pair of shoes.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Peterson demanded angrily. “Winters paid you seventy dollars.”

  “No, sir,” Stan lied. “There was the deducts. He deducted some for this, some for that. There was no more than ten dollars left when he got through.”

  They did not want to believe him, but they did. Deducts were a common experience and more than one workman had found himself broke at the end of a job. There were deductions for time lost, for tools broken, for any excuse an employer could find. Why should Winters have treated this youngster any different?

  They argued, slapped him around a little, but he held to his story. Then they let him go, telling him to keep going and that they’d beat the life out of him if he came back and told anyone.

  He kept going.

  That was in Illinois. In St. Louis he cleaned boots and shined them, in Louisville he was a printer’s devil. In eastern Kansas he helped with the harvest, and in Fort Smith he worked for a printer again, delivered newspapers, and swept out a saloon every morning before opening time. He earned two dollars a month from the printer and fifty cents a month from the saloon-keeper, but he actually found the equivalent of four or five dollars a month in the sawdust on the saloon floor. Or he did until the saloon-keeper found how well he was doing and began sweeping his own floor.

  When he was fourteen he joined a cattle drive that had been turned west short of Baxter Springs and drove to Abilene with it. He drifted south when the cattle were sold and joined another drive starting near San Antonio.

  He drove an ox team from Westport to Cherry Creek, Colorado, tried placer mining, worked on other men’s mines, swung a sledge driving spikes on a railroad, and then one night he helped a drunken man home.

  The man’s wife was a plain-faced, pleasant woman who took her husband and put him to bed. She glanced critically at Stan. “Should I know you?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am. I’m Stan Brodie. I’ve been laying track for the Denver and Rio Grande. Your husband got a bit too much and asked if I’d help him home. I never saw him before.”

  “You’re a good lad. Will you have a cup of coffee? That’s the least I can do.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Your husband was talking to me for some time, ma’am. Said some mighty fine things about you.”

  “He’s a good man. He just can’t handle whiskey. He never could. Mostly he stays away from it but when he starts…What worries me is the paper.”

  “Paper?”

  “We publish the Bugle. He does it all, but without him we’ll have nothing and now we’re apt to lose it all.”

  “But he’ll be sober in the morning.”

  “Not him. He will be drunk for weeks, if I know Tom. We can’t afford it.”

  Stan put down his cup. “Ma’am, I could run your newspaper. I have done it before.”

  When morning came he appeared at the newspaper office, which was below the rooms where he had taken Tom Hayward the night before. Mary Hayward opened the door for him. “It isn’t much,” she said, letting him in. “Can you handle a Washington handpress?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I used one in Fort Smith.”

  “There’s the type. Most of it is there. There isn’t enough of the letter ‘k’ so Tom’s been using ‘q’ in its place. Most of our readers are used to it by now.”

  “All right, ma’am. In Fort Smith we didn’t have any ‘f’ and we made do with ‘ph.’ ”

  “The paper is due out tomorrow and I am afraid he doesn’t have anything done. There’s a few items he’s set up over there, mostly local news. The patent-medicine ads are set.” She looked worried. “There will be a lot of space to fill, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, ma’am, there nearly always is. Don’t you worry about it.” He held out his hand. “You might give me that key. I’ve got to run down the street for a few minutes.”

  Gebhardt was sitting over his breakfast in the Stockman’s Restaurant where Stan had known he would be. He dropped into a seat opposite him.

  “Gep, do you still have that St. Louis paper I saw you with?”

  “It’s over in the wagon. Mighty handy out on the road to have a paper around. Why? D’you want it?”

  “I need it. That paper isn’t more than a week old, is it?”

  “Week? Why, that paper is just two days old! Got it from a Pony
Express rider.”

  “Can I have it?”

  “Sure enough. You’ll find it down on the left side of the seat.”

  Stan picked up the newspaper and glanced over it on the way back to the office.

  Inside, he sat down and read through the last few copies of the Bugle, capturing the essence of the style used by Tom Hayward. Then he set up the type for a story on the candidacy of Ulysses S. Grant for president lifted from the St. Louis paper.

  He found another story on a speech by Schuyler Colfax, who was to be Grant’s running mate, on payment of the national debt in gold.

  He also included a brief item to the effect that an organization calling themselves the Jolly Corks had formed a new organization to be called the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He also reported the robbery of a train at Marshfield, Indiana, by a gang reported to be the Reno brothers.

  Stan remembered that day and those that followed. Most editing was done with scissors and a paste-pot, newspapers borrowing liberally from each other but careful to give credit. Where additional space had to be filled, he added bits and pieces from memory, a poem by Lord Byron, and an historical question about the name of the great-grandson of Cleopatra who became emperor of Rome.

  He chuckled, remembering that. Nearly every subscriber had written in wanting to know who the emperor had been and how it happened. “Caligula” had been the answer and historical or sporting questions had become a regular feature of the paper from that day on.

  —

  He was startled from his reverie by the sound of horses’ hooves…a lot of horses. He started up, then suddenly realizing he could not run, he removed his coat quickly, folded it, rolled up his sleeves, grabbed a bucket, and started toward the house.

  They rode in and drew up sharply, dust swirling about them. “Howdy!” The man wore a star, as did one of the others. “Mind if we have a drink? We’re huntin’ a killer.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “Held up the stage an’ murdered his partner, but we’ll get him. He ain’t gone far.”

  “I’ve seen nobody.” He gestured toward the well. “There’s water, and I’ve just pumped the trough full. Help yourselves.”