the Proving Trail (1979)

by L'amour, Louis

  Pa wasn't scared. I'll give him that. Several time s I'd seen him face up to mighty dangerous situations , always calm, easy, and in command. And he was a goo d man with a gun.

  Something happened back yonder in his younge r years that had brought him to grief. That somethin g was tied in with the reason Felix Yant would com e riding after me. Oh, I never doubted he'd come! An d deep inside me I was sure it was he, and nobody else , who killed pa.

  What bothered me was I felt an uneasy kinship wit h the man. Maybe we were related, but it was more tha n that. Sometimes when he spoke, I knew what he woul d say before he said it, and that was strange, too, for h e was a different kind of man than I'd ever known.

  Some things about me bothered him, too. He didn't like the language I used most of the time. What h e hadn't yet realized was that it was a sort of a vernacula r most western men slipped into, no matter how wel l they could talk or how much they knew of the language. Part of it was that the educated ones didn't want to seem to be putting on airs, as the saying was , but it was more than that. It was almost as if it was a dialect. We used a lot of contractions and Indian o r Spanish words that came into our speaking natural-like.

  Sometimes Yant, who was obviously new to th e West, would stop and look at me to guess the meanin g of what I'd said. I had an idea the words we use d would in a short time become so much a part of th e language nobody would even hesitate over them.

  We used lariat, which was short for the Spanish l a reata, and hombre was used almost as much as nws.

  There were dozens of other words and expression s that sort of filtered into the everyday talk from th e Indians, the Spanish, and the country itself.

  Me an' that roan, we just taken off into the desert-like country toward the west. Not that it was desert, bu t it was dry least you knew where the water lay. An d all the advantage lays with a man who is making th e trail. He can go where he wishes, stop when he likes , and I was of no mind to make it easy.

  At first I didn't attempt to make myself hard to find.

  What I wanted most was distance, and I hit a fair pac e and held to it. That roan could go all day at a kind o f shambling trot.

  I had no illusions about what I was getting into.

  Yant, if he had killed pa, was as cold-blooded as the y come. He'd shot pa at point-blank range and in th e back of the head, and he'd do the same for me if th e chance allowed. Maybe I was better in wild countr y and maybe I wasn't. In any event, the man was a goo d rider and a tough, dangerous man, not to be held lightly.

  If I could shake him loose, I'd strike out for Georgetown and hope that pa had left something there. If not , I'd have to rethink the situation and go over pa's bac k trail.

  Wacker and the judge and them seemed far awa y and in another world. I was staking my life on out--g uessing Felix Yant.

  There was nobody I could go to for help. Anyway , it wasn't the way things were done in the West. A ma n saddled his own broncs and he fought his own battles.

  He stood alone, on his own two feet. A gang was a place for cowards to hide, because they were afraid t o stand out in the open. They wanted others to fight thei r battles for them and to shield them from attack.

  The wind was cold, right off the snow-covered flank s of the mountains, which lay behind me now. How fa r I was going west I had no idea, only that somehow I h ad to shake Yant from my trail and then turn eas t once more.

  There was ice on the edges of Cherry Creek whe n I crossed it. Then, deciding here was where I shoul d start, I turned downstream, keeping my horse in th e water for a couple of miles, then out on the east ban k again, and by high noon I was skirting the La Plata o n the west side, hunting for an arroyo I dimly remembered that ran off to the northwest. Sometime about a n hour later, I saw it off to the west and cut across--c ountry. There was a trail but I chose to avoid it, crossing to the arroyo itself. There had been recent rains , but cattle had gone up and down the canyon leavin g a maze of tracks that in the soft sand had no distinction, one from the other. Keeping to the arroyo for another hour, I reached the old Ute Trail, which woul d take me west to the Mancos River.

  Leaving the roan to graze on whatever he could find , I climbed a high shoulder near the trail and sat ther e for a good half hour, watching my back trail. I sa w nothing, not even dust. Instead of making me feel good , it left me worried.

  Suppose I was all wrong and he had not followe d me? Suppose he had outsmarted me and guessed m y intention and was waiting until I started east again?

  He was a shrewd man, and I returned to my hors e feeling none too good.

  The land through which I rode was lonely, desolate , offering nothing. Here and there great mesas thrust u p from the land about, towering like islands from a vanished sea. Off to the west was the tableland o f Mesa Verde, its great promontory like the bow of a ship outlined sharply against the sky.

  Everywhere there was a thick stand of cedar, an d wherever there was an open space, it was grown up t o sagebrush. From time to time up some branch canyon , there was a glimpse of spruce trees along the flanks o r in the ends of the canyons. It was rough, broken country with many fallen slabs of rock and talus slopes. I n eeded a place to hole up. If Yant lost my trail, h e might give up on me.

  At the head of a canyon a trail branched off to th e northwest. No Indian tracks, although this was Ut e country, only a scattering of deer and other anima l tracks. I was catching a sense of the country now, remembering it from a time long since, when pa and m e had holed up here for a spell.

  Red Horse Gulch was somewhere off to the south , and if I wasn't guessing wrong, this trail led to a sprin g I turned the roan along that trail, and from the way h e quickened his step I had an idea there was water ahead.

  Believe me, I was mighty uneasy. Felix Yant migh t be green to this country, but he'd ridden and hunte d a lot and it would take some doing to fool him. I wa s banking that he'd sight-hunted mostly, or trailed gam e with dogs, and that he wasn't much of a tracker. Ye t to underestimate an enemy is always dangerous.

  About a half mile or so from where I left the Ut e Trail, I found the spring. First off I let my horse hav e what he wanted, drank myself, and filled my canteen.

  Plenty of game tracks but no horse tracks.

  Squatting beside the spring, I considered what lay before me and behind me. Odd part of it was, I was kin d of enjoying this cat-and-mouse game. The trouble wa s and this I had to keep in mind that it was no game.

  It was being played for keeps, and all a man neede d was one mistake.

  Right now a man was on my back trail who wa s deadly as a rattler. He'd shot pa in the back, so i t showed he didn't have any mercy in him. It may hav e shown something else . . . that when it came righ t down to it, he was scared of pa.

  Seemed strange that anybody could be afraid of pa , who had always seemed the gentlest of men, yet Yan t had taken no chances with him.

  The spring was in a small branch canyon, and I d idn't much like staying there for fear Yant woul d come down the draw and catch me there, so I straddle d the roan and started down canyon. Here and yonde r the trail went up the flank of the canyon to get awa y from great blocks of rock that had broken off the wal l and tumbled to the bottom, blocking any trail ther e might have been.

  Here and there I saw broken pieces of pottery, s o Indians had lived here before. Pa had told me of som e cliff dwellings along this canyon and another branc h that ran back toward the east and north.

  Where the canyon forked, I turned right and foun d myself looking up into the high arch of one of thos e shallow, wind-hollowed caves where the old cliff dwellers liked to build. There was a cliff dwelling there, too , but it was different.

  There was a ledge crossed that cave some sixty fee t from the bottom of the arch, and on that ledge wa s built a house. Only ruins were left, yet pretty substantial ruins. How a body could get up there was mor e than I could figure, but a man sitting up there with a rifle could cover anybody coming down that canyo n where I
was.

  The cave was right at the junction of those tw o canyons, and the more I looked at that cliff house, th e more I wanted to see what was inside. Certainly onc e a man got in there, a body would surely be in a fix trying to get at him. If I could get in.

  Riding up the canyon was no easy matter. Ther e was a sandy strip in the bottom where water had ru n during rains, but great boulders and slabs of rock ha d fallen across the way in several places. There was mor e pottery down here, or bits and pieces of it, and ther e were several ruins tucked back under the brows of th e cliff. Back at the junction those canyon walls wer e maybe five hundred feet high, but a little less towar d the canyon's head. Near the far end I glimpsed wha t seemed to be some ruins in behind some spruce trees.

  Leaving my horse cropping at some brush, I scramble d up there and found the ruins of a house and the edg e of what might have been a kiva, one of their roun d ceremonial centers. It was mostly filled with rock tha t had sloughed off the roof of the cave. The place wa s cool, still, and almost entirely hidden from below. I n a couple of pools water stood, runoff from recent rain s that had not evaporated in this shaded place.

  Returning to my roan, I found a place where it coul d be hidden behind a thick stand of spruce, a fairly leve l area, although small. Here, too, there were broke n fragments of pottery and some ears of corn that wer e only three or four inches long and no larger aroun d than my finger. Stripping the gear from the roan, I hi d it as well as I could with some fallen branches and th e like. Then, taking my rifle and canteen, I went bac k down the canyon, working my way along the stee p side, following what must at one time have been a foo t trail, that took me higher and higher along the canyo n wall.

  Several hundred feet above the canyon floor I foun d a crack in the canyon wall where stood the notche d trunk of a cedar. Rigging a crude sling for my rifle, I h ung it over my back to have both hands free fo r climbing. Slowly and carefully, aiding myself wit h handholds or fingergrips on the rocks, I mounted to a n excessively narrow ledge, then by another notched pol e to a still higher one.

  Working my way along and up, I reached a ledg e that led to the cliff house. Once settled inside, I unslung my rifle and peered out through a crack in th e crumbling wall. From here I could look down to th e junction of the two canyons. It was an easy rifle shot , but did I wish to kill?

  Settling back, I studied my surroundings. On m y right, almost under my elbow, was the edge of th e kiva, a round ceremonial room with some of the ancien t timbers still in place although the roof had long sinc e fallen in.

  There was a door, broader at the top than at th e bottom, for is not a man wider at the top? And ofte n carrying a burden on his back or shoulders? And another opening that gave access to an area beyond.

  There were bits of broken pottery lying about an d a number of small corncobs, less than a third the siz e of those with which I was familiar. Com had bee n domesticated, apparently, but not developed to ou r present standard. I took a short drink from my cantee n and settled back to rest.

  All was quiet in the canyon. Occasionally a rock , loosened by some animal or by the workings of nature , would tumble off into the canyon below. Once I hear d some small animal scurrying.

  My horse was reasonably safe. Shielded by trees a s he was, and somewhat above the canyon floor in th e old ruin, there was small chance he would be discovered. It would need someone totally lacking i n caution to go up the canyon to its end, completel y exposed to rifle fire from a dozen possible places o f hiding. Felix Yant was not, I was sure, such a man.

  What I needed was a little rest, time to think and t o plan, and a chance to observe my enemy, if such h e was, and to learn what manner of man he was.

  Slowly the afternoon passed. I dozed, awakened , dozed again.

  At last, peering through some broken brick atop th e wall, I saw a bird fly up.

  Somebody coming? Suddenly I began to sweat. Suppose they had seen me dim].) up here? If such was th e case I could well be trapped, for impossible as th e place was to attack, it was almost equally impossibl e to leave without exposing myself.

  At night? The thought of attempting that cliff in th e darkness gave me no pleasure. I was agile enough, an d had climbed a lot among rocks, but at night? Not if I c ould help it.

  Nothing happened. All was still. Watching, I though t of Yant, of those cold, measuring eyes that seemed t o possess no more human feeling than those of a rattler.

  That he was a relative I accepted. His resemblanc e to pa was too uncanny for it to be otherwise. Yet ho w related? And if related, why would he wish to kill me?

  An estate of some kind? Money motivated mor e things than hatred, yet there could be both.

  The two mysterious women who had come to visi t us returned to mind. One had been friendly, yet I ha d been so frightened of the other I had never even tol d pa . . . and she had tried to kfll him. To poison him , somehow. I knew that now. Pa had been deathly il l after her visit.

  Who could she be? And why did they wish us dead?

  I was alone. I knew nothing. And they were seekin g me out. Suddenly, I was uneasy. I felt cramped, close d in, eager to be out and away. Yet to move now woul d be fatal. I must remain where I was, let them search , let them seek me.

  Georgetown. I was sure now that was where pa ha d left his papers. He and Louis Dupuy had struck up a friendship, and the man Dupuy was a strange, bitter , self-isolated man, influenced by no one, beholden to n o one. If pa wished to leave those papers with someone , he could have chosen no better man.

  A stone fell from the canyon wall opposite, a pebbl e that bounded from rock to rock. My eyes searched th e rock wall opposite. Much broken rock, clumps o f cedar, and some lower brush. The rock atop the clif f was largely water-worn and smooth, but here and ther e were hollows that held water. It was from these natura l reservoirs, most of them small, that the cliff dweller s had obtained some of their water.

  A faint flicker of light on metal, seen and gone. A r ifle barrel?

  There was silence in the canyon. Easing my rifl e forward, I waited. The last thing I wished was to giv e away my position, and to move might be fatal. I ha d water enough for another day. and night if I was careful. I had a little food. It was unlikely they woul d find the way up that I had used, impossible for the m to use it by night, so for the moment I seemed secure.

  Peering through a crack in the rocks, I saw a ma n suddenly appear opposite me on the rim of the canyon. He moved out in plain sight and just stood there.

  Puzzled, I watched him for several minutes befor e it dawned on me that he was there to draw my fire, o r to somehow make me give away my position. I remained very still. The man disappeared, and a momen t later there was a shot. The bullet struck the roc k outer wall of the cliff house.

  Careful to make no sound, I crawled through th e T-shaped door into the inner room, which was completely enclosed. There I would be safe from ricochets.

  Apparently they had no idea where I was or if I wa s even in the canyon, and if my horse made no soun d we might well deceive them into moving on.

  Another shot, and this time the bullet struck th e back wall of the cave, and the ricochet smashed int o the rock wall. For a long time then, there was n o sound. I took a swallow of water and waited. Ther e were no more shots. After a while I moved out of th e inner room and peered through the rocks. Nobody wa s in sight . . . nothing moved.

  Somewhere thunder rolled and a wind stirred th e cedars across the canyon. Leaning my head bac k against the rock pile where I sat, most of it debris o r slabs fallen from the wall of the cave, I dozed.

  I awakened to the patter of rain and a crash o f thunder followed a flash of lightning. That one wa s close. Sitting up, I looked out. Here I was sheltered , but the canyon was veiled by a curtain of rain.

  Chuckling, I clasped my 'hands behind my head.

  They would have to find shelter, and I just hoped the y did not also find my horse. But they had seeme d unaware of any caves or cliff ho
uses further up th e canyon and had evidently missed them.

  For a long time I slept, and when I awakened it wa s cold and dark. It was raining softly now, and thunde r was a muted sound, far off. Listening, I heard nothin g but the rain. I thought of my horse and of the trail I m ust follow to reach it. To wait until daylight woul d mean I would be exposed and helpless on the canyo n wall, yet if I could make it by night I might successfully slip away.

  I lay still for a while, reluctant to break my comfort , for despite the hard rocks upon which I lay, I ha d rested well. Yet the longer I lay still, the more urgen t became the need to move. Carefully, I reviewed th e steps I had taken in mounting the cliff. Dare I attemp t it by night? In the rain and the dark?

  Finally I sat up and looked around. It was very dark , for the sky was still heavy with rainclouds and no sta r could be seen. My father had told me the spirits of th e dead were believed by the Indians to still linger in thes e cliff dwellings, and I did not doubt it. Lying alone i n one of a night, where nothing else lived, subtle stirring s could be heard, and sometimes mumbling and distan t chanting or the sound of flutes. So it was said and s o it was believed. I heard stirrings enough, but the eart h itself makes sounds and the wind finds holes to whistl e through.

  Maybe . . . who was I to argue the point? In an y event, if the spirits lingered here, they were no enemie s of mine, or should not be, for I wished them no harm , nor their dwelling. This had been a shrewd place i n which to build, where attack by night was virtuall y impossible.

  Gathering my few things about me, I slung my rifl e over my shoulders to have my hands free. Then I crep t back over the narrow ledge, bending far over becaus e of the low-hanging rock above me. At one point I k new to step carefully, for a deep crack cut throug h the ledge to the back wall, a drop of several hundre d feet if one made a false step.

  Inching along in the darkness, I found that despit e the darkness my eyes could pick out places for m y feet, and eventually I found the two notched poles dow n which I must descend.