Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  John Toomey had hired Reese, but with misgivings. The man was surely running from something, and he proved a troublemaker. This Reese might be a relative.

  “Is this your home country?”

  “My old man worked for Strawb’ry. I was born on the place.”

  Obviously the world began and ended on Strawberry range, as far as Floyd Reese was concerned. I had met several such men, had grown up with them, in fact.

  It always irritated me that people would take it for granted, as they often did, that a man would write about something of which he knew nothing. Colin Wells had assumed that, being a writer, I knew nothing of ranch life.

  I had grown up on a ranch in Wyoming. From the time I was old enough to sit a saddle I had punched cows, and in my teens I had drifted south during vacations to ride for an outfit in Colorado, and later had ridden for another in Montana. I’d put in a year working the mines and lumber camps before I enlisted to fight in Korea. Korea had lasted two years.

  The landing at Inchon, the march north to the Yalu, when we had been assured we would be home in time for Christmas, and then the bitter retreat back down the peninsula when the Chinese, who we had been assured would not fight, decided to fight. Wounded, I’d struggled three days through the snow before the Chinese caught me. Believing I was in such bad shape that I was a safe prisoner, they guarded me poorly, and I was able to slip away. Recaptured by another outfit, I met Pio Alvarez and we escaped together, fighting and running and hiding all the way back to the American lines.

  After a battlefield commission I’d returned to the States, went to a school for guerilla fighters, did a year of Stateside duty, followed by a school for Military Intelligence.

  That was followed by a year in Berlin and West Germany, and then I was shipped out to Saigon and guerilla warfare in the jungles of Vietnam. Wounded again, captured again, I escaped again. And that convinced me I’d stretched my luck too far, so I returned to civilian life and to writing.

  The station wagon slowed and I saw two riders coming down from the slope of a hill, a dried-up old man with a wide but not pleasant grin, and a tough-looking rider of thirty-five or so. Both were armed.

  As they rode up alongside, Reese stopped. “This here’s the writer,” he said. “Name’s Sheridan.”

  He indicated the two men. “Dad Styles and Rip Parker. Been ridin’ for Strawb’ry for years.”

  As the wagon rolled on I commented, “They were armed.”

  “Sure. We run into rustlers sometimes, and it makes a long trip for the sheriff. He doesn’t much like to be bothered, so I hold a dep’ty’s badge.”

  “Is rustling a problem?”

  “You bet. They come out in trucks and hoss-trailers. They unload their horses, tear down a piece of fence and round up a few head of cattle. They load ’em into trucks and take off. They don’t get far, usually. Not with us, they don’t. The only road runs along or through our property for fifteen miles.”

  He turned to look at me, his eyes faintly taunting. “You been ridin’ over Strawb’ry range for seven or eight miles now. Everything, anywhere you look, is Strawb’ry. Only way a man could get out of here unless we leave him go is to sprout wings.”

  “Do they ever make a fight of it? The rustlers, I mean?”

  “Sure…who wants to get caught? They know what they got comin’.”

  The station wagon rolled up before the house and frankly, I was glad to get out. I did not like Floyd Reese, and I was glad to be free of him.

  A Mexican in a white coat took my bag and type-writer from the back of the car as Colin Wells came down the steps with a drink in his hand. “Welcome to Strawb’ry! Come on in and have a drink. You’re just in time to round up a few before supper!”

  There was a girl standing on the steps, a dark-haired girl with gray eyes who wore beige slacks and blouse. She was looking at me with neither appraisal nor welcome. It was a startled look, I thought, and apprehensive as well.

  “My sister-in-law, Sheridan, Belle Dawson,” Colin said. “Belle, this is that writer you heard me speak of.”

  “How do you do.” Her smile was quick and friendly. “A reader always enjoys meeting a writer.”

  “And vice versa,” I said, smiling at her. “But don’t be frightened. I’m not going to ask you if you have read anything of mine.”

  “Oh, but I have, Mr. Sheridan! All of them, I believe. You have a gift, a very real gift, for reconstructing the past.”

  “It isn’t a gift. It’s just a lot of hard, dusty work in the files of old newspapers, in catalogues, diaries, coroners’ reports, anything of the kind I can put my hands on.”

  My eyes swung away from hers, glimpsing a low, squat building of stone. It stood near the crest of a knoll about three hundred yards away, beyond the corrals. It was built of native stone and had no windows, only slits from which a rifle might be fired. Into my mind flashed words from John Toomey’s journal: “and on the second day we began building a fort, a place of refuge against attack by the Apache. It was a low, stone building that we finally completed, situated on a knoll near the spring.”

  “Be careful, Mr. Sheridan,” Belle said ironically. “Your curiosity is showing.”

  “That stone building out there reminded me of one back home. It startled me for a moment.”

  “It was on the place when Colin’s grandfather settled here. They use it to store old harness, saddles, odds and ends of tools. It’s a sort of catch-all, really.”

  Four thousand head of cattle and twenty-seven men, and it was to this place they had come.

  “Bourbon, wasn’t it?” Colin Wells came over, holding out a glass. “I’ve got a memory for drinks. Now if there’s anything you want to know about the place, you ask Belle. She knows as much about it as I do.”

  Ninety years was a long time, and there was small possibility that I could find anything in the nature of a clue. That old building might be one of many such. The past was fresh in my mind because I had worked with it so much, and had been living it through all my books, and all the painstaking research that went into their writing.

  “You will want to freshen up,” Belle said abruptly. “Bring your drink and I’ll show you to your room.”

  “Show him where the pool is, Belle. Chances are we’ll all be out there when he comes out again. If you’d like a swim, Sheridan, climb into a suit and come on.”

  She led the way along a shadowed arcade that bordered the patio on three sides, passing the doors of several rooms, finally to stop opposite a fountain. Around the fountain were palm trees and flowers, keeping the patio green and cool.

  “Right along and through the arch to the pool,” Belle said, and I could see the glint of blue water through the opening.

  “Thanks,” I said, and she turned to leave, then hesitated.

  “Mr. Sheridan,” she said, keeping her voice low and deliberate, “if I were you I would make any excuse that comes to mind and leave as quickly as possible, and I mean tomorrow. Make any excuse—any at all—but leave. When you get back to town, if you are wise, you will leave Arizona.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “I have read your books, Mr. Sheridan. None of the others have. I may be a fool, and you will probably think me one, but don’t stay in this house after tonight. And please do not repeat what I have said.”

  “My books are harmless enough.”

  “You’re very thorough, Mr. Sheridan, and a book such as you may write can be dangerous. I do not know why you were invited here, but you must realize that there is little interest here in either books or writers…rather to the contrary. Colin does like guests, but he does not care for strangers. For some reason, Mr. Sheridan, you are very special.”

  “Colin Wells introduced you as his sister-in-law,” I said.

  “His brother was married to my sister.”

  “Was?”

  “They were killed. They were killed last year in an accident when their car ran off a cliff over east of here.” />
  “I’m sorry.”

  She walked away from me then, and I stood watching her go, a lovely girl, but a strange one.

  Why had she taken enough interest to warn me? She was related to these people, in a sense at least. Was she a highly nervous, neurotic girl? I did not think so, not for a minute. She was a bright, intelligent girl, and not at all the type to be an alarmist.

  Yet she had made a point. Why was I invited here? How did it happen that of all places I should be invited to the very place I wished to go? Did they hope that my being here might publicize the ranch so they might perhaps make a better sale? Were they celebrity collectors? Neither of these reasons seemed likely, and the uneasiness I had been feeling ever since being called to look at the body of Manuel Alvarez suddenly sharpened.

  The room was spacious, cool, comfortable. As I undressed and showered I considered the situation. After all, this was what I had been looking for, and surely somebody here could tell me about the Toomeys. This was, I felt sure, the place they had elected to stay.

  Only a few miles away was the Verde River, all the peaks mentioned as landmarks were nearby. This had to be the place.

  Yet I had been advised to leave. Had the mystery of the vanishing brothers not been so far in the past I might have suspected a connection, but how could a ninety-year-old mystery possibly matter to anyone except someone as curious as myself?

  But I was a man who preferred to avoid trouble, having seen enough of it in every way. I decided I would take a couple of rides around the country, but would arrange to leave very soon, as soon as I had scouted the terrain a little. I did want to see Lost River, and I wanted to be inside that old stone building for a few minutes at least. I had a hunch about that building, and if the hunch paid off, I might have the answer to many of my questions.

  Irritating, nagging little suspicions kept coming to mind. After all, my training had been such as to make me notice, and I had noticed. Yet what did it all add up to?

  Floyd Reese’s odd expression when I mentioned Lost River…well, why not? It was a remote, unlikely place for a stranger to know about or ask about. His expression was natural.

  The clerk in the land office? He had looked a bit startled when I asked about the Toomeys…more so than a man would who knew, as he maintained, nothing about them. He had handed me the T file and walked away, and a few minutes later, returning the file to its case, I had overheard him on the telephone.

  I heard him say, “Yes, Toomey. That’s right…Toomey.”

  And when I left the land office, the fat man was outside. He had been in the motel lobby and outside the Historical Society library before that. But he was probably a policeman, no matter how little he looked like it. He might be somebody from the D.A.’s office, checking up on me.

  The hell with it. I was going to leave Arizona. It was a state I liked, a state I knew pretty well. It was, in fact, this very country through which I had ridden…how many years ago?

  It had been twenty years ago, and with two others of my own age. We had been punching cows in Colorado and decided to drift back across country to the Colorado River, crossing at Needles.

  The drink tasted good, and the shower felt even better. The view at the pool was breathtaking, and that did not mean the far-off hills, lighted by the fires of a setting sun. It was the immediate foreground that gripped the attention.

  On the edge of the pool, beautifully tanned and wearing a white bikini, was Belle Dawson. Walking toward the diving board was a golden blonde in tune with a music all her own.

  Beyond the pool was Colin Wells, seated at a table with a drink; with him was a short, stocky man who looked familiar.

  It was the fat man from the hotel. Only he was not fat; at least, most of that solid, all too solid flesh was not fat. It was sheer brute strength, the strength of a man naturally powerful.

  Colin must have said something, for the man turned around. He was smoking a long black cigar, and even the cigar was familiar.

  Belle turned to face me. “Oh? You’re not swimming?” she said.

  “The shower was what I wanted, and I wouldn’t spoil the effect for anything. Although,” I added, “I’m glad you’re swimming.”

  “Do you mean me, or Doris?”

  “The blonde girl? Yes, I’m glad she’s swimming, too.”

  She was poised on the end of the diving board now, a position that allowed her to exhibit every aspect of her figure to best advantage.

  A white-coated Mexican appeared beside me. “A drink, sir? May I get you something?”

  “Vodka and tonic.” The Mexican did not move, and I turned to look at him, wondering why he hesitated.

  “Sí, señor, vodka and tonic.” There was more than acknowledgment of the request, there was respect and an unexpected friendliness in his eyes. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Colin will be disappointed,” Belle said to me. “He’s very proud of his pool, and he likes everybody to swim.”

  I did not like to swim among strangers. Even when there were no comments on the scars, I could see the curiosity they created, and I had not grown accustomed to it. They were so obviously bullet wounds.

  “Colin likes everybody to take part in everything,” Belle added.

  Inadvertently I glanced at the girl on the diving board. “Everything?”

  “That,” Belle replied coolly, “is Mrs. Wells.”

  “A fortunate man, Mr. Wells.”

  With the undivided attention of everyone, Doris Wells dove, and a beautiful dive it was. Her lithe body slipped into the water like a knife into a sheath, and with no more sound. When she surfaced she swam to the side of the pool, and got out, and walked over to me.

  “I’m Doris Wells. Excuse the wet hand. Colin forgot to tell me you were so handsome.”

  Belle saved me a reply. She also opened an escape route. “Are you going to be with us long, Mr. Sheridan?”

  “I can’t stay, much as I should like it. I’ve been browsing around the country looking for an idea for a book, but I have a meeting shortly with my publisher in Los Angeles. I was thinking,” I added, “of doing something on the Apache wars.”

  “Then by all means stay here.” Doris pointed toward the horizon. “That peak over there is Turret Butte where Major Randall trapped some Apaches. There was quite a fight.”

  I knew the story. I even knew the date. It had been April 22, 1873. Randall had scaled the steep sides of the peak in the dark, and for once the Apaches were taken by surprise. It had been a brief but savage battle. Several Apaches had leaped over the almost sheer sides, to escape or die.

  That fight and the one in the Salt River Canyon somewhat earlier had broken the back of Apache resistance in the Tonto. It was on the heels of that attack that John and Clyde Toomey had driven their cattle into the country.

  The cattle, four thousand head, meant a packet of trouble. Until they reached the New Mexico country it had been easy to drive the two herds. After the extra hands left, it was difficult but not so bad as it had been early in the drive, for the herd was broken to the trail and easier to hold.

  “I’d like to stay on, but my schedule won’t permit it,” I said.

  I accepted my drink from the Mexican and followed Belle Dawson to a seat at a table near the pool. The view from the terrace looked toward the far-off mountains, the Four Peaks of the Mazatzals, and the ridges between.

  “Why did you come here, anyway?” Belle asked.

  I glanced at her and shrugged. “I wanted to get out of town. It’s as simple as that. And I’ve always liked this part of the country. It was a chance to breathe some mountain air, refresh myself on the Apache country…and then…well, I just wanted to get away.

  “I suppose,” I added, “Colin told you about the murder?”

  “Murder?”

  She was startled at the word, even more than she should have been, I thought.

  “A man was killed outside my motel. His name was Alvarez.”

  She was very still, and then she said
, “Pio?”

  “Manuel…I don’t think Pio would be so easy to kill.”

  She turned around to face me. “You know Pio Alvarez?”

  “We were in the army together. He’s what a western man would term ‘salty,’ very salty.”

  She looked about her quickly. Then she said, “Dan, don’t even whisper that around here—that you know him, I mean. The name Alvarez isn’t popular here.”

  “Manuel wasn’t popular with somebody.”

  “I wasn’t hinting, don’t even imagine I was. I know nothing about Manuel, beyond recognizing him on the street, but Colin claimed the Alvarez brothers had been stealing his cattle for years.”

  “That detective in town—Tom Riley—he said Manuel was an honest man.”

  “Possibly. Colin didn’t believe it, though. And they caught Pete Alvarez in the act.”

  It was my turn to be surprised. “Then it was here? Pete was killed here?”

  “Of course. Floyd Reese killed him.”

  Chapter 3

  FOR SEVERAL MINUTES I said nothing, for I was hurriedly taking stock. My trip to Arizona, planned to be brief and thorough, was suddenly developing into something resembling a nightmare.

  A man had been killed who was seeking me; his youngest brother had also been killed, and on the very ranch where I was now a guest. The third brother, a very tough, dangerous man, would surely be somewhere around. Leaving town to escape any further involvement in the Alvarez affair, I had plunged myself right into the middle of it.

  Belle Dawson was right, of course. The quicker I got out of here, and out of the state, the better for me and all concerned. As for the police, if they wanted me they would know where to find me. I was not exactly unknown.

  Yet the question remained: Why had Colin Wells invited me out here in the first place?