the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980)

by L'amour, Louis

"Everything is going to be all legal and proper, this woman wants to marry this man, and by this time," he chuckled, "he'll be wanting to marry her. If she doesn't have him convinced by now she doesn't have the taking ways I think she has. She looked to me like a woman with a mind of her own."

  "Who's gettin' married?" the bartender asked.

  "Piute Bill. He's been looking for a wife for a long time."

  "Who's marryin' him? There ain't more'n three or four single women in the county!"

  "Piute Bill," Galway replied carefully, "is marrying Mrs. Ned Wavers."

  Tinto Bill choked on his drink. Digger Cassidy turned for the first time and looked right at Tom Galway. "Who?" he demanded, unbelievingly.

  "Mrs. Ned Wavers and Piute Bill," Galway repeated.

  "They are getting married this evening. Soon as I can get the parson up there."

  "But she's married I" Tinto Bill said. "She's got a husband, and any time she hasn't, I guess I'd be first in line."

  "There must be some mistake," Cassidy said. The light was not good and Galway's hat shaded his face somewhat. "Ned Wavers is--"

  "Dead," Galway replied. "Mrs. Ned Wavers has been a widow for almost four hours."

  Digger Cassidy spoke softly. "You say Ned Wavers is dead."

  "That's right, Digger. Seems some of your boys drove off some horses of mine last night, so I rode over to drive them back. Robbins made a fool play and Gorman and Wavers tried to back him up."

  Silence filled the room. The preacher swallowed, and the sound was loud in the room.

  "Mrs. Wavers didn't want to be left behind and as she kind of hit it off with Bill they decided to get married."

  He was watching Cassidy, and a few feet to one side, Tinto Bill. "By the way, Cassidy, I told that other fellow, the one who's alive, to suggest you keep to your side of the creek and I'd keep to mine. I went to a good deal of trouble to catch and train those horses, and I don't want to lose them."

  Neither Cassidy nor Tinto Bill had moved. Without turning his attention from them, Galway said, "Rev'rend, get your horse. I'll be with you in a minute."

  The preacher vanished through the door.

  Cassidy spoke suddenly. "You can't get away with this! I don't care if you are Galway of Tombstone!"

  "Take it easy. If we shoot it out now, I'll kill you. Maybe you'd get me, but that wouldn't help you any. You'd be just as dead, and I never missed nobody at this range."

  "Why should you get killed over horses you didn't have no business stealin' and a woman who's obviously been living a dog's life?"

  "I didn't steal your damn horses!" Cassidy said. "It was that fool Robbins!"

  "I can believe that," Galway agreed. "In fact, I'd of bet money on it. So why should we shoot it out? It makes no sense. Now I'm going to leave. I've got to get that preacher back up on the mountain because that's a decent woman yonder."

  "Damn it, Galway!" Cassidy protested. "Why couldn't you have come when I was to home? Once I knew those were your horses I'd have driven them back!"

  "All right," Galway said, "I'll take your word for it." Deliberately he started to turn his back and when he did, Tinto Bill went for his gun.

  Galway palmed his gun and shot across the flat of his stomach. Tinto, his gun up, fired into the ceiling, took two slow steps and fell on his face, his gun skidding along the floor.

  Digger Cassidy stood very carefully near the bar, his hands in plain sight.

  "Looks to me, Digger," Galway said, "like you're fresh out of men. Why don't you try Montana?"

  He turned abruptly and walked out.

  Digger Cassidy moved to the bar and took up the drink the bartender poured for him. "Damn him!" he said. "Damn him to hell, but he can sure handle a gun!"

  He downed his drink. "Bartender," he said, "if you ever go on the road, steer clear of hotheaded kids who Slink they are tough!"

  Tom Galway rode up to the stone cabin with a saddle-sore preacher just after sundown. Piute Bill, in a clean shirt and a fresh shave was seated by the fireplace with a newspaper; from the stove came a rattle of pans.

  The future Mrs. Piute Bill turned from the stove. "You boys light an' set. It surely isn't right to have a wedding without a cake!"

  "I couldn't agree with you more, ma'am!" Galway said. "Nobody likes good cooking more than me."

  Piute Bill stared at Galway, the venom in his eyes fading under a glint of humor. "You durned catamount! You durned connivin' Irish son-of-a-..."

  "Ssh!" Tom Galway whispered. "There's a preacher present!"

  *

  HATTAN'S CASTLE

  Hattan's Castle, a towering pinnacle of rock that points an arresting finger at the sky, looks down on a solitary frame building with a sagging roof, a ruined adobe, and several weed-covered foundations, all that is left of a town that once aspired to be a city.

  On a low mound a quarter of a mile away are three marked graves and seventy-two unmarked, although before their wooden crosses rotted away a dozen others had carried the names and dates of pioneers.

  East of the ruined adobe lies a long and wide stone foundation. Around it there is a litter of broken bottles and a scattered few that the sun has turned into collector's items. Twenty feet behind the foundation, lying among the concealing debris of a pack-rat's nest, is a whitened skull. In the exact center of that skull are two round holes less than a half-inch apart.

  Several years ago the scattered bones of the skeleton could still be seen, but time, rain, and coyotes being what they are, only the skull remains.

  Among the scattered foundations are occasional charred timbers, half-burned planks, and other evidences of an ancient fire. Of the once booming town of Hattan's Castle nothing more remains.

  In 1874, a prospector known as Shorty Becker drank a stolen bottle of whiskey on the spot. Drunk, he staggered to the edge of the nearby wash and fell over. Grabbing for a handhold hepulled loose a clump of manzanita and the town of Hattan's Castle was born.

  Under the roots and clinging to the roots were flecks and bits of gold, and Shorty Becker, suddenly sober, filed on one of the richest claims in the state's history.

  Nineteen other lucky gentlemen followed, and then a number who were only fairly lucky. Hat-tan's Castle went from nothing to a population of four thousand people in seven days, and three thousand of the four came to lie, cheat, steal, and kill each other and the remaining one thousand odd citizens, if such they might be called.

  Spawned from an explosive sink of sin and evil, the town lived in anarchy before the coming of John Daniel. When he arrived the town had found its master. With him were the hulking Bernie Lee and a vicious little murderer who called himself Russ Chito.

  Marshal Dave Allen went out in a burst of gunfire when he had words with John Daniel. Daniel faced him but fired only one shot, the others were fired by Russ Chito and Bernie Lee, in ambush on opposite sides of the street and taking the marshal in a deadly cross fire.

  Shorty Becker was found dead two days later, a gun in his hand and a bullet in his brain. John Daniel, a self-appointed coroner, pronounced it suicide. Becker was found to be carrying a will naming Daniel as his only friend and heir.

  Daniel turned the working of the mine over to others, and opened the Palace Saloon & Gambling Hall. From the Barbary Coast he imported some women and a pair of bartenders skilled in the application of mickeys, knockout drops, or whatever most suited the occasion.

  Four years passed and Hattan's Castle boomed in lust, sin, and murder. The mines continued to prosper, but the miners and owners remained to spend, to drink, and to die. The few who hoarded their gold and attempted to leave were usuallyfound dead along the trails. Buzzards marked their going and if a body was found it was buried with the usual sanctimonious comments and some hurry, depending on the condition of the remains. John Daniel, aloof, cold, and supercilious, ruled the town with a rod of iron.

  Chito and Lee were at his right hand but there were fifty others ready to do his bidding. Immaculate always, coldly handsome and
deadly as a rattler, John Daniel had an air of authority which was questioned by none. Of the seventy-five graves on boot hill at least twenty had been put there by him or his henchmen. That number is conservative, and of those found along the trail at least half could be credited to John Daniel's cohorts. Then Bon Caddo came to town.

  He was Welsh by ancestry, but what more he was or where he had come from nobody ever knew. He arrived on a Sunday, a huge man with broad, thick shoulders and big hands. His jaw was wide and hard as iron, his eyes a chill gray and calm, his head topped with a wiry mass of rust-colored hair. The claim he staked four miles from the Castle was gold from the grass roots down.

  Within two hours after the strike Russ Chito dropped in at the Palace. John Daniel stood at the end of the bar with a glass of sherry.

  "Boss," Chito said, "that new feller in town struck it rich up Lonetree."

  "How rich?"

  "They say twenty thousand to the ton. The richest ever I"

  John Daniel mentally discounted it by half, possibly even less. Even so it made it extremely rich. He felt his pulses jump with the realization that this could be what he was waiting for, to have enough to be free of all this, to buy a home on Nob Hill and live the life of a gentleman, with no more Russ Chitos to deal with.

  "Invite him in. Tell him I want to see him."

  "I did tell him, and he told me where I couldto." Russ Chito's eyes flickered with anger. "I'd like to kill the dirty son!"

  "Wait. I want to talk to him."

  Bon Caddo did not come to Rattan's Castle and 'his gold did not leave the country. Every stage, every wagon, and every rider was checked with care. Nothing left the country but Bon Caddo continued to work steadily and hard, minding his own affairs, uninterested in the fleshpots of the Castle. He was cold to all offers from John Daniel, and merely attended to business. Efforts to approach him were equally unsuccessful, and riders always found themselves warned away by an unseen voice and a rifle that offered no alternative.

  At the beginning of the third month, John Daniel called Cherry Creslin to his office. She came at once, slim, beautifully curved and seductive hi her strictly professional way.

  "You like to ride," Daniel said, "so put on that gray habit and ride my black. How you do it is your own affair, but get acquainted with Bon Caddo. Make him like you."

  She protested. "Sorry, John. Get one of the other girls. I want no part of these drunken, dirty miners."

  "You'll do as I tell you, Cherry, and you'll do it now. This man is neither drunken nor dirty. He is big, and tough, and, I think, dangerous. Also, he cares nothing for gambling or whiskey."

  She got up. "All right, I'll go. But you'll wish you'd never sent me. I'm sick of these jobs, John! Why don't we cash in our chips and pull out? Let's go to New York, or San Francisco."

  "Get started. I'll tell you when to go, and where."

  The canyon of the Lonetree was warm in the spring sunshine. The cottonwoods whispered secrets to each other above the stream that chuckled humorously to the stones. There was no other sound but the trilling of birds, and on the bank above the stream the sound of Caddo working.

  He wore a six-shooter, and a rifle stood nearby,and just out of sight in the tunnel mouth was a shotgun, a revolving weapon made by Colt

  Standing with his feet wide apart in their heavy miner's boots, he made a colossal figure. He was freshly shaved, and his shock of rusty hair was combed. His red flannel shirt was open at the neck, and his huge forearms, bulging with raw power, showed below his rolled-up sleeves. Cherry Creslin, Impressed by few things, was awed.

  At the sound of hooves splashing in the water, he looked around. Then he saw the rider was a woman, and a beautiful woman, at that He smiled.

  Long before he had come to Hattan's Castle he had heard of John Daniel, and knew his every trick. Moreover, he knew this woman by name and knew she was reputed to be John Daniel's own woman. He could see, as she drew nearer, that she was genuinely beautiful and despite the hard lines that showed through her lovely skin, there was warmth there, but a restrained, carefully controlled warmth.

  "Good morning, Bon Caddo." Her voice was low and lovely, and deep within him something stirred, and he tried to bring up defenses against it. She was all woman, this one, no matter what else she might be.

  "Hello, Cherry."

  "You know me? I don't remember you." She looked at him again. "I don't think I could forget"

  "You've never seen me, Cherry, and I've never seen you, but I've been expecting you."

  He gestured to a seat under a tree. "Won't you get down and stay for a while? It's quite pleasant here."

  "You--you've been expecting me?" She was irritated. She was accustomed to handling men, to controlling situations. This man, she realized, was different. Not only was he a physical giant but he was intelligent, and . . . she admitted it reluctantly ... he was exciting.

  "Of course." He smiled pleasantly. He had, she thought, a truly beautiful smile. "John Daniel has tried everything else, hasn't he? Everything but you ... and murder."

  Her features stiffened and her eyes went hard, but she did not pretend to misunderstand. "So you think he sent me? You think I am the kind of woman a man can send on some dirty business?"

  He leaned on his shovel. "Yes," he said, and she struck him across the face with her quirt.

  He did not move nor change expression although the red line of the blow lay vividly across his cheek and lips. "Yes," he repeated, "but you shouldn't be. You've got heart and you have courage. You've just been riding with the tide."

  "You're very clever, aren't you?"

  "No. But this situation isn't very hard to understand. Nor are you, Cherry Creslin. It's a pity," he continued, "that you're tied up with such a murdering lot. There's a lot of woman in you, and you'd make some man a woman worth keep-tag."

  She stared at him. The situation was out of hand. It would be difficult now to get him back in the right vein. Or was this the right one?

  "You may be right," she said, "maybe I've been waiting for you."

  He laughed and stuck his shovel down hard into the pile of muck. Then he walked over to her, and the black horse nuzzled his arm. "Not that way, Cherry. Be honest. I'm riot so easy, you know. Actually the only way is to be honest."

  She measured him, searching herself. "Honest? I don't know whether I could be. It's been so long."

  "Ah, now you are being honest! I like that, Cherry." He leaned his big shoulder against the horse's shoulder. "In fact, Cherry, I like you."

  "Like me?" A strange emotion was rising within her, and she tried to fight it down. "And you know what I am?"

  "What are you? A woman. Perhaps no worse and no better than any other. One cannot always measure by what a person seems to be or even has been. Anyway, it is always the future that counts."

  "You believe that? But what of a woman's past?"

  Bon Caddo shrugged. "If a woman loved me I'd start counting the days of her Me from the time she told me she loved me. I would judge by what happened after that, although I'd be a hard judge for the after years."

  She was irritated with herself. This was not what she had come for. "How did we start talking like this? I did not intend to get into anything like this."

  "Of course. You came to get me to fall in love with you or at least to lure me down to that sinkhole at Hattan's Castle. You might manage the first, but not the last."

  "If you were in love with me and I asked you to come, would you?"

  "Certainly not. Doing what a woman asks is not proof of love. If a man isn't his own man he isn't worthy of love. No, I'd use my own judgment, and my judgment tells me to stay away from Hattan's Castle and the Palace."

  His eyes seemed to darken with seriousness. "We of Welsh or Irish blood, Cherry, sometimes have a power of prophecy or intuition, call it what you will, and mine tells me that when I come to Hattan's Castle it will mean blazing hell and death. For me, the town, or both of us."

  Something cold and frighteni
ng touched her and suddenly she put her hand on his. "Then, then don't come, Bon Caddo. Don't come at all. Stay here, or better still, take your gold and go."

  "You advise me that way? What would John Daniel say?"

  "He wouldn't like it," she replied simply. "He would not like it at all. But it is my best advice to you."

  "I shall stay until my claim is worked out. I'll not be driven off."

  "May I come back again?"

  "Come soon. Come often."

  Caddo watched her go and then returned to his work. There would be trouble, of course. He doubted that Cherry would tell John Daniel of her failure. Not yet, at least. She would come back, and perhaps again. If she continued to fail, John Daniel would try something else.

  Three times she came in the days that followed land each time they talked longer. Inevitably the day came when she returned to Hattan's Castle to find John Daniel awaiting her. When their eyes met she knew she was in trouble.

  "Well?" His question was a challenge. "When is he coming in?"

  "He is not coming at all." There was no use evading the issue. She had probably been spied upon. "He is not coming, but I am leaving. We're to be married."

  "What!"Of all things, this was the least expected. "Do you think you can trick me that way? Marry him and get it all for yourself?"

  "You'd not understand, John, but I love him. He's a real man and a fine man, so don't try to stop me."

  "Try? I'll not just try, I'll do it I" His eyes were ugly. "Hereafter you will stay in town. I shall find other means of handling it."

  "Sorry." She got to her feet. "I am going back to him."

  He struck her across the mouth with the back of his hand and she fell to the floor, a trickle of blood running from her mashed lip. She looked up at him. "You shouldn't have done that, John. I am sorry for you, or I would be if there was a decent bone in your body."

  Furious, he strode from the room and returnedto the Palace. The first person he saw was Chito. "All right. You want to kill Caddo. Go do it."

  Without another word, Russ Chito left the room. From her window Cherry saw him go and divined his purpose. Filled with terror she rushed to the door but hulking Bernie Lee stood there. "You ain't goin' no place. Get back inside."