the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980)

by L'amour, Louis

  The trouble was, no man was ever ready to die. There was always something more to do, something undone, even if only to cross the street

  Behind him the years stretched empty and alone. Even the good years with Ruby looked bleak when he thought of them. He had never been able to give her anything, and maybe that was why he drank. Like all kids he had his share of dreams, and he was ready to take the world by the throat and shake it until it gave him the things he desired. Only stronger, more able men seemed always to get what he wanted. Their women had the good things and there had been nothing much he could do for Ruby. Nor much for himself but hard work and privation.

  At that, Ruby had stuck by him even after he began to hit the bottle too hard. She used to talk of having a nice house somewhere, and maybe of traveling, seeing the world and meeting people. All he had given her was a series of small mining camps, ramshackle cabins, and nothing much to look forward to but more of the same. His dream, like so many others, was to make the big strike, but he never had.

  The tinhorn was a slick talker and Ruby was pretty, prettier than most. He had talked mighty big of the places he would show her, and what they would do. Even when Dud followed him home one night and gave him a beating, Ruby had continued to meet him. Then they ran off.

  At the time they had been just breaking even on what he made from odd jobs, and then he got a steady job with the stage line. He rushed home with the news, for it meant he'd have charge of the station at Haver Hill, a cool, pleasant little house where they could raise some chickens and have a flower garden as well as a place to raise garden truck. It was always given to a married man, and he had landed it. He rushed home with the news.

  The house was empty. He had never seen it so empty because her clothes were gone and there was only the note ... he still had it... telling him she was leaving him.

  He gave up Haver Hill then and took a series of bad stations where the work was hard and there was much fighting. His salary wasn't bad and he had saved some money, bought a few horses, and broke teams during his spare time. The stage company itself had bought horses from him, and he was doing well. For the first time he managed to save some money, to get ahead.

  There was no word from Ruby although he never stopped hoping she would write. He did not want her back, but he hoped she was doing well and was happy. Also, he wanted her to know how well he was doing.

  He did hear about the tinhorn, and it was from Brad Delaney that he got the news. The tinhorn had showed up in El Paso alone. From there he drifted north to Mobeetie, and finally to Fort Griffin. There he had tried to outsmart a man who was smarter, and when caught cheating he tried to outdraw him.

  "What happened?" Dud had asked.

  "What could happen? He tackled a man who wouldn't take anything from anybody, some fellow who used to be a dentist but was dying of tuberculosis. That dentist put two bullets into that tinhorn's skull, and he's buried in an unmarked grave in Boot Hill."

  Dud Ryan wrote to El Paso but the letter was returned. There was no trace of Ruby. Nobody knew where the tinhorn had come from and the trail ended there. Ryan had about convinced himself that Ruby was dead.

  He tried to move, but the agony in his back held him still. If only he could live long enough! Where the hell was the stage? It should have been along hours ago.

  He ground his teeth in pain and set his mind on the one thought: Live! Live! Live!

  Delaney, Wells, and old Kickapoo were too good to die in an ambush. They were strong men, decent men, the kind the country needed. They wouldn't have let him down, and he'd be damned if he would fail them.

  I'm tough, he told himself, I'm tough enough to last.

  He tried and after a moment succeeded in lifting his hand. His fingers were clumsy and his hand felt cold. There were no Indians in sight, but he dared not fire, anyway, for he could never load the gun again. He just had to wait. . . somehow.

  He could no longer make out the split logs in the ceiling. The shadows were darker now, and the room was darker. Was it really that much later? Or was he dying? Was this part of it?

  Once he thought he heard a far-off yell, and he gripped the triggers of the shotgun, but the yell was not repeated. His lips fumbled for words, fumbled through the thickening fog in his brain. Live! he told himself. You've got to live!

  "Ruby," he muttered, "'s all right, Ruby. I don't blame you."

  He worked his mouth but his lips were dry, and his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. "Live!" he whispered. "Please, God! Let me live!"

  Something stirred in the brush across the way, and the shadow of movement caught his eye. An Indian was peering toward the station. And then wild and clear he heard Kickapoo's yell. "Yeeow!"

  Dud Ryan felt a fierce surge of joy. He's made it! By the Lord Harry, he'd--I He tried to squeeze, but his fingers failed him and his hand fell away, fell to the floor.

  He could hear the pound of hooves now, and the rattle of the stage.

  He rolled over, the stabbing pain from his broken spine wrenching a scream from him, but in a last, terrible burst of energy he managed to grasp the rawhide in his teeth and jerk down. The twin barrels of the shotgun thundered, an enormous bellow of sound in the empty room. Instantly there was a crash of sound, the rolling stage, rifles firing, and all hell breaking loose outside.

  Kickapoo Jackson was rolling the stage down the slight hill to Bluff Creek when he heard the roar of the gun. Brad Delaney came up on hisknees, rifle in hand, but it was Wells with the revolving shotgun who saw the first Indian. His shotgun bellowed and Delaney's rifle beat out a rapid tattoo of sound, and from below pistols and a rifle were firing.

  The attack began and ended in that brief instant of gunfire, for the Indians were no fools and their ambush had failed. Swiftly, they retired, slipping away hi the gathering darkness and carrying three dead warriors with them.

  Jackson sawed the team to a halt, and Delaney dropped to the ground and sent three fast shots after the retreating Indians.

  Doc Moody pushed open the door and saw the dying man, the rawhide still gripped in his teeth. With a gentle hand he took it away.

  "You don't need to tell me, Doc. I've had it." Sweat beaded his forehead. "I've known for ... hours. Had--had to... warn-----"

  Hank Wells dropped to his knees beside Ryan. "Dud, you saved us all, but you saved more than you know. You saved your own son!"

  "Son?"

  "Ruby had a boy, Dud. Your boy. He's four now, and he's outside there with Ma Harrigan."

  "My boy? I saved my boy?"

  "Ruby's dead, Ryan," Delaney said. "She was sending the boy to you, but we'll care for him, all of us."

  He seemed to hear, tried to speak, and died there on the floor at Bluff Creek Station.

  Doc Moody got to his feet. "By rights," he said, "that man should have been dead hours ago."

  "Guts," Hank Wells said, "Dud never had much but he always had guts."

  Doc Moody nodded. "I don't know how you boys feel about it, but I'm adopting a boy."

  "He'll have four uncles then," Jackson said. "The boy will have to have a family."

  "Count us in on that," the newlywed said. "Wewant to be something to him. Maybe a brother and sister, or something."

  They've built a motel where the stage station stood, and not long ago a grandson and a great-grandson of Dud Ryan walked up the hill where some cedar grew, and stood beside Dud Ryan's grave. They stopped only a few minutes, en route to a family reunion.

  There were fifty-nine descendants of Dud Ryan, although the name was different. One died in the Argonne Forest and two on a beach in Normandy and another died in a hospital in Vietnam after surviving an ambush. There were eleven physicians and surgeons at the reunion, one ex-governor, two state senators, a locomotive engineer, and a crossing guard. There were two bus drivers and a schoolteacher, several housewives, and a country storekeeper. They had one thing in common: They all carried the blood of Ryan, who died at Bluff Creek Station on a late October evening.