Novel 1965 - The Key-Lock Man (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  “Give them time, too,” he said, “and they become a part of you.”

  He had bought three extra pack mules for her things alone, as many as for their whole outfit. But he had not complained, and he had packed her things with care.

  “You may throw them out if you wish,” she had said. “What they represent is behind me.”

  “They are yours,” he replied gently. “It is good to have familiar things with you.”

  They were married in a quiet ceremony in a bare desert town. The minister was a quiet man, and a sincere one, and he was part of this land, too. And that night they slept side by side, but not together.

  When they rode on again next morning, she noticed that again and again he turned to look behind him.

  “You expect someone?” she asked.

  “In this country? But you must always expect someone or something.”

  The long riding tired her but it did not sap her strength, and after the third day she was no longer even tired.

  She had known enough of camping to appreciate his skill, and she came to realize that no move was wasted, that nothing was left to chance, that all of his constant awareness was so much a part of him that he no longer even thought of it.

  On the fourth night he looked across the fire at her. “Some day there will be a visitor,” he said.

  She waited, for she had never been given to unnecessary words.

  “Neerland,” he said.

  With sudden fear, she knew he was right. She had almost forgotten Neerland. He was not far behind them, only a few days away, but all her feelings, all her thoughts, all her own awareness had been given to this country and this man. And she was coming to know him.

  “You have not asked where we will go,” he said.

  “I go with you.”

  He added a few sticks to the small fire. “It is a place where no one comes, only the Navajos sometimes.”

  “They are Indians?”

  He nodded. “Long ago, perhaps several hundred years ago, there were other Indians there. In the cliffs they built houses that are still there. After a long time they went away, I do not know why.”

  “What will you do there?”

  “Run some cattle, when I can afford them. Build a place of my own—a place for us.”

  He talked of this, and of the land toward which they rode. He talked easily, and well. She, who had known so many men of education, men adept with words, saw that he, too, knew their uses.

  He seemed to understand what she was thinking, but he said nothing of himself; he only said, “Don’t misunderstand the men you meet. Many are uneducated in your way, but they know much else. They have an education that fits them for living here. There will be others who may have traveled widely…I hunted buffalo with a man who attended Gottingen University, and I soldiered with a graduate of the Sorbonne. Yet both of them talked ‘western,’ using all the easy phrases, the rough talk of the cow camps.”

  Later, when they had left the trail that went west and were weaving their way north into the wild land of desert and canyon, she asked, “Do you think he will find us?”

  “Sooner or later,” he answered.

  How long ago had that been? Weeks now, but she had forgotten time. In this place it seemed a meaningless thing.

  NOW SHE STOOD beside the water and dried herself on a piece of torn blanket that she used for a towel, and then she dressed herself, taking her time. Close beside her was the Winchester he had given her.

  “Can you shoot?” he had asked her.

  “Yes,” she had said. Then after a minute she had added, “Do not be afraid. I shall not shoot until I see what I am to hit, and when I shoot, I shall hit what I am shooting at.”

  Two days later he had ridden away.

  He had paused at the last. “If anything happens to me that I cannot return, ride out of here and ride west. It is a long way, but stay on the trail until you see the sign for Prescott.”

  “All right,” she said. And then she lifted her blue eyes to his. “How long shall I wait?”

  “Two weeks, at least. I could almost crawl it in that time.”

  He had been gone for fifteen days. So time meant something after all.

  Chapter 4

  CHESNEY DREW UP to study the country. Behind them lay the gigantic wall of cliffs through which they had ridden the evening before. To the north the ridge stretched away as far as the eye could follow, and on the east of it, where they now were, the rugged country was dotted with cedar. To the south, beyond more cedar breaks, lay miles of sand dunes.

  “You suppose he could have doubled back and gone north along the cliffs?” Short asked.

  “Not unless he knows another way through that wall,” Hardin replied; “and if he did he left no tracks. I scouted for sign first thing after daybreak.”

  Neill waited, enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. He had slept badly, even tired as he was, for he had too few blankets for the cold night, and he kept worrying about his wife.

  This was lonesome country. Since daybreak they had seen nothing that lived except a lone buzzard, prospecting them for future attention.

  Kimmel drew up beside Neill and dug into his pocket for his plug tobacco, sized it up, and bit off a small chew. “Beats me,” he said, “what a man would want to live in this country for. Especially if he’s got a woman.”

  “She’ll be Navajo,” Short speculated. “He’s got him a squaw.”

  To the frontier way of thinking, nobody was lower than a squawman…and such men were not to be trusted. Not that anybody would trust a back-shooter, anyway.

  Their suspicions had mounted as they rode north. They looked narrowly at the hills. It seemed unlikely that an honest man would hide out so far from other people.

  “He might be a Mormon,” McAlpin suggested. “Looks like he’s ridin’ right into Utah.”

  “If he is, we might as well turn ourselves right around and head for home. We’ll be running right into a war. Anyway, ain’t there some Mormon or other runnin’ Lee’s Ferry?”

  “Was,” Hardin agreed, “but I think he left the country. Too lonesome for him.”

  They waited upon the decision that would be made by Hardin and Chesney. Finally Hardin spoke. “Bill, we’ve got to gamble. We’ve got small chance to pick up that man’s trail. I mean, he’s like an Indian, and he knows this country. It might take us days to find it, even if we ever did. If he headed south into the sand dunes, we’ve lost him. There’s stretches down there where the sand never stops moving, and the past couple of days there’s been a wind—not much, but enough to cover any tracks.”

  “How do you mean…gamble?”

  “We’ve got to guess where he’s headed for, and light out and run, try to beat him to it.”

  “And if we guess wrong?”

  “Then we’ve lost him. We’ll have to go back home and wait for him.”

  “Could be a damn’ long wait,” Kimmel replied. “I figure he kept on going northeast. If he was a Mormon he wouldn’t have come south; he’d have gone north into Mormon country when he wanted supplies.

  “And if he was a squawman he’d be apt to go east toward the New Mexican villages and the Santa Fe country. You take my word for it, that Key-Lock man lives right around here, right in this country. Although,” he added grimly, “it’s a damned big country!”

  Bill Chesney made up his mind. “We’ll head for the Crossin’ of the Fathers. If he ain’t there, or doesn’t show up soon, we’ll drop back downstream to Lee’s Ferry. I can’t see him in this country, Kim. He’s a no-good drifter…a man would have to have sand in his craw to live around here.”

  “If he hadn’t any when he got here,” Neill commented, “he’d get it mighty soon by living here.”

  Chesney led off, circling back to a dim trail they had seen earlier, a trail passed by when they had seen no tracks.

  Now their travel was swift. But when they reached the Crossing on the following day, they found no tracks there. Scouting upstream
and down, they found much evidence of the high water resulting from a sudden rain several weeks back, but they found no tracks made since that time.

  “We’ve lost him,” McAlpin said. “He’s got off, scotfree.”

  “Not by a damn’ sight!” Chesney said. “He ain’t never goin’ to get off!”

  “Well,” Hardin said, “that may be so, Bill, and it may not. One thing I know: if we don’t high-tail it down to Lee’s Ferry and get us some grub we won’t live long enough to find him.”

  “I’m for that,” Short agreed.

  So, though he grumbled, Chesney led the way south, in a line with the river, but back far enough from it to avoid its twisting course. Hardin glanced back at the looming bulk of Navajo Mountain. “From up there,” he said, “a man could see just about all over this country.”

  THE KEY-LOCK man, who lay flat on a rock near the crest of Navajo Mountain, trained his field glasses on the distant riders. One by one he counted them…six men. It was the posse, all right, and they were heading south for Lee’s Ferry. Undoubtedly they would buy supplies there; but how long could they remain away from their own crops, their own cattle?

  He dared not watch them any longer. That they had lost his trail was obvious, and they would have trouble finding it, but he was overdue back home where Kristina waited for him, and she knew little of this land. He was a good thirty miles from there, by the way he must ride.

  He went back down the steep, dangerous trail to War God Spring and refilled his canteen. Again he allowed his horse to drink.

  Once off the mountain, he rode southeast along the plateau. It was good going for the first twelve miles, until he reached the breaks of Piute Mountain, and by that time the sun was painting the mountains with lavish reds and cresting the ridges with gold.

  The big horse was weary, and he himself was as tired as man could be, but he pushed on through the rough country until he came to the fork of the trail. This was the way he had come, and it would be easier, although longer, to push on south. But he feared to leave tracks that searchers might find, so he swung again toward the north, and by moonrise he was skirting Tall Mountain.

  Slowing to a walk, he looked for the turn-off that would take him along the canyon that cut deep into Skeleton Mesa. He could not go through—if a way existed, he had not found it—but must head the canyon and then double back.

  Thinking of the trail off the mesa near the cliff houses, he broke into a cold sweat. No doubt the trail had been a good one hundreds of years before when the mysterious Indians had used it, but erosion and slides had left it a chancy thing even by daylight.

  The night was more than half gone when at last he drew rein at the lip of the cliff trail and felt the coolness rising from the pools below, and heard the distant sound of the waterfalls.

  He put a gentle hand on the horse’s neck. “That’s home, boy. Right down there. You’ve got to be careful now.”

  Once, by daylight, he had taken the big horse up the trail, but never had he attempted to come down in the darkness. “All right, boy,” he said at last, “just take your time.”

  The big horse tugged at the bit; he was worried yet eager. Tentatively, he put a hoof down the trail, snorted a time or two, and then delicately, as if walking on thin ice, he picked his way down the narrow trail. From time to time a rock rattled off down the cliff and fell among the rocks below.

  BY THE NIGHT of the sixteenth day, Kristina rode her horse down the canyon to its junction with the main canyon and sat her horse there in the darkness, watching an occasional bat circling in the sky above, and listening for some sound.

  He would come. Somehow, deep within her, she knew she was not deserted. Earlier there had been moments of doubt, but with the coming of darkness all her fears of being abandoned left her. If he had not come, it was because something had happened. Perhaps Neerland had found him.

  She had little doubt now that Neerland would follow them, for he was a man to whom hate was a driving force. Hate was as necessary to Neerland as the blood that flowed in his veins. And somehow she was sure that when he came he would not come alone.

  She had not been idle during this time, for being idle had never been her way. The life was new to her, but some of it was not entirely strange to her. She had hunted before this, and she had dressed game, so when she killed a deer she skinned it, dressed it, and cut some of the meat into strips for smoking. She had never done this before, but she had seen it done.

  She had moved their things to a place under an overhang of the cliff, a place masked by willows and manzanita, and she had carefully made two beds of slender willow boughs and leaves. And then, she had moved the beds together, so that they were one bed.

  The dwellers in the cliff houses had thrown their refuse over the edge and it had piled into a mound. She had climbed over this, looking at the odds and ends she found there, or the things she pushed out of the earth with a pointed stick.

  There were fragments of pottery, some of it black and white, some orange, some red, and mixed with it were chunks of charcoal or discarded stone flakes chipped off in making arrowheads. There were bits of worn-out sandals, and broken knives of stone, and all these things gave her some idea of the people who had lived in this place. She wandered, too through the long-deserted rooms, trying to visualize the ones to whom this had been home.

  Oddly enough, she was happy. The thought came to her suddenly on the fourth day of her being alone. She was alone, but her man was returning soon, and the solitude did not depress her. She had lived much among people, but she had loved the days on the high mountain slopes, loved the cold, icy solitudes, loved the dark forests. And just so she was coming to love this country.

  Now that she looked about her, she realized that much of her life prepared her for this—skiing, climbing, riding, swimming…but with all these activities she had always returned to the high, lonely places in the mountains whenever possible.

  Surprised as she was by the realization of her happiness, she was equally amused at the thought of what some of her friends might think if they could see her now. She, who had moved in court circles, happy and at home in this lonely canyon, far from the easy, gracious life she had known.

  She discovered a small patch of level ground which was grown to grass and brush, but which could easily be cleared and planted. They would have a vegetable garden there. It was close beside the small stream, so there would be ample water. She had always loved gardening, although until now it had been a thing to do merely for pleasure; now it would be work that held meaning.

  She found that she could not remain long away from the pile at the foot of the cliff. When she was a child, a frequent visitor in her home had been Christian Jurgensen Thomsen, the Danish archaeologist who had first divided pre-history into the ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron. Many times he had taken her through his museum in Copenhagen, and she had seen its counterpart in Stockholm as well.

  By family tradition as well as by training and education, her father had been a diplomat, but his preference was for study and research, and his home was a stopping place for most of the scholars of Europe. Both Boucher de Perthes and William Pengelly had visited her home, and had talked to her about the origins of prehistoric man.

  Fascinated by these strange ruins here of which she had previously heard nothing, she collected hundreds of fragments of pottery, bits of sandals, arrowheads, and other evidence of the people long gone. But always in the back of her mind was the growing fear that something might have happened, that Matt had met Neerland again, or been killed by Indians, or been thrown from his horse.

  But on the sixteenth night her doubts had somehow left her, and she knew he would come. Somewhere out there in the darkness he rode under these same stars, he smelled the desert as she was smelling it, he felt the coolness of the night.

  At last she rode back, unsaddled her horse, and led him to water; then she picketed him on the grass nearby.

  Hours later, she woke suddenly, hearing him nicker. Swif
tly she rose from where she lay and took up the rifle Matt had left with her.

  She listened for the sound of hoofs, and heard them at last, a walking horse, coming along surely and steadily. With her rifle in her hands she waited, her lips dry with excitement, her heart beating heavily.

  And then she heard him speak. “All right, boy, we made it. We’re home.”

  She sank down on her knees, trembling.

  Chapter 5

  THE KEY-LOCK MAN rode up Skeleton Mesa on a black horse. He rode to a high point east of a cliff dwelling and due north of Marsh Pass. Dismounting there, he climbed up the rocks to a slightly higher spot.

  There was no actual peak here, but the place was high enough to allow him to look across the canyons and down the valley toward Castle Butte and the sand dunes. He had a fair sweep of country before him, and he sat down with his field glasses and waited.

  It was not yet daylight, but what he hoped to catch was a drift of smoke or dust, or the glint of dawning light on metal. Or rather, it was what he hoped not to catch. He wanted to be left alone.

  He remained right where he was for almost an hour, while the sun rose behind him and swept the shadows from the broad land. He saw the Echo Cliffs, many miles away, turn to gold; he saw the valley become white and still under the sun, and saw Thief Rock standing straight and still and dark, as though no sun could reach it.

  He saw a buzzard…he saw a band of wild horses…he saw a few quail nearby. But he saw no riders, nor any sign of human life. Not even an Indian.

  As he watched he was thinking of Kristina. He perhaps had been a fool to bring her here, a fool to marry her. He only knew that from the moment he saw her he knew she was his woman, that she was born for him.

  Kristina was better educated than he, and she had known well a world of which he knew little. She had, to be sure, climbed mountains in Europe, she had camped out, she had even roughed it on boats, but she had no idea what she faced here.

  He was sure he loved her, and in her own way and her own time, she was coming to love him. But love was not enough. A marriage is as much a product of thoughtfulness and consideration as of love, and he was thinking now of what he must do. The primitive surroundings he could accept were not right for her. Nor was the life of the frontier quite what she would prefer, although she had accepted it and was adapting as if born to it. But he did not want to see her become toughened by work, by the sun and wind.