"There are savages."
"I presume."
"There are no houses, only caves, and bark shelters."
"I expect that is so."
"I could not ask any—"
"You assume such a girl would have less courage than you? Less fortitude? You do not understand my sex, Barnabas."
"She would be much alone."
"Not for long, I believe. She would have a family if you are half the man you seem to be, I suggest, Barnabas, that when you make your plans for the New World you speak to the lady. You will be gone for a year, and that is a very long time."
"Well, I—"
She turned toward Sir Robert and curtsied. "If you will forgive me, Sir Robert. I must go now and leave the planning to you men. You seem to feel you are perfectly competent to plan for others as well as yourselves."
When the door closed, Sir Robert chuckled. "That young lady knows her mind."
"Her mother was just that way," Brian Tempany said.
"I always said," I commented, "that I wanted a woman to walk beside me, not behind me."
"Have you said that to Abigail?" Tempany asked slyly.
"I haven't, but—"
Sir Robert abruptly changed the subject. "You are determined then? You will sail for America?"
"Aye, when I find a ship." I paused. "Sir Robert, against the western sky there were mountains, blue and distant mountains. I must pass through them. I must see what lies beyond."
"Damme, Sackett, if I was a lad I'd go with you! I'd like myself to see what lies beyond those mountains." He paused. "All right, I'll provide the ship." He looked at me from under fierce brows. "She has a fine cabin aft, a Dutch craft, seaworthy and strong. But a fine cabin, fit for a king—or a queen."
"I will see what I can do."
"Then be about it, lad, and leave the rest to us." He shifted his position a bit. "I've talked to your man Tallis. A good man, Barnabas. He's disposed of your cargo, and has bought well, by your orders."
"Thank you." I was fidgeting, wishing to go. If he saw it he showed it not. "Then, Sir Robert, I shall leave this in your hands, and those of Captain Tempany. I have things—"
"Be off with you!"
She waited in the garden where there were white roses, and red. She waited by a small fountain, and I went to her across the grass. She turned to face me, very serious.
"I was too bold," she said.
"No," I said, "just bold enough to give me courage for boldness. I was afraid I assumed too much."
"You will be gone a year, and that is a very long time. I have seen other girls and women whose men have gone away to sea or to the wars, and they did not come back again. I would not have that happen to me."
"You truly wish to come?"
"Where you are, I would be."
"Sir Robert said the cabin on the boat is a fine one, fit for a queen."
"Hmm! Men know little of what is fit or not fit! I must go aboard at once."
"I will arrange it." I took her hands in mine and kissed her very gently. "And now there is much to do. I must go."
Outside I awaited my carriage. The day had clouded over. And as the carriage came forward, the wheels made grating sounds on the cobbles and a few drops of rain fell.
I was for America again. Soon my own ship would be sailing across the western ocean, back to the land of vast green forests and mountains blue with distance and promise.
I settled back in the cushions, content. The feeling was upon me that in those mountains lay my destiny, whatever it was, however it came.
And Abigail would be with me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louis L'Amour, born Louis Dearborn L'Amour of French-Irish stock, is a descendant of Francois René, Vicomote de Chateaubriand, noted French writer, statesman, and epicure. Although Mr. L'Amour claims his writing began as a "spur-of-the-moment thing" prompted by friends who relished his verbal tales of the West, he comes by his talent honestly. A frontiersman by heritage (his grandfather was scalped by the Sioux), and a universal man by experience, Louis L'Amour lives the life of his fictional heroes. Since leaving his native Jamestown, North Dakota, at the age of fifteen, he's been a longshoreman, lumberjack, elephant handler, hay shocker, flume builder, fruit picker, and an officer on tank destroyers during World War II. And he's written four hundred short stories and over fifty books (including a volume of poetry).
Mr. L'Amour has lectured widely, traveled the West thoroughly, studied archaeology, compiled biographies of over one thousand Western gunfighters, and read prodigiously (his library holds more than two thousand volumes). And he's watched thirty-one of his westerns as movies. He's circled the world on a freighter, mined in the West, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, been shipwrecked in the West Indies, stranded in the Mojave Desert. He's won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and pinch-hit for Dorothy Kilgallen when she was on vacation from her column. Since 1816, thirty-three members of his family have been writers. And, he says, "I could sit in the middle of Sunset Boulevard and write with my typewriter on my knees; temperamental I am not."
Mr. L'Amour is recreating an 1865 Western town, christened Shalako, where the borders of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado meet. Historically authentic from whistle to well, it will be a live, operating town, as well as a movie location and tourist attraction.
Mr. L'Amour now lives in Los Angeles with his wife Kathy, who helps with the enormous amount of research he does for his books. Soon, Mr. L'Amour hopes, the children will be helping too—Beau, and Angelique.
Mr. L'Amour presently lectures for the Bantam Lecture Bureau.
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Sackett's Land Page 16
