the Cherokee Trail (1982)

by L'amour, Louis

  First, to survive the raid. Second, to get on with the business of the stage company.

  She was thinking of that when Temple Boone rode in. "Mr. Boone, I was wondering what might be done if Indians run off with my horses?" "Be thankful you're alive."

  He stepped down from the saddle. "You got some coffee on?"

  "I do, and you're welcome, but what about the next stage?" "Unless you can conjure up some horses, they'd have to go on with a tired team." He paused.

  "The nearest ranch with any extra stock is Preston Collier's place. Have you met him?"

  "I have not."

  "He runs several hundred head of stock over there. Got himself a big, mighty beautiful house.

  White columns and all. He's also got a wife and two snooty daughters. Pretty girls but to me pretty is as pretty does, and they don't do much but go to parties, balls, and teas."

  "What is he like?"

  "Collier? He's a decent enough man, active in politics, ranching, gold mining, and such.

  Spends a lot of time in Denver. He's a rich man who keeps busy gettin' richer, but he's straight. Hell have no truck with trickery or double-dealin'. He sets store by his horses, won't have them misused. Any stock tender who gets rough with his horses gets his walkin' papers." "Would he lend me horses if I needed them?"

  Boone shrugged. "Ma'am, that would be between you and Collier. I know he refused Scant Luther, refused him point blank, and ordered him off the place. "Him and Ben Holladay butted heads a few times, so he's got no use for the stage company. Never rides it, either. Has his own teams and drivers, as you'd guess.

  "He must have eight or ten coaches and surreys, and sometimes, when he has folks vision', they go for picnics back in the hills with servants in white coats to serve "em. You've never seen the like.

  "Everybody who comes from back East seems to head toward his home. Most times he has three or four visitors there, politicians, army officers, European noblemen huntin" big game, that sort of thing. But aside from bein' bullheaded about anything of Ben Holladay's, he's z reasonable man."

  "Then if I needed horses, it wouldn't be much help to talk to him?" "I'd advise you to forget it, ma'am. Even if you got to see him, the fact that you work for Ben would be against you."

  When they were seated over coffee, he asked casually, "Had any visitors lately?

  Men ridin' alone?"

  Apprehension was her first feeling. Keeping her voice calm, she said, "No, not really. Should I have?"

  He drank some coffee. "Saw some tracks on the trail, but they turned ofd just before they came in sight of the station. Seems the rider took to the hills, and a thing like that makes me curious. So I sort of follered them. Seems like he scouted around in the brush and trees up yonder, like he was lookin' for a good spot to watch the station."

  "An Indian?"

  "He was ridin' a shod horse, ma'am, and that usually spells white man, although an Indian ridin' a stole horse might have one that's shod.

  I'd bet on it this was a white man."

  "Did he find the place he wanted? If so, could I see it from here?" "You couldn't see it, but if you look up there, you can see that tree, the last one in the row? He'll be somewhere right at the base of that tree, maybe restin his rifle on the stub of a broken branch or somethin . Casually, she looked around, located the tree. "How far would you say?

  One hundred and fifty yards?"

  "You're a good judge of distance. I'd guess that would be right close." "My father taught me to shoot a rifle and shotgun. He used to take me hunting."

  "Ever kill anything?"

  "A deer . . . I cried."

  Boone smiled. "Man's a predator. He's a hunter by instinct. I suspect he's taken his livin' from the wild animals and plants as long as he's been around. But he was a hunter first, bred to be a hunter."

  "I don't believe that."

  "I didn't suspect you did. But think on it.

  All the predators have their eyes lookin' forward to keep their eyes on the hunted. The game that's hunted has eyes on the side of their head so they can watch better. You take notice, ma'am, the wolf, the lion, the bear, all animals that hunt others have eyes lookin' straight forward. So does man. was "I don't like to think of that. I hope we've gone beyond such attitudes. Isn't that what civilization does, Mr. Boone? To teach us to live together in peace?"

  "I reckon that's the ideal, ma'am, but all folks don't become civilized to onct. There's some of us lag behind, some of us have to protect the rest of you civilized folks from those who haven't gotten beyond the huntin' stage. When a man comes at you with a gun or a knife or a spear; you don't have much time to convince him that he's actin uncivilized, and he isn't likely to listen. That's when you yourself become uncivilized in a hurry or you die."

  "I wouldn't want to kill a man."

  "No decent-minded person does, but if there's somebody up on that ridge with a rifle who is about to kill Pees mother, you'd better kill him first.

  "You see, ma'am, when a man sets out to rob and kill, he's strikin' a blow not only at you, at Peg, Wat, and Matty here but at all civilization. He's striking a blow at all man has done to rise from savagery. "I'm not a scholar, but the way I see it is that men have learned to become what we call civilized men by stages, and every child growing up retraces that pattern during his lifetime.

  "There's a time when youngsters like to play capture games, a time when they like to build play houses and huts, if it is only to put a blanket over a couple of chairs and crawl under it.

  "There's a time when they like to make bows and arrows, dodging around and hunting each other.

  Hide-an'-seek is one way of doing it. After a while, he grows beyond that stage, or most of them do.

  "Some folks just lag behind. They never grow beyond that hunting and hiding stage. They become thieves and robbers.

  "Only a few years ago, a young man could go to war, and if he did enough looting or captured enough horses or arms, he could come home a rich man.

  Most of those who originally had titles over there in Europe had them because they were especially good at killing and robbing and were given titles for doing it in support of their king.

  "Well, we've outgrown that. Or some of us have.

  The others are still lingering back there in a hunting, gathering, and raiding stage, and if you meet one of them alone in the dark, you'd better remember he's not a human being but a savage, a wild animal, and will act like one."

  "So I must descend to his level?"

  "If you want to be civilized, ma'am, you're going to have to fight to protect it, or all the civilized will be dead, and we will be back in the darkness of savagery."

  "You sound tike a philosopher, Mr.

  Boone."

  "No, ma'am, but out there in the night, sometimes with a campfire, a man has time to think. He can't get his thoughts from books. He has to think things out for himself, and a man likes to understand what life he's living and why he must do some things.

  "I'm not sure all my thoughts are right. Some of them need a lot more thinking, but you don't try to reason with a man who is trying to kill you, or else you will be dead, and violence will have won another victory over peace.

  "You take that man who shot your husband, ma'am.

  He did it because he saw your husband as a threat to him, and when he tries to kill you, it will be for the same reason.

  "Are you goin' to let him do it?"

  Chapter Twelve.

  "What can I do?" She gestured. "I have my work to do, and I must move around a good bit. I have to be outside part of the time."

  "First thing, ma'am, this Flandrau feller who you think wants you dead wouldn't want it tied to him.

  He'll try to send somebody to do the job who isn't close to him but somebody who knows his business. "That makes it unlikely that he will take a shot at you when the stage is in with folks milling about.

  Remember, I said it is unlikely, but he might. If he's smart, as I believe, he will try to ca
tch you alone in the yard where there's nobody around to see where the shot came from or to start hunting him.

  "He would like to slip in here, kill you, and get away clean. If he handles it right, that is just what he will do."

  "You don't give me much of a chance."

  "No, ma'am, not unless you use your head.

  Don't walk across the yard alone in broad daylight. Don't establish any habits. That's what he will be looking for. If you go to the stables at a certain hour each morning, hell be waiting."

  She watched him as he walked away. Who was he?

  What was he? He was said to be good with a gun, and there was a whisper around that he was a very dangerous man.

  To her, he seemed merely a quiet, still-faced man who rarely smiled but who went about his business with a cool assurance.

  What he felt about her or thought of her, she had no idea, yet he had never once suggested this was not her kind of work or that she should get out of this business, as many others had.

  She preferred it that way, yet it nettled her a little, also. Thinking of it, she laughed at herself for being so feminine. He was, after all, a very attractive man.

  Her eyes strayed toward the tree, and from the corners of her eyes she studied it. Slowly, then, her eyes swept the yard. Of course, that might not be the position the gunman would take up, but if he did, what places in the yard were beyond his vision?

  She could go from here around the corral to the back of the barn, or she could go from her house to the blacksmith shop without exposing herself to what might be his firing position.

  Her father had served in the Blackhawk War, and there were times when he and her husband would talk for hours about tactics, firing positions, and the ranges of various weapons. She wished she had paid more attention, but who would have guessed she would find herself in such a position as she now held?

  In the back room on Larimer Street in Denver, Jason Flandrau sat tipped back in a chair, his boots on the table. "She's there," he said. "You boys saw the wrong woman."

  "She was Irish as Paddy's Pig, the one we saw," Turkey Joe Longman said.

  "She doesn't count. It's the other one we want.

  If she's still around when I run for office, she will talk even if she doesn't say something before that."

  "Does she know your name?"

  "I've no idea, but she's seen me; she saw me right out in the open. I tried to get her then, but she slipped away, God knows how." He swore softly. "Who would Ever think she'd show up out here? Of all places?"

  "It ain't like back East," Longman said. "You can shoot a man, and nobody blinks. But you even bump into a woman on the street, and you might get hung. I don't like it, Colonel. I don't like it at all."

  "Neither do I. Nor do I want to see you hang, which will surely happen if they find out who you are. Or who I am." He took his boots from the table and turned in his chair. "Indians, that's the answer. Run off the horses and kill her while it's being done. Round up a few bad Indians and let them have the horses. In the process, she gets killed, and they are blamed." "I still don't like it."

  Irritated, Flandrau turned on him. "Have you got a better plan? You said yourself you're not getting much of a chance at a shot out there." "Let me try it a few more days."

  "All right. You've always done what you set out to do. But be careful. Be very, very careful. And tell nobody, even our own boys, what you're doing."

  When Longman was gone, he ordered a glass of wine and remained at the table. Returning to Laporte was out of the question when there was a possibility she might see him. Did she realize it was he who killed her husband?

  The trouble lay with Preston Collier. He needed Collier's support if he planned on running for office, and to reach Collier's place he almost had to go through Laporte and then past Cherokee to Collier's ranch. He could circle around, of course.

  If Longman could get rid of Mrs.

  Breydon, then he would get rid of Longman.

  He wanted nobody alive who could point a finger at him. He got to his feet and flicked some dust from his boots with the end of his handkerchief. Carefully, he straightened his cravat. Anyway, it was time he cut himself free from all of the old crowd. His future was assured, and he was moving in a different direction now and needed them no longer. He went out the back door, closing it carefully behind him.

  Longman avoided the trail to Cherokee, staying in the back country away from the traveled road.

  He held to the rolling hills and the grasslands, a route he had used before. Jason was right, of course.

  Her testimony could get them hung. Neither the North nor the South had any use for guerrillas.

  Nonetheless, he was tired of doing Jason's dirty work. It wasn't as if he had never killed a woman, for he had killed a dozen or more in raids, but this was different. He had been one of many then, robbing, killing, and raping without discrimination.

  Now he was alone, going out to shoot a woman with the necessity of escaping afterward and no friends to fight off his pursuers. One last time, and he had the spot picked. Move in, await his chance, one clean shot, and a fast getaway. He had even planned that, with a spare horse hidden in a brush corral in the woods.

  The sorrel horse he left in the brush corral was a fine animal, and he was fast. He was also a horse Turkey Joe had never been seen riding. A true beauty, the sorrel was, a horse to take the eye of any man who loved or wanted a fast horse.

  Turkey Joe rode a gray horse to the line of trees and tied the horse with a slip knot to some brush right behind him. He slid his rifle from the boot and edged up to the tree where he had found a convenient rest for his rifle over the stub of a broken branch.

  Then he settled down to wait. Turkey Joe Longman had planned carefully and well. The trouble was that, like many another criminal, he had not considered the imponderables, the accidental, the unexpected.

  Mary Breydon came to the door with her Henry rifle and placed it beside the door as she had been doing for the past three days. A dozen times in those three days, she had taken up the rifle and aimed it through the brush and trees at the tree Boone had indicated. Her chances of shooting through all that brush without the bullet being deflected were slight, but at least she could, if still alive, strike back.

  She had been thinking a good deal about Temple Boone's comments and had decided he was probably right. If civilization was to endure, those who believed in it must be prepared to strike back at the dark forces that would destroy it. Aside from that, she was Peg's mother, and Peg's mother had to live to ensure Peg of the education and the chance she should have. For that, she was willing to fight. She poured a cup of hot coffee.

  The stage would be coming soon. She took her apron from the back of a chair and walked to the door, tying it. She had just stepped into the door when, on the hill beyond the trees, Turkey Joe Longman leveled his rifle. In the moment Turkey Joe took aim, the first of the imponderables, the accidental, happened.

  Peg turned quickly to speak to her mother and knocked over a cup of coffee. It burned her hand, and she screamed, "Mamal"

  Mary Breydon turned sharply, and the bullet aimed for her heart burned the outside of her left shoulder.

  Almost without thinking, she whipped up the Henry and fired at the target for which she had so often aimed. The bullet missed Turkey Joe but it hit the gray horse. Wheeling about, Turkey Joe hit the saddle, whipping the slip knot free as he passed it, and he was off with a jump. Temple Boone, throwing one quick glance toward the door, seeing Mary on her feet and Matty beside her, hit the saddle running, Ridge Fenton only a jump behind him on another horse.

  At the tree, there was blood on the leaves where the horse had been tied, and the two were off on the trail.

  Swearing, Turkey Joe spurred the wounded horse. Within a few miles, the horse began to labor, and Turkey Joe urged it on. His pursuit was behind him but still far enough away, and he had a fresh horse, a fast horse, waitin .

  The seconlof the imponderables, the u
nexpected, had happened only minutes before. Bear Walker, a Comanche brave, had come upon the brush corral and the sorrel, and Bear Walker had an eye for horse flesh and a picture of himself riding into the village on such a horse. Bear Walker was no laggard but a man of instant decision.

  Dust still hung in the air when Turkey Joe, stripping the gear from the bloody gray, stopped, saddle in hand, staring at the open gate in his corral. Behind him, he heard the pound of hoofs. He dropped the saddle and went for his gun.

  The gun came up fast, but not fast enough. The last thing he saw was Temple Boone, gun in hand.

  "Damn you, Boone! I-"

  'He's had it cumin" for a long time," Ridge Fenton said.

  "Vary the hours at which you do things. Avoid patterns." He put down his cup and reached for the coffeepot. "Have you talked to Ridge Fenton about this?"

  "No. his "You should. Get him in here, soften him up with a piece of pie or a couple of doughnuts because he's a crusty old codger, as you probably know.

  "Tell him what's happening. Lay it on the line to him because Ridge makes a great fuss about bein' gun-shy. He'll tell you he wants no part of any fight. He wants no shooting around where he is. He's a peaceful man. He will tell you that, but don't you believe him because that old man has ridden with Indian war parties, he's had hand-tohand fights with Indians, he's guided army patrols, and he's been fightin' since he was knee-high.

  Believe me, and I've been around the mountain a few times, I'd rather tackle three cougars in your tack room than that old man when he's riled."

  He paused, drawing his cup near. "How about Wat?" "He knows, but he's just a small boy."

  "And a mighty tricky one. Don't you forget that he survived on his own for some little time.

  He listens a lot, misses mighty little, and he can track better than most grown men."

  He finished his coffee and pulled back from the table. "I'll be around time to time. If you need me, Wat will know where I am."