Hondo (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures)

by Louis L'Amour

  “Angie, I’ve got to tell you somethin’. I’m not much for lyin’—or for livin’ a lie. Last time I was here, before Vittoro brought me…”

  “Yes?”

  “Rode some dispatch after that. Then there was some trouble. Killed a man.” The sound came again then, closer. He reached out swiftly and drew her off the rock. His gun was in his hand. “There’s someone in the willows.”

  “Do not shoot, white man.” It was Vittoro’s voice. He stepped from the trees. “Small Warrior has a knife. He sleeps with it.”

  “You were in the house?” Angie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell your brave behind us,” Hondo said, “not to walk in the water. I like to killed him a few minutes ago.”

  Vittoro chuckled, then he said loudly, “Koori, you are very clumsy. Go to the horses.”

  “I almost threw a shot at him.”

  “He is very young. He will learn.”

  “If he lives.”

  “You are Apache.” Vittoro paused a minute after the compliment, then turned to speak to Angie.

  “A wickiup is an empty place without sons. Mine is an empty wickiup. I treasure Small Warrior. Now hear me! The pony soldiers are near. Soon will be fought a remembered fight. They will come here first. You will not go with them, white man.”

  “I will not go with them.”

  “The leader of the pony soldiers will question you. You will say you have seen the Apaches trailing to the west.”

  “This I will not do.”

  “You will not?”

  “I will not.”

  There was a long moment of silence while the leaves rustled. Somewhere a fish jumped.

  “You have a good man,” Vittoro said at last to Angie. “Treasure him.”

  “I do!”

  Vittoro was gone in the darkness. They stared after him, eyes straining in the darkness, and then her arms were around him, her head against his chest.

  An arm around her shoulders, he listened. “They’re mounting up now.”

  “I don’t hear a thing.”

  “Going off now. About eight, I’d say. Maybe nine.”

  She could hear nothing. The night was silent to her…and then she did hear something.

  “There’s something in those trees.”

  “Squirrel. Talking woke him and he’s put out. There are nine Indians.”

  She drew back from him, looking up. His face was vaguely visible now, for the stars were bright and the moon was low over the trees.

  “I love you.”

  She said the words suddenly, surprising even herself. Her hand went to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that…but I did mean it. I did. I know it’s an unseemly thing—my husband so shortly dead and…”

  “I don’t guess people’s hearts got anything to do with calendars.”

  He kissed her gently, holding her close, and for a moment they were silent.

  “You were wonderful, refusing to lie for Vittoro.”

  “Figure he was testing me. Indians hate a lie. I got to feel the same way. But I guess there’s sometimes when a man has got to lie, if it makes it easier for someone.”

  “I feel strange…new. Well, like music. I am being silly, aren’t I?”

  “No. The Apaches have a word…Like I said, I can’t explain it. As close as I can come is ‘happy breathing.’ ”

  “Kiss me again.”

  Their lips met in the darkness, clung, and then she leaned against him and for a long time they did not talk. It was growing cooler. The moon was down now, below the line of hills. Somewhere a coyote sent his lonely cry at the wide sky. An owl called.

  “Don’t think I’m crazy, but tonight I just couldn’t bear to sleep under a roof with the moon and all. I’ll go get some blankets.”

  “I’ll get them if you want.”

  “No, I want to. A squaw would. I want to feel like a squaw woman. Feels good. Real good.”

  She moved away into the darkness and he listened to the water over the stones. Behind him the squirrel chattered.

  Hondo sat up and looked around. “Squirrel, if you bother me some more, I’ll eat you in a stew tomorrow.”

  The squirrel chattered inquiringly, and then there was silence. The water rustled, and at the house a door closed and then there were footfalls. Hondo Lane got up, moving back nearer the trees. “Better here,” he said when she was close. “Leaves under the trees. Anybody comes, we’ll see them first.”

  She handed him the blankets and the ground sheet and he shook them out, then put them down under the trees. Angie got down on her knees and spread the ground sheets over the leaves, then the blankets.

  “You never forget, do you? I mean about seeing things first.”

  “Hope I never.”

  He was oddly uncomfortable, hesitant. “Good way to lose your hair, not noticing things.”

  He sat down and pulled off his boots. The cottonwoods whispered more softly. The squirrel gave one short, inquiring chatter, then was silent.

  The lone coyote spoke to the sky and the stream rustled busily about the stones. A bit of mud fell into the stream with a faint plop.

  It was night, and there was no sound. Or anyway, not very much.

  CHAPTER 19

  HONDO LANE TURNED from tightening the wheels of Angie Lowe’s wagon to watch the column of cavalry file into the basin and past the butte. It was a sight to behold. Glittering, yes, but more than that, for these were part of the force that Lord Wolseley, then commander in chief of the British army, had declared was the finest fighting force in the world—and they looked it.

  And, Hondo reflected as he stood beside Angie and Johnny, they had better be!

  When the men were dismounted outside the ranch yard, the officer in command and the scout rode over to Hondo and Angie. The lieutenant dismounted, and behind him Buffalo swung down.

  The lieutenant was impeccably garbed. His uniform was perfect in tailoring and perfect in military requirements. He walked to a position in front of Hondo and stopped, shifting his gloves. Heels together, he bowed.

  “Madam and sir, may I present myself? Lieutenant McKay, Squadron D, Sixth Cavalry.”

  Behind him, Buffalo grinned at Lane. “Hi, Hondo, you old cabin-robber! Lieutenant, this is Hondo Lane. He’s scouted some and rode dispatch for the cavalry. I don’t know this here lady.”

  “Mrs. Lowe…Lieutenant.” Hondo grinned at Baker. “Hi, Buff.”

  “You people are lucky,” Lieutenant McKay assured them. “Obviously Vittoro and his renegades just happened not to find this hidden valley.”

  “Vittoro’s been here,” Hondo said. “Lots.”

  “And you live? One lone man stood off Vittoro?”

  “No lone man stands off Vittoro. Not for long, anyway. He lets us live here.”

  “He’s our friend,” Angie said.

  “Friend? Vittoro?” Lieutenant McKay was astonished. “Ma’am, I dislike saying such a gruesome thing in a lady’s presence, but there are almost a thousand dead settlers on both sides of the border, scalped by this cowardly criminal.”

  Hondo lifted an eyebrow. “Vittoro may be a criminal by the book. I don’t know. But if he’s a coward it never showed up yet.”

  “Amen!” Buffalo said.

  “My men will bivouac here for the night,” McKay said, then he turned. “I must disagree with you, Mr. Lane. He has run before us for two hundred miles. My scouts and outriders report his band before us every day, yet each time we start to come to grips to fight an engagement, he runs.”

  “Indians got a story,” Hondo said, “about a hunter who chased a puma until he caught him. Then it was the other way around.”

  McKay smiled. “That story goes back further than the Indians know. It is originally attributed to the first Roman army to enter
Tartary. The soldier caught a Tartar and yelled out. His officer called back to come in and bring his prisoner, and the soldier replied, ‘The Tartar won’t let me.’ ”

  McKay chuckled at his story, but neither Hondo nor Buffalo was amused.

  “It’s one of the favorite stories of Colonel Mays, who teaches cavalry tactics at the Point. The story is worldwide.”

  Hondo rolled a smoke. “How long you been out of West Point, Lieutenant?”

  McKay hesitated, not liking to answer. He was afraid he knew what the question implied, and he did not like to appear a greenhorn. “Graduated class of ’69, sir.” His ears grew a little red. It was not long ago, and he resented the doubt of his ability the question seemed to imply, yet he was no fool. He had heard Major Sherry and even General Crook speak of Hondo Lane with respect.

  “That story you told,” Hondo said, “can be almighty true right here. You hear about Fetterman?”

  “Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman, sir? You mean the massacre?”

  “Well,” Hondo said, “call it what you like. Fetterman was a good man, I guess, but he made the mistake of takin’ the Sioux too lightly. He said give him eighty men an’ he’d ride through the whole Sioux Nation. Remember what happened?” Hondo touched his tongue to his cigarette. “He had eighty-three men, an’ he lasted less than twenty minutes.”

  McKay flushed a little. “I know. Ambush, wasn’t it?”

  “In a way. Ambush they led him into because he was bigheaded.” Hondo smiled. “You ain’t that sort, Lieutenant, but don’t take Vittoro lightly. Napoleon never knew anything that old ’Pache don’t know.”

  “Oh, come now, sir!” McKay was astonished, half believing he was being led on. “You don’t mean that!”

  “I do mean it.” Hondo was dead serious. “Lieutenant, what would you say was the main object of a leader facing a superior force?”

  McKay’s eyes searched Hondo’s. He was curious, and suddenly aware there was more to the man to whom he talked than a knowledge of the desert and Indians.

  “Why…why, offhand, sir, I’d say to harass the enemy, to fight a delaying action until he could get him on ground of his own choosing, but at all costs to preserve his own force intact.”

  Hondo nodded. “I’m no military man, Lieutenant, but I’d say you couldn’t go far wrong on that plan. And ain’t that what Vittoro’s been doing?”

  Lieutenant McKay’s brow puckered. “Well…yes,” he admitted, “after a fashion.”

  Buffalo grinned at Hondo after the lieutenant had moved off to inspect the bivouac area. “Gave him somethin’ to puzzle over, you did.” He chuckled. “Got a sight to learn, that one.” Then he nodded. “But he’s all right, I think. I like him. Only I wish it was the Major out here in command.”

  Lieutenant McKay turned toward the house, where Angie had stopped at the door. “Mrs. Lowe, my orders are to make a clean sweep as far as Twin Buttes. We will go on to Twin Buttes tomorrow and return tomorrow night to escort you and your boy out to safety.”

  “We’re safe. We have Vittoro’s word.”

  “The word of an Indian criminal!” McKay was incredulous. “Even if Lane is willing to take the risk, I don’t think you should.”

  “I’ll take his word. We’d rather stay.”

  “I’m sorry. My orders are to bring out any settlers who have survived.” He hesitated. She was such a pretty woman, and he did not like to think of leaving her here. He had been on the frontier only a few weeks, but he had already seen the bodies of some of the settlers. It had not been a pretty sight. “I…if you will excuse me, ma’am.”

  Hondo and Buffalo had come to the house. “He’s very nice,” Angie said, “and very young.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Buffalo agreed, a shadow of worry in his tone, “he sure is.”

  “You been scouting for this patrol?”

  “This is about the twentieth day I had them out, Hondo. Many a scalp’s been took.”

  Angie looked down at Johnny. “You watch Lieutenant McKay, Johnny. That’s the kind of manners I want you to have.” She turned back to the men. “And he has such handsome eyes. And that beautiful black, curly hair.”

  “That hair will be hanging from the top pole of an Apache wickiup.” He looked over at Buffalo. “This little-boy lieutenant will get you killed.”

  Buffalo shrugged. McKay was not the first he had seen come to Indian country. Nor, with luck, would he be the last. Some of them had it, some of them did not. Some were only pretty, some were all spit and polish, and some of them sharpened down into first-class fighting men. There had been Major Powell, for instance, up at Kearney. Had he taken the command the day Fetterman went out…It was useless to think of that. Fetterman had outranked him, forced the issue, and gone glory-hunting with eighty-odd better men.

  “You know how it is,” Buffalo said. “Us scouts got to get these young officers educated.”

  Suddenly he remembered. “Say, you rec’lect how you whupped me at the post? My medicine must have been bad. You busted off a tooth and it went to hurting so bad I had to go to the barber so he could pull out the rest of the tooth. Partner, that hurt! Did I catch you that day, I’d have set your sun for you. You’d never have seed another morning.”

  Angie came to the door, drying her hands. “Hondo, I notice the soldiers are starting their food fires. I naturally can’t invite very many to eat with us in the cabin, but if your friend Mr.—uh…”

  “Yeah, Buffalo will eat with us.” He turned to look at the big buffalo hunter. “We’ve known each other eight or ten years. You got to have a last name. Or have you?”

  Buffalo looked up sharply, offended. “Sure I got a last name. What do you think I am?” He tried to emulate the Lieutenant’s bow. “Mrs. Lowe, my name is…” He hesitated, and his face got red. “Baker. That’s what it is, Baker.” He sneered at Hondo. “Didn’t think I had any last name!”

  Buffalo looked around slowly. “Been tryin’ to figure what this place reminds me of, Hondo. It’s that ranch of your’n in California. Where we stayed before we went to fight with those people up north. Under a bluff just like this, creek and mesa spreading out…”

  Angie looked up at Hondo. “You have a place that looks like this?”

  “East of San Dimas.

  “Just like this. Reminds me all to…” He hesitated, took a quick look at Angie, and ended weakly, “Reminds me. It sure does.”

  “You can wash in the basin on the bench. Towel hangin’ right there.”

  “Wash? Towel? Oh, sure.”

  “It’s wonderful, Hondo. About your place, I mean. That our tastes are so similar. You picked a basin with a creek, as I did.”

  “I guess we could winter in the same lodge without nobody getting their throat cut in the night.”

  They stopped at the door, watching the camp settling down. There was an Indian up on the bluff again, but that was to be expected and Hondo said nothing until Buffalo walked up, drying his hands. Buffalo mentioned it, and he nodded. “Seen him. No use mentionin’ it to the lieutenant. He’d send out a patrol to catch him, an’ these boys need their sleep.”

  Buffalo hung the towel on a peg near the door. “Don’t you peg the lieutenant too low. He’s young, but he’s different than some. He’ll listen, an’ he ain’t afraid to ask questions. Most of ’em figure they got to know it all.”

  Buffalo looked awkwardly at the table. Angie had taken out her red-checkered cloth and there were napkins of the same color by the plates. Buffalo looked around, embarrassed. “I ain’t et—ate—at a table like this in a coon’s age, ma’am. Reckon I’m some rusty.”

  She smiled. “We’re hoping you’ll eat with us often, Buffalo, so don’t be afraid.”

  Buffalo blushed, then as the significance of her remark reached him he looked quickly at Hondo and started to speak, but Hondo scowled at him and he closed
his mouth.

  When they had finished, Angie got up and took down an apple pie and started to cut it, then she turned. “Hondo, would you like to ask the lieutenant to join us for pie and coffee? I’m sure he’d like it.”

  When Hondo was gone, Angie turned quickly and looked at Buffalo. “Mr. Baker,” she said quietly, “I want to ask you a question. Did you know Ed Lowe? My husband?”

  “That no-a—” As the significance of her last words reached him, he broke off sharply. “Yes,” he said after a minute, “I knew him.”

  She hesitated, then turned back to her pie. That explosive beginning answered her question in part, at least. Buffalo Baker said no more, and when the lieutenant came in, she was talking about the Indians.

  Buffalo excused himself and the lieutenant sat down. He glanced quickly at Johnny, then smiled.

  Lieutenant McKay might know little of Indian fighting, but he understood the things a lonely woman wants to know. He talked briefly of things at the post, then of what women were wearing in Washington, New York, and Richmond. After several minutes he switched the subject. He glanced sharply at Hondo. “What do you think Vittoro will do now? Will he keep running?”

  “No. Not far, anyway. He’s ready to fight.”

  “Mr. Lane, my business is to command, but I’ve been thinking of what you said. I’m not above taking advice. You know the Apaches. What would you advise?”

  Hondo looked at his coffee. There was no doubting the earnestness of this man, and he had a sudden hope that whatever happened, this man might live. They needed men on the frontier who could learn.

  “Can’t advise you, Lieutenant. Only when you come up to him, it’ll be because he’s ready. If he’s ready it’ll be because he figures he can beat you or hurt you mighty bad. So when you come up on him, look around, because whatever you don’t expect, that’s what he’ll do.”

  CHAPTER 20

  WHEN BUFFALO HAD finished sharpening his knife, Hondo moved to the grindstone. Lennie Sproul lounged near the barn, and Hondo felt irritation strong within him. Lennie Sproul had been on the frontier for fifteen years, a lean, saturnine man with a cynical eye and a way of showing up with unexpected money.