The Lawless West

by Louis L'Amour

  “You swing a wide loop for a stranger. You started in the wrong country. You won’t live long.”

  “No?” I gave it to him flat and face up on the table. “No? Well, I’ve a hunch I’ll handle the shovel that throws dirt on your grave, and maybe trigger the gun that puts you there. I’m not asking for trouble, but I like it, so whenever you’re ready, let me know.”

  With that I left them. Up the street there was a sign:

  MOTHER O’HARA’S COOKING MEALS FOUR BITS

  With a gnawing appetite, to me, that looked as likely a direction as any. It was early for supper, and there were few at table. The young man with white hair and the girl I loved, and a few scattered others who ate sourly and in silence.

  When I shoved the door open and stood there with my hat shoved back on my head and a smile on my face, the girl looked up, surprised, but ready for battle. I grinned at her, and bowed. “How do you do, the future Missus Sabre? The pleasure of seeing you again so soon is unexpected, but real.”

  The man with her looked surprised, and the buxom woman of forty-five or so who came in from the kitchen looked quickly from one to the other of us.

  The girl ignored me, but the man with the white hair nodded. “You’ve met Miss Maclaren, then?”

  So? Maclaren it was? I might have suspected as much. “No, not formally. But we met briefly on the street, and I’ve been dreaming of her for years. It gives me great wonder to find her here, although when I see the food on the table, I don’t doubt why she is so lovely if it is here she eats.”

  Mother O’Hara liked that. “Sure ’n’ I smell the blarney in that,” she said sharply. “But sit down, if you’d eat.”

  My hat came off, and I sat on the bench opposite my girl, who looked at her plate in cold silence.

  “My name is Key Chapin.” The white-haired man extended his hand. “Yours, I take it, is Sabre?”

  “Matt Sabre,” I said.

  A grizzled man from the foot of the table looked up. “Matt Sabre from Dodge, once marshal of Mobeetie, the Mogollon gunfighter?”

  They all looked from him to me, and I accepted the cup of coffee Mother O’Hara poured. “The gentleman knows me,” I said quietly. “I’ve been known in those places.”

  “You refused Maclaren’s offer?” Chapin asked.

  “Yes, and Pinder’s, too.”

  “Pinder?” Chapin’s eyes were wary. “Is he in town?”

  “Big as life.” I could feel the girl’s eyes on me. “Tell me what this fight is about?”

  “What are most range wars about? Water, sheep, or grass. This one is water. There’s a long valley east of here called Cottonwood Wash, and running east out of it is a smaller valley or cañon called the Two Bar. On the Two Bar is a stream of year-around water with volume enough to irrigate land or water thousands of cattle. Maclaren wants that water. The CP wants it.”

  “Who’s got it?”

  “A man named Ball. He’s no fighter and has no money to hire fighters, but he hates Maclaren and refuses to do business with Pinder. So there they sit with the pot boiling and the lid about to blow off.”

  “And our friend Ball is right smack in the middle.”

  “Right. Gamblers around town are offering odds he won’t last thirty days, even money that he’ll be dead within ten.”

  That was enough for now. My eyes turned to the daughter of Rud Maclaren. “You can be buying your trousseau, then,” I said, “for the time will not be long.”

  She looked at me coolly, but behind it there was a touch of impudence. “I’ll not worry about it,” she said calmly. “There’re no weddings in boot hill.”

  They laughed at that, yet behind it I knew there was the feeling that she was right, and yet the something in me that was me told me no, it was not my time to go. Not by gun or horse or rolling river—not yet.

  “You’ve put your tongue to prophecy, darlin’,” I said, “and I’ll not say that I’ll not end in boot hill, where many another good man has gone, but I will say this, and you sleep on it, daughter of Maclaren, for it’s a bit of the truth. Before I sleep in boot hill, there’ll be sons and daughters of yours and mine on this ground. Yes, and believe me”—I got up to go—“when my time comes, I’ll be carried there by six tall sons of ours, and there’ll be daughters of ours who’ll weep at my grave, and you with them, remembering the years we’ve had.”

  When the door slapped shut behind me, there was silence inside, and then through the thin walls I heard Mother O’Hara speak. “You’d better be buyin’ that trousseau, Olga Maclaren, for there’s a lad as knows his mind!”

  This was the way of it then, and now I had planning to do, and my way to make in the world, for although I’d traveled wide and far, in many lands not my own, I’d no money or home to take her to. Behind me were wars and struggles, hunger, thirst, and cold, and the deep, splendid bitterness of fighting for a cause I scarcely understood, because there was in me the undying love of a lost cause and a world to win. And now I’d my own to win, and a threshold to find to carry her over.

  And then, as a slow night wind moved upon my cheek and stirred the hair above my brow, I found an answer. I knew what I would do, and the very challenge of it sent my blood leaping, and the laughter came from my lips as I stepped into the street and started across it.

  Then I stopped, for there was a man before me. He was a big man, towering above my six feet and two inches, broader and thicker than my 200 pounds. He was a big-boned man and full of raw power, unbroken and brutal. He stood there, wide-legged before me, his face wide as my two hands, his big head topped by a mat of tight curls, his hat missing somewhere.

  “You’re Sabre?” he said.

  “Why, yes,” I said, and he hit me.

  Never did I see the blow start. Never even did I see the balled fist of him, but it bludgeoned my jaw like an axe butt, and something seemed to slam me behind the knees, and I felt myself going. He caught me again before I could fall, and then dropped astride of me and began to swing short, brutal blows to my head with both big fists. All of 260 pounds he must have weighed, and none of it wasted by fat. He was naked, raw, unbridled power.

  Groggy, bloody, beaten, I fought to get up, but he was astride me, and my arms were pinned to my sides by his great knees. His fists were slugging me with casual brutality. Then, suddenly, he got up and stepped back and kicked me in the ribs. “If you’re conscious,” he said, “hear me. I’m Morgan Park, and I’m the man who marries Olga Maclaren!”

  My lips were swollen and bloody. “You lie!” I said, and he kicked me again, then stepped over me and walked away, whistling.

  Somehow I got my arms under me. Somehow I dragged myself against the stage station wall, and then I lay there, my head throbbing like a great drum, the blood slowly drying on my split lips and broken face. It had been a beating I’d taken, and the marvel of it was with me. I’d not been licked since I was a lad, and never in all my days had I felt such blows as these. His fists were like knots of oak, and the arms behind them like the limbs of a tree.

  I had a broken rib, I thought, but one thing I knew. It was time for me to travel. Never would I have the daughter of Maclaren see me like this!

  My hands found the building corner and I pulled myself to my feet, and, staggering behind the buildings, I got to the corner of the livery stable. Entering, I got to my horse, and somehow I got the saddle on him and led him out of the door. And then I stopped for an instant in the light.

  Across the way, on the stoop of Mother O’Hara’s, was Olga Maclaren!

  The light was on my face, swollen, bloody, and broken. She stepped down off the porch and came over to me, looking up, her eyes wide with wonder. “So it’s you. He found you then. He always hears, and this always happens. You see, it is not so simple a thing to marry Olga Maclaren.” There seemed almost regret in her voice. “And now you’re leaving.”

  “Leaving? That I am, but I’ll be back!” The words fumbled through my swollen lips. “Have your trousseau ready, daug
hter of Maclaren. I mean what I say. Wait for me. I’ll be coming again, darlin’, and, when I do, it will be first to tear down Morgan Park’s great hulk, to rip him with my fists.”

  There was coolness in her voice, shaded with contempt. “You boast! All you have done is talk…and taken a beating!”

  That made me grin, and the effort made me wince, but I looked down at her. “It’s a bad beginning at that, isn’t it? But wait for me, darlin’, I’ll be coming back.”

  I could feel her watching me ride down the street.

  Chapter 2

  Throughout the night I rode into wilder and wilder country, always with the thought of what faced me. At daybreak, I bedded down in a cañon tall with pines, resting there while my side began to mend. My thoughts returned again and again to the shocking power of those punches I had taken. It was true the man had slugged me unexpectedly, and once pinned down I’d had no chance against his great weight. Nonetheless, I’d been whipped soundly. Within me there was a gnawing eagerness to go back—and not with guns. This man I must whip with my hands.

  The Two Bar was the key to the situation. Could it be had with a gun and some blarney? The beating I’d taken rankled, and the contempt of Olga Maclaren, and with it the memory of the hatred of Jim Pinder and the coldness of Rud Maclaren. On the morning of the third day I mounted the buckskin and turned him toward the Two Bar.

  A noontime sun was darkening my buckskin with sweat when I turned up Cottonwood Wash. There was green grass here, and trees, and the water that trickled down was clear and pure. The walls of the wash were high and the trees towered to equal them, and the occasional cattle looked fat and lazy, far better than elsewhere on this range. The path ended abruptly in a gate bearing a large sign in white letters against a black background.

  TWO BAR GATE RANGED FOR A SPENCER .56 SHOOTING GOING ON HERE

  Ball evidently had his own ideas. No trespasser who got a bullet could say he hadn’t been warned. Beyond this gate a man took his own chances. Taking off my hat, I rose in my stirrups and waved it toward the house.

  A gun boomed, and I heard the sharp whap of a bullet whipping past. It was a warning shot, so I merely waved once more. That time the bullet was close, so I grabbed my chest with both hands and slid from the saddle to the ground. Speaking to the buckskin, I rolled over behind a boulder. Leaving my hat on the ground in plain sight, I removed a boot and placed it to be seen from the gate. Then I crawled into the brush, from where I could cover the gate.

  Several minutes later, Ball appeared. Without coming through the gate, he couldn’t see the boot was empty. He was a tall old man with a white handlebar mustache and shrewd eyes. No fool, he studied the layout carefully, but to all appearances his aim had miscalculated and scored a hit. He glanced at the strange brand on the buckskin and at the California bridle and bit. Finally he opened the gate and came out, and, as he moved toward my horse, his back turned toward me. “Freeze, Ball! You’re dead in my sights!”

  He stood still. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What you want with me?”

  “No trouble. I came to talk business.”

  “I got no business with anybody.”

  “You’ve business with me. I’m Matt Sabre. I’ve had a run in with Jim Pinder and told off Maclaren when he told me to leave. I’ve taken a beating from Morgan Park.”

  Ball chuckled. “You say you want no trouble with me, but, from what you say, you’ve had it with ever’-body else.”

  He turned at my word, and I holstered my gun. He stepped back far enough to see the boot, then he grinned. “Good trick. I’ll not bite on that one again. What you want?”

  Pulling on my boot and retrieving my hat, I told him. “I’ve no money. I’m a fighting man and a sucker for the tough side of any scrap. When I rode into Hattan’s Point, I figured on trouble, but when I saw Olga Maclaren, I decided to stay and marry her. I’ve told her so.”

  “No wonder Park beat you. He’s run off the local lads.” He studied me curiously. “What did she say?”

  “Very little, and, when I told her I was coming back to face Park again, she thought I was loud-mouthed.”

  “Aim to try him again?”

  “I’m going to whip him. But that’s not all. I plan to stay in this country, and there’s only one ranch in this country I want or would have.”

  Ball’s lips thinned. “This one?”

  “It’s the best, and anybody who owns it stands in the middle of trouble. I’d be mighty uncomfortable anywhere else.”

  “What you aim to do about me? This here’s my ranch.”

  “Let’s walk up to your place and talk it over.”

  “We’ll talk here.” Ball’s hands were on his hips and I had no doubt he’d go for a gun if I made a wrong move. “Speak your piece.”

  “All right. Here it is. You’re buckin’ a stacked deck. Gamblers are offerin’ thirty to one you won’t last thirty days. Both Maclaren and Pinder are out to get you. What I want is a fighting, working partnership. Or you sell out and I’ll pay you when I can. I’ll take over the fight.”

  He nodded toward the house. “Come on up. We’ll talk this over.”

  Two hours later the deal was ironed out. He could not stay awake every night. He could not work and guard his stock. He could not go to town for supplies. Together we could do all of it.

  “You’ll be lucky if you last a week,” he told me. “When they find out, they’ll be fit to be tied.”

  “They won’t find out right away. First I’ll buy supplies and ammunition, and get back here.”

  “Good idea. But leave Morgan Park alone. He’s as handy with a gun as his fists.”

  The Two Bar controlled most of Cottonwood Wash and on its eastern side opened into the desert wilderness with only occasional patches of grass and much desert growth. Maclaren’s Bar M and Pinder’s CP bordered the ranch on the west, with Maclaren’s range extending to the desert land in one portion, but largely west of the Two Bar.

  Both ranches had pushed the Two Bar cattle back, usurping the range for their own use. In the process of pushing them north, most of the Two Bar calves had vanished under Bar M or CP brands. “Mostly the CP,” Ball advised. “Them Pinders are pizen mean. Rollie rode with the James boys a few times, and both of them were with Quantrill. Jim’s a fast gun, but nothin’ to compare with Rollie.”

  At daylight, with three unbranded mules to carry the supplies, I started for Hattan’s Point, circling around to hit the trail on the side away from the Two Bar. The town was quiet enough, and the day warm and still. As I loaded the supplies, I was sweating. The sweat trickled into my eyes and my side pained me. My face was still puffed, but both my eyes were now open. Leading my mules out of town, I concealed them in some brush with plenty of grass, and then returned to Mother O’Hara’s.

  Key Chapin and Canaval were there, and Canaval looked up at me. “Had trouble?” he asked. “That job at the Bar M is still open.”

  “Thanks. I’m going to run my own outfit.” Foolish though it was, I said it. Olga had come in the door behind me, her perfume told me who it was, and even without it something in my blood would have told me. From that day on she was never to be close to me without my knowledge. It was something deep and exciting that was between us.

  “Your own outfit?” They were surprised. “You’re turning nester?”

  “No. Ranching.” Turning, I swept off my hat and indicated the seat beside me. “Miss Maclaren? May I have the pleasure?”

  Her green eyes were level and measuring. She hesitated, then shook her head. Walking around the table, she seated herself beside Canaval.

  Chapin was puzzled. “You’re ranching? If there’s any open range around here, I don’t know of it.”

  “It’s a place over east of here,” I replied lightly. “The Two Bar.”

  “What about the Two Bar?” Rud Maclaren had come in. He stood, cold and solid, staring down at me.

  Olga glanced up at her father, some irony in her eyes. “Mister Sabre was telling u
s that he is ranching…on the Two Bar.”

  “What?” Glasses and cups jumped at his voice, and Ma O’Hara hurried in from her kitchen, rolling pin in hand.

  “That’s right.” I was enjoying it. “I’ve a working partnership with Ball. He needed help, and I didn’t want to leave despite all the invitations I was getting.” Then I added: “A man dislikes being far from the girl he’s to marry.”

  “What’s that?” Maclaren demanded, his eyes puzzled.

  “Why, Father”—Olga’s eyes widened—“haven’t you heard? The whole town is talking of it. Mister Sabre has said he is going to marry me.”

  “I’ll see him in hell first!” Maclaren replied flatly. “Young man, you stop using my daughter’s name or you’ll face me.”

  “No one,” I said quietly, “has more respect for your daughter’s name than I. It’s true that I’ve said she was to be my wife. That is not disrespectful, and it’s certainly true. As for facing you, I’d rather not. I’d like to keep peace with my future father-in-law.”

  Canaval chuckled and even Olga seemed amused. Key Chapin looked up at Rud. “One aspect of this may have escaped you. Sabre is now a partner of Ball. Why not make it easy for Sabre to stay on, then buy him out?”

  Maclaren’s head lifted as he absorbed the idea. He looked at me with new interest. “We might do business, young man.”

  “We might,” I replied, “but not under threats. Nor do I intend to sell out my partner. Nor did I take the partnership with any idea of selling out. Tomorrow or the next day I shall choose a building site. Also, I expect to restock the Two Bar range. All of which brings me to the point of this discussion. It has come to my attention that Bar M cattle are trespassing on Two Bar range. You have just one week to remove them. The same goes for the CP. You’ve been told and you understand. I hope we’ll have no further trouble.”

  Maclaren’s face purpled with fury. Before he could find words to reply, I was on my feet. “It’s been nice seeing you,” I told Olga. “If you care to help plan your future home, why don’t you ride over?”