Law Of the Desert Born (Ss) (1984)

by L'amour, Louis

  Bill Riding got up and walked over to the bar. He was spoilin’ for trouble. As big a man as Kinsella in weight, he was a mite shorter than either of us, but nearly as broad as me. A big-handed man, and a dirty fighter in a rough and tumble.

  “Stranger,” he says, starin’ at Sonora, “y’ seem kind of limitin’ in your offer of a drink. Maybe y’ think . You’re too durned good to drink with us!”

  Sonora had his elbows on the bar right then, and he didn’t straighten; he just turned his head and let those cold eyes take in Riding, head to foot; then he looked back at his drink.

  Riding’s face flamed up, and I saw his lips tighten. His hand shot out, and he grabbed Sonora by the shoulder. Bill just had to be top dog, he just had to have ever’body believin’ he was a bad hombre, but he done the wrong thing when he laid a hand on Sonora.

  The man in the high-crowned hat back-handed his fist into Bill’s unprotected midsection. It caught Bill unsuspectin’, and he staggered, gaspin’ for breath. Then Sonora turned and slugged him. Bill went back into a table, upset it, and then he crawled out of the poker chips with a grunt and started for Sonora.

  Just then Harvey Kinsella stepped into the room, and me, I slid back two quick steps and palmed a six-gun. “Hold it!” I said, hardlike. “Anybody butts into this scrap gets a bellyful of lead!”

  Kinsella looked at me then, the first time he ever seemed to see me. “If you didn’t have that gun out,” he said, “I’d kill you!”

  Me, I laughed. Irn it hadn’t been for Sonora, who was goin’ to town on Riding, I’d have called him.

  Bein’ around like I have, I’ve seen some men take a whippin’, but I never saw any man get a more artistic shellackin’ than Sonora give Bill Riding. He started in on him, and he used both hands. He cut him like you’d chop beef. He sliced his face like he had a knife edge across his knuckles.

  Me, Dan Ketrel, I slug ‘em, and Pap always said I had the biggest fists he ever seen on a man, but Sonora, he went to work like a doc. He raised bumps all over Riding and then lanced ever’ one o’ them with his knuckles. Riding wanted to drop, but Sonora wouldn’t let him fall. He just kept him on his feet until he got so bloody, even I couldn’t take it. Then Sonora hooked one, high and hard, and Bill Riding went down into the sawdust.

  Sonora looked over at me, standin’ with a gun in my THE GUNS TALK LOUD fist. “Thanks,” he said, grinnin’ a little. We understood each other, him and me.

  Harvey Kinsella looked at Riding lying on the floor; then he looked from Sonora to me. I’ll give you until sundown,” he said. Then he turned to go.

  -I like it here,” I said.

  -I’ve told you,” he replied.

  Sonora and me walked outside. Me, I figgered it was time to talk. There’s been talk, I said, of a ranger comin’ in here after that hombre what done that Pierce bank job. Don’t let it worry you none. Not for right now.

  -Down the road a piece there’s a girl, name of Ruth Belton. Her old man was a he-wolf. He’s dead. This here Kinsella, he’s tryin’ to run her off her range. Scared to tackle it when the old man was alive. He’s done put up a fence to keep her cows from the good grass. I aim to cut that fence.”

  He stood there, his big thumbs in his belt, listenin’. Me, I finished rollin’ my smoke. When I cut that fence, there’s goin’ to be some shootin’, but I aim to cut it and aim to kill Harvey Kinsella. He’s got word out that ary a. hand on that fence and his guns talk loud.

  “I aim to cut it. I aim to kill him so’s he won’t never put it up again. But he’s got a sight of boys ridin’ for him. One or two, I might git, but I don’t want nothin’ botherin’ me when I go after Kinsella.”

  “Where’s the fence?” he asked quietly.

  “Down the road a piece.” I struck a match on my pants. I reckon iln we was to ride that way, Ruthie would fix us a bait o’ grub. She’s quite some shakes . With a skillet.”

  Me, I walked out and swung onto the hurricane deck of that big blue horse o’ mine. Sonora lit his owrr shuck and then boarded his mule. He went down the street and took the trail for Ruthie Belton’s place.

  Neither of us said no words all the way until we got up to Ruthie’s place and could see the flowers around her door, and Ruthie waterin’ ‘em down.

  “I reckon,” Sonora said then, “that ranger could hold off Join’ what he has to do till a job like this was over. Don’t reckon he’d wait much longer, though, would he?”

  “Don’t reckon so,” I said grimly. “A man’s got his duty. Still,” I added, “maybe this ranger never seen the hombre he’s lookin’ for. Maybe he ain’t sure when he does see him, so maybe he rides back without him?” “Wouldn’t do no good,” Sonora objected. “Too many others lookin’, and he’d be follered wherever he’d go.”

  Ruth looked up when she heard our horses and then turned to face us, smiling. She looked up at me, and when I looked down into those blue eyes, I figgered what a fool a man was to go lookin’ into guns when there was eyes, soft like that.

  -You’re the man,” she declared, “who protected Shep!”

  Me, I got red around the gills. I ain’t used to palaverin’ with no womenfolk. “I reckon,” I said.

  -Won’t you get down and come in? We were just about to eat.

  We got down, and Sonora sweeps off that high-crowned hat and smiles. “I’ve heard some powerful nice things about the food you cook, ma’am,” he said, “and thank you for a chance to try it.”

  We went inside, and pretty soon Jack come in. He smiled, but I could see he was plumb worried. It didn’t take no mind reader to figger why. Those cows we’d seen was lookin’ mighty poor. It wouldn’t take much time for them to start dyin’ off, eatin’ only the skimpy dry, brown grass.

  When she had the food on the table, Ruthie looked at me, and I could feel my thick neck gettin’ ,red again. You boys just riding, or are you going some particular place?”

  Sonora looked over a forkful of fried spuds. “Dan here, he figgered there was a fence up here needed cuttin’, and he ‘lows as how he’ll cut it. I’m just sort of ridin’ along, in case.”

  Her face whitened. “Oh no! You mustn’t! Harvey Kinsella will kill anybody who touches that fence—he warned usl”

  -Uh-huh.” I picked up my coffee cup. We ain’t got much time here, ma’am. I got a little job to do, and I reckon Sonora has, too. We sort of figgered we’d take care o’ this and Kinsella, too. Then when we rode off up the trail, you’d be all right.”

  When we finished, I tipped back in my chair. It was right homey feelin’, the sort of feelin’ I ain’t had since I was a kid, me bein’ a roamin’ man and all. I got up after a bit and saw Sonora look at me. That mule-ridin’ man never had a hand far from a gun when we were together. For that matter, neither did I.

  It wasn’t that we didn’t trust each other. We both had a job to do, him and me, but we were the cautious tYPe*

  I walked over and picked up the water bucket, then went to the spring and filled it. When I come back, I split a couple of armsful of wood and packed it inside. Sonora, he sat there on the porch, sleepylike, just a-watchin’ me.

  The door had a loose hinge, and I got me a hammer and fixed it, sort of like I used to when I was a kid, and like my pa used to do. It gives a man a sort of homey feelin’, to be fixin’ around. Once I looked up and saw Ruthie lookin’ at me, a sort of funny look in her eyes.

  Then I picked up my hat. Reckon,” I said, “we better be ridin’ up to that fence. It’s ‘most two miles from here.”

  Ruthie, she come to the door, her eyes wide and her face pale. Stop by,” she said, on your way back. I’ll be talon’ a cake out of the oven.”

  “Sure thing,” Sonora said, grinning. “I always did like fresh cake.”

  That was a real woman. Not tellin’ y’ to be careful, not tellin’ us we shouldn’t. That was her, standin’ there shadin’ her eyes again’ the sun as we rode off up the trail, me loungin’ sideways in the saddle, a six-gun under my hand. “You’d
make a family man,” Sonora said half a mile farther along. “Y’ sure would. Ought to have a little spread o’ your own.”

  That made me look up, it cut so close to the trail o’ my own thoughts. “That’s what I always figgered on,” I told him. “Me, I’m through ridin’ rough country.”

  We rode on quietlike. Both of us knowed what was comin’. If’n we came out of this with a whole skin, there was still the main show. I should say, the big showdown. We both knowed it, and neither of us liked it.

  In those few hours we’d come to find we was the same kind of hombre, the same kind of man, and we fought the same way. We were two big men, and when we rode that last mile up there to the fence, I was thinkin’ that here, at last, was a man to ride through hell with. And then I had to do to him what I had to do’ because it was the job I had.

  The fence was there, tight and strong. “Give me some cover,” I suggested to Sonora. “I’m goin’ to ride up and cut her-but good!”

  The air was clear, and my voice carried, and then I saw Bill Riding step down from the junipers, a rifle holdin’ easy in his hands. His voice rang loud in the draw. “Y’ ain’t cuttin’ nothin’, neither of your Me, I sat there with my hands down. My rifle was in my saddle boot, and he was out of six-gun range. I could see the slow smile on his face as that rifle came up. That moro o’ mine never lost a rider no quicker in his life. I went off, feet first, and hit the ground gun in hand. I’d no more than hit it before somethin’ bellowed THE GUNS TALK LOUD like a young cannon, and out of the tail o’ my eye I saw Sonora had unlimbered those big Walker Colts.

  My six-shooter was out, but I wasn’t lookin’ at Riding. He was beyond my reach, but there was a movement in the junipers close down, on our side of the fence, and I turned and saw Harvey Kinsella there behind us. He had a smile on his face, and I could almost see his lips tighten as he squeezed off his first shot.

  When I started bumin’ powder I don’t know. Somethin’ hit Kinsella, and he went back on his heels, his face lookin’ sick, and then I started walkin’ in on him. It helped me keep my mind on business to walk into a man while I was shootin’.

  Somebody blazed at me from the brush, and when I tried a snapshot that way, I heard a whinin’ cry and a rifle rattled on the rocks. But I was walkin’ right at Kinsella, and his guns were goin’. I could see flame stabbin’ at me from their muzzles, but when I figgered I had four shots left, I kept walkin’ in and holdini my fire.

  Behind me them Walkers was blastin’ like a couple of cannon from the war atween the states. I wasn’t worried about Sonora takin’ out on me. He was an hombre to ride the river with. Besides, we each had us a job to do.

  Then Kinsella was down on his face, the back o’ his fancy coat stainin’ red. Two other hombres were down, too, and I could hear the rattle of racid hoofs as some others took off through the brush.

  Then I turned, thumbin’ shells into my guns, and Sonora was there, leanin’ on a fence post, one o’ those big guns danglin’ from his fist.

  Me, I walked over to the fence, haulin’ the wire cutters from my belt, the pair I picked up at the girl’s ranch. My head was drummin’ somethin’ awful, like maybe there was still more shootin’. But it wasn’t that-it was deathly still. Y’ couldn’t hear a sound but the loud click o’ my cutters.

  When I finished, I turned toward Sonora. He was slumped over the fence then, and there was blood comin’ from somewhere high up on his chest. I took the gun out of his fingers and stuck it in his holster. Then I hoisted him on my shoulder and started for his mule. That mule wasn’t noways skittish. I got Sonora aboard and then crawled up on the moro. When I was in the saddle again, I looked around.

  Riding was dead, anybody could see that.. He’d been hit more than once, and half his head was Wowed off. There was another hombre close beside him, and he was dead, too.

  As for Kinsella, I didn’t have to look at him. I knowed when I was shootin’ that I was killin’ him, but I walked over to him.

  Three times on my way back to Ruthie’s I had to stop and straighten Sonora in the saddle, even with his wrists tied to the horn.

  Before I got through the gate, Ruthie was rennin’ down toward us, and Jack, too. Then I must’ve Passed out.

  When my eyes cracked to light again, it was !amplight, and the room wasn’t very bright. Ruthie was sittin’ by my bed, sewin’.

  “Sonora?” I asked.

  -He’ll be all right. He’d been shot twice. You men! You’re both so big! I don’t see how any bullet could ever kill your Me, I was thinkin’ it might not take a bullet, but a rope.

  Kinsella got me once, low down on the side. Just a flesh wound, but from what jack told me, it must’ve bled like all get-out.

  When it was later, Ruthie got up and put her sewin’ away; then she went into another room and to sleep. I give her an hour, as close as I could figger. Then I rolled back the blanket and got my feet under me. I was THE GUNS TALK LOUD some weak, but it takes a lot of lead to ballast down an hombre big as me.

  Softly, I opened the door. Ruthie was lyin’ on a pallet, asleep. Me, I blushes, seein’ her that way, her hair all over the pillow like a lot of golden web caught in the moonlight. Easy as could be, I slipped by. Sonora’s door was open, and he was lyin’ in Jack’s bed, a chair under his feet to make it long enough.

  Well, there he was, the hombre that meant my ranch to me. I’d strapped on my guns, but as I stood there lookin’ down, I figgered it was a wonder he hadn’t shot it out already. That reward was dead or alive.

  Suddenly, I almost jumped out of my skin. Only one o’ them big Walker Colts was in its holster! Why, that durned coyote! Lyin’ there with a gun under the blanket, and the chances was he was awake that minute.

  Hell! I’d go back to bed! It never did a man no good to run from the law, not even in the wild country! Soon or late, she always caught up with him.

  In the mornin’, I’d just finished splashin’ water on my face when I looked up and he was leanin’ again’ the door post. Howdy,” he said, grinnin’. Sleep well?”

  My face burned. “Well as you did, y’ durned possumplayin’ maverick!”

  He grinned. “Man in my place can’t be too careful.” He looked at me. Ready to ride, or is it a showdown?” Sonora had his guns on, and there was a quizzical light in those funny eyes o’ his’n.

  He was a big man, big as me, and the only man I ever saw I’d ride with. Hell,” I said, ain’t y’ goin’ to eat brearst? I’ll ride with you because you’re too good a man to kill!”

  Ruthie was puttin’ food on the table, and she looked at us queerly. What’s between you two?” she asked quicklike.

  -Why, Ruthie,” I said, this here hombre’s a Texas ranger. He figgers I’m the hombre what robbed that bank over to Piercer’

  She stared at me. Then-you’re a prisonerr Ma’am, Sonora said, gulpin’ a big swaller o’ hot coffee, don’t you fret none. I reckon he ain’t no crook. Just had a minute or two o’ bein’ a durned fool! I reckon that bank’s plumb anxious to git their money back, and I know this hombre’s got it on him because last tight” he grinned “whenIle was asleep, I had me a look at his money belt!”

  Before I could bust out and say anythin’, he adds, I figger that bank’s goin’ to be so clurned anxious to git their money back, they won’t fret too much when I suggest this hombre be sent back here, sort of on good behavior. I’d say he’d make a good hand around a layout like this.

  Then I bust in. Got this all wrong, Sonora, I told him. Y’ been trailin’ the wrong man! Rather, y’ trailed the right man, and then when y’ walked into the Chuck Wagon, y’ took too much for granted.

  -I didn’t rob no bank. I’ll admit I got to thinkin’ about ownin’ a ranch, and I rode into town with the money in mind. Then I heard the shootin’ and lit out. The man who robbed the bank, I said, was Harvey Kinsella. I took the money belt off him. His name’s marked on it!” He stared at me. Well, I’ll be durnedr he said. Ruthie was lookin’ at me, her eyes all bright an
d happy. Man, I was sayin’,figgered you fer the bandit, first off. I was figgerin’gittin’ you fer the reward, needin’ that money like I was fer a ranch. An’ I was tryin’ to decide if I should take y’ in or let y’ gor Sonora shook his head.

  Ruthie smiled at me and then at him. I’m going to try and fix it, Sonora, she said, so he’ll stay here. I think he’d be a good man around a ranch some place where he could take a personal interest in things!”

  There was a tint o’ color in her skin.

  -just what I think, ma’am, Sonora shoved back his THE GUNS TALK LOUD chair. I got up and handed him the money belt. “And Ruthie, be continued, “if I was to ride by, y’ reckon it’d be all right to stop in?”

  She smiled as she filled my cup. “Of course, Sonora, and we’ll be mighty glad to see your’

  *

  Author’s Note:

  DEADWOOD DICK

  Among black riders famous for their skills were Matthew (Bones) Hooks, Nigger Add, Bronco Sam Stewart, and, of course, in later days, Bill Pickett, who invented bulldogging.

  There has been much talk about Deadwood Dick, but there was no such person. He was a creation of a writer of dime novels, Edward L. Wheeler, who wrote for Beadle & Adams. Many men claimed to be the original Deadwood Dick, and Richard Clarke, of Deadwood, South Dakota, was selected by the city fathers to play the part. Bert Bell, a publicity man prepared the stories and found the outfit of clothes Clarke was to wear. He was sent east to invite Calvin Coolidge, then president, to Deadwood. Clarke succeeded so well that he never gave up the role of Deadwood Dick.

  In 1927, when Clarke was selected to play the part, there were few horses on the streets of Deadxvood and a great many cars. There is no evidence that Richard Clarke ever fired a rifle or pistol in his life, but suddenly, through Bell’s efforts, he became a celebrity. There were free drinks, free meals, and a much better life than he’d known, and Clarke was wise enough to accept what the gods—and Bert Bell-had given. He played Deadwood Dick until his death.