Novel 1971 - Tucker (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Did Heseltine know what was going on? In such a small community there would be few secrets, and Villareal might have warned him of what was going on between Todd and Ruby Shaw—or Elaine Ross, as she now called herself.

  Awakening in the last cold hour before the dawn, I found myself filled with a sort of dread. Suddenly I wanted nothing so much as to be out of this town. What inspired the feeling I did not know, but I was never one to buck my instincts.

  Only a few minutes were necessary to pack my things and belt on my gun. Downstairs I went through the empty lobby, paused to look along the street where daylight was just beginning.

  The street was empty, the Plaza was empty. I crossed the street and walked quickly along it toward the livery stable, my boots echoing on the sidewalk.

  It was shadowy inside the livery stable, with only a faint glow from the lantern. In the stall my horse nickered and I saddled up, swung my saddlebags into place, and thrust my Winchester into the boot.

  The horse was the rented one I had ridden before. Having come west on the stage, I no longer had a horse of my own, a situation that must be remedied at once.

  Mounting, I turned the horse into the dusty street and rode quickly down Main Street. Water trickled in the zanja. Under a couple of slender eucalyptus trees, and partly screened by clumps of century plant, I pulled off the street and looked back the way I had come.

  A wagon with a double sprinkler was laying the dust on Main Street. It was the only thing in sight. I was now where the houses were more scattered, and soon I would be turning into the road that followed what had once been an Indian trail5 leading west toward Santa Monica, but though I watched for several minutes, I saw no one.

  There were groves of oranges, walnuts, and olives near where I waited, as well as further along, but they were poor places of concealment, so why was I so jumpy?

  Abruptly, answering to instinct, I turned off the traveled way and rode down a dusty lane between two rows of orchards, past several of Holloway’s Patent mills, and into a patch of prickly pear, crossed and crisscrossed by horse trails.

  Once more I stopped, watching from hiding to see if I was followed. Riding into the prickly pear, I crossed a knoll and could see far ahead of me the cienaga, ten miles long by several miles wide over much of its area. The grass grew green there even in the driest weather, for most of that stretch was sub-irrigated.

  By a roundabout route I rode back to the old Mexican’s home. He saw me coming, and walked out to greet me. “Come, amigo, come inside! There is coffee.”

  I tied my horse at the corral, and followed him into the adobe. It was cool inside, and the view from the door was good. Any rider approaching could be seen for some distance.

  The boy came in. “The men you seek are gone,” he said. “I saw them find the paper I left, and when they read it there was argument. Later they brought out their horses and they rode from town, but Villareal did not go.”

  “I am not interested in him.”

  “But he is interested in you. He went to the livery stable looking for a roan horse, and then he asked many questions. He knows what horse you ride, señor.”

  “I shall not ride him any more. I want to buy a horse, a good one, a tough one.”

  “There are many here,” the old man said. “Since the cattle have become so few there are many horses. I will find you one.”

  “Is there a way down from the mountain behind us? Some way that Villareal might know?”

  The old man shrugged. “There are ways, but he will not come close.” He gestured. “I have guinea hens, and they are very alert. If anything strange moves they set up a fearful noise.”

  We had guinea hens in Texas, and I knew there was no better alarm, for they were more alert than even a good watchdog. And they were scattered over the yard here and along the mountainside, feeding.

  The old man saddled a horse and rode away, and I sat by the door, watching the vast open space before me. The valley in which Los Angeles lay was fifty miles long by twenty wide, and from where I sat, much of it could be seen. Like the Pico House where I had stayed, the town was lighted by gas.

  Conchita, the old man’s granddaughter, brought me fresh coffee, some tortillas, and beans, placing them on a table beside me. Glad of somebody to talk to, she spoke of the town and the people. She was a bright girl, very much aware of her town and of California.

  “Do you read, Conchita?”

  “Yes. My mother taught me to read. She taught all of us—papa, too.”

  “She was Spanish?”

  “No, she was an Indian. She was a Chumash.”

  “The ones who built the red boats? And who went to Catalina and the Channel Islands?”

  “Yes. They lived sometimes there, sometimes on shore. My mother’s people lived up the coast near Malibu.”

  We talked of the area, of her people, and of Los Angeles. From time to time I would get up and look around, for I wanted no one coming close to me unbeknownst.

  “The men of business are Irish or German, most of them,” she said. “Mr. Downey is the richest man, I think.

  “We are poor people, señor, but we live very well here, for there is game in the mountains, and we raise our own vegetables. My grandfather has cattle, and some horses. Sometimes on Sundays we go to the Washington Gardens in Los Angeles, or to Old Santa Monica, to swim. We like the old town best.”

  She was leading up to something, and not just talking at random, for I had noticed that she was a young lady of purpose, rarely given to idle talk or wasted motion.

  “Señor,” she said suddenly, “if you wish to remain close there is a cabin in the canyon nearby. It is higher up than this. My father built it, for one day he hoped to live there. It is a place no one knows, and if you wished to stay there and watch, it could be arranged.”

  “I have men to follow,” I said doubtfully, “and I must find them.”

  “They will come to you, señor. Villareal looks for you, and it is not for himself. I think when he finds you he will tell them.”

  The vague, haunted feeling stayed with me. I had an idea I had been followed, even though I had seen no indication of it. Perhaps they had traced my actions on my previous ride…a few inquiries might have done that, for almost no one moves entirely unseen. People are curious, wondering at strangers, or curious about anyone who is seen at unlikely times or in unlikely places.

  I did not want to endanger my friends. “This place you spoke of, Old Santa Monica?” I asked Conchita. “It is near the sea?”

  She explained that the trail to the plateau would take me there. The carriages would stop at Old Santa Monica Corral and at Frank’s Saloon, a large pavilion with a rustic porch running across the front. There was a brook nearby and a clump of alders.

  For another hour I waited, and then the old man returned leading a line-back dun, with legs black to the knee, and black mane and tail.

  “Seventy dollars,” he said, “and it is cheap.”

  When evening came to the valley below, and when lamps were being lit in the scattered houses, I said my good-byes and rode down the slope through the brush, turned off the trail, and cut across the grassland, losing myself in the shadows. It was chill, for when the sun goes down in that country the cold air comes, as it came now.

  The dun went with a long, easy stride. Westward I rode, across the darkening plains, down the slope of the long hill and across the wide pastureland, until I could see the Santa Monica road, white in the moonlight, but I avoided it, holding to the north of it until the lights of the town were close.

  I felt sure there would be little about the area that Villareal did not know. I rode over the plateau and down to Old Santa Monica, where there were lights in Frank’s Saloon, and the sound of the surf along the beach. Dismounting at the corral, I tied my horse, and waited there in the shadows, letting my ears get used to the rustle of the leaves, the movements of the sea, and the sound of voices from the saloon. Only then did I cross the hard-packed clay of the yard and g
o up the steps to the wide porch.

  There were half a dozen people in the saloon, several drinking at the bar, and two who sat at a table nearby with a bottle of country wine.

  The table I chose was at one side, on the edge of the light. I sat down, put my hat on the chair beside me, and soon a waiter came over to my table.

  When I had ordered a meal and coffee, I began to relax. It was an easy, pleasant place. The talk was friendly, and I sensed at once that it was a good place to be.

  Frank—I supposed it to be Frank—came to my table. “You wish to stay the night? I have rooms,” he said.

  “I would.”

  He glanced at the pistol in its holster. “You will not need that here, my friend. We are a friendly people.”

  “I am sure.” I smiled at him. “I do not carry it for you or your people,” I said, “but for others who may come along.”

  “You have enemies?”

  “Doesn’t everyone? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But tonight I want only to rest and listen to the sea, to eat a good dinner, to drink coffee, and to wait. Tomorrow? It is another day, and when tomorrow comes I shall go over the mountain, I think, or follow some of the Chumash trails toward Ventura.”

  “You know about the Chumash? They were a good people, and a daring people. There are caves in these mountains with their paintings. I have found many myself. They were not such a simple people as some would have you believe. Their lives, yes, and their customs were simple, but not their thinking.”

  When he had gone I ate and listened to a girl singing somewhere out of sight, a pleasant old song in Spanish.

  Soon, after a good dinner and several cups of coffee, I was thoroughly at ease. So much so that when the stranger walked in I scarcely noticed him. Not, at least, until his face turned toward me.

  It was Doc Sites.

  Chapter 15

  *

  HIS EYES MET mine across the room, and for a moment he remained still. His fingers were on the bar-edge, his body close against it. I did not want to kill him, and to draw against me he must move back from the bar and turn. For the moment the advantage was mine.

  “How are you, Doc? Looking for me?”

  He had difficulty saying it, but he finally got it out. “No,” he said hoarsely, “no, I ain’t. I’m lookin’ for them. They cut out and left me. They took it all.”

  “They aren’t going to keep it, Doc.”

  “You’re damn right they ain’t! I’m goin’ to find them, and—”

  “Find who?” It was Bob Heseltine. He stepped in out of the darkness, a gun in his hand.

  Behind me Kid Reese spoke. “An’ you set still, Shell, or I’ll—”

  Frank had a double-barreled shotgun in his hands and it was covering Heseltine. “Your fight is your own, and I want no part of it, but if you fire that pistol I’ll knock you right off those steps. I just mopped this floor, and blood is hard to get up.”

  I tilted on the balls of my feet, clearing three legs of the chair off the floor and spinning on the other. I turned low and hard, swinging my arms wide. One of them struck the Kid’s wrist and knocked his arm over and I came up, driving into him with all my strength.

  He was slim and wiry, not as strong as I was by a good bit, and my attack had taken him by surprise, his attention drawn by the bartender’s sudden challenge of Heseltine. He staggered back, and I slugged him hard in the wind, my left hand gripping his gun wrist. The gun went off into the floor and I hit him again.

  He lost his grip on the gun and I turned loose with both hands. I had never realized how much I wanted to hit Kid Reese. He had always treated me with contempt, and I had always known he despised me but I had not wanted to admit it.

  My blows were not only for him, but for the fact that I had once been stupid enough to want to be like him. I smashed him again and again in the face and the body until he sagged to the floor, blood dripping from a broken nose, his cheek ripped open by a blow.

  Then I turned sharply around. Heseltine, his gun in hand, was standing very still, Frank’s shotgun held steady on his belt buckle. No man in his right mind, and especially not such a gun-canny man as Heseltine, wanted to tackle a shotgun at twelve feet.

  “He’s supposed to be very good, Frank,” I said. “Let him holster his gun and then turn him loose. I want to see how good he is.”

  “Nothing doing.” Frank’s voice was casual. “I have no part in your troubles. I want no shooting in here.”

  He gestured with the muzzle. “You there! Shove that mouse back into its hole. Then you back out of here, get on your horse, and ride out. One wrong move and I’ll cut you in two.

  “In case you want to know, by this time, my cook is settin’ by the back door with a Winchester, and he’ll have you dead in his sights from the moment you step outside. You ride out of here, and I don’t give a damn where you go, but get out.”

  “As for you”—he spoke to me without turning his head—“you ride right after him…and don’t come back here wearing a gun. Now start moving.”

  Bob Heseltine backed toward the door. There he stopped. “You’ll get your chance, Tucker. I’ll see to that.”

  “Thanks, Bob,” I said. “I’ve been wondering why you were ducking me. Your friend Al Cashion couldn’t do your dirty work for you. I figured when you sent him you’d lost your nerve.”

  “Lost my nerve? Why, you—”

  “Move!” Frank yelled at him. “Now!”

  Heseltine vanished through the doorway and I turned slowly to look at Kid Reese. He was on his hands and knees now, blood dripping in slow drops from his nose.

  Doc Sites was still standing at the bar. He had held very still, his hands on the bar, his face dead white. He was scared…scared stiff.

  “Thanks, Frank,” I said. “I’ll be leaving.”

  “Don’t thank me. Just get out. This here is a decent place. I want no shooting.”

  “Let these two go together,” I suggested. “They deserve each other.”

  With that I stepped out into the darkness, listening to the fading sound of Heseltine’s horse’s hoofs. For a moment I waited in the shadows, then crossed swiftly to the corral and pulled the drawstring on the slipknot with which I had tied my horse.

  I swung into the saddle, and turned up the coast. I had no intention of following Heseltine into the dark and into a possible ambush. Right now I wanted to get away. The sudden flurry of fighting with Kid Reese had taken a lot of the animosity out of me.

  As for Doc Sites, I had nothing to do with him. He had been shot, he had evidently been robbed by his former companions, and he would suffer enough. What would happen between him and Kid Reese I neither knew nor cared. The thing I wanted was my money.

  Suddenly, I wondered…where was that money? Who had it now? Ruby Shaw? She had some, perhaps, but not all. I could not believe Heseltine would be so gullible.

  Turning my horse into deeper darkness, I rode with caution, seeking the white line of a trail that led along the plateau and through the brush and clumps of pin oak. And then I knew what I would do, and I circled and rode hard for the hills above the La Ballona ranch.

  As I rode it came to me what I had done. Only a few minutes before I had challenged Bob Heseltine to a shoot-out! I had done that.

  Conchita put her head out of the window as I rode into the yard. Yes, I could have a horse. Her grandfather was gone; only her brother was here. Swiftly, I swapped horses and rode out of the yard and down the trail toward Los Angeles.

  When I rode down the street, across the Plaza, and into Sonora Town, it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. I knew the house to which I was going, and I dismounted in the shadows of an alleyway nearby. Heseltine might be here, but the chances were he had not yet returned—if, indeed, he was coming back at all.

  Villareal’s house was dark. It was a small adobe with a porch across the front and a backyard with a board fence around it. There was a stable with a door opening to the alley.

  Stepping into the stab
le door I stood at one side, my hand on my gun, waiting and listening.

  The horses rolled their eyes at me. There was a smell of hay, of horse manure, and of sweat. I eased across the barn, speaking softly to the horses. One of them snorted a little, not loudly, but I spoke again and the horses continued with their chomping of hay.

  I touched each one as I passed…and the last of the four horses was damp with sweat. It had been hard ridden, and not rubbed down.

  Heseltine? Or Villareal?

  I started to move on when a faint gleam from the back of the farthest horse drew my attention. It had been the first horse I had touched, when my eyes were not yet used to the darkness. I had merely put a hand on the horse’s hip in passing.

  Now I saw something I had not seen before. That horse was saddled.

  I went back along the space behind the stalls and stepping into the last one I spoke to the horse, then patted it…dry and cool. My hand went to the saddle, feeling the blanket. The blanket was damp.

  I paused, listening. Somebody had ridden back here, riding hard. That somebody had swapped his saddle from the hard-ridden horse to a fresh horse and was evidently planning to leave at once.

  He had gone into the house for something. For what? For his gear? For food and a canteen? Or for those things, and the money as well?

  Glancing around quickly, I looked for a hiding place. The stalls were divided merely by poles that were waist-high, running from the wall to posts that supported the barn roof. I did not want to endanger the horses. The only place seemed beside the door.

  As I turned to start for it the barn door opened, and there was a man with a lantern in one hand, a gun in the other. Over his shoulder was a pair of heavy saddlebags.

  My own gun slid into my hand. “You can drop that gun,” I said quietly.

  Light from the lantern reflected from silver conchas on the shotgun chaps. It was Villareal.

  “No,” he said.

  “I do not want to shoot you, but the money is mine.”

  “But I have it,” he replied as quietly as I had spoken.

  “A dead man does not spend money,” I told him.