Killoe (1962)

by L'amour, Louis

  We were the last to move out, for the cattle had already started, and the wagons had all gone but the one into which we loaded the Mexican, bedding him down in the wagon on a mattress Tim Foley had found he could spare, The day was clear and bright. The cattle had moved off at a good pace with only a few of them striving to turn back.

  Lingering behind, I watched them trail off, and then rode my horse up to the highest bluff and looked off across the country. As far as I could see, the grass moved lightly under the wind, and there was nothing else. In the distance a black object moved out of a draw and started into the plain, then another followed … buffalo.

  Searching the plain, I thought I could see the track that must have been made by the Mexican, for grass that is damp does not immediately straighten up when pressed down, and this track had been made, in part at least, during the night.

  Holding the Patterson rifle in my right hand, I rode down the slope and scouted the vague track I had seen. Even when I was on the ground and close to the track, it was scarcely visible. Nevertheless I found it.

  There was blood on the grass.

  As I walked the horse along, I saw so much mute evidence of the man’s courage that I felt hatred swell within me for whoever had done this to him. Yet I knew that there were many men in Texas, some of them close to me, who believed any Indian or Mexican was fair game.

  Whoever the man was, he had come a 10ng way, and he had come with courage, and for that I had only respect. Courage and bravery are words too often used, too little considered. It is one thing to speak them, another thing to live them. It is never easy to face hardship, suffering, pain, and torture. It is always easier to die, simply to give up, to surrender and let the pain die with you. To fight is to keep pain alive, even to intensify it. And this requires a kind of courage for which I had only admiration.

  And that Mexican, crawling alone and in darkness, had come a long way, and against fearful odds. I thought of him out there in the darkness, stalked by wolves, close to death, yet fighting back; stabbing, thrusting, fighting with the knife clutched desperately in his fist.

  This was a man I wanted for a friend, for of his kind there were too few.

  Dipping into the coulee, I rode my horse up the other side and followed the herd.

  What was it that drove the man on? Was it simply the will to live? To survive in spite of everything? Or was there some other reason? Was it hatred of those who had shot him from the saddle? The desire to live and seek revenge? Or something else?

  When I rejoined the herd Pa was working the drag with Zeb. “Milo says he’s in bad shape,” Pa said. “Did you see anything?” “Only that he crawled a long way last night,”

  I said.

  The cattle were strung out in a long column, all of half a mile from point to drag.

  Moving up behind them with Pa, we started bunching them a little more, but keeping them at a good pace. What we wanted now was distance between us and the Cowhouse; and also the faster we got into dry country, the better.

  Yet they were settling down, and fewer of them were trying to make a break for their home on the Cowhouse. Nor was there any sign of the Holt crowd or any of that renegade bunch. When nightfall came we had another fifteen miles behind us, and we bedded them down in the shelter of a bluff near the Colorado.

  Through dust and rain we made our way westward, and by night the cattle grazed on the short-grass plains and watered from the Colorado River of Texas. Each day with the sun’s rising we were in the saddle, and we did not stop until shadows were tailing across the land.

  The rains were few. Brief showers that served only to settle the dust, but left no pools along the way. The river water ran slack, and Tap’s face was drawn with worry when he saw it, but he said nothing, and neither did Pa.

  But we had staked everything on this westward move, and all of us knew what lay ahead, and we had all heard of the eighty miles of dry country across which we must take the herd.

  It was a hard, grueling business. Alkali dust whitened our faces, dusted over our clothing and our horses. Sweat streaked furrows through the dust, turning our t Our trek had taken us north further than we might need to go, because we wished to strike a known trail sooner, a trail where the difficulties, being known, could be calculated upon and planned for.

  We reached that trail below Fort Phantom Hill, and turned south and west again.

  We were followed.., we saw their dust by day, sensed the restlessness of our horses by night, and we knew they were near.

  We did not know whether they were Comanches prowling to steal ponies and take scalps, or whether they were the renegades from the banks of the Brazos and the Cowhouse.

  Tap Henry killed a buffalo, and the meat was a welcome thing. Later he killed an antelope, and reported Indian sign. The further we went, the wilder the country became.

  We were striking for Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos, used by the Comanches on their raids into Mexico. Named, it was said, for the skulls of the horses that died there after the wild runs up out of Mexico.

  Occasionally we found tracks. The old idea that an Indian always rode an unshod horse and a white man a shod one did not hold true, for Indians often stole shod horses from ranches, and the white man often enough rode an unshod pony.

  Cracked mud in the bottom of waterholes worried us. The river still had water, but it ran shallow. There had been few rains and this was spring—what would it be like in a few weeks more with the sun baking the land?

  There was almost a feeling of doom hanging over us that quieted our songs and stilled our voices. The herd was our all. On this move we had staked our futures, perhaps our lives.

  Off in the front was Tap, usually riding with Pa, guiding our way through the wild, dry country. At night we heard the wolves. By day occasionally we saw them slinking along, watching for a chance to pull down a calf.

  We carried our guns across our saddle-bows, and we rode high in the saddle, ready for trouble. Tempers grew short; we avoided each other, each man guarding himself against the hot words that could come too easily under the circumstances.

  Karen ignored me. Before Tap returned we had walked out together, danced together, gone riding together. Now I hardly saw her; every moment she could spare she was with Tap.

  On this day she was driving the Foley wagon and, breaking away from the herd, I rode over to her. She kept her eyes on the road ahead.

  “I haven’t seen much of you lately,” I said. Her chin went up. “I’ve been busy.” “I noticed that.” I. “I don’t belong to you. I don’t have to answer to you.”

  “No, ma’am, you surely don’t. And Tap’s a good man. One of the best.”

  She turned and looked right straight at me. “I am going to marry him.”

  Marry Tap? Somehow I couldn’t see it. Tap was a drifting man … or that was how I thought of him.

  “Didn’t take you long to make up your mind,” I commented. “You haven’t known him a week.”

  “That’s neither here nor there.” Her temper flared suddenly. “He’s a man! A real man! That’s more than most people can say! He’s more of a man than you’ll ever be!”

  There did not seem reason to be mad about it, except that she was expecting criticism and was all wound up for it.

  “Maybe,” I agreed. “Tap’s a good man,” I said again, “no question about it. Of course, it depends on what makes a man. If I was a woman I’d give a lot of thought to that.

  Now, Tap is a man’s man … he’s strong, he’s regular, he does his work.” “So?”

  “He’s like a lot of men, he doesn’t like to stay hitched. I don’t think he will change.”

  “You’ll see.” But her tone was less positive, and I wondered if she had given it any thought at all. Many a time when a girl gets herself involved with romance she is so busy being in love she doesn’t realize what it can lead to. They are all in a rosy sort of glow until suddenly they find out the man they love was great to be in love with, but hell to be married
to.

  Well, I just drifted off, feeling a sort of ache inside me, and angry with myself for it. Seems to me folks are foolish about other people. Karen and I had walked out together, and folks had come to think of her as my girl, but as a matter of fact, we were scarcely more than good friends. Only now that it seemed I’d lost her, I was sore about it. Not that I could ever claim I’d had a serious thought about her, or her about me.

  Moving over to the drag, I hazed a laggard steer back into the bunch, and ate dust in silence, feeling mean as a grizzly with a sore tooth.

  Yet through it all there was a thread of sanity, and I knew that while there had been nothing between Karen and me but conversation, Tap was all wrong for her. Karen and me had known each other quite a spell, and she knew the others around. Tap Henry was different: he was a stranger who came riding into camp with a fancy outfit and a lot of stories. It was no wonder she was finding something in him that she had been looking for.

  Truth to tell, all folks dream, old and young, and they picture in their minds the girl or man they would like to love and marry. They dream great dreams and most of them settle for much less. Many a time a man and wife lie sleeping in the same bed, dreaming dreams that are miles apart and have nothing in common.

  Only Tap Henry was a drifter—yet maybe not. Maybe Karen was the answer to his dream, too, and maybe he was going to settle down. It seemed unlikely, but it was none of my business.

  Milo Dodge rode back to the drag. “Talked to that Spanish man. He wants to see you.”

  “Me?”

  “You found him. You fetched us to him.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “He won’t say. Except he kept asking me about a man with a spider scar on his cheek, a big, dark man with a deep indentation in his cheek and little scars radiating out from it, like a spider’s legs.”

  We made camp on Antelope Creek where the water was dear and sweet. Large oaks and pecan trees grew along the banks, and the place we fund to locate was a big open meadow of some thirty or forty acres. The cattle scattered along the creek to drink, then wandered back into the meadow to feed.

  Pa came back to where I was sitting my horse in the shade of a big pecan. “Good country,” he said. “It tempts a man.”

  “It does,” I said, “and it might be a good thing to hold up here another day and let the cattle fatten up and drink their fill. From now on, according to Tap, the country gets drier and drier.”

  Tap rode up to join us, and Zeb Lambert followed. The wagons were bunching in a rough circle near the bank of the stream. A faint breeze stirred the leaves of the trees.

  Tap glanced across the Concho at the bluffs beyond the river. Close to where we sat, the Antelope joined the Concho, and the Concho itself pointed our way west.

  “I don’t like those bluffs,” Tap commented, “but we’re as safe here as anywhere, I guess.”

  Pa told him what we were thinking, and he agreed. We couldn’t have chosen a better place to stop, for we had some shelter here from any wind that might blow up, there was good water, and there was grass. The youngsters were already rousing around in the leaves and finding a few pecans left over from the previous fall.

  Switching saddles to a line-back dun, I rode over to the wagon where the Mexican was riding. He was propped up a little, and he had some color in his face.

  “I’m Dan Killoe,” I said.

  He held out a slender brown hand and smiled; his teeth were very white. “‘Gracias, amigo.

  You have save my life, I think. I could go no further.”

  “You’d crawled a fair piece. I don’t see how you did it.”

  He shrugged. “It was water I needed, and a place to hide.” He grew serious. “‘Senor, I must warn you. By sheltering me you will make the enemy … even many enemies.”

  “A man who makes tracks in this world makes enemies also,” I said. “I figure a few more won’t matter.”

  “These are very bad … malo. They are the Comancheros.”

  “I’ve heard of them. Some of your people who trade with the Comanches, is that it?”

  “Si … and we do not approve, senor.

  They found me in their country and they shot at me. I escaped, and they pursued .

  . I killed one Comanchero, and one Comanche. Then they hit me. I fell, they caught me with a rope and dragged me. I got out my knife and cut the rope and I took that man’s horse from him and rode … they pursued again. My horse was killed, but they did not catch me.”

  This Mexican was something of a man. In my mind’s eye I could see that drag and that chase. The only way he could get that horse was to kill its rider, and after that horse was killed he had dragged himself a far piece.

  “You rest easy,” I told him. “Comanchero or Comanche, nobody is going to bother you.”

  “They will come for me.’” He hitched himself to a better position. “You give me a horse and I shall ride. There is no need to risk.”

  “Let them come.” I got down on the ground. “The Good Book says that man is born to trouble. Well, I don’t figure on going against the Bible. What trouble comes, we will handle as we can, but nobody in my family ever drove a wounded man from his door, and we aren’t about to.”

  That line-back dun was a running horse. He was also a horse with bottom. Leaving off the work that had to be done, I started for the Concho, and Zeb Lambert fell in alongside me.

  This was Indian country, and we were expecting them. We scouted along the river for some distance, mainly hunting tracks, or signs of travel, but we found none.

  Across the river we skirted the foot of the bluffs, found a faint trail up, and climbed to the top.

  The wind was free up here, and a man could see for a long distance. We sat our horses, looking over the country. Zeb’s brown hair blew in the wind when he turned his head to look.

  The country away from the river was barren, and promised little. But no matter how we searched the country around we saw no movement, nor any tracks. Finally we circled back to camp.

  They were out there somewhere, we were sure of it. But where?

  The fires were ablaze when we rode in, and there was the good smell of coffee and of steaks broiling. Ben Cole and Freeman Squires had taken the first guard and were already with the cattle.

  The herd was still feeding, relishing the fine, rich grass of the meadow. A few head had returned to the creek to drink again. Somewhere out on the plains a quail called.

  Tap Henry came over to where I stood with Pa. “We’d best double the guard tonight,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling.”

  “We’ve been lucky so far. The way I see it,” Pa said, “that outfit back on the Brazos decided to let us get far enough out so they can blame it on Comanches.”

  Tap looked around at me. “Who’s your Mexican friend?”

  “He had trouble with the Comancheros. Says the man after him had a spider sear on his cheek.”

  Tap gave me an odd look. “Maybe we’d better give him the horse,” he said, and then he got up and walked away.

  “Now, what’s the matter with him?” Pa asked.

  It was unlike Tap to say such a thing, or to shy from trouble with anybody. “He must know something we don’t,” I said. “I’m getting curious about that man with the scar.”

  We ate, and I caught myself a little shut-eye, spreading my soogan under a pecan tree and lying half awake, half asleep, listening to the bustle around the camp.

  All too soon, Zebony came to call me. He was pulling on his boots and, sitting there beside me, he said, “It’s quiet out there … too quiet. You better come loaded for bear.”

  Milo Dodge was at the fire, and so was Aaron Stark. They were drinking coffee, and Stark had his Sharps repeater beside him.

  Stamping my feet into my boots, I walked over to the fire. Once I had got to sleep I’d slept sound.., so sound it worried me, for I did not like to get into the habit of sleeping so soundly I could not be awakened by the slightest move.

 
The coffee was strong, and hot as hell. Pa came to the fire and handed me a cold biscuit, which I ate with my coffee.

  “You boys be careful, now. I never knew Tap to be jumpy, but he surely is tonight.”

  Tom Sandy had the line-back dun ready for me, and when I stepped into the saddle I glanced over at Tap’s bed. The bed was there, but Tap was not. “You seen Tap?”

  Tom turned away. “No, I haven’t!” he said, almost snapping the words at me. Once we were away from the firelight, the night was dark, for the area was partly shielded by the bluffs and the trees. We rode out together, the four of us, scattering to places about the herd. At such a time all the little noises of the night become intensely clear, and sounds which one has always known are suddenly strange and mysterious.

  But the ears of men accustomed to the wilderness and the nighttime silences and sounds choose from among the many small noises those which are a warning. A bird rustling among the leaves, a small animal in the grass, a branch rubbing against another, the grunts and gasps and breathing of the cattle, the click of horns accidentally touching— all these are familiar. We scattered out, circled, and then fell into pairs.

  As always, I rode with Zebony.

  It was very still. Some of the usual noises we did not hear, and this in itself warned us that something was out there, for the small animals and birds become apprehensive at strange movements among them. “What do you think, Zeb?” “They’ll try to get close.”

  Milo Dodge and Stark rode up from the other side. “Milo,” I whispered, “Zeb and me, we’re going to move out into the edge of the trees. We’ll try to meet them before they get to US.”

  “All right,” he said, and watched when I pointed out where we would be.

  We never got the chance. There was one brief instant of warning, a rushing in the grass, and then they came with the black loom of the bluff behind them so that we could catch no outline at which to shoot.

  They came charging, but in silence, and then the first shot was fired.

  It was my shot, fired blindly into the blackness, as much as a warning to the camp as anything.