Collection 1986 - The Trail To Crazy Man (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  The younger one looked at me, sneering. “What if he sends me?” Contempt twisted his lips. “If I’d not lost my gun in the scramble I’d make you eat that.”

  “Jolly! Lend me your gun!”

  Without a word, Jolly Benaras handed it to me.

  The youngster’s eyes were cold and calculating, but wary now. He suspected a trick, but could not guess what it might be.

  Taking the gun by the barrel, I walked toward him. “You get your chance,” I said. “I’m giving you this gun, and you can use it any way you like. Try a border roll or shoot through that open-tip holster. Anyway you try it, I’m going to kill you.”

  HE STARED AT me and then at the gun.

  His tongue touched his lips. He wanted that gun more than anything else in the world. He had guts, that youngster did, guts and the streak of viciousness it takes to make a killer, but suddenly he was face to face with it at close range and he didn’t like it. He would learn if he lived long enough, but right now he didn’t like any part of it. Yet he wore the killer’s brand and we both knew it.

  “It’s a trick,” he said. “You ain’t that much of a fool!”

  “Fool?” That brought my own fury surging to the top. “Why, you cheap, phony, would-be badman! I’d give you two guns and beat you any day you like! I’ll face you right now. You shove your gun in my belly and I’ll shove mine in yours! If you want to die, that makes it easy! Come on, gunslick! What do you say?”

  Crazy? Right then I didn’t care. His face turned whiter but his eyes were vicious. He was trembling with eagerness to grab that gun. But face to face? Guns shoved against the body? We would both die. We couldn’t miss. He shook his head, his lips dry.

  My fingers held the gun by the barrel. Tossing it up suddenly I caught it by the butt, and without stopping the motion, I slashed the barrel down over his skull. He hit the dirt at my feet. Turning my back on them I returned the pistol to Jolly.

  “You!” I said then to the redhead. “Take off your boots!”

  “Huh?” He was startled.

  “Take ’em off! Then take his off! When he comes out of it, start walking!”

  “Walkin’?” Red’s face blanched. “Look, man, I’ll—”

  “You’ll walk. All the way back to Hattan or the BarM. You’ll start learnin’ what it means to try stealin’ a man’s ranch.”

  “It was orders,” he protested.

  “You could quit, couldn’t you?”

  His face was sullen. “Wait until Maclaren hears of this! You won’t last long! Far as that goes”—he motioned at the still figure on the ground—“he’ll be huntin’ you now. That’s Bodie Miller!”

  The name was familiar. Bodie Miller had killed five or six men. He was utterly vicious, and although lacking seasoning, he had it in him to be one of the worst of the badmen.

  We watched them start, three men in their sock feet with twenty miles of desert and mountains before them. Now they knew what they had tackled. They would know what war meant.

  The cattle were no cause for worry. They would drift into canyons where there was plenty of grass and water, more than on the B Bar B. “Sure you won’t need help?” Jolly asked hopefully. “We’d like to side you.”

  “Not now. This is my scrap.”

  They chuckled. “Well,” Jolly grinned, “they can’t never say you didn’t walk in swingin’. You’ve jumped nearly the whole durned country!”

  NOBODY KNEW THAT better than I, so when they were gone I took my buckskin and rode back up the narrow Two Bar Canyon. It narrowed down and seemed to end. Unless one knew, a glance up the canyon made it appear to be boxed in, but actually there was a turn and a narrower canyon leading into a maze of canyons and broken lava flows. There was an ancient cliff house back there, and in it Ball and I had stored supplies for a last-ditch stand. There was an old kiva with one side broken and room enough to stable the buckskin.

  At daybreak I left the canyon behind me, riding watchfully, knowing I rode among enemies. No more than two miles from the canyon toward which I was heading, I rounded a bend and saw a dozen riders coming toward me at a canter. Sighting me, they yelled in chorus, and a shot rang out. Wheeling the buckskin I slapped the spurs to him and went up the wash at a dead run. A bullet whined past my ear, but I dodged into a branch canyon and raced up a trail that led to the top of the plateau. Behind me I heard the riders race past the canyon’s mouth. Then there was a shout as a rider glimpsed me, and the wheeling of horses as they turned. By the time they entered the canyon mouth I was atop the mesa.

  Sliding to the ground, Winchester in hand, I took a running dive to shelter among some rocks and snapped off a quick shot. A horse stumbled, and his rider went off over his head. I opened up, firing as rapidly as I could squeeze off the shots. They scattered for shelter, one man scrambling with a dragging leg.

  Several of the horses had raced away, and a couple of others stood ground hitched. On one of these was a big canteen. A bullet emptied it, and when the other horse turned a few minutes later, I shot into that canteen also. Bullets ricocheted around me, but without exposing themselves they could not get a good shot at me, while I could cover their hideout without trouble.

  A foot showed and I triggered my rifle. A bit of leather flew up and the foot was withdrawn. My position could not have been better. As long as I remained where I was, they could neither advance nor retreat, but were pinned down and helpless. They were without water, and it promised to be an intensely hot day. Having no desire to kill them, I still wished to make them thoroughly sick of the fight. These men enjoyed the fighting as a break in the monotony of range work, but knowing cowhands, I knew they would become heartily sick of a battle that meant waiting, heat, no water, and no chance to fight back.

  FOR SOME TIME all was still. Then a man tried to crawl back toward the canyon mouth, evidently believing himself unseen. Letting go a shot at a rock ahead of him, I splattered his face with splinters, and he ducked back, swearing loudly.

  “Looks like a long hot day, boys!” I yelled. “See what it means when you jump a small outfit? Ain’t so easy as you figured, is it?”

  Somebody swore viciously, and there were shouted threats. My own canteen was full, so I sat back and rolled a smoke. Nobody moved below, but the sun began to level its burning rays into the oven of the canyon mouth. The hours marched slowly by, and from time to time when some thirsty soul grew restive at waiting, I threw a shot at him.

  “How long you figure you can keep us here?” one of them yelled. “When we get out, we’ll get you!”

  “Maybe you won’t get out,” I yelled back cheerfully. “I like it here. I’ve got water, shade, grub, and plenty of smokin’ tobacco. Also,” I added, “I’ve got better than two hundred rounds of ammunition. You hombres are riding for the wrong spread.”

  Silence descended over the canyon and two o’clock passed. Knowing they could get no water aggravated their thirst. The sun swam in a coppery sea of heat, and the horizon lost itself in heat waves. Sweat trickled down my face and down my body under the arms. Where I lay, there was not only shade but a slight breeze, but down there, heat would reflect from the canyon walls and all wind would be shut off. Finally, letting go with a shot, I slid back out of sight and got to my feet.

  My buckskin cropped grass near some rocks, well under the shade. Shifting my rifle to my left hand I slid down the bank, mopping my face with my right. Then I stopped stock-still, my right hand belt high. Backed up against a rock near my horse was a man I knew at once although I had never seen him—Rollie Pinder!

  “You gave them boys hell,” he said conversationally, “an’ good for ’em. They’re Bar M riders. It’s a shame it has to end.”

  “Yeah,” I drawled, watching him closely. He could be waiting for only one reason.

  “Hear you’re mighty fast, but it won’t do you any good. I’m Rollie Pinder!”

  AS HE SPOKE, he grabbed for his gun.

  My left hand was on the rifle barrel a few inches ahead of the trigg
er guard, the butt in front of me, the barrel pointed slightly up. I tilted the gun hard, and the stock struck my hip as my hand slapped the trigger guard and trigger.

  Rollie’s gun had come up smoking, but my finger closed on the trigger a split second before his slug hit me. It felt as if I had been kicked in the side, and I took a staggering step back, a rock rolling under my foot just enough to throw me out of the line of his second shot.

  Then I fired again, having worked the lever unconsciously.

  Rollie went back against the rocks and tried to bring his gun up. He fired as I did. The world weaved and waved before me, but Rollie was down on his face, great holes torn in his back where the .44 slugs had emerged. Turning, scarcely able to walk, I scrambled up the incline to my former position. My head was spinning and my eyes refused to focus, but the shots had startled the men and they were getting up. If they started after me now, I was through.

  The ground seemed to dip and reel, but I got off a shot, then another. One man went down and the others vanished as if swallowed by the earth. Rolling over, my breath coming in ragged gasps, I ripped my shirttail off and plugged cloth into my wounds. I had to get away at all costs, but I could never climb back up to the cliff house, even if the way were open.

  My rifle dragging, I crawled and slid to the buckskin. Twice I almost fainted from weakness. Pain was gripping my vitals, squeezing and knotting them. Somehow I got to my horse, grabbed a stirrup, managed to get a grip on the pommel, and pulled myself into the saddle. Getting my rifle back into its scabbard, I got some piggin strings and tied myself into the saddle. Then I started the buckskin toward the wilderness, and away from my enemies.

  Day was shooting crimson arrows into the vast bowl of the sky when my eyes opened again. My head swam with effort, and I stared about, seeing nothing familiar. Buck had stopped beside a small spring in a canyon. There was grass and a few trees, with not far away the ruin of a rock house. On the sand beside the spring was the track of a mountain lion, several deer tracks and what might be a mountain sheep, but no cow, horse, or human tracks.

  Fumbling with swollen fingers, I untied the piggin strings and slid to the ground. Buck snorted and sidestepped and then put his nose down to me inquiringly. He drew back from the smell of stale clothes and dried blood, and I lay there, staring up at him, a crumpled human thing, my body raw with pain and weakness. “It’s all right, Buck,” I whispered. “We’ll pull through! We’ve got to pull through!”

  CHAPTER IV

  Over me the sky’s high gray faded to pink shot with blood-red swords that swept the red into gold. As the sun crept up, I lay there, still beneath the wide sky, my body washed by a sea of dull pain that throbbed and pulsed in my muscles and veins. Yet within beat a deeper, stronger pulse, the pulse of the fighting man that would not let me die without fighting, that would not let me lie long without movement.

  Turning over, using hand grasps of grass, I pulled myself to the spring and drank deep of the cool, clear, life-giving water. The wetness of it seemed to creep through all my tissues, bringing peace to my aching muscles and life to my starved body. To live I must drink, and I must eat, and my body must have rest and time to mend. Over and over these thoughts went through my mind, and over and over I said them, staring at my helpless hands.

  With contempt I looked at them, hating them for their weakness. And then I began to fight for life in those fingers, willing them to movement, to strength. Slowly my left hand began to stir, to lift at my command, to grasp a stick.

  Triumph went through me. I was not defeated! Triumph lent me strength, and from this small victory I went on to another—a bit of broken manzanita placed across the first, a handful of scraped up leaves, more sticks.

  Soon I would have a fire.

  I was a creature fighting for survival, wanting only to live and to fight. Through waves of delirium and weakness, I dragged myself to an aspen where I peeled bark for a vessel—fainting there, coming to, struggling back to the place for my fire, putting the bark vessel together with clumsy fingers. With the bark vessel, a sort of box, I dipped into the water but had to drag it to the sand, lacking the strength to lift it up, almost crying with weakness and pain.

  Lighting my fire, I watched the flames take hold. Then I got the bark vessel atop two rocks in the fire, and the flames rose around it. As long as the flames were below the water level of the vessel, I knew, the bark would not burn, for the heat was absorbed by the water inside. Trying to push a stick under the vessel I leaned too far and fainted.

  WHEN NEXT I opened my eyes the water was boiling. Pulling myself to a sitting position, I unbuckled my thick leather belt and let my guns fall back on the ground. Then, carefully, I opened my shirt and tore off a corner of it. I soaked it in the boiling water and began to bathe my wounds. Gingerly working the cloth plugs free of the wounds, I extracted them. The hot water felt good, but the sight of the wound in my side was frightening. It was red and inflamed, but near as I could see as I bathed it, the bullet had gone through and touched nothing vital. The second slug had gone through the fleshy part of my thigh, and after bathing that wound also, I lay still for a while, regaining strength and soaking up the heat.

  Nearby, there was a patch of prickly pear, so I crawled to it and cut off a few big leaves. Then I roasted them to get off the spines and bound the pulp against the wounds. Indians had used it to fight inflammations, and it might help. I found a clump of amolillo and dug some of the roots, scraping them into hot water. They foamed up when stirred, and I drank the foamy water, remembering that the Indians used the drink to carry off clotted blood. A man’s bullet wounds healed better after he drank it.

  Then I made a meal of squaw cabbage and breadroot, not wanting to attempt getting at my saddlebags. Yet when evening came and my fever returned, I managed to call Buck to me and loosen the girths. The saddle dropped, bringing with it my bedroll and saddlebags. Then I hobbled Buck and got the bridle off.

  The effort exhausted me, so I crawled into my bedroll. My fever haunted the night with strange shapes, and guns seemed to be crashing about me. Men and darkness fought on the edge of my consciousness. Morgan Park…Jim Pinder…Rud Maclaren…and the sharply feral face of Bodie Miller.

  The nuzzling of Buck awakened me in the cold light of day. “All right, Buck,” I whispered. “I’m awake. I’m alive.”

  MY WEAKNESS HORRIFIED me. If my enemies found me they would not hesitate to kill me, and Buck must have left a trail easily followed. High up the canyon wall, there was a patch of green, perhaps a break in the rock. Hiding my saddle under some brush and taking with me my bedroll, saddlebags, rifle, and rope, I dragged myself toward an eye-brow of trail up the cliff.

  If there was a hanging valley up there it was just what I wanted. The buckskin wandered after me, more from curiosity than anything else. Getting atop a boulder I managed to slide onto his back and then kneed him up the steep trail. A mountain horse, he went willingly, and in a few minutes we had emerged into a high hanging valley.

  A great crack in the rock, it was flat floored and high walled, yet the grass was rich and green. Somewhere water was running, and before me was a massive stone tower all of sixty feet high. Blackened by age and by fire, it stood beside a spring, quite obviously the same as that from which I had been drinking below. The hanging valley comprised not over three acres of land, seemingly enclosed on the far side and almost enclosed on the side where I had entered.

  The ancient Indians who built the tower had known a good thing when they saw it, for here was shelter and defense, grass, water, and many plants. Beside the tower some stunted maize, long since gone native, showed that there had once been planting here. Nowhere was there any evidence that a human foot had trod here in centuries.

  A week went slowly by, and nothing disturbed my camp. Able to walk a few halting steps, I explored the valley. The maize had been a fortunate discovery, for Indians had long used a mush made of the meal as an hourly application for bullet wounds. With this and other remedie
s my recovery became more rapid. The jerky gave out, but with snared rabbits and a couple of sage hens, I managed. And then I killed a deer, and with the wild vegetables growing about, I lived well.

  Yet a devil of impatience was riding me. My ranch was in the hands of my enemies, and each day of absence made the chance of recovery grow less. Then, after two weeks, I was walking, keeping watch from a lookout spot atop the cliff and rapidly regaining strength. On the sixteenth day of my absence I decided to make an effort to return.

  The land through which I rode was utterly amazing—towering monoliths of stone, long, serrated cliffs of salmon-colored sandstone, and nothing human. It was almost noon of the following day before the buckskin’s ears lifted suddenly. It took several seconds for me to discover what drew his attention, and then I detected a lone rider. An hour later, from a pinnacle of rock near a tiny seep of water, I saw that the rider was drawing near, carefully examining the ground.

  A surge of joy went through me. It was Olga Maclaren!

  Stepping out from the shadow, I waited for her to see me, and she did, almost at once. How I must look, I could guess. My shirt was heavy with dust, torn by a bullet and my own hands. My face was covered with beard and my cheeks drawn and hollow, but the expression on her face was only of relief. “Matt?” Her voice was incredulous. “You’re alive?”

  “Did you think I’d die before we were married, daughter of Maclaren? Did you think I’d die before you had those sons I promised? Right now I’m coming back to claim my own.”

  “Back?” The worry on her face was obvious. “You must never go back! You’re believed dead, so you are safe. Go away while there’s time!”

  “Did you think I’d run? Olga, I’ve been whipped by Morgan Park, shot by Rollie Pinder, and attacked by the others, but Pinder is dead, and Park’s time is coming. No, I made a promise to a fine old man named Ball, another one to myself, and one to you, and I’ll keep them all. In my time I’ve backed up, I’ve sidestepped, and occasionally I’ve run, but always to come back and fight again.”