L'Amour, Louis - SSC 32

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 3

  Jerito’s gun and mine blasted fire at the same second, me losing time with getting Betty down. Something ripped at my sleeve and then I stepped over her and had both guns going, and from somewhere another gun started and Jerito was standing there with blood running down his face and it all twisted with a kind of wild horror above the flame-stabbing .44 that pounded death at me.

  Bayless I took out with my left-hand gun, turning him with a bullet through his right elbow, a bullet that was making a different man of him, although I didn’t know it then.

  He never again was able to flash a fast gun!

  Jerito suddenly broke and lunged toward me.

  He was blood all over the side of his head and face and shoulder, but he was still alive and in a killing mood. He came closer and we 39 both let go at point-blank range, but I was maybe a split second faster and that bullet hit bone.

  When a bullet hits bone a man goes down, and he went down and hard. He rolled over and stared up at me.

  “You fa/! You … diablo!” His face twisted and he died right there, and when I looked up, Tap Henry was standing alongside the Ventana Saloon with a smoking gun in his hand, and that was a Christian town.

  That’s what I mean. We made believers out of them that day in the dusty street on a warm, still afternoon. Tap and me, we made them see what it meant to tackle us and the town followed the ranchers and they followed Jim Lucas when he came down to shake hands and call it a truce.

  Betty was alongside me, her face dusty, but not so pale anymore, and Tap walked over, holstering his gun. He held out his hand, and I shook it. We’d been riding partners for months, but from that day on we were friends.

  “You and me, kid,” he said, “we can whip the world! Or we can make it plumb peaceful! I reckon our troubles are over.”

  “No hard feelings?” One of my arms was around Betty.

  “Not one!” He grinned at me. “You was always head man with her. And us? Well, I never knowed a man I’d rather ride the river with!”

  There’s more cattle on the Pelado now, and the great bald dome of the mountain stands above the long green fields where the cattle graze, and where the horses’ coats grow shining and beautiful, and there are two houses there now, and Tap has one of them with a girl from El Paso, and I have the other with Betty.

  We came when the country was young and wild, and it took men to curry the roughness out of it, and we knew the smell of gunsmoke, the buffalo-chip fires, and the long swell of the prairie out there where the cattle rolled north to feed a nation on short-grass beef.

  We helped to shape that land, hard and beautiful as it was, and the sons we reared, Tap and me, they ride where we rode, and when the day comes, they can carry their guns, too, to fight for what we fought for, the long, beautiful smell of the wind with the grass under it, and the purple skies with the 41 slow smoke of home fires burning.

  All that took a lot of building, took blood, lead, death and cattle, but we built it, and there she stands, boys. How does she look now?

  To Hang Me High

  He was a fine-looking man of fifty or so, uncommonly handsome on that tall bay horse. He turned in his. saddle like a commanding general, and said, “We will bivouac here, gentlemen. Our man cannot be far and there is no use killing our horses.”

  It wasn’t the first time I had seen Colonel Andrew Metcalf, who was easily the most talked-about man in WilloW Springs. He alone did not have to worry about his mount— he had brung one of his hands along, leading a beautiful Tennessee Walker, and twice a day he switched off from one t’other, so as not to tire either of them out. Those horses, I thought, had a better life than some people. Them with a master given to allowin’ his horses rest, even on a posse.

  My name is Ryan Tyler, a stranger in this country, and by the look of things not apt to live long enough to get acquainted. The colonel had nine men with him and they had just one idea in mind: to ride me down and hang me high.

  Only two of them fretted me much. The colonel was a hard-minded man, folks said, with his own notions about right and wrong. The other one who worried me was Shiloh Johnson.

  Three weeks ago Shiloh and me had us a run-in out to Wild Horse Camp. He was used to doin’ just about whatever he pleased, for the reason that most everyone was scared of him. Only me bein’ a stranger an’ all, he tackled more than he figured on.

  Johnny Mex Palmer seen it, and he said I done wrong. “You should have killed him, Rye. He’ll never let it rest now until you’re buried deep.”

  He had seen me beat Shiloh ‘til he couldn’t stand up, and me never get any more than some skinned knuckles. Well, folks had the saying around that Shiloh was the toughest man in a fight, the fastest on the draw, and the best man on a trail from Willow Springs to the Mesquite Hills.

  He set some store by that reputation, Shiloh did, and now he had been beaten by a youngster, and easylike to boot.

  The colonel was a hard-minded man and a driver. Once started after a man, he wouldn’t be likely to stop. Shiloh was an Injun on a trail, with his meanness to keep him at it. Up there in those rocks, cold as it was, it didn’t look good for me.

  The colonel, he swung down like on a parade ground, his fine dark hair almost to his shoulders, those shoulders so square under that blue cavalry overcoat.

  They went to building a fire, all but Shiloh. He commenced to hunger around, tryin’ to make out my trail. Shiloh smelled coon, he did. He had it in mind that I was close by, and he was like an old hound on the hunt.

  Colonel Metcalf, he watched Shiloh, and finally, sort of irritable-like, he said, “Let it go, Johnson. Time enough at daybreak.”

  “He’s close by, Colonel,” Shiloh said. “I know he is. That horse of his was about done up.”

  The colonel’s tone was edged a mite. “Let it wait!” He turned then, abruptly, and walking to the fire he put his hands out to the blaze. Shiloh Johnson, he stood there, not liking it much. But Colonel Metcalf ran the biggest brand in the Willow Springs country and when he spoke, you listened. He was no man to cross.

  Shiloh was right about my horse. That Injun pony had plenty of heart but not much else. He did all he could for me, and died right up in the rocks not far off the trail. They would find him in the morning, and then they would know how close they had been.

  They would know they had come within a few minutes of takin’ the man who walked up to Tate Lipman and shot him dead on his own ranch. Shot him dead with half his ranch hands a-standin’ by.

  Only they never heard what I said to him in that one particular instant before I did it. Only Tate Lipman heard me, which was the way it had to be. It was only that I wanted him to know why he was dyin’ that I spoke at all.

  In that partic’lar instant, I said to him, “Rosa Killeen is a good girl, Tate. She ain’t the kind you called her. An’ you ain’t going to worry her no more.” Then he died there on the hard-packed clay, his blood covering his shirt and the ground. Before his men knew what was happenin’ I threw down on them. Then I locked the passel o’ them in the bunkhouse and throwed my leg over a saddle.

  Me, I ain’t much account, I reckon. I’m a driftin’ man, a top hand on any man’s outfit, but too gun-handy for comfort. Twenty-two years old and six men dead behind me, not any home to my name, nor place to go.

  But Rosa Killeen was a good woman, and nobody knowed it better than me, who was in love with her.

  She lived alone in that old red stone house back of the cottonwoods, and she had her a few chickens, a cow or two, and she lived mighty nice.

  Once I fetched her cow for her, and she gave me eggs a couple of times, and now or again I’d set my saddle and talk to her, tellin’ her about my family back in Texas and the place they had. I come of good stock, but my line played out of both money and folks just when I was passin’ ten. Whatever I might have been had my pa lived, I don’t know, but I became a lonesome boy who was gunhanded and salty before I stretched sixteen.

  Rosa was the best thing in my life, and soon it seem
ed she set some store by me. Only she had education, and even if she was alone, she lived like a lady.

  Folks said she had night visitors … an’ folks ought to be left to their opinions, but once a subject’s been raised a couple of times it goes to bein’ a rumor, and when the rumor is about a good girl like Rosa and it’s bein’ spread intentional-like—well, that tries my temper. That time with Shiloh, he saw that it riled me and so he kept it up. I told him to stop and 1 told him what kind of yellow dog I thought he was, and he grinned that mean grin of his and put his hand on the butt of that Navy Colt, so I hit him. He was set for a gunfight and it took him by surprise. He went down and I snatched his pistol away and tossed it out where the horses were picketed.

  He got up and we’ fought. I knocked him down ‘til he didn’t have the wind nor the will to get up. Then I told him there, and the rest of them, too. “She’s a lady, an’ nobody talks one word again’ her. If he does, he better come a-smokin’. You understand that, Shiloh?”

  It went against him, standin’ there like that with four men lookin’ on, four who saw me beat him down, an’ him fighting dirty, too. Johnny Mex Palmer was right, I knew he was right … I should have got at him with a gun and killed him then and there, but Shiloh was still alive, and now it was his turn.

  Not only Shiloh knew Rosa had a night visitor. Me, I knew it , too. One night I had stopped my horse to watch her window light and wish … well, things I shouldn’t be wishin’. I saw that horse ride up and saw a man with a wide hat go in. He stayed more than two hours and rode away … oh, I saw that, all right. But Rosa was a good girl, and nobody could make me feel different.

  I asked her about it. Maybe I shouldn’t have, it bein’ none of my business, but there was a certain way that I felt about her an’ I knew if I didn’t ask I’d be worryin’ and goin’ crazy. So I asked but she didn’t tell me, least not straight up like I wanted.

  “I can’t tell you, Rye,” she said. “I’m sorry. I promise you if s not … a romance.” She blushed, an’ wouldn’t look me in the eye. “You’ve got to believe me, but that’s all I can say.” Well, I can’t say I was satisfied, but I was surprised how much better I felt. I believed her and I loved her and that’s all that mattered.

  Only I wasn’t the only one who saw. Tate Lipman had seen him, too, and from all I heard, Tate knew who it was. I didn’t know, nor did I want to. Me, I was trying to be a trustin’ man.

  Yet I’ll not soon forget the mornin’ Johnny rode up to camp and swung down. “Rye,” he said, “Rosa asked me to see if you’d come over. She told me to say she was in trouble, and would you come.”

  That Injun pony was the freshest horse in camp, for we’d been runnin’ the wild ones. When I was in the leather, I looked back at them, but mostly at Shiloh.

  “See you,” I said, but there was a promise in it, too, and I didn’t think any of them would make any remarks when I was gone.

  She was by the gate when I came riding, and she was pale and scared. “I shouldn’t have called you, Rye, but I didn’t know what to do, and you told me—“

  “Ma’am,” I said, “I’m right proud you called. Proud it was me you thought of.”

  There was nothing but honesty in her eyes when she looked up at me, those dark and lovely eyes that did such things to the inside of me that I couldn’t find words to tell. “I think of you a lot, Rye, I really do.

  “Rye, Tate Lipman saw the … man who comes to see me. Oh, Rye, you know it’s not what people think. I can’t make them believe, but I hope you do. I’m a good woman, but I’m a good woman with secrets that I have to keep. It would hurt some good folks if I didn’t. The man who visits me is a fine man, and I can’t let harm come to him.”

  “All right,” I said. Lookin’ into her clear blue eyes I could do nothing but believe her.

  ‘Tate Lipman saw him, Rye. And he’s heard bad things people are saying about me. Tate rode over today. He … he said that no girl like me had a right to choose her man. If one man could have me, then he could, too. If I hadn’t had the shotgun he might have—“ She put her hand on my sleeve to hold me back. “No, wait, Rye. Let me tell.”

  “I’ll see Tate,” I told her. “He won’t bother you no more.”

  “I want to tell you, Rye,” she said. ‘Tate had seen this other man. He said if I refused him he would tell everyone what I was up to and who with. He laughed at me when I tried to tell him it wasn’t what he thought, that I hadn’t done anything people wouldn’t approve of.

  “Rye, believe me, if he does it would ruin the reputation of a man and a woman, and I would have to move away from the only people I love. … It would hurt me, Rye, and it would ruin a man who has been kind to me.”

  “I’ll talk to Tate.”

  “Will he listen?” She seemed frightened then. “Rye, I don’t want anything to happen to you. Please, I—“

  That Injun pony put more miles behind him, and then I was ridin’ up to Tate Lipman’s place and saw him there before the house. The hands were settin’ around by the bunkhouse and they could hear no word.

  He was a big, red-faced man, Tate was. He figured he was a big wheel in this country, with a wide spread and ten tough hands to ride it. I’d never liked his kind, and I had heard him say there lived no woman who couldn’t be had for a price, and mostly the price was mighty cheap.

  What he seen when he seen me wasn’t much. I’m a tall man and was a tall boy, mostly on the narrow side with a kind of quiet face. Not much beard yet, although I’m a full twenty-two, two years older than Rosa. My hair was light brown but curly because of the Irish in me, and I w,as wearin’ some old Levi’s and a buckskin jacket, much wore.

  Well, I spoke my piece quiet and easy, tellin’ him what it was I’d come for. His face just turned flat and ugly, and his hand dropped for his gun, and in that minute he was sure he was goin’ to shoot me down.

  My Colt came up slick an’ smooth-like, and there was one stark, clean-cut moment when I saw the shock in his eyes, and when he knew he was goin’ to die. And then my bullet dusted him on both sides and he took a short step to his toes and went down on his face, and I turned on them by the bunkhouse.

  So that was how it was, and now Rosa Killeen was behind me, and I believed in what little she’d told me with no thought that it might be otherwise. She’d hoped I could reason with Tate, but he was too big-headed, and that I knew. It was a grave on a windy hill for him and a fast horse for me.

  Only the horse wasn’t fast. Just a game, tough little pony with twenty miles under him when they first gave chase …

  The night was cold and the wind bitter. … I made myself small among the boulders, with my hands under my arms. I watched the wind bend the fire over, the fire that made coffee for those men down below.

  They bedded down, finally, Shiloh mighty reluctant. Hate grows hot and strong in his breed of man, and I knew that Shiloh and me would see each other across a gun barrel,

  one day.

  Night made all things black, and it was like a great tunnel filled with roaring wind, a long wind that bent the trees down and skittered the dry leaves along the hard ground.

  They had a rope stretched for my neck down there, a rope they figured to use. Tall Colonel Metcalf and Shiloh. The colonel would order it done like a man orders executions in the army, and he would stand by slapping his leg with his quirt when they set the knot, and Shiloh would look on, smiling that old secret smile of his, knowing the only man who ever beat him was on the end of that hemp.

  It took me most of an hour to work my way around to where the horses were picketed, ten of them close together for warmth, but the colonel’s blood-bay off to one side, like the aristocrat he was.

  Crouched down in the brush, I put my fingers back in my armpits to warm them before moving out to untie that rope. The wind moaned in the long canyon, the rushing leaves swept by, and the dry branches brushed their cold arms together like some skeleton things, hanging up there between me and the black night sky.

&n
bsp; Then, when I was inching to the edge of the clearing, a man came out of the trees. It was Colonel Metcalf.

  He crossed to the big bay and stroked his neck, feeding him a carrot or something that crunched in the night. I could hear the faint sound below the rush of the wind, so close was I. And then I saw the colonel hang something across the bay’s withers, and after a minute he turned and walked back to camp.

  Scarcely had he gone when Shiloh moved like an Indian out of the brush, and stood there, looking around. It was too dark to see very well, yet I could picture him in my mind’s eye, clear and sharp. Shiloh was a big man with stooped and heavy shoulders and a long face, strong-boned and with eyes deep set. You looked at him, then looked again. You thought something was wrong with his face. The second look showed nothing, but it left you the impression. He was a narrow, mean man, this Shiloh Johnson.

  After a minute he followed the colonel, not going to the bay horse at all.

  Waiting there in the blackness, I could see, faintly the movements of Shiloh as he eased into his bed in the shelter of a log. When the movement under the blankets ceased, I straightened up.

  There was a piece of carrot lying where it had fallen and I picked it up. After a minute, the bay took it from me, and then I untied the picket rope and walked him across the pine needles and down into the sand beyond. When I got him to where my saddle was cached, I saddled up, then put the bit between his teeth.

  For the first time, I examined the sack that Colonel Metcalf had placed across the bay’s shoulders. It was a sack of oats—maybe for a half dozen feedings. A strange thing to leave on a horse’s back in the middle of the night.

  It was a good horse I rode now, and I treated him like the gentleman he was, let him take his own pace, but held him away into the dark country, toward the high meadows and the long bare ridges. It was a strange land to me, and this worried me some, for Shiloh knew it well, and the colonel almost as well. Along the pifion slopes and into the aspen I rode, down grassy bottoms where the long wind moaned and into the dark pines, and through canyons among the rocks, and stopping at lonely creeks for a drink and then on.