How the West Was Won (1963)

by L'amour, Louis

  Leaping for the racing horse, Cleve mounted it as it swept by him, grasping wildly for a hold and swinging astride. Yelling like a Comanche, he bore down on the head of the train. Circle! he shouted. Make a circle! It was Gabe French who caught the sound of his voice and swung his wagon, forcing the one behind to turn also.

  Conditioned from their many nights of making the protective circle, the others began to follow suit. Racing like a wild man, using only his grip on the horse’s mane, Cleve rode from wagon to wagon, forcing the stragglers back toward the circle with shouts and yells.

  One panic-stricken driver refused to turn until Cleve fired into the ground ahead of his team, causing it to swing off and turn. At least a dozen were too far out to circle. Two had overturned, another had two dying horses struggling in their harness.

  Firing at an Indian with an arrow drawn to his bow, Cleve glimpsed his own horse, stopped where it had finally stepped on the bridle reins and come to a halt. He dropped from the Indian pony and caught up the reins. For an instant he stood there, fighting for calm, taking in the surroundings. He took the moment to exchange cylinders, dropping the empty one into his coat pocket and snapping the loaded cylinder into place. Where the two horses were struggling in their harness a man was down on the ground, his wife on her knees beside him, firing his rifle. An Indian swept down on her from behind and, long shot though it was, Cleve chanced it. He saw the Indian jerk with the impact, and instantly the warrior swung his mount and started for Cleve. He was far down on his pony’s side, and Cleve lifted his pistol to fire, but the Indian swung his horse so that only a leg was visible. In so doing, he forgot the woman he had been about to kill, and for her it was point-blank range. She fired … and the warrior charged on past Cleve, then let go and fell to the ground.

  Mounting, Cleve rode past the woman, lifting his hand as he did so. She was momentarily free from attack, and farther out two men were making a desperate fight for their lives against half a dozen warriors. Crouched low in the saddle, Cleve went in on a dead run, and as he closed in he chopped down with his pistol, shooting into an Indian’s chest as a buffalo hunter shoots into a buffalo. His horse swept by, and turning, he brought his gun down and fired … missed, and fired again. Then he was in the midst of the fight, his horse riding down one warrior who stepped back unaware; and Cleve chopped his barrel down on the head of another. He felt something tear his clothing, felt the bite of a lance, and then he was thrown from his horse, losing his grip on his pistol. He lunged up from the ground as the Indian ran in for the kill, turning the lance with an out-flung arm. They grappled, rolling over and over in the dust, struggling and gouging. Jerking a hand free, he smashed the Indian in the face, pulping his nose.

  Cleve was down on his back, and the Indian leaped astride him and reached for his knife. Cleve threw his legs up and clamped a head-scissors on the warrior, bending him far back, both of Cleve’s ankles locked under his chin. Sitting up part way, bracing himself with his left hand, Cleve swung his fist against the Indian’s exposed solar plexus. He struck, and struck again, then threw the warrior from him and struggled to his feet. The Indian, all his wind knocked out, was too slow getting up and Cleve kicked him under the chin. A teamster had caught up Cleve’s pistol and now he tossed it to him. He fired … then, having no recollection of the number of times he had fired already, he switched to his third loaded cylinder.

  As suddenly as it had begun, the fight was over. The Indians were disappearing over the hill, the prairie was still. Half a mile away the wagon circle puffed with smoke as a few tried shots at the retreating Indians. The entire attack, beginning to end, had lasted not more than a few minutes. The woman who had helped Cleve was now supporting her husband with an arm around his shoulders-he was up and walking. One of the men in the final fight was down and badly hurt, and Cleve knelt above him, trying to stop the blood. Another driver was at work cutting a dead horse free of his harness and straightening out his team. Together, Cleve and the driver put the wounded man in the back of the wagon, and started toward the circle. Another wagon, some distance off, was also coming in.

  Suddenly Cleve felt weak, and remembered his own wound. At the tune he had thought it was no more than a scratch; now he was not so sure. Yet it might be he was feeling only the reaction from battle, the sudden letdown after such explosive action, such great demands upon his body. He stopped when they came abreast of his horse and got into the saddle. His side felt wet and he knew he was bleeding.

  He checked the loads in his pistol, although he had reloaded it only a few minutes before. Minutes? It might only have been seconds. He glanced at the sun … it was scarcely noon.

  Cleve van Valen walked his horse toward the wagons, and suddenly his whole body started to shake. He gripped the saddlehorn and clung with all his strength, fearful that he would topple to the ground. He drew rein and waited for the seizure to pass. It was not his wound, he realized now, but the nervous reaction to what he had been through.

  Presently he felt better and he walked his horse around the circle, searching for the wagon. Suddenly, a slow finger of smoke mounted … someone had lighted a fire. With a surge of relief he stared at the smoke; there was something comforting, everlastingly normal and real about it. So simple a thing, a lighted fire, yet it was a symbol of man’s first great step toward civilization, and it was his instinctive return to reality when times of trouble came. It is his first reaction, to build a fire, to give himself the security and comfort that a fire symbolizes.

  How many times had he seen women start a fire and begin to cook when the first shock of disaster was over, to offer warm food, coffee … how many times had it seemed as if a man, in offering fire and warm food, was saying, See, I am a man, by these signs you shall know me, that I can make a fire, that I can cook my food.

  And then he saw her standing there, outside the circle of wagons, shading her eyes toward him, shading her eyes against the sun’s bright glare, standing alone and watching him come … not yet quite sure.

  Chapter 10

  Westward the bright land lay, westward the magic names, names they had heard in story and song, the names that spelled wild country, that spelled Indians, that spelled danger and promise and hope. The Platte was such a name, Ash Hollow another.

  Chimney Rock … Horse Creek … Scott’s Bluffs … Fort Laramie … Bitter Creek … the Sweet Water, South Pass, Fort Bridger, the Humboldt River, Lawson’s Meadows, Forty-Mile House … Day after day, sunshine or rain or wind, the wagons rolled westward, their heavy wheels rocking out a strange music from wood and weight upon the uneven ground. Less often now did Cleve van Valen ride the wagon. Both women could drive and he was needed to scout trail, to scout water and grass and fuel, to watch for Indians, to hunt meat. More and more Morgan had come to depend on him, forgetting his animosity for the needs of the wagon people.

  High on a windy hill where the grass waved in the sun, Cleve removed his hat and wiped the sweat from the band. His hair blew around his ears, for it had grown long in the passing time. Squinting his eyes against the distance, he considered the situation and his place in it.

  Not only had Morgan’s attitude changed, but his own had altered; and not merely his attitude, but his appearance. He had tanned under the sun and wind of days of riding. He had cut wood, driven the mules, wrestled with wagon wheels stuck in the mud or sand, using his physical strength to a degree he had never used it before.

  The values out here were different, too. It mattered not at all who a man might have been back in the East; here they only asked, Can he do the job? Will he stand when trouble comes?

  Around the fire there had also been an almost imperceptible change. Now he was deferred to by Lilith as well as by Agatha. Between Cleve and the wagonmaster there was a truce, but no more. Morgan had not referred at all to the gambling episode. Cleve had no cause to pursue the matter, and Morgan apparently was willing to let well enough alone. But Cleve had refused all invitations to play, and avoided those who gambled.
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  As for Lilith, he made no further attempt to ingratiate himself, and except at mealtimes they saw little of each other. It was true that he worked for them, but the needs of a wagon train must be fulfilled by its personnel, and men did what they were best suited for.

  With their passing of the Great Salt Lake Desert, fear of Indians dwindled. There were Indians about, but they were apt to indulge in petty theft rather than attack. Increasingly, as they moved westward, the problem became a matter of water, grass, and fuel.

  The long, winding course of the Humboldt offered little wood or water. For miles its course was marked only by low brush. Off to the south of them there were mountains, and they occasionally saw them like low gray clouds along the horizon. Some of these were capped with snow; always they were off the trail, and almost out of sight. One and all, the travelers looked for the Sierras, for the Sierras meant California, and California was where the trail ended. Cleve still took care of the mules. He took them to water and to the corral, he harnessed and unharnessed them. And he provided the wagon with its fuel, and occasionally with fresh meat.

  Naturally quick to observe and to learn, drawing upon his memories of conversations and books he had read, Cleve van Valen soon developed into a first-class plainsman. His eyesight was excellent, and with the revolving Colt rifle loaned him by Gabe French he was well armed. The gelding was strong, fast, and carried him far afield. Well-mounted and well-armed, he developed a liking for scouting far from their line of march, often riding on ahead to locate good camping grounds for the coming night.

  Riding thus, far from the line of march, he often came upon game, and two or three times a week he returned from these forays with fresh meat. Aside from what he provided for his own wagon, he often had enough to distribute impartially among the other wagons.

  What you figurin’ on? Gabe asked him one day. You plannin’ to run for office?

  You’re makin’ a lot of friends on this train.

  All I want is to get through with a whole skin. Cleve turned his attention from the hills to Gabe French. Gabe, when I get to California I’m going into business.

  Got any ideas?

  No.

  Well, you give it thought. It’s safer than minin’, which is a chancy game any way you size it up. Gabe paused. Might have some ideas myself. They had camped on the Truckee, with the Sierras looming above them, when Cleve rode into camp and dropped off a quarter of elk meat at the wagon. Then he rode on, leaving a bit here, a bit there.

  Agatha watched him go. Lil, she said emphatically, you latch onto that man, d’you hear? Ain’t many men as good at providin’ as him. He’s changed, Lilith admitted.

  Maybe … an’ maybe you just never knew him in the first place. Might be he didn’t even know himself. Agatha gazed after him with a critical eye. He’s changed, all right He’s taken on some color from the sun and some beef in the shoulders. That there’s quite a man.

  He’s a gambler, and I never knew one really to change, did you? That one might. Comes of a good family, Gabe says, who knew his folks. Got rooked out of his due and killed the man who did it. Mountains now blocked out the western sky, and the desert lay behind them. Snow crested the peaks and ridges, and pines covered the long, steep slopes. Other wagon trains had crossed these mountains, so there must be a way, but from where the wagons now were they seemed a towering and impenetrable wall. How had the first wagons found their way through?

  Three times that morning they stopped to clear small slides of rock, snow, and other debris from the narrow trail, and at best it was slow, difficult traveling. The wagons simply inched along, and Cleve scouted ahead for a camping site. When he discovered what he wanted at approximately the distance they would be able to cover, it was a pleasant meadow surrounded by tall pines where a small spring started a cascade from off the mountain. There was good grass, plenty of fuel, and the clear, cold mountain water. After a last look around, he stripped the saddle from the gelding and rubbed it down with a handful of coarse grass.

  He heard no sound but the wind among the trees, and the tumbling of the water. The gelding, he noticed, was gaunt. Even that fine, strong horse was beginning to show the effect of the miles, and even his winter coat failed to disguise it. Suddenly Cleve was tired.

  There were many miles to go before they would reach the gold fields, and more miles beyond that to San Francisco-why should he wait? Why march with the slow-moving wagons, when on his fast gelding he could be there in a fraction of the time? Why not saddle up at daybreak and ride on, and then just keep on riding, all the way to the Golden Gate?

  No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he knew it was the solution.

  After all, what reason had he to suppose Lilith had changed, or would change? True, she was more agreeable, easier to be with, and sometimes there had seemed to be genuine liking in her manner, but he knew better than to put faith in such things.

  It was true that he had no money, and a gambler needs a stake, but there might be old friends among the gambling houses who would set him up with a faro layout, and he would do the rest.

  He was still considering it when the wagons rolled in, and then he became busy with the mules, the fire, the problem of fuel. But the thought remained. Lilith was lovely. If a man had to marry for money, he certainly could do no better. She had a mind of her own, but he liked that … and when he came to think of it, what had gambling brought him in those wasted years? Years lost now, beyond recovery.

  Yet he would be a fool to go inching along over these mountains, breaking his back with toil, when a few hours of riding would take him out of them. Why not forget Lilith? Why not leave now, tonight?

  We’ve not much farther to go, Lilith said suddenly beside the fire. She spoke the words and they rested there, seeming almost to ask a question. After we cross the mountains you won’t have any use for me, he said. It will be easy going from there on to wherever it is you’re going. Rabbit Gulch … it’s in the Mother Lode.

  Lilith had replied almost without thinking, then as she stooped to lift the lid from a kettle the import of his remark reached her. No use for him? Did that imply that he would leave, once they crossed the Sierras? For an instant she felt as if she had been struck. Unmoving, she stared blindly at the kettle; then she slowly put the lid on it again and straightened up. She felt suddenly lost, empty, forsaken. What was the matter with her? After all, he was a fortune-hunter, wasn’t he? A drifting, ne’er-do-well gambler? What kind of a man was that to make her feel as she did? She started to ask about his leaving, but feared his reply. She poked sticks into the fire, then lifted the lid again and stirred the stew. When he spoke he said what she had been dreading to hear. I was thinking I might ride on ahead … we’re almost there now, and I guess I’m impatient. She forced herself to be casual. You’re going to the gold fields?

  Frisco … I’m not likely to be much good at mining. I think you could do whatever you set out to do, she said carefully. She was struggling to order her thoughts, to say the right thing; struggling, too, against an overpowering sense of loss, or impending loss. Well, she said at last, you’ve earned your money. You promised a day’s work for a day’s pay, and you have done more than your share … even Roger admits that.

  So it was Roger now, was it? Had it gone that far? Morgan had made a habit of dropping around by the fire, and a couple of times he had seen them talking quietly, almost intimately.

  What kind of a fool was he, anyway, Cleve asked himself. Morgan was a stable man, even if an unimaginative one, and he was well off, according to reports. In short, he had a good deal to offer a girl-and what did he, Cleve van Valen, have?

  He had no money, he had a reputation as a gambler, and some skill with weapons. Looked at coldly and logically, it didn’t add up to much. What kind of a fool had he been to go chasing off after a girl, believing he could marry her when so many others were in the running?

  The truth of the matter was, he had acted just as the kind of a man she suspected him of being w
ould act-like an egotistical fool. All of which added up to the fact that he was wasting his time.

  Agatha came to the fire and dished up their food, glancing from one to the other with a thoughtful expression. She was too worldly-wise not to understand something of what went on here, but for once she had no idea of what to do. He’s earned it, all right, she said, earned whatever he’s to get … but there’s things you can’t pay for, believe me.

  In the morning, Cleve thought, in the morning I shall go. I have played out my time, and there’s always a time to quit. The thing to do was to quit when you were ahead.

  I’ll be riding on in the morning, he said; you’ve no need for me any longer. She stared helplessly into the fire, her appetite gone. Finally she said, But what will I pay you? I don’t know … we didn’t settle on anything, on any amount, I mean.

  You owe me nothing. I’ve had my keep.

  You’ve earned more than that, much more. We could never have made it through without you … for that matter, if it hadn’t been for you when the Cheyennes attacked, we would all have been killed. You stopped that panic, you got them into a circle.

  Morgan wouldn’t have let it start, he said, and if it hadn’t been for me it might never have started. He looked up. I never told you of this before, but Morgan caught me gambling, and we had trouble. If it hadn’t been for that, Morgan would have stopped that damned fool before he could go off half-cocked. You can’t be sure of that.

  He got up. I can be sure that I distracted Morgan’s attention at an important moment. I risked all your lives.