Novel 1972 - Callaghen

by Louis L'Amour

  Now Callaghen dried his palms on his shirt front and took hold of his rifle once more. He would soon be out of this; he would soon be a free man. His discharge was overdue, but mails were always late out here and he thought nothing of that. However, until that discharge was in his hands he remained a soldier, subject to Sykes’s orders. Sykes would offer him no breaks, of that he could be sure, but he needed none that Sykes could give.

  The command should be coming along soon. His eyes searched the heat waves over the desert, but nothing stirred there. He listened, and heard nothing. Some time had passed since a shot had been fired. The shooting had been followed by a long silence; he had not returned, and they had not come up to him.

  He was suddenly startled by a thought that came to him. Suppose he had been abandoned? Suppose they thought he was dead? If they believed that, they might ride on to Bitter Springs, hoping to intercept the stage there rather than on the trail.

  In that case he was on his own. He swore softly, but he realized how likely that might be. How far had he ridden, he wondered. Three miles? Four?

  The Government Road along which the stage would come was a mail route, adequate reason for keeping it open. He could see the road, but he saw no stage. Suppose it had been attacked before reaching this point?

  He shifted his position, trying to see farther down the trail. At that moment a bullet clipped rock near him.

  His horse was safe in a cleft in the rock that provided shelter from even ricocheting bullets. He studied the terrain before him, watching for a chance to get at least one of his enemies.

  He had a hunch that this lot of Indians were not Mohaves, but Pah-Utes. They often raided in this area, attacked travelers, and made swift forays on the ranches just over the mountains to escape with stolen horses. Sometimes they were led by white men. It was an old practice to steal horses in California and sell them in Arizona or Nevada, then to steal horses there and drive them to California for sale.

  He glanced at the sun. Another hour until sunset. He settled down for a rest. It was unlikely they would try to cross the desert that intervened, for they had no wish to die…they would wait for darkness.

  Callaghen relaxed, his rifle beside him, pistol ready to hand. The slight overhang protected both him and his horse against attack from above. He could be approached only from the desert in front or sides. He sat facing a crescent moon of rocks, open sand beyond.

  He dozed, occasionally awoke to check the desert, dozed again. He saw no movement, heard no shots, or any sound of riders or stage. He was cut off, completely at a loss as to what was happening or had happened.

  As he sat, half asleep, half awake, his mind still was busy. Suppose the stage driver had some inkling of an impending attack, and had swung from his prescribed route?

  There were areas of soft sand, but much of the surface was firm and the stage might make its own trail. But they would need water for the horses, which meant Bitter Spring or Marl Springs.

  A good distance separated these two places, but how much distance he would have to drive would depend on where he left the regular trail. At any rate the stage seemed to have vanished, as had Lieutenant Sprague and the men.

  The air became cool, darkness was coming, a star appeared. Callaghen poured half the water from his canteen into the crown of his hat and let his horse drink. He rinsed his own mouth with a tiny bit of water, and swallowed it.

  There was a sandy spot where he could ride out from his shelter. At any other place the shoes of his horse striking rock would make a sharp sound that could be heard at considerable distance.

  He waited until full darkness, then stepped quickly into the saddle and went out of the gap at a swift pace. He ran the horse a good fifty yards, but heard no sound.

  The Indians were gone. Perhaps they had left hours ago, leaving only one man to pin him down, and now that one, too, had gone. Where?

  He rode down the trail toward Camp Cady for two miles but found no tracks of wagon or stage, nor any fresh tracks except those of unshod ponies. The dim light made it almost impossible to see any wheel tracks.

  He circled back in the desert toward where he had left the command, skirting a dry lake, white in the vague light of the stars. Several times he paused to listen.

  It was eerie, and a haunted feeling came over him. Where was the stage? Where were the Indians? The patrol?

  There was nothing anywhere…only the night, the desert, and the stars. To the north mountains loomed, the Old Dad range, with which he was totally unfamiliar.

  Dark canyons opened before him, but he circled warily away, and his horse seemed pleased that he did. He could feel the spookiness in the muscles of the horse, feel its doubt, its suspicion of the night.

  A clump of greasewood had gathered a hill of sand. In its shadow he drew rein, trying to puzzle it out. The stage should have passed him hours ago. The sound of a rifle shot would carry for a good distance out here—well over a mile—but he had heard none from down the trail, and he had seen no tracks to show it had gone north.

  Only two possibilities remained. The stage had turned back, or it had left the trail. If it had turned off, the logical direction would be toward Marl Springs. There were three soldiers guarding the redoubt there…or there had been.

  But what had become of the patrol? He had heard no shooting after the first few minutes, and there was small chance they had been wiped out. To destroy a patrol of the size of the one led by Lieutenant Sprague would not be an easy task.

  Nearby the Old Dad Mountains, ragged and sprawling, seemed like mountains on the moon. They would, if he went on along the shore of the soda lake, divide him from the trail the patrol had been following, and he hesitated to ride north around them. Every foot of the way would be a risk. It might be wise to hole up until daybreak, when he could see what he was doing; but travel was usually better in the cool of the night; by day he could be seen as well as see.

  He decided he would ride on, find a place somewhere in the Old Dads and wait and see what might happen. He started toward the mountains.

  One thing was certain. The stage must leave tracks. It could not sprout wings and vanish. Nor could the patrol.

  Chapter 10

  THE SOUNDS OF the desert night are small sounds, sounds to which the ears must be attuned. In all men there remains much of the primitive, and after a short time in the desert a man’s senses begin to be more active. But he must listen, he must wait, he must give himself time to get the wave length of the desert, and so he becomes aware of desert things around him.

  Morty Callaghen had lived in the deserts of the world, and his ears had become alert, something easier there perhaps than anywhere else.

  The wind has a sound of its own, and that sound can be different among rocks, greasewood, the Joshua tree, or cacti. Small animals make only faint rustlings, but these too are soon recognized by the ear. A fall of rocks is natural; displaced by the wind or loosened by the alternating heat of the day and cold of night, a stone may fall, a trickle of sand may follow, then silence. A stone dislodged by a foot has a different sound, strange as this may seem—a sharper, more definite sound.

  The mountains, too, are not still, but a mountain lives at an infinitely slow pace. It stirs, it creaks, it is growing or coming apart, but all with a slowness incredible to man.

  This is a part of the wonder of the wild and empty places. The desert is always waiting. The seeds that fall on the desert and are trampled into the sand do not sprout with the first rain. There must be enough rain, and it must come at the right time; then the seeds will sprout. Some plants leaf out, bloom, and drop both blossoms and leaves in a matter of days.

  The fluted shape of many cacti is due to the need to offer less surface to the sun, the spines filter sunlight as well, and most cacti have a sort of waxy surface to prevent evaporation.

  Callaghen, traveler from a far, green island, had come to love the desert. He waited now in the moonlight, among the scattered rocks and desert plants, knowing that
as long as he remained still he would not be seen from any distance. He waited, and he listened. Overhead a bat circled, dived, fluttering about in an endless quest for insects.

  On such a night sound carries far. He listened first for sounds close to him, then for those farther out.

  At first he heard nothing, nothing at all. He was about to move on when some sound came to him from far off, a regular, continuing sound. The desert normally has no sound like it. Even the sound of the wind has changes.

  This was a sound of something moving…not exactly dragging, yet not unlike that. He heard it, and then there was silence.

  The sound had come from the north, perhaps a little east of north. Callaghen’s horse had heard it, too. His ears were up and he was looking in that direction, nostrils flaring for scent.

  “We’ll go see,” Callaghen said softly.

  Callaghen’s eyes had been picking out ways to move from where he was, and now he chose one of them. He did not mount, not wanting to offer too much of a silhouette to whatever or whoever might be out there, and he did not reach for his carbine, which was slung to the pommel. He would get close enough for a hand gun, and now he unbuttoned a button of his blouse, eased the butt of the gun there toward the opening, and then went ahead.

  Deliberately, he chose soft sand. The hard surface nearer by was easier walking, but it made more sound. He followed the route of a tiny desert runoff.

  When he had walked perhaps a hundred steps he paused. No sound…He waited a moment, and then, scowling, he went on another short distance.…He paused again and listened. He heard the sound again, a little clearer now.

  Suddenly it came to him. It was the sound of a wagon…it might be the stage. If it was the stage, Malinda was on it…or she had been. He strained his ears to get the sound of the wheels.

  All wheel sounds are not alike. The weight of a wagon and the size of its wheels change the effect. A narrow rim makes a sound different from that of a wider rim; a heavy wagon rumbles. What he had first heard must have been the slide of the wheels when the driver applied brakes going into a wash or down a small slope.

  Now he could hear the strike of iron-shod hoofs on stones, the creak of suspension straps. His greatest danger at present was in getting shot, either by Indians, or by somebody on the stage itself who saw him loom suddenly out of the dark.

  The stage appeared, the horses climbing first out of a small gully, then the head of the driver followed by the coach. He held his horse’s nostrils and waited for the stage to pass. It was moving slowly, and a man was sitting beside the driver, rifle in hand.

  When the stage had gone past, Callaghen took his hand from the nostrils of his horse. After a moment the stage reached the top of the small knoll and the driver drew up to rest his horses. Just then Callaghen’s horse whinnied.

  The man with the rifle turned sharply around, and the driver called, “Who’s that?”

  Callaghen spoke distinctly. “It’s the army, or part of it.”

  “Come in slow. Keep your hands empty.”

  Then he heard Malinda speak. “That’s Morty! It’s Morty!”

  He walked up, leading his horse. “Looks to me like you’re off your trail,” he said mildly. “What happened?”

  The driver was Johnny Ridge, whom Callaghen had seen around the camp on several occasions. The man beside him was a stranger.

  “Injuns,” was the answer. “We spotted them moving to head us off, so when the stage was out of sight behind a mountain we pulled off the trail and tried to circle around, but we got ourselves bogged down and found our way cut off.”

  “The patrol’s somewhere ahead of us,” Callaghen said, “but I think your best bet, Ridge, is to follow along the base of the mountain, keeping clear of the sand of the Devil’s Playground, until we can find a pass through to the east.”

  “And how far will that be?” Ridge asked doubtfully.

  Callaghen shrugged. “This is no great mountain. There’s sure to be a way to the other side.”

  “But it’s further from the Vegas trail, and my horses are about played out.”

  “You’ve got Indians behind you, man. Drive on. You can rest your horses farther along. I’ll scout ahead for you.”

  Callaghen went to the coach. Malinda was there, and her aunt, but Kurt Wylie was, too, and the dark man who had come with him to Camp Cady. “You’ll be all right,” he told Malinda, and rode on ahead.

  The mountain lifted two to three thousand feet above them in what seemed to be a solid wall, but these desert ranges were all short, up-thrusts made during some violent time in the earth’s building. The Indians would be watching for them…by day they would find their tracks, no doubt, and then they would come running.

  For three miles Callaghen led the way; then he turned into a cove of the mountain and stopped. Dismounting, he waited for the stage to catch up.

  The trail, such as it was, had never been used by a wheeled vehicle before, that was obvious, but Ridge was a hand with the lines and he tooled his team nicely, taking his time.

  Wylie was the first man down from the stage. He walked up to Callaghen. “You, is it? I’ve been wanting to see you.”

  Ridge turned sharply. “Whatever you’ve got in mind, forget it. Just now we need all the help we can get.”

  In a hollow among the rocks, where they were concealed except from someone who stood right above them, Callaghen put together a small fire. “Have you coffee?” he asked. “It will put everybody’s spirits up.”

  The coffee was produced. The man who had ridden the box brought down a basket and began to prepare food. Malinda came to the fire and stretched her fingers toward it. Aunt Madge moved in briskly, pushing the guard aside. “Leave that to someone who knows how,” she said. “You’ve done a-plenty today.”

  Ridge squatted on his heels, holding a piece of hardtack in his mouth to soften it. “You know where we are?” he asked.

  Callaghen took up a small stick and drew a line to the northeast. “These are the Old Dads. Somewhere over in there is Marl Springs. There should be three or four men at Marl. There’s water there, and supplies for emergencies.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Ridge said. “I never drove that route.”

  “When the patrol doesn’t find you or me, I think they will turn about and ride to Marl. That was on their route, anyway. With luck, they’ll be there when we arrive…or shortly after.”

  “All right,” Ridge said, “I’ll go along.” He thrust a couple of roots into the fire. “You see the Injuns?”

  “Swapped some shots,” Callaghen said. “I don’t know how many there were, but we counted the tracks of a dozen to fifteen before we started over to help you.”

  “That’s a-plenty—more than a-plenty.”

  Callaghen was tired. He got up and went over to his horse, stripped the saddle from its back and rubbed it with a handful of galleta grass. He held his canteen in his hand, but decided to wait until morning to drink. He led his horse deep into the cove and drove the picket-pin down solidly. When he got back to the fire, the coffee was ready.

  The guard, whose name was Becker, gestured toward the food. “Beats army rations, don’t it, Sarge? I done my time on them desecrated vegetables, hardtack, and salt pork. In an outfit with a good Company Fund where you can buy extry, it ain’t so bad.”

  The coffee was good. Callaghen held his cup in both hands, listening to the talk around the camp. He was thinking he had better get some sleep.

  Malinda came over to him. “What about your discharge, Mort? Has it come through?”

  “It should have,” he said. “I expect I’ll get it fast enough when it comes. Sykes will want to be rid of me.”

  “When it does come, what will you do?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve saved a little. I’ll have to make a start somewhere. The trouble is, all I know is soldiering.”

  Malinda put her hand on his sleeve. “Morty Callaghen, that’s not true, and you know it. You’ve handled men, you understand administr
ation, you know something about law…there’s a lot you could do.”

  He looked at her, only half believing. He had never been able to decide what to do, once he left the service. He knew a little of too many things, not enough of anything.

  “Sarge?” It was Ridge. “Somebody’s comin’!”

  Chapter 11

  INSTANTLY THERE WAS silence. Overhead the stars hung bright in the black sky, and around them the mountain seemed to crouch, waiting.

  Callaghen stepped from the firelight into the darkness, and stood still, listening.

  Ridge moved close to him. “I surely heard something out yonder,” he said softly. “Heard it clear.”

  Callaghen heard nothing. Ridge was not a tenderfoot. If he believed he had heard something, that was the way to bet.

  They moved farther away from the fire, into the darkness. “Stay close, Ridge. I’ll scout around.” He hesitated, then added, “Keep an eye on Wylie and his partner. I don’t trust them.”

  “Heard you had a run-in with Wylie.”

  “So did Major Sykes. He’s got something going, but I don’t know what it is.”

  The night was cool. Away from the fire, he saw at once how good their choice for a camp had been. At a distance of perhaps sixty steps only a faint glow was visible, and as he moved away that diminished, then disappeared.

  The camp was in a cul-de-sac, a break that notched the wall of the mountain, and was screened by a slight bend in the notch as well as by rocks and brush. It was a spot such as might be found at fifty places within as many square miles, no more unusual than any of the others.

  He paused when well out toward the open desert. That sound could well have come from up on the mountain itself. A sure-footed man could cross any part of it, although there would be difficulties here and there.