the Man Called Noon (1970)

by L'amour, Louis

  "I cannot believe you were bad."

  "Don't gamble it. When Kissling attacked me I did not think. Whatever I did, it was in me to do."

  "What will you do now?"

  He shrugged, and finished his coffee. "Ben Janish will be coming back, and if he is gunning for me I must kill him or be killed. They say he is an expert, and I do not know whether I can even shoot straight."

  He got up. "I think I will go away for a while. I will try to find out something about myself - who and what I am. If it is something worthwhile, I will come back."

  "I would like that."

  For a few minutes they talked quietly, and then he excused himself and went outside. The night was cool and quiet, and he stood very still, listening to the night sounds and breathing deep of the fresh air. But there was no quiet in him, there was only torment. Still the same questions: Who was he? What was he?

  There was something within him that responded easily and naturally to Fan Davidge. He was at ease with her, he felt right with her; but at any moment his whole life could blow up in his face.

  What if he was an escaped criminal? What if he was wanted by the police for some crime?

  And who was Matherbee? Who was "the man who was best for the job"? Who was Ruble Noon? Or Dean Cullane?

  He knew he must go to El Paso. But first he must return to the cabin in the mountains, search it for some clue to Ruble Noon, and then find the other way out. Then it would be time to go to El Paso.

  If he lived that long ...

  Chapter Six

  The last stars of night clung to the sky, and there was a growing light in the east when he rolled silently from his bunk and dressed. He was outside when he heard a faint step. It was Henneker.

  The old man stared at him sourly. "Pullin' your freight?"

  "Yes."

  "What about her?"

  "You told me she wasn't for my kind. Maybe you're right."

  "I don't mean that. I mean Ben Janish. He was your job, wasn't he?"

  The man who called himself Jonas tightened a strap. There was something here he did not understand.

  Henneker spoke impatiently, keeping his voice low. "Arch doesn't know a thing, but the old man talked to me. I told him you were the only man for the job. He already knew of you, though, and I think he'd been studying on it. I think he knew when he left that he'd never come back, so he had to decide."

  "I don't know what you're talking about." The morning was cold, and he wanted to be away before any of the others were around.

  "All right," the old man said testily, "you don't know anything, and if anybody asks me, neither do I, but if that girl's to have any decent kind of life you'll have to do what you was paid for."

  "And what was I paid for?"

  Henneker snorted. "I told you Davidge talked to me. Four men - that's what you was paid for, four men who needed their hair lifted. You was paid for Dave Cherry, John Lang, Cristobal, and Ben Janish."

  "Why didn't he include Kissling?"

  "He wasn't here at the time. Anyway, he's small stuff. I could handle him myself."

  "You?"

  Henneker stared at him. "I never taken up your kind of work as a business," he said. "I done it for a hobby. Although," he added, "I don't figure I was up to Ben Janish even when I was a kid. Maybe Wes Hardin could do it."

  "You think I can?"

  Henneker shrugged. "You taken the money. You got the job. You do it in your own way an' your own time ... only time is runnin' out."

  Jonas swung into the saddle and reined the dun around. "I'll be back," he said, and walked his horse away into the night.

  Behind him he heard a door close and John Lang's hard voice. "Who was that?"

  "The stranger," Henneker answered. "He's goin' out to tally cattle."

  Jonas drew rein, listening. After a moment Lang said, "Well, he won't do no harm. He can't get past Kissling, anyway. He's at the gate."

  Once away from the ranch, he put the dun into a gallop. This time the trip to the cabin took less time, even with the extra precautions he took. At the cabin he stabled the dun, and taking a scythe from the wall, cut enough grass for the horse to keep busy.

  The builders of this cabin seemingly had prepared for anything, and he felt sure they had planned a way out of this high valley as well. The larger part of the structure was old, and it was that part built under the overhang that was oldest. He wanted to find what lay behind the cabin, beyond the rock knoll against which it was built.

  He scrambled to the top of the rock, and walked over it toward the far side. He stopped so suddenly that he almost fell. Before him the rock dropped sheer away for several hundred feet. Far below him he glimpsed a dim trail that seemed to point toward the rock on which he stood.

  Suppose that trail dead-ended against the cliff? Suppose there was some way up from within the rock? The rock dropped so steeply that to go further was to risk a fall, although a man in his socks might work his way down to the lip of the overhang, the chance was too great.

  He went back down to the cabin, keeping the distances in mind. Obviously, the back of the house must be within a few feet of the face of the cliff. Had there been a wind-hollowed opening there before the cabin was built? There were many such "windows," as they were called in this country, in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, as well as in Colorado.

  Inside the cabin he looked around slowly and carefully. In his earlier examination of the place he had given only a few glances around. He had sat in the chair, but he had not taken time to look at the books or to examine the guns-to open the door of the closet... doors, he should say.

  He opened them, and there, in neat rows, hung half a dozen suits, several pairs of jeans, several kinds of boots, and half a dozen hats of different styles. Whoever had used this place had evidently wanted to alter his appearance from time to time. Suddenly his eye was drawn to something on the floor of the closet... sand.

  From the boots?

  Shoving the clothing aside, he saw there a small door, which was not over five feet high and four feet wide.

  His hand felt for the almost concealed latch and swung the door outward. A cool breath of air fanned his cheeks. He peered through into a cavern and saw, some thirty feet away, an oval of blue sky.

  He stepped through the opening, and saw at one side of the cave a winch and ropes that hung into a hole. He bent over and looked down.

  It was a chimney in the rock face, varying from about four feet wide at the top to ten at the bottom. Suspended in it was a crude platform about three feet square that could be raised and lowered by the windlass.

  This, then, was the way in which supplies were brought to this place and the way in which access could be gained from the outside. Once up here, and the platform pulled up, there would be no way to reach the cabin, even if anyone knew it was there. No more perfect hideaway could be found anywhere. What about a horse?

  It was likely that the man who used this hideaway kept horses at both places, in the valley below and up here. Yet there was no evidence that whoever had stayed here had ever used the trail to the Rafter D, and it was sheer chance that he himself had found it.

  Once more he sat down to think things over. Slowly his mind went back over his conversation with Henneker.

  The old man had obviously mistaken him for somebody else ... or had he? Suppose he was a hired killer, hired by Tom Davidge to rid himself and his daughter of the men who had moved in without invitation, and had remained?

  Suppose ... just suppose that he himself was Ruble Noon? Suppose his finding his way here was no accident? That he had been guided by some latent memory?

  He got up suddenly, and slipping out of the ill-fitting jacket, he opened the closet and took down one of the coats, a city man's black broadcloth coat, excellently tailored. He slipped it on ... a perfect fit!

  The clothes were his, the house was his. He had the deed in his pocket. But obviously the cabin had been occupied by Ruble Noon before the deed was made out ... no doubt it
came to him as part payment for what he was to do, or as an outright gift.

  Suppose then that Tom Davidge had been the "Nebraska" cattleman who originally hired him? No . . . the Pinkerton report said that cattleman had been a friend to Tom Davidge.

  Davidge had permitted outlaws to stop on his land before, so why not Ruble Noon?

  Four men ... he had taken money to kill four men.

  He got up and walked to the window and looked outside. Sunlight fell through the pines and the raw-boned ridges were starkly beautiful. In this place there was only the wind, and sometimes the rain, the snow, and the cold. Here change came slowly; a rock crumbled, a tree grew, a root pushed deeper into a crevice, forcing wide the jaws of rock. Here there was only one problem, the problem of existence alone. Down there in the valleys where men walked there were many problems.

  He went over to the bookshelves and looked at the titles: Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Mills's On Liberty, Blackstone's Commentaries on the law, and dozens of others. Could the man who read such books kill for hire? If so, what had happened to him?

  The Pinkerton report had accounted in general outline for six years of his life, but what of the time before that? What of the time before he arrived in that Missouri town and went to work for a tie-cutting camp? If he was a mystery to others, he was even more of a mystery to himself.

  Ben Janish, now ... Ben had tried to kill him, and he had apparently taken payment to kill Ben, but he felt no desire to kill him, or anyone else.

  Was that why Ben Janish had tried to kill him - because he knew he was a hunted man? Or had he himself tried to kill Janish and failed, and been shot in return?

  He knew what he had to do. He must go back, search out his past; he must find out who and what he was. He would go to El Paso. He had the address of Dean Cullane.

  He went to the closet again and carefully went through the pockets of every garment. There were no letters, no papers, no addresses .. . nothing.

  The desk next. Again failure. There was a quantity of writing paper, there was ink, and there were pens, and there was an account book with a list of figures in it, apparently sums of money running into several thousands, but there was no clue unless it was the initials after several of the sums.

  Suddenly he thought of the mirror ... he had not looked in a mirror since he had become "Jonas," and he had no idea what he looked like.

  The face he saw was strange. It was a rather triangular face, with strong cheekbones and a strong jaw. It was a handsome face, in a rugged way. He studied it critically, but saw nothing there that reminded him of anyone or anything.

  His eyes went to the patch of bandage on his skull, which needed changing. He removed it, and then, after getting a fire started, he heated water and bathed the wound with care.

  He went back to the mirror. There was an older scar there, evidently from a severe blow on the skull. The present cut had glanced across a corner of it, ripping his scalp.

  He searched about, found a small drawer of medical supplies, and bandaged the wound again. It was healing fast, and a bandage would soon not be needed. A bandage attracts attention, and he hoped he could do without it before he reached El Paso.

  Finding a carpetbag in the closet, he packed a suit, several shirts, and a few other necessary items; then he went out to the stable, stripped the gear from the dun, and turned it loose.

  At the mirror he trimmed the several days' growth of beard, and sat down and shined the boots he was wearing. From some storehouse of memory he remembered something: "If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined." There was something to it.

  After this he entered the closet, closed the door behind him, and went to the shaft. The arrangement of block and tackle had been done by an expert, and would have handled several times his weight. Taking the bag, he lowered himself down the shaft, taking it easy.

  Once men had climbed part way up here ... he could see where steps, now almost obliterated, had been carved into the sandstone. They stopped at a shelf that showed a black cave beyond. Sometime he would take the tune to examine that cave.

  At the bottom of the shaft he took time to listen, then stepped out. He was in a large, roomy cave. At the front was part of a ruined wall, and he had to walk around fallen rock to reach the outer cave, which was formed merely by an overhang hollowed by wind and rain.

  Beyond this a steep path led diagonally down to a sheer cliff that dropped some twenty feet. He looked around and saw a notched pole tucked into a crevice. He took it out, descended by this means, and hid the pole in the brush. From below he could see nothing of the path, only the roof of the overhang.

  He looked all around carefully. He saw a trail, an ancient one by the look of it, that led away along the face of the rock and angled down the slope. There were no tracks on the trail.

  He went slowly, stepping on rocks where he could, avoiding making any sign of passage. Suddenly he paused. Around a corner of rock he saw a cabin built of native stone, with a pole corral, some chickens, and a few guinea hens. In the corral were several horses and three cows.

  He went up to the cabin, walking warily. An old Mexican came out and went to the corral. Taking down a rope, he caught a horse and led it outside.

  He spoke to the Mexican, who merely lifed a hand, and then went to the cabin and returned with a saddle and the rest of the rigging.

  In his own mind he was now quite sure that he was Ruble Noon. He said, "Has anyone been around?"

  The Mexican shook his head. His eyes went to the bandage, just visible under Noon's hat, but he said nothing. He was an old man, square and solid, a muscular man with a seamed and scarred face.

  Noon touched the bandage. "Dry-gulch," he said, "I was lucky."

  The Mexican shrugged, then gestured toward the house and made a motion of eating. When his mouth opened, Ruble Noon saw the man had no tongue.

  Noon shook his head, and believing the saddled horse was for him, he went to it and gathered the reins. The horse nickered softly, seeming to know him. '

  'I'll be back in about a week," he said, and the old Mexican nodded.

  The trail dipped down, went through a notch in the cliffs, and headed southeast. At first, he saw no tracks on the trail, then a few, obviously many days old. After an hour's ride he saw something gleaming in the sun, still some distance off ... it was the railroad.

  He continued on the trail and suddenly found it was parallel to the railroad and perhaps a mile away from it. There were rocks and brush at that point, but a space behind them was beaten by the hoofs of horses, orof one horse tethered there many times. It was a perfect observation point, where a man could wait unseen, watching the railroad and the station.

  The station was simply a freight car without wheels, with a chimney made of stovepipe, and a signal for stopping trains.

  After watching for several minutes he decided that the place was deserted, and he rode on again along the trail. It wound among a maze of huge boulders, with several other trails coming in to join it, and then it pointed toward the tracks and the station.

  The door of the station was on the latch. He opened it, and stepped inside. There was a pot-bellied stove, a woodbox, a bench, and a few faded magazines. He went back outside and raised the stop signal, and settled down to wait.

  The fly-speckled schedule told him the train would be along in two hours-a freight train.

  All was quiet. Somewhere out on the flat he heard a bird call, but there was no other sound. He looked off across the flat country toward the farthest mountains.

  Soon he might know. Somewhere there would be a clue. If he was Ruble Noon now, he might always have been Ruble Noon-but what if he had been somebody else before that? What was he? Who was he?

  In the distance he heard the train. He could hear the rails humming.

  Chapter Seven

  The train came in sight, whistled, and rolled down the track, the drivers pounding. It consisted of a locomotive, two freight
cars, three stock cars, and a caboose.

  The brakeman swung down. "Climb aboard," he said. "We're runnin' behind time."

  "How about my horse?"

  He gave a look at the roan, then indicated an empty stock car. "Load 'im up, but get a move on."

  An improvised ramp, three planks nailed together, lay against the building. Noon took one end, the brakeman the other, and they placed it in position. The horse went into the stock car, and in a matter of minutes they were rolling.

  Back in the caboose the brakeman went to the stove and took up the coffeepot. "How about it?" he said.

  "Sure," Noon said.

  The railroader handed him a cup. The coffee was hot, black as midnight, and strong.

  "Can't figure you out," the brakeman said. "I've made this run fifty times, maybe, an' nobody ever gets on at that stop but you."

  "It's a lonely country."

  "Yeah ... it is that. But there's a lot of lonely country, and you're the on'y one I know with your own railroad station."

  Noon shrugged. "I'm not complaining. Saves time."

  The brakeman finished his coffee and went out to check the train. Ruble Noon put down his cup and stretched out on the settee.

  Some hours later he was awakened by the brakeman. "You hungry? We're makin' a stop up ahead. The grub's pretty good."

  "Thanks."

  It was night. He heard the train's long whistle, looked ahead, and saw the finger of light from the locomotive pushing its way through the darkness. Behind it was the red glow from the firebox. The long whistle sounded again, calling into the night.

  He sat for some time in the window, looking into the darkness. Then he saw the lights of a town ahead, a fair-sized town. He took out his watch-it was just past eleven o'clock.

  The train ground to a halt. "We'll be here about twenty minutes," the brakeman said. "Don't get too far away."

  Noon swung down, following the brakeman, and walked to the station. There was a lunchroom there, and several men were already eating at the long table. Two men who appeared to be cowhands were standing at the bar nursing their beers