Rivers West
Louis L’amour
*
Chapter 1
A ghost trail, a dark trail, a trail endlessly winding. A dark cavern under enormous trees, down which blew a cold wind that skimmed the pools with ice. A corduroy road made from logs laid side by side, logs slippery with mud and slush, with rotting vegetation from the swamp.
Here and there a log had sunk deep, leaving a cleft into which a suddenly plunged foot could mean a broken leg, and on either side the swamp … well, some said it was bottomless. Horses had sunk there, never to be seen again—and men, also.
My father’s house lay several days behind me, back of a shoulder on the Quebec shore above the Gulf of St. Lawrence. For days I had been walking southward. An owl glided past with great, slow wings, and out in the swamp some unseen creature moved, seemed to pause, listen.
Was that a step behind me?
Astride a gap between logs, I paused, half turned to look.
Nothing. I must have been mistaken. Yet, I had heardsomething.
My shoulders ached from the burden of my tools. Straining my eyes in the darkness, I looked for a place to stop, any place in which to rest, if ever so briefly. And then I saw a wide stump from which a tree had been sawed, a full six feet in diameter. The tree cut from it lay in the swamp close by, half sunk.
With my left hand I swung my tools to the stump, keeping the rifle in my right, ready for use. This was a wild place. There were few travelers, and fewer still were honest men. Young I might be, but not trusting.
For the first time I was leaving my home, going south from Canada into the United States. Westward, it was said, they were building, and we are builders, we Talons.
There was a time when at least one of the family had been a pirate. He had been a privateer in the waters of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Red Sea, but mostly off the Coromandel and Malabar coasts of India. He’d done well, too, or so it was said. I’d seen none of the treasure he was said to have brought away.
What wasthat? I half rose from my seat on the stump, then settled back, holding my rifle in both hands.
It was cold, and growing colder.
Behind me, on the Gaspe, I had left only my father’s cottage and the good will of at least some of my neighbors. My father was gone. My mother had died when I was yet a young boy, and I had no sweetheart.
Of course, there had been a girl. We had roamed the fields together as children, danced together, even talked of marriage. That was before a man far wealthier than I had come to see her father. To be wealthier than I was not difficult, for I had only the cottage inherited from my father, a few acres adjoining, a small fishing boat, and my trade. And she was ambitious.
The other man was a merchant with many acres, a three-masted schooner trading along the coast, and a store. He was a landed, a moneyed man, and as I have said, she was ambitious.
She had come to our meeting place one last time. At once she was different. There was no fooling about on this day, for she was very serious. “Jean!” She pronounced itzhan, as was correct, but with an inflection that was her own. “My father wants me to marry Henry Barboure.”
It took a moment for me to understand. Henry Barboure was nearly forty, twice as old as I, and a respected, successful man, although I’d heard it said he was very close-fisted and a hard man to deal with.
“You are not going to?” I protested.
“I must, unless … unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Jean, do you know where the treasure is? I mean all that gold the old man left? He was your great-grandfather, wasn’t he? The pirate?”
“It was further back than that,” I said. “And anyway, he left no gold. None that I know of.”
She came closer to me. “Iknow it is a family secret. I know it’s always been a secret, a mystery, but Jean … if we had all that gold … well, Father would never think of asking me to marry Henry. He always told me you’d know where it was, and you could get it, some of it, whenever you liked.”
So that was it. The gold. Of course, I knew the stories. They had been legend in the Gaspe since the first old man’s time. He had been one of the first to settle on what was then a lonely, almost uninhabited coast. He had built a strong stone castle—burned by the British during one of their raids on the coast many years after, and attacked many times before that.
The story was that he had hidden a great treasure, that he could dip into it whenever he wished, and that he had bought property, a good deal of it. It was true that he had sailed to Quebec City or Montreal whenever he desired—even down to Boston or New York to buy whatever he wished. But I knew nothing of any treasure, nothing at all. If he had left any behind it was so well hidden that no one knew where it could be.
My father had shrugged off the stories. “Nonsense!” he would say. “Think nothing of treasure or stories of treasure. You will have in this world just what you earn … and save. Remember that. Do not waste your life in a vain search for treasure that may not exist.”
“There is no treasure,” I said to her. “It is all a silly story.”
“But he had money!” she protested. “He was fabulously rich!”
“And he spent it,” I said. “If you want me it shall be as I am, a man with a good craft who can make a good living.”
She was scornful. “A good living! Do you think that is all I want? Henry can give me everything! A beautiful home, travel, money to spend, beautiful clothes …”
“Take him then,” I had told her. “Take him, and be damned!”
She left me then, and the next time we met on the street she walked by me as if I didn’t exist.
My heart, I told myself, was broken. For a week I tried to convince myself of it. I tried to write poetry about it, I told myself my life was ruined, and I had a great time playing with the drama of it—but not for a minute was I really fooled. Actually, only my vanity had suffered, and that not very much. In fact, I was relieved. Now I was free to go out in the world.
Had not we Talons always done so? Those Talons, that is, of my blood. Others might have the same name, but we of our family knew from whence came the name. Our pirate ancestor had had his hand lopped off by a tyrant, had fashioned a claw to replace the hand, and had taken from that claw the name we bore. Talon.
A fierce old man in his later years, it was said. When I was a boy there was an old man in the village who claimed to have known him whenhe was a boy, and who never mentioned his name without a quick glance over the shoulder.
All that was long ago, and a mill does not turn upon water that is past, nor does a ship sail with the winds of yesterday. I had my own name to make. The story of that pirate Talon … well, that was his story.
A splash of water … a stir from the swamp.
The muzzle of my rifle shifted to cover the spot. It was an eerie place this, and I should be on my way.
Suddenly my throat choked with fear. From the dark, oily waters of the swamp, a white hand lifted … lifted … faint, ghostlike. It seemed to beckon.
I was on my feet, thumb on the hammer, ready to fire.
Then, slowly, the hand became an arm. It dropped over a log, and then a head lifted from the water. A strained white face … gasping, pleading, reaching out.
I sprang forward and caught at the hand.
It was cold … cold. But it was the hand of no ghost. It was flesh and bone. I hauled upon the arm, and a body emerged from the swamp and fell across the half-submerged log. Gently then, I turned him over.
“Help,” the voice was faint, “help me, I …”
There was a stab wound in his chest, a deep wound from which blood and water bubbled. The man was dying. Even had I anythin
g with which to treat him, his life still could not be saved.
“He killed me. He stabbed me. He knew who I was, he …” the voice faded.
“Easy, now!” I warned. I loosened his collar, then tried to ease his position. I’d no idea what he was talking about, nor what to do. He was badly hurt, but from the appearance of the wound and the bubbling, I feared the knife had penetrated a lung.
There was another stab wound in his side, and there might be others in his back. There was no dry land anywhere about that I could see. Nor any place to build a fire. To carry the man in his condition was unthinkable.
“Sir,” I said, “there’s not much I can do.”
He turned his eyes on me and seemed conscious of me for the first time. “I know,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet, “and I’d rather you … you didn’t try. I’m … I’m sort of comfortable.
“Got me in the back. He’s powerful … drove it right to the hilt three times before I got turned around. I don’t believe I … I even scratched … him.
“A bad man … who’ll stop at nothing … nothing at all.” He caught my hand. “I’m Captain Rob … Robert Foulsham.”
“American army?”
“British.”
I should have known from his accent.
It was dark and gloomy. I was far from where I wished to be—which was an inn or stopping place somewhere in the five to ten miles that lay before me. It was already late.
He muttered, talked lucidly, then wandered. I stayed close beside him, irritated that there was nothing I could do, vowing not to be in such a situation again. Yet he was far gone and growing weaker.
“Get him!” he spoke suddenly, loudly. “He is vicious. A renegade … a traitor. He will destroy … destroy. He is evil. He is …” His voice wandered off, and he was silent.
“Who killed you?” I asked. Then, realizing how my words must sound, I said, “Who attacked you?”
“Torville … Baron Richard Torville. A desperate man.”
“What’s he like? Is he tall? Is he—?”
It was no use, for the man had died.
I got slowly to my feet and stood looking down at him. What could I do? What should I do? I had no means to sink him in the swamp, and there was no way to bury him. Yet to leave him where he lay seemed a shameful thing.
If he had relatives, they …
Relatives! I knelt beside the man’s body and went carefully through his pockets. There were some water-soaked papers, yet there were others in a sort of waterproof packet. In his pockets I also found several gold pieces, and in a belt about his waist, several more. There was a pistol, useless until dried out and recharged. A small pistol it was, admirably made.
These few things I gathered together. When I reached a city I would mail them, for among the things there must be an address.
He was young, older than me but less than thirty, and well made. Somehow from his bearing I decided that “Captain” might not have been his only title. He had manner and style.
I had straightened from my final task when I heard a faint splash, a stir of something, a movement. My rifle came waist high, held easily in my hands.
Sounds came nearer, a step and a swish, a hit and a miss.
Who else could be on this road on such a night? Certainly, I had been a fool to attempt to reach my destination before night fell, and the captain here had been, apparently, pursuing someone. Suddenly a figure loomed in the darkness.
“Come along,” I said. “If you’re friendly, come easy with your hands in sight. If you want to be friendly, we can talk. And if you’re not friendly, I can split you right up the middle.”
“Avast there! Avast, lad. I’m coming in peaceful, wishing no harm to any man or beast … least of all, to me.”
He was six or seven inches taller than my five feet and ten inches, with shoulders like a yardarm, and he had a peg-leg. He also had a black beard and wore a gold ring in one ear.
Armed, too. I could see he carried both a rifle and a dirk.
“You travel late,” I said.
He glanced down at the body. “Did you kill him?” His eyes gleamed at me.
“I did not. Did you?” For certainly he looked the murderer, if ever a man did.
“Not I.” He peered at the body. “Well, well. A fine, handsome young chap to die so easily. Oh, I’ve killed a few in my time, but not that one.” He grinned at me. “Anyway, I’ve just come up. You stand over the body, and the man is freshly dead. The law will ask questions, so you’d better think of some answers.”
“There is no law here,” I said. “This is the forest. Yet it is no way for a man to die.”
The big man shrugged. “Who is to say where a man should die? He dies when his time comes, no matter where. And,” he added, “only the body of the man is here. What was inside him is gone. Where he lies does not matter.”
He gestured down the way. “I am told there’s an inn nearby. Are you for it?”
“I am.”
We started on then, leaving the body where it lay for lack of a better thing to do.
The big man wore an old cocked hat and a cloak that made him look even larger in the darkness than he was. “How far is it, do you suppose?” he asked. “I have come far, and this leg of mine, it does not favor long walks.”
“Five miles … perhaps less. Sometimes the understanding of miles is not well grasped. Five miles can mean over the hill and around the bend, or it can mean all day.”
“I know.” He peered at me. “You’ve a load there. Is it tools you carry?”
“Tools of my trade. I am a shipwright.”
“In the forest?” He stared at me. “You are to build ships in the forest?”
What my destination was, and why, was none of his business, so I simply said, “South of here are many seaports where they build vessels to trade with the Indies, or ships for whaling.”
“You’ve a French sound to your voice.”
“I am French … in part, but Canadian born, and pleased to be.”
We walked on in silence, slipping and splashing, swearing a little and grunting. “I am called Jambe-de-Bois,” he said suddenly, “because of this,” he indicated the leg.
“It is as good as another,” I said. “A name is what a man makes of it.”
“True, lad. True.” He glanced at me. “And you? You have a name?”
Suddenly, I was wary. Who was this man from out of the night, coming upon me standing over a dead man. Why this sudden interest in my name? For his tone seemed to have sharpened just a little at the question. Moreover, there was about him something vaguely familiar.
“Who does not have a name? I find them of small meaning.”
Five feet ten inches, I was, and shorter than him. He looked to be a powerful man, but I yielded him nothing on that score. For I was big boned and muscled. In part it was inheritance, for mine had been a strong family; and in part it was my trade and the handling of heavy timbers. I believed myself the equal of any man when it came to sheer strength.
Who was he? And where was he going? I longed to ask, but had scarcely the right, having refused to tell my name. The vague familiarity about him worried me. I was far from home, yet this man had a feel of the sea about him and something of our own accent in his speech. Had he followed me? Was that absurd story of treasure to haunt me forever?
By fishing boat I had come from the Gaspe up the river to Quebec, had crossed the river and entered the forest.
We slopped along in the darkness, wary of our footsteps, only occasionally glimpsing a star overhead through the lacework of branches. Despite the peg-leg, he swung along as easily as me, and I fancy myself a man who can walk.
Suddenly, through the dark columns of the huge old trees, we saw a light. With the chance of good food and drink before us, we lengthened our strides and in a few minutes faced a clearing under giant trees and a ramshackle bridge over an arm of the swamp.
At the door the latchstring was out. We lifted it and stepped inside.
A fine fire blazed upon the hearth of a huge fireplace at the opposite end of the room. There were some benches, a long table, and a half-dozen men standing about. At the fire, a middle-aged woman stirred something in a pot that set my stomach to high expectation.
A mostly baldheaded man with a fringe of sandy hair, whom I took to be the owner, looked around at us. He wore a long buckskin waistcoat and heavy boots.
“Welcome, lads! Welcome! Come up to the table! It’s a raw night for the out of doors. Have a nip of something. I’ve rum … even a bit of ale that I’ve brewed myself. Tasty, mighty tasty.”
He turned to the woman at the fire. “Bett, get some food on the table. These will be hungry men.”
There was a tall man with his back to the wall, a handsome man indeed, with a pipe in one hand and a glass in the other. He looked at me with a quick, appraising glance, then his eyes rested thoughtfully on me. My coat was open, and he could see the pistol there.
I set my tools in the corner, and after a moment of hesitation, my rifle beside them.
CHAPTER 2
“My name is Watson,” the baldheaded man said. “We do a bit of farming here, and some’at o’ fishing, and a man with a rifle can find game. We set a good table, if I do say so m’self.”
He glanced from Jambe to me. “A tot of rum? Warms a body who’s been out in the cold night.”
“Aye,” I agreed, “it has been a long way of forest and swamp.”
“Here it is! And good Jamaica, too! I’ve a taste for the dark rum. Nothing fancy, just good rum.”
The rum did take the chill from my bones, but it was food I wanted, and besides, I’d no taste for drinking with strangers about, and there was an air in this place I did not like. Watson was all right, no doubt, but I’m by nature a cautious man, and the look of the others was not to my taste.
There was a dark, sallow man with snaky black eyes. He stared at me. “Goin’ far?” he asked.
“As far as a job,” I said. “Word has come to me that they are building ships down Boston way.”
Yet I was lying, for my interest lay westward rather than south. To the frontier town of Pittsburgh. Two or three years before, they’d built the steamerNew Orleans, said to be the first on western waters, but I had a feeling it was to be the first of many. With the fur trade to the West growing, there would be a demand for fast, reliable transportation, and as theNew Orleans had proved itself, they would build others. I had an idea of building my own boat to trade on the western waters.
Rivers West (1975) Page 1
