High Lonesome

by Louis L'Amour

  If something happened so that guns were fired, then he would lose his crowd fast, and he would have to get out of town the best way he knew how. But what if Pete grew suspicious and started putting two and two together? Then his tail would really be in the crack.

  Considine started his horse again. He drew his gun and spun the cylinder, then checked the spare gun he always carried in his saddlebag.

  The horse he was riding was strange to him, but Honey Chavez said it was the fastest he had. Their own horses would be waiting for them at the box canyon hideout, so they could run these hard getting away, make a quick switch, and head south on their fresh horses.

  The great difficulty, of course, was in these things for which one could not plan successfully—the unexpected, the mistakes made by others which could not be foreseen. A man packing a gun might walk into the bank at the wrong time; somebody might leave the bank and then return; or somebody with a rifle handy might be in one of the second-floor windows.

  Runyon might score a lucky punch and knock him cold … or, just as bad, he might knock Runyon out. The fight must last ten minutes at the very least.

  He looked off to the west, and saw smoke rising. He swore bitterly, remembering that Spanyer and Lennie were traveling that way.

  His thoughts reverted to the problem before him, and he ticked off one by one some of the things he must consider and for which they had tried to plan.

  Mrs. O’Beirne, for instance. That woman never missed a thing, and she kept a shotgun handy. She had used it on a bunch of Indians once with terrible effect. She was nobody to take lightly; after the death of her husband she had put on pants and roped and branded her own stock.

  Tilting his hat back so his face could be plainly seen, he drew up on the edge of town and rolled a cigarette. His mouth felt dry, and there was a tightness in his stomach. Straightening himself in the saddle, he rode around the end of the corral and into the street.

  In his mind he saw the whole vast area around the town as though he soared above it. Here lay the town; to the west rode Spanyer and his daughter. Behind him, soon to turn off in this direction, rode Hardy, Dutch, and the Kiowa. These were the small parts of a machine that had already started to move inexorably toward a given point in time.

  He was not on the wanted list in Obaro. It was known that he had robbed those trains long ago, but there had been no evidence. He could ride freely into the town.

  Here he had lived. These people he knew. He also knew that if he successfully robbed their bank they would pursue him as far as they could, they would capture or kill him if possible; but secretly they would be pleased that, since it had been done, one of their own boys had done it.

  He knew the peculiar philosophy of these people, knew the part that daring and excitement played in their lives. And he knew with a pang that all that was changing.

  With watchful eyes he rode into the street; unconsciously he tipped his hat forward again. A few loafers sat on the gallery in front of the Emporium, which was two blocks down the street. Mrs. O’Beirne was sweeping off her steps.

  A hen pecked at something in the street, a dog rolled in the warm dust. Several horses were hitched to the rail. One by one he checked off the things he saw, glancing once, sharply, at the bank from under his hat brim, then he tilted it back on his head once more so they could see his face. He wanted to be recognized … they must all know he was in town.

  As he drew abreast of the harness shop he saw a man who was standing inside come suddenly to the door and stare at him. He heard the startled exclamation: “Doc! Did you see what I saw?”

  Somewhere a door slammed … Considine was back in town.

  Around the corner just ahead of him was Pete Runyon’s house—the house where he lived with Mary. The picket fence had been painted a fresh white, and the small lawn was green and smooth. Climbing roses grew over the porch.

  Now people were coming to the doors to look at him, and the loafers in front of the Emporium were all on their feet.

  A big man with a blond walrus mustache yelled at him: “Hey, Considine! You back to stay?”

  Considine drew rein. “Hiya, Matt! See you’re fat as ever.”

  “We never figured to see you around here.”

  Considine dropped his cigarette into the street. Had he seen a curtain move in the Runyon window? He grinned easily. “Why, I’ve got friends in town, Matt. I came back to see Pete Runyon. I hear he’s been keeping in shape.”

  He glanced at the sun. Not much time, and he could not cut it too fine. He turned the corner and dismounted in front of the white gate.

  Taking off his hat, he knocked the dust from his jeans. He was jumpy inside … nerves. But some of the old deviltry was rising within him, and for the first time in days he felt genuine anticipation for what lay before him.

  Mary had always been too serious, and she would be too serious now. He looked at the house as he opened the gate. Well, she had what she wanted, and it looked like Mary, too, all neat and precise and pretty.

  Mary knew all the little tricks of binding a man tight; she knew exactly what she wanted in her neat, definite little life … well, maybe that was all right for Pete. Suddenly, and for the first time since she had thrown him over for Pete Runyon, Considine felt a vast relief.

  He went up on the porch, his spurs jangling. There was a screen door, and the inner door was open. He stepped inside. It was a stuffy little parlor with a Brussels carpet and stiff chairs covered with dark red plush. Each of the chairs had a neat white antimacassar on the back. It was a proud, pretentious little room, stiffly, primly respectable.

  The room was Mary, so completely that Considine felt suddenly sorry for Runyon. How much had she changed him?

  “Anybody home?”

  His voice boomed into the stillness within the house, somehow faintly indecent in that strict, upright silence. Mary Runyon came suddenly into the room, and stopped abruptly. She was shapely in her neat house dress, her hair drawn smoothly back.

  She had a certain assurance and poise that he did not remember, probably something that comes to a woman who is loved—or to one who has caught her man and hog-tied him.

  “Hello, Mary.”

  Her face turned white to the lips, and she smoothed her dress with both hands, running them down over her waist, carefully, slowly. It was a gesture she had when she was upset … he remembered it well.

  Mary had always been prim and respectable, and it had always angered her that he had the ability to excite her physically. Considine grinned at the memory of it. She had hated the idea of it, for it offended her sense of the proprieties.

  “What do you want?”

  Her voice was sharp, without gladness or welcome. Yes, he thought, this is Mary. She had her man and her home, and his return was a threat, a danger.

  “Where’s Pete?”

  “He’s not here.” She gathered her apron in her fingers and seemed to dry her already dry hands. “What are you doing here? Why couldn’t you stay away?”

  “Figured we might talk over old times, Mary.” He grinned at her, a taunting grin. She flushed and grew angry.

  “Go away! Leave us alone!”

  Considine did not move. This was the worst part. His eyes went to the clock on the mantel. “I won’t be staying,” he said. “I just came back to see Pete.”

  “You will see him if you stay. He isn’t afraid of you.”

  “Pete? Pete Runyon was never afraid of anybody or anything … even when he knew I could beat him with a gun, he wasn’t afraid.”

  He glanced around the room. “Well, you must really have him hog-tied or he’d never sit still for a room like this, Mary.” He looked into her eyes. “Better give him some rope, Mary. You tie a man too tight and he strangles. You let a man have a little leeway, and if he loves you he will tie himself, and like it.”

  “Pete isn’t tied down,” she protested. “He’s a responsible man. He means something in this town.”

  She lifted her
eyes to his again. “What do you mean to anybody? Anywhere?”

  He felt the stab of truth, but brushed it away. Yet it was true, for he meant nothing, anywhere, to anybody. And then suddenly he thought of Lennie. Maybe he did mean something—if only a little—to somebody.

  “You’re wrong, Mary. I’ve got a girl of my own.”

  Her eyes sharpened, and he remembered something else about Mary. She had never liked to lose anything, even when she didn’t want it Yet, taking her all around, he supposed she was a good woman. She kept a good house, she was attractive-looking, and probably Pete would wind up as mayor, or something.

  “She would have to take the guns away from you and turn you into a responsible citizen or you’d be worth nothing to her!”

  “Like Pete? You’d probably want her to pin on a star and run my best friend out of town.”

  “You know Pete didn’t want to do that! He had to … after all that happened.”

  “And to keep you!”

  Mary Runyon was furious now. “Get out! Get out of my house! I hope I never see you again!”

  He turned on his heel and walked out, and stood there for a moment in the bright sunshine. Well, what had that accomplished? But all he wanted it to accomplish was to make Pete mad enough to fight … and maybe it would.

  Yet he felt tight and strange inside, and suddenly he knew the last thing he wanted to do was fight Pete Runyon. In fact, it would be good to see him again … like old times.

  How many head of cattle had they branded together? How many times when working for the same cow outfit had they fought off Indians or rustlers? How many head of cattle had they snaked out of bogs? How many saloon brawls had they fought side by side?

  He gathered his reins and stepped into the saddle, and suddenly Mary was beside him, grasping at his sleeve. “Considine … I don’t care what you think of me, but don’t hurt Pete!” She clung to his hand. “Please, leave him alone!”

  Astonished, he looked down at her twisted, anguished face. “Why, Mary! You really love him, don’t you?”

  Suddenly her face was still. “Yes … yes, Considine, I do love him. He’s my man.”

  Well, I’m forever damned, he thought. This is Mary. Mary, who struggled against every emotion, and whom he used to delight to take into his arms because he knew she responded to something in him, though she fought against it, hating herself for showing it. Even for feeling it.

  “Mary,” he said gently, “Pete and I have a little matter to settle, but Pete and I have fought before, and that’s all it will be. Maybe he’ll whip me again, maybe I’ll whip him, but I’ll make you one promise, Mary, and it is the only one I can make. I won’t draw a gun on him.”

  He rode off, and she stared after him for an instant, then gathering her skirt, she started to run.

  There were several buckboards on the street now, and thirty or forty horses were tied along the hitching rails. More people were on the street than was usual at this hour of the morning, so he knew the word had spread. Under other circumstances, with a fight like this about to come off, he would have been out there himself to watch.

  He swung down and tied his horse with a slip knot. He removed his hat and then put it back on, and in the moment of settling it on his head his eyes went toward the bank. Nobody stood in front of it … nobody seemed to be coming or going.

  He did not see Mary Runyon run to Mrs. O’Beirne’s, where the words rushed from her. “Have you seen Pete? Considine is looking for him!”

  Mrs. O’Beirne merely glanced at her. “Now don’t worry your head about Pete! He’ll know what to do … he’ll do what he did before!”

  Considine had stopped next door to the office of the sheriff. The clock in the bank window said it was eleven-thirty. He was really sweating it out now. Things had to happen fast … the worst of it was, Pete was a slow man to anger.

  Somewhere a horseshoe rang against an iron peg. That might be Pete … he was a man who liked to pitch horseshoes, and was good at it.

  Suddenly, from the area back of the sheriff’s office, he heard Mary’s voice. “Pete! Pete, Considine’s in town!”

  “Is he now?”

  “Pete, he wants trouble … I just know he does!” Her voice grew strident. “Pete, don’t fight with him! Just put him in jail!”

  Pete’s laugh was deep, rich, amused. “Now, Mary, you know nobody could put Considine in jail without a fight. What do you expect of me?”

  Then Pete Runyon came around the corner of the building and their eyes met. Considine had to fight back an impulse to step up and thrust out his hand. He liked this man. He had always liked him … but he needed that stake, he needed that money in the bank—or did he?

  He shook off his doubts, angry with himself. Of course he needed it!

  “What do you want, Considine? I take it this isn’t a social call.”

  “Not unless you think getting your noggin beat off is social.”

  Men were gathering around, eager not to miss a word, or a blow. Involuntarily, Considine’s eyes strayed up the street. He could see a man dismounting from a horse up near the bank. The man was Dutch.

  “Did you have to come back?” Pete asked.

  “Sure … to push your face into the mud of Jensen’s stable yard!”

  Mary was behind Pete, and so he added, wanting to get started, “And I want to show your wife how her pretty boy looks with his face all mussed up!”

  Pete Runyon flushed, but he was puzzled, trying to grasp what lay behind this. Considine was worried. If Runyon started thinking … He was canny and moreover he knew Considine too well … if he had time to think he would figure this out, and there would be hell to pay.

  “What’s the matter, Pete? Has marriage slowed you down? Don’t tell me you’re getting fat in the belly as well as the head?”

  Runyon’s features settled into hard lines. “I never backed out of a fight in my life, and you damned well know it!”

  Considine chuckled tauntingly. “Not before you got married. Has she trimmed your horns, Pete?”

  Runyon’s face darkened angrily. He took half a step forward, his fist cocked.

  Considine backed away. “Not here, Pete. Down where we fought before—on the same ground. You were lucky there, and you’d better be lucky this time!”

  Considine turned to the crowd. “I’m going to lick your sheriff, unless he’s too scared to fight.”

  Wheeling, he started down the street toward the corral. The clock said eleven-forty.

  A man stood in the door of the bank wearing a green eyeshade and sleeve garters. That would be Epperson. Trust Epperson not to miss a good fight.

  Considine hung his jacket over his saddle-horn and led his horse off down the street, the crowd following. He could hear Pete arguing with Mary, but he did not stop. It had to work now … it must work.

  Turning into Larson’s feed lot, he put his horse where he could easily get to it, and faced around to meet Runyon. His mouth was dry and his stomach felt empty.

  Watch that right, he warned himself. Watch his right and keep moving. Don’t let him get set.

  Mrs. O’Beirne stood on her steps talking to Mary. “Now don’t you worry your head. I’ll not deny it will be a fight, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it.”

  “But Pete …” Mary started to protest 65

  “A fight never hurt a man, Mary Runyon. Now don’t you worry.”

  Mrs. O’Beirne looked at Considine. “That boy! And he came from such a fine family! I’ve always said that things would have been different if the Apaches hadn’t wiped them out when he was a youngster.”

  Pete Runyon had taken off his coat and his guns and hung them on the fence. He turned now and moved toward Considine, but he was still puzzled … worried about something.

  Considine fixed that. He stepped in quickly and slapped Pete Runyon across the mouth.

  Dutch had dismounted in front of the saloon, and he looked like any big, lazy, rather fat man as he walked
into the bank, brushing by the banker and the cashier who stood in the door, looking toward the corral. Not a man was in sight this side of the corral, anywhere along the street.

  Dutch pulled out a twenty-dollar gold piece. “I’d like some change for this, mister.”

  Reluctantly, the cashier turned from the door and walked back into the bank. Two riders on dusty horses drew up before the bank just then and one of them got down. Through the window Dutch saw Hardy starting for the door.

  The banker turned from the door. “Damn it, if I wasn’t a businessman, I’d—”

  Hardy put the gun in his back just as Dutch produced his gun on the startled cashier. Leaving both men to be guarded by Hardy, Dutch went behind the wicket, avoiding the glass door.

  With swift, practiced movements, he picked up the neat stacks of eagles and swept the gold into his sack. From down the street came the sound of shouts and wild cheering.

  There was no waste motion, no hesitation. As swiftly as he had stripped the counters and safe of the gold, Dutch came around the counter, put down the sack, and bound and gagged the banker and the cashier. Then he picked up the sack and the two men went out into the street, where the Kiowa waited.

  “Dutch,” Hardy said, “I’d sure like to see that fight!”

  “So would I. Come on!”

  They walked their horses for the first block, turned down the chosen alley and trotted through the dust, then turned into the hills, and began to ride swiftly.

  Once, topping out on a ridge, they looked back. There was no pursuit.

  “I hope he makes it,” Hardy said. “I surely hope he does!”

  “He’ll make it.”

  The Kiowa said nothing at all. He liked the weight of the sack he was carrying, and he was already thinking of Mexico.

  Dutch indicated a far ridge. “Smoke,” he said. “Well need all the breaks we can get to reach the border.”

  By rights Considine should be leaving town about now. He had the fastest horse and should catch them.