Bendigo Shafter

by Louis L'Amour

  Please hurry back before I must leave. I do so wish to see you.

  Ninon.

  Ninon would be leaving. Well, it would be better for her. She was not geared to our kind of life, nor was there much in prospect for her if she remained with us.

  Still, the thought of her leaving disturbed me more than I wished to admit. She was a child, no more than that. The fact that girls often married at fifteen or sixteen had nothing to do with it. Even if she had been old enough I was in no shape to marry or to even consider it.

  I’d seen too many men marry young and slave their lives out carrying the burden of wife and children. No matter how much a man loves his family, it kind of hamstrings him to have them too young ... or so it seemed to me.

  Several slow days of driving followed. The grass was only in patches, for the year had not been a good one, and when we found good grass, and it was usually Uruwishi or Follett who directed us to it, we scattered the cattle and let them graze. The Snake was not for ahead of us.

  When the cattle grazed and there was yet light, I found occasional moments when I could read, and more often than not I read Blackstone. There was a growing hunger in me to be something, someone.

  I knew it was not going to come to me by chance or by a sudden gift. Whatever I became I would have to become by my own efforts, and the worst of it was I did not know exactly where I was going or what I wished to be.

  Of one thing I was sure. I was going to be something, and I was on my way. All I could do now was to finish the drive and learn all I could en route.

  There’s nothing like a long, slow drive to give a man chances for thinking. By the time the cattle reached grass they were always hungry enough to need little care, and old Uruwishi and Stacy Follett scouted the country, hunted our meat, kept their eyes and ears and pores open for trouble.

  At night, with Short Bull riding herd, I put my book aside and listened to the talk between Stacy and old Uruwishi.

  The Umatillas were kin to the Nez Perce and once had controlled a vast sweep of country from the Rocky Mountains to the Cascades, from the Yakima Basin to the Blue Mountains. Occasional hunting parties had crossed the Rockies, but that was rare until horses came among them.

  Uruwishi thought he could remember when that was. Other Indians to the south had an occasional horse, stolen from still other Indians, who had themselves raided deep into Mexico to obtain them. Uruwishi had been a child when the first raiding party returned with three horses, but by the time he was old enough to hunt by himself with a bow, they had many horses.

  They had lived upon salmon most of the time. Uruwishi remembered when Lewis and Clark had come down the Columbia, trading with them for some salmon, freshly caught. They were the first white men he had seen, although his father had been down to Astoria, long before, and his grandfather had once seen some men who were shipwrecked on the coast to the south. The white man had not seemed important, for there were too few of them. Indians accepted them or killed them depending upon the mood of the moment or the white man’s ability to defend himself. For a long time there were only a few rare men who drifted through the country.

  For more than ten years after the Lewis and Clark group, Uruwishi had not seen even one white man.

  The Chinooks were pushing in from the west, encroaching on their land. Other Indians were moving in also, and the Umatillas, never a large tribe, suddenly found their hunting lands growing less.

  It was a story I had heard many times, and was to hear many times again, the story of one tribe pushing another, moving in, warring against them in long sporadic wars, and then taking over their hunting lands. Each time they were pushed they themselves pushed against other tribes, or moved to distant, less occupied areas.

  Vast areas had been uninhabited, especially in the years before the horse came to give greater mobility. The Indians clung to lakes and rivers where water was in good supply. Yet there was much warring back and forth with nothing more in mind than the taking of scalps, counting coup, or stealing horses.

  There was, I gathered, vast differences in the temperament of the various tribes, some very energetic, others lazy, and those living in the Great Basin country to the south and west of us had the least interesting cultures, due no doubt to the desperate struggle to even survive in a land of little water and less game.

  Lorna’s letter was the last one I opened. Its date was one month later than either of the others.

  Dear Bendigo:

  I am sad to tell you that Ninon is gone. A Charles Lairman and his wife (he is an attorney) came for her. She did not wish to go, nor did we want to see her go, but Cain agreed they were fine people, and she will have a better chance. Her aunt, we understand, is a very wealthy woman, very aristocratic, and has no children of her own.

  It is just as well she is gone, for there has been trouble here. More gold has been found, although Cain says most of it is scarcely enough for the miner to live on. Nobody is getting rich, not even Neely Stuart. Cain believes Mr. Trotter and that other man are stealing from him, but he is (Neely is) afraid to accuse them. Moses Finnerly has demanded there be an election, and has offered to run for mayor. Quite a few of the new people are for him. He has offered Ottie Trotter as town marshal and Mr. Pappin for justice of the peace.

  Some people want Cain as mayor, but he favors Mr. Sampson, and so do most of us. Something must be done, for there have been several robberies, and Mr. Aylmer, who discovered some gold on his claim, was murdered.

  There was an election at the stable one night without anyone being consulted, and Jake Robinson was made town marshal. He came out on the street with his badge, and some of the toughs around Dad Jenn’s saloon took his badge off, pushed him around, and beat him up.

  A man tried to break into Mrs. Macken’s two nights ago and she ordered him off; he laughed at her and kept lunging at the door, so she shot through the door. The man cried, swore, and warned her he’d be back.

  Putting the letter down, I stared off across the fire. We were still a good two weeks away from our town, but I had a hunch I’d better start back ... that letter was three months old.

  With sunup the old trapper led us back through winding canyons into a hollow in the hills. I’d seen such places before, but this was of singular beauty, wide open to the sun with a stream running through it and a meadow of fine grass. It ran back into the mountains for upwards of three miles, with several hollows or basins, too steeply walled for the cattle to escape. The canyon narrowed down to the rail fence that guarded the entrance, a fence often renewed by the look of it.

  “My own cache,” Follett said, “got my own ranch. I never seen no tracks but wild game an’ my own. She’s a lost valley, and that’s what I call it.”

  We drove our own cattle into the valley and let them stay the night, and when morning came we carefully cut out those we were to leave behind and headed the rest toward the gate.

  Some of the wild stock tried to cut back, but our cattle were well broken to the trail and the Durham and Shorthorn stock was more inclined to be placid, so the wild cattle drifted with the herd.

  “All right,” I said to Follett, “I am leaving you in charge. Just keep coming as you are, but when you get closer to our town you’d better keep your eyes open ... somebody might try to run off the herd.”

  “What about you?” Stacy Follett stared at me, his old eyes thoughtful. “You’re ridin’ into trouble, boy.”

  “I know it. But I have it to do.”

  “What you figurin’ on?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll just have to ride in and do what I can.”

  I shook hands all around, had a word for each of the Indians, and then I stepped into the saddle. I was taking two horses, a gray horse with a little dappling on the hips and a buckskin.

  In the clear light of morning, I started and rode the sun from the sky, swapping my saddle to the second horse at midday and continuing on. Two hours of rest and I was off again, and when midnight was well gone I camped, staked out m
y horses, and rolled into my blankets. At daybreak I was up, ate a piece of jerky, drank coffee, and was in the saddle.

  Four days later, with my watch showing it was past ten o’clock, I rode up the street of our town.

  Chapter 26

  From a half mile off I could see the lights of what appeared to be a saloon. As I drew nearer I could see there were other lights in a half dozen buildings. No light showed from the bench where Ruth Macken’s place stood nor from where Cain’s house would be.

  When I’d ridden several hundred yards further I saw the road that turned up to enter the street, and there was a sign there. couldn’t make it out, so I stepped my horse closer and struck a match.

  FINNERLY DAKOTA TERRITORY

  I had gathered the reins and was turning away from the sign when a voice spoke from the darkness.

  “Well, what did you make of it?” The voice was a strange one, the tone pleasant, somewhat speculative, I thought.

  “I made it out to be a mistake,” I said quietly. “I know who founded this town and when, and there was nobody named Finnerly present.”

  “That kind of talk could get a man into trouble,” the speaker said. “I’d soft pedal it, if I were you.”

  “You’re not me,” I replied quietly. “This settlement was put together by a small party of people who wished for security, who wished to build something honest, something worth having and keeping. There seem to have been some changes.”

  He was walking toward me and I could make him out now. He was a shorter man than I, blocky of build, older I’d guess. He carried a rifle.

  “The people who first settled the town are outnumbered now. They are peaceful people with families and homes. Most of the newcomers are without families and they couldn’t care less about peace.

  “There has been gold found here, and these men have come in hoping to pick up what can be found. They are not those who care about anything permanent or stable.”

  “And you?”

  “I am a bystander, sir. I’d not say an altogether innocent bystander. I have seen many towns born, and I have seen several of them die.”

  “Of what did they die?”

  “Lack of attention, I think. Lack of love, lack of the will to take a stand, a willingness to let things be, to not be involved ... a peace at any price policy, I think.”

  “And where did you stand?”

  “I am a watcher, sir. I belong neither here nor there. You come at a most auspicious time, my friend. If you are planning to take part in the election, I’d say a most auspicious time.”

  “Who is running?”

  “Why, the Reverend Moses Finnerly is running for mayor, I believe, opposed by a white-haired old gentleman known as Sampson. A Mr. Pappin is running for justice of peace, and he is opposed, of all things, by a woman.”

  “Ruth Macken?”

  “Ah? You know the name then? Yes, it is Ruth Macken. The Widow Macken, I believe they call her. It is a new thing for a woman to run for office in this country, a revolutionary thing, one might say.”

  “She is an educated, intelligent woman, the widow of an army officer, who was a man of some distinction. She has poise and balance. I would say she would do very well.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “Ollie Trotter is up for town marshal, and I thought at first no one would oppose him.

  “You see,” the stranger said, “there have been three previous marshals here. One of them was made a laughingstock, run out of town. A second was murdered ... mysteriously, as the saying is, and the third was killed in a gun battle, which the witnesses say was a fair fight, by Mr. Candidate Trotter.”

  “But someone is running?”

  “A man named Cain Shafter ... one of that small group who wanted security. I admire Mr. Shafter’s courage, but not his judgment. I hope he is very good with a gun.”

  “Possibly,” I said, with irritation, “if there were fewer citizens who were innocent bystanders he might not need to be good with a gun.”

  “Undoubtedly ... you are, of course, correct. But you see, young man, I am a traveler, an interested traveler but no more than that. My home is in the eastern part of the Territory, where I have but lately come from Denver City and before that from New York.”

  “I see.” I stepped down from the saddle, keeping my horse between us. “You seem to have noticed quite a lot.”

  “I am interested in towns, and in politics. In the affairs of men, let us say. But I am a reader and an observer rather than a doer, and in this town I see a rather unfortunate spectacle, a town that never should have been, coming to an unpleasant end.”

  “Never should have been?”

  “Certainly. Consider the position. You have only a very small stream ... inadequate water supply. You have no major industry ... oh, yes! The gold. But I have seen the gold, and have seen many gold areas. I do not think it is here in any quantity.”

  “The town was not built for gold. Nothing was known of it. The town was built as a refuge, some believed it a temporary refuge, some were building for the future.”

  “Misguided I said. I am sorry, young man, but the town has no future. As a place to live, perhaps. As a center for a small group of ranchers, perhaps. The soil is not rich enough for farming, and the wagon trains will not need supplies for long. The railroad will come, but not here.”

  “Where?”

  “Further south. That’s the best trail. In fact the route has been scouted, building will soon begin.”

  The man made sense, reluctant as I was to agree. We who built our town had come to love it because it was ours, the work of our hands.

  “A mistake is really only a mistake if you persist in it,” I said. He stopped, looking at me. “Well, now. That’s a rather profound remark. Do you think they will persist?”

  I shrugged, and said nothing. I did not know, and besides, we had come to the first buildings. Two ramshackle shacks had been thrown up, undoubtedly since spring, for nobody would live through a winter in South Pass in such shacks.

  There was a store that I did not remember, and across the street from it, the saloon. There were four windows and some batwing doors. The evening was cool but pleasant, and the other doors that could be closed against the weather were open. Some kind of a music box was going within, and I heard rough talk, then laughter. In the light from the door I turned to look at my unknown companion.

  His beard was neatly trimmed, he wore a new gray hat and a black broadcloth suit, his pants tucked into his boot tops. He held out his hand. “Henry Stratton, sir, at your service. I own a bit of property over east of here, near Cheyenne. I have some small interest in the railroad, too.”

  “Bendigo Shafter. This is my home. I have been to Oregon after cattle.”

  “Oh, yes! I heard something of that. I might say you are looked for. Maybe hoped for is the term. I heard Bud Macken say none of this would have happened had you been here.”

  “I’ll be going up to the house now.”

  “You won’t come in for a drink? You might give the boys a chance to look you over.”

  “They will have their chance. Good night, sir.”

  There were no lights in Cain’s house, and I hesitated to approach it at night. Nor was there a light at John Sampson’s ... the only one was a light at the Crofts’ and one up at:Macken’s.

  Turning my horse, I rode up the hill, leading my spare. As I turned into the yard I swung down, calling softly, “Hallo, the house!”

  There was silence, and I walked nearer, then tapped lightly on the door. For a moment there was silence, and then Ruth’s voice said, “Yes? Who is it?”

  “It’s me, Mrs. Macken. It’s Bendigo.”

  I heard a bar lowered, then the door opened a crack. Ruth Macken was there, a pistol in her hand. “Ben? Oh, Ben! Please come in!”

  “If I may I’ll put my horses up first.”

  “Please. I’ll put on some tea.”

  Stripping the gear from my horses, I turned them into the
corral; then rifle, saddlebags, and slicker in hand, my blanket roll thrown over my shoulder, I went back to the house.

  She was the same. The same lovely, composed face, the same dark hair ... seemed to me there was a strand or two of gray I hadn’t noticed, but they might always have been there.

  “Come in, Ben. Let me look at you.” She stood back and looked.

  I knew well what she was seeing. I was two inches taller than six feet and weighed right at one hundred and ninety. I needed a haircut and a shave as well as a bath, and my hat was beat up and dirty.

  Her eyes studied me, shadowed a little, I thought. “Ben, you’ve grown up. You’re a man.”

  “I reckoned I always was, ma’am. I’m just a year or two older.” She poured tea into a cup, and put out a plate of cold meat and bread. “You’ve come at a bad time.”

  As we ate she laid it out for me. The town had grown ... there were nearly two hundred people in it now, many of them men of the rougher sort, and some women, but there were some good people, too. Many of them.

  Drake Morrell was still teaching, and the rough lot who had come in had left him strictly alone. John Sampson was still conducting his church, which now held more than sixty members. In feet, the town had functioned as if it were two towns except for the occasional sound of gunshots and the killings.

  Ollie Trotter had killed a man, a stranger who had come into town. The stories of just what happened were various. The man had been armed. “Webb?”

  “He spends most of his time at the saloon. He speaks to the rest of us, no more than that, but his son runs with the rest of that trash. Foss has taken up with Trotter, follows him everywhere. Trotter calls him his “deputy’ and you can imagine how Foss feels about that. He simply struts. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.”

  “How about your trading post?”

  “It’s been doing very well. I bought some more stock ... Mr. Trask freighted it in for me at first, then Mr. Filleen. We still get a lot of business from the Mormons, although fewer and fewer of them are coming around because of the situation in the town. They wish to avoid trouble, and that is becoming more difficult with every day.”