The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 (55 page)

Door by door, Finn worked down the street. Sonntag might be at the shack, but he might not be. Mahone also went down the street, only a glance was needed to tell him who was in each place he visited. When he stopped at the stock corrals, and stared down the road, he could see the dark frame shack where Sonntag lived when in Rico. It was an ugly place to approach.

The square little house stood on a mesquite-dotted lot with nothing near it but the crowded corrals and a small stable, not unlike the flimsy structure at the Brewster ranch.

The road approaching it was flat and offered no cover. He could wait until Sonntag started for town, but Finn was in no mood for waiting now. If Kastelle and Remy were in town there was every chance of them getting hurt, for the town was small, and Sonntag was not about to be thwarted at the last minute.

Finn stepped out from the corrals and started down the path, walking fast.

 

Ed Wheeling walked to the door of the Gold Spike and stared after Mahone, then stepped out on the boardwalk. Slowly, the word had swept the town. Finn Mahone was going after Sonntag and Salter.

Remy was in the general store when she heard it, and she straightened, feeling the blood drain from her face. She turned and started for the door. Her father, seeing her go, was startled by her face. He followed swiftly down the road.

The door of the square house opened, and Byrn Sonntag stepped out.

He had pulled the door closed behind him before he saw Finn Mahone. He squared around, staring at him to make sure he saw aright. Then, stepping carefully, he started toward him.

Neither man spoke.

Seventy feet apart, they halted, as at a signal. Finn Mahone felt a queer leaping excitement within him as he stared across the hot stretch of desert at Byrn Sonntag. Ever since he could recall wearing a gun, he seemed to have been hearing of Sonntag, and always his name had been spoken in awe.

Standing there, his features were frozen and hard now, and his eyes seemed to blaze with a white light.

Sweat trickled down Mahone's cheek. He could smell the sage, and the tarlike smell of creosote bush. The sun was very warm and the air was still. Somewhere, far off, a train whistled.

“Heard you're sellin' cattle, Sonntag.”

“Just a few critters, here an' there.”

“We may have to skin a few, check the brands.”

“No, you're not. I'm goin' to kill you, Mahone.”

Finn Mahone drew a deep breath. There was no way around this. “All right, when that train whistles again, Sonntag, you can have it.”

They waited, and the silence hung heavy in the desert air. Salter was out there somewhere but Finn knew he couldn't fight both of them, so he put the old guerrilla out of his mind and focused on Sonntag. Sweat trickled down Mahone's brow, and he felt it along his body under his shirt, and then he saw the big gunman drop into a half crouch, his body tense with listening. When the whistle came, both men moved. In a blur of blinding speed, Finn Mahone saw Sonntag's gun sweeping up, saw flame stab toward him, and felt a hammer blow in his stomach, but his own gun was belching fire, and he was walking toward Sonntag, hammering bullets into the big redhead, one after another.

He went to his knees, and sweat came up into his face, and then his face was in the sand, and he looked up, still clutching his guns, then he dug his elbows into the sand, and dragged himself nearer.

Somewhere through the red haze before him he could hear the low bitter cursing of Sonntag, and he fired at the sound. The voice caught, and gagged, and then Finn got his feet under him, and swayed erect only to have his knees crumple under him. In a sitting position, he could see Sonntag down, but the man was not finished. Mahone triggered his gun, but it clicked on an empty chamber.

Sonntag fired, and the bullet plucked at Finn's trouser leg. Finn dug shells from his belt and began to feed them into the chambers of his sixgun. Off to his left there was a rattle of pistol fire and the dull boom of the Spencer that Frank Salter carried. Someone was helping Mahone out.

Sonntag was getting up, his thick shirt heavy with blood, his face half shot away. What enormous vitality forced the man to his feet, Mahone could never imagine, but there he was, big as a barn, seemingly indestructible.

Mahone got to his feet, and twenty feet apart they stared at each other. Finn brought his gun up slowly.

“You're a good … man, Mahone,” Sonntag said, “but I'll kill you an' live to spit on your grave!”

His own gun swung up swiftly, and blasted with flame, but the shot went wild, and Finn Mahone fired three times, slowly, methodically.

Sonntag staggered, and started to fall, then pitched over on his face. He squeezed off another shot, but it plowed a furrow in the sand.

It was awfully hot. Finn stared down at the fallen man, and felt his own gun slip from his fingers. He started to stoop to retrieve it, and the next thing he knew was the sound of singing in a low, lovely voice.

His lids fluttered back and he was lying on his back and Remy was bending over him. The singing stopped. “Oh, you're awake? Don't try to talk now, you must rest.”

“How long have I been here?”

“A week tomorrow.”

“A
week
? What happened to Sonntag?”

“He's dead.…”

“And Salter?”

“When you're better you can thank my father.”

“I thought Sonntag was going to kill me,” Finn said thoughtfully.

“Don't think about it now,” Remy advised. “You'll be well soon.”

He caught her hand. “I'll be going back to the valley, then. It's never been the same since that morning when you were waiting on the steps for me. I think you should come back, and stay.”

“Why not?” Remy wrinkled her nose at him. “That's probably the only way I'll ever get that black stallion!”

He caught her with his good arm and pulled her close. “Wait! That's not the way a wounded man should act!” she protested.

Then their lips met, and she protested no longer.

The Moon of the Trees Broken by Snow

Cold blew the winds along the canyon, moaning in the cedars, whining softly where the sagebrush grew. Their fire was small, and they huddled close, the firelight playing shadow games on the walls, the walls their grandfather's father built when he moved from the pit house atop the mesa to the great arch of the shallow cave.

“We must go,” the boy said, “there is no more wood for burning, and the strength is gone from the earth. Our crops are thin, and when the snows have gone, the wild ones will come again, and they will kill us.”

“It is so,” his mother agreed. “One by one the others fled, and we are not enough to keep open the ditches that water our fields, nor to defend against the wild ones.”

“Where will we go?” Small Sister asked.

They avoided looking at each other, their eyes hollow with fear, for they knew not where to go. Drought lay heavy upon the land, and from north, south, east, and west others had come seeking, no place seeming better than another. Was it not better to die here, where they had lived?

The boy was gaunt for each day he hunted farther afield and each day found less to hunt. Small Sister and his mother gathered brush or looted timbers from abandoned dwellings to keep their fires alight.

The Old One stirred and mumbled. “In my sleep I saw them,” he muttered, “strange men sitting upon strange beasts.”

“He is old,” their mother said. “His thoughts wander.”

How old he was they did not know. He had come out of the desert and they cared for him. None knew what manner of man he was, but it was said he talked to gods, and they with him.

“Strange men,” he said, “with robes that glisten.”

“How many men?” The boy asked without curiosity but because he knew that to live, an old one must be listened to and questioned sometimes.

“Three,” the Old One said, “no more.”

Firelight flickered on the parchment of his ancient face. “Sitting upon beasts,” he repeated.

Sitting upon? What manner of beast? And why sit upon them? The boy went to a corner for an old timber. A hundred years ago it had been a tree; then part of a roof; now it was fuel.

They must leave or die, and it was better to die while doing than sitting. There was no corn left in the storage place. Even the rats were gone.

“When the light comes,” the boy said, “we will go.”

“What of the Old One? His limbs are weak.”

“So are we all,” the boy said. “Let him walk as far as he may.”

“They followed the path,” the Old One said, “a path where there was no path. They went where the light was.”

On the third day their water was gone, but the boy knew of a seep. At the foot of the rocks he dug into the sand. When the sand grew damp, they held it against their brows, liking its coolness. Water seeped into the hollow, and one by one they drank.

They ate of the corn they carried, but some they must not eat. It would be seed for planting in the new place—if they found it.

During the night snow fell. They filled a water sack made of skin and started on.

With the morning the snow vanished. Here and there a few seeds still clung to the brush. Under an ironwood they rested, picking seed from the ground. They could be parched and eaten or ground into pinole. As they walked they did not cease from looking, and the Old One found many seeds, although his eyes were bad.

“Where do we go?” Small Sister asked.

“We go,” the boy replied, but inside he felt cold shivers as when one eats too much of the prickly-pear fruit. He did not know where they went, and he was much afraid.

On the ninth day they ate the last of their corn but for that which must be kept for seed. Twice the boy snared ground squirrels, and three times he killed lizards. One day they stopped at a spring, gathering roots of a kind of wild potato that the people to the south called
iikof
. His mother and the Old One dug them from the flat below the spring.

Day after day they plodded onward, and the cold grew. It snowed again, and this time it did not go away. The Old One lagged farther and farther behind, and each day it took him longer to reach the fire.

The boy did not meet their eyes now, for they looked to him, and he had nothing to promise.

“There was a path of light,” the Old One muttered. “They followed the path.”

He drew his worn blanket about his thin shoulders. “It is the Moon of the Limbs of Trees Broken by Snow,” he whispered, “that was the time.”

“What time, Old One?” The boy tried to be patient.

“The time of the path. They followed the path.”

“We have seen no path, Old One.”

“The path was light. No man had walked where the path lay.”

“Why, then, did they follow? Were they fools?”

“They followed the path because they heard and they believed.”

“Heard what? Believed in what?”

“I do not know. It came while I slept. I do not know what they believed, only that they believed.”

“I believe we are lost,” Small Sister said.

The mother looked to the boy. He was the man, although but a small man, and alone. “In the morning we will go on,” he said.

The Old One arose. “Come,” he said. Wondering, the boy followed.

Out in the night they went, stopping where no firelight was. The Old One lifted his staff. “There!” he said. “There lies the path!”

“I see no path,” the boy said, “only a star.”

“The star is the path,” the Old One said, “if you believe.”

It was a bright star, hanging in the southern sky. The boy looked at it, and his lips trembled. He had but twelve summers. Yet he was the man, and he was afraid.

“The star is the path,” the Old One said.

“How can one believe in a star?” the boy protested.

“You do not have to believe in the star. They traveled for a reason. We travel for another. But you can believe in yourself, believe in the good you would do. The men of the star were long ago and not like us. It was only a dream.”

The Old One went back to the fire and left the boy alone. They trusted him, and he did not trust himself. They had faith, and he had none. He led them into a wilderness—to what?

He had wandered, hoping. He had found nothing. He had longed, but the longing was empty. He found no place for planting, no food nor fuel.

He looked again. Was not that one star brighter than all the rest? Or did he only believe it so?

The Old One had said, “They followed a star.”

He looked at the star. Then stepping back of a tall spear of yucca, he looked across it at the star. Then breaking off another spear, he set it in the sand and lined it up on the star so he would know the direction of the star when dawn came.

To lead them, he must believe. He would believe in the star.

When morning came, they took up their packs. Only the Old One sat withdrawn, unmoving. “It is enough,” he said. “I can go no farther.”

“You will come. You taught me to have faith; you, too, must have it.”

Day followed day, and night followed night. Each night the boy lined up his star with a peak, a tree, or a rock. On three of the days they had no food, and two days were without water. They broke the spines from cactus and sucked on the pulp from the thick leaves.

Small Sister's feet were swollen and the flesh broken. “It is enough,” his mother said. “We can go no farther.”

They had come to a place where cottonwoods grew. He dug a hole in the streambed and found a little water. They soaked cottonwood leaves and bound them to Small Sister's feet. “In the morning,” he said, “we will go on.”

“I cannot,” Small Sister said.

With dead branches from the cottonwoods he built a fire. They broiled the flesh of a terrapin found on the desert. Little though there was, they shared it.

The boy walked out in the darkness alone. He looked up and the star was there. “All right,” he said.

When the light came, he shouldered his pack, and they looked at him. He turned to go, and one by one they followed. The Old One was the last to rise.

Now the land was broken by canyons. There was more cedar, occasionally a piñon. It snowed in the night, and the ground was covered, so they found only those seeds that still hung in their dry pods. They were very few.

Often they waited for the Old One. The walking was harder now, and the boy's heart grew small within him. At last they stopped to rest, and his mother looked at him: “It is no use. I cannot go on.”

Small Sister said nothing and the Old One took a long time coming to where they waited.

“Do you stay then?” the boy said. “I will go on.”

“If you do not come back?”

“Then you are better without me,” he said. “If I can, I will come.”

Out of their sight he sat down and put his head in his hands. He had failed them. The Old One's medicine had failed. Yet he knew he must try. Small though he was, he was the man. He walked on, his thoughts no longer clear. Once he fell, and again he caught himself on a rock before falling. He straightened, blinking to clear his vision.

On the sand before him was a track, the track of a deer. He walked on and saw other tracks, those of a raccoon, and the raccoon liked water. Not in two months had he seen the track of an animal. They led away down the canyon.

He went out on the rocks and caught himself abruptly, almost falling over the rim. It was a limestone sink, and it was filled with water. He took up a stone and dropped it, and it hit the pool and sank with a deep, rich, satisfying sound. The well was deep and wide, with a stream running from one side.

He went around the rim and lay down flat to drink of the stream. Something stirred near him, and he looked up quickly.

They were there: his mother, Small Sister, and the Old One. He stood up, very straight, and he said, “This is our place; we will stop here.”

The boy killed a deer, and they ate. He wiped his fingers on his buckskin leggings and said, “Those who sat upon the beasts? What did they find, following their star?”

“A cave that smelled of animals where a baby lay on dry grass. The baby's father and mother were there, and some other men wearing skins, who stood by with bowed heads.”

“And the shining ones who sat upon the beasts?”

“They knelt before the baby and offered it gifts.”

“It is a strange story,” the boy said, “and at another time I will listen to it again. Now we must think of planting.”