Louis L'Amour (2 page)

He glanced at her, then away. “Later. I’ll just set out here for a spell.”

She went inside, followed by Wat. The stage driver was coming out, and he held the door for them, seeing Wat for the first time. “Howdy, son.”

Belligerently, Wat said, “I ain’t your son!”

Wilbur dropped to his heels, his face grave. He put up a hand to turn the boy for a better view of his face. “Why! Why sure enough you ain’t! But I’d of swore you were somebody’s son.”

The boy glared. “Mister, you’re just full of—!” Glancing around, he saw Mary Breydon standing close by. “I don’t believe you’ve even got a son.”

“You’ll know him if you see him,” Wilbur replied. “He’ll be ridin’ a grizzly bear. Wears big Mexican spurs an’ a top hat.” Wilbur walked on to the stage, checking the team’s harness.

The heavy-set man emerged from the station holding out his hand. “Name’s Cowan, ma’am. I d’clare, I never saw a prettier sight than you with that whip!”

Mary blushed. “I’m afraid I—”

“You did just the right thing only you be careful now. I travel this route now and again, and that Luther is a mean, mean man. You haven’t seen the last of him.”

Wilbur swung up to the box and released the brake, lifting his whip in salute. “Be another stage through about daybreak.” He cracked his whip, and the team was off with a lunge. For just a moment, she stood watching the dust cloud and listening to the diminishing sound. That was it, then. She was committed. It was her last touch with whatever had been, and what awaited her must be of her own doing.

The man with the black hat got up from the step. “If it is all right with you, I’ll eat now.”

“Please do.”

The door closed, then opened for Wat.

“Did you have enough to eat, Mr. Tanner?”

He glanced at her, hitched his pants, and said, “Ma’am, you don’t have to mister me. I figure we’re friends. You can call me Wat.”

“Thank you, Wat. I’ll do that.”

He glanced over his shoulder, then asked, speaking softly, “Is
he
a friend of yours?”

“We’ve just met, but he’s been very helpful.”

“Ma’am, you sure are lucky! Do you know who that is? That’s
Temple Boone
!”

“I’m afraid I have never heard of Temple Boone.”

He was aghast. “Ma’am, where d’you all come from that you don’t know Temple Boone? You ask anybody, Denver to Julesburg to Laramie, an’ they’ll tell you about Temple Boone! He scouted for the army, he rode shotgun on gold shipments, hunted buffalo, lived with the Injuns. He’s done about all a man can do! Why I reckon he’s killed a dozen men, maybe. Only them that needed killin’, o’ course.”

“I’m afraid there’s a lot I must learn, Wat.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Will you help me, Wat? You’re an old-timer out here, and I’m just a tenderfoot.”

“Ma’am, anybody who can horsewhip Scant Luther is no tenderfoot. I
seen
it! Why nobody ain’t dared cross him! Nobody! Not until you came.”

“Wat? It’s getting late. Won’t your folks be worried about you?”

There was a long silence. “I got no folks. Ain’t nobody going to be worried about me, and I don’t
need
anybody.”

“Everybody needs somebody, Wat. I have Peg, but if you’ll let me, I’ll have you, too.”

“I don’t need nobody.”

“I know you don’t, Wat, but we do, Peg and I. We’re all alone, and we are not as strong as you are. If you have no place to go, why not stay here with us? At least until you decide to move on?”

“Well—all right. I got to earn me enough to buy a horse. A man without a horse an’ saddle—well, he ain’t very much, ma’am.”

The shadows were long, and the sun was gone. A small wind stirred the leaves, and she shivered, looking around. For just a moment, her thoughts turned homeward, back to Virginia and the plantation before the war. The great white house with its columns, the carriages pulling up before the door, her father greeting the guests—it was all gone, gone forever now.

From inside came a rattle of dishes; then a light glowed as a lamp was lighted.

The night air was cool, and as she looked back along the valley, she smelled the hay from the barns, heard the movements of the horses.…Was this to be her world now? Was all the rest really gone? Or would it be what she wanted if a time came to go back?

“That man,” she said suddenly, “said he would come back?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’ll do it, too. He’s got to…or leave the country. He won’t leave. He’s got too much workin’ for him.”

“What do you mean, Wat?”

“Oh…nothin’. Just seems him bein’ around so long, with his friends and all. I just figured he’d not want to leave.”

It was not at all what he had been thinking. He had something else in mind when he first spoke, she was sure of that. What did Scant Luther have “workin’ for him”?

“Wat? Why don’t you go in and help the girls clean up?”

“No, ma’am.”

“No? Why, Wat, I thought—”

“No, ma’am. I’ll do chores. I’ll fetch wood or water. I’ll feed the stock. I’ll muck out behind the horses, but I won’t do woman’s work. I got my pride, ma’am. I batched some, doin’ my own cookin’, washin’, and the like, but that’s different.”

“ ‘Batched’?”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s what they call it when a man lives by hisself and does for hisself. Like when he’s a bachelor, they call it batching.”

“I see. I guess I have a lot to learn, Wat.”

“I’ll help, ma’am.” He gestured around. “I never worked in such a place, but I’ve been around stock all my life. I can hitch a team, if need be, or saddle a horse or herd cattle. I can carry messages a-horseback, grease wheels, and I don’t mind fetchin’ an’ carryin’.”

Temple Boone was lingering over his coffee when she went in, and he glanced from her to Wat, a faint, half-hidden smile in his eyes.

“Found you a man, I see.”

She smiled. “Yes, it seems I have. He’s going to stay on and help.”

Her first thought had been for Peg and herself to sleep in the small cottage intended for them, but the more she considered it, the less the idea appealed to her. It would mean leaving Matty alone in the station, and it would be better if they were all together. She had her husband’s rifle, and it was loaded. As a child, with her father, she had often hunted ducks or geese along the river, and she could shoot.

“I wish we had a gun for you, too, Matty.”

“It would be better, mum, but there’s never a house without its weapons. There’s the butcher knife yonder and sticks of stove wood, lids from the stove, and there’s pepper in the shaker. As for that, we could keep some water hot. Boilin’ water has a way of changin’ men’s minds. We will have to do with what we have, mum.”

Hands on her hips, she looked around. “We could take a bit of that clothesline and stretch it across the door not quite so high as a man’s knee. When they come in an’ trip, we could take the firewood to them or the poker from the fireplace.”

“You might kill one of them!”

“Yes, mum, but when a body comes in your home of a night, breakin’ in or sneakin’ in without permission, he’s takin’ his own chances.”

“You’re right, Matty. Just for luck, we’ll keep some water boiling, too.”

“Yes, mum. Many’s the man was killed before ever gun was invented, an’ not havin’ a gun never stopped anybody from killin’ who was a mind to. Nor a woman, either.”

Temple Boone, sipping his coffee in silence, had said nothing. “Doesn’t look like you’re goin’ to need me,” he commented.

“We didn’t know you were going to help.”

“I sort of had it in mind, but maybe I’ll just set around and watch the fun. The trouble is, you may have roped the wrong calf.”

“What do you mean?”

“Supposin’ Scant Luther pays you no mind at all? He doesn’t have to come near you to put you out of business. This here station is your responsibility, so what if he just drives off your horses? Or sets fire to your hay?

“Scant Luther is no fool. He can get himself hung bothering a woman, and he knows it. He might even do that, but if he does, he’ll have it happen when nobody is around to see and when he can make it look like Injuns done it or something.”

Of course, Temple Boone was right. Mary’s immediate thought had been that he would want to strike back at her personally, but if she were hidden in the house, awaiting an attack, he could do whatever he wished outside.

“Thank you, Mr. Boone. You are right. We are short of weapons here, but—”

“Mum? I do have a pistol. It ain’t much for size, but it’s a comfort to have about.”

“Better leave the barn and corrals to me,” Boone suggested. “I’m not going anywhere, and I have a horse out there, too.”

“I cannot ask you to do that, Mr. Boone. You might be killed.”

“There isn’t much a man can do west of the Mississippi where he might not get killed, ma’am. I’ve seen men gored by steers, killed in stampedes, thrown from buckin’ horses, an’ dragged with a foot caught in a stirrup.

“A man can fall off a cliff, have a boulder or a tree drop on him, or his mine tunnel can cave in on him. There’s a hundred ways a man can get himself killed out here that has nothing to do with guns or Injuns or outlaws. It’s a rough country, ma’am.”

“But this is my problem.”

“Mine, too. I’ll be sleepin’ out there, and folks prowlin’ in the night worry me some.”

“You’ll make enemies.”

“I’ve had a few here and there. Enemies are good for a man. Keeps him from gettin’ careless with himself.”

When he had stepped outside, Mary closed the door and dropped the bar in place. She went to the table and sat down. Matty brought her some food and a pot of coffee. “Better eat, mum. It’s going to be a long night.”

“Yes, of course. Where’s Peg?”

“She was tired, so I made up a bed from the things you brought on the stage. She’s fast asleep.”

“Who is he, Matty?”

“Temple Boone? Don’t you be thinkin’ about him, ma’am. He’s one of those who are just here, there, and around. He’ll drift, and you’ll see no more of him.”

“He’s a strange man.”

“That he is.”

She was tired. Hungry though she was, it was an effort to eat. She turned the wick down so the lamp gave off only a feeble glow. Then she went into the room where Peg lay sleeping and lay down beside her.

Tomorrow there would be much to do. First to clean up the mess Luther had left behind, then to organize some efficient procedure for handling the stages, feeding the passengers, and getting them on the road again. She wished she could visit some of the other stations along the Cherokee Trail to see how they were doing it.

In the darkness, the man called Boone was only another shadow in a maze of shadows cast by the barn, the corral, the house across the road. The only sounds came from the horses, and his senses isolated their vague sounds from the others, leaving a vacant place where strange sounds could register. Near a corner of the corral where the shadows were deepest, he sat on the ground, the rifle stock on the earth between his legs, the barrel leaning against his shoulder.

And then, for a long time, there was only stillness, with the wind moving, a soft wind, barely stirring the leaves, a wind so light that its stirring left a place for the faint sounds of a man moving.

Inside the house, there was only a dim, reddish glow from the dying embers in the fireplace and a faint glow of light around the turned-down lamp. Outside, the leaves rustled, and Matty turned over on her cot dreaming of the sea rustling on the sands of Kerry.

Mary Breydon awakened suddenly. Her eyes flared open, but she lay still, unmoving, listening, every sense alert.

At first, there was no sound but the whisper from the kettle on the fire. From where she lay, she could see, in the faint glow from the turned-down lamp, the movement of the door latch. Ever so gently, it was lifted. There was a pressure on the door, which held firmly in place; then the latch eased down again.

Mary Breydon threw back the blankets and swung her feet to the floor, feeling for her slippers. She stood up, slipping into her robe.

What was it Matty had said? Anything was a weapon if you used it as such. Even if much of the water had boiled away, the teakettle should be half full, the coffeepot, also.

Somebody was trying to get in. Scant Luther? Perhaps. Or Temple Boone? After all, what did she know about him? Why had he stayed behind? Did he really wish to help or was he simply—

She waited, listening. How silly could she be? It was probably only Boone wanting a cup of coffee!

It must be cold out there, and he was keeping watch. If anyone came to the stage station, he would surely know. She glanced at the window. The shutters were closed. Walking to the fireplace, she added water to the kettle, then replaced the lid and edged it closer to the coals.

She thought about her rifle. If only it wasn’t so long! What she needed was a handgun, something that could not be wrested from her hands. Still, if she could shoot fast enough—

Her husband had said he had heard of men firing a rifle from waist level, but could she? And be sure of hitting anything? Of course, at that distance—

She sat down at the table with her coffee, suddenly realizing what she had was cold coffee in a cold cup. How silly! She had forgotten to fill her own cup before putting fresh water in the coffee!

Why not go back to sleep? It had probably just been Boone. Anyway, nothing had happened, and she might have imagined it. No, she had not. She
had
seen the latch lift!

She was so tired, so very tired. Nobody could get in with that bar across the door, so why not go back to sleep?

Returning to the bedroom, she lay down again. From where she lay, the door was in view. Her eyes closed.

Outside in the darkness, the wind stirred, and dried leaves skittered across the hard-packed earth of the yard.

The man named Boone opened his eyes. He had not slept, only closing his eyes, resting a little, but his senses were alert. He heard nothing, yet he was uneasy, and he had learned to trust those feelings. Usually, they stemmed from some subconscious awareness his consciousness had not noted. Luther was a bitter, brutal man, not accustomed to being thwarted in any way. Careful to make no sound, Boone shifted his position, taking the rifle in his hands.