Over on the Dry Side (21 page)

Strawn started to ride away.

“Jake?”

He pulled up. “If you ever want to sell that horse—?”

“Not a chance!” Jake replied, and rode away.

Chantry looked slowly around. Kernohan, looking pale and weak but on his own feet, came in from the aspens. Doby was with him, and the old man—looking even grayer now and leaning on his Buffalo gun as he walked.

“Is it over, Owen?”

“I think so, Doby.” Chantry smiled. It felt like his: first smile in months. “Except for burying the dead and finding the treasure. How'd you like to find the treasure?”

“Now?” Doby asked.

“Now,” said Chantry. And slowly he led the way to the boulder, followed by Marny, Kernohan, and Doby.

The foot of the boulder where the hidden trail went steeply down offered a splendid view. Chantry paused there for a moment, drinking in the magnificence of it.

Clive had sighted well. Close up, the bit of mica was hard to find. Chantry stepped back and looked thoughtfully at the rock, then studied to the right and left of it. Finally, he stepped into the cleft and began a close examination of the rock.

Once he found it, the hiding place seemed obvious and scarcely could be termed anything of the kind. More than likely, Clive's only thought had been to put it away from the danger of fire, always something to be reckoned with in cabins with open hearths.

It was just a little hole in the boulder, the opening blocked off by a rock. After displacing the rock, Chantry removed a rusted metal box. He broke it open. Inside was a roll of parchment covering a sheaf of papers. The parchment was wrapped in oilskin.

Doby leaned over and peered into the hole, then at the now empty box. “Is that treasure?” he asked.

Carefully, without answering, Owen Chantry removed the oilskin cover and gently unrolled the parchment. It was a deep tan in color and written upon with firm and elegant handwriting:
“This manuscript to be delivered to my friend Jean Jacques Tremoulin, Paris, France. The Legends of the Otomi as Collected by Clive Chantry.”

Chantry read the words aloud. They stared at the manuscript in wonder, as Chantry turned the oilskin inside out. When he did so, a tiny gold nugget slipped free and fell to the ground.

Doby was struck with awe. He'd never seen real gold before, but he knew what it was.

Treasure…gold…and value…

It was a whole lot to understand at once, Chantry knew, especially for a poor country boy.

“Anyway,” said Chantry, “we're going to be neighbors now. The war is over.” He reached for Marny's hand.

For war it had been.

“I'm mighty glad,” said Kernohan. “Us down there and you up here. You're a mighty generous man, Chantry.” He was weak on his feet, but he could walk.

“And you must visit us often, Doby,” said Marny, “being as close by as you are.”

Doby grinned. She was a little too old for him anyway. One of these days, he'd just take him a trip to El Paso.

I
N THE STILLNESS of a mountain grove high above, the old man looked down at the people, dead and alive.

He'd helped. He'd taken his shots, and made them when they counted,
where
they counted.

Enclosed by the silence around him, broken only by a bird call, the old man bent down, drank from a small stream, and wiped his mouth.

“The trouble with people is,” he said, aloud to himself, “they make too damn much noise!”

Mesaverde National Park
Return to text.

About Louis L'Amour

“I think of myself in the oral tradition—

as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man

in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way

I'd like to be remembered as a storyteller.

A good storyteller.”

I
T IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full-length novel,
Hondo
, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are nearly 270 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

His hardcover bestsellers include
The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum
(his twelfth-century historical novel),
Over on the Dry Side, Last of the Breed
, and
The Haunted Mesa
. His memoir,
Education of a Wandering Man
, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L'Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio publishing.

The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward.

Bantam Books by Louis L'Amour

NOVELS

Bendigo Shafter

Borden Chantry

Brionne

The Broken Gun

The Burning Hills

The Californios

Callaghen

Catlow

Chancy

The Cherokee Trail

Comstock Lode

Conagher

Crossfire Trail

Dark Canyon

Down the Long Hills

The Empty Land

Fair Blows the Wind

Fallon

The Ferguson Rifle

The First Fast Draw

Flint

Guns of the Timberlands

Hanging Woman Creek

The Haunted Mesa

Heller with a Gun

The High Graders

High Lonesome

Hondo

How the West Was Won

The Iron Marshal

The Key-Lock Man

Kid Rodelo

Kilkenny

Killoe

Kilrone

Kiowa Trail

Last of the Breed

Last Stand at Papago Wells

The Lonesome Gods

The Man Called Noon

The Man from Skibbereen

The Man from the Broken Hills

Matagorda

Milo Talon

The Mountain Valley War

North to the Rails

Over on the Dry Side

Passin' Through

The Proving Trail

The Quick and the Dead

Radigan

Reilly's Luck

The Rider of Lost Creek

Rivers West

The Shadow Riders

Shalako

Showdown at Yellow Butte

Silver Canyon

Sitka

Son of a Wanted Man

Taggart

The Tall Stranger

To Tame a Land

Tucker

Under the Sweetwater Rim

Utah Blaine

The Walking Drum

Westward the Tide

Where the Long Grass Blows

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Beyond the Great Snow Mountains

Bowdrie

Bowdrie's Law

Buckskin Run

Dutchman's Flat

End of the Drive

From the Listening Hills

The Hills of Homicide

Law of the Desert Born

Long Ride Home

Lonigan

May There Be a Road

Monument Rock

Night over the Solomons

Off the Mangrove Coast

The Outlaws of Mesquite

The Rider of the Ruby Hills

Riding for the Brand

The Strong Shall Live

The Trail to Crazy Man

Valley of the Sun

War Party

West from Singapore

West of Dodge

With These Hands

Yondering

SACKETT TITLES

Sackett's Land

To the Far Blue Mountains

The Warrior's Path

Jubal Sackett

Ride the River

The Daybreakers

Sackett

Lando

Mojave Crossing

Mustang Man

The Lonely Men

Galloway

Treasure Mountain

Lonely on the Mountain

Ride the Dark Trail

The Sackett Brand

The Sky-Liners

THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS

The Riders of the High Rock

The Rustlers of West Fork

The Trail to Seven Pines

Trouble Shooter

NONFICTION

Education of a Wandering Man

Frontier

The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels

A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L'Amour, compiled by Angelique L'Amour

POETRY

Smoke from This Altar

OVER ON THE DRY SIDE

A Bantam Book / September 2004

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Saturday Review Press edition published October 1975

Bantam edition published May 1976

Bantam reissue / January 1995

Bantam reissue / July 2003

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1975 by Louis & Katherine L'Amour Trust
Excerpt from
Law of the Desert Born
Text copyright © 2013 by Beau L'Amour; Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Louis L'Amour Enterprises, Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except

where permitted by law. For information address:

Bantam Books New York, New York.

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Please visit our website at
www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-553-89956-6

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