the High Graders (1965) (25 page)

Far away, he heard a distant echoing sound---
t he train whistle. It was going to be as close a s that.

Mike Shevlin rolled the dead cigar in hi s teeth and looked toward the dark figure of the bi g man coming toward him. Well, Ben, it's bee n a long time coming. Did you ever figure it would be lik e this? Just you and me in the black, wet night?

There had been neither saloon or station here in th e early days--only the stock pens and the loadin g chute. They had loaded Rafter cattle from her e ... how many times?

Ben Stowe stepped aside suddenly an d disappeared. Mike held himself very still.

Now what? Had Stowe just stepped aside an d crouched down in the blackness; or was he coming o n along beside the track? He was out of range of th e lights, and probably was in the shallow ditc h alongside the roadbed.

Suddenly cold steel touched Shevlin lightl y behind the ear, and a cool voice said, "I could le t him kill you, but it's easier this way."

Clagg Merriam!

Mike Shevlin had one boot on the lowest ba r of the pen, and as that voice spoke, he threw himsel f back, shoving hard with his boot.

He staggered the man behind him, and a shot bellowe d right alongside Mike's ear. They hit the groun d together, and instantly Shevlin threw himsel f clear, rolled into the ditch, and scrambled under th e loading chute.

Ben Stowe, believing he had been shot at , shot quickly; and almost with the sound of the second shot , a rifle bellowed from the top of a cattle car , and a bullet struck sparks from a rail near wher e Ben lay.

"What the hell's goin' on?" shouted a voice from the station.

Mike Shevlin held himself tight against th e lowest part of the loading chute, partly protecte d by the posts of its underpinning. Clagg Merriam wa s out there ... and the other one with the rifle--that must b e Burt Parry.

Why hadn't Merriam simply fired, instea d of opening his mouth? And Parry should have held hi s fire until he had Ben Stowe outlined. It woul d have been simple enough, with a little patience.

A cold drop of water fell on Shevlin'
s head behind the ear and trickled slowly down his nec k and under his shirt. His leg was cramping but h e waited, holding his six-shooter ready.

Suddenly, from behind the stock pens, Ben Stow e shouted, "Mike! Let's get 'em! The y butted into a private fight!"

Just then a gun flashed and a bullet spa t slivers into Mike's face--a gun not a doze n feet away. He lunged from his cover, firing a s he went, and he heard the thud of a bullet'
s impact on flesh, and a muffled grunt.

Again a gun flashed, but this time it was not pointe d at him, and he shot into the dark figure as h e ran by with a bullet whipping past his face.

He lifted his pistol to fire again, and as h e did so two guns barked, almost together. The first wa s Merriam's, wounded but not dead; the other was Be n Stowe's almost instant reply.

Shevlin heard a gun fall into the cinders, an d then he thrust his hand into the cattle car and triggere d three fast, spaced shots through the roof of the car wher e Burt Parry was lying.

Parry screamed, and at the sound Stowe, who ha d climbed one of the cars, fired. The body slid fro m the top of the car and fell to the roadbed near wher e Shevlin was standing.

"Ben!" he called.

"You're talkin'!"

"We got 'em both. Now you get on tha t train and get out of here."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Suddenl y Ben's voice changed. "Like hell I will!

I'll see you dead first!"

"Ben ... one thing--who =illed Eli?"

"I did, you damn' fool! Merriam though t he did. They were arguing, and I saw Clagg wa s gettin' nowhere, so when Merriam shot and missed , I killed Eli--from my office window."

Mike tugged off one boot, then the other. H
e was wearing thick woollen socks. He fel t sure that Ben was creeping closer, for the sound of thos e last words had been nearby and close to the ground.

Ben had been shooting a pistol, but he still had a shotgun or a rifle ... at this distance thos e shotgun slugs would cut a man in two.

Suddenly Ben Stowe spoke. "You can still cu t out, Mike. You don't need to die."

How far away was he now? Maybe twent y paces. And Ben was without doubt in shelter of som e kind, waiting for Mike's reply, to cut him i n two.

Turning quickly, Mike ran back along th e track, his socks making no sound on the woode n cross-ties. He heard the train, closer now , whistling for the station. Leaping to clear the cinders of th e roadbed, he landed close against the pens, then with a swift lunge he rounded the corner.

The headlight of the train was shining off across th e flat, for the train had not yet rounded the bend towar d the station. When the locomotive rounded the bend, th e headlight would throw the whole area into shar p relief.

The train whistled again, and then the light swun g as the engine came around the bend. There was Be n Stowe, standing squarely in the middle of the track , the shotgun in his hands, waiting for that glare o f light.

They saw each other at the same instant--o r maybe Mike had a bit the best of it, for he wa s not where Ben Stowe might have expected him to be.

The shotgun came up and Mike fired. Slug s ripped through the air around him, something tugged at hi s pants. He stepped forward and shot again, and Be n Stowe went down to his hands and knees. The trai n was thundering down upon him, and Mike rushed forward i n a desperate lunge, jerking Stowe free of th e tracks with only seconds to spare.

The train roared by within inches of them, then Be n Stowe came up on his knees, a Col t gripped in his fist. "Thanks, Mike!" h e yelled, and fired.

Shevlin felt the shock of the bullet, and h e knew he had dropped his gun. He ha d reloaded behind the stock pens, and there were still one o r two--Stowe was resting his gun across a forearm for dea d aim, so Mike Shevlin drew Hollister'
s gun from his waistband and as he swung it around h e fired three shots as fast as he could make the m roll.

Stowe fired once. The bullet missed , struck the steel rail, and ricocheted off into th e night with a nasty whine.

Mike caught hold of the rail and pulled himsel f around. He was conscious that men had gotten down fro m the train and others had come up on horseback, bu t he was concentrating on one thing only: he ha d to get Ben Stowe.

He twisted around to look at Stowe. Ben'
s face was bloody, and his shirt was dark with blood.

"You got me," he gasped. "You always were sho t with luck!" Even as he spoke, he brought hi s gun up with startling speed, and Mike shot into h m again.

Then there was only silence, the hiss of steam fro m the engine, and, after a moment, a mutter of excite d voices and a shuffling of feet.

Someone was kneeling over Shevlin. It was Do c Clagg. "Babcock," Mike said, "he'
s hurt bad, you--wa s But he was keeping his eyes on Ben Stowe , clutching his empty gun and waiting for him to move.

Only Ben did not move, and never would again.

"He said I was shot with luck," Mike sai d slowly. "I wish that was all he had in thos e guns."

"You'll live," Doc Clagg assured hi m grimly. "Your kind are too tough to die."

The cattle business around Rafter neve r recovered, and after the mines played out Rafte r became a ghost town. Mike and Laine Shevli n never did live there, for they moved to Californi a when he was able to travel. Shevlin ran cattl e there for quite a few years.

Thirty years ago they ripped up th e long-unused tracks that had been the onl y excuse for Tappan Junction. The buildings wer e destroyed when a tourist dropped a cigarette fro m his car as it raced along the highway that had bee n built at the foot of the mountains.

Laine Shevlin lived to a fine old ag e until one of her grandsons became an ad ma n on Madison Avenue; after that there wasn't muc h to live for. She just wasted away, and after Mik e saw her buried he walked out of the cemetery an d disappeared.

There was quite a lot of talk, and the newspaper s dug up the fact that he had been a Texa s Ranger and something of a gunfighter, reprinting som e of the old stories, with some confusion as to names an d dates.

The only one who could have offered a clue was th e last of the old-timers. He had taken to sitting o n a bench in the sun alongside a filling station o n the new highway, and he was there when the car pulle d up and the tall old man called over to him.

"Wasn't there a place called Tappa n Junction somewhere about here?"

The old-timer peered toward the driver. "Hey?

Did you say Tappan Junction? She use d to lie right out there on the flat."

The sitter's pipe had gone out and he fumble d in his pockets for a match. "Young folks, the y ain't never heard of Tappan."

"What about Stone Cabin?" the man in the ca r asked.

"Stone Cabin?" Through the fog of years the word s startled the old man. "Did you say Ston e Cabin?"

When old Mike Shevlin turned up missin g he was still a wealthy man, and there was quite a search fo r him. The highway police made inquiries, an d at the filling station the old-timer was pointed ou t to them.

"Doubt if he can he'p you much," the statio n attendant said. "He's almost lost his sight, an d that one arm, that's been no good for years. Hors e fell on it, I guess, a good many year s back. Why, that old feller's nigh to a hundre d years old! Ninety-odd, anyway."

They asked their questions after they found Mik e Shevlin's car abandoned in a cove at the foo t of the mountains, but the old man did not pay muc h attention. Only after they had turned away di d he mutter to himself as he sat there.

"Tappan Junction ... Stone Cabin ...
t hat's been a while. "You tell Do c Clagg," he said, "you tell Doc Clag g I ain't as tough as I used to be.""

"Stone Cabin?" the attendant repeated i n answer to their query. "Never heard of it. I'v e lived around here more'n ten years, and I neve r heard the name."

The officer looked at the high green hills , rolling back in somber magnificence, wild an d lonely. They told him nothing.

"What's back up there?" he asked.

"Nothin'. There ain't no road. Ain't bee n anybody back in there that I can remember.

Folks don't stop here for more'n gas and the tim e of day. They just breeze on through. We hereabouts , we got no time for lookin' in the mountains."

It was forty miles back to the highway polic e office, and they could just make it by quitting time.

As they were driving back the officer looked a t his companion. "Didn't you tell me your folk s came from this part of the country?"

"My granddaddy did. But he never talked abou t it, or else I didn't listen. Anyway, I d on't believe it was rough as they say. His name wa s the same as mine ... Wilson Hoyt."

They settled back and listened to the hum of th e motor and the sound of the tires, and watched th e windshield wiper, for it was beginning to rain.

It was raining, too, up at Stone Cabin, jus t as it had long ago.

ABOUT LOUIS L'AMOUR

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--a s a troubadour, a village tale-teller, th e man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the wa y I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A g ood storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as a t home in the world recreated in his novels as Loui s Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could h e physically fill the boots of the rugged characters h e wrote about, but he literally "walked the land m y characters walk." His personal experiences as wel l as his lifelong devotion to historical researc h combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge an d understanding of people, events, and the challenge of th e American frontier that became the hallmarks o f his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amou r could trace his own family in North Americ a back to the early 1600's and follow their stead y progression westward, "always on the frontier."

As a boy growing up in Jamestown, Nort h Dakota, he absorbed all he could about hi s family's frontier heritage, including th e story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Siou x warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desir e to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour lef t home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wid e variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack , elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle , assessment miner, and an officer in the tan k destroyers during World War II. During hi s "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, wa s shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in th e Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one o f fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer an d worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books.

His personal library contained 17,000
v olumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from th e time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontier an d adventure stories written for fictio n magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his firs t full-length novel, Hondo, in the Unite d States in 1953. Every one of his more tha n 100 books is in print; there are nearly 230
m illion copies of his books in prin t worldwide, making him one of the bestselling author s in modern literary history. His books have bee n translated into twenty languages, and more tha n forty-five of his novels and stories have bee n made into feature films and television movies.