West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) (28 page)

"Shiloh, there's reasons for all of this--" The colonel started to speak, but Johnson shook his head.

"No, you don't," he said again. "I heard all that talk. It don't make no difference to me." I could see the satisfaction in his eyes, the pleasure at having me under his gun. "Tyler-murdered Lipman. It was seen. He'll hang for it."

It was there, plain and cold. Nothing the colonel could say was going to stop it now.

"I been suspicious o' you, Metcalf." There was no title used this time, and I could see the colonel heard the change in Johnson's attitude. "I seen you go to your horse that night, seen you leave that bag. Right then I couldn't figure why. . . . Come daylight, your horse gone, I figured some of it."

He had never once taken his eyes from me, and his gun was rock steady. With some men there might have been a chance. Shiloh was nobody to fool with.

"Only thing," he said it slow, like it tasted good to him, "I can't decide whether to shoot you now or see you hang."

There was silence in the clearing. Far off, I heard the wind in the pine tops, far off and away. It was a lonesome sound.

"I'm holding a gun, too, Shiloh," Metcalf said quietly.

"If you shoot, I'll kill you."

No man ever spoke so matter-of-fact. And the colonel's gun covered Shiloh now, not me.

Shiloh was quiet for a long minute, and then he smiled. "You won't shoot me, Metcalf. You wouldn't dare chance it. Some of that crowd is mighty suspicious already, the way you held us back from catchin' him the other night. If I was to die now, along with him, they'd hang you."

Colonel Andrew Metcalf sat very still. Shiloh was smiling, and me, I sat there, wishin' I dared grab for that gun. But first I had to get my hand on it, make the first grab sure without lookin' toward it, then swing it into line. Time enough for a fast man to fire two, maybe three shots.

Then the colonel stood up. He was smiling a little. "Shiloh," he said quietly, "situations like this have always appealed to me. I've always been curious about what people do when the chips were down . . . well, the chips are down now."

Shiloh Johnson's face was a study. He didn't dare take his eyes from me, and the colonel was to his right and out of his line of vision. He stood there, his boots wide apart, his cruel little eyes locked on mine, his long jaw covered with beard. He wanted to look, but he didn't dare chance it.

"Tyler shouldered my responsibility when he killed Lipman. I'm not going to see him suffer for it. So I'm going to kill you."

Shiloh had it up in him now. He was cornered and he didn't like it. Not even a little.

"You shoot me in the back," he started to say, "and--" "It won't be in the back," Metcalf said quietly. "I'm going to move right over in front of you. You may get one or even both of us--but one thing is dead certain. We'll get you."

Now I could see what the colonel meant about liking situations, and this was one. I wouldn't want to play poker with him . . . and Shiloh stood there with his face working, his eyes all squinched up, and ready to kill as he was, he wasn't no way ready to die.

It took a lot of cold nerve to do what the colonel said he would do--step over in front of a man ready to kill--but nobody would ever be able to say which of us had killed Shiloh, then.

"Now, look here . . ." Shiloh said. "I--"

"You have one other choice." Colonel Metcalf's voice was hard now, like a commanding general. "Drop your gun belts, get on your horse, and ride clear on out of the country. Otherwise, you die right here."

As he spoke, the colonel began to shift around to get in front of Shiloh. There was panic in Johnson's voice. "All right! All right. . . ."

He holstered his gun, then unbuckled his belts. There, was plain, ugly hatred in his face when he looked at me. "But this ain't the end."

He stepped away from his belts and started toward his horse, which had walked up through the trees from where he had left it ground-hitched when he heard our voices.

Colonel Metcalf watched him go, then turned to me. He held out his hand. I ignored it.

His voice went cold. "Tyler, what's--"

Shiloh Johnson had reached his horse. He put a hand to the pommel, then wheeled, whipping a gun from the saddlebag. It was fast and it was smooth, but I was on my feet with a gun in my hand, and as he turned I shot him through the body. He fired . . . and then I triggered my gun for two quick shots and he folded, his horse springing away as he fell.

"At Wild Horse Camp," I said, "he always carried a spare."

The colonel stood there, very white and stiff. "My boy," his voice was strange and sort of old, like I'd never heard it sound, "I've sent her to Fort Worth. Go to her."

"But--"

"Ride, boy!" The old crack came back into his voice. "They'll have heard the shots!"

He stood there, not moving, and when I was in the saddle he said, "Fort Worth, son. She'll be waiting. Rosa loves you."

As he said it I'll swear there were tears in his eyes, but the bay was running all out and away before I recalled something else. There had been a dark splotch on his shirt front. That one shot--that wild shot Shiloh got off--it had hit him.

He carried it well that day, afraid I'd not leave him if I knew . . . but he carried it well for ten years, and was carrying it on our Texas ranch, when he held his grandchild on his knee.

Afterword Here are the names of the people I would like to contact. If you find your name on the list, I would be very grateful if you would write to me. Some of these people may have known Louis as "Duke" LaMoore or Michael "Micky" Moore, as Louis occasionally used those names. Many of the people on this list may be dead. If you are a family member (or were a very good friend) of anyone on the list who has passed away, I would like to hear from you, too. Some of the names I have marked with an asterisk (*); if there is anyone out there who knows anything at all about these people I would like to hear it. The address to write to is:

Louis L'Amour Biography Project P. O. Box 41183 Pasadena, CA 91114-9183

Mary Dodge--A violin teacher who lived in Portland; her son's name was Glen. Louis roomed with them. He knew Mary in the late 1920s.

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228

Mrs. Deslslets--Mary Dodge's sister; lived in Burns, Oregon. Louis corresponded with her in the 1930s.

John Deslslets--Nephew of Mrs. Deslslets Louise Deslslets--Daughter of Mrs. Deslslets Marian Payne--Married a man named Duane. Louis said in 1938 that he had known her for five years. She moved to New York for awhile; she may have lived in Wichita at some point.

Chaplain Phillips--Louis first met him at Fort Sill, then again in Paris at the Place de Saint Augustine officer's mess. The first meeting was in 1942, the second in 1945.

Anne Mary Bentley--Friend of Louis's from Oklahoma in the 1930s. Possibly a musician of some sort. Lived in Denver for a time.

Betty Brown--Woman that Louis corresponded with extensively while in Choctaw in the late 1930s. Later she moved to New York.

Maria Antonia "Toni" Cavazos--Louis met her at Edmond, Oklahoma, in the late 1930s but visited her at the Lady of the Lake College in San Antonio while he was on a speaking date. They corresponded for a while. Later she was a teacher in San Diego.

Jacques Chambrun*--Louis's agent from the late 1930s through the late 1950s.

Des--His first name. Chambrun's assistant in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Friscia*--His last name. One of two men that Louis met in jail in Phoenix in the mid-1920s. They joined the Ha-genbeck & Wallace Circus together. They rode freights Afterword
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229 across Texas and spent a couple of nights in the Star of Hope mission in Houston.

Pete Boering*--Shipmate of Louis's on the S. S. Steadfast. Born in the late 1890s. Came from Amsterdam, Holland. His father may have been a ship's captain. Louis and Pete sailed from Galveston together in the mid-19205.

Harry "Shorty" Warren*--Shipmate of Louis's on the S. S. Steadfast in the mid-1920s. They sailed from Galveston to England and back. Harry may have been an Australian.

Joe Hollinger*--Louis met him while with the Hagenbeck & Wallace Circus, where he ran the "privilege car." A couple of months later he shipped out on the S. S. Steadfast with Louis. This was in the mid-1920s.

Captain Douglas*--Captain of a ship in Indonesia that Louis served on. A three-masted auxiliary schooner.

Joe Hildebrand*--Louis met him on the docks in New Orleans in the mid-1920s, then ran into him later in Indonesia. Joe may have been the first mate and Louis second mate on a schooner operated by Captain Douglas. This would have been in the East Indies in the late> 1920s or early 1930s. Joe may have been an aircraft pilot and flown for Pan Am in the early 1930s.

Turk Madden*--Louis knew him in Indonesia in the late 1920s or early 1930s. They may have spent some time around the old Straits Hotel and the Maypole Bar in Singapore. Later on, in the States, Louis traveled around with him putting on boxing exhibitions. Madden worked at an airfield near Denver as a mechanic in the early 1930s. Louis eventually used his name for a fictional character.

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230

"Cockney" Joe Hagen*--Louis knew him in Indonesia in the late 1920s or early 1930s. He may have been part of the Straits Hotel-Maypole Bar crowd in Singapore.

Mason or Milton*--Don't know which was his real name. He was a munitions dealer in Shanghai in the late 1920s or early 1930s. He was killed while Louis was there.

Singapore Charlie*--Louis knew him in Singapore and served with him on Douglas's schooner in the East Indies. Louis was second mate and Charlie was bos'n. He was a stocky man of indeterminate race and if I remember correctly Dad told me he had quite a few tattoos. In the early 1930s Louis helped get him a job on a ship in San Pedro, California, that was owned by a movie studio.

Renee Semich--She was born in Vienna (I think) and was going to a New York art school when Louis met her. This was just before World War II. Her father's family was from Yugoslavia or Italy, her mother from Austria. They lived in New York, where her aunt had an apartment overlooking Central Park. For awhile she worked for a company in Waterbury, Connecticut.

Ann Steeley/Cathy O'Donnell*--A friend of Louis's in Oklahoma in the,late 1930s (Ann Steeley was her real name), she later went to Hollywood and had a career in the movies.

Aola Seery--Friend of Louis's from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s. She was a member of the Writer's Club and I think she had both a brother and a sister.

Enoch Lusk--Owner of Lusk Publishing Company in 1939, original publisher of Louis's Smoke From This Altar. Also associated with the National Printing Company, Oklahoma City.

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231

Helen Turner*--Louis knew her in the late 1920s in Los Angeles. Once a showgirl with Jack Fine's Follies.

Frank Moran--Louis met him in Ventura when Louis was a "club second" for fighters in the late 1920s. They also may have known each other in Los Angeles or King-man in the mid-1920s. Louis ran into him again on Hollywood Boulevard late in 1946.

Jud and Red Rasco*--Brothers, cowboys; Louis met them in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Also saw them in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. This was in the early to mid-1920s.

Olga Santiago--Friend of Louis's from the late 1940s in Los Angeles. Last saw her at a book signing in Thousand Oaks, California.

Jose Craig Berry--A writer friend of Louis's from Oklahoma City in the late 1930s. First person to review Smoke From This Altar. She worked for a paper called the Black Dispatch.

Evelyn Smith Colt--She knew Louis in Kingman at one point, probably the late 1920s. Louis saw her again much later at a Paso Robles book signing.

Kathlyn Beucler Hays--Friend from Choctaw, taught school there in the 1930s. Louis saw her much later at a book signing in San Diego.

Floyd Bolton--Came to Choctaw and talked to Louis about doing a movie in the Dutch East Indies. This was in the late 1930s.

Lisa Cohn--Reference librarian in Portland; family owned Cohn Bros. Furniture Store. Louis knew her in the late 1920s or early 1930s.

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Mary Claire Collingsworth--Friend and correspondent from Oklahoma in the 1930s.

C. A. Donnell--Rented Louis a typewriter in Oklahoma City in the early 1930s.

Mary Drennen--Friend and correspondent of Louis's during World War II, he saw her or corresponded with her in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, La Crosse, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

Duks*--I think this was his last name, probably a shortened version of the original family name. First mate on the S. S. Steel Worker in the mid-1920s. I think he was a U. S. citizen, but he was originally a Russian.

Maudee Harris--My Aunt Chynne's sister.

Parker LaMoore and Chynne Harris LaMoore*--Louis's eldest brother and his wife. Parker was secretary to the governor of Oklahoma for a while, then he worked for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. He also worked with Ambassador Pat Hurley. He died in the early 1950s, and although we know most of the positions he held in his professional life, we have very little information about him personally. Chynne was his wife and she lived longer than he did, but I don't know where she lived after his death.