Louis LAmour - From the Listening Hills

Bantam Books by Louis LAmour

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

Reillys 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

Beyond the Great Snow Mountains Bowdrie

Bowdries Law Buckskin Run

Dutchmans 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

Sacketts Land To the Far Blue Mountains The Warriors 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 Riders of the High Rock The Rustlers of West Fork The Trail to Seven Pines Trouble Shooter

Education of a Wandering Man Frontier

The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis LAmour, compiled by Angelique LAmour

Smoke from This Altar

Afterword by Beau LAmour

L AST YEAR AT this time I thought that With These Hands would be our last collection of short fiction. I knew that there were a few stragglers, but as we did a careful inventory of what had been published we discovered more and more stories. Finally, we realized there were enough for one more collection. So here they are, both Louiss first and last short stories, Anything for a Pal and The Moon of the Trees Broken by Snow, as well as a pair of WWII adventures, four westerns, a couple of football stories, and two crime tales. As far as I can tell, From the Listening Hills, and my favorite, Sand Trap, have never before been published.

I write this afterword with a strange mixture of feelings. Weve brought you a great many new, hard to find, and sometimes fragmentary stories in the fifteen years since Louiss death. In many ways Ive enjoyed the process, yet at the same time Im glad that it is nearing an end.

Is this the last new Louis LAmour book? I dont know. Are there more things we could publish? Yes, but I dont know if, or exactly how, we should. The future will decide these and other questions.

There is always more to be found at our web site, louis lamour.com, where we offer a world of information, discussion forums, and photographs. For more of Louiss writings, you can take a look at louislamourslost treasures.com. At the Lost Treasures site we are collecting articles, story outlines, incomplete short stories and novels, letters, journals, and notes covering everything from the innermost details of his most popular stories to his most outlandish and unmarketable ideas. Whenever possible I have added notes to bring this wide array of material into perspective. Also, our series of radio dramas can be heard on XM Satellite Radio, Armed Forces Radio, Cable Network Radio, and a selection of local stations that are posted on louislamour.com.

I want to take this final opportunity in print to thank some of the people who have helped us bring all of these stories to you and have helped me so much in sorting out the material for the Louis LAmour Biography Project. First would be Paul ODell, who has assisted with everything from helping out after my fathers death to running our website and editing our radio shows; Jeanne Brown, who keeps the biography project from dissolving into chaos; Daphne Ashbrook, who just joined us in information processing; Howard Gale, our recording engineer; and Charles Van Eman, who has written audio adaptations and been our ace bloodhound on the biography. Of course, we never could have done any of it without my mother, Katherine LAmour, and her assistant, Sonndra May.

Earlier generations of helpers include my sister, Angelique, Katherine and Gavin Doughtie, Mara Purl, Helen Swart, Trish Mahoney, Paula Bayers, John Barrymore III, Cathy Sandrich, Jordan Ladd, and Lynn Adams.

The team at Bantam Books has been a powerfully creative force behind Louiss books since his death. We would like to thank everyone who has worked at Bantam for their continuing vision and hard work. Chief Executive Officers: Peter Olson, Erik Engstrom, Jack Hoeft, Alberto Vitale, Lou Wolfe, Oscar Dystel. Publishers: Irwyn Applebaum, Linda Grey, Marc Jaffe. Editors: Andrea Nicolay, Mike Shohl, Pat LoBrutto, Tom Dupree, Stuart Applebaum, Irwyn Applebaum, Marc Jaffe, Saul David. Art Directors: Jim Plumeri, Yook Louie, Len Leone. Publicity: Stuart Applebaum, Barb Burg, Chris Artis. Sales: Don Weisberg, George Fisher, Cynthia Lasky. Audio: Jenny Frost, Robert Allen, Orli Moscowitz, Christine McNamara, Helena Terbush, David Rapkin, Charles Potter. Corporate Development and New Media: Richard Sarnoff. Marketing: Betsy Hulsebosch. Royalties: Pauline James. Inventory Management: Ken Graff. Subsidiary Rights: Amanda Mecke, Sharon Swados. Legal Counsel: Heather Florence, Harriette Dorsen, Matthew Martin, Paula Brian, David Sanford. Continuity: Lisa Faith Phillips, Vladimir Damianov. Remainders: Kathy Garcia. Special Sales: Pam Romano, Anne Somlyo, Maureen Cosgrove.

Thank you all; readers, and workers in research and publishing both.

Beau LAmour

Sand Trap

B EFORE HE BECAME fully conscious he heard the womans voice and some sixth sense of warning held him motionless. Her voice was sharp, impatient. Just start the fire and lets get out of here!

Why leave that money on him? It will just burn up.

Dont be such an idiot! her voice shrilled. The police test ashes and they could tell whether there was money or notdont look at me like that! It has to look like a robbery.

I dont like this, Paula.

Oh, dont be a fool! Now start the fire and come on!

All right.

Monte Jackson held himself perfectly still. Despite the pounding in his skull he knew what was happening now. They believed him dead or unconscious and, for some reason, planned to burn the house and him with it.

From some distance away he heard footsteps and then a door closed. All was quiet except for the ticking of a clock. Returning consciousness brought with it pain, a heavy, swollen pain in the back of his head. He opened his eyes and saw linoleum, turquoise and black squares, an edge of enameled metal and beyond it, lying against the wall in what he now realized was the dark corner behind a washing machine, a mans dress sock, lightly covered with dust. His head hurt, it hurt badly and he wasnt sure he could move.