Louis LAmour - Conagher: A Novel

Contents

B USHWHACKED!

C ONAGHER TURNED AND started up the canyon, hoping to find grass. He had gone no more than half a mile when suddenly he saw, off to one side, dirt churned by the hoofs of shod horses. He swung his horse just an instant before the bullet struck.

He felt the slam of the bullet into his back and heard the report of the rifle as he toppled from the saddle. He fell, struck the ground on his shoulder, and rolled over. His horse went dashing on, and he knew instantly that they would be down here after him.

He gripped his rifle in his right hand.

To Richard L. Waldo

Chapter 1

T HE LAND LAY empty around them, lonely and still. On their right a ridge of hills with scattered cedars, on their left an open plain sweeping to a far horizon that offered a purple hint of hills. In all that vastness there was nothing but the creak and groan of the wagon, and overhead the sky, brassy with sunlight.

Its only a couple of miles now, Jacob told her. Just around that point of rocks. He pointed with his whipstock.

She felt her heart shriveling within her. Its awfully dry, isnt 4it?

Its dry, Jacobs tone was abrupt. Its been a bad year.

The team plodded, heads bobbing with weariness. The last town was fifty miles behind them, the last ranch almost as far. In all that distance they had seen not a ranch, a claim shack, or a fencenot a horse, a cow, or even a track.

At last he said, I did not promise you much, and it is not much, but the land is ours, and what the land becomes will be ours, too. The land is not only what it is, it is what we make it.

The heavy wagon rumbled on, endlessly, monotonously. The heat was stifling, their pace so slow they could not escape the dust. It settled over their clothing, their eyebrows, in the folds of their skin. The children, weary with the heat, had fallen asleep, and for that she was thankful.

The wagon reached the point of rocks, bumped over a flat rock, then rounded the point.

Her heart sank. Before them, and close under the shoulder of a hill, was a cabin, a solitary building, square and bare, without shed or corral, without shrubs, without a tree.

There it is! There was pride in Jacobs tone. Theres our house, Evie.

She knew how he felt, for in the three years of their life together she had learned this about him: that he had never known a home, had never possessed anything of his own beyond the clothes he wore, and his tools. He had worked hard to save the money for this move.

Drab it might be, barren it was, but to Jacob, a middle-aged man with years of hard work behind him, it was home. She warned herself that she must never forget that, and that she must do what she could to help him.

We will plant trees, we will drill a wellyou wait and see. First, I must buy some stock. We must have cattle.

The wagon rolled down a slight grade, and at long last they drew up at the door. The cabin was small, but it was well-built. The cloud of dust settled down over them, settled at last.

Laban awoke and sat up groggily. Pa, are we there? Are we home? he asked.

Get down, son. We are here.

Jacob walked to the door, fiddled with it a moment, then swung it wide. Come, Evie, we have much to do. I must ride out when morning comes. There is no time to waste.

Evie hesitated, hoping that this once he might help her down. He need not carry her across the thresholdafter all, she was no new bride.

Still, it was their first home, and he had forgotten her, his mind already busy with the problems of the place. He was letting down the tail gate, while Laban and Ruth ran to the door to peek inside.

Pa! Ruth called. Theres no floor! Its just dirt!

It will have to do, he said testily.

Evie got down and removed her hat, fluffed a little dust from her hair and went into the cabin. She knew just what to do, and knew what had to come into the house first. Hers was an orderly mind when it came to such things, and she had planned for this when they packed the wagon.

There was little to move. Before nightfall a meal was on the table, beds were made, a breakfast fire was laid, and the little world that revolved around Evie was once more established and ready for the morrow.

The cabin was built of native stone taken from the ridge back of the house, and it consisted of one large room. It had a peaked roof, with a loft and a ladder that reached to it. There was a large fireplace, a square table, a double bed, two chairs and a bench. The floor was of hard-packed earth. The water had to be carried from a water hole about twenty-five yards back of the house, and about twenty feet higher up the slope.

The children would sit on the bench at meals, and they would sleep in the loft, on pallets. The loft would be, as she well knew, the warmest part of the cabin.

The first cattle we sell, Jacob said, we will put in a board floor.

The first cattle they soldwould that be two years away? Or maybe three?

Three years on a dirt floor? She had always been poor, but not that poor. But she said nothing, for she had never complained; she never would complain. Jacob had thought of this too long, and he would need help, not complaints or arguments.

They were here, and he still had four hundred dollars with which to buy cattle. He had dreamed of this, as he had told her, long before they were marriedeven before he had married the first time, before the children were born.One hundred and sixty acres and a cabin built with his own hands.

He had built well, for that was his trade. He was a steady, hard-working man, skilled at both the carpenters and the masons trade, but he had managed to save little during the hard years of depression and struggle, during his first wifes long illness, and the constant loans to his brother-in-law, Tom Evers.

That, at least, was one thing they had left behind. Tom Evers had been gone on one of his forays when they left Ohio, and was safely behind them.

At daybreak, after a quick breakfast, Jacob stood with her a few minutes, looking toward the east. I shall be gone several weeks. You have supplies enough, and you will have no need for money, but I have put aside fifty dollars that I do not need for cattle. Use it only if there is need.

It was not much, but it was the first money she had held in her hands since her father had died and left her two hundred dollars. When only five dollars was left of that money she had married Jacob Teale, a widower with two children. He was a stern but kind man, but bad luck had dogged him as if it owned him, and after three years they had thisno more.

You will have the shotgun, he said, and Laban is a good hunter. There are quail here, and sage hens. He might get a close-up shot at a deer. And you have supplies for at least a month, if you are careful.

They stood in the doorway, Evie and the children, and watched him ride away on the sorrel, a straight, stiff-backed man, filled with plans and determination, who gave no thought to the imponderables, the little things upon which fortunes are made or broken.

Evie went back into the cabin and sat down at the table.

Her father had been a dreamer and a drifter, filled with excellent advice which he never applied to himself. Evie, he would say, when in doubt, sit down and think. It is only the mind of man that has lifted him above the animals.

She must consider now. This was a time of drouth. The heat had parched and baked the land, sucking away the moisture from the grass, leaving the trees like tinder.