Kilkenny felt a little alarm bell ring in his brain. Carefully he turned his head and looked down the hall. At the end there was a small window, but there was no one in sight. And there was no one else around. He drew back from the bars, studying Tetlow.
His black coat was shabby and worn. There was a stubble of beard on his jaws. He looked mean…like a cornered, half-starved wolf.
“Then I’ll go,” Kilkenny said.
He had walked three paces and had a hand on the knob when Jared Tetlow spoke. “Maybe I just wanted to see how a man looks before he dies.”
Kilkenny hesitated, his mind working swiftly. Then he stepped out and drew the door to behind him.
Macy looked up, but after a quick glance around the office Kilkenny walked past to the door. He stood there, looking up and down the street.
“What did he want?”
Without replying to the question, Kilkenny stepped out and then stopped abruptly. A man stood in the center of the bridge staring across the street from Kilkenny.
The man on the bridge was Andy Tetlow and he was staring at Cain Brockman.
Brockman stood in the shadow under the awning, bulking, ominous.
Andy Tetlow took a step forward, then spoke, his voice ringing with arrogance. “All right, Brockman!”
Cain Brockman stepped from under the awning. Two hundred and forty pounds of him, his big head lowered and thrust slightly forward, his thick hands swinging near his gun butts. He stepped into the street but he said nothing.
Kilkenny, who understood such things, saw that Tetlow was surprised. Obviously, Havalik, who knew about Cain, had told Andy Tetlow nothing about the big man. It was apparent from Andy’s attitude that he expected an easy kill, but there was no fear in the big man. He came out like a lion stalking game, easy on his feet, utterly dangerous.
“I’m going to kill you, Brockman!”
Andy Tetlow shouted, staring up the street at the big silent man. The realization that all was not as expected was revealed in that shouted statement when no statement was necessary.
Cain Brockman moved forward on cat feet and for the first time Andy Tetlow got the full weight of the menace that faced him. He saw for the first time that far from being frightened the big man accepted the fight with eagerness.
Instantly, Andy Tetlow took a step back and his hands dropped for his guns.
They dropped and they came up but even as his finger tightened on the trigger Brockman’s gun flowered with flame and a bullet struck Andy in the shoulder, knocking him back a step and deflecting his aim. A second bullet smashed him in the chest and two drove through his stomach. He fired again, his bullet smashing into the bridge rail, and then Andy fell against the rail, fought for balance and finally got his feet under him. Dying, he turned blindly to face Cain Brockman, but the big man knew no mercy.
Guns hammering, he walked in. A bullet smashed Tetlow’s knee, another ripped into his stomach and Tetlow fell back against the bridge railing, which gave way, and he fell heavily to the creek bed, twenty feet below.
As suddenly as the shooting had begun it was over. Leal Macy came running to stand beside Kilkenny and Brockman, looking down at the bullet-riddled body. Blood stained the small creek and the water washed around the body, turning dark the dead man’s clothing.
“This country,” a bystander said, “is mighty hard on Tetlows. They’d better find a different climate.”
“Watch yourself.” Brockman looked around. “He wouldn’t have been alone.”
Kilkenny had been thinking the same thing. It was all very plain now. Jared Tetlow had sent for him to set him up in the right alley for the guns of Havalik. Dee and Andy had divided the work between them, only Dee had not let Andy know what he was facing. It was just like the man.
“We’ll need a couple of pack horses,” Kilkenny said. “I want to take more supplies home. I’ll get Buck.”
Lance turned on his heel and walked across the bridge toward the center of town. Doc Blaine, drawn to his door by the shooting, stood talking to Laurie Webster. About Dolan’s there was an air of bustle and business. Men loitered on the steps at Savory’s, and Kilkenny gave them a quick glance before he entered the big livery stable.
It was cool inside and there was a pleasant barn-like smell of hay, manure and horses. A horse stomped in a stall and blew contentedly through his nose. Several horses rolled their eyes back at him, showing the whites. There was no one about as he led Buck to the trough, then went back through the barn and into the wide corral.
Behind this corral was a wagon yard, and to the left of that, another corral. It was in that corral where Dolan kept his stock.
Trees walled both the corral from which he had come and the wagon yard, and the latter was filled with huge old ore wagons. Two freight wagons stood in the center of the yard, not together, and five others stood, tongues pointing high, in a row. Others lined the sides of the yard.
Men had been greasing the wagons and preparing them for use, but they had gone to eat and the yard was lifeless and still in the hot noonday sun.
Kilkenny closed the gate and was about to cross the yard to the other corral when a boot scraped. Instantly he froze in position, every sense alert.
The air was very still. The dust was warm. Cottonwood leaves brushed their polished palms together. He listened, but there was no other sound. Stepping quickly into the shelter of a huge freight wagon, he dropped to his haunches and studied the yard through the spokes of a high wheel.
At first there was no sound of movement, and then through the myriad of spokes of other lined up wheels, he caught a glint of sunlight on a spur!
He dried his palms on his jeans. His sun-browned face was still and cold, his eyes a deeper green. He pulled his hat brim a little lower and touched his gun butts, loosening them in the holsters. He saw the boots again, and the neat, small feet.
Havalik…
Rising swiftly, Kilkenny turned and ran lightly and swiftly to the wagons along the corral fence. Ducking behind them, he could see the wagon where Havalik had been. The gunman was gone.
Kilkenny hesitated, studying the situation. The corral comprised approximately an acre of ground, and in it were at least thirty wagons. Kilkenny decided that Havalik had seen him, had been stalking him, and was now about where Kilkenny had been before. Also, Havalik was not aware the trap had failed.
Kilkenny squatted and peered through the spokes. A bullet smashed within inches of his face, stinging it with tiny splinters, and a shot sounded in the stillness of the corral.
He sprang back, and his spring sent him toppling off-balance to the ground. A second bullet nailed the hub of the big wheel near his face, splattering him with fresh grease. Lunging to his feet, Kilkenny ran around the end of the wagon at the same instant Havalik rounded another wagon thirty yards distant. Both men fired.
Havalik’s bullet tugged at Kilkenny’s shirt collar and Dee sprang to shelter, apparently unhurt.
Kilkenny called out, “In the open, Dee! Let’s settle this now!”
There was no reply. Behind him he heard movement. He turned swiftly and saw Dave, one of Havalik’s men, with a shotgun at his shoulder. Lance fired and the shotgun bellowed, but Kilkenny’s shot had been fired as a man points a finger. The swing, the point in one unceasing movement. The bullet drilled Dave through the shirt pocket and his knees buckled, throwing the charge of shot harmlessly into the air.
Instantly, Kilkenny sprang and grabbed the wagontop, swinging over the edge and dropping soundlessly into the wagon. He crouched there, listening. The last report gave Havalik six men.
Andy Tetlow was gone. And now Dave.
He waited, letting them look for him. Through a crack in the side of the wagon he saw nobody, so he swung over to the ground again. Seeing movement, he rounded the wagon.
Dee Havalik was moving across the open, but seeing him Dee stopped and swung to meet him. Under the old gray hat Havalik’s eyes seemed to blaze with malignant fire. Kilkenny saw the guns come up, lining on his belt, and then both men fired at once.
A bullet tugged at his shirt, and he saw Havalik flinch.
Kilkenny ran straight at Havalik, his guns ready. Havalik lifted his gun to shoot, but the charging man was too much for him and he broke ground. Instantly Kilkenny skidded to a halt and dropping to one knee he shot three times as fast as he could slip the hammer off his thumb. The bullets slammed into Havalik and he backed up, cursing. His gray face was suddenly livid with a red gash where his lips had been. The red grew and blood trickled from both corners of his mouth. Havalik fired and the bullet burned Kilkenny’s ribs and Kilkenny fired again.
He saw Havalik jerk as the bullet struck him in the belt and the gunman seemed to shrink, his face twisting. He fired again, and Kilkenny snapped a shot with his left hand gun at the gun barrel that showed through the spokes of a wheel.
Then he walked around Havalik, forcing the wounded man to turn. When he got around on his left side he fired again and saw the bullet strike dust from the man’s ribs in front of his drawn-back arm.
Havalik went down then, cursing bitterly. He tried to get up, failed, and fell face down on the hard-packed earth.
The echoes lost themselves against the hills and Lance Kilkenny stood erect and still in the open yard, looking carefully around him.
It was very hot. A trickle of sweat moved down his cheek. He heard a big fly buzz heavily in the sun. Leaves rustled…and then there was movement and he turned swiftly.
Havalik was on his feet, swaying drunkenly, his clothing smeared with blood and dust. Kilkenny fired and the bullet smashed Havalik in the teeth. He fell flat on his face, all sprawled out, and did not move again.
A man sprang from hiding and lunged at the fence. He was too slow, for as he grasped the top of the fence and swung himself over, Kilkenny snapped a quick shot that knocked him loose from his hold and he hit the ground on the far side, leaving a finger behind him.
Cain Brockman came into the wagon yard and with him were Dolan, Early and Macy.
Kilkenny walked to his horse and, mounting, rode up the street to the Pinenut where he went inside for a quick drink. When he came out Cain sat his horse, holding the lead ropes of two packed horses. Kilkenny mounted and the two men rode out of town.
Nita saw them coming and rode to meet them. Cain rode on ahead, but Kilkenny waited for her. When she rode up to him he said, “Honey, there’s a minister in Horsehead. I think we should go see him.”
Her eyes searched his face. “Then…it’s over?”
“All over.”
“Was…was it very bad?”
“Dee was in too much of a hurry.”
They rode on in silence, their hands joined. Then he stopped abruptly and pulled her to him. Their bodies came together as their horses stopped side by side, and his lips touched hers and melted into welcoming softness, and he felt a strange fire thread through his veins.
And then the wind came, moving among the pines and then down the long grass levels where the cattle grazed, rippling the tall grass into changing gray and green and silver, and the horses pricked their ears, listening. It was very quiet then, in the Valley of the Whispering Wind.
Only the wind itself, whispering words of endearment to its first people.
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),
Kilkenny, 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.