The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four (27 page)

“About twenty bucks. I’ve been hiding it in case.”

“Here.” Slim took the money he’d taken from the dead officer. “You take this.”

“What about you?”

“I ain’t goin’ to make it, kid. I got a hunch. If I do, we’ll go together. If you board that boat, they may take your rifle, but you keep your sidearm, you hear? Keep it hidden. You may need it before you get across.”

He turned to look at Dugan. “How old are you, kid?”

“Twenty-two,” Dugan said, and he lied. He was just past sixteen.

“You look younger. Anyway, go through their pockets, whoever’s dead. They won’t mind, and you’ll need whatever there is.

“Don’t go near the army or a big town. Head for the seacoast and stay out of sight. Anybody you meet out here will try to stop you. Don’t let it happen. You get away—you hear?”

Jerry lifted the bottle in a toast. “Tomorrow we die!” he said.

“Today, you mean,” Slim said.

The Biscayan came up from the cellar with a machine gun. It was brand-spanking-new. He went down again and came up with several belts of ammo, then a box of them. He set the machine gun up at a shuttered window and fed a belt into it.

Dugan looked at the automatic he had picked up. It was in good shape. He found another in the cellar and several spare clips. He loaded them.

Scattered shooting broke into a steady roar. A shell exploded not too far away.

Slim had found two Spanish versions of the Colt pistols and loaded them. He strapped them on, pleased. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to get good and drunk, and then I’m going to open that door and show them how we do it down in Texas!”

He emptied half a bottle of the wine and looked at Dugan. “You ever been in Texas, kid?”

“I worked on a ranch there—in the Panhandle.”

“I grew up on a ranch,” Slim said. “Rode for a couple of outfits in New Mexico before I started out to see the world. I knew this would happen sometime. Just never figured it would be here, in a place like this.”

He picked up the bottle of wine and looked at it. “What I need is some tequila. This here is a she-male’s drink! Or some bourbon an’ branch water.”

Dugan took his rifle and walked to the window. He helped the Biscayan move the machine gun to a more advantageous position, a little closer, a little more to the left. He checked his rifle again and loaded two more and stood them close by. From a crack in the shutters he studied the route he might get a chance to take. It must be done before the whole country was overrun by the Moors.

Suddenly Jerry moved, the dried blood still caked in his stubble of beard. He crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the trapdoor from the ditch. Then he stopped, breathing hoarsely, waiting.

Dugan had heard nothing above the occasional rattle of distant rifle fire as the Riffs began to mop up. Suddenly the trapdoor began to lift, very cautiously, then with more confidence. When it had lifted about a foot, a big Riff thrust his head up and stared into the room. All the occupants were out of his immediate range, and he lifted his head higher, peering into the semidarkness. In that instant Jerry swung the empty magnum. The solid
bop
of the blow was loud in the room, and the man vanished, the door falling into place. Jerry jerked it open, slammed it back, and leaped down into the hole. There was a brief scuffle, and then Jerry came back through the trapdoor, carrying a new rifle and a bandoleer.

Now the crescendo of firing had lifted to a loud and continuous roar, and Slim started to sing. In the tight stone room his voice boomed loudly.

Glorious! Glorious!

One keg o’ beer for the four of us!

Glory be to heaven that there isn’t

Ten or ’leven,

For the four of us can drink it all alone!

The Biscayan took down the bar and threw the shutters wide. Below them and away across the tawny hill the Riffian trench was suddenly vomiting up a long line of men. From behind the parapet before them a scattering fire threw a pitiful challenge at the charging line.

Dugan wiped the sweat from his eyebrows and leaned against the edge of the window. He was sagging with incredible exhaustion, and his body stank from the unwashed weeks, the sweat and the dirt. He lifted the rifle and held it against his swollen cheek and began to fire.

Behind him Jerry and Slim were singing “Casey Jones.” Dugan looked down at the Biscayan, a solid chunk of man who lived to fight. Hunched behind the machine gun, he waited, watching the line as an angler watches a big fish approaching the hook.

Suddenly the firing stopped, waiting for a killing volley at close quarters.

Dugan had stopped, too. One man, a tall Moor on a fine-looking horse, had ridden out on a point a good six hundred yards away, watching the attack. He stood in his stirrups, lifting a hand to shout a command, unheard at the distance. For what seemed a long minute Dugan held his aim, then squeezed off the shot, and the man stood tall in his stirrups, then fell from the saddle to the dust and lay there. Then the Biscayan opened fire.

Dugan looked down at him, aware for the first time that the Biscayan was drunk. The gray line melted before him, and the Biscayan lifted the bottle for another drink.

The unexpected fire from the stone house, cutting a wide swath in their ranks, paralyzed the attack. Then a bunch of the Riffs broke away from the main attack and started toward the stone house. Jerry was up, firing slowly, methodically. Suddenly the machine gun swung, fired three short bursts, and the bunch of attackers melted away. From behind the parapet came a wavering cheer. Dugan winced at the few voices. So many were gone!

Dugan squinted his eyes against the sun, remembering the line of silent men beside the parapet and the big Russian with the schoolboy pink in his cheeks.

The Biscayan lifted his bottle to drink, and it shattered in his hand, spilling wine over him. With a lurid burst of Spanish he dropped the neck of the bottle and reached for another. And he had never been a drinking man.

Slim sat on the floor, muttering. “I’m goin’ to get damn good an’ drunk an’ go out there and show ’em how we do it down in Texas.”

He started to rise and sat down hard, a long red furrow along his jaw. He swore in a dull, monotonous voice.

Dugan saw the line of Moors sweep forward and across the parapet. There was scattered shooting, some rising dust, then silence. He blinked, feeling a lump in his throat. He had known few of them, for they had been together too short a time. Only weeks had passed since he lay in his bunk aboard ship, feeling the gentle roll as it steamed west from Port Said.

The sunlight was bright and clear. Outside, except for the scattered bodies of the slain, all was quiet and peaceful under the morning sun. Dugan looked across the valley, thinking of what he would do. There was little time. Perhaps time had already run out.

The afternoon was waning before they attacked again. This time they were careful, taking advantage of the slight roll of the hill to get closer. The last hundred yards was in the open, and they seemed unaware of the ditch, which would be hidden from them until they were almost fallen into it.

Dugan’s face was swollen and sore from the kick of the rifle. He was hot and tired, and he switched rifles again.

A single shot sounded, lonely against the hills, and something gasped beside him. He turned to see Jerry fall across the sill. Before he could pull him back, three more bullets chugged into his body.

“Kid,” Slim said, “you better go. It’s time.”

He took the bar down from the door and looked down the sunlit hill. A knot of Moors was coming toward him, good men, fighting men, dangerous men. Slim stepped out with a pistol in each hand and started down toward them.

He was drunk. Magnificently, roaring drunk, and he had a pistol in either hand. “I’m a-goin’ to show them how we do it down in Texas!” He opened fire, then his body jerked, and he went to his knees.

Dugan snapped a quick shot at a Moor running up with a rifle ready to fire, and then Slim got up. He had lost one gun, but he started to fire from waist level. His whole left side was bloody.

Dugan turned to yell at the Biscayan, but the man was slumped across his machine gun. He had been shot between the eyes.

Dugan pushed him away from the gun and swung it toward the front of the house. In the distance, against the pale-blue sky, above the heat waves dancing, a vulture swung in slow circles against the sky. Slim was down, all sprawled out, and the enemy was closing in.

He pointed the gun toward them and opened up, singing in a hoarse, toneless voice.

Glorious! Glorious!

One keg o’ beer for the four of us!

Glory be to heaven that there isn’t

Ten or ’leven,

For the four of us can drink it all alone!

His belt went empty, and the hill was bare of all but the bodies. He got up and closed the heavy plank door.

He caught up a bandoleer and another pistol. Then he dropped through the trapdoor.

All was still. He stepped over the dead Moor and went out into the shadowed stillness of the ditch.

And then he began to run.

By the Ruins of “El Walarieh”

F
rom the hillside above the ruins of El Walarieh one could watch the surf breaking along the shore, and although the grass was sparse, thin goats grazed among the occasional clumps of brushwood high on the hill behind me. It was a strange and lonely coast, not without its own wild beauty.

Three times I had been there before the boy approached. He was a thin boy with large, beautiful eyes and smooth brown skin. He squatted beside me, his shins brown and dirty, looking curiously toward the sea, where I was looking.

“You sit here often?”

“Yes, very often.”

“You look at something?”

“I look at the sea. I look at the sea and the shore, sometimes at the clouds.” I shifted my position a little. “It is very beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” He was astonished. “The sea is beautiful?” He looked again to be sure that I was not mildly insane.

“I like the sea, and I like to look at those ruins and to wonder who lived there, and what their lives were like.”

He glanced at the ancient, time-blackened ruins. “They are no good, even for goats. The roofs have fallen in. Why do you look at the sea and not at the goats? I think the goats are more beautiful than the sea. Look at them!”

I turned my head to please him. There were at least fifty, and they browsed or slept upon the hillside above me. They were white against the green of the hill. Yes, there was beauty there, too. He seemed pleased that I agreed with him.

“They are not my goats,” he explained, “but someday I shall own goats. Perhaps as many as these. Then you will see beauty. They shall be like white clouds upon the green sky of the hillside.”

He studied the camera that lay on the grass near my feet. “You have a machine,” he said. “What is it for?”

“To make pictures. I want to get pictures of the sea and the ruins.”

“Of the goats, too?”

To please him, I agreed. “Yes, also of the goats.”

The idea seemed to satisfy him, yet he was obviously puzzled, too. There was something he did not understand. He broached the idea to me, as one gentleman to another. “You take pictures of the sea and the ruins…also of the goats. Why do you take these?”

“To look at them. To catch their beauty.”

“But why a picture?” He was still puzzled. “They are here! You can see them without a picture. The sea is here, the sky, the ruins…the goats, too. They are always here.”

“Yes, but I shall not always be here. I shall go away, and I want them to remember, to look at many times.”

“You need the machine for that? I can remember. I can remember all of the goats. Each one of them.” He paused, thinking about it. “Ah! The machine then is your memory. It is very strange to remember with a machine.”

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes. “I think you have machines for many things. I would not like that.”

The following day I was back on the hillside. It had not been my plan to come again, yet somehow the conversation left me unsatisfied. I had the feeling that somehow I’d been bested. I wanted the goatherd to understand.

When he saw me sitting there, he came down the hillside. He saluted me gravely, then sat down. I handed him a cigarette, and he accepted it gravely. “You have a woman?” he asked.

“No.”

“What, no woman? It is good for a man to have a woman.”

“No doubt.” He was, I thought, all of thirteen. “You have a woman?” I asked the question gravely.

He accepted it in the same manner. “No. I am young for a woman. And they are much trouble. I prefer the goats.”

“They are no trouble?”

He shrugged. “Goats are goats.”

The comment seemed to explain much. He smoked in silence, and I waited for him to speak again. “If I had a woman, I would beat her. Women are good when beaten often, but they are not so productive as goats.”

It was a question I did not wish to debate. He seemed to have all the advantage in the argument. He undoubtedly knew goats, and spoke of women with profound wisdom. I knew neither goats nor women.

“If you like the hillside,” he said at last, “why do you not stay? The picture will be no good. It will be the sea and the ruins only at one time, and they are not always the same. They change,” he added.

“My home is elsewhere. I must go back.”

“Then why do you leave? Is it not good there? I think you are very restless.” He looked at me. “Have you goats at home?”

“No.” I was ashamed to admit it, feeling that the confession would lower me in his esteem. “I have no goats.”

“A camel?” He was giving me every chance.

“No,” I confessed reluctantly, “no camel.” Inspiration hit me suddenly. “I have horses. Two of them.”

He considered that. “It is good to have a horse, but a horse is like a woman. It is unproductive. If you have a horse or a woman, you must also have goats.”

“If one has a woman,” I ventured, “one must have many goats.”

He nodded. I had but stated a fact.

Where There’s Fighting

T
he four men were sprawled in a cuplike depression at the top of the pass. From where the machine gun was planted it had a clear field of fire for over four hundred yards. Beyond that the road was visible only at intervals. By a careful watch of those intervals an enemy could be seen long before he was within range.

A low parapet of loose rock had been thrown up along the lip of the depression, leaving an aperture for the .30-caliber gun. Two of the men were also armed with rifles.

It was very still. The slow warmth of the morning sun soaked into their bones and ate the frost away, leaving them lethargic and pleased. The low rumble as of thunder in the far-off hills were the bombs over Serbia, miles away.

“Think they’ll ever come?” Benton asked curiously.

“They’ll come,” Ryan said.

“We can’t stop them.”

“No.”

“How about some coffee? Is there any left?”

Ryan nodded. “It’ll be ready soon. The part that’s coffee is done, the part that’s chicory is almost done, and the part that’s plain bean is doing.”

Benton looked at the two who were sleeping in the sun. They were mere boys. “Shall we wake them?”

“Pretty soon. They worry too much. Especially Pommy. He’s afraid of being afraid.”

“Sackworth doesn’t. He thinks we’re bloody heroes. Do you?”

“I’d feel heroic as blazes if I had a shave,” Ryan said. “Funny, how you like being shaved. It sets a man up somehow.”

Pommy turned over and opened his eyes. “I say, Bent? Shall I spell you a bit? You’ve been there hours!”

Benton looked at him, liking his fresh, clean-cut look.

“I could use some coffee. I feel like I was growing to this rock.”

The young Englishman had risen to his feet.

“There’s something coming down there. A man, I think.”

“Couldn’t be one of our men. We didn’t have any over there. He’s stopped—looking back.”

“He’s coming on again now,” Sackworth said after a moment. He had joined them at the first sign of trouble. “Shall I try a shot?”

“Wait. Might be a Greek.”

The sun climbed higher, and the moving figure came slowly toward them. He seemed to move at an almost creeping pace. At times, out of sight of the pass, they thought he would never show up again.

“He’s carrying something,” Pommy said. “Too heavy for a rifle, but I saw the sun flash on it back there a way.”

The man came into sight around the last bend. He was big, but he walked very slowly, limping a little. He was wearing faded khaki trousers and a torn shirt. Over one shoulder were several belts of ammunition.

“He hasn’t carried that very far,” Ryan said. “He’s got over a hundred pounds there.”

Benton picked up one of the rifles and stepped to the parapet, but before he could lift the gun or speak, the man looked up. Benton thought he had never seen a face so haggard with weariness. It was an utter and complete weariness that seemed to come from within. The man’s face was covered with a stubble of black beard. His face was wide at the cheekbones, and the nose was broken. His head was wrapped in a bloody bandage above which coarse black hair was visible.

“Any room up there?” he asked.

“Who are you?” Benton demanded.

Without replying, the big man started up the steep path. Once he slipped, skinning his knee against a sharp rock. Puzzled, they waited. When he stood beside them, they were shocked at his appearance. His face, under the deep brown of sun and wind, was drawn and pale, his nose peeling from sunburn. The rags of what must have once been a uniform were mud stained and sweat discolored.

“What difference does it make?” he asked mildly, humorously. “I’m here now.”

He lowered the machine gun and slid the belts to the ground. When he straightened, they could see he was a half inch taller than Benton, who was a tall man, and at least thirty pounds heavier. Through his shirt bulging muscles showed, and there was blood clogging the hair on his chest.

“My name’s Horne,” he added. “Mike Horne. I’ve been fighting with Koska’s guerrillas in Albania.”

Benton stared, uncertain. “Albania? That’s a long way from here.”

“Not so far if you know the mountains.” He looked at the pot on the fire. “How’s for some coffee?”

Silently Ryan filled a cup. Digging in his haversack, Horne produced some Greek bread and a thick chunk of sausage. He brushed the sand from the sausage gravely. “Want some? I salvaged this from a bombed house back yonder. Might be some shell fragments in it.”

“You pack that gun over the mountains?” Ryan asked.

Horne nodded, his mouth full. “Part of the way. It was surrounded by dead Greeks when I found it. Four Italians found it the same time. We had trouble.”

“Did you—kill them all?” Pommy asked.

Horne looked at him. “No, kid. I asked them to tea an’ then put sand in their bearings.”

Pommy’s face got red; then he grinned.

“Got any ammo for a .50?” Horne looked up at Benton. “I got mighty little left.”

“They put down four boxes by mistake,” Benton said.

Ryan was interested. “Koska’s guerrillas? I heard of them. Are they as tough as you hear?”

“Tougher. Koska’s an Albanian gypsy. Sneaked into Valona alone a few nights ago an’ got himself three dagos. With a knife.”

Sackworth studied Horne as if he were some kind of insect. “You call that bravery? That’s like animals. One can at least fight like a gentleman!”

Horne winked at Ryan. “Sure, kid. But this ain’t a gentleman’s fight. This is war. Nothing sporting about it, just a case of dog eat dog, an’ you better have big teeth.”

“Why are you here?” Sackworth demanded.

Horne shrugged. “Why am I any place? Think I’m a fifth columnist or something?” He stared regretfully into the empty cup. “Well, I’m not. I ran a gun in the Chaco a few years ago; then they started to fight in China, so I went there. I was in the Spanish scrap with the Loyalists.

“Hung around in England long enough to learn something about that parachute business. Now that’s a man’s job. When you get down in an enemy country, you’re on your own. I was with the bunch that hopped off from Libya and parachuted down in southern Italy to cut off that aqueduct and supply line to the Sicily naval base. Flock of ‘spiggoties’ spotted me, but I got down to the water and hiked out in a fishing boat. Now I’m here.”

He looked up at Benton, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “From Kalgoorlie, I bet. You got the look. I prospected out of there once. I worked for pearls out of Darwin, too. I’m an original swag man, friend.”

“What’s a swag man?” Pommy asked.

Horne looked at him, smiling. Two of his front teeth at the side were missing.

“It’s a bum, sonny. Just a bum. A guy who packs a tucker bag around looking for whatever turns up.”

Horne pulled the gun over into his lap, carefully wiping the oil buffer clean. Then he oiled the moving parts of the gun with a little can he took from his hip pocket and slowly assembled it. He handled the gun like a lover, fitting the parts together smoothly and testing it carefully for head space when it was ready for firing.

“That a German shirt you have on?” Sackworth asked. His eyes were level, and he had his rifle across his knees, pointed at Horne.

“Sure,” Horne said mildly. “I needed a shirt, so I took it out of a dead German’s outfit.”

“Looting,” Sackworth said with scorn. There was distaste and dislike in his gaze.

“Why not?” Horne looked up at Sackworth, amused. “You’re a good kid, so don’t start throwing your weight around. This sportsmanship stuff, the old school tie, an’ whatnot—that’s okay where it belongs. You Britishers who play war like a game are living in the past. There’s nothing sporting about this. It’s like waterfronts or jungles. You survive any way you can.”

Sackworth did not move the rifle. “I don’t like him,” he said to Benton. “I don’t trust him.”

“Forget it!” Benton snapped. “The man’s all right, and Lord knows we need fighting men!”

“Sure,” Horne added quietly. “It’s just you an’ me are different kind of animals, kid. You’re probably Eton and then Sandhurst. Me, I came up the hard way. A tough road kid in the States, then an able seaman, took a whirl at the fight game, and wound up in Chaco.

“I like to fight. I also like to live. I been in a lot of fights, and mostly I fought pretty good, an’ I’m still alive. The Jerries use whatever tactics they need. What you need, kid, in war is not a lot of cut an’ dried rules but a good imagination, the ability to use what you’ve got to the best advantage no matter where you are, and a lot of the old moxie.

“You’ll make a good fighter. You got the moxie. All you need is a little kicking around.”

“I wish we knew where the Jerries were,” Ryan said. “This waiting gets me.”

“You’ll see them pretty quick,” Horne said. “There’s about a battalion in the first group, and there’s only one tank.”

Benton lowered his cup, astonished. “You mean you’ve actually seen them? They are coming?”

Horne nodded. “The main body isn’t far behind the first bunch.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Sackworth demanded. His face was flushed and angry. “We could have warned the troops behind us.”

“Yeah?” Horne did not look up from wiping the dust from the cartridges. “Well, we couldn’t. You see,” he added, looking up, “they broke through Monastir Pass two days ago. Your men back there know more about it than we do. This is just a supporting column to polish off any leftovers like us.”

“Then—we’re cut off?” Pommy asked.

Horne nodded. “You have been for two days. How long you been here?”

“Just three days,” Benton said. He studied Horne thoughtfully. “What are you? A Yank?”

Horne shrugged. “I guess so. When I joined up in Spain, they took my citizenship away. It was against the law to fight fascism then. If it was wrong then, it’s wrong now. But me, I feel just the same. I’ll fight them in China, in Spain, in Africa, or anywhere else.

“In Spain when everything was busting up, I heard about this guy Koska. One of his men was with us, so when he went back, I trailed along.”

“They’re coming,” Sackworth said. “I can see the tank.”

“All right,” Benton said. He finished his coffee.

“Did you fight any Germans in Spain?” Pommy asked.

“Yeah.” Mike Horne brushed invisible dust from the gun and fed a belt of cartridges into it. “Most of them aren’t much better than the Italians. They fight better—the younger ones try harder—but all they know how to do is die.”

“It’s something to know that,” Sackworth said.

“Nuts. Anybody can die. Everybody does. And dead soldiers never won any battles. The good soldier is the one who keeps himself alive and fighting. This bravery stuff—that’s for milksops. For pantywaists. All of us are scared, but we fight just the same.”

“The tank’s getting closer,” Sackworth said. He was plainly worried and showed it.

“I got the .50,” Horne said. He settled himself comfortably into the sand and moved his gun on the swivel. “Let it get closer. Don’t fire until they are close up to us. I’ll take the tank. You take the first truck with the other gun, I’ll take the second, an’ so on. Get the drivers if you can.”

They were silent. The rumble of the tank and heavy clank of the tread drew nearer. Behind them rolled the trucks, the men sitting in tight groups. They apparently expected no trouble.

“I’d have expected them to send a patrol,” Benton said, low voiced.

“They did,” Horne replied.

They looked at him, startled. His eyes were on the gray-green column. He had sighted the fifty at the gun aperture on the tank.

“All right,” he said suddenly.

His gun broke into a hoarse chatter, slamming steel-jacketed bullets at the tank. Then its muzzle lifted suddenly and swept the second truck. Soldiers were shouting and yelling, spilling from trucks like madmen, but the two first trucks were smashed into carriers of death before the men could move. The Germans farther back had found their enemy, and steel-jacketed bullets smashed into the parapet. Pommy felt something like a hot whiplash along his jaw.

They were above the column and out of reach of the tank. Mike Horne stood up suddenly and depressed the gun muzzle. The tank was just below. The gun chattered, and the tank slewed around sideways and drove full tilt into the rock wall as though to climb it.

Horne dropped back. “The older ones have a soft spot on top,” he said.

The men of the broken column ran for shelter. Some of them tried to rush the steep path, but the fire blasted them back to the road, dead or dying. Others, trying to escape the angry bursts from the two guns, tried to scramble up the walls of the pass but were mowed down relentlessly.

It had been a complete and shocking surprise. The broken column became a rout. Horne stopped the .50 and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He winked at Ryan.

“Nice going, kid. That’s one tank that won’t bother your pals.”

Ryan peered around the rocks. The pass was empty of life. The wrecked tank was jammed against the rock wall, and one of the trucks had plunged off the precipice into the ravine. Another was twisted across the road.

A man was trying to get out of the first truck. He made it and tumbled to the road. His coat was stained with blood, and he was making whimpering sounds and trying to crawl. His face and head were bloody.

“Next time it’ll be tough,” Horne said. “They know now. They’ll come in small bunches, scattered out, running for shelter behind the trucks.”

Rifle fire began to sweep over the cup. They were low behind the parapet and out of sight. It was a searching, careful fire—expert fire.

Benton was quiet. He looked over at Horne. Officially in charge, he had yielded his command to Horne’s superior knowledge.

“What d’you think?” he asked.

“We’ll stop them,” Horne said. “We’ll stop them this time, maybe next time. After that—”

Horne grinned at Pommy. “First time under fire?”

“Yes.”

“Take it easy. You’re doing all right. Make every shot count. One cinch is worth five maybes.”

Pommy crowded his body down into the gravel and rested his rifle in a niche in the rocks. He looked at Mike Horne and could see a thin trickle of fresh blood coming from under his bandage. The wound had opened again.