Loius L'Amour The Quick and the Dead

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"You mean they done buried the gold?" Ike said. "They wouldn't do
a fool thing like that! Not way the hell an' gone out here!"
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"I don't know anything about gold. That's just something we
conjured up in our minds our own selves. I seen furniture all along the trail.
They carry it a ways, then their stocks gets played out and they drop it.
There's never been any gold."
"You say!" Ike sneered.
"Why go to the gold fields if you've already got gold? And why
take gold to the gold fields?" Purdy asked.
"They got it," Ike insisted. "Anyway, they've got horses and mules
and a wagon load of stuff."
"You seen many of those wagons, Ike?" Purdy asked gently. "Most of
what they hold is important to nobody but them, except for tools, grub, and
such. I never seen anything in a wagon yet that was worth the trouble to carry
off."
"They can't be far," Dobbs said, "and we're goin' that way.
Anyway, Red wants his woman."
"That's just a notion," Purdy said.
Red turned a little in the saddle. "It's my notion," Red said
quietly, "and I like it."
Their eyes held for an instant and then Purdy shrugged and smiled.
"Have at it," he said, "ever'-body's entitled to a notion now and again."
He was smiling, but his eyes were still and watchful. Red turned
abruptly away. "Let's get on," he said harshly. "Time's a-wastin'."
When morning came again there was a cool fresh wind coming down
through the spruce, the aspen, and the pine trees. The wind had the smell of
pines on its breath, and the sound of the aspen leaves stirring, and cool
water over stones.
A dim road led off the bench down through the aspens and the
cottonwood and almost without thinking, Duncan turned the mules down the faint
tracks and they braked the wagon into the river bottom. Free of the trees,
with marmots disappearing on every hand, there was a long green meadow, an old
corral in the distance, and a faint track, overgrown with grass.
They were sitting tall on the wagon-seats now, and Tom had left
his post at the rear to look at what they were approaching.
On the left were the aspens, their white trunks like the columns
of a mosque, their leaves restlessly moving, always moving. The corral they
were drawing near to was empty, the bars down, the grass within grown tall.
The road dipped away to their right and they saw sunlight gleam on rushing
water.
The gray of stones, a small field of them over which water had run
and would run again, and then the stream, only a few feet wide at this point,
but clear and maybe a couple of feet deep. Beyond the stream there was more
forest and then the mountain, rising boldly up, bald and green at its higher
points, the lower slopes thick with forest.
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"Pa ... look!"
Duncan McKaskel drew up. Beond the stream, not more than fifty or
sixty yards beyond, was a cabin. It was a log cabin, patched with some cut
boards, and it was old, obviously abandoned.
"Duncan ... ? I love it."
"Let's look around."
He spoke to the mules and they moved ahead, ears pricked. "They
like it too," he told himself.
They bumped and rumbled, splashing through the stream, struggled a
little at the opposite bank because in the years between the river had cut it
away somewhat, and then they were there.
The grass was green around the old cabin, the trees had been
cleared back, behind it there was, some distance back, an old beaver pond with
much gray, fallen timber, the bare ribs of a small and vanished forest. As he
looked a fish plopped in one of the ponds, and ripples spread out.
He tied the reins and got stiffly down, stretching his back after
the long sitting. Then he put up a hand and helped Susanna down.
Tom was already on the ground and running toward the cabin. He
leaned into the open door. "Ma! It's got a floor!"
Susanna paused and looked all around. She listened to the gentle
sound of the running water, the faint rustle of aspen leaves, the cloud
shadows on the green dome of the mountain.
"Duncan? It is lovely, isn't it?"
"Yes ... yes, it is. There's plenty of water, and there's grass."
The cabin was small, and it needed work, but it was the sound of
running water and the aspen as well as the beaver ponds that made them like
it.
"Duncan? Can we ?"
"We'll give it a try, Susanna. We'll stop for a few days while I
look around." In his own mind, he was sure. He wanted to look at the higher
ground first though.
There was room enough for a kitchen garden, and perhaps a crop of
corn and potatoes ... some beans.
Duncan McKaskel walked back to the wagon and began to unhitch.
There were things to be seen, he must look around, but in his own mind this
was home.
Whoever had built the cabin had abandoned it long ago. Judging by
the look of the logs and the weathering, he would guess ten years or more. Nor
was there any sign of occupancy of even the casual sort. By leaving the known
trails, the prescribed route, they had come to this place, come as if guided
by fate.
Picketing the horses and mules on the rich green grass, after
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watering them, he began to gather firewood, and as in any forest, it was
scattered everywhere. Much heavy stuff had been washed down by the stream, and
there were deadfalls and many trees killed by beavers. There was wood enough
to last a winter through.
"We will sleep in our camp tonight," he suggested, "and tomorrow
we'll clean up the house and repair what is needed."
Leaving Tom to gather more wood and Susanna to prepare supper, he
took his rifle and walked up the dim game trail toward the bench above the
river-bottom.
It was broad and green, sweeping away, several hundred acres of
excellent pasture, toward the aspens at the foot of the mountain. He saw the
tracks and droppings of both deer and elk, and the track of a bear.
He stood still, drinking in the quiet beauty of the place.
Suddenly, among the aspens beyond the meadow he saw something move, and a
moment later it moved forward just a little, pausing in a spot of sunlight.
A bull elk, and a big one.
He started to lift his rifle, then hesitated, not wishing to
shatter the stillness with a rifle shot. He smiled at himself, then lowered [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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