Milo Talon (29 page)

The people of the town wanted no more shooting, no more trouble, and those who had been causing it were outsiders. “Get on your horses and ride. I don’t care where you go, but don’t come back here.”

“Can’t we wait for the train?” the dude pleaded.

“No. You’ve got horses. Use ’em.”

Atop the ridge they looked around then started down the far slope. “Canon City,” Anne suggested. “I must go there, anyway. I’ve money in the bank there.”

The big man with the broken jaw gave her a disgusted look and his sister said, “You been promisin’ us money. I’d like to see the color of it.” She jerked her head toward the man with the broken jaw. “Ray’s got to have treatment. He’s got to rest. We’ll need money.”

“Of course. Canon City it is.”

They rode in silence. “Ain’t this the long way around?” the big woman asked.

“It is, but would you rather ride across Rolon Taylor’s range? We’ve had trouble enough from them. They might take our horses and saddles.”

“They do belong to Taylor,” the dude commented.

They rode on in silence, and day broke brightening the dull gray sunrise. They camped on the edge of the pines, and the dude was unhappy. He could not find comfort on the ground and the day dawned with irritation and disgust.

Even the coffee failed to brighten their outlook. “Never expected to be ridin’ off like this. You said there’d be gold, lots of it.”

“We’ve had a setback, that’s all. We’ll have it, and don’t you worry. I’ve a plan.”

After a few minutes she said, “Have you stopped to think of something? They rode out before we did, he riding ahead and she not much behind him. Neither is carrying more than saddlebags. One of them must be carrying the Will.”

The dude was thoughtful. Two of them against four, and with luck a surprise. “Maybe,” he muttered, “just maybe.”

He was irritated. He had invested a lot of time and some of his own money in this venture. He had worked for Nathan Albro at one time and secretly admired the man. That Albro had money, he knew. Anne Henry was, everybody said, his daughter and his heir. She had needed help and he was glad to give it. Now, months later, he was no longer glad. He wanted his money but he also wanted to get out and get away.

“There’s a ranch up ahead,” Anne said suddenly. “We can get some food.”

“I don’t like it.” The dude was irritable. “I don’t like it at all. This looks like the place Taylor saw. Said it spooked him.”

“Nonsense! It’s broad daylight. If you’re all afraid, you just ride on along the trail. Take your time and when I get food packed for us I’ll catch up.” She pointed toward the hills. “There’s a trail cuts right through there for Canon City. I’ll catch up.”

She turned her horse down the slope, glancing at the sun. This would not take long, and people in this western country were always willing to furnish a traveler with food.

The sky was overcast and gray when she rode into the yard and a woman came to the door and shaded her eyes at her. As Anne rode up the woman smiled: it was a lovely smile. “I d’clare, miss, it does beat all! I was just wishful of having a visitor! It’s been getting downright lonely the last few days! Come in! Come in!”

Anne stepped into a spotless kitchen, curtains at the windows … it was really very pretty. “Oh! It’s nice!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting anything so lovely!”

“It takes a mite of doing,” Bess said, “and help is hard to come by. I am always on the lookout for a strong, active young girl.”

“You should be able to find one. Some of the ranchers have daughters whom I am sure would enjoy working for you.”

“Here,” Bess said, “you just sit down right here. I’ll give you a nice cup of coffee.”

“Could I get some food to take along? I’ve some friends who have gone on ahead.”

“Of course! Gone on ahead, you say? And it does look like rain. They should have stopped here until the weather was better.

“As far as that goes—what did you say your name was?”

“Anne.”

“Of course, Anne. As far as that goes, you could stop. No use to get rained on. When the shower has passed you could just ride on and catch up.”

A few spatters of rain were falling. Well, why not, she told herself, there’s no use getting wet just for them. When the storm is over I can catch them easily.

“You’re tired, Anne, I can see that. You’re really tired. Now I’m going to fix something for you and your friends, so why don’t you just go in there and lie down. By the time the rain is over I’ll have some food packed and you can go right along.”

“Well, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course not! You go right in there! It isn’t much, just a cot, but it will do just fine. Now you just lie down. I’ll call you when the rain stops.

“There now! All comfy? Now you just take a little nap. No use your getting all worn out.”

Slowly, Anne stretched out. She
was
tired! So very, very tired! It seemed like she had been going for days, and with so little rest.

Her eyes closed. After a little while they opened. Such a strange room! Gray walls, no windows … probably a storeroom of some kind.

Her eyes closed again, for just a few minutes, for just a little while.…

Such a nice woman … such beautiful blue eyes. The thought faded and she slept, deeply, soundly.…

F
AR DOWN THE trail, Ray drew up, looking back. “She ought to be comin’ along, Dude.” He mumbled it through his tightly bandaged jaws.

“If you ask me,” his sister said, “I think she wanted to be rid of us.”

“Well,” Dude said, “I think we’re well rid of her. All we’ve had is promises.”

He glanced back one more time. There was no sign of a rider, no dust … of course there had been a shower, but that had been hours ago. If she had wanted to come she would have been here by now. After all, Dude told himself, they had not traveled very fast.

After the fall of rain the sky was very blue, and there was almost no wind. A few drops fell from the leaves along the trail.

Even a dude could come to love this land, this timeless, this forever land.

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 more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling 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),
Jubal Sackett, 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 cassettes and CDs from Random House 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 with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.