Louis L'Amour - Treasure Mountain

Might be a smaller man carrying a heavy pack. Had the tracks not been so sloppy I might have been able to tell if the man carried a heavy pack or was himself heavy. Of course, it might be both.

It worried me. Who was he? And why was he going up the mountain today?

Well, if he was a friend to the Bastons it did not matter, and if he was their enemy, it might be they'd shoot each other.

I was going for a hot meal, a night's rest, and a chance to put down my gun.

There's something about gold that nags at a man. I've seen it at work a time or two. I think we Sacketts have less of it than most--with us it's land. We like the ownership of land, large pieces of mountain country, that's for us.

Nonetheless, pa labored hard for that gold. He found it, brought it off down the mountain, and now it was cached up yonder ... sure as shootin' it was there. It puzzled a man to guess where.

By the time I rode up to Shalako the sun was out and sparkling on the rain-wet leaves. Orrin came out of the store and stood waiting.

He gave me a long look. "You all right?"

"I been through it." I stepped down and stood, hands resting on the saddle, and then I turned my head toward him. "I left Andre up yonder. Right where pa was cornered, I think."

"The rest of them?"

"Up there. Paul's there with Fanny and a couple of others."

"Leave your horses," Orrin said. "Judas said to tell you he'd care for them. You come in and have some grub."

Judas came out to take Ap and the buckskin, and I walked across to the saloon with Orrin.

"There was a man came into town. Had his face all torn up and couldn't talk much, or didn't want to. He went off down the road mumbling to himself."

"He ran into a rifle muzzle, I guess. Orrin, did you see anybody else? Did anybody go up the canyon?"

"Not by daylight. We've been watching. I mean we've been watching that road every minute."

I told him about the tracks in the trail, but he shook his head, having no more explanation than I did.

"Somebody followed pa to that place. Somebody cornered him up there, and he may have been hurt. Pa taught us boys so much, and we've lived about the same. I figured I'd just let myself go the likely way. He left notches here and there, the deep, gashlike blazes, you know." I took the other daybook out of my pocket.

"And I found this."

Orrin took it in his hands. "I wonder what pa was thinking, Tell. Why he took to keeping these on that last trip? Do you suppose he had a premonition?"

I'd been thinking of it, too. "Either that, or something was turning wrong with him. He never was much to complain, you know, and we always just took it for granted he was about the strongest man around. Maybe he was feeling poorly and wasn't wishful that we know."

The words were no sooner out than I was sure I'd hit on it. This trip had been pa's last chance to do something for his family. He'd cared for us, but suddenly he might have felt he wouldn't be able to, and he began to worry.

Neither of us wanted to open the book. This would be our last word from pa, and these last few weeks we'd felt close to him again, walking in his footsteps and all. After this we both felt there would be nothing left to the story, nothing but what must have happened when he stopped writing.

Berglund brought some hot soup and bread and I made a meal of it. The book lay there on the table, and from time to time I looked up to see it there.

Tired as I was, my thoughts kept returning to the mountain trail, and I wanted to go back. I wanted to walk there again, to stand on that shelf again looking out over the mountains and sky.

The feeling stayed with me that there was something I had not found.

"Where's Nell Trelawney?" I asked suddenly. "I haven't seen her."

"You will," Orrin chuckled as he said it. "She's been around every day wanting us to go up the canyon and find you. She was sure you were in trouble."

He grinned. "I told her you'd been in trouble all your born days."

"Any more of those Three Eight hands around?"

"Boley McCaire--the young one who was so itchy. He rode into town, but he's been holed up somewhere down the creek. I've a hunch that Baston made some kind of a deal with them."

Something kept worrying me at the back of my mind, and it was not only those tracks along the way. I did not like things left hanging. Nobody went up that mountain trail in the rain without reason. The folks at Shalako had seen nobody pass, and the road was right yonder. Nobody could pass along without being seen, so if somebody had gone up the creek he had taken pains not to be seen.

Who? And why? And what was he doing now?

Judas came in, and then the Tinker. The Tinker sat down near a window where he could watch the street and the trail to the mountains.

"Judas," I said suddenly, "have you known the Bastons long?"

He hesitated and seemed to be considering. "Fifty years," he said quietly.

"Possibly even longer."

"Would Andre have followed Pierre and stabbed him?"

Judas thought for a moment. "Of course. But I do not believe he did. It was someone else."

"Who?"

He shrugged, and then he said, "Andre would not have dared let Pierre live, not after attacking him. The very idea would have been frightening. Had Andre any thought that Pierre lived after he shot him, he'd have killed him or fled--to Africa or South America."

"Why, in God's name?"

"Andre was afraid. He was a brave man, although a murderer, but he feared one man. He was afraid of Philip."

"Afraid of him?"

Judas looked at me, then at the rest of us. "Yes, you see Philip was the worst of them, by far the worst."

Chapter XXVI

We looked at him, wondering if he was joking, but he was very serious.

"I knew him, you see, and he was good to us. I mean to his slaves, but we had no choice but to obey him, and, being wise, we did obey.

"He liked Pierre Bontemps. He was also amused by him. Pierre was a romantic, an adventurer. Both men had been buccaneers, and this was known of Pierre, but not of Philip.

"Philip surrounded himself with calm, dignity, and reserve. He liked me because I had some education and because he knew I did not talk of what I knew or had seen.

"He was not a vindictive man, not a hater. He was simply a man without scruple.

He had contempt for others, whom he considered less than himself. He did nothing to exhibit himself except in that quiet, dignified manner.

"He removed anyone who got in his way. Had you not killed Andre, he would have had it done, or done it himself, for Andre had become notorious.

"Each of us has in his mind an image of what he believes himself to be, and Philip Baston saw himself as a prince of the old school. He had read Machiavelli, studied the careers of Orsini, Sforza, and Sigismondo Malatesta, and in his small way he lived accordingly.

"The Bastons had money, and, from time to time, power, but not enough of either to please any of them. Philip served briefly at sea in a French ship, then became a pirate.

"Lafitte was notorious. Baston was more cunning. He slipped into New Orleans and bought property, always small pieces, nothing to attract attention. He bought land in other parts of Louisiana, and when it became no longer safe to carry on as a pirate he simply came ashore, moved into the old Baston home and carried on as if he had never been gone. It wasn't realized for several years that he was enormously wealthy.

"He aspired to be governor. He lived in the grand manner, and anyone who got in his way was removed. Now he thinks of his family, his name. At first he looked on Andre's duels with favor. They had a certain style, and it was good to be feared. There came a time however when it became obvious that Andre killed. He was not content to win. This was looked upon with distaste, and I believe that for some time Philip has intended to be rid of Andre."