Louis L'Amour: The Lonely Men

You drank their liquor and you took your chances at the games, and the men who hung out there were hard cases, men with the bark on, men who had been born with the bark on. There were men came into that place so rough they wore their clothes out from the inside first. When you saw a man walk into the Quartz Rock wearing a six-shooter or a bowie knife he wasn't wearing it for show.

We were finishing our second beer when four men came into the place.

Rocca sat up easily and moved on the chair to keep his gun hand free. This was beginning to shape up like grief of some kind, and I was in no mood for it.

They were four of a kind, raw and ragged, just in off the trail and they looked it. Like uncurried wolves they bellied up to the bar, and when they had had a drink, they looked around.

"It is those who seek for John J., amigo. I think they know I am his friend."

They crossed the room, the four of them, and every man-jack in the room could smell the trouble they brought with them.

They came to our table and ranged themselves in front of it. All of them were armed, and they wore guns as if they knew how to use them.

Me, I just sort of shifted one foot. The other foot was propped up on a chair's edge, resting easy.

"You!" The one with the handle-bar mustache stabbed a finger at Rocca. "You, greaser. They tell me you are a friend of the man named Battles."

Rocca was like a coiled snake. He looked at them, and he smiled. Now no Mex likes to be called a greaser. Me, I've been called a gringo many times and couldn't see that it left any scars, but some folks are almighty touchy, and Rocca was that way now. Not that I blamed him. It is all very easy to say trouble can be avoided, but these men were not going to be avoided. They were looking for trouble, they wanted it.

"Si, senor." Rocca said gently, "I am honored to call John J. Battles my friend."

"Then I guess we'll just kill you, Mex, seein' as how we can't find him."

Well, I just looked up at the man and I said, "I'm a friend of his, too," and I said it sort of off-hand as if it didn't matter much, but they knew it did.

They turned their eyes on me, and I just sat there, a tall, lonely man in a wore-out buckskin shirt and a beat-up hat.

"You want part of this?" Walrus-mustache was speaking again.

"A man can ride many a long mile in Texas," I said, "and see nothing but grass and sky. There's streams down there, and a man could raise some cows. Here in Arizona there's timber country with fine, beautiful meadows and cold mountain streams -- "

"What're you talkin' about?" Handle-bar mustache broke in. "Are you crazy?"

"I was just thinking a man would have to be an awful fool to throw all that away to prove how mean he was. I mean you boys got a choice. You walk back over there and drink your liquor and ride out to those mountain streams where the tall grass grows."

"Or -- ?"

"Or you stay here, and tomorrow you'll be pushin' grass from the under side."

They stared at me. They were trying to figure whether I was all talk, or whether I was tough. Now, I'm a patient man. Had they been talking to Tyrel, folks would have been laying out the bodies by now. Me, I'm not backward about giving a man a chance. Many a time a man with whiskey in him is apt to talk too much, and suddenly realize he wished he was somewhere else. I was giving them this chance.

They didn't take it.

The long-geared man with the handle-bar mustache looked at me and said, "I'm Arch Hadden," as if he expected me to show scare at the name.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Hadden," I said gently. "I'll carve the slab myself."

He kind of flushed up, and I could see he was off his step, somehow. He'd come walking up to fight, and my talk had put him off. Also, that name meant nothing to me, and I never was one to put much stock in reputatations, anyway.

Rocca had let me talk, he just sat quiet, but I'd come up the trail from Yuma with Tampico Rocca, and knew he was no man to buy trouble with. Arch Hadden had lost step, and he tried to get back again.

"I came to kill this greaser, an' I aim to do it." Rocca came to his feet in one smooth, easy movement. "Then why not get started?"

The man with the walrus mustache had had more to drink, and he wasn't being bluffed. He went for his gun, and I straightened my leg with a snap. The chair slammed into his legs and he fell against Hadden, and I shot the man on the end while they were falling. I heard another gun boom and then Rocca and me were standing there looking down at Hadden and his brother, one of them in a half-crouch but off balance, the other on one knee.

"You boys brought it to us," I said. "We didn't ask for it. You brought it, and now two of you are dead."

They hadn't looked at their companions until then, and when they did I saw they were suddenly cold sober.

"Arch," I said, "you may be a tough man where you come from, but you're a long way from home. You take my advice and go back."

Rocca was holding a gun on them, as I was. He reached around with his other hand and picked up his beer, and drank it, watching them.

Foster was standing across the room, his back to the bar. "Why don't you boys pack it up before the law gets here?" he suggested. "I don't want any more shooting in here. It's bad for business."

"Sure," I said, and holstered my gun. Deliberately I started for the door.

Tampico Rocca had been called a greaser, so he took his time. He put his glass down gently and he smiled at them. "Keep your guns," he said, "I want to meet you again, senores."

Outside in the street we ducked into an alley and stood listening for footsteps, but hearing none, we walked away.

At the corral we stopped and leaned on the bars, and Rocca built a cigarette.

"Gracias, amigo," he said. And then he added, "You are quick, amigo. You are very quick."

Chapter 4

Come daybreak, and worry was upon me. It was a real, old-fashioned attack of the dismals.

The shooting of the night before was bad enough, although I never gave much time to worry over those who came asking for trouble. When a man packed a gun he was supposed to give some thought to his actions and his manner of speech, for folks weren't much inclined to set back and let a body run over them.

It was that youngster who was worrying me. There was a small boy, a prisoner of the Apaches, or maybe already killed by them. And he was my blood kin.

Nobody knew better than me the distance I'd have to cover and the way I'd have to live for the next month or more. It was a hard country, almost empty of people, scarce of food, and rare of water that was fit to drink. The fact that Tampico Rocca was coming along sort of made it better. Two men can't move as quiet as one, except when one of them is Rocca. But his coming also made it worse, because if anything happened to him it would be because of me.

Now the first thing I needed was a horse, and I could find none for sale.

Meantime I sort of sauntered around and let folks know I needed a saddle, and finally bought a beat-up old Spanish single-rig saddle with a mochila, or housing, to throw over it, and oxbow stirrups. It was almighty old, but in good shape, and a lot of hard use had worn comfort into it. That saddle set me back eighteen dollars, and I picked up some old saddlebags for three dollars more. An old Army canteen cost me twenty-five cents. Little by little I put an outfit together, and by the time I'd bought a spare cartridge belt, a bridle, and a few other odds and ends I'd spent more than fifty dollars of what little I had. And still no horse. Whilst I went around the town of Tucson I kept a careful eye open for Arch and Wolf Madden. It turned out that one of those boys shot the night before wasn't dead. He'd been hit hard, but he was going to pull through.