COMPLETELY DEAD
MY EYES WERE on Wally but they took in the other man, too. “You,” I said, “with the blue shirt? Are you in this? Or do you want to live?”
“I’m looking for a Mexican,” he said, “just what we were sent to do. Come on, Wally. Let’s ride.”
“All right,” Wally said. He started to turn his horse and as he did he drew his pistol. He was medium fast, and completely dead.
He had the pistol clear and his face was shining with triumph. He’d show me!
The jolt of my .44 didn’t knock him out of the saddle but it let air through him from one side to the other. He dropped his six-shooter and grabbed for the horn and hung on tight, staring at me, his face growing whiter.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “All you had to do was ride away.”
Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour
ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THE BOOKS YOU HAVE MISSED.
NOVELS
Bendigo Shafter
Borden Chantry
Brionne
The Broken Gun
The Burning Hills
The Californios
Callaghen
Catlow
Chancy
The Cherokee Trail
Comstock Lode
Conagher
Crossfire Trail
Dark Canyon
Down the Long Hills
The Empty Land
Fair Blows the Wind
Fallon
The Ferguson Rifle
The First Fast Draw
Flint
Guns of the Timberlands
Hanging Woman Creek
The Haunted Mesa
Heller with a Gun
The High Graders
High Lonesome
Hondo
How the West Was Won
The Iron Marshal
The Key-Lock Man
Kid Rodelo
Kilkenny
Killoe
Kilrone
Kiowa Trail
Last of the Breed
Last Stand at Papago Wells
The Lonesome Gods
The Man Called Noon
The Man from the Broken Hills
The Man from Skibbereen
Matagorda
Milo Talon
The Mountain Valley War
North to the Rails
Over on the Dry Side
Passin’ Through
The Proving Trail
The Quick and the Dead
Radigan
Reilly’s Luck
The Rider of Lost Creek
Rivers West
The Shadow Riders
Shalako
Showdown at Yellow Butte
Silver Canyon
Sitka
Son of a Wanted Man
Taggart
The Tall Stranger
To Tame a Land
Tucker
Under the Sweetwater Rim
Utah Blaine
The Walking Drum
Westward the Tide
Where the Long Grass Blows
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Beyond the Great Snow Mountains
Bowdrie
Bowdrie’s Law
Buckskin Run
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour (vols. 1–3)
Dutchman’s Flat
End of the Drive
From the Listening Hills
The Hills of Homicide
Law of the Desert Born
Long Ride Home
Lonigan
May There Be a Road
Monument Rock
Night over the Solomons
Off the Mangrove Coast
The Outlaws of Mesquite
The Rider of the Ruby Hills
Riding for the Brand
The Strong Shall Live
The Trail to Crazy Man
Valley of the Sun
War Party
West from Singapore
West of Dodge
With These Hands
Yondering
SACKETT TITLES
Sackett’s Land
To the Far Blue Mountains
The Warrior’s Path
Jubal Sackett
Ride the River
The Daybreakers
Sackett
Lando
Mojave Crossing
Mustang Man
The Lonely Men
Galloway
Treasure Mountain
Lonely on the Mountain
Ride the Dark Trail
The Sackett Brand
The Sky-Liners
THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS
The Riders of the High Rock
The Rustlers of West Fork
The Trail to Seven Pines
Trouble Shooter
NONFICTION
Education of a Wandering Man
Frontier
THE SACKETT COMPANION: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels
A TRAIL OF MEMORIES: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour, compiled by Angelique L’Amour
POETRY
Smoke from This Altar
MILO TALON
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam edition published August 1981
Bantam reissue / October 1994
Bantam reissue / May 2002
Bantam reissue / February 2006
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Photograph of Louis L’Amour by John Hamilton—Globe Photos, Inc.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 1981 by Louis & Katherine L’Amour Trust
Excerpt from Law of the Desert Born Text copyright © 2013 by Beau L’Amour; Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Louis L’Amour Enterprises, Inc.
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-89948-1
www.bantamdell.com
v3.1_r1
To Leo and Cylvia
Author’s Note
THE OPENING OF the West had many aspects: exploration, the fur trade, wagon trains, buffalo hunting, Indian wars, cattle ranching, mining, town sites, and not the least, railroad construction.
The old maps can still be found as well as brochures full of glowing promise but having little connection with reality. Some of these railroads were actually completed, opening vast areas to development.
This is not a story of railroads but of people momentarily involved, of Milo Talon and his search for a missing girl among people whose sole motivation was greed.
Milo Talon’s mother, Em, was a Sackett and, in fact, an earlier adventure featuring Milo and Em, The Man from the Broken Hills, is grouped with the Sackett novels and published by Bantam. But beginning with this novel and continuing on with other stories I have planned, I hope the Talons will begin to stand on their own. You’ll find more background on the Talon family in Rivers West also.
The country written about is mostly west and south of Pueblo, Colorado. If you visit a town called Beulah you will be in what was once called Fisher’s Hole. The North Creek road was for some time the only practical route into the Hole. The route used several times in this story was a horseback trail, although western people took wagons wherever they needed them.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author
’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
About Louis L’Amour
Excerpt from LAW OF THE DESERT BORN (Graphic Novel)
CHAPTER 1
THE PRIVATE CAR stood alone on a railroad siding bathed in the hot red blood of a desert sunset. Stepping down from the saddle, I tied my horse to the hitching rail, glanced again at the obvious opulence of the car, and took off my chaps and spurs, hanging them from the saddlehorn.
“Don’t fret,” I told my horse. “I’ll not be long.”
With a whip or two of my hat to brush the worst of the dust from my clothes, I crossed to the car and swung aboard. I paused an instant, then opened the door and stepped into the observation room. All was satinwood and vermilion.
A table, a carafe of wine, and glasses. A black man wearing a white coat stepped from the passage along the side. “Yes, sir?”
“I am Milo Talon.”
“A moment, sir.”
He vanished and I stood alone. There was a distant murmur of voices and the black man returned. “This way, sir? If you please?”
The passage led past the doors of two staterooms to the salon which doubled as a dining room. The room was comfortable but ornate with heavily tassled and fringed draperies, velvet portieres, and thick wall-to-wall carpets.
Hat in hand I waited, catching a glimpse of myself in the narrow mirrors between the windows. For a moment I was seeing what others might see: a lean, dark young man in a wine-colored shirt, black tie, black coat, and gray pinstriped trousers. Under the coat a gun belt and a Colt.
The office compartment into which I was shown was small but beautifully appointed, and the man behind the desk fitted the picture. He was square-shouldered and square-jawed, a man accustomed to command. He might have been sixty or more but seemed younger. His mustache and hair were black with scarcely a hint of gray. He wore a black, beautifully tailored suit. His manners, I felt, were as neatly tailored as his clothing. He gestured to a chair, then opened a box of expensive cigars and offered it to me.
“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“I’ll stand, sir.”
The jaws tightened a little; a short-tempered man, I thought, who does not like to be thwarted in even the smallest thing.
“I am Jefferson Henry,” he said.
“And I am Milo Talon. You wished to see me?”
“I wish to employ you.”
“If I like the job.”
“I will pay well. Very well.”
“If I like the job.”
The skin around his eyes seemed to tighten. “You’re damned independent!”
“Yes, sir. Shall we get on with it, sir? What led you to me?”
“You were referred to me as a man who could do a difficult job, a close-mouthed man, and who if required would charge hell with a bucket of water.”
“Well?”
He did not like me. It was in his mind, I think, to tell me to leave, to get out. Something else was in his mind also because he did nothing of the kind.
“I want you to find someone for me. I want you to find a girl.”
“You will have to find your own women.” I started to put on my hat.
“The girl is my son’s daughter. She has been missing for twelve years.”
A moment longer I hesitated, then sat down. “Tell me about it.”
“Fifteen years ago my son and I quarreled. He went west. I have not seen or heard from him since.”
“Have you any idea,” I asked, “how many men are simply swallowed up by this country? Men drop from sight every day and no one takes notice. Usually, nobody cares. I have helped to bury several. No names, no other means of identification, no hint as to origin or destination. Some are killed by thieves or Indians, some die of thirst, cholera, or accident.”
“No doubt, but my son had a daughter. It is she whom I hope to find.”
“And not your son?”
“He is dead.” Jefferson Henry bit the end from a cigar. “My son was weak. He was bold enough when telling me to go to hell, but he had done that several times and had always come back. If he was alive he would have done so again, so I know he is dead.”
“What of his wife? The girl’s mother?”
Henry lit the cigar. “It was she we quarreled over. I have no wish to see her. I am not interested in her. I wish only to find my son’s daughter.”
He paused, considering the glowing end of the cigar. Then he said, “I am a very rich man. I am no longer young. I have no other heir, and I am alone. She must be found.”
“And if she is not found? Who inherits then?”
His eyes were cold. “We will not discuss that. You are to find my granddaughter. You will be well paid.”
“Your son disappeared fifteen years ago?”
“He married despite my wishes. He took his wife and their daughter and went west, working for a time in Ohio then in St. Louis.” Jefferson Henry brushed the ash from his cigar.
“The daughter may not have lived.”
“Of course. That is a contingency for which I am prepared.”
“Or she may have become somebody whom you may not wish to claim.”
“That is a possibility.”
“Why me?”
“You have been mentioned to me as a man who knows the West. You were a scout for the Army. You were mentioned as a man of perception and intelligence.” He paused. “It was also said that you had acceptance along the Outlaw Trail.”
“Oh?”
“I might add—I knew your father.”
“You knew him?”
“He was a hard-headed, opinionated, difficult man, but he was honest. We agreed on almost nothing, but once set upon a course he could not be turned aside.”
“You were his friend?”
Jefferson Henry brushed the ash from his cigar. From under his thick brows his eyes were like blue ice. “I was not. Our dislike was immediate and mutual. It remained so. But I did not come two thousand miles to talk of him. When I hire a man I try to get the best man for the job. You were recommended.”
He opened a drawer of the desk where he sat and took out a sack of gold coins. At least, by their apparent weight I judged they were gold. “There is one thousand dollars. I do not demand an itemized account of your expenses, only a general coverage. I understand that in such situations moneys often have to be expended that are better not accounted for.”
From another drawer he took a large manila envelope. “This contains copies of letters, old photographs, some memoranda. It is all I have.”
“You have been trying to find her?”
“Everything failed. Even the Pinkertons.”
For a few minutes I considered it. There was something here I did not like, yet I could not put a finger on it for he seemed straightforward enough, yet every instinct told me the man was not to be trusted. Nonetheless, the problem fascinated me and I was footloose … and broke. Or nearly so.
“All right. If she is alive I will find her. If she is dead, I will know where she was buried.”
“You will find her? Where others failed?”
“Why not? You would not have come to me if you did not believe I could find her.”
He gave me that straight, hard look again. “I believe nothing of the kind. You are, however, my
last chance.” He indicated the envelope. “My address is there, or you may find me through any Wells Fargo office. If you need more money you may go to any Wells Fargo office and draw up to one thousand dollars. If you need more than that, you must contact me personally.”
“Up to how much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars. I am prepared to spend that much and no more.”
It was a lot of money, an awful lot of money. I said as much.
He waved a hand. “It is. But she is the heir to all I have. If she is not my only living relative, as I believe, she is at least the only one whom I care to acknowledge.”
“If I accept, what will I be paid?”
Jefferson Henry indicated the sack of gold. “Your expenses will be paid. I shall pay you one hundred and fifty dollars a month during the term of your employment and a bonus of one thousand dollars if you find her.”
“Two hundred a month,” I said.
His eyes showed impatience. “You ask for two hundred? You’ve worked as a cowpuncher for thirty dollars a month!”
“This is not cowpunching.” I got to my feet. “It is two hundred or no deal. The money to be paid to my account at the Wells Fargo office in El Paso.”
He hesitated, not liking it or me, but finally he said, “All right, two hundred it is.”
“In advance.”
He took gold coins from another drawer and paid them over the desk. “See that you earn it.”
Leaving the car, envelope in hand, I was puzzled. Stepping down from the car, I crossed to my horse. What was bothering me? It seemed a fairly straightforward proposition, although searching for missing persons had never been something for which I was noted.
Glancing back toward the car, I was startled to see another man in the salon where I had just been. He was standing close to Jefferson Henry and they were talking, gesturing. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man, larger than Henry, who was not a small man.
It was not the porter.
Now then, who was he? And where had he been during my talk with Henry?
If I’d learned one thing during my knockabout years it was that a man lives only through awareness, and it irritated me that I had not known of the man’s presence.