Текст книги "The Ferguson Rifle"

Автор книги: Louis L'Amour

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We rode swiftly. Their animals were in better shape than mine and were in any case better horses, so we made good time while watching the country for the five men.

Rather hesitantly, I inquired if she knew their identities or motives. She denied knowledge but somehow I only half believed her and warned her we were in danger.

"Oh, them!" She was scornful. "I saw it all. You sent them packing, and if they come upon us, you'll do so again. I have no doubt of it. They fairly trembled when you spoke to them!" Well, now. That was not exactly the way of it, but how could I use what eloquence I possessed to prove to this lovely lady that I was less fearful than she imagined? They had gone, and I was nice enough to know it was simply because I had a momentary advantage. Had it actually come to a scrimmage, their leader would have been dead... but I would be dead also. It was an event that I did not contemplate with any enthusiasm.

She rode sidesaddle and she rode it with dash and beauty. She carried her head high, and if there was fear in the world, certainly she was unaware of it.

Yet there were questions that must be asked. "The man who rode with you? Who was he?" She turned her eyes to me. "He was, as my father was, one of the Irish Brigade. It was he who brought me to my father in Mexico, and when my father was killed, he offered to help me escape." "You must tell me about that," I suggested.

"All in good time," she replied quietly.

She drew up suddenly, as did the lad and I.

Seven Indians sat their horses in the trail before us, seven Indians, armed and ready.

CHAPTER 10

Suddenly, one of them pushed forward and it was Walks-By-night. "We ride to meet our friend," he said.

"I am pleased that you have come. Had there been fighting, you could have shared the coups with me. I would be honored to fight beside the dog soldiers of the Cheyenne." They were pleased, although they wanted not to show it.

They formed around us as a guard of honor and together we rode toward camp.

Yet a far different camp it was. My friends and their Cheyenne companions had come up with the main body of the Cheyennes for whom they had been looking. The camp was a dozen times larger than before, and there were at least fifty warriors in camp, fine-looking men, all of them.

It was immediately apparent that Walks-By-night was a considerable personage among them, not a chief, but a warrior, hunter, and orator of prestige.

The horse herd must have numbered several hundred head, tough little mountain ponies most of them. Many were excellent stock, and I found myself appraising them thoughtfully for my own horse was feeling the effects of hard riding on no other food than grass.

Lucinda Falvey kept close beside me and I did not find it distasteful. Brave as she was, these were the first wild Indians she had seen at firsthand and she was obviously nervous.

Davy Shanagan rode out to meet us as we came in, glancing at Lucinda with startled pleasure. "Howdy, ma'am!" he said. "If I were to guess, I'd say you were from the old land itself!" "And you would be right, sir!" she replied pertly.

We rode to where the others were camped together not far back from a small stream. Degory Kemble looked from Lucinda to me. "Do you have the story yet?" he asked me. "How did a girl like that come to the western plains?" "And why not? Is there something to be afraid of?

If there is, I'm not!" she declared. "Where can an Irish girl not go?" Beside the fire that night, roasting a small bit of meat over the flames–and a nice flush it brought to her cheeks–she told us her story.

Her father had been a colonel in the Spanish army, a man who had fled his own country as so many had. He was among those brave Irish lads who were called the "wild geese" and who left their island where there was hope of neither land nor advancement, to join the armies of Spain, Italy, France, and Austria. A good number of them had risen to rank, as General Alexander O'Reilly, in Spain, who had been commandant in New Orleans until sent for to return to lead the Spanish armies against Napoleon.

He had died on the ship returning, and that had been an end to it, but one of Napoleon's own generals, Macmahon, was another of them, and the bold lad who gave his name to the finest Cognac, Hennessy, was another.

Colonel Patrick Falvey had come to New Orleans with O'Reilly and then had been sent to Mexico.

"What happened there?" Kemble asked.

"My father did well, for he was a brave man, and a leader of men, but he was sent north to put down a fierce tribe who killed a priest and burned a mission church. He did that, too, but in doing it, he saved the life of an old Indian who was being tortured by another officer.

"From this, some difficulties developed, just why I don't know, but the officer wasn't of my father's command and he made much of the fact that my father was Irish.

"The Mexicans loved my father, and not at all this other man, but he had powerful friends. They interceded and demanded the old Indian prisoner be taken from my father and given to the torturer.

"My father had no choice but to obey." The girl hesitated, quite evidently deciding to conceal something. "Almost immediately my father was ordered north.

Several months passed, and suddenly I received a message from my father telling me to come to him, only to find when I arrived that it was not he who sent the message.

"He told me they had brought me to Santa Fe to use me against him. When I told him that could never be, he said that a man who must protect others was less strong than one alone, and they would get at him by threatening me.

"I suggested we escape, and he replied that he was considering just that. He went out that night and returned with Jorge and Lieutenant Conway.

He would get horses, he said, and some maps from headquarters. When he returned, we would ride north for the Mandan villages, and then into Canada where we had friends.

"He left then, and Jorge went with him. We waited and waited, but when it was almost daylight, Jorge came running. My father had been killed and with his last words told us to flee... and we did." We debated the question among ourselves. Whatever the cause of the trouble, this was no place for Lucinda Falvey, and it was up to us to get her to Canada where she might find friends.

"There's no use you leaving what you planned," I said. "I'll take her through to the Mandan villages at least, and farther if need be." Ulibarri squatted near us. "It's a long way, and there are many Indians," he said, "but I promised the colonel that I would go, and I will." He looked around at me. "I was raised by Indians." "Hopis?" "Apaches," he said, "but I speak much Indio... many tongues. I know the Sioux and the Pawnee and Shoshoni. I am young, but I have traveled." "I will ride with you," Davy said suddenly.

"She's an Irish lady, and far from home, and I'm an Irishman." "I'm not Irish," Kemble said, "but I'll ride along." "There are furs in the north," Solomon Talley said, "as well as here. We can trap as we go. The Hudson Bay Company will buy our furs." There was no dissenting voice among them, and so the decision was made. Yet that night as I lay staring up at the stars, I considered the question.

Obviously it was not the girl alone they sought, but what she knew, or what they believed she knew.

What secret had they attempted to torture from the old Indian? A secret he had told Falvey? Had that secret been passed on to Lucinda? Or to Conway or Ulibarri?

I remembered the few odds and ends from Conway's pockets. Was there a clue among them?

I decided I'd have another look at that map.

And when morning came, I thought, I'll have a long talk with Lucinda Falvey.

For her to escape was of course essential, but to be penniless upon the world would not be pleasant for a young and lovely girl. Yes, yes of course she was lovely. That her father was one of the wild geese was obvious, that he might have a family to whom she could return was possible, but not too many of the Irish estates were paying well these days. A bit of smuggling on the side always helped, of course. My own family had tried it, too.

There were still some of my blood remaining in Ireland, although only on my mother's side. How well off they were, I did not know.

I could think of nothing that would so arouse feelings as gold, and no doubt somewhere in this affair there was treasure involved. Of course, there was no shortage of treasure tales, and according to marketplace gossip, dozens of mule trains had gone north out of Mexico with treasure belonging to the Aztecs. Some of this was reported to have been hidden in western America, although why anyone should go so far to hide it, I could not guess, for the mountains of Mexico were filled with good hiding places.

There was no need to go more than a day's march from the valley of Mexico to find a thousand places where treasure could be hidden, so why anyone would travel hundreds of miles, risking discovery all the way, was beyond me.

The Aztecs were reported to have come from somewhere in the north, and many were the stories of just where that had been, but they were not a rich people when they began their long trek to the south, nor for a long time after their arrival in the valley of Mexico. It was unlikely that coming into possession of great treasure they would send it all those many miles back to a land they had themselves abandoned. Yet this was a land where gold had been found, and who could guess what might not have been found... and hidden?

So if there was a treasure, and if we could find it now, there might be enough to give Lucinda Falvey the advantages such a girl should have.

The night wind stirred the leaves, down in the Indian encampment quiet had come at last, and my eyes closed. A few spattering drops of rain fell, and half-consciously I felt them, then turned in my sleep and awakened.

The camp was still. Nothing seemed to move. The coals were red, with no tendril of flame remaining. I was awake, and wide awake, listening to I knew not what.

Tonight we had posted no guard, trusting to our Indian friends and their dogs. Lucinda Falvey slept near me, and beyond her, the boy, Jorge Ulibarri. Davy Shanagan lay just beyond the boy, and Degory Kemble on the other side of me.

My hand closed on a pistol butt, and I waited. What had awakened me? Suddenly, I knew. For as if a ghost, I glimpsed the faint outline of a man standing on the very edge of our camp, just beyond Davy Shanagan, and he was looking at Lucinda.

He was a tall man, and I could see his face, which was extraordinarily pale, like the face of a dead man, yet his eyes were black, and he wore a black hat, the brim turned up leaving his features clear and sharp against the night.

He did not see me, for where I lay there was shadow, and if he saw anything of me at all, it was merely a form half outlined in the darkness. He was looking at Lucinda, and he held a knife in his hand. He started to move, then hesitated. He must step past Shanagan as well as the boy, and he did not like it. The slightest wrong move or sound and those around her would awaken, and he would be caught.

He did not like the odds. I could see the hesitation, the debate in his mind. One of them and he might have chanced it, but two he dared not chance, and with both Kemble and myself close by as well.

The dogs had quieted. There was no sound but that brief spatter of rain. For a moment I was tempted to shoot, yet I did not know the stranger, and he might well be a friend, although not for a moment did I believe that.

Who was he?

He was no man I had ever seen before.

Certainly he was not Fernandez or any of his men.

He was a stranger, but that he was a man of evil I had no doubt. Nor had I any doubt that he wished to either kill or capture Lucinda.

Gently I eased back the edge of my buffalo robe and thrust out the muzzle of my pistol. Yet even as I did so the tall man turned slightly and I saw his other hand held a pistol. He lifted it and aimed it not at me, but at Lucinda. His eyes were boring into the darkness as if he could actually see me.

"You might kill me"–he spoke very softly -com?b I would certainly kill her." My pistol still covering him, I stood suddenly to my feet.

But he was gone.

Swiftly I stepped over the others to the edge of the woods, and there was no one there, nor was there any sound. At that moment the rain began to fall harder and I stepped into the woods. There was no one there.

Davy Shanagan was sitting up. "What is it?" "There was someone here," I said. "Keep an eye out." A swift search of the small patch of woods brought me nothing. Wherever he had gone, he had done so swiftly and with no nonsense about it. Beyond the patch of woods, there was open prairie and there seemed no place where a man could hide.

Skirting the woods, I returned.

"Sure you weren't dreamin' then?" Davy asked.

"He was a tall man, very pale... with black eyes." "Maybe it was a ghost you saw," Davy said.

"What man could come to this camp without arousing the dogs? And never a yelp from them, not a yelp. Not from the horses, either." Had I been dreaming?

"It was no ghost," I declared, "and he spoke to me." "I heard nothing," Davy said, "and I'm sure I would have." Both of us lay down again, but I slept fitfully from then on, disturbed that any man could approach our camp so easily. When morning came, I scouted around but found no tracks, nor did Davy. I began to doubt my own senses, and when I opened the subject at breakfast with Lucinda, she shook her head.

Yet when I described the man, she turned very pale. "Why! Why, that's what my father looked like!" "But your father's dead?" "Of course, he is! At least I was told so, and I believe it. But if it were my father, he would have come into camp. He would have spoken to me." "A ghost," Davy insisted, "you've seen a ghost, man." "Bah!" Bob Sandy said roughly. "There's no such thing as ghosts. He had a dream... or a nightmare, if you like. I've had them myself, and often enough. But mine were mostly with Indians in them, and I had a many in the years after my family were killed by those screamin', howlin' redskins." "After this," Talley said, "we'll post a guard, tired though we may be. I want no man, nor ghost either, for that matter, coming into our camp unknown to us." Our plans had been made, and now we went among the Cheyennes to trade for extra dried meat, and to make our preparations for the north. We would ride north, skirting the eastern face of the mountains, and once past them we would turn east of the mountains toward the villages.

"We will be coming out on the open plains in the winter," Kemble said. "It's asking for trouble unless we've more luck than we deserve." "I can take them alone," I said.

Isaac Heath turned on me. "Are you more gallant than we are? I think not, Scholar. We will go with you, for alone you would never make it through. No offense intended." "I take none. I know it would be difficult." "We'll trap on the way," Ebitt said.

"We must have something for supplies for another season." My eyes went from one to the other, knowing what this meant to the lot of them. This was their life. To me it might be my life, but also might be only an interlude. I was not dependent upon furs as they were. A little money remained in an eastern bank, and a profession whenever I wished to return ... if I ever did.

"Thank you. I appreciate this, and so does Miss Falvey." "I do!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I do!" And so we prepared ourselves for the march to the north, and said nothing more of it.

Yet I remembered the tall man with the pale face. Of one thing I was sure. He had been no ghost.

CHAPTER 11

There was no immediate taking off. There was planning to do, and equipment to put together. I sat long with Walks-By-night and talked of trails, of game, of mountains. He had often hunted far to the north, and had gone north on raids against the Crow.

Finally, I showed him the map. After some thought, he recognized the place and gave me clear directions. Of this, I said nothing.

Meanwhile Walks-By-night presented me with a lean, powerful Appaloosa, a horse he swore to me was the finest buffalo horse he had known. My own horse went to Feather Man, who traded me a buckskin and a zebra dun for packhorses.

Finally, we put our packs together. The Cheyennes had little food to spare, but they let us have what they could, and it was noble of them, with a long winter to come.

The morning was frosty but clear when we started out, a few stars still hanging in the sky. Solomon Talley led off, riding beside Degory Kemble, Sandy and Shanagan followed, and then the dozen packhorses, followed by Lucinda and I, with Ulibarri riding herd on the packhorses.

Cusbe Ebitt and Isaac Heath brought up the rear.

We rode out, down into the riverbed and along it at a good clip. We wanted distance between ourselves and the encampment, hoping our disappearance would not soon be known.

We no longer feared pursuit by Captain Fernandez–we were going north, clearly out of Spanish territory–unless he was after the girl.

And we did not think it was he who had followed her from Santa Fe.

Leaves were falling from the trees that morning, yet many had only turned red and gold with autumn. We left our friendly stream bed and turned up another, strange to us, but one that flowed down from the north.

Lucinda was silent, reluctant to go, yet appreciating the fact that we had no choice but to move and swiftly. As we rode, she became increasingly disturbed and I noticed her eyes going to the sun as if trying to determine our direction.

"If you have anything to say, better say it now." "What?" Her eyes were suspicious. "What do you mean by that?" I shrugged. "It's obvious, isn't it?

Someone follows you from the Spanish colonies.

Why? Because he believes you have something he wants, or you can tell him where it is.

"The man I saw, the one you said resembled your father, he didn't look like a man who would follow a woman for love. He might take a horsewhip to one, but follow her... no. He looked like a man interested in only two things: money and power." "I don't know him." "He knows you, and he'll be following us." "You don't think we've slipped away from him?" "That man? There isn't a chance. He'd be like a wolf on the trail. To be rid of him, you must give him what he wants." "I will not!" I chuckled. "And neither will I. But we must be prepared to run, to fight, and to run again. These men" -comI gestured at those with us–"they risk their lives as well as their season's trapping for you.

You might at least tell us what we're fighting for." She was stubborn, and would say no more. Yet I was doing some thinking myself, and realized of a sudden that I might have the answer right in my pocket. I might have the answer in the items taken from the pockets of Conway, before we covered his body.

Startled, I reviewed them in my mind. Aside from the map, there were the coins–and the buttons!

We held to a good pace that first day, keeping in the bottom along the creek and under the trees.

Twice we drew up to rest and each time one or more of us rode out to check our backtrail. We saw nothing, heard nothing.

"If I didn't know I'd be dreaming," Shanagan said, "I'd guess we've escaped them." "Not the man I saw. He had the face of a cruel, relentless man, the kind who would never give up." Here and there we found a few currants still clinging to the bushes, and we ate them eagerly, pleased with a different taste. Twice we saw grizzlies, one group of three, an old she bear and two cubs, were feeding on a hillside a good hundred yards away. She stood up to inspect us, watching carefully as we slowly rode by and continued on our way.

Twice we passed groups of buffalo skulls, all with the horns turned to the west, for the Indian believes this is good medicine for the future hunt. Yet we saw few tracks of horses, and no human tracks.

We were pointed toward the mountains, and we moved steadily, holding to low ground and avoiding exposure. Lucinda was quiet, devoting all her attention to the country. Several times she drew up to study some rocky projection or outcropping and she seemed increasingly disturbed.

When night came, we camped with the last light, dipping down off a bench into a grassy bottom where a swift-running stream found its way through a thick stand of aspen. The night was overcast with a hint of the rain that had been lingering all through the day.

Nobody seemed disposed to talk. All of us, I think, were gripped by the seriousness of what we had done. Despite the hour, Davy and Isaac set traps. The place was ideal for beaver, and although we had seen no dam and it was late to look for it, there were beaver runs all about where they had dragged young trees or limbs down to the water.

Over coffee I said to Lucinda, "If you have anything to tell us, it had better be soon, for we shall travel fast." "Why do you say that?" "Something's bothering you, and I believe I know what it is. You see, I was the first to find Conway." "He was alive? He hadn't died when you found him?" "He was quite dead. But there are formalities.

One cannot just let a man die and be buried. There are people who must be notified. There would be someone inquiring about him, wanting to know what happened." "There was no one. He was an orphan. He was a friend to my father and my father is dead." "Perhaps. Nevertheless, I did not know that at the time." "What does that mean?" "I went through his pockets." Her breath caught and I thought her face went a little pale.

"I took what there was for identification, or to pass them on to relatives." "I've said he had no relatives.

You can give them to me." "Perhaps I shall. One of the items was a map.

There were a few coins, and some buttons. Very unusual buttons." "I know nothing about them." For a moment I was silent. The others would be coming up to the fire soon. I fed sticks into the flames, and then said, "I do." She was startled. "You what?" "I recognized the buttons. You see, Miss Falvey, I'm a man of curious mind. I read. I also listen, and when interested, I inquire. When a man is dedicated to the search for knowledge, he may follow his quest down many strange paths.

"Having followed my curiosity as far as I have, it's not difficult to put a few things together.

Your father was an interested man also, that much is obvious. By what means he first learned of this treasure we may never know, but that he knew of it as did Conway is obvious. The buttons are an indication." "They were all there was left," Lucinda said.

"When my father found the old church, the treasure was gone... already gone. He found a few buttons, the medallion... a few coins, and a gem the thieves had dropped in their hurry to be away." "No doubt that's true, as far as it goes, but what about the old Indian? He told your father something. Told him enough, in fact." She hesitated, her eyes searching mine. "I must have help. Can you trust these men?" "They're risking their lives to help you." "Or to find what I'm looking for?" "Not too many men are to be trusted when gold is a matter of concern, or a pretty woman, but I believe these men can be trusted. I've found them men of principle, and despite what many wish to believe, there are honorable men in the world.

"However, think of this. If you go away now, without the treasure, how will you get back? There're a thousand stories of lost cities, lost temples, vast treasures. Why should anyone believe yours rather than any other? How many men will you find who'll go into Indian country with you?

"There's another thing. Suppose someone finds it while you're gone? We don't know if that old Indian was the only one who knew. That man who looks like your father... what does he know?" What I said was true and she knew it. Her chance of ever returning to this area was slight, yet she hesitated, twisting her fingers and thinking.

I could well understand how she felt. She was a young woman alone, far into a situation she had never expected or planned for, and even if she escaped from this wilderness, she faced abject poverty in a world without mercy.

She found herself among strangers, with a group of rough-seeming men with no allegiance to anybody or anything. That I was Irish she knew, and Davy Shanagan, too, but there were rogues enough among the Irish so that might count for nothing.

"I don't know what to do," she said helplessly. "I... I have no one. When I came to Santa Fe, I didn't expect this.

Mr. Conway was going to help, and Jorge. I trusted them." "And now you must trust us." She looked at me, her eyes imploring.

She must risk all or lose all. "You... you knew about the treasure?" "Yes. Such stories have always fascinated me, and this one had some peculiar aspects that we needn't go into now. It's actually two treasures, you know." "I didn't know." "It began in Malta. A renegade knight of Malta fled the island with a gold medallion, some silver buttons cut from a uniform, and a dozen precious gems. In Spain, fearing the knights of Malta whom he well knew would pursue him, he joined a force of Spanish soldiers who were going out to the Indies.

"His idea was to buy a plantation on one of the islands and settle down there. However, his pursuers arranged for him to be arrested by the Inquisition. He was tipped off, and selling one of the jewels, he smuggled himself aboard a caravel sailing for Mexico. There he took service under an assumed name and led several slave-capturing expeditions among the Indians.

On one of these, he came upon an abandoned church in a deserted village. It was one of those ill-fated attempts that came to nothing because of the fierceness of the Indians, and by the time our man came upon it, the place was forgotten.

"At about that time, an Indian trying to curry favor offered to tell him of a treasure if only the captain would release him from the group of Indians he was returning to slavery.

"Our captain listened, and the Indian told him that when Montezuma was taken by the Spanish, much gold had been hidden to keep it from them, and he knew where this gold was. He led our captain to it, the captain promptly killed him, then with the gems he already had and the treasure just taken, he made a cache in the ancient church and came away." "I didn't know how it happened," she said.

"How do you know all this?" "Most of it's a matter of record. Nothing is as secret as men imagine. The Indian who tried to buy his way out had talked to other Indians of what he hoped to do, and when their companion turned up missing, one of them told of it.

"One man likes the smell of gold as well as another, and where there is honey, the bees gather.

At headquarters they had inquiries about a certain renegade knight of Malta, so the captain was called in for questioning on both counts.

Unhappily for them, and for himself, he wasn't as tough a man as he imagined, and he didn't survive the questioning.

"All they succeeded in getting from him was that he knew nothing, had hidden nothing, and was being persecuted by the knights of Malta because he knew their secrets.

"The renegade died, but appended to the report on the case was information to the effect that he was believed to have hidden the gold in a church or mission chapel." "I knew none of this!" "It all happened long ago. I learned of it when I heard talk of it one night in France.

Several of us were discussing lost treasures and vanished cities, the way people will.

"One of the young men was from Madrid, and he knew the whole story. Later, from curiosity, we investigated a little." "But it was gone! My father learned somehow, or figured out, where the deserted church was, but the treasure was gone and even the few things he found were well hidden. Father believed the treasure had been taken out by night and the men taking it hadn't known they'd left anything." "Probably. But the story doesn't end there.

The two men who got it recruited a bunch of Indians and struck off to the north. That was very early... before Anza went to colonize New Mexico. The two men fled, and there far to the north one killed the other. Later he and several of his party were themselves killed by Indians." "And then?" "That's where you come in, if you know where the treasure is, and if it's still there." The wind stirred the flames, and they whipped angrily. I added a few sticks, listening for the others. Out in the night a wolf howled... a wild, lonely sound in the darkness.

"It's been two hundred years!" she whispered.

"A long time. But out here, time has little meaning.

Of course, it depends on where it's hidden. A riverbank now... that would be bad. Rivers change course, wash away their banks. Most other places it would be hard to find." I glanced at her. "He wasn't killed near here, you know.

It was away over east of here, near a great settlement of Indians." "I know. That's what they said." "It wasn't true?" "No. The story is that the two officers, Francisco de Leyva Bonilla and Antonio Gutierrez de Humana, started from Nuevo Vizcaya and went to a pueblo near San Ildefonso, or perhaps actually where that town now stands. Then they started east for the buffalo plains, intending to go north to the French settlements in Quebec. They had a fight and Humana stabbed Leyva to death. Humana was eventually killed at or near the Great Settlement, which was far out on the plains to the east, but he'd buried the treasure before the Indians took him east.

"They'd surrounded him, moved in on him, and although he wasn't actually a prisoner, he knew it amounted to that, so he buried what he had, intending to return for it. Of course, they killed him and he never returned." "Do you know where the treasure is? We have a map, but it's not complete. Purposely so, I believe." "We should reach the place any day now," she said evasively. But I thought she had answered my question... she knew!

We had talked long, and the others had been of no mind to disturb us. One of the men gathered leaves for a bed for Lucinda and she spread her blankets over them. I listened to the night, and I was not at ease. I remembered the face of the man I had seen... and it was not a good face.