Novel 1972 - Callaghen (v5.0) by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [L'Amour, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Amazon.com
Amazon: 055324759X
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1972-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

SOUTHWEST OF THE redoubt was a small pocket in the hills where a little grass and brush grew. A trickle of water came out of a hole in the rocks and disappeared into the ground, but its subirrigation kept the grass alive. The pocket was surrounded by low rocky hills.

Under ordinary circumstances there was sufficient grazing there to handle a few horses for a short time, but supply trains brought grain for the stock. As a rule, aside from the horses of the troopers, if they happened to be cavalry, there would be no more than four to six extra horses at the post. Now there were only four besides the one belonging to the mail rider.

Callaghen was sure that the Indians were out there. Those who lurked about the post were there, and those who had followed the stage. At a rough guess, there might be anywhere from fifteen to thirty of them—probably around twenty—and that was too many.

The place was small enough to be easily guarded without undue strain on the personnel, and with the fire power they now had at the redoubt they could stand off an attack. There was water enough to keep them going, but no more than that. The spring produced water constantly, but in small quantity.

MacBrody came over to join Callaghen near the gate. Callaghen explained then, in detail, about Sprague’s command and their separation from it. He also added some comment about Wylie.

“Ever hear of the River of Gold?” he asked.

“Who hasn’t?” MacBrody said. “By the time you’ve lived out here as long as I have you’ve heard a hundred such stories—the Lost Gun-Sight Mine, the Mine With the Iron Door, the lost Ship of the Desert. And I’d lay a bet, me bye, that hundreds of men have lost their lives a-hunting for them.”

“I’m sure that’s what brings Wylie here.”

“Aye. I know the man. It is a bad one he is. I saw him a time or two around Fort Churchill, over Nevada way. He’d killed a man in Virginia City, or somewhere there, and there was a bit of talk about it. I mean he’d given the man small chance, and there was a muttering around that it was murder, but he ran with a tough crowd and nobody wanted to open the ball with them with no more reason than that, and the dead man a stranger.”

Callaghen looked around, and felt the desert as a part of him. The afternoon was drawing to a close and the distant sand dunes that banked the mountains across the valley had taken on the rose color of the sunset. The abrupt range rising opposite, lifting a mile above the valley floor, showed a glassy sheen of black under the glancing light. He felt a yearning to go out there, to cross the valley and climb those mountains and disappear into their cool distance. At close hand they would probably not be cool, but that was his impression from here.

But to do such a thing would be the solution to nothing.

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