Novel.42.Tucker.1972 by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [Louis L'Amour]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

* * *

THE BELLA UNION’S name had been changed to the St. Charles. As the other passengers got down from the coach I kept a watchout for Ruby Shaw. The last thing I needed was to be seen by her.

And if Bob Heseltine and Kid Reese had arrived before me, I wanted to see them at least as soon as they saw me.

There were four good hotels in Los Angeles, but I went to the best, the Pico House. My new black suit was dusty, but I looked very much the traveling gentleman when I signed the book and was shown to a room overlooking the Plaza.

One thing I had noticed was that nobody carried a gun in sight. So I took my Colt and shoved it down behind my waistband on the left side, butt to the right, but covered by my coat.

Once in my room, I had my clothes taken out to be brushed and sponged, and ordered bath water heated. Los Angeles was new to me, but on the stage there had been a drummer who knew the place well, and he was a talkative man, so I’d listened and learned a good deal about the place.

Even before that I’d heard it said that Los Angeles was one of the roughest towns in the West. In the twenty years from 1850 to 1870 there had been forty legal hangings, and thirty-seven lynchings by Vigilantes or the like. Many of the bad ones who had been run out of San Francisco by the Vigilantes there had come to Los Angeles, and the early lynchings took care of some of them.

It was a big town for me, almost sixteen thousand people, folks said. Alongside the Pico House they had built the Merced Theatre, an almighty impressive place, finished not long before.

The Plaza, with its fountain, was right below my windows, and it seemed to be the center of things. Keeping a lookout from there I would sooner or later see everybody in town. While I waited for my clothes to be returned I looked down from the window at the folks below.

Many were vaqueros, the Mexican cowboys who I’d heard were the greatest ropers and riders anywhere. Some of the Spanish men were regular dudes, with clothes the like of which I’d never seen, decorated with silver, and wide-bottomed pants slashed up the sides, with red, blue, or green showing in the slash. Most of their sombreros had fancy hatbands of snakeskin, woven beads or silver.

The streets were dusty, but the valley itself was green. The drummer had told me that the people of the town raised enough to feed themselves and ship a surplus to Mexico.

I saw no sign of Heseltine or Reese, and I thought it was likely I had arrived before them. But I did see Ruby Shaw.

A spanking new rig came into the Plaza suddenly, drawn by a matched pair of black geldings driven by a Mexican who sat up in front, whilst in the back seat was a handsome blonde all gussied up to look a lady of class.

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