Louisiana Lou. A Western Story

It was this face that Jim Banker looked down upon as he came back from the creek, unkempt, dirty. It was these eyes he met as he stooped over her with his lunatic chuckle.

He winced backward as though she had struck him, and his face contorted with sudden panic. He cowered away from her and covered his own eyes.

“Don’t you look at me like that! I never done nothing!” he whined.

“Canaille!” said Solange. Her voice was a mere whisper but it fairly singed with scorn. Fearless, she stared at him and he could not meet her gaze.

His gusty mood changed and he began to curse her. She heard more foulness from him in the next five minutes than all the delirium of wounded soldiers during five years of war had produced for her. She saw a soul laid bare before her in all its unutterable vileness. Yet she did not flinch, nor did a single symptom of panic or fear cross her face.

Once, for a second, he ceased his mouthing, abruptly. His head went up and he bent an ear to the wind as though listening to something infinitely far away.

“Singin’!” he muttered, as though in awe. “Hear that! ‘Louisiana! Louisiana Lou!’”

Then he cackled. “Louisiana singin’. I hear him. Louisiana – who killed French Pete. He, he!”

After a while he tired, subsiding into mutterings. He got breakfast, bringing to her some of the mess he cooked. She ate it, though it nauseated her, determining that she would endeavor to keep her strength for future struggles.

While she choked down the food the prospector sat near her, but not looking at her, and talked.

“You an’ me’ll talk pretty, honey. Old Jim ain’t goin’ to hurt you if you’re reasonable. Just tell old Jim what the writin’ says and old Jim’ll be right nice to you. We’ll go an’ find the gold, you and me. You’ll tell old Jim, won’t you?”

His horrible pleading fell on stony ears, and he changed his tune.

“You ain’t a-goin’ tell old Jim? Well, that’s too bad. Old Jim hates to do it, pretty, but old Jim’s got to know. If you won’t tell him, he’ll have to find out anyhow. Know how he’ll do it?”

She remained silent.

“It’s a trick the Injuns done taught old Jim. They uses it to make people holler when they don’t want to. They takes a little sliver of pine, jest a little tiny sliver, ma’am, and they sticks it in under the toe nails where it hurts. Then they lights it. They sticks more of ’em under the finger nails and through the skin here an’ there. Then they lights ’em.

“Most generally it makes the fellers holler – and I reckon it’ll make you tell, ma’am. Old Jim has to know. You better tell old Jim.”

She remained stubbornly and scornfully silent.

The prospector shook his head as though sorrowful over her pertinacity. Then he got up and got a piece of wood, a stick of pitch pine, which he began to whittle carefully into fine slivers. These he collected carefully into a bundle while the helpless girl watched him.

Finally he came to her and pulled the blankets from her. He stooped and unlaced her boots, pulling them off. One woolen stocking was jerked roughly from a foot as delicate as a babe’s. She tried to kick, feebly and ineffectively. Her feet, half frozen from sleeping in the boots, were like lead.

The prospector laughed and seized her foot. But, as he held it and picked up a sliver, a thought occurred to him. He got up and went to the fire, where he stooped to get a flaming brand.

At this moment, clear and joyous, although distant and faint, came a rollicking measure of song:

“My Louisiana! Louisiana Lou!”

The girl’s brain failed to react to it. She gathered nothing from the sound except that there was some one coming. But Banker reared as though shot and whirled about to stare down the cañon. She could not see him and she was unable to turn.

Shaking as though stricken with an ague, the prospector stood. His face had gone chalk white under its dirty stubble of beard. He looked sick and even more unwholesome than usual. From his slack jaws poured a constant whining of words, unintelligible.

Down the cañon, slouching carelessly with the motion of his horse, appeared a man, riding toward them at a jog trot. Behind him jingled two pack horses, the first of which was half buried under the high bundle on his back, the second more lightly laden.

Banker stood, incapable of motion for a moment. Then, as though galvanized into action, he began to gabble his inevitable oaths, while he leaped hurriedly for his rifle. He grabbed it from under the tarpaulin, jerked the lever, flung it to his shoulder and fired.

With the shot, Solange, by a terrific effort, rolled over and raised her head. She caught a glimpse of a familiar figure and shrieked out with new-found strength.

“Mon ami! A moi, mon ami!”

Then she stifled a groan, for, with the shot, the figure sagged suddenly and dropped to the side of his horse, evidently hit. She heard the insane yell of triumph from the prospector and knew that he was dancing up and down and shouting:

“They all dies but old Jim! Old Jim don’t die!”

She buried her face in her hands, wondering, even then, why she felt such a terrible pang, not of hope destroyed, but because the man had died.

It passed like a flash for, on the instant, she heard another yell from Banker, and a yell, this time, of terror. At the same moment she was aware of thundering hoofs bearing down upon them and of a voice that shouted; a voice which was the sweetest music she had ever heard.

Dimly she was aware that Banker had dropped his rifle and scuttled like a scared rabbit into some place of shelter. Her whole attention was concentrated on those rattling, drumming hoofs. She looked up, tried to rise, but fell back with the pain of the effort stabbing her unheeded.

A horse was sliding to a stop, forefeet planted, snow and dirt flying from his hoofs. De Launay was leaping to the ground and the pack horses were galloping clumsily up. Then his arms were around her and she was lifted from the ground.

“What’s the matter, Solange? What’s happened? Where’s the boys? And Banker, what’s he doing shooting at me?”

His questions were pouring out upon her, but she could not answer them. She clung to him and sobbed.

“I thought he had killed you!”

His laugh was music.

“That old natural? He couldn’t kill me. Saw him aim and ducked. Shot right over me. But what’s happened to you?”

He ran a hand over her face and found it hot with fever.

“Why, you’re sick! And your foot’s bare. Here, tell me what has happened?”

She could only sob brokenly, her strength almost gone.

“That terrible old man! He did it. He’s hiding – to shoot you.”

De Launay’s hand had run over her thick mane of hair and he felt her wince. He recognized the great bump on the skull.

“Death of a dog!” he swore in French. “Mon amie, is it this old devil who has injured you?”

She nodded and he began to look about him for Banker. But the prospector was not in sight, although his discarded rifle was on the ground. The lever was down where the prospector had jerked it preparatory to a second shot which he had been afraid to fire. The empty ejected shell lay on the snow near by.

De Launay turned back to Solange. He bent over her and carefully restored her stocking and shoe. Then he fetched water and bathed her head, gently gathering her hair together and binding it up under the bandeau which he found among her scattered belongings. She told him something of what had happened, ascribing the prospector’s actions to insanity. But when De Launay asked about Sucatash and Dave she could do no more than tell him that the first had gone to the ranch to get snowshoes and dogs, and the latter had gone out yesterday and had not come back, though she had heard a single shot late in the afternoon.

De Launay listened with a frown. He was in a cold rage at Banker, but there were other things to do than try to find him. He set to work to gather up the wreckage of the tent and outfit. Then he rounded up the horses, leaving the burros and Banker’s horse to stay where they were. Hastily he threw on the packs, making no pretense at neat packing.

“I’ll have to get you out of this,” he said. “With that lunatic bushwacking round there’ll never be a moment of safety for you. You’re sick and will have to have care. Can you ride?”

Solange tried to rise to her feet but was unable to stand.

“I’ll have to carry you. I’ll saddle your horse and lead him. The others will follow my animals. I’ll get you to safety and then come back and look for Dave.”

With infinite care he lifted her to his saddle, holding her while he mounted and gathered her limp form into his left arm. His horse fortunately was gentle, and stood. He was about to reach for the reins of her horse when something made her turn and look up the slope of the hill toward the overhanging, ledgelike rock above the camp.

“Mon ami!” she screamed. “Gardez-vous!”

What happened she was not able to exactly understand. Only she somehow realized that never had she understood the possibility of rapid motion before. Her own eyes had caught only a momentary glimpse of a head above the edge of the rock and the black muzzle of a six-shooter creeping into line with them.

Yet De Launay’s movement was sure and accurate. His eyes seemed to sense direction, his hand made one sweep from holster to an arc across her body and the roar of the heavy weapon shattered her ears before she had fairly realized that she had cried out. She saw a spurt of dust where the head had appeared.

Then De Launay’s spurs went home and the horse leaped into a run. The pack horses, jumping at the sound of the shot, flung up their heels, lurched to one side, circled and fell into a gallop in the rear. Clattering and creaking, the whole cavalcade went thundering up the valley.

De Launay swore. “Missed, by all the devils! But I sure put dust in his eyes!”

He turned around and there, sure enough, was Banker, standing on the rock, pawing at his eyes. The shot had struck the edge of the rock just below his face and spattered fragments all over him.

De Launay laughed grimly as the groping figure shook a futile fist at him. Then Banker sat down and dug at his face industriously.

They had ridden another hundred yards when a yell echoed in the cañon. He turned again and saw Banker leaping and shrieking on the rock, waving hands to the heavens and carrying on like a maniac.

“Gone plumb loco,” said De Launay, contemptuously.

But, unknown to De Launay or mademoiselle, the high gods must have laughed in irony as old Jim Banker raved and flung his hands toward their Olympian fastness.

De Launay’s shot, which had crushed the edge of the rock to powder, had exposed to the prospector the glittering gold of French Pete’s lost Bonanza!

CHAPTER XVIII

TELLTALE BULLETS

De Launay headed up into the hills, making for the spot he and others familiar with the region knew as The Crater. Back about half a mile from the rim of Shoestring Cañon, which, itself, had originally been cut out of lava from extinct volcanoes of the range, rose a vast basalt peak, smooth and precipitous on the side toward the cañon. Its lower slopes had once been terraced down to the flat bench land which rimmed the cañon, but, unnumbered ages ago, the subterranean forces had burst their way through and formed a crater whose sides fell steeply away to the flats on three sides. The fourth was backed by the basalt cliff.

Although long extinct, the volcano had left reminders in the shape of warm springs which had an appreciable effect on the temperature within the basin of the ancient crater. The atmosphere in the place was, even in winter, quite moderate compared with that of the rest of the range. There was, in the center of the crater, a small pond or lake, of which the somewhat lukewarm water was quite potable.

This spot, once a common enough rendezvous for the riders on rodeo, was his objective and toward it he climbed, with mademoiselle’s warm body in his arms. Behind him straggled the pack horses.

Solange lay quiet, but under his arm he felt her shiver from time to time. His downward glance at her fell only on her hat and a casual wisp of glistening hair which escaped from it. He felt for and found one of her hands. It clutched his with a hot, dry clasp.

Somewhat alarmed, he raised his hand to her face. That she had fever was no longer to be doubted.

She was talking low to herself, but she spoke in Basque which he did not understand. He spoke to her in French.

“I knew you would come; that I should find you,” she answered at once. “That terrible man! He could not frighten me. It is certain that through you I shall find this Louisiana!”

“Yes,” he answered. “You’ll find Louisiana.”

He wondered what she knew of Louisiana and why she wished to find him, concluding, casually, that she had heard of him as one who might know something of her father’s death. Well, if she sought Louisiana, she had not far to look: merely to raise her head.

“I thought I heard him singing,” said Solange.

“I reckon you did,” he answered. “Are you riding easy?”

“Yes – but I am cold, and then hot again. The man hurt me.”

De Launay swore under his breath and awkwardly began to twist from his Mackinaw, which, when it was free, he wrapped around her. Then, holding her closer, he urged his horse to greater speed.

But, once upon the bench and free to look about him toward the steep slope of the crater’s outer walls, he was dismayed at the unexpected change in the landscape.

On the rocky slopes there had once stood a dense thicket of lodgepole pine, slender and close, through which a trail had been cut. But, years ago, a fire had swept the forest, leaving the gaunt stems and bare spikes to stand like a plantation of cane or bamboo on the crumbling lava. Then a windstorm had rushed across the mountains, leveling the dead trees to the ground, throwing them in wild, heaping chaos of jagged spikes and tangled branches. The tough cones, opened by the fire, had germinated and seedlings had sprung up amidst the riot of logs, growing as thick as grass. They were now about the height of a tall man’s head, forming, with the tangled abatis of spiky trunks, a seemingly impenetrable jungle.

There might be a practicable way through, but to search for it would take more time than the man had to spare. He must get the girl to rest and shelter before her illness gained much further headway, and he knew that a search for a passage might well take days instead of the hours he had at his command. He wished that he had remained in the cañon where he might have pitched camp in spite of the danger from the prospector. But a return meant a further waste of time and he decided to risk an attempt to force his way through the tangle.

Carefully he headed into it. The going was not very hard at first as the trees lay scattered on the edge of the windfall. But, as he wormed into the labyrinth, the heaped up logs gave more and more resistance to progress, and it soon became apparent that he could never win through to the higher slopes which were free of the tangle.

If he had been afoot and unencumbered, the task would have been hard enough but not insuperable. Mounted, with pack horses carrying loads projecting far on the sides, to catch and entangle with spiky branches, the task became impossible. Yet he persisted, with a feeling that his best chance lay in pressing onward.

The lurching horse, scrambling over the timber, jolted and shook his burden and Solange began again to talk in Basque. Behind them the pack horses straggled, leaping and crashing clumsily in the jungle of impeding tree trunks. De Launay came to a stop and looked despairingly about him.

About thirty yards away, among the green saplings and gray down timber, stood a bluish shape, antlered, with long ears standing erect. The black-tailed deer watched him curiously, and without any apparent fear. De Launay knew at once that the animal was unaccustomed to man and had not been hunted. He stared at it, wondering that it did not run.

Now it moved, but not in the stiff leaps of its kind when in flight. He had expected this, but not what happened. There was no particular mystery in the presence of the agile animal among the down logs. But when it started off at a leisurely and smooth trot, winding in and out and upward, he leaped joyously to the only conclusion possible. The deer was following a passable trail through the jungle and a trail which led upward.

He marked the spot where he had seen it and urged his horse toward it. It was difficult going, but he made it and found there, as he had hoped, a beaten game trail, narrow, but fairly clear.

It took time and effort to gather the horses, caught and snared everywhere among the logs, but it was finally done. Then he pushed on. It was not easy going. The trail was narrow for packs, and snags continually caught in ropes and tarpaulins, but De Launay took an ax from his pack and cut away the worst of the obstacles. Finally they won through to the higher slopes where the trees no longer lay on the ground.

But it was growing late and the gray sky threatened more snow. He pressed on up to the rim of the crater and lost no time in the descent on the other side. The willing horses slid down behind him and, before darkness caught them, he had reached the floor of the little valley, almost free from snow, grass-grown and mildly pleasant in contrast to the biting wind of the outer world.

Jingling and jogging, the train of horses broke into a trot across the meadow and toward the grove of trees that marked the bank of the pond. Here there was an old cabin, formerly used by the riders, but long since abandoned. Deer trotted out of their way and stood at a distance to look curiously. A sleepy bear waddled out of the trees, eyed them superciliously and then trotted clumsily away. The place seemed to be swarming with game. Their utter unconcern showed that this haven had not been entered for years.

Snow lay on the surrounding walls in patches, but there was hardly a trace of it on the valley floor. Steaming springs here and there explained the reason for the unseasonable warmth of the place. The grass grew lush and rich on the rotten lava soil.

“The Vale of Avalon, Morgan la fée,” said De Launay with a smile. Solange murmured and twisted restlessly in his arms.

He dismounted before the cabin, which seemed to be in fair condition. It was cumbered somewhat with débris, left by mountain rats which haunted the place, but there were two good rooms, a fairly tight roof, and a bunk built in the wall of the larger chamber. There was a rusty iron stove and the bunk room boasted a rough stone fireplace.

De Launay’s first act was to carry the girl in. His second was to throw off several packs and drag them to the room. He then took the ax and made all haste to gather an armful of dry pitch pine, with which he soon had a roaring fire going in the ancient fireplace. Then, with a pine branch, he swept out the place, cleaned the bunk thoroughly and cleared the litter from the floors. Solange reclined against a pile of bedding and canvas and fairly drank in the heat from the fire.

He found a clump of spruce and hacked branches from it, with which he filled the bunk, making a thick, springy mattress. On this he spread a tarpaulin, and then heaped it with blankets. Solange, flushed and half comatose, he carried to the bed.

The damp leather of her outer garments oppressed him. He knew they must come off. Hard soldier as he was, the girl, lying there with half-closed eyes and flushed face, awed him. Although he had never supposed himself oppressed with scruples, it seemed a sacrilege to touch her. Although she could not realize what he was doing, his hands trembled and his face was flushed as he forced himself to the task of disrobing her. But, at last, he had the cumbering, slimy outer garments free and her body warmly wrapped in the coverings.

Food came next. She wanted broth and he had no fresh meat. Her rifle rendered that problem simple, however. He had hardly to step from the grove before game presented itself. He shot a young buck, feeling like a criminal in violating the animal’s calm confidence. Working feverishly he cleaned the carcass, cut off the saddle and a hind quarter, hung the rest and set to work to make broth in the Dutch oven.

The light had long since failed, but the fire gave a ruddy light. Solange supped the broth out of a tin cup, raised on his arm, and immediately after fell back and went to sleep. Feeling her cheek, he found that it was damp with moisture and cool.

He bound up her head with a dampened bandage and left her to sleep. Then he began the postponed toil of arranging the camp.

After her things had been brought in and placed in her room, he at last came to his own packs. He ate his supper and then spread his bedding on the ground just outside the door of the cabin. As he unrolled the tarpaulin, he noted a jagged rent in it which he at first thought had been caused by a snag in passing through the down timber.

But when the bed had been spread out he found that the blankets were also pierced. Searching, he found a hard object, which on being examined, turned out to be a bullet, smashed and mushroomed.

De Launay smiled grimly as he turned this over in his hand. He readily surmised that it was the ball that Banker had fired at him and which, missing him as he ducked, had struck the pack on the horse behind him. Something about it, however, roused a queer impression in him. It was, apparently, an ordinary thirty-caliber bullet, yet he sensed some subtle difference in size and weight, some vague resemblance to another bullet he had felt and weighed in his hand.

Taking his camp lantern he went into the cabin and sat down before a rude table of slabs in the room where the stove was. He took from his pocket the darkened, jagged bullet that Solange had given him and compared it with the ball he had taken from his pack. The first was split and mushroomed much more than the other, but the butts of both were intact. They seemed to be of the same size when held together.

Yet they were both of ordinary caliber. Probably nine out of ten men who carried rifles used those of thirty-thirty caliber. Bullets differed only in jacketing and the shape of the nose. A Winchester was round, with little of the softer metal projecting from the jacket, while a U. M. C. was flatter and more of the lead showed. But the bases were the same.

Still, De Launay was vaguely dissatisfied. It seemed to him that there was something in these two misshapen bullets that should be investigated. He took one of Solange’s cartridges from his pocket and looked at it. Then, with strong teeth, he jerked the ball from the shell and compared the bullet with those he held in his hand. To all seeming they were much the same.

Still, the feeling of dissatisfaction persisted. In some subtle way the two mushroomed bullets were the same and yet were different to the unused one. De Launay tried to force Solange’s bullet back into the shell, finding that it went in after some force was applied. Then, withdrawing it, he took the other two and tried to do the same with them.

The difference became apparent at once. The two used bullets were larger than the 30-30; almost imperceptibly so, but enough greater in diameter to make it clear that they did not fit the shell.

De Launay weighed the bullets in his hand and his face was grim. After a while he put the two in his pocket, threw the one he had pulled from the shell into the stove and rose to look at Solange. He held the lantern above her and stood for a moment, the light on her hair glinting back with flashes of red and blue and orange. He stooped and raised a lock of it on his hand, marveling at its fine texture and its spun-glass appearance. His hand touched her face, finding it damp and cool.

The iron lines of his face relaxed and softened. He stooped and brushed her forehead with his lips. Solange murmured in her sleep and he caught his own nickname, “Louisiana.”

He saw that the fire was banked and then went out and turned in to his blankets, regardless of the drizzle of snow that was falling and melting in the warm atmosphere.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FINDING OF SUCATASH

De Launay came into the cabin the next morning with an armload of wood to find Solange sitting up in bed with the blankets clutched about her, staring at the unfamiliar surroundings. He smiled at her, and was delighted to be met with an answering, though somewhat puzzled smile.