Flint (1960) by Louis L'amour Read Free Book Online Page A

the rock.
    He was frightened.
    The last thing he wanted was to die here, where he could be found. He must disappear, vanish completely. He waited, leaning against the rock. Finally he started on again. Only now his mind was made up. If he felt himself going he would use the last of his strength to crawl out on the lava bed. It would be a long time before they found him there.
    The man called Kettleman crawled down through the rocks, and lowered himself into a hollow space where water had spilled over some boulders after heavy rains, then climbed up the bank. He had gone only a mile when he looked up at the wall opposite. There was a slash of white quartz there. Somehow he had missed the opening. How he could have done so he could not imagine, but miss it he had. Turning, he retraced his steps.
    Twice he rested. It was almost noon before he found it. There was no brush concealing the opening, there was no jumble of boulders right at that point. The wall of lava took a slight bend, but in the open, where there was no evidence of any kind of an entrance. Kettleman had passed the place three times, thinking he had seen everything.
    The lava was cracked and split in many places, and right before him there was such a split, a crack that seemed no more than three inches wide.
    Yet when he stepped back he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of what appeared to be an optical illusion. He looked again. There was something wrong with the perspective in that crack. He walked slowly toward it, and when he was right up to the rock, he saw what it was. The left edge stood out almost four feet from the other side, and there was an opening that ran back into the rock parallel to the face. It seemed to go no more than six or seven feet and end in a blank wall. Yet when he stepped inside he saw that it wound back into the lava.
    Turning, he went back to the edge of the opening and, standing there, he carefully surveyed the lip of the cliff opposite. For a long time he stayed there, letting his eyes rove along that lip. Only then did he move out from the rock and carefully brush away the few tracks he had made.
    Returning to the opening in the wall he paused again to scan the rim of the cliff, but there was no sign of movement.
    He walked into the narrow, winding crack, which steadily grew narrower and dipped down deeper and deeper. It was wide enough for a horse if the stirrups were tied up, and the overhang would prevent its being seen from above, should anyone venture out upon the lava, an extremely remote chance.
    No man would venture upon the lava. Deer had been driven there by wolves, but their feet and legs became so badly lacerated they could not walk farther, and they died there.
    It took him almost an hour to reach the hideout in the lava beds, and when he arrived, he stopped, deeply stirred by the beauty of the little oasis. The sides rose steeply and curved inward at the top. The area at the bottom was scarcely an acre in extent, but a small stream ran from under the rock on one side, meandered across and lost itself under the lava again.
    There were several fruit trees, planted by Flint, and a patch of chia, whose seed was used as food by the Indians. Until he had looked for several minutes he did not see the cabin, for it was merely the walled-up face of a rocky overhang, the entrance shadowed by a cottonwood.
    He walked slowly across the open grass toward a slit in the rock wall that apparently served as a window. He went past it and he found the door. It was a slab door, thick and strong. The man called Kettleman unlatched it and stepped inside.
    The room was larger than he expected, with two bunks built against the far wall. There was a table, two chairs, hooks on the wall, and a bench with a washbasin. There was a trickle of running water from the spring, and from both the door and the window the opening into the basin could be seen, and the entire basin covered.
    There was a broom.
    He dusted off the bed, then dumped