Novel 1974 - The Californios (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online

beside it, or up the coast. You know where. I have told him to preserve the
Lady Luck
at all costs. He will be ghosting off shore if not in close, so a signal will call him.”
    “I will be all right,” Michael said quietly.
    “And pray,” Sean said. “I think we will need your prayers…the more the better.”
    “You do not pray, Sean?” Michael suggested gently.
    Sean grinned. “I’ll be praying, don’t worry about that! But I am afraid prayers from my lips won’t have the appeal yours will.”
    Sean went to his room and stripped off his shirt and bathed in the basin, pouring cold water from the pitcher. It was good to be back, even at such a time.
    The bare, whitewashed walls of his room were home. He could hear faint sounds in the other rooms as the others prepared for bed.
    Suddenly his door opened slightly. It was Jesus.
    “I think we will be watched,” he said, “and followed.”
    “By Russell?”
    Montero shrugged. “By Russell, or by Tomas…somebody. After I show you, I shall come back to be with Brother Michael.”
    “Thank you. I would like that.”
    Montero closed the door and squatted against the wall. His eyes were very black. “I did not know the Old One had talked with you. If he did so you are chosen.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Montero did not reply for a moment. “They say of him that he was the last of his people, that they were a great people who came here from afar. They say that once there was a city in the desert, a very great city of adobe and stone and it existed for many lifetimes, and then one night there was a great shaking of the earth and after many days it continued to shake and there was no more city, no more people…only a handful…and Juan, the Old One.”
    “It’s a good story, Montero, but I doubt it. Pedro Fages came up through this country long ago and he spoke of no city. There were others along the coast a hundred years before him, at least. I think it is only a story. How old can Juan be? Is he seventy? Eighty?”
    “He is old, Señor, very, very old. Who can say how old? Can you put a time to his years? I cannot. The oldest men of the villages cannot. There was a Chumash who lived on San Miguel. He was very old, and he told me that when he was a child Juan looked as he does now. Who knows, Señor?
    “Are you ready to say what can and cannot be? I am not. I am a humble man, Señor, yet I have ridden among the mountains, I have traveled far, far to the south and seen many things. My people call me a wise one…a maker of magic…but to him I am a child, Señor, I, who am a proud man, confess it.
    “You measure time, Señor. I have seen the brass clock on your ship. You are very careful to measure time, and perhaps this is the white man’s fault…that he tries to measure the immeasurable. That he tries to put chains upon the unchainable. What is time, Señor? Who can say? You count footsteps when you measure land. You count sun and moons and the seasons, but what does it tell you? Do you know, Señor, I think you do wrong to count these things.
    “I think they
are
. I think time
is
. I do not think time passes, as you say. I think time is here, that it never began, can never be measured, and will always be.
    “I think you walk up and down and across because that is what you believe the world to be, but perhaps there are others who walk up and down and across but also walk through.”
    “Through? Through what?”
    Montero got to his feet. Carefully, he brushed his sombrero. “There is always tomorrow. Now I shall sleep.”
    “Jesus?”
    Montero had lifted the latch on the door. “Sí, Señor?”
    “You have talked to the Old One, too?”
    “A little, Señor, only a little. Not as he will talk to you.
Buenos noches, Señor. Hasta la vista.
”
    The door closed softly behind him and Sean sat down on his bed and pulled off a boot. He dropped it to the floor, then took off the second and held it in his hand, thoughtfully rubbing his foot. Then