the Lonely Men (1969) by Louis - Sackett's 14 L'amour Read Free Book Online Page A

from the plants they eat or the animals they kill.
    We rode until the sun was two hours in the sky, and then we turned off into a narrow canyon and hunted shade to wait through the hottest hours. We unsaddled, let the horses roll, then watered them at a little seep Rocca knew of. After that, with one man to watch, we stretched out on the sand to catch some rest.
    There always had to be a man on watch, because the Apaches were great horse thieves, though not a patch on the Comanches, who could steal a horse from under you whilst you sat in the saddle. You either kept watch or you found yourself afoot, and in the desert, unless you're almighty canny, that means you're dead.
    First off, when we rode into that canyon we studied the opening for sign. A man in wild country soon gets so he can read the trail sign as easy as most folks read a newspaper, and often it's even more interesting.
    You not only read what sign you see on the ground, but you learn to read dust in the distant air -- how many riders there are under that dust, and where they're headed.
    The droppings left by horses also have a story to tell, whether that horse has been grain-fed, whether he has been grazing off country grass or desert plants.
    And no two horses leave the same track. Each is a mite different, and their gaits are different. Their hoofs do not strike with the same impact, and sometimes there's a difference in the way they are shod.
    We could tell that nobody had been in that canyon for weeks. We knew, too, that most of the time during the months of June, July, and August in Sonora you'll get some rain. Sudden showers that may be gone as quickly as they come, but enough to settle the dust and to fill some of the "tanks" in the desert mountains.
    Among those desert ridges such tanks are frequent, pits hollowed in the rock over the centuries by driving rain, or shaped by run-off water. During heavy rains these tanks collect water and hold it for weeks, or even for months. We'd had some rain, so the better water-holes and tanks were holding water now.
    Shortly before sundown, rested by our nap in the shade, we saddled up again.
    This time I took the lead.
    There were clusters of cholla and ocotillo, and we took advantage of them as much as possible to shield our movements. The route we used was an ancient one rarely traveled in these days, but from time to time we'd pull up near a clump of brush where the outlines of our horses and ourselves would merge into the growth, and there we'd set, studying the country around us.
    You might think that out in such open country, with no good cover anywhere, a body wouldn't have to worry, but knowing Apaches the way we did, we knew that twenty of them could be hidden out there in a matter of yards, and nobody the wiser.
    We were taking our time, saving our horses. An Apache, who often rode his horses to death, will make sixty to seventy miles a day if he's in a hurry. On foot he'll cover thirty-five to forty miles a day even in rough country. That was about what we were doing a-horseback.
    About an hour after dark, we rode down into a little hollow choked with mesquite brush and built ourselves a tiny fire of dried wood and made coffee. The fire was well hidden in the hollow and the brush, and it gave us a chance to get the coffee we dearly needed.
    "What you think?" Rocca said suddenly. "One rider?"
    "Uh-huh," I said, "a small man or a boy."
    "What are you talking about?" Battles asked.
    "We've been picking up tracks," I told them. "A shod horse. A small horse, but a good one. Moves well ... desert bred."
    "Injun, on a stolen horse," Spanish said promptly. "No white man would be ridin' alone in this neck of the woods."
    Rocca shrugged doubtfully. "Maybe so ... I don't know."
    Those tracks had been worrying my mind for quite a few minutes, for whoever rode that horse was riding with caution, which meant it was no Apache. An Apache would know he was in country where his people were supreme, and although he would