the Lonesome Gods (1983) Read Free Page A

went out to relieve Kelso. Farley walked over and dropped to the sand beside my father. "Verne? Did you ever make the crossing this high up?"
    "My first time was in Mohave country, but I never crossed in here."
    "You know the country west of the river?"
    "Some of it. There's some water holes at the west end of the Chocolates." He paused, then abruptly he asked, "Farley? Do you know Peg-Leg Smith?"
    "No. I heard of him, but who hasn't? Trapper, isn't he? Mountain man?"
    "He's that, but he's more. He's a horse thief, too. He's a mean, dangerous man, and he runs with a bunch of renegades, both Indian and white. He steals horses in Arizona and sells them in California, then he steals horses in California and sells them in Arizona.
    "When they take after him, he hides out somewhere in the desert. Vanishes. Just drops off the end of the world and leaves no trail. Nobody's been able to catch him. Obviously he has a hideout somewhere in the desert north of here, a place even the Indians can't find--or don't want to find."
    "What has that to do with us?"
    "Peg-Leg will steal any horses or mules he can lay hands on. He's attacked at least one of the Spanish gold trains coming down from northern California. He wasn't even thinking of the gold, didn't know there was any, I expect, and just wanted the mules. He got them, too. Wiped out every man, he thought, but two of the mule drivers got away.
    "Funny part of it was, they say he didn't take the gold, just dumped out the ore and went away with the sacks and the mules."
    "He probably didn't know it was gold. I've seen onl y two or three pieces of gold ore in my life and wouldn't have bothered to pick up either piece. How many people know gold when they see it in the rock?" Farley was silent; then after a moment he said, "You mean that whole mule train of ore was dumped out somewhere and is just lyin' there?"
    "That's the story."
    "I'll be damned."
    "The point I'm making has nothing to do with gold, but a whole lot to do with Peg-Leg. You've got some fine stock here, and what looks like a wagonload of something valuable, so be careful."
    "We're watchin'."
    "For Indians. But are you watching for what seems to be a friendly white man?"

    Chapter 3
    There was another time when Finney had taken me up on the saddle. "My pa used to ride with me like this. He taught me about cows. More'n I needed to know, I suspect."
    He indicated the hills around. "Mighty bare, you'd say. Not much but cedar, but there's always more'n a body would suspect. You've got to look close to see an Injun, if you ever do. Watch out of the corners of your eyes. You pick up movement quicker that way. An Injun never looks over the top of a rock or a bush, always around the base. They don't skyline theirselves. You best learn to do the same.
    "Don't wear nothin' bright, nothin' to catch the sun. Shining things can be seen for miles. Buckskin, that's a good color. Stay away from white. Some damn fools want all that fancy, jingly stuff on their horses. Surest way to get killed.
    "Your pa, now, he knows an uncommon lot about Injuns. I'd never have figured it of him, either. He looks more like a schoolteacher."
    "He was one, for a while."
    "You don't say? Well, what d'you know? I wonder if any of them youngsters knowed what a ring-tailed catamount they had for a teacher?"
    "A what?"
    He drew up to study a wide stretch of country opening before us. "Maybe you don't know about your pa, son. Farley told me, but I'd heard a few stories before that. Seems like somebody didn't want him alive. so they sen t some outlaws after him. He killed two of them, wounded another, and got away--wounded himself.
    "When he run off with your mother, they took in after him, the old man and about forty tough vaqueros. He played hide-an'-seek with 'em in the desert and got plumb away, and him with a woman with him. There's a lot of folks know about Zachary Verne.
    "Farley was thinkin' of that when he taken him on. Just knowin' how to shoot is one thing,