Carlan's Gold
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

He came out of the hills with the sun behind him . . .

He came out of the hills with the sun behind him and they watched him coming for a long time before they could make him out.

He rode the flank of a ridge tawny with an autumn's dead grass, and from time to time he faded against the far hills, existing only in their minds' eyes, for his clothing and his horse were of no particular color and he rode like a man who habitually lost himself in the landscape.

"He's come a far piece." Kavanaugh squinted his eyes against the sun, for there was a warning in the rider's coming, a warning and a threat. "And out of mighty rough country."

 

Beau's Notes: Carlan's Gold is a fragment of a western story - I'm guessing that this was written in the 1950s (although Carlan is not the typical male hero of that period) and that it was going to be a short story rather than a novel. It is a good example of the way Louis would get a fundamental situation down before going on to work on another story. Here he sets up the captives, the bad guys, the male hero who rides in out of nowhere and alters the power structure in the camp by mentioning the gold. Did he do that to help the woman and her son? Did he do it just because he saw these were bad men and he wanted to stay alive? Obviously, he has some gold but did he really make a strike? Are there really Indians nearby? All this tension creates a good jumping off place if Louis had ever chosen to return to the story.

"He's seen our smoke," Missett squatted on his heels beside the fire, nursing it with small sticks. "But there's small need to worry about a man from those hills."

"I worry about him." Kavanaugh was a lean and savage man who walked like a wolf. "We're not set up for entertaining guests."

Mary Logan was beyond fear. From where she sat she could not see the rider, but there was no hope for her in one rider alone. She had been frightened for three days now and her mind was deadened to it. There was nothing to do now but wait, for what she did not know.

"Walsh," Kavanaugh said, "if the girl says one word she shouldn't, kill the boy."

Mary's quieting hand was on her son's knee and she felt it tremble ever so slightly.

The oncoming rider remained in the sun's eye until he rode right up to the camp, a tall man lean in the body and hips riding a line-back dun with a black mane and tail. He looked at the men, the girl and her son.

He had powerful shoulders under a tight-fitting buckskin shirt, massive shoulders that made him seem somewhat top-heavy at first glance. He wore a shabby hat and a belt gun, and there was a rifle across his saddle.

"Saw your smoke." His voice was low but had carrying quality. He paused a moment and then added, "There's Indian sign about thirty minutes back along the ridge."

Kavanaugh merely looked at him, trying to make out what manner of man he was. Walsh asked, "Sioux?"

"Blackfeet."

"Ah!" Walsh bobbed his Adam's apple and thin lines of worry wrote traces in his cheeks.

"It's far south for Blackfeet," Kavanaugh said, "this time of year."

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