Collection 1997 - End Of The Drive (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour

thing that remained to be done, for as I had lost something this day, I had gained something, too.
    â€œI’ll join you at the wagon,” I told them, and turning at right angles I rode between the buildings toward the south of town.

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    I T WAS A simple room of rough boards with one window, a small stove, and a bed. John Blake had his coat off and he was packing, but he turned to face whoever was at the door.
    â€œJohn,” I said, “she would not come and I was a fool to expect it. I have grown a little tonight, I think.”
    â€œYou have grown a little,” he agreed, “but don’t expect too much of it, for there will be other times. Each time one grows, one loses a little, too.”
    â€œJohn,” I said, “there are cattle on the plains of Texas and I’ve land there. When I come north again I’ll be driving my own herd. It is a big job for one man.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œThere will be rivers to cross and the Comanches will be out, but there’s a future in it for the men who make the drives.
    â€œI like the way you straddle a town, and I like a man with judgment and principle. It is a rare thing to find a man who will stand square on what he believes, whether it is making a rule or an exception to it. So if you’ll ride with me it’s a partnership, share and share alike.”
    A square, solid, blocky man in a striped white shirt and black sleeve garters, he looked at me carefully from those cool gray eyes, and then he said, quite seriously, “I’ve little to pack,” he said, “for a man who has never had anything but a gun travels light.”
    THE LONESOME GODS
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    W HO CAN SAY that the desert does not live? Or that the dark, serrated ridges conceal no spirit? Who can love the lost places, yet believe himself truly alone in the silent hills? How can we be sure the ancient ones were wrong when they believed each rock, each tree, each stream or mountain possessed an active spirit? Are the gods of those vanished peoples truly dead, or do they wait among the shadows for some touch of respect, the ritual or sacrifice that can again give them life?
    It is written in the memories of the ancient peoples that one who chooses the desert for his enemy has chosen a bitter foe, but he who accepts it as friend, who will seek to understand its moods and whims, shall feel also its mercy, shall drink deep of its hidden waters, and the treasures of its rocks shall be opened before him. Where one may walk in freedom and find water in the arid places, another may gasp out his last breath under the desert sun and mark the sands with the bones of his ending.
    Into the western wastelands, in 1807, a man walked dying. Behind him lay the bodies of his companions and the wreck of their boat on the Colorado River. Before him lay the desert, and somewhere beyond the desert the shores of the Pacific.
    Jacob Almayer was a man of Brittany, and the Bretons are an ancient folk with roots among the Druids and those unknown people who vanished long ago, but who lifted the stones of Karnak to their places. He was a man who had walked much alone, a man sensitive to the wilderness and the mores of other peoples and other times, and now he walked into the desert with only the miles before him.
    The distance was immeasurable. He was without water, without food, and the vast waste of the desert was the sickly color of dead flesh deepening in places to rusty red or to the hazy purple of distance. Within the limits of his knowledge lay no habitation of men except the drowsy Spanish colonies along the coast. Yet, colonies or not, the sea was there, and the men of Brittany are born to the sea. So he turned his face westward and let the distance unroll behind him.
    Now he had not long to live. From the crest of the ridge he stared out across the unbelievable expanse of the desert. The gourd that hung from his shoulder was empty for many hours. His boots were tatters of leather,