Lando (1962) by Louis - Sackett's 08 L'amour
Authors: Louis - Sackett's 08 L'amour
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idea where to look."
"Maybe I have. Maybe I am just beginning to recollect some things pa told me."
The wind was blowing harder and the sky was gray and overcast. The cattle wandered to the water in small groups, then returned to the bedding ground to graze or rest. They showed no restlessness, and seemed content to hold to the low spots out of the wind.
I cut some sod with a machete, and made a wall to protect our fire from the wind, adding just enough fuel to keep some coals. Miguel was worried, which I could see plain enough, and so was Gin.
Meanwhile I was doing some figuring. Jonas was in prison, and the Tinker might well be, so that left whatever was to be done up to me. Gin was with us, which she hadn't ought to be, the country being torn up with trouble the way it was, and somewhere close by was that ship filled with gold.
Jonas needed his share to get his mortgage paid off, and the Tinker wanted his. As far as that goes, I wasn't going to buck or kick if somebody handed me some of that there gold.
Around the fire at breakfast, Miguel told me a mite about Herrara. He was a lieutenant of General Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, usually called Cheno, and part of the time he was a soldier with a legitimate rank, and part of the time an outlaw, depending on who was in power in Mexico and on his own disposition at the moment.
Of good family, Cortina had become a renegade, but one with a lot of followers. He was a shrewd fighter, risking battle only when it suited him, and running when it didn't. He was a man of uncertain temperament, but dangerous enough and strong enough to handle the pack of wolves that followed him.
Frequently, they raided across the border into Texas and had run off thousands of head of Texas cattle. Yet he had good men following him, too, and on occasion he could be both gallant and generous. But generally speaking, he was a man to fight shy of.
As for Herrara, he was one of the wolves, fierce as an Apache, and by all accounts treacherous.
Leaving Miguel by the fire, with his horse saddled, to keep an eye on the cows, Gin and I rode off through the brush, hunting the water's edge.
We hadn't far to go. A long gray finger of water came twisting through the grass, leading some distance away to a larger body of water like a bay.
There we could see the white, bare bones of an ancient boat, much too small for what we were looking for ... which, anyway, was by all accounts down under water.
My Henry was in the saddle boot, and Gin carried one also. But what I kept ready to hand was that Walch Navy. I liked the feel of that gun.
As we rode we saw nothing--only a low shore of gray-green grass, the gray water looking like a sheet of steel, the reeds bending under the wind, gulls wheeling and crying overhead.
Whitecaps were showing on the water.
It might have been a world never seen by man. No tracks, no ashes of old fires, nothing man had built but the stark white ribs of that old boat.
"It's cold," Gin said.
Her face looked pinched, and the place was depressing her, as it did me.
Yet, wild and lonely as it was, the country had an eerie sort of charm like nowhere I'd ever seen. Toward the Gulf I could see the dunes of sand heaped by wind and wave, and somewhere out there was a long bar that stretched miles away to the south.
A barren desolate land. In spite of this, the place seemed to be working a charm on me.
"Let's go back," Gin said.
We turned and made our start, riding along the shore. The wind was blowing stronger, the brush and reeds bending before it. A few cold, spitting drops of rain began to fall.
The place to which we had driven the herd was in a cul-de-sac, with the sea on three sides--long arms of the sea where the water had flowed in over low ground or the working of the waves had hollowed it out.
To the east was a long, snake-like arm of the sea that nowhere was over a quarter of a mile wide. South and southwest the coves were wider.
The grass was good, and the cattle were
"Maybe I have. Maybe I am just beginning to recollect some things pa told me."
The wind was blowing harder and the sky was gray and overcast. The cattle wandered to the water in small groups, then returned to the bedding ground to graze or rest. They showed no restlessness, and seemed content to hold to the low spots out of the wind.
I cut some sod with a machete, and made a wall to protect our fire from the wind, adding just enough fuel to keep some coals. Miguel was worried, which I could see plain enough, and so was Gin.
Meanwhile I was doing some figuring. Jonas was in prison, and the Tinker might well be, so that left whatever was to be done up to me. Gin was with us, which she hadn't ought to be, the country being torn up with trouble the way it was, and somewhere close by was that ship filled with gold.
Jonas needed his share to get his mortgage paid off, and the Tinker wanted his. As far as that goes, I wasn't going to buck or kick if somebody handed me some of that there gold.
Around the fire at breakfast, Miguel told me a mite about Herrara. He was a lieutenant of General Juan Nepomuceno Cortina, usually called Cheno, and part of the time he was a soldier with a legitimate rank, and part of the time an outlaw, depending on who was in power in Mexico and on his own disposition at the moment.
Of good family, Cortina had become a renegade, but one with a lot of followers. He was a shrewd fighter, risking battle only when it suited him, and running when it didn't. He was a man of uncertain temperament, but dangerous enough and strong enough to handle the pack of wolves that followed him.
Frequently, they raided across the border into Texas and had run off thousands of head of Texas cattle. Yet he had good men following him, too, and on occasion he could be both gallant and generous. But generally speaking, he was a man to fight shy of.
As for Herrara, he was one of the wolves, fierce as an Apache, and by all accounts treacherous.
Leaving Miguel by the fire, with his horse saddled, to keep an eye on the cows, Gin and I rode off through the brush, hunting the water's edge.
We hadn't far to go. A long gray finger of water came twisting through the grass, leading some distance away to a larger body of water like a bay.
There we could see the white, bare bones of an ancient boat, much too small for what we were looking for ... which, anyway, was by all accounts down under water.
My Henry was in the saddle boot, and Gin carried one also. But what I kept ready to hand was that Walch Navy. I liked the feel of that gun.
As we rode we saw nothing--only a low shore of gray-green grass, the gray water looking like a sheet of steel, the reeds bending under the wind, gulls wheeling and crying overhead.
Whitecaps were showing on the water.
It might have been a world never seen by man. No tracks, no ashes of old fires, nothing man had built but the stark white ribs of that old boat.
"It's cold," Gin said.
Her face looked pinched, and the place was depressing her, as it did me.
Yet, wild and lonely as it was, the country had an eerie sort of charm like nowhere I'd ever seen. Toward the Gulf I could see the dunes of sand heaped by wind and wave, and somewhere out there was a long bar that stretched miles away to the south.
A barren desolate land. In spite of this, the place seemed to be working a charm on me.
"Let's go back," Gin said.
We turned and made our start, riding along the shore. The wind was blowing stronger, the brush and reeds bending before it. A few cold, spitting drops of rain began to fall.
The place to which we had driven the herd was in a cul-de-sac, with the sea on three sides--long arms of the sea where the water had flowed in over low ground or the working of the waves had hollowed it out.
To the east was a long, snake-like arm of the sea that nowhere was over a quarter of a mile wide. South and southwest the coves were wider.
The grass was good, and the cattle were
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