Free Louis L'Amour by The Warrior's Path Page A

“He may remember me. My father helped with the raising of some of the beams of Maverick’s house, but I met him but once when I was a little girl.”
    â€œIt is good. We will try for his place.”
    â€œWe would be safe there if he would take us in, for they would fear him. Or be wary of him, at least. He is a man of reputation, well known in the colony and in England, and I think even Max Bauer would hesitate to face him.”
    We picked berries a little longer. A thought came to me. “He is a married man?”
    â€œHe is. He married the widow of David Thomson, a very good woman. I have spoken to her.”
    Henry came up from the edge of the stream. He had six good salmon and a large pickerel. “I will fix them,” he said. “It is better to eat them and carry the weight inside than out.”
    We were eating the fish when Yance returned. He had gone off suddenly into the woods, and he squatted beside me when he got back, taking a piece of the fish, baked in the coals. “Found a trace … old one. Runs off south by east.”
    â€œA likely way?”
    â€œAye. There be deadfalls here an’ yon, but we could make two, three miles … maybe more.”
    We moved out at dusk, taking the dim trace, and once we had gone into it, I left Yance to lead and fell back. At the campsite I studied it with what light was left; then I began carefully cutting out the tracks of two people.
    There was no way to choose whose tracks, so I simply took those tracks of which there were fewest. Carrie had moved around mighty little, so with a little brushing here and there and then a sifting of dust and broken leaves, letting the slight breath of air dictate where it fell, I left behind a camp that showed only three people: Diana, Henry, and myself.
    A really fine tracker, if he took the time, could read the true story, but they were going to be moving fast, and I wanted to mislead them. They had lost the trail, I was sure of that. Now they would find it again, but of only three people. Where were the other two? Or where was the other one, Carrie, and who was the stranger in moccasins, which was I.
    At the entrance to the trace and for some way along it, I erased all sign of travel, scattering a few twigs, some bits of bark. Then I started running, a long, easy stride to overtake them, but it was full dark before I did, and when I felt I was close to where they might be, I slowed my pace to come upon them quietly. They had covered almost two miles and had stopped briefly near a small stream.
    We moved on into the night, pausing frequently so that the girls might not tire too soon. At one stop I sat beside Diana.
    â€œI liked your father,” I said.
    She turned her face toward me. I could see the faint whiteness of it in the shadowed place. “He is a good man. I do not think shaped for this life, nor this country.”
    â€œTo make a country we need all kinds. He is a thoughtful man, and such are needed. He reads, he thinks. Too many of us are so busied with living that we do not.”
    I gestured about us. “A man must think, but he has not enough to nudge his thinking. From morn ’till night we are busy with finding game, hunting food, cutting fuel, shaping wood for houses. Ours is too busy a world, and there is no time for considering.”
    â€œI know … even father. There are days when hehas not the time to touch a book. There is no market where one can go and buy what is needed. It must be hunted, gathered, or made with the hands.”
    â€œAnd at night,” I added, “a man is too tired. I fall asleep over my books, but we must read, not only for what we read but for what it makes us think. Shaping a country is not all done with the hands but with the mind as well.”
    We were silent, and she dipped water from the stream and drank, then again.
    â€œHow will it be,” I asked, “when you return?”
    She was quiet for a