Free the Lonely Men (1969) by Louis - Sackett's 14 L'amour Page B

like this. Thunder crashed, and there was a vivid streak of lightning that lit up everything around. The trail was only a glistening thread along the face of a cliff.
    But the black was game. He went as if stepping on eggs, but he went, and I held my breath for the three of us. Far down below my right stirrup I could see the tops of pine trees, maybe five hundred feet down there. We edged along, taking one careful step at a time, until we were almost at the bottom, when the trail widened out.
    It took no time at all to see that this was no traveled trail. Rocks had fallen into it ages back, trees had grown up right in the middle, and we had to skirt around them. Me, I kept looking back. Sure as shootin' we were going to get ourselves trapped. Still, all a body could do was push on, so we pushed.
    Night was a-coming, and with all those clouds and rain it was going to come soon, but there was no place to stop.
    We had come down about a thousand feet, and were moving along a watercourse that wound through poplars and maples, gigantic agaves and clumps of maidenhair fern.
    Everything was wet.
    Suddenly, off to our left, I saw one of those ruins -- an ancient wall, half broken by a huge maple that had grown through it. There was a stream running that way, and it was only niches deep. Turning the black, I walked him along the stream until we could turn behind the wall where the maple grew.
    There was a sort of clearing there, sheltered on one side by the wall, and falling away on the other toward a bigger stream, trees were all around. The maple had huge limbs that stretched out over the wall and made a shelter. I swung down under it and lifted the boy to the ground. "Stay up close to the tree," I said, "until I can rig something for us."
    Now, a body doesn't spend his years wandering around the country without learning how to make do. I'd made wet camp a good many times before this, and I had been keeping my eyes open for a likely spot, one that had what we'd need.
    First off, I saw how the ground slanted away toward the big creek, and I figured that wall offered fair protection. The maple was alive, but in some storm the wind had broken off a big limb, with a lot of branches on it, and it lay there on the ground. Maple burns mighty well, and makes a hot fire.
    That big tree would give some shelter, and the wall would make a reflector for my fire. One branch of the tree extended across a corner of the wall, and I ducked under it and rolled away a couple of fallen stones that lay there. The big fallen limb and its branches offered partial cover for the comer, so I cut some pine branches and wove them in among the branches of the maple until I had a fair shelter.
    Tying the black horse under the maple, but on a rope long enough so he could graze, I carried the saddle and gear to the shelter. The boy was already seated in the corner.
    From under a couple of fallen trees I peeled some dry bark, gathered twigs from the fallen maple limb, and in a few minutes I had a fire going. It looked good, and felt better.
    I had built the fire close against the wall so the heat would be reflected, and there we huddled in reasonable comfort. The wall, the sheltering trees, and our improvised shelter kept off most of the rain. After a few minutes, the boy fell asleep.
    I checked my guns, made sure my rifle was fully loaded, and trusting to the black to warn me, I huddled against the wall on the opposite side of the fire from the boy, and slept too.

    Chapter 8
    The night wind moaned in the passes, and the small fire sputtered. The fuel burned down to coals, and the coals were a dull red except when touched briefly by the wind. The rain had come to an end, but big drops fell now and again from the leaves of the maple.
    From time to time I opened my eyes, looked around, land slept again. It was always so with me ... I can remember few nights when I slept the hours through without awakening, usually to lie awake listening for a while, sometimes to get