the Empty Land (1969) Read online

  "Better." He looked up at Felton. "I hear you're going to have your school."

  "We start building tomorrow."

  They talked a while, and then the two men walked away up the street Matt was feeling restless. When Madge came out, he looked up at her. "Are you tied to this place?" he asked.

  "No, Matt I'm ready when you are." She stood beside him, looking up the street "You did it, Matt Confusion has settled down. It's going to be all right"

  He nodded. But they'd like me to leave: he said. "I can see it in their faces. I'm what they don't want around now, Madge. I stand for what they want to forget"

  "Shall we start tomorrow, Matt? Shall I bring a rig around?"

  "I think so. And Madge, hire Joss, will you? I like"

  "So do l.

  Hell be driving us, Matt.'

  He stayed there dozing in the sun, and presently he heard the light quick steps coming, and the swish of skirts. The steps stopped beside him, and he opened his eyes. It was Laurie Shannon.

  "You're looking better, Matt."

  "I am better. We're leaving tomorrow."

  Her face seemed to stiffen a little, and there was loneliness in it, and sadness. "Is it Madge, Matt?"

  "Yes. We're two of a kind, Laurie. We've both been drifters; we've both seen this country grow."

  "Matt, I "

  "Don't say it, Laurie. I killed another man . . . seven it was, I think. You could never live with that"

  "No."

  "Tomorrow they're starting to build a school, Laurie. The town's going to grow. Sitting here, I see women and youngsters walking by along a street where they never dared walk before. And the town might have gone up in Eames.'

  "And it might not And seven men are gone who can't be brought back."

  "You could have them, Laurie, if you could bring them back. But I think they're better off on Boot Hill."

  "I think the town would have lasted. I think those men needn't have died."

  "Well " he shifted his seat 'we'll never know, will we. She left him then and walked up the street, and he listened to her footsteps as she walked out of his life. One thing he could give her, though. She sure could make good doughnuts.

  He settled back in his chair, enjoying the sun. He'd better rest. It was a long way to Durango.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Slanting Annie, so called because one leg was shorter than the other, Rocking-Chair Emma, and Mattie were all widely known "madames" in the mining-camp towns and cow towns of the West.

  The large lady referred to in the story who assures Matt Coburn that she can handle her own trouble was actually Madame Bulldog, a huge and muscular woman who weighed over 200 pounds, and very little of it fat She once whipped Martha Jane Canary, better known as Calamity Jane, in a free-for-all fight She commented afterward that it was no harder than whipping two husky men.

  The peak referred to as "Jeff Davis* has since been named Mt Wheeler and rises above the Snake Range to a height of over 13,000 feet. The peak and the neighboring ranges are heavily forested. There is a glacier on the peak, and a lovely mountain lake high up on a shoulder of the mountain.

  The Confusion Mountains are crossed by Highways 50-6 east of Ely, Nevada, and west of Delta, Utah. This is still a wide-open, lonely country where the highway is patrolled by aircraft. The reason for this patrol is simple: if you break down out there, without water on a hot summer's day, you will last no longer than a pioneer in a covered wagon.