"TXT - Louis L'Amour - Rivers West" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

"Who does not have a name? I find them of small meaning."
Five feet ten inches, I was, and shorter than him. He looked to be a powerful man, but I yielded him nothing on that score. For I was big boned and muscled. In part it was inheritance, for mine had been a strong family; and in part it was my trade and the handling of heavy timbers. I believed myself the equal of any man when it came to sheer strength.
Who was he? And where was he going? I longed to ask, but had scarcely the right, having refused to tell my name. The vague familiarity about him worried me. I was far from home, yet this man had a feel of the sea about him and something of our own accent in his speech. Had he followed me? Was that absurd story of treasure to haunt me forever?
By fishing boat I had come from the Gaspe up the river to Quebec, had crossed the river and entered the forest.
We slopped along in the darkness, wary of our footsteps, only occasionally glimpsing a star overhead through the lacework of branches. Despite the peg-leg, he swung along as easily as me, and I fancy myself a man who can walk.
Suddenly, through the dark columns of the huge old trees, we saw a light. With the chance of good food and drink before us, we lengthened our strides and in a few minutes faced a clearing under giant trees and a ramshackle bridge over an arm of the swamp.
At the door the latchstring was out. We lifted it and stepped inside.
A fine fire blazed upon the hearth of a huge fireplace at the opposite end of the room. There were some benches, a long table, and a half-dozen men standing about. At the fire, a middle-aged woman stirred something in a pot that set my stomach to high expectation.
A mostly baldheaded man with a fringe of sandy hair, whom I took to be the owner, looked around at us. He wore a long buckskin waistcoat and heavy boots.
"Welcome, lads! Welcome! Come up to the table! It's a raw night for the out of doors. Have a nip of something. I've rum ... even a bit of ale that I've brewed myself. Tasty, mighty tasty."
He turned to the woman at the fire. "Bett, get some food on the table. These will be hungry men."
There was a tall man with his back to the wall, a handsome man indeed, with a pipe in one hand and a glass in the other. He looked at me with a quick, appraising glance, then his eyes rested thoughtfully on me. My coat was open, and he could see the pistol there.
I set my tools in the corner, and after a moment of hesitation, my rifle beside them.
CHAPTER 2
"My name is Watson," the baldheaded man said. "We do a bit of farming here, and some'at o' fishing, and a man with a rifle can find game. We set a good table, if I do say so m'self."
He glanced from Jambe to me. "A tot of rum? Warms a body who's been out in the cold night."
"Aye," I agreed, "it has been a long way of forest and swamp."
"Here it is! And good Jamaica, too! I've a taste for the dark rum. Nothing fancy, just good rum."
The rum did take the chill from my bones, but it was food I wanted, and besides, I'd no taste for drinking with strangers about, and there was an air in this place I did not like. Watson was all right, no doubt, but I'm by nature a cautious man, and the look of the others was not to my taste.
There was a dark, sallow man with snaky black eyes. He stared at me. "Goin' far?" he asked.
"As far as a job," I said. "Word has come to me that they are building ships down Boston way."
Yet I was lying, for my interest lay westward rather than south. To the frontier town of Pittsburgh. Two or three years before, they'd built the steamer New Orleans, said to be the first on western waters, but I had a feeling it was to be the first of many. With the fur trade to the West growing, there would be a demand for fast, reliable transportation, and as the New Orleans had proved itself, they would build others. I had an idea of building my own boat to trade on the western waters.
The tall man with the pipe moved around the table and sat on the bench opposite me. His smile was pleasant, but the expression in his eyes was cool, calculating, and somehow taunting. I had a feeling that here was a man who looked with amused contempt on all about him.
"Colonel Rodney Macklem," he said, introducing himself. "Will you have a drink?"
"Obliged, but I have a drink."
"You didn't mention your name."
"John Daniel," I said it easily, but there was a flicker of irritation in his eyes, of impatience, too. Here was a man who did not wish to be thwarted or turned aside, yet his lips smiled in a friendly fashion.
I had just a thought, however, that he had expected another name ... what name?
Jambe-de-Bois was watching me, tooЧsomewhat puzzled, no doubt, and curious.
Bett Watson came around the table with one huge bowl of stew and two smaller ones, and with spoons and a ladle. "Start on that," she said cheerfully.
She was a blowsy, red-cheeked woman with black eyes. Untidy, but clean, and, I thought, a good woman with a cheerful air. "There's more coming," she added.
Macklem lighted his pipe again. He avoided the eyes of Jambe-de-Bois, and Jambe did likewise. Did they know each other? Did they recall something each would prefer forgotten?
The talk in the room was rambling, mostly of trail conditions and weather, for it was these by which we lived. Macklem was casual, talking little. Of the body we had found I decided to say nothing, yet I listened for some word of travelers. One of these men might have seen his killer, one might even be his killer ... although I doubted that.
The murdered man had been, I knew, a British army officer, and for some reason he had been pursuing the man who stabbed him.
Why?
Why the killing? This was no simple robbery, although every track was beset with thieves and every inn a possible lurking place for them. It was no unusual thing to find a traveler murdered, or to have one simply disappear.
The cabin was more than just one room, but from the outside it had not appeared to be large. No doubt we would sleep on the floor in this room. Watson was even now stoking the fire, adding a couple of heavy logs that would hold the fire through the night.
The stew tasted good. When it was finished, Bett Watson brought us a big chunk of plum pudding and a pot of coffee.
Aside from Macklem, those in the room were a rough-looking crew, yet I suspect I looked equally rough myself.
He said, "You are French?"
"In part."
"You have a familiar look, John Daniel. I think I have seen you before, or someone very much like you."
I shrugged. "Perhaps. Who knows? I have been here and there."
He was not satisfied, and continued to talk, but his comments were leading, his questions insidious. Obviously, he wished very much to know who I was, and he was not satisfied that I was a shipwright. Yet, he was pleasant enough, and an agreeable talker.
The air in the room was close and warm, too warm. I felt sleepy, tired from the hike. Not that I had walked far, for twenty miles was nothing exceptional, but the walking had been rough, the footing uncertain. Yet I did not want to sleep. Not until they all did.
Suddenly I thought of the waterproof envelope inside my shirt, and the water-soaked papers. There'd been no chance to look at them. The dead man must have somebody who would know about relatives, and if he was still in the army, his superiors would want to know of his death.
Watson and one of the others moved the table aside, and we spread our beds on the floor. All of us carried blanketsЧa man couldn't travel without them. And even in the larger taverns, a man was often expected to have his own bedding.
Long after the candles were blown out and only the firelight played on the ceiling, I lay awake, considering.
That man had been murdered for a reason. He was following the man who had fatally stabbed him when he had fallen or been thrown into the swamp. Therefore, the murderer could assume no body would be found, and that he was free from worry.
Two other considerations remained. Either the murderer had searched the body, or he had not. If he had searched it, he had not wanted either the gold or the papers or the pistol. If he had not been able to search the body, he might still want those papers, if they were of value to him.