"l'amour, louis - west of dodge" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

That leads me to the last subject for this foreword. I have been traveling around interviewing various people for Louis's biography. I have been fortunate enough to have talked to several members of his family, people he knew in Oregon in the 1920s, Oklahoma in the 1930s, and Paris, France, and outlying areas in the 1940s. All have been most warm and gracious, very helpful and generous with their time. All have also been blessed with extraordinary memories, a true miracle, as I am asking them to remember back fifty, sixty, sometimes seventy years. Finding these people has been difficult, and now as I have been slowly working, through all the easy ones, I am having to get more and more inventive about seeking these people out.

I am hoping that you, Louis's faithful readers, can help me out. In the back of this book I am going to place a list of names. These are people who were an important part of Louis's life at one time or another, but now all I know are their names and where and when he knew them. If you know any of these people, please ask them if they would write to me at the address in back.

Many of the people on this list may be deceased, but if there is a family member or acquaintance who knew the person well I would also like to hear from them. I would be very grateful for any help anyone could give me. If you are one of these people on the list, please don't be shy or feel like you don't really know enough about Louis. I am very

Introduction / xii

good at asking questions and I am only interested in the time period in which you knew him, nothing more.

So check out the names in back if you want to help and drop me a card at the address at the end of the list. I'll enjoy hearing from you. I hope you all enjoy this collection of storiesЧit surely was a find and we are proud to present it to you.

Until we meet again . . .

ЧBeau L'Amour

Beyond the Chaparral

Iim Rossiter looked up as the boy came into the room. He smiled, a half-nostalgic smile, for this boy reminded him of himself . . . fifteen, no ... twenty years ago.

"What is it, Mike?"

The boy's eyes were worried. He hesitated, not wanting to tell what he had to tell, yet knowing with his boyish wisdom that it was better for Rossiter to hear it from him, now.

"Lonnie Parker's back from prison."

Jim Rossiter did not move for a long, long minute. "I see," he said. "Thanks, Mike."

When the boy had gone he got to his feet and walked to the window, watching Mike cross the street. It was not easy to grow up in a western town when one wanted the things Mike Hamlin wanted.

Mike Hamlin did not want to punch cows, to drive a freight wagon or a stage. He did not want to own a ranch or

Louis L'Amour / 2

even be the town marshal. Mike was a dreamer, a thinker, a reader. He might be a young Shelley, a potential Calhoun. He was a boy born to thought, and that in a community where all the premiums were paid to action.

Jim Rossiter knew how it was with Mike, for Jim had been through it, too. He had fought this same battle, and had, after a fashion, won.

He had punched cows, all right. And for awhile he had driven a freight wagon. For a time he had been marshal of a trail town, but always with a book in his pocket. First it had been PlutarchЧhow many times had he read it? Then Plato, Thucydides, Shakespeare, and Shelley. The books had been given to him by a drunken remittance man, and he had passed them along to Mike. A drunken Englishman and Jim Rossiter, bearers of the torch. He smiled wryly at the thought.

But he had won. ... He had gone east, had become a lawyer, had practiced there. However, memories of the land he left behind were always with him, the wide vistas, the battlements of the mesas, the vast towers of lonely cloud, the fringing pines . . . and the desert that gave so richly of its colors and its spaces.

So he had come back.

A scholar and a thinker in a land of action. A dreamer in a place of violence. He had returned because he loved the land. He stayed because he loved Magda Lane. That love, he had found, was one of the few things that gave his life any meaning.

And now Lonnie Parker was back.

Lonnie, who had given so much to Magda when she needed it, so much of gaiety and laughter. Lonnie Parker, who rode like a devil and fought like a madman. Lonnie, who could dance and laugh and be gay, and who was weakЧthat was Magda's word.