Conagher: A Novel

Conagher: A Novel

As far as the eye can see is a vast, empty horizon. Evie Teale has finally accepted that her husband won’t be coming home. To make ends meet she runs a temporary stage station. But though she is diligent and careful, Evie must prepare for the day when the passengers no longer come and she must protect her children in an untamed country where’s it’s far easier to die than to live. Miles away, another solitary soul battles for survival. Conagher is a lean, dark-eyed drifter who is not about to let a gang of rustlers push him around. While searching the isolated canyons for missing cattle, he finds notes tied to tumbleweeds rolling with the wind. The bleak, spare words echo Conagher’s own whispered prayers for companionship. Who is this mysterious woman on the other side of the wind? Conagher only hopes he can stay alive long enough to find her. In this classic L'Amour adventure, a dark-eyed drifter wages a war against a murderous band of rustlers. As far as the eye could see was a vast, lonely horizon. And Evie Teale and her two children were all alone here now, alone in an untamed country where the elements, the Indians, and the thieves made it far easier to die than to live. But soon a man named Conagher would drift into her life -- and together they would have the courage to make a stand. Our foremost storyteller of the American West, Louis L’Amour has thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world. Chapter One The land lay empty around them, lonely and still. On their right a ridge of hills with scattered cedars, on their left an open plain sweeping to a far horizon that offered a purple hint of hills. In all that vastness there was nothing but the creak and groan of the wagon, and overhead the sky, brassy with sunlight. “It’s only a couple of miles now,” Jacob told her. “Just around that point of rocks.” He pointed with his whipstock. She felt her heart shriveling within her. “It’s awfully dry, isn’t it?” “It’s dry,” Jacob’s tone was abrupt. “It’s been a bad year.” The team plodded, heads bobbing with weariness. The last town was fifty miles behind them, the last ranch almost as far. In all that distance they had seen not a ranch, a claim shack, or a fence ... not a horse, a cow, or even a track. At last he said, “I did not promise you much, and it is not much, but the land is ours, and what the land becomes will be ours, too. The land is not only what it is, it is what we make it.” The heavy wagon rumbled on, endlessly, monotonously. The heat was stifling, their pace so slow they could not escape the dust. It settled over their clothing, their eyebrows, in the folds of their skin. The children, weary with the heat, had fallen asleep, and for that she was thankful. The wagon reached the point of rocks, bumped over a flat rock, then rounded the point. Her heart sank. Before them, and close under the shoulder of a hill, was a cabin, a solitary building, square and bare, without shed or corral, without shrubs, without a tree. “There it is!” There was pride in Jacob’s tone. “There’s our house, Evie.” She knew how he felt, for in the three years of their life together she had learned this about him: that he had never known a home, had never possessed anything of his own beyond the clothes he wore, and his tools. He had worked hard to save the money for this move. Drab it might be, barren it was, but to Jacob, a middle-aged man with years of hard work behind him, it was home. She warned herself that she must never forget that, and that she must do what she could to help him. “We will plant trees, we will drill a well ... you wait and see. First, I must buy some stock. We must have cattle.” The wagon rolled down a slight grade, and at long last they drew up at the door. The cabin was small, but it was well-built. The cloud of dust settled down over them, settled at last. Laban awoke and sat up groggily. “Pa, are we there? Are we home?” he asked. “Get down, son. We are here.” Jacob walked to the door, fiddled with it a moment, then swung it wide. “Come, Evie, we have much to do. I must ride out when morning comes. There is no time to waste.” Evie hesitated, hoping that this once he might help her down. He need not carry her across the threshold ... after all, she was no new bride. Still, it was their first home, and he had forgotten her, his mind already busy with the problems of the place. He was letting down the tail gate, while Laban and Ruth ran to the door to peek inside. “Pa!” Ruth called. “There’s no floor! It’s just dirt!” “It will have to do,” he said testily. Evie got down and removed her hat, fluffed a little dust from her hair and went into the cabin. She knew just what to do, and knew what had to come into the house first. Hers was an orderly mind when it came to such things, and she had planned for this when they packed the wagon