The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 4, Part 1

BEYOND THE GREAT SNOW MOUNTAINS
 
WHEN THE BURIAL was complete, she rode with her son into the hills.
 
The Go-log tribesmen, sharing her sorrow for their lost leader, stood aside and allowed her to go. Lok-sha had been a great man and too young to die.
 
Only in the eyes of Norba and his followers did she detect the triumph born of realization that nothing now stood between him and tribal control. Nothing but a slender woman, alien to their land, and Kulan, her fourteen-year-old son.
 
There was no time to worry now, nor was there time for grief. If ever they were to escape, it must be at once, for it was unlikely such opportunity would again offer itself.
 
It had been fifteen years since the plane in which she was leaving China crashed in the mountains near Tosun Nor, killing all on board but herself. Now, as if decreed by fate, another had come, and this one landed intact.
 
Shambe had brought the news as Lok-sha lay dying, for long ago the far-ranging hunter had promised if ever another plane landed, he would first bring the news to her.
 
If the fierce Go-log tribesmen learned of the landing, they would kill the survivors and destroy the plane. To enter the land of the Go-log was to die.
 
It was a far land of high, grass plateaus, snowcapped mountains, and rushing streams. There among the peaks were born three of the greatest rivers of Asia—the Yellow, the Yangtze, and the Mekong—and there the Go-log lived as they had lived since the time of Genghis Khan.
 
Splendid horsemen and savage fighters, they lived upon their herds of yaks, fat-tailed sheep, horses, and the plunder reaped from caravans bound from China to Tibet.
 
Anna Doone, born on a ranch in Montana, had taken readily to the hard, nomadic life of the Go-log. She had come to China to join her father, a medical missionary, and her uncle, a noted anthropologist. Both were killed in Kansu by the renegade army that had once belonged to General Ma. Anna, with two friends, attempted an escape in an old plane.
 
Riding now toward this other aircraft, she recalled the morning when, standing beside her wrecked plane, she had first watched the Go-log approach. She was familiar with their reputation for killing interlopers, but she had a Winchester with a telescopic sight and a .45-caliber Colt revolver.
 
Despite her fear, she felt a burst of admiration for their superb horsemanship as they raced over the plain. Seeing the rifle ready in her hands, they drew up sharply, and her eyes for the first time looked upon Lok-sha.
 
Only a little older than her own twenty-one years, he was a tall man with a lean horseman’s build, and he laughed with pure enjoyment when she lifted the rifle. She was to remember that laugh for a long time, for the Go-log were normally a somber people.
 
Lok-sha had the commanding presence of the born leader of men, and she realized at once that if she were to survive, it would be because he wished it.
 
He spoke sharply in his own tongue, and she replied in the dialect of Kansu, which fortunately he understood.
 
“It is a fine weapon,” he said about the rifle.
 
“I do not wish to use it against the Go-log. I come as a friend.”
 
“The Go-log have no friends.”
 
A small herd of Tibetan antelope appeared on the crest of a low ridge some three hundred yards away, looking curiously toward the crashed plane.
 
She had used a rifle since she was a child, killing her first deer when only eleven. Indicating the antelope, she took careful aim and squeezed off her shot. The antelope bounded away, but one went to its knees, then rolled over on its side.
 
The Go-log shouted with amazement, for accurate shooting with their old rifles was impossible at that range. Two of the riders charged off to recover the game, and she looked into the eyes of the tall rider.
 
“I have another such rifle, and if we are friends, it is yours.”
 
“I could kill you and take them both.”
 
She returned his look. “They,” she said, indicating the others, “might take it from me. You would not, for you are a man of honor, and I would kill you even as they killed me.”
 
She had no doubt of her position, and her chance of ever leaving this place was remote. Whatever was done, she must do herself.
 
He gestured toward the wreck. “Get what you wish, and come with us.”
 
Her shooting had impressed them, and now her riding did also, for these were men who lived by riding and shooting. Lok-sha, a jyabo or king of the Go-log people, did not kill her. Escape being impossible, she married him in a Buddhist ceremony, and then to satisfy some Puritan strain within her, she persuaded Tsan-Po, the lama, to read over them in Kansu dialect the Christian ceremony.
 
Fortunately, the plane had not burned, and from it she brought ammunition for the rifles, field glasses, clothing, medicines, and her father’s instrument case. Best of all, she brought the books that had belonged to her father and uncle.
 
Having often assisted her father, she understood the emergency treatment of wounds and rough surgery. This knowledge became a valuable asset and solidified her position in the community.
 
As soon as Anna’s son was born, she realized the time would come when, if they were not rescued, he would become jyabo, so she began a careful record of migration dates, grass conditions, and rainfall. If it was in her power, she was going to give him the knowledge to be the best leader possible.
 
Lok-sha was sharply interested in all she knew about the Chinese to the east, and he possessed the imagination to translate the lessons of history into the practical business of command and statecraft. The end had come when his horse, caught on a severe, rocky slope, had fallen, crushing Lok-sha’s chest.
 
She had been happy in the years she’d spent as his wife, certainly she was better off than she would have been as a refugee in the civil war that gripped much of China or as a prisoner of the Japanese. But as happy as she had learned to be, as safe as she had finally found herself, Anna never forgot her home, nor ceased to long for the day when she might return.
 
Now, her thoughts were interrupted by Shambe’s appearance. “The plane is nearby,” he said, “and there are two men.”
 
Shambe was not only Lok-sha’s best friend, but leader of the Ku-ts’a, the bodyguard of the jyabo, a carefully selected band of fighting men.
 
They rode now, side by side, Kulan, Shambe, and herself. “You will leave with the flying men?” Shambe asked. “And you will take the jyabo also?”
 
Startled, Anna Doone glanced at her son, riding quietly beside her. Of course . . . what had she been thinking of? Her son, Kulan, was jyabo now . . . king of six thousand tents, commander of approximately two thousand of the most dangerous fighting men in Asia!
 
But it was ridiculous. He was only fourteen. He should be in school, thinking about football or baseball. Yet fourteen among the Go-log was not fourteen among her own people. Lok-sha, against her bitter protests, had carried Kulan into battle when he was but six years old, and during long rides over the grasslands had taught him what he could of the arts of war and leadership.
 
Her son jyabo? She wished to see him a doctor, a scientist, a teacher. It was preposterous to think of him as king of a savage people in a remote land. Yet deep within her something asked a question: How important would baseball be to a boy accustomed to riding a hundred miles from dawn to dusk, or hunting bighorn sheep among the highest peaks?
 
“We shall regret your going,” Shambe said sincerely, “you have been long among us.”
 
And she would regret losing him, too, for he had been a true friend. She said as much, said it quietly and with sincerity.
 
When she heard of the plane, her thoughts had leaped ahead, anticipating their homecoming. She had taken notes of her experiences and could write a book, and she could lecture. Kulan was tall and strong and could receive the education and opportunities that he had missed.
 
Yet she had sensed the reproof in Shambe’s tone; Shambe, who had been her husband’s supporter in his troubles with Norba, a chief of a minor division of the Khang-sar Go-log.
 
Over their heads the sky was fiercely blue, their horses’ hooves drummed upon the hard, close-cropped turf . . . there were few clouds. Yes . . . these rides would be remembered. Nowhere were there mountains like these, nowhere such skies.
 
When they came within sight of the plane, the two men sprang to their feet, gripping their rifles.
 
She drew up. “I am Anna Doone, and this is Kulan, my son.”
 
The older man strode toward her. “This is amazing! The State Department has been trying to locate you and your family for years! You are the niece of Dr. Ralph Doone, are you not?”
 
“I am.”
 
“My name is Schwarzkopf. Your uncle and I were associated during his work at the Merv Oasis.” He glanced at Shambe, and then at Kulan. “Your son, you said?”
 
She explained the crashed plane, her marriage to Lok-sha, his death, and her wish to escape. In turn, they told her of how they had seized the plane and escaped from the Communist soldiers. Their landing had been made with the last of their fuel.