Read Online Novel 1974 - The Californios (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour - Free Book Online Page A

only a little. The past is gone. My people who were proud and strong and fierce went down as does the grass before the fire.
    We were once here, and there was dust and smoke, and there was no more of us.”
    “You should tell someone what you know. There should be a history, so that men can learn from it.”
    He smiled. “Men do not learn from history. Each generation believes itself brighter than the last, each believes it can survive the mistakes of the older ones. Each discovers each old thing and they throw up their hands and say ‘See! Look what I have found! Look upon what I know!’ And each believes it is something new.
    “We had them in plenty, the new discoverers, exclaiming with excitement over what we had long ago tested and found false. We had the greedy ones, too, and those who wished for power or to show power. They are gone now, with all the rest.
    “Once a priest talked to me. He spoke long of the sins of this world and wished me to declare for his god that all my sins be remitted. I listened to him patiently and smiled inside for I had no sins to be forgotten and none to be forgiven. He told me of Sodom and Gomorrah, and I listened and felt a sadness upon me, for what had happened to us had happened there also.”
    The last of the stars had disappeared. The old man got to his feet. “We must go now. I do not know how, but they have found a way and they are close…much too close.”
    She went to Sean. “Juan says they are coming, and he says there will be blood.”
    “I have been expecting it.”
    Once more they merged with the beginning day, lending their movements to the vanishing shadows and the growing light, riding along the faces of slopes like cloud shadows under the sun, and leaving no mark upon the land they left behind.
    Sean dried his hands on his shirt again and turned his head to look at the hills behind them. Nothing…yet.
    He knew it was coming and rode warily, sitting light in the saddle, ready to kick free of the stirrups and drop to the ground if need be. He wanted no wasted shots, no galloping horse beneath him. He could shoot from the saddle, and had done it many times, but this time he must be sure, and with each shot a man must fall. His mother was here, and Mariana.
    The old man set a killing pace. On through the sun-blasted hills he rode, winding up on the long slopes, along the ridges and into strange canyons. He waded their horses through streams, pushed through thickets, turned and doubled and changed his direction again and again.
    Once, far back, Sean thought he saw dust, but Juan shook his head. “I do not know what dust that is, but it is not theirs. They are closer. They simply do not see us.”
    Sean saw, once in awhile, a deer track. He saw no others. Yet within the last mile or so the terrain had suddenly changed, for he was weaving a way through canyons of up-tilted strata, great layers of rock broken and thrust sharply upward, the edges only beginning to be worn by wind and blown sand. It was a nightmare of broken ledges, twisted rocks, deep gorges, and desolation.
    He spoke of it to Montero.
    “It is a great crack,” the Mexican said, “a crack in the earth that cuts through the mountains for many miles, from Mexico to the sea far north of Monterey. At places the trail follows the bottom, and I have ridden it.”
    “An earthquake fault,” Sean commented. “I’ve heard of such places.”
    It was dark when again they stopped, and Juan drew up and got stiffly down. “Do not unsaddle. We will make coffee, eat, and ride on.”
    “Tonight?” Mariana was incredulous.
    “We must.”
    When they had eaten and had drunk their coffee, Juan got more slowly to his feet. Sean looked at him, suddenly worried. “Perhaps we should rest, Old One. You are tired.”
    Juan shrugged. “These days I am often tired. It is no matter.”
    “But a little rest—?”
    “There is no time. They come quickly.”
    As Sean moved to put out the fire, the old man stopped him. “No,