He rolled the cigarette in his lips, liking the taste of the tobacco, squinting his eyes against the sun's glare. His buckskin shirt, seasoned by sun, rain, and sweat, smelled stale and old. His jeans had long since faded to a neutral color that lost itself against the desert. He was a big man, wide-shouldered, with the lean, hard-boned face of the desert rider. There was no softness in him. His toughness was ingrained and deep, without cruelty, yet quick, hard, and dangerous. Whatever wells of gentleness might lie within him were guarded and deep.
An hour passed and there was no more dust, so he knew he was in trouble. He had drawn up short of the crest where his eyes could just see over the ridge, his horse crowded against a dark clump of juniper where he was invisible to any eye not in the immediate vicinity.
The day was still and hot. Sweat trickled down his cheeks and down his body under the shirt. Dust meant a dust devil or riders...and this had been no dust devil.
The dust had shown itself, continued briefly, then vanished, and that meant that he also had been seen.
If they were white men fearful of attack, they were now holed up in some arroyo. If they were Apaches, they would be trying to close in.
Louis L'Amour is the best Western novelist around; his books are frequently on the New York Times best seller list. In 1984 President Reagan demonstrated appreciation of the author's work by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the nation's highest civilian award for meritorious service.
The handsome, rugged-looking man speaks with a deep, resonant voice about gunfighters, pioneers, and cattle wars. His readers know that the trails he writes about actually exist.
JV: If you were a young man living in the Old West a century ago, what do you think you would have been doing?
LL: Very likely I would have been on the side of the law wherever it was; perhaps I would have been running a newspaper, or ranching or exploring.
JV: What kind of life appeals to you besides that of writing?
LL: Archeology. At one time I was interested in becoming a soldier - though not a soldier in the usual sense. When I was a kid I actually thought of making it a profession - fighting wherever there was a war. But actually, archeology is the way I would have gone.
JV: Why did you choose to write about the West?
LL: I didn't choose [to write about] the West. It chose me. I grew up in North Dakota, which isn't actually in the West. The West, to me, begins with the cattle country west of the Missouri River. When I was very young, however, my grandfather used to invite over to the house some of the Indians he had once fought against. They'd sit around on the lawn and my mother would bring out the tea or coffee. They'd fill their mugs full of sugar and tell
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