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    Beyond the Great Snow Mountains: Stories
    Beyond the Great Snow Mountains: Stories
    Beyond the Great Snow Mountains: Stories
    Ebook289 pages4 hours

    Beyond the Great Snow Mountains: Stories

    By Louis L'Amour

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the American West to the Siberian coast, from Hollywood to the boxing ring, here are timeless tales of war, mystery, romance, crime, and punishment as only Louis L'Amour can tell them.

    These stories are vintage L'Amour:
    • A hard-bitten cattle driver is pitted against a man trying to steal his woman, the disappearance of a thousand head of cattle, and a plot to frame him for murder. . . .
    • A private eye visits a remote mining town on a case involving a sexy widow, an uneasy lawman, and a fortune in gold buried in an abandoned mine shaft. . . .
    • A country boy with a good right hand must fight not only his vicious opponent in the ring but the ruthless gangsters who'll do anything for profit-even commit cold-blooded murder. . . .
    • A young woman stranded in an isolated harbor must survive the wilderness and a brutal battle of wits with a sadistic fortune hunter. . . .

    Here is the trademark blend of action, suspense, historical detail, and unforgettable characters that have made Louis L'Amour one of the world's most extraordinary writers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateMar 8, 2005
    ISBN9780553898910
    Beyond the Great Snow Mountains: Stories

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    Reviews for Beyond the Great Snow Mountains

    3.5/5

    35 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      PLOT OR PREMISE:
      A collection of ten short stories.
      .
      WHAT I LIKED:
      "Crash Landing -- A great twist story, about a crashed plane and the man who takes charge to get everyone off before the plane slips off the edge of the snow-covered cliff.
      .
      Sideshow Champion -- A brawling boxer gets the championship fight of his life, but he knows the ones backing the champion are all crooked and will stop at nothing to bring him down. And he knows he has to get out of the limelight to train, so he goes back to the circus as a sideshow boxer to practice for the weeks before the fight.
      .
      The Money Punch -- Another boxing story about a kid who's up against the rackets and an ex-trainer who is more than a little crooked. Add in a missing new trainer, and the fact that he needs training -- he's got a great right but his left needs to be developed so he can be a better fighter. Oh, and he wants the girl who owns the fight farm.
      .
      Roundup in Texas -- A typical western story where cattle rustlers are lowering cattle estimates, and the foreman looks to be a chump who simply over-estimated. Gun battle at the end, and lots of story in a short timeframe.
      .
      Under the Hanging Wall -- A private-eye story about a man hired to go to a town and find out why his brother would have killed a mine owner. The Sheriff is no help, and there's a woman who belongs in the big city, not in a bus-stop town along the highway. Set in the early 20th century.
      .
      Other stories include: By the Waters of San Tadeo (town bully holds village hostage on island); Meeting at Falmouth (ambushing a travelling gentleman); and Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (woman taken prisoner in Chinese mountains by a tribe)."
      .
      WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
      Two stories weren't that great -- Coast Patrol (WW II story about a freighter captured by Germans and an Allied pilot) and Gravel Pit (thief gets extorted and wants to kill the extortionist).
      .
      BOTTOM-LINE:
      Decent but eclectic bunch of short-stories
      .
      DISCLOSURE:
      I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I was not personal friends with the author, nor did I follow him on social media.
    • 4/5
      This collection of short stories displays the author's range of genre, from a mining murder mystery to a pre-World War II exploit, to a western roundup adventure, and more. My two favorites were the first story about a young woman stranded in a remote South American village controlled by a brutal headman, and the last story about a woman living with a Mongolic tribe who faces a choice that will affect more than just herself. Most of the tales are good to very good, with a couple boxing yarns that I didn't care for.
    • 3/5
      A great collection of L'Amour's short stories. If your a fan you will not be supprised. If you have always wondered what makes him so great read these ther are several collections out there.

    Book preview

    Beyond the Great Snow Mountains - Louis L'Amour

    BY THE WATERS OF SAN TADEO

    The dozen shacks that made up the village of San Esteban huddled, dwarfed and miserable, below the craggy ramparts that walled them away from the world. The lofty circle of mountains, with their ice-choked ravines and thick tangles of beech forest, formed an enclosing wall as impassable as the mountains of the moon. Only in one direction was escape from the village possible…through the narrow mouth of the inlet, eight miles from the village.

    Julie Marrat had thought of all that many times in the last few weeks, and each time she had come to the same conclusion, and each time that conclusion was just as hopeless. There was but one way of escape…by boat.

    There were three boats at the inlet, and all of these belonged to Pete Kubelik. One was the schooner that he used for infrequent trips up the coast and to bring in supplies. There were also two fishing boats, not much more than dinghies, far too small in which to brave the sea that lay outside. Yet escape she must, and immediately.

    Returning to the bedside, she looked down at the dying man who was her father. Lovable, impractical, and a dreamer with an always restless heart, George Marrat had never been able to remain still. Now, this lonely inlet far south on the coast of Chile had trapped him, and once there he could not leave.

    Two things ensured that. One was his own health, which failed rapidly in the cold, dreary world of San Esteban, where the sun rarely shone and the sky was overcast nearly three hundred days of the year. Yet had it been his health alone, Julie could have managed. The other element was Pete Kubelik.

    From the moment they drew their ketch up to the jetty and Julie turned to look into the piglike eyes of the big trader, she had been frightened. Right then she asked her father to leave, knowing that this was not a place they should stay.

    He was amazed. Why, Julie? We’ve only just come! We can at least look around, can’t we?

    No, Father, please! Let’s go find somewhere else.

    Her father had turned to face Kubelik, and the big man’s brown face wrinkled in a smile. I’m afraid my daughter doesn’t like it here, he confessed.

    Well, Kubelik had replied, it ain’t much of a place for women, that’s true, but there’s gold here, plenty of it!

    Gold? Her heart sank at the eagerness in her father’s voice. What would he do if he found it? she wondered. No man ever cared less for money, but in her father’s mind the concept of gold was so much more than money. It was the reward that he was searching for, the last reward that would somehow repair the life that luck had deserted. But, ironically, that life without luck was not his…it was hers. There’s gold here?

    Yes, sir! Kubelik had turned and waved a hand at the long spit of black sand that pointed into the inlet from a nearby island. We’ve washed many a good stake out of that beach! Best beach placer I ever saw! Was that why you came here?

    Had there been anxiety in the big man’s voice? Julie had looked at him again, and felt such revulsion that she could scarcely stand to be near him.

    Plodding along beside her father, Kubelik had dwarfed him with his huge body. His face was round and moonlike under the thick black beard. Wrinkles ran out in a network of tiny lines from the corners of both eyes, eyes that were small and cruel. His hands were dirty, the fingernails black and broken. And then, for the first time, she’d seen the gun. It was in a holster under his sheepskin coat.

    Not until later did Julie wonder that none of the others came near them. An Indian woman standing in the door of a driftwood cabin hurriedly stepped back and closed the door when Julie started toward her. Despite the inhospitable gesture, Julie had not been alarmed, taking it for granted that the woman was naturally shy.

    By midnight, when they moved into the inner room at Kubelik’s station and to bed, they had met only one other man. He was a pasty Austrian named Rudy, and seemed to be Kubelik’s shadow. He rarely spoke, but whenever Kubelik and Rudy shared a look, Julie realized there was some silent communication. She saw other people moving among the shacks, but they did not come near the store.

    That inner room had been Pete Kubelik’s suggestion. She had wanted to return to the boat, hoping that her father could be talked into leaving, but Kubelik laughed at her and waved her objections away with an impatient hand. He would take it as an insult, he said. By all means, they should stay. Entranced by his stories of the coast, her father listened, and they remained. And in the morning, their boat was gone.

    She had just gotten out of bed when she saw through the small window the empty pier where the ketch had been left. Fear gripping her heart, she awakened her father. George Marrat’s face went pale, and for the first time, he was afraid.

    They rushed down to the beach, but the ketch was nowhere to be seen.

    Kubelik had come from the house, rubbing his eyes. What’s the matter. Something wrong?

    Our boat’s gone! Marrat exclaimed. Lord, man! What will we do? What could have happened to it?

    Wind, maybe, Kubelik suggested, or some thief. No use standing here. Come in an’ let’s fix breakfast. Then we can take one of my boats an’ look around.

    Yet when her eyes happened to meet those of Kubelik, his had been triumphant.

    Her father, despite his interest in the gold, was genuinely worried. He knew the mountains were impassable, that the forests were undergrown with thick moss, laden with moisture, and a man could sink to his waist in trying to struggle through. And by the end of the day, they realized that the boat was gone and they knew they would not find it.

    How about taking us to Puerto Montt? Marrat had suggested. You have the schooner, and we can’t stay here. I have money in the bank back in Santiago. Take us out, and I’ll pay your price.

    All right, Kubelik had said thoughtfully. But you’ll have to wait until I’m ready to go for supplies. A week or so, maybe.

    Yet when the week had passed, he said nothing about leaving. Her father had been placer mining on the beach and caught a severe cold. By that time, they had moved to a small shack, refusing to accept more of Kubelik’s hospitality.

    I’m sorry, Julie, George said. When I get well, we’ll get out of here and I’ll make it up to you. He coughed, the breath rattling deep in his lungs.

    Get some rest, she said. He nodded and relaxed, breathing more easily. She sat there in the dark, a twenty-six-year-old woman who had failed in life, failed in marriage, who had fled back to her father, a ne’er-do-well adventurer, and ended up here, in a narrow fjord at the end of the earth.

    Her grandfather had been a Chilean who migrated north with his son to fish the waters of British Columbia and Alaska. Her father had spent much of his life in Canada, and she was born there, schooled there, and had been wed there.

    Like many young girls, Julie had thought that marriage would change her life, and indeed it had. But she discovered that the qualities in a man that had appealed to her when she was being courted were not the qualities that made a good partner for life.

    Her husband had been a dashing young bohemian who could quote enough Spencer, Marx, or Freud to prove any point. Unfortunately, for all his obsession with the working man, he could not seem to hold a job. What she had mistaken for intensity turned out to be self-obsession, and the wild ways that she once thought were delightfully liberated proved to be simple self-indulgence.

    After six months he had disappeared to prowl the bars and jazz clubs of San Francisco by himself, and she fled back to her father in shame. Julie hid herself away from the world on her father’s boat, ashamed because she had not been wise enough to choose the right man and hadn’t been strong enough to confront that man about their problems.

    George Marrat had never questioned her. Although he had made many a poor choice himself, and life had dealt him many a blow, he still met the morning with a smile and fixed his eyes on the horizon. He planned a trip south to show his daughter his homeland, to take her mind off her problems. They would prospect on the southern coast. If they could find a cannery and take on a crew, they would fish the southern waters as he had in Ketchikan and Port Albion.

    But now they were here in this dismal settlement. And George Marrat was very sick. Julie put her father to bed and hurried to the store for medicine.

    Pete Kubelik shook his head. Medicine? he said. Ain’t got much. Aspirin, an’ some cold tablets. Anything more I can do, let me know.

    He came around the counter and leaned against it. Despite her fear, she forced herself to stand still, but couldn’t look him in the eye.

    You know, he said, we could get along, you an’ me. Gets mighty lonesome here, of a winter. In the corner, Rudy stifled a whispering laugh.

    I’m sorry, Mr. Kubelik. I couldn’t do that. When Father gets well, we will leave.

    Suppose he doesn’t get well?

    Cold fear welled up within her. Oh, he will, she said firmly. He often has touches of cold like this. He’ll get well, and then we’ll leave.

    Kubelik grinned at her, his teeth yellow and broken. Well, maybe, he said. "If I decide to take you up the coast. Then again, I may just keep you here, sort of company for me."

    That’s ridiculous! She looked up at him for the first time. You couldn’t get away with anything like that! What about the authorities?

    The Chileans? The army? The police? He laughed with genuine amusement. They don’t come here. Know why these folks don’t come near you? Because I told ’em to stay away, that’s why. Know why they stay here? Because they can’t get away, either! They are pilin’ up gold for me. Me an’ Rudy, here!

    He chuckled. Why, the government thinks this place is abandoned. Nobody ever comes here, at least, his voice dropped to a whisper, nobody that goes out again.

    Two days later her father died.

    He died suddenly, in the night. Only for a moment was he rational, and seemed to realize there was little time left. He called her to him. Julie… His voice was hoarse. I… He fumbled for words. I know what happened to the boat. He…Kubelik…he towed it away. He hid it over at Rio San Tadeo. One of the others told me, that last day, workin’ on the spit.

    It’s all right, Dad, she said gently, we’ll manage!

    The long gray miles of cold sea and the towering cliffs that flanked it filled her with horror. In all the world, there could be no more desolate place than this coast north of Magellan. We’ll manage, she whispered, but she knew he was dying.

    They buried her father at the foot of a huge rock three hundred yards up the canyon from San Esteban. Several of the villagers were out for the funeral, but had she ever hoped for help from them, she gave up now. They were a thin, woebegone group, obviously afraid of Kubelik, who towered above them.

    There were six men in the village, she discovered, four of them Chileans and two Yahgans, natives from the Beagle Channel area. The four women were all Yahgans but one, an Ona woman from Tierra del Fuego.

    After the funeral, she talked with them while Pete Kubelik and Rudy ignored her. They had the only weapons among the group, and aside from the pistol which he always carried, Kubelik possessed two shotguns and a rifle. He had killed a man only a few days before their ketch arrived.

    Recalling Kubelik’s anxiety over their discovery of the place, she realized that was his greatest fear. Here in his little kingdom, he ruled supreme while they slaved for him and lived in abject fear of his rages. As he controlled the only means of escape as well as the only source of food, tobacco, and liquor, he was firmly in the saddle.

    But what about the boats? she said to Aleman, one of the villagers. Couldn’t you steal one and get away?

    Not a chance! he told her. His schooner has an auxiliary engine, and he’d have us before we made a dozen miles. Besides, where could we go on the supplies we’d have? We are a long way from the nearest port.

    During the afternoon preceding her father’s burial, she tried to recall exactly what the chart had pictured. The inlet was in the southeast corner of the Gulf of San Esteban, and the Rio San Tadeo was to the north. Although the chart indicated little of the nature of the country back of the coast, she knew it was rugged mountain and glacier. Of the beech forests, she knew only by hearsay, but they were pictured as dark, fearsome places, well-nigh impenetrable.

    It was raining when they finished the funeral service. She started away when the grave had been filled, but Pete Kubelik overtook her. Get your stuff, whatever you got, he ordered, an’ move over to my place.

    It didn’t take much to bring her to tears, but she intentionally pushed her sorrow and terror to the forefront. Oh, not now! Please! She sobbed hysterically, fell to her knees moaning, My father…my father…

    She made the most unappealing spectacle of herself possible. Finally, in disgust, he shrugged it off. All right, tomorrow, then, Kubelik said, and trudged away.

    She was rolling up her father’s jacket when she found the knife. Evidently, he had planned to use it himself, yet it was no knife she had ever seen aboard the boat. That meant he had acquired it since coming ashore, either finding it or getting it from one of the others.

    The thought filled her with excitement. Perhaps…if one of the men had given the knife to her father, she might have a friend out there. How could she know who he was?

    Holding the coat so anyone peeking through the window could not see the knife, she examined the blade. It was bright and gleaming, and obviously had not been lying out in the weather.

    The knife gave her courage. At least she could kill herself. The thought of killing Kubelik came first, but she dismissed the idea at once. He was too big, too strong, and he wore too many thicknesses of clothing. She would never have strength enough to drive the knife home.

    Then she remembered the tobacco. Her father had come ashore prepared to trade, carrying a small sack filled with plugs of tobacco, some large packages of smoking tobacco, and a few cartons of cigarettes. In this place, it was a veritable fortune.

    She had seen how avidly the men clutched the tiny packets of tobacco that Kubelik passed out. Maybe that was how her father got the knife.

    For a long time she thought, wondering about the mountains and the inlet itself. If she could manage to steal a boat, she might get to the San Tadeo at least, and from there perhaps she could find her father’s ketch. She would need neither food nor water to go that far. The thought of the eight miles against the engine of the schooner changed her mind. The river was out of the question.

    Julie got up and put out her light, yet scarcely had the cabin become dark when there was a scratching at the window. Going to it, she stood to one side and peered out. In the vague light she could see a figure crouching in the darkness. Gently, she lifted the window.

    Missy? This Cuyu…you got tobac’…sí?

    Cuyu was one of the Yahgans. She remembered him at the funeral. He had been one of those who carried her father’s body to the grave and helped fill it in. She remembered his eyes as she’d turned away, how they had seemed strangely gentle and compassionate.

    Yes! Yes, I have tobacco! Come to the door!

    No door! He watch. He watch alla time! You speak me here!

    Cuyu, can you get me away from here? Can you? Please!

    The Yahgan was silent. What sort of man was he? Would he be even worse than Kubelik? She dismissed that idea at once. Nobody could be worse.

    Can you get me to our ketch? My father was told it was anchored over on the San Tadeo!

    San Tadeo? Sí. The boat, it there. There was sudden eagerness in Cuyu’s voice.

    She was almost frantic with excitement. Oh, Cuyu! Take me to it and I’ll give you all this tobacco! Yes, and more, too. Can we steal a dinghy?

    No. The finality of his voice ended that possibility. Maybe mountain. His voice was doubtful. You strong? Walk fast? Climb?

    Yes, oh yes! Suddenly he hissed, and then like a shadow, he was gone.

    Outside, in front of the cabin, she heard a crunch of boots on gravel. Had Kubelik changed his mind? Was he coming now? Or was he suspicious?

    Instantly, she slipped off her shoes and got into bed, hunching the blankets around her. He came to the door, and she heard her latch lift, but the bar was in place. He hesitated, and there was no sound. Fear welled up within her. Suppose he broke down the door? Certainly, it would be little effort for a man of his brute strength. Praying she could make it sound right, she turned in the bed, as though in sleep.

    Footsteps crunched around the house, and she felt rather than saw his head at the window. She had been unable to close it in time, and hoped he would believe she’d left it open for the air. He stood listening, and she kept her breathing deep and regular, hoping he would not look beneath the window for tracks. Suddenly, a light flashed on her face. After a minute of examination, he turned and walked away. Julie lay rigid, listening to the retreat of his footsteps on the coarse gravel.

    It could have been no more than a minute before she heard the Yahgan again. Instantly, she was at the window. I take, he whispered, you bring tobac’, sí?

    Swiftly, she dressed. She pulled on her boots and thrust the knife into the capacious pocket of her coat. It took her only a moment to climb through the window. She passed the tobacco to the Yahgan, but he returned it to her. You keep—for now, he whispered.

    Tugging at her sleeve, he moved off and away. Almost before she realized it, they were working their way through the gray trunks of ancient, long dead trees, and then into the timber itself. Her feet tangled in a soft, sinking bed of moss and she almost fell.

    Cuyu caught her sleeve again and guided her in the darkness to a deadfall. She perceived his purpose; by walking on the fallen tree, they could keep out of the moss. Yet it was only a short distance, and then they were struggling in the knee-deep moss again. It was heavy with moisture, and before they had gone fifty yards she was soaked from the knees down. Yet Cuyu seemed to have eyes like a cat, for he found one deadfall after another.

    How long they struggled and fought against the clinging, wet fingers of the forest she had no idea. Time and again she fell. She scratched her hands and face, but she kept going, fighting with the strength of desperation for every inch of distance. Suddenly, they emerged from the forest.

    She was amazed. Before them, white and wide in the night, lay a glacier! Overhead, the clouds had momentarily parted and a few friendly stars shone through, but the Yahgan was looking at neither the stars nor the glacier. He was moving swiftly out over the icy surface, and the measure of his fear was the measure of her own. From time to time he glanced back. Was he expecting pursuit so soon?

    Yet they made better progress now. Nor did Cuyu waste time. He led off swiftly and she almost had to run to keep up. That the Yahgan was frightened was obvious.

    Leaving the glacier, they went up a steep, rocky trail along an icy black cliff, then down through a ravine. It was growing gray in the east, and despite all their travel, she had the feeling they had gained little ground. From time to time now, Cuyu stopped. He kept staring ahead, then listening.

    Something worried him. She was fighting exhaustion now, for they had not only encountered the roughest possible travel, but had kept up a pace far beyond her strength. Yet the Yahgan showed no evidence of tiring and no intention of slowing down. It was plain that he knew that if they were caught, while she might be taken back to the inlet, he would be killed on the spot.

    Cuyu turned now, changing his course to proceed more directly north, but his eyes continued to watch toward his left. Once, through a break in the curtain of trees shrouding the cliff on her left, she thought she saw water.

    Was the fact that they must go down to the water what Cuyu feared? Kubelik, guessing their route or seeing their tracks, might use the boat to come around the point and head them off. It would be pitifully easy, and in a matter of an hour he could render useless their night of struggle.

    The dim game trail they had been following dipped sharply down into a fantastically rugged gorge. Here the moss was scarce, but the trees were laden with snow, and there was an occasional patch of ice. They went down the steep side, passing

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