The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Four Read Online Free Page A

their eyes first met, neither Tohkta nor Kushla had thoughts for another.
    Yet four full years had gone by when no word could be received from her, nor sent to her.
    “She will have forgotten me,” Tohkta said gloomily. “It has been forever.”
    “She was a child,” Batai Khan replied, “now she will be a woman, and so much the better. You are not forgotten, believe me.” He glanced around at his handsome grandson. “I, who know women, say it. You have been a dream to her, and who can forget a dream?”
    In the days that followed the finishing of the bridge Tola Beg, an ancient yak hunter, had been the first to cross, and he brought strange news. Chinese soldiers of a new kind had come to Sinkiang and to Tibet. The Dalai Lama had fled to India, and soldiers were in Khotan and Kargalik as well as Lhasa. People had been driven from their farms and their flocks to work upon a new road, harnessed like yak or camels.
    “Do not go, Batai Khan.” Tola Beg peered across the fire from his ancient, rheumy eyes, his skin withered and weathered by wind and cold, darkened by wind and sun. “They will imprison you and seize your goods.”
    “It is the time for the marriage of Tohkta.”
    “There is danger. The Chinese seek the ancient track to India but it is not India they want; it is the men of our mountains they would enslave.” Tola Beg gulped his yak-butter tea noisily, as was the custom. “They respect nothing and they have no God. The mosques and lamaseries are closed and the lamas driven to work in the fields. The prayer wheels are stilled and there is a curse on the land.”
    “I can go alone,” Tohkta said. “I will take the gold and go for Kushla.”
    “We are Tochari.” Batai Khan spoke with dignity. “Does a khan of Tochari go like a thief in the night to meet his betrothed?”
    They were Tochari. That was the final word among them. Tohkta knew the history of his people, and much more had been told him by an Englishman. In ages past it was said some of his people had migrated from Central Asia, going westward to become the Greeks and the Celts. Others had gone into northern India, to settle there, driven by the Hiung Nu, known to western nations as the Hun.
    The Englishman had dug in ancient refuse piles along the ruins of the Great Wall, searching for bits of wood or paper on which there was writing. He had told Tohkta these fragments would piece together the history of the area, and of the Tochari. He glanced at Tohkta’s dark red hair and green eyes, a coloring not uncommon among these people of the mountains, and said the Tochari were a people who made history.
    Batai Khan had rebuked him gently. “We know our past, and need not dig in dung piles for it. If you would know it, too, come sit by our fires and our bards will sing for you.”
    And now they rode to claim the bride of Tohkta, for a khan of the Tochari must ride with warriors at his back and gold to consummate the union. Raw and cold was the weather, for the season was late. Soon the high passes would be closed, and the mountain basins would brim full with snow.
             
    I T WAS MIDNIGHT on the third day when they reached the outskirts of the ancient town, crossing the road by which silk had once been carried to Greece and Rome. They drew up in a grove of trees and waited as the moon set beyond the desert hills. Tohkta was impatient to push on to the town, for eagerness rode his shoulders with sharp spurs. But Batai Khan had the caution of years.
    Old as he was, he sat erect in his saddle, and the broadsword he carried slung between his shoulders was a mighty weapon in his hands. “The town has a different smell,” he said, “there is trouble here.”
    “I must go to the house of Yakub,” Tohkta said. “Tola Beg can come. If help is needed, he can return for you.”
    The Khan paused a moment, then nodded.
    The house of Yakub was the largest in the oasis, and Tola Beg led the way on foot. Wind rustled among the tamarisks as