The Lonely Men (Sacketts Book 11)

by Louis L'Amour

Men with no one to share their feelings learn to conceal those feelings.

The desert is the enemy of the careless.

“Most men are alone,” he said. “We come into life alone, we face our worst troubles alone, and we are alone when we die.”

I never was much good at thinking complicated things out. Mostly I studied on situations and then went ahead and did what I would have done, anyway.

We Sacketts treated womenfolk gentle, even when they didn’t deserve it. Had it been only

so I came back from Spain to this place. It has been good to me. I have seen my crops grow and my herds increase, and if I have not written words upon paper as I should like to have done, I have written large upon the page of life that was left open for me.

“There is tonic in this.” He gestured toward the out-of-doors. “I have used the plow and the Winchester instead of the pen and the inkstand. There is tonic in the riding, in the living dangerously, in the building of something.

“All things change. One species gives way to another better equipped to survive. Their world is going, but they brought destruction to another when they came, and just so will we one day be forced out by others who will come. It is the way of the world; the one thing we know is that all things change.

Even my books may not last, but the ideas will endure. It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy.”

I did not want to talk; it was a time for listening. “We’ve

The Apache had no regard for horse flesh. He would ride a horse to death and then eat him, so he rode often at a killing pace.

you judge each man by his time and his way of life.

I’d never done anything much in my life but work hard, and didn’t know any different. Besides, we Sacketts were a right stubborn folk. We just didn’t have much give-up in us. We always kept plugging away, and that’s what I was doing this time.

We Sacketts were never much on talking of troubles when we were together. It never does any good to go worrying your thoughts about things gone by.”

Now, there’s a time for talk and a time for action, and I never was much gifted with oratory.

never did figure a man hired to do a job should just do it the easiest way. I figure a man should do the best he knows how. So I taken up my pick and went to work on that bank.

Living a life is much like climbing mountains—the summits are always further off than you think, but when a man has a goal, he always feels he’s working toward something.