I’ve always enjoyed the noir aspects of The Man Called Noon. The lost memories and the puzzle box of identities make the novel feel almost as if Cornell Woolrich had written a western. Resembling an unfinished painting, the original cover was a classic. A nearly silhouetted gunman stands over the body of his adversary; in the background, several people look on from the platform of a railroad car. The painting presents only the important details, with the strokes of the artist’s brush fading off into the white void of the canvas. Totally iconic.
When I first read Noon as a kid, I was completely enamored of the hideout house with the cave in back. According to Dad, that was a real place, though nowhere near as well constructed as the location in the story. Supposedly it was on the Ute reservation, and Louis saw it as he was driving to Durango in the 1920s on the same trip that may have inspired him to write Haunted Mesa. Here’s what he had to say about it in a 1975 letter:
“It does not entirely exist. The place does, and the cave does, and the hand operated elevator did once exist. Most of the timbers connected with it have been burned for firewood…I saw it when I was nineteen…The house built in front of the cave was something dreamed up by me. Somebody, probably a prospector, had built a kind of a shack in front of the cave, but the shack had fallen in when I saw it, so I imagined my own kind of house there.”
The fight in the bunkhouse, where Noon uses the rolled-up magazine as a weapon, was also supposedly an event from Louis’s life. My memory, possibly faulty, suggests it happened onboard a ship.
In the piles of papers that Dad left behind I discovered two early and considerably less refined openings for the story:
Groove there, a wound scarred over. It was a long scar that lay along the side of his neck and felt like a narrow miss from a bullet.
It was then he found the blood matted in his hair and exploring fingers found another wound in his scalp. This also was apparently a wound where the bullet had entered his scalp, gone around his head and emerged at the back. It must have been this that knocked him unconscious.
Or had it? Was it not more likely that he had been knocked out when he fell from his horse?
For if he had fallen after the bullet they would have come up on him and shot him dead.
Or did they believe him dead?
He took four steps necessary to reach the horse. It was a sorrel and fine-looking animal, and it had been in good shape. Moreover, it was an animal built for speed and staying quality, a horse that must have run quite a distance judging from the dried lather on its sides.
The saddle was a good one, and there were saddlebags. In the saddlebags there was ammunition for a Colt pistol and for the .44 Winchester that lay on the ground near where he had fallen.
Behind the saddle there was a poncho and a blanket. There was also a suit-coat wrapped up with them.
There were no wounds on the horse. Therefore he had run the animal to death escaping from something or trying to get somewhere. There was a bullet scar on the cantle of the saddle, however.
Where to go. He did not even know in which direction he should walk, and any direction he chose might lead him into the very danger from which he had fled.
He paused, standing alone in all the emptiness. Even the short distance he had walked from the dead horse had somehow removed him from even that scarcely tangible connection with the world.
Nowhere did he know of such a plain as this except somewhere beyond the Mississippi. Hence there would be little use in going either north or south. And from the tracks on the prairie he had been coming from the east. Therefore the danger must lie in that direction.
But suppose he had turned the horse around and started back? Or that the horse had started back of his own volition? No matter…he would head west.
The rifle he carried might be an indication. He examined it and found the date…1873. So he knew that much. It was at least 1873 and probably later for the rifle seemed to have been used. He brought the lever down to check the load and found the action was damaged and would not work correctly. He started to throw the rifle away, then stopped. He knew the rifle was inoperative but nobody else did. He would keep it.
The sun rose behind him and he walked steadily westward. His head throbbed, and his leg was stiff. His neck was sore and he was thirsty. He tried not to think of that for there was no telling how long he might have to go without water.
How did he come to be where he was? Had he been with a cattle drive? A wagon train? Had he been shot at by Indians or was it white men?
For some reason he was almost sure it had been white men who pursued him. Why, he did not know, yet the idea persisted.
Why had he been running? Was he a coward? Or was he a criminal? Suppose the law wanted him for a murder?
He looked at the palms of his hands. They were not roughened by work, neither were they soft as a gambler’s might have been. Yet he wore a broadcloth suit, which was scarcely right for this country, and he had been riding a good deal for the inside of the legs had taken on a polish from saddle-wear.
Here is another version, which doesn’t get as far yet seems to be a bit more evolved:
He lay face down on the empty plain under a wide sky…around him the short-grass spread in every direction to the horizon.
His horse lay nearby, but the horse was dead.
Light was in the sky, although as yet there was no sun. Nor were there shadows, for this was a land without shadows for there was nothing, anywhere, to cast a shadow.
The dawn built angry red fires along the eastern sky, and the sun’s bow shot crimson arrows aloft where they splashed the clouds with faint pink.
Light came suddenly in this wide land, and with the dawn, the man’s fingers moved.
The fingers stirred upon the grass, and then for a long time nothing else happened, and then the man’s eyes opened.
Awareness came first, then his consciousness began to absorb impressions. He could see only his hand, his forearm, and beyond it the body of the saddled horse. An ant was investigating his hand.
For several minutes he lay perfectly still, having no inclination to move. Gradually, he thought of himself. He was alive…but where was he? How did he happen to be here? What had happened to him?
Drawing his hands back he got them under his shoulders and pushed himself up then drew his knees under him. Instantly he was aware of pain.
His head throbbed dully with a heavy ache that caused him to squint as he stared around him. One of his legs felt stiff and there was stiffness in his neck.
Carefully, he looked all around him, but there was nothing, nothing at all, anywhere.
Now the sun was above the horizon, and the immensity of the sky was frightening, the vastness of the world around him appalling.
He did not know whom he was, what he was, or where he was going. Nor, and this might be even more important, he did not know where he had been.
Lifting his fingers to his neck he found a faint scar there, a long scar that might have been the near miss of a bullet. The wound was just barely healed over.
Tentatively, feeling sure it would hurt, he lifted his hand to his head. His hair was matted with blood. He sat back on his heels and explored his scalp with gentle fingers. There was a furrow around his scalp where a bullet had cut a groove. At the end of it he found the bulge of the bullet itself. The powder charge must have been weak or the bullet had struck him when its strength was expended, and it must have been this that knocked him out.
Or had it been the fall from the horse? If they had seen him fall they could have come up on him and shot him dead…or did they believe him dead?
He took four steps to the horse. It was a magnificent sorrel, and in good shape. Moreover it was built for speed and staying power, and judging from the dried lather on its side, must have run quite a distance at some speed.
The saddle was a good one, and there were saddlebags. In the bags there was ammunition for a Colt pistol and for the .44 Winchester that lay on the ground near where he had fallen. Behind the saddle there was a poncho and a blanket. A suit-coat was wrapped up with them.
There were no wounds on the horse that he could see but there was blood beneath the horse so the wound must be there. There was a bullet scar on the cantle of the saddle, also.
Somebody had tried desperately to kill him, and that being so they might come back looking for the body or for his trail. If found here he could be killed at leisure.
There was no canteen on the saddle. Nor was there any food, so evidently he had not been travelling when they attacked him.
He stripped the saddle from the horse, tugging the girth from beneath it. The saddle was too heavy to carry and there was no place in which to hide it, yet he did not wish the saddle to be found or they would know he was walking. He must bury the saddle and so lead them to believe he had mounted another horse and gone off somewhere.
Instinctively his hand went to his side, feeling for a knife, but no knife was there, nor was there a scabbard. What did that mean? The movement had been natural, practiced. Was he wearing different clothes now than he was used to?
When he had gone less than a hundred yards he found a buffalo wallow where he buried the saddle. There was a rock on the edge of the wallow and he placed it upright as a mark. It was unlikely that he would ever be back, but if he did return he knew where to find a good saddle.
He straightened up from burying the saddle and looked all about him. There were no tracks, anywhere…simply nothing.
He stood there thinking it out. Somebody had tried to kill him and had come close to doing it, and he had no idea why. He did not even know who he was or where he belonged or if he had a home or a wife. He did not know where he was or in which direction it was safe to travel.
He might be a criminal, an outlaw. Regardless of what he was, however, he did not know his enemies nor from which direction trouble might come. His tracks had come from the east; therefore danger must lie in that direction.
But what if the horse had started back of its own volition before dying? No matter…he would head west.
The rifle…he found the date, 1873. So it was at least 1873 and perhaps later for the rifle had seen use. Bringing the lever down to check the load he found the action was damaged and would not work correctly. Yet when he started to pitch the rifle away, he stopped. He knew the weapon was inoperative but nobody else did. He would keep it.
The beginning of the actual novel is, obviously, a significant improvement, and I suspect that at the time Louis wrote these two versions he had no idea of what he was going to do with the story. He was writing to see what came out. At the time, nothing beyond these few pages did, but a few months or years down the road this bare beginning evolved into the novel: The Man Called Noon.
Beau L’Amour
May 2019