Collection 1989 - Long Ride Home (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

ambush, and Ollie was down, and Stecher was stretched at full length, hands empty.
    Kim looked down at Het. The oldster’s eyes were open and he was grinning. “Tough!” he whispered. “I told Matty you was tough! He wouldn’t listen to…to an…to an old man…
    â€œOllie,” he whispered, “no guts. If I’d o’ spawned the likes o’ you…!” His voice trailed away and he panted hoarsely.
    â€œHet,” Kim squatted beside him, “the Law sent us down here. The United States Government. That gold was rightly theirs, Het. You’re goin’ out, and you don’t want to rob the Government, do you, Het?”
    â€œGover’ment?” He fumbled at the word with loose lips. He flopped his hand, trying to point, at the boulder where they had waited. “Cave…under that boulder…”
    His words trailed weakly away and he panted hoarsely for a few minutes, and then Kim Sartain saw a buzzard mirrored in the old man’s eyes, and looking up, he saw the buzzard high overhead, and looking down, he saw that Het Morse was dead.
    Bud Fox walked up slowly, his freckles showing against the gray of his face. “Never liked this killin’ business,” he said. “I ain’t got the stomach for it.” He looked up at Kim. “Reckon you pegged it right when you had me come on ahead.”
    â€œAn’ you picked the right spot to wait,” Kim agreed dryly.
    â€œIt was the only one, actually.” Bud Fox looked around. “Reckon we can load that gold on their horses. You goin’ to stop by for that Jeanie girl?”
    â€œWhy, sure!” Kim whistled and watched the Appaloosa come toward him. “We’ll take her to Carson. I reckon any debt she owed has been liquidated right here.” Then he said soberly, “I was sure the first day we rode in. Behind the bottles on the back bar I saw an awl an’ a leather-worker’s needle. They opened the stitching on those pouches while Farrow was sparkin’ Hazel. They got the information thataway, then put the letters back and stitched ’em up again.”
    Behind them they left three mounds of earth and a cross marking the grave of Het Morse. “He was a tough old man,” Bud Fox said gloomily.
    Kim Sartain looked at the trail ahead where the sunlight lay. A cicada lifted its thin whine from the brush along the trail. Kim removed his hat and mopped his brow. “He sure was,” he said.
    THAT TRIGGERNOMETRY TENDERFOOT
----
    I T WAS SHORTLY after daybreak when the stage from Cottonwood rolled to a stop before the wide veranda of the Ewing Ranch house. Jim Carey hauled back on the lines to stop the dusty, champing horses. Taking a turn around the brake handle, he climbed down from the seat.
    A grin twisted his lips under the brushy mustache as he went up the steps. He pulled open the door and thrust his head inside. “Hey, Frank!” he yelled. “Yuh t’ home?”
    â€œSure thing!” A deep voice boomed in the hallway. “Come on back here, Jim!”
    Jim Carey hitched his six-shooter to a more comfortable position and strode back to the long room where Frank Ewing sat at the breakfast table.
    â€œI brung the new schoolma’am out,” he said slowly, his eyes gleaming with ironic humor as the heads of the cowhands came up, and their eyes brightened with interest.
    â€œGood thing!” Ewing bellowed. His softest tone could be heard over twenty acres. “The boys are rarin’ t’ see her! So’s Claire! I reckon we can bed her down with Claire so’s they can talk all they’re a mind to!”
    Jim Carey picked up the coffee cup Ma Ewing placed for him. “Don’t reckon yuh will, Frank,” he said. “Wouldn’t be quite fittin’.”
    â€œWhat?” Ewing rared back in his chair. “Yuh mean this here Boston female is so high an’ mighty she figgers