Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online

had punched cows, ridden the cattle trails north. He had, one time and another, tried everything, been everywhere a man could go on a horse. Usually he rode alone. But slowly and surely down the years he began picking up lore on Lance Kilkenny. He had it at his fingertips now.

Chapter VI
    Everyone, Rusty Gates thought, knew about Hickok; everyone knew about John Wesley Hardin, and about Ben Thompson and his partner, Phil Coe. Not many knew about Kilkenny. He was a man who always moved on. He stayed nowhere long enough to build a solid reputation. Always it seemed, he had just gone. There was something so elusive about him, he had come to seem almost a phantom. Someone picked trouble with him, someone was killed, and Kilkenny was gone. Once they tried to rob him in a gambling den in Abilene. Two men had died. Apaches had cornered him in a ruined house in New Mexico, and, when the Apaches had drawn off, they had left seven dead behind them. In a hand-to-hand fight in Trail City he had whipped three men with fists and chairs. Then, when morning came, he was gone.
    The stories of the number of men he had killed varied. Some said he had killed eighteen men, not countingIndians and Mexicans. The cattle buyer back in Dodge, who had made a study of such things, said he had killed not less than twenty-nine. Of this Kilkenny said nothing, and no man could find him to put the question.
    “You know,” Rusty said suddenly, breaking in on his own thoughts of Kilkenny, “the Brockmans hang out in Apple Cañon.”
    “Yeah.” Kilkenny sat sideward in the saddle, to rest. “I know. We might run into ’em.”
    “Well,” Rusty said, and he rolled the chew of tobacco in his jaws and spat, “there’s better places to meet ’em than Apple Cañon. There’ll be fifty men there, mebbe a hundred, and all friends of the Brockmans.”
    Kilkenny nodded and rolled a smoke. Then he grinned whimsically. “What you worried about?” he asked. “You got fifty rounds, ain’t you?”
    “Fifty rounds?” Gates exclaimed. “Shore, but shucks, man, I miss once in a while.” He looked at Kilkenny speculatively. “You seen the Brockmans? They’ll weigh about forty pounds more’n you, and you must weigh two hundred. I seen Cain Brockman shoot a crow on the wing!”
    “Did the crow have a gun?” drawled Kilkenny.
    That, decided Rusty, was a good question. It was one thing to shoot at a target even such a fleeting one as a bird on the wing. It was quite something else when you had to shoot at a man with a flaming gun in his fist. Yes, it made a sight of difference.
    “By the way”—Kilkenny turned back in his saddle—“I want the Brockmans myself.”
    “Both of ’em?” Rusty was incredulous. “Listen, I…”
    “Both of ’em,” Kilkenny said positively. “You keep the sidewinders off my back.”
    Rusty glanced up and saw a distant horseman coming toward them at an easy lope. He was still some distance away.
    “Somebody comin’,” he told Kilkenny. “One man.”
    “It’s Steve Lord,” Kilkenny said. “I picked him up a couple of miles back.”
    “Don’t tell me you can see his face from here!” Rusty protested. “Why I can barely see it’s a man!”
    “Uhn-huh.” Kilkenny grinned. “Look close. See the sunlight glintin’ on that sombrero? Steve has a hatband made of polished silver disks. Not common.”
    Rusty spat. Easy enough when you figure it out, he thought, but not many would think of it. Now that it was mentioned he recalled that hatband. He had seen it so many times it no longer made an impression.
    Suddenly he asked Kilkenny: “About that Mendoza deal. I was in Sonora after you killed him. I heard he was the fastest man in the world with a gun, then you beat him to it. Did you get the jump or was you just naturally faster?”
    Kilkenny shrugged. “Didn’t amount to much. He beat me to the draw, though.”
    “I didn’t think anybody ever beat you,” observed Rusty.
    “He did. Mebbe he saw me a split