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

ahead. He did not underrate Bert Polti. The snake-eyed gunman was dangerous, quick as a cat, and vicious as a weasel. The man would kill and kill until he was finally put down full of lead. He would not quit, for there wasn’t a yellow thing about the man. He would kill from ambush, yes. He would take every advantage, for he did not kill from bravado or for a reputation. He killed to gain his own ends, and for that reason there would be no limit to his killing. Yet at best Polti was a tool. A keen-edged tool, but a tool nevertheless. He was a gunman, ready to be used by a keener brain, and such a brain was using him now. Who it was, Kilkenny could not guess. Somehow he could not convince himself that behind the bluff boldness of Webb Steele lived the ice-cold mind of a killer. Nor from what he could discover was Chet Lord different.
    No, the unknown man was someone else, someone beyond the pale of the known, someone relentless and ruthless, someone with intelligence, skill, and command of men. And afterward there would be only the scant food, the harsh living of the fugitive, then again a new attempt to find peace in new surroundings. Someday he might succeed, but in his heart he doubted it.
    He was in danger. The thought impressed him little, for he had always been in danger. The man he sought this time would be aware by now that he knew the danger lay not in Steele or Lord, but outside of them. Yet his very action in telling them what he thought might force the unknown into the open. And that was what he must do. He must force the play until at every move it brought the unknown more and more into the open until he was compelled to reveal himself.
    The direct attack. It was always best with the adroit man. Such a man could plan for almost anything but continuous frontal attack. And he, Kilkenny, had broken such plots before. But could he break this one? Looking over the field, he realized suddenly that he was not sure. This man was cool, deadly, and dangerous. He would anticipate Kilkenny’s moves, and from the shelter of his ghost-like existence he could hunt him, pin him down, and kill him—if he was lucky.
    Kilkenny looked curiously at the mountains ahead. Somewhere up there Forgotten Pass went over the mountains and then down to the Río Grande. It wasn’t much of a pass, as passes go, and the section was barren, remote. But it would undoubtedly be an easy route over which to take cattle to Mexico, and many of the big ranches down there were buying, often planning to sell the rustled cattle they bought back across the border.
    It was almost mid-afternoon before the two riders rounded the shoulder of rock and reined in, looking down the main street of the rickety little town of Apple Cañon. Kilkenny halted his horse and studied the situation. There were four clapboard buildings on one side of the street, three on the other.
    “The nearest one is the sawbones,” Rusty explained. “He’s a renegade from somewheres, but a good doc. Next is the livery stable and blacksmith shop all in one. The long building next door is the bunkhouse. Forty men can sleep there, and usually do. The place after that is Bert Polti’s. He lives there with Joe Deagan and Tom Murrow. On the right side the nearest building is Bill Sadler’s place. Bill is a gambler. Did a couple of stretches for forgery, too, they say. He cooks up any kind of documents you want. After his place is the big joint of Apple Cañon, the Border Bar. That’s Nita’s place. She runs it herself. The last house, the one with the flowers around, is Nita’s. They say no man ever entered the place. You see”—Rusty glanced at Lance—“Nita’s straight, though there’s been some has doubted it from time to time. But Nita, she puts ’em right.”
    “And the place up on the cliffs beyond the town?” Kilkenny wondered. “Who lives there?”
    “Huh?” Rusty scowled his puzzlement. “Where you mean?”
    Kilkenny pointed. High on a rocky cliff, in a place that