Kilkenny 03 - Kilkenny (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online

after him. A man who carried a rifle, and who after a moment of waiting, lighted his own cigarette revealing a strongly handsome, yet savage face. And when he walked away with the cigarette cupped in his palm, his feet made no sound, but moved silently through the brush and grass, silently even over the gravel.
    He walked up toward the house, and nearing it, saw another man seated in the black opening of the bunk-house door. “It’s me, Cain.” The man’s voice was low, a soft, fluid tone. “
He
was out there tonight, Cain.”
    Cain Brockman came to his feet, a huge man, bulking an easy two forty in jeans and a hickory shirt. Twin guns were belted to his hips. “You mean…
Kilkenny?
”
    “Si, amigo.” Jaime Brigo drew deep on his cupped cigarette. “And I am glad.”
    “Are you going to tell
her?
”
    Brigo shrugged. “Who knows? I have not thought. Maybe he does not wish it.”
    “Yeah, although he’s crazy not to. What man in his right mind would run away from such a woman as that?”
    Brigo did not answer, taking another deep drag on the cigarette and then crushing it out in the earth at his feet. “Perhaps, amigo, he does well. Who knows when such a man may die? He thinks of that.”
    “Anybody who kills him,” Cain said gruffly, “will have to shoot him in the back! Nobody ever lived could drag a gun like him.”
    “They shot Wild Bill so. Have you forgotten? Be sure that
he
has not. But I am glad he is here, for there will be trouble with the Forty.”
    Brockman agreed to that. “When wasn’t there trouble with the Tetlows? Don’t I know? I was in Uvalde when they started that fight with the McCann outfit.”
    He sat down again, then he wondered aloud, “Where’s he livin’? Suppose he’s got him a place?”
    Brigo did not reply, and Brockman turned to repeat the question and saw the big Yaqui was gone. He had slipped away with no more sound than a ghost.
    Jamie Brigo tapped softly on the door of the ranch house and he heard the reply. Opening the door, he stepped in, a huge man, big-chested and yet moving like a cat.
    Nita Riordan smiled quickly, a tall girl with long green eyes and very black lashes. “Come in, Jaime! It’s good to see you. What has been happening?”
    Briefly, the big Yaqui explained to her about the shooting of Carson and the threatening of Carpenter, of which he had heard almost at once. They had talked of this before, and he had been working for the family long before her father’s death and knew how this girl felt about such things. He told her what he had been able to find out about the Tetlows and how they had come into the country with their immense herds, many wagons, and Tetlows four sons—of whom but three were left.
    “The other?”
    “He was killed at Clifton’s.” Brigo hesitated and Nita looked up quickly, her face suddenly white.
    “Jaime! Was it…was it
Lance?
”
    The Yaqui shrugged. “I do not know, señorita. It was a tall man in black. He was riding through. It was young Tetlow who began it. He forced the fight on the other man, who was already wounded.”
    “Do you think we’ll ever see him again, Jamie?”
    Brigo hesitated, tempted to tell her of what he had seen this night, yet he was torn between two loyalties, that to his employer and friend, and that to the man she loved—who was also his friend. And whom he understood as few men could. “I think—yes, I think so,” he said at last. “He will come back one day, when you need him he will come.”
    “You sound so sure.”
    “And you?” Jaime asked shrewdly. “Are you not sure?”
    “Yes, I guess I am.” She got up quickly. “Jaime, is Cain out there on watch? If he is, why don’t you have him come in? I’ll make some coffee for both of you. Marie has gone to bed.”
    Brigo nodded and turned to the door. He was gone almost without a sound. Nita walked through the short hallway to the kitchen. Had she been imagining it, or had Jaime seemed
too
sure? Had he seen Kilkenny? She