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

there, but a few minutes later the young man he had spotted as Tetlow came into the room. He glanced at Doc and then at Kilkenny with friendly, questioning eyes. Neither appeared to notice him, and flushing, he seated himself alone.
    The waitress came in and took their orders and Blaine ate in silence. “Trouble?” Kilkenny asked at last.
    “Usual. Root’s wife is ailing. She’s worked all her life to help her husband build a home and she’s killing herself. She needs a rest more than anything else. She don’t want me to examine her, but I’m going to. Nice family. Poor,” he added, “but energetic. The kind of people who do half the work of the world but never succeed in profiting from it. Stubborn, sincere, hard-working, but not acquisitive.”
    “You find them all over the West,” Kilkenny said. He grinned suddenly. “Maybe I’m one of them.”
    Blaine looked up briefly, looking right into Kilkenny’s eyes directly and with faint humor. “You’re a Western type, as familiar as they are,” he said, “but different.”
    “You’ve got me pegged?”
    “Of course. You’re a cut above the average of your type, but still one of them. You’re not even strictly a Western product. Your type has drifted up and down the world since it began. The lone hunter, the man on the prowl, the fighter for lost causes, the man who understands weapons better than women and understands women quite well. Yes, I know your type. They sailed with Drake, they built the Hudson Bay Company. They were the backbone of the free companies of the Middle Ages.”
    “You’re flattering.”
    “Am I?” Blaine looked up quickly. “Well, it depends on how you take it. Flattering, perhaps, but not reassuring. Your type fights the wars of the world and gets nothing from it but a lonely grave somewhere and the memory in the minds of a few men who die and then there is nothing.”
    Kilkenny laughed softly, his green eyes lighting up. “Yes, maybe you’re right.” As the doctor got to his feet, he added, “Give my regards to the Roots. Tell them a man named Trent will call on them some day.”
    When Blaine had gone, Kilkenny turned to his meal with interest and a hunger he had not realized he possessed. He was aware of the presence of Ben Tetlow but he said nothing and made no move to speak. The door opened and another man entered. Both looked up. This was a tall, fine appearing man with a trimmed gray mustache, gray hair and a fine, aristocratic face and the bearing to match. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Robert Early.”
    “Trent, here.”
    The lawyer looked at him keenly. “Heard about you. My niece tells me you gave her quite a shock at Clifton’s.”
    Ben Tetlow was scarcely listening, but at that name he stiffened. Kilkenny threw him a quick glance, but Ben Tetlow did not look up. Sensing something wrong, Early glanced quickly from one to the other, puzzled by their reaction.
    Tetlow was thinking swiftly. Yesterday Laurie Webster, this man’s niece, had mentioned seeing Trent kill a man. Now Early said it had happened at Clifton’s. Of course, other men had been killed there, but this could only mean one man. Trent had killed his brother!
    Ben glanced sharply around, staring at this man. He recalled what they had said. The flashing draw, the one shot, the gun only half-drawn from his brother’s holster. And his brother had been considered fast, had bragged that he was faster than Billy the Kid.
    “Your niece is a very lovely girl,” Kilkenny was saying, “and I’m truly sorry for what happened. One can’t always choose the course of one’s actions. I wanted no trouble.”
    “So I heard.” Early ordered and looked back at him. “Staying with us?”
    “Yes.” Kilkenny was acutely aware of the presence of Tetlow. Inwardly he was wondering what Ben’s course of action would be. This was the only Tetlow he had actually talked to except for the dead brother, but he seemed