Luke's Gold by Charles G. West Read Free Book Online

we’ll call it a draw,” he mumbled, picking up his hat and his knife. Then without looking either Luke or Cade in the eye, he walked away, feeling he had just stared death in the face.
    They both waited until they were sure he was gone before lowering their weapons. “You always sleep with that Colt in your hand?” Luke asked.
    â€œNo,” Cade replied. “I just figured this would probably be the time Brady would make good on his promise to get even for what I did to his nose.”
    â€œYou had me goin’ there for a minute,” Luke confessed. “I thought you was fixin’ to shoot him.”
    â€œI was,” Cade said.
    Luke thought about that for a moment. “Oh. . . . Well, it’s mornin’ and I’m sober as hell now, so I’ll ask you again. How about goin’ to Virginia City with me?”
    Cade didn’t answer right away. His mind had wandered elsewhere for a few seconds, thinking about how close he had just come to killing a man. It was not an idle boast to Luke that he would have shot Brady, but Cade felt relieved that his hand had not been called. His thoughts flashed back to a small boy struggling up between the adobe walls of two buildings, straining to hold on to his father’s heavy rifle. For years, the shocked faces of two defenseless men often returned to haunt his dreams before they faded into the back recesses of his mind.
    Realizing then that Luke was waiting for an answer to his question, Cade replied, “All right, partner,” his face finally breaking into a smile, “let’s go pick us a couple of Mr. Becker’s horses, and get the hell away from here.”
    â€œHod-damn!” Luke exclaimed. “Let’s head for the high country!”
    Â 
    Becker had used one of the holding pens to separate the stock he planned to drive back to Texas. The rest of the remuda was left to graze on the bunchgrass near the river. It was early still, so none of the other men were there. Some of them would be lucky to make it back before noon after a full night of drinking and carousing. Of the eight horses Cade had used most often during the drive, he saw that most of them were left to graze. Luke had his eye on a bay mare named Sleepy that he said fit his gait better than any horse he had ever ridden, so they went after her. She wasn’t particularly interested, but Cade finally threw a rope on her after a couple of tries. The rest of the horses had stood and watched the two men until Cade was successful in roping Sleepy. Then as if on a signal, they moved quickly off about a hundred yards. “Don’t look like none of ’em wants any part of us,” Luke joked as he slipped his bridle on Sleepy. Cade was about to agree when Luke spoke again. “Wait a minute. I believe we got us a volunteer,” he said, pointing behind Cade.
    Cade turned to see Loco plodding deliberately toward him from a grassy gully near the river. He expected the skittish gray gelding to trot off to join the other horses, but it continued to approach him until, finally, it halted before Cade and Luke.
    â€œWould you look at that,” Luke marveled. “It looks like he’s pickin’ you.” He chuckled, amused by the notion that a horse every cowboy in the crew tried to avoid because of its skittish and unpredictable nature had actually taken to Cade. “Well, I’ll be gone to hell,” he exclaimed a moment later when the ornery gray horse took another step forward to nudge Cade in the chest with its muzzle. “That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”
    Cade was equally amazed by the gelding’s unexpected behavior, but having worked with horses since he was barely able to sit in a saddle, he didn’t question it. He believed that a horse could sense the worth of a man, and was gifted with a lot more intuition than his two-legged masters. Cade was convinced that Loco knew he wouldn’t