Matagorda (1967) by Louis L'amour Read Free Book Online

like that in this country. Not even Mady Coppinger.
    Tom Kittery would be seeing Mady about now. He was a lucky man, Tap was thinking, a very lucky man.
    "Somebody coming," the Cajun said, and vanished into the brush with no more sound than a trail of smoke from the campfire.
    Tap listened, and after a moment he heard the faint sounds. One horse, with a rider-a horse that came on steadily at a fair pace and was surely ridden.
    He got up and moved back from the flames, and the others did the same.
    The rider came on, then drew up while still out in the darkness. "Halloo, the fire!
    I'm riding friendly, and I'm coming in with my hands empty."
    Nobody spoke, and the stranger's horse started to walk. After a moment they could see the rider. He was a stocky, thick-shouldered man with a wide face. Both hands were in the air.
    He rode into the firelight and stopped, his hands still held shoulder-high. "I'm hunting Major Duvarney," he said. "Is he here?"
    Tap stepped out. "I am Tappan Duvarney."
    "And I am Darkly Foster, brother to Lightly Foster, the man you buried at Indianola."
    "I know him," Breck said to Duvarney. "He's all right."
    'Light, and move up to the fire," Tap said. "There's coffee on."
    He watched the man lower his hands, and then step down from the horse. It was a fine animal, and Darkly Foster himself moved with a quick ease that told of strong muscles beneath the homespun clothes. "I am sorry about your brother," Tap said.
    Darkly turned to him. "No need to be sorry. Lightly lived a full life, and a good one. Feel sorry for those who did him in."
    He took a tin cup from his saddle pack and moved to the fire. When he had filled his cup and squatted on his heels he said, "I have come to meet the man who buried my brother. It was a fine thing you did."
    Tap filled his own cup. "I never knew him," he said, "but he had the look of a good man."
    "He was that. A solid man, a trusted man, and a man of courage. Not many would have dared to do what you did, burying him, with Shabbit and the Munsons looking on. Especially after what happened on the wharf."
    "What happened?" Joe Breck asked.
    Foster gestured toward Duvarney. "He treated Wheeler and Eggen Munson to a whipping.
    They started it-picked him for a tenderfoot, and he whipped the two of them so fast he never even mussed his hair. The town's talkin' about it."
    "You never mentioned that," Breck commented.
    "No need. They were feeling their oats and decided to try me on. Neither one of them could fight."
    Joe Breck was silent, and in the silence the fire crackled, and off in the brush one of the horses stamped and blew. A nighthawk wheeled and turned in the sky above.
    "Whatever you're planning," Darkly Foster said, "I'll offer a hand. I can use a gun as good as average, and I can handle horses or cattle."
    "We're driving to Kansas . . . nothing more."
    "You got yourself a hand," Foster said. "I like the way you travel."
    It was long after midnight when Duvarney awakened suddenly. The fire had died to coals, with one thin tendril of flame winding itself around a dry branch. The only other man awake was Darkly Foster, who sat across the clearing, back from the fire.
    Tap listened for a moment, then sat up and reached for his boots. Riders were coming.
    Foster had disappeared from his seat, but could be vaguely seen, well back in the darkness. Duvarney stamped into his boots and skirted the clearing toward Foster.
    "It could be Tom Kittery," he said. "He's due back."
    They waited. Several horses were coming, moving slowly. When they rounded into the clearing, Tap Duvarney swore bitterly.
    Roy Kittery was swaying in his saddle, his face drawn and pale. Pete Remley lay across his saddle, tied on to keep him from slipping off. Tom Kittery had a bloody shirt; only Johnny Lubec seemed to have come off without a wound.
    "They were laying for us," Tom Kittery said as he slid from the saddle. "They'd been watching the Coppinger place, and when we left they let us have it. They