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

men."
    Kittery was silent, his face set in hard lines. "You figure to pay them yourself?
    I hope you've got the money."
    "You have, Tom. You've got the money I loaned you, or whatever of it was saved to finance the drive. You certainly didn't spend it all for cattle."
    Joe Breck was staring at the ground, jabbing at it angrily with a stick. Johnny Lubec, hands on his hips, looked equally angry. Duvarney glanced around at the others. He was alone here, that was obvious.
    "I figured that money was mine. You bought yourself a partnership," Tom Kittery said.
    "I bought half of a cattle drive, not a gun battle. And we'll need some of that money to lay in supplies and pay our way north."
    "There's money," Tom protested. "I never used it all. I figured-"
    "Whatever you planned, Tom, that money is partnership money, not a war chest."
    "All right, all right! Forget it! You want to drive cattle, we drive cattle." Tom looked at Tap. "Damn it, man, I don't want to fight you. If ever a man had a friend, you've been a friend to me. You saved my bacon a couple of times back yonder, and I ain't likely to forget it."
    Each morning at daybreak, Tap Duvarney was in the saddle. He drifted cattle toward the peninsula, and several times at low tide he swam his horse across to the island to check the cattle there. Breck or the Cajun worked with him, and when Roy Kittery had regained some strength he worked as well. Lubec was usually off scouting for enemies, and working out a trail by which they might move the cattle without being seen.
    It was ten days to the day when Welt Spicer rode into camp. With him were eight rough-looking ex-soldiers, three of them still wearing partial uniform. All of them were armed; all looked fit and ready for whatever came.
    Gallagher, Shannon, and Lahey were New York-born Irishmen, Lawton Bean was a long-geared Kentuckian, Jule Simms was from Oregon, and wanted to go back. Doc Belden was a lean, sardonic Texan; and Judson Walker and Lon Porter were Kansans. All had served in the cavalry against Indians and Mexican bandits, and were veterans of the rough and ready life of the frontier.
    Tom Kittery stood beside Tap Duvarney as the men rode in and unsaddled. "With an outfit like that ," he said, "we could run those Munsons clear out of the country."
    "Forget it. I hired them to run cattle."
    "You've made that plain enough," Tom said dryly. "Come on, let's have a cup of coffee and hear what Johnny has to say."
    Lubec squatted on his heels and, taking a twig from the fire's edge, traced the route as he talked. "The way I see it, our best chance is to head northwest of Goliad, cross the San Antonio east of there, and strike due north. We're going to have to camp away from streams and hold to sheltered country, but there's a couple of places where we can bed down without being seen unless somebody rides across country."
    Lubec paused, and glanced from one to the other. "Unless"-he hesitated-"unless you decide to drive to Indianola and ship from there."
    "Indianola?" Tom Kittery shook his head. "It wouldn't work. We'd never make it."
    "Look," Lubec suggested. "Before we get that herd together the Munsons will know about it. In fact, they already know we're planning a drive. So they'll be expecting us to try for Kansas. They'd never dream we'd have the nerve to try for Indianola."
    "It's a thought," Breck said. "And it just might work."
    "Supposing," Lubec went on, "we started our drive like I said, across country to the San Antonio. Then we drive northeast from there, as if we planned to pass Victoria on the south. There's a chance we could pull every Munson out of Indianola and have the cattle in the loading pens there before they knew what had happened."
    No one spoke. Tap Duvarney stared into the fire, thinking about the suggestion. It might mean trouble, big trouble; on the other hand, it might mean a quick and adequate return on his money. The profit would not be as great, but neither would the risks be as great as those