Novel 1955 - Heller With A Gun (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page B

larger amount in the van where the men lived. On top of each van was a canvas-covered roll of old backdrops and scenes used in some of the various melodramas that were the troupe’s stock in trade.
    â€œFrosty out there,” Healy said.
    â€œWe’re making good time, aren’t we?” Janice asked.
    â€œBetter than on wheels. The snow’s frozen over and we’re moving right along.”
    He did not add what was on his mind, that they had better make good time. As long as the surface was hard, they could keep going, and so far the horses had found grass enough, but the distance was beginning to seem interminable. For the first time Healy was realizing what distance meant in the West.
    Four days now and they had seen nobody, and nothing but snow-covered hills and streams lined with trees and brush. And there were long levels where snow drifted endlessly like sand on the desert. And always the cold.
    Four days, and they had only begun. Yet they had made good time and that worried him. It seemed that Barker was pushing faster than necessary. Yet he hesitated to interfere. Perhaps Barker only wanted to get them out of this open country before another blizzard struck.
    Janice slipped into her coat, throwing her hair over the collar. “Tom, I want to walk a little. Do you want to join me?”
    They sprang down, hand in hand, and stepped off to the side, starting on ahead.
    Barker was sitting his horse, lighting a cigar as they drew abreast of him. He gave them a brief smile. “Cold for walking. Never liked it, myself.”
    â€œDo us good,” Janice said, and they walked on.
    All around was an immensity of snow-covered plains and low hills, here and there cut by the dark line of a ravine. There were many streams, their names singing a sort of wild saga, filled with poetry. Lance Creek, Little Lightning, Old Woman Creek farther back, and Twenty Mile close by.
    â€œWorried, Tom?”
    The question startled him. “Is it that obvious?”
    â€œI thought you were.” They walked three or four steps. “Why?”
    He groped for easy words. “The distance, I guess. It’s this country. It’s too big.”
    â€œHow far do we have to go?”
    Healy side-stepped that question. He did not even like to think of it himself. They walked on, plowed through some snow, and stopped on a ridge. The wind had an edge when it touched the skin. He warmed his face against his hands.
    â€œTom!” Janice was pointing, and his eyes followed her finger to a row of tracks in the snow. Walking on, they came to the tracks and stopped. They were the tracks of a single horse, cutting across the route of the wagons and disappearing over the hills.
    At their wild gesturing, Barker put his horse to a gallop and rode up to them.
    â€œIndians!” Healy said, indicating the tracks.
    Astride his horse, Barker seemed unusually big, indomitable. Yet his face grew cold as he looked at the line of tracks. They were those of a shod horse, going off across the country in a direction where nothing lay.
    No white man in his right mind would be riding away from any known shelter in the dead of winter.
    â€œShod horse,” he said briefly. “It wasn’t an Indian.”
    That Barker was disturbed was obvious. Healy watched him, curious as to why the tracks of a white man should upset him so.
    Barker turned sharply to Janice. “Did that Mabry fellow say anything about catching up?”
    â€œNo. Why should he?”
    Yet, remembering the way he had looked at her, Janice wondered, too, and blushed at the memory. But she should not think of such a man. He was a killer, probably completely vicious under that quiet exterior.
    The mark of the country was on him. Seeing it now, getting the feel of it for the first time, Janice could understand it. He carried the mark of a wild land, a land that was itself aloof and poised. A land where you lost yourself, as they did now, in immeasurable