Novel 1962 - High Lonesome (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page B

was little enough of it to see. There were three long streets and a few cross streets, and the bank was there on the main street, right in plain sight. The corral at the livery stable was at the other end of town.
    If people knew he was in town they would be expecting a fight, and everybody would be excited and ready for it. The first thing was to let them know he was in town, and the second was to make Pete Runyon good and mad. That would not be easy, for Pete was a cool-headed man who thought things out carefully.
    Mary, though…he must see Mary. That would make Pete mad if anything would.
    The crowd would gather fast, once word of the fight got around. The fight would draw everybody down near the corrals, and probably only one man would be left in the bank. The holdup should take no more than five minutes. It could be a smooth, fast job, and with luck they would be off and away before the fight was over.
    If something happened so that guns were fired, then he would lose his crowd fast, and he would have to get out of town the best way he knew how. But what if Pete grew suspicious and started putting two and two together? Then his tail would really be in the crack.
    Considine started his horse again. He drew his gun and spun the cylinder, then checked the spare gun he always carried in his saddlebag.
    The horse he was riding was strange to him, but Honey Chavez said it was the fastest he had. Their own horses would be waiting for them at the box canyon hideout, so they could run these hard getting away, make a quick switch, and head south on their fresh horses.
    The great difficulty, of course, was in these things for which one could not plan successfully—the unexpected, the mistakes made by others which could not be foreseen. A man packing a gun might walk into the bank at the wrong time; somebody might leave the bank and then return; or somebody with a rifle handy might be in one of the second-floor windows.
    Runyon might score a lucky punch and knock him cold…or, just as bad, he might knock Runyon out. The fight must last ten minutes at the very least.
    He looked off to the west, and saw smoke rising. He swore bitterly, remembering that Spanyer and Lennie were traveling that way.
    His thoughts reverted to the problem before him, and he ticked off one by one some of the things he must consider and for which they had tried to plan.
    Mrs. O’Beirne, for instance. That woman never missed a thing, and she kept a shotgun handy. She had used it on a bunch of Indians once with terrible effect. She was nobody to take lightly; after the death of her husband she had put on pants and roped and branded her own stock.
    Tilting his hat back so his face could be plainly seen, he drew up on the edge of town and rolled a cigarette. His mouth felt dry, and there was a tightness in his stomach. Straightening himself in the saddle, he rode around the end of the corral and into the street.
    In his mind he saw the whole vast area around the town as though he soared above it. Here lay the town; to the west rode Spanyer and his daughter. Behind him, soon to turn off in this direction, rode Hardy, Dutch, and the Kiowa. These were the small parts of a machine that had already started to move inexorably toward a given point in time.
    He was not on the wanted list in Obaro. It was known that he had robbed those trains long ago, but there had been no evidence. He could ride freely into the town.
    Here he had lived. These people he knew. He also knew that if he successfully robbed their bank they would pursue him as far as they could, they would capture or kill him if possible; but secretly they would be pleased that, since it had been done, one of their own boys had done it.
    He knew the peculiar philosophy of these people, knew the part that daring and excitement played in their lives. And he knew with a pang that all that was changing.
    With watchful eyes he rode into the street; unconsciously he tipped his hat forward again. A few loafers sat