Novel 1966 - Kid Rodelo (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

then the Gulf.”
    “You won’t make it unless you give the horses a rest,” Rodelo replied. “We’ve pushed them hard.”
    Harbin’s face was streaked with sweat trails through the dust. His eyes were cruel when he turned to look at Rodelo. “I don’t figure you,” he said, “and I don’t trust you. Just where do you come into this, anyway?”
    “I’m in,” Dan replied shortly. “I’m in up to my neck.”
    “We can change that,” Harbin said, drawing up. He swung his horse a trifle to face Rodelo. “We can change that right here.”
    “Don’t talk foolish,” Rodelo replied. “You wouldn’t have a chance without me. There’s damn little water in this desert, and you’ve got to know where it is to find it.”
    “She knows.” Harbin jerked his head to indicate Nora. “She told us about a place.”
    “A fat lot of good that will do you until you get there…and maybe that was a rain pool. It might all be gone by now. How long do you think an exposed pool will last in this heat?”
    Tom Badger had been sitting his horse watching, withholding comment. He had nothing to lose if Harbin died; but, because of the water, a great deal to lose if Rodelo was telling the truth.
    “Hold off, Joe,” he said at last. “Dan’s right. This here country is hotter’n the floors of hell, and dryer. How long d’you think we’d last without water?”
    Joe Harbin touched his parched lips, the cold hand of truth warning him as nothing else might have done. And there was no turning back now. It was go through or die.
    “Aw, forget it!” he said. “Let’s get on.”
    The trail showed plainly enough and Dan Rodelo watched him start off, followed by Gopher and Badger. Nora fell in beside him.
    “He’ll kill you, Dan,” she said.
    “Maybe.”
    “He’s killed quite a few men.”
    “And some day he’ll get killed—maybe by me.”
    She studied him. “Have you ever used a gun—like that, Dan?”
    “Some,” he admitted.
    No use telling her how much, nor where and why. He knew far too little about Nora Paxton, and little enough about the others. As long as Joe Harbin felt he could kill him whenever he wanted to, Rodelo was sure of a fair chance. At this stage of the game, if Harbin guessed it might be a contest he would shoot him out of hand.
    Rodelo mopped the sweat from his face and turned to look back. He could see nothing but dancing heat waves, shimmering their watery veil across the distance. If the Yaquis were back there, they were beyond those heat waves.…He rode on.
    Only he himself knew what a chancy game he was playing, only he could know how much was at stake, and how wild the gamble he was taking. Yet what he was doing had to be done, for himself, at least. For in the last analysis a man must be true to himself first, and what was at stake in this was his own estimate of himself, and much, much more.
    He rode with men he knew would kill, men who he knew had only hate for him, the interloper. Hate, and a question. Badger and Harbin, and maybe Gopher…any of them would kill him if the time was right. They would kill him for a canteen, a horse, a gun, or just because they hated him.
    At the moment Harbin wanted to kill him because he talked too much to Nora, but Rodelo knew that within hours that would no longer be important. In the last hours it would be his own life that each man thought of and fought for. Beauty faded under the hot sun, and even sex came to nothing when one was faced with the raw and bloody face of death.
    They all knew something of the country ahead, some by experience and some by hearsay. But only Dan Rodelo knew it well, and even he did not know it perfectly. No one did. No one wanted to remain there long enough to know it. There was no worse country anywhere than what lay before them. They did not have water enough. There were very few water holes, and those might not have water for more than one man, or one man and his horse.
    Rodelo thought of the men riding ahead of him.