Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

they could hope to quiet. I had too many connections, too many people knew of my ranch background, and any story of my accidental death would immediately arouse interest and bring demands for an investigation. This was something that I felt Colin had not grasped, for he was too filled with a sense of his own security, with confidence in his invulnerability.
    But how much good was that going to do me?
    Riding carefully, my eyes began to search out an escape route. Somehow or other I had to get away from them, and I must ride warily while thinking about it. If this horse I rode was dangerous on the high mountain paths, I must be ready to jump from the saddle at any time. So I rode with only my toes in the stirrups, every muscle alert for trouble.
    We came down off the mesa by an easy trail, dropping into a small valley perhaps a mile in length and half that wide. I remembered from my study of aerial photos that there was a trail going out of this valley to the northwest, a trail that led back over the mountains toward Copper Creek.
    That was a way out, and for a moment I fought the temptation to wheel my horse and take it on the run. I had never run from anything yet, but this time I’d let myself get boxed in, and I didn’t like the feeling.
    What about Belle? Would they dare attempt a move against her while I was free and able to talk?
    Suddenly I felt like a fool. What was I getting in such a stew about? If my room had not been bugged, Colin certainly had showed up at a most inopportune time for me. They weren’t people whom I could like, but what had actually happened? True, I had been warned by two people, but on what basis?
    If I escaped at this moment, what could I report to a sheriff? Nothing that would stand up in court, or to which any officer was likely to listen. Yet all my reasoning did not do away with that body in the alley, the body of a man who had planned to meet me.
    Was he killed to keep him from seeing me? And if so, why? What had he planned to say to me?
    A thought occurred to me. Suppose that Pete Alvarez had known something that threatened the Wells family? He might have taunted them with it, letting them know for the first time that someone else knew about it.
    Suppose that Manuel, with that same knowledge, planned to revenge his brother’s death by bringing that knowledge to me, of whom he knew through his brother Pio?
    Or was the danger to me because of my reference to the Toomey brothers during that TV interview?
    Floyd Reese drew up sharply. “Something moved up there!” He spoke to Colin, but we all heard him, the small column having telescoped at the sudden halt.
    “Coyote, probably…or a rabbit,” said Colin.
    “It was a man.”
    There was a low-voiced argument of which I heard one phrase only: “…couldn’t be.”
    My horse was restless at our halting. He shifted nervously, but I made only a slight attempt to curb him, for if he should suddenly start to run I wanted it to seem accidental. In that way I might get a good start before anyone realized what I had in mind.
    Then Floyd Reese led off again, only now he carried his rifle free of its scabbard.
    The trail grew narrower. I rode half turned in the saddle, trying to watch both Reese and Jimbo. The latter saw my attitude and mistook it for fear. “Scared, city boy? Scared you’ll fall? Hell, you wait until you see what’s up ahead!”
    I’d had a bellyful of Jimbo, so I gave it to him. “Hell,” I said, “these mountains wouldn’t make a patch on the San Juans of Colorado…or the Bighorns in Wyoming.”
    He started to speak, but I had the ball and kept it. “Up in Wyoming where I punched cows as a kid this country would pass for flat land.”
    He simply gawked at me—there was no other word for it. “You punched
cows?
”
    “I was punching cattle when you wore pajamas with feet in them.”
    Belle was smiling, and I began to feel better. I’d had about enough of Junior.
    The riders had stopped again, and were looking