Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

perhaps two. If we are among friends, it might be longer.”
    The Utes ate in silence for a time, then the long-faced warrior suddenly asked, “You are a pony soldier?”
    “I was a chief among them, but there was no time for my son. He was growing up without me.”
    The Ute said something to the others, who looked at Brionne.
    “You are right,” Brionne said; “you did get away from me, but I was a young warrior then.”
    Surprised that he knew their language, they stared at him. He shrugged, “That was long ago. Now I come to your land as a friend.”
    “How do we know this?”
    “Try me and see…as either friend or enemy.”
    “You have other enemies?” The scarred-faced warrior was prodding him, not with real animosity, but simply to see how he would react.
    “Most of my enemies are dead, but there are some white men who are enemies to me.”
    The Ute chewed on a bone, then threw it aside. “I think you are friend,” he said. “You speak well.”
    The Indian got to his feet, and Brionne stood up with him. Coolly, holding the rifle in his left hand, Brionne extended his right.
    For an instant the Ute studied him; then he clasped his hand in a quick, sharp shake. The next moment they were gone like shadows, and Brionne moved quickly out of the firelight.
    “Come, Mat,” he said, “we will move camp.”
    “Tonight?”
    “It is better.” He threw a blanket over the buckskin. “Mat, I took a chance then, extending my hand to him. He thought of holding it while the others shot me. He thought of it, but he changed his mind.”
    “Why did he?”
    “I don’t know exactly, but you see I was holding his right hand, too, and I shoot very well with my left.”
    “You told them you wanted me to be a great warrior,” Mat said.
    Brionne looked at his son. “I want you to be whatever it takes to make you happy,” he said; “and whatever you do, I want you to do it the best way you can, and then try to do it a little better still.
    “I told him I was teaching you to be a warrior because it was something he would understand, and because it would immediately appeal to him. I do want you to be warrior enough to fight, if necessary, for what you believe, and for what is right.”
    As he spoke he was packing, staying well outside the circle of firelight as he did so. “We will move now, Mat. They might come back.”
    “You do not trust them?”
    “Let’s just say that I don’t want them to be tempted,” Brionne said.
    Leaving the fire burning low, with a ring of earth banked about it to hold it in place, they walked their horses and went like ghosts from their camp. Two miles farther on, they made a dry camp, without a fire.
    Brionne was restless. He was thinking of Anne tonight, as he had thought of her many times of late, wondering what she would have thought of his bringing Mat to this wild land. She had approved most of the things he did, and they had always been able to talk out the small points of disagreement. But he was sure he had done the right thing in coming to this country. Mat needed a new viewpoint, new surroundings, and so did he.
    Then why was he uneasy?
    The question came to him suddenly, sharply thrust into his conscious mind, demanding an answer. For he was uneasy…he was worried.
    It was not the Indians. He had met them, and they were a possible danger. Others he might meet were a probable risk, too, but they were an understandable risk that one accepted when coming into this country. No…there was something else.
    The mysterious shot in Cheyenne…Who could have fired it? And why?
    Brionne was a coolly logical man up to a point, and he examined the facts now.
    He was on no mission for the government. He was involved in no business deal. He had no axes to grind of any kind whatsoever.
    He had no enemies he could think of, other than the Allards, who were somewhere back east. There might be some crack-brain who still wanted to fight the war, but that was unlikely.
    Was it a case of