Riders Of the Dawn (1980) by Louis L'amour Read Free Book Online

wounds to do it today, but don't be impatient. You'll get you r bellyful of it when the time comes." Turning my back o n him, I lifted my glass. "Gentlemen, your health!" And then I w alked out of the place.
    There was the good rich smell of cooked food and coffe e when I opened the door of Mother O'Hara's. "Ah? It's you , then! And still alive! Things ain't what they used to be aroun d here! Warned off by Maclaren, threatened by Jim Pinder , beaten by Morgan Park, and you're still here!"
    "Still here an' stayin', Katie O'Hara," I said, grinning a t her, "and I've just said that and more to Morgan Park."
    "There's been men die, and you've had the killin' o f some."
    "That's the truth, Katie. I'd rather it never happened , but it's a hard country and a small chance for a man wh o hesitates to shoot when the time comes. All the same, it's a good country, this. A country where I plan to stay and gro w my children, Katie. I'll go back to the Two Bar, and build m y home there."
    "You think they'll let you? You think you can keep it?"
    "They'll have no choice."
    Behind me a door closed and the voice of Rud Maclare n was saying, "We'll have a choice. Get out of the countr y while you're alive!"
    The arrogance in his voice angered me, so I turned an d faced him. Canaval and Morgan Park had come with him.
    "The Two Bar is my ranch," I said, "and I'll be staying there.
    Do you think yourself a king that you can dictate terms to a citizen of a free country? You've let a small power swell you r head, Maclaren. You think you have power when all you hav e is money. If you weren't the father of the girl I'm to marry , Maclaren, I'd break you just to show you this is a free countr y and we want no barons here.-
    His face mottled and grew hard. "Marry my daughter?
    You? I'll see you in hell first!"
    "If you see me in hell, Maclaren," I said lightly, -you'l l be seeing a married man, because I'm marrying Olga and yo u can like it or light a shuck! I expect you were a good ma n once, but there's some that cannot stand the taste of power , and you're one."
    My eyes shifted to Morgan Park. "And there's anothe r beside you. He has let his beef get him by too long. He use s force where you use money, but his time is running out, too.
    He couldn't break me when he had the chance, and when m y time comes, I'll break him."
    More than one face in the room was approving, even i f they glared at me, these two. "The trouble is obvious," I c ontinued. "You've never covered enough country. You thin k you're sitting in the center of the world, whereas you're just a couple of two-bit operators in a forgotten corner.-
    Turning my back on them I helped myself to the Iris h stew. Maclaren went out, but Park came around the tabl e and sat down, and he was smiling. The urge climbed up i n me to bat the big face off him and down him in the dirt as h e had me. He was wider than me by inches, and taller. Th e size of his wrists and hands was amazing, yet he was not al l beef, for he had brains and there was trouble in him, troubl e for me.
    When I returned to my horse, there was a man sittin g there. He looked up and I was astonished at him. His fac e was like that of an unhappy monkey, and he was without a hair to the top of his head. Near as broad in the shoulders a s Morgan Park, he was shorter than me by inches. "By the loo k of you," he said, "you'll be Matt Sabre."
    -You're right, man. What is it about?"
    "Katie O'Hara was a-tellin' me it was a man you neede d at the Two Bar. Now I'm a handy all-around man. Mr. Sabre , a rough sort of gunsmith, hostler, blacksmith, an' carpenter , good with an ax. An' I shoot a bit, know Cornish-styl e wrestlin', an' am afraid of no man when I've my two hand s before me. I'm not so handy, with a short gun, but I've a couple of guns of my own that I handle nice."
    He got to his feet, and he could have been nothing ove r five feet four but weighed all of two hundred pounds, and hi s shirt at the neck showed a massive chest covered