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

with blac k hair and a neck like a column of oak. "The fact that you've th e small end of a fight appeals to me.- He jerked his hea d toward the door. "Katie has said I'm to go to work for you, an' s he'd not take it kindly if I did not."
    "You're Katie's man, then?"
    His eyes twinkled amazingly. "Katie's man? I'm afrai d there's no such. She's a broth of a woman, that one.- H e grinned up at me. "Is it a job I have?"
    "When I've the ranch back," I agreed, "you've a job."
    "Then let's be gettin' it back. Will you wait for me? I'v e a mule to get."
    The mule was a dun with a face that showed all th e wisdom, meanness, and contrariness that have been the trait s of the mule since time began. With a tow sack behind th e saddle and another before him, we started out of town. "M y name is Brian Mulvaney," he said. "Call me what you like."
    He grinned widely when he saw me staring at the butt s of the two guns that projected from his boot tops. "These," h e said, "are the Neal Bootleg pistol, altered by me to sui t my taste. The caliber is thirty-five, but good. Now this"--f rom his waistband he drew a gun that lacked only wheels t o make an admirable artillery piece--"this was a Mills seventy-- f ive caliber. Took me two months of work off and on, but I'v e converted her to a four-shot revolver. A fine gun," he added.
    All of seventeen inches long, it looked fit to break a man's wrists, but Mulvaney had powerful hands and arms.
    No man ever hit by a chunk of lead from that gun would nee d a doctor.
    Four horses were in the corral at the Two Bar, and th e men were strongly situated behind a long barricade. Mulvane y grinned at me. "What'd you suppose I've in this sack, laddie?" he demanded, his eyes twinkling. -I, who was a mine r also?"
    "Powder?"
    "Exactly! In those new-fangled sticks. Now unless i t makes your head ache too much, help me cut a few o' thes e sticks in half." When that was done he cut the fuses ver y short and slid caps into the sticks of powder. "Come now, m e boy, an' we'll slip down close under the cover of darkness, a n you'll see them takin' off like you never dreamed!"
    Crawling as close as we dared, each of us lit a fuse an d hurled a stick of powder. My own stick must have lande d closer to them than I planned, for we heard a startled exclamation followed by a yell. Then a terrific explosion blaste d the night apart. Mulvaney's followed, and then we hastil y hurled a third and a fourth.
    One man lunged over the barricade and started straigh t for us. The others had charged the corral. The man heade d our way suddenly saw us, and wheeling, he fled as if the devi l was after him. Four riders gripping only mane holds dashe d from the corral, and then there was silence. Mulvaney got t o his feet chuckling. "For guns they'd have stood until hel l froze over, but the powder and the flyin' rocks an' dust scare d 'em good. An' you've your ranch back."
    We had eaten our midday meal the next day, when I sa w a rider approaching. It was Olga Maclaren. "Nice to see you,"
    I said, aware of the sudden tension her presence alway s inspired.
    She was looking toward the foundation we had laid fo r the new house. It was on a hill with the long sweep o f Cottonwod Wash before it. "You should be more careful," s he said. "You had a visitor last night."
    "We just took over last night," I objected. "Who do yo u mean?"
    "Morgan. He was out here shortly after our boys go t home. They met the bunch you stampeded from here.-
    "He's been puzzling me," I admitted. "Who is he? Di d he come from around here?"
    "I don't know. He's not talkative, but I've heard hi m mention places back east. I know he's been in Philadelphi a and New York, but nothing else about him except that h e goes to Salt Lake and San Francisco occasionally."
    "Not back east?"
    "Never since we've known him."
    "You like him?"
    She looked up at me. "Yes, Morgan can be very wonderful. He knows a lot about women and the things that pleas e them." There was a flicker of