The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 2 by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page B

We’re shorthanded.”
    â€œMight,” Gary admitted. “The grub’s good.”
    â€œGive you forty to drive to Salt Creek. We’ll need he’p. From hereabouts the country is plumb rough, an’ she’s fixin’ to storm.”
    â€œYou’ve hired a hand. When do I start?”
    â€œCatch a couple of hours sleep. Tobe has the first ride. Then you take over. If you need he’p, just you call out.”
    Gary shook out his blankets and crawled into them. In the moment before his eyes closed he remembered the cattle had all worn a Double A brand, and the brands were fresh. That could easily be with a trail herd. But the Double A had been the spread that Mart Ray had mentioned.
    It was raining when he rode out to the herd. “They ain’t fussin’,” Langer advised, “an’ the rain’s quiet enough. It should pass mighty easy. See you.”
    He drifted toward the camp, and Gary turned up his slicker collar and studied the herd as well as he could in the darkness. They were lying quiet. He was riding a gray roped from the small remuda, and he let the horse amble placidly toward the far side of the meadow. A hundred yards beyond the meadow the bulk of the sloping hill that formed the opposite side of the valley showed blacker in the gloom. Occasionally there was a flash of heat lightning, but no thunder.
    Slagle had taken him on because he needed hands, but none of them accepted him. He decided to sit tight in his saddle and see what developed. It could be plenty, for unless he was mistaken, this was a stolen herd, and Slagle was a thief, as were the others.
    If this herd had come far and fast, he had come farther and faster, and with just as great a need. Now there was nothing behind him but trouble, and nothing before him but bleak years of drifting ahead of a reputation.
    Up ahead was Mart Ray, and Ray was as much a friend as he had. Gunfighters are admired by many, respected by some, feared by all, and welcomed by none. His father had warned him of what to expect, warned him long ago before he himself had died in a gun battle. “You’re right handy, son,” he had warned, “one of the fastest I ever seen, so don’t let it be known. Don’t never draw a gun on a man in anger, an’ you’ll live happy. Once you get the name of a gunfighter, you’re on a lonesome trail, an’ there’s only one ending.”
    So he had listened, and he had avoided trouble. Mart Ray knew that. Ray was himself a gunman. He had killed six men of whom Jim Gary knew, and no doubt there had been others. He and Mart had been riding together in Texas and then in a couple of trail drives, one all the way to Montana. He never really got close to Mart, but they had been partners after a fashion.
    Ray had always been amused at his eagerness to avoid trouble, although he had no idea of the cause of it. “Well,” he had said, “they sure cain’t say like father, like son. From all I hear your pappy was an uncurried wolf, an’ you fight shy of trouble. You run from it. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you was yaller.”
    But Mart Ray had known him well, for it had been Jim who rode his horse down in front of a stampede to pick Ray off the ground, saving his life. They got free, but no more, and a thousand head of cattle stampeded over the ground where Ray had stood.
    Then, a month before, down in the Big Bend country, trouble had come, and it was trouble he could not avoid. It braced him in a little Mexican cantina just over the river, and in the person of a dark, catlike Mexican with small feet and dainty hands, but his guns were big enough and there was an unleashed devil in his eyes.
    Jim Gary had been dancing with a Mexican girl, and the Mexican had jerked her from his arms and struck her across the face. Jim knocked him down, and the Mexican got up, his eyes fiendish. Without a word, the Mexican went for his