The Plains of Laramie by Lauran Paine Read Free Book Online Page B

across the verandah toward his horse. He knew she was watching him, because he didn’t hear the door close. A man’s gruff voice came to him as he untied the horse, and, despite his resolve not to look up, he did anyway.
    A blunt-jawed individual was standing next to the wisp of a girl in the doorway, glowering down at him. The Kid flipped his reins, turned his horse a little, and had one foot in the stirrup when he heard the man’s spurs ringing across the verandah, coming toward him.
    He was about to swing aboard when a surly voice spoke behind him: “Don’t let me catch you trespassin’ on the D-Back-To-Back again, mister.”
    The Kid’s foot slid easily out of the stirrup and he turned slowly. His eyes were level with the angry brown eyes when he spoke softly: “I don’t believe I know you, hombre .”
    “Jeff Beale, foreman of the D-Back-To-Back. I’m the one who gives the orders hereabouts, hombre , an’ I’m tellin’ you not to set foot on this here range again.”
    Normally the Kid might have overlooked the man’s big talk, but now there were two reasons why he didn’t. One was the girl still standing in the shadowy doorway, and two was the discomfort and hurt of her words. In short, the Vermilion Kid had absorbed about all the unpleasantness a man could accommodate in so short a space of time. He didn’t answer at all, but his gloved fist dropped behind the slope of his shoulder in a flashing fraction of aquick second, then arose with the mauling, bruising weight of his whipcord body behind it. If the foreman saw it coming, he made no move to get away. The fist chopped and popped like a bullwhip when it connected with his square jaw. Jeff Beale went over backward like a poleaxed steer.
    The Kid swung back toward the girl. “I don’t know why, Miss Dodge, but every time I try to talk to you there’s trouble.” His voice was calm and his smokegray eyes were mildly puzzled. “I’m sorry about this”—he jutted his chin toward the inert form of Beale—“but you’re a witness that I didn’t start it.” Seeing that the girl was listening and looking at him in silence, he took another plunge. “I wish you’d let me help you. I’ve been around things like this before an’ maybe I could do some good. At any rate, I’d sure like to try.”
    For the first time since he’d known her, her voice wasn’t ringing with pure contempt when she spoke. “And if I agreed, what would your pay be?”
    He admired her common sense and couldn’t help but smile a little lopsidedly. “Nothin’, ma’am. I don’t want your money. Just agree to let me sleep in the bunkhouse an’ eat with the other D-Back-To-Back men, that’s all.”
    Her eyes went to the gently stirring form of Jeff Beale. “Help him up and we’ll talk about it.”
    Beale stood on wobbly legs and ran an exploratory hand over his bruised jaw. He was listening to Toma Dodge, but his squinted eyes were thoughtfully on the blank, unsmiling face of the Vermilion Kid. Finally he nodded. “All right, Toma, if that’s what you want, we’ll try it, but…” The brown eyes were perplexed and Beale shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. I guess we can try him out, anyway.”
    The Kid rode back to Holbrook, stuffed his scanty gear into his saddlebags, paid his bill at the Royal House, and returned to the D-Back-To-Back. When he was putting up his horse, three cowboys sauntered over to the corral and watched him in impassive silence. He nodded, and the riders nodded back. The Kid had been a cowboy once and he knew what the men were doing. They were appraising him—evaluating his appearance, his tack and his horse; from these things they would deduce his status among them.
    Apparently the silent judgment was favorable because he was gradually included in the men’s jokes and hazing until, after two days on the ranch, the Vermilion Kid was more at home than he had been in many years. Jeff Beale introduced him to the men. At the sound of his