the Sky-Liners (1967) by Louis - Sackett's 13 L'amour Read Free Book Online Page A

going to have the last word, anyway ... when they found no preacher in town.
    There was a corner at the head of the stairs where a body couldn't be seen from above or below, and I stopped there long enough to reload my gun.
    Galloway was sitting in the lobby holding a newspaper. He looked up at me, a kind of quizzical look in his eyes. "Hear there was a shooting over to the livery," he said.
    "Sounded like it," I agreed, and sat down beside him. In a low tone I added, "That Tory laid for me whilst I was putting hay down the chute. He come close to hangin' up my scalp."
    "Yeah, and you better start pullin' slivers out of your face. The light's brighter down here than in that hallway upstairs."
    Something had been bothering my face for several minutes, but I'd been too keyed up and too busy talking to notice it much. Gingerly, I put my hand up and touched the end of a pine sliver off that post. Two or three of them I pulled out right there, getting them with my fingers, but there were some others.
    We walked down the street to the Peacock, just to look around, and Bat was there. He came over to us, glanced at the side of my face and smiled a little. "I hope you had time to change your socks," he said. "A man can catch cold with wet, muddy socks on."
    Me, I had to grin. "Nothing gets by you, does it?"
    "I saw you go into the barn. I also saw Tory follow you. I saw the track of a sock foot just back of the barn. I kicked straw over it."
    "Thanks."
    "When I take to a man, I stand by him. I have reason to believe that you're honest. I have reason to believe the Fetchens are not."
    But, no matter how good things looked right at that moment, I was worried. Black Fetchen was not one to take Tory's shooting lying down, and no matter what anybody said, he would lay it to me or Galloway. I'd had no idea of killing anybody; only when a man comes laying for you, what can you do? The worst of it was, he'd outguessed me. All the time, he knew about that other door from the loft, and he figured rightly that I'd find it and use it. That he missed me at all was pure accident. I'd been mostly in the dark or he'd have hit me sure, and he'd been shooting to kill.
    After a bit Galloway and me went back to the hotel and crawled into bed. But I slept with a Colt at my hand, and I know Galloway did, too.
    Tomorrow two things would happen, both of them likely to bring grief and trouble. First would be Tory's funeral, and second would be when they tried to find somebody to marry Judith and Black Fetchen.
    Anybody could read a funeral sermon, but it took a Justice of the Peace or an ordained minister to marry somebody.

The Sky-Liners (1967)

Chapter 5
    There was a light rain falling when we went down to the restaurant for breakfast. It was early, and not many folks were about at that hour. The gray faces of the stores were darkened by the rain, and the dust was laid for a few hours at least. A rider in a rain-wet slicker went by on the street, heading for the livery stable. It was a quiet morning in Dodge.
    We stopped at the dining-room door, studying the people inside before we entered, and we found a table in a corner where we could watch both doors. Galloway had the rawhide thong slipped back off his six-shooter and so did I, but we were hunting no trouble.
    Folks drifted in, mostly men. They were cattlemen, cattle buyers, a scattering of ranch hands, and some of the business folks from the stores. A few of them we already knew by sight, a trick that took only a few hours in Dodge.
    There were half a dozen pretty salty characters in that room, too, but Dodge was full of them. As far as that goes, nine-tenths of the adult males in Dodge had fought in the War Between the States or had fought Indians, and quite a few had taken a turn at buffalo hunting. It was no place to come hunting a ruckus unless you were hitched up to go all the way.
    We ordered scrambled eggs and ham, something a body didn't find too much west of the Mississippi, where everything