Loius L'Amour Sitka

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ask you. I know you re tired, but ...
I want to go! Rob slid from his horse. I know the way. Four men took Sam
and Fud, their hands tied behind them, and started for the village. The others
followed Captain Hutchins and Walker into the woods, and Rob led the way. Out
there in the stone house Jean LaBarge waited for help, and he was bringing it.
The light outside the knothole slowly turned gray. Unless Rob had reached
them in time Captain Hutchins would now be approaching the place where the
Carters lay in wait for him on Mill Creek Road.
What if Rob was not believed? But he would be, for Rob was a serious boy, not
given to pranks, and he had a way of making people listen to him. He knew how
to talk, and had the words for it. That was because he read books. Jean made a
mental resolution to read more ... if he got out of this. He got to his feet
and went to the door. The cabin smelled of dirty clothes and stale tobacco
smoke. He tried to get his fingers into the crack between the door and the
jamb but there was no space for them, nor could he budge the heavy planks at
the window.
Somewhere out in the woods there was a sound, and he went to the knothole,
peering out. The grass of the clearing beyond the hemlocks was gray with
morning dew; with the rising sun it would turn to silver. A bird came out of a
tree and sat on a stump, preening his feathers. There was no sound, there was
no other movement.
Yet there was ... a stirring of leaves, a branch that moved, and a man
peering furtively out. The bird, frightened, took off in a low swoop for the
trees, and the man named Ring came from the forest and started toward the
house. Jean s throat tightened with fear. Ring was back and he was alone. He
had been running: his breath came in ragged gasps and he walked with swift,
jerky steps. That meant something had happened
Ring hesitated, staring back at the forest and listening. His lank black hair
hung around his ears, his eyes were wild and staring. There was a pistol
tucked in his waistband. He ran on to the stone house and Jean heard him
fumbling with the hasp on the door.
Frightened, his mouth dry, Jean hid where the opening door would conceal him
until the last moment. They would be coming. Rob must have gotten help; Ring
was being chased. If only he could...
The door slammed open and Ring stepped into the room, glaring about like a
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wild animal, looking for Jean. Gasping hoarsely from his run, the man was
beyond reason, beyond thought, filled with murderous rage. He stepped on into
the room, and instantly Jean ducked around the door and ran. Wheeling with
amazing swiftness, the black-haired man grabbed for him. Jean felt the fingers
clutch at his arm, slide off. Then he was out of the door and around the
corner of the house. The man was like a cat. He sprang after him, but Jean
ducked behind a hemlock and froze in place, eyes wide, fear choking him. Ring
stood in the clearing before the house and looked around him slowly. When he
spoke it was in an amazingly cool, almost conversational voice. You surely
needn t try to get away. I know these here woods better n anybody. My name is
Ring and I growed up here.
Jean looked toward the brush, judging the distance. The black-haired man
would not want to use his gun and draw the pursuers to him. The brush was only
fifteen feet away, yet for the time it took to cover that distance he would be
in full view.
I m surely goin to kill you, boy. They done kilt my daddy, an I m a-goin
to kill you.
Jean sprang out and leaped for the brush.
Ring swore, a shrill, whining scream, then lifted his pistol. Realization of
what it might bring made him lower it again. He raced after the boy, but Jean
LaBarge was already into the woods and once more in his own element. He
ducked, dodged, then plunged out into an unexpected little clearing. Behind
him Ring yelped a cry of triumph. And then out of the bushes ahead of them
stepped Captain Hutchins. It s all right boy, Hutchins said quietly. Let
him come.
5
The hardest part had been saying goodbye to Walker, for they had always
planned to go west together, and now he was going and Rob was staying behind.
The next hardest part was to leave the swamp.
Before he left he walked alone to the Honey Tree, and he sat down there where
he and Rob had sat so many times together, and where he had sat so many times
alone. Around the towering tree millions of bees hummed unceasingly, and he
watched them, a lump in his throat.
He told himself he would come back and take that old Honey Tree yet, but deep
down inside he knew he never would, and suddenly he found himself hoping that
nobody else would, either...
Neither Rob nor he had felt like talking. They just stood there, and he
kicked a clod out of the grass on the Walker lawn.
Guess you ll be seein Indians, and everything, Rob said.
I guess so.
You going to write me? You going to tell me all that happens? I ll write
... maybe won t see any post carrier for a long time, but I ll write.
It was his first goodbye, and he did not like it. A long time later, sitting
under the cottonwoods and watching the campfire on the little creek west of
Independence, he thought of that. He missed Rob, and he missed the swamp, too,
but he missed them only a little now because there was so much to see. Not
that there was no trouble, for trouble seemed to go with him wherever he went.
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He remembered what had been said when the others of the westward-bound company [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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