Loius L'Amour The Tall Stranger

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of weight to get in. Most likely they'd have to put some cribbin' under the
cloud I set on, too."
He chuckled, looking at her. "So you're the girl what's goin' to
marry Rock?"
She jumped, and flushed. "Why! Why, I "
"Don't let it get you down, ma'am! Reckon I'm a blunt old codger.
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It's true enough, the boy ain't said a word to me about it, but I can see
what's in his eyes. I ain't raised the lad for nothin'. When he took off on
this rampage, I was hopin' he'd find himself a gal. You like him, ma'am?" He
looked at her sharply, his eyes filled with humor. "You goin' to marry him?"
"Why, I don't know," she protested. "I don't know that he wants
me."
"Now listen here! Don't you go givin' me any of that demure,
folded-hands palaver. That may go for those young bucks, but not for me. You
know's well as I do if a woman sets her cap for a man he ain't got a chance.
Only if he runs. That's all! Either give up and marry the gal or get clean out
of the country and don't leave no address behind. Nor no trail sign, either!
"You might fool some young sprout with that he-hasn't-asked-me
business, but not me. I seen many a young buck Indian give twenty head of
ponies for some squaw when he could have had better ones for ten. Just because
she wanted him like, and caused him to figure the price was cheap. No, sir!
I'd rather try to get away from a bear trap on each foot and each hand, than a
woman with her head set on marriage."
Flushed with embarrassment, she ignored what he had said.
"Then then, you'll let us have peace, sir? You won't be fighting us if we draw
off from Harper?"
"Of course not, ma'am! I reckon it'd be a right nice thing to have
a few folks around once in a while!" His eyes flashed. "But no more, you
understand. Only this bunch of yours. No more!"
"And we can have our land, then?" she persisted.
"Sure, you can have it. You can have what them other fellows got,
too, when they get out. Sure, you can have it. I can't set my hand to paper on
it, though, because I never did learn to write. That's true, ma'am! Never
learned to write, nor to read. But I can put my name on the side of a house
with a six-shooter. I can do that. But them pens! They always figured to be a
sight too small for my hands. No, I can't read printin', but I can read sign.
I trailed a Blackfoot that stole a horse from me clean to Montany one time.
Trailed him six hundred miles, believe me or not. Yes, ma'am, I come back with
the horse and an Indian scalp. Took it right in his own village."
A startled yell rang out and Springer burst through the door.
"Boss! Boss! Here they come! Oh, quick, man! Here they "
His voice died in the report of a gun, and Hardy Bishop lunged
from his chair to see men charging the porch.
Turner had started from the bunkhouse, but the rush of the horses
rode him down and they heard his wild, agonized screams as he went down under
the pounding hoofs. Sharon never saw the old man reach for his guns, but
suddenly they were spouting flame and she saw a man stagger back from the
door, clutching at his breast, blood pouring over his hand.
Then a wild figure wearing one boot appeared from the other room,
swinging gunbelts about his hips. Then Rock Bannon, too, was firing.
A sound came at the rear window, and Rock turned and fired from
the hip and the dark form looming there vanished. The attack broke, and Rock
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Bannon rushed to the rifle rack and jerked down a Henry rifle. Then he grabbed
another and ran back, thrusting one at Bishop.
The old man dropped to his knees beside a window. "Come up on us
fast!" he said. "I was talkin' to this gal."
Rock's eyes swung to her, and then amazement faded to sudden
grimness. With horror, she saw suspicion mount in his eyes.
A wild chorus of yells sounded from outside, and then a volley of
shots smashed through the windows. The lamp scattered in a thousand pieces,
and from the kitchen they heard cursing, then the crash of a buffalo gun.
"How many did you see?" Rock demanded.
"Most like a dozen," Bishop said. "We got two or three that first
rush!"
"A dozen?" He wheeled to the girl. "Did the settlers come? Did
they? Are they fighting us now?"
"Can't be that," Bishop said, staring out at the ranch yard, his
eyes probing the corral. "No chance of that. This girl come with peace talk."
"And while she was talking, they rode in on us!" Rock raged.
Sharon came up, her eyes wide. "Oh, you can't believe that. You
can't! I "
The thud of bullets into the logs of the house drowned her voice,
and the crashing of guns. Rock Bannon was slipping from window to window,
moving on his feet like an Indian. He had yanked off his other boot now. A
shot smashed the water olla that hung near the door. Bannon fired, and a man
toppled from behind the corner of the corral and sprawled on the hard-packed
ground near the body of Turner.
"They're goin' to rush us," Bannon said suddenly. He began loading
his Colts. "Get set, Hardy. They're goin' to rush."
"Let 'em come! The sneak-thievin', pelt-robbin', trap-lootin'
scum! Let 'em come! More'll come than'll go back!"
As the outlaws rushed suddenly, charging in a scattered line, the
old man burst through the door, his Colt smoking. A man screamed and grabbed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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