Loius L'Amour Sacketts 12 The Lonely Men

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to me, and I never was one to put much stock in reputatations, anyway.
Rocca had let me talk, he just sat quiet, but I'd come up the trail from Yuma
with Tampico Rocca, and knew he was no man to buy trouble with. Arch Hadden
had
lost step, and he tried to get back again.
"I came to kill this greaser, an' I aim to do it." Rocca came to his feet in
one
smooth, easy movement. "Then why not get started?"
The man with the walrus mustache had had more to drink, and he wasn't being
bluffed. He went for his gun, and I straightened my leg with a snap. The
chair
slammed into his legs and he fell against Hadden, and I shot the man on the
end
while they were falling. I heard another gun boom and then Rocca and me were
standing there looking down at Hadden and his brother, one of them in a
half-crouch but off balance, the other on one knee.
"You boys brought it to us," I said. "We didn't ask for it. You brought it,
and
now two of you are dead."
They hadn't looked at their companions until then, and when they did I saw
they
were suddenly cold sober.
"Arch," I said, "you may be a tough man where you come from, but you're a
long
way from home. You take my advice and go back."
Rocca was holding a gun on them, as I was. He reached around with his other
hand
and picked up his beer, and drank it, watching them.
Foster was standing across the room, his back to the bar. "Why don't you boys
pack it up before the law gets here?" he suggested. "I don't want any more
shooting in here. It's bad for business."
"Sure," I said, and holstered my gun. Deliberately I started for the door.
Tampico Rocca had been called a greaser, so he took his time. He put his
glass
down gently and he smiled at them. "Keep your guns," he said, "I want to meet
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you again, se�ores."
Outside in the street we ducked into an alley and stood listening for
footsteps,
but hearing none, we walked away.
At the corral we stopped and leaned on the bars, and Rocca built a cigarette.
"Gracias, amigo," he said. And then he added, "You are quick, amigo. You are
very quick."
Chapter 4
Come daybreak, and worry was upon me. It was a real, old-fashioned attack of
the
dismals.
The shooting of the night before was bad enough, although I never gave much
time
to worry over those who came asking for trouble. When a man packed a gun he
was
supposed to give some thought to his actions and his manner of speech, for
folks
weren't much inclined to set back and let a body run over them.
It was that youngster who was worrying me. There was a small boy, a prisoner
of
the Apaches, or maybe already killed by them. And he was my blood kin.
Nobody knew better than me the distance I'd have to cover and the way I'd
have
to live for the next month or more. It was a hard country, almost empty of
people, scarce of food, and rare of water that was fit to drink. The fact
that
Tampico Rocca was coming along sort of made it better. Two men can't move as
quiet as one, except when one of them is Rocca. But his coming also made it
worse, because if anything happened to him it would be because of me.
Now the first thing I needed was a horse, and I could find none for sale.
Meantime I sort of sauntered around and let folks know I needed a saddle, and
finally bought a beat-up old Spanish single-rig saddle with a mochila, or
housing, to throw over it, and oxbow stirrups. It was almighty old, but in
good
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shape, and a lot of hard use had worn comfort into it. That saddle set me
back
eighteen dollars, and I picked up some old saddlebags for three dollars more.
An
old Army canteen cost me twenty-five cents. Little by little I put an outfit
together, and by the time I'd bought a spare cartridge belt, a bridle, and a
few
other odds and ends I'd spent more than fifty dollars of what little I had.
And
still no horse. Whilst I went around the town of Tucson I kept a careful eye
open for Arch and Wolf Madden. It turned out that one of those boys shot the
night before wasn't dead. He'd been hit hard, but he was going to pull
through.
They planted the other one, wrapped in his blankets, out on Boot Hill.
By noontime I had most of what I would need, but was still shy a horse.
Dropping
in at the Shoo-Fly I figured to have myself a bite of grub, and maybe I could
find somebody with a horse to spare. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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