Adam Steele 39 Rough Justice by George G. Gilman

Author:George G. Gilman [Gilman, George g.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

Stretched out on the cot in a cell of the Rosarita lock-up that provided greater comfort than a lot of other places where Steele had spent a great many nights, his physical hurting diminished for as long as he did not move. And since there was no prospect of immediate freedom with an opportunity to salve his emotional hurts, he found it easy not to dwell on what they were and how he might negate them when the proper time came. Thus resigned to his present circumstances it would have been a simple matter to drift off into an untroubled sleep had his mind and body needed such a degree of rest. For outside of his being everything about his immediate surroundings was peacefully conducive to sleep.

The low light combined the glow from the lamp in the law office and that of the moon in the southern sky. The temperature was pleasantly regulated between the night air from the windows and the stove warmth that wafted through the doorway. In this gently stirring atmosphere there hovered the fragrances of coffee and cooking meat and woodsmoke that served to emphasise the Virginian's feeling of being well fed because they reached him as a subtle background to the clean freshness of the night instead of filling it. Just as the sounds that came into the lock-up were unobtrusive—the turning of a book's pages or the creak of a chair seat from the law office as the Reverend Michael Masterson tried to stay comfortable and to fill his time as a deputy usefully; the infrequent crying of an infant that was made to be strangely melodic by distance; the footfalls and occasional snatch of low talk from people who moved on the street—and never came close enough to the barred windows to give the Virginian pause for thought; and the general mixture of a hum and a buzz that provides an audible backdrop to any community during its most peaceful periods of the daily round. Briefly as he indulged himself in this ambience of relative luxury, Steele allowed the forefront of his mind to be occupied by random recollections of what he had seen of Rosarita and the notions that his impressions of the town had triggered. No town was his kind, as he told Duncan Nelson. But a man who ran a horse ranch could not be entirely self-sufficient and this single street community at the end of a trail and a telegraph line to nowhere seemed to be capable of supplying him with everything he would be likely to need.

What he certainly would not need if he were to put down roots on a piece of land outside of this town was trouble with the local lawman and a rich and powerful neighbouring rancher. So, if he were able to buy the Begley spread—and he first had to see if it was suitable for his purpose and then talk business with the city-style new owners—it seemed like there were some men to bring around to his way of thinking before he turned his attention to horseflesh.

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