Born Savage by William Hopson

Author:William Hopson [Hopson, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

NINE

Out in the basin Channon Ordway pulled up and sat there for a few moments for a final glimpse of home. Flames were leaping like dragons’ tongues from all windows. Ordway wasn’t certain but he thought he heard some fool begin to fire his pistol.

The black mare moved on into the night at a fast trot. A half mile south of the burning ranch house a low mound, round like a grassy blister on the face of the basin floor, loomed up. In the night he saw the fence of white picket and the headstones.

He had come to say good-bye, possibly a final one.

But he heard horses coming almost at him, loping through the lush spring grass, and he grabbed the Sharps off the saddle. However, his trained ears told him the number. Three. -

“Over here,” he called piercingly.

A man couldn’t even say good-bye to his family without the presence of these three.

They came up the slope and saw the little fenced plot with five graves and then they were silent Eric Randolph finally spoke up. “Really. I’m afraid we’ve intruded again. Please accept our apologies, Mr. Ordway.” “We didn’t know,” Mrs. Randolph added. “We have never before been in the basin, you know.”

“It’s all right” Ordway replied. “The two big stones belong to my father and mother. He was killed in a shootout, trying to save Ethan’s life, and she never got over it.”

“How tragic. And the others?”

“Two stillborns and a small sister who toddled out into a corral full of green bronks one day.”

He put on his hat and reined over. In the distance the flames made a pillar of fire in the night. Within an hour old Pronghorn Ranch would be but a heaping pile of exploding coals.

“I can still hardly believe it,” Eric Randolph spoke as the four of them rode in silence across the basin toward Tulac. “A man burning his own home.”

“Lucky for you,” Ordway said almost shortly. “God only knows what might have happened to you.”

In the night a bright spot appeared unseen in the girl’s cheeks. Sonny had been pretty blunt and coarse with her during their last minutes on the Rocking R. Had she told Eric he would have shot the tough dead.

They came at last to where the wagon road climbed up the west side of the basin and into Tulac. Here and there in the night stood little groups of people still watching the fire.

Impelled by some impulse she wasn’t sure of, Vernell spoke to Ordway. “Well,” she inquired, “on the assumption that you don’t break your word, Mr. Ordway, when will the Rocking R in Bitter Squaw be next?”

“Come on,” he growled. “We’ve got to find Koonce.” He turned for a final look east. Far out there in the basin was a mass of glowing coals, a cigarette butt in the basin’s night-clenched lips.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Any regrets?”

“No,” Channon Ordway said. “My only regret was that I was too soft and let my uncle live instead of killing him this afternoon.

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