Burning by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

Frank and Dr. Archer pulled out at dawn, after only a single cup of coffee. “We’ll stop up ahead after a few miles and I’ll make breakfast and coffee,” Frank said. “We’ll both have us a good appetite by then.”

Archer yawned hugely. “You Western folks certainly are early risers.”

“We don’t believe in burning daylight, Doc.”

“You certainly don’t,” the doctor replied drily.

About two hours later, by a tiny creek, Frank made coffee first and then began preparing a trail breakfast. He sliced up a half pound of bacon, fried some potatoes, and laid out bread he’d bought in town the day before.

“I am ravenous,” the doctor declared after sipping his coffee. “I don’t recall being this hungry in years.”

“It’s the trail, Doc. Good clean, cool air smelled from the back of a good horse will do it every time.”

“What is that you’re cooking with those potatoes?”

“Onions, Doc. With a little bit of red pepper. Makes them nice and spicy.”

“They smell wonderful.”

The doctor ate half the bacon and fried potatoes, then took a hunk of bread and sopped out the skillet with it. Then he poured another cup of coffee and while the coffee was cooling, he stuffed his pipe and lit up.

“What a wonderful meal,” Doc Archer said. “It’s the best I’ve had since . . . why, I don’t remember when.”

“That saddle sittin’ all right?” Frank asked the Easterner.

“Quite comfortable actually. Very different from what I’m used to.”

“You’re used to ridin’ on those pincushion saddles. Never could understand how you folks sat those things for long distances. Damned uncomfortable if you ask me.”

“It’s all what one gets used to, I suppose.”

The men finished the coffee, and Frank cleaned up the tin plates and made sure the fire was out. They were back in the saddle, and had covered half the distance to the settlement before Frank called a halt and they made camp for the night.

“No telegraph in the settlement, Frank?” Archer asked after supper and over some of Frank’s strong coffee.

“Not yet. I’m told the wires will be strung before fall . . . if everything goes according to plan.”

“The settlement has to be an official town, I suppose.”

“Something like that, I think. Valley View is the name it’s going to go by, so I’m told.”

“That’s a nice name. Has a nice sound to it.”

“I reckon.”

“Frank . . . please forgive my lack of tact, but I have to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you really been in shoot-outs with a thousand men and killed them all?”

Frank chuckled for a few seconds. He leaned closer to the fire, refilled his coffee cup, then leaned back against his saddle. “No, Doc. I haven’t been in a thousand shoot-outs. But looking back,” he added ruefully, “it sometimes feels like it.”

“How did you ever get into such a dreadful life?”

“Dreadful, Doc? Well . . . I suppose it is, or would seem like it to many people. Back when I was just a kid, ’bout fourteen or so, I was pushed into a gunfight.

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