Collection 1995 - Valley Of The Sun (v5.0) by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Usenet
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2011-01-28T08:00:00+00:00

* * *

FOR A LONG time he was aware of nothing, and then there was sunlight through a window, a pump complaining, and a woman’s voice singing. He was lying now in a strange bed, and the hand that lay on the coverlet was much whiter than when he had last seen it.

A door opened and he looked into the eyes of Carol Quarterman. “Well!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t think you were ever coming out of it! How do you feel?”

“I…don’t really know. What house is this?”

“Dr. Hassett’s. He’s my uncle and your doctor. I’m your nurse, and you had four bullets in you, two rifle, and two pistol. That’s what Uncle Ed says, although I don’t think he could tell one from the other.”

“Noll?”

“He’s dead. You grazed him once, hit him three times. John Pole is dead, too. You…killed him.”

“Wasn’t there some other shooting?”

“That was Holy Walker and Dad. They finished off Newton and Fowler when they started to help Pole. Dad got hit in the side, but not badly, but Walker wasn’t scratched.”

“Mason?”

“He was luckiest of all. He was hit three times by bullets aimed at other people and none of them more than broke the skin. All of them are back in the canyons again, and not even Steve Bayne has a word to say.”

“How long have I been here?”

“A week, and you’d better settle down for a long rest. Uncle Ed says you can’t be moved and that you’ll have to stay in bed, with me to nurse you, for at least two more weeks.”

Sartain grinned. “With you as nurse? I’ll go for that, but what about Steve Bayne?”

She shrugged. “He’s gone back to his ranch with more headaches than the one you gave him. Pole had been rustling, branding some of it with Steve’s Bar B and selling the rest. Newton worked with him, and he talked before he died; he also swore he saw George Noll set the fire on the range that burned everybody out.

“Apparently he hated me, but when they went through his office they found figures showing how he had planned to buy up the ranches after the range war killed off most of the men. The questions you asked around town started the investigation of his effects, and proved you’d guessed right. As you knew, he was the only one with money enough to take advantage of the situation the range war would leave.”

“Anything on Parrish?”

“Nothing exact. However, he had been back to the ranch and talked with the wrangler after leaving Mason. Probably that was Pole. Parrish must have caught him rustling, but we’ll never know.”

Jim Sartain stared out of the window at the sunlit street. He could see the water trough and the two lone trees. A man sat on the edge of the walk, whittling in the sun. A child was chasing a ball. Farther along, a gray horse stamped a patient foot and flicked casually at the flies.

It was a quiet street, a peaceful street. Someday all the West would be like Gila Crossing.

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