Gunman's Tally by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Galaxy Press
Published: 2012-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ruin at

Rio Piedras

Chapter One

A storm cloud of angry dust boiled up the road to the main ranch of the INT, and just before it could be seen two lathered bays, manes flying, heads pumping and hoofs thundering through the white dust.

Dawson, the general manager, came erect in his wicker chair on the veranda and stared with wonder, his tobacco-stained mouth agape and his boots planted upon the planking. A puncher down by the corral yipped, “It’s Old Man Tanner!” But Dawson didn’t need that information. Only one madman drove like that on such a day. Only one man could afford to wear out horses in so spendthrift a fashion.

The buggy careened into the yard and Old Man Tanner jumped to his feet and leaped down, making the buggy sway as though it had been buffeted by a hurricane. A young lady, a lovely young blond lady, Nancy Tanner, who was most dear to the old man’s heart, was glad of Dawson’s aid in getting her to earth. She was dazed with so much dust and sunlight. But Old Man Tanner wasn’t thinking about his daughter’s health. He had driven like a thunderstorm and he arrived like a blast of lightning.

There was nothing small about Tanner. He was a colossus in everything including the INT, which was so big that men said its removal out of Texas wouldn’t leave much more to the state than a dotted borderline. Tanner himself stood six feet three and weighed two hundred and forty pounds. He had the face of a Saint Bernard and the eye of a lobo. His voice at a whisper, the punchers swore, could be heard for thirty miles on a wet day.

“Place looks like a goddamned cemetery!” roared Tanner. “So this is the way you run things when I’m not around?”

“I just came in,” said Dawson, timidly.

“Don’t lie to me! You haven’t been off this porch all day. Well? Where are the two thousand prime beeves I wired you to roundup day before yesterday?” And he angrily ranged his piercing eyes over the plains about the ranch.

“There…there aren’t any here at the main ranch,” gulped Dawson. “I had to send out to Rio Piedras—but they’ll be here tomorrow,” he added hastily.

“Tomorrow! By God, they’d better had be. Do you know that I’ll have cars on the siding at noon? And I can’t hold those cars more than twenty-four hours unless I use them! Can’t I depend on anybody? Who is in charge of Rio Piedras?”

“Jim Lowrie,” shivered Dawson. “You sent him out there yourself, remember? You…that is…you exiled—”

“Jim Lowrie!” cried Tanner. “Tumbleweed Lowrie! Why, you blithering fool! Do you think for ten seconds that that young squirt could get two cows together, much less two thousand? And here I am depending on Lowrie! Dawson, this ought to cost you your job. Do you know what I’m up against?”

“No, sir.”

“They’re shutting down on me, that’s what. They won’t extend my paper. They’re trying to wreck me. And I got a market.

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