Hard Ride by Elmer Kelton

Author:Elmer Kelton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

THE WAY OF THE WOLF

Booth Walker sprawled in the warm sand beneath the scanty shade of a mesquite and leisurely watched the rider work down off the hill and level out toward him in an easy lope. Stiffly then, because of the rheumatism, he pushed to his feet and squared a misshapen, sweat-spotted Stetson plumb center over his thick mop of gray hair.

His heavy-boned sorrel, hitched to a limb, swung its head around and pricked its ears toward the horseman.

A slow grin broke across Booth Walker’s sun-baked face. The turkey tracks deepened at the corners of his gray eyes. Long before Quinn Stovall got there, Booth knew what the message was going to be. It didn’t worry him. Calm and patience were a natural thing to Booth. Maybe it was the years of wearing a sheriff’s badge that had done it.

“They’re coming,” Quinn said, spitting a brown stream of tobacco at a rock as he swung a bowed leg across his horse’s rump and down. “I didn’t think old Delbert would have the gall to come himself. But he is, and he’s got three with him.”

Booth grunted. His squinted gaze moved toward a wire corral that he used twice a year in branding calves from this part of his W ranch.

The corral was full of bawling cattle, dust swirling thick and brown in the hot, heavy air above them. Beyond the corral, as far as Booth’s age-sharpened eyes could see, stretched thirsty grassland, short on forage, shorter on moisture. The only thing showing a sign of green was the scattering of mesquites. They could send their long roots practically halfway to China.

It was August now. It hadn’t rained since March. Even then there hadn’t been much. From the looks of the brassy Texas sky, it wasn’t fixing to rain again any time soon.

A young cowboy took the six-shooter out of his holster and poked a cartridge into the sixth chamber, always left empty for safety.

“You can put that shell back in your belt, boy,” Booth said quietly. “There ain’t going to be any need for it today.”

Behind him another young man squatted under a mesquite, idly sketching cattle brands in the sand, his face frowning in thought. As Booth walked up to him, the man started jabbing at the ground with the stick, his chin set hard as a rock.

As if in answer to the question forming in Booth’s mind, Lanny Walker spoke irritably.

“You know I don’t like it, Dad. I wish you could’ve found some other way.”

Booth gazed at his son. He wondered if he had looked the same way when he was twenty-two years old, back in—hell, too long ago to talk about. The strong shoulders, the long, straight back, the stubborn pride that flared easily into anger—these were all good things that would help Lanny when this ranch was his. But it took more than those things. It took judgment, too.

Hand on his hip, Booth squatted awkwardly beside his son. “Look here, Lanny, this place is going to be yours someday.

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