Louis L'Amour by The Rider of Lost Creek

Author:The Rider of Lost Creek
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Westerns, Fiction
ISBN: 9780553228748
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1976-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

OUTSIDE, RUSTY GATES stopped Kilkenny. “There’s a man rode in today, stranger around here, and he asked for you. Says he has something you need to know. He’s from El Paso.”

“El Paso? Who’d want to see me from there?”

Gates shrugged. “The man was pretty well liquored up, they say. But he’s not talkin’ fight, just that he has some news for you. Mighty important news.”

“El Paso …” Kilkenny frowned thoughtfully. He had not been in El Paso since the Weber fight. Who could wish to see him from there?

“Where is he now?”

“Over at the Trail House. He came in right after you left. Tall, rangy galoot, looks like a cowhand. I mean, he doesn’t size up like no gunman.”

They stepped down off the walk and started across the street and had taken no more than three steps when they heard the hard report of a gun in the Trail House.

One shot, and then another.

Gates broke into a run but hesitated at the door. Kilkenny came up to him, pushed the door open with his left hand and stepped in quickly. Gates followed and moved to the right of the door.

A man lay sprawled on the floor, lying on his face, a red stain growing on the back of his shirt. A drawn gun lay near his hand. He was obviously dead.

Bert Polti stood just beyond the man, a gun still in his hand. As their eyes met, Kilkenny could see the instant calculation in Polti’s eyes.

Was this the time? Kilkenny knew what Polti was thinking, how he was estimating the situation. He had a gun in his hand and Kilkenny had not. But there was Gates, off to one side and out of line. Kilkenny saw the impulse born, saw it die.

Polti was no fool, so he was doubly dangerous.

“Personal fight, Kilkenny,” Polti said. “Nothing to do with the cattle war. He knocked a drink from my hand. I suggested he apologize. He told me to go to thunder and I beat him to the draw.”

Kilkenny’s eyes went past Polti to a puncher from the Lord ranch.

“That right?”

“Yeah,” the puncher said, his face expressionless. “That’s about what happened.”

Polti hesitated just a moment, then holstered his weapon and walked outside.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.