Remarque's Law by Will DuRey

Author:Will DuRey [DuRey, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It was almost an hour since Ben Joyner had eaten and he was sitting in the foyer of the Alamo reading a five-day-old San Antonio newspaper when Elsa Tippett descended the broad stairway. He allowed her time to order breakfast before following her into the hotel’s dining room. She received the news that he had found people who had known her son in Fort Worth with less eagerness than he had expected, but he imagined that that was due to the weariness of the journey they’d recently completed. The information he was capable of imparting was slight but she agreed to ride out to the Skivver farm to speak with Lottie and anyone else that had knowledge to share. First, though, she needed time to eat breakfast.

Ben had left the chestnut in the stable attached to the hotel but instead of saddling the animal he hired a buggy that was available and had the groom harness one of the hotel’s horses to it. It was late morning, later than had been his intention, when he reached the farm with Elsa Tippett beside him. Lottie was in the yard, her face red with effort and smudged with grime, testimony to the fact that she’d been busy tackling the repairs and reinforcements that Ben had promised he’d attend to the previous night.

‘I thought you’d decided not to hang around,’ she said as she opened the gate for him to drive the buggy through.

Ben couldn’t blame Lottie for the fact that her greeting was less than warm. If circumstances had been different, if Drew Skivver hadn’t been incapacitated as a result of the attack on him by the Long-R crew and if Arnie Arentoft hadn’t been shot dead outside Shay Dubbin’s saloon, he would already be far from Pecos, trying to resume the journey he’d begun before crossing trails with Elsa Tippett. But he hadn’t gone, even though the reason for hanging around Pecos wasn’t clear in his mind. Two weeks earlier, when there had been little more than a threat of trouble between cowmen and settlers, he’d had no qualms about riding away, but now, with the spillage of blood, turning his back on the situation carried a taint of cowardice. Almost involuntarily, and despite the hired guns that had been brought in by his former employer, Ben found himself favouring the cause of the region’s newcomers. Although he’d fought in the war, he knew he wasn’t a match for the professional quick draw pistoleros and had no reason to believe that his presence would add any real firepower to their cause, but he couldn’t desert them, especially the Skivvers, who were virtually defenceless. Their neighbours might be keen to help them but their hands were already full protecting their own properties.

‘I brought Mrs Tippett,’ he said. ‘It seemed a good opportunity to introduce her to someone who’d met her son.’

The women exchanged smiles and Ben ushered them into the house, with assurances for Lottie that as soon as he’d un-harnessed the

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.