Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986) by L'amour Louis

Author:L'amour, Louis [L'amour, Louis]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-12T06:26:52.078000+00:00

THE NESTER AND THE PIUTE

Value has a lot to do with time and location.

There's been many a man who would give his shirt for a good cup of coffee, so if you steal something from a man you'd better have some idea of the value he sets on it.

A man gets things set in his mind. When he's got his teeth ready for hot biscuits and sourwood honey, you take it from him at some risk.

*

The Master and the Piute.

He was ridin" loose in the saddle when we first saw him and he was wearing a gun, which was some unusual for the Springs these days. Out on the range where a man might have a run-in with a locoed steer or maybe a rattler, most of the boys carried guns, but around town Sheriff Todd had sort of set up a rulin' against it.

It was the second time I'd seen him, but he looked some different this mornin', and it took me a minute or two to decide what it was made the difference, and then I decided it was partly the gun and partly that look in his eyes.

He reined in that yellow horse in front of Green's and hooked one long leg around the saddle horn.

"Howdy."

"Howdy."... Hatcher was the only one who answered, only the rest of us sort of looked up at him. He dug in his shirt pocket for the makin's and started to build a smoke.

Nobody said anything, just sort of waitin' to see what was on his mind. He had an old carbine in a saddle scabbard, and the scabbard wasn't under his leg, but with the muzzle pointed down and the stock close to his hand. A man ridin' that away ain't rightly figurin' on usin' a rope on no stock.

That rifle would be in the way, but if he was figurin' on needin' a rifle right quick, it would be a plumb handy way to carry it.

When he had his smoke built he lit it with his left hand, and I got a good glimpse of his eyes, kind of cold and gray, and them lookin' us over.

Nobody here was friendly to him, yet nobody was unfriendly, neither. All of us had been around the Springs for years, all but him. He was the nester from Squaw Rock, an' nesters aren't right popular around cow range. However, the times was a changin' an' we all knowed it, so it wasn't like it might have been a few years before, when the country was new.

"Seen a tail-like hombre on a black horse?"

He asked the question like maybe it was a formality that he wanted to get over with, and not like he expected an answer. j "What sort of man?" backslash It was Hatcher who had started the talkin', as if he was ridin' point for the rest of us.

"Maybe two hundred pounds, sort of limp in his right leg, maybe. Rides him a black horse,! long-gaited critter, and he wears two guns," hangin" low"

"Where'd you see him?" J "Ain't never seed him.

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