Showdown At Yellow Butte by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [L'Amour, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Amazon.com, Usenet, C429, Kat, Exratorrents
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1953-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

HIS EYES WERE open a long time before realization came, and he was lying in a clean, orderly place with which he was totally unfamiliar. For a long time he lay there searching his memory for clues to tie all this together. He, himself. He was Captain Tom Kedrick . . . he had gone west from New Orleans . . . he had taken on a job . . . then he remembered.

There had been a meeting at Chimney Rock and Steelman had come in place of McLennon. He had thrown his cigarette away and had seen those men behind the rocks, seen the sunlight flashing on their rifle barrels. He had yelled and then dropped, but not fast enough. He had been hit in the head, and he had been hit in the body at least once.

How long ago was that? He turned his head and found himself in a square stone room. One side of the room was native rock, and so was part of another side. The rest had been built up from loose stones gathered and shaped to fit. Besides the wide bed on which he lay there was a table and a chair. He turned slightly and the bed creaked. The door opened, and he looked up into the eyes of Connie Duane.

“Connie?” He was surprised. “Where am I? What’s happened?”

“You’ve been unconscious for days,” she told him, coming to the bedside. “You have had a bad concussion and you lost a lot of blood before Laredo and Bob McLennon found you.”

“What about the others?”

“Both of them were dead. By all rights, you should have been.”

“But where are we?”

“It’s a cliff dwelling, a lonely one, and very ancient. It is high up in the side of the mountain called Thieving Rock. McLennon knew where it was, and he knew that if word got out that you were alive they would be out to complete the job at once. So McLennon and Shad brought you here.”

“Are they still here?”

“Shad is. He hunts and goes to Yellow Butte for supplies, but he has to be very careful because it begins to look like they are beginning to get suspicious.”

“McLennon?”

“He’s dead, Tom. Dornie Shaw killed him. He went to Mustang to find a doctor for you. He encountered Dornie on the street. Bob was very fast, you know, but Dornie is incredible. He killed Bob before he could get a shot off.”

“How did you get here?”

“Bob McLennon and Shad had talked about it, and they knew I was against the company, and also that Uncle John had been killed—so they came to me. I came out here right away. I knew a little about nursing, but not much. Laredo has been wonderful, Tom. He’s a true friend.”

Kedrick nodded. “Who did the shooting? I thought I saw Poinsett.”

“He was one of them. I heard them talking about it but was not sure until later. Poinsett was there, Goff, Fessenden, Clauson and Shaw.”

“Anything else happen?”

“Too much. They burned Yellow Butte’s saloon and livery stable, and they have driven almost half the people off.

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