Showdown by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2017-02-17T18:41:20+00:00

Chapter Seven

Dud Kitchen drew in his breath, and Mary looked at him in sudden apprehension.

“What’s that you say?” Pagones demanded.

“I repeat. I talked to my boys, and they say they didn’t kill Collins. Bat Chavez couldn’t see anything, but Zapata, Stark, and Murray weren’t even facing toward Collins then. They say they didn’t kill him.”

“There was a lot of shootin’,” Pagones said. “Anything might’ve happened.”

“That’s right,” Bannon agreed. “But my boys don’t think they shot Collins, and that leaves a big question.”

“It don’t leave no question for me!” Dud flared suddenly. “I saw that wound of Collins’s! And he was shot in the back!”

Pagones’s face hardened. He stared down at the floor, his jaw muscles working. Was nothing ever simple anymore? Was there nothing on which a man could depend? How had he got into this mess, anyway? What should he do?

“Who do you think?” he asked. “You mean Zapata?”

Their eyes were all on Rock Bannon, waiting, tense. “No,” he said. “I mean Mort Harper.”

“But, man, that’s crazy!” Pagones leaped to his feet. “What would be the object? Is there any reason why he would kill a man on his own side?”

“You know the answer to that as well as I,” Bannon said. He got up, too. “He wanted you in this fight, and that was the only way he could get you. Purcell and Lamport were fire-eaters. They were in, but they weren’t enough. He wanted the rest of you, the good, sober, industrious citizens, the men whose reputations at home were good, the men who would look honest to the military if they ever came West.”

“I saw that wound,” Kitchen repeated. “Collins was killed with a small gun, a small gun with flat-nose or split-ended bullets.”

“Who has such a gun?” Pagones said. “You all know that Harper carries a Dragoon, like the rest of us.”

“In sight, he does,” Bannon agreed. “Mort Harper may pack another one.” He stopped, feet wide apart. “I’ve got to get out of here, Pag. I’ve got to get going and fast. There’s not much chance of anybody being out tonight, but I can’t gamble on that. I’ve got to get away from here, and this is the last time I’ll come. I’ve tried to tell you about Mort Harper for a long time. You’ve got your last chance to break away, because I’m telling you flat. If you don’t break away, there won’t be a building standing on this ground within forty-eight hours.”

Pagones’s head jerked up. “Is that an ultimatum?”

“You bet it is,” Bannon snapped. “If I’d let Bishop have his head, you’d have all been out of here long ago. Wes would be alive now, and Collins, and Satterfield and Murray wouldn’t both be packing a slug in one of their legs, and Dud would be on his feet. If I’d not kept Bishop off you, he would have faced you with forty armed men and ordered you off before you had a stake down or a foundation laid.

“Those boys of ours are spoiling for a fight.

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