The Red Well by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

IX

Even the iron nerves of Mrs. Tilly seemed to be more than a little shaken by this last announcement from Georgia Dixon. She looked askance at the young man, as though to see to what extent he was disturbed by this expression of lasting malice on the part of the girl, but Garlan kept his face as noncommittal as possible.

The sheriff blinked several times and rubbed the end of his long nose to a brighter red. “Why, Georgia,” he said, “it looks to me like you would’ve got enough satisfaction out of what’s happened already. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth . . . most folks would be satisfied when they got that.”

She raised her head like a young Amazon, full of battle. “Suppose a whole regiment of scoundrels and murderers were wiped out . . . would they make up for the death of such a man as my father? Oh, Danny,” she cried to him, “I don’t wear black, and I don’t go about in tears, but I’ll never rest until I’ve found the second man and made him suffer!”

The sheriff looked at the floor. The sheriff’s wife looked up to the ceiling. Neither of them dared to cast so much as a glance at Garlan. And he watched the girl curiously, steadily with a growing coldness in his heart, as he understood that she meant all that she had said.

“But,” she added suddenly, “that isn’t what I’ve come to talk to you about, Danny. I want to know if you can tell me where to find an honest man to live out on the ranch among the thieves and the rustlers there?”

“But what good would one man do, Georgia?” asked the sheriff. “They’re a rough lot, those cowpunchers that you got out there. They’d be apt to eat any one man, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” said the girl. “They would, of course. I gotta have a man that’s a man, Danny. One that’ll go sashayin’ out into that bunkhouse and range up and down it, and kick Doc Ruhlan out the doors, and make the rest of them behave. I want a man that can be the boss of the show. Where can I find a man like that?”

The eyes of Tilly grew dim with thought.

“You were that sort of a fellow,” Georgia continued, nodding at the sheriff. “You are now, too. But you can’t give up your work here to tackle such a job for me.”

“You want a fellow that’ll burn ’em to a black crisp, don’t you?” asked Tilly.

“Of course I do.”

“Well,” he said at last, “as long as he won’t speak up and make the offer, I gotta offer him to you myself. There’s the man for you. Gannon, stand up and make a pretty bow to the lady.”

Garlan had indeed risen with the shock of that surprise, and the girl also had started from her chair. She walked across to Garlan in the manner of an aggressive boy looking for trouble in the schoolyard.

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