The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 3 by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553906431
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

Burr looked up suddenly at Jenny.

“Dance over to Rock Springs next week. Want to ride over with me?”

“No,” Jenny replied, “I don’t want to ride anywhere with a man who makes a living by stealing other men’s beef!”

Fulton’s face flushed with angry blood and he half rose to his feet. “If you were a man,” he said, “I’d kill you for that!” He remained hard. “Might as well come,” he said. “You’ll at least be going with a man who could protect you. I don’t drink milk!”

“It might be better if you did!” she retorted.

After a few minutes, with a few more sarcastic remarks, the two got up and went outside, mounted, and rode away. After they were gone the silence was thick in the room. Dan Regan stared gloomily at his milk, aware of Meadows’s irritation and Jenny’s obvious displeasure.

He looked up, finally. “That was what I came down for, Jenny. I want to take you to that dance.”

She turned on him, and her face was stiff. Her chin lifted. “I’d not want to go with you,” she said bitterly. “You’d be afraid to stand up for a girl! You won’t even stand up for your own rights! I thought you were a man!”

The moment the angry words were out, she would have given anything not to have said them. She hesitated, instantly contrite. Dan Regan took one more swallow of milk and got up. Coolly, but with his face pale and his eyes grim, he picked up his hat.

“I reckon that settles that,” he said quietly, “and I’ll be riding on.”

Jenny took an impulsive step toward him, not finding the words to stop him, but his back was turned. Only at the door did he turn.

“What did you want?” he asked coldly. “A killing? For so little? Is a man’s life so small a thing to you?”

She stared at the door, appalled. Then her eyes went to her father’s.

“But, Dad! He—it wouldn’t have meant a killing!”

Meadows looked up, realization in his eyes. “It might, Jenny. It might, at that.”

It was young Tom Newton who took her to the dance. A handsome boy he was, a year younger than she, and a rider for the Slash B. Yet the moment she walked through the door of the Rock Springs school she sensed the subtle difference in the atmosphere. The same people were there, but now a queer restraint seemed to sit upon them. The reason was not hard to see. Burr Fulton was there, with Bill Hefferman and some dozen other hardcase riders, all outside men, all tough, and all drinking.

Yet the affair started well, and it was not until after three dances that she glanced toward the door and saw Dan Regan. There was a subtle difference about him, too, and for a moment she could not place it, and then she saw. He was wearing two guns. It was the first time she had ever seen him with anything but a rifle, yet he wore the guns naturally, easily.

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