To Tame a Land by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780553900064
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2005-02-28T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

THE CROSSING WAS built up some. I could see that as we rounded into the main street. It was built up, and Mason's Store was bigger. There was a long awning in front of the rooming house and it had become a two-story hotel.

Thinking suddenly, I turned aside and rode around to the cemetery. Mustang, he trailed along, never leaving me.

At the cemetery gate I got down and went in. It was like so many of those Western cemeteries, a high knoll outside of town with the wind blowing across it and tumbleweeds racked against the fences.

And I found what I was looking for, and more. Hetrick's grave, and beside it the grave of his wife, who had died just four months later.

Both gone.

And Liza? She might still be in town, although somehow I was sure she wasn't.

“Mustang,” I said, “I got to get me a man. But I don't aim to kill him, not unless I have to. I want you to go down to town. You be careful, because this Burdette is mighty mean. But you listen around and find out if he's still there, and where he is. I want to come on him unexpected-like. I want to get the jump.”

Sitting under some cedars there by the graveyard, with the gray grass alongside me, I waited. Maybe I slept some. Anyway, lights were coming on in town before Mustang came back.

The chill had awakened me, and when I sat up I heard his horse. He rode up to the gate and got down, then he walked over and squatted on his heels and began to build a smoke.

“Burdette's there, all right. Mighty mean, like you say. The folks got no use for him, but he's still marshal and they're scared. Ever' night about this time he makes his rounds. Then he goes to the saloon and sits until everybody turns in. He makes another round, then he turns in himself.

“Come morning, he goes up to the restaurant for breakfast, and he sits around some. He killed another man about two weeks ago, and I got an idea the town would like to get shut of him.”

“You eat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I ain't hungry. I think we'd best bed down right here. I want to get him in the morning at breakfast.”

“Good. The restaurant has a back door, too. You want I should come in and get the drop?”

“No. You leave it alone unless somebody tries to butt in. This is my branding. I'll heat my own irons and make my own mark.”

When we were all rolled up in our blankets and lying there listening to the town sounds, he said, all of a sudden, “That girl? Liza Hetrick? She left town six, seven months ago. And she only had sixty-three dollars. Took the stage out. West.”

“You should have been a Pinkerton.”

Mustang drew on his cigarette. “Maybe I will be.” He chuckled. “But first we find your gal.”

Morning found us with our beds rolled and ready. We took the trail down

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