Two-Gun Rio Kid by Brett Halliday

Author:Brett Halliday
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504025423
Publisher: Open Road Media

10

After Hank Greenow had sopped up the last spoonful of bean juice with a piece of biscuit and slowly devoured the savory morsel, he pushed back the tin plate from in front of him and got out a stubby corncob pipe and a tin of coarse tobacco. By setting the pipe in front of him on the table and resting the stump of his left arm on the stem, he poured and tamped a load of tobacco in the blackened bowl.

When it was lit and drawing well he turned out the bunkhouse lamp and went to the doorway, where he settled his lean old body on the threshold for a long vigil.

His seamed face indicated nothing of his thoughts as he sat there sucking on his pipe, occasionally glancing toward the ranch house, where curtained kitchen windows glowed with light from within.

He was a lonely, and somehow a pathetic figure as he sat there on the threshold hunched over his corncob pipe. An old man is always a pathetic figure when he has passed the zenith of life and feels things slipping away from his grip. An uncompromising realist, Hank knew that matters had finally come to a showdown. Peggy couldn’t stand much more. She had already stood too much during these past three years. He had stood by and watched the prettiness and vivacity fade from her face, had seen the rounded flesh of young womanhood turn to stringy muscles, had witnessed the acknowledgment of defeat dull the eyes that had been bright and sparkling with happiness only a few years previously.

For months now, Hank had stood aside silently and watched Henry Pelham ride to the Triangle A more and more frequently. Tonight was the first time old Hank had committed an overt act to indicate his disapproval of the growing intimacy between Peggy and the Bar L owner.

But today Hank had made a discovery that changed a lot of things. The showdown was coming sooner than he had hoped for. Tonight, perhaps.

He had knocked the sizzling dottle from his pipe and refilled it three times when he heard the front door of the ranch house open. He could hear the murmur of Peggy’s voice as she told her visitor good night. He sat alone in the darkness and his old eyes glowed queerly when the sound of Henry Pelham’s galloping horse faded away into the night-silence.

Still he did not change his hunched posture on the threshold of the bunkhouse. He sucked on his pipe and watched while the kitchen lights went out and a faint glow from Peggy’s bedroom window told him the girl was preparing for bed.

Soon that light, too, disappeared and the Triangle A ranch lay in complete darkness.

Hank reloaded his pipe for the fourth time, and carefully shielded the match flame from any eyes that might be watching for a sign that all was not exactly as usual at the Triangle A. Not that he actually suspected the presence of an unseen watcher in the darkness, but the imminence of action made him acutely alert to any possible danger.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.