Cord 4 by Owen Rountree

Author:Owen Rountree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gunfighters, outlaws, lawmen, piccadilly publishing, william kittredge, steven m krauzer, westerns fiction ebook, colt guns, cord and chi westerns, owen rountree western writer
Publisher: Piccadilly

Ten

Cord used his thin-bladed stockman’s knife to pry open a tin of boiled meat. It smelled slightly rancid, but he didn’t suppose it would kill any of them. He needed meat, even if he had to settle for this green-brown variety. He dumped the tin into a saucepan, opened and added another and splashed water from the bucket over it all. He sat the pan atop the stove and punched up the fire.

Then Cord filled a larger kettle and set it to boil. He peeled four half-frozen potatoes he’d found in the root cellar beneath the trapdoor in the back room, paring away the black and green spots until there wasn’t much left. He tossed them in the kettle when the water began to bubble. Then he dumped out the coffeepot in the slop bucket behind the bar and put on fresh. He worked mechanically, mindlessly; he’d been sipping along steadily at Tom Bowen’s bourbon.

Chi sat at the round table sipping tequila. Beside her was the girl Aggie, preoccupied by the tattered deck of cards, turning them one by one. Each time she came to a picture card she squealed with delight.

Here is a pretty domestic scene of folks at their supper, Cord thought. Delicious fresh grub on the way, along with fine grown-up conversation and all the other trappings of gracious living on the Great Plains of America. Who could ask for more?

Aggie held up the king of spades and chirped, “Look, the black king. Do you know the black king? Is it him?” She was gesturing at Cord.

He scowled, and her grin of careless idiocy slackened. Chi touched the girl reassuringly on the shoulder and shot Cord a reproachful look. “Tough man.”

“Is he the black king?” Aggie asked in a small voice.

“No, niña.”

“I knew he wasn’t.” Aggie ruffled through the deck and began to pick out all the spades. “The black king is out there, with all the other black men.” She began to lay out the spades in numerical order; counting out loud, deuce through ten. “Nine black men, and the black king,” she announced, and laid out an eleventh card. “There is the black queen. I know them all.”

“Hush, muchacho.”

The girl bunched the cards into a jumbled pile. “Now we can’t see the black men. They are hiding.”

“That’s right, chica.”

“But they can see us.”

“Jesus Christ,” Cord exploded. “Will you for God’s sake make her stop?”

Chi’s voice was cold. “If you don’t like it, get out.”

“Not before my supper,” Cord said, sounding like a child himself.

But a few minutes later, after Cord laid out plates and poured hot coffee and set the two pans of food on the table, Chi took a bite and said, “You are a lucky man, Mr. Cord.”

“How’s that?”

“You shoot better than you cook. Otherwise you would be years dead.”

She was always quick to anger but could not hold it, while Cord steamed and did not forget. Once it was finished, this business with Kinsolving would never be brought to her mind, except as a good story.

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