Dead Man's Noose by Morgan Hill

Author:Morgan Hill [Hill, Morgan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-77969-4
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

While Matt Blake took a break to down some water, he glanced at his prisoner. Duke McClain was still sitting where the sheriff had thrown him before the shooting started. All the starch had gone out of him. He sat there quietly, seemingly oblivious to the burning sun or what was going on around him.

Stepping back into the hole, now about a foot deep, he began to pitch dirt. Two of Cooley’s men approached Blake, carrying Sweeney’s body. “Wouldn’t mind if we dug one next to you, would you, Sheriff?” one of them asked.

Without pausing, he answered in a kind but firm tone, “My friend was a Yaqui soldier. I doubt if your pardner would have wanted to be buried next to a red man.” Pausing, he pointed the shovel handle to a clear spot about twenty yards away. “Why don’t you bury him over by that clump of mesquite?”

“Sure, Sheriff,” answered the soldier. “Probably be a little softer diggin’ over there anyhow.”

Matt Blake had a special reason for wanting only Gray Wolf at the base of the rock.

As he continued to dig, the three men emerged from the spring enclosure. Sergeant Cooley was wrapped in gauze around the middle. His shirt was open, hanging loose on his shoulders. He walked with a slight stoop, but was manipulating on his own power.

Blake glanced again at Duke. He was sitting in the same spot. A cigarette was dangling from the corner of his mouth as he continually poked his right index finger through the hole the sheriff had shot in his hat.

Cooley approached Blake, who continued tossing dirt on the ever-growing mound beside the grave. “This grave for the Yaqui by the pool, Sheriff?”

“Yep.”

“Somethin’ special to you?” he asked with a tender tone.

“Yep. Saved my life. Took two bullets Samanti meant for me.”

“Some of ’em are really white men at heart,” said Cooley.

Matt Blake frowned. Jamming the shovel into the hard earth so it would stand alone, he took off his hat and mopped his face and neck with a bandanna. “Fella could take that two ways, Sergeant.”

Placing the Stetson back on his head, he continued, “I wonder who was really a white man at heart… Gray Wolf or Samanti.”

As the big sergeant mopped his own face, Blake went on, “Gray Wolf called me his blood brother. I gave water and aid to him and his braves. They would have died otherwise. When he saw that all white eyes aren’t greedy killers, he changed his mind. He was headed here to meet Samanti. They were going to plunder and murder white people together. Gray Wolf told me before he got here to the spring, he was calling it off with Samanti and going back home.”

Blake pulled the shovel out of the sod. “The Indians have a legitimate reason to fight the whites, Sergeant. We invaded their land. By fighting us, they are merely doing what we would do if we were wearing their moccasins.”

Cooley nodded his big red head in silent agreement.

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.