Guns of the Timberlands by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553899177
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2004-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

COLLEEN WAS NOT in bed. She had gone to her room, but she stood now beside the window looking out into the night.

She had changed. The few weeks that she had lived in Tinkersville had brought about a change in her feelings such as she had experienced in no previous period of her life. It was not only her feelings toward Jud, although they, too, had altered. It was something within herself. Her own world, the world of cities and parties and gaiety, seemed suddenly far away and very empty. Out here—she looked into the night and toward the lonely stars—it was different. She felt different, she was different.

Her friends had warned her against going west. She would be bored in a small town. There would be nothing to do. Jud would be busy. She had come on her own decision, overcoming Jud’s objections and those of her father. And she was glad she had come.

The wind from the desert was soft. It brought intangible scents—sage, distant wood fire, the coolness of night. Somewhere a horse stamped and blew, and a tin-panny piano sounded from the saloon down the street, from the Homestake.

Down the street were empty buildings, and the foundations of those destroyed in the Fire. They always spoke of it so, for the Fire had been the biggest thing in their lives here, and it had been the final culmination of the mining boom. During her days in the town, while Jud and her father were busy, she had walked much and listened a lot. Dr. McClean was a man who enjoyed talking, and especially to a pretty woman. Sometimes when she helped him with Bert Garry she had listened to his talking of the old days. Once she had asked him about Bell.

“Clay?” The doctor paused, and seemed to be considering. “Colleen, he’s a fine man. Sincere, hard-working. He drives himself harder than his men, but he’s got a vein of poetry in him, too. And something else.”

She waited, and when he did not speak again she adjusted the blanket over Garry, who was in a troubled sleep, aided by something the doctor had given him.

“Something else?”

“Yes . . . you remember the stories of the old Vikings? How they went berserk in battle? Clay’s like that. He can be a cold, methodical, dangerous fighter up to a point, and then he goes completely hog-wild and reckless. Like the other night when he charged that campfire. The man would charge hell with a bucket of water.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Like him?” Dr. McClean paused briefly. “You bet I do.”

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