Wanted: Dead or Alive by Ray Hogan

Author:Ray Hogan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2017-02-17T18:30:45+00:00

XXI

Dade Lockett considered the girl in silence. The change from the Roxanne he had first met that evening in the yard of the Raker Ranch and the remote, cool Roxie who now looked down at him from her saddle on the bay was as vast as the distance separating the towering Rockies and the equally cloud-piercing Sierra Nevadas. That she was capable of carrying out her declaration he had no doubt; the manner in which she had handled Cushman’s rider, knocking him from his horse, killing him, and then calmly brushing aside the fact, was proof of that. But it was all wrong; it was not woman’s work.

“I can’t let you do something like that,” he said. “Ain’t right.”

“Right,” Roxie echoed. “Why isn’t it? What’s the difference if I avenge a wrong done me and my family, or if it was my brother doing it?”

“Ain’t sure but there is … him being a man and …”

“Poppycock. He’s gone … dead, killed by the man who murdered my father. I’m the only one left so it’s up to me.”

“No, squaring up’s not the thing for you to be trying to do. Not right.”

“Are you trying to say that revenge isn’t right?”

“Well, maybe I …”

“You know that’s not it, Dade. You were on your way to square up with somebody, as you call it, when you stopped to help Clint and me. I know that now, just from the way you acted and talked because I’ve been seeing the same thing in myself ever since Clint was shot down and I found out for sure about my father. Now, isn’t that the truth?”

Lockett, caught between a rock and a wall of granite, unable to express himself or explain his beliefs, turned on a heel and moved to where the chestnut stood.

“Well, isn’t it?”

Dade settled himself on his saddle. If he answered her question, told her about her father and what had lain between them and that he had planned to kill him for his wrongdoing, would it help any? Would it make her understand? He decided it would not. “Reckon it was something like that,” he murmured.

“That proves it then,” Roxie shot back, a triumphant note in her voice. “It was someone who had harmed you, just as Cushman has me … maybe even killed a person who was very dear to you. Isn’t that how it was?”

Lockett shrugged. “It was just a jasper I once knew. Left me dying on the ground when he could’ve helped.”

“So, since you’re a man, it was all right for you to seek vengeance, but because I’m a woman, even though I’ve got greater cause than you, I’ve no right to feel the same way?”

Dade pivoted the gelding about, headed uptrail. He was weary of bandying words, and if they didn’t get moving, they’d find Cushman right at their heels. There was no arguing with Roxie, he could see that—and no time to do so if there was. Later, once they were safely beyond the rancher’s reach, he might be able to talk a little sense into her.

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