West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) by L'amour Louis

Author:L'amour, Louis [L'amour, Louis]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-12T06:26:10.921000+00:00

*

Riches Beyond Dream.

It was June when they arrived at the adobe on Pinon Hill. There had been little change since Kirby Ann had last been there . . . the trees Tom Kirby planted the year before he died were taller, and bunch grass grew where the lawn should be.

Kirby Ann got out of the jeep and looked at Bob. The ride had tired him ... a serious wound and a year in a Red Chinese prison camp had wrecked his health. He needed the sun, they told him, with rest and quiet. Well, he could get that here. Maybe it was all they could get here.

"If s a roof, honey," Bob said quietly. "We can fix up the place." He took her hand and they walked to the edge of the hill. "I always loved it here," she said.

Before them lay the long valley, dotted now with cloud shadows, and beyond the valley a rugged hill, and beyond more hills, more valleys, more peaks and ridges.

'Tom built for the view," Kirby Ann said, "and would you believe it? When he was declared mentally incompetent, this was one of the reasons. Because he built an expensive house in a lonely place, and then wouldn't allow a road to be built leading to it."

"He was a good old man," Bob said. "I liked him."

Long after Bob was asleep, Kirby lay awake, remembering. This place had been left to her by her great-uncle Tom. It had been written into his will before his grandchildren had him declared incompetent and took over the handling of his affairs.

They had taken his house in town, the orchard he planted with his own hands, the ranch, and the mine. It was the silver they really wanted, and Blake, his eldest grandson, believed it came from the long-unworked Kirby Silver Mine on the edge of town.

There was never any argument about the adobe. Nobody wanted a house in such a lonely place. Yet when she came for her first visit she found they had been there, too, spading up the yard and blasting rock in the hill, feverishly searching for the silver lode. For the source of the fabulous planchas de plata he had sold to the bank in Topa.

Blake Bidwell had been coldly furious after the funeral. 'The old fool! He should have been declared incompetent years ago!"

"He was always soft in the head," Archie Moulton said sourly, "but I never dreamed he'd die without telling us."

"And not even to tell Kirby!" Esther was aghast. Esther was always aghast. "And she did so much for him!"

Kirby Ann had sat very still, her coffee growing cold. Not a thought for the poor old man who had died in that narrow windowless room that smelled of disinfectant, died still dreaming of the hills he loved so well.

He had given them all so much. Blake his first car. Archie and Esther a restaurant business. Jake a start in the bank.

And that was to say nothing of the other, intangible things he had tried to give them.

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