Turner hesitated, not liking it. He hitched around, looking quickly out the door. Kilkenny made no attempt to grab for his gun. He just waited. “You’re through, Turner.” Kilkenny’s words repeatedly went through his head. He had a deep-seated fear of the people across the tracks. He knew many of them disliked the saloons and gambling houses, and lived only for the day when the town could be cleaned up.
“You fellows should know when you’re well off,” Kilkenny continued. He was remembering bloody Kansas and a cold rage was settling over him. “If you’d only known, Stroud was keepin’ you alive. With him down, there ain’t a thing to prevent them comin’ across here and makin’ a cleanup. As long as he kept the peace, they kept their hands off. But you were greedy. Those trail-town days are over. You can’t turn the clock back.”
Turner suddenly looked up. “All right,” he said, “give me a chance and I’ll ride.”
“No,” Kilkenny said, and drew. His Colt came out fast and Kilkenny stepped in close to Turner and had the muzzle pressed against his ear before the crippled man could bring his gun to bear. He snatched Turner’s pistol away with his left hand and pushed Turner back into one of the chairs.
“That picture got me thinking. I remember you from Kansas … a long time ago. You were using the name Barney Houseman back then. You and your family skinned a lot of good people out of their money. Killed a few, too.” Kilkenny moved to one side and gestured with his free hand. “Get up.”
“Lance.” The man turned in the chair. “You let me ride out of here. I know I can make it worth your while.”
“You’re wrong. Stroud made me take an oath when I pinned on this badge. If I hadn’t, you’d be dead right now.” Barney Houseman looked at him blankly. “We’ve never met, but I’ve heard of you. I’m Kilkenny.”
Houseman’s eyes narrowed, and his knuckles stood out white where he gripped the chair. “All right,” he croaked. He struggled to get his lame foot under him as he stood. Awkwardly, he reached down to steady himself against the chair—and pulled a short-barreled Colt Lightning from a hideout holster!
Kilkenny stepped back and Houseman’s gun roared, the slug catching him across the front of the shoulder. He shot, but he was already falling and the bullet went wild. Houseman frantically pulled the trigger three more times as Kilkenny scrambled for cover behind the table, hot lead catching him again, this time in the thigh. His gun was gone, the room full of powder smoke.
Houseman slammed out the door and half fell into the road. He headed for Main Street, reloading. Kilkenny was wounded, maybe dying. They had to move quickly but, he consoled himself, they had done it before and it was time. This had been a good bet, but he knew when his time was up. He had always known. The others had stayed behind at Bannock and at Dodge and other places. He pulled stakes before the Vigilance Committees and United States marshals got wind of him. He had always moved when the time was ripe. It was ripe now.
Hillman had just opened his store when Houseman limped across Main Street and followed him inside. “Open the safe, Hill,” Turner said, “we’re getting out. I’ve just had a shoot-up with Kilkenny.”
Hillman looked incredulous, and the limping man shrugged. “I’m not crazy. That gunfighter Lance—he was Kilkenny. I should have remembered. He’s used the name before.
“We’ve got to move! Get the safe. He’s in no shape, but people heard the shots and he’ll get help.”
The look in Hillman’s eyes stopped him. Hillman was looking in back of him, over his shoulder.
Houseman turned and stared, his hands hanging. Kilkenny stood in the doorway, his chest covered with blood from the still-oozing cut across collarbone and shoulder. Standing silent in the doorway he was a grim, dangerous figure, a looming figure of vengeance.
Hillman drew back. “Not me, Kilkenny. I’m out of it. He’s made life hell for all of us, Barney has. He’s made us all do his dirty jobs. And I won’t move on to rob another town.”
Kilkenny did not speak. He was squinting his eyes against the pain. He could feel the blood trickling down his stomach. He was losing a lot of blood, and he had little time.
Barney Houseman was a murderer many times over. He was a thief and a card cheat, but always he had let his brother and uncle carry the burden of suspicion while he handled the reins. In Dodge they had believed it was he who left Kilkenny’s saddle partner dead in an alley with a knife in his back.
Kilkenny had long given up the chase, but his memory was good.
The limping man … Barney Houseman.
“I beat you just now,” Barney said, “I’ll do it again.” His hand went down for the gun and grasped the butt, and then Kilkenny took a step forward, his gun sprang to his fist, and something slapped at Barney’s pocket. He was angry that anything should disturb him now. He started to lift his gun, and something else slapped him and he suddenly felt very weak and he went down, sinking away, and saw the edge of the table go by his eyes. Then he was on his back, and all he could see was a crack in the ceiling, and then the crack was gone and he was dead.
Hillman twisted his big-knuckled hands. “He was my nephew,” he said, “but he was a devil. I was bad, but he was worse.”
Kilkenny asked him then, “Who is Laurie Archer?”
“My daughter.”
Kilkenny walked back through the street and people stared at him, turned when he passed, and stared after. He walked up to the jail, and Laurie stood on the steps. Her face was drawn and pale. “Can I see him now?”
“Yes,” he said. Then he added, “Barney’s dead.”
She turned fiercely, her eyes blazing. “I’m glad! Glad!”
“All right.” He was tired and his head ached. He wanted to go back to the hotel and wash up and then sleep for a week, and then get a horse, and—
He indicated the man on the bed inside. “You’re in love with Stroud?”
“Yes.”
“Then go to him. He’s a good man.”
Kilkenny turned around and started back up the street, and the morning sun was hot on his shoulder blades and there were chickens coming out into the street, and from a meadow near the creek, a smell of new-mown hay. He was tired, very tired … rest … and then a horse.
Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour
ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THE BOOKS YOU HAVE MISSED.
NOVELS
Bendigo Shafter
Borden Chantry
Brionne
The Broken Gun
The Burning Hills
The Californios
Callaghen
Catlow
Chancy
The Cherokee Trail
Comstock Lode
Conagher
Crossfire Trail
Dark Canyon
Down the Long Hills
The Empty Land
Fair Blows the Wind
Fallon
The Ferguson Rifle
The First Fast Draw Flint
Guns of the Timberlands
Hanging Woman Creek
The Haunted Mesa
Heller with a Gun
The High Graders
High Lonesome
Hondo
How the West Was Won
The Iron Marshal
The Key-Lock Man
Kid Rodelo
Kilkenny
Killoe
Kilrone
Kiowa Trail
Last of the Breed
Last Stand at Papago Wells
The Lonesome Gods
The Man Called Noon
The Man from Skibbereen
The Man from the Broken Hills
Matagorda
Milo Talon
The Mountain Valley War
North to the Rails
Over on the Dry Side
Passin’ Through
The Proving Trail
The Quick and the Dead
Radigan
Reilly’s Luck
The Rider of Lost Creek
Rivers West
&
nbsp; The Shadow Riders
Shalako
Showdown at Yellow Butte
Silver Canyon
Son of a Wanted Man
Taggart
The Tall Stranger
To Tame a Land
Tucker
Under the Sweetwater Rim
Utah Blaine
The Walking Drum
Westward the Tide
Where the Long Grass Blows
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Beyond the Great Snow Mountains
Bowdrie
Bowdrie’s Law
Buckskin Run
Dutchman’s Flat
End of the Drive
From the Listening Hills
The Hills of Homicide
Law of the Desert Born
Long Ride Home
Lonigan
May There Be a Road
Monument Rock
Night over the Solomons
Off the Mangrove Coast
The Outlaws of Mesquite
The Rider of the Ruby Hills
Riding for the Brand
The Strong Shall Live
The Trail to Crazy Man
Valley of the Sun
War Party
West from Singapore
West of Dodge
With These Hands
Yondering
SACKETT TITLES
Sackett’s Land
To the Far Blue Mountains
The Warrior’s Path
Jubal Sackett
Ride the River
The Daybreakers
Sackett
Lando
Mojave Crossing
Mustang Man
The Lonely Men
Galloway
Treasure Mountain
Lonely on the Mountain
Ride the Dark Trail
The Sackett Brand
The Sky-Liners
THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS
The Riders of the High Rock
The Rustlers of West Fork
The Trail to Seven Pines
Trouble Shooter
NONFICTION
Education of a Wandering Man
Frontier
THE SACKETT COMPANION: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels
A TRAIL OF MEMORIES: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour, compiled by Angelique L’Amour
POETRY
Smoke from This Altar
About Louis L’Amour
“I think of myself in the oral tradition—as a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way I’d like to be remembered—as a storyteller. A good storyteller.”
It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world recreated in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L’Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family’s frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.
Mr. L’Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L’Amour published his first full-length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 100 books is in print; there are more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.
His hardcover bestsellers include The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum (his twelfth-century historical novel), Jubal Sackett, Last of the Breed, and The Haunted Mesa. His memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L’Amour stories are available on cassettes and CDs from Random House Audio publishing.
The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L’Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life’s work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.
Louis L’Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L’Amour tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.
Praise for
Law of the Desert Born
“This actually may be the story’s ideal form… . The result is stunning and richly textured.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Yeates’ artwork is incredible.”
—GraphicNovelReporter.com
“Law of the Desert Born is a fantastic example of how relevant the Western can be.”
—Suvudu.com
“The richer plot and characters from L’Amour’s son Beau and collaborator Kathy Nolan add appeal and value in addition to the finely crafted visuals.”
—Library Journal
“The novel’s illustrations add a new dimension to an already gripping tale.”
—American Cowboy
“An amazing level of detail and ambience that breathes new life into Louis L’Amour’s already stunning story.”
—Cowboys & Indians
A Graphic Novel Masterpiece!
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The Kilkenny Series Bundle Page 63