“I’m ridin’,” Red said huskily. “Just give me a chance.” He swung into the saddle, then looked down at Bodie. “He wasn’t so tough, was he?”
“Nobody is,” I told him. “Nobody’s tough with a slug in his belly.”
He rode off, and I stood there in the trail with Bodie dead at my feet. Slowly I holstered my guns, then led my horse off the trail to the shade where Bodie’s horse still stood.
Lying there in the dusty trail, Bodie Miller no longer looked mean or even tough, he looked like a kid that had tackled a job that was too big for him.
There was a small gully off the trail. It looked like a grave, and I used it that way. Rolling him into it, I shoved the banks in on top of him, and then piled on some stones. Then I made a cross for him and wrote his name on it, and the words: HE PLAYED OUT HIS HAND. Then I hung his guns on the cross and his hat.
It was not much of an end for a man, not any way you looked at it, but I wanted no more reputation as a killer—mine had already grown too big.
Maybe Red would tell the story, and maybe in time somebody would see the grave, but if Red’s story was told, it would be somewhere far away and long after, and that suited me.
A stinging in my own shoulder reminded me of my own wound, but when I opened my shirt and checked my shoulder, I found it a mere scratch.
Ahead of me the serrated ridges of the wild lands were stark and lonely along the sky, and the sun behind me was picking out the very tips of the peaks to touch them with gold. Somehow the afternoon was gone, and now I was riding home to my own ranch, and tomorrow was my wedding day.
Other Leisure Trilogies by Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey® & Max Brand®:
THE UNTAMED WEST
THE GOLDEN WEST
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
October 2007
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