The room was bright and cheery with china plates and curtains at the windows. Nita came in, drying her hands on an apron, and called him to lunch. He took a last look down the street, and then got up and walked in to the table. Sally’s face was flushed and she looked very pretty, yet he had eyes only for Nita.
He had never seen her so lovely as now. Her face looked softer and prettier than he had ever seen it. She was happy, too, radiantly happy. Even the news of the nearness of Cub Hale had not been able to wipe it from her face.
Bartram came in and joined them. He grinned at Kilkenny. “Not often a man gets a chance to try his wife’s cooking as much as I have before he marries her!” He chuckled. “I’ll say this for her, she can sure make biscuits!”
“I didn’t make them!” Sally protested. “Nita did!”
“Nita?” Kilkenny looked up, smiling. “I didn’t know you could cook.”
There was a low call from the door. “Kilkenny?” It was Cain Brockman. “He’s comin’. Shall I take him?”
“No.” Kilkenny touched his mouth with a napkin and drew back from the table. “It’s my job.” His eyes met Nita’s across the table. “Don’t pour my coffee,” he said quietly. “I like it hot.”
He turned and walked to the door. Far down the street he could see Cub Hale. He was on foot, and his hat was gone, his yellow hair blowing in the wind. He was walking straight up the center of the street, looking straight ahead.
Kilkenny stepped down off the porch. The roses were blooming, and their scent was strong in his nostrils. He could smell the rich odor of fresh earth in the sunlight, and somewhere a magpie shrieked. He opened the gate and, stepping out, closed it carefully behind him. Then he began to walk.
He took his time. There was no hurry. There was never any hurry at a time like this. Everything always seemed to move by slow motion, until suddenly it was over and you wondered how it all could have happened. Saul Hatfield was standing on the steps, his rifle in the hollow of his arm. He and Quince were just there in case he failed.
Failed? Kilkenny smiled. He had never failed. Yet, they all failed soon or late. There was always a time when they were too slow, when their guns hung or missed fire. The dust smelled hot, and in the distance thunder rumbled. Then a few scattered drops fell. Odd, he hadn’t even been aware it was clouding up.
Little puffs of dust lifted from his boots when he walked. He could see Cub more clearly now. He was unshaven, and his face was scratched by brush. His fancy buckskin jacket was gone. Only the guns were the same, and the white eyes, eyes that seemed to burn.
Suddenly Hale stopped, and, when he stopped, Kilkenny stopped, too. He stood there perfectly relaxed, waiting. Cub’s face was white, dead. Only his eyes seemed alive, and that burning white light was in them. “I’m goin’ to kill you!” he said, his voice sharp and strained.
It was all wrong. Kilkenny felt no tension, no alertness. He was just standing there, and in him suddenly there welled up a tremendous feeling of pity. Why couldn’t they ever learn? There was nothing in a gun but death.
Something flickered in those white, blazing eyes, and Kilkenny, standing perfectly erect, slapped the butt of his gun with his palm. The gun leaped up, settled into a rock-like grip, and then bucked in his hand, once, twice. The gun before him flowered with flame, and something stabbed, white hot, low down on his right side. The gun flowered again, but the stabbing flame wasted itself in the dust and Cub’s knees buckled and there was a spot of blood on his chest, right over the heart. He fell face down and then straightened his legs, and there was silence in the long dusty street of Cedar Bluff.
Kilkenny thumbed shells into his gun, holstered it, and then turned. Steadily, quietly, looking straight ahead, he walked back up the hill toward the cottage. It was just a little hill, but it suddenly seemed steep. He walked on, and then he could see Nita opening the gate and running toward him.
He stopped then, and waited. There was a burning in his side, and he felt something wet against his leg. He looked down, puzzled, and, when he looked, he fell flat on his face in the dust.
Then Nita was turning him over, and her face was white. He tried to sit up, but they pushed him down. Cain Brockman came over, and with Saul Hatfield they carried him up the hill. It was only a few steps, and it had seemed so far.
He was still conscious when Price Dixon came in. Dixon made a brief examination, and then shrugged.
“He’s all right. The bullet went into his side, slid off a rib, and narrowly missed his spine. But it’s nothing that we can’t fix up. Shock, mostly…and bleeding.”
Later, Nita came in. She looked at him and smiled. “Shall I put the coffee on now?” she asked lightly. Her eyes were large and dark.
“Let Sally put it on,” he said gently. “You stay here.”
Other Leisure books by Louis L’Amour:
THE SIXTH SHOTGUN
THE GOLDEN WEST (Anthology)
THE UNTAMED WEST (Anthology)
About the Editor
Jon Tuska is the author of numerous books about the American West, as well as editor of several short story collections, Billy the Kid: His Life and Legend (Greenwood Press, 1994) and The Western Story: A Chronological Treasury (University of Nebraska Press, 1995) among them. Together with his wife Vicki Piekarski, Tuska cofounded Golden West Literary Agency, which primarily represents authors of Western fiction and Western Americana. They edit and co-publish forty titles a year in two prestigious series of new hardcover Western novels and story collections, the Five Star Westerns and the Circle V Westerns. They also coedited the Encyclopedia of Frontier and Western Fiction (McGraw-Hill, 1983), The Max Brand Companion (Greenwood Press, 1996), The Morrow Anthology of Great Western Short Stories (Morrow, 1997), and The First Five Star Western Corral (Five Star Westerns, 2000). Tuska has also been editing an annual series of short story collections, Stories of the Golden West, of which there have so far been seven volumes.
Copyright
A LEISURE BOOK®
August 2006
Published by special arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency.
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
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Copyright © 2006 by Golden West Literary Agency
“The Rider of Lost Creek” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in West (4/47). Copyright © 1947 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
“A Man Called Trent” under the byline Jim Mayo first appeared in West (12/47). Copyright © 1947 by Better Publications, Inc. Copyright not renewed.
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E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0317-5
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