Read Online Feud On The Mesa by Lauran Paine - Free Book Online Page A

where that Texan’s shot went?”
    Caleb shook his head dryly. “No. As long as it didn’t go through me, I don’t care.”
    “Right here. Look. Man that was awful close.” Caleb and the others looked down at the front of the bar. The dead man’s slug had missed Caleb’s body by a fraction of an inch and had gone through the bar front and out through the back wall. “Close, damned awful close, I’d call it.”
    “Where ya goin’, Caleb?” Britt’s grizzled eye-brows were creased with a worried look.
    “Down to the livery barn an’ check on my horse. Back in a few minutes.”
    As Caleb emerged from the saloon, the people on the plank sidewalk looked at him oddly, and the buzz of excited voices trailed in his wake from the saloon all the way down to the livery barn. The half-breed hostler flashed a brilliant smile at him as he walked back and looked in at his drowsing black horse, sleek and shiny and comfortable, a big flake of fragrant timothy hay still untouched in the worn manger.
    “Good fight. I heard about it.”
    Caleb was mildly irritated that the news hadtraveled so quickly. He nodded and ignored the quick look of anticipation. “Saddle my horse and hang the bridle on the saddle horn. Tie him in his stall. I may have to use him in a hurry. Understand?”
    The half-breed nodded importantly. He now had a secret that the other loungers would know nothing about.
    Caleb turned and walked out of the wide opening of the barn. Somewhere a rifle cracked and Caleb heard the ripping tear of the heavy slug as it plowed its way into the wall beside him. He threw himself backward, ran into the barn again, down the long, dirt-paved aisle between the stalls, past the startled hostler, and out the back end. It was beginning to rain again and a freshet of cool, invigorating air blew into his face, fragrant with the smell of wet, moldy earth and sage.
    Caleb’s fringed hunting shirt darkened as the rain fell on it. He stalked slowly, warily around in back of the stores and avoided the rubbish and refuse piles, alive with shiny bluebottle flies, with effortless grace. The Texans were back for blood. He was opposite the Longhorn Saloon when the throbbing rumble of loping horses came to his ears. He stepped around in front of the building he had been using as a screen as a large host of heavily armed men swung up to the hitch rail and dismounted. Two tight-faced men were left to watch the horses and the rest of the riders surged into the saloon. Caleb stepped out into plain sight and both the Texans left with the horses saw him at the same time. One made a slight, bird-like jerk toward his gun and growled. The second man said something in a breathless voice and the first man stopped his dip. Caleb held them both with his cold stare and neither man moved. Thespeed of the scout’s draw had made a deep impression on the Texan who had been present at the recent killing, and he had stopped the green cowboy just in time.

IV
    A ll of Lodgepole, it seemed, had expected the Texans to return. There was only the gentle whisper of the light drizzle to break the awful silence in the town. Even as far away as Caleb was, he could hear the stentorian roar of a big, deep-chested man in the saloon.
    “Ah want the squawman who done shot mah fo’-man an’, b’ Gawd, iffen y’all don’t produce him right naow, I’ll tear this heah li’l dung heap daown aroun’ yuah ears.”
    There was the brittle silence again, then Caleb heard the scuffling boots and tinkling spurs as the Texans came through the batwing doors. They were beside their horses before the horse guard pointed at him and yelled in a high, hysterical voice: “Thar he stan’s! Over thar ag’in’ that store. He’s the feller as shot down Powder Hudson.”
    The Texans all went into action at the same time. It was a fair certainty that they were letting off pent-up steam, because at least a dozen of them couldn’t have seen the horse guard point to him. Caleb singled out