Read Online Lando (1962) by Louis - Sackett's 08 L'amour - Free Book Online Page A

logical.
    "Are you sure," the Tinker asked me, "that your father left nothing to guide you to the ship?
    No map? No directions?"
    "He gave me nothing when he left, and if there was a map he may have wanted it himself."
    Jonas rose. "My brother-in-law may question you. You have hired to work on my ranch, that is all."
    "It is settled then?" the Tinker asked.
    "To Mexico?"
    "How about it, Sackett?"
    "Well," I said, "I never saw much gold, and always allowed as how I'd like to. This seems to be a likely chance." I shook hands with them.
    "I only hope," I added, "that I'm half the man my father must have been."

    Chapter Four.
    We fetched up to the ranch house shy of sundown. We'd been riding quite a spell of days, and while never much on riding, I had been doing a fair country job of it by the time we hauled rein in front of that soddy.
    For that was what it was, a sod house and no more.
    Jonas Locklear had cut himself a cave out of a hillside and shored it up with squared timbers.
    Then he had built a sod house right up against it, built in some bunks, and there it was.
    Only Locklear had been gone for some time, and when we fetched up in front of that soddy the door opened and a man came out.
    He was no taller than me, but black-jawed and sour-looking. He wore a tied-down gun, and some folks would have decided from that he was a gunman. Me, I'd seen a few gunfighters, and they wore their guns every which way.
    "I'm Locklear. I own this place. Who are you?"
    The man just looked at him, and then as a second man emerged, the first one said, "Says he owns this place. Shall we tell it to him quick?"
    "Might's well."
    "All right." His eyes went from Locklear to the Tinker, and he said, "You don't own this place no more, Mr. Locklear. We do. We found it abandoned, we moved in. It's ours, we're givin' you until full dark to get off the place. The ranch stretches for ten miles thataway, so you'd best make a fast start."
    Before Jonas could make reply, I broke in. Something about this man got in my craw and stuck there, and so I said, "You heard Jonas Locklear speak. This here ranch is deeded and proper, and not open to squatters. You gave us till full dark. Well, we ain't givin' you that much time. You got just two minutes to make a start."
    His gun showed up. I declare, he got that thing out before I could so much as have it in mind.
    "You draw fast," I said, "but you still got to shoot it, and before you kill me dead, I'll have lead in you. I'll shoot some holes in you, believe me. Now you take Cullen. When he was teaching me, he said--"
    "Who? Who did you say?"
    "Cullen"--I kept my face bland--
    "Cullen Baker. Now, when he was teaching me to draw, he said to--"
    "Cullen Baker taught you to draw?" He looked around warily. "He ridin' with you?"
    "He camps with us," I said. "What he does meanwhile I've no idea. Him an'
    Longley an' Lee, they traipse around the country a good deal. Davis police, they've been hustling Cullen some, so he said to me, "South, that's the place. We'll go south."'"
    This black-jawed man looked from me to the Tinker, and then he sort of backed up and said, "I'd no idea you was with Cullen Baker. I want no trouble with him, or any outfit he trails with."
    "You've got a choice," I said, "Brownsville or Corpus Christi. When the rest of them get here, I figure to have coffee on. Cullen sets store by fresh black coffee."
    They lit out, and after they had gone, the Tinker looked over at Jonas. "Did you ever see the like? Looks right down a gun barrel and talks them out of it."
    "Cullen did camp with us," I said, "and there's no question that he liked our coffee."
    Took us until midnight to clean that place out, but we did it. And then we turned in to sleep.
    Sunup found us scouting around the range.
    Seemed like there was grass everywhere but no cattle, and then we did come on some cows and bulls in a draw, maybe twenty-five or thirty of them lazing in the morning sun. These were wild cattle. Owned cattle, mind you,