Read Online Louis L'Amour by Hanging Woman Creek - Free Book Online

was a good boy, a good rider, and a good hand, and if ever there was an honest man, he was one. And surely that was why he was dead, because he had been honest when somebody wanted him to be otherwise. Or that was how it shaped up.
    If it so happened that I was to go like Johnny, there was nobody to mind, nobody that would give it a thought after a few days had passed. It made a man wonder what he had done with his life.
    When I went back to the cabin Eddie was reading an old newspaper. He looked up at me. “You think the one who killed that man was the same one who’s been shooting at the door?”
    “No, there ain’t a chance of it. The person who killed Johnny wouldn’t have wasted lead. He would’ve laid out and waited for that one perfect shot, and at fairly close-up range.
    “Eddie, we got to face it. We’re up against a sure-enough killer. You see anybody riding a horse withleather-shod hoofs, don’t you turn your back—no matter who.”
    He sat quiet for a spell, and then he said, “You going to take the body in?”
    “Uh-huh. And I may have to stay for an inquest. Looks to me you’re going to be maybe a week or more on your own.”
    “Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “You just ride along about your business.”

    T HERE WERE FOLKS standing along Main Street when I rode in with Johnny. One of the first men I saw was Granville Stuart; another was Bill Justin.
    Justin was surprised when I named the dead man. “Johnny Ward? The last I heard of Johnny he was punching cows up on Cherry Creek.”
    Briefly, I told what I knew, and as I talked several men gathered around, listening. Standing on the walk some distance off, but within earshot, was a man who looked familiar, but I couldn’t make out who he was. Stuart asked me a question, and after I answered him I looked around, but the man was gone.
    Suddenly it came to me who he looked like. There’d been something about him that made me think of Van Bokkelen, whom I’d last seen back to Dakota.
    Next day they had the inquest and I gave my evidence—or as much of it as I felt should be given. In my own mind I was sure whoever rode that leather-shod horse was the guilty party, but to most people that would mean an Indian, and I wasn’t about to start an Indian scare.
    There’d be loose talk, and then somebody would organize a raid and the Indians would fight back, and we’d have a first-class war on our hands. I was sure in my mind that whoever rode that horse was no Indian, so I kept still and testified to what I had found, adding the fact that Johnny Ward was obviously shot by somebody he knew and had talked with … that he was shot down without warning, at fairly close range.
    One thing I did say that I was immediately sorry for. They asked me could I identify the track of the killer if I saw it again, and I said I believed I could.
    And with those words I stood myself up right in the target rack of a shooting gallery.
    There were two or three strangers at the back of the room where the inquest was held, and I didn’t get a good look at them. And there was somebody else in the room who was no stranger. Jim Fargo was there.
    The place I’d got for myself was across from the livery stable, where they had a few rooms for rent. That night, on a hunch, I shifted the bed as quietly as I could, moving it to the opposite side of the room. No more than a cot it was, and it was no trick to just pick it up and move it. I had pulled off my boots and was getting undressed when I thought of those strangers at the inquest, and it came to me that one of them was Duster Wyman, who’d loaned me ten dollars back in Jimtown—the man who was supposed to be Tom Gatty’s representative in the Dakota town.
    If I hadn’t been so dog-tired I’d have saddled up and lit out for the hills right then.
    Like I said, I was never any hand with a six-gun, but since Justin supplied them, I’d been carryingboth a six-shooter and a Winchester. When I finally stretched