Read Online Louis L'Amour by The Cherokee Trail - Free Book Online Page B

“One man got off right up the line. Preston Collier had a carriage waitin’ for him. Englishman, by the sound of him, and some high muckety-muck by the look.”
    “Collier? He’s the rancher, isn’t he?”
    “He is that, rich as all get out,” Wilbur replied as Boone joined them. “Has him a ranch home with white pillars and two good-lookin’ daughters so prim sugar wouldn’t melt in their mouths. His wife’s the same type. This here Englishman brought some guns along. Says he’s goin’ to hunt bears and buffalo and such. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get himself killed.”
    She laughed, then said, “Don’t jump to conclusions, Wilbur. Some of those Englishmen can really shoot. When I was a girl, some of them used to stop at our house while hunting in the Bull Run Mountains or the Blue Ridge.”
    “Yes, ma’am, you could be right. There was an Irishman or Englishman named Gore. He come out a few years back and shot everything in sight. He shot up enough wild critturs to fatten a tribe of Shoshones, left most of it lay. Me, I never shot anything least I wanted to eat it.” Wilbur walked out to check on the horses.
    “Collier’s all right,” Boone said. “He’s a solid man. A good cattleman. I don’t always hold with his politics, but his word is as good as his bond.” Boone hesitated, then commented casually, “If a man wanted to run for office in this part of the territory, Preston Collier would be a man to cultivate.”
    Mary glanced at Boone, but he was looking away, watching the passengers filing in to the table. Was he trying to tell her something? To warn her?
    Temple Boone was a puzzle. Just who
was
he? Where did he come from? There was much about him that puzzled her, yet he said nothing of his background, and the little she had heard was that he had worked at a usual round of frontier jobs. Wat…she must ask Wat. He seemed to know a good bit about everyone.
    For that matter, who was Wat? Had he no family? Where was his mother? A “sagebrush orphan,” they called him, a name given to children whose parents had died or disappeared. Usually, they attached themselves to some other family or found work helping on a ranch until they finally drifted on to wherever such people go.
    Well, that would not happen to Wat! He was a nice boy, and she would see he had a chance. Peg liked him, and they were close enough in age that they could be companions.
    Nobody asked questions out here. That was one of the first things she had to learn. Every man was taken at face value until he proved himself otherwise. What you had been before was unimportant.
    The West, she had come to understand, was a place where you started over. When you came West, you wiped off the slate, and whatever you were to be began here and now. If you had courage, did your job, and were a man of your word, nobody cared whatever you might have been. It was a good thing, she decided. There should always be a place for people to begin again.
    Some, like herself, had lost loved ones. Some had gone bankrupt, some had gotten themselves into trouble with the law, into debts that were a burden, some were simply men and women who did not fit into any pattern. They were not the kind to become tellers in the corner bank, grocery clerks, ministers, or lawyers. They were born with a restlessness in them, an urge to move, to get on with it. If you proved yourself a responsible person, nobody cared where you came from.
    She was learning, she realized, and ridding herself of preconceived ideas. She had heard the West was lawless, but that had been a mistake. Organized law was, for the most part, remote and far away. However, there were unwritten laws that all obeyed, and if there were a few who did not, the response was apt to be abrupt and very, very final.
    The West was tolerant, to a point. When tolerance reached its limit, there was usually a rope or a bullet waiting.
    The passengers ate, got up, stretched, and walked outside, lingering around,