Read Online Novel 1954 - Utah Blaine (As Jim Mayo) (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour - Free Book Online Page A

the stomach and one right below the heart. There was, and both of them knew it, not one chance in a million.
    Blaine bathed the wounds with hot water and then bandaged them. Kelsey stirred on the ground and then opened his eyes. “Blaine,” he muttered. “Got to see Blaine.”
    “I’m here, Tom,” Utah said. “Who shot you?”
    “Blaine!” he groaned. “Blaine! You got to run! All of you! Get out! Mil—Miller told me. Neal’s dead. Killed. They are all comin’ after you.”
    Coker swore. Crouching over Kelsey’s body, he demanded quickly, impatiently, “Tom—you sure?”
    “Rink…Rink killed him.”
    “Rink,” Coker straightened to his feet. “That tears it. If Rink went after Neal, then he’s dead. That means you’re out, Utah.”
    “Like hell.” Utah was still working over the wounded man. “Take it easy, Tom.”
    “It ain’t what you think I’m talkin’ about,” Coker protested. “It’s them. With Neal dead you’ve no authority. The lid’s off an’ they’ll come like locusts. An’ they’ll hunt you—us—like animals.”
    “Maybe.” Utah’s jaw was set, his face grim. Suddenly, he was tired. He had tried, but now Neal was dead. That good old man, murdered by Rink Witter.
    Rink…well, that was something he could do. “I’ll kill Rink,” he said quietly.
    “If you stay alive long enough.” Coker was pacing the ground. “God, man. They’ll all be after us! We’ll have a real fight now!”
    “Clell Miller did this?” Utah asked.
    Kelsey was growing weaker. “Yes,” he said faintly. “Don’t mind me. I’m—I’m—finished. Ride. Get out.”
    He started a deep breath and never finished it.
    Utah swore softly. “Good man gone,” he said, unconsciously speaking his epitaph. “Let’s get out of here. Timm will be alone at that ranch.”
    “Take his guns. We’ll need ’em. I’ll get his rifle and start his horse home.”
    They mounted again and rode off in silence, leaving behind them the body of a “good man gone.”
    When they crossed the ridge near Bloody Basin they could see, several miles off, the lights at the Big N.
    “There they are,” Coker said bitterly. “Gettin’ ready for us.”
    Utah’s comment was dry. “What you kickin’ about? You asked for a fight.”
    “You stickin’ it out?”
    “Sure.”
    Coker smiled. This was his kind of man. “You got a partner,” he said quietly. Then he added, “You take Rink. I want Clell.”
    Chapter 8
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    R INK WITTER HAD come upon Neal at Congress Junction. Witter, under orders from Nevers, had started for El Paso to find and kill Joe Neal. He arrived at the Junction in time to see Joe Neal get down from a cattle train, and Witter swung down from his horse and walked up the platform. Neal did not see him until they were less than twenty feet apart.
    “Hello, Joe,” Rink Witter said, and shot him three times through the stomach. As the old man fell, Witter walked up to him, kicked away the hand that groped for a gun and shot Neal again, between the eyes. Then he walked unhurriedly to his horse, mounted and rode back to the Big N.
    The news swept the country like wildfire. Neal was dead. Blaine, therefore, no longer had any authority. The few who had lagged now saw there was no longer any reason for delay. As one man they started to move. Nevers began at once to gather his forces. He wanted to be on the 46 range in force before any opposition could arrive. Then he could dictate terms.
    Otten worried him none at all despite the man’s political influence over the Territory. Nevers figured they could buy Otten off with a few square miles of range which he would accept rather than enter a free-for-all fight. There would be trouble with Ortmann, but with Clell and Fuller’s men that could be handled. It was Lee Fox who worried Nevers—far more than he would have admitted.
    Fox, at Table Mountain, was between Nevers and the bulk of the 46 range. Moreover, Fox was a highly volatile person, one whose depth