Read Online Pale Rider by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online Page A

the sluice. Three men drew near enough for him to recognize them. Josh Lahood let out an oath and went to meet them.
    All three wore crude bandages. Jagou and Tyson had white cloth wrapped around their heads, while a thick roll of absorbent cotton had been secured to McGill’s lower jaw. They reined in when they saw Lahood was coming to meet them. The boss’s son had to raise his voice in order to make himself heard above the rumble of the monitor. It didn’t take much of an effort. He was plenty mad.
    “Where the hell have you three been? Your shift began an hour ago. You think I’m gonna leave Club on the monitor forever?”
    Tyson and Jagou said nothing, leaving it to McGill to explain as best he was able. “ ’Pologize, Josh. We’d’ve been here on time but we got tied up at the sawbones.”
    “Lucky thing he was visitin’ his sister, too,” Jagou mumbled.
    Lahood scrutinized their assortment of bandages, and took note of their subdued attitude. Neither was appropriate to this trio. They were among his daddy’s toughest and most inspired hell-raisers.
    “I can see that. The three of you look like you fell down a mine shaft. What the hell happened?”
    McGill had trouble with the words, was rescued by the reluctant Tyson. “Well, we were takin’ it easy-like outside the office, boss, killin’ time until it was our turn on shift, and Barret rode into town. You remember how we did him last time he tried that?”
    “Yeah, I remember. So?”
    “Well, we had a little set-to. Just funnin’ him a little, and—”
    “Wait a minute.” Lahood’s gaze narrowed as he looked from one battered visage to the other. “I want to be sure i understand what you’re saying. You got yourselves whipped? All three of you, in Lahood, California? By a lousy tin-pan?”
    “Oh no, Boss, not just him!”
    “He had some of those other dirt-grubbers from Carbon with him?”
    “Well, not exactly. See, there was this stranger kinda gave him a hand, and we—”
    “What stranger?” Lahood frowned. Something here didn’t make sense. “Who are you talking about? If he wasn’t from Carbon, then where’d he come from?”
    Fed up with the whole embarrassing business, McGill was in no mood to go into details. But with the boss’s son standing there glaring back at him he couldn’t play dumb.
    “Blankenship’s.”
    Lahood gave him a jaundiced eye. “That’s not what I mean and you know it, McGill.”
    “We didn’t see him coming. He left with Barret. Didn’t stick around to chat, and that suited us fine. Never did get his name.”
    “No? Looks to me like he left each of you his calling card.” The three roustabouts exchanged sheepish looks. Each man fervently wished he’d come to work early instead of loafing around town looking for a little excitement. They’d found more than they’d bargained for.
    “ One stranger?” Lahood inquired. McGill nodded.
    The pistol slung at the younger man’s hip caught the sun as he turned away. “That’s just great.” He didn’t try to keep the disgust out of his voice. “Dad’s goin’ to be thrilled when he hears about this.” The trio looked more miserable than ever, but Lahood wasn’t finished with them yet.
    “McGill, take over the sluice.”
    The foreman put a hand to his aching jaw. “Boss, I ain’t sure I—
    “Well I am sure. Get your ass over there. Tyson, Jagou—you two get to work the monitor.”
    Tyson groaned and shared a look of misery with his friend as the two of them followed Lahood up the hill. Working the monitor was the hardest job in camp, because it wanted to go everywhere except where you wanted it to. You had to lean on it constantly, using all your strength, and at the end of a shift with the water cannon every muscle in your body ached. McGill stood alone for a moment, watching them go. Then he slunk over toward the sluice and tried to make himself vanish in the spray.
    Up atop the monitor platform, Lahood rapped the man everyone called Club