Read Online The Desperado by Clifton Adams - Free Book Online Page B

corn-shuck cigarettes.
    “It seems like Paul just came from your part of the country,” he
said.
    “John's City?”
    Creyton sat up and worked with the makings of a cigarette. “That's
the place,” he said. “Me and Ralph and Buck came through there a few
days back. About the day after you pulled out, according to what Pappy
tells me.”
    I looked at Pappy, but his face told me nothing.
    “Well, what about it?”
    “Nothing about it,” Creyton said bluntly. “We just came through it,
that's all. The carpetbag law was raisin' hell. Stoppin' all travelers,
police makin' raids on the local ranchers. All because some white punk
took a swing at a cavalryman, they said.”
    I hadn't been ready for that. I had figured, like Ray Novak, that if
the two of us got out of the country for a while it would all blow
over. But here the police were raiding the ranches, because of us. Our
own place, maybe. Or the Bannerman place, where Laurin was.
    If one of the pigs so much as laid a hand on Laurin...
    The thought of it made me weak and a little sick. I wheeled and
started for the door.
    “Where do you think you're going?” Pappy said.
    “Back to John's City.”
    “Do you plan to go on foot? I don't care what you do with yourself,
but I hate to see you kill a good horse out of damn foolishness. Wait
till tomorrow. You'll make better time in the long run by giving your
horse a rest.”
    Pappy was right. I knew that, but it wasn't easy staying here and
wondering what might be happening to Laurin, or Ma and Pa, and doing
nothing about it. Grey-ton got slowly to his feet, standing there in
front of the fireplace, looking at me.
    “You'd better listen to Pappy, kid,” he said. “When you need a horse
you need him bad. I ought to know.”
    I didn't want Creyton's advice. For all I knew, he just wanted me to
stick around a while longer to give him a better chance to steal my
horse. But I knew they were both right. Red had been pushed hard for
the past few days, and if I tried to push him again tonight he might
break down for good.
    So I stayed. When the fire burned out, we made blanket pallets on the
dirt floor, and before long Pappy's heavy breathing told me that he was
asleep. He didn't snore. From time to time the rhythm of his breathing
would break, he would rouse himself, look around, and then go back to
sleep again. That was the way Pappy was. He never slept sound enough to
snore. You had a feeling that he never let his mind be completely
blanked out, that he always kept some little corner of it open. Being
on the run had done that. He was afraid to allow himself the luxury of
real sleep. A man like Pappy never knew when he would have to be wide
awake and ready to shoot.
    I lay awake for a long while, listening to a night wind moan and
fling gravel and dust against the shack. Creyton seemed to be asleep.
His breathing was regular, and once in a while he would snort a little
and roll over on the hard ground. I lay there, with my eyes wide open,
not taking any chances.
    The night crawled by slowly. How many hours, I don't know. My eyes
burned from keeping them open, and every so often I'd feel myself
dropping off and I'd have to start thinking about something. I wanted a
cigarette, but I didn't dare light one. I was asleep, as far as Paul
Creyton was concerned, and I wanted to keep it that way in case he had
ideas about that red horse of mine. I started thinking about Laurin.
    I was dreaming of Laurin when something woke me. I didn't remember
going to sleep, but I had. I sat up immediately, looking around the
room, but it was too dark to see anything. I could hear Pappy's
breathing. But not Paul Creyton's.
    Sickness hit in my stomach, and then anger. Then, outside the shack,
I heard Red whinny, and I knew that was the thing that had wakened me.
    I went to the door, and in the pale moonlight I could see Paul
Creyton throwing a saddle up on Red's back. So Pappy had been right all
along.