Read Online The Eye of the Hunter by Frank Bonham - Free Book Online Page B

demanded, almost weeping.
    â€œWell, what do you like to hunt? Baldwin locomotives on the wing? A .44 would have stopped anything you’re ever going to meet. Now you’re packing a gun that really isn’t safe to fire.”
    â€œThat’s what I told him,” the stumplike man said. “The metal’s too thin, right?”
    Better to have a friend than an enemy, Henry decided. He said, “I exaggerated a little, Budge. What I meant is that you’d better not use smokeless in this. Gunsmiths think twice before they modify a gun that’s really about right to begin with. It’s in my book, The Law of the Gun , which I’ll give you all a copy of before I leave.”
    He inspected the other weapons, gave the shooters the compliments they were waiting for, but perceived that they were disappointed. They did not want the show to be over without a villain’s having been dealt with. And now that he was no longer the villain, they needed someone else to hiss at.
    â€œTell you what, boys,” he said. “I’d like to shoot with you someday, but first I’ve got some business to tend to. I’ll tell Budge when I’m free.”
    Leo Lucas scratched his neck. “Then I’d say you’ve got a problem, Henry. Because if you don’t take care of this gunman business first, you won’t get much other business done. Every time you go through a door, you’re going to hear snickering. All I’m trying to say is, Ambrose has you in a box. We just shoot for fun, but other men are going to take it more serious. Like you’d insulted them. It’s foolish, but you’re going to have to do something, Henry. Show them you ain’t a braggart—but you ain’t afraid, either.”
    Henry sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. What if I were to challenge Ambrose to a shooting match? Would that—?”
    â€œNo, because Ben don’t claim to be a marksman.”
    â€œAh. Then maybe I should give him a lesson in journalism. If this was a joke, I think I ought to have a chuckle or two myself, don’t you?”
    The men perked up. “That’s the ticket!”
    â€œWait here a minute,” Henry said. “I’ll tell my landlady where I’m going, and I’ll get my rifle.”
    â€œWhat kind you carry?” Budge shouted after him, unable to wait.
    Henry called, “Same as yours, Budge. The Model E, though—thirty-four-inch barrel, .44-105 bottleneck shells. Take the ash off a mosquito’s cigarette at a hundred yards....”

Chapter Eight
    In the smoky dusk, Henry led the Grand Army of the Republic Shooting Club down the steep hill and turned south on International Street toward the stores, hotels, and saloons. Spread across the road in a skirmish line, the Grand Army was silent but charged up like a bottle of soda water, glancing often at him. Henry heard Budge Gorman give a happy chuckle and whisper to himself, “Goddamn.”
    A warm breeze from Mexico blew cool and steady in his face, and in this last half hour of daylight he could hear forage bells, church bells, and distant voices, and he savored the exciting atmosphere of the town, which gave him gooseflesh, like the first night in a foreign town, with different coins in his pocket, different odors in his nostrils, a different language. The woman he had met in the cemetery was a great part of this excitement, too.
    Along the street, electric streetlights glowed and pulsed in surges, as though somewhere a lame mule was generating electricity by stumbling around a pole. Nearing the newspaper office, the Grand Army fell silent. Did they fear they might distract the famous gunmaster at this crucial moment? he wondered.
    Suddenly he noticed something that made him laugh. They looked at him.
    â€œMen,” he said, “I wonder if one of you soldiers can tell me why in hell we’re walking down the middle of the street, like Wyatt