Read Online The Outlaw Josey Wales by Forrest Carter - Free Book Online Page A

and circled the corral. Before he was halfway around, he saw the horse he wanted, a big black with deep chest and rounded barrel… nearly as big as his roan. He rode to the front of the post, and looping the reins of the roan on the hitch rack, strode to the heavy front door.
    Zukie Limmer was nervous and frightened. He had reason. He held his trading post contract under auspices of the U.S. Army, which specifically forbade the sale of liquor. Zukie made more profit from his bootlegging than he did from all his trade goods cheating of the Creeks. Now he was frightened. The two men had brought the horses in yesterday and were waiting, they said, for the Army detachment from Fort Gibson to come and inspect them for buying. They had turned their own horses into the corral, and dragging their saddles and gear into the post, had slept on the dirt floor without so much as asking a leave to do so. He knew them only as Yoke and AI, but he knew they were dangerous, for they had about them the leering smiles of thinly disguised threat as they took whatever pleased them with the remark, “Put that on our bill,” at which they both invariably burst into roars of laughter at a seemingly obvious joke. They claimed to have papers on the horses, but Zukie suspected the horse herd to be Comanche… the fruits of a Comanche raiding party on Texas ranches of the Southwest.
    The evening before, the larger of the two, Yoke, had thrown a huge arm around the narrow shoulders of Zukie, drawing him close in an overbearing, confidential manner. He had blown the breath of his rotten teeth into Zukie’s face while he assured him, “We got papers on them horses… good papers. Ain’t we, Al?”
    He had winked broadly at Al, and both had laughed uproariously. Zukie had scuttled back behind the heavy plank set on barrels that served as his bar. During the night he had moved his gold box back into the sloping lean-to shed where he slept. All day he had stayed behind the plank, first hoping for the Army patrol… now dreading it; for the men had broken into his whiskey barrel and had been liquoring up since midmorning.
    Once, Zukie had almost forgotten his fear. When the Indian woman had brought out the noon meal and placed the beef platters before them on the rough table, they had grabbed her. She had stood passively while they ran rough hands over her thighs and buttocks and made obscene suggestions to each other.
    “How much you take fer this squaw?” Al, the ferret-looking one, had asked as he stroked the woman’s stomach.
    “She ain’t fer sale,” Zukie had snapped… then, alarmed at his own brevity, a whine entered his tone… “That is… she ain’t mine… I mean, she works here.”
    Yoke had winked knowingly at Al, “He could put ’er on the bill, Al.” They had laughed at the remark until Yoke fell off the stool. The woman had escaped back into the kitchen.
    Zukie was not outraged at their treatment of the woman; it was that he had anticipated her for himself. She had been there at the post just four days, and as was his way, Zukie Limmer never entered upon anything in a straight manner… he sidled his way, crablike, forward. Cunning was his nature; it made the prize better.
    She had walked into the post from the west and had offered an old dirty blanket for sale. Zukie had sized her up immediately. She was an outcast. The heavy scar running the length of her right nostril was the punishment of some of the Plains tribes for unfaithfulness. “One too many bucks,” Zukie had snickered and repeated it. It was clever, and Zukie savored his humor. She was not unpretty. Maybe twenty-five or thirty, still slender, with pointed breasts and rounded thighs that pushed against the fringed doeskin. Her moccasins had been worn through and hung in tatters on swollen feet. Her bronze face, framed by plaited black hair, was stoical, but her eyes reflected the haunted look of a hurt animal.
    Zukie had felt the saliva juices entering his mouth as