Read Online The Plains of Laramie by Lauran Paine - Free Book Online

chest. The bullet went in on the left side. There’s a hole to show where it entered, an’ on the right side there’s a hole to show where it come out. Now, listen, Toma…”
    “Miss Dodge!”
    “Uh, yeah, Toma, now listen. How in…uh, heck…could Beale dig the bullet out of your paw’s horse, when the slug went in one side an’ come out the other side? In other words, ma’am, there couldn’t have been any slug in that there critter to dig out.”
    The girl was silent and the Kid felt the pressureon the gun barrel lessen slightly. She was silent so long that the Kid felt uneasy. “You didn’t happen to see the horse, did you?”
    “No.”
    “Was Sheriff Dugan here this evenin’?”
    “Yes.”
    “Look, Toma”—there was pointed pause but she didn’t take it up—“do me a favor, will you?” “What?”
    “Go to Holbrook tomorrow mornin’ an’ look at that there horse.”
    “Yes, I intend to…but not as a favor to you.”
    The gunbarrel had dropped quite a bit and the Kid wanted to smile.
    “Well, then, can I go now?”
    “Why did you come here tonight?”
    “To talk to you, to tell you how I was forced to make that gun play or get locked up, an’ I don’t want to get locked up just yet. I’ve got a couple of ideas I want to try out. Can I go now?”
    The gun was at her side now, dangling from a white, small hand. Out of place and slightly ridiculous. She tried to see his eyes in the darkness. “You haven’t discovered anything, then?”
    The Kid gingerly let one leg out of the window as he answered. “Yes, ma’am, I discovered one thing. ’Course, it’s got no bearin’ that I can see on the murder, but still it’s awful important to me.”
    “What is it?”
    “That I’m in love with you.”
    He was gone over the windowsill before she could recover from the surprise and shock. The faint rustle of his boot heels in the geranium bed softly blended into the night and Toma Dodge sank into a rocker and let the gun drop to the floor. Shelet her wan, worried face follow the shadowy figure that faded into the gloom as the Vermilion Kid fled through the night, back to his patiently grazing big black horse on the little knoll.

Chapter Four
    The Kid was in his element now and there were few better at it. He was on the dodge. There were handbills tacked to the trees along the Holbrook road and on the fronts of buildings in town. He hid with the almost nonchalant casualness of an old hand on the owlhoot trail. Once he even slipped into Holbrook. He flattened against the walls of the livery barn and buttonholed the startled hostler.
    “Listen, pardner, I want you to tell me somethin’.”
    The hostler recognized him and relaxed a little. He hadn’t forgotten that $20 gold piece. “Sure, Kid, what is it?”
    “Was Beale alone when he dug a slug out of Dodge’s horse?”
    “Well, I don’t know what he done to the horse, ’cause they sent me away…”
    “Who were they?”
    “Oh, Les Tallant…the hombre who owns this here barn…an’ Jeff Beale. They was messin’ around that wounded horse, an’, when I come up, Tallant told me to beat it. I don’t know what they done to the poor critter after I left.”
    “How is the horse?”
    “’Sfunny thing, by golly, but the dang’ critter got up all by hisself today. ’Pears to be gettin’ better.”
    “One more thing, pardner. Were Tallant an’ Dodge friends?”
    The hostler shrugged a little. “No, I wouldn’t call ’em exactly friends. Y’see, Tallant’s hell to gamble, an’, near as I can figger out, old man Dodge set him up in this here livery barn with a big loan. Les’s been gamblin’ pretty heavy, an’ once I heard ’em cussin’ at each other in the office. ’Course, I wasn’t eavesdroppin’, y’understand…”
    “’Course not, I understand.” If there was a tinge of amused sarcasm in the Kid’s voice, the hostler didn’t get it.
    “Anyway, like I was sayin’, they was hollerin’ at one another an’