Andromeda Gun Read Online Free

Troop’s monologue, begun for McCloud as a chatty conversation, swelled to a tirade directed against a growing audience as more wayside idlers fell into step with the ambling Percheron, commenting on its burden with low voices.
    “Can’t expect them Mormons to do no road work, what with them planting all day and plowing all night…”
    McCloud rode on, aloof above the tumult, as Betsy Troop, having dismissed the Mormons, turned her attention to “the lazy, no-count Gentiles” gathering alongside the Percheron. He directed the cortège toward the sheriff’s office, recognizable from the barred windows at the rear of the stone building, and pulled up before the front porch. A tall, gray-haired man emerged, tugging a suspender over a shoulder, his star pinned to the top half of a suit of gray flannel underwear. He had the dignity of age if not the authority in his manner as he walked down from the porch to look at the body.
    The crowd grew silent, waiting for the sheriff to speak, and in the pause Ian McCloud had time to decipher the sign posted on the front of the building:
CITIZENS: PLEASE DO NOT DISCHARGE FIREARMS INSIDE THE TOWN LIMITS… SHERIFF FAUST
    Sheriff Faust cleared his throat and said, “I’ll be, if it ain’t Will Trotter. Dead Man’s Curve get him, son?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Then he died outside my jurisdiction. Why didn’t you leave him there? Buzzards wouldn’t bother him, not for a couple of hours anyhow. Let the stage line go bring him in.”
    “I thought it was my Christian duty, sir.”
    “Reckon you would think that”—the sheriff nodded—“not being familiar with the Territorial Stage Lines. I suspect the town owes you a vote of thanks anyway. What’s your name?”
    He started to answer, “Johnny Loco,” and paused. Chances were, the sheriff would be more apt to recognize his alias than his name.
    “Ian McCloud,” he answered, and the name sounded strange on his lips.
    “The town thanks you, Mr. McCloud. Now, would you haul Will three buildings down to the Territorial Stage Lines’ office and let Mr. Birnie, the stationmaster, take care of the matter.”
    Yawning slightly, the sheriff turned and went back into the jail, apparently to resume his afternoon nap. McCloud glanced at the horse tied to the jailhouse hitching rack. The sheriff’s nag wasn’t worth stealing. He nudged the draft horses forward.
    Mr. Birnie, the stationmaster, was summoned from an early supper by someone in the crowd. Judging by the girth of the man who waddled from the door, McCloud figured it to be the first of a bunch of suppers. Birnie’s shirt was unbuttoned above the belt because the lower buttonholes couldn’t reach the buttons, and his belt, looped below his protruding navel, was as much a hammock for his belly as a support for his trousers. The stationmaster was munching on a half-moon pie as he walked onto the porch.
    McCloud explained the circumstances of Trotter’s death and returned the dead man’s wallet, publicly itemizing its contents.
    Birnie took the wallet, finished his pie, and declaimed to the crowd in a petulant whine, “Now, this beats all get-out. Long as that galoot’s been driving this run, he goes and wrecks my stagecoach. Haul him down to Near-Sighted Charlie’s, mister. Charlie’s the undertaker. Tell him I’ll be down later to settle the estate.”
    McCloud bridled at the order. “Mister Birnie, I done my Christian duty, getting this poor soul to where he was paid to get me. You can take him from here. But I had a ticket to Green River which was lost with all my clothes and money when my valise fell in the river.”
    “How much money you lose?”
    “Better than eighty dollars.”
    “I can sure sympathize with your loss, Mr. McCloud, because I just lost a six-hundred-and-fifty-dollar stagecoach. Between you and me, I figure I’m about five-hundred-and-seventy dollars more deserving of sympathy.”
    Ian knew from the man’s plaintive voice he would get no rebate