West Of Dodge (Ss) (1996) Read Online Free Page B

carefully, not thinking of what was to come. He left Bill's gun on the dresser and went to a chest in the corner and got out a belt, holster, and gun. The gun was a .44 Russian, a Smith & Wesson six-shooter. He checked the loads and the balance, then walked out into the street.
    Magda was just leaving her gate. She hesitated, waiting for him. She looked from the gun to his eyes, surprised. "Jim . . . what are you doing?"
    He told her quietly of what happened, and of Bill riding away.
    "But," she protested, "if they are dead and Bill is gone--"
    "There were four rustlers, Magda," he said gently. "I don't know what the other one will do."
    She got it then and he saw her face go white. One hand caught the gate and she stared at him. "Jim!" Her voice was a whisper. "Oh, Jim!"
    He turned away. "I don't want trouble, Mag. I'm going to try to take care of him for you. After all," he said with grim humor, "he may need a lawyer."
    Sheriff Mulcahy was waiting up the street in front of his office. The time had come.
    He was gone three steps before she cried out, and then she ran to him, caught his arm.
    "Jim Rossiter, you listen to me. You take care of yourself! No matter what happens, Jim! Jim, believe me, there was never anybody else--nobody at all--not after I met you. The night he came to town I ... I was just so glad to see him, and then you saw us and you wouldn't talk to me. He took too much for granted, but so did you."
    His eyes held hers for a long, long minute. Up the street a door slammed, and there were boots on the boardwalk. He smiled, and squeezed her arm. "All right, Mag. I believe you."
    He turned then, and felt the sun's heat on his shoulders and felt the dust puff under his boot soles, and he walked away up the street, seeing Lonnie Parker standing there in the open, waiting for them. And he was not worried. He was not worried at all.

West Of Dodge (ss) (1996)

    *
    A Husband For Janey .
    He had been walking since an hour before sun-up, but now the air had grown warm and he could hear the sound of running water. Sunlight fell through the leaves and dappled the trail with light and shadow, and when he rounded the bend of the path he saw the girl dipping a bucket into a mountain stream.
    He was a tall boy, just turned eighteen, and' four months from his home on a woods farm in East Texas. He looked at the girl and he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in a throat that seemed unusually long, rising as it did from the wide, too-loose collar of his homespun shirt.
    He swallowed agam and cleared his throat. The girl looked up, suddenly wide-eyed, and then she straightened, her lips drawing together and one quick hand brushing a strand of dark hair back from her flushed cheek. "Howdy, ma'am," he said, his accent soft with East Texas music. "Sure didn't aim to scare you none."
    "It . . . it's all right." Her alarm was fading with her curiosity. "Are you goin' to the goldfields?"
    A measure of pride and manly assurance came into his voice. "I reckon. I aim to git me money to go back home to Texas an' buy a farm."
    They faced each other across the stream. The boy swallowed, nervous with the silence. "You . . . your pa washin' gold about here?"
    "Yes . . . Well, he was . . . He's gone to the settlement. He's been gone three weeks."
    The boy nodded gravely. It had taken him two days to walk up from Angel's Camp, and with that awareness that comes to those who walk the trails he knew her father was not coming back. It was a bad time to be traveling with gold in one's poke.
    "You doin' all right?" he asked. "You an' your ma?"
    Janey hesitated, rubbing her palms on her apron. She was shy but she didn't want him to go off on his way, for it was lonely with no one about of her own age, and without even neighbors except for Richter. "Ma--she's just back here. Would you like some coffee? We've some fresh."
    He crossed the stream on the rounded stones and took her wooden bucket. "Lemme fetch it for you," he said. "It's a big bucket for