Bad to the Bone Read Online Free PDF

man named Sam Archer of Edgeville, Texas. Duane's mother had been Miss Kathleen O'Shea, daughter of another small rancher. Joe Braddock and his gang, known as the Polka Dots, had been hunted by Sam Archer's paid killers, and massacred somewhere in Mexico. Shortly thereafter, Duane's mother had died of illness and grief, and Duane Braddock had been taken to the monastery that raised him.
    Duane had hardly known his father, but vaguely remembered a hearty fellow with a thick black mustache, carrying the fragrance of whiskey, tobacco, and gunpowder. His mother had been blond, with frail features and a few freckles. According to what he'd been told, Miss Kathleen O'Shea had been a devout Catholic, and when she was dying, had ordained that her baby son be sent to the monastery, so he could become a priest someday.
    It hadn't worked that way, because Duane had got sick of the scriptorium less than a year ago. Since then he'd been on a quest to discover what had happened tohis parents, and avenge their deaths. My mother and father fought for their rights against the big money combine from the East, he thought, but they were outnumbered, outgunned, and paid the ultimate price.
    Duane had never met Sam Archer, didn't know what he looked like, but hated him anyway. “You think you've got away with the crime, Mister Rancher Man, but you're wrong,” whispered Duane. “You can surround yourself with hired guns, but I lived with the Apaches, and I can outsmart any hired gun who ever lived. No matter how many miles I have to travel, or how many mountains must be climbed on my hands and knees, I'm going to track you down. You might be sleeping peacefully right now, but one day I'll put a bullet into your bean.”
    Duane wondered if he had the sand to calmly and deliberately shoot a man in the head, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it. First he had to stay on the dodge awhile, until the Fourth Cavalry got tired of looking for him. Then he'd head for Edgeville, for his unscheduled meeting with Sam Archer.
    Just a little while longer, then I'll be free to do whatever I want, Duane promised himself. When Mister Archer is buried in his grave, I'm going to be a cowboy again, and to hell with this cold and lonely owlhoot trail.
    Doña Consuelo opened her eyes with a start, at the second knock on the door. “Who's there?”
    The voice of García, her husband's foreman, came to her ears. “Something has happened! Is Don Carlos there?”

    Doña Consuelo shook her husband firmly. “Wake up—Don Carlos!” she spoke urgently into her husband's hairy ear.
    He grunted like an old buffalo as he opened his eyes. “What the hell is going on?”
    â€œGarcía is here—it's important!”
    The great caudillo rolled out of bed slowly and with great difficulty. In the wan moonlight she could make out his rotund belly, not to mention his flaccid legs. He pulled the robe around his shoulders, opened the door, and disappeared into the corridor.
    Consuelo wondered what had happened. It could have been an Indian raid on their cattle, a murder, illness, an accident, a fire, or any one of a thousand terrible calamities. She rolled over and wrapped her arms around her husband's pillow, inhaling his fragrance, and blushing at the mere thought of her physical needs.
    The door opened, as Don Carlos returned to the bedroom. “I'm afraid it's your mother,” he said. “She's taken a turn for the worse.”
    Consuelo's first reaction was that God was punishing her for her evil desires. “What happened?”
    â€œShe collapsed this afternoon, evidently. The doctor says that she won't last much longer.”
    Doña Consuelo sucked wind. “But. . . but. ..” She couldn't digest the news.
    He placed his hand on her forehead. “My poor darling, I know how you love your dear mother. We'll leave for your father's hacienda first thing in the morning. Be calm, and pray to God for