Dorothy Garlock Read Online Free PDF

of the trip. There’ll be room for whatever you want to take.”
    Her head whirled in a quickening eddy. Was it possible that her troubles were over? Would this man take care of her and ask nothing more than that she care for his sister-in-law and her children? She wouldn’t have to take a man. Heavenly Father! Let all that he says be true, she prayed. Her sanity argued, this is madness. She couldn’t leave this place with a man she had known less than an hour. She had to talk to Zan.
    She opened her mouth to say so, but the words never came out. The door crashed open and Walt Ransom sprang into the room. Instantly, Jeff jumped and whirled to face the intruder, a knife in his hand. Annie Lash drew in a frightened breath, too numbed to move.
    “Ya bitch!” Walt was drunk, shaking with anger. Two men crowded into the doorway behind him. “Ya ain’t goin’ to be givin’ out no bit a tail when I git ya!” He was either too drunk to see the knife in Jeff’s hand or too mad to care. He lowered his head and charged him like a mad bull.
    Annie Lash grabbed the pistol from the table and backed out of the way. Her disbelieving eyes focused on the men at the door and she pointed the gun at them. They made a move to come farther into the room.
    “No!” The word burst from her mouth and they heard it above the crashing noise made by Walt’s body as it was slammed against the floor. They were not so drunk or so foolish as to argue with a woman holding a gun, and they backed to the doorway and stayed there.
    Jeff’s fist had collided with Walt’s nose. It had taken just one blow. Walt lay on the floor, blood running down over his mouth and into his beard. He shook his head and tried to get to his feet. He made it on the second attempt and stood, swaying, his eyes glazed.
    “Get him out of here,” Jeff said. “I don’t want to kill him.”
    One of the men picked up Walt’s hat and the other took his arm. Docile and still reeling, Walt stumbled to the doorway, muttering incoherently.
    “Walt ain’t goin’ ta fergit this,” one of the men said over his shoulder. The threat was directed at Annie Lash, but Jeff answered.
    “He better forget it if he wants to live,” he said quietly.
    The man was roughly shoved aside, and Zan’s broad body appeared in the doorway.
    “Gawddamn!” he roared. “Annie Lash, ya be all right?”
    “I’m all right, Zan,” she called from the corner where she stood with her back to the wall, the gun still pointed toward the door.
    Zan’s eyes flicked over Jeff and then away. “Ya tell that thar bastid when he sobers that he pert nigh got his head blowed off,” he told the men moving away with the staggering Walt between them. “Now then . . . put down the firearm, Annie Lash, lessin’ yore aimin’ to shoot me.” Then, quick as a cat, he snatched his hat from his head and struck Jeff on the chest with it. “Jeff Merrick, ya ol’ son of a grizzly b’ar!” Zan threw his arms around Jeff and they whirled around the room.
    It was crazy! In all the years she had known Zan she had never seen such a wild display. The two huge men pounded on each other, laughed, roared greetings. One time they banged against the table and jarred the precious lamp. It was a miracle it didn’t topple over. Jeff’s face was split into a wide, wide grin. His teeth were white and even, his face years younger.
    “Zan Thatcher! I thought the buzzards had picked your old bones clean by now.”
    “Ain’t no goldanged buzzard goin’ to get a hunk of Zan Thatcher. How ya be, boy? Heared ya was off up the Trace. Wat ya doin’ in Saint Louis? What ya a doin’ with my little gal, Annie Lash?”
    “Your little gal, Zan?”
    “Same as,” Zan said firmly, still pumping Jeff’s hand.
    “I heard talk as to how a man would have to reckon with Zan Thatcher if he made a move toward the girl.”
    “Yup, that’s kerrect. Her pa was a man what I owed. Took up fer me agin’ a parcel a riffraff ’n took a knife