Funeral By The Sea Read Online Free PDF

Delroy.’
    ‘On the trail?’
    ‘Yessir. At the pass.’
    ‘Why, stranger?’ His small, dark eyes met the steady gaze of Gold’s green ones for the first time
    ‘Why what, sir?’
    ‘The trail goes nowhere else but Oceanville. Why were you on it?’
    ‘Going to Europe.’
    Delroy was suddenly intrigued. ‘Europe?’
    ‘That’s right, sir. By way of San Francisco. Intended to keep heading west until I reached the ocean. Then turn north.’
    Delroy considered the response for long moments, then nodded. ‘That would get you there sure enough.’
    ‘He means no harm here, Hal,’ Eve put in hurriedly. ‘He was riding large as life up on the seat beside Seth.
    ‘You’ve seen how things are here, Gold?’ her brother interrupted. And shifted the old Colt, to scratch his right cheek with the foresight.
    ‘Yes, I have.’
    ‘So you know that if you step out of line, you’re putting both feet in the grave.’
    A nervous laugh escaped Seth Harrow’s throat.
    Anger erupted color across Delroy’s cheeks. ‘What’s so funny, old man?’ he snapped.
    Harrow swallowed hard. ‘He told me, Mr. Delroy. Before he started out to get to Europe, he was an undertaker. Over to some town in Arizona.’
    The woman had stepped aside from Gold now that the gun was no longer aimed at him. So that her brother was able to survey him clearly from black hat to black boots. And after he had done this he smiled and showed a set of very white teeth.
    ‘Well, that is amusing, isn’t it? In the event it should be necessary to kill you, young man, you will be able to dig your own grave.’
    There was laughter from the group out front of the cantina.
    Barnaby Gold expressed a personable smile and clicked his tongue. ‘If I don’t get to eat soon, sir, I could die from hunger. Too weak to lift a shovel.’
    Delroy brightened his own smile. ‘Then you had better get some food inside you. Please accept the hospitality of Oceanville for as long as Eve wants you.’
    He backed across the threshold and gently closed the double doors.
    The Mexicans and the men and women from the cantina started to return to what had occupied them before Seth Harrow raised the alarm, totally disinterested in the newcomer after Hal Delroy had approved of him.
    Eve Delroy said with a smile but a tone of command in her voice, ‘Go have some supper, Barnaby Gold. I’ll send for you later. Seth, let me have the dress.’
    The old-timer pulled a gift-wrapped package from beneath the wagon seat and passed it down to her. She took it and hurried eagerly up the steps, across the stoop and let herself into the big house.
    When the doors had closed behind her, Seth Harrow sighed and shook his head. ‘One fewer or one more brandy and you wouldn’t be in the land of the livin’ no more, son.’
    ‘Seems I’m indebted to the whole Delroy family, Mr. Harrow.’
    ‘Take it easy with both of them, son. They’re as changeable as the riptides across this bay. Here.’
    He tossed down the gunbelt and followed this with the saddle and accoutrements. And in response to the black-clad young man’s quizzical look said, ‘Wasn’t told not to give you your stuff back. And ain’t no way you can get to use them guns hereabouts and then get to see Europe.’
    Gold strapped on the gunbelt as he said to Harrow, ‘Guess you’re right.’ Then hefted the saddle and stalled toward the cantina. This as the old-timer set his wagon rolling and turned off the street to go around to the rear of the big house.
    Barnaby Gold did not like crowds and it was blatantly apparent that the twenty or so men and six women who peopled the cantina felt the same way about him when he pushed through the batwings. For tacit resentment reached him as strongly as the smells of the place, directed from mean or smoldering eyes which immediately shifted to look elsewhere before he could meet any gaze.
    The talk and the three card games and the drinking and the vacant staring into space was curtailed