Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF Page A

up every bit of cover near the burning house, taking targets when they offered, and seeking the darkest spots of cover at other times. When his rifle was emptied, he dropped it to his side and opened up with a six-gun.
    Men broke from cover and ran for their horses. The old Sharps bellowed in protest at their escape, and one of the men fell headlong. He scrambled up, but made only three steps before he pitched over again, dangerously near the flames.
    Again Lance reloaded, then walked forward.
    “Mort!” he called. “Come out of there, you old wolf! I know your shootin’!”
    A tall, dark-bearded man in a battered black felt hat sauntered down from the circle of rocks at the foot of the cliff.
    “Looks like you got here just in time, friend,” he said. “You see Sam?”
    Briefly Lance explained. Then he jerked his head in the direction the attackers had taken. “Who were they?” he asked.
    “I don’t know. Mebbe Webb Steele’s boys. Him and Lord want me out of here, the worst way.” He scratched the stubble on his lean jaws. “Let’s have us a look.”
    Three men had been left behind. With the man Lance had killed out on the prairie, that made four. It had been a costly lesson. Well, Lance told himself, they should have known better than to tackle an old he-wolf like Mort Davis.
    A lean, gangling sixteen-year-old strolled down from the rocks. He carried a duplicate of his father’s Sharps. He stood beside his father and stared at the bodies.
    “Don’t look like nobody I ever seen,” Mort said thoughtfully, “but Webb and Chet both been a-gettin’ in some new hands.”
    “Pap,” the youngster said, “I seen this one in Botalla trailin’ with Bert Polti.”
    Lance studied the man’s face. It wasn’t one of the men he knew. “Mort,” he asked, “where do the Brockmans figger in this?”
    The old man puckered his brow. “The Brockmans? I didn’t know they was in it. Abel Brockman rode for Steele once, but not no more. He got to sparkin’ Tana, and the old man let him go. He didn’t like it none, neither.”
    “It don’t look right,” Lance said as he rubbed his jaw reflectively. “Lord and Steele are supposed t’be fightin’, but so far all I’ve seen is this gang that trails with Polti. They jumped me in town.”
    “Watch them Brockmans,” Mort said seriously. “They’re poison mean, and they never fight alone. Always the two of ’em together, and they got this gunfightin’ as a team worked out mighty smooth. They always get you in a spot where you can’t get the two to once.”
    Lance looked around. “Burned all your buildin’s, didn’t they? Any place you can live?”
    “Uhn-huh. We got us a little cave back up here. We lived there before we built us a house. We’ll make out. We’re used to gettin’ along without much. This here’s the best place we had for a long time if we can keep it.”
    “You’ll keep it,” Lance promised, his face harsh and cold.
    Mort Davis had done his share in making the West a place to live. He was getting old now, and deserved therewards of his work. No big outfit, or outlaws either, was going to drive him off, if Lance could help it.
    “Who knew this Sam Carter was to meet me?” he asked. “Or that you were?”
    “Nobody I know of,” said old Mort. “Carter’s a ’puncher who started him a little herd over back of the butte. We worked together some. He was settin’ for chuck when them riders come down on us. I asked him to get you.”
    Lance sketched the trouble in Botalla, then added the account of his run-in with Tana Steele. Mort grinned at that.
    “I’d a give a purty to seen that,” he said. “Tana’s had her head for a long time. Drives that there buckboard like a crazy woman! At that, she can ride nigh anythin’ that wears hair, and she will! Best lookin’ woman around here, too, unless it’s Nita Riordan.”
    “The woman at Apple Cañon?” Lance asked quickly.
    “Yep. All woman, too. Runs that shebang by herself.