Milo Talon Read Online Free PDF Page B

nothing.
    “German has fought Indians, rustlers, everything. Nobody in their right mind would tackle him.”
    The truth of the matter was that although I did not know German Schafer very well, I did know the breed. And I remembered stories I’d heard about him. Or half-remembered them. I had no doubt that what I said was true.
    “What about you?” Her eyes were almost pleading. “Would you be here?”
    “I’ve got at least one trip to make.” I spoke casually. “To St. Louis.”
    “Don’t go! Please don’t go!”
    “Miss Fletcher, I—”
    “Call me Molly. You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
    “Of course. So is German.” Changing the subject, I asked, “Why shouldn’t I go to St. Louis?”
    “I’d feel safer if you were here, that’s all. It isn’t anything else.”
    Why did she believe there might be something else? I stared out the window, watching the people pass, yet I wondered again. Who was she? Why was she here? And why had Jefferson Henry chosen to meet me at this godforsaken spot?
    “I have to go,” I said. “I’ve been hired to find a girl. She might be about your age.”
    Watching her face as I spoke, I expected some reaction, but there was none. She was looking into her cup as I spoke and her eyes were down. If there had been the slightest change I could not see it.
    Our food came and we ate, and I talked casually of things of every day, of what the life would be like here and of how to handle cowboys, who were mostlyyoung, good fellows at heart and just a little wild at being away from home.
    As I talked I thought of that other girl, the girl for whom I was to search, for whom I was already seeking. She was out there somewhere, perhaps alone, perhaps in trouble. And she had a fortune awaiting her, a fortune and a good home.
    Well, maybe. The more I thought of Jefferson Henry the more I wondered. He was not a really old man, too young, I thought, to be actually worried about who would inherit.
    German came in and as he did so a thought occurred to me. “This place is called Maggie’s? What happened to her?”
    “She’s here. She lives over yonder,” he jerked his head in a gesture. “She doesn’t come down much anymore. She sold a piece to me, and the way it stands we’ll own a third, a third, and a third. But she won’t be any bother. She leaves it to me to run.
    “Stays inside,” he added, “reads a lot. She’s not much for people.”
    Molly’s stiffness seemed to leave her. Little by little she loosened up, and she asked more questions about the town than I could answer, knowing all too little of the place. Although I tried to guide the conversation around to her, I got nowhere at all beyond discovering that she played the banjo a little.
    She, on the other hand, tried to guide the conversation around me and had a good bit more luck.
    I told her nothing about my mother, Em Talon, who had been born a Sackett, but a little about Barnabas, my well-educated brother. She found out that I’dpunched cows, had ridden shotgun for a stage-line, and was a deputy marshal for awhile. I told her about horses I’d known, a wolf that followed a cousin of mine, a wolf that remained wild but went wherever my cousin did; yet I learned nothing about her, nor did she tell me where she had come from or how she got where she was, nor what impelled her to come here, to this forlorn little town at the end of nowhere.
    That was what worried me most. Why had she come here? Was it really circumstances? Or was there some other reason? And why had Jefferson Henry come here?
    Suppose, just suppose there was more to that Pinkerton report than one could see at first study? Had the Pinkertons discovered more than they realized? Had they been taken off the case before they discovered too much? Suppose he had deliberately chosen me because I had what he might think was a doubtful reputation?
    Now, I was no outlaw, but I’d ridden the Outlaw Trail and was accepted in their hideouts. I could go where no