Novel 1956 - Silver Canyon (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF

down. It had been cold, fresh-taken from a cave, no doubt.
    â€œYou can make your drive,” I went on, “and you can sell, so you will lose nothing. It would be right neighborly.”
    He looked sharp at me when I used the word, and I knew at once it had been the right one. This fierce old man, independent and proud, respected family and neighbors.
    â€œWe’ll swap.” He knocked out his pipe. “My boys will help you round up and drive.”
    â€œNo need—no reason you should get involved in this fight.”
    He turned those fierce blue eyes at me. “I’m buyin’ cows,” he said grimly. “Anybody who wants trouble over that can have it!”
    â€œNow, Pa!” Mother Benaras smiled at me. “Pa figures he’s still a-feudin’.”
    Benaras shook his head, buttering a slice of bread. “We’re beholden to no man, nor will we backwater for any man. Nick, you roust out and get Zeb. Then saddle up and ride with this man. You ride to his orders. Start no trouble, but back up for nobody. Understand?”
    Nick turned and left the room, and Benaras turned to his wife.
    â€œMa, set up the table. We’ve a guest in the house.” He looked at me, searchingly. “You had trouble with Pinder yet?”
    So I told him how it began, of the talk in the stable, and of my meeting with Blackie later. I told that in few words, saying only, “Blackie braced me…waited for me with a drawn gun.”
    That was all I told them. The boys exchanged looks, and the old man began to tamp tobacco in his pipe.
    â€œHad it comin,’ that one. Jolly had trouble with him, figured to kill him soon or late.”
    They needed no further explanation than that. A man waited for you with a gun in hand…it followed as the night the day that if you were alive the other man was not. It also followed that you must have got into action mighty fast.
    It was a pleasant meal—great heaps of mashed potatoes, slabs of beef and venison, and several vegetables. All the boys were there, tall, lean, and alike except for years. And all were carbon copies or their hard-bitten old father.
    Reluctantly, when the meal was over, I got up to leave. Old Bob Benaras walked with me to my horse. He put a hand on the animal and nodded.
    â€œKnow a man by his horse,” he said, “or his gun. Like to see ’em well chosen, well kept. You come over, son, you come over just any time. We don’t neighbor much, ain’t our sort of folks hereabouts. But you come along when you like.”
    It was well after dark when we moved out, taking our time, and knowing each one of us, that we might run into trouble before we reached home. It was scarcely within the realm of possibility that my leave-taking had gone unobserved. Anxious as I was, I kept telling myself the old man had been on that ranch long before I appeared, that he could take care of himself.
    Remembering the sign on the gate, I felt better. No man would willingly face that Spencer.
    The moon came out, and the stars. The heat of the day vanished, as it always must in the desert where there is no growth to hold it, only the bare rocks and sand. The air was thin on the high mesa and we speeded up, anxious to be home.
    Once, far off, we thought we heard a sound…Listening, we heard nothing.
    At the gate I swung to open it, ready for a challenge.
    Suddenly, Nick Benaras whispered, “Hold it!”
    We froze, listening. We heard the sound of moving horses, and on the rim of the Wash, not fifty yards off, two riders appeared. We waited, rifles in our hands, but after a brief pause, apparently to listen, the two rode off toward town.
    We rode through the gate and closed it. There was no challenge.
    Zeb drew up sharply. “Nick!”
    We stopped, waiting, listening.
    â€œWhat is it, Zeb?”
    â€œSmoke…I smell smoke.”
    Chapter 5
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    F EAR WENT THROUGH me like a hot blade. Slapping the spurs to