Novel 1966 - Kid Rodelo (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF Page B

there, or you can gamble and run for it. You might get away.”
    “I’ll stay right here.”
    “You do that. Joe Harbin’s out there.”
    “So?”
    “The only way you could know about this gold is through his woman. And Joe’s a mighty jealous man.”
    “It wasn’t me!” Clint protested. “It was Jake.”
    “You tell him that. Maybe he’ll listen.”
    From out in front there was a sound of a boot scraping on stone, and then a voice called, “Hey, Danny! Come on out!”
    “Well, there they are, Clint,” Rodelo said. “You sit right there and they’ll figure you’re in this with me.”
    Clint got up suddenly. “I want out. I want to get out of here right now.”
    “Go ahead.”
    Clint started toward the door, then hesitated. “How about a gun?”
    Dan Rodelo drew a pistol from his belt and handed it to Clint, barrel first. “Now face the door. If you turn around I’ll shoot.”
    Clint took the gun and stepped toward the door. Then he called, “This ain’t Danny! I want to come out—I want to talk!”
    Dan Rodelo was at the back door, easing up on the latch.
    “All right,” Joe Harbin’s voice came clear. “Come out with your hands up.”
    Clint opened the door, gun in hand, stepped quickly outside, and fired. Three guns cut him down before he got off a second shot.
    “You stay there,” Rodelo whispered to Nora, and like a shadow he was gone into the night.
    Gopher stepped through the door and paused, peering at the body on the floor. He came on into the room and was followed by Harbin and Badger.
    Tom Badger looked slowly around the room, stared at Nora, then at the body on the floor. “Turn him over,” he told Gopher.
    The convict knelt and turned Jake’s body over. “It ain’t Danny,” he said, surprised.
    “That’s Jake Andrews,” Harbin commented. “And that was Clint Wilson we killed.”
    “Clint
Wilson
?”
    “The same,” Harbin replied grimly. He looked over at Nora. “And whose little girl are you?”
    “I was with those men…I am nobody’s girl. I am Nora Paxton.”
    “Let’s get what we came for,” Tom said impatiently. “Joe, get your mind off women. There’s plenty of them in Mexico.”
    “You were with them?” Joe persisted.
    “They were going down to the Gulf, and that was where I wanted to go. They offered to take me along, and there was no other way.”
    “The Gulf? Why the Gulf?”
    “Business…
my
business, and none of yours.”
    Harbin grinned at her. “No offense, ma’am. If you still want to go, you can go with us.”
    Badger was looking at her now. “How did they expect to make it to the Gulf?”
    “They had a wagon up the street, and they were going to Papago Wells.”
    “And then?”
    “I know where there is a water hole between there and the Gulf. That’s one reason they wanted me along.”
    “I never heard of any such water hole,” Badger said.
    “It’s there…a good pool of permanent water, sweet water.”
    “If that’s true,” Joe said, “our troubles are over. Okay, you can come along.”
    Badger looked at the box and the scattered papers. “I don’t see any gold. You sure Rodelo didn’t get it and light out?”
    “Was he the man who was just here? The tall, dark young man?”
    “That’s our Danny.”
    “He had nothing when he left here.” Then she added, “Clint shot Jake. He thought they’d found the gold when Jake located that box, so he just killed him.”
    “Ain’t the first time…not for Clint.”
    Nora was listening. Was Dan Rodelo outside? What was he planning?
    “Get the gold,” Badger said. “Let’s get out of here!”
    Harbin took a rusted poker from the fireplace and pulled a chair over to a place under the central beam that crossed the room from wall to wall. Standing on the chair, he inserted the end of the poker into what looked like a crack, then pried up. A crudely cut piece of beam lifted up, revealing a compartment within the heavy beam itself. As he lifted this a gold piece fell to the