Novel 1966 - Kilrone (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF

me, one time. He’s a good man.”
    He looked at her thoughtfully, and then said, “She’s a wonderful person, Denise Paddock is. She left a lot for him.”
    “I don’t think she has ever been sorry,” Betty said. “Sorry for him, I think, but not for herself. She has a rare quality of making a home wherever she is, and of finding the beautiful in every place.”
    She kept her eyes on his. “That was an Indian dressing on your wound,” she said.
    He was amused. “I’m not a renegade or a squaw man, if that is what you are thinking.”
    In the light from the open door he could see that she flushed. “I was thinking nothing of the kind.”
    Denise came to the door. “Unless you want to sleep, come into the kitchen. Frank has gone to bed.”
    Barney Kilrone dropped into a chair. He was tired, dead-tired, but he did not feel like sleeping. And there was something he needed to know.
    “Have there been many Indians around the post in the past few weeks?” he asked.
    “No,” Betty said, “none at all. In fact, Ben Hayes has been going around muttering because of it. He always says when you see no Indians, look out.”
    “Why do you ask?” Denise said.
    “Because Medicine Dog knows everything about this post. He knows how many men are fit for service, he knows about the store of ammunition and supplies, he knows about the extra horses. Within a short time after Major Paddock rides out with his command, he will know that too.”
    They were both looking at him now. “Do you mean there is somebody here, somebody on this post, who is giving him information?” Betty was incredulous.
    “That’s hard to believe,” Denise said.
    “It always is,” Kilrone said dryly. “That’s why it’s so easy. Nobody is ever willing to suspect someone they know, someone who sits down at the table with them. But a traitor can be anybody.”
    “Not anybody,” Denise protested.
    “The fact remains that everything is known. I must talk to Frank again, Denise, or you must. He has to realize that.”
    “What would you have him do?”
    “Try and get a messenger to Mellett, recalling him. Meanwhile, ride out from the post as he plans, but go only a few miles, then return and go into hiding near here.”
    “What about Captain Mellett?”
    “The man’s an experienced Indian fighter, and I know that unless he is surprised he can fight off any Indian attack he is apt to meet. The real attack will come here, at the post.”
    “Frank doesn’t think so,” Denise said.
    Barney Kilrone was silent. An attack by Paddock at the critical moment could well be decisive. And it would read well in dispatches, while a defensive action against Indians, no matter if successful, would be dismissed without comment either by his superiors or by the press. Major Frank Bell Paddock, who might never have another such chance, was going to take this one.
    Only the lives to be risked were those at the post—the men, women, and children who would be left behind, unprotected.

 
     
    Chapter 4
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    C APTAIN CHARLES MELLETT, who knew the challenge of command, rode up the low hill in the late afternoon and halted his troop where the land fell away on all sides. Just below the hill’s highest point there was a sandy hollow. No doubt the buffalo had begun it, rolling in the sand to rid themselves of ticks or fleas, but the wind had scoured the hollow, making it wider and deeper.
    Just over the highest rise of the hill there was a staggered cluster of junipers that formed a windbreak, as well as a screen for the camp’s activity. On the south side, runoff water had cut a small ravine that joined a larger one at the base of the hill. Where the two joined there was a cluster of huge old cottonwoods. The stream itself was a few inches deep, a few feet wide. The water was clear and quite cold.
    Mellett turned in his saddle to speak to Dunivant. “Sergeant, water your stock. Let them graze for one hour, then take them to water again. After that, put your