Novel 1971 - Tucker (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF Page A

table, and some slabs of homemade bread and butter. “Make our own butter. Have our own cows. We got us four Holsteins and we’re buyin’ more. Brung ’em over the trail m’self.”
    We ate in silence, but finally I asked a question that had been on my mind for days. “Do you think they know they’re being followed?”
    “I believe so.”
    “Then we might run into trouble when we don’t expect it?”
    “You must always expect it. When you start hunting men, they can hunt as well. Regardless of that, it pays to be on your toes. This town is rough, and the country is rough.”
    It was raining harder outside. If they were in Leadville the chances were slight they would attempt to leave in this storm. The trails were slippery and narrow, with always the danger of slides. Mountain country was new to me, and worrisome. There were too few trails and passes.
    “The best trails are the Indian trails,” Con advised. “Not many know of them. Indians traded back and forth across the country, traveling hundreds of miles…like the merchant caravans of the Middle Ages.”
    Now, I’d never heard about merchant caravans and wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by the Middle Ages, so I kept my mouth shut and listened.
    “Up in Minnesota they mine a soft red stone that is easily carved and smoothed. They call it pipestone. You will find that kind of stone among Indians all over the country.
    “Shells, too. There are different types in different waters. Most of them are classified. Men have devoted years to studying the various types of shells.”
    Con Judy, who rarely talked more than two or three sentences at a time, told me then of the trade trails left by ancient Indians.
    “Ancient Indians? You mean different from the ones here now?”
    “Yes. Just as we have pushed them back, they pushed others before them. It’s happened all the way across the world, Shell, and you’ll see it happening right here.”
    “Then the best fighters end up by owning the country?”
    He chuckled. “Not exactly, Shell. Let’s put it this way: the ones who wind up on top are usually those with the most efficient life-style.”
    Just what he meant by that I wasn’t sure, but before I could ask him he said, “We’d better get some sleep,” and pushed back from the table.
    “And then I’ve got to find Heseltine,” I said. “It isn’t likely they’ll be traveling on a night like this, not with a girl, and all.”
    “They’ll hole up,” Con agreed.
    He paid for our meal and we started for the door. I was studying about what he meant by life-style, and I had just pushed open the door when I remembered my Winchester. I’d left it lying across the table next to ours.
    Turning sharply, I bumped Con hard and we both staggered and almost fell.
    But we both heard the gun and we heard the bullet strike.
    Had I not turned just as I did, I’d have been a dead man.
    Chapter 4
----
    B EHIND US A light went out, then another, and there was darkness. Neither of us moved. I was on one knee just inside the door, my heart pounding.
    Scared? Well, I should reckon. It taken some time to get used to the idea that I’d been shot at. A body thinks of such things, but thinking isn’t like the real thing. Somebody out there had shot, and shot to kill, and he’d been shooting at me.
    That takes some getting used to. In all that gunplay I’d practiced and all the gun battles I’d played out in my mind, there’d been nothing like this. That man out there was trying to
kill
me!
    Kid Reese? Doc Sites? Or was it Heseltine?
    “Stay right where you are, Shell,” Con warned.
    You want to know something? I wasn’t figuring on going no place a-tall.
    Turning my head ever so slightly, I could see what he meant. The light from the window next door fell across the room, and anybody moving would surely be seen. Whoever had done that shooting was good.
    So we just set still while the moments passed. It seemed a long time. My heart slowed down after a bit, and my