Passin' Through (1985) Read Online Free PDF Page A

She could have done it.
    "That was rough going for sixteen years old," I commented.
    "Where I come from sixteen years is grown-up, and my father had taught me that someday I'd be on my own. I'd no choice. A sixteen-year-old girl left alone on a steamboat with almost no money?"
    She looked at me over her cup. "That was four years ago. I took some of the money and went back to school. I needed the education but I also needed time to think, to decide what to do.
    "It was a fashionable school, and the girls lived well, so I did, too. Then some of us slipped out one night to see Mrs. Hollyrood's company perform. Traveling shows were not considered very nice. They were not 'respectable,' so they were forbidden. But we went, I saw the show and thought it was fun. I went to Mrs. Hollyrood and asked for a job. They needed a girl, so I left school and went with them."
    Mrs. Hollyrood appeared in her bedroom door. She was wearing a Japanese kimono. "Some men are coming. I am afraid we are in trouble!
    "There are five of them," she added, "and they look rough."

    Chapter Four
    Standing well back from the window, I watched them ride down the lane and up to the house. One face looked familiar and as I watched I remembered. He was the one who put the noose around my neck.
    Mrs. Hollyrood went to the door. "How do you do? Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?"
    "You can move out," one of them said. He was slim, wiry, and wore his gun butt forward on the left side. A man wearing a gun in that position can draw with either hand. At least two of the riders with him had been drinking. "I don't know what kind of trick you used on my uncle, but this here ranch belongs to me."
    "I am afraid you are mistaken." She had dignity and she was cool. "The arrangement was all perfectly legal, and Mr. Phillips had the papers drawn up and witnessed."
    "That's no account. This here place is mine. I'm his legal heir and I want you off of it. I want you off now."
    She smiled. I could see that from where I stood. "I am sorry, gentlemen, I like it here and have no intention of leaving. The ranch is mine. If necessary I can call the sheriff."
    "To do that you got to ride into town. Do you think you'll make it?"
    She smiled again, very sweetly. "It has been my understanding," she said, "that western men treated ladies with consideration. Am I to understand that you are threatening me?"
    One of the other riders, an older man with a beard, muttered something, but the wiry one shook his head. "Threa- tenin'? No, it's just a warnin'. This here's a rough time, lots of Injuns ridin' who don't care who they shoot."
    Suddenly one of the riders noticed the blue roan.
    "Lew? What's that roan doin' here?"
    The wiry one addressed as Lew turned irritably, then saw the horse. He turned back to Mrs. Hollyrood. "Where'd that roan come from? How'd he get here?"
    "This is his home. If you are related to Mr. Phillips you should know that. He belongs here."
    "That's a bad-luck horse, Lew. I don't want nothin' to do with it."
    "He won't be bad luck anymore," Lew said suddenly. "I'll shoot him."
    Stepping past Mrs. Hollyrood, I said, "Leave that horse alone. I like him."
    They were shocked. They had no idea there was anyone else about, although they might have known of Matty.
    "Who the hell -?"
    "Hey!" The man who put the noose around my neck recognized me. "Ain't you -?"
    "I am. I'm the man you hung. It didn't seem to take, somehow."
    Nobody said anything. They simply stared, and the man who put the noose around my neck swallowed a couple of times and looked like he would like to be somewhere else, anywhere else. It is one thing to put a rope around a man's neck when you're backed by a crowd and he's alone. It is quite something else when you are facing that man, just thirty feet away, and he is armed.
    The man called Lew slowly moved his hand away from his gun. "You the one who killed Houston Burrows? He was a good man with a gun."
    "Not where I come from."
    Again there was