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

toward the east. To the north, up La Plata Canyon, lay Parrott City, a town that had come into being a few years back to supply miners working silver deposits in the La Platas. Further west there were a couple of other towns.
    The place where my horses and gear had been left was off to the northwest and a good long ride away. Somewhere east there was a place called Animas City, but I'd never been there. This was new country for me.
    Here and there I saw cattle, and when I figure to judge the worth of land for grazing I just look at the stock. These cattle were fat and lazy, so they were getting plenty to eat without rustling too much for it. Again I saw bear tracks and some droppings.
    Looking across the country toward the La Platas, I could see where a creek came down, cutting diagonally across the mountainside. That would be Starvation Creek, named by some men who came into the country with John Moss, who founded Parrott City.
    Turning the roan, I walked him back through the woods to the other side where I could see back along the trail toward the house. Nothing moved back there.
    My eyes followed the ridge to the rocky promontory that stood out over the green valley to the west of it. I'd have to ride that ridge and see what lay on the other side. Meanwhile I was doing some serious thinking.
    What would Lew and his outfit do now? That he wanted the ranch was obvious, but as things stood he had no clear claim to it. Still, if he could run Mrs. Hollyrood off he might be able to establish a claim on the abandoned place as next of kin. Most of us knew a little about the law from setting in on trials and such-like, but that was an area of which I knew nothing.
    In the smaller towns throughout the country, trial lawyers were like stars in the theater. When court was setting, folks would drive or ride in from miles around just to see the show, and the trial lawyers played to us in the gallery as much as to the jury, and some of the more flamboyant lawyers had followings who bragged them up and told story after story about what they said or who they quoted.
    Most of the lawyers had read from the Bible and the classics and they could quote freely, and did. Some of them had a story for every occasion, and a story would often make a point when nothing else would.
    Folks would come in from miles around like to a revival meeting and they would bring picnic lunches. Wagons, buck- boards, surreys, and horses would be tied around the court house whilst the owners were inside listening to the trials. Some lawyers drew packed houses, and often the cases were decided on common sense rather than any point of law.
    A man quoting the Bible had to be almighty sure of himself because most folks read the Bible and heard it quoted every Sunday and considerable on weekdays. Church wasn't a place where folks went only for religious reasons. It was a social occasion, a chance to meet the people who lived around the country, and if a man expected to do business, that was where he would meet the outstanding men of the community. All the young sprouts went because that was also a place to meet girls, and many a wedding developed from flirtations begun at church or one of the church socials they were always having.
    Many a man who had small interest in religion as such could quote from the Bible because of what he had heard in church.
    Mine was a churchgoing family, and to get to church from where I was raised we had to get up before daylight, and ride in an old spring wagon over ten miles of rough road, or at least a trail we called a road but which nobody from anywhere else would have recognized as such.
    My thoughts turned back to Matty. I'd heard no other name for her, and folks in our country just didn't ask for names. You took what was handed to you or you started callin' somebody "Shorty" or "Slim" or "Red" or whatever. Sometimes a man would give you his handle and you'd use it, calling him whatever he said.
    Matty was a strange woman. My guess was