Skeleton Lode Read Online Free PDF Page B

Davis opened the door, Arlo was at his own door, clumsily trying to insert the key. Davis quickly closed his door, but not before one of the Logan girls had seen Arlo and Dallas preparing to enter their room.
     
    “Now they know we’re here,” Dallas said when they had entered the room and closed the door. “One of the girls saw us. Whether we ever find the gold or not, I aim to meet those girls. My God, how did they turn out so pretty, their mama bein’ the stuck-up old she-buffalo that she is?”
     
    “I don’t know,” said Arlo, “but she and this Gary Davis strike me as bein’ two of a kind. I don’t blame Hoss for bein’ suspicious, the two of ’em gettin’ together so quick after Jed Logan was killed.”
     
    “It ain’t quite noon,” Dallas said. “Why don’t we do some lookin’ around for a good mule and a packsaddle? We can buy provisions too.”
     
    “We might as well,” agreed Arlo, “and be done with it. I’d like to get away from here early in the morning, but even then, we won’t be alone. Thanks to that fool move Davis and Rust made in court, God knows who we’ll have on our back trail.”
     
    Gold, even the mention of it, brought out the worst in people. Arlo and Dallas found that men had staked out the hotel, while others watched the livery. Eager eyes observed them as they bought a mule and a packsaddle, and men openly followed them as they made their way to the general store for supplies.
     
    As Gary Davis, Barry Rust, and R. J. Bollinger were about to leave the hotel, Davis turned to his wife, Paulette, and the Logan girls.
    “We may be gone a while,” Davis said, “and I don’t want none of you leavin’ this room. Is that clear?”
     
    Paulette nodded. Kelly and Kelsey Logan only looked at him, and he could plainly see the hate in their eyes. The trio stepped into the hall, and Davis had barely closed the door when Kelsey Logan exploded.
     
    “God, how I hate him!” she hissed.
     
    “No more than I,” cried Kelly. “He’s a brute, the snake that Uncle Henry always said he was.”
     
    “That’s no way to speak of your father,” Paulette shouted angrily. “I won’t have it!”
     
    “He’s not our father,” Kelly cried. “Our daddy’s dead, and I believe this … this scum, Gary Davis, had more than a little to do with it.”
     
    Paulette Davis hit the girl with such force that she stumbled against the wall. Kelly said nothing. She stood there breathing hard, her face white with fury, her eyes a cold blue. Paulette was shocked, for the girl was looking at her in much the same way Jed Logan had the week before he had been killed, the week he had branded Paulette a whore for her relationship with Gary Davis. Jed Logan was gone, but his daughter looked at her with those same accusing eyes. Jed Logan’s eyes! In them was a mixture of disgust, pity, and hate that was too much for Paulette Davis.
     
    “Kelly … I … I’m sorry,” she said, backing away.
     
    “Don’t be,” said Kelly through clenched teeth. “I know what you are, and so did Uncle Henry. Thank God he trusted his gold to those two cowboys.”
     
    “Henry Logan was a sentimental old fool,” Paulette snapped.
     
    “You never knew or cared about Uncle Henry,” said Kelsey quietly, “and he knew it. He saw through you like Daddy never did, until it was too late. Maybe this gold somewhere in the Superstitions is Uncle Henry’s way of getting back at you from the grave. You ignored him when he told us of the lonely canyons in the Superstitions, of the crying of the wind among the peaks, of the ghostly shadows in the light of a full moon. Uncle Henry said all who are drawn to the mountains by greed find only death.”
     
    Kelsey Logan spoke softly, but her words had a strange effect, as though something—or somebody—spoke through her. Eerie tremors crept up Paulette’s spine, and she shuddered.
     
    Leaving the hotel, Gary Davis and his companions got a quick taste of what