the Daybreakers (1960) Read Online Free PDF

Luis ... even his granddaughter. Fetterson stood there, mad clear through. He had come itching for trouble and he was stopped cold. He had no mind to tackle Cap Rountree for fun ... nobody wanted any part of that old wolf. But he had a look in those gun-metal eyes of his that would frighten a body.
    "I'll buy the drinks," I said.
    "Just coffee for me," Cap replied.
    My eyes were on Fetterson. "That includes you," I said.
    He started to say something mean, and then he said, "Be damned if I won't. That took guts, mister."
    Don Luis took the cigar from his lips and brushed away the long ash that had collected there during the moments just past. He looked at me and spoke in Spanish.
    "He says we can travel west with him if we like," Cap translated, "he says you are a brave man ... and what is more important, a wise one."
    "Gracias," I said, and it was about the only Spanish word I knew.
    In 1867, the Santa Fe Trail was an old trail, cut deep with the ruts of the heavy wagons carrying freight over the trail from Independence, Missouri. It was no road, only a wide area whose many ruts showed the way the wagons had gone through the fifty-odd years the trail had been used. Cap Rountree had come over it first in 1836, he said.
    Orrin and me, we had an ache inside us for new country, and a longing to see the mountains show up on the horizon. We had to find a place for Ma, and if we had luck out west, then we could start looking for a place.
    Back home we had two younger brothers and one older, but it had been a long time since we'd seen Tell, the oldest of our brothers who was still alive and should be coming home from the wars soon. When the War between the States started he joined up and then stayed on to fight the Sioux in the Dakotas.
    We rode west. Of a night we camped together and it sure was fine to set around the fire and listen to those Spanish men sing, and they did a lot of it, one time or another.
    Meantime I was listening to Rountree. That old man had learned a lot in his lifetime, living with the Sioux like he did, and with the Nez Perce. First off he taught me to say that name right, and he said it Nay-Persay. He taught me a lot about their customs, how they lived, and told me all about those fine horses they raised, the appaloosas.
    My clothes had give out so I bought me an outfit from one of the Spanish men, so I was all fixed out like they were, in a buckskin suit with fringe and all. In the three months since I'd left home I'd put on nearly fifteen pounds and all of it muscle. I sure wished Ma could see me. Only thing that was the same was my gun.
    The first few days out I'd seen nothing of the don or his granddaughter, except once when I dropped an antelope with a running shot at three hundred yards. The don happened to see that and spoke of it.
    Sometimes his granddaughter would mount her horse and ride alongside the wagons, and one day when we'd been out for about a week, she cantered up on a ridge where I was looking over the country ahead of us.
    A man couldn't take anything for safe in this country. From the top of a low hill that country was open grass as far as you could see. There might be a half-dozen shallow valleys out there or ditches, there might be a canyon or a hollow, and any one of them might be chock full of Indians.
    This time that Spanish girl joined me on the ridge, I was sizing up the country.
    She had beautiful big dark eyes and long lashes and she was about the prettiest thing I ever did see.
    "Do you mind if I ride with you, Mr. Sackett?"
    "I sure don't mind, but what about Don Luis? I don't expect he'd like his granddaughter riding with a Tennessee drifter."
    "He said I could come, but that I must ask your permission. He said you would not let me ride with you if it was not safe."
    On the hill where we sat the wind was cool and there was no dust. The train of wagons and pack horses was a half mile away to the southeast. The first Spanish I learned I started learning that day from her.
    "Are