The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill Read Online Free PDF Page B

Cameron said, “And another warning. Keep away from my cows.”
    “Now look here,” Jupe protested. “You never proved nothing on me and Hale. We don’t …”
    “One of these days I will prove something,” Cameron interrupted. “And just remember — out in the valley I’m no more bound by the law than you are.” He swung away from the mixture of fear and anger that leaped into both men’s eyes. Not bothering to look at Rafe Arker still lying motionless on the floor, he walked outside.
    The night had begun to cool, and there was a hint of fall in the air that rolled down from the mountains. Cameron hunched his shoulders and winced as the movement pulled bruised flesh. He walked slowly up the empty board sidewalk.
    Light still showed from Jenny’s Café, and Cameron knew that she was waiting for him. He would go there and have his piece of pie, he decided.
    Then he would go back to the jail office and wait for Sax Larabee and the past to come to him.

IV
    J ENNY HAD kept both the stew and a piece of apple pie hot for Cameron. The café was officially closed for the night and so they had it to themselves. Cameron ate slowly, savoring the food and the obvious concern for him Jenny showed.
    “Somebody will spread the word about what happened tonight, and you’ll be a hero for a day or two,” she said.
    “It’s foolishness,” Cameron answered, “but of a kind that never hurts the law’s reputation.” He was shaping a cigarette to go with his coffee and he glanced up at her. “You sound almost bitter.”
    “I was just thinking that the bigger a fighting man’s reputation, the more people want to best him.”
    “In the Cougar country, I don’t have to worry about anyone but Rafe Arker,” Cameron smiled. “And he won’t be bothering anybody for a few days.”
    Jenny shook her head. “I don’t know why but I’m afraid for you — more than I was before you fought Rafe.”
    With an effort, she laughed away her frown and leaned over the counter to kiss Cameron. “I sound like a biddy hen, don’t I? But you won’t have to listen to me much longer. I promised Matilda Crotty I’d go to her singfest.”
    The Widow Crotty’s was quiet as Cameron escorted Jenny to the front door. Through the diamond glass panes, he could see the singing group seated in the parlor, eating applesauce cake with gobbets of fresh whipped cream on top. For a moment Cameron envied these people the quietness of their lives. But as he turned to walk back to the jail office, the feeling vanished. When he first decided to become a lawman, he knew what the future would hold for him. And only seldom had he ever regretted his decision, and then not for long.
    But tonight the feeling came back, and he knew that it was because of Sax Larabee. He and Sax, wild kids drifting about the ranges of the west, working hard and playing hard, burning up their energies with the enthusiasm and thoughtlessness of healthy young animals.
    And then Cameron became aware of the change in Sax. Older and with a little more education than Cameron possessed — and a good deal more than most of the others they rode with had — he began to fret at his lack of success. A bitterness seemed to grow in him as he came to realize that the mere fact he was Sax Larabee was not enough to bring him more than other people.
    Cameron still remembered with sharp clarity the night Sax’s feelings came to a head. With two friends and two strangers, they were drifting south after working a roundup in the San Juan country of Colorado. They were camped on the upper Rio Grande and had just finished supper when Sax stood up, a cheroot clamped between his teeth and his hat thumbed back to show the widow’s peak in his black hair.
    Cameron would never forget the hell-for-leather grin on Sax’s lips nor the wild glint in his dark eyes. “That roundup left a lot of money in the Alamoso bank,” he said suddenly. “You all know money’s the root of evil. Now I’m a man who’s