The Gun Fight Read Online Free PDF Page A

father looking down commandingly at him.

Chapter Five
    A little after twelve, the spotted hound raced to the Dutch door and reared up excitedly, its blunt claws scratching at the wood, its hoarse barking echoing in the kitchen. Julia Benton looked up from her pea shelling with a quick smile that drove the tense absorption from her face.
    Five minutes later the buckboard came creaking across the yard and braked up in back of the house.
    Julia walked over to the door and opened the top half. She saw her tall husband reaching over the iron railing for one of the baskets in the buckboard. “
Hush
now,” she told the baying hound.
    “Hello, ma,” John said, grinning as he came struggling toward the door with his heavy load.
    “Hello, dear.” Julia pulled open the bottom half of the door and the wriggling hound rushed out, its long tail blade whipping at its flanks. “Howdy, mutt,” Benton said as he entered the kitchen, heeled by the excited dog.
    Benton set the basket down heavily on the table and straightened up with a quickly exhaled breath. “Am I late?” he said.
    Julia nodded, smiling. “The boys finished half hour ago. Sit down and I’ll warm you what’s left.”
    “Right. I’ll get the rest of the chuck first, though.”Benton left the kitchen, the dog prancing and growling happily at his boots. “Easy there, Jughead,” Julia heard her husband tell the hound.
    A minute later, Benton sat at the table, checking the supply list while Julia warmed his dinner.
    “Twenty pounds Arbuckle’s,” he said, laying down the coffee sack. “Canned cow. Salt. Flour.”
    “Molasses?” she said.
    He nodded with a grunt. “Yup,” he said, “black strap.” He checked off the item. “Oh, I forgot,” he said, “I got you canned peaches. Maxwell just got some in from the east.”
    “
Oh
,” she said, happily surprised, “that’s nice. We’ll have them Sunday morning.”
    Benton smiled to himself and worked on the list until Julia put his dinner on the table. Then he washed up and sat down. By the stove, the hound was going back to twitching sleep again.
    “John?” Julia asked him while he ate.
    “What?”
    “What did Robby Coles want to see you about?”
    He looked up from his plate in surprise. “How did you know about that?” he asked.
    “He rode here first looking for you.”
    “He did, eh?” Benton sipped a little hot coffee from the mug. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, shaking his head.
    “You saw him in town then,” she said.
    Benton nodded. “Yeah. Funny thing too,” he said. “He was all horns and rattles. Came into the Zorilla Saloon and threw a fist at me.”
    She stood by the table looking concerned. “But why?” she asked.
    He shrugged, food in his mouth, then swallowed. “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s the part that don’t make sense. He told me to stop botherin’ his girl.”
    She looked at him silently a moment. “His
girl
?” she said.
    “That’s right. Came up to me blowin’ a storm andtells me to leave his girl alone. Then he throws a punch at me. What do you think o’ that?”
    Julia shook her head slowly. “But . . . why should he say such a thing to you?” she asked.
    “Don’t ask me, ma. I didn’t even know who the girl was until the Sutton kid told me.”
    “Who is she?”
    “Louisa Harper, Sutton said. Who’s she?”
    “Louisa Harper.” Julia put two fingers against her cheek and stared into space, trying to place the name. “I don’t think I ever—”
    Suddenly her mouth opened a second in surprised realization. “I think I know,” she said.
    “What?” he said, still eating.
    “You know the girl I keep telling you about; the one who stares at you in church?”
    “You
tell
me there’s a girl who stares. I never saw one.”
    “Oh, you wouldn’t notice,” she said with the affectionate scorn of a wife. “But she does stare at you. And . . . yes, come to think of it,” she went on, nodding to herself, “I think I’ve seen her