The Gun Fight Read Online Free PDF Page B

“My, what a lovely surprise.”
    “That’s as it may be,” declared Agatha Winston. “You may not think so when you find out why I’m here.”
    The widow Harper looked confused as she shut the door quietly, then turned back to her sister who was driving her black umbrella into the stand like a mariner harpooning a whale. She stood smiling pleasantly while Agatha removed her bonnet with quick, agitated motions.
    Agatha Winston lifted a piercing glance up the stairwell. “Where is Louisa?” she asked in a guarded tone.
    “Why . . . up in her room, Agatha,” Elizabeth Harper said, looking curiously at her sister. “Why do you—”
    Miss Winston took her sister’s arm with firm fingers and led her into the quiet, sun-flecked sitting room.
    “Sit down,” she said curtly and the widow Harper settled like a diffident butterfly on the couch edge, one hand plucking at the grey-threaded auburn of her curls. She was forty-four, a gentle woman, helpless in all things.
    Agatha Winston looked down grimly at the rose-petal cheeks of her sister.
    “I don’t suppose you’ve heard,” she said.
    “Heard?” The widow Harper swallowed nervously. She had always been somewhat afraid of her elder sister.
    “It’s shocking,” Miss Winston said in sudden anger. “It’s just shocking.”
    Elizabeth Harper looked dismayed. Her hands stirred restlessly in the lap of her yellow patterned calico, then twined frail fingers.
    “What . . . is, Agatha?” she asked, uneasily.
    “The terrible gossip that’s going around town,” Agatha Winston said. “The shameful story . . . about Louisa.”
    Alarm flared up suddenly in the widow Harper’s face as she heard mentioned her only child. “Louisa?” she said hastily. “What about her, Agatha?”
    Agatha Winston sat down on the couch with one sure motion, legs and back making a perfect right angle, face stern with righ teous indignation.
    “She’s told you nothing?” she asked her sister.
    The widow Harper’s lower lip trembled. “Told me about what?” she asked, eyes almost frantic.
    Miss Winston drew in a harsh breath. “I think we had better ask Louisa about that,” she said. “I don’t even want to speak of it until I hear what she has to say.” She stood, a bleak wraith of resolution. “Come,” she said.
    Elizabeth Harper fluttered up. “Agatha,
please.
What
is
it?” she begged.
    Agatha Winston clasped gaunt hands before her breast.
    “What do you know of Mister John Benton?” she asked bluntly.
    Her sister stared back without comprehension. “John Benton?” she repeated the name. “What—”
    “Early this afternoon—about two o’clock I’ll allow—Mrs. Van Dekker came into the shop.” Agatha Winston’s dark eyes probed at her sister’s. “She told me something that made me shudder . . . positively shudder, Elizabeth.”
    Elizabeth Harper pressed trembling fingers to her lips and stared fearfully at her sister.
    “I won’t go into detail,” Miss Winston said firmly. “The story may not even be true—I pray to heaven itisn’t—but it concerns this John Benton and . . .” Her lips pressed together. “. . .
Louisa,
” she finished.
     
    Louisa Harper was dreaming. Across the lilac spread of her bed, her sixteen-year-old body lay, stomach down, chin propped up by delicately cupped hands. Her blue eyes stared vacantly out of the window. She was taking that ride again.
    She had taken it a hundred times, maybe more. It was almost always the same. The petty details of its genesis were ignored. That she could not ride and was frightened to death of horses mattered little. She was out on the range again, riding, her light chestnut hair flowing in the wind, her firm body jolting with the cantering gait of the horse. The sun was bright—for now.
    Then the complication, the always occurring complication. Louisa Harper’s lips stirred, her mind stared deeper into her dream.
    A rattlesnake, a road runner, a jackrabbit—the actual cause