the Lonely Men (1969) Read Online Free PDF Page B

like grief of some kind, and I was in no mood for it.
    They were four of a kind, raw and ragged, just in off the trail and they looked it. Like uncurried wolves they bellied up to the bar, and when they had had a drink, they looked around.
    "It is those who seek for John J., amigo. I think they know I am his friend."
    They crossed the room, the four of them, and every man-jack in the room could smell the trouble they brought with them.
    They came to our table and ranged themselves in front of it. All of them were armed, and they wore guns as if they knew how to use them.
    Me, I just sort of shifted one foot. The other foot was propped up on a chair's edge, resting easy.
    "You!" The one with the handle-bar mustache stabbed a finger at Rocca. "You, greaser. They tell me you are a friend of the man named Battles."
    Rocca was like a coiled snake. He looked at them, and he smiled. Now no Mex likes to be called a greaser. Me, I've been called a gringo many times and couldn't see that it left any scars, but some folks are almighty touchy, and Rocca was that way now. Not that I blamed him. It is all very easy to say trouble can be avoided, but these men were not going to be avoided. They were looking for trouble, they wanted it.
    "Si, senor." Rocca said gently, "I am honored to call John J. Battles my friend."
    "Then I guess we'll just kill you, Mex, seein' as how we can't find him."
    Well, I just looked up at the man and I said, "I'm a friend of his, too," and I said it sort of off-hand as if it didn't matter much, but they knew it did.
    They turned their eyes on me, and I just sat there, a tall, lonely man in a wore-out buckskin shirt and a beat-up hat.
    "You want part of this?" Walrus-mustache was speaking again.
    "A man can ride many a long mile in Texas," I said, "and see nothing but grass and sky. There's streams down there, and a man could raise some cows. Here in Arizona there's timber country with fine, beautiful meadows and cold mountain streams -- "
    "What're you talkin' about?" Handle-bar mustache broke in. "Are you crazy?"
    "I was just thinking a man would have to be an awful fool to throw all that away to prove how mean he was. I mean you boys got a choice. You walk back over there and drink your liquor and ride out to those mountain streams where the tall grass grows."
    "Or -- ?"
    "Or you stay here, and tomorrow you'll be pushin' grass from the under side."
    They stared at me. They were trying to figure whether I was all talk, or whether I was tough. Now, I'm a patient man. Had they been talking to Tyrel, folks would have been laying out the bodies by now. Me, I'm not backward about giving a man a chance. Many a time a man with whiskey in him is apt to talk too much, and suddenly realize he wished he was somewhere else. I was giving them this chance.
    They didn't take it.
    The long-geared man with the handle-bar mustache looked at me and said, "I'm Arch Hadden," as if he expected me to show scare at the name.
    "Glad to meet you, Mr. Hadden," I said gently. "I'll carve the slab myself."
    He kind of flushed up, and I could see he was off his step, somehow. He'd come walking up to fight, and my talk had put him off. Also, that name meant nothing to me, and I never was one to put much stock in reputatations, anyway.
    Rocca had let me talk, he just sat quiet, but I'd come up the trail from Yuma with Tampico Rocca, and knew he was no man to buy trouble with. Arch Hadden had lost step, and he tried to get back again.
    "I came to kill this greaser, an' I aim to do it." Rocca came to his feet in one smooth, easy movement. "Then why not get started?"
    The man with the walrus mustache had had more to drink, and he wasn't being bluffed. He went for his gun, and I straightened my leg with a snap. The chair slammed into his legs and he fell against Hadden, and I shot the man on the end while they were falling. I heard another gun boom and then Rocca and me were standing there looking down at Hadden and his brother, one of them in a