Collection 1997 - End Of The Drive (v5.0) Read Free

like a couple of two-by-twice tinhorns. Neither of them had nerve enough to talk up to Bob Heseltine…but neither had I.
    â€œI got to go back,” I said, “I got to go back and make my fight. Else I’ll always think I was scared.”
    â€œYou and me, Ed,” Pa said, “we’ve had our troubles but you never showed anything but sand. There’s scared smart and then there’s scared stupid. I think that you did the right thing.” Pa reached for a stick lying among the branches of a fallen tree, and he had out his bowie. “We’re going back, boy, but we’re going together.”
    We’d taken our time. Pa had a pipe after his coffee and while he smoked he worked on a crutch. My mouth was all dry inside and my stomach was queasy, but once we decided to go back I felt a whole lot better. It was like I’d left something unfinished back there that just had to be done.
    And I kept thinking of Sites, not willing to face up to it, and Reese, who was supposed to be my friend, wanting to kill me.
    â€œYou did right, Ed,” Pa told me, speaking around his pipe stem. “You did the smart thing. They will think you were scared off.”
    â€œThat Heseltine…they say he’s killed a dozen men. He’s robbed banks and he’s got a mean reputation.”
    â€œI like to see a mean man,” Pa said. “Most of them don’t cut much figger.”
    Pa had finished working out his crutch. It wasn’t much, just a forked stick trimmed down a mite so he could use the fork to hold under his armpit. I helped him to the horse, and once he got a foot in the stirrup and a hand on the horn he was in that saddle. Meanwhile I smothered our fire. Nobody wants to turn fire loose in grass or timber unless he’s a fool.
    â€œA bank robber don’t shape up to me,” Pa said. “When he goes into a bank with a gun, he don’t figure to get shot at. If he expected it he’d never take the first step. He threatens men with folks depending on them and steals money he’s too lazy to work for.
    â€œThe James boys swaggered it mighty big until a bunch of home folks up at Northfield shot their ears off, and the Dalton gang got the same thing in Coffeyville. The McCarty boys tried it in Colorado, and all those bold outlaws were shot down by a few quiet men who left their glass-polishing or law books to do it.”
    Well, all those outlaws had seemed mighty exciting until Pa put it thataway, but what he said was true. Pa was a little man himself, only weighed a hundred and thirty pounds, though he had the strongest hands I ever did see. Strong hands from plowing, shoeing horses, and wrassling steers.
    Close to midnight we fetched up to their fire.
    â€œHelp me down, Ed,” Pa said, whispering. “I want to be on the ground.”
    We walked up to the fire, our boots making small sounds in the grass. Pa was carrying my Colt in his right hand, and I carried a shell under the hammer of my Henry rifle. Those boys weren’t much account at keeping watch; they were setting around a blanket playing cards for our money.
    â€œYou boys are wasting time,” Pa told them. “You’re playing with money that don’t belong to you.”
    Pa had that crutch under his left shoulder, but he held that Colt in one big hand and it pointed like a finger at Heseltine.
    â€œHear you’re a killing man,” Pa said to him, “but you size up to me like a no-account, yellow-bellied loafer.”
    â€œYou got the drop,” Heseltine said. “You got a loud mouth when you got the drop.”
    â€œThe drop? You figure we’re in some kind of dime novel? Ed, you keep an eye on those others. If either of them make a move, shoot both of them and after they’re laying on the ground, shoot them again!”
    Deliberately Pa lowered the muzzle until it pointed into the grass beside his foot. “Now, Ed tells me you’re a fast