Flint (1960) Read Free Page A

to attack, always attack.
    He had moved swiftly but with the sharp attention of a chess player, leaving nothing to chance. Nor had he ever attacked twice in the same way. He had developed an information service of office boys, messengers, waiters, cleaning women. They listened and reported to him, and he used the information.
    It was a time of gamblers, a period of financial manipulation when fortunes were made and lost overnight. Mining, railroads and shipping, land speculation and industry -- he had a hand in them all, shifting positions quickly, negotiating behind the scenes, working eighteen to twenty hours a day for days on end.
    There had been periods of vague disquiet when the yearning within him reached out toward the warmth of others, but he fought down the impulse, stifling it. Occasionally, with subordinates or strangers, he had done some sudden, impulsive kindness, and was always ashamed of the lapse.
    Of his early years he had only vague recollections. The one real thing in those years had been Flint.
    That he had been found beside the burned-out wagon train, he knew. There were vague recollections of a woman crying, and of a man and woman who bickered and drank constantly. She had been kind to him when sober, maudlin when drinking, and there were times when she forgot all about him and he went hungry.
    When he was four he heard the shot that destroyed the only world he knew. He had gone into the next room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, to find the woman sprawled on the floor. He had often seen her like that, but this time there was blood on her back and side. Then people had come and taken him away.
    After that he lived two years on a dry farm where there was little to eat and a losing battle was fought against big cattlemen. One day the farmers, fighting their own brutal struggle to survive, abandoned him on the street of a town.
    He was sitting there at daybreak, shivering with the long night's chill, when a cold-eyed man in a buffalo coat rode into town, went past him, then turned back.
    He remembered the cold, gray eyes, the unshaven jaw, and the questions the man asked. He had answered directly and simply, the only way he knew. The man had leaned down and lifted him to the saddle, and down the street in an all-night saloon and stage station, the man bought him a bowl of hot stew and crackers. He was sure he had never eaten anything that tasted so good. He had eaten, then fallen asleep.
    When he awakened he was on the saddle in front of the man. They rode for several days, always by the least-traveled trails.
    The man took him to a house in a city and left him there with a woman. The next morning, Flint was gone.
    The woman was kind, and she took him to a school where he was admitted. He remained there for eight years.
    The studies were hard. The other students complained often. But for the first time he slept in a decent bed and had regular meals. He dreaded the day when he might have to leave, and somehow he got the idea that if he failed as a student he would be taken out of school.
    When he was ten he made two discoveries at the same time, the first was the library, and the second was that the teachers at the school were curious about him. He found that by reading in the library he could anticipate lessons and find background for the essays the teachers constantly demanded. In this way he discovered the wonderful world of books.
    The other students came from wealthy or well-to-do homes, but his tuition came from a variety of Western towns. He was asked many probing questions, but replied to none of them.
    During the long days of riding before they reached the house of the woman, Flint had taught him things that remained in his mind and, he now realized, had shaped his entire life.
    "Never let them know how you feel or what you are thinking. If they know how you feel they know how to hurt you, and if they hurt you once, they will try again."
    "Don't trust anybody, not even me. To trust is a weakness. It