Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0) Read Free Page A

up a few head of cattle. They load ’em into trucks and take off. They don’t get far, usually. Not with us, they don’t. The only road runs along or through our property for fifteen miles.”
    He turned to look at me, his eyes faintly taunting. “You been ridin’ over Strawb’ry range for seven or eight miles now. Everything, anywhere you look, is Strawb’ry. Only way a man could get out of here unless we leave him go is to sprout wings.”
    “Do they ever make a fight of it? The rustlers, I mean?”
    “Sure…who wants to get caught? They know what they got comin’.”
    The station wagon rolled up before the house and frankly, I was glad to get out. I did not like Floyd Reese, and I was glad to be free of him.
    A Mexican in a white coat took my bag and type-writer from the back of the car as Colin Wells came down the steps with a drink in his hand. “Welcome to Strawb’ry! Come on in and have a drink. You’re just in time to round up a few before supper!”
    There was a girl standing on the steps, a dark-haired girl with gray eyes who wore beige slacks and blouse. She was looking at me with neither appraisal nor welcome. It was a startled look, I thought, and apprehensive as well.
    “My sister-in-law, Sheridan, Belle Dawson,” Colin said. “Belle, this is that writer you heard me speak of.”
    “How do you do.” Her smile was quick and friendly. “A reader always enjoys meeting a writer.”
    “And vice versa,” I said, smiling at her. “But don’t be frightened. I’m not going to ask you if you have read anything of mine.”
    “Oh, but I have, Mr. Sheridan! All of them, I believe. You have a gift, a very real gift, for reconstructing the past.”
    “It isn’t a gift. It’s just a lot of hard, dusty work in the files of old newspapers, in catalogues, diaries, coroners’ reports, anything of the kind I can put my hands on.”
    My eyes swung away from hers, glimpsing a low, squat building of stone. It stood near the crest of a knoll about three hundred yards away, beyond the corrals. It was built of native stone and had no windows, only slits from which a rifle might be fired. Into my mind flashed words from John Toomey’s journal:
“and on the second day we began building a fort, a place of refuge against attack by the Apache. It was a low, stone building that we finally completed, situated on a knoll near the spring.”
    “Be careful, Mr. Sheridan,” Belle said ironically. “Your curiosity is showing.”
    “That stone building out there reminded me of one back home. It startled me for a moment.”
    “It was on the place when Colin’s grandfather settled here. They use it to store old harness, saddles, odds and ends of tools. It’s a sort of catch-all, really.”
    Four thousand head of cattle and twenty-seven men, and it was to this place they had come.
    “Bourbon, wasn’t it?” Colin Wells came over, holding out a glass. “I’ve got a memory for drinks. Now if there’s anything you want to know about the place, you ask Belle. She knows as much about it as I do.”
    Ninety years was a long time, and there was small possibility that I could find anything in the nature of a clue. That old building might be one of many such. The past was fresh in my mind because I had worked with it so much, and had been living it through all my books, and all the painstaking research that went into their writing.
    “You will want to freshen up,” Belle said abruptly. “Bring your drink and I’ll show you to your room.”
    “Show him where the pool is, Belle. Chances are we’ll all be out there when he comes out again. If you’d like a swim, Sheridan, climb into a suit and come on.”
    She led the way along a shadowed arcade that bordered the patio on three sides, passing the doors of several rooms, finally to stop opposite a fountain. Around the fountain were palm trees and flowers, keeping the patio green and cool.
    “Right along and through the arch to the pool,” Belle said, and I could see