Showdown On the Hogback (1991) Read Free

bed and was about to remove his guns again and stretch out, when there was a light tap at the door.
    "Come in," said Kedrick, "and if you're an enemy, I'll be pleased to know you!"
    The door opened and closed all in a breath. The man that stood with his back to it facing Kedrick was scarcely five feet four, yet almost as broad as he was tall. But all of it was sheer power of bone and muscle, with not an ounce of fat anywhere. His broad brown face might have been graved from stone, and the bristle of short-cropped hair above it was black as a crow's wing. The man's neck spread to broad, thick shoulders. On his right hip he packed a gun. In his hand he held a narrow-brimmed hard hat.
    Kedrick leaped to his feet. "Dai!" The name was an explosion of sound. "Dai Reid! And what are you doing in this country?"
    "Ah? So it's that you ask, is it? Well, it's trouble there is, boy, much of trouble! An' you that's by way of bringin' it!"
    "conale?" Kedrick waved to a chair. "Tell me what you mean."
    The Welshman searched his face and then seated himself, his huge palms resting on his knees. His legs were thick muscled and bowed. "It's the man Burwick you're with? An" you've the job taken to run us off the land? There is changed you are, Tom, an' for the worse!"
    "You're one of them? You're on the land Burwick, Keith, and Gunter claim?" "I am that. And a sight of work I've done on it, too.
    An' now the rascals would be puttin' me off.
    Well, they'll have a fight to move me, an' you, too, Tom Kedrick, if you're to stay one of them."
    Kedrick studied the Welshman thoughtfully. All his doubts had come to a head now, for this man he knew. His own father had been Welsh and his mother Irish, and Dai Reid had been a friend to them both. Dai had come from the old country with his father, had worked beside him when he courted his mother, and although much younger than Gwilym Kedrick, had come West with him, too.
    "Dai," he said slowly, "I'll admit that today I've been laving doubts of all this. You see, I knew John Gunter after he war, and I took a herd of cattle over the trail for a friend (f his.
    There was trouble that year, the Indians holding up very herd and demanding large numbers of cattle for themselves, the rustlers trying to steal whole herds, and others 3emanding money for passage across land they claimed.
    I took my herd through without paying anything but a few fat beefs for the Indians, who richly deserved them. But not what they demanded-they got what I wanted to give. "Gunter remembered me from that and knew something A my war record, so when he approached me in New Orleans, his proposition sounded good. And this is what he told me.
    "His firm, Burwick, Keith and Gunter, had filed application for the survey and purchase of all or parts of nearly three hundred sections of land. They made oath that this land was swampland or overflowed and came under the General Land Office ruling that it was land too wet for irrigation at seeding time, though later requiring irrigation, and therefore subject to sale as swamp.
    "He went on to say that they had arranged to buy the land, but that a bunch of squatters were on it who refused to leave. He wanted to hire me to lead a force to see the land was cleared, and he said that as most of them were rustlers, outlaws, or renegades of one sort or another, there would be fighting, and force would be necessary."
    Dai nodded. "Right he was as to the fighting, but renegades, no. Well," he smiled grimly past his pipe, "I'd not be saying that now, but there's mighty few. There are bad apples in all barrels, one or two," he said, "but most of us be good people, with homes built and crops in.
    "An' did he tell you that their oath was given that the land was unoccupied? Well, given it was! And let me tell you, ninety-four sections have homes on them, some mighty poor, but homes.
    "Shrewd they were with the planning. Six months the notices must be posted, but they posted them in fine print and where few men