Talon & Chantry 07 - North To The Rails (v5.0) Read Free

you?”
    “A mite. Sell some of the Injuns once in a while. What was you needin’?”
    Less than half an hour later, with two blankets, a sack of grub, and a bowie knife to cut firewood, Chantry headed west. When out of sight of the station he turned abruptly from the road and cut back into the brush to find the other trail.
    He found it at Agua Zarca and followed it toward the crossing of the Tecolote at San Geronimo. Without leaving the saddle, he removed his coat, stripped off his white shirt, and donned a dark red shirt bought at the stage station. Then he tied his coat behind his saddle.
    At noon, well back in the scattered piñons, he unsaddled, watered his horse at a seep, made coffee, and ate a couple of dry biscuits.
    Slowly, the tension left him. The smell of the piñons and juniper, the coolness and quiet of the day, the slow circling of far-off buzzards, the cloud shadows on the hills began to soak into his being and left him rested and at peace. When he mounted up and started on once more, he was at one with the land.
    His first desire had been to get away from Las Vegas, but now that he was away he knew his best bet would have been to ride north toward Mora and thence to Cimarron, where there would be a lot of cattle.
    He reached the Santa Fe Trail again near Glorieta, skirted Santa Fe, and took the trail for Taos. The way he had left Las Vegas rankled. He did not like being considered a coward, and he did not believe he was one, but a good many people would believe so.
    But that was behind him. Once in Cimarron, he would buy the cattle, drive them to the railhead, and within a few hours after that he would be on his way back to Doris.
    Doris…
    He took his time. He camped when the mood was on him, and rode on again when he grew restless; when possible, he avoided the main trail.
    He was somewhere south of E-Town when he heard the horse. It was coming fast, and he pulled over to be out of the way.
    The horse was a blaze-faced roan, and it was carrying double. The riders pulled up when they saw him.
    “Howdy there, stranger! Comin’ fer?”
    “Santa Fe,” he replied.
    They were young, rough-looking, and one man had a bandaged arm.
    “See many folks on the trail?”
    “Nobody.”
    “You’ll likely see some. By this time there’s a-plenty of folks headin’ our way. We was in a shootin’ back yonder in Elizabethtown. Hank got himself winged and got his hoss kilt right under him. Good hoss, too.”
    “Bud,” Hank said, “you notice somethin’ peculiar? This gent ain’t wearin’ no gun.”
    “Rough country,” Bud commented. “If’n I was you, mister, I’d wear a gun. You never know who you’ll meet up with.”
    Chantry shrugged. “I don’t wear a gun. If you’ll pardon my saying so, I think guns lead to trouble.”
    “You hear that, Bud? He ain’t wearin’ no gun.”
    “Maybe guns do lead to trouble,” Bud said seriously, “but they’s times when not wearin’ one will.” Suddenly he held a pistol. “Git down off that hoss, mister.”
    “Now see here! I—”
    “You git down off that hoss or I’ll shoot you off, an’ I ain’t goin’ to tell you again.”
    Hank was grinning at him, his lean, unshaven face taunting. “He’ll do it, too, stranger. Bud here’s kilt four men. He’s one up on me.”
    “There’s no need for this,” Chantry said. “I’ve done you no harm.”
    He felt the sting of the nicked ear and then heard the blast of the pistol, although probably everything happened at once—the stab of flame, the report, the flash of pain from his ear.
    “Mister, I ain’t a-talkin’ just to hear the wind blow. You git down.”
    Slowly, carefully, Tom Chantry swung down from his horse. Inwardly he was seething, but he was frightened, too. The man had meant to kill him.
    Hank quickly dropped from his seat in back of Bud and swung up on Chantry’s horse. With a wild, derisive yell they rode off, and he stood in the trail staring after them.
    The place where they had