the Shadow Riders (1982) Read Free

where the trail dipped down into trees, and Mac could see the sparkle of running water.
    It was almighty still, and there was nobody around a body could see. Mac helped Dal from the saddle and let him lie on the grass. "I'm sorry," Dal muttered, "right sorry."
    Mac watered the horses and let them graze on the grass near the stream, then carried water to Dal, handing him a twist of jerky as he did so.
    "We won't chance a fire and the smell of smoke," he said. "Have yourself some of this jerky and chew it well. Make it last, is what I mean. We've a long ride ahead of us."
    "You holdin' anything? I mean, have you got money?"
    "Mighty little," Mac said. "When we get along further we might shoot something to eat. Or maybe we can come up to some farm house where the woman of the place would feed us."
    "You was always good at that," Dal said wryly. "Every woman you ever met wanted to feed you an' do for you."
    "Sometimes I was lucky," Mac agreed, with a smile, "but you don't always find them when you need them."
    When the horses were rested they mounted up and followed a muddy lane back to the main trail. Mac looked both ways and took off his coat and tied it behind the saddle. With his coat off Dal saw the tube slung from Mac's right shoulder and buckled to his belt so it wouldn't move around when he rode.
    "What's that?" Dal wondered aloud.
    "A Blakeslee Quick-Loader for my Spencer rifle. The Spencer carries seven shots, eight if you have one in the chamber. This Quick-Loader has tubes in it of seven cartridges each. They come in different sizes - seven, ten, and thirteen. I hear they made some that carried six tubes, too, but I never saw one. This one of mine has thirteen tubes."
    "I'll be damned! When your rifle's empty you just shove in another tube?"
    "That's right. We were trained to load 'em so we could maintain a fire of fourteen to fifteen shots a minute."
    For three days they rode west and south, for three days each daybreak found them in the saddle, and for three days they saw no house and no trail and only occasionally crossed pony trails or the marks of wagon wheels.
    By the fourth day Dal was building the fire, gathering fuel for it, and moving around, taking his time.
    "Be good to be home," he said, looking off to the south, where the grass ran into the horizon.
    "Pa will be getting along," Mac said. "He'll need help runnin' the place. Of course, Jesse's there."
    "Maybe not," Dal said. "He was talkin' of war himself. You know how it is. When everybody else is going, he would want to go, too."
    Mac turned in his saddle and glanced back along the trail. If anyone was following him because of the man he killed, by staying off the trail he might have avoided them. It did not pay to take an enemy lightly.
    In any event there was much potential danger. During the War a lot of renegades had hung about the fringes of the War, using it as an excuse for looting, stealing stock, and brutalizing unprotected citizens. Now those renegades would be along the roads, robbing whomever they could.
    The country was facing a difficult period of readjustment. With the War ended the men from the South would be returning home to a largely devastated land. The slaves on whom they depended for labor would be gone, and they would have no money to hire labor. There would be a shortage of food, a shortage of farm stock, and a lack of capital with which to restock and rebuild.
    In the north the situation would be scarcely better, as munition plants would be closing down. Textile manufacturers would no longer have an army to clothe, and a lot of people were going to be out of work.
    "We're lucky, Dal," Mac said. "We've got the ranch to go to. There will at least be beef to eat, and we can start building back. Texas didn't suffer much from the War, and with all of us working it shouldn't take long."
    "Kate will be there," Dal said. "I never knew I could miss anybody so much."
    Mac glanced back again. Four Confederate soldiers had come into sight,