Free Louis L'Amour by The Cherokee Trail

waiting until the last minute to board the stage.
    Wilbur came to the door, his whip in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. He stopped beside Mary.
    “Wilbur? Do you know Jason Flandrau?”
    “I do, ma’am.”
    “If you see him down this way, tell me, will you?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” He handed her his empty cup. “He’ll be comin’ down soon, ma’am. He’ll be wantin’ to talk to Preston Collier.”
    She was not afraid now, yet she knew what fear was, and the only time she had ever been frightened was when Jason Flandrau and his guerrillas had raided their plantation, striking suddenly across the mountains from their hideout in Kentucky.
    She fled with Peg in her arms and a neighbor girl, guided by Beloit, an old black man whom her husband had bought and freed several years before. He hid them in a cave behind some bushes, and they had seen their homes go up in flames, seen the stock driven off, and Beloit, who had run back to get some papers from the house, shot down in cold blood by Flandrau himself.
    Now he was here. He had destroyed her home, killed her husband, and to survive and become what he intended, he must kill her.
    What she had sought here was a new start, to build a new home, to make a living for herself and her daughter, but Flandrau was here, too, and she had no choice. Should she sit by weakly and be destroyed?
    Long ago, a soldier visiting her father had said something she remembered. “The secret of victory is to attack, always attack. If you have ten thousand men, attack. If you have but two men, attack. There is always a way.”
    Was there? What could she do? Yet the idea was right. She must not sit by, waiting to be killed, waiting to be destroyed. She must move herself.
    But what could she, a woman, do? What weapons did she have?
    She had the truth, yet she was not so naive as to believe the truth alone would prevail.
    The truth was a weapon, and if wisely used, it might destroy him. She did not intend to sit by and wait for attack. She would choose her time, and then she would move. But what time? When? How?
    She must have a pistol. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would go into Laporte and buy one.
    She watched the dust settle after the departure of the stage; then she walked out to the stable. Wat was there, pitchfork in hand. He was, she noted, keeping things neat and clean. “Thank you, Wat. Everything looks very nice.”
    “It’s a job, ma’am.”
    “Wat? You seem to know most of the people around here. How do you happen to know so many?”
    “I sort of watch and listen.”
    “Where are your family, Wat?”
    “I got no family.” He looked up at her, then quickly away. “I got nobody.”
    “Now that isn’t a nice thing to say. What about me? What about Peg?”
    “You ain’t kinfolk.”
    “There is more than one kind of kinfolk, Wat. Some are kin by blood and some by heart. Peg wants to think you are her brother, and I like that. You have a family, Wat, if you want it.”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “What happened to your family, Wat? Your father and mother?”
    He shuffled his feet, then stabbed at the earthen floor with his pitchfork. “Mama died when I was two, maybe three. I remember her a little. Pa, he was shot.”
    “Shot? By whom?”
    “It makes no difrence.”
    They were interrupted by the sound of hoofs. “Riders comin’,” Wat said. “Two of them.”
    She glanced out of the stable door. Two men on horseback, and they were strangers.
    Chapter 8
----
    L ONG AGO, HER father had told her to
see
. “Not many do, Mary. Learn to see what you are looking at.” And about these riders there was something different.
    “They have fine horses,” she said aloud.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Wat said. “No cowhand can afford horses like that. They are either mighty well off, or they are outlaws.”
    “Outlaws?”
    “Yes, ma’am, an outlaw needs a horse that can run. A horse with stayin’ quality, too. He dasn’t trust himself to just any ol’ crow bait.”
    “Wat, please go