Free Milo Talon by Louis L’Amour

teamsters came back through town and was asked about it, they said those soldiers must have been killed after being taken because three of them were shot in the back.
    “You know what was said. Some figured Hovey had done it but when the mob was goin’ to hang him, that lawyer … Dickman? Yeah, that was his name. He showed up and talked ’em out of it. There were somesaid Hovey got to Dickman first and put him up to it. Anyway, Dickman left right after, went to the coast, and set hisself up in fine fashion, with whose money I dunno.”
    “I remember the talk. Some said that Hovey rode up to them hunting help and after the Indians were driven off, he opened fire on the soldiers and killed three of them while they were lyin’ on the ground watchin’ for Injuns, then swapped shots with the last man and got himself wounded.”
    “When he come back a few years later most of the old crowd were gone. The Army had moved their men out and others had gone off to the mines, so he stuck around, mixin’ in a lot of shady stuff.”
    “What happened to the money?”
    “Good question. Some folks believe he only brought a part of it back and most of that went to Dickman. Nobody ever did see any new gold coins about and there’s some as believe Hovey buried most of that gold out in the hills and has never been back for it.”
    “Isn’t likely.”
    “It is, though. The Apaches ride that country all the time. Nobody but a durned fool would go down there for any reason at all. That gold, the most of it, might still be there.”
    We sat quiet for a little while, each busy with his own thoughts. Pride Hovey had a hand in a lot of shady doings, folks suspected, but they’d never caught him at anything.
    He bought and sold cattle, made a few deals for mining claims, occasionally bought stock or whatever from Mexicans who came up from below the border.The word was that he dealt in cattle stolen down Sonora way.
    Over the past six or seven years his enemies had a way of disappearing, just dropping from sight, unexpected like, and he got the reputation of being a bad man with whom to have trouble.
    Now he was here, asking questions of Molly Fletcher, and furious to know that I was involved.
    Why it should matter, I could not guess. Here and there I’d had a few difficulties, but so far as I could recall I’d never stepped on his toes.
    Pride Hovey was not the kind of trouble I wanted. To find a lost girl was one thing, but too many fingers were trying to get into the pot, and I didn’t like it. I’d taken Jefferson Henry’s money so I’d best find his girl and get out … fast.
    The sun had set when I returned to the street. A lone buckboard drawn by a team of paint horses was trotting out of town, going west. Two cowboys were sitting on the bench in front of the Red Dog Saloon, drinking beer. It was supper time in town and most of the townspeople were either already eating or washing up for it.
    It was a time of night when a man feels the lonesomes all wistful inside. It was time I went home. Ma was getting no younger and it was a big ranch she had. I thought with longing of the great old mansion my father had built, probably the largest house in that part of the country at the time, but he was building for the woman he loved and he was a builder. He had worked with timber all his life and it was like him that he built the best for her.
    Only the clerk was in the lobby but I crossed to thedesk and turned the register around to read the names. “Expecting somebody?” he asked.
    “Curious,” I said. “Just wondering who’s in town.”
    “It’s a slack time,” he said, “half the rooms are empty.”
    Hovey’s name was not on the register. My own name was the last on the list.
    Where was he then? Did he have a friend in town?
    When I was in the room with the chair propped under the knob, I got the suitcase from under the bed and opened it.
    Placing the letters, notebook, and painting to one side, I checked the pockets of