Free Milo Talon by Louis L’Amour Page A

the suit. On closer examination it proved more worn than I’d at first believed, but I found nothing.
    Despite that, the suit disturbed me. I checked to see if anything was concealed in the lining, turned the lapels back, but found nothing.
    In the distance there was a roll of thunder. Rain coming and the country could use it, but that meant any tracks left on the prairie would be washed out. Another chance probably gone.
    Still, I’d take a ride tomorrow if the rain had stopped. Another talk with Pablo might pay off. There was a brief spatter of rain against the windows, then a rushing downpour. Footsteps passed in the hall and I waited, listening, until they had gone on by.
    What was I so spooky about? Was it because I’d seen the Arkansawyer? Or Hovey? Returning the suit, shirts, and other clothing to the suitcase, I closed it and put it aside. Then, with pillows propped against my back, I sat on the bed and began checking the letters.
    All seemed to be addressed to Stacy Henry. Most of them seemed to be the kind of life, death, and burial letters such as women write to each other. Someone was having a baby, and they were planning a shower. Another girl was getting married, and somebody’s father had died, such a nice man.
    And then …
    As to the other matter, I would sign nothing. Control is imperative. You must think of Nancy. It is her future as well as yours. From all you say, Newton has changed, become more like his father, although I always felt they disliked each other. Remember, dear, if the worst comes there’s that boy your mother befriended. He had no education, but he was loyal and he thought of her as somebody very special, and of you the same way. You will remember his name, although I have forgotten it. He had a place in the mountains. I remember your mother speaking of it, and she spoke also of a store named Harkin’s or something of the kind where he bought supplies
.
    Suddenly excited, I put the letter down and got to my feet. Harkin’s was, of course, Larkin’s where I had just been. “A place in the mountains” sounded like a lead.
    Staring down at the street, I felt an odd stirring of some memory, something scarcely tangible, yet—
    No. It would not come. I’d return to the letters and the notebook.

CHAPTER 8

    G ETTING UP FROM the bed, I walked to the side of the window and looked down into the street. All was dark and silent, only a little light from the windows.
    What
was
it that haunted me so? Some vague memory, perhaps, or some conversation only half remembered.
    There was a growing irritation in me. This was not the life I was used to. I’d spent most of my life so far out on the plains, in the desert or the mountains, and there was where I was most at home. Yet I knew that much of my problem lay right here in town.
    My thoughts went back to Jefferson Henry’s private car sidetracked near the water-tank for several days. I agreed with the cowhands in the saloon, it was no place to be. It was hot, windy, and miserable out there when a man could be any place he wished.
    Why there? Obviously, to meet with someone. Who? Why? Did he have others searching for his granddaughter? And the scream in the night? The scream of a man in agony.
    When morning came I’d better saddle up and ride out there. Another talk with Pablo might help as he might have recalled something not mentioned before.That Mexican was a good, solid man and I liked him. He was my kind of people.
    Returning to the bed, I opened the second envelope. It contained no letter, only two recent newspaper clippings.
    PIONEER MINING MAN DIES
    Nathan Albro, pioneer mining man with interests in Butte, Pony, and Black Hills mines, died late today after a fall from his horse. He was well known in the area as a developer of mining properties and railroads. He is survived by a former wife, Stacy, now Mrs. Newton Henry.
    The second clipping, dated only a few days later, was equally brief. The item was buried among local news and