Free Kiowa Trail (1964) by Louis L'amour Page B

friendship by that fight, I would have been mistaken. The talk I heard afterward accounted for that. I had not fought like a gentleman. I was toorough. As for me, I had learned only one way to fight - to win. The following day I was dismissed from the school. When I was packing, Wickes came to the door. "Dury? Here's someone to see you."
    There were three of them - Ashmead, Travers, and Alien. All of them were boys I knew only by sight.
    Ashmead, a tall, blond, handsome boy, walked up to me and thrust out his hand. "Look, Dury, I am sorry to see you go. I think it dashed unfair of them."
    "It is all right," I said. "I have been wanting to go home."
    His eyes were bright with excitement. "Where is it you live? In Texas?"
    So I stopped packing and sat down and told them about it. I told them about the country in all its wild beauty, about the killing of my parents, and my long captivity by the Apaches. I told them how the Apache made his bow and where he found his food, and about the Sierra Madre and my escape from there, riding alone across two hundred miles of wild country, in any mile of which I might have been shot by the Apaches for escaping, or by the Mexicans as an Apache.
    "Is it true they carry pistols?" Travers asked.
    So I opened up my bag and took out my own Colt army revolver, Model 1848. It was a .44 rim-fire six-shooter with an eight-inch barrel. "Be careful with that," I said as Travers reached to take it up. "It's loaded, and has a hair trigger."
    He drew his hand back quickly, but they gathered around, staring at the gun as if it were a live thing. It was battered and showed its use, but it was a good weapon still.
    "If they had known you had this," Ashmead said, "You'd have been out of school before this."
    Suddenly I was a hero, regarded with awe. I had in my possession a genuine western-style pistol.
    We talked until it was time to go to my train, and they came to the station with me, my three new friends and Larry Wickes.
    There was nothing for it but to return to Sotherton Manor, and I did not want to go. I had not expected to return a failure. But nothing was said of it when I arrived.
    It was not until later, when Sir Richard and I were alone in his study, that he said, "You hurt that boy. You beat him quite badly."
    "Yes, sir."
    "The headmaster said you attacked him savagely."
    "He struck me, sir, and I whipped him."
    "But did you have to do it so brutally?"
    "I know of no other way to fight, sir. One fights to win. I would not know how to fight any other way. It was he who began the fight, and I had tried to avoid it - so much so they were saying I was afraid."
    "Well," he said ironically, "they do not think so now." He studied me for a moment, and then asked, "What do you plan to do now?"
    "Return home, sir. To Texas."
    "We would like to have you stay. My wife and I, we would like it very much if you stayed."
    "Thank you, sir. You've given me every opportunity, but I keep thinking of it back there. Whatever there is in life for me is back there. I - I am not cut out for this."
    "This morning I was speaking to George Travers. He is an old friend of mine, you know. He told me you had a revolver."
    "Yes, sir."
    "Aren't you rather young to be carrying a weapon of that kind?"
    "No, sir. In Texas I carried one from the time I was twelve. When one lives in Apache country one must go armed."
    "May I see it?"
    We went up to my room and I opened my luggage and took out my worn but well-oiled belt and holster. The walnut butt of the revolver was badly scarred and the gun showed wear, but it was clean and ready for action.
    He took the gun in his hands and turned it carefully. "Now, there's no nonsense about that, is there?"
    "It has a hair trigger, sir."
    "Yes, I suspected as much." He handed the gun back to me. "Is it true they shoot as well as they say? One hears much talk of the gunfighters out there."
    "Would you like to see me shoot, sir?"
    "I would, indeed. Shall we go outside?" He watched as I dug into my