Free Shalako (1962) by Louis L'amour

Hockett was inside the house.
    Early that morning one of the mule skinners had slipped a hand through a wagon flap and stolen a bottle of cognac, and when he stole that bottle he stole death.
    The bottle lay out there now, only a third empty, reflecting the morning sun in a bright arrow of light. It had taken only a couple of swallows to make the mule skinner careless, and bottle in hand he started across the open ground toward the stable. The bullet had gone in over his ear, mushroomed, and tore away half his skull when it emerged on the other side.
    Inside the stable in the coolest spot on the ground floor lay Hans Kreuger. A handsome young man who danced well in the ballrooms of Berlin, Vienna, and Innsbruck, he lay dying on a pallet against the wall. He had made up his mind to die well, for it was the last thing left to a man, and he had a pride in such matters.
    He was a sincere young man who had tried all his life to do things with dignity and manner. He was a proud, but not a vain man, convinced there were certain ways in which a man should conduct himself, and he had lived according to his principles.
    It was incredible to him, as it was to von Hallstatt, that their losses had been greater than the attacker, for it went against all military reason.
    Hans Kreuger lay on his back staring up at the ceiling. Whenever anyone on the upper floor of the barn took a step a little puff of dust came through the cracks. Cobwebs trailed their gray nets to catch stray sunbeams ... perspiration beaded his face but he held himself tight against the pain that was in him and thought of how little a man knows of what destiny has in store.
    How proud he had been when he became aide to General von Hallstatt! How proud his parents had been when he was asked to accompany the general on his hunting trip to America, partly as aide to the general, and partly as a guest.
    The others of the party would be people a young man of poor family rarely met. It would be a unique opportunity. He had no idea when accepting the offer that he was accepting an invitation to die.
    To remain a man and a gentleman to the end, this was all that remained.
    Removed from active combat by the bullets that ripped into his body, he could still observe. Laura Davis had grown somehow. She was no longer the friendly, pretty girl, although she was that, also. She was more quiet, more sure of herself. She worked at whatever she did with quick but capable hands. Laura Davis ... young, beautiful, and exciting. And he lay dying.
    Edna Dagget he had once thought frail but lovely, now she was frail and haggard, her loveliness scarcely a memory. Her lips worked with wordless movement, and at every shot, she cringed. A few days ago he had admired her rather biting wit, and her coolness, yet when the emergency developed she proved a hollow shell with nothing inside.
    Her husband, whom Edna had always spoken of in disparaging terms, had shown surprising strength. He al most seemed to welcome the fighting. He was entirely ignorant of warfare, yet he was observant, quick to learn, and careful to take no chances.
    Hans Kreuger closed his eyes against the ache and the tiredness and tried to remember how the apple trees had looked when they bloomed across the countryside around his home in Hofheim, near Frankfort. He felt Laura wipe the perspiration from his face, and he opened his eyes to look up at her, proud that he could conceal his pain.
    How excited his family had been when he became aide to the baron! He was a powerful man of ancient family and much influence, and Hans's family assured him his fortune was made. How little had any of them known!
    How can a man know? How can he guess which decision it is, often an inconsequential one, that sets him irrevocably upon the highway to failure, success, or sudden death?
    How can a man guess that from one particular instant he is committed, where the cogs will fit, one into the other, and each one turning the wheel inevitably closer and