Free Shalako (1962) by Louis L'amour Page A

closer? How can he know as he laughs over a glass of wine, as he marches proudly, as he talks softly to a girl on the terrace ... how can he know that each is a move that brings him closer to the end?
    And had he taken another turn, met another girl, drunk his wine in another cafe, he might have lived a decade longer... or three decades even?
    In the loft over the stable, Irina yielded her place at the window to Bosky Fulton.
    She had been looking out over the desert when she heard faint movement behind her and smelled the stale odor of unwashed clothing. She turned and he leered at her, his shirt collar edged with grime, the grime showing in the skin of his neck.
    He grasped her arm and pulled her toward him and she jerked free, astonished and angry.
    "Aw, don't look at me that way! Before this is over you'll be glad to ride out of here with somebody who can take care of you."
    "I can take care of myself."
    "Can you now?" He gestured toward the ladder. "Go ahead an' fix the grub. Meanwhile you better think on this: you cotton up to me or you stay here as bait for those 'Paches. I can get you out of this, and that fancy Fritz Baron of yours, he can't get himself out."
    She was trembling with shock and anger when she came down the steps. Yet she was frightened, too, deeply, seriously frightened. And she could not remember being frightened in the same way before this.
    One by one the men came for their food, crawling around the rim of the circle, keeping to the small shadow and what protection the buildings and wagons offered.
    There was little talk. The men ate quickly, seriously, then returned the way they had come. Only Charles Dagget was excited. "I think I hit one," he said. "Scared him, any way.
    Irina scarcely heard what he said. Should she say any thing about what Fulton had told her? And did he really believe what he said? Or was that merely something to use as an argument to her?
    He believed it. She suddenly knew that he believed it. Bosky Fulton did not think they were going to get out alive.
    Coming after what Shalako had said, she was convinced of their situation. Yet it had not been that which frightened her, but Fulton's own attitude. His cock-sureness, his disregard of what would happen to the others, and the sudden sharp awareness that nobody here could protect her. Von Hallstatt was a man of undoubted courage, so was Count Henri, but she had heard enough talk around camp to know that something else was demanded, and she had seen some very tough men walk softly around Bosky Fulton.
    Buffalo Harris came in while von Hallstatt and Count Henri were still there. "Smoke over the Animas," Buffalo said. "Wished I knew what they meant. Shalako now, he could read them. He--
    Buffalo broke off sharply, the idea startling him with its possibilities. "No ... couldn't be that."
    "What?"
    "By this time he's clean t'other side of the Stein's Peak range, but I was just thinkin', Shalako knowin' the smokes, and all ... if he sent up a smoke ... no, it ain't reasonable.
    Only he savvies that smoke talk as well as any Indian."
    "You mean he might send up a signal that would draw them off? But they would come back."
    Bosky Fulton descended the ladder. "How's for some coffee?" He grinned insolently at Irina, then glanced at von Hallstatt as if to challenge a reprimand.
    "You've left your post." Von Hallstatt eyed him coldly. "Get back up there until you're relieved."
    "You want somebody up there," Fulton replied, "you go yourself."
    Never had Irina seen such a shocked expression on any man's face as crossed the baron's at that moment. He probably never had had an order refused before.
    An instant only ... then his face was swept by cold fury. His rifle stood near the door. He started for it. Bosky Fulton's gun slid into his hand, and the cocking of the gun was loud in the sudden silence.
    "You pick that up," Fulton drawled, "an' you better walk right outside with it. You turn on me I'll kill you." Von Hallstatt stopped. Always