Free Talon & Chantry 07 - North To The Rails (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page B

up like a closing knife and then snapped open viciously. Tom Chantry slapped into the saddle as the horse came down, was almost thrown as it sun-fished wickedly, then crow-hopped for half a dozen jumps, and switched ends suddenly. More by luck than anything else, Tom stayed in the saddle. He had ridden spirited horses, but nothing that bucked like this. Just as he was sure he was going to have to grab for the pommel with both hands, the
grulla
stopped bucking, ran a few steps, and settled down.
    Chantry rode over to the chuck wagon and, taking his rifle, shoved it into the saddle scabbard. Then he turned and rode out on the plains.
    He had not ridden more than half a mile when he saw a rider emerge from a draw just ahead and stand waiting. It was Bone McCarthy.
    “Howdy, boss. You huntin’ comp’ny?”
    “Why not?”
    “I ain’t been up to you sooner because I figured you knew about them. I mean I saw your tracks back yonder.”
    “The Talrims? Yes, I saw them.”
    “I can’t decide what they’re after. They’re traveling too slow unless they’ve got somethin’ on their minds. Whatever it is concerns you or that herd. Every now and then they crest a ridge to study you.”
    Chantry had his own ideas about the reason for their presence. Somehow, he felt, French Williams had gotten word to them, and they were lying in wait for their chance to kill him. He might be mistaken, but there was the presence of Dutch Akin as an indication that Williams thought along such lines.
    “They’ve dogged your trail a couple of times. I’d ride careful, if I was you.”
    “Any sign of Sun Chief?”
    “Not hide nor hair.” McCarthy dug into his saddlebag for a strip of jerky and began chewing on it. “Chantry, you’re ahead of your time in this country—I mean, you not wantin’ to carry a gun. This ain’t the kind of world you came from, and it won’t be for a few years. Whenever a man enters a new country like this his way of livin’ drops back hundreds of years. You ain’t livin’ in the nineteenth century here, Chantry.”
    “You don’t talk much like a cowhand.”
    “That’s nonsense. Whoever said a cowhand was any special breed? Cowhands, like freighters, bankers, and newspaper editors, are apt to come from anywhere. They just like the life..as I do.”
    Chantry glanced at him. “Where did you come from, McCarthy?”
    “Ireland…where else? Twelve years ago I left there, but at the end of the War Between the States I went back for a few weeks, and got into trouble again.”
    “Again?”
    “The first time I was visiting a friend in Glenveagh and there was trouble over an eviction…I had to leave the country. I joined up with the French, as many a good Irish lad has done over the years, and after a bit I migrated to this country. I had two years in the war, then back there, and straight away I got into the Fenian troubles and was lucky to get out with a whole skin. Back here again, and two years fightin’ Indians with the Fifth Cavalry.”
    “The McCarthys are an old family, I’ve heard.”
    “Yes, some say we’re the oldest family in Ireland. We owned Blarney Castle at one time.”
    “How does it happen that sometimes you talk as if you’d been born in the West.”
    McCarthy shrugged. “Saves questions. A good many men do it, you’ll find. They just fall into the habit as I have, of talkin’ the western way. You put on a way of talkin’ when you change your clothes. It’s as simple as that.”
    They rode on, scouting the country. “By the way,” Bone McCarthy said, “back there at Clifton’s the day I met you there was a girl there.”
    “I saw her.”
    “Well, she saw you. And she’s been askin’ questions. Aside from the fact that you’re a handsome, upstanding man, why would she be so all-fired curious?”
    “I don’t know. She was a pretty girl, I remember that.”
    “I remember it too, but I’ve got an idea neither of us should. I’ve got a nose for trouble.”
    “She was