Free Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) by Louis L'amour Page B

was an instant before I saw what he was trying to do. He was getting in position . to kill Bassett, unconscious against the bulwark beside the pump.
    To kill... and to get the knife.
    I lunged at him then, batting the hook aside, feeling it rip the suit and my leg as I dove across the mahogany roof of the deck house. I thrust at him with the harpoon. His face twisted with fear, he sprang back, stepped on some spilled fish guts staining the deck. He threw up his arms, lost hold of the boat hook, and fell backward, arms flailing for balance. He hit the bulwark and his feet flew up and he went over, taking my harpoon with him ... a foot of it stuck out his back ... and there was an angry swirl in the water, a dark boiling ... and after a while, the harpoon floated to the surface, and lay there, moving slightly with the wash of the sea.
    There's a place on the Sigalong River, close by the Trusan waters, a place where the nipa palms make shade and rustle their long leaves in the slightest touch of wind. Under the palms, within sound of the water, I buried Smoke Bassett on a Sunday afternoon ... two long days he lasted, and a wonder at that, for the side of his head was curiously crushed. How the man had remained at the pump might be called a mystery ... but I knew.
    For he was a loyal man; I had trusted him with my lines, and there can be no greater trust. So when he was gone, I buried him there and covered over the grave with coral rock and made a marker for it and then I went down to the dinghy and pushed off for the ketch.
    Sometimes now, when there is rain upon the roof an when the fire crackles on the hearth, sometimes I will member: the bow wash about the hull, the rustling of nipa palms, the calm waters of a shallow lagoon. I will remember all that happened, the money I found, the men that died, and the friend I had ... .
    *

Off The Mangrove Coast (ss) (2000)

THE CROSS AND THE CANDLE
    When in Paris, I went often to a little hotel in a narrow street off the Avenue de la Grande Armee. Two doors opened into the building; one into a dark hallway and then by a winding stair to the chambers above, the other to the cafe, a tiny bistro patronized by the guests and a few people of the vicinity.
    It was in no way different from a hundred other such places. The rooms were chill and dank in the morning (there was little heat in Paris, even the girls in the Follies Bergere were dancing in goose pimples), the furnishings had that added Parisian touch of full-length mirrors running alongside the bed for the obvious and interesting purpose of enabling one, and one's companion, to observe themselves and their activities.
    Madame was a Breton, and as my own family were of I Breton extraction, I liked listening to her tales of Roscoff, Morlaix, and the villages along the coast. She was a veritable treasure of ancient beliefs and customs, quaint habits and interesting lore. There was scarcely a place from Saint-Malo to the Bay of Douarnenez of which she didn't have a story to tell.
    Often when I came to the cafe, there would be a man seated in the corner opposite the end of the bar. Somewhat below medium height, the thick column of his neck spread out into massive shoulders and a powerful chest. His arms were heavy with muscle and the brown hands that rested on the table before him were thick and strong.
    Altogether, I have seen few men who gave such an impression of sheer animal strength and vitality. He moved in leisurely fashion, rarely smiled, and during my first visits had little to say.
    In some bygone brawl, his nose had been broken and a | deep scar began over his left eye and ran to a point beneath a left ear of which half the lobe was gone. You looked at his wide face, the mahogany skin, and polished over the broad cheekbones and you told yourself, "This man is dangerous!" Yet often there was also a glint of hard, tough humor in his eyes.
    He sat in his corner, his watchful eyes missing nothing. After a time or two, I came to the