Free Collection 1988 - Lonigan (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour

drawer in the table he got out a tape measure. Then, while frost thickened on the windows and the snow sifted down into drifts, he measured the body. The height, waist, chest, biceps. There was a small white scar on the dead man’s chin; he noted it. On his right shoulder there was a birthmark, so Con put it down in the book.
    â€œSomebody didn’t want anybody to know who you was, so that must be important. Me, I aim to find out.”
    The next day, after he had buried the man in an old mine tunnel, he examined the clothing. One by one, in broad daylight, he went over the articles of clothing. There was red clay against the heels of both shoes, a stain of red clay around the edge of the sole.
    On the seat of the trousers and the back of the coat were long gray hairs. “Either this hombre had him a furlined coat or he sat on a skin-covered seat. If a seat, that would most likely be a buckboard or wagon.”
    More red clay was found on the knees of the trousers. “Reckon this hombre fell onto his knees when shot,” Con muttered. “Else a feller as neat as him would have brushed them off.”
    Red clay. There was a good bit of red clay near Massacre Rocks on the stage trail from Sulphur Springs.
    â€œThat mud was soft enough to stick,” he said. “And that means he was shot when it wasn’t froze none. Now that norther struck about noon the day I found him, so he must’ve been shot that morning.”
    An idea struck him suddenly. Bundling the clothes he put them in a sack and then in a box, which he hid in a hole under the floor. Then he slung his guns around his lean hips, donned his buffalo coat, slipped an extra gun into its spacious pocket, and picking up his rifle, went out to the stable.
    The storm had broken about daybreak, so when the mustang was saddled he rode out taking the ridge trail, where the wind had kept thin the snow.
    Two months earlier Con Fargo had ridden into Black Rock a total stranger. He came as heir to Tex Kilgore’s range and property—and found he had inherited a bitter hatred from many, open dislike from others, and friendship nowhere.
    Knowing Tex Kilgore he could understand some of it. Black Rock was a country of clans. It was close-knit, lawless, and suspicious and resentful of outsiders. Tex was bluff, outspoken, and what he believed he believed with everything in him. He was a broad-jawed, broad-shouldered man, and when he came into Black Rock he took up land nobody else had liked. Yet no sooner did he have it than others perceived its value. They tried to drive him out, and he fought back.
    Being a fighting man, he fought well, and several men died. Then, aware that his time was running out, and that alone he could not win, he had written to Con Fargo:
    If you got the sand to fight for what’s yourn, come a-runnin’.
    Tex Kilgore knew his man, and half the money in the venture had been Con’s money. Together they had punched cows for John Chisum. Together they had gone north to Dodge and Hay City with trail herds, and together they had been Texas Rangers.
    Kilgore, older by ten years, had left to begin the ranch. Con Fargo stayed behind to become marshal of a tough trail town. He went from that to hunting down some border bandits.
    Tex, his riders hired away or driven off, had sent the message south by the last rider who left him. Con Fargo had started north within the hour the message arrived. Yet he had reached Black Rock to learn that Tex Kilgore was dead.
    It required no detailed study to understand what had happened. The Texan’s enemies besieged him and he fought it out with them. Three had been killed and two wounded, and the attackers had had enough. They pulled out and abandoned the fight. What they didn’t know was that one of the last bullets had left Kilgore dying on the cabin floor. A few days later they found out when a chuck line rider showed up with the news.
    Only, Con Fargo, lean and frosty eyed, heard