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

it at the same time. He noted the satisfaction on some faces, the indifference on others, and the harsh laughter of a few.
    Putney, a huge mountain of a man, had turned to a lean Mexican.
    â€œMount up, Gomez!” he said. “We’ll ride out and take over!”
    â€œSit still.” Con, the stranger, lifted his voice just enough to bring stillness to the room. “I’m Kilgore’s partner. I’m takin’ over!”
    â€œAnother of ’em, huh?” Putney sneered. “You takin’ over his fightin’, too?”
    â€œHe was my friend,” Con said simply. “If you were his enemy, you have two choices: get out of the country by sundown, or fill your hand!”
    Putney was said to be a fast man. Black Rock changed its ratings on speed that day. Putney’s six-gun never cleared leather. Con Fargo, one elbow on the bar, let Putney have the first one in the stomach, the second in the throat.
    Gomez was a cunning man, but the sound of gunfire confused him. He went for his gun as the first shot sounded. He was against the wall on Fargo’s right, while Putney was straight ahead of the former Ranger. Yet somehow the left hand, the elbow still on the bar, held a gun too. Fargo’s head swung just for an instant, the second gun spouted fire, and Gomez hit the floor, clawing with both hands at the burning in his chest.
    Con waited for a moment, letting his eyes survey the room. Then calmly holstering one gun, he thumbed cartridges into the other. He looked up then.
    â€œMy name’s Con Fargo,” he said pleasantly. “I’m goin’ to be around here a long time. If,” he continued, “any of you had a hand in killin’ my pardner, you can join your friends on the floor, or start ridin’. Soon or late, I’ll find out who you were.”
    He rode out to the Kilgore spread and took over. Twice, during the following week, he was shot at from ambush. The second sharpshooter failed to shoot sharp enough, or to move fast enough, having fired. Friends found him lying behind a rock with a bullet between his eyes.
    Con Fargo rode alone. He had no friends, no intimates. In town they sold him what he needed, and once they tried to charge him twice what the supplies were worth. He paid the usual price, picked up his goods and left. Yet that very day he mailed a letter to some friends in Texas.
    Then he found the dying man. Riding toward Massacre Rocks, he grinned wryly. After all, he had been a lawman, a badge toter. It was only natural that he try to find the killer of this man. Then, in a sense, it was his fight. Both had come into a country full of enemies.
    Twice, after he reached the stage trail, Con slipped from the saddle to brush the snow from the road. Each time he found tracks of the buckboard, frozen solid. They headed right across the plain toward the black wall of Massacre Rocks.

----
    A MBUSH WAS EASY here. For twenty miles in any direction, there was only one way a man could get through the rock wall with a team: the gate at Massacre Rocks.
    Fargo scouted it carefully and, finding no one, he rode on through. Here again he found wheel tracks. Then, fifty yards further, there were none. Backtracking, he noticed two strange circles under the thin snow. He walked over and kicked the snow from them. They were the iron tires from the buckboard. No doubt somewhere near would be the other two.
    Soon he found a charred and partly burned wheel hub, and then he kicked the snow from a piece of what had been a seat. The cushion covered with an old, mostly burned wolf hide. Carrying the hub and the seat to the rocks he concealed them in a place where there was no snow to leave a mark.
    It had been muddy and the murdered man had fallen. There should be marks in the red clay. Studying the situation, Con chose the most likely spot for the drygulcher to hide, and from that and the remnants of the burned buckboard, he found the end of the tracks.
    Nearby,