Free Novel 1963 - Fallon (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page A

the cut up which they must drive the cattle.
    At the same instant they rounded into a straight stretch of wash that was all of a quarter of a mile long, and even as they turned into the stretch, with the boulder only a few yards ahead, a lightning flash revealed the rolling wall of water.
    Twelve feet high, tossing logs on its crest, it came rushing toward them at the speed of an express train. For an instant, Fallon was appalled.
    They couldn’t make it. There simply wasn’t time. This time he’d bought it, and for Josh Teel, too. Then urgency broke through his fear and he screamed.
    â€œTeel!”
He tried to make his voice heard above the roar of the storm. “Let’s
go-o-o!
”
    Teel caught the wave of his arm in the almost continually flashing lightning, and together they broke for the gap. Almost at the same moment, a lead steer saw the gap, too, and recognized the way home. Bawling frightfully, the huge ox started for the gap, and in an instant, all were following. Caught up in the rush, Fallon was swept along, and suddenly, through the bawling of cattle and the roar of the rushing water, he heard a lost, despairing cry.
    Even as he was swept upward to safety, he glanced back and saw that Josh Teel was down, his leg pinned under his fallen horse.
    He did not think, he did not pause to estimate the risks involved. He might kill the horse, he might hit Teel, but there was only one chance for them. The horse was lying still. He wanted to burn the animal with a bullet, to make it get up or give Teel a chance to free his leg.
    Fallon drew his pistol and chopped down, firing as the gun came level. The horse screamed and lunged and, scrambling to its feet, it went for the gap, and made it.
    The roaring of the water drowned all other sound, but Teel, free of the horse, threw his body around and grabbed for the rocky wall of the wash. And then the flood rushed upon him and he was submerged, vanishing under the dark, glistening water.
    Dropping from his horse, Fallon took the rope from the pommel and rushed to the bank. As he ran, he shook out a loop. Never better than a fair roper, and long out of practice, he knew it was Teel’s one wild chance now…if the Missourian was not already dead, already swept away.
    The wash was filled with the racing water, running ten feet deep, tossing logs and debris. How long would it last? An hour? Two hours? Three? Teel’s body would be carried far in that time, carried down the canyon and out upon the desert.
    Fallon worked his way toward the edge, watching out for cracks that might tumble him into the wash. Even as he neared the edge, a huge chunk, a dozen feet long and half as wide, was torn from the opposite bank and fell into the stream.
    He drew closer to the spot where Teel had vanished. Here, clinging to his loop—the other end was tied fast to the pommel of the saddle—he lay down in the mud and peered over the edge.
    Below him was a ghostly white hand, slipping on the wet rock. And below that was Teel’s face, barely out of the water; his other hand clinging to the rock with a precarious grip.
    All that saved him from the violent current was a shoulder of rock that, projecting scarcely a foot into the stream, broke the current just enough so he had not been torn free. Yet even as Fallon saw him, Teel’s fingers began to slip.
    Reaching over, Fallon dug his knees into the damp earth to give him purchase, and grasped Teel’s wrist.
    Slippery…too slippery.
    With his free hand, depending on the slight grip with his knees to keep him from falling over into the water, Fallon shook out a loop and dropped it. The loop missed, but Teel was no fool. He was a tough man who had fought for life before, and he did not weaken now. Deliberately, he bobbed his head into the noose, then with a quick, desperate look at Fallon, he let go with his other hand and thrust it through the loop.
    Instantly his whole weight was on Fallon’s