Free The Desperado by Clifton Adams Page A

away.
    “Well,” he said, “it's just as well. Maybe I could have stopped it,
but I doubt it. Sometimes it's best to let things run until they come
out the way they're bound to in the end, anyway.”
    “Were you awake,” I asked, “while he was trying to steal my horse?”
    “I was awake.”
    “A hell of a friend you are! What was the idea of laying there and
not even bothering to wake me up?”
    “You woke up,” Pappy said mildly. “Anyway, it wasn't any of my
business. I did my part when I warned you about Paul Creyton. What if I
had walked into the quarrel and shot Paul for you? What difference
would it have made? He's dead anyway.”
    “But what if he had shot me?” I wanted to know.
    I could almost see Pappy shrug. “That's the way it goes sometimes. By
the way, you handle guns pretty well, at that. Paul Creyton wasn't the
worst gunman in Texas, not by a long sight.”
    It took me a while to get it. But I had a good hold now. All the time
I had been thinking that Pappy was my friend. He didn't even know what
the word meant. Bite-dog-bite-bear, every man for himself, that was the
way men like Pappy Garret lived. Unless, of course, some dumb kid came
along who might be of some use to him for a few days. I'd played the
fool all right, thinking that you could ever be friends with a man like
that.
    “Buck Creyton,” I said. “You were afraid to take a hand with his kid
brother because you knew you'd have Buck Creyton on your tail.”
    “I'll admit I gave Buck some thought in the matter,” Pappy said.
    I found that I still had the pistol in my hand. I flipped it over and
shoved it in my holster. It's surprising how fast the shock of killing
a man wears off. I wasn't thinking of Paul Creyton now. I was just
thinking of how big a fool I had been, and getting madder all the time.
    “This finishes us, Pappy. From now on you take your trail and I'll
take mine. This is as far as we go together.”
    There was another flare of a match as Pappy lit a fresh cigarette.
“Of course, son,” he said easily. “Isn't that the way you wanted it all
along?”
    I left Pappy in the shack! I'd had enough of him. I went outside and
gentled Red some more and wondered vaguely what to do with Paul
Creyton. I didn't have any feeling for him one way or the other, but it
didn't seem right just to leave him there.
    What I finally did was to drag him down to the bottom of the slope
and roll up boulders to build a tomb around him. That was the best I
could do since I didn't have anything to dig a grave with. It was hard
work and took a long time, but I stuck with it and did a good job.
Anyway, it had a permanent look, and it would keep away the coyotes and
buzzards.
    When I finished, the sky in the east was beginning to pale, and it
was about time to start riding back toward John's City. I stood there
for a while, beside the tomb, half wishing I could work up some feeling
for the dead man. A feeling of regret, or remorse, or something. But I
didn't feel anything at all. I looked at the pile of rocks that I had
rolled up, and it was hard to believe that a man was under them. A man
I had killed.
    When I started up toward the shack again, I saw that Pappy had come
outside and had been watching the whole thing. There was a curious
twist to his mouth, and a strange, faraway look in his eyes, as I
walked past him. But he didn't speak, and neither did I.
    I got Red saddled again, and, as I finished tying on the blanket
roll, Pappy came over.
    “You probably don't want any advice,” he said, “but I'm going to give
you some anyway. Go on down to your uncle's place on the Brazos, like
your old man wanted. You'll just get into trouble if you go back home
and try bucking the police.”
    I swung up to the saddle without saying anything.
    Pappy sighed. “Well ... so long, son.”
    I had forgotten that I was still wearing the guns that he had given
me, or I would have given them back to him. As it was,