Free Monument Rock (Ss) (1998) by Louis L'amour Page B

because he was the only one who knew where t o look? When did this rustling start? Right after I made him foreman, wasn't it?"
    Reb Farrell looked up. "What was that? What did you say, Nathan?"
    Nathan Embree was a wealthy man and he was a driver. He was also a just man, bu t hard and merciless. The moon had emerged from under a cloud and showed him the fac e of his young foreman.
    "You're fired, Reb! Get your gear an' get off the place! I can't prove anything agains t you, but if you're still in the country within twenty-four hours, we'll hunt yo u down an' you'll hang!"
    Astonishment held Reb speechless for a full minute, and then as the riders bega n to turn their horses to ride away, he found his voice. "You accusin' me of rustlin' , Nathan?" His eyes seemed to flare. "I won't take that from no man! Don't call m e a rustler unless you're willing to grab iron!"
    Embree turned on him. "Yes," he said contemptuously , "you would try something like that! Oh, we all know you're a gunfighter, Reb, bu t now that your own father's dead, you should have some sense in that head of yours!"
    Reb Farrell stared, unable to believe what he heard. Embree had shouted at them to fire as they heard the rush of hooves, and he had fired at the silhouette of a man in the saddle.
    "By rights you should be hangin', an' it's only because of my daughter that you ain't!
    But get out, an' don't ever show your face around my place or my daughter!"
    Wheeling his horse, he led the group away, and only Dave Barbot lingered. "Sorry , Reb," he said softly. "I'm really sorry."
    Alone in the darkness, Reb Farrell stood beside the body of his father and the ashe s of all that had mattered to him, and listened to the sound of their retreating hooves.
    Like a man walking in his sleep, Reb caught up his own horse and then his father's.
    He loaded the body across the saddle and started for home. He rode slowly, his hea d hanging, devoid of thought. It was the end of everything for him. The job on th e ranch he loved, Laura, everything.
    The old cabin where he had spent his boyhood was dark and silent. Dismounting, h e went inside and lighted a lamp. Without waiting for day to come, he got some loos e boards and knocked together a crude coffin, lining it with an old poncho. Sodde n with grief, he went to the place under the trees and there beside the grave of hi s mother, who died when he was a child, he buried his father.
    Although he had eaten nothing since morning, he had no thought of food. Slowly, h e looked around the cabin that had been his home until he moved out to the ranch. Wha t should he take with him? What was there to take? Though men may die, the living mus t continue to live, and he must think of food, bedding, guns.
    Guns ... his father's fine old Sharps .50, the new Winchester .44 which his fathe r had ...
    The Winchester was gone!
    Reb felt a queer tingle of excitement go through him. The Sharps was in its plac e on the rack, but the new Winchester was gone? And there had been no saddle scabbar d on the saddle of his father's horse. Knowing his father, Reb knew he would neve r have gone out at night without taking a rifle, and that meant the Sharps. Despit e the fact that Reb had made him a present of the Winchester, his father had kept i t on the rack and held to his familiar old buffalo gun.
    Aware of something wrong, Reb stood stock-still in the middle of the cabin and looke d around. Suddenly he thought of the carefully hoarded cache of money his father had.
    A few hundred dollars only, it was his insurance against illness or old age. Re b dropped on his knees and slid the board from its grooves in the floor. The mone y was gone!
    Slowly Reb got to his feet. No money had been in his father's pockets. Somethin g was wrong, but what could it all mean?
    Looking around the cabin, Reb was suddenly struck by the coffeepot on the stove , and going to it, he lifted the lid. There were still grounds in the pot. Either somebod y else had made that