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calmly. "Enough men have died."
"Sooner or later we all die. I think it is your time now, Ruble Noon. I think
tomorrow in the saloons they will be telling how GermanBayles killed you ...
face to face beside the railroad tracks."
"Cagle's had it," Noon said. "He's dead, or close to it."
"And now- "Bayles's gun was in his hand, and so was Ruble Noon's. Both men
fired at the same instant. Noon felt the bullet strike him, felt his leg
buckle under him, and he went down.
He was still shooting, butBayles was walking in, smiling, confident.
"Tomorrow in the saloons they will be talking," he said, "talking of how ..."
He fired again as he spoke, and Ruble Noon's body jerked with the shock of the
bullet. "...of how GermanBayles killed Ruble Noon ... the great Ruble Noon."
The words came out slowly.
Ruble Noon was down, his brain a dizzy buying, his body numb. He tried to
rise as GermanBayles came toward him, but his leg refused to function.
Bayleswas lifting his pistol for a final shot. The sun was hot on his face, a
white cloud was drifting behindBayles's head; Noon could hear the crunch of
gravel and the whisper of the coarse weeds asBayles came on.
He noticed with surprise that there was blood onBayles's shirt ... he did not
remember hitting him ... and the German's face was beginning to streak with
blood from a scalp wound. He was coming in close, still smiling. He stopped
and spread his legs, seeming to waver just a little.
Ruble Noon saw the duty blue ofBayles's shirt, saw the gun coming level, and
then he fired twice, and heard the gun click on an empty chamber.
He flicked open the loading gate with his thumb, but he was lying on his
elbow and he could not bring the other hand into play, so he tried to sit up,
and failed.Bayles fell heavily beside him.
Ruble Noon rolled over on the hot gravel, smelling the dusty smell of the
weeds, and he worked the ejector rod and thrust, out a shell, loading the
cartridge in its place.
He spun the cylinder and looked over atBayles . The German was staring at
him, smiling. "Tomorrow in the saloons ... they will be saying ..." His voice
trailed off, but he still looked at Ruble Noon.
"You are a good man, Ruble Noon," he was saying, "... a good man... with a
gun...."
He was still smiling - and he was dead.
Ruble Noon tried to get up. He heard running feet, and then hands caught him
and he felt himself eased back to the ground.
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"He's hit hard," someone said, a cool, woman's voice, "I used to help my
father - he was an Army surgeon. I think he knew more about bullet wounds than
any man alive."
Wind brushed his face. His eyes opened and he looked at a curtain, a white,
lacy curtain at a window that looked out on green grass. Everything was
peaceful and still.
He lifted his hand to his face. Just then someone came in the door. It was
Fan.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"In Alamosa.You've had a hard time of it, Jonas."
"How long have I been here?"
'Two weeks. Mrs. McClain stayed on to help you through the worst of it. She
said the doctor was incompetent. She left just last night."
"I'd like to thank her."
"Youdid, a number of tunes."
He was silent for a while, and then he said, "Who shot PegCullane ?You?"
"Rimes.He shot at her gun, and he was not far-off. He was using a rifle, you
know. She lost two fingers."
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. She was asking for trouble."
The curtain blew a little in the wind. The air was cool and pleasant. He felt
tired, but at the same time he felt good.
"I want to go back," he said.
"Back east?"
"Back to the Rafter D.That's a good outfit-and run the right way ..."
He closed his eyes, and in his mind he could see the late snow on the ridge
near the high cabin, and the way the grass bent before the wind in the meadows
back of the ranch house.
"All right," she said.
About The Author
"Ithink of myself in the oral tradition-as a troubadour, a village
taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to
be remembered - as a storyteller.A good storyteller."
It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world recreated in
his novels as Louis DearbornL'Amour . Not only could he physically fill the
boots of the rugged characters he writes about, but he has literally "walked
the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong
devotion to historical research, that have combined to give Mr.L'Amour the
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unique knowledge and understanding of the people, events, and challenge of the
American frontier have become the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr.L'Amour can trace his own family in North America
back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always
on the frontier." As a boy growing up inJamestown,North Dakota , he absorbed
all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his
great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.
Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr.L'Amour
left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including
seaman, lumberjack,elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, assessment miner,
and officer on tank destroyers during World War II. During his "yonderingdays"
he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was
shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in theMojave Desert . He has won
fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a
journalist and lecturer. A voracious reader and collector of rare books,
Mr.L'Amour's personal library of some 10,000 volumes covers a broad range of
scholarly disciplines including many personal papers, maps, and diaries of the
pioneers.
Mr.L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could walk."After [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]