the Quick and the Dead (1983) (19 page)

Vallian grinned. "I told you the food was good. Besides, you got a mighty handsome woman, there."

"I think Susanna is a very attractive woman," Duncan said quietly, "and she's my wife."

"That does make a difference," Vallian got up, with a sigh. Filling the basin with fresh water, he washed his own hands.

There was a small broken piece of mirror fastened to the wall near the door and above the basin. As he dried his hands he scanned the edge of the aspen behind him. Being careful of a situation was as natural to him as eating.

Had he seen something move back there? Or was it his imagination?

The leather thong was over the hammer of his gun, and while drying his hands he slipped it off. Then he hung up the towel, and taking the basin in his left hand, tossed the water on the grass a few yards away.

He flipped the basin one more time to get rid of the last drops and then walked back to the cabin. He put the basin down carefully, looking into the mirror as he did so, and the glance caught Ike Mantle dodging from one tree to another, moving closer.

A surprise at mealtime,Ike behind him and the others--?

Ike stepped from behind a tree, his rifle out in front of him, coming up to firing position. Con turned swiftly, drawing as he turned, and his first bullet caught Ike Mantle just above the belt buckle. Ike started to fall, and the second bullet went in under his right eye, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

Vallian turned swiftly at the slight sound beyond the corner of the cabin.

Red Hyle was there, a gun still in its holster, taken by surprise when their own surprise failed. He stopped dead in his tracks with Con Vallian's gun on him.

"Well, now. You got the drop. Why don't you shoot?"

"Just wanted to look at you, Red. I've just never seen you close up. They say you're a bad man with a gun, Red, but all I see is a murderin' skunk who chases after women and farmers."

"You can say that. You're holding the gun."

"Want a break, Red? Want an even break?"

"No!" It was Susanna's voice. "No, Con! Please!"

"Fat chance!" Red scoffed. "You'd never take a chance with Red Hyle! Why--!"

With a flip of his hand, Con Vallian dropped the gun into its holster, and at the same moment yelled, "Now,Red!" And with a hand that scarcely stopped moving, he drew again and fired.

Red Hyle, caught by the unexpected action, lost a split second in realization. His hand, poised to reach, dropped for the gun-butt and started to lift when the bullet smashed him in the chest.

The big man scarcely staggered. His ugly smile parted his lips. "I got you! Dammit to hell, Vallian!I got you !"

The big gun came clear and was lifting as the second bullet smashed his arm, and a third hit him in the leg as he dropped to one knee to recover his lost gun.

"I got you, Vallian! Nobody ever beat Red Hyle!"

He straightened his legs and stood tottering, blood soaking the front of his shirt, dribbling down his sleeve.

He had his gun in his left hand and he swung it up still smiling when Vallian's fourth and last shot hit him.

The big man staggered like a huge tree starting to fall, but he kept the grip on his gun.

Suddenly Tom leaped from the door behind Vallian. "Con!Here !"

The boy tossed him a six-shooter and Con caught it deftly. Red's gun bellowed, going off into the dirt at Con's boot-toe, and Con opened fire with the second gun. Bullet after bullet smashed into Hyle. He wavered, staggered, started to fall, but lifted the gun and through a mask of blood, aimed it at Vallian.

"Nobody ever ... ever ..." His voice trailed away and he swayed, slowly his knees buckled and he went to his knees on the ground and slowly straightened one leg and was dead.

"Vallian?" McKaskel came from the house. "Are you all right?"

Tom sat on the ground where he had fallen after throwing the gun to Vallian, staring at him, shocked.

Susanna stood in the door, her apron caught up in her hands, staring at him.

Thrusting McKaskel's pistol into his belt, Con began automatically thumbing shells into his own gun. Then he spun the cylinder and dropped it into its holster.

"Con? Look!" Susanna's voice was weak.

He turned sharply.

The Huron was riding up through the clearing, walking his horse. Across the saddle before him was a quarter of antelope. He walked his horse slowly forward, and when close by, turned his mount and handed the meat to an astonished Duncan.

"It has been a pleasure," he said quietly, and turning his horse rode away down the clearing toward the river.

About the Author

"I think of myself in the oral tradition -- of 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 Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could 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 in Jamestown, 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 "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full-length novel,Hondo , in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 100 books is in print; there are nearly 230 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

His hardcover bestsellers includeThe Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum (his twelfth-century historical novel)Jubal Sackett, Last of the Breed , andThe Haunted Mesa . His memoir,Education of a Wandering Man , was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L'Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio Publishing.

The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam well into the nineties -- among them, four Hopalong Cassidy novels:The Rustlers of West Fork, The Trail to Seven Pines, The Riders of High Rock, andTrouble Shooter .

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