Novel 1981 - Comstock Lode (v5.0) by Louis L’Amour Page A

don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
    “It was a camp by the river, Skinner. There were two wagons.”
    Skinner’s mouth was dry and he felt sick inside. A thief and occasional murderer, he had shied from crimes against women, but that night, with that whiskey they’d been drinking—
    “What d’ you want?” His voice was hoarse. He was not worried. He was too good with a gun. Nevertheless, that night had haunted him, and for some reason it had kept him looking over his shoulder for years.
    “I killed Rory, Skinner. He was caught cheating but that wasn’t the reason.”
    Skinner was poised for it. He was ready. He had chosen his target, right over the belt buckle.
    “Where’d the whiskey come from, Skinner?”
    The sudden, unexpected question disconcerted him. “Why…! Why, I’m damned if I know,” he said honestly. “All of us were short. We were holding nothing.”
    “How much did you get out of it, Skinner?”
    Skinner spat angrily. “Not a damn thing! Somebody yelled an’…well, we taken out.”
    “I know you did, Skinner. I was there. I saw you run, and I saw a man climb into the wagon. He killed my mother, Skinner, whatever was left to kill. And he got the money-box. I want his name, Skinner.”
    So that was how it was? Skinner had suspected as much. They’d been tricked, the lot of them, they’d been used. “If I knew,” he said, “I’d kill the—”
    “He fed you whiskey, got you all drunk, got you to do the dirty work, and then he got away with everything.” He paused just a moment. “But you were there, Skinner. You were one of them.”
    “Look,” Skinner protested, “I—” He went for his gun.
    Trevallion shot him.
    Skinner completed the draw, but the strength was suddenly gone from his hand, and the gun slipped from his fingers.
    “Damn you!” Skinner said. “I’m goin’! I’ll get—”
    “Skinner? I know where I put that bullet. You aren’t going anywhere, Skinner.”
    Deliberately, Trevallion rode around him and started up the trail. At the crest of the low hill, he turned in his saddle and looked back.
    Skinner was lying face down on the ground, and his horse had walked off a few steps.
    Nobody had associated him with the killing of Skinner. The body had been found, he later learned, several days after. It lay on the grass, a drawn pistol lying at hand. Skinner was known. It was decided he had been killed in a gunfight or by some intended victim.
    Trevallion had felt no elation. There was no satisfaction, only a dull heaviness within him.
    Long ago, as a boy, he had told himself he would kill them all, but now he no longer wanted to.…Yet he was here, and he was here because sooner or later he knew the prospects for loot would bring them to the Comstock. They were among the vultures who followed booms to pray on the unwary, the unguarded, and the innocent.
    Darkness had settled over the canyon. Trevallion banked his fire and spread his bed under the cedars.
    For a long time he lay looking up at the few stars he could see through the cedars.
    That little girl, the one he’d held so tight, stifling her cries so they might not be murdered, too, she lost both her parents that night. It was bad enough for a boy, but much worse for a girl.
    Grita, that was her name. Marguerita Redaway, called Grita for stort.
    He had said he was going to marry her.
    He smiled up into the cedars, thinking of it. What had become of her? Where was she now? Probably dead.…
    Anyway, marrying him would have been a poor bargain.
    Chapter 10
    T HE MAN IN the gray suit leaned back in his chair and placed the fingertips of his two hands together. “Mademoiselle Redaway, you do not seem to understand. You have nothing, or next to nothing. Your aunt was in debt, very heavily in debt. The chateau must be sold, the horses as well.
    “You will have one thousand American dollars, and some worthless mining stock. Of course, you will have whatever personal effects she left. That is