The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 by Louis L’Amour Page A

letter. There would be no time later.
    Mighty cold, Son, I’ve moved a mite and got me a fire. Well, the black was dead but we had us about forty head of good horses ready to move. Sam and Lisha, they set out for Durango. We figured to buy Ma a new dress for her birthday and to get us some tools we needed and other fixings. Going in the boys had to drive past the DW where the Watsons ranched. They seen Dick a-watching them, but thought nothing of that at the time.
    Well, when they got into Durango the sheriff come hightailing it up with five, six men, all armed heavy. They tell the boys they are under arrest for stealing horses. The boys tell them they trained them horses, that they was wild stock afore. The sheriff and that bunch with him, one of them was a Watson, they just laughed.
    Well, the boys was throwed in jail, but the sheriff, he wouldn’t let them get word to the rest of us. Only Johnny, he got to thinking and when the boys was slow gitting back, he mounts up and heads for town. But they was ready for him, the Watsons was.
    Johnny, he seen the horses in the corral, and he hightails it for the sheriff. The sheriff is out of town, maybe a-purpose, and Johnny, he goes into the T-Diamond Saloon. And there’s three Watsons and two brothers-in-law of there’s, all setting around.
    These brothers-in-law, one named Ebberly, the other Boyd. This Boyd was some gun-slinger or had that reputation. Johnny, he never knowed them at all, but he knowed the Watsons. He asked the barkeep where was his brothers, and Dick Watson speaks up and says they are in jail for stealing horses, where he’ll soon be. Johnny, he knows what Ma would say, and remarkable for him, keeps his head. He says nothing and turns to go and Dick Watson says, “Like you stole that black mare.”
    The three Watsons are spread out and ready. He seen then it was a trap, but still he never knowed those other two which sat quiet near the door, never saying I, yes, or no. Johnny, he says, “I trained that black mare, Watson, an’ you kilt her. You snuck up an’ shot that pore little horse dead.”
    â€œI never!” Watson says, and folks say he looked mighty red in the face. “You’re a liar!”
    Watson grabbed iron and so did Johnny. The Watsons, they got three bullets into Johnny, but he still stood, so this Boyd, he shoots him in the back. Johnny went down, but there was two Watsons on the floor, one dead, and Dick badly hurt.
    Johnny, they figured for dead, and they was so busy gitting their kin to the doc they never thought of him. He was alive and he crawled out of there. A girl he knowed in town, she got her Pap, who was a vet, and he fixed Johnny up and hid him out.
    This here girl, she run down to the jail and told Lisha and Sam through the bars. She said they better get set, there’d be trouble. She had Johnny’s gun and she passed it through the bars and along with it a chunk of pipe standing close by.
    We heard about it after. The one Watson that was on his feet, him and Ebberly, Boyd and some half dozen others, they got them masks and come down to the jail to lynch the other boys. They got into the jail and the jailor he just stepped aside, easy as you please, and says, “In the second cell.”
    They rushed up. The boys just stood a-waiting, just like they didn’t know what was going to happen. The barred door swung open and then Lisha, he outs with his gun and that bunch scrambled, believe you me. One of them turns to slam shut the door, but Sam, he got his pipe betwixt the door and the jam to keep it from closing. That feller dragged iron, so Sam raised the pipe and shoved it into his throat. That feller went down. The mob beat it, and so the boys, they took out. They told that jailer they would surrender to a U.S. Marshal, but nobody else.
    Lisha and Sam, they went to the corral and got their horses, every head, and they started out of town. By that time the story got around