Read the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) for Free Online

point. Because he was a stranger? Because the attack had surprised him? BecausePennock was a sure-thing man who had no desire to tackle tough strangers? It was a point worthy of some thought.
    Talk started up again, and Kate came around and laid an enormous slab of apple pie on Bostwicks' plate. When he looked up, she was smiling.
    No man such as Pennock just happens. Each has a past and perhaps somewhere back down the line Pennock was wanted. Or maybe he had taken water for somebody--
    "Pennock?" he muttered. "That name does sound familiar." Bostwick looked him over coolly. "Been around here long?"
    Pennock's lips thinned out, yet he fought back his anger. "I'll ask the questions here. What do you want in Yellowjacket?"
    "Just passin' through."
    "A drifter?"
    "No, I'm with a big outfit south of here, below the Bradshaws. The Slash Five."
    Grove looked up at the mention of the name. "Ain't that the outfit that treed Weaver?"
    It had been a fight with some tinhorn gamblers, but Bostwick lied, "We didn't like the town marshal. He gave one of our boys a rough time, so we just naturally moved in."
    Kate asked, "What happened to the marshal?"
    "Him? Oh, we hung him!" Bostwick said carelessly. "That is, we hung the body. I figure he was already dead because we dropped a loop on him and drug him maybe three hundred yards with some of the boys shootin' into him as we drug him. He was a big feller, too."
    "What's that got to do with it?" Pennock's face had lost color but none of the meanness in his eyes.
    "Huh? Oh, not much! Only them big fellers don't hang so good. Bodies are too heavy. This feller's head pulled off. Would you believe it? Right off I"
    Pete and Shorty would get a boot out of thatstory. Just wait until he told them! They'd never hung anybody or dragged anybody. A couple of the tinhorns tried to shoot it out but Shorty was, for a cowhand, mighty good with a gun. He nailed one, and Pete wounded the other one. Then they had pitched all the rest of the tinhorns' gear into the street and ran them out of town in their sock feet.
    He was aware the others were enjoying his baiting of the town marshal. He was enjoying it himself, and with a good meal inside him he had lost his grouch. But none of this was getting him anywhere closer to Squaw Springs--nor was it getting that girl and her grandad out of trouble.
    It was then he remembered they were planning to file on Squaw Springs themselves, so if somehow he got them out of trouble--
    He stopped abruptly. Now who said he was getting them out of trouble? What business was it of his? A man could get himself killed, butting into such things.
    But saying he did get them out of trouble, then they would be going after the same claim he wanted!
    It was a good claim. The spring had a fine flow of excellent water, and the land lay well for farming or grazing. A man could do something with it, fruit trees, maybe. A place like his folks had back East.
    Pennock wanted that claim, too, and any way a man looked at it Pennock was in the way.
    Cap Pennock finished eating and went outside, ignoring Bostwick. Pennock stopped outside the boardinghouse window picking his teeth with the ivory toothpick that had been hanging from his watch chain. He was looking across the street at the covered wagon. That decided Bostwick. He would get them out of trouble first and then decide about the claim.
    "You better lay off Pennock," Harbridge warnedhim. "He's a killer. He'll be out to get you now, one way or the other.
    "He'll get out that book of city laws and find something he can hang onto you."
    Bostwick had a sudden thought. "Is there just one of them law books? I mean, does anybody else have a copy?"
    "I have, I think," Kate replied dubiously. "My old man was mayor during the boom days. I believe he had one."
    "You have a look. I'll talk to that girl."
    There was worry in Kate's eyes. "Now you be careful, young man! Don't take Pennock lightly!"
    "I surely won't. I ain't anxious to get hurt. You see,"