Read Dutchmans Flat (Ss) (1986) for Free Online

an honest man, and there is no place here for such."
    Gentry hunted for the right words. Then he said, "This country looks like it was settled by honest men."
    Anson Childe studied his glass. "Yes," he said, "but at the right moment they lacked a leader. One was too opposed to violence, another was too law-abiding, and the rest lacked resolution."
    If there was a friend in the community, this man was it. Tack finished his drink and strode to the door. The bartender met his eyes as he glanced back.
    "Keep on driftin'," the bartender said.
    Tack Gentry smiled. "I like it here," he said, "and I'm stayin'!"
    He swung into the saddle and turned his buckskin toward Sunbonnet Pass. He still had no idea exactly what had happened during the year of his absence, yet Childe's remark, coupled with what the others had said, told him a little. Apparently, some strong, resolute men had moved in and taken over, and there had been no concerted fight against them, no organization and no leadership.
    Childe had said that one was opposed to violence. That would have been his Uncle John. The one who was too law abiding would be Bill London. London had always been strong for law and order and settling things in a legal way. The others had been honest men, but small ranchers and individually unable to oppose whatever was done to them. Yet whatever had happened, the incoming elements had apparently moved with speed and finesse.
    Had it been one ranch, it would have been different. But the ranches and the town seemed completely subjugated.
    The buckskin took the trail at an easy canter, skirting the long red cliff of Horse Thief Mesa and wading the creek at Gunsight. Sunbonnet Pass opened before him like a gate in the mountains. To the left, in a grove of trees, was a small adobe house and a corral.
    Two horses were standing at the corral as he rode up. His eyes narrowed as he saw them. Button and Blackie! Two of his uncle's favorites and two horses he had raised from colts. He swung down and started toward them, when he saw the three people on the steps.
    He turned to face them, and his heart jumped. Betty Lon don had not changed.
    Her eyes widened, and her face went dead-white. "Tack!" she gasped. "Tack Gentry!"
    Even as she spoke, Tack saw the sudden shock with which the two men turned to stare.
    "That's right, Betty," he said quietly. "I just got home."
    "But-but-we heard you were dead!"
    "I'm not." His eyes shifted to the two men-a thick shouldered, deep-chested man with a square, swarthy face and a lean, rawboned man wearing a star. The one with the star would be Dick Olney. The other must be Van Hardin.
    Tack's eyes swung to Olney. "I heard my Uncle John Gentry was killed. Did yuh investigate his death?"
    Olney's eyes were careful. "Yeah," he said. "He was killed in a fair fight. Gun in his hand."
    "My uncle," Tack replied, "was a Quaker. He never lifted a hand in violence in his life!"
    "He was a might slow, I reckon," Olney said coolly, "but he had the gun in his hand when I found him."
    "Who shot him?"
    "Hombre name of Soderman. But like I say, it was a fair fight. "
    "Like blazes!" Tack flashed. "Yuh'll never make me believe Uncle John wore a gun!
    That gun was planted on him!" "Yuh're jumpin' to conclusions," Van Hardin said smoothly.
    "I saw the gun myself. There were a dozen witnesses." "Who saw the fight?" Gentry demanded.
    "They saw the gun in his hand. In his right hand," Hardin said.
    Tack laughed suddenly, harshly. "That does it! Uncle John's right hand has been useless ever since Shiloh, when it was shot to pieces tryin' to get to a wounded soldier.
    He couldn't hold a feather in those fingers, let alone a gun!"
    Hardin's face tightened, and Dick Olney's eyes shifted to Hardin's face.
    "You'd be better off," Hardin said quietly, "to let sleepin' dogs lie. We ain't goin' to have yuh comin' in here stirrin' up a peaceful community."
    "My Uncle John was murdered," Gentry said quietly. "I mean to see his murderer punished.
    That ranch