Read Lando (1962) for Free Online

women, but when I looked around at Meeting it seemed to me a touch of paint here and there might brighten things up. He talked about the silks and satins of sin until he had me fairly a-sweating to see some of that there. Silks and satins can be almighty exciting to a man accustomed to homespun and calico. So it came on me to travel."
    Baker cupped his hands around the bottom of his coffee cup, and taken his time with that coffee. So I asked him about that fast draw I'd heard them speak about.
    "Studied it out by my ownself," he said.
    "Trouble is apt to come on a man sudden-like, and he needs a weapon quick to his hand. When Mr.
    Sam Colt invented his revolving pistol he done us all a favor.
    "Best way is just to draw and fire. Don't aim ... point your gun like you'd point your finger.
    You need practice to be good, and I worked on it eight or nine months before I had to use it. The less shooting you've done before, the better. Then you have to break the habit of aiming.
    "It stands to reason. Just like you point your finger.
    How many times have you heard about some female woman grabbing up a pistol--something she maybe never had in her hands before--and plumb mad, she starts shooting and blasts some man into doll rags.
    Nobody ever taught her to shoot--she just pointed at what she was mad at and started blazing away."
    He reached inside his shirt and fetched out a gun. "This I taken from a man who was troubling me--and you'll need a gun in the western lands, so take it along. This here is a Walch Navy, .36 caliber, and she fires twelve shots."
    "Twelve? It looks like a six-shooter."
    "Weighs about the same. See? Two triggers, two hammers. She's a good pistol, but too complicated for me. Take it along."
    She was a mite over twelve inches long and weighed just over two pounds, had checkered walnut grips, and was a beautiful weapon. Stamped 1859, it looked to be in mint condition.
    "Thanks. I've been needing a weapon."
    "Practice ... practice drawing and pointing a long time before you try firing. Don't try to aim. Just draw and point."
    He put down his cup and got to his feet.
    "And one thing more." He looked at me out of those hard green eyes. "You wear one of those and you'll be expected to use it. When a man starts packing a gun nobody figures he wears it just for show."
    Come daybreak, they saddled and rode away, and the Tinker and me went west afoot. And as we walked, I tried my hand with that gun. I practiced and practiced. A body never knew when it would come in handy.
    Somewhere behind me three Kurbishaws were riding to kill me.

    Chapter Three.
    We were six months out of the piney woods of Tennessee when we walked into San Augustine, Texas. It was an old, old town.
    Seemed like we'd ever left home, for there were pines growing over the red clay hills, and everywhere we looked there were Cherokee roses.
    We camped among the trees on the outskirts, and the Tinker set to work repairing a broken pistol I had taken in trade. An old man stopped by to watch. "Shy of gunsmiths hereabs," he said. "A man could make a living."
    "The Tinker can fix anything. Even clocks and schlike."
    "Old clock up at the Blount House--a fine piece. Ain't worked in some time."
    The Tinker filled a cup and passed it across the fire to him, and the old man hunkered down to talk.
    "Town settled by Spanish men back around 1717. Built themselves a mission, they did, and then fifty, sixty years later when it seemed the Frenchies were going to move in, they built a fort.
    "Been a likely place ever since. The Blount and Cartwright homes are every bit of thirty year old, and up until the War Between the States broke out we has us a going university right here in town."
    He was sizing us up, making up his mind about us, and after a while he said, "If I was you boys I'd keep myself a fancy lookout. You're being sought after."
    "Three tall men who look alike?"
    "Uh-huh. Rode through town yestiddy. Right handy men, I'd say, come a difficulty."
    "They're his