Read Luke's Gold for Free Online

mule on downstream a little farther before comin’ out of the river.
    â€œWe got on that mule, me in front, Luther behind me. If we’d got on the other way around, it’d be Luther here tellin’ this story instead of me. One of them Rebs had rode down the other side of the river, and I reckon he only had time for two shots. The first one got Luther in the back, the second one got me in the leg.”
    Luke shook his head sadly and poured the last of the whiskey in his glass. “I’ll never forget his last words before he slid off that mule, ‘I’m done for, Johnny,’ he said, and he was gone. I don’t have no idea who Johnny was—somebody back home, I reckon.” He paused to remember for a second, then tossed back his drink. “Anyway, that mule kicked up his heels when he felt his load lighten, and took off up through the hills. I’ve thought about it plenty since then. Maybe I shoulda stopped to help Luther, but, hell, he was dead. I know he was, and there weren’t no sense in waitin’ around to give that Reb time to reload, and me with a rifle ball in my leg already.”
    Cade sat there, fascinated, while Luke related his story while drinking the major portion of the whiskey. He’d thought he had come to know the older man quite well during the short time the two had become friends. Evidently, he decided now, there was a lot he didn’t know. “Well, what happened after that?” he asked.
    Luke shrugged. “I don’t think they even bothered to come after me. When I was sure they weren’t on my tail, I cut back to strike for that cavalry camp to tell ’em what happened. Now, it was my intention to tell Captain Willett that we had hid some of that gold, but it plumb slipped my mind. The captain said he was just waitin’ there for the mule train, and he was goin’ on back to Fort Lincoln. He ordered me to go back with his detachment, since I was wounded. I tried to tell him that I’d best get back to Virginia City, but he said he needed me more than they did.”
    Luke paused again, his eyes trying to blink away the effects he was beginning to feel from the alcohol. He cocked his head to give Cade a hard look, as if he wondered what his young friend was doing there. Remembering then, he said, “Well, they shipped me back east to the war, and I spent the rest of it trying to get them to transfer me back out to the territory.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you go back after the war?” Cade asked.
    â€œI don’t know. One thing led to another, and I figured somebody had probably found that gold by then, so I drifted on out to Texas ’cause I couldn’t think of anything better.” He gave Cade a big grin then. “But I started thinkin’ ’bout that gold a lot after a few of these long cattle drives, and how much easier life would be if I had it. I’m already feelin’ I ain’t up to another one like the one we just finished. My bones are already creakin’. I’ll tell you the truth, Cade. I’ve been workin’ hard all my life, and nothin’ I’ve ever tried made me enough money to have anything left over after buyin’ grub and ammunition. When they first sent me back to Fort Lincoln, I couldn’t think about nothin’ but that gold just layin’ there in a trout bed. It like to drove me crazy till I finally had to put it out of my mind. I was fixin’ to desert the army, but they got us up in the middle of the night one night and marched us off to the war. I guess I still coulda slipped off somewhere along the line, but I don’t know, I just didn’t. After a while, the whole business with the gold just seemed like a dream, somethin’ I figured wouldn’t hardly happen to a nobody like me. After the war, a friend I served with talked me into goin’ to Texas, said he had a cousin in the cattle business.” He paused while he