Read The Last Buckaroo for Free Online Page B

reached
for the glass.
    “ Nope! 
I ’ m
leaving, ” he said, ran a boney
hand over his hairy face and slid from the stool.  “ I
think I ’ ll
nose around over at that livery. ”
    “ Is
it open for business? ”
    “ No. 
But it ’ s
open.  It can ’ t help but be.  Somebody stole the
big doors … and the hinges they hung on. ”
    Katie
panned the room again and saw four men already on their feet and heading for
the door.  Oh, God!  “ Thank you! ” she shouted as they
filed through the door.  Old Jake went next and the remainder of her customers
followed him out.  But she wasn ’ t alone long.  A
tall, suited, fiftyish man, wearing a Texas hat, came through the door moments
later.  There wasn ’ t a doubt in her mind
who this person was.
    “ Good
golly, you must be Katie Peck, ” he said, marched toward her, hand
outstretched.  “ I declare, if you aren ’ t
just as pretty as you sounded on the telephone. ”
    Katie
put on her best smile and touched at her hair before taking the big hand with
her fingertips.   “ Mister
Clampett? ”
    “ That ’ s
me. ”   He tipped his hat and
briefly looked around.  “ I headed right over
after speaking with your Mister Burke. ”
    “ So
Yancey is there in Terryville? ”
    “ He
is indeed …   And
I might add he sends his heartfelt greetings. ”
    “ Greetings? ” Katie said, confused.
    “ Well …   I read people, Katie. 
There ’ s
truly a book in the human face, if a person has the patience to search it out. 
When I mentioned your name as the one who sent me, I swear that man lit up like
a fireworks display on the fourth of July. ”
    “ He
did? ”   Katie blushed a little.
    “ Yes,
ma ’ am …  
I do believe he likes you a lot. ”   Of course, it was Katie ’ s
face he was reading now.  Telling her, surely, what she wanted to hear.
    ‘ Oh,
he ’ s
good, ’ Katie thought.  But how much of what this man had said should she allow herself
to believe?  First off she doubted very much Yancey was in love with her … if that ’ s
what he was intimating.  At least not in the way he ’ d
loved that old horse, Hank.  He may like her, which she was certain he did. 
Love, however, was a bit overdone where Yancey was concerned.  He probably didn ’ t
even know the meaning of the word.  “ Are
they treating Yancey okay there, Mister Clampett? ”
    “ Better
now that I insisted he be put in a private cell. ”
    “ Oh
my God!  What happened? ”   Talk about reading faces, his suddenly
looked distressed.
    “ Well,
Terryville Prison …”
    “ Prison? 
So Yancey wasn ’ t in the county lockup? ”
    “ No
ma ’ am. 
Terryville is where they send the meanest and baddest, in Montana. ”
    “ You
haven ’ t
told me what happened. ”
    “ Well,
they banged him up a bit.  But he ’ ll
recover nicely …”
    “ Banged
him up?  How? ” Katie screamed and covered her
mouth in anticipation.
    “ He
sees real well out of the right eye …   There are some marks …”  
He generally circled his face with a hand in an effort to lightly convey the
damage, without having to put the horror of Yancey ’ s
condition into words.
    “ Oh
my God!  No wonder his face lit up like the fourth of …”
    “ The
good thing is, Katie, he ’ s safe now.  I also
insisted they remove the leg irons, ” Woody said and reached
out to touch her arm in an effort to console her.  “ You
know, it didn ’ t help that the man that dropped
him off listed him as a killer. ”
    “ Killer …   Accused, you mean? ”
    “ Accused,
yes …  
That ’ s
what it should have said.  Maybe it was just a mistake on the deputy ’ s
part, ” Clampett said, having
come to the realization he wasn ’ t dealing with
the average, ignorant of the law, yokel here.  “ I
set them straight on that. ”
    “ Who
was the deputy? ”
    “ His
name is Kermit Striker. ”
    “ Striker? ” Katie said, outraged, and she began to pace up and down in
back of