'They tried to kill me a couple of times. They weren't any better shots than Wes. Tom, he lost his gun up there.'
Bigelow was quiet, and I could see him studying things out in his mind.
'Hear you came up here hunting me,' I said mildly. 'It's a long ride for the trouble.'
He couldn't quite make me out. Nothing I had said showed I was troubled about anything, just talking like to any passer-by.
'You know something, Bigelow? You better just straddle your horse and ride out of here. What happened to your brothers was brought on them by their own actions.'
'Maybe you're right,' he said. I'll buy the drink.'
So we had a drink together, and then I ordered one. When I got rid of that I drew back. 'Well, I've got a good supper waiting for me. See you around, Bigelow.'
Turning, I started for the door and then he said, 'Sackett
His gun cocked when it cleared leather and a sound like that is plain to hear in an empty room. I drew as I turned and his first bullet whiffed by my ear. Steadying down, I shot him through the belly, and it slammed him against the bar. But he caught the edge with his left hand and pulled himself around. I did not hear the report, but I felt the slug take me low and hard. I braced myself and shot him again.
He did not go down ... .44 or not, you have to hit a man right through the heart, through the head, or on a big bone to stop him if he's mad, and Bigelow was killing mad. He was a big bear of a man and he looked tough as a winter on the cap-rock of west Texas.
For what seemed like minutes he stood there, and I could see the blood soaking his shirt front and pants, and then great red drops of it began to hit the floor between his feet.
He lifted his gun, taking his time, his left hand still clinging to the bar, and he took dead aim at me. He started to cock the gun, and I shot him again. He jolted the bar when he slammed against it. A bottle tipped over and rolled down the bar, spilling whiskey. He reached over and took up the bottle and drank out of it, holding it in his left hand, never taking his eyes off me.
He put the bottle down, and I said, 'That drink was on me.'
'I made a mistake,' he said. 'I guess you shot them honest.'
'Only Wes ... the cold got the others.'
'All right,' he said, and turned his back on me. I could hear running outside.
For a long minute I stood there with my gun in my hand looking at his back, and then his knees began to sag and he fell slowly, his fingers clinging as long as they could to the bar. Then he let go and rolled over on the floor and he was dead.
He lay there face up in the sawdust, his eyes open to the lights, and there was sawdust in his beard.
There was a wet feeling inside my pants where the blood was running down. I thumbed shells into my gun, holstered it, and Cap came up to me.
'You're hit,' he said.
'Seems like,' I said, and caught hold of the wall.
The door opened and Tyrel came in, with Orrin right behind him, both of them ready for trouble.
'We'd better get back to the place,' I said. 'Supper will get cold.'
They looked past me at Bigelow.
'Any more of them?' Tyrel asked.
'If there are, they won't have to shoot me. I'll shoot myself.'
Cap pulled my shirt open and they could see the blood oozing from a hole in the flesh over my hip. The bullet had gat itself a place without hitting a bone or doing much harm. Tyrel took out a silk handkerchief and plugged it up, and we went outside.
'The doctor's here,' Cap protested. 'You'd better see him.'
'Bring him along. There's a lady waiting dinner.'
When I came in the door of the cabin, Ange stood with her back to it. I could see her shoulders hunch a mite as if she expected to be hit, and I said, 'This fool ain't married.'
She turned around and looked at me. 'He will be,' she said, and dropped her spoon on the floor and came across the room and right into my arms.
So I taken her in my arms and for the first time in my life I had something that was really mine.
Seems like even a long, tall man who ain't much for looks can find him a woman, too.
ABOUT LOUIS L'AMOUR
'I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubador, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller.'
It is doubtful that any author, could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he writes about, but he literally has 'walked the land my characters walk.' His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research have combined to give Mr. L'Amour the Unique knowledge and understanding of the people, events, and challenge of the American frontier which have become the hallmarks of his popularity.
Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour can trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, 'always on the frontier.' As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North
