"Louis L'amour - sackett06 - The Daybreakers" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

the fire he would sing or tell yarns. When he sang to the cows in that fine
Welsh baritone of his, everybody listened.
Nobody paid me much mind. Right off they saw I could do my work and they let me
do it. When Orrin told them I was the tough one of the two they just laughed.
Only there was one or two of them who didn't laugh and of these one was Tom
Sunday, the other Cap Rountree, a thin, wiry old man with a walrus mustache who
looked to have ridden a lot of trails.
The third day out, Tom Sunday fetched up alongside me and asked, "Tye, what
would you have done if Reed Carney had grabbed his gun?"
"Why, Mr. Sunday," I said, "I'd have killed him."
He glanced at me. "Yes, I expect you would have."
He swung off then, only turned in his saddle. "Call me Tom. I'm not much on
long-handled names."

Have you seen those Kansas plains? Have you seen the grass stretch away from you
to the horizon? Grass and nothing but grass except for flowers here and there
and maybe the white of buffalo bones, but grass moving gentle under the long
wind, moving like a restless sea with the hand of God upon it?
On the fifth day when I was riding point by myself, and well out from the herd a
dozen men came riding out of a ravine, all bunched up. Right off I had a smell
of trouble, so instead of waiting for them to come up, I rode right to meet
them.
It was a mighty pleasant day and the air was balmy with summer. Overhead the sky
was blue and only a mite of cloud drifting like a lost white buffalo over the
plain of the sky. When they were close I drew up and waited, my Spencer .56
cradled on my saddle, my right hand over the trigger guard.
They drew up, a dirty, rough-looking bunch—their leader mean enough to sour
cream. "We're cuttin' your herd," he was a mighty abrupt man, "we're cuttin' it
now. You come through the settlements an' swept up a lot of our cattle, an'
they've et our grass."
Well, I looked at him and I said, "I reckon not." Sort of aimless-like I'd
switched that Spencer to cover his belt buckle, my right finger on the trigger.
"Look here, boy," he started in to bluster.
"Mister," I said, "this here Spencer ain't no boy, an' I'm just after makin' a
bet with a fellow. He says one of those big belt buckles like you got would stop
a bullet. Me, I figure a chunk of lead, .56 caliber would drive that buckle
right back into your belly. Mister, if you want to be a sport we can settle that
bet."
He was white around the eyes, and if one of the others made a wrong move I was
going to drop the bull of the herd and as many others as time would allow.
"Back," it was one of the men behind the leader, "I know this boy. This here is
one of them Sacketts I been tellin' you about." It was one of those no-account
Aikens from Turkey Flat, who'd been run out of the mountains for hog stealing.
"Oh?" Back smiled, kind of sickly. "Had no idea you was friends. Boy," he said,
"you folks just ride on through."
"Thanks. That there's just what we figured to do."
They turned tail around and rode off and a couple of minutes later hoofs drummed
on the sod and here came Mr. Belden, Tom Sunday, Cap Rountree, and Reed Carney,
all asweat an' expecting trouble. When they saw those herd cutters ride off they
were mighty surprised.