"Louis L'amour - sackett05 - Ride The River" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

Tim Oats. Inwardly he was cursing. It had all looked so simple! Everybody on the
O'Hara side was dead, the money was in his hands, and Brunn's widow trusted him
implicitly. He had made an attempt to find the heirs that would pass muster with
her, and he could do what he wished with the money until he found the heirs,
which he had hoped never to do. Who would dream a copy of that little sheet
would ever find its way into the backwoods of Tennessee?
"Chantry doesn't handle such cases," White said impatiently. "His practice is in
admiralty law or international trade. Anyway, how could a hillbilly girl even
get his attention?"
"All I know is that she left here and went right to his office. She opened the
door and walked right in."
"And probably came right out."
"I figured I'd best get to you. Chantry is tough, an' you know how he feels
about the law. To him it's a sacred trust, an' if he finds you playin' fast an'
loose, he'll put you behind bars."
"You don't have to explain Finian Chantry to me. I know all about him."
James White was irritated and a little frightened. Still, he had done nothing
wrong ... yet. He touched his tongue to dry lips. Thank God he had been warned.
Grudgingly he glanced at Tim Oats. "Thanks. You did the right thing, coming
right to me."
Finian Chantry had fought in the Revolution. He had been an important government
official at the time of the War of 1812. It was said he had refused a seat on
the Supreme Court for reasons of health. He was a man accustomed to power and
the use of power.
Tim Oats was right. He should have smoothed things over and gotten the Sackett
girl to sign a release. He could have given her a few dollars ... After all, the
girl had no idea what was involved.
Of course, that was what he had planned. To take her to a plush restaurant, give
her a couple of glasses of wine, then produce some gold money and get her to
sign a release as "paid in full." Then she turned him down.
Turned him down! Who did she think she was, anyway?
Yet slowly caution began to slip through the cracks in his ego. Chantry, he was
sure, would not give her the time of day, but the sooner the Sackett girl was
back in her mountains, the better.
When old Adam Brunn died suddenly, his widow had asked White to settle her
husband's legal affairs. The old man had a small but solid practice, mostly with
estates and land titles, but White agreed immediately. Had the widow known
anyone else, she would not have asked him, but a friend of White's had been
helping her through the trying period after her husband's death, and had
recommended White.
Most of what Brunn had left unfinished was routine and offered no chance for
chicanery. Then he had come upon the O'Hara papers.
Apparently, many years before, one Kane O'Hara had been an associate of Barnabas
Sackett, whoever he was, and later, of his son, Kin Sackett. Partly due to the
Sackett association, Kane O'Hara had done well financially, leaving a
considerable estate to his heirs. In his will he left a provision that if at any
time the O'Hara family was left without an heir in the immediate line, what
remained of the estate should go to the youngest living descendant of Kin
Sackett.
To White it seemed a foolish document, but all of the subsequent heirs had