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

about being followed, as more than likely they would think it was my
imagination, but more and more I was wondering if there mightn't be some
crookedness afoot. If any money was coming to us, we wanted it and our family
hadn't had any cash money to speak of for longer than I wished to remember.
It was a puzzler that we'd been left money by kinfolk of Kin Sackett, because
Kin had been dead for nigh onto two hundred years.
Kin was the first of our blood born on American soil. His pappy had been old
Barnabas Sackett, who settled on Shooting Creek, in North Carolina. He and some
of his ship's crew had done well, finding some gem sapphires east of where
Barnabas settled.
Barnabas was killed by Injuns near what was called Crab Orchard, and Kin became
the old man of the family. His younger brother Yance settled in the Clinch
Mountains, where he raised a brood of wild boys who would fight at the drop of a
hat and drop it themselves. Those boys grew up back at the forks of the creek
and were raised on bear meat and sourwood honey, but now I was the youngest of
Kin's line.
At breakfast Amy Sulky advised me to have a care. "This town is full of sharpers
trying to take money from honest folk."
"I've no money for bait," I said. "When I pay you, and my fare on the stage,
I'll have nothing left but eating money. The little I have was earned
a-hunting."
"Hunting?" The fat man stared at me.
"Yes, sir. My brothers went west, so if there was meat on the table it was up to
me. We ate real good, but I shot so much I commenced selling to the butcher."
"Powder and ball cost money!"
"Yes, sir, but I don't miss very often. Nor do I shoot unless my chances are
good."
"Even so, one does miss."
"Yes, sir. I missed one time last August. Mistook a stub of a branch for a
squirrel. That squirrel ducked from sight and I seen that stub of branch. I hit
what I shot at, but it was no squirrel."
"You mean to say you haven't missed a shot since last August?"
"You come from the mountains, Mrs. Sulky. You can tell him how folks are about
wastin' powder an' shot. Pappy taught us to hit what we shot at. Mostly we do,
and that includes Regal."
"Ah, that Regal!" Amy Sulky said wistfully. "Did he ever marry?"
"Not so's you'd notice. He says he will when the right girl comes along."
When I started to leave the house, the man with the bald head was leaving too.
"Miss Sackett? I know nothing of your affairs, but be careful. Don't offer any
information you don't have to, and above all, don't sign any papers."
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir."
The man with the newspaper was standing near a rig tied across the street. He
was a thickset man wearing a gray hard hat and a houndstooth coat. If he was
wishful of not being seen, he was a stupid man. I walked away up the street, and
after a moment, he followed.

James White had an office on a small avenue that ran into Broad Street. The nice
gentleman with the bald head and beard had directed me. On this day I carried a
knitting bag and I had some knitting in it. I also had my pistol. The Arkansas
toothpick was in its usual place and ready to hand.