"TXT - Louis L'Amour - Rivers West" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

"He killed me. He stabbed me. He knew who I was, he ..." the voice faded.
"Easy, now!" I warned. I loosened his collar, then tried to ease his position. I'd no idea what he was talking about, nor what to do. He was badly hurt, but from the appearance of the wound and the bubbling, I feared the knife had penetrated a lung.
There was another stab wound in his side, and there might be others in his back. There was no dry land anywhere about that I could see. Nor any place to build a fire. To carry the man in his condition was unthinkable.
"Sir," I said, "there's not much I can do."
He turned his eyes on me and seemed conscious of me for the first time. "I know," he said, his voice suddenly quiet, "and I'd rather you ... you didn't try. I'm ... I'm sort of comfortable.
"Got me in the back. He's powerful ... drove it right to the hilt three times before I got turned around. I don't believe I ... I even scratched ... him.
"A bad man ... who'll stop at nothing ... nothing at all." He caught my hand. "I'm Captain Rob ... Robert Foulsham."
"American army?"
"British."
I should have known from his accent.
It was dark and gloomy. I was far from where I wished to beЧwhich was an inn or stopping place somewhere in the five to ten miles that lay before me. It was already late.
He muttered, talked lucidly, then wandered. I stayed close beside him, irritated that there was nothing I could do, vowing not to be in such a situation again. Yet he was far gone and growing weaker.
"Get him!" he spoke suddenly, loudly. "He is vicious. A renegade ... a traitor. He will destroy ... destroy. He is evil. He is ..." His voice wandered off, and he was silent.
"Who killed you?" I asked. Then, realizing how my words must sound, I said, "Who attacked you?"
"Torville ... Baron Richard Torville. A desperate man."
"What's he like? Is he tall? Is heЧ?"
It was no use, for the man had died.
I got slowly to my feet and stood looking down at him. What could I do? What should I do? I had no means to sink him in the swamp, and there was no way to bury him. Yet to leave him where he lay seemed a shameful thing.
If he had relatives, they ...
Relatives! I knelt beside the man's body and went carefully through his pockets. There were some water-soaked papers, yet there were others in a sort of waterproof packet. In his pockets I also found several gold pieces, and in a belt about his waist, several more. There was a pistol, useless until dried out and recharged. A small pistol it was, admirably made.
These few things I gathered together. When I reached a city I would mail them, for among the things there must be an address.
He was young, older than me but less than thirty, and well made. Somehow from his bearing I decided that "Captain" might not have been his only title. He had manner and style.
I had straightened from my final task when I heard a faint splash, a stir of something, a movement. My rifle came waist high, held easily in my hands.
Sounds came nearer, a step and a swish, a hit and a miss.
Who else could be on this road on such a night? Certainly, I had been a fool to attempt to reach my destination before night fell, and the captain here had been, apparently, pursuing someone. Suddenly a figure loomed in the darkness.
"Come along," I said. "If you're friendly, come easy with your hands in sight. If you want to be friendly, we can talk. And if you're not friendly, I can split you right up the middle."
"Avast there! Avast, lad. I'm coming in peaceful, wishing no harm to any man or beast ... least of all, to me."
He was six or seven inches taller than my five feet and ten inches, with shoulders like a yardarm, and he had a peg-leg. He also had a black beard and wore a gold ring in one ear.
Armed, too. I could see he carried both a rifle and a dirk.
"You travel late," I said.
He glanced down at the body. "Did you kill him?" His eyes gleamed at me.
"I did not. Did you?" For certainly he looked the murderer, if ever a man did.
"Not I." He peered at the body. "Well, well. A fine, handsome young chap to die so easily. Oh, I've killed a few in my time, but not that one." He grinned at me. "Anyway, I've just come up. You stand over the body, and the man is freshly dead. The law will ask questions, so you'd better think of some answers."
"There is no law here," I said. "This is the forest. Yet it is no way for a man to die."
The big man shrugged. "Who is to say where a man should die? He dies when his time comes, no matter where. And," he added, "only the body of the man is here. What was inside him is gone. Where he lies does not matter."
He gestured down the way. "I am told there's an inn nearby. Are you for it?"
"I am."
We started on then, leaving the body where it lay for lack of a better thing to do.
The big man wore an old cocked hat and a cloak that made him look even larger in the darkness than he was. "How far is it, do you suppose?" he asked. "I have come far, and this leg of mine, it does not favor long walks."
"Five miles ... perhaps less. Sometimes the understanding of miles is not well grasped. Five miles can mean over the hill and around the bend, or it can mean all day."
"I know." He peered at me. "You've a load there. Is it tools you carry?"
"Tools of my trade. I am a shipwright."
"In the forest?" He stared at me. "You are to build ships in the forest?"
What my destination was, and why, was none of his business, so I simply said, "South of here are many seaports where they build vessels to trade with the Indies, or ships for whaling."
"You've a French sound to your voice."
"I am French ... in part, but Canadian born, and pleased to be."
We walked on in silence, slipping and splashing, swearing a little and grunting. "I am called Jambe-de-Bois," he said suddenly, "because of this," he indicated the leg.
"It is as good as another," I said. "A name is what a man makes of it."
"True, lad. True." He glanced at me. "And you? You have a name?"
Suddenly, I was wary. Who was this man from out of the night, coming upon me standing over a dead man. Why this sudden interest in my name? For his tone seemed to have sharpened just a little at the question. Moreover, there was about him something vaguely familiar.