"Barnes?"
"He's dead. He was almost shot to pieces."
Kilkenny was quiet then. He closed his eyes and lay without moving for what seemed a long time. In ail his experience he had never known a man with such vitality as Royal Barnes. Kilkenny rarely missed, and even in the wild and hectic battle in the cliff house he had known his shots were scoring. Yet Barnes had kept coming, had kept shooting.
He opened his eyes again. Only a moment bad passed, because Nita was still standing there.
"Steve Lord"..."... He asked.
"He was killed by a spring gun, trying to get at Barnes. It was a double-barrelled shotgun loaded with soft lead pellets. He must have died instantly."
"The outlaws?"
"Wiped out. A few escaped during the last minutes, but not many. Webb Steele was wounded but not too badly. He's been up and around for several days."
"Several days? How long have I been here?"
"You were badly hurt, Lance. The fight was two weeks ago."
Kilkenny lay quiet for awhile, absorbing that Then he remembered.
"Lem Calkins?"
"He was killed, he and two of his family.
Jaime did it. Then Steele told the others either to leave us alone or fight them all, and they backed down."
The two weeks more that Kilkenny spent in bed drifted slowly by, but toward the end, as his strength returned, he became restless and worried.
He remained in Nita's room, cared for by her, visited almost daily by Rusty, Tana and Webb Steele. Joe Frame dropped by from time to time, as did some of the others.
Lee Hall came by with Mort Davis, but Kilkenny kept thinking of the buckskin and the long, lonely trails.
Then one morning he got up early and went to the corral Rusty and Tana had come in the night before and he saw their horses in the corral with Buck. He saddled up and led the yellow horse outside.
The sun was just coming up and the morning air was cool and soft. He could smell the sagebrush and the mesquite. He felt restless and strange.
Instinctively he knew that he faced a crisis more severe than any brought on by his recent gun battle. Here, his life could change, but would it be for the best?
"I don't know, Buck ... He said, caressing the yellow horse, "maybe we'd better take a ride and think it over. Out in the hills with the wind hi my face I can think better."
He turned at the sound of a footstep and saw Nita standing behind him. She looked fresh and lovely hi a print dress, and her eyes were gentle as they met his.
Kilkenny looked away quickly, cursing inwardly at his weakness.
"Are you going, Kilkenny"..."... She asked.
"I reckon I am, Nita. Out there in the hills I can think a sight clearer. I got a few things to figure out."
"Kilkenny ... Ationita asked suddenly, "why do you not always talk like an educated man?"
She paused. "Tana told me you once dropped a picture of your mother, and there was an inscription on it, something about it being sent to you in college."
"I can speak like an educated man, Nita, but a lot of us out here have sort of taken on the vernacular of the country."... He hesitated, then added, "I'd better be riding now."
There were tears in her eyes but she lifted her head and smiled at him.
"Of course, Kilkenny. Go, and if you decide you wish to come back . . . don't hesitate. And Buck ... She turned quickly to the yellow horse, "if he starts back you bring him very fast, do you hear?"
For an instant Kilkenny hesitated again, then he swung into the saddle.
The buckskin wheeled and they went out of Apple Canyon at a brisk trot. Once he looked back and Nita was standing as he had left her. She lifted her hand and waved.
He waved in return, then faced away to the west.
The wind came over the plains, fresh with morning, and he lifted his eyes, scanning the horizon. The buckskin's ears were forward, and he was quickening his pace, eager to move into the distance.
"You "an me, Buck ... Kilkenny said, "we just ain't civilized. We're wild, and we belong to the far, open country where the wind blows and a man's eyes narrow down to distance."
Kilkenny glanced back. There was no sign of Apple Canyon now, there was only the horizon ... it might have been any horizon.
He lifted his voice and sang.
I have a word to speak, boys, only one to say, Don't never be no cow-thief, don't never ride no stray. Be careful of your rope, boys, and keep it on the tree, But suit yourself about it, for ifs nothing at all to met He sang softly, and the hoofs of the buckskin kept time to the singing, and Lance could feel the air on his face. A long way ahead the trail curved into the mountains. f I
"still think of myself in the oral traditionas a troubadour, 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."
the Rider Of Lost Creek (1976) Page 16
