Читать книгу Damn Loot! онлайн

26 страница из 57

"I'm Cardigan Smith. Texas Ranger. Are you going to tell me what you were doing in the company of that criminal?” He was a lawman, and a dangerous one. He wasn’t the usual high-ranking windbag. He was a Ranger. That meant that he was a skilled gunman or a former bounty hunter who had chosen to work for the state. The operative arm of the law.

"Thank you for saving us, Mr. Lieutenant. We’re nothing but poor pikes tryin’ to find a living in this cursed land," Hugg began.

"I'm not a Lieutenant... I wish. Anyhow, please continue.”

“Yessir. We live close by, in Little Pit. Up yonder is where I buried my beloved wife and my other son when they died of smallpox.” Hugg pointed to a nearby hill where he knew that there were two mounds without an inscription. The real story was that bodies of his spouse and his offspring had been left to rot in their old house in Louisiana. After having committed the crime he skipped town and was on the dodge. He pretended to choke back a sob, wiped away a non-existent tear and continued, “Today would’ve been our anniversary. Sixteen years. So me and m’boy came up here to spend some time with ‘em. When it started to get dark we headed back home, but then we saw smoke coming from our town. Fearin’ the worst, we climbed this here mountain to figure out what was goin’ on. That’s when that man attacked us. He kept askin’ us about a gunslinger, but I didn’t know what he was talkin’ about. We didn't know what to tell him, so he said he'd take us to some person named Lane who would make us talk." A half-truth was always better than an outright lie.