Читать книгу Nameless River онлайн

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It circled Big Basford’s head from the back, the bitter end snapping across his face with indescribable force.

It curled him away from his victim, tumbling back on his heels with his murderous hands covering his cheeks.

For a moment he hung on the veranda’s edge, balanced, then slipped off, lurching on his lame foot. He held his hands over his face for a tense moment. Then he looked up through his fingers, where the blood was beginning to ooze, straight at the woman.

The red-rimmed eyes were savage with rage and hurt, but behind both was a flaming passion which seemed to swell and burgeon with a perverted admiration.

“I’ve told you before, Basford,” said Kate Cathrew, “that I will deal with my men myself. I don’t need your overly zealous aid. Get out of my sight—and stay out till you can heed what I say. Minnie, take this fool away—pump some wind into him. Give him some whiskey.”

She touched the boy contemptuously with the toe of her buckled slipper. He was weakly trying to get up and the Pomo girl unceremoniously finished the effort, lifting him almost bodily in her arms and supporting him through the door into the kitchen. The look she turned over her shoulder at Big Basford was venomous.