Читать книгу Nameless River онлайн

6 страница из 59

For a long time the rider on the high shoulder of the ridge sat regarding these tiny plodders in the valley.

Then she deliberately took from its straps the rifle that hung on her saddle, lifted it to her shoulder, took slow aim and fired. It was a high-power gun, capable of carrying much farther than this point of aim, and its bullet spat whiningly into the earth so near the moving team that one of the horses jumped and squatted.

The woman lowered the gun and watched.

But the upright figure plodding in its furrow never so much as turned its head. It merely pulled the lines buckled about its waist, thereby steadying the frightened horse back to its business, and crept ahead at its plowing.

“Damn!” said the woman.

She laid the rifle across her pommel, reined the blue stallion sharply away and went on her interrupted journey.

Two hours later she rode into the shady, crooked lane that passed for a street in Cordova. Composed of a general store, a blacksmith-shop, a few ancient cabins, the isolated trading point called itself a town. McKane of the store did four-ply business and fancied himself exceedingly.