Novel 1968 - Brionne (v5.0) Read online

  Rain beat at the walls of the cabin, and on the roof. There was a leak in the corner, another in the center of the roof.

  “All right,” Cotton said. “We holster our guns, lift our hands, and reach, is that it?”

  “Fine.” James Brionne was very cool. He had done what he intended to do, and had gotten his son and Miranda outside. He still held his gun.

  He was gambling, and he held two cards he was depending on. One of them was his own gun.

  “All right,” Cotton said, “holster ’em!”

  He was superbly confident. In this business of the fast draw, he had seen no one who could equal himself and he was sure this Virginia soldier could not.

  Watching carefully for some trick, Brionne drew his gun back, and lowered it carefully to the leather. He had no idea of trying to beat Cotton Allard to the draw. He intended to do just what he was best at. He was going to draw, level his gun, and fire. From the hip, perhaps, if there was no more time, but he was going to aim.

  He understood in his cool, careful mind that he was going to get hit. He accepted the fact. But there are many hits that do not kill, and he hoped the shot that hit him would be one of those. On the other hand, he planned to make sure of his own bullet.

  Brionne knew that he would probably fire only one shot. He intended that should be enough.

  He could hear the pounding rain, he could smell the fire inside the cabin, he could see the savage face of Cotton Allard, the man who had burned his home. Outside was his son, who might die without him if his other gamble did not pay off, or this one.

  He felt the muzzle of his gun touch the bottom of the holster, lifted his hand free, and saw that Cotton still gripped his gun.

  “So you are a coward, too,” he said quietly. “You think you are the best man, but you will not chance it.”

  Cotton’s face flushed with rage. Deliberately, he lifted his hand free; then “Draw!” he yelled, and dropped his hand.

  Brionne felt his own hand slap the butt, felt the gun start to lift. Cotton’s gun was clearing leather, and his face was twisted with triumph and hatred.

  “This is for Anne,” Brionne said, and for an instant, Cotton’s hand froze.

  Then his gun leaped up and he fired. Brionne felt the slug as a tremendous blow. It knocked him back through the door. As he tumbled across the threshold he heard the second blast of the gun, and rolled over in the rain and the wet.

  He came up to his knees, then to his feet. Something seemed to grip his side, and there was a numbness there. He lifted his gun as Cotton stepped into the door and fired again. Brionne staggered, slipped in trying to regain his balance, and almost fell.

  Cotton, his face wolfish, his teeth bared in a kind of snarl, was lifting his gun for another shot. Brionne swung his body around, straightened up, felt the slam of another bullet, but held himself still. He had seen men die, and he had seen too many men take lead to believe that one shot would surely kill, unless by chance or by dead aim. He had no doubt that Cotton could get him, and that he might, but he intended to kill Allard.

  He brought his gun down and looked along the barrel at Allard, saw Cotton’s eyes blazing with fury, which changed to sudden terror as the gun lined on him. Cotton fired again, and then Brionne squeezed off his shot. He stood in perfect form, firing as if at a target, and he shot Cotton Allard right between the eyes.

  Then he turned his gun to Peabody. “You were there,” he said, and as Peabody tried to lift his gun, he shot him dead.

  “Is there anyone else?” he said calmly.

  They stood with their hands up, but they were not looking at him.

  He turned and saw Dutton Mowry. The man was using a broken branch for a crutch, and one leg was bandaged and bloody, but he held a six-shooter in one hand. And he was covering them.

  “You got here,” Brionne said.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?” Mowry said.

  He gestured to Hoffman and the others. “You boys just shuck your hardware. You’ll find a pick and shovel up yonder at the tunnel. Come back down here and bury these men.”

  James Brionne had not moved. He felt sick and very strange, but he was looking over at Mat, and he wanted to go to him. He willed himself to move, but there was a great weakness in him.

  Suddenly Miranda and Mat were running to him. He managed to holster his gun. “I am afraid I shall have to sit down,” he said. “I believe I am hit.”

  They put him down gently at the entrance to the mine and Miranda took off his coat. His shirt was soaked with blood. The bullet had struck his shoulder bone, evidently at an angle, hitting him hard enough to knock him down, and tearing through the muscle at the end of his shoulder.

  “He hit me twice, I think. The other one is lower down.”

  Miranda eased the tail of his shirt from behind his belt, then almost laughed with relief. The bullet had struck his cartridge belt, veered upward and flattened against his money belt, each pocket filled with gold coins.

  “You took a chance,” she said, “when you didn’t throw down your gun.”

  “We’d have had no chance without it. They were going to murder us anyway, and I was betting that I could at least kill Cotton, and maybe one other.

  “You see, I felt sure Mowry was coming. That was the second gamble I took. It had to be him back there. The more I remembered about him, the more I knew he would not be far behind me.”

  Mowry was directing Hoffman in building a fire. “You had more confidence than me,” he said. “There was a time or two I didn’t think I’d make it.”

  James Brionne leaned back a little, feeling the warmth of the fire and liking it. “I had reason for confidence. Grant never sent a boy to do a man’s job.”

  Dutton Mowry grinned. “Now, how’d you figure that out? Devine told me that if you knew you had a watch dog you’d raise hob.”

  “General Grant is my friend, and Devine is a worrier. I didn’t peg you at first, and then when I had a hunch you took off with Miranda.”

  Mowry chuckled. “The way I figured it, if you saw me followin’ you, with your trouble in Cheyenne, and all, you’d be likely to take a shot at me. Seemed to me that you weren’t about to let Miss Loften go off into the mountains without you looking after her. You just ain’t that kind of a gent.

  “Pat told me you’d been asking about Rody Brennan and Ed Shaw, so I just figured the easiest way to keep account of you was to stay close to Miss Loften here.”

  Hoffman was puttering with the fire, and now he looked up. He was gaunt and pale. “What are you planning to do with us?”

  Brionne glanced at Mowry. “Shall we string them up? I hear that’s the thing to do out here. Or shall we take them down to Brigham’s boys? I have a feeling that Porter Rockwell would know just what to do with them.”

  Hoffman started to protest.

  “They’ve been keeping mighty bad company,” Mowry said. “Maybe a long walk might help.”

  “All right.” Brionne sat up, holding his rifle over his knees. “You boys start right off down the trail, and keep going. If we should run into you on the way back—”

  “What about our horses?” Miranda protested. “Won’t they take them?”

  “I found ’em and moved ’em,” Mowry said. “I rode one…that’s how I caught up with his nibs here.”

  When they had gone, Mowry added wood to the fire. “The storm ain’t over. I’d best get some fuel.”

  “You ease that leg,” Brionne said. “I’ll get it.” He got to his feet. He was a little unsteady, but he already felt better. It was all over now.

  He walked out in the rain and stood for a moment, just letting the rain fall on him, liking the feel of it. The thunder was sulking in the canyons off to the east; the clouds hung low and heavy over the basin. Standing there in the rain, he felt the tensions of the past few months slowly washing out of him, draining away, and leaving a stillness within him.

  He gathered sticks, using only one hand and putting them on the other arm, car
eful not to hurt the wounded shoulder. He had a bad bruise on his body where the second bullet had smashed against his belts, and that bothered him some. But Mat was all right. He was in there with Miranda, and they were sitting together.

  Dutton Mowry eased his leg, and stared out of the door at Brionne. “He’s a good man, that one. Take it from a Pinkerton man, who’s seen them come and go. He’s one of the best.”

  He glanced around at Miranda. Mat had gone to sleep, his head against her shoulder. “Are you going to grab him?” Mowry asked.

  “I’d rather have him than the mine,” she said, smiling. “You know, I haven’t even thought about it since we got here. I don’t know whether there’s anything up there or not. And do you know something else? I don’t really care.”

  James Brionne was coming back into the cabin as she spoke. He was carrying an armful of branches he had broken from a deadfall. He dropped the wood just inside the door.

  “I think the rain is easing up,” he said. “I’ll go get the horses.”

  About Louis L’Amour

  *

  “I think of myself in the oral tradition—

  as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man

  in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way

  I’d like to be remembered as a storyteller.

  A good storyteller.”

  IT IS DOUBTFUL that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L’Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally “walked the land my characters walk.” His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L’Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

  Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L’Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, “always on the frontier.” As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family’s frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

  Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L’Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, miner, and an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his “yondering” days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

  Mr. L’Amour “wanted to write almost from the time I could talk.” After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L’Amour published his first full-length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are nearly 270 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

  His hardcover bestsellers include The Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum (his twelfth-century historical novel), Brionne, Last of the Breed, and The Haunted Mesa. His memoir, Education of a Wandering Man, was a leading bestseller in 1989. Audio dramatizations and adaptations of many L’Amour stories are available on cassette tapes from Bantam Audio publishing.

  The recipient of many great honors and awards, in 1983 Mr. L’Amour became the first novelist ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life’s work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

  Louis L’Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L’Amour publishing tradition forward.

  Bantam Books by Louis L’Amour

  NOVELS

  Bendigo Shafter

  Borden Chantry

  Brionne

  The Broken Gun

  The Burning Hills

  The Californios

  Callaghen

  Catlow

  Chancy

  The Cherokee Trail

  Comstock Lode

  Conagher

  Crossfire Trail

  Dark Canyon

  Down the Long Hills

  The Empty Land

  Fair Blows the Wind

  Fallon

  The Ferguson Rifle

  The First Fast Draw

  Flint

  Guns of the Timberlands

  Hanging Woman Creek

  The Haunted Mesa

  Heller with a Gun

  The High Graders

  High Lonesome

  Hondo

  How the West Was Won

  The Iron Marshal

  The Key-Lock Man

  Kid Rodelo

  Kilkenny

  Killoe

  Kilrone

  Kiowa Trail

  Last of the Breed

  Last Stand at Papago Wells

  The Lonesome Gods

  The Man Called Noon

  The Man from Skibbereen

  The Man from the Broken Hills

  Matagorda

  Milo Talon

  The Mountain Valley War

  North to the Rails

  Over on the Dry Side

  Passin’ Through

  The Proving Trail

  The Quick and the Dead

  Radigan

  Reilly’s Luck

  The Rider of Lost Creek

  Rivers West

  The Shadow Riders

  Shalako

  Showdown at Yellow Butte

  Silver Canyon

  Sitka

  Son of a Wanted Man

  Taggart

  The Tall Stranger

  To Tame a Land

  Tucker

  Under the Sweetwater Rim

  Utah Blaine

  The Walking Drum

  Westward the Tide

  Where the Long Grass Blows

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Beyond the Great Snow Mountains

  Bowdrie

  Bowdrie’s Law

  Buckskin Run

  Dutchman’s Flat

  End of the Drive

  From the Listening Hills

  The Hills of Homicide

  Law of the Desert Born

  Long Ride Home

  Lonigan

  May There Be a Road

  Monument Rock

  Night over the Solomons

  Off the Mangrove Coast

  The Outlaws of Mesquite

  The Rider of the Ruby Hills

  Riding for the Brand

  The Strong Shall Live

  The Trail to Crazy Man

  Valley of the Sun

  War Party

  West from Singapore

  West of Dodge

  With These Hands

  Yondering

  SACKETT TITLES

  Sackett’s Land

  To the Far Blue Mountains

  The Warrior’s Path

  Jubal Sackett

  Ride the River

  The Daybreakers

  Sackett

  Lando

  Mojave Crossing

  Mustang Man

  The Lonely Men

  Galloway

  Treasure Mountain

  Lonely on the Mountain

  Ride the Dark Trail

  The Sackett Brand

  The Sky-Liners

  THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS

  The Riders of the High Rock

  The Rustlers of West Fork

  The Trail to Seven Pines

  Trouble Shooter

  NONFICTION
r />   Education of a Wandering Man

  Frontier

  The Sackett Companion: A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels

  A Trail of Memories: The Quotations of Louis L’Amour, compiled by Angelique L’Amour

  POETRY

  Smoke from This Altar

  BRIONNE

  A Bantam Book / November 2004

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Bantam edition published August 1968

  New Bantam edition / July 1971

  Bantam reissue / January 1996

  Bantam reissue / May 2003

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1968 by Louis & Katherine L’Amour Trust

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except

  where permitted by law. For information address:

  Bantam Books New York, New York.

  Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Please visit our website at www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-553-89893-4

  v3.0