Guns Of the Timberlands (1955) (20 page)

He stepped back and Devitt came up in a lunging dive. As Clay stepped back, his boot turned on a stone and he fell, taking a wicked swing in the face. Both men got up and walked into each other, swinging with both hands. Devitt was coldly, wildly furious. This man had balked and defeated him but now he was here, where he, Devitt, wanted him. Where he could smash and destroy.

He staggered Bell with a right, and lunged in, butting with his head. Clay raked his face with an elbow, and slammed a right to the body and then a left. Clay jabbed, then pushing Devitt off, shook him to his heels with an uppercut.

Devitt lunged, and his fingers caught Clay's shirt, ripping it down the front. He grabbed at Clay, and slugging wildly, they went to the ground. They rolled over and over, striking and gouging, and then broke free and scrambled to their feet.

Devitt threw a right, and Clay stiffened a left to his mouth that smashed his lips to a pulp. Instantly, Clay crossed a right to the chin. Devitt took it coming in and swung both hands with savage hatred.

But Devitt's cold fury was settling into shrewd, driving, fighting skill. He was a man who could fight and who liked to fight. He had never lost a rough-and-tumble battle, and had often boasted he could whip any lumberjack in his crews, and had often proved it.

He bored in, using his head. He punched hard to the body and was surprised to find the punch blocked. Those months in New Orleans with Jem Mace had taught Clay Bell more than a little. Now, fighting for his life, he realized the true value of all he had been taught by the aging bare-knuckle champion.

Clay jabbed a left, moved and jabbed again. Devitt landed hard to the body, and Clay gasped for breath, feeling the sickening force of that punch. Devitt struck him on the kidney and Clay's knees buckled. He clinched, swung hard to the ear, and felt the cartilage split under his fist. Then he smashed his right to the ribs and broke free. Devitt was streaming blood from the split ear and from his mouth.

Suddenly Devitt feinted, and Clay stepped in and caught a looping right that knocked him down. He rolled over, saw Devitt coming at him to kick, and then hurled himself at Devitt's legs. The bigger man sprang back and Clay started up. Devitt kicked out, the boot narrowly missing Clay's head but catching his shoulder and knocking him to his knees again. Devitt rushed and Clay saw the boot swing back and threw himself against the one standing leg. Devitt went down, and then they both got to their feet.

Clay hit him with a right, a bone-jarring blow that loosened teeth, then swung a right to the body. Devitt gasped and backed up. He tried to cover, but Clay pawed his hand away and struck him in the mouth. Devitt swung wildly, and Clay hit him on the chin.

Devitt bored in, swung a looping right and Clay saw lights burst in his brain. He tottered, and a fist smashed his jaw. He staggered, tried to clinch, but Devitt shook him off.

Devitt swung, and Clay grabbed the arm with both hands, flinging Devitt around and to the ground. Devitt came up and Clay threw a high hard one that caught Devitt on the chin. He went to his knees and Clay grabbed him by the shirt and jerked him erect, smashing his fist twice to Devitt's face and once into his body. The man's knees sagged and Clay flung him against the building, where he hit with a thud.

He staggered away, then fell flat. . .

Swaying on his feet, unable to believe it was over, Clay Bell waited. A muscle twitched in Devitt's back, no more.

Bell turned, mopping blood and sweat from his face.

Hank Rooney jerked a thumb at the fallen man. "What'll we do with him?"

"Throw him on the night train, stuff his money in his pockets . . . get rid of him."

Clay Bell's head was throbbing. He walked to the water trough and ducked his head once, then again. He splashed water on his body, and somebody came running from the hotel with a fresh shirt. He dried himself, then pulled on the shirt.

The crowd stood around, unwilling to believe the savage afternoon was spent, but Clay Bell turned away and began to walk toward Tinker's. He wanted to get away, to stay away, to be back on his porch with evening coming on and the stars.

Colleen was waiting on the hotel porch and as he came up the steps she went to him quickly. Her eyes went to a gash on his cheekbone and she started to lift her fingers to touch his battered face.

He caught her wrist. "Your father inside?"

"Yes, but don't you think you should--"

He looked past her shoulder. "Sam, send somebody for that tall piano player from the Homestake. You can be best man."

"What about me?" Colleen put her hands on her hips. "Aren't you even going to ask me?"

"Never ask 'em," Clay tried to smile with his swollen lips. "Tell 'em!"

"Well--" Colleen hesitated.

"Inside," Clay told her, and held the door open.

Sam Tinker heaved himself to his feet. It was a good town, Tinkersville, a good place to live.

He looked down the street. It was almost empty of men. The crowd had drifted to the bars to talk of the fight. Down the street a cowhand leaning against an awning post struck a match on his chaps. Somewhere a door slammed, and from the corner of the Tinker House Sam looked off toward Deep Creek, beyond Piety, where those thousands of trees were still standing, breathing with the wind, shedding their needles, and where Deep Creek still ran clear and swift over its stones.

It was a good town, a good town. He would get the piano player himself.

About The Author "I think of myself in the oral tradition -- of 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."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world recreated 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, assessment miner, and officer on tank destroyers 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 100 books is in print; there are nearly 230 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling 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 includeThe Lonesome Gods, The Walking Drum (his twelfth-century historical novel)Jubal Sackett, Last of the Breed , andThe 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 tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam well into the nineties -- among them, four Hopalong Cassidy novels:The Rustlers of West Fork, The Trail to Seven Pines, The Riders of High Rock, andTrouble Shooter .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[30 Apr 2002] Scanned for #bookz by WizWav [06 May 2002] (v1.0) Proofed and formatted by NickL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------