2-Gun Western, November 1955 — page 8: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

a Then, wearing a sour, wholly self- satisfied little smile, he yanked his ' palomino’s head around and contin- ued west, Sawer the animal’s weary blowing.. dS oe THE BOY I’d like to put it on,’ Fern Noren said. Even standing with his feet set wide apart, Fern Noren was a full six-feet-five, ‘a beanpole of a young man, and his head had the same long slender lool as his body. His two kid brothers, hunkered on the other side of the campfire, had the same typical Noren _ face,.narrow, fishy-eyed, under curly _ blond hair, “What the hell’s he headed. this way for?” Hunk Noren growled. Posy Noren wrinkled his eyes in a snaggle-toothed grin up at the eldest brother. “He’s after old Fern.” Fern Noren’s little eyes flickered in the firelight and he sawed a long forefinger under his nose self-con-. gCclously. “Wish to hell he was.” “What the hell’s got your lip but- toned, Foster?” Hunk Noren abruptly flung over a shoulder at Dick, who. was sitting on a small boulder back a way from the fire, staring steadily at it. “Just not feeling talkative, that’s all. ” “He jest ain’t feelin’ ‘talkative.’ Where you get that high-falutin’ gab, Foster—from that Wells gal?” “She’s got him wore out,” gaid. “The hell with tty said. “Tough tonight.” “He’s tough every night, ain’t you, Dicky boy?” Posy grinned. “Maybe he’s the one ought to take on Charlie Landry,” Fern Noren said without humor, glaring at Dick Fost- er; Fern considered himself top man in this bunch, and his pigheaded brain inflamed quickly and easily. Posy Noren wasn’t any better en- dowed with gray matter than Fern, but he seemed to be because he grinned and joked a lot. Hunk was between his brothers in age and temperament. “Yeah, Foster, how ‘bout that?” Hunk said past a ated ge. he was maneuvering. Posy Dick Foster 2-GUN WESTERN “Hey, I thought we come out here to talk about slow-elkin’ some of that nice fat Star Ranch beef,’ Posy Noren said, Fern Noren sawed the long fore- finger under the limp nose again. “Mebbe we oughta wait until Laun- dry’s took care of,” he said. Hunk squinted at him. “What’re you sayin’, Fern?” “What's it sound like,’ Fern snapped. “You thinkin’ of bracin’ Charlie Landry ?” “Why the hell not?” Fern growled. Posy grinned at him, a big wide grin. “No kiddin’, Fern boy?” Fiye minutes later Hunk Noren shoved up and said, “Well, he ain’t comin’ out here lookin’ for us, let’s get the hell into town. You ridin’ with us, Foster?” Dick said, “Why the hell not?” Posy was still wearing the big. grin unhobbling the horses. “Dick boy’s thinkin’ he might be takin’ a crack at Charlie Landry himself, ain’t you, Dicky boy?” Ed Spooner had been Alby Foster’s one hired hand while Alby was alive. A lanky bachelor who you couldn’t rightly estimate was he forty or seventy, he had that ageless dried-up kind of skin and wiry build that never tell of the passage of time— Ed Spooner had stayed on when pneumonia took Alby the past winter. “tant pay--you, Ed,” Foster had said frankly to him, “You’re payin’ me,” Ed said. “I’m eatin’ reg’lar and I got a roof over my head.” ‘What neither of them had said was that with Spooner’s help, Dick Foster could have kept the little ‘spread operating as well as his dad had, the _boy was old enough now... 6 Baie NIGHT, though, Ed Spooner did finally mention Dick. Spooner had kept his fingers crossed; he fig- ured every lad worth his salt sowed a few wild oats before he put his shoul- der to life’s day-in-day-out grind; he figured that if Dick didn’t get killed first or saddled with a sizeable prison sentence, he’d turn out all right. This night Ed Spooner spoke to Dick’s mother about him because this day Spooner had heard that Charlie QO comlcloo S Martha (©)