Читать книгу Settling The Score - George McLane Wood - Страница 53

Chapter Sixteen

Ed awoke; he was shivering, and he was sweating too. He had been dreaming a big black wolf was chasing him. And Ed was trying to climb a tree, but he couldn’t reach the lowest branch, and the wolf was about to bite him on his butt, and Ed was scared, out of breath, and then he was awake! It was now cooler and dark.

The moon was shining, and the sky was streaked with clouds. Every few minutes it would grow darker, then the clouds would move and then a body could see real plain. Jeff was sitting quietly, looking toward Jorn Murphy’s house, watching and listening. “Go bring our ponies, real quiet like, into the barn, Ed, I’ll stay up here and watch.”

Ed climbed down the ladder; he loosened the saddle cinch on his mount, left him with his head down and dozing, tied fast to the hitch rail back of the barn. He rescued the pinto and placed him in a stall in the barn. The lame pony seemed to thank him as he nuzzled Ed’s hand. Ed quietly promised him a double order of oats for breakfast and the pinto snuffled Ed’s ear. Ed went back outside, untied his gelding, and brought him in to a stall. He unsaddled him and removed the halter and bit. The tired old roan snuffled a “thank you kindly” to Ed, dropped his head, and went back to sleep.

One hour later, in the woodshed, behind Murphy’s house, Jeff found a five-gallon can of coal oil. He poured it on and around the back porch and door and mopped some around the window ledges on both sides of the house. He finished up splashing the coal oil on the front door. He crept back across the yard where Ed stood in the shadows by the barn door. Jeff was watching the front door and both sides of the house.

“Ed, I don’t want you in this, you stay low. I’ll do all the shooting, you hear me?”

“Whatever you say do, Jeff, I’ll do it.” Jeff sent Ed to make a small firebrand, dip in the coal oil can, light it, and walk quietly around Jorn’s house, lighting the coal-oil-coated doors and windows.

He was back quickly and knelt beside Jeff to watch and whispered, “It won’t be long now.”