Pete Merrano was like all of his kind who live by fear and terror. When that failed, they're backed into a corner. He had been sure he would win. He had still been sure when things started going against him because he simply believed he was too smart. He had forgotten the old adage that cops can make many mistakes, a crook need only make one.
(from "Stay Out of My Nightmare," by Louis L'Amour)
"Are you Mr. Ramsey?" He neither spoke nor blinked, and I stepped pat the old woman and stopped abruptly. I was staring into the eyes of a dead man.
Turning, overcome with horror, I looked at the old woman who was puttering among some dirty dishes. "Don't mind him," she said. "Earl was never one for talking. Only when he takes the notion."
My skin crawled. She turned her head and stared at me with expressionless eyes. Gray hair straggled about a face that looked old enough to have worn out two bodies, and her clothing was drab, misshapen, and soiled. She fumbled at her pocket, staring at me.
It gave me the creeps. The hot, stuffy room and that aged and obviously imbecilic woman and her dead son.
Stepping past the table, I saw the knife. It had been driven into the left side of his back, driven up from below as he sat at the table, and driven to the hilt. I touched the hand of Earl Ramsey. It was cold.
The old woman as puttering among the dishes, unaware and unconcerned.
(from "Stay Out of My Nightmare," by Louis L'Amour)
"Who are you?" she repeated.
"Let's say that I am an old army friend of Sam Bradley's."
Her eyes hardened. "Oh? So you admit you're one of them?" Before I could reply, she said, "I'll just call the police."
"It might be the best idea. But why don't you pout that gun down and let' talk this over. Sam left word he wanted to see me, and if you're a friend of his, we should compare notes. When he said he was in trouble, I hurried right over."
"I'll bet you did! Now back against the wall. I am going to use the telephone, and if you have any doubts whatever I'll use this gun, just start something."
I had no doubts.
(from "Stay Out of my Nightmare," by Louis L'Amour)
He had been coming in, and I used his impetus. He went over flying and hit the table in front of me with a crash; the table collapsed like a sick accordion and with about the same sound. Being on my knees, I grabbed the legs of the nearest man with Milly and jerked hard. His head hit the table when he fell, and I was up fast to see Milly break away and the other man clawing at his hip.
It was a bad move, leaving him as open as a Memphis crap game, and I threw my right down the groove with everything on it but my shoelaces. When a man grabs suddenly at his hip, his face automatically comes forward. His did, and brother, it was beautiful!
His face came forward as if it had a date with my fist, and it was a date they kept. You could have heard the smack of that fist clear into the street, and his feet went from under him as if they'd been jerked from behind. He went down to all fours. Naturally, I didn't kick him. In police reports that might not look good, so when I sort of bent over him, my knee sort of banged into his temple. It was what might have been termed a fortuitous accident.
(from "With Death in his Corner," by Louis L'Amour)
"If you can help me," I said, "it would mean a lot. Garzo was my pal."
"Sure, I know. I'm Mildred Casey, remember? I lived down the block from Rock's old man. You two used to fix my bike."
That made me look again. Blue eyes, the ghosts of freckles over the bridge of her nose, and shabby clothes. An effort to be lively with nothing much to be lively or happy about, but great courage. She still had that, with a fine sort of pride. There was hurt in her eyes where her heart showed, eyes that had kept looking at men wondering if this was the right one.
(from "With Death in His Corner," by Louis L'Amour)
"You won't see the town until we get close."
"Near that mesa?"
"Right up against it. Small town, about four hundred people when they're all home. Being off the state highway, no tourists ever go there. Nothin' to see, anyway."
"No boot hill?" Nearly all of the little mining towns in this section have a boot hill, and from the look of them, shooting up your neighbors must have been the outstanding recreation in the old days.
"Oh, sure. Not many in this one, though. About fifteen or twenty with markers, but they buried most of them without any kind of a slab. This boot hill couldn't hold a candle to Pioche. Over there they buried seventy-five before the first one died of natural causes.
(from "The Hills of Homicide," by Louis L'Amour)
