[Jean of the Lazy A by B. M. Bower]@TWC D-Link bookJean of the Lazy A CHAPTER I 11/26
He reached back and loosened it in the holster before he started up the sandy path to the house; and if you knew the Lazy A ranch as well as Lite knew it, from six years of calling it home, you would wonder at that action of his, which was instinctive and wholly unconscious. So he went up through the sunshine of late afternoon that sent his shadow a full rod before him, and he stepped upon the narrow platform before the kitchen door, and stood there a minute listening.
He heard the mantel clock in the living-room ticking with the resonance given by a room empty of all other sound.
Because his ears were keen, he heard also the little alarm clock in the kitchen tick-tick-tick on the shelf behind the stove where Jean kept it daytimes. Peaceful enough, for all the silence; yet Lite reached back and laid his fingers upon the smooth butt of his six-shooter and opened the door with his left hand, which was more or less awkward.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Then for a full minute he did not move. On the floor that Jean had scrubbed till it was so white, a man lay dead, stretched upon his back.
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