Moontrap - Don Berry Read Online Free Page B

illusion of energy. Seeing Monday motionless
by the side of the road, he stopped and gestured sharply. "Get
back in line, mister."
    Monday looked at him. "Go to hell, sojer,"
he said uninterestedly.
    The blue uniform, just a boy, surveyed the huge blond
figure sitting relaxed before him, hands crossed over the saddle
horn. The little blue cap, his only kinship with the giant, perched
ridiculously atop a mane of yellow hair. Two hundred pounds of
resting mountain cat. The soldier kicked up his horse and rode on.
    "Hell," Monday said under his breath. He
swung off the road and down toward the riverbank. He tethered his
horse to a tree and got a bottle out of the saddlebag, sitting down
against a boulder with a sigh. For a long moment he simply stared
vacantly across the river, vaguely conscious of the slowly retreating
squeal of the wagon in the distance. Then he yanked the cork out of
the bottle and tilted it up. Tears came to his eyes and he gasped as
he felt the terrible burn coursing down his throat. Even for
moonshine it was foul, but it was better than nothing. He wished he
had some molasses to put in and he'd pretend it was rum.
    He sat disconsolate and depressed, occasionally
tilting the bottle, until he heard the soft pad of horse's hoofs
coming down the slope. Quickly he corked the bottle, tucked it by the
side of the rock and pulled a fir bough up to hide it.
    Behind him came a voice, very stern. "Alri',
Monday. Give me bouteille .
It is the colonel who speak."
    Monday grimaced. Without looking around he knocked
the limb away and pulled the bottle out of its hiding place. "Sit
y'self down, Rainy." he said.
    The man behind dismounted and tethered his horse
beside Mondays. He came around the rock to join the big blond man.
René Devaux was a good six inches shorter than Monday's six feet,
built light. He was perhaps thirty but had a dark, adolescent
handsomeness that made him seem younger. Like Monday, he wore the
little blue military cap that signified his militiahood. He looked
disappointed as he slid down to sit beside Monday
    " How you know it was me?" he asked in a
puzzled voice.
    " 'Cause you gargle instead o' talk,"
Monday said. "You say y'r r's and stuff funny."
    "Is not the case," Devaux said firmly. "I
speak perfect, there is fourteen years. Wi'out any accent. Moreover,
I have a powerful thirst. I give you a little money?"
    Monday handed him the bottle. "On the prairie,
Rainy" Absently he swept one open palm over the other in the
mountain sign for a free gift.
    Devaux choked and coughed. He handed the bottle back,
blinking. "Is ver' bad wiskey, that."
    Monday shrugged. "Don't drink it."
    " Not so bad as that," Devaux said in a hurt
tone. "Listen. How you think of the army life, hah?"
    Monday snorted.
    "Ah, but friend of me, I think you understand
wrong. One gives you food, one gives you a blanket, one tells you 'do
this, do that.' Ver' simple, the army. Problems do not exist. I am
ver' militaire , me. La
bouteille ? "
    Monday handed the bottle back. He let his hands hang
limply over his knees and looked at the ground while the Frenchman
drank. When the bottle came back to him he studied the level and
swished it a bit, then lifted it.
    " Wagh! " Whyn't
y' join up the regular army, then?" he said.
    Devaux shrugged. "Me, I have no problems."
    Monday laughed. Devaux, in common with all other
former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, was living on borrowed
time and knew it. The recent influx of Americans—and the implacable
hatred they brought for anything that suggested the monolithic
British company—made Devaux's position hard. Oregon had been
officially a territory for only a year, but the pressure was growing
every day to "run the damn furriners out." After ten days
every new settler from the states talked as though fifteen
generations of his people had been born on Oregon soil.
    " Moreover," Devaux said, glancing at the
big man, "is a problem, I go live with the—what you call, the
father of my