The Eye of the Hunter Read Online Free Page B

intriguing blend of bay rum, whiskey, and Mulford Violets in the air. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the stranger was standing beside her. He smiled, nodded, and reached for her hands to help her up. There was no question of refusing. She actually had the thought that God had sent him here to take Papa’s place. He was a foot taller than she, and gazed down into her face with a warm smile. His eyes were blue, his nose long, and the mints he was chewing were somehow an important part of the picture of this intriguing stranger.
    â€œIf you don’t mind, ma’am,” he said, “I’ve heard a great deal about your father, and I’d like to pay my respects. May I place these flowers with your own?”
    â€œI can imagine what you’ve heard!” Frances burst out. "In this town what could you hear but the most scandalous—I’m sorry, I can’t help being resentful.”
    â€œI considered the source, Miss Wingard, and ... it was something about a Viennese Wine?”
    â€œThe Viennese Doctor’s Wine of Coca.” Frances nodded. “Every doctor in the country had his own pet remedy, catarrh powders that were plain narcotics! Dover’s Powder, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, morphine sulphate—but don’t you know they blamed Papa because he practiced in Hermosillo as well as here? They considered him ungrateful to his own race. The Viennese doctor was a psychologist, a Dr. Froyd, it’s spelled F-r-e-u-d, who wrote articles in the literature on the benefits of regular use of cocaine. Ha!” she cried. “Benefits, my eye!”
    â€œWhere is this Hermosillo, Miss ... is it Wingard?”
    â€œYes. Frances Wingard.” Demurely, eyes downcast.
    â€œRichard Parrish. A pleasure.”
    â€œThank you. Why, Hermosillo is the capital of Sonora, and we lived there in the winters. Hardly anything but lizards can live there in the summer, and even they wore straw hats. The people there needed good doctors, too, and it was an interesting city—lots of European people. The oldest university in North America, by the way! And the miserable hypocrites take it out on me because my father sent me to college! Can you imagine?” Then she put her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry! Have I embarrassed you? But you see, there’s no American person I can talk to, and I ...”
    â€œI understand, I surely do,” Richard Parrish said. “I saved a few posies for your father, Miss Frances, and I hope you won’t mind if ...”
    He went to one kne[data miss]nd placed his flowers in the bowl with Frances’s own.
    â€œWhy, aren’t you nice, Mr. Parrish!” Frances said, her heart melting toward him. She bit her lip and turned her head away but failed to keep from sobbing. Richard Parrish had put his arms around her and held her, patting her back and murmuring to her as though she were a child.
    Barely a month later, Frances and Rip Parrish were married. Frances went to live on the ranch Rip had inherited from his Uncle Hum, the gambler, out of reach, at last, of the hypocritical tongues and puritanical eyes of the unappreciative townspeople of Nogales.
    But now the dream become nightmare was over, and it was simply a question of informing him that she was leaving him, and wanted a little money for all the improvements she had made in the ranch, with what little cash her father had left her. And God forbid she should ever meet a man in a graveyard again!

Chapter Four
    Henry found the boarding stable Ben Ambrose had recommended at the north end of the business district, a large tin-roofed adobe barn with a liver-medicine advertisement painted on the side. With a black iron bolt he rang a horseshoe hanging by the door, and then set to work unsaddling. In a moment a big shirtless man in bib overalls emerged. Ambrose had said his name was Budge Gorman. He wore a black Grand Army hat pulled so far down on his face that