Louis LAmour - Milo Talon: Talon and Chantry Series, Book 6

MILO TALON
A Bantam Book

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam edition published August 1981
Bantam reissue / October 1994
Bantam reissue / May 2002
Bantam reissue / February 2006

Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Photograph of Louis LAmour by John HamiltonGlobe Photos, Inc.

All rights reserved
Copyright 1981 by Louis & Katherine LAmour Trust

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-553-89948-1

www.bantamdell.com

v3.1

M Y EYES WERE on Wally but they took in the other man, too. You, I said, with the blue shirt? Are you in this? Or do you want to live?

Im looking for a Mexican, he said, just what we were sent to do. Come on, Wally. Lets ride.

All right, Wally said. He started to turn his horse and as he did he drew his pistol. He was medium fast, and completely dead.

He had the pistol clear and his face was shining with triumph. Hed show me!

The jolt of my .44 didnt knock him out of the saddle but it let air through him from one side to the other. He dropped his six-shooter and grabbed for the horn and hung on tight, staring at me, his face growing whiter.

Im sorry, I said. All you had to do was ride away.

Bantam Books by Louis LAmour
ASK YOUR BOOKSELLER FOR THE BOOKS YOU HAVE MISSED .

NOVELS

Bendigo Shafter

Borden Chantry

Brionne

The Broken Gun

The Burning Hills

The Californios

Callaghen

Catlow

Chancy

The Cherokee Trail

Comstock Lode

Conagher

Crossfire Trail

Dark Canyon

Down the Long Hills

The Empty Land

Fair Blows the Wind

Fallon

The Ferguson Rifle

The First Fast Draw

Flint

Guns of the Timberlands

Hanging Woman Creek

The Haunted Mesa

Heller with a Gun

The High Graders

High Lonesome

Hondo

How the West Was Won

The Iron Marshal

The Key-Lock Man

Kid Rodelo

Kilkenny

Killoe

Kilrone

Kiowa Trail

Last of the Breed

Last Stand at Papago Wells

The Lonesome Gods

The Man Called Noon

The Man from the Broken Hills

The Man from Skibbereen

Matagorda

Milo Talon

The Mountain Valley War

North to the Rails

Over on the Dry Side

Passin Through

The Proving Trail

The Quick and the Dead

Radigan

Reillys Luck

The Rider of Lost Creek

Rivers West

The Shadow Riders

Shalako

Showdown at Yellow Butte

Silver Canyon

Sitka

Son of a Wanted Man

Taggart

The Tall Stranger

To Tame a Land

Tucker

Under the Sweetwater Rim

Utah Blaine

The Walking Drum

Westward the Tide

Where the Long Grass Blows

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

Beyond the Great Snow Mountains

Bowdrie

Bowdries Law

Buckskin Run

The Collected Short Stories of Louis LAmour (vols. 13)

Dutchmans Flat

End of the Drive

From the Listening Hills

The Hills of Homicide

Law of the Desert Born

Long Ride Home

Lonigan

May There Be a Road

Monument Rock

Night over the Solomons

Off the Mangrove Coast

The Outlaws of Mesquite

The Rider of the Ruby Hills

Riding for the Brand

The Strong Shall Live

The Trail to Crazy Man

Valley of the Sun

War Party

West from Singapore

West of Dodge

With These Hands

Yondering

SACKETT TITLES

Sacketts Land

To the Far Blue Mountains

The Warriors Path

Jubal Sackett

Ride the River

The Daybreakers

Sackett

Lando

Mojave Crossing

Mustang Man

The Lonely Men

Galloway

Treasure Mountain

Lonely on the Mountain

Ride the Dark Trail

The Sackett Brand

The Sky-Liners

THE HOPALONG CASSIDY NOVELS

The Riders of the High Rock

The Rustlers of West Fork

The Trail to Seven Pines

Trouble Shooter

NONFICTION

Education of a Wandering Man

Frontier

T HE S ACKETT C OMPANION:A Personal Guide to the Sackett Novels

A T RAIL OF M EMORIES:The Quotations of Louis LAmour, compiled by Angelique LAmour

POETRY

Smoke from This Altar

To Leo and Cylvia

T HE OPENING OF the West had many aspects: exploration, the fur trade, wagon trains, buffalo hunting, Indian wars, cattle ranching, mining, town sites, and not the least, railroad construction.

The old maps can still be found as well as brochures full of glowing promise but having little connection with reality. Some of these railroads were actually completed, opening vast areas to development.

This is not a story of railroads but of people momentarily involved, of Milo Talon and his search for a missing girl among people whose sole motivation was greed.

Milo Talons mother, Em, was a Sackett and, in fact, an earlier adventure featuring Milo and Em, The Man from the Broken Hills, is grouped with the Sackett novels and published by Bantam. But beginning with this novel and continuing on with other stories I have planned, I hope the Talons will begin to stand on their own. Youll find more background on the Talon family in Rivers West also.

The country written about is mostly west and south of Pueblo, Colorado. If you visit a town called Beulah you will be in what was once called Fishers Hole. The North Creek road was for some time the only practical route into the Hole. The route used several times in this story was a horseback trail, although western people took wagons wherever they needed them.