The Black Horse Westerns E-Book

Abe Dancer

• Herausgeber: Robert Hale
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

RIO BONITO: Joe Kettle possessed the grit and fighting blood of his father, and his father before him. And he needed it, for Wilshaw Broome -- once a loyal foreman of the Standing K ranch -- was using hired gunmen in his effort to seize the Kettle domain. Supported by an ageing Hector Chaf and Ben McGovren, Joe sets out to win back his birthright. But each of the three men had his own special reason for going up against overwhelming opposition, and it wasn't all to do with property and livestock To overcome Broome's force, they would play a waiting game, take advantage of the hidden trails and scrub thickets along the Rio Bonito. Then, when the time was right, they would not hesitate to meet force with force and guns with guns. LAND OF THE LOST: Young drifter Hal Harper rides into the remote town of Senora when he finds himself looking down the barrels of the law. What Harper does not realise is that the ruthless outlaw Tate Talbot and his gang have managed to get themselves elected as sheriff and deputies. Talbot has discovered that there is a wanted poster on his own head worth a small fortune so he has the ingenious idea of collecting his own bounty by killing the innocent Harper and claiming the drifter is the outlaw known as Diamond Bob Casey. Harper manages to escape to the remote uncharted desert south of Senora but can he survive in the Land of the Lost? RAWHIDE RANSOM: Cole was a good sheriff, maybe a mite too lenient at times, but when the chips were down, the town of Barberry fully appreciated his prowess with guns and fists. But the didn't know there was a tragedy in his past that would affect his actions -- until a local boy was kidnapped while Cole was supposed to be guarding him. And the only one who could deliver the ransom was Cole himself. MCGUIRE MANHUNTER: Manhunter Jim McGuire hung up his gun and settled in White Ridge aiming to live a quiet life, but his past profession soon called him back. His young charge Billy Jameson was wrongly accused of murder and the only way to save him from the gallows was to take on an assignment from the corrupt Mayor Jake Nixon. But finding the on-the-run thief Barney Dale wasn't as straightforward as it seemed. Barney was the only witness to a murder committed by Nixon and unbeknown to Jim the mayor has hired ruthless guns to ensure that as soon as he finds Barney both of their lives will be cut short. With the manhunter becoming the hunted man, can Jim defeat the many guns Nixon has lined up against him?

Leseprobe

Black Horse Westerns Collection 1

Table of Contents

Land of the Lost Dean Edwards

Rawhide Ransom Tyler Hatch

McGuire, Manhunter Scott Connor

Rio Bonito Abe Dancer

Copyright

Land of the Lost

Dean Edwards

Land of the Lost

Young drifter Hal Harper rides into the remote town of Senora when he finds himself looking down the barrels of the law. What Harper does not realize is that the ruthless outlaw Tate Talbot and his gang have managed to get themselves elected as sheriff and deputies. Talbot has discovered that there is a wanted poster on his own head worth a small fortune so he has the ingenious idea of collecting his own bounty by killing the innocent Harper and claiming the drifter is the outlaw known as Diamond Bob Casey.

Harper manages to escape to the remote uncharted desert south of Senora but can he survive in the Land of the Lost?

By the Same Author

The Valley of Death

Skull Canyon

The Manhunters

Copyright

© Dean Edwards 2009 First published in Great Britain 2009 This ebook edition 2011

Robert Hale Limited Clerkenwell House Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0HT

www.halebooks.com

The right of Dean Edwards to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Dedication

Dedicated to the lovely Charlotte Stranks

PROLOGUE

There was little else but sand, sagebrush and cactus on the land just south of Fort Myers. It had been deemed suitable for an Indian reservation by faceless people more than 1,000 miles away. In truth, there were other reservations even worse. Had it been intended for the more peaceful tribes it would have worked. But someone had not known that Apaches were not to be regarded as peaceful Indians. They were a proud nation who had seen their once vast kingdom taken from them and were expected to accept the theft as progress. The older Apaches did just that. They had lost their stomach for fighting. They had lost too many of their young braves. Now they were reduced to little better than livestock, to be kept within the confines of the reservation in the same way as farmers herded their cattle on the range. The promise of regular supplies of food might have convinced even the younger Apaches but corruption was rife in the dealings between the distant Eastern government and those who were meant to ration out the provisions.

Within a matter of only months the supplies started to arrive either late or not at all. The government had paid for the food and other basic provisions but the men in charge of distributing these to the Apaches could not resist the huge profits to be made by selling them on to settlers, or anyone else for that matter. It all boiled down to money and greed.

Soon the younger Apache braves with hot blood still in their veins started to talk about escaping from their enforced confinement.

So it was the night of 18 July.

The sun had gone down at around eight and a large moon hung over the vast wasteland of sand. Twenty of the young warriors who had already proved their manhood before being brought like mustangs to this desolate land gathered in an arranged meeting. They had already worked out what they were going to do. Now they had to make their plans reality.

Although not the oldest of the braves, one of them acted as though he had lived twice as long as he actually had. His was an old head on young shoulders. He had no equal with either a knife or a gun. Yet all their weapons had been taken from them when they had been herded into the barren land.

Nazimo knew that it was pointless simply escaping. For it to work they required rifles and ammunition to survive and fight off those who would be sent to bring them back.

Apaches were survivors.

They could also fight.

Since the first outsiders had encountered them they had become known as a nation which seemed to be able to fight better than almost all other North American tribes. Apaches had a ferocity like the land in which they lived. It was said that the Devil himself had created this place. For hundreds of miles in almost every direction it was as if the sun was as hot as Hell itself.

Little wonder that Apaches knew how to fight. It was defiance which had allowed them to survive at all. Few other men who ventured into their land managed the feat.

Nazimo led the nineteen braves away from the rest of the small settlement along the desert canyon. All they had was their courage to defend them. But they knew that the trading post and the fort beyond had plenty of rifles.

Both were situated at the mouth of the canyon.

The young men with paint on their faces and torsos led their ponies slowly towards the first of their objectives. Nazimo had been watching and listening to those who worked and traded in the trading-post building. He had sat motionless on the wooden boardwalk for over a week, absorbing every word, watching every transaction. None of those inside the long wooden building had any idea that this was one Apache who actually understood their language.

The moonlight was against them but Nazimo refused to allow it to change his well-conceived plans. The braves moved across the sand until they reached the very mouth of the canyon. A barbed-wire fence had been erected across the fifty feet of expanse between two rockfaces. It was always locked at night and two cavalrymen were meant to guard it.

Yet for months the confined Apaches had not even tried to escape. They had remained quietly in the place that had been designated to them. Nazimo had noticed that for the previous week the soldiers who were meant to be sentries had stayed inside the long wooden building instead. Through the open windows he had seen them and the men who worked at the trading post playing cards and drinking throughout the long cool nights.

Nazimo reached the barbed-wire gates first. A hefty brass padlock hung on a sturdy chain between the two gates. Yet for all the lock-and-chain’s strength the fence itself was made of weathered lumber poles. The barbed wire was loosely tacked to the uprights.

Nazimo tossed his rope rein to one of his followers and then placed a hand on both sides of the lock and chain. As quietly as he could the Apache warrior pushed and pulled the tall fence gates. His strong hands gripped the poles as he moved further forward and then backward. He knew that the fence posts would eventually give.

He was right.

On the third push the gatepost in his left hand snapped like kindling. The heavy chain fell. Nazimo opened the gates, then signalled his followers.

They moved as all Apaches moved: silently and fast. Even the unshod ponies knew how to be as quiet as their masters. Nazimo waved half his braves to one side of the trading post. They held on to the reins of all the ponies as Nazimo himself led the others to the open window.

Cigar smoke drifted out into the evening air.

Nazimo knew that none of his braves was armed. They would have to enter swiftly through the window one after another and somehow manage to overcome the men inside. They would have to kill or be killed. Then, if they achieved their mission without any of the men or soldiers firing a weapon at them, they would have to steal as many rifles, guns and ammunition as they could. Nazimo knew that it was vital that no shots were fired if the fort was not to be alerted.

Faster than the blink of an eye Nazimo leapt through the window. His braves followed in quick succession. There were six men inside the large room: two soldiers and four trading-post employees. Each of them had a gun on his hip.

Nazimo and his braves attacked.

The soldiers were slower than the other four men. Maybe it was because their guns were in buttoned-down holsters. They both grabbed their rifles as the Indians leapt on them. Both men managed to squeeze their triggers before they were killed. The trading-post men were no gunfighters but they had guns. Two of them managed to draw and fire their guns before Nazimo and his braves overcame them.

The sound of necks being snapped echoed off the log walls.

The other pair attempted to flee into the night. They opened the door and ran out into the arms of the rest of Nazimo’s men.

There was no mercy.

Just the sounds of death.

Nazimo knew that the men inside Fort Myers would have heard the shots and known what was happening. Like a seasoned military general he made his braves collect a rifle and gun each and as many boxes of ammunition as they could manage.

Within a mere five minutes the small band of young Apaches was thundering away from the place where they had been imprisoned.

They were five miles away by the time they heard a bugle sounding from the fortress.

They they rode on.

ONE

A merciless sun refused to stop burning everything below its vicious fury. Even the air was boiling as its vapour swirled around above the seemingly endless ocean of sand. Few men had ever ridden into a land like this willingly. The bleached bones of creatures that had made that fatal mistake were scattered in the white sand as far as the eye could see. Wherever the rider was, it had to be as close to Satan’s lair as it was possible to get without actually being dead.

Even seeing was becoming harder and harder for the lone rider who eased back on his reins and brought the exhausted horse beneath him to a gentle halt. Encrusted salt from the perpetual sweat had almost glued his eyes shut. He lifted his hat and ran fingers through his wet hair before using it as a shield against the blistering rays of the sun. If there was a way out of this unholy place, he couldn’t see it.

The horseman dropped from his saddle and stood beside his faithful mount. Every sinew in his young body hurt as though a wagon had ploughed over him. He panted like a hound dog and desperately attempted to find breathable air as his burning lungs inflated his aching chest.

Was there a way out of this place?

The question haunted him.

He clung to the long reins with gloved hands, as though afraid of losing his only chance of escaping this place. Yet if his eyes had not been caked with dried salt and sand he would have seen that his mount was even less capable of fleeing than he was himself.

Lathered sweat covered the exhausted animal. It looked as though it had reached the end of its own long ride. Its head hung as its blood boiled inside the once proud body. It snorted at the hot ground even more loudly than its master’s own pitiful panting.

For what seemed like an eternity the man just knelt and watched his own sweat rain down from his head. Even doing this simple thing was not without pain. Within minutes he could feel the heat of the white-hot sand as it burned through the knees of his pants’ legs.

A myriad thoughts washed through the mind of the horseman as he tried to fight off the inevitable death he knew awaited him if he were to close his eyes. He was tired but refused to succumb to the sleep he knew he would never awaken from.

The heat from the sand eventually managed to penetrate his clouded thoughts and bring him back to where he knelt.

Using all his remaining energy, Hal Harper gripped his stirrup and pulled himself back up to his feet. He leaned unsteadily against his saddle. He kept one hand holding the reins and the other gripping the latigo. Harper wanted to fall down and sleep the sleep of the dead, but he knew that as long as he kept gripping the saddle he could resist that desire.

His eyes tried vainly to make out the scenery but they felt as though branding-irons had been plunged into their sockets. He raised his arm and wiped his face in an atempt to dry the constant sweat that flowed like a waterfall from the hatband over his burned features. Yet his sleeve was like the rest of his bleached trail gear. It was soaked with sweat.

He lifted the canteen and shook it.

There was no reply.

It, like his throat, was bone-dry.

He then recalled having given the last of his precious water to the horse before sunup. It had been a futile gesture that he now regretted.

Was this where it would end? Out here in a land he neither recognized nor understood? Was thirst going to finish him off after he had managed to avoid the bullets which had tried to kill him?

The man reached beneath the belly of the horse. There was no way the animal could take him any further. He loosened the cinch strap, dragged his saddlebags from behind the cantle and dropped them on to the sand. They, like the canteen, were now empty. He patted the horse’s neck and started walking with the animal in tow.

His high-heeled boots were not designed for walking. They were meant to fit into stirrups and hold a rider firm. Yet he was walking through the soft sand.

He exhaled and saw the shadows flash across the white ground before him. Startled, Harper’s hand went for the holstered gun on his right hip. Then he realized what had spooked him. Four black wide-winged vultures circled above him.

They knew how close their next meal was.

Instinct had alerted them to the fact that there were two big meals getting closer and closer to their demise. They only had to wait as the hot thermals kept them floating above the horse and its owner. They had time to wait. Plenty of time to wait for such substantial meals.

Harper sighed heavily.

His thoughts returned to how he had found himself in this perilous place. He realized that if he had not run away from the guns which had tried to end his existence, he would not be in this unknown land. He would already be dead. Dead from lead poisoning.

Yet would that be any worse than this?

He was angry. If he had just taken the time to ensure his canteen was filled he might not be walking alongside a dying horse. But there had not been any time to do anything except flee the guns.

Harper staggered and heard the horse behind him do the same. Neither found the soft sand to their liking.

Harper could use his gun as well as if not better than most along the unmarked border, but he had never chosen to fight if there were an alternative. Now he doubted whether that had been wise. He should have killed all those who had tried to kill him.

But that had never been his way.

He tried to swallow but their was no spittle left to wet his throat. The dunes of sand rose in all directions like mysterious yellow mountains: mountains that seemed to move as if they actually were alive.

All the man could do was walk beneath them in the hope that their shadows would ease his and his horse’s pain.

For nearly two days he had ridden.

For nearly two days they had chased him.

With every stride Harper asked himself the same question. Why had those men back in Senora opened up on him? He had barely been in the town thirty minutes when they had sought him out in the small cantina.

Somehow he had managed to escape their bullets. He had managed to leap through a window, find his horse, and then he had spurred.

But they had chased him.

Like hounds on the scent of a racoon they just refused to quit.

They chased him further and further south until the grass had ended and even the sagebrush no longer grew. Chased him into the endless dunes of sand and kept on coming.

Harper gave a sigh and led the slow horse up the side of a dune in an attempt to find a vantage point from where he might have a clue as to which direcion to take.

But tired legs, both human and animal, were not designed to walk up hills of dry sand that gave way with every step. Somehow he managed to reach the top of the dune. He carefully patted his mount on the neck and screwed up his burning eyes once more.

It was hard to see anything through the thick haze of burning air. The dunes rolled on for miles but there did seem to be something just before the horizon. The shimmering heat played tricks with Harper as he clung to his reins. It looked as though there was water out there!

Blue, inviting water.

Could there be a lake at the end of this torture? Again he tried to swallow.

Again he failed.

Could there really be water out there?

The question tormented Harper as he surveyed the rest of the land that encompassed him and his horse. Then as his unsteady legs turned him to look back over the sand he had already travelled across he felt his heart quicken.

Even the hot air could not conceal them from his burning eyes.

Five figures appeared, almost black against the arid landscape they were riding in. Harper rubbed his eyes again and focused for all he was worth at the riders, who seemed to vanish with every other beat of his pounding heart. The treacherous heat haze mocked him.

They were still chasing after him!

Or were they?

He gasped, steadied himself against the exhausted horse and gritted his teeth. It seemed impossible that anyone should keep hunting another soul through a land like this.

Were they insane? No sane man would ride into a land like this, he told himself.

Again he rubbed his eyes. Was it real or just another of the mirages that had tantalized him for the previous two days in this strange country?

Then Harper felt the heat of something pass within inches of him. The horse shied and instantly he knew what it had been. The sound of the gunfire echoed around him.

It was real.

They were still hunting him.

TWO

It had all begun two days earlier and forty miles north in a border town called Senora. Senora was by its very nature a dangerous place. So far away from the rest of civilized Texas, which was trying to rebuild itself after the war, Senora had become just another of those places where the law barely hung on to its tin stars long enough to find out the name of the men wearing them. The reality was that it was a town where outlaws and bandits found safe refuge knowing that the local sheriff would not do anything except keep his head down.

For the three months since the elections Tate Talbot had been sheriff of Senora. Unlike most of his predecessors Talbot had never been on the honest side of the law. It was also a fact that, until standing for office, Talbot had been known by many other names and was wanted dead or alive for each of them.

Tate Talbot sounded honest enough though.

Even if most of the townsfolk knew the truth they were not loco enough to mention it. For all of his thirty-nine years he had ridden along both sides of the long unmarked border between Texas and Mexico, using his skill at killing and rustling to make him wealthy beyond the dreams of most men. Becoming a sheriff had been his latest ploy to cash in on all the saloons, whorehouses and gambling halls within the sprawling, sun-bleached town’s boundaries.

It had worked well and paid him handsomely.

In twelve weeks Talbot had managed to cream off ten per cent of every business in Senora. His personal wealth now accounted for more than half the money in the town’s only bank.

Even the rest of the outlaws who used Senora as a place to rest their bones between rustling cattle knew that Tate Talbot was a man they could trust not to interfere with them as long as they gave him a cut of their profits.

Yet even Talbot could not resist the mouth-watering wanted posters that were sent to him once a month by stage. Most were for such paltry sums that it was not worth his while even considering trying to collect the bounties, but there were a few that just could not be ignored.

It was as tempting as honey to a hungry bear but the wily Talbot knew that he could not turn on the outlaws who filled the saloons and brothels and spent their ill-gotten gains in Senora without risking their retribution. If he were to collect reward money safely he had to figure a way of doing it while also keeping the free-spending drifters sweet.

But he kept looking at the wanted posters. He kept trying to think of a way in which he might be able to make that one big play that would enable him to be so rich that he could buy himself respectability far to the west, in a city like San Francisco. It was OK being rich in Senora but it meant nothing to a man who had always wanted more. To be rich in a city on the Californian coastline was a different matter. There his money could buy things which simply did not exist in this dust-weary town.

All Talbot had needed was that one wanted poster with a reward so large it would be worth the risk of incurring the wrath of the outlaws and bandits.

He knew that it would arrive one day. One day he would hold in his hands the key that could unlock him from the life he found himself living.

It had been close to sundown when the noon stage had eventually drawn into town. Talbot, a well-built man, had walked the fifty or so yards from his office to the stage depot and watched as the mail bag was thrown down by the shotgun guard to the depot clerk.

‘Anythin’ for me, Luke?’ Talbot had asked the guard who was climbing over the various bags on the top of the coach.

The bearded man paused and looked down at the boardwalk where Talbot was standing with thumbs tucked into his gunbelt.

‘Yep. I seen them put a whole heap of wanted posters in the mail bag for ya, Sheriff,’ the guard said through a mouthful of broken teeth. ‘Git Clem to give ’em to ya.’

Talbot nodded, turned and slowly trailed the clerk into the depot office. He rested his hands on the top of the desk and watched the clerk with eyes that had seen more than most in their time. Sunlight was low and its dying rays danced across the office wall.

‘I’ll have them posters, Clem,’ Talbot said in a deep drawl.

The clerk opened up the bag and searched through the mail until he found the posters, tied together by blue string. He handed them to the lawman and tilted his head so he could see from under his black visor.

‘Ya sure likes them posters, Tate,’ he commented.

Talbot grinned. ‘Yep. One day I’m gonna find me one with big money printed on it. Wanted dead or alive!’

‘Ya itchin’ to kill some critter, Sheriff?’

‘Damn right!’ Talbot smiled. ‘I ain’t killed nobody in a month of Sundays. A man can get rusty.’

The clerk gestured at the window, then struck a match and touched the wick of the candle on his desk. As the flame lit up the office the small man blew the match and tossed it out into the street.

‘The town’s full of outlaws, Tate. Ya could go kill some of them and make a few bucks. I reckon if ya just closed ya eyes and fired down the street you’d hit at least one varmint wanted for something.’

Talbot nodded. ‘But most of them varmints are my pals, Clem. Besides, they ain’t worth a new saddle between ’em. Ain’t worth my while wasting lead on them.’

The clerk busied himself as the lawman walked out into the fading light and strolled back to his own office with the posters tucked under his left arm. The words had been true. Most of the outlaws and bandits who roamed freely in town were dangerous killers without an ounce of morality between them, yet for Talbot to go up against any of them would be suicidal for a man so close to the other side of the law. Talbot knew that if he were to try to claim the reward on anyone, it would have to be someone neither he nor any of the other trail trash in Senora had ever encountered. The bounty would also have to be in the thousands of dollars for him even to bother.

Upon arriving back in his office, Talbot had lit the lantern on his desk, turned up its brass wheel and sat down. He broke the string and placed the pile of posters before him. It was like looking at a potential meal. His mouth started to water in anticipation.

One after another he studied them, turning each one face down as he got to the next.

As always there were vague descriptions of the outlaws who seemed to have more names than any honest soul. Some had even more names than Talbot himself. Heights varied, as well as hair colouring. Few of the posters had any truly accurate information and none could even agree on the outlaws’ ages. Thought to be between twenty and forty was printed on at least half of them. Only a few had crude photographic images which could have fitted nearly anyone in town. One poster after another turned into one disappointment after another.

Then as Talbot had almost reached the last poster his hand stopped turning and he drew the stiff paper closer to him. He turned the wheel of the lantern up once again. The office became brighter. This was the one poster he had never even imagined was in circulation.

It was the amount that had attracted his full attention first.

‘Twenty thousand dollars, dead or alive!’ Talbot muttered aloud.

A crooked smile etched itself on his face as he looked at the poster in his left hand. ‘Diamond Bob Casey.’

He shook his head and laughed out loud. It was a joke only he understood. It was perfect. Diamond Bob Casey was wanted dead or alive for $20,000.

Tate Talbot rose from his chair with the poster clutched in his hand. He looked out of the window of the office as the street lights were being lit by a small man with a long pole and a flaming rag at its end.

He kept laughing.

Not one of the other wanted men in Senora knew why their sheriff was so amused. If they had they might have started shooting in his direction.

For, ten years earlier, Tate Talbot himself had used the name of Diamond Bob Casey. The lawman pulled a cigar from his vest pocket and placed it between his teeth. He leaned over the glass funnel of the lamp on his desk, lit the tip of the cigar in the flame, and sucked in the smoke. It filled his lungs as his mind raced. Of all the wanted outlaws in Texas and beyond, it was he himself who was the most valuable.

He inhaled the cigar smoke deeply. But how could he get his hands on the money someone had placed upon his own head? The question burned into his mind.

Then, as if by divine providence, Tate Talbot was given the answer he had searched for.

As smoke drifted from between his teeth the man with the tin star pinned to his shirt saw the lone rider pass the window of his office. It was a man whom he did not recognize but that made it even better.

A stranger.

A drifter.

A drifter who was doomed to become the dead body of Diamond Bob Casey. All Sheriff Talbot needed to claim the bounty on his own head was a body. Any body would do. He still had the savvy that had served him well when he had been Diamond Bob, and he knew that he could salt the corpse with personal items that would allow him to kill, prove his case, and make his claim for the $20,000.

Hal Harper aimed his mount at the nearest cantina. He had no idea that, in the mind of the lawman who watched him from the sheriff’s office, his fate was already sealed.

Sealed by a ruthless man who was going to do the impossible.

A man who was going to claim the reward money on his own head.

Talbot carefully folded the wanted poster up and pushed it into his shirt.

‘Like taking candy from a baby,’ he muttered. ‘A lotta candy.’

THREE

As another three rifle bullets kicked up clouds of sand and buried themselves at his feet, Hal Harper somehow found renewed vigour. Without a second’s hesitation he turned and leapt down the sandy slope, dragging the horse behind him. Both man and beast toppled head over heels and rolled downward as the unstable white granules beneath their feet gave way. It was Harper who reached the level ground first, but he was soon followed by his horse. Every last breath was knocked from the animal as it landed hard beside its master.

It was a shaken Harper who staggered back to his feet, dusted himself off and moved to the motionless animal. For a few moments the young man wondered whether his mount was still alive. He then saw the creature’s long legs kick out as its startled eyes followed his every movement.

Reaching down, Harper grabbed hold of the loose reins and was about to tug at them when he heard something to his left.

Something that startled him.

The youngster spun on his heels and swiftly drew his Colt from its holster. He cocked its hammer and screwed up his sun-burned features in a vain attempt to see what had alerted his senses.

There was nothing to see. Nothing to focus upon.

Only another mountain of yellow sand looming amid so many identical others. Gun in hand, Harper turned full circle as if perhaps the noise had come from somewhere else. Somewhere he had yet to identify. Nervously he returned to the horse who was lying on its side with its saddle almost torn free. Harper checked the cinch strap. It was still intact. He told himself that he would be able to use the saddle again, if the horse survived.

‘Get up!’ Harper urged the winded animal as his eyes vainly searched every square yard of sand within view for a hint of what or who had made the disconcerting sound. ‘Get up, boy!’

Then another bewildering noise drew his eyes and his gun barrel back to the dune. Yet he still could not make out what it was that was making the noises beyond the mountain of sand. Was it an animal, or perhaps something made by the hands of man? He could not fathom the brief tormenting noise, which did not linger long enough for his tired brain to work out the riddle.

He looked back down at the horse.

For three long years this animal had obeyed every command Harper had uttered. Never once had it refused to comply with its master’s demands. Now it lay wide-eyed and pitiful at his feet.

The young Harper moved around the horse and checked that it had no broken bones. When satisfied he returned to its head and grabbed hold of the reins close to the metal bit.

‘Get up! I’m in worse fettle than you are, boy.’ Harper dragged at the bit until the horse eventually started to move its long legs and claw with its hoofs at the soft sand. It took a few attempts but eventually it managed to roll over and stand upright. Harper pushed the saddle back up on to his mount’s high shoulders.

‘Good boy!’ Harper ran his left hand along the animal’s neck. ‘Good boy! Now come on before them backshooters behind us catch up and make glue out of the pair of us.’

As if the horse understood the words, it began to trot at the side of its master. The fatigued mount trailed Harper who somehow managed to ignore his own weariness and crippling thirst and actually run.

They had almost reached the nearest dune when they both heard the uncanny sound again. Both stopped in their tracks and looked in the direction from where they were convinced the strange sound had emanated.

‘Whatever that is I got me a feeling it ain’t gonna be good news for us, fella.’ Harper held on to the reins with his left hand whilst keeping the gun in his right trained on the sandy prominence before them. They began to walk again, this time with more caution than previously. With each stride the horse kept turning its head and looking to where they had both heard the sound.

It too was frightened.

‘You hear it as well,’ the youth whispered. ‘Thank God I ain’t imagining it! I saw you look the same as me. There is something ahead over that damn dune. Something that’s making them strange noises.’

For another ten minutes the man and his horse staggered and walked. Neither seemed to notice the blazing sun which continued to beat down upon them. The sand which covered their sweat-soaked hides gave them a little protection.

Their dazed minds were now upon something besides their own pain. Something which might be more dangerous than the five riders who trailed them or the unyielding sun in the cloudless blue heavens that tormented them.

The horse was nervous because it, like its master, was slowly losing its battle for life against the unbearable heat and the lack of water. Only determination kept them upright and fighting the elements.

Neither was ready to die just yet.

With every step that Harper took he tried to recall the direction in which he had seen the image of the lake of blue water. He prayed that the lake might be real and not just another trick of the desert. He knew where the sun had been in the cloudless sky when he had been atop the high dune, and he tried to remain on course as he staggered through the hot dry land.

‘We gotta keep heading thataway, boy,’ Harper said to the animal as though it understood. ‘That’s where the lake is. We have to keep heading thataway.’

Suddenly another sound shook the air. This one was louder than those which had confused him. It echoed all around the man and his horse.

The horse reared up and kicked out at the very air itself as its owner hung on to the reins. There was no mystery in this particular sound though. This was a noise they both recognized all too well.

Rifles were being fired.

The only difference was that this time the bullets were not being aimed at them. This time there was another target.

The horse battled with its owner. Harper holstered his gun and pushed his gloved fingers into both sides of the bridle of the frightened horse until his hands were jammed there. Another shot rang out behind them. The horse tried to rear up again but could not lift its forelegs off the sand with the weight of its master hanging on to its head and neck.

‘Easy, boy!’ Harper shouted into the horse’s face as it attempted to shake him free. ‘Steady! You’ll kill yourself if you get too excited!’

The tired animal slowed and then stopped bucking. It was too weary to fight the one man who had always taken care of it. Hal Harper held the head of the animal in check and stared off behind them at the largest of the dunes.

He could not see any of the five men who hunted them.

They had yet to reach the top of the high dune. Again shots rang out in the hot afternoon air. This time the horseman saw the lines of the hot lead as they cut up into the sky from beyond the mountain of sand.

He also saw two of the four circling vultures fall from the sky and disappear from view.

Harper sighed with relief. He pulled his gloved hands free and steadied the animal with soothing strokes across its lathered-up head.

‘Easy, boy!’ Harper panted heavily. ‘I reckon we got ourselves some time. Them varmints must be hungry and they just shot themselves some dinner. Vultures must take a lot of cooking before you can eat the damn things.’

The exhausted man began to move again, with haste, away from where the shots had sounded. The animal kept pace with him as they found themselves ascending a slight rise between two towering dunes.

Again Harper paused. His eyes squinted from beneath the wide brim of his hat. ‘I figure that we have to go another few miles in that direction, boy. Then we’ll have all the water we can drink.’

Slowly Harper staggered down the rise. Cramp was beginning to gnaw into his leg muscles but he knew that he could not stop. He had to ignore his pain and keep going. Only death could stop the sweat-soaked man now. But there were five hardened riders somewhere over the highest of the dunes behind him who would be more than willing to dish out death given the slightest chance, or a clean target to aim at.

The further they walked the hotter it grew. It was unbearable. The very air around the man and horse was thickening like a fog. Yet no fog was like this, Harper thought to himself.

Then they heard the strange noise again.

Harper drew and raised his gun. He aimed to his right, into the swirling heat haze.

‘Who are you?’ he called out.

There was no reply.

Then he heard the sound once more.

Trails of sweat ran from his hatband over his forehead and into his eyes. Salt stung like a thousand hornets. Harper shook his head and tried to see. He wondered how much of his body’s sweat he had left to lose.

He swayed on his feet, holding his gun at hip level.

‘What the hell was that?’ he asked himself fearfully. ‘That ain’t no human making that ruckus.’

He blinked hard but the sweat kept stinging his eyes. They seemed to be on fire just like the rest of him beneath the remorseless rays of the sun.

‘What is that ruckus?’ Harper again asked aloud. ‘Damn it all! I know that sound. What is it?’

He knew that he had heard it many times before but now his brain refused to tell him what he was listening to. He knew that if he were not so damned exhausted he would have already worked this puzzle out. But in the searing air through which he tried to see, his brain was filling with overheated blood. Blood that was cooking his very reason.

He gulped.

There was only one way to find the answer.

Reluctantly, Hal Harper led his horse on through the heat haze and towards the place where he knew the sound was coming from.

He had never been quite so scared in all of his short life.

But he kept walking defiantly.

If it were to end now, at least it would be on his terms.

FOUR

Tate Talbot had not taken long to work out a plan, a plan which, he knew, would more than double his personal wealth overnight in one single swift and bloodthirsty action. He had waited for Hal Harper to dismount from his horse and enter the cantina before hurriedly leaving his office and walking along the long busy street to the Broken Branch saloon. With each step the lawman could feel his plan becoming a reality.

Even though it was only minutes since the desert sun had set, the popular drinking hole was full to overflowing. Sombreros made up a third of the hats which nodded at the bar and over the green baize poker-tables. Bargirls plied their trade in and around the tables with keen eyes on the men with the biggest stacks of chips before them.

Few heads turned as the man with the star pinned to his shirt pushed his way through the swing doors and crossed the sawdust-covered floor towards a door marked PRIVATE. Since taking office as sheriff Talbot had leased the small room in the Broken Branch so that his gang could do their drinking in private. Men like those with whom he had ridden for so many years had short fuses and fast guns.

There was no way that the man once known as Diamond Bob Casey wanted his men to ruffle the feathers of those who now found themselves paying him a percentage. Only when the saloon and whorehouses failed to pay their dues did Talbot unleash his gang upon them.

But keeping four men like them fenced in had proved harder than he had expected. They wanted to quit Senora and get back to their old ways. Get back to the open ranges where they could rustle prime beef on the hoof and drive it north to the plentiful supply of buyers. Buyers who never asked any questions.

Upon reaching the door Talbot turned the handle and entered the small smoke-filled room abruptly. He nodded at the four outlaws around the wet-topped circular table.

Will Henry, Frank Smith and the Davis brothers Liam and Ken all sat with cigars in their mouths and glasses full of whiskey in their hands. Two empty bottles remained beside an ashtray so full it could no longer be seen beneath the cigar butts and ashes.

‘Tate!’ Henry acknowledged the sheriff with a touch of his hat-brim.

The others looked up as Talbot dragged a hardback chair from the wall and sat down at the table.

‘Boys,’ Talbot said as he chewed on the remnant of his cigar and pushed his hat off his temple. ‘I was hoping that you’d all be here.’

‘What does our prim and proper Mr Talbot want?’ Smith asked coldly. ‘I thought you had forgotten all about ya old gang. We thought ya was out with them fancy friends of yours drinking tea and suchlike.’

Both Davis boys chuckled at the same time.

Talbot grinned. His eyes darted across the four faces as he silently reinforced his authority over the men who for the previous four years had been his gang.

‘I got a job for you,’ Talbot said.

Henry looked interested. He eased himself towards the man he had followed blindly in the latter part of his career as a rustler. The outlaw rested both elbows on the wet surface of the table and stared at the sheriff.

‘OK! I’ll bite! What kinda job ya talking about, Tate?’ he asked. ‘Rustlin’ or bank hold-up? My gun finger is darn twitching for some action.’

‘Neither,’ Talbot replied.

‘Neither?’ Smith downed his whiskey, poured himself another three fingers and stared at the man he felt had deserted them by becoming a lawman. ‘Then it must be a killin’ ya want us to do. Right?’

Talbot smiled. ‘I just want you boys to back up my play.’

Liam Davis looked at the sheriff. ‘What kinda money we talking about, Tate?’

‘A hundred bucks apiece,’ Talbot told them. ‘For maybe ten minutes’ work.’

‘I’m game,’ Liam Davis said, nodding.

Smith pulled his chair closer to the lawman. ‘A hundred bucks? Who we gotta help ya kill, Tate? The mayor?’

‘Nope. A varmint called Diamond Bob Casey,’ Talbot replied. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Ever heard of him?’

Will Henry scratched his whiskered jaw. ‘That handle rings a bell. He from up north?’

Talbot diverted his eyes from his top gun. ‘I ain’t too sure, Will. But I want him dead.’

Smith got to his feet. Cigar in mouth, he paced around the table and the four seated men as he sipped at his liquor. ‘What’s wrong, Frank?’ Ken Davis asked.

‘Now that’s a damn good question, Ken.’ Smith paused behind Talbot. He rested a hand on the back of the chair and looked at his fellow outlaws. ‘Something’s sure wrong but I can’t quite figure out what.’

‘Tate’s offering a hundred bucks to back up his play,’ Henry observed. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

Smith continued on his way until he reached his own chair again. He raised his right boot and placed it on the seat. His eyes burned across the table at Talbot.

‘Something’s gnawing at my craw, Tate. I figure ya ain’t telling us the whole truth about this job. Why would ya give us a hundred bucks apiece to back up ya play? What’s in it for you?’

Talbot grabbed hold of the bottle and took a long swallow of the whiskey before placing it back down.

‘Don’t you trust me, Frank?’

Smith smiled wide.

‘I never have trusted you, Tate. Ya devious. Like a damn sidewinder. Devious.’

‘Fair enough.’ Talbot spat his cigar at the floor and rose back to his feet. He stared at Smith and then took two steps closer to the outlaw. ‘What exactly is troubling you about this deal?’

‘Who exactly is this Diamond Bob Casey character?’ Smith asked. ‘Is he a gunslinger and ya ain’t telling us about it? I don’t cotton to going up against no gunslinger.’

‘I ain’t too sure about that but I don’t reckon he is a gunslinger.’ Talbot was being honest for the first time as he thought about the look of the stranger whom he had seen enter the cantina. ‘He don’t look like a man that can handle a gun too well.’

Henry tilted his head. ‘Ya seen him?’

Talbot nodded. ‘Sure enough. He’s in the cantina right now.’

‘And ya want us to kill him?’ Liam Davis asked.

‘I’ll kill him, but if I don’t then I want your four guns to finish the critter off,’ Talbot said blankly. ‘Simple as that.’

‘Why do ya want him dead, Tate?’ Smith probed.

Talbot drew in his gut, clenched his right fist and swung his arm. The fist hit the outlaw square on the jaw. The whiskey glass flew from Smith’s hand. Smith hit the wall behind him to the sound of shattering glass. He fell to his knees as blood poured from his mouth. His hand went for his gun but Talbot’s hand was faster.

Within the blink of an eye Talbot had drawn and cocked his weapon and aimed it at Smith’s head.

Frank Smith stared into the barrel of the cocked Colt .45.

‘Easy, Tate! You win!’

Talbot nodded, spun his gun on his finger and dropped it expertly into his holster. He glared at the kneeling outlaw and then at the three others who sat watching.

‘Two hundred bucks each,’ Talbot snarled. ‘No more questions and no more bucking. I’m still the boss of this outfit. Savvy?’

Smith slowly got to his feet. He rubbed off the blood from his mouth on his sleeve and watched as Talbot opened the door.

‘C’mon!’ Talbot growled. ‘I want that varmint dead!’

Will Henry stood up. ‘You heard him. C’mon! We gotta kill some joker in the cantina.’

The Davis brothers stood up, finished their drinks and rammed their cigars in their mouths.

‘Let’s do it,’ Liam Davis said, and smiled.

‘Nothing like a killing before supper to give a man an appetite,’ his brother added.

The five men walked out of the room into the saloon and towards the swing doors. They had a man to kill. None of the quartet knew why but they still trailed their leader all the same.

Tate Talbot led them towards the cantina. It would prove to be the beginning of a long hard journey.

FIVE

Hal Harper had not heard anything except his snorting horse and his own pounding heartbeat for more than a half-hour as he defiantly made his way through into the drifting haze. The gun in his hand had started to feel like a cudgel as weariness drowned him in his own sweat.

The sun was getting lower and he was walking straight into its blinding rays. Harper glanced back and saw the smoke of a campfire drifting up into the cloudless heavens. His hunters had indeed stopped to eat, he thought. He pressed on knowing that men with full bellies travelled more slowly than those with nothing but memories in their guts.

Eventually he could not walk another step and he paused beside the shoulder of his exhausted mount. He leaned against the muscular creature and lowered his gun.

‘I’m done, boy,’ he croaked.

Whatever had been making the elusive sounds earlier had ceased. Harper slid the Colt into its holster and tried to remain upright.

There was no breeze but he swayed all the same.

It was not as easy as it seemed to stay sure-footed when every drop of moisture had been sucked from your soul and the ground beneath your boots refused to quit moving.

The dense, foglike air confused his already weary eyes. If there was something to be seen, he sure could not locate it. Yet there had to be something out there. Something which had made the noises and lured him to it like flies to an outhouse.

Mustering what remained of his dwindling strength, Harper turned his head and looked back again. Hoofmarks and bootprints were all there was to be seen in the smooth dry sand. Once the five men started out after him again they would have no trouble following the trail he had left.

He rubbed a gloved hand over his sunburned neck and tried to create some spittle to moisten his throat, It was useless.

Again he forced himself away from the horse and gritted his teeth, He looked ahead once more.

‘Anyone out there?’ he croaked feebly.

Then he heard it.

The strange sound again. Closer now. Much closer.

Even in his bewildered condition Harper sensed that there was no danger from whatever was ahead of him. No bullets had come at him out of the heat haze.

Like a drunken man he began to stagger towards the noise he was starting to think he recognized. Step after faltering step he crossed the soft sand towards where his ears had told him the sound had come from.

But his legs began to buckle. They were not obeying his will any longer. He had to pause and steady himself every few yards. He had once been drunk in Laredo. Compared to this though, he had been sober.

‘Where are you?’ Harper’s hoarse voice asked the mist. ‘I ain’t in no condition to hurt you. Show yourself!’

He had only just finished talking when his left boot got itself tangled up in something. He toppled and fell face first on to the sand. Whatever had tripped him up he neither cared nor worried about.

For what felt like a lifetime Harper lay trying to push himself back up on to his feet. But the sand was so welcoming he could not move. All he wanted to do was sleep. Sleep the sleep of the dead.

‘OK, I quit! Stay dumb! I don’t care no more,’ Harper muttered into the sand. ‘Hide, you yella dog! Hide!’

Then he felt the sand moving around him. He opened his eyes and saw legs. An instant later a hand rested on his shirt back.

Harper tried to raise his head but it was useless. Whatever it was that had kept him on his feet for so long had evaporated like his sweat into the late-afternoon desert air.

‘White eyes!’ a voice said above him.

Harper blinked hard. Sand fell from his eyelashes as he stared at the feet of one of the men beside him. Although he had never seen a real Indian before he had heard the stories of the soft leather shoes they wore.

‘Moccasins! he gasped.

Then hands gripped his sore body, lifted it from the sand and began to carry him. He wanted to protest but was too tired to utter another word. His head dropped. His eyes stared at the sand below him. Then he saw the feet again. Four sets of feet. All with the same footwear.

Hal Harper wondered where they were taking him.

Then everything went dark as he fell into a pool of delirium.

A pool so deep there seemed to be no bottom to it.

SIX

They had been like a pack of rabid wolves by the time the evening air hit them. Tate Talbot led his four hired guns from the saloon with his gun already drawn and cocked. He was ready to put his once in a lifetime chance into action. There was no mercy in his heartless soul. Only greed. Within seconds of their crossing the wide street the five heavily armed men were outside the small cantina. Talbot was first to move close to the beaded drape which hung across the open doorway. The aroma of Mexican food filled his nostrils. His followers soon hung over his shoulders in readiness. Then the man with the tin star paused and held his free arm out wide as if to stop the others. This had to be fast and deadly, he had told himself. He had already decided to aim every one of the six bullets in his .45 at the stranger’s head. He wanted there to be no argument that it was Diamond Bob Casey they had slain. The obvious age difference would be obliterated by lead. Hot, uncompromising lead.

But something had stopped the sheriff’s progress. Something was wrong. Something had changed in the five or ten minutes since he had last seen the drifter dismount.

‘What is it, Tate?’ Will Henry had asked.

Talbot looked at the hitching pole and pointed. ‘His horse is gone,’ he replied.

Frank Smith glanced at the weathered wooden rail and then at Talbot. ‘Ya sure there was a horse there?’

Talbot gritted his teeth and went to swing with his gun to smash the insolence off the face of the outlaw. Only Henry’s hands prevented his angry boss from striking out at Smith for the second time in only minutes.

‘Easy, Tate,’ Will Henry implored. ‘Don’t waste no sweat on Frank, ya hear? He ain’t worth it.’

Talbot looked into his top gun’s eyes. He nodded. ‘Yeah, Will. Ain’t worth the effort.’

Liam Davis poked his head around the corner of the doorway and stared through the swaying beads into the busy cantina. He then turned and looked at Talbot.

‘I see a stranger in there, Tate,’ Davis said. ‘Is that Diamond Bob Casey?’

Talbot brushed Smith out of his way and stood against the whitewashed doorway. His eyes narrowed. He looked in hard and long. The stranger whom he had seen ride into town only ten minutes earlier was indeed sitting down at a table with a plate of chilli before him. Talbot eased himself back.

‘That’s him OK,’ Talbot nodded to the others.

Ken Davis shook his head. ‘But what happened to his horse?’

‘Yeah, that’s what I can’t figure. I saw him tie the damn thing up to that stinking pole,’ Talbot insisted.

‘It ain’t here now.’ Smith spat at the ground and sneered. ‘Maybe the nag untied its tethers and went and rented a room in the hotel, Tate.’

Undaunted, Talbot checked his Colt. He then looked at his four men. His eyes told them what they had to do.

‘It don’t matter none. We’re going in and we’re going in shooting.’

Henry sighed. ‘If that’s what ya want, Tate, that’s what we’ll do.’

‘Ya gonna go in first, Tate?’ Smith taunted. ‘Or are ya gonna be like one of them Yankee generals and hang back and take notes?’

‘Damn right I’m going in first, Frank,’ Talbot snarled back. ‘I’m going in first like I’ve always done.’

The cantina was warm. The aroma of cooking filled the entire room. Hal Harper sat with his back to a low wall as the buxom female cook came close and placed a plate of fresh-baked bread down next to his chilli.

‘Did your son take my horse to the livery, ma’am?’ Harper had asked innocently.

‘Sí,señor!’ She smiled, toying with the white lace trim of her bodice. ‘Pepe is a good boy.’

Harper slid a silver dollar to the woman. ‘That’s for him when he gets back.’

‘Gracias, señor,’ she said as she picked up the coin and dropped in between her large breasts. ‘I give to Pepe when he come back.’

Suddenly, as the words left her lips, the sound of raging men rushing through the beaded curtain into the cantina drew their eyes. As promised Tate Talbot was at the head of the five gunmen. His gun was first to unleash its fury and send a deadly bullet at the seated Harper. But as his four followers fanned their hammers, it was the stout cook between them who took the full impact of the venomous volley. She staggered and turned. Blood suddenly trailed from her as one after another lead bullet penetrated into her ample frame. She was being torn apart. She spun on her slippered feet on the tiled floor and started to fall.

Screams echoed all about the cantina. Some were cries of fury, others were shrieks of shocked horror.

A stunned Harper felt the warmth of her blood as it sprayed over him. He dragged his own Colt from its holster, ducked beneath the table and blasted back across the expanse of the room.

White-hot flashes spewed from the gun barrels in both directions in furious engagement. The cantina rocked under the deafening crescendo.

Within a very few seconds the peaceful cantina had filled with the acrid stench of gunfire. Clouds of grey smoke hung in the air.

It was Harper’s only shield.

Harper threw himself to the floor as the stout cook hit the tiles. Again her body shook as more bullets cut into her now lifeless form. The silver coin rolled from her blood-soaked bodice towards him.

It was now crimson.

The youngster rolled back towards a massive cooking range and then found a small whitewashed wall to give him cover. He pushed himself up against it as more bullets tore across the room. Plaster exploded everywhere and covered Harper. He cocked his gun hammer again.

Harper looked around the side of the low wall and blasted his Colt again.

Another volley of lead smashed into the iron cooking-range behind him. Harper ducked as shrapnel bounced off the walls and cascaded over him.

Then, dusting the debris off his screwed-up eyes, he saw the open window to his left. His mind raced. He had no idea why the five gunmen had opened up on him and yet they had. The piteous body of the female was evidence of that. He knew he had to escape or he would join her.