Hell for Breakfast by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W.; Johnstone, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2021-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

An hour earlier, Kentucky O’Neil had stood in his office staring out the window, tugging on a corner of his mustache as the two former train-robbing outlaws, Slash Braddock and the Pecos River Kid, rode past him along the main street, from his left to his right. Each man was packing a bedroll, a pair of saddlebags, a canteen, and a scabbarded rifle. The taller of the two, the Pecos River Kid, aka Melvin Baker, had a sawed-off shotgun hanging down his broad back.

They were heading for the countryside—no question about it. The old lawman anxiously bunched his lips. They were riding northeast, too. Not straight north. Ogallala lay straight north. No, they weren’t heading back to Denver by way of Ogallala. They were heading northeast, damn their contrary hides.

The nosiest pair of damn owlhoots Kentucky had ever met...

He turned his head, tracking the pair until, sure enough, they rode right on past the edge of town and into the rolling prairie, nudging their mounts into dust-raising trots and then lopes. They climbed a distant prairie swell, jounced on over the top of the swell then down, down, down out of sight.

A foot thudded on the boardwalk fronting the marshal’s office, making the marshal’s heart lurch with a start. The door flew open. Kentucky swung around to face it, automatically closing his hand over the worn walnut grips of the six-shooter holstered on his right hip. He left the smoke wagon in the scabbard when he saw that his visitor was his grandson, Danny, who turned to him wide-eyed, yelling, “Grandpa, Grandpa—why in tarnation did—”

“Good Lord, boy,” Kentucky exclaimed, heart racing, “you done about kicked me out with a cold shovel, comin’ in here like a Brahma bull boltin’ through a chute!”

“Sorry, Grandpa, but what I’m wonderin’ is why in hell ... er, heck!—did Wayne Blanchard backwater like that?”

Kentucky drew a calming breath. “I don’t know. That’s kind of what . . .” Then he caught himself. “But that’s a good thing, son. Not a bad thing.” He walked over to the door and placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “You understand that—don’t you? Violence is a bad thing. It always is. We need to be glad no one was killed here today.”

“Oh, right ... sure, sure, Grandpa,” Danny said, though the disappointment was plain in his light brown eyes. He had a harder time throwing bull around than full-grown men did, Kentucky absently opined. Danny had a harder time throwing it around than his grandfather did.

Christ, what kind of a boy was he and Nancy raising? He’d wanted to see a bloodbath over at the Longhorn this morning, and he was deeply disappointed that he had not seen one.

On the other hand, Kentucky himself had begun to think it might not have been such a bad thing if old Gyllenwater had turned those two former cut-throats toe-down. He’d had a pretty damned good suspicion those two weren’t going to leave here without nosing around and making trouble. Now, he knew that better than ever.

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