Ralph Compton My Brother, My Killer by Jackson Lowry & Ralph Compton

Author:Jackson Lowry & Ralph Compton [Lowry, Jackson & Compton, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The furor in Nugget as Jake rode out told him the miners and what merchants had rushed to the boomtown were hungry for any diversion. Two men trading shots was dangerous, but it broke the tedium of scrabbling away at hard rock or wondering if the mine they drilled and blasted was worth their lives. Some, a very few, would get rich. The rest either moved on or died cursing the name of Nugget.

“Go get ’im, Sheriff,” one gent called as Jake passed the final house at the edge of town. Word spread fast. He wished he had as good a chance of running Eagle Eye Collier to ground that quickly.

And maybe he did. Loosening the saddle cinch had made riding harder. The first time Collier leaned to the side and pressed down on that stirrup, he was in for a tumble. But right now all he did was gallop straight ahead to put the most distance between him and the law as possible. Knowing the saddle was loose kept the outlaw alert for any shift in the horse’s balance. If he had to, Jake knew Collier would ride bareback, but taking the time to either tighten the cinch or pull off the saddle condemned him to arrest—or worse.

Jake slowed to let Collier get a bigger lead. Capturing the bank robber remained paramount in his mind but recovering the stolen money went a ways toward soothing ruffled feathers. The Black Hawk bank president had been furious that the Collier gang got away. Jake tensed as he rode, thinking the bank official cared more about the loot stolen from his tellers than he did that a woman had been killed in front of him.

If he hadn’t shot Martha, he would have apprehended the outlaws before they left the lobby. He had stopped to see what aid he could render. By the time his sister-in-law had died, Henry Collier and his brothers were long gone.

“Where’d you bury the money?” Jake spoke in a low whisper. This helped him sort through all the details and pare them down to the few facts that mattered.

After the robbery he had gotten on their trail within a few minutes. The men had split up and had gone in different directions. If there had been any way to know which set of hoofprints belonged to Eagle Eye Collier, he would have followed those. He was the leader and Jake was positive that he had hidden the money. Jake was as sure of that as he was that the sun would rise in the morning, because Collier wouldn’t trust either of his brothers with such an important task.

He slowed and finally pulled his horse to a halt to orient himself. Nugget had sprung up fast but it was only a few miles from Black Hawk. Collier had come to the new mining town because the stage headed that way, not for any other reason. From the tracks the outlaw left, he headed into the mountains, somewhere east of Black Hawk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.