Ralph Compton Snake Oil Justice by Jackson Lowry & Ralph Compton

Author:Jackson Lowry & Ralph Compton [Lowry, Jackson & Compton, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

What have I done?” Jerome Kincannon panicked.

He opened the stage door and leaned out. His cries to the driver were choked off with a cloud of dust kicked up by the stagecoach wheels. Old Frank used his long whip to good effect. The snap from the whip’s crack just above the lead horse’s head drove it on at a full thundering gallop.

“Stop. Let me off!”

His call was drowned out further by the rattle of wheels and the creaking leather springs. In desperation he looked out into the night. Clear Springs wasn’t that far behind the stage.

If he jumped, the walk back wouldn’t be that long. He had left Molly without a word about his intentions. What would she think? He caught his breath, coughed out a lump of sludge, then realized she would sleep through the night and not discover his absence until morning.

A crazy thought fluttered about in his head. She’d go back to Bear. Go back? Jerome coughed again and popped back into the compartment. Such thinking implied she had left Bear and . . . been with him.

Jerome had no reason to make an assumption like that. All he had done was give her a ride when she needed it. Nothing more. Catching the Benjamin brothers and putting them into graves had to be his only goal. Justice. Revenge!

He fingered the two-shot derringer the Butterfield agent had given him.

“Two shots. For an entire gang of outlaws,” he mused.

Then panic gripped him again. He patted himself down. Two of his knives had been used back at Yorick’s. Those sheaths along his forearms were empty. He had three knives left: two in the coattails and another in a sheath dangling around his neck down his spine, where he could reach it as if scratching the back of his head.

His impulsive behavior had doomed him, if the Benjamins—or any gang of road agents—held up the stage.

Curious sounds drifted back from outside. He poked his head through the narrow window and looked up. The shotgun guard played a concertina with more gusto than skill. How he produced anything approaching a recognizable tune was a small miracle. The stage groaned with strain, the horses’ hooves pounded on the sunbaked road and, he had to admit, his pulse hammered frantically in his ears.

He leaned back and got into the rocking motion. For this kind of travel, he preferred a train, but the Benjamins weren’t out to rob a train. They wanted the cavalry payroll riding in the boot.

Or some outlaws wanted to steal it. Jerome fought down pessimism that he was waiting to be attacked by some gang and would never find his family’s killers.

He closed his eyes, wiped away a layer of dust and calmed himself. If he’d had time to think, not only would he have carried something more deadly than a derringer but he’d have a couple bottles of his special tonic sloshing about in his pockets. A nip of the alcohol used in his elixir would go a long way toward cutting the thirst.

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