Return of the Rio Kid by Brett Halliday

Author:Brett Halliday
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504025393
Publisher: Open Road Media

14

The sun was a searing ball of fire blazing down pitilessly upon the heat-baked earth, withering the sharp waxy leaves of stunted mesquite, turning the squatty greasewood shrubs a drab brown.

The air blanketing the earth was heavy and lifeless with radiated heat, holding dust particles suspended to give the effect of a low-lying mist enveloping the foothills leading away from the Rio Grande.

In all that great open area there were only two moving figures to be seen, two riders violating the siesta hour, riding always just on the edge of a cloud of alkali dust which eddied up from their horses’ hooves and seemed to be trying to overtake them without ever quite succeeding.

They rode in silence: the lean-faced man with a price on his head and two guns tied low at his hips, and his youthful companion who had ridden to the Lazy Y with death in his heart less than a couple of hours ago.

There was the dull clop-clop of shod hooves upon the soft ground, the faint creak of saddle leather as one or another rider eased his body into a new position to break the strain of the long hot ride.

They were swinging in a wide arc to the west through the T M range to avoid the Malloy headquarters, pushing their sweaty and dust-laden mounts up and down over a series of low rolling foot-hills which climbed northward by gradual stages toward the precipitous rocky peaks of the mountains.

There was gramma grass and some sage on the hills, lone yucca plants standing in erect defiance to the wilting heat, and each narrow ravine was clogged with clumps of catclaw, the vicious, tiny hooked thorns of which tore ineffectually at leather chaps when they were forced to ride down into the dry watercourses to stay in the right direction.

To the right, the grouped buildings of the T M spread appeared unsubstantial and mirage-like in the shimmering heat haze of the afternoon sun.

The Kid spit alkali dust from his mouth and glanced sidewise at the buildings, speaking for the first time since leaving the Lazy Y:

“Start cuttin’ back tuh thuh canyon as soon as we’re far enuff past thuh T M so’s they’re not likely tuh see us and come ridin’ tuh ast questions.”

Bert glanced at the raw wound on the Kid’s cheek, the edges of which were caked with powdery dust, then turned his searching gaze toward the ranch house owned by the girl who had so callously inflicted the wound.

“There won’t be anybody much out in this heat,” he assured the Kid. “Folks in this part of the country stay pretty close indoors in the afternoon when it’s this hot.”

“Plumb sensible, I’d say,” agreed the Kid. He slouched easily in the saddle, rolling a cigarette. “I wanta see thuh place in thuh canyon where yore Daddy and Miss Marge’s met an’ shot it out.”

“That’s about four miles north of the T M. About the same distance from our ranch, but not in a direct line.”

Bert

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